[Resident Evil Live Action Film Retrospective] #3: Resident Evil Extinction (2007)

3 years after Apocalypse, we’re back with the Adventures of Alice in Resident Evil spin-off cinema land… but she wakes up as she did in the first movie, has some flashbacks, faces some traps, then dies and she’s retrieved by scientists?

Yep, considering the finale of Apocalypse and the opening act leading to a reveal of a mass grave of Alices, it’s not that surprising that we would eventually see the series go hard on the clonatron, upping the ante by explaining that Umbrella didn’t contain shit, and the epidemic spred all over the world, eventually turning the globe into a post-apocalyptic barren, withered zombie wasteland.

The Alice clone that survived/was let go now roams on a motorbike, alongside other survivors as they try to escape the zombies by moving to Alaska through the Mojave desert.

And stopping by Las Vegas, nominally for fuel, factually because its Las Vegas, where they don’t actually stay much, despite the marketing for the movie emphasizing the “Vegas trip”.

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[EXPRESSO] Talk To Me (2022) | Ghost Hand Overdose

Curiosly, this one being distributed by A24 in the US is just that, a casual happenstance, because this is a South Australian production more in the vein of a Blumhouse joint, apparently by people that had some fame as Youtubers/content creators, can’t say i did know of twin brothers Danny and Michael Philippou output on the “Tube”, but this pivoting to a theathrical full lenght horror feature is fairly impressive for a big screen film debut, there’s a reason it has “done the rounds”.

Talk To Me is basically an updated, modern take on the “possession” subgenre, feeling a lot like The Evil Dead but really not when the plot is described, as it deals with a group of teen friends that start doing these rumored seances with a cursed hand, speaking to the dead and letting the spirits possess them for a short while.

After all, everyone is doing it and they get addicted to these “controlled possessions” like the ghosts are laced with nicotine (at best), everyone instinctually records these episodes with their phone and shares them on social media, so eventually the younger brother of one of the girls want to try, things go awry as the possession gets out of control, so our flawed but likeable teen characters will have to scramble and find a way to save the boy from the spirits…

The premise is far from new, and some of the themes are not fully explored, but i’d be lying if i wasn’t surprised by how good the scares were, to say nothing of the excellent gore and extra-solid practical effects, it’s reliance on long sequences that build on each other and aren’t just leading to jumpscare climaxes, making the most of the 90 minutes runtime and culminating in a great final twist. Recommended.

[Resident Evil Live Action Film Retrospective] #2: Resident Evil Apocalypse (2004)

Last time we left Alice waking up in the hospital of a zombie infested Raccoon City, grabbing a shotgun and heading for the ruined streets for sequels’ sake.

So obviously this was setup to loosely mirror the plot and setting of Resident Evil 2, while keeping the Alice and Red Queen subplots, meaning you could expect Alice to wander around Raccon City and tag along canon named characters called to intervene on the pandemic situation of the city and trying to escape it when they hear of Umbrella’s plan to just nuke it all.

And you would assume correctly, though it’s made a bit confusing as she’s instead joined by Jill Valentine and Carlos Olivera, the protagonists of RE 3, and they’re followed by the Nemesis mutant of RE 3 as well, which is even odder when you remember RE 3 is basically taking place at the same time of RE 2, let alone that RE 3 was originally conceived as a spin-off entry.

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[EXPRESSO] El Conde (2023) | Pinochet The Dirty Old Man

Pablo Larrain, after years of historical biopic dramas about his home country of Chile, he finally tackles Pinochet…. by reinventing him as a vampire that has lived on since the French Revolution, faked his death many times, and most famously established a dictatorial bloody regime.

But after 250 plus years of undeath, he just wants to die, and this causes the vultures to come, in the form of Pinochet’s mortal sons, hungry for more blood money to inherit, and an exorcist nun is also sent in by the Church to kill the monster… and see if he drops some fat cash, too.

We’ve seen the vampire comedy format used to tackle various themes, and there’s definitely potential in making Pinochet a literal horror monster to comment on his legacy and the political troubles of modern Chilean society, in how the past keeps repeating and evil finds a way, and indeed the satire is relentless… but the comedy is surprisingly scarce, mostly stemming from excess cruelty via dialogue more than graphic content (gore is far from missing, btw).

Even that feels like breadcrumbs, for a 2 hours runtime with a geriatric pacing, fitting, perhaps, but it’s really not that funny, the narration is ironically lacking proper bite, and the elements of horror, history and humour do not so much gel together as are just placed there, neglected of proper growth more than balanced against each other.

The black and white photography it’s excellent, acting it’s good, it has some great golden age horror atmosphere at times, but El Conde ultimately just feels stuffy, too slow and bloated for its own good, and despite all the pretense, there’s not much under the gothic capery to gawk at.

Interesting experiment, but a disappointing one that’s also hard to sit through, to my dismay.

[EXPRESSO] A Haunting In Venice (2023) | Halloween Party

The adventures of world renowed french master detective Hercules Poirot continue in the new installment of Brannagh’ series of Agatha Christie adaptations, with Haunting In Venice.

Retired from the world and any kind of detective work in the town of the real “Aqua Laguna” after the events from Death On The Nile, Poirot just passes his days in slovenly eating italian pastries and avoiding any case, he is eventually roped in by an old time acquaintance of here, a detective novelist that based her books on him, as she wants to join a seance during Halloween in one of the many supposedly haunted Venetian houses, and discredit the medium as a phony.

Things go south quick as first someone attempts to murder Poirot himself, then theathrically kills the medium, forcing our mustache-armed detective to lock up the place and discover the murdered before the police can arrive, with events making him even – maybe – consider that the rumors of haunted buildings and lore of a horrifying children asylum have a modicum of truth to them…

It’s pretty decent, like the previous Kenneth Branagh Poirot films, i wasn’t quite woved, but i did quite enjoy them, and i did like this one a bit better than Death On The Nile, mostly due to the less sprawling script that doesn’t feel the need to add shit like the “WWI prologue for the ‘stache”.

But on the other hand the flirting with the horror elements this entry does… it’s just that, some mild flirting with the ideas of ghosts, just about as committed as it could ever realistically be given it’s an Agatha Christie’s story and whatnot.

Also, characters and story are less detailed and interesting this time around, but overall it’s a decent time, thought not really scary or super enthralling.

[Resident Evil Live Action Film Retrospective] #1: Resident Evil (2002)

Its 2002. The latest mainline Resident Evil games are RE Zero and Code Veronica (plus Gun Survivor 2 released the previous year), and the remake of the first RE game was coming a week later, but something else related debuts, and it’s the first feature lenght, live action film adaptation of the franchise, produced by Constantin Films via Sony’s Screen Gems label, with direction and script by Paul W.S. Anderson, previously known for the 1995 live action Mortal Kombat movie, and cult sci fi horror film Event Horizon.

So he already dabbled in the early wave of videogames films for the big screen, and fittingly enough the Resident Evil live action film would be his legacy, for the most part anyway, enough that eventually Capcom would collaborate with him again to make another film based on one of their IP, in this case one that started as a niche title but launched the popularity of “hunting games” and eventually became one of their biggest franchises, Monster Hunter.

But back to the zombies with what is now the first of the Resident Evil live action film series, and not even the only RE film series, as we looked upon the CG animated one some years ago.

In terms of what “Resident Evil 2002” it plucks from the games…. let’s consider the first one for reference, and it clearly a case where people from Capcom had a list of things that had to be in the movie to make it Resident Evil”, but never specified how and why these things should exist in this new continuity, because Paul W.S. Anderson clearly had little interest in making faithful adaptations of the games’ plot, and did its own thing, playing fairly loose with the videogame canon, which was reviled as it’s often now but was less lamented upon, at least compared to modern standards of backlash, “outrage” and rampant reactions from the internets.

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Pinocchi-O-Rama #9: The Adventures Of Buratino (1975)

For this month’s issue of Pinocchi-O-Rama, we’re going back to a “combo mix” of sorts.

We’ve seen live action adaptations, we’ve seen adaptations of the russian version of the novel, The Adventures Of Buratino/The Golden Key, we’ve seen musical adaptations.

So yeah, time to squish them all together for this 1975’s forgotten cult classic Soviet live action children musical TV movie adaptation of Buratino/Pinocchio shenanigans, made by Belarusfilm and released as a 2-parter, because media trends are cyclical after all.

Thankfully there’s no waiting for the climax as it’s almost a 50 yo adaptation, a fairly obscure one that thankfully can be found with hardcoded english subtitles on Youtube (fittingly spit in 2 parts, as well), and at the time of posting still is.

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[EXPRESSO] The Nun II/2 (2023) | Valak Has Somehow Returned

No joke intro or sequel title mockery, The Nun 2 doesn’t need nor deserve it.

Really, one for the textbooks in terms of obvious franchise milking that exists only because of money, which is always the case, but while you’re hooking the demon nun to the device, you might as well crank out a better movie, try to pretend you care at the very least.

In reality, we get a sequel to another mediocre spin-off of the Conjuring films, one that really wasn’t needed nor adds anything of value to the overall mythos. Valak is back due to the magic of asspull writing, so we learn that she copied notes from Soul Eater’s Medusa, so it actually survived by possessing a guy working as a janitor in a French all girls catholic school, because is searching for (check notes) a holy artifact, maybe because Valak was a fallen angel, or something, the lore dispenser guy-christian librarian-priest is most likely making this shit up on the fly.

To stop it the Vatican hires back half the team from the first movie, because the priest guy conveniently died of colera offscreen in the meantime (the actor most likely is fine), so it’s up to the young nun and her sassy black nun friend to find and stop Valak once and for all… in a stupid fashion.

In a way, it’s intriguing how at least this one also manages to not be completely tosh thanks to some scenes (the baphomet does give it points), decent casting and budget… just meaning it’s another pile of strikingly efficient mediocre, despite being a pointless, unrequired cobbled together mass of horror styrofoam that’s also borderline boring and struggles to justify its own existence as a sequel.

Kinda amazing how many shades of monstrous mediocrity can actually exist.

[EXPRESSO] Lonely Castle In The Mirror (2022) | Castle Club

The more recent movie from Keichii Hara (Colorful, Miss Hokusai, Summer Days With Coo, various Crayon Shin Chan movies), finally getting a limited theatherical release here.

The premise see a shy outcast girl, Kokoro, that one days sees the mirror in her room glow, only to be magically drawn into a fantasy castle, where other six teens like her where also invited. A mysterious girl in a wolf mask tells them that if they find the key hidden in the castle, one can get its greatest wish granted.

Though, anyone that breaks the rules of the castle will get eaten by a wolf.

Lonely Castle In The Mirror is what i would describe as an incredibly, slow, SLOW burner that hinges on the third act twist and the revelations it holds to make it all worthwhile, and actually DOES fixes issues you’ve might had, as initially less interesting or banal elements of the plot gain new meaning, and characters actually becoming complete as we learn their whole story and their role in the “grand scheme”.

Animation aside, which is fine but also kinda unremarkable, especially for a feature lenght.

Also, while the ending is fairly powerful and the third act elevates the movie, it doesn’t fix the fact you still have to sit though some mild teen anime school melodrama about characters that feel relatable but not really interesting, wondering why even have fantasy elements at all, and having to contend with what – initially- feels like a direction-less stroll.

Even with these flaws, the ending serves perfectly the exploration of themes such as teen isolation, bullying, escapism and trauma, makes all plot threads and character arc collide and complete, and does pack quite the emotional – and througly earned – punch.

Definitely worth a watch, at the very least.

Interdit Aux Chiens Et Aux Italiens (No Dogs Or Italians Allowed) AKA Manodopera (2022) | Piedmotion Animation

A french-italian stopmotion animation, already a white fly, and for less than 4 bucks due a nationwide italian & european cinema initiative? Say no more, i’m so gonna see this, even more as it won a prize at Annecy 2022’s edition.

This is basically the director, Alain Ughetto, tracing back his italian ancenstry, depicting the lives of his grandfather and family of farmers that back in early 1900’s moved from their small mountain village in Piedmont (dubbed affectionally as “Ughetterra”, the land of the Ughettos), crossing the Alps to start a new life in France, in search of any menial or dangerous labor that they could do, their eventual rise to small land-owners, and their nomad lifestyle due to labor but also – among other things – the rise of the Fascism in Italy.

This is told in an amusing and wholesomw fashion, that not so much breaks the fourth wall but use it as a “portal” tool to deliver the narrative, as the director-animator narrates and creates the stopmotion sets, its characters, directly interacts with them (like letting his hand into frame to hand a character a tiny hammer), but frames it as a dialog with his grandmother that recounts the chronicles of the family through the decades, encompassing many heavy subjects as wars, epidemics, racism, clerical hypocrisy, but also the joyful moments (and some fun meta gags).

It’s a really intimate, charming and emotional portrait of turn of the centhury italian immigrants bound to a rough life of difficulties, of split loyalties and fractured national identities due to family always living – often literally – on the borders, malincholic but also fond of having a few laughs and exactly as long as it needs to be, even if that means on the shorter side of things.

Warmly recommended.