The Spooktacular Eight #40: Tokyo Gore Police (2008)

Tokyo Gore Police had been one of my favourites of the Japanese school of 2000s exploitation high on splatter and sexual perversity, but it turns out i’ve never actually reviewed it, just mentioned it as as the “gold standard” for other films of this ilk.

But as i learned of Yoshihiro Noshimura’s passing earlier this May (his last film was Geisha War, released post-humously this September), by actress Eihi Shina (better known for her role in Miike’s Audition and as the lead in Tokyo Gore Police) reflecting on her experience working with him over the years… it’s time to pay my respects to the “Japanese Tom Savini”, as he had been called, and i’m more than happy to oblige.

Especially since Tokyo Gore Police is the first film he ever directed, after having been a special effect and make up supervisor for many films, including Sion Sono’s Suicide Club, the 2003 comedy horror romance A Larvae To Love by fellow guro gonzo filmmaker Noburo Iguchi, and even worked on the special effects for Meatball Machine, directed by Yudai Yamaguchi and Jun’Ichi Miyamoto.

After working with Noguchi again on the fx for The Machine Girl, Noshimura was asked if he wanted to do anothe movie, so he chose to remake his 1995 “short” film, Anatomia Extinction, into what would become Tokyo Gore Police.

Seems kinda silly to even discuss what this movie is about, given its title, but you would miss how and why “ze police” is goring all over the place.

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[EXPRESSO] Clayface (2026) | The Gumby Horror

When i first saw the trailer for Clayface, i was quite intrigued.

This is a surprisingly good idea for a new solo DC movie, sure, the general backstory for Clayface is a perfect fit for a body horror film…even if a few days before viewing the film in theathers, i had the feel like i was gonna walk into another Morbius.

Thankfully that isn’t the case, even if it basically an origin story for Clayface, a Batman villain, here framed as antihero, Matt Hagen, an upcoming new star that encounters the ire of a Gotham mob boss, mangling his face and destroying his career when he was finally hitting it big.

Desperate to restore his face, Matt tries as an experimental nanocells treatment to restore but he overdoses and becomes able to basically shapeshift into anything or anyone, making use of his barely controlled ability to get revenge on anyone who ruined his life…..

The issue is that the movie doesn’t really live to its own good premise, as the plot is a very simple story of revenge with a romantic subplot, not an issue in itself (as isn’t the slow burn pacing), but even in terms of gore, themes and drama, Clayface keeps it a bit too simple and superficial.

I did enjoy the movie, the acting is solid and it has its moments, but it feels strangely “unambititious”, afraid to stray too much either way.

On one hand you might argue that you could only expext so much by trying to work off a B-tier Batman Villain, heck, we had Clayface in the fuckin Suicide Squad Isekai, but considering we got eventually a good film out of that premise, yeah, this is quite decent but also kinda disappointing, the main concept still “crying out” for a better execution.

[EXPRESSO] L’Estranea/The Spiral (2026) | Not My Uzumaki

The latest from italian director Marco Strippoli, after his celebrated La Valle Dei Sorrisi (released worlwide as The Holy Boy), L’Estranea, which translates to The Stranger but is releasing under the international title of The Spiral.

And before you ask, no, it’s got nothing to do with Junji Ito’s Uzumaki/Spiral, this is actually a psychological horror revolving around the fall from grace of a previously wealthy and influent South Italian family.

After years, the mother shows up at her daughter’s house in Rome, trying to explain how all the disgraces the family had to endure where brought about by how, after an accident with the family dog, the mother struck a Faustian deal with a mysterious woman.

But after the first two very, very good chapters, the movie just kinda drops off, instead of exploring further its themes and ideas it just sticks to repeating them, to hold pattern, in a very traditional way that kinda clashes with the ambition of being more akin to a modern psychological horror film.

It’s a shame because the acting is great and direction is so good you almost won’t care…. until the finale, which is both fitting but doesn’t that much going on after all, and while not underwhelming, it franklyit feels like a compromise so we can fish for some Oscars and to be more like an A24 release, to walk an already overtrodden path, despite the intent to also give the movie its own Italian identity being successful.

I will subtract a point because i really respect Strippoli, i do agree it’s one of the new promising authors of Italian horror, so i won’t be handing out pity points to an author that doesn’t need them, since he had already demonstrated he’s capable of even better.

Still worth seeing, absolutely so.

The Spooktacular Eight #35: The Monster Of Piedras Blancas (1959)

The 50s were the new golden age of classic monsters… and a lot of stinkers, cheesy drive-in stuffers, often made to profit off each other.

This is case for the when Universal created a new monster icon, the aquatic Gill Man, in 1954’s Creature From The Black Lagoon, and while it’s not the more revisited of the classic “50 monster pantheon”, it created an enduring depiction of the “fish man” monster.

Riding the success of the 1954 debut film for the Gill Man, Universal pumped out two sequels the following years, to mixed reception, but when you have a successful trilogy, you attract imitators.

This is the tale of its most infamous drive-in knock off, The Monster Of Piedras Blancas.

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The Spooktacular Eight #34: Violent Shit (1989)

Ah yes, the other German horror director from the age of video nasties, of when video recording technology becoming affordable alongside a cheap and affordable format for home usage led to some people just shooting the shit on the digital camcorder in their hometown on very low budgets.

I will come forward and admit i haven’t seen any of Andrea Schnass films, i’m quite familiar with Jorg Buttgeireit works on the flipside, but i felt it made sense to start tackling his fellow German DIY horror director, starting from his most well known film, the original Violent Shit, which spawned few sequels, and make clear once more than censorship of this kind will be at best circumnvented, at worst will just force fans of the genre to do what many German horror fans did back in the “video nasty” age, just straight started making these themselves in their backyards.

Figures we eventually feature Schnaas, and i don’t think i did fill the “80s German ultra splatter low budget slasher” slot in my bingo card before on this rubric.

So what is the plot of Violent Shit?

A boy, Karl, comes home a bit late, he gets beat up by his mother, then in revenge murders her with a cleaver.

20 years later, Karl is being moved from his prison to somewhere else by the police, but kills the officers, manages to escape, and with a cleaver (which i guess is a thing growing wild in the Gothic II forests) he goes on a killing spree on the West German countryside, indulging himself in some cannibalism while he’s at it.

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[EXPRESSO] The Mortuary Assistant (2026) | Flat Possession Rate

Based on an indie horror game of the same name i’ve heard about but haven’t had the pleasure of playing yet, The Mortuary Assistant has a solid concept, with Rebecca, a mortician in training (with a past od drugs and alcoholism) that has graduated to assistant, being called in by her boss, Raymond, to do an unplanned night shift, with weird requests like embalming then cremating a corpse, but soon strange things start happening…

I’ll be honest, i was just expecting a lesser version of Autopsy Of Jane Doe, and i don’t know how much or if this rappresents the eponymous videogame, but i can sure recognize boring garbage when i see it.

It even starts off decently, but then constantly degrades, between boring flashbacks, tiresome hallucination scenes, or the demon tormenting… well, more dick around (often saying frankly laughable shit) to the protagonist, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear even when the plot stops for lore and-or exposition dumps, nor do we know why the entity doesn’t outright kill the downright stupid protagonist you won’t care about, as she keeps falling for the same obvious trap.

there’s no atmosphere, no tension, the acting is mediocre at the very, very best, everything (entities-monsters included) is just plopped there with no grace or gusto, the thin plot grinds to a halt so we can have lore and make it clear this was based on a videogame, stopping to find video tapes or solve a demonic puzzle by matching symbols or something.

It’s being professionally put together and sporting solid effectds doesn’t matter when it’s all so flat, stupid and boring, never actually scary, especially when its topped off with one hell of a non-ending that i’m not even sure was meant to sequelbait, but will just piss you off even more.

[EXPRESSO] Hokum (2026) | Banshee Burner

Review confession time: i’m not familiar at all with Damian McCarthy as a director or otherwise, but i also didn’t do much research and i just trusted the very good general reception.

I’m glad i did, but let’s not skip steps.

Hokum is about Ohm, an american writer struggling to write the epilogue of his successful Conquistador book trilogy, that goes to Ireland in a hotel where his parents had their honeymoon, moved by the appeareance of the ghost of his mother, and there to lay to rest their ashes.

He decides to pass the night in the hotel in order to see if he could push past his writer’s block, while mostly being abrahasive and dismissive of the hotel staff (especially the old irish folklore about witches a local old man tells to some children) while also getting plastered, and things turn for the worse when he wakes up again, alive just because one of the staff found him hanging from his room ceiling in time…

It’s definitely a slow burner that does take its time, but with elegance, a great atmosphere, without really using jumpscares, but some really unsettling creepy apparations (the rabbit one is indeed some really creepy shit), and surprisingly this time around isn’t so much about a monster or old folklore repurposed to rappresent grief (though that obviously play a part), but an actual proper supernatural tales of horror and mystery old as the hills, that manages to actually have a compelling narrative that does play on multiple angles but also avoids having a twist that undoes or invalidates previous key scenes, the kind often done to play with expectations, just in order to win the guessing war with the audiences, regardless if it makes for a better movie or not.

Pretty good stuff, recommended.

August Augurs, the Fall-Winter schedule and changes in 2027

As a reminder, the blog will go on the usual break on the 16th, and it will resume full activity on September 1st.

As for the remaining august days, all the planned full lenght reviews, though in terms of One Piece content, only the review of Season 2 of the live action Netflix adaptation of One Piece will release as planned, sadly the one for Gigant Battle won’t be ready in time, and i’ve decided not to rush it.

EXPRESSO reviews for Hokum and Spider Man: Brand New Day will arrive soon enough on the blog.

The main big change i wanna announce is, after deliberation (and also because i’m between jobs now) i’ve decided to dedicate myself more about writing down a book about giant monster cinema (and maybe move into video content stuff) in the coming future, so next year the schedule will be more or less done on a “when and if i can” basis, i’ll still make some sort of plan but basically i will allow myself to wing it or scrap things.

This won’t affect much or at all the schedule for September and up to Dicember-early January, as most of the work has already been done or is already on its way to be completed, or already “set in stone” either way.

I’ll still work on the blog and keep updating it, and this doesn’t mean i will sunset older rubric, mainstays like Giant Monster March, The Spooktacular Eight, Musou/Melee May will remain and so on, EXPRESSO either.

Also, i’m gonna address it here before i forget: while i doubt we’ll even see it here in theathers before October (if at all), i won’t be covering Eli Roth’s Ice Cream Man remake in any form, as he’s been using GenAI shit in it, and not for minute details either, plus i learned in the fallout that he’s even more of a piece of shit i’ve though/remembered, and it’s not like we’re gonna miss much anyway, given his track record of “quality” (Thanksgiving was quite fun, admittedly) and the movie reviewing poorly even ignoring Eli Roth himself and the GenAI sequences…. we ain’t gonna miss out on anything of value, let’s be real, i’m surprised he still pretends to be relevant.

[EXPRESSO] Deep Water (2026) | Shark Ditching

Renny Harlin, better known as the director of the original Deep Blue Sea, Cliffhanger and Cutthroat Island, having finished early this year the new awful Strangers trilogy nobody asked for, he’s back doing what he’s best known for: sharks.

Actually, that’s kinda unfair, as Deep Water is mostly a survival film about an international flight that crashlands somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, with the surviving passenger and crew members forced to find a way to survive and escape the deadly debris of the torn plane, while also avoid being picked off by a group of shark cycling around them.

Mind you, i’m glad there are sharks in the film, frankly i would have been surprised if they weren’t, because this is such a deliberate throwback to late 90s disaster-survival films and horror b-movies of this ilk, with just a veneer of realism to avoid it killing any tension.

Do not let the fact some of the characters we’re presented before or on the plane include esports squads, grandmas saying “you’re a 5 out of 10” impropted to people, ipad kids, the attitude and cliches are done in such a retro fashion, from the characters being either rude assholes or saints, with an expecially assholish one that you know has a “shark food soon enough” label, and which you indeed look forward to see its inevitable fate come to pass, the kid character being clever yet tempting death at least twice, the heroic sacrifice by the consumate character actor that is arguably on autopilot, etc.

Deep Water is essentially a 90s styled disaster-survival-shark film, and its retro nature it’s both charming but also obviously dated…. yet in this case i think it comes off as a decent genre thrill ride of yore, and better because it’s confident in what it is.

The Mouse Trap (2024) [REVIEW] | Unhappy Mappy

I swore this off when it came out, even more since i did end up covering all the 3 fucking Popeye slashers that came out last year, but we’re getting at least one more of those, and apparently more of “Steamboat Willie as a horror movie” as a sequel for this was greenlit very soon (one month) after this one dropped in August 2024.

Plus this showed up today on my Amazon Prime Video feed, and since i’ve basically done the same with the Winnie The Pooh horror films, i guess it was indeed inevitable, so consider it a bonus review to excuse the Global Defence Force Tactics retrospective piece getting bumped to August.

I’ve already said a lot of what i thought about these kind of productions in my reviews of both the aforementioned Winnie The Pooh Blood And Honey films and the various Popeye slashers, but in case you weren’t aware, this is actually “patient zero” for this new trend among the bottom feeders of the indie horror scene, as in, waiting for a specific work’s copyright to expire and as soon as possible jump on its new public domain status to do a quickie cashgrab in the form of a cheap low budget slasher flick; the virus might mutate but so far this is the route chosen, as it’s easy, obvious and so brazenly shameless it will put eyes on your piece of shit.

More specifically, this exists because the famous Disney short featuring Mickey Mouse, Steamboat Willie, fell into the public domain on January 1, 2024, just that, meaning THAT Mickey Mouse’s appearance was “fair game”, not the other interpretations/designs/incarnations that followed, as Disney owns the copyright to those.

And Canadian filmmakers Jamie Bailey and Simon Philipps were eager to cash that “mouse money”, as they announced the film (as Mickey Mouse’s Trap, as if they ever expected that title to actually pass legit) on the very same day Steamboat Willie’s became public domain material.

More unbelievable was that this was supposed to get a theathrical release… it didn’t.

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