[EXPRESSO] Here After – L’Aldilà (2024) | Facade Of Horror

I’ll admit i watched this only because its part of a national promotion on italian and european films, so the ticket was real cheap, and it’s an italian horror film, i just gotta give them a shot, regardless.

The plot concerns a mute teenage girl skilled in piano, Robin, as one day has an accident leading to her having a pre-death experience, as against all odds she comes back, only for her mother to notice that something isn’t right, as she worries someone else might be in there.

An increansingly worrysome and creepy set of events surrounding Robin force her mother, Claire, to confront her own past experience that marked their lives forever.

It’s not an ugly film, the Rome setting is nice and cinematography is decent, it’s a professionally put together film with mostly decent acting, but it’s also kinda deceiftul, since it’s actually a supernatural drama masking itself as both a possession/exorcism film and something in the vein in Babadook, parading some of the elements from both around to sell the facade.

And it is a facade because the movie is neither of the two, since it straddles the line but ultimately just stays there, deciding on nothing all the way through, committing to both in idea but not reality, so it’s no surprise the final result it’s an insipid compromise that satisfies no one, with a positive ending that feels more like a convenient way to avoid addressing the point of some previous scenes.

But the kicker is that, it’s also ungodly boring, so cliched it hurts and makes it an utterly predictable drag all the way through, making its 90 minutes runtime feel bloated, even more when it doesn’t trust the audience, so it has to spell out what else everyone already correctly predicted hours ago.

Shark Exorcist (2014) [REVIEW] | #thesharksix

I knew the day would come.

I knew it was just a matter of time, and made sense since it had been so long, and my hatred for this film never subdued since i first saw it back in 2015. I wasn’t familiar with Donald Farmer’s “game”, so to speak, i though i knew bad, but seeing his Shark Exorcist made me realize i was still green.

“Still just a bud”, to quote Holly Summers from No More Heroes.

I did actually preorder the DVD for it, expecting it to be fun, a shitshow but we were still riding high from the Sharkenado phenomenon, before cheap homegrown filmakers realized you didn’t actually need these bad sharkmovies to be fun in order to sell them, and instead made poster than would never live up to the actual films, so yeah, a sweet summer child, etc.

And no, i didn’t plan to review the movie for it’s 10^th anniversary, and i didn’t realize it actually came out first in 2014 in some countries, but i guess it’s red raw anus-bound thread of Fate itself at work, pinching one out for the occasion, so let’s toast our glasses of expire communion wine!

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Halfway through Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD

So, a quick few words about Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD, as it recently released, i got it, but there’s no planned review for it this year (i’m waiting for the port-remake-whatever is gonna be of the first Luigi’s Mansion), so let’s just do a quick impressions-style article/hands on, since i’m basically halfway through it already and i did plan the original 3DS release when it came out.

The short version of it is that i wouldn’t stampede to get a copy if you already played it on 3DS, not that is gonna get cheaper to get in time.

I just wanna stress out this is mostly a release for people that played Luigi’s Mansion 3 and wanna play all the series on Switch, for those that haven’t already played Luigi’s Mansion 2 before and maybe have only a Switch as their modern Nintendo console.

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[EXPRESSO] Immaculate (2024) | Mary on a cross

I’ll be honest, i kinda forgot this was even gonna be released here, i guess that counts as a “surprise” summer horror release, something to watch before M. Night’s Trap comes out in August, it’s another religious themed horror film, as in it’s about nuns without guns and catholicism and such.

This one is about a young religious woman that moves from Detroit to a rural convent Italy in order to take the votes and become a nun, Cecilia, and is welcomed quite warmly. A bit too warmly, she sees some weird stuff, then she becomes miracolously pregnant (it’s called “immaculate”, it’s not really a spoiler), and then things becomes even weirder and more suspicious, as dark secrets arise and all the hubba you can honestly predict from a movie like this.

So, the short version is that this is – by accident or not, i’ll let you pick because it doesn’t actually matter too much in the end – a lesser version of the Omen prequel that released last year, The First Omen, but this actually amounts to a decent flick, in spite of the aforementioned “similarities” and overall predictable ensemble of situations, events, reveals and twists, even when they’re not pulled straight from the Omen series. Characters fair about as much, with the doe eyed soon-to-be-nun, the strange mother superiors, the crazy old nuns that reside there as the place there is kind of a hospice..

By and large, the concoction here should be just mediocre, professionally shot and produced, but all already been done (and then done again some more) and better, yet the reveal is kinda interesting in the variation/spin it does, there are some decent-to-good practical gore effects, and overall the execution elevates it to being decent, with some extra points for the ballsy ending.

[EXPRESSO] A Quiet Place: Day One (2024) | The Cat Will Inherit The Earth

The acclaimed horror series about an alien invasion of sound-receptive creatures continues…. as it actually does not, by playing the classic “prequel” card, which is often a double edged sword, as it can actually expand upon the material or just feel like a stop-gap “filler” release.

In this case – as the title lays out – we go back to the very first day of the invasion, breaking out in New York, and we follow a terminal cancer-diagnosed woman (and her support cat) brought with the rest of the hospice to see a show, when suddendly vicious alien monsters fall from the skies and rampage, blind as bats but immediatly snapping in chase of of any loud noise…

In many ways, there’s little to say about A Quiet Place Day One that couldn’t/hasn’t already been discussed plenty about the previous movies, it doesn’t add really much “lore”, it just has some characters that will show up in the mainline films, but in this case it’s actually a good thing, as we have another good horror thriller with great suspence, a relatively novel twist on the monsters, excellent effects, good characters, and most importantly the ability to keep things simple at heart but far from boring, without bogging down the dread by forcing a mythos, for example.

Honestly i feel the “Day One/Origin” spin works well enough, i’m quite okay with it following mostly new people, as the “cancer-not-the-sign woman” is actually a pretty good main character, relatable, and while there’s nothing new or mindblowing added to the series, the execution it’s still quite good enough to make for a great film.

It’s a rare case when the “if not broken, don’t fix it” approach does actually still pay off, with the only little wart being the humdrum, shoehorned dream sequence.

Cocaine Shark (2023) [REVIEW] | #thesharksix

You know the saying, the last year’s sensation is still fresh when gimmicks barely add anything, and by gimmicks i mean the fact Cocaine Bear was actually a big b-movie studio release last year, so by that summer you know they had someone on speed-dial to make their own knock off with 1000 times less the budget.

And it’s telling that in the past The Asylum would have made the movie themselves, but this is modern Asylum, so the first to put the “cocained killer animal mockbuster” was Mark Polonia.

…. though even that isn’t really the truth, as it’s often the case, reality is quite disappointing, as Mark Polonia just happened to release a movie called (Crab Shark) that premiered the 29^th of January 2023 in Japan (apparently even actually got real screenings, which is far more unbelievable than a crab shark but it seems to be true), and he retitled it “Cocaine Shark” when releasing it in the US later that July, to capitalize on the sensation of Cocaine Bear.

Funnily beating the director of Cocaine Bear, Elizabeth Banks, to the punch in making a follow up with a shark, again based on an actual news story.

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[EXPRESSO] The Animal Kingdom (2023) | Goo goo g’ joob

The Animal Kingdom is a movie of many things, as it has superhero-ish and body horror elements, but it’s actually a fresh thriller-coming of age French movie from director Thomas Cailley, about a nearby future where a bizarre disease start turning people into animal-human hybrids – called “critters” by the populace – needing to control and herd them into contaiment facilities.

The plot sees a teen, Emilè, and his dad, a cook, move out to a small town in order to stay closer where Emile’s mother is being treated for her mutation, obviously keeping it a secret from everyone they met, a task that becomes harder as Emile’s mom, after an accident with the car trasporting them, escapes in the surrounding wooded area, alongside other “critters”, and nearly impossible as Emile himself notices he starts to mutate, with newfound fur, claws, and other bodily alterations..

Despite the Island Of Dr. Moreau-like premise, it’s mostly a thriller and a coming of age film, as Emile matures and goes through more than the usual teen changes, makes friends, and how the world around him reacts in various forms to these mutated “kemono people”, serving the expected but still well tackled themes of racism, tolerance, love, and mostly about freedom.

And yet, even if it seems like The Animal Kingdom it’s trying to juggle too many elements at once, the final result is quite interesting, as it manages to handle the themes and ideas very well, giving them a fresh spin, one that works by putting at the forefront the well characterized father-son duo and the drama that follows from the situation, harvesting it to end up on an empowering and understanding, almost tender note.

Even better, the effects are honestly great.

A nice surprise, one i recommend checking out whenever you can.

Zombie Shark AKA Shark Island (2015) [REVIEW] | #thesharksix

Of course this was already done, i would say i’m surprised it took so long for the obvious idea to actually materialize, but then again it came out in the mid 2010s, an all time high for cheap ass shark movies unafraid to lower the bar even further, this time with the brilliant “ “what if but zombies?” concept, but – again – we never had this specific flavor of shark movie, so whatever.

As even a blind rock could guess by now, it’s a TV movie for SyFy (retitled as Shark Island in some releases), and it’s from director Misty Talley, actually her first shark attack flick, before Ozarks Sharks/ Summer Shark Attack and Mississippi River Sharks (both previously featured here), but also starring Jason London, whom i guess he’s “shark movie borgeusy” since he also shows up in Dam Sharks, for one.

So we have all the ingredients for a mildly fun timewaster… and the result it’s exactly that.

I could end the review here, but lets talk about the plot, despite there being no real need to, since Zombie Shark it’s exactly what it says on the tin and what you’d think it would be.

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[EXPRESSO] Ghost: Rite Here, Rite Now (2024) | Meliora Grande

I will admit i’m not a die hard Ghost fan, i like them (enough to go to a concert film of theirs playing subtitled only for a couple of days in theathers) a lot but never dwelved into the lore, as apparently this follows up the band meta-storyline from their webisodes, but as an educated guess would have correctly assumed, you really don’t need to be updated on what here amounts as a slightly meta (and kinda Metalocaypse-eque) narrative about the relationship between the singer, his mother and the ghost of his father appearing to him and giving advice about stage performance, etc.

Again, i lack the extra contest most fans would have, but this narrative playing in little bits between some of the songs is mostly soap opera style drama played for laughs, it’s goofy and because of that demonstrates the band’s willingness to be silly and fun, which actually fits the odd yet mesmerizing pastiche of metal aesthetics and 80s energetic hard rock inspired music of Ghost as a whole.

Bonus points for them having a 60s Hanna Barbera style animated segment at one point, even if it feels oddly handled and kinda random, let’s put it like that.

Even if you don’t care for it, even at worst the narrative it’s cute and delivers some laughs, it does not requires you to even know the band beforehand, and it’s actually a more than decent entry point if you were ever curious about Ghost, as the main bulk of the film it’s the live concert they did in 2023 at the Kia Forum in Erwille, California, delivering one hell of a concert with a pretty much perfect track list, amazing theathrics, just an amazing performance graced by excellent editing for the big screen, on top of everything else.

[EXPRESSO] Kinds Of Kindness (2024) | R.F.M. Does The Yubi Yubi

Yorgos Lanthimos has been on a roll lately, i especially loved Poor Things, so i was looking forward to his new film, Kinds Of Kindness, even though i had qualms about it being a tryptic/anthology thing, even with the novel spin of the same actors playing different characters in each of the segments.

Then again, Lanthimos reunited with his longtime screenwriter Efthimis Filippou (Dogtooth, Alps, The Lobster, The Killing Of A Sacred Deer) for this one, so yes, i’m definitely game.

Despite the segments having oddly some very light continuity, this is mostly done for a comedic pay-off/joke, so we have a collection of stories about the titular types of “kindness”, with the first being about a man that falls of favor after refusing to cause an incident for his boss (that also monitors and basically plans/commands his subordinate entire life), the second with a cop that has her missing wife survive from a crash on an island and return unscathed, only for the cop to feel increasingly paranoid about the wife being an impostor, and the final one concering a couple of members of a cult in search of an actual holy maiden able to raise the dead for real.

It’s a bit uneven, with the middle segment arguably being the best one, and the final one being kinda disappointing (and structurally too similar to the first one, which is classic old school Lanthimos all the way), with the feeling it all might have worked better with some of the ideas reworked into a single storyline, especially with its being the longest of Lanthimos films, almost clocking at 3 hours.

Still, it’s definitely worth seeing, even with the slightly excessive lenght and uneven quality of the segments, the acting by the stellar cast it’s incredible as expected. Good stuff.