Jurassic Shark 2: Aquapocalypse (2021) [REVIEW] | Sequelgeddon #sharksncrocspartdeux

I eventually had to find out this existed, because words like “sequels” don’t mean anything anymore, even more when we dwelve in the “homegrown/DIY” territory of the shark movies, where one name echoes through the vast oceans, Mark Polonia, and he stands atop of his carboard throne, commanding beasts of papermaciè and plastic (and whatever the budget can afford) to fend off the rare adventurers setting off in the desperate quest for the homegrown crown.

So powerful he is that only he can received the task of doing a sequel of a low budget shark movie he didn’t originally make, as Jurassic Shark was directed and produced by Brett Kelly, but that isn’t even the stranger thing about Jurassic Shark 2: Aquapocalypse.

That would be this one standing as the “official” sequel, as Brett Kelly also directed Raiders Of The Lost Shark, which was a surprise kind of sequel to Jurassic Shark, as i discussed when reviewing it.

But this one gets to have the Jurassic Shark name and slap a 2 on the end, for whatever reason, and so it kinda surprising the plot has anything to do with the first, as the oil company from the first movie (whom accidentally released the megalodon) is back and wanting to drill for oil of the coast of Cat Island (not that one), and its up to the workers of the oil rig – that accidentally discover the beast – to try and save what they can from its unfeeling jaws… And its amazing inflatable fin.

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L’Isola Degli Uomini Pesce (The Island Of The Fishmen) (1979) [REVIEW] | Dr. Moreau From The Deep

I guess fate does exist, because i randomly picked up at a local flea market a DVD copy of “L’Isola Degli Uomini Pesce” (translating to “The Island Of The Fishmen”, literally) for less than 3 bucks, figured i’d review that for a lark, only to find out this movie is actually known among fans of B-movies as “Screamers”, in its edited and reworked version handled by Roger Corman that cuts some footage, inserts a new opening and adds extra gore.

While also using false advertising in marketing with text claimining it’s about “people turned inside out”. This is an utter lie, because it also implies this is a horror film…. yes but it’s also a fantasy adventure flick that also pinches ideas from Island Of Dr. Moreau (and also reminding one of the Corman’s Humanoids From The Deep, for example) and uses horror cliches like a mad scientist creating a humanoid hybrid race of people, but it also has heavy adventure movie elements like the natives and the sunken civilizations and stuff.

So if you have memories on seeing this as “Screamers” on TV or VHS, sorry, we’re talking about the original, untouched italian version of “The Island Of The Fishmen”.

Also, i promise there are no One Piece jokes here, tempting as they were to make.

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[EXPRESSO] Run Rabbit Run (2023) | Babad’oh

A new Netflix psychological horror thriller involving a mother and her child, looking vaguely Goodnight Mommy-ish from the trailer, let’s give it a punt.

The plot follows a single mother and her daughter, whom happen to take in a rabbit that one show up waiting for them at their door, take him in as the daughter really wants to, but after that she starts remembering events of a “previous life”, freaking out the mother and eventually digging up the family’s past, especially the mother’s late sister….

The latter part was shown in the trailer…..but it shouldn’t, as it basically gives away too much of the “twist”, as you can assume and by large assume it right, because there’s really not much to it.

It’s clearly trying to follow in the wake of Babadook and Hereditary, with family traumas festering into nightmares and dysfunctions as beholden secrets try to claw their way out of the darkness, but the movie just potters about the same thing over and over, looking good with an amazing cinematography and some great acting by the lead, but it’s all mood, atmosphere that belies nothing more than stale cliches that feel dull and pedestrian more than anything else.

A thin and predictable plot with mostly unlikeable, underdeveloped characters crown the usual mother vs daughter screaming scenes, bog standard “hallucination scenes” and equally generic bursts of violence, with the slow, slow burn to “reveal” nothing that hasn’t been already reiterated on ad nauseam by the movie itself since the very beginning, making the experience more tiresome than thrilling.

Plus it’s also very frustrating because there could have been something to this, it could, but the script it’s too afraid to dig deeper than the bare surface on any of its themes, so epidermis unbroken, the truth goes unspoken. ♫

Crocodile (1979) [REVIEW] | Thai Croc Jaws #sharksncrocspartdeux

Can’t get more basic than “Crocodile”, not “killer”, not “mutant”, nor “apocalypse”, just your plain old reptilian creature to not be confused with an alligator.

Which is arguably kind of a lie, since this is an obscure Thai monster movie that was made – in unison – “to ride Jaws’ coat-tail”. I don’t even do this on purpose, there’s that big a chance even killer croc movies somehow can be linked back to it, either due to the decade of their release or the basic plot structure and popularized cliches.

Often it’s both, as “Crocodile” was released just years after Jaws rocked the box office, AND the plot it’s virtually identical… or is it?

Not to be confused with a 1978’s Korean movie also with the international title of “Crocodile”, from which this 1979 Thai film is edited from… and by that i’d say it borrows some stock footage from the 1978 one, i don’t know to what extend, since i couldn’t find a copy of the 1978’s film, because i do believe these are two different – yet almost identical sounding – movies, not one and the same.

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Robocroc (2013) [REVIEW] | Domo Wanigato #sharksncrocspartdeux

Police officer Murphy is shot down while confronting a criminal gang, but his body is found by a brood of crocodiles living in Detroit’s sewer system. They nurse him back to health, let him partake of their radioactive flesh, which helps him grow back the lost limbs, and eventually he reemerges into the public eye as the hybrid man-croc vigilante Robocroc.

This is NOT the plot of Robocroc, not that the actual one has anything to do with the movie spoofed in the title. It would took to much time and effort, and this is just not the way these post-Sharkenado low budget killer animal flicks do it. It must be stupid, but within the itsby bitsy budgets, which overtime seem to have gotten smaller and smaller, closer and closer to the “Polonia-sphere”.

So it also means this has more in common with Metal Gear Rising Revengeance than Robocop, as the plot involves a missile launch that goes awry, with the ejected part landing in a zoo, nanomachines coming out of it and into a female crocodile named Stella that happened to be nearby the capsule’s crash site, and these slowly turn her into a cyborg bent on eating his way through the special forces called into the enclosure, then escaping the facility to feed on random people fishing in a lagoon, stopping on dry land to feast on people guilty of driving quad bikes, and finally going for the big feast of a nearby aqua park full of teens partying.

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Pinocchi-O-Rama #6: √964 Pinocchio (1991)

Have i gone completely insane, spotlighting this one for a Pinocchio-inspired retrospective?

But then again we never talk about some good ol’ japanese cyberpunk body horror… and i guess today is no different because we’re talking about 964 Pinocchio.

Also called “Screams Of Blasphemy” for its UK release. Whatever.

And no, i still have no clue if the numbers in the title mean anything aside indicating that there were other 963 “pinocchio/sex slaves” manifactured before him, since he’s got that tattooed on his back, branded like an utility.

Honestly i wasn’t sure about including this one, but for variety’s sake, fuck it, i’m not reviewing Pinocchio In Space. Despite the obvious allure.

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King Of Snake (2020) [REVIEW] #snakesofjunetoo

Not be confused with “King Of Snakes”, an old Taiwanese kaiju film mostly known for being edited into one of many’s Godfrey Ho cut-n-paste jobs, Thunder Of The Gigantic Serpent, which opted to insert new actionxploitation footage with western actors into that 1984’s monster film, instead of having them doing the usual “colored pijamas ninjas” shit.

We’re gonna cover that one later this month for #snakesofjunetoo, fear not, i’m always up for reviewing some IFD Films joints, but today we’re looking at something far more recent, a 2020 chinese disaster-monster movie set during the Republic Of China period, when railways were being costructed and the following ecological destruction caused by it (especially deforestation) being the reason for lots of poisonous snakes to assault a train, killing and injuring many.

To cure the survivors of the snake venom and the many that also were attacked in his own home village of Yong’an, the local snake catcher Mu Sheng has to form a small party to venture in search of the “snake flower” cure…

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Dagon (2001) [REVIEW] | Shadow Over Galicia

Dagon, my sweet Dagon, oh what foul stench thou emits,

enough to make one sad at how it all went once again amiss,

cursed indeed by another Elder God these adaptations seem

of Lovecraft’s hate for fish supreme.

For the record, i don’t hate or begrudge Stuart Gordon’s work overall and his obvious love for the source material, i mean, the Reanimator series was also spun from a H.P. Lovecraft story and that managed to work, though it became its own thing, i am more than “ok” with that.

I mean, for fuck’s sake if that story in particular needed to be scrubbed – in adaptations – of the obniouxsly blatant racism, you’ll need to clean the Lovecraft out of Lovecraft “sometimes”.

But i also can’t deny there are reasons why fans of Lovecraft are beyond sick of the many adaptations that defy the thousand monkeys & thousand typewriters logic, and that somehow no one over decades has managed to adapt any of his stories (in films, strictly speaking) with success without fuckin things up, as in, completely destroy any attempt at atmosphere, deviate so much from the original story to the point it might as well be adapting another Lovecraft tale, AND making crap movies that are bad regardless of what author’s name they borrow.

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Venomous/Venom (2001) [REVIEW] | #snakesofjunetoo

We’re out of Anaconda sequels at the moment (there’s a reboot in the works, confirmed 3 months ago with Tom Gormican, better known for The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent) , so let’s start digging into another barrel o’ snakes by rummaging – as we usually end up doing – through Fred Olen Ray filmography.

Not that i picked up the movie this way, it was another random find on Amazon Prime Video, but there’s no real surprise to see him listed as director… under one of his pseudonyms, Ed Raymond this time, why shouldn’t be his work?

Not to be confused with Silent Venom from 2009, also directed by Fred Olen Ray, in which he realized he could put snakes inside of submarines instead of planes.

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Bringing Out The Serpents again for #snakesofjunetoo

Last June we did feature a lot of serpent based movies (often b-movies, that much is true), so we’re doing it again this year too, though on a smaller scale due to an increase of work and other personal obligations. Plus a surprisingly full summer release schedule of films coming out here (united with a nationwide promotion on ticket prices), so there will be a lot of EXPRESSO reviews…. yes, we’ll also review that one with the lead actors that keeps constantly getting arrested, because while i abhor him, i did watch and review movies where he was in before, like the theatherical cut of Justice League or the recently released (and reviewed) Dalìland, where he plays a very minor role, so much i didn’t notice he was in before watching the thing.

So yeah, it wouldn’t be quite correct of me to stop now, especially since i seriously doubt The Flash will do much in terms of box office, i mean, it’s not one of the more popular superheroes, it’s very well known and documented even between the less devoted audiences that Erza Miller is basically assaulting people on a whim at a noticeable rate, both Black Adam and Shazam 2 weren’t well regarded or even that lucrative (though i did rate Fury Of The Gods higher than most, personally), and remember, this movie also exists to completely reset the mess of the DC Extended Universe, so they can start again with Gunn at the helm.

Plus, honestly the movie looks kinda ass, and it’s undeniable this is NOT a project the studios really believes in, otherwise they wouldn’t have advertised it by dangling the return of Michael Keaton as Batman in trailers, like bait. And that’s some good bait.

Again, i don’t blame people opting out of seeing The Flash because of Erza Miller, or regardless of him, you do you. I kinda have to, to a certain degree.