[EXPRESSO] The Menù (2022) | A Meal To Remember

Went in blind and i can say this is a delightful surprise of a release, i mean, a black comedy horror thriller about haute cuisine with a stellar cast in it? Of course i’m in.

The premise of The Menù sees a dozen of influential, wealthy or otherwise high society people get invited to an exclusive dinner party on a remote island by worlwide famous and extravagant chef (played by Ralph Fiennes), eager to see what this year’s menù has in store for them.

Among them there a couple that will be enthralled not only the incredibly elaborated, inventive and maniacally detailed meals, but also by the many shocking events that make the already weird dinner go even more south.

And not always in ways you’d expect.

No, thankfully this one doesn’t go through the fairly overtrodden, predictable “cannibalism route”, not that it would have made quite sense to see Ralph Fiennes asks its dinner guests if they ever eaten “an egyptian FeAsT”, it’s not that kind of movie, it’s indeed a dark comedy horror that presents a robust mix of familiar elements, like the sympathetic villain that planned an elaborate revenge scheme that also steer into cult territory (not in the sense of waiting decades for critics to revaluate it, but the literal one), and also a touch of The Most Dangerous Game to it.

I’m not gonna go in further details to avoid spoiling the whole movie, but i will say it’s also fairly funny in his rampant pisstaking of haute cuisine and its pecularities, from the chef/ringmaster/performer/divinity, the kind of peculiar yet expected clientele it attracts, the behaviours and expectations they come with, while retaining wit through the mostly symphatic gaggle of people that maybe didn’t deserve it that badly.

A pretty robust, strong serving indeed, recommended.

Dead Island 2 got delayed (again) and what it means for the #deadislandretrospective

So yeah, i just found out that 4 days ago Dead Island 2 was yet again delayed, this time though NOT as much as it had already been, so instead of early February it’s now shooting for a late april release, as displayed in the above “delay communication post/image” (which are by now a specific brand of art in themselves), which at least acknowledges how ridiculous (yet fitting, i would add) is for a game that spent 8 years in development hell to be delayed so soon after reemerging as something else entirely.

Which in itself it’s fine by me, i can wait, we can wait at this point (and it’s also savvy given what’s releasing that month in terms of videogames), but i wish they announced this sooner, as now the original plan for the retrospective on the Dead Island series, with a review each month, it’s busted, so instead of releasing a review of Dead Island Riptide – Definitive Edition at the end of this month, it’s gonna skip November entirely and instead go for a December slot.

Same for the remaining two games (again, i’m not counting the defunct spin-offs Survivors and Epidemic, here is a reminder as of why), so those reviews will come out bi-monthly to coincide with the new release date of Dead Island 2.

Hoping i don’t have to do another of these post by then, who the hell knows.

Dino Dicember postponed yet again, 12 Days Of Dino Dicember will be back

I really didn’t want to make this post, but after i sat down and did some planning, i had to eventually come to the conclusion i won’t be able to make a full-sized Dino Dicember like i wanted, with daily reviews as it should be, and trying to force it with my increasingly busy work schedule will just drive me insane, hence unable to pull it off anyway.

Also, i hold off on posting this, but it would be worse if i “unleashed” this announcements in very late November.

But i also REALLY hate to do nothing dino related, so yep, 12 Days Of Dino Dicembers will be back, so bring your dinosaurs canonicals ready for some liturgical nonsense. Literally, in some cases.

In the meantime, please enjoy tomorrow’s EXPRESSO review of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

[EXPRESSO] Dampyr (2022) | Bonelli: The Masquerade

While i made clear i was very familiar with Dylan Dog’s source material in the review of Dylan Dog Dead Of Night, i can say quite the opposite for this new adaptation of an italian comic book series distribuited by Bonelli Editore, Dampyr, debutting at this year’s Lucca Comics & Games with renewed aspirations of a Bonelli MCU-thing.

So if you were looking for an in-depth review from a fan of the series, i’m not the guy this time, even if the situation it’s convenient for the sake of a more unbiased piece.

Set in the war torn Balkans during the early 1990s, Dampyr it’s about Harlan, a guy that manages to survive by posing as a dhampir (a half-human half-vampire hybrid in slavic folklore) for superstitious small villages, but it ends up dragged into the war as a unit of soldiers is attacked by vampires and Halan is brought there to help as a last resort. Little does he know he IS an actual dhampir, and the horrible dreams he constantly has are hints to his actual origins…

The vampire lore isn’t anything amazing but ain’t totally copy and pasted either, it has some inventions of its own (you can tell this was based on a comic book, regardless), acting by the international cast it’s fairly decent, the war-torn Balkans are a nicely bleak setting, production values aren’t shabby at all, the movie it’s definitely more than just “presentable”.

Overall, Dampyr it’s a fun, quite decent film, fairly entertaining but not much more, especially with some very cliched turns the story takes and the ouvert sequelbaiting. And the slightly confusing fact that two important characters basically look almost identical, like gothic vampire armored Alan Rickmans (or italian singer Renato Zero, for the “homies”) despite being played by different actors.

Zombie VS Ninja AKA Zombie Rivals (1989) [REVIEW] | Coffin Ho

You know i don’t even need an excuse to review these old Godfrey Ho movies aside from the fact i just love to do so. But its still (technically) the spookie-ookie season, so you better believe i have some properly themed (or more spuriously-connected) reviews of garbage from the nearly infinite pile of Godfrey Ho 80s output, and we already reviewed the infamous Robo Vampire, so let’s indulge.

I’m gonna just call it Zombie VS Ninja, since it’s original title and the one it’s known as mostly, though in my UK DVD release by Vengeance Video it was retitled as Zombie Rivals on the box, Zombie Rivals: The Super Ninja Master on the disc, and “Zodiac America – The Super Master” in the actual film, which is the usual transfer from VHS, with 3 extra minutes of black nothing at the end, just so the film can technically reach 90 minutes. As usual for these.

So, we already start with some strong “Ho-isms”, not bad, and this one of the few Pierre Kirby feature entries in Filmarts/IDF catalogue, so we start off on the right foot.

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The Spooktacular Eight #16: Bloody Delinquent Chainsaw Girl (2016)

I assume if you clicked this review you’re familiar with the japanese style of grindhouse splatter exploitation horror, which often involves schoolgirls equipped with machineguns in the ass, boobular rifles, zombie vaginas that spit flame, quadruple amputeed gimps with blades as limbs, gallons of fake blood, decapitated heads talking or moving about, zombies coming out toilets, mutant freaks with biomechanical chainsaw growing on their arms, etc.

You know the famous ones, from The Machine Girl, Robogeisha, Helldriver, Tokyo Gore Police, Dead Sushi, Mutants Girls Squad, Vampire Girl VS Frankenstein Girl (which i revisited earlier) and last year we featured Big Tits Dragon, also based on a manga of the same name by Rei Mikamoto.

This adaptation is directed by a lesser known name in the field, Hiroki Yamaguchi (Hellevator, various live action Messiah Gaiden films and TV series), which i’m not really familiar with, and i can’t say i’m familiar with the original manga by the author of Satanister – Satanic Sister.

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The Spooktacular Eight #15: Once Bitten (1985)

While we wait for the third Sonic The Hedgehog film to remind us that Jim Carrey still works because why wouldn’t he say no to Sega asking him to redo his old shtick… well, let’s go back to one of his earlier film for this year’s entry in old horror comedies that time forgot.

I could have reviewed instead The Silence Of The Hams, but we did revisit Dracula Dead And Loving it last years, so Mel Brooks and Ezio Greggio get a pass this year.

I actually haven’t seen nor heard of this one before doing some research, so serendipity today brought us to shine a spotlight on Jim Carrey’s early carriers, and it’s hard to go back even further than Once Bitten in terms of feature films, since this movie marked Carrey’s first major role ever, playing the innocent and naive high school student Mark Kendall, seduced in a Hollywood’s nightclub by a sultry countress, whom happens to be a four centhuries old vampire.

Why him? Well, in order to keep her youthful appearance (and immortality), she has to drink blood from a male virgin man 3 times by Halloween each year, which starts to become a issue, since its the 80s and this centuries old vampire countress figured it was best to settle in frigging California to satisfy this specific need. HM.

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The Spooktacular Eight #14: Dylan Dog: Dead Of Night (2010)

As they announced via a trailer early this month, we’re gonna have Bonelli, an italian comic books publishing house, give another crack of turning one of their decades long running series into a live action film, with the movie adaptation of Dampyr, a horror comic book series created in 2000 by Mauro Boselli and Maurizio Colombo about the supernatural adventures of the protagonist, a hybrid between a human and a vampire (so, yes, a “dhampir”), set to release very soon in theathers here.

Not only that, this is supposed to kickstart the Bonelli Cinematic Universe, and while to many non-italians readers this sounds like a cheap joke i’m making up…. it ain’t, and from a more marketing-oriented view, it makes sense, as now the time is ripe to give it a shot as audiences are familiar and used to superhero stories and stuff alike.

Still, it sounds hilarious to me to see them still trying to go this route, as if Universal itself tried and managed to cock it up not once, but twice, and in general very few players can do the MCU thing.

So it’s worth bringing back that the precedents aren’t exactly high in terms of inspiring any confidence or actual committment to any long term plan, as we saw Sergio Bonelli’s publishing house try it more than a decade ago with the live action adaptation of a far more famous italian horror-supernatural comic book series that will ring a bell even outside of Italy.

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The Spooktacular Eight #13: Eaters: Rise Of The Dead (2010)

You don’t want zombies that much.

Buf if italian zombie movies?

NOT the old ones you probably like, obviously.

Despite horror having mostly plauted as a prolific genre in terms of high profile releases here in Italy (and indie releases often being insanely obscure to find and often almost not worth bothering)…. somehow i still find here and then a low budget obscure italian-produced horror movie that managed to get itself released on DVD in the UK.

And if Arachnicide could do it, of course Eaters can too.

The subtitle to help cataloging can be stamped on the UK cover art for the DVD, why not?

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The Spooktacular Eight #12: Microwave Massacre (1979)

There are many types of massacres.

You can opt for the classics of axe, chainsaw and proper sharp instruments that while not built for slaying the fellow man are indeed excellent for severing, cutting and shit like that.

Why not think outside the box… or inside the box, as in go for a power drill, a woodchipper, a nailgun or even just use all the things inside a toolbox?

Go cannibal while you’re at it.

I mean, this movie decided to do so but also title its massacre after a microwave… which isn’t the actual weapon of killing, while being pivotal to the protagonist’s agenda, after he uses a salt grinder to kill his nagging wife May, obsessed with haute cuisine, during a drunken rage one night.

He sober ups the next day, completely unaware of what he did the night before… until he finds the corpse stuffed into their new huge ass microwave, decides to quickly dispose of his wife remains by dismembering and hiding it in the fridge, only to later accidentally take a bite out of May’s tinfoiled hand, liking the taste, things lead to things, and to Donald cooking the body parts in the microwave, finding the “blood feast” quite delish. So much that he starts killing hookers so he keep his cannibalistic cuisine going, sharing it with his unsospecting coworkers, even.

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