Krampus Origins (2018) [REVIEW] | WW Krampus

I guess i really should review a Krampus movie that’s actually about the Krampus creature this year, and i’m fairly sure i didn’t watch this already under a different title, so it’ll do…fine, i hope.

During World War I, a group of American soldiers storm a German bunker, finding there a mysterious book that can summon the ancient evil of the Christmas Devil, the Krampus.

The men are killed in action, and the book is sent to the commanding officer’s widow, whom has just taken up the role of teacher at a Catholic orphanage. One of the orphans there gets a hold of the book and accidentally summons the Krampus, forcing them, the teacher, nuns and priest to face it.

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Dead Island Riptide (Definitive Edition) PS4 [REVIEW] | #deadislandretrospective

Aka the “actual” Dead Island 2, as time would eventually tell.

Technically not, but actually yes, since it’s developed by Techland and in terms of story it’s a direct sequel, following up immediatly (after a brief recap) where we left off that unremarkable (to be kind) narrative, which means the group of survivors gets aid by an american Navy ship but it’s immediatly captured by one of the side villains from the previous game, Serpo (guess Betraldo didn’t have the same ring to it), intenting of using their immune blood to concoct a cure and a weaponized bio weapon, or something. Doesn’t matter much, as you shipwreck into a nearby island in the archipelago, where the zombie epidemic has also spread after the incident in Banoi, and learn that they plan to nuke the entire island in order to contain the zombie plague.

Yeah, the story it’s about as crappy and easy to completely not give a shit about, with the obvious twists seen coming miles and miles away, but i’d argue it’s actually, objectively worse since there is barely a plot in Riptide, like, at all, aside from the beginning and ending, where a side character in the first game becomes the main antagonist… barely, so you can say this game does recycle too much from the first, even in this regard.

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[EXPRESSO] Violent Night (2022) | Santa Hard

Tommy Wirkola is back after last year’s The Trip (available on Netflix) to the snow tinted realm of horror…. but not quite.

This time around he cooked up a christmas black comedy that has been described as “Die Hard but with Santa Claus instead of John McClain”… because it’s pretty much that, set in a rich family’s villa where a group of terrorists (with the leader played by John Leguizamo) lies in wait to get their hands on a big chunk of million money.

It just happens that by accident the real, factual Santa Claus finds himself in that very house when shit goes down, and decides to fight them to save the family, especially as the younger child earnestly believes in him, by way of some magic, a warhammer and a lot of gruesome violence.

Yeah, it isn’t strictly a horror movie, it’s definitely heavy on action and comedy as you would expect from this deliberate pastiche of Die Hard and christmas movie, but again, it’s a Tommy Wirkola film, so it doesn’t really matter that this isn’t a new installment of Dead Snow or a christmas slasher, because we also get to see Santa pile up a more than respectable bodycount, using everything from ornaments to shovel to woodchippers and even a warhammer (tied to his backstory/lore here)

Heck, for good measure there is a straight up Home Alone “trap scene” and even that provides a lot of gore effects played for laughs that will still make you go “OW”.

There’s also the “Bad Santa” angle to the main character, but not quite, since he IS real here, and otherwise the surprisingly decent emotional moments would lose any kind of weight.

Violent Night it’s a pastiche of familiar elements indeed, but it’s a bloody fun holiday romp, too.

[EXPRESSO] Bones And All (2022) | Suspicious Minds

After his controversial but quite good remake of Suspira in 2018, Luca Guadagnino returns to the big screen with the coming of age horror road movie Bones And All.

An interesting proposition to be sure, sure as hell i’m not gonna turn down any chance to see a cannibal coming of age romance on the big screen by a big name director.

Set in 1980s Middle America, the movie it’s about teen Maren Yearly ( Taylor Russell) as she has to flee with her father from Virginia, after she bites off one of her classmate’s finger in a cannibalistic pulse, settling somewhere else then getting abandoned by her father as he doesn’t know what to with her anymore, only leaving a recording in case she wants to confront her mother.

On her voyage she also meets another young cannibal, Lee (Timothee Chalamet), and as they travel their way through small American towns they begin to fall in love.

The cast it’s great, the idea it’s sound, not that original, but still, promising, the blending of horror and romance works pretty well, and the period soundtrack it’s excellent.

BUT it’s also very uneven, as Guadagnino wants it to be set into a specific American period and mood, but it also feels more european in terms of how the themes of sexual liberation are tackled, so it never fully comes together in this regard.

There are still some noteworthy sequences, but the romance isn’t that great, the characters not that interesting, and – again – it’s pretty uneven, not helped by some really gratituous scenes (like the “pre-kill cornfield gay masturbation” one ).

Bones And All it’s not bad, but for all its pretension and ambition, it amounts to just being decent and kinda disappointing, since Guadagnino can and has done better.

[EXPRESSO] Prey For The Devil (2022) | Mid-sorcism

As much i’m very much kinda fed up with horror movies about haunting or possessions and/or about exorcisms… i’m still a horror fan/buff, so i’m up to support horror movies when they come in theathers, even if there’s the chance i’m walking into a turd. You never know, etc.

And this one didn’t look too bad from the trailers… nor did it look stunning, but whatever.

The plot of Prey For The Devil sees the Vatican secretly reopen schools for exorcists, in response to the numerous cases of demonic possessions, so they can fight back this reborn tide of evil.

But sadly for sister Ann, a young pious woman, it’s only men who are instructed to practice exorcisms, though her convintion in being gifted exactly for that purpose/role leads her to be noticed by a professor/priest that indeed believes in her gift, letting her attend the exorcism classes and perform the rituals when needed.

This leads to Ann meeting a powerful demonic force via one of the patients in care there, which spreads to the whole institute, and the demon itself has ties with Ann’s traumatic past…

Aside from the school/church/hospital setting and the more progressive idea of “female exorcists”, all of this sounds very familiar, overly so, and it’s not like there big surprises, i mean, we do have the demon possessing a little girl, the jumpscares, all the shizzle you expect to see.

Yes, indeed, but i won’t deny i was actually somewhat invested in the story, the characters are surprisingly likeable, acting it’s quite decent, the possession stuff has some flair, stuff happens at a good pace, and the movie isn’t overly long, quite the opposite.

It’s a predictable, mediocre and kinda throw-away exorcism film, run-of-the-mill even, but it’s perfectly watchable, you can do FAR, FAR worse.

[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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