Zombi Holocaust (1980) [REVIEW] | With Extra Falernum

Let me take you back the days of italian zombie movies, with one of the slightly more obscure films, even if we’re still in the familiar territory of italian directors credited with laughable american pseudonyms and a plethora of alternate titles, it wouldn’t be an italian zombie from that era if it somehow got the alternate title of Zombie 3 (yes, with an extra “e”), others trying to link it to the “Zombi non-series” or the cannibal subgenre, one that happens to have been mostly dominated by italian genre directors.

Zombi Holocaust does have 2 recognized alternative titles, Queen Of The Cannibals and Dr. Butcher: M.D., and to be honest they’re not too that outrageous or mystifying, because this one decide to go ahead and combine a cannibal and zombie movie together, throwing in a mad scientist that created his own zombie army, as an expedition to the Eastern Indies finds out more than they bargained for, as this group of doctors and journalist went there to investigate, after episodes of cannibalism by immigrants of that particular island started happening in various city hospitals.

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I Eat Your Skin (1971) [REVIEW] | Burial Grounds – Voodoo Terror

Summer means it’s a perfect time to revisit some black and white “exotic flavored” zombie flick of yore.

Made in 1964 as “Carribean Adventure”, titled this way to hide from investors the fact it was a zombie movie… it never saw the light of day until 1971, when the zombie genre was “properly” born via the unexpected, shocking and – as time would tell – seminal release in theathers of a low budget flick called The Night Of The Living Dead in 1968.

Of course, zombies existed in cinema before, but mostly “voodoo zombies”, as in people put under hypnosis or drugged by a scientist or master of some kind, used as both forced labour and goons to dispose of people, usually made invulnerable by magic to compensate their slow, stiff movements, but even by 1964 the “voodoo zombie genre” had already plateaud… heck, you can argue it basically died in the mid 40’s when zombie comedies like Zombies On Broadway happened, as Universal later would make Abbott and Costello meet its own monster roster.

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Upcoming Attractions: Sharks und Pirates

(Source) https://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/4273516?q=sharknado+

(no, a Girls Und Panzer retrospective isn’t afoot… YET)

Just a quick overview of what’s coming for the rest of the summer on the blog.

July will be Shark Month. Usually it is anyway, but this year i actually have managed to pile up enough material (despite everything), so there will be a shark movie review out each day, and maybe some EXPRESSO ones too, depending on when i can get to some releases in theathers.

August will yet again be a One Piece retrospective…. of the TV specials.

Last summer we did go over the featurettes, and it’s still too early for me to properly re-assess all the One Piece movies. Like i said before, i’d prefer some more time to pass,, in order to avoid some lazy rewrite-recycle of the old reviews i made in italian years ago.

Also, i’m gonna take a break from the 15th of August (included) until the 1st of September.

This doesn’t mean i will stop posting at all, since EXPRESSO reviews will be made and published, but any time consuming form of review or retrospective will go on hiatus.

That’s about it, so look forward to another summer of sharks and anime pirates!

[EXPRESSO] Spiral – From The Book Of Saw (2021) | Uzumeki

I have been a big fan of Saw since forever, so i was looking forward to this new one, liked the casting, and you know, it had to work hard to be even worse than the pointless and neutered Jigsaw/Saw Legacy. Plus, we have Darren Lynn Bousman (who directed Saw II, III and IV). So yeah, i’m in.

The plot sees an old cynical detective getting assigned a freshly promoted and entusiasthic rookie as partner to investigate on a series of gruesome murders that look unsettingly inspired by one of the more sordid serial killer stories to ever happen in that city, the Jigsaw Killer. Helped by a veteran cop, they soon find out that they are stepping on a spiral of mistery and traps set up for them.

Yeah, plot wise it’s not exactly a reboot, as in this continuity The Jigsaw Killer was a thing of the past, but it doesn’t make clear if the events of Jigsaw even happened or mattered, so it also works as a new take that doesn’t really rely or require seeing the other ones, and this installment does indeed give the series a new direction, focusing more on the detective/police drama, dedicating more time to flesh out the characters directly instead of a heavy “flashback diet”.

The traps are actually creative, vicious, and deliciously sadistic as expected, with a lot of gore and gruesome details, already making this a lot better than the bloodless boring shit in Jigsaw. But as far as actually reimagining and reinventing Saw as a whole.. no, really no, Spiral sticks to formula with decent results, not really feeling that eager to reinvent itself in the first place, after all.

Not bad, but it lacks the ambition to really try something new with the series and potentially fail.

#E32021 Conferences Recap/Review/Thing

As already pointed out, E3 coming back this year was kind of a big deal, as the pandemic made it impossible to be held as usual in 2020, and even with the usual croc of shit that the event is and promotes… it’s a ritual, it’s a tradition for many people with huge interest in videogames, it’s a communal experience.

But i wonder if one year of non holding the event made many companies just forgot what the hell the expo was even supposed to be, like old people forgetting something they usually did out of habit because they had to stop doing it for a reason or others.

Mind you, E3 history is full of cringy – and often legendary – conferences often full of people that barely could speak english or had any PR experiences, overblown lies and hype for everything, announcements of announcement without nothing to show for titles of interest, so it’s telling this year’s output was a complete mess.

I don’t think that’s too hyperbolic to say.

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#E32021 Nintendo Direct & Bandai Namco [Highlights]

The final piece of rambles-recap-highlights i’m gonna write about this E3 edition… before the actual “final piece” of considerations and overall evalution.

First the long awaited Nintendo Direct, often topped only by the community basically setting themselves up to expect the moon and bitching about when they don’t get it…. or when they get it, because a certain set of people enjoy ranting and being miserable about the videogames they say to love so much, instead of actually playing said interactive entertaiment. You can’t please people that don’t even know what they want.

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#E32021 Capcom [Highlights]

I was gonna include the Take 2 Interactive showcase…well, it wasn’t called a “showcase”, but a “panel”, but still, i went in expecting to see something about the games, but it’s not that.

It’s a long panel where various figures from the company and not discussing equity and representation in games…. and that’s it. Important topics, absolutely, but why even bother letting people assume it was gonna be a showcase, when you don’t showcase nothing? Why bother tricking The Gamers (TM) into watching this, when you already know they are still offended by a random woman existing in videogames?

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#E32021 Devolver Digital & Gearbox Software [Highlights]

One wonders why even bother watching any showcase or conference outside of Devolver Digital’s…. and this year is no exception, The deranged saga of Nina Struthers “continues” with even more ferocious, unsubtle piss taking of the videogame industry, corporate culture and all it stands for, all while keeping the unhinged multi-layered meta-narrative going, and while showing perfect awareness that they themselves are still in the industry to sell you stuff, all packaged in a 22 minutes delirium box.

They get it and still got it.

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[EXPRESSO] Run (2020) | Night And Day

Gotta be honest, this one completely flew under my radar, i didn’t even knew it was on Netflix from april… until now, where it got a theathrical release in my country (after leaving Netflix, of course).

Whoopsie. Whatever, i still prefer going to a theathrical screening.

From director and writer Aneesh Agharthy (2018’s Searching), Run tells the story of the weird relationship between Diane Walsh (Sarah Paulson) and her daughter Chloe (Kiera Allen), a wheelchair bound and homeschooled teen, as she notices her mother’s behaviour getting stranger and stranger, leading to find some strange name changes on some documents and making Chloe suspect of everything her mother does, fearing to uncover some dark secret.

Run is one of those movies that don’t really sound like much going by the premise, which might come off as too “familiar” and overused even if it really isn’t, and no, it’s nothing like the 1980’s film Mother’s Day (or its loose 2010 remake), even if it debutted original on Mother’s Day.

Still, while you kinda know what to expect, the execution makes it, as the very good script takes 100 % advantage of the setup and possibilities given by a disabled protagonist, without resorting to insincere little pieties about the “poor wittle paralyzed thing”, and offering very well written characters that perfectly play off each other thanks to the great performances of Paulson and Allen.

Also, while it has a slow first act, it’s not that much of a “slow burner”, as things pick up a bit faster than expected, but tension remains high all the way through, with a lot happening in 90 minutes, and a very satisfying ending.

Been a while since i saw a finale so satisfying.

Nothing “new”, but very well done, with nothing about it feeling vestigial. Good one.

#E32021 Koch Primetime Gaming Stream & IGN EXPO [Highlights]

Yeah, compressing both together for my own convenience and because i really don’t have much to say about the Koch Primetime Stream (originally aired on Twitch) they had. I can say it was quite bad as a showcase for Koch Media new gaming label, named “Prime Matter”, 2 hours of mostly boredom thanks to the shit format of having basically an awkward interview relay race between various developers, with a lot of very dry talk and very little footage shown.

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