[EXPRESSO] Freaky (2020) | Stop ‘n’ Swop

It’s my pleasure to say that with Freaky we’re back to Christopher Langdon’s brand of energetic and delightful modern slashers movie “with a twist”.

This time it’s NOT a Groundhound Day time-loop applied to a slasher movie, but another popular twist, as in “body swapping” between the heroine/final girl and the killer (via a mystical sacrifical dagger), an indirect “reversal”, as our troubled teen girl has to go back in her body and do it fast as the spell will be irreversable after 24 hours, with the killer using the advantages of his new body to continue the murder spree at the school prom.

While the main twist is indeed fresh for the slasher subgenre, and Langdon’s script fully utilizes for dramatic and comedic effect (while also obviously giving a spin to the chasing killer trope), Freaky is both style AND substance, able to hit many of the satisfying slasher elements, like the satisfaction of the killer tearing up detestable characters, the fairly graphic and unapologetic gore of the more elaborate kills, keeping most of the traditional elements.

It’s not just a cynically conceived gimmicky twist hurriedly scribbled to akwardly “spice up” an otherwise uncaring crap slasher, it’s clearly crafted and written with a clear understanding of the genre/subgenre, and while it’s very funny, with the same whimsical tone seen in previous Langdon’s film, it’s not a satire or parody, but a proper slasher movie in itself, one with great actors like Vincent Vaughn and Kathryin Newton, giving off great performances.

Even if you weren’t crazy for the director previous films (wasn’t too fond of the second Happy Death Day, myself), it can’t be denied it’s a very confidently written, acted and directed blend of horror and comedy that successfully lays an old fan favourite twist on the slasher formula.

Queen Crab (2015) [REVIEW] | Crab Budget Z

It has been a while since we dabbled into the territory of modern Z-grade movies about killer animals, so it’s time to descend into the muk of the ultra cheap features, so cheap that they are barely discernable from freshman cinema assignments shot during the summer break of the past.

An advice for fellow collectors living in Europe: you don’t need to get the german version, there’s a cheaper UK DVD release under the title “Claws”, it’s the same movie, don’t be fooled by the wrong synopsis on the back of the box (and most likely on the Amazon item page as well), clearly written by people that didn’t actually see the damn movie, there are no “space meteor crabs” in Queen Crab.

It’s obvious from the first minute this is indeed a monster movie shot on a microbudget using cheap digital video equipment, but i was interested in it because it promised the giant crab done in stop-motion animation, indeed a tasty promise and a rare sight regardless of budget to any cinephile.

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[EXPRESSO] Army Of The Dead (2021) | The Uncertain Dead

Zack Snyder has taken a break from superhero movies to come back to the zombie farm for Army Of The Dead, a zombie flick that’s also a heist movie, originally conceived as a spiritual successor of Snyder’s own 2004 Dawn Of The Dead remake, but over time becoming his own distinct thing, while it stewed in development hell until Netflix picked it in 2019.

While Las Vegas is plagued by a zombie epidemic, a group of mercenaries is crazy enough to try pulling the absurd and hugely risky feat of going into the quarantined zone to pulls off the biggest heist ever conceived, and do it before the government drops a nuclear bomb on the area.

This sounds like a great recipe for a bombastic, excessive good time… but it isn’t.

Putting aside that the movie is not so full of action as it marketed and presented, it’s a flawed execution of a good premise, one that’s also very long (2 hours and a half) and totally feels like it, even more as it feels unclear on what exactly it wants to pull off, not helped by the fact there are tonal inconsistencies; figures when it feels so conflicted between almost being Zombieland or a more Romero-style zombie film.

It’s frustrating, because it has some interesting, noteworthy variations and additions to the zombie mythos, it does live up the title in that regard, the actions scenes are quite good, there’s even some decent humour. There’s something to it, but it tries to pack too much stuff in and it never fully “clicks” because of it.

We’ll see more regardless, as Snyder wants to do a sequel, and Netflix already greenlit two prequels, in form of a film and an animated series, so maybe something better could come out of it.

[EXPRESSO] The Unholy (2021) | Cigarettes, Ice Cream, Figurines

Based on the novel “Shrine” by James Herbert, The Unholy is another movie that released just now due to the COVID-19 pandemic effects, and is the first horror movie i’ve seen in theathers before the last lockdown here in Italy (before that i just managed to see The Grudge 2020).

Why i’m talking about my “cinema cronology” instead of the movie itself, and posing fairly obvious retorical questions? You know exactly why, but let’s get to it anyway.

The plot follows a New England hack journalist, Gerry Fenn, once very famous but eventually kicked out as he kept just making shit up all the time, now reduced to do low paying puff pieces about strange phenomena, but he’s as skeptical as cynical, so he keps mostly inventing stories. But when he hears of a young lady named Alice, a deaf-mute miracolously healed after – as she puts it – she saw the Virgin Mary.

Gerry decides to investigate on the matter, leading to discover many dark episodes uncongrously related to Alice’s “miracle”.

It doesn’t sound that interesting, and… it isn’t. But it’s not half bad either, as the spirit/entity isn’t completely generic and the script could be far worse, but it’s also one of those horror movies that almost completely relies on lazy jump scares or noise distractions to keep some attention from the viewers. It’s that kind of mediocre horror film about possessions that at least has a narrative where shit happens at a decent pace, some good actors (it has Cary Elwes, Katie Aselton and Jeffrey Dean “Negan” Morgan in the cast) and quite good production values.

In a way, it’s the perfect blend of mediocre horror flick that’s not annoying, too slow or boring, but it’s also full of cliches, lacking any mystery and immediatly forgettable. Meh.

Arachnoquake (2012) [REVIEW] | Phantom Uses Rollout

In a sense, i’m way overdue for reviewing this, not that i was getting emails about it, but because i realize i should have seen and reviewed this before Lavalantula and the sequel, 2 Lava 2 Lantula, especially the first one, who in hindsight sound a lot like a parody of that one, but featuring the bus driver as lead instead of the washed up celebrity played by Steve Guttenberg (and yes, that movie realized the irony in that casting), just taking place in New Orleans instead of California and this time the spiders are coming out due to an earthquake caused by fracking, instead of being long lost cousins of Phantom incased in magma for millions of years that woke up and started the eruption.

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Anaconda (1997) [REVIEW] | Snek of Darkness

As following decades raised the bar for ridiculousness (quality not so much) in B-movies, newer generations of genre cinema might look back at late 90s/early 2000s killer animals movie and wonder how could people be satisfied with just regular animals like snakes and sharks, why the anaconda doesn’t summon galestorms and unites with other anaconda to become a giant monster bigger than a japanese city… or its “ready to be rampaged on” scale model.

What does get passed for sure is how crappy the effects are, and i can’t honestly sit here and lament the lack of a modern Anaconda reboot (though it’s apparently in the works), as its sequels aren’t exactly.. remembered or discussed as of today, and most of the series’ legacy i feel is the terrible CGI of Anaconda 3… and it eventually crossing over with the Lake Placid franchise, so all in all it did manage to carve its own place in the killer snakes movie niche.

But i’m not here to look at the franchise as a whole, we will eventually get to all the follow-ups, today we’re giving a look at the original Anaconda movie from 1997, directed by Luis Llosa, and see why it’s has become a cult classic b-movie of sorts in time.

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R.I.P. Kentaro Miura

Just woke up to this horrible news.

We all joked about the endless hiatuses and how it looked like Miura could more easily die of old age before finishing the series due to very slow release of new chapters.

Even he did.

But apparently an aneurism at the aorta took him last night, at 54.

While i salute him and i do the notes of Susumu Hirasawa’s works based on Miura’s crowning achievement, i do HAVE to point out how the manga industry shouldn’t treat people like it does, like printing machines, and how sick is that fans themselves would rather drum up conspiracies or joke about them “wasting time” on a videogame or another series (in Miura’s case, The Idolmaster), instead of accepting that these slow release schedules it’s because manga authors are worked to burnout.

I mean, do i really have to bring up Hunter X Hunter and Togashi’s health, how he basically almost broke before finishing Yu Yu Hakusho, and that he basically has to fight his own humungous mental burden to make new chapters, before snapping back into a distressed, burnout state. Because you can’t “unburn” yourself easily, jesus.

So, maybe instead of just sharing how sad it makes to see your favourite author passing away, you can try NOT to side with the very industry that breaks them to the point of burnout of death. Or lament yourself how having to wait for new chapters is worse than 5 murders, and call people worked to the bone “lazy”.

Some (mostly) SPOILER FREE words about Castlevania’s Season 4 and the series as a whole

Since i don’t have time to review the whole series right now (maybe for october), i’ll just talk about Season 4 of Netflix’s Castlevania animated series in a less composed and more “first thoughts” kinda way.

One season with the tall task to basically undo the damage the crappy (and honestly problematic in handling its themes and issues) third season did, and keep in mind i didn’t even know of the allegations of Warren Ellis (the writer) being a sex pest when the third season hit, i found out a bit later, and sure as shit it didn’t make me like the absolute trainwreck Season 3 was.

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[EXPRESSO] Oxygene (2021) | Desperate Struggle

Just dropped on Netflix, Oxygen (or Oxygene, as it’s a french-american production) it’s the kind of movie with a fairly direct title and premise, as a woman awakens in a cryogenic capsule, completely unaware how she got there and who she even is to begin with, but soon learns the oxygen in the capsule is running low and struggles desperately to survive the mysterious situation, remember who she is and how she ended up there before it’s too late.

My first thought was “this does sound like a sci-fi variation on Buried”… but then i remembered i never actually got around to watch Buried, so goodbye to that comparison. Still, you can get around the general premise of struggling for survival while trapped or confined to a cage/box, it’s not original or trademarked, so let’s look at this movie on its own, even more since from renowed horror director Alexandre Aja (The Hills Have Eyes 2006, Piranha 3D, Horns, Crawl).

And while you can kinda tell this is from a director not ashamed to show graphic imagery, it’s not exactly a horror movie or an horror sci-fi, more a straight up sci-fi thriller, one that will take its time to “get into gear” from its not too interesting set-up, but it’s worth because it’ll gradually grab you more and more, as you – alongside the “amnesiac” protagonist – will learn what is actually going-on, and let’s just say it delivers quite a powerful twist, but also manages an amazing balancing act between being extremely bleak and sporting some positivity in spite of it all.

Melanie Laurent is also excellent in the role of “Liz”, which is good and vital since it’s mostly a one-woman show, but one incredibly well executed.

Very pleasantly surprised by this one, pretty good.

Recommended, indeed.

Alligator II – The Mutation (1991) [REVIEW] | Back To The Sewers

Another chapter in the accidental saga of Jaws rip-offs and their often interesting tales of genre producers basically kicking a young James Cameron out of the director’s chair, of people making movies about barracudas that actually just used them to trojan horse a completely different thriller plot, of alligators becoming giant in Chicago’s sewer system due to pharmaceutical experiments on dogs, and producers pestering poor Joe Dante into directing rip-offs of his own movies…

Once again we wander in the territory of “we wanna make another one and trick people into thinking it’s a sequel by slapping a number 2 and a subtitle on the title”, but i struggle to even justify this one’s existence. Sure, the first one ended with another baby gator being flushed down the same sewer, but usually you’d want to cash-in into a movie like this right away…. not 11 years later.

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