Zoombies 2 (2019) [REVIEW] | Aardvark Undead Attack

Apparently the first one did alright from a financial standpoint, so 3 years later, we got a sequel, also directed by Glenn Miller.

And by sequel The Asylum means adding a number to the title, because despite the first one doing sequel bait at the very last second, this doesn’t follow up on the adventures of Kifo, undead silverback gorilla with a broken heart and rotting flesh, no. Guess trying to give the zombie gorilla a Frankenstein’s monster style “vengeance arc” was too much effort, so they didn’t do that.

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Zoombies (2016) [REVIEW] | A Friend That’s Good With The Dead

Even with a title like this, you wouldn’t expect the movie to basically shit itself in the first scene, which happens to be a fictitious commercial for an endangered species zoo called “Eden Wildlife Zoo”, an advertisment that looks it was made in Windows Movie Maker… in the early 2000’s, by people that barely knew what a computer was.

I can’t stress how childish and amauterish this is, even for The Asylum, who in this case must have allocated 100 bucks for editing and production, combined, given how much animal footage seems just ripped from free libraries or used what one of the employee recorded when it took a family trip to the zoo. It looks like they’re playing a joke, but they’re not, and in the first 2 minutes they already shit down their own pants. But fear not, the CG monkeys you seen in the first 5 minutes are somehow worse, i – almost – can’t believe it. I’ve seen snippets from Primal Park, so i can’t really call it “the worst”, but still, it’s really shitty regardless, almost impressively so.

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Bunnyman Vengeance (2017) [REVIEW] | The Final Chapter

The third and final movie in the Bunnyman trilogy (which i couldn’t even import on DVD, and i’m not using a VPN because Amazon didn’t licensed it on Amazon Video for my country), according to the IMDB description, and so far this is still true. I think it’s safe to say we can all move on after this, and i will not have to review Bunnyman Takes Manhattan in 2021. Hopefully.

So yeah, the final one, the final Bunnyman movie, though the title confuses me.

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Bunnyman 2 AKA The Bunnyman Resurrection (2014) [REVIEW] | He Never Died

First off, let’s clarify, because this is yet another series with confusing alternative titles.

The first movie’s original title was just “Bunnyman”, and was kept in the film itself even in the UK DVD release, sold under the title “The Bunnyman Massacre”.

This one is a “direct” sequel, with its original title being “The Bunnyman Massacre” (with a more appropriate working title of “The Bunnyman 2”), and with an UK DVD release as “The Bunnyman Resurrection”. Because we are somewhat affectionate, almost nostalgic of this awful old trend of titles for movie sequels, laughable but oddly comforting in its own crap way.

Even if they don’t fit the movie itself, Bunnyman didn’t die at the end of the first one.

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Bunnyman AKA The Bunnyman Massacre (2011) [REVIEW] | The Ice Scream Bunny

Sometimes you get surprised by these low budget slasher flicks you can find on amazon for pennies. Sometimes.

But most of the times you get shit like The Bunnyman Massacre, which works quite hard to be really boring, given nobody expects too much out of a movie called “The Bunnyman Massacre” (technically just “The Bunnyman”, but the UK DVD title is better, and more appropriate, even if would become accidentally confusing), just some shlock for a movie night with friends, but at least entertaining shlock.

In case the title (or the title with a person in bunny costume holding a chainsaw on the cover) isn’t indicative enough, this is yet another Texas Chainsaw Massacre rip-off, one so damn cheap it skimps on showing gore. I could end the review here, but this one deserves a full “spanking”, and not just because i – somehow – expect to see Dead Alive/Braindead/Splatters levels and quality of gore.

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Oneechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers WII [REVIEW] | Carpal Zombie Syndrome

As i said in the review of Bikini Samurai Squad, D3 Publisher released that and this Wii exclusive the same year in western territories. Aside being a fairly logical choice to do a “double feature” with games clearly drawing heavily from exploitation cinema of the 70s, these two games happen to be sequels, main installments in the Oneechanbara, as Bikini Zombie Slayers (“Oneechanbara 4”) is set after Bikini Samurai Squad (“Oneechanbara 3”), and features all characters from that game.

The story itself… it’s hard to say it has a plot. I played it years ago and completely forgot anything about the plot, so i had to google it and even that didn’t yield any synopsis, so i had to bust out the game’s physical manual, the old, old school way. One that would never fail… if they actually print any kind of story in the booklet to begin with.

They didn’t in this case.

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Oneechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad X360 [REVIEW] | I Spindle On Your Grave

To celebrate the western release of Oneechanbara Origins coming October 14th, let’s look back at a couple more titles from the series (i have already reviewed the first 2 games, if you’re interested). Due to even more atrocious time costraints, i won’t be reviewing Oneechanbara Z or it’s sequel, not this year.

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[EXPRESSO] Jack In The Box (2019) | Spring Daemon

I’ll be honest, i walked into this one expecting a turd of sorts.

I mean, it’s not like this promises more than it does, it’s called Jack In The Box and it’s about an evil Jack In The Box. As in, the clown in the box is evil, because it can’t be a pierrot or an evil possessed figure from Commedia Dell’Arte, something that isn’t your usual choice of evil clown. Then again, this specific angle isn’t overdone… i think.

The plot deals with a new museum curator, Casey, arriving in the little english town of Hawthorne, and while wading through the “lost and found” inventory, he notices an odd box with some mystical engraving, appearing to be a creepy jack-in-the-box toy from the victorian era. But as more mysterious murders keep occurings, the more Casey learns of old tales related to the “jack-in-the-box” being coinceived to contain and unleash demons, and of a previous murder related to the box…

Directed and written by Lawrence Fowler, who previously directed some shorts and something called Curse Of The Witch’s Doll, which looks as generic as this one. And there is a sequel to this one already in pre-production, set to release in 2021.

And….i’m not against a sequel, there is something here (even if the “jack-in-the-box” demon lore is a bit silly, just a tad), and for a relatively low budget independent british horror film, this is definitely more than presentable for theathers, the monster design, make-up and effects are quite convincing, and the museum setting is a nice touch. Acting is decent, to boot.

Shame the direction and script are not as strong, kinda generic, pedestrian at times, with some twists seen coming a mile away, flashbacks to things that happened 10 minutes before, and an ending that aggressively sets up a sequel.

[EXPRESSO] #Alive (2020) | SNS Zombies

No cinema for me this week, so guess i’ll dust off Netflix, see and review this new korean zombie movie, which comes with the hashtag already built in the title. The plot sees a streamer in Seoul waking up and logging on to do some online gaming (he’s shown playing PUBG), only to hear people chatting of something weird being broadcast on tv, and soon enough even in the very streets below him, as a zombie virus of sorts spreads.

He’s forced to barricade himself home, trying to use his tech savviness to understand what is exactly going on outside, all made harder by scarce rations and social medias (or the reception for phones) not working most the time.

It’s better than i expected, and being set in “the now” you get to see fun stuff like zombie (of the running and “contorsionist” variety) getting attacked by drones’s eliblades, and there are some cool action scenes, production values are fairly decent-good, same for the special effects. Problem is, there isn’t too much to the plot, there’s enough, but nothing special, and after a fairly fast start, the movie suffers from pacing problems.

I understand it would be more realistic to see characters barricade themselves into their apartments, and while this is to feed into the “surviving days and days into a zombie apocalypse”, this kinda backfires, as the plot doesn’t really moves forward or backwards, and it’s not until the third act where it picks up again. Thankfully the characters are likeable, given how much time you spend watching them try to communicate or concoct a plan, but they’re not good enough to gloss over the fairly typical twists and turns of the narrative. Not even with some cool “hip” music.

Decent, worth a watch, for sure, but nothing special.

[EXPRESSO] The Vigil (2019) | Ghost Orthodox

Directed and written by Keith Thomas (in his feature directorial debut here), this Blumhouse production tells of Yakov, a down on his luck fellow, who is contacted by a rabbi of his former Orthodox Jewish community, offering him 400 dollars to execute the rite of “shoimer”, consisting in keeping vigil to a recently deceased man, comforting his soul with prayers for a whole night.

The person who was supposed to keep vigil run away, but Yakov isn’t worried, as he has performed the rite a lot in the past, so he accepts, and enters the house of the departed, the recluse and odd Ruben Litvak, where the old widow is also resting. But as the night proceeds, strange events start happening,Yakov starts learning more of Ruben, his past, and demons from his own past start haunting him…

It’s an interesting premise that delivers an intriguing angle to this type of possession/exorcism movies, has a likeable main lead, great atmosphere and suspense, with an interesting choice for the entity (taken from Jewish folklore and demonology, i assume), and some ok scares, even though they’re definitely not the selling point. A simple premise that makes full use of the small house scenario, executed with elegance, sadly a bit lacking in the story department, or in the backstories to the characters (the Holocaust is involved), which are not bad, but are definitely the less inspired parts of the movie, the more typical.

Overall, though, The Vigil it’s more than sum of its parts, and definitely a good, really solid supernatural horror, a chiller, to be more specific, with some good visuals that mines religious elements from a different religion, instead of some brand of Christianity, and from a fairly ignorant prospective, they make for something you don’t see represented often in horror.

Recommended.