[EXPRESSO] Dangerous Animals (2025) | Three On A Sharkhook

New shark movie with a big budget, a widespread cinematic release and it’s not a Jason Staham trashfest romp, another gonzo shark movie about an Esper Shark (TM) or something done with lunch money-allowance budget?

What has the gone world to?

Apparantly something good and conceptually simple, i guess that’s why it took so long for someone to make a good shark movie that also plays the “Uno reverse” card on the concept without overcomplicating it or being outlandish.

Meaning that Dangerous Animals is about a serial killer that hides his murderous calling by posing as a shark cage experience activity for tourist in Australia (which fittingly all good modern shark movies seem to hail from), killing people and filming as he feeds them to the sharks.

His next victim is a surfer girl, Zephyr, living a nomadic sort of lifestyle, whom finds herself kidnapped by the killer in preparation for his macabre rituals…

it’s so simple that a shark movie like this hasn’t been made before, but on the flipside it’s actually pretty good, thanks to a good budget, very solid acting and good characters, with a resilient leading lady/final girl and a good psychotic villain that does have a humourous side that actually makes him more believable as he use it alongside some charm to better camouflage his true self, without going overboard and making him feel cartoony or excessive.

It’s also pretty gory without going into full splatter territory, going for a more realistic tone to the chases and attempts of his victims to escape his grasp, making for a very tense film that is less predictable than one would expect, yet very satisfying even when it hits the expected notes, one also basically devoid of filler, exactly as long as it needs.

Pretty good.

Demon Slayer – Kimetsu No Yaiba: The Hinokami Chronicles PS4 [REVIEW] | Content Slayer

Since SEGA announced its clear intent to unsurprisingly milk the series for all its worth and do so before the 3 anime films hit (after all, this isn’t Dragon Ball or one of Jump’s big shots, so after it ends interest will peter out faster than some of you might imagine) with a Hinokami Chronicles 2 announced earlier this year and having just come out for all consoles (Switch aside), i figure we talk about the first game, which had been quite elusive to secure at a reasonable price, at least it was in my region for a good while.

The PS4 version to be precise (played on a PS4 Pro, to be even more precise), all updated and with all DLC characters snatched on sale, btw.

Here it’s where i usually discuss the series/source it’s based on, which might seem silly right now, since Demon Slayer/Kimetsu No Yaiba has been pretty popular, even outside of the hardcore anime circles, but i feel it’s a series that got extremely lucky, for many reasons, and one where the anime had to do a lot of legwork to popularize it, which in itself is kinda par for the course, the usual for new shonen series that become the next big thing, but let’s just say ufotable wasn’t served “prime Kobe beef” material to work with…

My feelings for the series as a whole aside, let’s discuss plot.

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Shark Warning (2024) [REVIEW] | #sharkapalooza

Due to rescheduling issues i noticed Sharkapalooza was one movie short, so i figured i’d review one of my recent “sight unseen and cheap” DVD pickups, Shark Warning, from last year….

…..and it’s an Asylum joint.

I literally paused my Donkey Kong Bananza game to see this, no that i expected this movie to be good.

The odds were never on my favour, i guess this one of their generic shark films since there was no big budget shark film released that year… was it? I mean, we got Under Paris via Netflix, but this is not a mockbuster of that, and some other shark movies (like No Way Up) but nothing big budget or cinema bound for the Asylum to try make some cents out of its reflected glory.

Doesn’t matter anyway, so what kind of shark movie are we getting?

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L’Ultimo Squalo AKA Great White (1981) [REVIEW] | #sharkapalooza

Having mentioned this before at least twice, i feel this year is the one we finish off the vintage italian Jaws ripoff, after reviewing Cruel Jaws before, it’s time to tackle Enzo Castellari’s L’Ultimo Squalo (literally “The Last Shark”), released in 1981 but better known in the US and internationally as Great White. … or it was until Universal slapped the filmakers with a lawsuit on grounds of it being too similar to Steven Spielberg’s Jaws.

So it was pulled from cinemas in North America, and this is way it gained this mystique, even more because it was never released on home video there until 2013’s RetroVision DVD release, which is Region 0 and comes with the documentary featurette as an extra. Obviously this wasn’t the case here in Italy, as we did get the movie rereleased, but we didn’t get much better treatment, as the latest Italian home video release is a 2007 DVD one that doesn’t even have the full cut of the film, as the usual versions going around doesn’t have 5 minutes of – mostly – gore.

So AS USUAL we gotta import a UK or German Blu-Ray edition of our own genre films because they’re better in every single way.

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[EXPRESSO] 28 Years Later (2025) | Mighty Morphin Jimmy Rangers

Almost 20 years of absence, this seminal zombie series is back in cinemas with 28 Years Later, actually the first of a new trilogy that brings back Danny Boyle in the directing chair and Alex Garland as screenwriter …. and indeed it immediatly feels like a continuation of 28 Days Later and what most feel 28 Weeks Later should have been, as it expands upon this perpetually quarantined UK, where the “rage virus” started spreading and turning people in feral fast running zombies.

This time we focus on a community that lives in a secluded island, but has the tradition of sending teens in a coming of age hunting trip inland (through a tiny strip of land that disappears with high tides), and its the turn of Spike, a 12yo boy reluctant and worried about his mother’s ailing health, for this rite of passage, with the help of his father, showing him “the ropes”.

This experience brings him new wonders and horrors, forcing him to confront his fears and eventually take drastic measures, exploring the zombie ridden inland territories and confront everevolving strains of Infected, maybe in the hope he can find answers and a cure for his mother’s illness and dementia….

It does expand upon the world, the zombies ecosystem, it does deliver on the gore and brutality all around, there are some good characters, but it has some questionable choices, like the second act development that feels a bit strange and almost random, but it leads to some great scenes and the movie it is quite good that i’m willing to overlook that (alongside a slightly redundant feeling due to the genre being milked dry in the last 2 decades of zombie media) and even a Power Ranger-esque final scene with dudes dressed like Tiger from Ninja Terminator.

Tiko And The Shark (1962) [REVIEW] | #sharkapalooza

Oldies time, as i’ve not yet run out of pre-Jaws shark films to cover, apparently,

And it’s oddly a wholesome one, too, as Tiko And The Shark (Ti-Koyo E Il Suo Pescecane) is the age old tale of a bond between a boy and his…. shark. Yeah.

An Italian-France coproduction by Titanus filmed in french Polynesia (the Taomatu island, specifically) and loosely based on the novel “Ti-Koyo And His Shark” by Clement Richer (though basically rewritten by Italo Calvino to be more of a fable here), the film is indeed about the friendship between Ti-Koyo, borne into a Pacific island village of fishermen, whom as a child finds a baby shark while fishing, dubbing it “Manidù”. Some years later, both grown up, they reunite and fish for oyster pearls in a secret laguna that was also their refuge when they were younger.

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Maneater (2022) [REVIEW] | #sharkapalooza

Some “fresh” meat from…. 3 years ago. Yum.

Another one i randomly bought new for cheap on DVD via Amazon, sight unseen, because my hunger for shark movies it’s apparently endless.

Written and directed by Justin Lee, Maneater’s plot is pretty much the usual affair when talking modern shark movies: a group of friends go on vacation, board a boat that brings them to a remote deserted island where to get their party on, shark happens and it’s one that developed a knack (leave Mark Cerny alone) for human flesh.

This time we don’t have teens, but people in the 30s that have been married or just concluded a long education path, which is something different, i guess, especially since the movie doesn’t have the asshole that fucks everything that moves, or cheating bullshit to pad out the human drama parts, with a subplot involving an old fisherman that harbours vengeance as great white sharks took not only his wife but also recently his daughter.

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[EXPRESSO] The Legend Of Ochi (2025) | Monkey Goblins Go Home

You know what, i’m not that surprised that the best A24 distributed film i’ve seen this year is an adventure family film (yeah, from A24), and not another half baked ramshackled “eat the rich” horror film for the pile, it’s something different, and honestly i was intrigued since the trailer.

Set in a little secluded rural island in Carpathia, Legend Of Ochi tells the story of Yuri, a farm girl that has been taught since little to not go out after curfew, as the woods not only hide bears and wolves, but a weird type of monkey-ish looking creatures dubbed “Ochi”, that the children are taught to fear, with her father even training the local children to hunt the Ochi.

But when one days Yuri find an injured child Ochi, she brings it along with her and goes on an adventure to bring it back home to its kin and – mostly – its family..

It’s a family film that harkens back to the 80s strand, especially Spielberg’s, but also The Dark Crystal, The Goonies, has definitely some recognizable “80s DNA” all around, BUT it also manages to make it all feel fresh, as it’s not a vision enslaved to blindly recreate those movies, the template it’s familiar and predictable, but the lore and the style is unique enough to set it apart from another cynical attempt at milking the 80s nostalgia cow it sounds like.

It’s beautifully shot and presented very well, it’s not padded at all, and honestly i was beyond impressed by the effects for the Ochi creatures, as there’s allegedly not an ounce of CGI, it’s just puppetry, god-tier puppetry that it actually makes one genuinely wonder “how they do that?”, capturing the often fabled feeling “movie magic”.

That alone is already a miracle in itself.

[EXPRESSO] Kaiju No. 8: Mission Recon (2025) | Kompilation Kaijus

I usually rag on compilation films for anime series… for the obvious reasons, but i did watch Kaiju 8 Mission Recon it because i was curious about the manga but i never had time to check that or the anime out,, so i guess compromise it is.

Speaking of, the premise it’s set in a sci-fi future where academies train young people into anti-kaiju troops to dispose of the endless hordes of big ass monsters attacking Tokyo on a daily basis.

The protagonist, Kafka, actually a man in his 30s, working on cleaning up the kaiju remains and debris, after he flunked his entry exam as a soldier, but one day, while on the job, he’s infected by a parasite that lets him turn into a humanoid kaiju…

Obviously one of these new series that rose up after Attack On Titan success, even if the similarities are only superficial , as Kaiju 8 is more inspired by Ultraman (and a bit by Patlabor) than anything else, and the tone is more akin to One Punch Man than AoT… and honestly i think it’s pretty fun.

Nothing we haven’t seen before, but done fairly well, the animation is quite good, the action is solid, the kaiju designs are pretty cool, the cyberpunk aesthetic is well done, and i do like the protagonist being an older man than usual (despite being a teenager at heart) not just used for comedy bits.

The new material is a post-credits slice of life bonus episode about the other characters’ day off duty, which i feel is needed because these recap films of shonen battle manga series usually sacrifice most non-action scenes, especially if they aren’t about the protagonist.

Hope i can set some time aside to see Season 2 when it airs later this year.

Trollhunter (2010) [REVIEW] | #giantmonstermarch

Aside from the 2022 Troll monster film on Netflix, there’s not much in the way of troll movies outside of the overcovered Troll 2 (and it’s “prequels” and “sequels” also mostly made by Italian directors and actors), even more so if we’re going for proper giant sized trolls, not the tiny ones, or the Dreamworks animated film series based on those old troll toys with the hair, for that matter.

Also, i had this on the backburner for a while, and it also lets me cover of my lest liked genres: the found footage mockumentary.

Directed by André Øvredal, nowadays better known for The Autopsy Of Jane Doe, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark and The Last Voyage of The Demeter (with an upcoming adaptation of the horror videogame Bendy And The Ink Machine) here at his second feature lenght film, one more close to home for him, as it dwelves with the more well known beast of Norwegian folklore: the troll.

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