The Super Ninja (1984) [REVIEW] | “Do You Remember, The 21th Night Of September?” Ninjas

Since this is also kind of a “ninja month” for me, time to dwelve deep back into the cut n paste ninjaexploitation we love to discuss here so much…. or is it really this time?

I mean, the movie it’s called The Super Ninja( but you can also find it titled as “Ninja Force”), it does have a different and confirmed director name on both IMDB and the Hong Kong Movie Database, it does fit the bill of a primo subject for the “Godfrey Ho cut-n-paste” treatment… but it’s NOT mostly made out of a different yet similar Taiwanese or Korean chrime thriller, there’s no stock footage lifted.

So, did i make a mistake, assuming this was another Godfrey Ho/Joseph Lai joing when it’s a completely random, stock footage-free ninja flick from the era that just happened to exist and get paired with IFD Films International’s output of super cheap ninja regigs of older, random asian films about crime, guns, or whatever

Because it was distributed under the other company name by Ho and Lai, Filmark International… and then just watching will trigger every flight or fight response by ninja film buffs, because it looks, feels and it’s even edited like the cut-n-paste colored ninja collages, but there’s no recognizable name in the credits that would make the connections made sense and obvious.

Then i found the name “Thomas Tang” attached as producer even in the “recent” italian DVD release by Freak Video, and all made perfect sense, because that is one of Godfrey Ho many film pseudonyms, stuff like the beloved “Elton Chong”, BUT that credit was just added in the international releases because – as already said – Filmark distributed the thing.

Continua a leggere

Orcs! (2011) [REVIEW] | 3 Inches Of Snooze

Time to rummage through my B-movies DVD collection and pinch one out, in this case salvaging from one of the huge ass bookcase style holders Orcs!, a 2011 direct to video monster on the loose flick with a fantasy twist of sorts.

This time around it’s not mutated bears, cocained panthers, or landlubbing sharks running amok in a place, it’s the green, Dakka loving green boyz, that threaten to invade modern society starting from a US National Park, so it’s up to the resident Park Ranger, Cal Robertson, and his sidekick, Voluntary Cadet Hobie, to stop them hordes from leaving the park.

Sound like a fun little comedy horror B-movie, the formula it’s more than proven, have monsters invade and have two or more dorkuses left as humanity’s unlikely last stand, the cast being mostly made of people you’ve never heard or seen before it’s an acceptable risk and not damning in itself.

Continua a leggere

My Deer Friend Nokotan/Shikanoko Nokonoko Koshitantan (2024) [ANIME REVIEW] | … Once Bit My Sister

No comfy camping this time of year, we have a deer left to dispose of, so to speak, by following up my first impressions with a full lenght review on the anime adaptation of My Deer Friend Nokotan.

Might as well do it now, it’s about as timely i might care to review an anime series, and since City The Animation isn’t out yet, people might still be talking about this with posts on social media comparing to Nichijou, gotta get that engagement up in spite of reality, as in both “Nokotan” and “Nichijou” are similar in the sense they are both comedy slice of life non-sense anime series.

I’m gonna have to repeat this later too, but i feel it’s worth making this extra clear because people that like Nichijou and will be misled into watching this by Twitter dimwits and grifters that really want to make bank after letting people know they do pay for using Twitter.

(not calling it X, since at the time of writing and posting there’s an exodus from Twitter to Bluesky going on and “Muskardini” basically invites people to fuck off his SNS if you’re not a nazi, pedophile, and affiliated-adjacent garbage)

Continua a leggere

[EXPRESSO] Venom: The Last Dance (2024) | Knull In My Soup

Venom’s most likely uncanonical (for now anyway) adventures with his human host Eddie Brock come to an end in Venom The Last Dance, the third and final movie of the series, already prodiving something rarer than an unicorn for modern superhero films: closure.

Sure, they will most likely do some films about the Symbiotes or whatever later, but this one does actually close this storyline.

Speaking of which, we continue to follow Eddie and Venom’s escape from the authorities, now complicated by the army having captured the other Symbiotes in a hidden desert base, and especially by Knull, an imprisoned god that created the Symbiotes and is sending out monster aliens (called Xenophages) around the galaxy in order to find and retrieve the Codex, the only thing able to break him free.

That said, it’s a Venom film, meaning it’s a mess of garbage that somehow manages to work in spite of the many, many issues it has, and be entertaining enough, sporting a trashy 90s charm, and while The Last Dance’s plot feels more structured and focused (more than Let There Be Carnage), the humour is even worse (it’s funnier when it doesn’t mean to), the villain is easy to forget even exists, characters are prone to overconvenient bouts so the plot can continue, and while the new Symbiotes are cool, they don’t do much until the end.

On the flipside it’s not drawn out, it’s a film that goes by fast, maybe too fast, as it’s hard for anything of note to “sink in”, with the highlights being the Venom Horse and a hippie UFO believer than bring his family along for a road trip to Area 51, for what amounts to a somewhat generic ending to the series and about the same level of “quality” seen before.

The Spooktacular Eight #22: Wendigo (2001)

At the turn of the millennium, found footage horror was born and while it’s often a very divisive subgenre nowadays (as big budget companies co-opted it since it lowered the already low costs for horror films), it can’t be denied The Blair Witch resparked interest in urban legends, the lore of the suburbs or previously forgotten folklore myths, which affected even films not made in what now we call “found footage” or “mockumentary”.

This is i guess was the overall unspoken mood of the era, even though in this case director and writer Larry Ferdessen (1997’s Habit, the Until Dawn videogames, The Last Winter, Depraved) set out more to channel the 30s classic horror monster films (which the director himself confirmed are a great influence on his works) but in modern arthouse fashion, with a psychological horror thriller named after the mythical monster figure of Native American/First Nation folklore (Algonquian one, to be precise), of the titular Wendigo.

Continua a leggere

The Spooktacular Eight #20: Satan’s Blade (1984)

This is not any blade, old boring knife or fancy hookbill, this is Lucifer’s very own slashing “Miracle Blade as seen on TV” apparel, it’s the SATAN’S BLADE ©.

Once again a pick from my collection of Arrow Video releases of obscure slashers, this one being kinda unassuming, solid title aside, and one i’ve never heard before AV rereleased it with their usual quality restoration, sleek new cover artwork and bundle of extra contents.

Then again, it’s no surprise this is primo “never heard of the fucking thing” material for (re)discovery, as it comes with one of the classic production woes common to smaller/low budget films of the era, as in it was shot in 1980 at Big Bear, California, but wasn’t released until 1984.

So more regional US low budget slasher horror, which is almost guaranteed when digging deep in the layers of obscure and “actually obscure” slashers from the genre golden age.

Continua a leggere

The Spooktacular Eight #19: Dead Trigger (2017)

Generic zombie movie with Dolph Lungren?

What if it’s THAT and also a live action adaptation of a videogame you’ve never heard of?

YAY.

Even YAY-ier when the videogame is a generic as hell mobile free-to-play smarthphone FPS, generic but popular enough to get a sequel… and a live action film adaptation.

There is a bit of wit in the premise as yes, there’s the usual zombie apocalypse, but it leads to the government making a videogame about zombies in order to recruit the top-players for real life zombie massacring military exploits, as they need to cut through the undead hordes to reach some scientists that may have found a cure for the zombie virus.

So it’s kinda, a bit, kinda like Ender’s Game, but way stupider, and also not that original as i’m pretty sure there’s at least another movie made earlier, i think just called Hunting Grounds (my UK DVD release has it retitled as Zombie Hunters”), with the same “recruiting the gamers for fighting the supernatural menace”, though without embarassing Twitch channels.

I still have to got around to that so i can’t say for sure but then again need i recall the 2009 film called “Gamer”? Let’s just say the Dead Trigger film it’s not entirely original, regardless of how you slice it, who cares, i doubt many even knew Dead Trigger was originally a game to begin with.

And the “let’s recruit people that play VR games” angle really isn’t used in any interesting or significant way, only to get some stereotypes and random ass characters into the suicide squad in question, it becomes quickly showed aside because the movie it’s more interested in being an off brand Resident Evil wanna-be, and just incredibly generic as hell in all regards for a zombie flick.

Hordes of zombies that are not silent somehow managing to sneak up from nowhere to the back of an elite trained soldier when the script wants to kill him off (or bite him so we can have him sacrifice himself by being blown up with the zombies or some self-sacrifice shit)? Check.

Dumbass, stupid and flavorless characters? The inevitable, seen coming from miles away double-cross at the hand of the evil CEO of the multicorporation set on betraying everyone and sell the potential cure for the virus? A super-mutant fruit of the very same company’s experiments?

For a bonus round, there’s also a priest that believes the undead are a punishment from God, just to completely fill the cliches bingo card, the cornucopia of stock conflicts, betrayals and predictable plot twist that you can easily all imagine and easily guess with a high rate of success.

Acting is mediocre, with even the top named actors in it just doing the bare average, at best, the other ones not so much, but at times the special effects, even some of the gore is quite decent, honestly it’s not a bad production but most of the time it’s hard to forget you’re watching basically a lesser version in every regard of Paul. W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil live action films.

those weren’t really good movies either, but this is the bootleg version, the one with less money, lesser actors, lesser anything, really, making Dead Trigger the subpar movie you’d expect it to be, just subpar, not atrocious but one i would skip still, since it’s so tiresome in its predictability too.

Hilariosly though it ends with a cliffhanger ending, like yeah, mate, it’s a miracle this one got made, Dead Trigger 2 with Jason Statham isn’t gonna happen, not unless you get a lot more money on the project or if by the time it happens Staham won’t be senile, bored and/or strapped for cash enough.

[EXPRESSO] Never Let Go (2024) | Always sometimes monsters

After the flood crocodile horror bout of Crawl, Alexandre Aja returns with a new horror thriller, Never Let Go, a supernatural tale with a folkish horror bent that feels a little Bird Box and a bit of The Watchers, as it tells the tale of a family of three living deep in the woods, with the mother and children leaving the safe haven of their blessed home only with a rope tying them to the house, so that “the evil can’t get them”, as the mother -often seeing monstruous creatures lurking upon them – tells her sons.

As we learn more of the daily rituals and customs the family performs in order to survive deep in the woods, we start to wonder if this is just the extreme result of the mother being mentally ill or hallucinating after a trauma, alongside the younger brother, whom once stayed outside the house ropeless and never felt or saw the “evil”.

And it would have benefitted the movie if continued the mystery or opted for a different resolution, because the drama is intriguing, you wanna see where exactly this situation can lead as it becomes clearer this is most certainly the horrible and unwanted outcome borne out of motherly love and schizophrenic degrade.. but then in the final act the script retires to the obvious and expected “countertwist” we have seen coming and wished it didn’t do, kinda writing itself into a corner where it either that or feeling like the movie is “throwing away” its entire set up.

It’s a shame because the final act basically makes Never Let Go slide from “quite good” to “quite decent”, the performances and direction are great but the final nosediving into cliched territory, with a banal ending too… it’s quite frustrating.

Still worth checking out.

[EXPRESSO] Twisters (2024) | That Power Is Yet Unknown

I have to say, for generational reasons, i missed the time where this movie was so widespread, so i watched the 1996 original for the first time just hours before going into theathers to see this follow-up/stand alone sequel, simply called Twisters.

The original was a fun ride, full of hilarious characters played by an amazing cast, though the main focus where the admittely amazing special effects for 1996, and plain old tornadoes were enough to intrigue general audiences.

That said, there is a strangely refreshing quality today to the 90s style approach to disaster movies, even if it’s less “sequel” and more of a remake (a “remaquel”?), as there are parallels, some elements carrying over and characters having similar dynamics, and a similar premise of groups of “tornado hunters”, despite no returning characters from the 1996 movie.

It feels very 90s and it does harness the energy of the original for the most part, with good effects too, in general managing well to update the formula, but intriguingly the core plot actually tackles more how these natural disasters impact peoples’ lives, who’s actually profitting from these, etc.

It’s a shame the movie isn’t willing to concede some needed characterization, more depth to the themes, anything that detract from the “rollercoaster” type of entertaiment, i mean, climate change isn’t mentioned once, and the co-protagonist could almost be cut, as Glenn Powell’s amazing performance of “Tyler Owens”, the ringmaster of a hillbilly storm chasers posse, steals the show.

Twisters almost manages to marry these two different approaches to the formula, but kinda falls short, though in the end it’s still a more than decent movie, one that does feel like a modern take on Twister, even if a bit frustrating since it feels crutched by compromises because of its very legacy.

Zombie Shark AKA Shark Island (2015) [REVIEW] | #thesharksix

Of course this was already done, i would say i’m surprised it took so long for the obvious idea to actually materialize, but then again it came out in the mid 2010s, an all time high for cheap ass shark movies unafraid to lower the bar even further, this time with the brilliant “ “what if but zombies?” concept, but – again – we never had this specific flavor of shark movie, so whatever.

As even a blind rock could guess by now, it’s a TV movie for SyFy (retitled as Shark Island in some releases), and it’s from director Misty Talley, actually her first shark attack flick, before Ozarks Sharks/ Summer Shark Attack and Mississippi River Sharks (both previously featured here), but also starring Jason London, whom i guess he’s “shark movie borgeusy” since he also shows up in Dam Sharks, for one.

So we have all the ingredients for a mildly fun timewaster… and the result it’s exactly that.

I could end the review here, but lets talk about the plot, despite there being no real need to, since Zombie Shark it’s exactly what it says on the tin and what you’d think it would be.

Continua a leggere