The Mouse Trap (2024) [REVIEW] | Unhappy Mappy

I swore this off when it came out, even more since i did end up covering all the 3 fucking Popeye slashers that came out last year, but we’re getting at least one more of those, and apparently more of “Steamboat Willie as a horror movie” as a sequel for this was greenlit very soon (one month) after this one dropped in August 2024.

Plus this showed up today on my Amazon Prime Video feed, and since i’ve basically done the same with the Winnie The Pooh horror films, i guess it was indeed inevitable, so consider it a bonus review to excuse the Global Defence Force Tactics retrospective piece getting bumped to August.

I’ve already said a lot of what i thought about these kind of productions in my reviews of both the aforementioned Winnie The Pooh Blood And Honey films and the various Popeye slashers, but in case you weren’t aware, this is actually “patient zero” for this new trend among the bottom feeders of the indie horror scene, as in, waiting for a specific work’s copyright to expire and as soon as possible jump on its new public domain status to do a quickie cashgrab in the form of a cheap low budget slasher flick; the virus might mutate but so far this is the route chosen, as it’s easy, obvious and so brazenly shameless it will put eyes on your piece of shit.

More specifically, this exists because the famous Disney short featuring Mickey Mouse, Steamboat Willie, fell into the public domain on January 1, 2024, just that, meaning THAT Mickey Mouse’s appearance was “fair game”, not the other interpretations/designs/incarnations that followed, as Disney owns the copyright to those.

And Canadian filmmakers Jamie Bailey and Simon Philipps were eager to cash that “mouse money”, as they announced the film (as Mickey Mouse’s Trap, as if they ever expected that title to actually pass legit) on the very same day Steamboat Willie’s became public domain material.

More unbelievable was that this was supposed to get a theathrical release… it didn’t.

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[EXPRESSO] The Odyssey (2026) | Our 1UP Man

I will say that there are legitimate criticism to be made about this new Nolan adaptation of the greek epic, especially those about historical accuracy, in a movie that opts for a realistic war movie-ish tone…. but on the other hand, what did people expect when Anne Hathaway is Penelope and one of the first thing we saw about the film were those superhero style armors?

Since it not even a 3 hours long film, it doesn’t opt for a complete retelling, but in line with Nolan’s style, the whole thing is framed as “ memory box/machine” for Odysseus to unravel as he wakes up from 7 years of oblivion (as the lotus flowers he was fed make people forget) on Calypso’s island, this after ending the 8 year longs Trojan War via his wooden horse ploy, and had many adventures on his attempt to reach his home island of Ithaka.

There his wife, Penelope, has held off contenders to the throne for 20 years via a scheme, and his son, Telemachus, that still believes his father is alive, goes searching for him, while Odysseus himself comes home posing as a vagrant, only to prove his identity and slaughter the disrespectful contenders that leeched off his hospitality.

It does most of the expected stories of the epic, while taking various liberties (especially in the Polyphemus encounter) and arguably omitting a lot, but i’ll say that despite some flaws (the superhero style armours, trying to frame the Greek morality in a certain way, the Hollywood casting), Nolan’s The Odyssey does live up to expectations, delivering a powerful rendition of the poem in a way that calling “epic” does actually seem fit, it has that gravitas and majesty of the old Hollywood, it’s arguably one of Nolan’s best in a while too.

The Mysterious Island AKA Odysseus And The Giant Polyphemus (1905) [REVIEW] | Odeon Days

You know me, i’m not one to go try and please the algorhythm, and since there’s no really much in terms of full lenght features trying to adapt the whole Odyssey itself (there is a recent UK production called Itaka: The Return, but even that is mostly focused on the titular return of Odysseus at his home in Itaka after decades, and not much else)…… you know what, we’re going REALLY back this time around.

Not to the 70s miniseries for TV, back to the 1900s, when cinema was in its “puppet stage”… actually, more aptly it’s “parlor trick era”, since today we’re talking about one of the many films (by now not even registering as short films, or shorts) by the profilic primordial magician of cinema, Georges Meliès, which i feel needs no introduction, otherwise this will turn into an introduction to the early days of cinema, but basically, he was a magician in the literal sense, a stage magician but using film as his tool, and to which we owe a LOT of early cinematic special effects, which now look primitive, but sure as hell weren’t when people weren’t used to video footage of any kind.

For the time it must have felt like real magic, to say the least.

Even more impressive, Melies had been doing these films for a decade, so in a way it’s not too surprising this 1905 adaptation isn’t more remembered than his Voyage To The Moon or The Impossible Voyage, despite not being lost or anything like that, quite the opposite, since – as far as i know – this always appeared in the catalogues of production by Melies’ company, Star Films.

Sure as hell it doesn’t help that its original title was L’ilè De Calypso, literally “Calypso’s Island”, even less when it was sold internationally as The Mysterious Island, or given the subtitle of “Ulysse et le geant Polypheme”, Ulysses And The Giant Polyphemus.

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[EXPRESSO] Evil Dead Burn (2026) | Cthuga Chant

In other circumstances, i would lament the fact that an old franchise like Evil Dead or its name are being used for making new films unrelated to the old ones…. but in this day and age, this approach works, it doesn’t lock viewers into expanded universes continuites, and while it is a sequel to Evil Dead Rise, it doesn’t really depend on you having watched that, to the point this could be another stand alone sequel or reboot, and yet it would have fit being called Evil Dead.

Evil Dead Burn is about a young woman who has lost her husband, and after the funeral is meeting with her in-laws in a secluded house in the woods. The family reunion starts off glacial and tense at best, but goes quick south as the family members gradually start turning into Deadites….

The movie doesn’t reinvent Evil Dead as a formula, it has the nasty ass Deadites demons-undead fucks, the Necronomicon is involved too, there are chainsaws that you know will be used for lots of gore, and like Rise it involves family, though in this case it does so to tackle domestic abuse, familial dysfunctions and guilt-tripping…. and deliver a fuckton of very very nasty, over the top gore, with a bit of comedy to the delirium, not pulling any punches in any aspect.

Again, this movie isn’t trying to buck the “Evil Dead formula”, but it manages to give this Evil Dead film a slightly different feel, while balancing very well its elements, so gore never lacks its grisly punch, the comedic bits aren’t too clownish to undermine the nastiness of the violence or gore, we have likeable characters and yet never feel like we’re wasting time, as it’s all a costantly entertaining, retentless, fun, bloody damn good horror romp.

Cyclone (1978) [REVIEW] | #thesharklist

I’ve been putting off this one for years because of one specific aspect: that they killed a real dog for it, as i’ve heard this repeated on as a truth, and honestly that alone made me push it down the priority list, which might sound weird since i’ve seen a decent amount of cannibal movies, and i have pet turtles, to boot, which made that scene really hit me hard the first time around.

And i wasn’t really gonna google how a cooked dog looked like, so yeah….

Well, turns out after a bit of research that they didn’t actually kill a dog, and in a way i should have known, since Cyclone (also known as Terror Storm) is from exploitation sleaze extraordinarie Rene Cardona Jr., and while he did actually kill real sharks for Tintorera (and also he did immediatly jump on making a film adaptation of the Jonestown Massacre, remember)… once i saw the movie it’s obviously not the case, and the supposed “skinned dog” it’s a chicken, they edit in a way to make it look “real”… but if you actually stop to look at the way it’s edited it’s obviously not real, and the blood is so obviously fake stage blood, plus he’s holding the blade against the dog on the dull part.

I wanna believe Rene Cardona Jr. couldn’t get away with killing one of man’s best friends.

Yeah, regardless, this one is not for dog lovers…. well, unless you consider them a culinary treat to buy at a certain festival in Yulin.

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Shark Side Of The Moon (2022) [REVIEW] | #thesharklist

Asylum time!

Not any of their random ass fucking shark movies… one of their random ass shark movies that The Asylum was commisioned for the streaming service Tubi… okay this is new territory, in a way.

Okay, this is one where i’m not even sure if it’s a mockbuster of something, sure, it released in 2022 as Emmerich’s Moonfall… but the Asylum already did have time to made two mockbuster of that while it was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so it’s just them doing whatever random crazy bullshit they want.

Which could be fun, since it’s basically them doing a mash up of Iron Sky and Sharkman but with USSR-era man-shark hybrids living on the moon, and i think part of my brain shutdown just in writing that…. so it’s ironically promising, in a roundabout way.

It sound like a lot of random fun crap, what the company often… well, sometimes can excel at, it’s a crapshoot, a monkey feces throwing contest, creatively speaking.

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[EXPRESSO] Supergirl (2026) | Poco Lobo

Following the 2025 Superman reboot by James Gunn, we now have the spin-off/sequel-thing of Supergirl, about Kara-El, the cousin of Superman himself, as she is forced out of her drunkard-vomiting in the back of the space-caravan lifestyle when she defends a young girl in search of a mercenary or anyone able to kill the evil space brigand that killed her entire family, and said intergalactic thug almost “John Wicks” her dog, forcing Kara/Supergirl to track the bastard down so she can get the anti-venom she needs to save her dog Krypto, and aid the local girl along the way.

This brings the young girl and Kara to also stumble upon the legendary intergalactic bounty hunter Lobo (played by Jason Momoa)….

It’s a coming of age story of Kara actually becoming Supergirl, a relatively small side adventure for her which also gives us a bit more background on the fall of Krypton (in this continuity anyway), with relatively small scale, and its fine, i don’t think this was ever meant to be much more, though the script fails to capitalize on its themes of sisterhood, and it’s too bound to Superman, not just in the sense that Kara is made to be not that different character wise, but also how the film is directed by Craig Gillespie trying to imitate Gunn’s style.

And while it is a big cameo in the end, it’s undeniable that having Lobo helps a lot in making the film rise above general mediocrity, and you kinda wish he was given more space (shame they canned his movie), or that the movie actually made the emotional turmoil deliver the proper punch they are going for, which doesn’t quite do, but it’s still above average and there’s some fun action to it, making for a decent superhero film.

Slugs The Movie (1988) [REVIEW] | The Authority To Declare “Happy Birthday”

To complete the Naruto-esque animal trifecta goin on this month, we’re doing the “slug one”.

Well, re-doing, i’ve reviewed this.. more than 10 years ago, so i’m gonna give it a fresh rewatch, even if i do kinda remember some of its ultra-ridiculous scenes, it’s not every day you see shit like a killer slug being accidentally sliced and served into a salad, causing a man to vomit blood and overact so fiercely it could chew the scenery faster the aforemention, doped up aggressive slugs.

In a way it was bound to be a cult classic, since it’s directed by Juan Piquer Simon, a spanish exploitation film director that by then already directed not only the grindhouse slasher cult film Pieces, but also the superhero knock-off of Supersonic Man and the infamous ET rip-off, Pod People/Extraterrestrial Visitors, which was later made a cult classic when Mistery Science Theather got his hands on it, spoofing many scenes and in turn making that episode a cult classic of its own, with the “idiot control now” spoof song and the “Trumpy” riffing making it a must-see episode.

And no, the english title (the original Spanish one being “Slugs: Muerte Viscosa”, translating to “Slugs: Slimy Death”) of Slugs The Movie is oddly accurate, this is based on a book of the name same by Shaun Hutson that released in 1982.

in a way it was a well overdue (yet fitting in a stupid way) addition to the killer animals subgenre, since Frogs released a decade earlier, but unlike that one were the frogs were just one of the animals revolting against the humans, this is mostly about the titular animal, slugs, which are indeed an even more ridiculous creature to repurpose for a “nature revenge” B-movie.

Maybe even more than worms, like, regular ones, but i’m not gonna talk about Squirm.

Not today, at least.

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[EXPRESSO] Savage House (2026) | Duke It Out in YKS

18^th Centhury England, the country is swept by smallpox and Jacobin revolts, not that matters much to Chauncey Savage and Lady Savage, as they get their chance to rehabilitate the fallen house of Savage and its luster when they get news the Duke and Duchess will visit their house, rushing to host a perfect dinner night no matter what it takes.

I do find Savage House a delectable decadent period piece indeed, i think it’s a pretty solid film, yet i feel it does come off a bit short of what it sets out to be.

Aside from the narration that could have been cut almost entirely as it just explains the obvious, it’s kinda funny how the movie presents itself and starts off as a period black comedy ready to depict the decadence of the period in sordid detail…. yet it kinda forgets halfway through and it becomes a fairly typical Victorian era-set period drama about these horrible people being entertaining horrible people with their own schemes and goals.

Yes, occasionally we’ll get people interrupted mid-coitus or performing a rim-job, we’ll see the shit und piss, but – and i can’t believe i’m saying this – i feel the movie could-should have been way more nasty, the acting is good but it kinda goes into more typical period drama machinations and backstabbing with an occasional surreal flair that also isn’t strong or emphasized, like they wanted an arthouse-ish vibe but couldn’t actually committ to that or being peculiary weird or out-there.

It still remain grotesque enough to be interesting, but i feel it kinda loses itself at one point and could have been even better, or less “tame”.

It’s not quite The Favourite, but its a decent, solid effort that i do recommend seeing if you have the chance.

Final Verdict: Decaf

Snakes On A Train (2006) [REVIEW] | Poco-loco-motion

Since we took the opportunity to review Snakes On A Plane some time ago for the movie 20^th anniversary and the 4K UHD Bluray rerelease by Arrow Video meant to celebrate that, i guess it’s inevitable we cover the mockbuster version the Asylum cooked up the same year, as in, Snakes On A Train.

I mean, why not, i got the UK DVD release for peanuts years ago, might as well.

As with most of their mockbusters, the plot is legally distinct from the movie whose cottails they’re riding on, and just shares the same idea/copies the same gimmick, this time a public transport vehicle being filled with killer snakes, a train in this occasion as it’s cheaper to shoot.

In a way, this should have been a really fuckin easy one.

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