[EXPRESSO] Puella Magi Madoka Magica Walpurgisnacht Rising (2026) | ♫ ..in the back of my Dragula ♫

It has literally been 13 years, but after it finally released in Japanese theathers this late August, the fourth Puella Magi Madoka Magica film, Walpurghisnacth Rising, it’s here.

And by “here” i mean i managed to see its special preview screening at this year’s Lucca Comics & Games (one of the biggest Italian anime-nerd-geek conventions), this one somehow i managed to, unlike the one for Godzilla Minus Zero.

I’m gonna try to keep things as spoiler free as possible, despite this being the 4^th film in the series.

After the twist ending of Rebellion, the new status quo created by Homura, now “recruiting” random girls into becoming magical girls via the Lizard Phone, is menaced by some unknown new enemy related to the entity of Walpurgisnacht, forcing the magical girls to even build fragile alliances with Homura, as she confronts specters of a past that shouldn’t exist.

Despite this never being touted as the final film in the Madoka Magica series, i can see why one might think so… but it’s so fuckin not, let’s just put it that way.

And frankly i do not mind one bit because it’s good, very damn good, the animation is astounding as ever, the new characters are fun, the narrative engrossing, keeping you intrigued with an increasingly twisted world, lots of action, incredible visuals, revelations and twists, yet you don’t really notice how this is the biggest Madoka Magica movie in runtime too… mostly.

I still say it’s pretty dang good, loved it, the ending and resolution feels quite satisfying in itself, but its also a case of answering many questions only to raise many new ones since there are new concepts, new characters, the lore builds and expands, also to tease a new film, hopefully one we get to see before 2050.

Platformation Time Again #11: Croc 2 PS1 | GBC

HISTORY

In a way, it’s no surprise that Croc got a sequel, as in the manual of the first game it had a “Croc II” logo and a Christmas 1998 release…. which it didn’t meet, instead releasing in summer of 1999, but make no mistake that Fox Interactive was indeed banking a lot on Croc, as just the PS1 version of Legend Of The Gobbos sold 3 milions, and was Argonaut’s most profitable title.

They were banking on it so such that in America the game was part of a cross-promotion with Nabisco, a candy company, and its Life Savers line, which in the US version replaced jelly bounce pad items, alongside 6,5 millions of wrappers with the Croc 2 logo, and Fox Interactive indeed spent a lot in advertising the game, as it included regular print ads, the aforementioned in-game product placement, and even a sweepstakes that had prizes like Playstation consoles but mostly a family trip to Australia…. dunno why Australia, of all places.

Can’t say i’ve ever seen those candies ever in my life here, and i assume they weren’t sold in Europe as a whole either because they don’t appear in the PS1 PAL version, nor i recall them having a similar marketing campaign here, just the regular magazine ads and some TV spots, maybe

Again, for clarification, i’m using my own PS1 copy of the game i bought more than a decade ago to base the review on, but while we now know the remaster is releasing the 29th of October, as in today, at the time of writing they didn’t gave out any real date (just late 2026), so i’ll just do an EXTEND review for the remastered… eventually.

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Riecco Aborym (2007) [REVIEW] | Cross Of The Seven Pences (free Talisman inside!)

I wasn’t expecting to do this review until next year, but i was able to luck out and find in early October an used Bluray of that very rare release of Cross Of The 7 Jewels, which includes as an extra the follow up short film Andolfi made in 2007, Riecco Aborym (which translates to “Aborym is back at it again”, more than “Aborym’s Return”) which has been shown at some regional horror cinema festivals in Italy, but never received a proper release or is officially available to stream, even unofficially i couldn’t find it for the life of me.

It’s early Halloween magic, so let’s make an extra unscheduled effort and conclude the tale of the Neapolitan werewolf man fighting the Camorra in the name of love.

Again, as i said at the end of the Cross Of The 7 Jewels review, i think its on us how this short film even came to be, because it became a popular movie to review and mock in the Italian Youtube scene, an internet sensation (thank to peer-to-peer file sharing making this easier to unearth from the folds of history), so i guess Andolfi noticing how suddendly people were talking about his movie, and decided to “do a sequel” 20 years later.

So yeah, in this way i guess it was ahead of the “legacy sequels” curve…. and only that because this isn’t even a sequel.

Heck, i’d argue this isn’t even cinema.

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The Spooktacular Eight #39: La Croce Dalle 7 Pietre/Cross Of The Seven Jewels (1987)

I wanted to do something special for the werewolf entry of this year’s Spooktacular Eight… and then realized i had the perfect movie hidden under my nose, in a way, because in anno domini 1987, in Italy released La Croce Dalle Sette Pietre (lit “The Cross Of The Seven Jewels/Stones”)….. and by that i do mean it got a theatrical release.

In just 2 theathers in the entire frigging country, but if you were lucky/unlucky enough and you lived in Sicily back in 1987 you could actually go to the cinemas and witness what would become hailed as one of the worst Italian movie ever made, ever.

Then again, an Italian horror movie with werewolves, satanic orgies, and the camorra (a Southern Italian specific mafia-style criminal group originating from Neaples) was always gonna be a cult trash film, especially if made on the cheap and treated as an embarassing relic to disregard.

And with good reason, this is some primo trash that feels made for retrospective reviewers to unearth and poke fun at…. which the movie does deserve, because it’s so unbelievably bad it’s downright magical, it’s that kind of “so bad it’s good” you can never forget.

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The Importance of Being Meguca

No review today, i’m bracing myself for Halloween, and maybe i’ll be able to do see a special preview screening, instead of the Godzilla Minus Zero one i simply won’t be able to attend.

Speaking of which, i was hoping to see the new 4K restoration of Ken Russell’s The Devils arrive here too… and i notice too late it did got a single one in a nearby arthouse cinema, i kinda want to kick myself.

SIGH.

That said, there won’t be many EXPRESSO reviews this week, and i’m not sure i will be able to post more or less daily like i did this… okay, most likely i won’t after a certain point in early November, but as i said before, it won’t affect any of the planned and already completed reviews for the month, same for December.

And yes, i already reviewed Wildwood… but please, please, go see it, even if you don’t care about “kids film”, without hyperbole its is one of the best films i’ve seen all years, if i made top 10 it would go on 2026’s best.

[EXPRESSO] Wildwood (2026) | The Cracked Brass Bells Will Ring

I was more than ready to see Laika newest film, i wanted to since the trailer was out, i was gonna support them anyway as they’re one of the very few good things to come out of nepo babies using decadent amounts of money for the actual arts, keeping stop motion animation alive still, even if we already know these movies are never making back the budget.

But frankly i was honestly surprised by Wildwood, like, damn, even putting aside how this one has been in development for 15 years and it shows, it’s absolutely stunning to look at.

Set in Portland, the plot sees a 13yo girl, Prue, left to attend his baby brother Mac at home, but she doesn’t listen, brings him alongside in a cart, meets her nerdy classmate Curtis, and has her brother snatched by a pack of crows, so the two chase to the mist shrouded Forbidden Forest where she got told to never ever go, found a mysterious way in, entering a world full of magic, talking animals and factions that were on the verge of war, getting caught up in this against her will.

It’s remarkable not only how this looks even better and is pure delight for eye of the stop motion aficionados (even by Laika’s own high standards), but how the apparently generic “fantasy forest fable” theming is used to develop an interesting world, with the everything from infantry wolves, talking owls, barbarians and the main antagonist, the forest witch, which is an excellent tragic villain, matched by some really likeable and well rounded protagonists and secondary characters alike.

There’s no dead air, all the way through its + 2 hours runtime, it’s also surprisingly funny, witty and willing to be “brutal”, avoiding easy kids films’ cop-outs.

PLEASE, just go see it.

The Spooktacular Eight #38: Curse Of The Golem AKA It! (1967)

Using this title because – like others realized before me – the original one, It!, was kinda ass and so generic, that even before you could have people confused with the 1990 adaptation of Stephen King’s story, you could have it confused for It! The Terror From Beyond Space from 1958.

No one was gonna confuse the film with 1989’s Soviet satyrical comedy history drama by Sergei Ovcharov, Ono, which also translated to “It”, but then again this is is why it’s better you check before giving your movie a stupid ass and generic title that the marketing tried to spin as a thing necessary to putt butts in seats or some crap like that.

I’d suggest you don’t call your new horror film IT, but nobody would anymore, unless for the inevitable remake of Pennywise story in a couple of decades.

Thankfully for the coulrophobics, Curse Of The Golem (also called Anger Of The Golem for some extra confusion) isn’t about clown or clown-shaped entities, it’s about a very classic monster that was also adapted for cinemas (and even had a series of sorts) well before Frankenstein (which also arguably inspired), the Golem from Jewish folklore.

And while i feel it’s famous enough that i don’t need to explain what a golem is… long story short, it’s a humanoid automaton sculpted from clay or mud and animated via a magic, and while there are many variations of the myth, the classic version has the golem created by Judah Loew, a rabbi in 16^th centhury Prague, using clay and put into the golem’s mouth a slip of paper with the name of God written into it, to give the statue life and so it could defend the other Jews of the Prague ghetto from persecution or straight up pogroms.

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[EXPRESSO] Street Fighter (2026) | Human Killing Machine

FIY, i never saw the old 1994 live action adaptation (or the 2006 one).

Still, there is something to be said about modern videogame films somehow failing to adapt the source material, getting lost in bullshit of their own making.

It’s just tiresome to see the new Street Fighter live action reboot catch every rake in the face like Sideshow Bob.

Despite on paper adapting the plot of Street Fighter II, this story focuses on Ryu and Ken being trained together as martial artist, like brothers, until a tragic event sets them apart, but now, with Lord Bison helming the second World Warrior Tournament, they are now bound to meet again….

it’s not bad per sé, but the narrative doesn’t move, as it stumbles drunkenly to setpieces from setpieces for 2 hours, with no focus to anything (we just outright skip big chunks of the tournament), hyperactive editing and weird choices that let you see very little of the otherwise entertaining fight scenes, all leading up to a “stop”, overconfidently setting up the sequel instead of writing a third act.

it has the same kinda of nostalgia (just swapping the ’80s for the ’90s) of the recent Masters Of The Universe film, and the same tone issues, flipping constantly from a quippy comedy where they forgot to put actual jokes in, or being sincere, in a way that neither works, with the actors either sleepwalking their parts or going full ham.

the best thing this movie has, the anime styled flashbacks are cool… just makes you wish the entire movie was made that way.

This isn’t awful, i did enjoy it at times, but it’s on the lower side of mediocre, and i docked the vote down a notch, for similar reasons i already did on the MKII film review.

Hidden Dragon and Crouching Tiger and Sengoku Zombie [MANGA REVIEW] | Warring States Undead (Undead)

Zombies. The horror comfort food, that if an apocalypse actually happened without them, people would somehow make them happen just to not have that Y2K style survival book and mental training for a Walking Dead roleplay go to waste.

After all, we stuck them even in Pride And Prejudice, we had them destroyed by Abraham Lincon, and Sankarea exists to ask questions we shouldn’t really ask.

So of course we were gonna have them mixed with historical fantasy, going basically the Onimusha route but during the Warring States era of Japan (as depicted in popular media like Samurai Warriors more than actual historical drama), specifically reenacting the legendary rivalry between Kenshin Uesugi and Shingen Takeda… in modern day.

Mugen Tenshou: Hidden Dragon and Crouching Tiger and Sengoku Zombie is indeed the manga that dares asks: what if Sengoku era zombie samurais happened today, with a darkness castle emerging out ot nowhere, undead warriors of old, and of course Oda Nobunaga emerges as the Demon King that had been planning this while lying in Hell for centhuries?

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The Spooktacular Eight #33: Spawn (1997)

2004’s live action Devilman, consider yourself spared, as this year (due to recent events contributing to schedule changes) we’re doing instead 1997’s Spawn.

I did got the Blu Ray release by Arrow Video, and it was still in its factory wrap, so time to…. actually visit for the first time, i never saw this in theathers or TV, i was too young back then, my first time seeing Spawn at all was when Soul Calibur II console ports released and the X-Box version got him as the console exclusive guest character.

But it was hard not to hear about in the 2000s as one of the worst comic book films ever, an infamous reputation so widespread and radicated, a stink to it that even The Venture Bros couldn’t resist throwing a jab at it in late 2009-2010, a foul reputation that never really went away.

And just putting this out, i wasn’t aware until i decided to swap this into the 2004 Devilman‘s slot that they’ve been trying to reboot the brand with a new film for decades, and apparently this time around it most likely will happen, we got recent news of the reboot coming along… or maybe it won’t, as the superhero genre is well past his peak in terms of popularity.

I will not claim any responsability over that either way.

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