[EXPRESSO] The Watchers (2024) Live Theathre In The Woods

Mr Twister is once again back on the silver screen, and we’re going back to the woods, this time not to hide while people believing to be the Four Horsemen invade your home and impose an improbabile apocalyptic task to you and your family, or to bother the geezers, but to play the sickest livestream event of them all… to an unknown audience.

… oh wait, this is actually written and directed by Inasha Night Shyamalan, one of M. Night’ (with Trap, directed by him, also releasing in 2024) daughters, here at her directorial debut.

The premise sees a girl, Mina, a 28 yo artist, finding herself lost and isolated inside a huge forest in western Ireland, only for her to take refuge in a cottage and unknownly get trapped in there alongside three other people, to be watched at night by some strange creatures dwelling there.

What’s scariest than improv theather to a fussy audience that might just kill you like a fly if it wishes so, after all? Very little, outside of some cosmic horror older than time itself and such.

While there’s definitely a similar imprint to her father, The Watchers doesn’t rely entirely on a last second last act twist to flip around the narrative, i mean, it’s kinda easy to predict partly what the creatures could be (if nothing else for the location), and they don’t throw out some stupid and-or unsatisfying curveball just for the sake of throwing off the audience, so for best or worst it relies more on actually making you care the lore and the plot being interesting in itself.

Still nothing really special despite the clever hook and good casting for what are just functional characters, but honestly i’d say it’s quite the decent watch, especially for a directorial debut.

Earth Defense Force 2: Invaders From Planet Space PS VITA [REVIEW] | #summerofedf

To kick off the Summer Of EDF, we continue in chronological order, after having reviewed the original Earth Defence Force on its PS2 debut, more specifically the PAL version that was released by Agetec as “Monster Attack” and now it’s rare to get, so much it’s cheaper to import the japanese PS2 version instead, also because it never came out in America.

And to be clear, while i do have the PAL release of EDF 2 (since it was once again not published in US back then), handled by D3 via their own label, Essential Games, made specifically for export to Europe their Simple series low budget releases) titled Global Defence Force (yes “Defence”, i’m fairly sure they never fixed the typo because i doubt they bothered to issue a reprinting just to fix the title), and i’m also aware of the japanese-only PSP port that also added extra classes.

Buy i’m choosing instead to review the PS Vita enhanced port-update-remake, Earth Defense Force 2: Invaders From Planet Space, not only for the hilarious title (or the fact it was the first time the game was released in US markets), but because it’s basically the definitive EDF 2 experience, and – alongside pretty much every mainline EDF game – also the version ported to Switch, only in Japan even on the digital storefronts at the time of writing.

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Seven Samurai 20XX PS2 [REVIEW] #meleemay

Technically this is a re-write, because i did review this game years and years ago in italian, but time gave me the distance needed to realize i could actually write an entirely new review from scratch for Seven Samurai 20XX still based on my experience of like 7 plus years ago, since the hatred i felt for this one never actually went away, and i guess festered on the back of my mind.

But i did replay it, and i can futher confirm that there are indeed many reasons to istinctually hate it, if nothing else for the fact it had the brass balls of being the closest to an actual videogame adaptation of Kurosawa’s seminal samurai film, as it actually had the rights by the Kurosawa production, and i wanna make it clear it also has Moebius (yes, THAT Moebius) as the character designer and music by another legend, the late Ryuichi Sakamoto.

So yeah, it’s kinda impressive how Sammy (an arcade publisher that by the early 2000s fused with Sega in order to enter the home console videogame market, which i will always associate with my beloved Metal Slug clone called Dolphin Blue) got permits from the film studios, rounded up people of incredible caliber from different industries, and then managed to deliver such an obvious, steaming turd that was destined to haunt the 5 bucks bargain bins for a good decade.

So much for a product meant to celebrate the movie’s 50^th anniversary, as it did the anime series Samurai Seven, both curiously fiddling with sci-fi re-imaginings of the film but actually unrelated to each other besides both meant to attract younger audiences to Kurosawa’s story.

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The Summer Of EDF & The Shark Six

So, to celebrate EDF 6 finally releasing westward in late July, we are gonna have ourselves a little Earth Defense Force retrospective, covering all the games yet not reviewed here (EDF 5, EDF Iron Rain and EDF World Brothers – alongside the PAL release of the first game in the series – have already been covered, FIY), mostly mainline ones, with 4 reviews spread across June and July.

This was already planned as such before D3 finally put down an actual release day (after the delay from spring 2024 to summer 2024), and since those months will have the now regular weekly release/cadence for articles/reviews, i’m also bringing back the sharks with 6 selected films about these poor animals, with 3 reviews per month.

August will be a surprise. For now.

Also, an expresso review of Furiosa – A Mad Max Saga is coming up next.

Samurai Maiden PS4 [REVIEW] #meleemay

I’ve been waiting to cover this one for a while, but i had to wait for it to go on a decent discount, since D3 Publisher went extra crazy and asked 50 bucks (70 for the Deluxe Edition that includes all DLCs, mostly costumes and music from other D3 franchise like Bullet Girls) for what was obviously another budget game of theirs.

Having played all Oneechanbara games and waiting for the Namco Bandai owned company to finally announce the western release for EDF 6 (which was supposed to be out this spring but was eventually delayed to late July 2024), i did want to play Samurai Maiden earlier, but the absurd price really held me off, i’m not fucking paying 70 bucks for a complete edition of a digital only release of a D3 Publisher budget hack n slash anime game.

Curiously, despite the publisher involved and the premise of hack n slash action using a japanese anime high school girl, this is NOT the fanservicey fest you’d expected, i guess after the “prude crusade” Sony went (for whatever reason, since they were the main platform for most Senran Kagura games before), niche titles like this had to tippy toe on their tits to see what’s ok now.

the plot sees regular high school girl Tsumugi transported back to the Sengoku period, isekai’d directly during the Honno-ji incident so she can chat up Oda Nobunaga and have three female anime ninjas explain she was summoned there because she’s a discendant of a so called “Miko Of Prosperity”, and a prophecy involving her and a Demon Lord was foretold, etc.

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[EXPRESSO] Abigail (2024) | A particular set of vampire skills

Abigail poses an intriguing premise, asking what if a kidnapping went south because the gang did not known they were abducting a child vampire, heck, even worse, the daughter of Dracula, before they retired to an unknown villa as they wait for the ransom money?

The result it’s actually quite interesting as the strong premise is taken to some unique degrees since there’s a Tarantino-esque (or Tatantino-adjacent) approach to relationship these criminals have with each other while waiting for the ransom to be paid, and the already strong vibes of Dusk Until Dawn are empowered by the very splattery and over the top amounts of high budget, exploitation levels of gore on display, and the playful element is further strengthened by how it feels almost like a reverse Home Alone, as the child vampire literally plays with them before going for a brutal, sadistic kill, after making the kidnappers feel like they’re in control.

Also, it plays around with the old vampire lore weaknesses for some laughs but also to depict vampires not so much refined monsters but as more cunning feral abominations always hungry for blood, yet somehow manages to have some emotional moments, some strange empathy, it’s a surprisingly strong pastiche that is able to draw nicely from its obvious inspirations but also work on its own and being a fun horror comedy romp that delivers fully on the idea and be hugely entertaining from beginning to end, with a really good cast that includes Kevin Durand and also Giancarlo Esposito (of Far Cry 6 fame) in a minor but still welcome role.

It’s a shame people might sleep on it, because it’s still worth watching even if the trailers are not taking any chance with subtlety and sorta spoiling it….which i kinda understand but kinda not.

[EXPRESSO] Tarot (2024) | S. Link RANK UP

It’s that “almost summer” period, so why not indulge in the new teen horror out in theathers, Tarot?

No oujia boards, no dolls, this time the teens ® will fail to learn that doing things when told NOT do those things is a recipe for manburger massacre town… even with cards. Tarot cards, obviously.

The premise sees a group of friends breaking the unspoken sacred rule about Tarot cards, as in one must not use another’s cards. In doing so they release a malignant force hidden in the cursed cards and they will have to fight for their life in what it sounds more and more like a Final Destination script rewritten at the last week, despite being based on a 1992 novel called Horrorscope.

Surprisingly it doesn’t all takes place in the villa where they find the cursed deck, but otherwise it’s a familiar watch, bringing out all the stops and expected bits, like them having to contact an estranged individual that believes and is versed in the supernatural foe they’re trying to escape, which is nice since the lore of the movie about tarot cards and astrology isn’t gonna expose itself.

On the other hand it’s a nice little variation/take on the Final Destination shtick that uses the premise of tarot card, divination and astrology related beliefs as well as it could possibly can, the characters are stock but likeable, the idea using the Arcanas in order to evoke a small ensemble of monsters chasing their victims is actually quite fun and executed decently.

It’s also a bit PG-13-ier than expected on gore but i can forgive that and the final “asspull” because the film it’s kinda silly at heart, it doesn’t overstay its welcome, and even if largely predictable and formulaic, it’s honestly more enjoyable than expected.

Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae STEAM [REVIEW ] #meleemay

Since i did already cover The Initial and the “sequel” hasn’t yet gone on sale on Steam, i feel it’s time to revisit (so yeah, it’s technically a rewrite in the sense that some of my opinions didn’t change over time, but it’s also a revision i wrote from scratch) another Oneechanbara adjacent title from the indie tier of Steam “famous” japanese hack n slash games heavy on the “school uniform cum swords” anime-derived aesthetic, the kind where you’d expect the dutch wives looking characters to randomly start fucking in a robotic, unappealing fashion, if you didn’t already know this was just a fan service-y hack n slash.

This was actually a fairly popular release, as in it was a smash hit when released during Comiketto 84 (AKA the 2013 august edition of Comic Market, that huge japanese only event) by his developer-creator Zenith Blue, and in March of 2014 PLAYISM picked it up to distribute and localize it in English for a worlwide Steam release.

It received a limited physical PS4 release via Limited Run Games and it’s also available digital on PSN and X-Box systems, FIY, but i got it in a bundle playable via Steam years ago, so i’m reviewing the Steam release alone, sold at a MSRP of 10 bucks.

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Melee May will tag in for Musou May

So yeah, as promised, instead of the usual Musou May, this year will focus on the more typical beat em up games, going from some licensed tie-in “trash” to the more forgotten dephts of the PS2 backlog, and evena fairly recent entry in the “pants em up” subgenre.

Image is for mystification purposes only, covering Smash clones would be fun but i really don’t have neither the time or the expertise at the moment.

Attack Of The Sabretooth AKA Primal Park (2005) [REVIEW] | I Ate Mondays

So, experience tells me i should be reviewing The Belko Experiment since it’s International Workers Day and all, but i have very little to say about it, it’s a fun “battle royale but office enviroment” from writer (as he didn’t direct it) James Gunn and director Greg McLean, but it’s shockingly devoid of any twist or variation to the formula that had already been done, there’s some good actors but the characters (especially the protagonist) are mostly – and oddly – forgettable, it kinda never evolves, shakes up or does the battle royale formula in a fresher or interesting way, and the second part lacks the flair or escalation it leads you to believe it’s coming.

It’s still a decent film with some good, bloody moments, and one i still recommend checking out, after adjusting your expectations, because its one of those case were a movie suffers from being exactly what it leads you to believe it will be, so it’s not surprising it’s mostly remembered as a kind of missed opportunity, one where the satire ends and begins on the obvious, for once.

and despite the film teasing a “Phase 2” (not of MCU kind), for better or worse a sequel has yet to materialized as there were no plans for it and – to most people’s knowledge – still aren’t, at least at the time of posting.

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