The Island Of Giant Insects OVA (2019) [REVIEW] | Garbage Island Recut

The Island Of Giant Insects 2019 OVA

After being delayed and ultimately coming out last year, The Island Of Giant Insects it’s finally available as a movie on Crunchyroll, even in my region, i’ve heard it’s terrible, so yeah, i’m in, let’s review it… not yet.

Honestly, i kinda forgot this was a thing, i red announcements of this series coming soon in 2018, but i forgot and i didn’t knew they actually released it in 2019… as an OVA, guess that “series” plan fell through along the way, and they ultimately went with an OVA and now a full lenght feature.

I would have skipped it, but in response to criticism, the producer said it’s basically the prologue for a feauture length anime film project… it was a lie, i found out just before publishing that it’s just the movie edited to 22 minutes, i should have trusted my gut and avoid it all together, but since the review was already finished (and this new info doesn’t really change any of my complaints) i did some minor edits, and here it goes!
Continua a leggere “The Island Of Giant Insects OVA (2019) [REVIEW] | Garbage Island Recut”

[EXPRESSO] 21 Bridges/City Of Crime (2019) | Good Cop, Bad Cop

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Here in my country this one (retitled “City Of Crime” because originality) was advertised highly on having Black Panther’s star Chadwick Boseman and being “from the creators of Avengers Endgame”, the marketing cleverly not specifing it’s just produced by Joe and Anthony Russo, and after watching it i realized why, the signals were fairly clear to begin with, and it’s not exactly a “con job”.

It’s just a ploy to get you to watch another cop thriller with a manhunt through the streets of Manhattan, or in these case, the titular 21 bridges (which isn’t actually correct, but whatever), closed in order to avoid the killers (guilty of killing many cops in a failed heist) escaping, but it has to be done all in one night, etc. etc. It’s not a bad setup, but it’s a fairly typical nonetheless, like the main character, the exemplary cop with an unbreakable sense of duty and justice, who finds his beliefs challenged as things get more complicated and he suspect of an internal conspiracy… not that you need that to explain corrupt cops, but whatever.

And it’s decent, even if you’ve already seen this kinda of plot and characterization many many times, with a great cast that’s a bit too good for these characters, not completely stereotypical ones, but – again – very typical. Direction by Brain Kirk (TV director on Boardwalk Empire, Penny Dreadful, GoT, etc. here at his movie debut) is decent-good, it’s fairly fast paced, doesn’t pull punchers, and there’s no tonal problems or unbalance in themes like the movie rooting a bit too much for the cops despite showing how blatanlty corrupt they can be, nothing like that.

If anything, the italian marketing will “dupe” people into seeing a perfectly decent – if fairly disposable – cop thriller drama.

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Krampus 2: The Devil Returns (2016) [REVIEW] Krampus Go Home

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3 years after Krampus: The Christmas Devil (which at least – as far as i know – has the distinction of being the forefather of Krampusploitation), Jason Hull comes back with a sequel. I think it’s worth noting that this is an actual sequel to the 2013 Krampus movie and by the same director, since we have movies like The Executioner Part 2 (there’s no The Executioner Part 1), Il Bosco 1 (yeah, i know there’s a sequel) or entire sequel series in name only through deceptive re-titling, like for Zombi/Dawn of The Dead or La Casa, the italian name for the original Evil Dead. Continua a leggere “Krampus 2: The Devil Returns (2016) [REVIEW] Krampus Go Home”

Krampus: Unleashed (2016) [REVIEW] | ..Of The Oooolll’ West

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Before we tackle Krampus 2: The Devil Returns, let’s quickly go over another effort from Robert Conway after Krampus: The Reckoning, with the first – and as far as i know, only – Krampus to start off with “the year was 1898 and the West was still wild”.

That’s a new one. Continua a leggere “Krampus: Unleashed (2016) [REVIEW] | ..Of The Oooolll’ West”

Krampus: The Reckoning (2015) [REVIEW] | Children Of The Krampus

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What happens when you wanna cash-in by exploiting the latest fad in the christmas horror subgenre, but you don’t have enough time in order to write it from scratch and push it out of the door in order to maximize exposure? Continua a leggere “Krampus: The Reckoning (2015) [REVIEW] | Children Of The Krampus”

[EXPRESSO] Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker (2019) | Let’s get this over with

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Yeah, why not, let’s review this one and hopefully after some weeks “the discourse” on social media will have died, until a new trilogy is planned and we’ll all do this dance again.

So, i don’t particularly like or dislike Star Wars (like most peoples, i do like the simple idea of fairy tales in space with beam swords, weird looking aliens, magic, sci-fi and shit), but i’ll watch them, why not, and while i wasn’t feeling it with The Force Awakens, i got a new found appreciation for it, because at least it was a good repackaging/best of.

Now, this was gonna be a mess anyway, since J.J. Abrams for some reason wasn’t director and writer on all the trilogy, which brought us the quite good The Last Jedi, but also this, a movie that not only is far different from the one before, but basically tries to undo and retcon most of what was said there, like it has to “fix” many plot points in order to basically re-do Return of The Jedi.

Hell, they even bring Palpatine back, which is both good and bad, because it’s a tacit admission that they can’t do any better than reharsh the same old shit, without adding anything to it, in fact a notable regression, stuffed full of fanservice in a nakedly cynical bid to appease a fanbase that will never be appeased regardless, and with a script that’s embarassing, with plot points pulled out of the arse all over the place.

I mean, it’s still less boring than senate hearings of a galaxy far far away, yeah, but it’s a complete mess of a story, at least it’s the kind of bad that ‘s watchable and goes by relatively fast. MH.

Well, time to finally watch Parasite for me!

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Krampus: The Christmas Devil (2013) [REVIEW] | Krampus Rip My Flesh

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While most people are aware of Michael Dougherty’s Krampus movie from 2015, it wasn’t the first horror movie about the mythological figure of the Krampus, which became a horror sub-sub-genre from the early 2010’s onwards, and i guess you could say Jason Hull’s 2013 movie kickstarted this “krampusxploitation” movement, the Krampus itself had been subject of some tv series episodes, but not a feature lenght film. Continua a leggere “Krampus: The Christmas Devil (2013) [REVIEW] | Krampus Rip My Flesh”

Oneechanbara 2 / Zombie Hunters 2 PS2 [REVIEW] | Exploitation Time Again

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As promised, to celebrate the release of Oneechanbara Origins this 5th of December, here’s the review of the second Oneechanbara title, specifically the revision/upgrade The Oneechampon: The Onechan 2 Special Chapter, released in Europe as Zombie Hunters 2 (Zombie Hunters being the upgraded/revised version of the first Oneechanbara game), the vanilla version of Oneechanbara 2 never left Japan at all.

Yeah, once again, it was never released in the U.S., was released in PAL territories under a budget label, but there aren’t many copies around, so nowadays commands quite a lot of cash on the second hand market, not as rare and pricey as Kuon for PS2, but still, 60/70 bucks for this (i found it at a convention booth for 15 bucks, otherwise i wouldn’t have bothered) is a frigging lot, so much it’s a lot cheaper to just buy the japanese version. Or just emulate it, that’s an option. Continua a leggere “Oneechanbara 2 / Zombie Hunters 2 PS2 [REVIEW] | Exploitation Time Again”

Krampusploitation is a-coming

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This time i decided to make myself a present by not watching & reviewing another crappy krampus or christmas horror movie, so instead i’m reviewing (re-reviewing, i’ve done them for the italian blog years ago, but i’ve rewritten them from scratch) 4 Krampus themed/titled movies, all terrible.

If you wanna watch something good about the “Christmas Devil”, i recommend Rare Exports and Michael Dougherty’s Krampus, definitely not the ones you’re gonna see reviewed in the coming days.

And an Expresso review of Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker is coming next week, gonna get that done as soon as possible, i don’t particularly care, but it’s kinda an obligation, i feel, since i do what i do. Oh well.

 

[EXPRESSO] Knives Out (2019) | Ye Ol’ Murder Mistery

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The short of it: it’s quite good, as you’ve probably already heard said by many others, and i do recommend you check it out in theathers.

The plot concerns the death of successful novelist Halan Thrombey on the day after his 85th birthday, celebrated with family and guests the night before. Assisting the police in unraveling the situation is famous detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), who surveys the interrogatories of the numerous Thrombey family members, scrutinizing possible motives and alibis, as everyone could have gained something, and the already complex family affairs are complicated further when Blanc has the intuition of Martha, Halan’s young nursemaid, being at the center of it all…

Here we have Rian Johnson (Brick, Looper, Star Wars: The Last Jedi) taking on the typical mistery murder format and – as you probably heard elsewhere – doing a “table flip” on the narrative structure and flow you expect from a murder mistery movie, but without being a pointless exercise in subvertion for it’s own sake, as it is still a murder mistery about a dead patriarch and his vile, grubby offsprings, after all, with a sense of humour (like the bit where they see a spanish dubbed Murder, She Wrote episode), an amazing ensemble cast of famous actors, and a tight script that plays well with expectations, and even if you get what’s it gonna go for, it’s still intriguing see the mistery unraveled knot by knot.

And, as a “plus”, it’s quite fun, well paced, and doesn’t stretch things out more than it needs. It’s not the movie of the year, but being just quite good is more than enough, and there’s very little else to say without going into spoilers.

So i’m just gonna share this unrelated thought: hope the new Black Christmas remake is any good.

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