The Spooktacular Eight #25: Vampire Circus (1972)

Is it?

Tis time to feature something from the ol’ Hammer Films catalogue, indeed.

Something vampire related but also not from their beloved Dracula series.

And i believe this is it, a fairly forgotten entry in their catalogue, Vampire Circus from 1972, directed by Robert Young, whom also worked on Hammer House Of Horrors but wasn’t a mainstay director for Hammer like Terence Fisher or John Gilling, mostly focused on working for TV, and is now mostly remembered for directing most of the highly regarded episodes of Robin Of Sherwood.

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[EXPRESSO] Mantopus! (2025) | Octaman’s Father

Had to see a newly released on Amazon Prime Video film called “Mantopus!” that is retro styled meta comedy about a now washed horror director finding the titular “man-octopus” hybrid in a mysterious antique shop and deciding to use it as the star of his final horror film, Mantopus, a Creature From The Black Lagoon knock-off.

It’s one of these modern retro styled comedies akin to stuff like The Lost Skeleton Of Kadavra, but set in the late 50s-early 60s, arking back to the drive-in era of monster movies, with a Michael Gough-looking director (as the whole movie it’s basically a tribute to him), a slimeball making stuff like the fictional “Frankenstein In Texas” to the dismay of his producer, running “not-American International Pictures”, but the director becomes mad and starts using the monster to eliminate his “enemies”.

I will say it’s an interesting proposition, because while it’s not too hard by now to emulate the visual style of these shlocky films, you ironically gotta have decent actors able to deliberately act bad the purposefully stock dialogue that seems somehow dubbed in post even when it’s obviously not, but Mantopus manages to get that and most importantly gets right the feel of these old movies, and the tone, that both makes fun but also celebrates with sincerity these films, that actually likes the drive-in trashfests about monsters with little to no budgets but high on violence and “nudity”.

It’s all done with affection instead of spite or mockery, the overacting is lovely as its the deliberate awkward delivery of basically every line and stock discussion, it’s a quite fun film, though it’s a very niche movie made for a very specific audience, one that loves cheesy horror of yore and will notice the posters aren’t for made up old movies.

[EXPRESSO] Caught Stealing (2025) | Idles Hands

There some irony in a title like that for a filmmaker that already borrowed heavily from other, better directors, but i can’t deny i do like Arofonosky movies (The Whale was great), and i was surprised to see this new one, Caught Stealing, kinda sneak by into theathers.

So instead of taking “cues” from Satoshi Kon this time it goes for a more popular type of cinema, a crime caper set in New York, a 90s NY of people that can barely make rent but will proclaim their love for the San Francisco Giants, as it’s all framed with the titular baseball slang term i had to look up, as the protagonist, Hank, is a generally decent normal guy that could have been a baseball star if a car crash didn’t nip that in the bud.

Hanks calls his mother daily, has a semi-relationship with a nurse, and wants nothing to do with crime, but after accepting to take care of his punk neighbor’s cat while he’s away, he ends up unadvertly dragged into the seedy criminal underbelly due to some very bad luck and a series of absurd circumstances.

This time it feels like Arofonosky wanted to do a Cohen Brothers style crime caper (thought it’s based on a novel of the same name by Charlie Huston) while also retaining his usual style…. and it doesn’t really work until the last act, trying to be unpredictable and marrying very gritty violence with almost slapstick style comedy, coming off as kind of confused than anything, with its various ideas and tones having spent most of the movie fighting each other they do click the end, a little too late.

Terrific performances (especially by the supporting cast) help one wanting to see it through, and it’s not bad…. just kinda baffling.

Pinata Survival Island AKA Demon Island (2002) [REVIEW] | Cinco De Pantyo

This is the “something” i eventually went with as an excuse for having to cut down One Piece August reviews (which are coming up soon after this), some rando film i had in my Amazon Prime Video watchlist, Demon Island…. under its Italian title, Pinata: Terror Island (still showing the title of Pinata: Survival Island in the film itself, as you do), which immediatly has primo “please rent me from Blockbuster, please!” direct-to-video trash film energy.

And now is a 20 years old aged serving of trash filet, hopefully so, let’s roll the dice with something from the directors of King Cobra (the cobra killer movie with Pat Morita i did review back then), National Lampoon’s Dorm Daze and the tv mini-series Deadtime Stories.

One might wonder why retitle a movie called “Demon Island” as “Pinata” or “Pinata Survival Island”…. unless you actually read a synopsis and realize it’s a bit more direct, since that’s the source of the daemons.

You see, an isolated tribe, cursed by spirits for their sins, decides to craft a pinata to house all their evil, and then sends the thing into the fuckin ocean to get rid of it and advert famines and such.

Not their problem anymore, i guess, so its up to a couple of teens to find the pinata on a island, while they are there to do a weird fraternity-sorority thing during Cinco De Mayo, which is getting fraternity guys and sorority girls put into teams of two and…..basically do a Senran Kagura questline that somehow never happened but easily could have, as in they compete for who can find the most underwear strewn around the island, with a prize of 20000 bucks for the winners.

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[EXPRESSO] Presence (2024) | Guest Ghost

While this is another of those movies that’s better enjoyed/experienced by just going in cold, it’s not exactly for the usual reasons, but i will try to spoil as less as i can.

Even though it’s frustrating because the basic premise of Presence really isn’t exciting in itself: a family moves into a new house, especially to help the daughter, Cleo, having her life shook by a tragic event before, and to start things over, hopefully for the better.

Cleo soon starts noticing something wrong with her room and nobody believes her… until some events make it clear as day to the entire family there’s something supernatural going on in the house, causing further tensions and panic in the already fractured family, as Cleo believes is her dead friend haunting the place, for reasons unknown…

It sounds a lot more generic than it actually is, but aside from some gimmicky yet effective stylistical choices, it’s actually kinda original, as in, this isn’t a blood or jumpscare laden “haunted house attraction” at the fair, and it’s refreshing as in it’s an actual ghost story, and not the by now overdone “allegorical parenthood trauma ride” most of these modern horror thrillers try to be (with varying degrees of success), the family drama is there, its quite good, the acting is quite good as well and so are the characters, and later their drama does become important to understand this really quiet “haunting” purpose as the plot unfolds and pieces come together for a tense and tragic finale.

It’s a slow burner supernatural horror-thriller but it’s also devoid of any excess fat, being short but intense, emotional and quite engaging, using well its single-location structure, even if by the end it becomes a bit predictable, though the execution makes up for it.

Recommended.

Shark Warning (2024) [REVIEW] | #sharkapalooza

Due to rescheduling issues i noticed Sharkapalooza was one movie short, so i figured i’d review one of my recent “sight unseen and cheap” DVD pickups, Shark Warning, from last year….

…..and it’s an Asylum joint.

I literally paused my Donkey Kong Bananza game to see this, no that i expected this movie to be good.

The odds were never on my favour, i guess this one of their generic shark films since there was no big budget shark film released that year… was it? I mean, we got Under Paris via Netflix, but this is not a mockbuster of that, and some other shark movies (like No Way Up) but nothing big budget or cinema bound for the Asylum to try make some cents out of its reflected glory.

Doesn’t matter anyway, so what kind of shark movie are we getting?

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Kangadawa Jet Girls [ANIME+OVA REVIEW] | There Is More To Racing Than Tits

There are many of these niche multimedia projects in the “anime sphere”, and sometimes they do get fairly big and well known even if they are still dedicated to relatively fringe, very specific audiences, like Girls Und Panzer, but most often than not these are fanservice heavy, borderline soft porn-adjacent… and while some of you might have thought of Valkyrie Drive (we’ll get to that, eventually), yes, i can see why, but this is NOT that Marvelous project.

This is the one with the jetskis anime girls, again a Marvelous co-produced multimedia affair, and unsurprisingly Senran Kagura’s producer (well, ex-Senran Kagura producer, nowadays) Kenichiro Taniguchi, is involved with Kandagawa Jet Girls too, there are anime boobs involved, after all.

I planned to review both the anime series (with its OVA) and the PC & console videogame, but due to schedule woes, we’ll have to tackle the game at later date, maybe next year.

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Forbidden Fish Is The Sweetest/ Ningyohime no Gomen ne Gohan AKA The Cannibal Siren [MANGA REVIEW] | Era No Uta

I’d usually go by the official English name of a manga series first, but in this case i’m gonna have to use the localized title publisher JPOP chose for the Italian release, La Sirena Cannibale (The Cannibal Siren), which is actually even better than the original, Ningyohime no Gomen ne Gohan , translating literally to “The Mermaid Princess’ Guilty Meal”, even the latter is more descriptive (and sounds better in Japanese due to the allitteration).

I guess it made more sense given how Italy hugely/almost entirely created and fed the 60s “cannibal boom” in cinema, but i do like it better, sometimes localized titles here can be deceiving, excessively forward (to the point of “spoiling” any surprise effect) or just absurd, but THIS is the kind of “to the point” title that makes sense, so i’m gonna that for the rest of the review.

Written by Hiroshi Noda and illustrated by Takahiro Wakamatsu (also behind Love After World Domination and No Longer Allowed In Another World), The Cannibal Siren is about the mermaid princess Era, who lives happily in the ocean with her fish friends, beloved by all in the undersea kingdom, all is well… until one of her friends get fished out by humans.

She then runs (transforming her fish tail into legs, as mermaids do) to the surface in incognito to pay the final respects, seeing her friend being served by the nearby sushi restaurant, but then, prompted by a patron that jokingly encourages her to eat it – and i quote – “otherwise it won’t go to heaven”, she tries, and finds out she finds it delicious.

Then she begins spiraling out in a cannibalistic frenzy, ready to jump ashore to eat whichever of her subjects is fished out and served on a plate, all on the hush and despite knowing how she is a monster for doing that.

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Tiko And The Shark (1962) [REVIEW] | #sharkapalooza

Oldies time, as i’ve not yet run out of pre-Jaws shark films to cover, apparently,

And it’s oddly a wholesome one, too, as Tiko And The Shark (Ti-Koyo E Il Suo Pescecane) is the age old tale of a bond between a boy and his…. shark. Yeah.

An Italian-France coproduction by Titanus filmed in french Polynesia (the Taomatu island, specifically) and loosely based on the novel “Ti-Koyo And His Shark” by Clement Richer (though basically rewritten by Italo Calvino to be more of a fable here), the film is indeed about the friendship between Ti-Koyo, borne into a Pacific island village of fishermen, whom as a child finds a baby shark while fishing, dubbing it “Manidù”. Some years later, both grown up, they reunite and fish for oyster pearls in a secret laguna that was also their refuge when they were younger.

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[EXPRESSO] Heart Eyes (2025) | Serial Seattle Slasher

I kept myself in the dark as could about this one, for a change, but indeed i do understand why it was discussed and looked forward to.

The short of it is that Heart Eyes is what one could expect old slasher like My Bloody Valentine to be about, as in, it’s indeed about a masked serial killer that kills people on Valentine’s Day, but this isn’t more or less random theming to help marketing when it’s not actually relevant to the plot, this is a serial killer that specifically prays on couple every Valentine’s Day, and its killing spree have become a tradition of sorts, dreaded and dubbed as the “Heart Eyes killer” by the press.

This time he targets two co-workers that are trying to figure out if there actually could be something between the two when out for a dinner “date”, forcing the two to try and survive the night….

It’s a pretty simple set up but it gets more interesting than it sounds since the movie is also a romantic comedy, and thankfully the script co-writed by Christopher Langdon (Happy Death Day, Freaky, Drop) is able to balance out both the romance and the comedy horror aspects, while also delivering on the graphic violence with great gore effects and some really fun kills, coexisting with the genre-savvy dialogues and attitudes that never clash against each others, harvesting the classic slasher tropes for some fun twists and somehow being able to avoid padding, making for a succint, to the point approach to both the slasher and romance genres that’s witty without straight up brownosing itself.

The killer is also surprisingly fun to see in action, nothing original, but executed in a fashion that harnesses the cliches in a familiar but still fun, slightly fresher and satisfying way.