[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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Trying out the Godzilla Destroy All Monster Melee Remastered Demo

So as announced earlier on, a demo for the upcoming remaster of Godzilla Destroy All Monsters released yesterday on Steam, i played 1 hour of it (roughly), and since i did boot up and played a bit of the old version on Gamecube couple weeks ago… let’s talk about it.

Also because it will either be delisted or deactivated entirely October 28th, it’s also not clear if the save will carry over from the demo to the full game on Steam.

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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.

Platformation Time Again: To Escape And Let Ape

SO, there are rumors of Sony actually planning to relaunch/reboot/rejig their old classic platformer series, Ape Escape, apparently outsorced to Evening Star, the developer behind Penny’s Big Breakway, itself founded by the team that developed Sonic Mania.

This is just a rumour at the moment, so keep in mind this is just pure speculation.

so let’s put our big boy ape pants on and speculate, why not?

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[EXPRESSO] The Social Reckoning (2026) | Nothing Ever Changes

It feels like aeons ago when i saw The Social Network, which gets more impressive in retrospective as it tackled issues that would explode just some years later, while this sort of follow-up (also written by Aaron Sorkin) has the issue of being dated on arrival, being set between 2019 and 2021, tackling the changes made by Facebook that shaped it as an echo chamber designed to promote hate speech and harassment, leading to January 6^th insurrection at the Capitol and a former Facebook employee helping move a federal case by a series of exposè via the Wall Street Journal.

So you already know that Facebook simply tanked the issue and nothing really changed (for the better), that there was no actual “reckoning”, and it’s convenient how the timeframe is very safe to make the point about the necessity to speak out, to fight for justice regardless, plus it’s utterly spineless that despite the January 6^th insurrection being a pivotal event that the movie comes back to a lot, Donald Trump isn’t named once.

That aside, the other main issue is that the drama is just drab, not unwatchable, but it’s hard to care about the Facebook data analyst girl that acts as whistleblower and helps this “tech illiterate” political journalist unveil Zuckenberg’s plans, or anyone else, the very good cast really can’t work miracles with these flat characters, and both factions frankly do very little considered what is at stake.

even when the company learns of the leaks and the girl fears retaliation, it amounts to a lot of empyt posturing, so there’s so sense of menace or urgency to any of the drama.

You can tell Fincher didn’t direct this one, i’ll say that much.

Maybe Guadagnino’s Artificial (if it ever comes out in theathers) will be better?

Early October Midweek Check

This week will be relatively dry of EXPRESSO reviews, as the one for Other Mommy has been delayed, but you can look forward to the ones for The Social Reckoning and Strippoli’s L’Estranea (sold internationally as The Spiral).

I would love to catch a preview screening for Godzilla Minus Zero at one of Italy’s biggest comic conventions, Lucca Comics & Games, but at the moment i’m not even sure i will be able to go at all (and even if i can go, i might decide not to because every year tickets are more expensives, unbelievably so), it’s still all up in the air, so i can’t promise anything on this specific matter… yet.

See ya tomorrow for the next Spooktacular Eight review!

The Spooktacular Eight #34: Violent Shit (1989)

Ah yes, the other German horror director from the age of video nasties, of when video recording technology becoming affordable alongside a cheap and affordable format for home usage led to some people just shooting the shit on the digital camcorder in their hometown on very low budgets.

I will come forward and admit i haven’t seen any of Andrea Schnass films, i’m quite familiar with Jorg Buttgeireit works on the flipside, but i felt it made sense to start tackling his fellow German DIY horror director, starting from his most well known film, the original Violent Shit, which spawned few sequels, and make clear once more than censorship of this kind will be at best circumnvented, at worst will just force fans of the genre to do what many German horror fans did back in the “video nasty” age, just straight started making these themselves in their backyards.

Figures we eventually feature Schnaas, and i don’t think i did fill the “80s German ultra splatter low budget slasher” slot in my bingo card before on this rubric.

So what is the plot of Violent Shit?

A boy, Karl, comes home a bit late, he gets beat up by his mother, then in revenge murders her with a cleaver.

20 years later, Karl is being moved from his prison to somewhere else by the police, but kills the officers, manages to escape, and with a cleaver (which i guess is a thing growing wild in the Gothic II forests) he goes on a killing spree on the West German countryside, indulging himself in some cannibalism while he’s at it.

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