[EXPRESSO] The Monkey (2025) | FAQING MONKY

After bringing about a Manson-esque supernatural horror with Longlegs, Oz Perkins is back with an adaptation of Stephen King’s short story The Monkey, about – indeed – a cursed mechanical wind-up toy monkey (no cimbals, but a good ol’ drum & stick set) that is able kill off people via convenient incidents, found by a couple of brothers as it belonged to their father, who ran off home years ago. They find out there’s something about the monkey toy and the deaths that seem to happened with eerie timing, so they decide to hide it away.

25 years later, mysterious deaths start happening again in the brother’s hometown of Casco, Maine (ah yes, the inland, Jessica Fletcher-free part of it), forcing the two siblings, whom has grown strangers to each other, to settle that dark secret from their past….

And boy is this one a good time, as it goes for a deliberately over the top comedy horror tone, which works splendidly with the very blasè existentialist dark humour, and doesn’t waste time trying to make more complex or apply “logic” to a concept that defies it, because the idea of a djinn/genie that can basically dish out death without having to twist around the words of the people making the wishes doesn’t make sense either.

The toy monkey won’t care what you think (or want) either way.

The characters and exchanges are delightfully over the top in some way or another (while reserving some time for more serious, emotional moments), as are the many gory deaths, as gruesome as they are funny, with people exploding into pieces, torn apart by lawnmowers, being brutally impaled via a series of absurd little accidents, the effects are great too, and it doesn’t overstays its welcome by padding itself out.

Quite fun, recommended.

Trollhunter (2010) [REVIEW] | #giantmonstermarch

Aside from the 2022 Troll monster film on Netflix, there’s not much in the way of troll movies outside of the overcovered Troll 2 (and it’s “prequels” and “sequels” also mostly made by Italian directors and actors), even more so if we’re going for proper giant sized trolls, not the tiny ones, or the Dreamworks animated film series based on those old troll toys with the hair, for that matter.

Also, i had this on the backburner for a while, and it also lets me cover of my lest liked genres: the found footage mockumentary.

Directed by André Øvredal, nowadays better known for The Autopsy Of Jane Doe, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark and The Last Voyage of The Demeter (with an upcoming adaptation of the horror videogame Bendy And The Ink Machine) here at his second feature lenght film, one more close to home for him, as it dwelves with the more well known beast of Norwegian folklore: the troll.

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[EXPRESSO] Heretic (2024) | Now Without James Earl Jones

Hugh Grant playing a cerebral psychopath with a vaguely Saw-esque bend wasn’t on my bingo card, but A24 did score another interesting looking film just by having Grant play against type in Heretic, and indeed it pays off, but first the plot.

A couple of young Mormon missionaries are visiting people that showed interest in their religion, but as they go about trying to sell their faith, they reach the house of a certain man, Reed, whom welcomes in his house, and slowly turns out to just as unnerving and ruthless as he’s charming, trapping the two women in a web of lies, philosophical debates and tests of faith, among other misdeeds that i ain’t gonna spoil.

It’s indeed a movie that’s more than the sum of its parts, because we’ve seen this before, with the charismatic psycho that traps people in its home, also uses his wits to mentally assault its subjects/victims alongside planning and thinking about every detail of his plans, the religious women whose faith is tested, but the choice of a more niche Christian subset and the more cerebral nature of the film makes is stand out, though fear not, you also get a decent amount of satisfying gore, it can be pretty stylish (love the usage of dioramas, i will say that much) and some good laughs too.

Also, while you do get an idea of where it might be going soon enough, it’s not quite that predictable and it’s the “how” that makes it intriguing, thanks in no small part to Grant’s amazing performance, as you know this guy is bad news, but yet you’re somewhat inclined to believe his words and acts maybe aren’t malicious or ominous as they seem, that – somehow – there is some sort of egregious misunderstanding going on.

Quite good.

Dr. Cyclops (1940) [REVIEW] | #giantmonstermarch

I’ve mentioned this before alongside Bert I. Gordon’s The Cyclops (which we’re actually gonna review this year), and i since came in possession of a restored DVD copy of it, so let’s follow up the teasing, by tackling what’s actually a very important B-movie, with 1940’s Dr Cyclops, directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack, better known for something called King Kong released 7 years prior.

Ah yeah this it’s a bit of classic, even though nowhere as good or influential as King Kong (few films are ever as such, after all), not only for its status as the first true american sci-fi film in Technicolor, but because it did establishing a trend that would continue for a decade and that the 50s would flip around leading to 1957’s The Incredible Shrinking Man, as in shrinking people to minuscule dimensions, in this case by a mad scientist that wants to shrink people in order to reduce the impact of humanity on the enviroment.

And doesn’t take well when a group of people that go on an expedition to the jungles of the Amazon encounter his lab and instead of leaving (after basically being told to fuck off immediatly), keep snooping about his uranium reserves and such, so human free guinea pigs for his experiments!

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Titanic II (2010) [REVIEW] | A Mockbuster To Remember

Given it’s the “most romantic time of the year” (according to advertising agencies and florists), you know what that means, talking about one of the most beloved romance movies of all time.

Or instead, talk about it’s “sequel”, because i can’t think of a more fit/unfit timing to scratch one more from my “sub-bucket list” of reviews.

Because even before the current state of the company, The Asylum was never one to back away from any semblance of shame, to tackle things that to others were mere jokes, snark meant to mock but never actually manifest itself as an actual thing.

There was (nor there is) no joke or niche the company wouldn’t dig into the ground, so unbound by moral burdens like shame and shit, they actually made Titanic 2.

As most of you already could guess, yep, this is a mockbuster, meaning the title is a lie.. or is it?

How much of a lie to legally avoid charges and how much actually fitting?

Hold on to your Minecraft raft, things are about to get even more disasterrific, cheaper and bullshittier, with The Asylum’s daring to make “boat 9/11” all over again, which is still less offensive and egregious than the Italian Titanic animated movies (and Tentacolino), i’d argue.

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[EXPRESSO] The Brutalist (2024) | Nathan Explosion approved

For the prequel of Turtles In Time, there’s a distint lack of ninja turtles, flying brains, robot mice or mutants.

Guess we’ll see them in Part 2, as for Part 1 of The Brutalist the Statue Of Liberty is still there, “welcoming” the protagonist, Laszlo Toth, a Jewish Holocaust survivor and master architect that manages to immigrate from the United States but struggles to realize himself, until a wealthy client changes his fortune, even to spark hope he can reunite with his wife and family, whom he had to left in Europe….

Direct by Brady Corbet (Vox Lux, Childhood Of A Leader) might not be historically accurate, as Laszlo Toth searches bring up a geologist, while we have more of Ayn Rand inspired character, but in any other aspect it definitely lives up to the reception it’s gotten, and to the style of architecture it names itself after, because it is the history of a crossed, tormented, obsessed wreck of a man that its willing to go any lenght for its art, eccentric yet utterly flawed as any of his friends, loved ones and “antagonists” standing between his work, punctuated by the realities of immigration in the US, historical and religious events like the state of Israel’s foundation.

The fact alone the drama is constantly gripping for a movie that’s 3 hours and 30 minutes long is a feat in itself… i mean, it is, but the acting is phenomenal, cinematography is excellent, characters are quite good and there’s a remarkable snazz to it, very stylish and it does earn the “epic” epithet it shoots for, outside of its massive lenght.

Speaking of, if you’re gonna make movies this long, yes, do like The Brutalist and bring back the planned intermission (and Vistavision, it’s has been a while, indeed), stat.

Zombie Virus PS2 [REVIEW] | Ambulance VS Zombies

Yeah, October is far, far away, but extreme times call for extreme measures, and even more extreme unaccounted issues call for improvisation, so we’re unearth a real piece of shit game from the bargain bin dimension of the PS2, with this rewrite for Zombie Virus..

The generic title does bely a more interesting idea that the original title, The Zombie VS The Ambulance, which might give away to more expert gamers that, yes, this is more trash coming from D3 Publisher budget line of releases, the Simple 2000 Series for the PS2, developed by an obscure studio, Vingt-Et-Un Systems, that mainly did work on these budget Simple Series title…. and to my total surprise is far from defunct, as in the last decade has worked for Capcom titles such as the RE 3 Remake, Ghost N Goblins Resurrection, and the Capcom Arcade Stadium collections.

Not to be confused with another budget title from the very same collection/line, Zombie Attack, which is an action game by Tamsoft, so eventually i’ll have to feature it here in some way.

This one is about the age old tale of zombies and their natural enemy, a sentient ambulance, or so i would say, but the game actually has a plot, because there has to be, not that it amounts to much and it’s hard to care about it since it’s a budget release through and through, with dialogues after important story beats but no voice acting, and most of the story told by silent walls of text.

Again, the usual fare for a budget release of this era sporting the various labels D3 published these things outside of Japan (as in, mostly in European territories), pretty much to be expected.

In short, everything was fine and dandy in the utopia known as Sunlight City, until an eartquake happened, literal dark clouds start spreading about, and presto, not even 1 minute into the intro cutscene and a good 90 % of people turned into zombies.

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[EXPRESSO] Companion (2025) | “You got metal fever, boy!”

I was lucky enough to secure a couple of tickets for a preview screening of the new movie from the director of Barbarian, Companion, which will launch in most theathers next week, so here we go.

A modern tale of why you shouldn’t stick your dick in the toaster, even if you upgrade to “sex gynoid with the bahonkadonkas”, and especially you shouldn’t jailbreak the sexbot or hit it with the ol’ “not a real boy” spiel.

Iris and his boyfriend go to meet some friends at an isolated villa by the lake for a nice weekend, but little does she know they have a plan to rob the rich host and owner of the villa… because she known very little to begin with, as Iris is just an elaborate robot dutch wife, but after she’s framed by her “boyfriend/master” as the one to take the fall for the crimes that occur, with him pityingly telling her the truth about herself, she tries to escape and break free…

AKA the american remake of Iku: I, Robosex via Ex Machina we didn’t ask, nor we actually got, but it’s not a completely incorrect way of putting it, since it feels like someone watched Alex Garland movie and figured there was a way to make a black comedy horror romance film about misoginy, emancipation, agency and all the expected sci-fi themes coming with the gynoid/doll archetype, balancing the comedy and the horror to an impressive result.

I haven’t tried to hide the “reveal” since the marketing eventually gave away the twist (plus the movie itself doesn’t hide it much), but i’d say the movie it’s still quite strong, witty and engrossing even if you know it, since it has great performances, strong characters and great execution to “back that up”.

Pretty good.

[EXPRESSO] Wolf Man (2025) | “Get away you weirdo monkey man!!”

Leigh Whannell continues his “remake rumpus” of the classic monsters following up his 2020 releaed The Invisible Man (and the whole Dark Universe failure) with his take on the Wolf Man.

The story revolves around a family on vacation in a house in the woods of Oregon, with the father trying to use the unfortunate circumstances that brought them there in order to mend his strained family situation, then being bitten by a strange animal while protecting his wife and daughter, and gradually transforming into a beastly creature…

The themes of “sins of the father/parental neglect-abuse” are interesting for a werewolf film, as it the idea to opt for body horror, to focus on the slow transformation to parallel the father’s descent into the brutal, alienated and alienating monster that once walked the skin of a man, and i’d never felt like the idea didn’t work or the script didn’t quite click, nor like there was some “filler”.

Nothing like that.

Honestly, it’s far from bad, but it also frustates me as being so close to being straight up a good, because it’s quite decent but it’s bogged down by feeling honestly uneven, starting good, delivering on the tension, on the claustrophobic atmosphere, even managing to make you care more than you’d wager about these characters that at a first glance feel generic… and honestly never proper bloom, despite the good acting, especially by Christopher Abbott (yes, funnily enough) as the father.

That combined with some questionable special effects, some retreads on cliches, the movie never achieves the emotional depth it soughts to, so it ends up feeling incomplete, like something is plain missing, uneven in execution and underdeveloped where it counts in spite of clear effort.

Not bad, at all, just… kinda disappointing, especially considering the talent involved.

Pity.

12 Days Of Dino Dicember #48: I Am T-Rex (2022)

Time to close off this year’s 12 Days Of Dino Dicember with a family/children dinosaur movie, one ailing from mainland China and also fairly recent, as in released originally in 2022 as “Wo shi ba wang long”(which i assume translates to “The Tyrannosaurus Rex”, as can be seen in its original Chinese theathrical poster) but localized/released online with the “I Am T-Rex” title.

It’s also a CG animated film, because we already had plenty of no budget puppet dinosaurs, some high quality (and some low ass quality) dinosaur stop motion animation, caveman boning of the implied kind, cannibal movies sold as dinosaur flicks, pseudodocumentaries, dinosaur comedies with yellowface or comedy bits that aged like the reptiles themselves, so for the sake of variety, let’s move away from all that shizzle.

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