[EXPRESSO] Homunculus (2021) | A Man In Your Head

Did you know they made a live-action adaptation of Hideo Yamamoto’s beloved cult manga … no, not Ichi The Killer, Homunculus, directed by Ju-On/The Grudge creator Takashi Shimizu, and it just released internationally at the end of april as a Netflix esclusive?

I didn’t, had to find out via good ol’ FreddyInSpace via twitter, and he himself didn’t notice earlier, because this is indeed one of the downsides of the “content machine” streaming service model.

Homunculus is about Susumu Nakoshi, an amnesiac and emotionally stunted clochard who decides to be the guinea pig for the rich medical student Manabu Ito, interested in experimenting to see if drilling the skull of a man could awaken otherwise unaccessible or dormant senses, as well as recoving memories or activate esp powers.

The experiment goes well, too well, as Susumu is now able to see – while covering his right eye – the titular homonculi, possibly physical manifestations of the human mind’s most intimate and recondite desires, traumas and symbolic projections of selves (a man split in two halves walking side by side, a sand girl, etc).

While it retains most elements from manga and for the first half it’s fairly faithful adaptation, halfway through it strays further and further, as things take a twist for the mundane, squandering the potential given by the source material on generic drama, making for less interesting characters and events. Even the borrowed odd visuals feel underwhelming or underused.

It’s not a bad movie or a complete failure, but it’s a really disappointing adaptation (especially because this could actually have worked in a live-action context), and worse, even taken on its own it’s just a movie unable to do or properly develop pretty much anything of substance in its 2 hours run, leading to a fittingly unsatisfactory ending.

It’s Alive (1969) [REVIEW] | Farmers and Fishmen

Enough with the regular kind of crappy B-movies, let’s crank it up to uber shlock, with the misleadingly titled It’s Alive, not a Frankenstein style crap-fest like The Body Shop, it’s actually more a 50s style B-movie about a couple that runs out of gas in a remote rural town, and stumbles upon a crazy farmer, his imprisoned “wife” and his private zoo, which also includes a Gillman style monster.

I did watch it on Amazon Prime Video, which has the 2020 restored version, i can only imagine how worse the more common prints of the movie are. I truly can, it’s a cheap made for TV monster movie that seems to stem from a 50s script, but was clearly shot in late 60s /early 70s. Dat film grain, though.

Now, the question is: how bad does the monster look? Like the mermen with mouth-tentacles that look more like hot dogs from Horror At Party Beach?

Worse than Monster Of Piedras Blancas?

Continua a leggere

[EXPRESSO] Alice In Borderland (Season 1) (2020) | Through The Killing Glass

A live-action Netflix series based on the manga of the same name by Haro Aso (Hyde & Closer; Zombie 100: Bucket List Of The Dead), Alice In Borderland is about a young guy called Arisu, as he and his best friends find themselves mysteriously lost in an alternative version of Tokyo, and forced to play dangerous games of various nature in order to survive and hopefully discover a way out. All with a fairly gratitous & superficial Alice In Wonderland theme: a character called Mad Hatter, Arisu being the japanese pronunciation of “Alice”, the importance of game cards, etc.

It’s entertaining and you can tell it’s made for modern audiences, as it mostly throws the viewer into the action and events without explaining much, but i really can’t fault it for that because direction by Shinsuke Sato (Princess Blade, Death Note: Light Up The New World), it’s fairly tight, and the public…. is most likely already QUITE familiar with this type of stories: death games, the alternative Tokyo, elaborate trap scenarios with time limits, etc. The series does a decent job with these elements, even if it may feel a touch too derivative and overly familiare at times.

It doesn’t help the lead character, Arisu is presented as this cautious genius with a gamer past, but he inconsistently goes from being smarter than Light Yagami… to not noticing downright obvious traps, depending on that episode’s script. And don’t expect too much from the other characters.

Even so, it’s still quite fun to see these grisly scenarios unfold, the production values are good, and while the middle part kinda drags itself along, it picks up a lot after that, so overall it makes for a fun watch, leading to a cliffhanger ending… and thankfully a confirmed renewal for a second season.

The Screaming Skull (1958) [REVIEW] | Sans Sense

Another classic stinker remembered today thanks in no small part to MST3K, you hardly can go lower than this independent cheesefest, which was originally released in the way most of this crap was back then, the old double-feature for the drive-in market, alongside either Earth VS The Spider or Terror From The Year 5000, both fittingly riffed by the Satellite Of Love’s crew of bots and men.

It’s technically based on the eponymous tale written by Francis Marion Crawford – which it’s quite good and can be found in The Complete Wandering Ghosts collection – itself based on a folk tale of a skull said to be that of a black slave, whose request for burial in his native country was denied following his death, and how it was subsequently followed by strange occurrences and unexplainable shrieking noises that emanated from the wooden box in which the skull was kept.

“Technically” as the movie doesn’t credit Crawford’s novel, and the plot follows a couple, Eric and Jenni, that moves to the house belonging to the husband’s late wife, Marion, which has been curated and cared for by Mickey, an odd gardener loyal to the late wife’s memory. Jenni witnesses some eerie events involving a skull around the house, and begins to think that she’s going insane..

Continua a leggere

The Black Hole (2006) [REVIEW] | (Supermassive)

No, not the sci-fi adventure Disney adventure from back when Disney didn’t also own Star Wars.

No, not the classic pinball table by Gottlieb.

Just another SYFY disaster movie for TV. Not be confused with another sci-fi movie from 2016 that’s also called Black Hole.. when it’s not sold as Quantum Voyage.

Continua a leggere

Yeti: The Giant Of The 20th Centhury (1977) [REVIEW] | Italo Disco King Of The Kong

It’s still january, it’s still cold as hell (proper Dante Alighieri hell), so it’s time to shovel up and unearth a yeti movie from the motherland, with the forgotten Yeti: Il Gigante Del 20° Secolo from director Gianfranco Parolini (credited as Frank Kramer), often called just “Yeti”, “Big Foot” (yeah, that helps a lot, thanks) or with a direct – and accurate – translation of the title in english, as Yeti: The Giant Of The 20^th Centhury,

Italian-canadian kaiju yeti-xploitation, can’t go wrong with that!

Yeah, digging this gem out to also celebrate the new trailer for Godzilla VS King Kong !

Continua a leggere

Ice Sharks (2016) [REVIEW] | Ammonia Sharks

This is actually a re-review, i covered Ice Sharks during 2019’s “shark month/week/whatever” but it was on the original, italian version of Wise Cafe, so it’s technically new and i want to give you a lil’ something while i try to juggle and write about 4 different anime series, none ending in late january.

And if anything, might as well do this now than in summer, there will be other shark movies to talk about when the time comes. Also because there are not many “Ice type” shark movies, thankfully this sub-trend never took much hold, so much i can’t think of many others like this, aside from Avalanche Sharks and 2012’s Snow Shark.

Then again, Ice Sharks is one of the more recent one, and alone should have tanked this niche-within-a-niche for good, and not necessarily because it’s the “worst one”.

Continua a leggere

Dino Dicember #31: Triassic World (2018)

Because “Mesozoic Trilobite Massacre” was too original a title for The Asylum.

But then again, someone would have corrected them, since trilobites went extinct earlier. Still, i want a movie about them or other pre-historic creatures that aren’t dinosaurs. Come on, people, make it!

And yes, this is a mockbuster of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, with it being released 3 days earlier, at least in the U.S. It never came in theathers in my country, or any streaming service here, but there’s a UK DVD release for it.

Continua a leggere

Dino Dicember #29: Extinction: Jurassic Predators (2014)

I often joke or belittle the alternative titles these movie get for home video releases, but this time i feel the “Jurassic Predators” subtitle helps, since now people are gonna think more of the 2018 Netflix produced movie, not this 2014 release also titled “Extinction”. Then again, you might find this one under the other alternative title of “Jurassic Island”.

And while looking at the premise, i had to do a double take, like, didn’t i already review a movie with a nearly identical plot? And i kinda did, since it’s basically The Lost Dinosaurs/The Dinosaur Project, with a research team led by a professor or academic figure going into a jungle to protect endangered and vulnerable species, but after some kerfuffle the guides run away, the group eventually stumbles upon dinosaurs, and has to survive the unexpected peril.

Continua a leggere

Dino Dicember #22: Anonymous Rex (2004)

Ah yes, the “Jurassic Park X Blade Runner” crossover you never asked for but was actually made, not so much to chomp on a Ridley Scott movie released 22 years priors (at the time), but as to put out something since the TV series based on Casual Rex, the prequel to the novel of Anymous Rex (both written by Enry Garcia, who also wrote a sequel book, Hot N Sweaty Rex, and Repo Men), and – aactually serves as the base for this movie, despite being titled after the first novel.

Yes, they basically reworked the unproduced work for the Casual Rex TV series as a 2 hour movie… not called “Casual Rex”, but “Anonymous Rex”. I guess because it’s a more catchy title. Confused yet? Hope not, but still, how many dino-noir films are out there? I wouldn’t exactly consider Theodore Rex as noir, myself.

I have to add this one is quite hard to even see, it’s on Amazon Prime Video… in the US, and i draw the line at using a VPN or registering to suspicious site for downloads. So i had to watch it on Youtube, in parts, hardsubbed in chinese in an embarassing resolution. I’m not gonna use screenshots from that, for obvious reasons.

Continua a leggere