The Spooktacular Eight #3: Evil Of Dracula (1974)

We gotta have a vampire film in here, but i’m not feeling like talking of Vampyros Lesbos, the old Hammer Dracula films have been done to death, and Yakuza Apocalypse is pretty well known, so let’s compromise and by that i mean feature something not quite from left field, but close enough.

So let’s take a look at a 70s japanese vampire movies clearly going after the western depiction and aesthetic, with Evil Of Dracula, which is actually the last piece of the so called “Bloodthirsty Trilogy” (later rereleased worlwide by Arrow Video) of vampire movies, beginning with Bloodsucking Doll/Vampire Doll, continuing with Lake Of Dracula, then Evil Of Dracula.

I should have done the entire trilogy, i guess that’s what happens when you pick a movie for a random Halloween selection without doing any proper research on it beforehand.

That’ll learn me.

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[EXPRESSO] Castlevania: Grimoire Of Souls iOS | Rise from your Konami grave

Another review i wasn’t expecting to make anymore, since this mobile Castlevania title was made available only in Australia (outside of the usual asian territories) before getting removed after only one year. Until it was recently resurrected as an exclusive Apple Arcade title, so this version is free of microtransactions bullshit seen in the original free to play release.

It also “means” i used the free trial period to play it and see if it’s any good.

Plot see Alucard travel through various magic books (the titular “grimoires”) regarding all past events and stories of the Castlevania games, all to subdue the dark power that has grown in them and keep them under control. An excuse as any to have all the characters from the series together.

Gameplay it’s an actual sidescroller 2D Castlevania that really benefits from playing it with a gamepad (and now it’s easy as pie to connect a PS4 or X-Box One controller to iOS devices), but it’s fairly playable even with the touch controls, and know what?

It ain’t bad.

The removal of microtransactions is compensated by handing out the “premium currency” liberally, but they didn’t change anything else, so it’s clear this was originally designed as a mobile free-to-play game, with multiple currencies and resources, gacha for weapons and items, and having to keep upgrading the characters’ “power levels”.

It’s not a bad game per se, it’s just not very good either, it starts promising enough but the level designs and enemies take a while to ramp up, and it hindering from being better by mobile design trappings, so it values content more than the quality and favors the usual “upgrading shit” as a way to resolve hurdles over actual skill.

Still, it’s just ok, nothing that bad to be worth shutting it down.

Coffee Pigeons and Nintendo sub-subscriptions bullshit

So Nintendo had an Animal Crossing Direct yesterday, mainly to show what would be in the next big AC New Horizons software update, alongside the previously teased return of Brewster and his cafè situated in the museum.

Let’s start with the good.

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Alice: Madness Returns PS3 [REVIEW] | Swimming The Seas Of Sanity Lost

11 years later, American MacGee brought back his flawed cult game for a direct sequel with Alice: Madness Returns, and as EA (and other publishers) were big on fighting the used game market with the “online passes”, this time they wanted to discourage from buying the game used by inserting in new copies a code to redeem the original American McGee’s Alice, basically treated as DLC.

Thankfully now the older game is free DLC on both PSN and the X-Box store, you still need a copy of Madness Returns to access it, but still, better than on PC, now available only through Origin (it was on Steam as well but got delisted), it doesn’t seem to include the original American MacGee’s Alice game. At least not anymore. I’m not throwing cash away to find out for sure.

A re-release of both titles might be in order, i guess as soon as MacGee can buy back the rights from EA or when we’ll have some news about that hypotetical Alice: Asylum, who had a tentative date of 31 October 2021… but in 3 years we didn’t hear anything aside from the fact that the title is in pre-production, meaning clearly that release date is not gonna be final, so for the meantime these are the options to visit (or revisit) the series.

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[EXPRESSO] 007: No Time To Die (2021) | Next, on The Venture Bros…

I was almost not gonna review this new 007 film, i usually enjoy them, but they’re not exactly my favourite type of movie, and i haven’t see one in theathers (or at all) since Casino Royale, but i’d figured we could use a break from the horror stuff, and i trust Cary Fukunaga.

Before tackling the plot, let me say i like Daniel Craig as Bond, but i won’t lie, i did like the idea-rumor of casting Idris Elba as the secret agent himself that was floating around when the movie was announced, but i guess we’ll have to wait for the next one.

Sure as hell they want it to feel like a big comeback, since it has been 6 years since the last one, Spectre, which wasn’t that well received, and this also being the last time Craig will play the character…. i guess explains how (and partially “why”) it’s almost 3 hours.

Plot is about James Bond being recruited by the CIA (after he resigned from the MI6) to rescue a kidnapped scientist, but things lead to thing and eventually to a showdown between Bond and a powerful villain (played by Rami Malek) with a nefarious plan…

Maybe it’s because i literally haven’t seen a Bond film in more than a decade, but honestly this actually hits all the right and expected notes from a 007 flick, it embraces the style of the series and plays it just right, without trying to ape other spy flicks, cynically chasing modern trends or – on the flipside – stubbornly trenching itself in the old shit just to spite modernity.

It’s a consolidated, familiar formula, here well executed, with likeable characters, spectacular action setpieces, a stellar cast. Arguably a bit longer than one would expected (or want), but far from slow moving, good overall, i’d say.

Oneechanbara Origin PS4 [REVIEW] | Blood Feuds, Zombies and Bikini Swords

So this finally went on sale on the PSN, i wanted to get to this sooner as it came out last year, but i refused to shell out 60 bucks for the whole enchillada since now D3 Publisher just releases these games digital only, and still tries to charge them the same.

Kinda, EDF 5 later got a physical release by Pqube, but i guess just because they already published a lot of EDF titles, and NIS – most likely – wasn’t interested in carrying this one westward like it did with Oneechanbara ZII Chaos.

But let’s get back on track, it’s the perfect time of the year after all.

This is the latest game in the series, but – as the title hints to – it’s not a prequel, but a remake-retelling of the first two Oneechanbara games, done to celebrate the 15^th anniversary of the series as a whole, i guess it was easier to do this instead of making a new one with new ridiculous looking scanty clad characters and ridiculous story.

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The Spooktacular Eight #2: The Slayer (1982)

I did promise i would cover more Arrow Video releases.

I didn’t specify or pointed out that they also re-released a lot of slasher flicks, so we’re not talking about the works of Park Chan-wook, Miike or Buttgereit, not today.

Today we’re talking about one of the many cult slashers from the 80s (really, what slasher from that era ISN’T a cult sensation today?), The Slayer, the debut feature from genre director J.S. Cardone, and yet another one for the “video nasty” list, which in retrospect helped these movies gain more notoriety than they ever could wish for, so yeah, good one Thatcher and co.

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Resident Evil Umbrella Corps PS4 [REVIEW] | Dead On Arrival

Yeah, since the recent trailer for the new Resident Evil film reboot came out recently, it would be fine to look at something that even the most hardcore contrarian fans would agree upon, aka the deliberately forgotten Umbrella Corps, so bad Capcom didn’t even use the Resident Evil name on it.

I picked it up years later, for 3 bucks on the PSN, since the game received a physical release on consoles only in Japan, as in they sold a box with a manual, the OST on 2 CDS, but no disk, so there’s no point in importing it from Japan, even for collectors of retail releases, not that we’re gonna lose much when it’ll get unvailable to purchase.

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Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City trailer dropped, words and reaction ensue, etc.

Yesterday we finally got to see the first trailer for the Resident Evil film reboot, known as Resident Evil Welcome To Raccon City for a while, and people aren’t exactly going gaga for it.

Color me not surprised, since fanbases are notoriously both easy and fickle to please, and years of Paul W.S. Anderson brand of action have clearly rotted some people’s brain overtime, i haven’t seen them all, but i did witness the vomit inducing unwatchable mess of Resident Evil The Final Chapter in theathers, and that already should set the stage for things to go inevitably up. Or at least avoid triggering motion sickness in moviegoers.

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[EXPRESSO] There’s Someone Inside Your House (2021) | Mid Slashing

Netflix is ramping up the horror output in October as expected and as usual i test my luck choosing what actually sit and down watch by using a bit of the old “eeny meeny miny moe” strategy.

There’s no telling if it’s good, just that it’s on Netflix…and will actually remain there since it’s an exclusive.

A fresh release (debuted worlwide on Netflix 3 days ago), There Is Someone Inside Your House is a slasher film written by Henry Garden and directed by Patrick Brice, following Makani Young, a transfer student from Hawaii that made the terrible mistake of moving to Nebraska, it’s no wonder she founds herself caught up in a case of gruesome murders happing in her new town.

Aside from the title being both straightforward and a shoe-in for a weird ass Adult Swim short film, the set up is pretty typical, with a killer going around targeting people apparently connected to a hazing ritual in an american football college team, wearing replicas of the soon to be victims’ faces, the characters are the expected ensemble of teens…. actually acting like teens, the killer exposing the victims’ secrets, the main character and her friends trying to figure out who’s the killer, etc.

Some good gore effects, decent acting, some decent setpieces, but there’s….. not really much to it, and the execution it’s a messy, misguided affari. You do the usually game of watching people die, the likeable teen characters bite the obvious bait,, until it’s actually revealed who is the killer and why, as the narrative loses focus after the first act and kinda meanders about the usual throdden path without nteresting things happening. Even the reveal of the killer’s identity is a doozy.

It’s not BAD, it’s just…. fairly forgettable, kinda throwaway average slasher fare.