[EXPRESSO] M3GAN (2022) | Child’s Ploy

Killer robots are back to the big screen (using the plural since there was apparently a christmas killer robot santa movie that also came out last year but it’s still US only, in a legal manner), and intriguingly James Wan it’s back as writer after his friend (and Saw co-creator) Leigh Wannell delivered the excellent cyborg thriller Upgrade some years ago, this time with a new take on the killer doll trope, which while sharing similarities with Chucky (even more considering the surprisingly solid recent remake), manages to stand on its own.

Even though the title character starts out as an anti-Chucky figure of sorts, since it’s a robot created as an advanced life-sized child companion/tutor/friend and pitched by a woman working in a toy company after her sister’s family dies on a crash, with only her young nephew, Cady, surviving the incident, after realizing the nephew treats Megan as a real friend, realizing she can kill two birds with one stone by also forwarding the robot unit instead of the toyline she was supposed to fix.

Problem is “Megan” has been built with an adaptive learning pattern and soon cold logic brings the robot to realize that extreme measures will need to be taken in order to protect Cady…

2022 was indeed the year of Pinocchio more than i realized, but aside from that the movie it’s good, not great, but definitely good, the script is strong, characters are quite likeable, the drama delivers, the title character-killer it’s creepy as fuck, the effects are good, and direction by Gerard Johnstone is quite solid too.

Takes a bit to get going, but when it does you’re in for quite the fun killer robot horror film… and one that kinda ambushed me with how funny – deliberatly comedic – it was.

[EXPRESSO] Freaky (2020) | Stop ‘n’ Swop

It’s my pleasure to say that with Freaky we’re back to Christopher Langdon’s brand of energetic and delightful modern slashers movie “with a twist”.

This time it’s NOT a Groundhound Day time-loop applied to a slasher movie, but another popular twist, as in “body swapping” between the heroine/final girl and the killer (via a mystical sacrifical dagger), an indirect “reversal”, as our troubled teen girl has to go back in her body and do it fast as the spell will be irreversable after 24 hours, with the killer using the advantages of his new body to continue the murder spree at the school prom.

While the main twist is indeed fresh for the slasher subgenre, and Langdon’s script fully utilizes for dramatic and comedic effect (while also obviously giving a spin to the chasing killer trope), Freaky is both style AND substance, able to hit many of the satisfying slasher elements, like the satisfaction of the killer tearing up detestable characters, the fairly graphic and unapologetic gore of the more elaborate kills, keeping most of the traditional elements.

It’s not just a cynically conceived gimmicky twist hurriedly scribbled to akwardly “spice up” an otherwise uncaring crap slasher, it’s clearly crafted and written with a clear understanding of the genre/subgenre, and while it’s very funny, with the same whimsical tone seen in previous Langdon’s film, it’s not a satire or parody, but a proper slasher movie in itself, one with great actors like Vincent Vaughn and Kathryin Newton, giving off great performances.

Even if you weren’t crazy for the director previous films (wasn’t too fond of the second Happy Death Day, myself), it can’t be denied it’s a very confidently written, acted and directed blend of horror and comedy that successfully lays an old fan favourite twist on the slasher formula.

[EXPRESSO] Fantasy Island (2020) | Horror Spice

Fantasy Island 2020 poster.jpg

So this is basically a horror reimagining of a 70’s/80’s tv series, one i’ve never even heard before i stumbled upon the listing of this movie, but i guess if children shows like The Banana Splits can get remade as horror movies, it’s fair game for everybody.

The premise centers around the eponymous, remote tropical island, where the mystical Mr. Roarke (Michael Peña) makes the most secret dreams of his guests come true. But as the fantasies morph into nightmares, the captive guests have to solve to mystery of the island if they want to escape it, and the true reason they were all brought there.

I frankly don’t know or care if this is a “needed” or random remake of the source material, but even so, i could see this movie working even without the horror elements, which at times they do spice things up a bit, but on other occasions are so tacked on and clichè to the point of being just laughable, just thrown together into the supernatural thriller-drama cauldron, using the premise to link together scenes from different genres (a bit of Saw, a bit of war movie, a bit of heist movie, a family drama) in a coherent way.

And it works, it’s what i would classify as “movie meatloaf”, but it’s entertaining, fairly well acted, has decent characters, but it should (and could) have been shorter, as the last act drags on by using horror cliches, and it’s odd how mostly bloodless it is for a horror movie, not that this one actually needed Braindead/Dead Alive levels of gore, or horror elements to begin with. It’s not a case of “neutering for the sake of PG-13”, it just a story that could have done without being horror “flavored” and not lose much.

It’s alright.

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