[EXPRESSO] The End Of Oak Street (2026) | Amblin’s Dynostopia

When i first saw in theathers the trailer for The End Of Oak Street showcasing dinosaurs i was sold, even more as it is from director-screenwriter-producer David Robert Mitchell (It Follows, Under The Silver Lake).

So someone knew how to market the film, clearly not who decided, a week before release, to release a promo on social media with talking dogs (not even dinosaurs) doing a podcast, made with generative IA to promote the film… to whom i don’t know, because even the less online, average person will see that and just go see something else.

Congrats to somehow managing being clowned on by the marketing team for fuckin Paw Patrol The Dino Movie, when you have to sell people on a 80s themed scifi mystery where Anne Hathaway knives dinosaurs to defend her family.

The End Of Oak Street is indeed about this family living in a 80s suburban community, which one day wakes up to see their entire block now surrounded by prehistoric vegetation and overrun by dinosaurs, as if displaced by some cosmic anomaly, with them now trying to bend together and survive in this new reality….

On one hand, it’s another movie taking place in the 80s, and unsubtly grabbing unto an Amblin-style nostalgia for the era, and you might feel disappointed if you expected it to hold some crazy twist that turned this into more bonkers territory (or a different ending).

On the other hand, it is a FAR better dinosaur movie than all the Jurassic World films combined, there’s a lot of prehistoric creatures being represented, the family drama is actually as solid as the survival itself, you do care about these characters, and it exactly as long as it needs, not bothering to give overly long explanations that will never satisfy anyone anyway.

[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.

[EXPRESSO] Cocaine Bear (2023) | Hidden Packages

Since Grizzly II’s actual release was never gonna cut it (because reality), this year we have a new entry for the killer bear subgenre, with Cocaine Bear, directed by Elizabeth Banks (Pitch Perfect 2, 2019’s Charlies Angels), and a masterclass in marketing by the virtue of “its exactly what you think it is and what it says on the tin”.

Even more unbelievable is that there’s an actual true life story of the titular “coked plantigrade” serving as a loose base for the plot, involving an american black bear that in december 1985 ingested a duffel bag full of cocaine, one of the many dropped via airplane by a drug smuggler that then dies out of some horrendous clumsiness.

In reality the bear didn’t kill anyone and actually just OD’d, and the poor thing now (allegedly) actually resides as a stuffed exhibit in a mall in Kentucky, which is far crueler than any of the kills done by the “Cocaine bear” in the movie, which eats some of the angel dust and then goes on a rampage through a National Forest, starting with a couple of hikers then various people that are either connected to the drug cartel or were unlucky enough to be there at the worst time possible.

And it’s a b-movie style blast of horror comedy fun, with some really graphic sequences (involving disembowling and one of the most hilarious deaths i’ve seen on film in some time), high production values, and lots of dumbass but actually endearing, funny characters (love the “pop art thug gang”). Maybe a bit too many and the final act could have a better pacing, but honestly the movie does live up to its marketing, being silly, steeped in dark comedy, exactly as long it needs to be, and very, very entertaining.