Hunter X Hunter: Phantom Rogue (2013) [REVIEW] | Master of Muppets

Anime movies based around popular shonen series aren’t weird per sé, but just the fact they made Hunter X Hunter anime films feels somehow off to me.

Yes i know Hunter X Hunter has been a big Shonen Jump series…. but it’s not quite your typical shonen manga series, not quite ready-made for the “non-canon original story anime film” pipeline.

Just reading the synopsis i got the feeling this was just a way to extend HXH presence as an anime after the 2011 series ended (and was never continued)…but nope, this was released in Japanese theathers in 2013, in the final stretched of Greed Island arc.

Yet, even so, my gut was somehow correct, this is indeed what it sounded like, something ordered upon from a committee more than anything else, to fatten the suits wallets with cinema money, with a “double hit”, since later the same year Madhouse also released in theathers HXH: Last Mission.

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[EXPRESSO] Wild Horse Nine (2026) | Party In The RA.PA.NUI.

Martin McDonagh (Seven Psychopaths, Three Manifests Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Banshee Of Inesherin) is back with a black comedy spy thriller, Wild Horse Nine, which takes back to the not-so-funky ’70s, just before the 1973 Chilean coup-de-etat, with the CIA bureau chief, MJ (Steve Buscemi) dispatching two officers, Chris (John Malkovich) and Lee (Sam Rockwell), to Rapa Nui, as in, Easter Island.

The trip from Santiago there already proves hardous, as Chris seemingly suffers from some sort of alzeihmer, while also being overly candid about their motives and intentions, but among the peaceful tourist life and the gazing at the moai, many conspiracies are actually being acted on, putting Chris and Lee longtime friendship and loyalties to the test, especially as Chris befriending a local rebellious girl might sent the whole “operation” (whatever that is) to go belly up…

While the plot actually thickens and progressively reveals the real stakes at play here (or more correctly the machinations), the main crux of the film is how this affects the relationship between Chris and Lee, not only as colleagues but as genuine friends, as both events from the past and future treathen this too, especially due to dangerous cocktail of Chris’s deteriorating memory, its involvement in many secret operations and its questioning of those in his old age…

It’s honestly an amazing film, starts off a bit slow but the pay off is immense, as it manages to be incredibly funny, the comedy fairly brutal, not pulling any punch on the sensitive themes (and political period of yore) it tackles, but also able to deliver devasting emotional blows as well as many quotable lines, and everyone is on top of their game (even if Tom Waits is being progressively “Nick Nolte’d” the more he continues to appear in movies).

Highly recommended.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole SEASON ONE AND TWO [REVIEW] | A Graveyard Smash

I’ve hold off of reviewing this one in the hope Adult Swim would release it on physical media, but i’m tired, even though you can buy the series on various streaming sites… which still means technically there’s no real international release, even if you can see the whole series on AS website.

well, not quite the whole series, but we’ll get to that later.

This has been a favourite of mine for years, it’s Halloween, fuck it, we’re going through Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole, from Dino Stamatoppolous, better known for his other Adult Swim cult series, Moral Orel.

It ran from June 2010 to march 2012, amassing 20 episodes, divided over for 2 seasons, but nowadays i feel it mostly faded away, and it’s never brought up in discussion, so i’m doing it now.

Also yes, we already had a Frankenstein review as an extra treat, so consider this an Hallowen treat.

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The Spooktacular Eight #39: La Croce Dalle 7 Pietre/Cross Of The Seven Jewels (1987)

I wanted to do something special for the werewolf entry of this year’s Spooktacular Eight… and then realized i had the perfect movie hidden under my nose, in a way, because in anno domini 1987, in Italy released La Croce Dalle Sette Pietre (lit “The Cross Of The Seven Jewels/Stones”)….. and by that i do mean it got a theatrical release.

In just 2 theathers in the entire frigging country, but if you were lucky/unlucky enough and you lived in Sicily back in 1987 you could actually go to the cinemas and witness what would become hailed as one of the worst Italian movie ever made, ever.

Then again, an Italian horror movie with werewolves, satanic orgies, and the camorra (a Southern Italian specific mafia-style criminal group originating from Neaples) was always gonna be a cult trash film, especially if made on the cheap and treated as an embarassing relic to disregard.

And with good reason, this is some primo trash that feels made for retrospective reviewers to unearth and poke fun at…. which the movie does deserve, because it’s so unbelievably bad it’s downright magical, it’s that kind of “so bad it’s good” you can never forget.

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[EXPRESSO] Wildwood (2026) | The Cracked Brass Bells Will Ring

I was more than ready to see Laika newest film, i wanted to since the trailer was out, i was gonna support them anyway as they’re one of the very few good things to come out of nepo babies using decadent amounts of money for the actual arts, keeping stop motion animation alive still, even if we already know these movies are never making back the budget.

But frankly i was honestly surprised by Wildwood, like, damn, even putting aside how this one has been in development for 15 years and it shows, it’s absolutely stunning to look at.

Set in Portland, the plot sees a 13yo girl, Prue, left to attend his baby brother Mac at home, but she doesn’t listen, brings him alongside in a cart, meets her nerdy classmate Curtis, and has her brother snatched by a pack of crows, so the two chase to the mist shrouded Forbidden Forest where she got told to never ever go, found a mysterious way in, entering a world full of magic, talking animals and factions that were on the verge of war, getting caught up in this against her will.

It’s remarkable not only how this looks even better and is pure delight for eye of the stop motion aficionados (even by Laika’s own high standards), but how the apparently generic “fantasy forest fable” theming is used to develop an interesting world, with the everything from infantry wolves, talking owls, barbarians and the main antagonist, the forest witch, which is an excellent tragic villain, matched by some really likeable and well rounded protagonists and secondary characters alike.

There’s no dead air, all the way through its + 2 hours runtime, it’s also surprisingly funny, witty and willing to be “brutal”, avoiding easy kids films’ cop-outs.

PLEASE, just go see it.

[EXPRESSO] Street Fighter (2026) | Human Killing Machine

FIY, i never saw the old 1994 live action adaptation (or the 2006 one).

Still, there is something to be said about modern videogame films somehow failing to adapt the source material, getting lost in bullshit of their own making.

It’s just tiresome to see the new Street Fighter live action reboot catch every rake in the face like Sideshow Bob.

Despite on paper adapting the plot of Street Fighter II, this story focuses on Ryu and Ken being trained together as martial artist, like brothers, until a tragic event sets them apart, but now, with Lord Bison helming the second World Warrior Tournament, they are now bound to meet again….

it’s not bad per sé, but the narrative doesn’t move, as it stumbles drunkenly to setpieces from setpieces for 2 hours, with no focus to anything (we just outright skip big chunks of the tournament), hyperactive editing and weird choices that let you see very little of the otherwise entertaining fight scenes, all leading up to a “stop”, overconfidently setting up the sequel instead of writing a third act.

it has the same kinda of nostalgia (just swapping the ’80s for the ’90s) of the recent Masters Of The Universe film, and the same tone issues, flipping constantly from a quippy comedy where they forgot to put actual jokes in, or being sincere, in a way that neither works, with the actors either sleepwalking their parts or going full ham.

the best thing this movie has, the anime styled flashbacks are cool… just makes you wish the entire movie was made that way.

This isn’t awful, i did enjoy it at times, but it’s on the lower side of mediocre, and i docked the vote down a notch, for similar reasons i already did on the MKII film review.

Hidden Dragon and Crouching Tiger and Sengoku Zombie [MANGA REVIEW] | Warring States Undead (Undead)

Zombies. The horror comfort food, that if an apocalypse actually happened without them, people would somehow make them happen just to not have that Y2K style survival book and mental training for a Walking Dead roleplay go to waste.

After all, we stuck them even in Pride And Prejudice, we had them destroyed by Abraham Lincon, and Sankarea exists to ask questions we shouldn’t really ask.

So of course we were gonna have them mixed with historical fantasy, going basically the Onimusha route but during the Warring States era of Japan (as depicted in popular media like Samurai Warriors more than actual historical drama), specifically reenacting the legendary rivalry between Kenshin Uesugi and Shingen Takeda… in modern day.

Mugen Tenshou: Hidden Dragon and Crouching Tiger and Sengoku Zombie is indeed the manga that dares asks: what if Sengoku era zombie samurais happened today, with a darkness castle emerging out ot nowhere, undead warriors of old, and of course Oda Nobunaga emerges as the Demon King that had been planning this while lying in Hell for centhuries?

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The Spooktacular Eight #36: Snoop Dogg House Of Horrors (2006)

I gotta admit, despite everything (and he sure has bought into some questionable shit) i love me seeing some Snoop Dogg bullshitting around, so yes, have him do a ghetto Cryptkeeper presenting and commenting an anthology of short horror stories themed around an American inner-city ‘hood.

So yes, this is basically a Snoop Dogg licensed “Tales From The Hood”, which i discovered only after locking this into the schedule (and i’ve heard it’s pretty dang good), sorry but we’ll make do.

Yeah, there’s not much to say about the presentation, but i was curious when this showed up on Amazon Prime Video and for some reason has an anime-esque style animated prologue… and yes, it’s because it customary for horror anthologies (as this way they also tribute the old horror comics these films often base their material on), but i was also right, because the animated intro and outro are animated by renowned anime studio MADHOUSE.

Kinda funny because this also predates their work on The Boondocks, though these sequences are stylish but they’re not well animated, let’s be honest, most likely as they were done on the extra cheap, which wouldn’t surprise me, since it’s indicative of the production as a whole.

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Slotherhouse (2023) [REVIEW] | Slay Queen

While i’m sure i can find more old 80s school themed/adjacent slasher, this September we’re doing something a bit more recent for a change, from a chronological standpoint, by unearthing from my Blu-Ray collection 2023’s Slotherhouse.

And yes, indeed, this is a 10/10 title for you killer animal slasher film.

It really is indeed about a killer sloth, and the house is not any common house, it’s a sorority house, where Emily Young, a college student brings a three-toed sloth from the jungle, thinking it can work as a “house mascot” and hence help her be elected as the sorority’s president.

But of course things go awry as a series of sorority girls is being killed, and all the evidence strongly implicates it’s actually the cute sloth the one doing all the murders…

I’ll be honest, the promo material made it look like it was chomping off the modern “retro 80s trend”, specifically aping Happy Death Day…. but i was mistaken, this isn’t the case, as Slotherhouse – aside taking place in modern times – is oddly not even that much interested in aping other slasher films. Not too specifically, anyway.

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[EXPRESSO] The Invite (2026) | Indoor Games

A curious case, not in itself, even though American remakes of foreign film are (thankfully) becoming extinct, but because we already got a remake of Sentimental, a 2020 Spanish film, as the 2022 Italian Vicini Di Casa….which i basically ignored at the time due to the cast, no joke, and because sentimental comedy dramas in Italy are a crapshoot quality wise.

Yeah, The Invite is indeed that, but since i never saw the original nor the Italian remake, i guess it doesn’t matter for the purposes of this review, which wasn’t planned at all, i went to see this on a whim.

A couple whose relationship is (to put it kindly) on the ropes invite (much to the husband desire not to) their neughbours for dinner, a couple of really extroverted, mysterious and fascinating people, but after a rough start, the night takes an unexpected turn..

This is where you might think i’m not describing the plot any further to avoid the super Shyamalan twist of Seth Rogen revealing he has been Donkey Kong wearing a human skin suit all along, nor because it turns into Funny Games.

I’m still not describing the plot any further because otherwise i still would spoil it, and because it’s indeed pretty much a play, set in an apartment with very fow rooms and very few characters, hinging entirely on the performances, on the characters, as they discuss their issues, antagonize each other, undermine and discover more about themselves, opening up and letting the audience learn more than the initial facade implies, in a intelligent, witty but never too cerebral fashion that it loses that feeling of verysimilitude.

It’s a rare comedy-drama made for actual adults, with amazing performances and characters so compelling you won’t notice how its actually almost 2 hours long.

Recommended.