Seven Samurai 20XX PS2 [REVIEW] #meleemay

Technically this is a re-write, because i did review this game years and years ago in italian, but time gave me the distance needed to realize i could actually write an entirely new review from scratch for Seven Samurai 20XX still based on my experience of like 7 plus years ago, since the hatred i felt for this one never actually went away, and i guess festered on the back of my mind.

But i did replay it, and i can futher confirm that there are indeed many reasons to istinctually hate it, if nothing else for the fact it had the brass balls of being the closest to an actual videogame adaptation of Kurosawa’s seminal samurai film, as it actually had the rights by the Kurosawa production, and i wanna make it clear it also has Moebius (yes, THAT Moebius) as the character designer and music by another legend, the late Ryuichi Sakamoto.

So yeah, it’s kinda impressive how Sammy (an arcade publisher that by the early 2000s fused with Sega in order to enter the home console videogame market, which i will always associate with my beloved Metal Slug clone called Dolphin Blue) got permits from the film studios, rounded up people of incredible caliber from different industries, and then managed to deliver such an obvious, steaming turd that was destined to haunt the 5 bucks bargain bins for a good decade.

So much for a product meant to celebrate the movie’s 50^th anniversary, as it did the anime series Samurai Seven, both curiously fiddling with sci-fi re-imaginings of the film but actually unrelated to each other besides both meant to attract younger audiences to Kurosawa’s story.

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[EXPRESSO] The Pope’s Exorcist (2023) | Amen Amorth

It’s a day of the week of a month, there’s a good 40 % chance of seeing a new exorcism movie in theathers, and this horror subgenre is very overdone, so you gotta have some mildly “fresh” twist or idea outside of “demons or paranormal entities possessing children and throwing priests at walls”.

This one has Russel Crowe playing real life Vatican head exorcist Gabriel Amorth, (whose deeds were also featured in the 2017 biopic by William Fredkin, The Devil And Father Amorth), a younger father Amorth as it’s set in the late 1980s and sees him confronting a demon possessing a young boy living in an abandoned abbey in Spain, but with a plan that involves specifically getting father Amorth to confront him, a scheme that will lead the priest to discover a secular conspiracy….

Russel Crowe is great as a more “hip”, maverick-y and humorous father Amort, which is already scores the movie a good point in its favour, as we have a possession movie that plays it straight but also has a sense of humour, showing some wit and awareness of how exorcisms are often perceived by the non-clergy sections of the populace.

The other “twist” is one of the more shameless things i’ve seen written as a part of an exorcism movie, and one it’s hard to discuss without spoiling it, but let’s just say it’s no surprising this revelation hits in a movie that allegedly was partially funded by catholic companies.

Most of the movie throws around the usual exorcism repertoire, but direction it’s solid enough, the characters aren’t that great but Russel Crowe’s performance alone carries the movie, and there’s definitely a lot of spectacle, gore and graphic imagery (though some of the effects could be better), making for a decent, fairly entertaining flick.

[EXPRESSO] Demon Slayer: Prelude To The Swordsmith Village (2023) | Stock Breathing Style (UPDATED)

Okay, i’m not gonna sugarcoat it, this feels a bad joke to pull on the audience.

Sure, this was billed as a compilation film of the second season with the juicy carrot being the inclusion of the first episode from Season 3 of the Demon Slayer anime (covering the Swordsmith Village Arc), which will be airing normally this April, i’m not complaining about that.

But it’s not a compilation of the second season, it’s actually the final 3 episodes of Season 2 plus the never seen before episode 1 of the upcoming third season, and i would question it even being a compilation film, since they did slap the aforementioned episodes together, didn’t even bother to cut out endings, title cards, eyecatches or do any noticeable edits for better narrative flow.

I can kinda understand why only these episodes, as they sports movie level quality animation and are even better to see on the big screen, but this is supposed to be a compilation movie, so it’s a matter of editing… and even then i struggle to use that word, as they mostly added a brief gist of what the series it’s about in form of text over reused footage, and recycled the opening songs over very brief montages of battles and events leading to the action packed finale of the Entertaiment District arc, which you’re thrown upon.

Could have added some voice over narration here and there to give more context than zero or actually summarize the events leading to that, insteading of bugger all.

At least it’s not an extra pricey theathrical release, but still, this is lazy and bad even for a compilation film, complete cashgrab.

Even if episode 1 of Season 3 is quite good, just wait for the season to air regularly as it will.

EDIT 14/03/2022: i was made aware that the original trailer for the movie DID specify the contents as the movie just being the last 2 episodes of Season 2 plus the first one of Season 3, i didn’t know that since why bother seeing the trailer for a recap movie, and many news outlets didn’t quite specify what exactly was in the movie (the ones here in Italy just advertisedit as “recap movie of the Entertaiment District Arc” or something generic and non-descriptive, for once).

So i upgraded my rating to Americano to refelect, as in, it’s at least what they advertised, though this doesn’t fix the fact it was clearly marketed in a vague way by many news outlets (by choice, a malicious person might suggest), nor my complains about it lacking any kind of basic edit of the reused footage,

[EXPRESSO] Studio 666 (2022) | Dave Grohl Made Me Do It

No, this is not a Jojo reference, nor its one of those weird hybrid music video-concert films (see for example Metallica’s Through The Never), this a full on fictionalized affair, and one i’ve been looking forward to since it was announced. Sure, rock and metal superstar bands aren’t new to cinematic experiences about their personas, but the pitch-premise of a comedy horror starring Dave Ghrol and his bandmates as themselves it’s so good it’s hard to ignore.

As the band Foo Fighters it’s struggling to come up with ideas for its tenth studio album, they get recommended a secluded house in Encino, California, where in the 70s a band called Dream Widow went to record an album, ending with the frontman massacring all the band members before killing himself. The band settles in despite the creepy vibes they pick up from the house, but things get progressively out of hand, leading to Dave Grohl being possessed by a demon. Among other things.

It’s a good dang premise, and thankfully the script and direction are up to snuff to make the most of the pitch, having a zany time with horror cliches and the expected “behind the music” stuff, with the band proving to be very good sports in this delightfully ridiculous comedy horror romp, especially Dave Grohl overacting like a champ as he grows progressively more obsessed once he manages to “magically” get over his artistic block.

Yeah, it’s pretty funny, there’s more to the story than expect, and Studio 666 isn’t afraid to be extra cheesy and honestly it’s kinda surprising that the effects are very good, but besides that, i’ve seen horror movies that try to take themselves seriously but ultimately wish they could pull off even half-successfully a random jumpscare this movie uses as a joke.

Recommended!

Ninety Nine Nights X360 [REVIEW] | #musoumay

In the 2000s, the Dynasty Warriors series (and most of its subseries) was not well received in western grounds, often maligned by people that never even gave the formula a real chance but eager to play them for 5 minutes, stop and write some half-baked “review”, because it was cool to bash musou games, and they’re a niche interest anyway, who cares.

But that didn’t stop various other company from having a go at the formula, often proclaiming that them alone knew how to “fix” musou games… and then churning out shit that only demonstrated how people genuinely misunderstood the formula and the appeal of these games, often thinking that they just needed to beef up the enemy IA… leading to crap like Spartan Total Warrior.

One of the “musou pretenders” from that era was definitely Ninety Nine Nights, or N3 because we’re cool like that, dawg. Drop the beets for the l33t.

A X-Box 360 exclusive launch title, developed by Q Entertaiment and Phantagram, Ninety Nine Nights also had a fairly rushed development cycle, which you can really tell from the story perspective. It’s the usual “Light VS Darkness” bullshit set in a medieval-ish looking world with all expected high fantasy races and tropes: goblin, trolls, orcs, dragons and all dat shit.

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[EXPRESSO] The Privilege (2022) | Frozen Daiquiri Horror Of The Chosen

More german teen horror movies via Netflix, this time with The Privilege.

A rich teen and his fittingly rich private school classmates uncover a conspiracy while investigating a series of supernatural elements.

What conspiracy, you may ask? Cannibals? Cultists sacrificing students to Nyarlatothep? Me trying to distract you from the obvious social commentary a horror movie with this title is going for?

Worry not, the movie itself will confuse you quite enough, as it’s admittely bonkers and ambitious, but not in a good way, as it throws too many sub-plots and ideas into the script, resulting in a hodgepotche that’s simply WAY too ambitious for its own good, all made worse by desperate attempts at jumpscares and shallow teen characters.

Demons, parasitic fungi, seances, creepy laboratories with corpse cultures, rites, hauntings, the movie has them all, even if leads to congestion more than fun.

It’s not bad or boring, there are some cool ideas, and it’s kinda unpredictable, but that’s also because there too much on the plate and no focus, so the movie shifts from supernatural horror to psychological thriller and even to science fiction horror, and you keep wondering how the hell this all connects together until the very end… which you will still wonder about, as the clearly rushed finale leads to the “please franchise” cliffhanger, for a movie that otherwise feel quite longer than it actually is, just isn’t scary enough and baffles more than entertains.

I don’t think it’s outright crap, but i will admit i really, really struggled to get all the way to the end of The Privilege, more frustrated and annoyed than spooked or creeped out, a real shame since its well shot, there are some good gore effects, some interesting moments and the german cast it’s quite good.

A real pity.

[EXPRESSO] Demon Slayer: Mugen Train (2020) | Eternal Pyre

Fuck it, i’m reviewing this one as well, since it did eventually arrive just now in theathers here in Italy…. after being made available on Amazon Prime Video months earlier, but i’m willing to watch it again to support anime cinema releases, and to properly assess things further for a review.

Since the series it’s the more recent shonen manga success story, i doubt i need to introduce Demon Slayer/Kimetsu No Yaiba, even more since i feel its success lies in being pretty straightforward and easy to connect, as its set in a fantasy Japan of old, where demons lurk at night and feast on people, but are fought back by a secret order of samurai with mystical blades and techniques, the Demon Slayer Corps.

The protagonist, Tanjiro, becomes a Demon Slayer in hopes to undo the curse that made his sister Nezuko a demon, and along the way befriendes the cowardly lightining fast swordman Zenitsu, as well as Inosuke, a wild boy wearing a boar mask.

The plot revolves around the trio being tasked to – alongside an experienced demon slayer called Rengoku – embark a train and protect the people on it from eventual demon ambushes, and this isn’t an original story, a mostly disconnected one-off adventure, as most of these shonen anime movies are, but actually bridges the events of the first and second season, and has some important stuff happening in it, so i wouldn’t recommend jumping into this if you haven’t seen the first season (or red the equivalent manga chapters), for spoiler reasons.

That said, it can be watched fine on its own, and rewatching it made clear it’s a pretty good shonen manga film, with excellent animation from ufotable as expected, funny moments, good drama, likeable characters and intense fights with high stakes.

The Iced Hunter (2018) [REVIEW] | Mozgus Chaser

Welcome to another installment of “no, you never heard of this one before, and i haven’t either”, with The Iced Hunter, an italian horror fantasy action film directed by Davide Cancila and about the titular “iced hunter” (you can tell his namesake was never intended to be translated in english, because it sounds like a fancy non-IBA approved cocktail or a Blooborne collaboration cafè item), a mysterious non-human warrior with fittingly mysterious origins and with memories not of his own, being trailed by the “Domini Lupi” sect, hellbent of getting rid of him at any cost.

Does this feel like a werewolf spiced live action “redo/reinterpretation” of the “Holy Iron Chain Order” arc in Berserk?

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The Spooktacular Eight #8: Spookies (1986)

Another classic staple of horror retrospective, the “frankensteined” project that started as something specific, never got made and was later edited, injected with new footage, and eventually released as the obvious hodge potche it became. One that for years was quite elusive, not that well known, and was available on VHS only…. but this changed as it finally got a DVD release in the US and some european contries (surprisingly i didn’t even had to import it, since there’s an italian DVD release).

And of course the title is that kind of cheesy that bode wells for retronauts in search of cult sensations from the bowels of horror history.

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The Spooktacular Eight #1: Doom Annihilation (2019)

Ah, yes, the newer Doom movie adaptation, one that basically came out direct to video 2 years ago, to the sound of not much fanfare and people claiming it killed their mum in cold blood it was so bad, so terrible.

Clearly these people don’t know any better, because i was surprised to finally come around, unwrap my Blu Ray copy i got on the cheap last year, and seeing it was actually not that bad, at all, far from the disaster people claim it is.

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