[EXPRESSO] The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021) | Pacino Panic

I’ll be honest, once i heard the third Conjuring main installment was gonna be handled by the director of Curse Of La Llrona (the 2019 one), Michael Chaves…. my expectations dropped like a lead baloon. Sorry, but they did, even with Wan involved… not in writing the screenplay. MH.

Now that the movie it’s finally in theathers….let’s go over the plot, first, instead.

In the 80s the Warrens (Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson) are investigating a new case of demon possessions and the like, which involves a man accused of killing his landlord by slashing him 22 times with a knife, and during the trail the Warrens – for the first time in American law’s history – try to negotiate a reduction by posing (and trying to prove as far as they can) the man was under demonic possession, uncovering another occult force along the way.

Let’s be brutally honest: this IS the underwhelming follow-up, it’s exactly that, not strictly bad, but just uninspired, going through the motions big time, with the best parts being hold-overs from the previous movies, in particular the Warrens’ characters, nothing that this movie can claim to have created. What is new is clearly an inferior redo of the Conjuring as a whole, not just with Chaves’ direction being ridden of limp, almost ineffectual jumpscares, but also the script (which really makes you miss Wan), made worse by the obvious “tricks” to make this one reach the 2 hours mark.

It’s disappointing, and a shame because you almost could see a better movie coming out of it if handled by more experienced people, but that movie didn’t happen in reality. Still better than The Nun or La Llorona, but come on, you reasonably expect more than just that from a mainline installment of this franchise.

[EXPRESSO] The Unholy (2021) | Cigarettes, Ice Cream, Figurines

Based on the novel “Shrine” by James Herbert, The Unholy is another movie that released just now due to the COVID-19 pandemic effects, and is the first horror movie i’ve seen in theathers before the last lockdown here in Italy (before that i just managed to see The Grudge 2020).

Why i’m talking about my “cinema cronology” instead of the movie itself, and posing fairly obvious retorical questions? You know exactly why, but let’s get to it anyway.

The plot follows a New England hack journalist, Gerry Fenn, once very famous but eventually kicked out as he kept just making shit up all the time, now reduced to do low paying puff pieces about strange phenomena, but he’s as skeptical as cynical, so he keps mostly inventing stories. But when he hears of a young lady named Alice, a deaf-mute miracolously healed after – as she puts it – she saw the Virgin Mary.

Gerry decides to investigate on the matter, leading to discover many dark episodes uncongrously related to Alice’s “miracle”.

It doesn’t sound that interesting, and… it isn’t. But it’s not half bad either, as the spirit/entity isn’t completely generic and the script could be far worse, but it’s also one of those horror movies that almost completely relies on lazy jump scares or noise distractions to keep some attention from the viewers. It’s that kind of mediocre horror film about possessions that at least has a narrative where shit happens at a decent pace, some good actors (it has Cary Elwes, Katie Aselton and Jeffrey Dean “Negan” Morgan in the cast) and quite good production values.

In a way, it’s the perfect blend of mediocre horror flick that’s not annoying, too slow or boring, but it’s also full of cliches, lacking any mystery and immediatly forgettable. Meh.

[EXPRESSO] Helltaker STEAM | Best Grills

Helltaker STEAM

So, there’s this new game on Steam, describing itself as “a short game about sharply dressed demon girls”, with promise of anime harem (but again it points out “Suggestive clothing and poses. Don’t put your hopes too high though – it’s all tame.”), and it’s free. You can already see why it’s become somewhat of a sensation in the community. Which leads us to this question: are the demon girls cute? (YES)

As far as gameplay goes, it’s not what you might think given this premise, a puzzle game where you (as a sharply dressed and shades wearing badass) kick blocks, skeletons, get keys, avoid traps and proceed through Hell in a turn based fashion, with a turn limit to reach the end of the each level, where you meet a different demon girl in a visual novel-esque segment where you choose from a couple of replies and hope you charmed and/or convinced the hell cutie to join the harem. Otherwise they’ll stab you to death or give you a bad end of some kind.

Fairly good puzzles overall, but the game lets you skip them if you just want to get to the demon girls, with great character designs and very good music.

My main gripe isn’t the short lenght (you can finish it in 1, max 2 hours), is that the multi-stage boss fight at the end requires really fast reflexes and to keep moving around really fast… in a game that’s 90% turn based puzzle game without timers or urgency. It comes out of nowhere and feels more frustrating than it should, since the game doesn’t prepare you for that in any way. It’s like if at the end of a Dynasty Warriors battle you were forced to play a long RTS style map.

Still, quite good and quite the treat!

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