[EXPRESSO] Drop (2025) | Dream [*] Distance

Christopher Langdon (Scouts Guide To The Zombie Apocalypse, Happy Death Day, Happy Death Day 2U, Freaky) is back, this time leaving aside the horror genre for a straight up thriller about a widowed therapist, Violet, whom goes on a date after years of being traumatized from her abusive past relationship, only to receive (via air-drop) threathening messages during the date, starting from annoying her with meme images but eventually ramping up to the mysterious contact showing he can kill her son if she doesn’t comply, and asking her to kill her date, among other things…

It’s a pretty simple (but not too simple) premise, mostly taking place in a highrise fancy restaurant, taking full advantage of the “restricted” location to great effect, as Violet (and the audience alongside her) tries to crack the mystery of whom is actually the killer hiding in plain sight, forced against absurds odds in a life-or-death situation when she’s constantly monitored, to parse through what might or not be red herrings, and to keep up the facade in spite of everything, which also forces Violet to confront her past abuse…

It’s pretty intense, captivating, acting is quite good, there’s actually more to the plot (that i won’t spoil), the characters are quite good (even the secondary ones like the hammy waiter/actor-to-be are funny or cute), it’s exactly as long as it needs to be (where i could easily have seen this being forced to be 2 hours or something like that nowadays), and there’s no absurd twist just for the sake of “outsmarting” the audience….. there is that scene, the one that’s in most trailers (you’ll recognize it when you see it), that’s kinda ridiculous, but its a minor niggle, especially since it helps in making thing even more entertaining in the final act.

Recommended.

[EXPRESSO] Until Dawn (2025) | Happy Bloody New Death Day

An Until Dawn movie adaptation might sound stupid, and pointless… it does, but this isn’t an adaptation of the main storyline of Supermassive Games’ title, it’s actually a standalone story allegedly taking place in the Until Dawn universe,

Kinda funny (and stupid) to have the film adaptation of a game that had systems built in to ensure you lived through the decisions you made… have the central gimmick being a time loop, with the idea being that every time the teens (come to a visitor centre in the valley where Melanie, Clover’s sister, mysteriously disappeared a 1 year prior) are killed they change horror subgenre, chased by cursed zombie like creatures and masked killers, the only escape being in them managing to survive until dawn.

Nifty idea, but still, it only kinda makes sense only when you consider this from the macro level of Supermassive Games’ various efforts in the “cinematic adventure game” fashion, and even so, it’s a stretch, let’s be real, this feels more like a rejected Happy Death Day (or Bloody New Year) style script – directed though by David F. Sandberg of Lights Out and Shazam fame – that got the Until Dawn branding (and a couple of touch ups to make sure something from the game made the cut) slapped on it mid-way through production, to ensure this get more butts in theathers.

I will admit the new gimmick laid on top sounds really fun and kinda mirrors the game’s using various elements from slashers of different eras all together… shame they give up mid-way on their own selling point (boy they do skimp on the “subgenre change” concept), but for what it ultimately is, the “Until Dawn” movie’s got decent acting, it’s entertaining, has some good gore effects, making for a decent time overall.

[EXPRESSO] Queer (2024) | Bum Fancy

FIY, i did skip Challengers because i was kinda not feeling to see another romance movie by Guadagnino, especially one that’s also a sports drama about tennis (i wasn’t too fond of Bones And All either), but i heard of the troubled distribution Queer had, leading to just release in theathers here a few days ago, and i was curious.

Based on William Burroughs’ novel of the same name, Queer is set in 1950s Mexico City , where the protagonist, Williams Lee, a nearly middle aged gay man, lives his expat with occasionally mingling with the few people in the American community living there, having tryst with other men, until one day he meets this young new student, Eugene, whom just arrived in town, giving him hope he can finally have a real, intimate connection with someone, not just on a physical level…

as you might have assumed, it’s a virtually plotless affair, as it more a sequence of accidents and events started by Lee that “drags” Eugene into sex, drinking like a sponge, with the third act basically having the movie go jungle adventure in search of ayahuasca (because of its rumored “telepathy powers”, not to talk to Yakub), have a romantic body horror sequence then straight up propose its own junkie version of “those” notorious 2001: A Space Odissey scenes.

While i wish it ended a bit earlier than it did, to be honest i was captivated, there are indeed some performances of a lifetime here, it’s as excessive as all Guadagnino’ movies are (see also the deliberately anachronistic musical choice and swinging sense of “realism”), you expect them to be, you want them to be, and this one admittely did grab me a lot more, not great, but indeed good.

Worth a watch, at the very least.

[EXPRESSO] Sinners (2025) | From Blues Till Dawn

There are movies that are best enjoyed by going in “cold”, by i don’t know if Sinners is one of those, as i can imagine people being confused if they were not aware of From Dusk Until Dawn having been a thing for a couple of decades (alongside some sequels i keep forgetting exist).

Because it is that, but done less as a deliberately disjointed surprise jump in tone, direction and subject matter, as it made to feed into the themes of freedom, black heritage and racial tensions, with the first half being a thriller drama set in 30s America, where a couple of brothers in the crime business, Smoke and Stack, go back to their town in Mississippi, in order to try and make some cash by setting up a juke joint, and they involve their cousin, a budding bluesman dubbed “Preacher Boy”.

The second half is them being stalked and having to survive when vampires surround the juke joint at night, and yes, its indeed doing a “From Dusk Until Dawn”, turning things straight into horror territory, with pretty good effects too and some very nice musical bits, lots of carnage, really good acting as always, especially Michael B. Jordan as both “Smokestack” brothers.

I respect it’s ambition and willing to do some out there shit (like the “future and past” visions of blues music), but the editing at times is frustrating, it kinda keeps going even after what would have been a good time to end the movie… twice, which is partially due to close up some subplots.

At times it’s a bit too much and it’s a miracle it works so well instead of being the utter mess it sounds-could have been like, but it is still well done, bold and stylish, i do recommend it.

[EXPRESSO] Kaiju No. 8: Mission Recon (2025) | Kompilation Kaijus

I usually rag on compilation films for anime series… for the obvious reasons, but i did watch Kaiju 8 Mission Recon it because i was curious about the manga but i never had time to check that or the anime out,, so i guess compromise it is.

Speaking of, the premise it’s set in a sci-fi future where academies train young people into anti-kaiju troops to dispose of the endless hordes of big ass monsters attacking Tokyo on a daily basis.

The protagonist, Kafka, actually a man in his 30s, working on cleaning up the kaiju remains and debris, after he flunked his entry exam as a soldier, but one day, while on the job, he’s infected by a parasite that lets him turn into a humanoid kaiju…

Obviously one of these new series that rose up after Attack On Titan success, even if the similarities are only superficial , as Kaiju 8 is more inspired by Ultraman (and a bit by Patlabor) than anything else, and the tone is more akin to One Punch Man than AoT… and honestly i think it’s pretty fun.

Nothing we haven’t seen before, but done fairly well, the animation is quite good, the action is solid, the kaiju designs are pretty cool, the cyberpunk aesthetic is well done, and i do like the protagonist being an older man than usual (despite being a teenager at heart) not just used for comedy bits.

The new material is a post-credits slice of life bonus episode about the other characters’ day off duty, which i feel is needed because these recap films of shonen battle manga series usually sacrifice most non-action scenes, especially if they aren’t about the protagonist.

Hope i can set some time aside to see Season 2 when it airs later this year.

[EXPRESSO] A Working Man (2025) | Baba Yogurt

I know what you’re thinking, what everyone was thinking after seeing the trailer: why isn’t this The Beekeeper 2?! I mean, i’m sure there’s a sequel on the way for that one, but this plain isn’t, it’s just another Jason Staham movie where he’s some ex-soldier or super assassin that has retired but he’s pulled back into his older life of violence due to some criminals hurting someone close to him, etc.

This time around he’s a construction worker and they kidnap the daughter of the family that owns and operates the construction company he works for, so he swears to get her back… which would be fine but he also has his own biological daughter to look after, as his wife is dead and the grandpa believes Jason Staham (again, not bothering to remember his character’s name, nobody will) isn’t a good parent. His quest brings him to find out a human trafficking ring, piss off the russian mafia, and accidentally become a John Wick-esque figure to them….

Honestly it feels like they mashed two scripts together, now only due to the plot feeling like it should be less convoluted (it’s not complicated) as the new characters that keep showing up just increasingly feel like they should be in a completely different Jason Staham movie, even more as they keep getting more cartoonish, like the foppish pervert that “bought” the girl just missing a Dracula cape, or the psycho super assassins under the big russian mafia honcho giving off strong vibes of videogame minibosses.

It’s just kinda weird, untentionally funny, and yes, makes the whole thing longer than it needs to.

It’s not awful or the worse, but let’s be honest, it’s just a stopgag release until The Beekeeper 2 or Fast And Furious X Part 2 come out.

[EXPRESSO] Death Of A Unicorn (2025) | Mediocricorns Out

Like i lamented in my review of Opus, this kind of satire about “eating the rich” has just about plateu’d itself into a modern clichè, despite the sentiment itself being more and more relevant, and Death Of A Unicorn just cements this further.

Even if it’s a killer creature feature mashed with The Menu (again, that or Knives Out), and there’s something to the concept, given the unicorn’s folklore.

The premise sees a lawyer bring along his estranged daughter to meet with the wealthy family he works for, but they accidentally hit something with the car.

That being an actual, factual unicorn, which is eventually discovered by the rich family that immediatly seizes it when they realize just their blood can do near miracolous things, and ignore the warnings of the daughter, who briefly but profondedly mind-linked with the unicorn cub…

It’s not that it doesn’t commit to its silly concept of “killer unicorns stalking-killing rich assholes”, it does so to the point its detrimental, mostly taking the idea too seriously while being stupid in a way that’s more exhauting and annoying than fun, the good cast can’t do much when these character are too fuckin stupid, it lacks some needed self-awareness, and it’s nowhere as fun as it sounds.

It also doesn’t take advantage of the absurd premise to make something creative with it, the effects are fairly good but don’t expect anything of inventive in terms of kills, for example, and while it’s under 2 hours, it feels longer, like they stretched a short movie or a comedy skit into feature lenght.

It’s at least a more coherent with itself than Opus, i will say that much, and it’s not awful, it’s just another middling entry in this already overdone, oversatured “eat the rich” style of satirical comedy.

[EXPRESSO] ENA: Dream BBQ – Chapter 1 STEAM | BLESSED BUSINESS

Based off the cult webseries by Joel Guerra, ENA: Dream BBQ is basically a new adventure for ENA and his gaggle of absurdist weirdo acquaintaces, as you are tasked to “find the target boss”, whatever that means in a world where cubist gestalt MPD humans exists alongside penguin-vampires, sumi-e men in frogsuit, mannequins, 2D witches, genies, where the sky is filled with stuff like a hippoheaded-pyramid with tendrils, and just a constant cascade of surreal shit.

The series already felt like you threw LSD Dream Emulator, Cat Soup, added a dash of those old point n click educational games from Humungous Entertaiment (like Spy Fox or the Putt Putt games) and the Zelda CDI games, all thrown into a huge pot that’s also sentient and speaks in a faux gibberish language, so making an actual first person adventure/point n click explorative title was a given, and after years, it’s out… the first chapter 1 is, anyway, for free to everyone, though the other episodes will be paid, and if you want to support the project, there’s a “Supporter Edition” DLC that adds collectables and gives you access to various behind the scenes materials.

If you’re not familiar with the series, you’ll be right at home and intrigued to see the whys and whats of ENA’s new look and “purpose”, if you don’t, it’s gonna be honestly just as caught up as you could, as there’s plenty of new weird faces and things to interact, talk to, use, gander at, but gameplay is both surprisingly and expectedly fairly simple in terms of systems and controls (there’s also full gamepad support) for an explorative adventure game, with some simple platforming.

Honestly i strongly encourage getting the “support edition DLC” after, because damn, this first chapter is already top tier stuff, just incredible.

[EXPRESSO] The Shrouds (2024) | Altered Feast

After premiering at last year’s Cannes, David Cronenberg new movie, The Shrouds. is finally out in most countries.

The plot sees Karsh, a man that lost his wife Becca 4 years ago, now finally having found a way to handle his grief… by creating GraveTech, a company that makes high tech shrouds to conserve and look upon the bodies of your beloved ones via a system of cameras and displays integrated into the tombstones. Mostly though Karsh can look upon his wife Becca even after death. As you do.

That is, until Karsh notices some strange matter growing on Becca’ remains, then acts of vandalism and hacking hit Gravetech, apparently by some Irish ecoterroristic groups, but discussing and searching for the culprits leads Karsh into a rabbit hole of potential conspiracies…

And i will have to say i’m a bit disappointed, i am, for reasons that might seem odd, as in, the director isn’t trying to shy away from the style of film he’s known for in its old age, quite the opposite, but even more than with 2022’s Crimes Of The Future, here it’s almost like he decided to crank up “the Cronenberg” to borderline parodical degrees.

But it’s so done in earnest (Cronenberg himself said this is most personal film) it’s hard not to be intrigued, to wanna see where things will go, even with the constantly slow pacing and the body horror/romance challenging itself to go even darker and weirder, i was into into it despite the issues.

… until the kinda abrupt ending, while thematically coherent it just kinda stops, i don’t mind slow burn thrillers at all but there’s no proper pay-off to stuff that maybe should have been answered.

Still decent and absolutely worth a watch if you remotely liked any of Cronenberg’ works.

[EXPRESSO] A Minecraft Movie (2025) | Yearning For

We all saw that horrendous first trailer for the Minecraft live action film, so i guess that lowered expectations for it, not that it made sense to make a Minecraft film, even less so in live-action, but instead of lamenting about Jack Black career moves, let’s cut the shit for the sake of brevity.

I do not care nor know much about Minecraft, aside from the stuff even gamers not invested in it will simply have learned via osmosis, and let’s be real, even i could tell you this is a stupid concept, borne of a decadent big budget film industry that is now riding on videogames’ everincreasing popularity (instead of the other way around) to sell tickets for whatever.

So imagine my surprise in finding out it’s not utter trash, even if there’s obvious irony of making a movie about a game thriving on creativity when it’s just Jumanji, again (couldn’t wait for the next one of the reboot series, could you, Jack?), just this time the guy wanted to actually go there, and there’s a washed up, John Romero-esque videogame champ of the 80s still stuck on the past, played by Jason Momoa, and we have stuff from Minecraft reworked into the plot of a fairly generic (and a bit unfocused) kids/family film fantasy adventure romp.

Still, there’s actual energy put into it, especially thanks to Black and Momoa going super hammy and clearly having fun with the silly material of a script, which isn’t good but isn’t atrocious, it’s nowhere near as cynical as one would expect, there are some solid performances (Jennifer Coolridge as the lonesome oversharing school principal for example), the effects are mostly up to snuff (which i didn’t expect from that awful trailer), even if the art style feels weird in live action.