[EXPRESSO] Shelby Oaks (2025) | Paranormal Tapes

In the early 2000s, the early days of internet, a group of teens making content for a paranormal Youtube channel all go missing after investigating the abandoned small town of Shelby Oaks.

Fear that it might a ploy to boost viewership turns to tragedy as most of the crew is finally found, dead and brutally mutilated, aside from one of the channel’s creators, Mia, still missing.

For the following 12 years, her sister Riley has kept searching for Mia, and is now collaborating in a documentary about the case, with Riley’s husband hoping this will – at least – give them closure so they can start a family as they planned before the incident.

Things soon go even more south as a man shows up to Riley’s house and immediatly shoots himself in the head, while holding onto a bloodied cassette tape with the label reading “Shelby Oaks”…

Interestingly, this is not a found footage movie either, it starts off as one, has sequences shot in that fashion, but it has a traditionally styled narrative at the heart of it, one that veers into the supernatural possession subgenre, with a bit of folk horror too.

Yet this is not the jumpscare laden fest some might think, at all, being proper spooky and atmospheric but also NOT one of those to conflate that into an excuse to show bugger all.

It’s quite competently put together too, with some decent acting, solid production values, and it clearly made with respect for the genre as a whole, even though it’s hold back by its various inspirations and reverent references that do come off as pastiche (and a kinda shaky third act).

It has that roughness of debut films (because it is), but still, it’s a decent first feature lenght by critic-turned-director Chris Stuckmann.

[EXPRESSO] Never Let Go (2024) | Always sometimes monsters

After the flood crocodile horror bout of Crawl, Alexandre Aja returns with a new horror thriller, Never Let Go, a supernatural tale with a folkish horror bent that feels a little Bird Box and a bit of The Watchers, as it tells the tale of a family of three living deep in the woods, with the mother and children leaving the safe haven of their blessed home only with a rope tying them to the house, so that “the evil can’t get them”, as the mother -often seeing monstruous creatures lurking upon them – tells her sons.

As we learn more of the daily rituals and customs the family performs in order to survive deep in the woods, we start to wonder if this is just the extreme result of the mother being mentally ill or hallucinating after a trauma, alongside the younger brother, whom once stayed outside the house ropeless and never felt or saw the “evil”.

And it would have benefitted the movie if continued the mystery or opted for a different resolution, because the drama is intriguing, you wanna see where exactly this situation can lead as it becomes clearer this is most certainly the horrible and unwanted outcome borne out of motherly love and schizophrenic degrade.. but then in the final act the script retires to the obvious and expected “countertwist” we have seen coming and wished it didn’t do, kinda writing itself into a corner where it either that or feeling like the movie is “throwing away” its entire set up.

It’s a shame because the final act basically makes Never Let Go slide from “quite good” to “quite decent”, the performances and direction are great but the final nosediving into cliched territory, with a banal ending too… it’s quite frustrating.

Still worth checking out.

[EXPRESSO] Pantafa (2023) | Abruzzidook

Time for a freshly released italian horror film that will probably never leave “the Boot”.

Oh yeah, the italian mish mash of Somnia, Hereditary and Babadook that apparently was wished upon by someone, with a slightly laughable title even in its original language, at least if you’re not familiar with the regional Abruzzian folktale of the “pantafica” (here’s where the italian readers giggle, reasonibly so), a sort of ghost/witch.

The plot concerns a woman, Marta, moving with her daughter Nina to the little mountain burg of Malanotte (lit “Badnight”), in hope of curbing Nina’s sleep paralysis by escaping the frenetic rhythms of city living. But it happens that the house they moved into isn’t really helping, as is the lack on any children on the streets of Malanotte, and Nina symptoms get even worse, as she begins hallucinating a ghost of sorts that while sleeping steals her breath.

And bugger me senseless, it’s a surprisingly solid, effective mesh of the aforementioned movies, as it uses Southern Italy folklore to frame the uneasy relationship between the mother and the daughter, as well as the obvious conflict between the ways of small village seeped in religious rites, superstitions, legends, etc.

It’s a shame because it would even be straigh up good, if it didn’t slip notably at the end, with some rushed scenes in the final act that feel like the director decided to kinda learn the “wrong” lessons from the movies that clearly inspired it, but still, it’s a surprisingly well produced folk horror-thriller, gripping and definitely above mere decency, and i wasn’t always sure where exactly the plot was building to, already way more than i bargained for.

Flawed and a bit frustrating in how close to being great is, but still, color me pleasantly surprised by Emanuel Scaringi’s movie.

[EXPRESSO] MEN (2022) | Manstalking 101

AH, yes, that sequel to The Woman we were waiting for, and by Alex Garland nonetheless, um!

One hell of a title that goes straight to the point, does tell you what it’s actually about, and it’s not ashamed to be beyond blunt in the handling of its themes of misoginy and female abuse.

The movie tells of a woman renting out a house in a small countryside english village for two weeks, in order for her to recover from seeing her husband commit suicide (by jumping off from a balcony in the apartment above theirs) after she decided to finally divorce him.

But instead of some quiet solace to process events, she’s stalked by a naked man from the woods, and confronted by a variety of other men that are either condescending, hostile, weird or abusive, most of which seem to share the same face.

To be honest, considering the director involved, MEN it’s kinda disappointing, and not necessarily because it’s so decisively non-subtle about its themes (after all, social media showed us how subtlety is less and less effective), but more because the script lacks the usual sophistication and quality, so we have this really good cast and direction, some incredible (and incredibly disgusting) scenes in the latter half that in themselves make the movie worth seeing, good atmosphere..

…. but also a very slow moving first act, and the script trying to make up for its excessively straightforward nature by overdosing on the “A24”-isms to the point it’s kinda silly, since it mostly stylistic filler that should have been dialed back, since it doesn’t add any real substance and hammer over the already obvious motifs.

Again, it’s just disappointing, but overall a decent horror thriller still worth watching, as the final act definitely delivers “the goods”.