The Spooktacular Eight #38: Curse Of The Golem AKA It! (1967)

Using this title because – like others realized before me – the original one, It!, was kinda ass and so generic, that even before you could have people confused with the 1990 adaptation of Stephen King’s story, you could have it confused for It! The Terror From Beyond Space from 1958.

No one was gonna confuse the film with 1989’s Soviet satyrical comedy history drama by Sergei Ovcharov, Ono, which also translated to “It”, but then again this is is why it’s better you check before giving your movie a stupid ass and generic title that the marketing tried to spin as a thing necessary to putt butts in seats or some crap like that.

I’d suggest you don’t call your new horror film IT, but nobody would anymore, unless for the inevitable remake of Pennywise story in a couple of decades.

Thankfully for the coulrophobics, Curse Of The Golem (also called Anger Of The Golem for some extra confusion) isn’t about clown or clown-shaped entities, it’s about a very classic monster that was also adapted for cinemas (and even had a series of sorts) well before Frankenstein (which also arguably inspired), the Golem from Jewish folklore.

And while i feel it’s famous enough that i don’t need to explain what a golem is… long story short, it’s a humanoid automaton sculpted from clay or mud and animated via a magic, and while there are many variations of the myth, the classic version has the golem created by Judah Loew, a rabbi in 16^th centhury Prague, using clay and put into the golem’s mouth a slip of paper with the name of God written into it, to give the statue life and so it could defend the other Jews of the Prague ghetto from persecution or straight up pogroms.

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Trying out the Godzilla Destroy All Monster Melee Remastered Demo

So as announced earlier on, a demo for the upcoming remaster of Godzilla Destroy All Monsters released yesterday on Steam, i played 1 hour of it (roughly), and since i did boot up and played a bit of the old version on Gamecube couple weeks ago… let’s talk about it.

Also because it will either be delisted or deactivated entirely October 28th, it’s also not clear if the save will carry over from the demo to the full game on Steam.

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Early October Midweek Check

This week will be relatively dry of EXPRESSO reviews, as the one for Other Mommy has been delayed, but you can look forward to the ones for The Social Reckoning and Strippoli’s L’Estranea (sold internationally as The Spiral).

I would love to catch a preview screening for Godzilla Minus Zero at one of Italy’s biggest comic conventions, Lucca Comics & Games, but at the moment i’m not even sure i will be able to go at all (and even if i can go, i might decide not to because every year tickets are more expensives, unbelievably so), it’s still all up in the air, so i can’t promise anything on this specific matter… yet.

See ya tomorrow for the next Spooktacular Eight review!

Space Monster Wangmagwi (1967) [REVIEW] | #giantmonstermarch

Digging deep into the kaiju fishin’ hole of mid ’70s to late ’80s with this one, which i’m quite sure none of you has even heard of, Space Monster Wangmagwi.

And i can’t blame you because it was basically unheard of outside of South Korea until its 2022 international screening at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, and released on home video in 2023… for US home video, but it’s something.

Ailing from South Korea and actually being the earliest surviving South Korean giant monster movie (as the original 1962 Pulgasari is considered lost, just its script surviving as part of the Korean Film Archive), being made during the later child-friendly phase of Godzilla’s Showa era, actually the same year of the second Toho produced King Kong film, King Kong Escapes.

It’s also kinda surprisingly cheap, right away it gives off that aura as it’s a late ’60s films… in black and white and with production values that make me think Prince Of Space didn’t look that bad, though the laughable “tin can suits” the aliens (which show very human eyes through the eyehole-visor part of their suits) wear doesn’t help, as does the very cheap look of the ships dials and obvious old school phones and shower caps covered in kitchen tinfoil.

Still better than the “airplane cockpit cum shover privacy curtain” of Plan 9, but with that opening scene setting the bar for the special effects pretty low, i was expecting the scubagorilla from Robot Monster to be the kaiju the aliens would unleash…. you’d wish.

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[EXPRESSO] Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024) | Les dents du singe

Honestly, Godzilla fans have been eating good lately, because we both have great serious Godzilla movies like Minus One and then we have the Monsterverse delivering the funny cheesy , super silly Showa-era style kaiju clashes, crossovers and “monster royal rumble collabs”.

And i’m supposed to stand there and tell you i don’t love the high quality of monster movie silliness of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, as if i can’t love both.

Following up after the events of Godzilla VS Kong, the two Titans have reached an equibrilium of sorts, with Kong ruling over Hollow Earth and Godzilla serving as a “protector” against other kaijus on the surface of the planet. But when quakes inside Hollow Hearth make way for a new menace, the Monarch foundation will have to make two rival Titans work together to confront it…

Sadly, Godzilla kinda plays second fiddle in terms of relevance to the story, which is mostly about Kong’s loneliness and longing to meet other apes of his kind, the human characters are still pretty much stereotypes deep as a puddle, but here they’re more fun and-or tolerable than they were in Godzilla VS Kong, we do get to learn more about the lore of the world and the creatures as expected/promised (there’s a lot packed into a 2 hours runtime), there are some cool new monsters, with the kaiju’s personalities coming through perfectly, all culminating into one of the more expensive tag team kaiju wrestling matches ever seen on films.

Silly as shit, and deliberately so, with Godzilla taking a knack to sleeping in the Coliseum you know what the tone is gonna be, and i can’t deny it’s a blast.

A silly, hugely entertaining blast.

Can’t wait for the next one, come on Legendary, work Gamera into this Monsteverse thing!

Godzilla GB [REVIEW] | Chibizilla Made A Maze

the lesser known but far funnier PAL cover of the game.

Yep, the one you might remember as part of the AVGN Godzilla episode, with the Godzilla chibi sprites, Puzzle Bubble-esque music, we’re doing this Godzilla game this Giant Monster March, because why not after downing shitty licensed affair such as – but not limited to – the PS3-PS4 Godzilla game?

Curiously, this isn’t an entirely random game, per sé, as this Game Boy title is actually a port of the MSX title Godzilla-kun by Compile (yes, the same company that would become Compile Heart and crank out Neptunia titles by the dozens), done by Compile themselves, and the game in turn was based on Godzilland’s merchandise line that had chibi versions of Big G and the various kaijus.

The only differences between the original japanese GB release and the localized American & European ones is the rescue target, as in the original japanese version various monsters kidnap Godzilla’s girlfriend, Bijira (which was apparently a thing), and the western one they kidnapped his son, Minilla, and trapped him in a maze.

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[EXPRESSO] Godzilla Battle Line iOS | Army Mon’

So, you may or may not remember i tried to review this one alongside the other two mobile smartphone free-to-play Godzilla games Toho put out in 2021, the now (thankfully, as it was ugly and very, very shite) defunct Godzilla Destruction and the weird Uma Musume-ish training sim Run Godzilla.

Problem is that Battle Line didn’t work on my smarthphone, try as i might it would just crash after it booted, every single time. Almost 3 years later, with the prospect of the new Monsterverse film that will have Godzilla and Kong “collab” (and 2024 marking Godzilla’s 70^th anniversary), i went to see if it was still available to download… and yes, for some fuckin reason now it works, despite my smarthphone being fairly outdated, better late than never.

Godzilla Battle Line is actually a decent little RTS-thingie where you battle other human players by placing down what are basically toy-sized monsters, vehicles and weapons from the Godzilla franchise, all to overwhelm the other leader monster on the opposite side of the battle grid while defending yours.

Despite the cheapish production values, i do like the “playing with Godzilla toys on a diorama” aesthetic, there is some depth to it, over time it has had many updates (the latest adding Godzilla Minus One content), and despite the focus on versus matches, there’s also a single player mission-based mode.

Sure, its a gacha with a “battle pass”, some obnoxious in-game ads, i’ve heard cheaters are a thing…. hard to tell because right now the game it’s nearly unplayable, is THAT unstable, prone to crashes and costant disconnections at any time.

When it works, it’s actually a fun lil’ game, the free to play elements aren’t the worst, so if you’re into Godzilla it’s worth a punt at the very least.

Gargantua (1998) [REVIEW] #giantmonstermarch

The very – and this case literal – enbodiment of “we have Godzilla at home”, though it’s american-flavoured Godzilla given the production and the year it came out, one year that lives in infamy for the Godzilla faithful, but wait, there’s actually more as this is also kinda E.T., guess the echoes of Nukie and Mac & Me made the idea survive till the very end of the millennium itself.

And speaking of rip-offs it’s not totally incorrect since this TV movie premiered the very same day early screening for 1998 Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla were held, so yeah, it is not a victim of circumstances or a project in production before that was hurried to “compete” (by trying to come out first in hope of fooling the less informed, as usual) with an upcoming big budget Hollywood film that happened to have a similar plot or subject matter.

Still, i think “rip-off” might be too strong a word, since it doesn’t even really tries to do emulate the Roland Emmerich movie, and it’s actually closer to Gorgo or Gappa (as there are more of the monster siblings and parents), because it does involve the “momma monster” coming of the seabed to retrieve “da baby” from an enclosure of sorts, in this case though it because underwater quakes made possible for some amphibious giant reptilian creatures to show up on the beaches of Malau, Hawaii, where a marine biologist has brought along his son for work and to hopefully process the recent loss of the mother.

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Giant Monster March is approaching the generators + Early April hiatus

It’s that time of year again where we let the MONSTERS FIGHT, even more as we have a new entry in Legendary’s Monsterverse with the collab episode of Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire hitting theathers internationally by the end of this month.

Also, i will be taking a break in April from the 1st up to the 14th of the month due to uni obligations and scholarly stuff, will be back from the 15th of April, though EXPRESSO review might still come out regardless.

[EXPRESSO] Godzilla Minus One (2023) | WW Zilla

I was kinda apprehensive going into the new Godzilla movie (which is getting limited weeklong screenings everywhere outside of Japan), weirdly enough, due to some disappointed early feedback, so i decided to ignore most coverage after that and just go see it.

And i will address that indeed, after Shin Godzilla, going back to a period piece story set during WW II feels like a convenient move to avoid tackling modern political issues… but i will say that Godzilla Minus One does earn your attention and investment, thanks to one of the closest attempts at recapturing the spirit of the original Godzilla, to the point it’s almost a remake-prequel, and a great damn one that focuses on the human characters with great drama, punctuated by action scenes involving Godzilla (not the other way around), while also making Big G itself menacing again.

The premise follows Koichi, a man designed as a kamikaze pilot that, during the final years of WW II, fakes a malfunction of his airplane, and lands on the small island of Odo . There he is one of the few that survives the encounter with a giant dinosaur the locals call “Godzilla”, and with great shame, he comes back to the bombed ruins of his parent house, takes in a homeless woman and her foster daughter. In time the reconstruction begins, Koichi is on the verge of finally putting his nightmares of war to rest, but then Godzilla shows up again….

Honestly, even if not trying to push new boundaries, at all, Godzilla Minus One it’s a greatly compelling story with good characters, a solid period war drama at its core, and while the monster is CG, they pulled off a miracle with the effects looking so good for the tiny budget of 15 millions.

Highly recommended.