The Spooktacular Eight #17: Anthrophophagus (1980)

Somehow, we live in a world where not only Joe “Aristide Massaccesi” D’Amato’s Anthrophophagus has been remade but also received a “sequel” (after his “spiritual sequel”, Absurd). How lucky are we?

Yep, indeed, the infamous gore flick that had George Eastman as an amphibious cannibal going around a deserted and isolated Greek island, in this occasion stumbling upon a pregnant women, his equivalent of a double combo fast food menù, but after all, it’s called Anthrophophagus, the latin term for “cannibal”… unless it’s the theatherical US release, called Savage Island.

Or the very cut down UK home video release as “The Grim Reaper”, which also contains a different score, using music from Kingdom Of The Spiders.

I’d recommend looking for the Severin Blu-Ray release of the film, as it has a lot of extras, it’s a 2K restoration that improves the video quality from previous releases notably, a previously unseen deleted scenes, if you can/want.

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Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey 2 (2024) [REVIEW] | Farewell To The Flush

I was gonna delay this review… but i really don’t wanna have to put this one on The Spooktacular Eight (never gonna happen) this year or having to deal with it in 2025, so might as well catch up to the “Twisted Childhood Universe” and see how the story continues.

And i do genuinely mean “continues” because the first one didn’t so much ended as simply stopped, so half-assed was even in sequel-baiting itself, i guess because there was no more money to make it 90 minutes long, those mask really ate into the budget, or maybe not.

So yeah, in a stupid way there was even more reason to continue a story they didn’t finish telling properly (as if they didn’t planned like this, but whatever), so Blood and Honey 2 – i’m gonna use this short-hand from now – continues the merry tale that someone had make into a slasher, with Christopher Robin surviving and coming back to civilization to tell everyone of what happened…. with the expected and logical result of anyone – aside from some of its close friends and family – believing that he has gone cuckoo and maybe even murdered those girls himself.

Regardless, the incident is eventually dubbed as the “Hundred Acre Massacre” and they even make an horror film adaptation out of it, ruining Christopher Robin’s medical career and reputation even worse, basically making him a reject, a “pooh pariah” if you will.

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[EXPRESSO] The Well (2023) | Castle Freaks

More italian horror, this time from a more recognized yet fairly fresh name, Federico Zampaglione , “fairly” as in he has been for decades the frontman of a popular italian band, Tiromancino, but since the late 2000s he also started directing horror and giallo films, having a Rob Zombie-esque dealio as he casts his wife, Claudia Gerini (a renowed actress in her own right) in his film.

And while it technically had its premiere in 2023, only now it’s getting limited screenings in some regions here in Italy, with plans for more international releases.

The Well is about an art restorer, Lisa Grey (Lauren LaVera), sent to a small italian village in order to restore a medieval painting that has been damaged in a fire decades and decades ago, unaware that there’s a curse on it…

I haven’t seen Zampaglione previous feature length horror films, but i must say i’m pleasantly surprised, given how often modern italian horror films are shit or confusingly made by people that seem to be ashamed or downright hate the very genre they dedicate themselves to.

Given it’s an indie production, i’m honestly amazed at how good the monster make up and the old-fashioned practical gore effects are (some nasty gruesome shit like face ripping and bowel diggery), acting is decent and honestly direction is quite solid, touching mostly predictable but very satisfying ground with the premise and execution, gotta give props for what’s a “Bad End” i did not expect.

Gotta love the cameo from a now aged Giovanni Lombardo Radice, too.

It’s a pretty good throwback to old school italian horror, even despite some questionable stylistical and directorial choices here and there, the production values screaming for some extra budget to properly “bloom”, The Well is a good, solid italian horror film.

Recommended.

Cyclops (2008) [REVIEW] | #giantmonstermarch

The cyclops is one of the more unrepresented monsters, sure, it’s usually thrown in there if it there’s an adventure in ye old Greece of myth and monsters, alongside the usual suspects, in both videogames and movies, now that i think about it.

Then again, it’s ultimately just a variation of the giant archetype, but even so, the cyclops really hasn’t had much representation even in the monster movie genre and its many iterations even on overlyspecific types of killer animals.

Sure, there’s Dr Cyclops, but that’s just the stupid title given to basically the forerunner of the “shrinking people” trend of the ’40-50s, not that Bert I. Gordon’s The Cyclops from 1957 is any better, as they basically had the same guy of his War Of The Colossal Beast as the “cyclops”, quotiations marks because the monster’s face (or the actor’s make up/mask) is supposed to be melted off on due to radiation shit, so he has basically a “flesh bang” and only eye still visible, here’s your “cyclops”, looks like he fell face first into a barrel of radioactive cheese but didn’t get signed up by Troma for a series, so he slums into his own film alongside a disgraced Lon Chaney Jr.

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[EXPRESSO] Thanksgiving (2023) | Grum Not Included

It’s taken a lot of time, but even more of those “fake trailers for exploitation movies that don’t exist” shown on the Grindhouse are now a reality. 16 years later (12 after Hobo With A Shotgun actual feature film) Eli Roth has come back to make the “slasher Thanksgiving” film reality.

Makes sense, since there are no real notable “Thanksgiving” horror films that are slashers AND actually about Thanksgiving. again, Blood Rage doesn’t count, and i’d rather forget about Thankskilling, the movie unbothered to imply killer turkey cunnilingus. So let’s.

In a way, Thanksgiving it’s nothing special in itself, as in it’s a holiday slasher that starts on a fateful Thanksgiving day in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where a bunch of crazed holiday shoppers go mental while waiting for a Black Friday nighttime opening sale, ultimately smashing into the place, causing damages, many wounded and even some dead.

1 year later the protagonist teens that were on the scene (among others) get tagged on social media by a mysterious individual setting up a dinner table with their names on it, and eventually people are being killed by a mysterious murderer donning a pilgrim get-up and one of the many John Carver masks the city hands out by the bucketloads for the holiday.

There’s plenty of that…. “peculiar” Eli Roth style of dialogues and characterizations, but it fits the grindhouse tone, it definitely lives up to the gore you expect from an exploitation horror flick (no nudity though, oddly enough), the retro yet modern style it goes for it’s actually well crafted, embracing the absurd and stupid overall concept (death by black friday stampede is what sets the massacre off, after all), i honestly think it pretty much does everything it could with it.

Some primo dumb but hugely entertaining holiday slasher romp.

[EXPRESSO] Evil Dead Rise (2023) | Book Of The ‘Burbs

I’m not the biggest Evil Dead fan, and i honestly didn’t see anything past Army Of Darkness (so i can’t/won’t compare this new one to the 2013 reboot), but since this was gonna be another stand-alone film (despite also being called a sequel to the originals), what the hell, i’m game.

And yep, this is Evil Dead, despite what people that saw the first movies decades ago and clearly don’t fuckin remember them at all will try to tell you.

It’s basically a modern reboot/remake that does some changes to freshen things up, by changing the setting from the cabin in the woods to a suburban slum, and focus on a couple of sisters that reunite just to be torn apart by the unwarranted summoning of a evil undead curse that originates from a forbidden tome spreads..… and also by giving the Book Of The Dead a new name, because i guess the Lovecraft estate did trademark Necronomicon or something?

But regardless, director/writer Lee Cronin did a very good job in trying to capture the spirit of the old entries (down to offering a variation on the static camera chase sequences), with lots of nasty gore effects, disgusting fluids – or worse – being vomited by the possessed, violent impaling, but also with a certain underlining silliness to them, not to the point of devaluing the raw satisfaction of knives to the brain, scalps being ripped open, eyeballs eaten off… it’s nasty but not interested in taking itself 100 % serious, as with the cursing provided by the Deadites equivalents.

Likeable characters, excellent gore effects, intriguing bits of new lore, and overall just very entertaining (while also being enjoyable as its own thing), with a lot going on, all well packed into a very tight runtime just above 90 minutes.

[EXPRESSO] Violent Night (2022) | Santa Hard

Tommy Wirkola is back after last year’s The Trip (available on Netflix) to the snow tinted realm of horror…. but not quite.

This time around he cooked up a christmas black comedy that has been described as “Die Hard but with Santa Claus instead of John McClain”… because it’s pretty much that, set in a rich family’s villa where a group of terrorists (with the leader played by John Leguizamo) lies in wait to get their hands on a big chunk of million money.

It just happens that by accident the real, factual Santa Claus finds himself in that very house when shit goes down, and decides to fight them to save the family, especially as the younger child earnestly believes in him, by way of some magic, a warhammer and a lot of gruesome violence.

Yeah, it isn’t strictly a horror movie, it’s definitely heavy on action and comedy as you would expect from this deliberate pastiche of Die Hard and christmas movie, but again, it’s a Tommy Wirkola film, so it doesn’t really matter that this isn’t a new installment of Dead Snow or a christmas slasher, because we also get to see Santa pile up a more than respectable bodycount, using everything from ornaments to shovel to woodchippers and even a warhammer (tied to his backstory/lore here)

Heck, for good measure there is a straight up Home Alone “trap scene” and even that provides a lot of gore effects played for laughs that will still make you go “OW”.

There’s also the “Bad Santa” angle to the main character, but not quite, since he IS real here, and otherwise the surprisingly decent emotional moments would lose any kind of weight.

Violent Night it’s a pastiche of familiar elements indeed, but it’s a bloody fun holiday romp, too.

The Spooktacular Eight #9: Blood Rage (1987)

Some of you might wonder why i’m doing it now, why i’m not waiting for late november to review adequately unknown slasher flick Blood Rage, as it’s often regarded as a “holiday slasher” due to taking place during Thanksgiving, hence its lumped alongside 1981’s Home Sweet Home and Thankskilling (yes, sadly that’s not just a fake trailer anymore) as one of the very few Thanksgiving themed horror movies.

First, i’m not American so i frankly don’t care, second, this is a movie that might have had a cult following of sorts, or just be remembered a bit more if it leaded into the movie taking place at Thanksgiving, instead of just having people talk about Thanksgiving dinner in like 3 lines?

Then again, i don’t think it would have mattered much, sure, it does have people at a table eating turkey, Thanksgiving is mentioned more than once in the script, but even the fact it’s set during the aforementioned holiday… really doesn’t matter to the plot at all , which isn’t a problem per se, but seems like a missed marketing opportunity, hence it’s not surprising that not many people remember either this and the aforementioned Home Sweet Home from 1981.

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[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!

Shintaro Kago Artbook ARTBOOK REVIEW

Given my adoration for the ero-guro master that is Shintaro Kago, i was gonna jump immediatly at the chance of adding an artbook of his to my collection (which it’s quite extensive, if i say so myself)… and i did. Had to import it, since it was gonna be handled by french publisher The Mansion Press, instead of the many italian and international publishers who usually publish his works (including underground – and fellow italians – firms like the excellent Hollow Press).

Not that it mattered, since The Mansion Press ships worlwide, it’s an artbook, and it happens to be localized in english.

“Localized” in the sense the publishing credits and the few titles-thems of the pieces are translated in english. It’s absolutely 100 % import friendly, so worry not on this regard.

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