Tag: Julia Fox

[EXPRESSO] One Night Only (2026) | The Premarital Gex Purge

I was able to see a preview screening for this one, i was curious, as One Night Only has the unique hook of “What if The Purge was about fucking and framed as a quirky rom com?”.

It’s a ni– it’s an elevator pitch that gets you attention, but immediatly you wonder why is this not a dystopian thriller (or horror thriller), as it takes place in an America where they passed a ban on premarital sex, so single people now can copulate only 1 night of the year, with biochips on their arms to enforce compliance.

One guesses it doesn’t apply to non-hetero people, i do guess because we just have the lesbian roommate of the lead girl saying how this is “a thing for the straights”, not that there’s any thought about the terrifying implications of this (or how masturbation factors in), or any of its themes, as the focus is about Allie and Owen, one in search of romanticism during “Fuck Night”, the other having practically broke with her long time girlfriend hours before.

Even if you could ignore ALL OF THAT (and you won’t), the two leads really have little chemistry and you’ll wonder why in this context they didn’t immediatly fuck, not that you’ll care about these two milquetoast characters.

It’s both too heady and nowhere enough, as it wants to be just a casual meet-cute thing, but ultimately is an incredibly regressive, self-righteous, disgusting little film that’s sex-negative, yet wants to be a raunchy sex comedy…. without actually showing any nudity, that you’ll pine for the days of frigging Porky’s.

The movie itself literally says “being an incel is a badge of honor now”, just in case it didn’t already come off as fascist government propaganda selling “The Sex Purge” as a positive thing.

[EXPRESSO] HIM (2025) | They Forgot That I Am

If Opus cemented my belief the “eat the rich”-”social horror” strain of horror has been overdone to death … HIM is just further, further proof.

To be fair, it’s not that the idea of a horror movie set in the “american football/rugby” biz about its status of unofficial national religion is bad in itself.

The concept has potential, but the movie doesn’t explore anything, and i mentioned Opus, because it’s basically the same plot, just substitute the music biz and the “Not-Jamestown” commune led by old popstar with a brutalist football dungeon governated by an aging, nearly retired legendary NFL quarterback, Isaiah White giving a second chance to Cameron “Cam” Cade, an aspiring quarterback suffering from head trauma that could jeopardize its entire career, so Cam accepts do to a special training in the isolated facility led by Isaiah….

Like Opus, the entire thing is thinly held together by its lead actor performance, in this case Marlon Wayans playing Isaiah… or would, despite Wayans’ great performance this time i feel it’s not enough to suffice, especially with his character mostly devoid of a personality, and the entire thing being too obvious, downright spelt out as the movie it’s too afraid you won’t get some of the more obvious symbolism ever displayed, all the themes sanded down to be as broad and generic as possible, meaning nothing as the movie confuses parroting an arthouse modern “social horror” aesthetic for actual substance, since it has none, it’s all “pigskin deep”, talking about “no pain no gain” on and on yet unable to actually commit to its ideas.

While aware of its inherent silliness, it doesn’t know how to use that to enhance the horror, so it just amounts to a big ball of stupid, of well produced imagery that ultimately means nothing.