[EXPRESSO] Cobweb (2023) | Content’s Gonna Content

So yeah, why i’m reviewing this now, since it released in 2023?

Because i watched it some days ago, a casual watch on Netflix without any plan beyond that, but i’d figured doing an EXPRESSO review of it would be better than reworking another old review.

So yeah, Cobweb. Peter (not that one) is a shy boy raised by his overprotective parents, and one day hears noises coming from his inside his bedroom walls. Then the noises become a voice distinctly calls out to him…..

Being Samuel Bodin’s directorial debut, it’s not bad, it’s not definitely not boring, i’ll say that much, though it’s definitely one of those horror films where you can easily trace back the many Frankenstein-ed body parts it borrows, pillaging from The Exorcist, the 2000’s J-Horror trend, the parents having dark secrets they hide from the boy, aping Babadook, etc.

It’s utterly derivative to the bone, but to its credit, it does almost manage to mix the archetypes and cliches into something of its own, and while it’s perfectly predictable all the way, the execution is solid, there are some nice ideas, a decent atmosphere that’s very in the vein of the Grimm fairytales, some creepy moments, acting is quite good, so even it feels familiar, it’s quite entertaining enough that you wanna see it through even if you correctly guessed where it’s going in the first 20 minutes.

Sadly all these ideas and inspirations never come fully together, and i would have still given it a “decent” rating if it wasn’t for the ending, which actually crystalizes the issue of “vagueness for vagueness” sake and honestly feel like they stopped 1 scene earlier than planned.

Even so, it’s quite an ok watch, it’s arguably better than most of the latest Blumhouse theatharical releases, for example.

The Spooktacular Eight #22: Wendigo (2001)

At the turn of the millennium, found footage horror was born and while it’s often a very divisive subgenre nowadays (as big budget companies co-opted it since it lowered the already low costs for horror films), it can’t be denied The Blair Witch resparked interest in urban legends, the lore of the suburbs or previously forgotten folklore myths, which affected even films not made in what now we call “found footage” or “mockumentary”.

This is i guess was the overall unspoken mood of the era, even though in this case director and writer Larry Ferdessen (1997’s Habit, the Until Dawn videogames, The Last Winter, Depraved) set out more to channel the 30s classic horror monster films (which the director himself confirmed are a great influence on his works) but in modern arthouse fashion, with a psychological horror thriller named after the mythical monster figure of Native American/First Nation folklore (Algonquian one, to be precise), of the titular Wendigo.

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[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] Here After – L’Aldilà (2024) | Facade Of Horror

I’ll admit i watched this only because its part of a national promotion on italian and european films, so the ticket was real cheap, and it’s an italian horror film, i just gotta give them a shot, regardless.

The plot concerns a mute teenage girl skilled in piano, Robin, as one day has an accident leading to her having a pre-death experience, as against all odds she comes back, only for her mother to notice that something isn’t right, as she worries someone else might be in there.

An increansingly worrysome and creepy set of events surrounding Robin force her mother, Claire, to confront her own past experience that marked their lives forever.

It’s not an ugly film, the Rome setting is nice and cinematography is decent, it’s a professionally put together film with mostly decent acting, but it’s also kinda deceiftul, since it’s actually a supernatural drama masking itself as both a possession/exorcism film and something in the vein in Babadook, parading some of the elements from both around to sell the facade.

And it is a facade because the movie is neither of the two, since it straddles the line but ultimately just stays there, deciding on nothing all the way through, committing to both in idea but not reality, so it’s no surprise the final result it’s an insipid compromise that satisfies no one, with a positive ending that feels more like a convenient way to avoid addressing the point of some previous scenes.

But the kicker is that, it’s also ungodly boring, so cliched it hurts and makes it an utterly predictable drag all the way through, making its 90 minutes runtime feel bloated, even more when it doesn’t trust the audience, so it has to spell out what else everyone already correctly predicted hours ago.

[EXPRESSO] Alice, Darling (2022) | “The Truth Goes Unspoken”

As with most releases that distributors are afraid won’t do well, i had to catch this one in theathers not even a week after it was out, quickly before the week’s new releases would inevitably push it out of the schedule altogether, we gotta make space for a russo-hungarian cheap looking animated kids movie about a fuckin rat.

And i’m glad i did, because Alice, Darling tells the story of a woman in an abusive relationship, Alice (Anna Kendrick), that decides to go with her friends to celebrate one of them hitting the 30s, but to do so lies to her strange fianceè because she’s afraid of what he might say or do if he finds out. Or more likely when he finds out, as we slowly learn the kind of abusive, manipulating piece of shit he is, as Alice manages to eventually confront and escape from his web of calculated guilt tripping ways, and her friends also become aware of the situation, feeling like they could have done something better if they actually knew a long time ago.

What is notable is that despite the trailer (or the tags for the review, for that matter), Alice, Darling doesn’t have a “hook” in the way of epitomizing this via a horror or otherwise explicit and graphic angle. This is a slow burner without exploitation style trappings, the psychological abuse and violence is comunicated mostly visually, through timely silences, implications, the poignancy in the unsaid, and there’s no deliberaly exaggerated “setpiece”, as the movie depicts with success the many little things that seem innocuous or benign because the abused has accepted them as the new de facto normality, how they creep slowly over time unquestioned and can fester into a person.

A very solid, worthwhile feature debut for director Mary Nighy.

[EXPRESSO] Beau Is Afraid (2023) | Rightfully So

The new movie from Hereditary and Midsommar director Ari Aster, and what do you know, it’s indeed quite the intriguing piece of cinema.

Heck, i’d go further and say this one is quite the experience, and definitely something you’ve never seen before, not this way or with this imagery or themes, as Aster goes fuckin insane by delivering a surreal kafkian odyssey out of a very simple and – on its face – thin premise: a man named Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) with a troubled relationship with his mother is set to do his yearly visit home for the anniversary of his father’s death.

Then he learns of her dying in a horrible accident too and scrambles, shame he lives in what could be classified as “Kafkian suburban slums”, with naked murderers, tattooed man with black reptilian eyes, and crazied hobos.

Not that the world outside it’s better, as Beau is trapped in an eternal super short-circuit of grotesque weirdos accusing, manipulating or threatening him in ways meant to fuel the Kafkian uroborous, as Beau it’s guilt tripped into everything by everyone, while he stews in the “damned if i do, damned if i don’t” miserable state of existence, getting involved in weirder and increasingly surreal scenarios as his adventure unfolds from just him wanting to come back home.

It’s all so absurdly grotesque, preposterous and outlandish in the peak of weirds the movie reaches, definitely making you wanna see what the hell could ever happen next, but even with Joaquin Phoenix being incredible as usual, the deliberate slow pace and excess of…. well, everything, those take a toll on the movie, which ends up feeling too long and repetitive.

But still, even flawed as it is, Beau Is Afraid remains a movie that has to be seen to be believed.

[EXPRESSO] The Privilege (2022) | Frozen Daiquiri Horror Of The Chosen

More german teen horror movies via Netflix, this time with The Privilege.

A rich teen and his fittingly rich private school classmates uncover a conspiracy while investigating a series of supernatural elements.

What conspiracy, you may ask? Cannibals? Cultists sacrificing students to Nyarlatothep? Me trying to distract you from the obvious social commentary a horror movie with this title is going for?

Worry not, the movie itself will confuse you quite enough, as it’s admittely bonkers and ambitious, but not in a good way, as it throws too many sub-plots and ideas into the script, resulting in a hodgepotche that’s simply WAY too ambitious for its own good, all made worse by desperate attempts at jumpscares and shallow teen characters.

Demons, parasitic fungi, seances, creepy laboratories with corpse cultures, rites, hauntings, the movie has them all, even if leads to congestion more than fun.

It’s not bad or boring, there are some cool ideas, and it’s kinda unpredictable, but that’s also because there too much on the plate and no focus, so the movie shifts from supernatural horror to psychological thriller and even to science fiction horror, and you keep wondering how the hell this all connects together until the very end… which you will still wonder about, as the clearly rushed finale leads to the “please franchise” cliffhanger, for a movie that otherwise feel quite longer than it actually is, just isn’t scary enough and baffles more than entertains.

I don’t think it’s outright crap, but i will admit i really, really struggled to get all the way to the end of The Privilege, more frustrated and annoyed than spooked or creeped out, a real shame since its well shot, there are some good gore effects, some interesting moments and the german cast it’s quite good.

A real pity.

Shrooms (2007) [REVIEW] Trip Like I Do

Ah yes, the “weed slasher” subgenre. Which doesn’t exist… ok it does, but i’m not reviewing the Evil Bong movies. Just. No. Please no.

But cutting out the avalanche of Full Moon crap means there’s very little choice, and i did pick this movie called Shrooms up for 3 bucks on DVD while thrifting years ago, so yeah, it will do fine.

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