Tag: Rabid

[EXPRESSO] Primate (2025) | Not part of the “DK Crew”

From director Johannes Roberts (47 Meters Down, The Strangers: Prey At Night, Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City), we have a new entry in the now sparsely visited “killer ape” fringe of natural horror, simply called Primate.

The story is to the point as the title itself, since we have a familiarized chimpanzee, Ben, whom was nurtured and cared for, has been tought words and has become a family member, being bitten by a mongoose carring rabies, then contracting the virus and becoming violent, just when one of the sisters comes back to their family home in Hawaii, bringing some friends along…

So the sisters and her friends found themselves trapped with the rabid animal, and basically confined to the house’s infinity style pool, as Ben is afraid of water.

You’ve seen killer animals films before, you’ve seen killer ape films before, so there’s not really much to explain or discuss, as while Roberts still manages to make likeable enough characters, this is not a movie much about those; beside the two sisters’ bond, everyone (some more than others) are pretty much future “dead meat”, if you will.

It’s mostly about the body count and gore, which is pretty good and especially “crunchy” since it’s all done via quite practical effects.

Again, it is familiar territory, akin to a monkey version of Roberts’ shark films (or a Cujo remake, basically), it’s simple, but there’s nothing wrong with semplicity when it’s done right, and here is done very right. It’s a very well executed familiar formula that makes the best out of its few character and single location, but also knows it’s often for the better to keep these films short, clocking slightly under 90 minutes.

Honestly i don’t know what else you might want from a good killer ape film.

[EXPRESSO] The Shrouds (2024) | Altered Feast

After premiering at last year’s Cannes, David Cronenberg new movie, The Shrouds. is finally out in most countries.

The plot sees Karsh, a man that lost his wife Becca 4 years ago, now finally having found a way to handle his grief… by creating GraveTech, a company that makes high tech shrouds to conserve and look upon the bodies of your beloved ones via a system of cameras and displays integrated into the tombstones. Mostly though Karsh can look upon his wife Becca even after death. As you do.

That is, until Karsh notices some strange matter growing on Becca’ remains, then acts of vandalism and hacking hit Gravetech, apparently by some Irish ecoterroristic groups, but discussing and searching for the culprits leads Karsh into a rabbit hole of potential conspiracies…

And i will have to say i’m a bit disappointed, i am, for reasons that might seem odd, as in, the director isn’t trying to shy away from the style of film he’s known for in its old age, quite the opposite, but even more than with 2022’s Crimes Of The Future, here it’s almost like he decided to crank up “the Cronenberg” to borderline parodical degrees.

But it’s so done in earnest (Cronenberg himself said this is most personal film) it’s hard not to be intrigued, to wanna see where things will go, even with the constantly slow pacing and the body horror/romance challenging itself to go even darker and weirder, i was into into it despite the issues.

… until the kinda abrupt ending, while thematically coherent it just kinda stops, i don’t mind slow burn thrillers at all but there’s no proper pay-off to stuff that maybe should have been answered.

Still decent and absolutely worth a watch if you remotely liked any of Cronenberg’ works.