[EXPRESSO] Jelly Boy SNES | Europlatforming Of Old

Figured i’d check in with the SNES and NES online measly offering and see if some obscure back catalogue title dropped while Nintendo forgot to say it or did but we didn’t care.

And Jelly Boy is indeed one of those titles you might have gone your entire life without knowing about as it blends perfectly into the humungous pile of platformers of the 90s, and only came out in Europe, to boot.

So, it’s one of those 16 bit platformers that wanted to jump on the bandwagon, so it has a Sonic style health system, and often very tight time limits for the levels…. which i guess were made to make it feel more like Sonic when it’s otherwise a more linear “europlatformer” of british descent starring a humanoid shaped jelly in baby pink that can morph in various shapes, including a duck… when you duck, so the game has a sense of humour.

The main issue is that you have to find jigsaw pieces hidden in the level to unlock the zone’s boss, bu beating bosses only nets you item needed to finish the game, but to actually enter the next zone/world you have to find out first that there’s a hub area to access each world’s map, and you need to find a key in each zone to access the next one.

The game doesn’t tell you about any of these, most likely on purpose to sell guides and avoid people from easily beating it while renting it in the day, even more because just the first world it’s so obtuse. Once you know what the hell you’re supposed to, the game is actually decent, looks good , has a lot of levels, i’d say it’s worth a play by platformers buffs…. with a walkthrough on hand.

The Spooktacular Eight #7: The House On Skull Mountain (1974)

Blaxploitation isn’t my forte, but there’s a lot of horror movies in this vague “category-label”.

I like to not go for the obvious choice (when possible), and we didn’t spotlight an “old dark house movie” with the more typical murder mystery set-up of always: reading of the will of long distant relative that recently croaked in presence of his nephews, many not having ever seen the old lady or the other cousins before this very occasion.

It just happens the deceased was a voodoo priestess living in her southern estate, and her relatives that stay to hear the will are being killed off one by one with voodoo magic, with the survivors trying to figure out who is the killer before it gets to them as well.

And i guess it worked a bit too well as this was the final film for Mike Evans (Good Times, The Jeffersons, All In The Family), not his final acting role, thought.

As you could guess from the plot and the title, it’s a blackploitation horror film with a somewhat gothic theme, due to the mansion and it taking place on “Skull Mountain”, which means some real estate did Skeletor dirty, so to speak. I say “somewhat” due to voodoo being involved, but it’s magical, supernatural stuff regardless, and it looking at a different tradition makes it less trite.

And as one of the characters puts it “one doesn’t exclude the other”.

In case you disagree, there’s the costant thunder cracking outside the mansion (yes, done in the exact same fashion you expect) that sets the gothic mood, the nearly costant rain and some fog. And “tribal drumming”.

An irksome point is that i feel the characters called there to the house were made cousins and thus related way late into scripting to avoid the very notion of afroamerican and white people (as one of the cousins it’s played by Victor French) having a relationship, which it’s fuckin racist as hell, but even odder since they didn’t change some of the music during the “date” montage to fit this.

It’s iffy, to say the least, but it’s also a sign of the decade it was made, i guess.

Despite what you may think, the “blaxploitation” label it’s kinda ill fitting, as this doesn’t have gratituous gore, nudity or harsh language (it barely has blood), it’s indeed a old dark house type of horror thriller that focuses on the atmosphere, the supernatural events and magic, and it’s fairly effective, a bit on the cheesy side (as there are skull shaped door knockers) but spooky indeed.

It’s a bit slow at times since it’s not a mystery who’s actually causing the murder and how, so you wait for a twist, and after a ritual tribal dance scene that goes on a little longer than i liked (to be honest i had enough of rhytmic african drumming solos for a good 6 months)… you don’t really get it either, as the situation it’s pretty much what you thought was shaping up to be.

But you get a pretty spectacular finale, so it’s definitely more than “fine”.

I honestly don’t have much else to say or to complain about, it’s good.

Solid production values, good atmosphere, good acting, and not really exploitative, so i can conclude i’d recommend giving The House On Skull Mountain a good watch however you can.

And remember, blood and magic are thicker than water or skin pigmentation.

Seriously, it’s a good one not deserving its relative obscurity.

Medievil PS4 [REVIEW] | Re-re-remaking The Past

While not what you would call a system seller, if you ask anyone growing up in the 90s, Medievil will probably come up in the discussion, so ingrained this little, beloved series of action platformers in the Playstation brand and overall legacy, despite remaining a cult/nostalgia sensation.

Though, when i say series, i mean the PS1 original (still available as digital PS1 Classic release on PS3 and Vita), Medievil 2 exists, but it’s mostly forgotten by the internet hivemind/consciousness, and this isn’t even the first remake of Medievil, as there’s a PSP port, Medievil Resurrection, with upgraded graphics that also changes some of the story, adds new features and remove others.

This is more of a remaster than an actual remake, a complete technical re-built but with minimal changes to gameplay and controls, very few modern concessions, all in order to offer a faithful recreation, for best or worst. Because as much as i like Medievil, this remaster/remake also works as an interesting litmus test of where bringing back the 90s, and – expanding the question – appealing to the nostalgia market eventually leads.

At least without going into the unholy effects of meming fuckin Bubsy (and Shaq Fu) unto life again, we’ll visit these forsaken lands of excrement and death, but not today.

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The Spooktacular Eight #3: Evil Of Dracula (1974)

We gotta have a vampire film in here, but i’m not feeling like talking of Vampyros Lesbos, the old Hammer Dracula films have been done to death, and Yakuza Apocalypse is pretty well known, so let’s compromise and by that i mean feature something not quite from left field, but close enough.

So let’s take a look at a 70s japanese vampire movies clearly going after the western depiction and aesthetic, with Evil Of Dracula, which is actually the last piece of the so called “Bloodthirsty Trilogy” (later rereleased worlwide by Arrow Video) of vampire movies, beginning with Bloodsucking Doll/Vampire Doll, continuing with Lake Of Dracula, then Evil Of Dracula.

I should have done the entire trilogy, i guess that’s what happens when you pick a movie for a random Halloween selection without doing any proper research on it beforehand.

That’ll learn me.

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The Spooktacular Eight #2: The Slayer (1982)

I did promise i would cover more Arrow Video releases.

I didn’t specify or pointed out that they also re-released a lot of slasher flicks, so we’re not talking about the works of Park Chan-wook, Miike or Buttgereit, not today.

Today we’re talking about one of the many cult slashers from the 80s (really, what slasher from that era ISN’T a cult sensation today?), The Slayer, the debut feature from genre director J.S. Cardone, and yet another one for the “video nasty” list, which in retrospect helped these movies gain more notoriety than they ever could wish for, so yeah, good one Thatcher and co.

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American McGee’s Alice PS3 [REVIEW] | The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

Oh yes, American Mc Gee’s most well known work, his take on Lewis Carrol’s Alice.

The story is not really that original in retrospect, it’s the usual “let’s give fairy tales an edgy reinterpretation with a grim, depressing tone” applied to Alice In Wonderland, so here Alice is Alice Lindell, a british orphan that by chance survived the house fire that took away her family at the age of 10 (or something), and was basically raised in an asylum, mostly likely treated to a Richard O’ Brian-less brand shock therapy as well.

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[EXPRESSO] Centipede Chaos ARCADE | Voxel Bug Blastin’

Atari in modern times is more garbage than it ever was, i don’t think i need to remind you of the previous incarnation of the company bearing this name actually wanting money for something called Alone In The Dark: Illumination.

Among other egregious crimes.

But what do you know, sometimes they manage to actually use the brands and franchises of old in new ways that aren’t unholy artifacts of shit, like actually making new arcade games of arcade series they own, like this Play Mechanix developed new Centipede game, Centipede Chaos.

Sporting a retro voxel graphics and a cabinet made for max 3 players, Centipede Chaos actually does things right and doesn’t try to reinvent Centipede into something else that’s not Centipede at all, it’s just straight, simple arcade shooter action with a decent soundtrack, fairly good looks and satisfying gameplay that stays true to the core formula, just throwing some limited use power-ups.

It’s a fun time even solo, but sadly it’s limited by own nature as a ticket redemption machine, meaning it’s fairly short even for an arcade Centipede game, as to not require a lot of work to get to the final boss worth the fabled 500/1000 tickets, but since this is arcade gameplay design, they throw in a dickish curveball by giving you one shot to kill the final boss, regardless of lives left or money put into the machine. Yep.

And that’s basically it, there are no extra modes or anything else to see, which it’s a bit disappointing considering the license used, but not too surprising due to the nature of redemption ticket arcade cabinets and the surrounding economy.

It’s just that kind of arcade money beast. Nothing that special overall, but definitely worth a go if you can find it in your neck of the woods.

Ice Spiders (2007) [REVIEW] | Ski Spiders

As promised in the review of Spiders 3D, here’s the review of the spider creature feature TV movie Tibor Takacs directed before the 2013’s Nu Image/Millennium Film one that happened to pretty much be a remake of the 2000’s movie Spiders, produced by the same company.

You might argue i maybe should have done this before Spiders 3D, and you would be correct, but i didn’t even find out Ice Spiders existed before doing research for the other one, so here we are.

I should have guessed that a movie like this would exist, because i do believe this type of genre B-movies (especially if made for TV like this one) will eventually fall victim to what i call the “Pokemon Singularity”, with desperate filmakers mixing and matching animals with a random element/type, and if we can have sharks made of ice, sand (so “earth”), fire (atomic), even ghostly “dark” sharks, sure as shit we can have a movie called Ice Spiders. Possibly about literal spiders made of ice.

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Drive In Massacre (1976) [REVIEW] | Get Out Of The Car

September, perfect time for looking at some slasher movies, even lesser known (but not quite obscure) ones, like today’s Drive In Massacre.

It’s basically Targets, as in both movies have a drive-in as the central scenario of the action, and as a motif. IF Targets was directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis instead of Peter Bogdanovich.

Yeah, this one has a cult status and was quite popular at the time, i’m willing to guess in the drive-in circuits, which i always wondered about, but since that type of cinema experience never took foot here in Italy, i will just have to witness its depiction in american movies. Oh well.

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I Eat Your Skin (1971) [REVIEW] | Burial Grounds – Voodoo Terror

Summer means it’s a perfect time to revisit some black and white “exotic flavored” zombie flick of yore.

Made in 1964 as “Carribean Adventure”, titled this way to hide from investors the fact it was a zombie movie… it never saw the light of day until 1971, when the zombie genre was “properly” born via the unexpected, shocking and – as time would tell – seminal release in theathers of a low budget flick called The Night Of The Living Dead in 1968.

Of course, zombies existed in cinema before, but mostly “voodoo zombies”, as in people put under hypnosis or drugged by a scientist or master of some kind, used as both forced labour and goons to dispose of people, usually made invulnerable by magic to compensate their slow, stiff movements, but even by 1964 the “voodoo zombie genre” had already plateaud… heck, you can argue it basically died in the mid 40’s when zombie comedies like Zombies On Broadway happened, as Universal later would make Abbott and Costello meet its own monster roster.

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