[EXPRESSO] Savage House (2026) | Duke It Out in YKS

18^th Centhury England, the country is swept by smallpox and Jacobin revolts, not that matters much to Chauncey Savage and Lady Savage, as they get their chance to rehabilitate the fallen house of Savage and its luster when they get news the Duke and Duchess will visit their house, rushing to host a perfect dinner night no matter what it takes.

I do find Savage House a delectable decadent period piece indeed, i think it’s a pretty solid film, yet i feel it does come off a bit short of what it sets out to be.

Aside from the narration that could have been cut almost entirely as it just explains the obvious, it’s kinda funny how the movie presents itself and starts off as a period black comedy ready to depict the decadence of the period in sordid detail…. yet it kinda forgets halfway through and it becomes a fairly typical Victorian era-set period drama about these horrible people being entertaining horrible people with their own schemes and goals.

Yes, occasionally we’ll get people interrupted mid-coitus or performing a rim-job, we’ll see the shit und piss, but – and i can’t believe i’m saying this – i feel the movie could-should have been way more nasty, the acting is good but it kinda goes into more typical period drama machinations and backstabbing with an occasional surreal flair that also isn’t strong or emphasized, like they wanted an arthouse-ish vibe but couldn’t actually committ to that or being peculiary weird or out-there.

It still remain grotesque enough to be interesting, but i feel it kinda loses itself at one point and could have been even better, or less “tame”.

It’s not quite The Favourite, but its a decent, solid effort that i do recommend seeing if you have the chance.

Final Verdict: Decaf

Snakes On A Train (2006) [REVIEW] | Poco-loco-motion

Since we took the opportunity to review Snakes On A Plane some time ago for the movie 20^th anniversary and the 4K UHD Bluray rerelease by Arrow Video meant to celebrate that, i guess it’s inevitable we cover the mockbuster version the Asylum cooked up the same year, as in, Snakes On A Train.

I mean, why not, i got the UK DVD release for peanuts years ago, might as well.

As with most of their mockbusters, the plot is legally distinct from the movie whose cottails they’re riding on, and just shares the same idea/copies the same gimmick, this time a public transport vehicle being filled with killer snakes, a train in this occasion as it’s cheaper to shoot.

In a way, this should have been a really fuckin easy one.

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[EXPRESSO] Disclosure Day (2026) | Those Alien Bastards

Steven Spielberg is back again to revisit his favourite subject, aliens, the third kind of encounters one could have, in Disclosure Day.

I would commend Mr. Spielberg for sticking to this particular subject in this day and age, and indeed having the plo tackle how a sudden revelation and proof of alien life existing and being previously covered up by the government would change things in a modern setting where reality barely registers as such, via a security computer expert going rogue once contacted by a mysterious faction, and an unwilling local meteo woman that finds herself capable of unexpected feats…

But then i saw the film.

I’m just miserable, since Disclosure Day is Spielberg as his worse in recent years, and maybe ever.

Despite allegedly being a passion project and providing the subject, Spielberg seems to half-ass it most of the time, not that there’s much to be done with an embarassingly awful script, so bad it’s outright stupid, full of undeveloped characters with no chemistry spouting embarassingly bad dialogues, doing incredibly stupid shit to an absurd degree, plus one it thinks its so profound despite barely touching upon its own themes.

The runtime its incredibly bloated too, and all feel so absurd by taking place in modern day and have us believe that in the internet age uploading some video files to the web is like hacking one of those 80s mainframe computers that were as big as rooms.

Even with Spielberg as his worse, he’s still better than most and occasionally some scenes will actually be kinda good, entertaining and tense, like the car chases and the train scene, and the cast often delivers performances that are way better than this film deserve, and help carrying the thing.

It’s not unwatchable, but it’s so disappointing and frustrating.

Earth Defense Force 4.1: Wing Diver The Shooter PS4 [REVIEW] | Bullet Ant Hell

To further prove how Earth Defense Force 4 port-expansion for PS4 and PC, EDF 4.1: The Shadow Of New Despair, was when the series really started getting popular worlwide, D3 Publisher figured just making DLC mission pack for the main game wasn’t enough, and so had developers Clouds Inc and Giga-Rensya Inc spun a spin-off game from EDF 4.1 assets, releasing first as a digital download on PS4 and then PC via Steam.

This being Earth Defense Force 4.1: Wing Diver The Shooter, which indeed focuses on the Wing Diver unit/class, presenting a “gaiden” story of sorts that has a Pale Wing/Wing Diver unit face off alone against swarms of enemies, but this time in a 2D vertical shmup fashion.

Sounds fun and frankly it’s perfect to make a spin-off in this style off a series that already has so much “arcade DNA” in it, there’s very little more arcade than 2D shmup action.

Sure it used 3D models from the mainline game of the era, but gameplay is classic 2D spaceship shooter that scrolls and for which “tate mode” is a thing…. which i have to admit feels weird, since you basically never miss the enemies even though they look more in the distance or foreground, there’s a bit of disconnect due to them reusing the 3D assets from the EDF 4.1.

from a technical standpoint, this is basically D3 doing the ol’ Tecmo Koei thing of fashioning out a new Samurai or Dynasty Warriors spin-off from an earlier mainline entry, it basically reuses old assets A LOT, the same enemy models, with some little new in terms of enemy variants or new stuff in general, aside from the mission dialogue, with the usual cheesy so bad it’s good english voice acting we’ve come to expect (and love) from the series to accompany the wafer thin plot that sees basically a Pale Wing/Wing Diver squadron on their own separated mission, one that runs concurrently to the events of EDF 4.1 story. Or something. Doesn’t really matter much.

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[EXPRESSO] Masters Of The Universe (2026) | The Barbarian Legend Of Big McLargehuge

Ah, yes, the new He-Man movie, i say if i actually grew up with the cartoon, or even saw the old 1987 live action adaptation with Dolph Lungren…. i did not.

I absorbed some He-Man knowledge through memes and Robot Chicken sketches, and i did grow up with the original TMNT, i know this “multimedia franchise-empire ment mainly to sell toys” tango very well, so why not?

The plot it’s an origin story where a very young Prince Adam is sent to Earth by his mother to escape the armies of the evil Skeletor invading the planet Eternia, entrusted with a magic sword, and 15 years later as a man he comes back tp his home planet to become the hero of legend he was destined to be, He-Man, and vanquish’s Skeletor and his minions for good.

It’s Superman meets Star Wars with a vague 80s PG-13 barbarian-medieval theming, with very little distinctive and a lot borrowed from the aforementioned franchises… and Marvel, more accurately trying to ape Gunn’ Guardian of The Galaxy trilogy, with very middling results since it can’t committ proper to be “Marvel quippy” nor sincere about its inherent sillyness, and tone comes off as undecisive and confused, almost as if the four writers were actively at war with each other.

It’s not horrible, mind you, there’s some simplistic entertaiment to be had, there is, despite these issues and other like some odd castin, i honestly found it enjoyable, the action fun enough, but… this really shouldn’t be 2 hours and 20 minutes long, it tries to cram too much stuff into this runtime and the result is that it’s bloated despite very little plot going for it.

It’s definitely not the worse movie to have an Amazon van in it, you can quote me on that.

Batwoman: L’Invincibile Superdonna/La Mujer Murcielago AKA The Batwoman (1968) [REVIEW] | The Spy Who Lucha’d Me

While i could have waited to spring this one on you when The Batman Part 2 finally releases…. that date is still far away, but the Supergirl live action film is not, so why not, and there’s still shit like Batman Da Il Pianeta Eros or Batpussy i could review for the occasion.

I’ve been recently studying up on ye old lucha libre mexican cinema, whom some of you might have been exposed via the few localized american version of El Santo movies, which called him “Samson” since El Santo as a figure wasn’t really know in America… nor is it now, but him and many other masked luchadores were also starring in their own film as themselves.

Some of you might remember stuff like the MST3K fan favourite Samson VS The Vampire Vomen, or the adjacent “luchador free” old The Robot VS The Aztec Mummy, but let’s just say these are just the tip of the sweaty beef iceberg, as there are dozens, hundreds of these films made in Mexico, most about El Santo but other luchadores like Tinieblas, Mil Mascaras or Blue Demon had their own film series, which often mixed spy film, gothic horror, mad scientist and monsters and of course had crossover, with some like El Santo and Blue Demon now teaming up to undo a sinister scheme of world conquest or strange murders ordained by some comic book styled mad doctor.

These were basically superhero series of their own right, just that the hero existed inside and outside of the ring, and his masked identity was kept as such, so, in the same way we call Dwayne Johson by his nickname regardless of what movie he is or what character he is playing, these movie do star El Santo or Black Shadow in the credits, they are playing a character alright, but they’re still rocking the luchador persona as the main one, as you would due to lucha libre tradition in this regard.

Due to some cultural sensibilities in common, we in Italy did get a few more localized films of this genre, but this one today is a bit of a “cheat”, in the sense it was an Italian-Mexican co-production starring Maura Monti, an Italian-Mexican actress and model that was in many Mexican films in the 60s, aside from this one, even if this the one she’s more recognized from, alongside 1966’s neo noir thriller Rage, where she acted alonsgide Glenn Ford.

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Tentacles (1977) [REVIEW] | Jawsuckers

While i have already set my shark movie picks for the summer, i wanna give you something extra in the “killer aquatic animal” subgenre of Jaws rip-offs that don’t fit the “shark month” criteria… well, because they are not about sharks at all.

(This was supposed to be an extra review for July, but i’m gonna do it now as “compensation” for the Masters Of The Universe movie review having to bedelayed AFTER i posted the schedule)

But make no mistake, this is basically the producer of the original Piranha, Ovidio G. Assonitis, credited as Oliver Hellman, cashing into the Jaws craze by stringing together a lot of old big Hollywood actors and having something to put in theathers ASAP, ideally to get some box office revenue in before Universal released their sequel to the original Jaws.

There’s very little point to go over the plot of Tentacles (“Tentacoli” in its original italian release, which is just the italian word for “tentacles”) because you know the plot outlin-well, the plot everything, this is just Jaws but with a giant octopus doing the terrorizing and killing in the waters of a small beach town.

Some small details are different, but there’s no point circling around the obvious, this is “Octo Jaws” and the characters are also transparent in functioning the same as in Jaws, but look, we have an admittely impressive number of big name Hollywood actors roped in: Bo Hopkins, Shelley Winters, John Huston and even Henry Fonda.

Even with Fonda swapping in and in doing so eluding us from having John Wayne in a Jaws rip-off, i can’t deny this is impressive, and sure did help a lot in marketing the film… as in, good for having those names on the poster and hence working wonders as a honeytrap to sucker people into seeing a very fuckin boring Jaws rip-off.

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The June EXPRESSO schedule

Time for more talk of “upcoming attractions” for EXPRESSO revies, and terms of upcoming or just released films i can make some promises.

First, since we also got a limited theathrical release of The Amazing Digital Circus finale in cinemas here, i will be attending tomorrow, so for Sunday that review should be up.

Not too long after that the review for the new Masters Of The Universe live action film (which released yesterday here) should be up.

Some of you might think i’m missing a horror related comedy thing…. i don’t know what you’re talking about, we know those things don’t actually exist, no point in assuming what a movie like that would be if it doesn’t exist, nor i recall ever being a thing before. One can wonder, though, of a what such a hypotetical film would be.

I will be seeing Toy Story 5 and Disclosure Day, there’s no fixed date yet but reviews for those will happen.

Closing off the month, we’ll get reviews of Gore Verbinsky’s Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, the Supergirl film, and of an anime film called ChaO (which is releasing here in late June).

Maybe (MAYBE) you’ll see a review of the new and last (the very last one this time i suppose) Jackass film, again, a very big MAYBE.

[EXPRESSO] Yoshi and The Mysterious Book NSWITCH2 | Creature Comforts

Yoshi games nowadays seem to have a bad rap and this subseries has definitely struggled to forge its own identity while people (allegedly) just wanted a “proper” Yoshi’s Island 2, and struggled to co-exist with another less challenging Nintendo platformer series, Kirby, somewhere above that but below the average 2D Mario in terms of difficulty.

Yoshi and The Mysterious Book more than Crafted World (also developed by Good Feel) looks back at the long time maligned N64 entry, Yoshi’s Story, in terms of taking risks and skewing the old classic formula for something a bit different, while building on the old gameplay basics that do make a Yoshi 2D platformer.

With the premise of helping a mysterious illustrated talking encyclopedia, Mr. E, we go inside his pages to basically play a saurian Mr. Attenbourough, as it ain’t much about reaching a level “exit” but researching the mysterious odd creatures (which you can then rename) that dwell inside the mustached tome, by interacting with them, which also means using the new gimmick of tailswiping a creature-enemy on your back and using its abilites, which range from spreading spores, blooming flowers, creating bubbles, exploding, etc.

It focuses so much on exploration and a puzzle-like usage of how the various critters interact with the enviroment that while there are some platforming challenges and fail states objectives in the various levels, there’s no real health bar or deaths per sé, which is undeniably a radical choice in addressing the often lamented low difficulty of Yoshi games.

Honestly, i think it works because it’s still a joy to explore the levels, find all collectables, and the creature usage isn’t a cheap gimmick, since it helps in keeping every level full of new little surprises and creative ideas, though it’s a bit on the short side.

[EXPRESSO] Backrooms (2026) | Liminal Architects

I’ll come clean, i’ve heard of this being another creepypasta phenomenon (apparently spurred at random by a single picture never meant to be more than that)… so i immediatly lost interest, as these come off as just another horror frenzy whipped up to make some quick buck in a way or another, so imagine my confusion when i saw the A24 logo for the Backrooms movie trailer.

I guess Ari Aster movies lose more money than they make nowadays, and for the record i never saw the titular web series by Kane Parson, which here directs and writes this film adaptation, nor i will be lambasting Backrooms The Movie because it’s from a Youtube turned horror filmaker, because it’s unfair, and – as i’ve noted before – this pipeline mostly seems to be working out decent or good work, weirdly enough.

The plot is set in the 90s, about Clark, a frustrated man that would like to pursue his dream career as an architect, but he’s stuck running an unsuccessful furniture store, and one day, while checking the electric grid for malfunctions, finds a hidden door in the basement room of the store, leading to a weird labyrynth resembling desolated office spaces, full of weird geometry and irregularly placed objects, that seems to span and lead into a seemingly infinite number or rooms….

Honestly, while you can tell this was spun from the “SCP-creepypasta-analog horror” side of internet trends, the Backrooms film does fare better than i expected.

It’s nothing special, again, and this is basically a “liminal space” iteration of the found footage formula, arguably the more normal film A24 ever distributed, but the plot has some surprises, the sound design is top notch, acting is good, it is entertaining, visually captivating and avoids overexplaining itself into absolute banality.

Decent.