Open Water 3: Cage Dive (2017) [REVIEW] | Wisdom N’ The

11 years after Adrift, Lionsgate felt the time was right to resume the “series”, and might as well drop any pretense, so they just released it as Open Water 3 right away, which surely prompted viewers to ask “was there a second one?”. Again, not that it matters because these are completely standalone stories, so you could waltz in theathers in 2017 without any real need to see the “previous ones”.

Not that many moviegoers are bound by that anyway.

If the subtitle sound somewhat familiar, it’s because this third installment in the Open Water series clearly took wind of what Dimension Films was cooking up with 47 Meters Down, it’s not that there’s a copyright on the concept of “cage dive scuba session goes wrong, with sharks”, but this one was released the same year, just 2 months after 47 Meters Down, so comparisons are bound to be made..

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Jaws In Japan AKA Psycho Shark (2009) [REVIEW] | Sharkmills Of Your Mind…

In retrospect, it’s kinda hard to believe that Japan didn’t really contributed much to the avalanche of “sharkxploitation” movies seen in late 2000s and the 2010s, aside from the movie we’re talking about today, since this is the country that the very same year gifted us stuff like Vampire Girl VS Frankenstein Girl, to say nothing of the amazing exploitation masterpiece of Tokyo Gore Police.

You would think japanese genre directors would have jumped on the trend and gifted us plenty of insane shark movies with people cutting off their limbs to replace them with shark heads or something, but nope, the only exploitation japanese shark movie that pops up in related searches is this one, and it becomes clear why now it has just been kinda forgotten and left to obscurity.

Because it is fully deserving of such treatment.

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Open Water 2: Adrift (2006) [REVIEW] | Sequel Sharks

What happens when you get to do a sequel that’s really not a sequel, but another iteration on the same basic premise? You get slapped for asking obvious and stupid rethorical questions, as you know damn well the industry will conjure series out of unrelated movies anyway, so doesn’t matter that not even the production company is the same as Open Water, we’ll release it with a different name first and then slap “Open Water 2” when it hits home video, passing the original title as a subtitle. Not to be confused with the 1993 movie by Christian Duguay, also called “Adrift”.

This one is directed by Hans Horn, also behind german produced TV movie like Death Water (Tod aus der Tiefe) and with a new movie in pre-production, Going Down, which sound like it’s gonna be an unofficial Open Water or a rip-off. But we’ll see about that.

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Barracuda (1978) [REVIEW] | Burn it to the wick

Most movies about killers animals from the 70s can be “blamed” on Jaws success, this one is a “double whammy” because it can be also linked to one of Jaws’ most notorious rip-off, Piranha from 1978, which – as mentioned before – it’s almost a parody as well, and was directed by Joe Dante. As Piranha did quite well that year, America General Pictures approached him to direct Barracuda (also sold under the title of The Lucifer Project) as well, but clearly it didn’t happen, so directing duties went to Harry Kerwin and Wayne Crayford, both already pulling double duty as actor and co-writer. Gotta pump em out fast, so fast this came out 2/3 months after Piranha.

And while there are plenty of Jaws rip-offs made in that decade, the comparison between the two films in question is fairly obvious, not just because they came out the same year, but because they both have the same theme of secret government experiments that end up mutating marine fauna, in this case more declined into an enviromentalism issue, but also a fairly direct critique of the military, as in they didn’t breed combat-ready mutant cyborg barracuda, but the government basically used a small town as guinea pigs for conditioning experiment to make everyone more aggressive and violent, and more easier to whip up in a frenzy or recruit for war.

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Mega Piranha (2010) [REVIEW] | Rider (Bycicle) KICK!

No, it’s not a spin-off of the “Mega Shark” series, nor a companion piece to Mega Python VS Gatoroid, despite being all produced by The Asylum. It’s that other type of Asylum movie, a mockbuster, but one incredibly desperate, in a way.

As in, the usually try to fool people by chasing after popular big budget production with cheap, fast features titled in a similar way to the movies they’re trying to indirectly rip-off, the plot is usually quite – if not completely – different.

Which is why we ended up with Transmorphers and stuff like Age Of Tomorrow, among many others. But, as i said, they usually do this with huge Hollywood productions, to feed from the crumbs left by the “actual movies” people went to see in theathers.

In this case, it just happens in 2010 we got a very loose remake of the original Piranha from 1978, Piranha 3D, handled by one of the better modern directors for horror and genre cinema, Alexandre Aja, and he definitely crafted a good modern B-movie in the spirit of old Roger Corman creature features, quite good, quite fun, which a direct sequel, Piranha 3DD, which went completely for total exploitation (almost Troma style), and was also quite fun in its own right.

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Blue Demon (2004) [REVIEW] | El Tiburon Pasa

It’s both banal and amazing how many shark movies exist, you’d figure there are plenty, but that’s not the case, there is an entire ocean of them. An ever-expanding ocean.

So much that some are pretty much to accidentally “fall through the cracks”, even if you own dozens upon dozens (almost thousand) of shark movies, and this one of them, found it at flea market. After triple checking i don’t already own this on DVD under a different name or it’s available to stream on Netflix or something, that is.

Wouldn’t be the first time.

But no, Blue Demon is just called Blue Demon pretty much everywhere in the world, and somehow i didn’t even heard about it. Or maybe i did and my brain removed it to store some porn, i dunno.

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90210 Shark Attack (2014) [REVIEW] | That’s where I want to be

I’ve reviewed my fair share of crappy movies, and after a while, one is tempted to just post a screenshot of it and let that serve as a review, even if resolved to resist labelling a piece of media “the worst ever”, because eventually something worse will surface and challenge it for the crown of “king shit”. There’s always something worse, there’s always something better out there.

Though, this is one case where i could have posted the following image and really end the review here, there’s nothing that really excuses or explains this magnificent display.

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[EXPRESSO] Voyagers (2021) | In observation, I analyze

It’s the future, and a group of young men and women, raised to be intelligent and obedient, are sent into space on a mission to colonize a distant planet. But they discover some of the expedition’ secrets, and then rebel to the mission in order to explore their less intelligent, more primitive and irrational side of themselves, resulting in a chaotic struggle with their own fears and lusts.

I want to clarify right away that Voyagers (written and directed by Neil Burger) isn’t a bad movie, it isn’t, but it’s also one of those movies that might come across as incredibly frustrating, the kind of frustrating born not of lazyness or lack of energy and vision, but of ambition too vast for the script own’s good, and – more to the point – its quality.

The premise is intriguing and ripe with potential, the themes are there, there’s clearly a vision, but the execution is incredibly predictable, underwhelming, and some of the more original details of the plot that make it stand out end up unadvertly working against it’s own overall message, coming off as dumb mistakes on part of the program, or contrived excuses to create more conflict.

Like, why the teens are asked to maintain the ship for a mission they themselves simply won’t live enough to carry out ? Why not cryogenically put them to sleep, instead? And yes, they’re teens, so they can be fuck up or be swayed regardless of their IQ or education, sometimes they come off as both incredibly intelligent AND dumb as a bag of bricks (or incredibly naive), somehow, and it never feels natural, just arbitrary bullshit.

There is definitely something to like here, like the good cast and performances, but the overall result it’s an overly ambitious mixed bag. Pity.

Mad Max PS4 [REVIEW] | Down Undah

Yeah, remember the debacle and the case of divisive reception on this title?

I do, but it feels like it happened so long ago, despite this being a 2015 release. Such is nature of online discourse on social media, after all, doesn’t matter what the subject is.

I will keep that in mind, but since 6 years are a lot for videogames, i’d say it’s the time to revisit the Avalanche Software’s interpretation of George Miller’s australian apocalyptic world of holy motors and highly stilized weirdos, while i think of the burning coast sands during this city bound and holiday-less summer season.

Let’s see exactly how chrome this game is!

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[EXPRESSO] A Quiet Place Part II (2021) | Hush Of Us

I wasn’t sure if i wanted a sequel to A Quiet Place, as i was perfectly satisfied… heck, more than that, with both the finale and the movie itself, one of the best ones i saw that year, had everything you could want from a horror thriller, from fairly original premise to great acting, excellent creature effects, tense atmosphere, great characters, etc.

But i guess the combination of it being surprising (as it came from a director that previously didn’t explore or dabble in horror), acclaimed by everyone, AND being a surprise big financial hit made John Krasinki, Platinum Dunes and 20^th Centhury Fox think of making a follow up, and it’s finally in theathers, another of the many movies delayed for months-years due this goddamn pandemic.

Following the events of the first movie, the Abbott family is forced to venture outside of the house they took refuge in and in doing so confront the human survivors of this post-apocalyptic world, still thriving with the blind deadly creatures attracted by sound.

Gotta admit, my fears of this sequel being somewhat of a cash-in were quickly shattered, as it manages to move forwards the story about this family surviving in the post-apocalypse, to give more context to the events that led up to the creatures appearing, and to develop the survival aspects even more thanks to them having to face not just the monsters, while giving way for character arcs.

All still done with minimal use of dialogue and sound, with a great atmosphere, some really scary – genuinely scary – moments, good action sequences, excellent acting, likeable characters, amazing creature effects yet again, all packed extremely tight in less than 100 minutes, no minute is wasted for the sake of it, at all.

Noteworthy sequel, and great movie all around.