Limbo is a From Dusk Till Dawn-inspired, multi-purpose seedy bar, jailhouse, and court of law that lies somewhere in the ethers between heaven and earth where souls—both good and bad—stand trial to decide their final destination: heaven or hell. Cast into Limbo is Jimmy (Lew Temple), a murderer caught in a cat-and-mouse game between a slick prosecutor (Lucian Charles Collier, aka Stian “Occultus” Johannsen in Lords of Chaos) and an inexperienced defense attorney (ubiquitous TV actress Scottie Thompson). She wants to go for a full pardon . . . but there hasn’t been a “full redemption” in Hell for over 2,000 years . . . and Lucifer doesn’t want this case going to trial and wants it closed.

Casting is everything in an indie film, as familiar names and faces (Veronica Cartwright from Alien, James Purefoy from TV’s The Following, Chad Linberg from CSI: NY and Supernatural) offer encouragement to hit that big red streaming button.

In addition to that supporting cast, we’re treated to a cast headlined by the always reliable Scottie Thompson, who we’ve enjoyed in her guest-starring roles on numerous television series, but most notably for her starring roles in Brotherhood, Trauma, Graceland, The Blacklist, NCIS, 12 Monkeys, and the rebooted MacGyver. You’ll recall Lew Temple from The Walking Dead, and (yes!!) the always awesome Peter Jacobson from his recurring roles in the Law and Order franchises and his starring role in House, but more recently for his starring roles in Ray Donovan, Fear the Walking Dead and NCIS: Los Angeles. Then there’s the elder statesman of thespians, Richard Riehle (!!), who recently lit up our streaming screens in The Invisible Mother.

But even with that cast and their respective resumes, we came for one reason and one reason only: Richard Riehle sports a pair of devil’s horns growing out of his skull. Okay, two reasons: Peter Jacobson has a set growin’ out of his head as well.

Streaming ticket sold.

Director Mark Young has been making films since the late ‘90s—nine in all; Limbo is his tenth film—and while we haven’t reviewed any of his previous films at B&S About Movies, Limbo shows that, if not going back to watch some of his older works, we’re certainly looking forward to his current post-and-pre-production efforts of Rebirth and Lost in Paradise.

You’ll be able to stream or pick up a copy of the DVD of Limbo on August 4. You can keep abreast of developments on the film at the Facebook pages of Alternate Ending Films and Uncork’d Entertainment. You can watch the trailer on Vimeo.

Disclaimer: We were provided a screener by the film’s P.R firm. That has no bearing on our review.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies and publishes on Medium.

Shanghaied by her boyfriend—Blair Witch-style (only with sharp ‘n steady cinematography and no handheld POVs; an intelligently-written script and no actor improv)—Sylvia (screenwriter Anna Shields) leaves Lansing, Michigan, and meets up with Alex (Rachel Finninger), another social media curiosity seeker, to research a series of disappearances—including Sylvia’s friend—in the Adirondacks outside Whitehall, New York. Sylvia soon comes to discover the monster lurking inside Alex is more sinister than any Bigfoot lurking in the woods.

Monstrous is lensed by Bruce Wemple, a New York City-based director, producer, writer, and editor with two indie-features to his credit: After Hours (2016) and Lake Artifact (2019). After Hours was the recipient of Best Picture at the 2017 Philip K. Dick Film Festival, along with the Audience Choice Award at the 2017 Boston SciFi Film Festival, and Best Sci-Fi Picture at the 2017 Buffalo Fantastic Film Festival. Screenwriter and star Anna Shields is a New York-based actor who’s amassed twenty-five screen credits across various indie projects in a short nine years. Rachel Finniger is new to the acting world and most recently appeared on a 2018 episode of Law & Order: SVU.

Each brings a quality to the screen that’s above most of the indie-streaming films available in today’s digital marketplace. It’s appreciated that while the film is spiced with social media plot points in its first act, the proceedings didn’t degrade into just another found footage-POV potboiler about a search for Bigfoot. Since Monstrous is female-driven by two actresses for most of the film, one would think the film to be prefect programming fodder for the female-center Lifetime Network—but this heads above that channel’s usual damsel-in-distress flicks.

You’ll be able to stream or pick up a copy of the DVD of Monstrous on August 11. You can keep abreast of developments on the film at 377 Entertainment’s website and Uncork’d Entertainment’s Facebook page. We’ve since reviewed Bruce Wemple’s latest, the pseudo-sequel, Dawn of the Beast.

Disclaimer: We were provided a screener by the film’s P.R firm. That has no bearing on our review.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies and publishes on Medium.

“The Crisis,” an apocalyptic event, has devastated the Earth and left David (Tim Kaiser) to rely on the backwoods survival skills he learned from his childhood. Living in tent-bound isolation and losing his mind, with only flashbacks of the past to comfort him, Mary (Lulu Dahl) emerges from the woods. The isolation have left both socially maladjusted: he’s immediately suspicious of her and she of him. Together they must learn to work together to avoid “Those Who Walk In Darkness,” heard-but-unseen creatures that may be responsible for or were born out of “The Crisis” event.

While The Tent initially comes across as a thriller with horror overtones, this feature film debut by writer/director Kyle Couch is actually an intelligent, introspective drama made on a well-utlized budget and comes across as a low-budget inversion of the Frank Darabont-directed The Mist — only without the special effect bombast and thespian clutter of superfluous characters in over-the-top dramatic moments.

Michigan-native writer and director Kyle Couch has won awards for his previous shorts and documentaries that led up to this feature film. The work by award-winning cinematographer Robert Skates (with twenty-plus credits across various shorts and indie projects) is exquisite throughout.

Trekkies will recognize Detroit, Michigan, actor Tim Kaiser from his role as Admiral Gardner in the 2016 fan-web series Star Trek: Horizon. Reminding one of Bruce Dern, he’s amassed an impressive 50-plus credit resume across various shorts and web series in a short nine years after beginning his acting career at the age of 56. Kaiser’s co-star, Lulu Dahl, has also embarked on a newly-forged career across several short films, as well as a featured background role in Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Both are excellent in their roles and bigger projects are on the horizon for both in mainstream television series and films.

The Tent is currently on the U.S festival circuit, where it’s won several sets of leaves, and seeking distribution on all of the usual PPV and VOD platforms. You can learn more at the film’s official website and Facebook page.

Disclaimer: We were sent a screener by the film’s P.R firm. That has no bearing on our review.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

The last time we heard from filmmaker Hansi Oppenheimer was her writing and producing debut with the rock-doc Color Me Obsessed: A Film About The Replacements (2011), her musician-fan insightful chronicle on the 12-year career of the Minneapolis punk-pop quartet that issued several beloved college rock gems on Twin Tone and Sire Records. Not exactly a document that screams “mainstream” to the masses.

Now she’s back with another heartfelt tribute to one of America’s non-mainstream writers: Joe R. Lansdale. Okay, yeah, we know you comic book geeks (the B&S staff and probably most of you reading this) know Joe for his work in that field. And there’s no denying that his work on Batman: The Animated Series made that one of the greatest action-animated series of all time — with stories that surpassed the Batman cinematic franchise. His biggest “mainstream” recognition came from the patronage of Don Coscarelli (Phantasm) adapting Joe’s Bram Stoker Award-nominated novella, Bubba Ho-Tep.

Now, we keep putting mainstream in quotes, not as an insult to Joe’s work. But let’s face it: there’s nothing “major studio” about a tale that features Elvis Presley and John F. Kennedy (who goes underground as a surgical-altered African-American . . . maybe) battling a soul-sucking Egyptian mummy in a nursing home. No one but the unconventional master of the Silver Sphere could have brought that to the big screen.

And only Hansi Oppenheimer could bring Joe Lansdale to the big screen — a career that needed to be documented on the big screen. As with her Replacements tribute, you immediately sense Hansi’s heartfelt fandom for her subjects. Documentaries about musicians and filmmakers come and go. This is one that stays and, hopefully, will walk away with some deserving awards on the festival circuit. Fascinating stuff.

You need more Joe than this documentary can give you (and it gives a lot)?

Then surf on over to his official website or his Wikipedia Page, which is extensive. Wanna watch his movies? You can watch Don Coscarelli’s Bubba Ho-Tep on TubiTV. You can find Cold in July on all the usual streaming platforms, including You Tube Movies. There’s no VODs for Christmas with the Dead, but Amazon has the DVDs. We also found a copy of Joe and Don Coscarelli’s premiere episode of the first season of Mick Garris’s Masters of Horror series for Showtime, “Incident On and Off a Mountain Road,” on You Tube.

Currently making the festival rounds, you’ll be able to pick this up on all the usual VOD platforms in the coming months. You can keep up to to date with the latest on the film at Squee Projects via their official website and Facebook page.

Disclaimer: We were sent a screener by the film’s P.R firm. That has no bearing on our review.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies and publishes on Medium.

This is the first full-length film by Nacho Vigalondo, whose work also appears in the anthologies The ABCs of Death, The Profane Exhibit and VHS: Viral. He’s since made his English-language debut with the Elijah Wood and Sasha Grey-starring Open Windows and was noticed by his films Colossal and Pooka!

He was inspired to make this movie by the comic 2000AD, citing the Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons story “Chronocops.”

Somewhere in Spain, a middle-aged man named Hector and his wife Clara are outside when he sees a young nude woman. After his wife leaves to go shopping, he investigates and finds the girl unconscious. Soon, a man in pink bandages stabs him. Hector runs to a building where a scientist warns him of the bandaged man and leads him to a machine that takes him backward one hour in time.

The scientist now refers to our hero as Hector 2, who runs away despite being warned that he must hide. After an accident, his face is damaged and he must wrap it up, turning the white gauze pink. He’s accidentally hit a woman, who is the nude woman he saw before, so he feels compelled to recreate the same scenario that he just saw. This compulsion will drive the story toward several conclusions and overlapping narratives.

I loved the look and feel of this movie, despite how confusion the plot can get. I also absolutely adored the use of Blondie’s “Picture This,” which the director claims sounds happy but is actually very sad. There was a rumor that Cronenberg was going to direct a remake of this with Tom Cruise in the lead, but that was more than a decade ago.

You can watch this on Tubi.