The GenreBlast Film Festival is entering its sixth year of genre film goodness. A one-of-a-kind film experience created for both filmmakers and film lovers to celebrate genre filmmaking in an approachable environment, it has been described by Movie Maker Magazine as a “summer camp for filmmakers.”

Over the next few days, I’ll be reviewing several movies from this fest, based in the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Winchester, Virginia. This year, there are 14 feature films and 87 short films from all over the world. Weekend passes are only $65 and you can get them right here.

Sucker (2022): Two sisters — Sam (Sophia Capasso, East Enders) and Caitlin (Annie Knox) — end up battling one another as a leech creature begins to influence and control them both from within. Is it a metaphor for how real world events cast a wedge between families or just an opportunity to have horrifying creatures and no small amount of muck, bile and whatever fluids can be spit and puked up?

I mean, in a perfect world and in a great movie — like this short — it can be both.

Director and writer Alix Austin has done just about every job you can in film — acting, directing, producing, on the crew, second unit, casting, editing, writing and more — and if this film is any indication, we’ll soon be seeing a lot more of her talented work.