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.

Gouge Away (2022): Tony the Stamper (co-writer Matthew Ritacco) uncovers a nasty secret when his mentor Stanley Pedious (Jacob Trussell) goes missing as a hazardous narcotic gas is unleashed upon the streets of the city. That’s a basic description for a movie that goes absolutely wild and eventually becomes nearly indescribable and I’m using that as a compliment.

Directed and co-written (with Ritacco) by Jeff Frumess, Gouge Away is the follow-up to Romero’s Distress and started life as another film, Wash Away. That movie also had Stanley, but in this story he was a therapist given the opportunity to get revenge against a former nemesis who ruined his life.

This movie is a real journey through whippets and stronger inhalants, as well as a neo-noir underground and yoga breathing, if that makes sense and I think it does. It’s definitely something different and works hard to create its own universe that you can’t help but sit back and watch unfold.

You can learn more at the official Facebook page.