Directors and stars Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (Benson also wrote the script) also made Spring, The Endless, Synchronic and Resolution — as well as episodes of Marvel’s Moon Knight and Loki as well as Archive 81 and The Twilight Zone together.

This time, they play Levi and John, two neighbors in a Los Angeles apartment building who discover a paranormal event and decide to use what they’ve experienced to become rich and famous. The only problem is that dealing with the unknown — whether supernatural or between two people that barely know one another — can be dangerous.

This is a small movie with big ideas, a way of filming necessitated by being created in COVID-19 isolation, but what emerges is the idea that within ourselves and the world that there are so many layers yet peeling back those very same layers can have destructive results.

Shot with a crew of three — Benson, Moorhead and producing partner David Lawson Jr. — this is a hang-out film of two people confronting a gravitational anomaly within the walls of a no-lease apartment complex that seemingly also keeps them within its gravitational orbit, too focused on making it or working to escape but trapped forever within the same four walls.

From seeing the same shape throughout Los Angeles to followers of Pythagoras and cats using parasites to increase mental illness, there are secrets within every story told. There are even conspiracies between the two leads, as Levi has a criminal record that he doesn’t want to discuss and John is part of a religion that could very well be called a cult, even if his homosexuality may not allow him to be fully part of the sect he’s grown up in.

I saw someone comment that this is Under the Silver Lake for poor people and that makes sense. It never reaches the mania of that film, but it does expand in ever stranger circles, using multiple film techniques and media — even old home movies — to get to the truth, which even by the end of the film is only known by one of the leads and there’s no way he can explain it to the other.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This was originally on the site on January 20, 2021. It’s back as it played during Fantastic Fest.

In 2009, director Quentin Tarantino placed JSA amongst his top twenty films since 1992. Directed by Park Chan-wook, who also made Oldboy, this film tells the tale of a fatal shooting within the DMZ that exists between the borders of North and South Korea.

At one point the highest-grossing film in Korean history, JSA is the story of the fragile friendship that starts between four soldiers who are on opposite sides. Yet why did two of the North’s soldiers get killed and why are the stories so inconsistent? That’s what a neutral Swiss team of investigators wants to figure out.

Sergeant Lee Soo-hyeok (Lee Byung-hun, Storm Shadow in the G.I. Joe movies) is a South Korean soldier who has run back to his own country, rescued by his own troops and potentially guilty of shooting three North Korean soldiers, leaving two dead. He claims that he was kidnapped.

One of the dead, Jeong Woo-jin (Shin Ha-kyun, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance) was shot eight times, which doesn’t seem like self-defense. And one of the other South Korean troops, Jeong Woo-jin (Shin Ha-kyun), suddenly tries to commit suicide.

The truth is that for some time, the men had all been friends. In fact, the surviving soldiers and Woo-jin were attempting to protect one another, something that had been happening since Kyeong-pil and Woo-jin saved Soo-hyeok from one of their land mines.

Yet can even the truth — once discovered — save anyone? This is a tense exploration of the divide that exists between people who are not all that different.

This is a tense watch and one that will anger you by the close. I have no idea how to save the world. All I know is to watch movies.

The Arrow Video release of this film is available from MVD. You can also watch it on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Yes, this just ran on the site a few weeks ago. However, this played live at Fantastic Fest and my Letterboxd list must be complete!

The Florida-based director William Grefe has brought many swamp-tinged bits of exploitation goodness — or badness — to the screen, such as Alligator Alley, The Wild Rebels, The Hooked Generation and so many more. As one of the first films made to take advantage of the shark craze in the way of Spielberg’s success, this film’s sympathetic view of sharks as victims is a pretty unique take on the genre.

Marine salvager Sonny Stein (Richard Jaeckel, who pretty much had a one-man war against nature with him battling bats in Chosen Survivors, bears in Grizzly and, well, any and all beasts with a chip on their shoulder in Day of the Animals) is given a medallion that allows him to communicate with sharks. He becomes increasingly disconnected from humanity — easy to do, everyone in this movie is scum — and uses his sharks to take out those who go against his beliefs.

One of those people is an incredibly chubby club owner who is using high-frequency sound to train his sharks, as well as kind of pimping out his wife Karen (Jennifer Bishop, Bigfoot) to get Sonny on their side. Have you ever seen a movie where strippers have been trained to swim with sharks? Who would want to see that? This movie provides the what, if not the why.

Another is a shady shark researcher that murders a shark and her pups. You will stare unbelievingly at the screen while Jaeckel overly emotes as he clutches a dead baby shark in his mitts. Oh yeah — Harold “Oddjob” Sakata is also in this.

The stunt footage is pretty amazing and even gets a mention before the movie even begins. Other than the weird premise and a few good scenes, you can nap through most of this and not feel bad.

You may have grown up afraid of Chucky but you didn’t live the life of Kyra Elise Gardner, the director and writer (with Jason Strickland) of this documentary, as she’s the daughter of special effects master Tony Gardner, and in her house were the half-built parts of Chucky and Tiffany from the movie Seed of Chuckie onward.

She told Entertainment Weekly: “My mom said when I was leaving preschool (one) day, I told my teacher that I couldn’t go home because the bad people were there. My teacher almost called CPS on my parents because she thought that they were hitting me. I didn’t understand that it was dolls. It was scared of Chucky, so it was absolutely frightening.”

Building on the short Dollhouse that she made in college, Gardner has filmed moments with her father, as well as interviews with creator Don Mancini; producer David Kirschner; actors Alex Vincent, Lin Shaye, Marlon Wayans, Abigail Breslin and Jennifer Tilly; Chucky’s voice Brad Dourif and his actress daughter Fiona Dourif (who has been in two Child’s Play movies and the new TV show); and even John Waters, who gleefully recalls having his face burned off by acid in Seed of Chucky.

Beyond serving as a much needed documentary about this horror series, it’s interesting to get into the shared experiences and family feeling — Fiona Dourif and Gardner bonded over childhoods with often work-absent fathers — that have grown along the way. I’d also love a doc that tries to get to the bottom of how Jennifer Tilly stays so perfect all these years, if anyone would like to make that.

Living With Chucky is playing at Fantastic Fest.

You can get a virtual badge here.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This was first on the site on March 30, 2020. It played live at Fantastic Fest.

Shortly after Gamera vs. Zigra was completed, the film’s production studio, Daiei Film, went bankrupt. As a result, the film was distributed by another company called Dainichi Eihai. It only cost around $97,000, which is pretty amazing (Around $621,000 in today’s money).

This time, Earth is under attack by aliens. Well, we’re under attack by aliens again.

The Zigrans have enslaved a female astronaut to do their bidding and have a monster named Zigra which can stop the cellular activity of Gamera, who sinks to the bottom of the ocean. Luckily, the children, some dolphins and a bathysphere come to the rescue.

This movie has one of my all-time favorite Gamera moments, as the giant turtle uses a giant rock to play his theme song on the fins of Zigra before setting the beast on fire, because as we have all learned, Gamera does not play.

This would be the last Gamera movie for nine years, which is a shame. I knew none of this as a child, as I began watching these movies probably in 1977 and had no idea of their history. I wouldn’t have seen this one anyway, as it’s the only original Gamera film to not be released in the U.S. It wouldn’t come over here until the VHS era.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Once, Jacky (Thomas Parigi) was content to wander the village and record sounds to use in ths songs that he made in secret. But after the death of his grandmother Gisèle, who was known to be the village healer and magnetizer, he finds himself developing her powers. Just in time — wolves are attacking and a young girl named Elsa has shown up either suffering from a mystery disease or possession. Or maybe she’s doing Blood On Satan’s Claw cosplay.

Lucas Delange, who directed and co-wrote this with Olivier Strauss, has an eye for beauty. Jacky has an eye toward dreams and miracles, which may not work outside the world of fantasy. It’s an interesting film that definitely will get you thinking.

The Strange Case of Jacky Caillou is playing at Fantastic Fest.

You can get a virtual badge here.

The same people who made this made the equally wild Lake Michigan Monster. Let me sell you on this: it’s a Merrie Melodies-influenced black and white no dialogue movie about an applejack maker whose life is ruined by beavers, so he fights back against them as a trapped and finds himself up against, well, hundreds of them.

Jean Kayak (Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, who co-wrote this with director Mike Cheslik) must survive a brutal winter, then learn how to trap fur, selling the dead beavers to The Merchant (​Doug Mancheski) while making eyes at his daughter The Furrier (Olivia Graves).

All the while, the beavers are planning to destroy mankind.

This movie is an absolute joy, a quick moving living and breathing cartoon in which one man challenges the odds and the beavers and the snow and the sharp objects and oh man, this was great.

Hundreds of Beavers is playing as part of the Burnt Ends part of Fantastic Fest.

You can get a virtual badge here.