The year is 1994. This is when a demonic cult who has planned the end of the world will bring their ritual to a music festival in a small Colorado town. Soon, demons will rule the land and three very human people will have to try and stop it.

Sure, you’ve seen this type of movie before. But have you seen it as a cut paper animation?

Attack of the Demons would be an interesting experiment if its story didn’t work, but it actually becomes truly engaging and succeeds because of it.

Director Eric Power also made another animated film called Path of Blood. Here he’s working with writer Andreas Petersen, who also provides the voice of Jeff, to make a movie that would completely fit into the 1980’s direct to VHS era — if it were a live-action movie. Being animated allows it to go wild with its visuals and create a world beyond an everyday budget.

The Dark Star blu ray of Attack of the Demons is available from Vinegar Syndrome. It also has three different audio commentaries, one from Power and Petersen as well as one by Dread Central Editor In Chief MaryBeth McAndews and Gayly Dreadful Editor In Chief Terry Mesnard and a comedy commentary by ScoffTracks’ Lucas Taughn. There’s also a making of, a music video, the KTUTV commercials, a proof of concept trailer and the final trailer.

Amanda Kramer’s (Ladyworld) new film takes place in 1950s Manhattan — maybe not our version of that time and place, but a neon world of music and dance — where Arthur (Harry Melling) and Suze (Andrea Riseborough) — he’s a clarinetist, she’s a housewife — witness a murder committed by a gang of rough trade greasers in leather known as the Young Gents. That act of violence sparks previously unknown emotions and feelings of sexuality in both of them.

“Everyone wants to be Stanley Kowalski,” Suze says at one point. This movie lives up to that promise, creating a world where the gang movies of the 1950s are real-life, complete with more fashion and queer content than any movie of that era would dare (well, sometimes in subtext).

A film festival referred to this movie as “A Streetcar Named Desire by way of John Waters.”

That’s a high mark to rise to but this movie goes for it.

Kenneth Anger might be pleased to see that his influence continues, while certainly jealous of the budget. And oh wow — Demi Moore in a pantsuit, animal print coat and silver high heels, living in a blue fantasy world apartment as a kept woman?

Watch this and prepare to swoon.

You can get the Music Box Selects blu ray of Please Baby Please from Vinegar Syndrome. It has new commentary by director Amanda Kramer and actors Alisa Torres and Matt D’Elia; a cast and crew Q&A from the LA premiere, deleted scenes, outtakes, short films by Amanda Kramer, a new video essay by Chris O’Neill, an Alamo Drafthouse No Talking PSA, the moodboards, the isolated score and sound design, a trailer and character teasers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jennifer Upton is an American (non-werewolf) writer/editor in London. She currently works as a freelance ghostwriter of personal memoirs and writes for several blogs on topics as diverse as film history, punk rock, women’s issues, and international politics. For links to her work, please visit https://www.jennuptonwriter.com or send her a Tweet @Jennxldn

The little-seen Way Out is a gem for fans of obscure cinema with quirky histories and happily, it’s way better than it should be. I first saw it as part of a double bill released by Something Weird Video along with the hippie-themed Ghetto Freaks (1970.) 

A cautionary tale about drug use, the film was made by director Irwin S. Yeaworth, Jr. following the sci-fi hits The Blob (1958) and Dinosaurs! (1960.) Right about now you’re probably wondering how in the hell that happened. It turns out Yeaworth was extremely religious in his private life, serving in both presbyterian and non-denominational evangelical ministries with Billy Graham. No doubt, the church funded its production. 

As if that wasn’t weird enough, Way Out is based on a play written by and starring former junkies who turned to religion to replace (ahem…I mean cure) their addictions. That’s right. Not a single actor in this film was an actual actor. And yet, the film boasts exceptionally good acting and ticks all the boxes meeting modern standards for representation. 

Set against the backdrop of the slums of The Bronx in the 1960s, the film tells the stories of young (mostly Hispanic) people, struggling in poverty. The main character Frankie (Franklin Rodriguez) has a strained relationship with his drunk cop dad. Despite the hardship of life in their neighborhood, Frankie meets and falls in love with a lovely, innocent young lady named Anita (Sharyn Jimenez.)

Anita watches as one by one, Frankie and his buds fall into the clutches of addiction and turn to crime to keep from getting dopesick. When Frankie gets arrested, he’s forced to go cold turkey in jail. He comes out clean, having turned to Jesus for a “way out”, but his world is turned upside down when he finds out everything that happened while he was away. His best friend was killed by the police and two other friends are in prison.

 Worst of all, when he visits Anita, he finds a totally different girl from the one he pined for from inside his cell. The pure girl he fell in love with is gone. The new Anita is a trash-talking, world-weary junkie turning tricks to feed her habit. It does not end happily. And yet it does. 

Following the conclusion of the main story, there’s a short epilogue featuring the entire cast marching toward the camera singing a religious hymn in celebration of the fact that they’re all still clean and sober. Is it religious propaganda? You bet it is. Frankie makes the jump from joint to junk ridiculously fast. Its assertion that marijuana is a “gateway drug,” is blatantly incorrect based on modern science, but the film nonetheless paints a grim picture of the ease with which people back then people gained access to heroin. 

The best parts of this movie are the acting and the real-world locations. Not a single person in the film was a professional. These people lived this life for real, living in shabby, sparely furnished rooms, meeting on filthy rooftops to shoot up with shared, dirty homemade needles fashioned from eyedroppers. It’s so realistic that some scenes make other drug films like Sid and Nancy and Trainspotting (1996) look glamorous in comparison. No one in those films ever tried to pour milk down the throat of an OD victim.   

For a night of depression-inducing “entertainment”, Way Out would make an excellent companion piece to other less glamorous New York-centered drug films like Panic in Needle Park (1971) or Requiem for a Dream (2000.) 

Despite its heavy-handed message, it’s a film that makes you root for the principles. Especially knowing they’re baring their souls for us onscreen. When it was over, I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to the cast in the years following its completion. Franklin Rodriguez has a few more credits to his name on imdb, but he probably deserved a bigger career. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jennifer Upton is an American (non-werewolf) writer/editor in London. She currently works as a freelance ghostwriter of personal memoirs and writes for several blogs on topics as diverse as film history, punk rock, women’s issues, and international politics. For links to her work, please visit https://www.jennuptonwriter.com or send her a Tweet @Jennxldn

Regional independent film made in Cleveland, Ohio and released originally under the titles Love Commune, The Aquarians, The Wages of Sin, and Sign of Aquarius, this pseudo-musical was one of many from that era that attempted to capitalize on the hippie trend and the popularity of Hair. Then it was released again more than a year later under this version, with a new marketing campaign to capitalize on the popularity of Blaxploitation films. 

How might these two genres cross over? Well, they don’t. Ghetto Freaks is the same movie as the earlier versions, with two minutes of footage added. Thie new scene features an African American guy in a robe performing some sort of blood ritual and has nothing to do with anything else in the film. With a cast of mostly white kids, plus one black guy and no literal ghetto freaks, it must have been a disappointing experience for anyone who went into this version expecting the next Shaft.  

In 2023, it serves as a wonderful time capsule. The clothes, hairstyles, lingo, and furniture are far out, man. It’s a slice-of-life film where the cast randomly breaks into song and dance. The narrative follows the daily (sometimes mundane) activities of a group of hippies. They pretty much do what you’d expect them to. They panhandle and bitch about “the man” to anyone on the street that walks past them. They protest the war in Vietnam go to a club (owned by co-director John Pappas) to listen to groovy music. One evening, the main man Sonny (Cincinnati’s Paul Elliot) meets a naïve runaway teen girl named Donna (Gabe Lewis) who joins their commune.  

Back in their squat, Donna is inducted into the hippie life. They sit around, smoke pot, philosophize endlessly, dance around nude, paint each other and have group sex. There’s one scene of a pregnant girl going on a really bad acid trip, allowing the directors to get creative with lenses and lighting.  

There’s also something resembling a plotline where a dangerous drug dealer threatens Sonny and Donna’s newfound happiness by pressuring Sonny to sell drugs for the neighborhood gangs. Donna dies tragically because of Sonny’s refusal. 

Released on a double bill with the far superior anti-drug message film Way Out (1967) by Something Weird in 2009, it’s unclear where Ghetto Freaks stand on the issue. The filmmakers include some scenes that make it look fun and other scary ones. While their efforts to grab as wide an audience as possible are noteworthy, it didn’t work. Hence the alternate titles, re-releases, and re-vamped marketing campaigns. 

Older people from the Cleveland area will likely get a thrill from seeing all their favorite places preserved on film as they existed in the late 1960s. For the rest of us, it’s slow going. 

A feature-length adaptation of “Slumber Party Alien Abduction” from V/H/S/2, this finds kids Gary (Dominic Mariche), Jack (Asher Grayson) and Miles (Ben Tector) being bullied by teens Billy (Calem MacDonald), Dallas (Isaiah Fortune) and Trish (Emma Vickers) with Gary’s sister Sam (Phoebe Rex) caught in the middle. You see, the kids love backyard wrestling and making home movies, but Sam is growing up, and it’s time for her to decide if she wants a boyfriend. That said, Billy might not be the best pick.

It’s all a moot point because on the night of a party gone wrong, the bad kids force Sam to throw, aliens attack and all extraterrestrial hell breaks loose.

Directed by Jason Eisener (Hobo With a Shotgun), who wrote the film with John Davies, this is a movie that’s gorier, weirder and more profane than its title would suggest. Other than Sam (Phoebe Rex), it also has characters that are cookie-cutter at best and annoying at worst. It feels like a mean-spirited cliche of Spielberg-esque alien movies, and while it looks great and has terrific practical effects, I kept asking if there was more. The end feels so abrupt that you feel cheated; it doesn’t have to have a happy ending, but it just feels like the filmmakers ran out of ideas and time.