Author Archives: bandsaboutmovies

Sizzlin’ Summer of Side-Splitters 2025: Baby Cat (2023)

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June 23-29 Cat Week: Cats! They’re earth’s funniest creatures (sorry chimps, you’re psychos).

I’m trying to answer this cat movie challenge, so I went to Tubi, where I found this movie and its description: “When Dana moves into her new apartment, she falls in love with the building’s cat, who happens to be a grown woman in a costume.”

I have to tell you, this movie is excellent, because it’s someone’s particular fantasies shot on green screen and playing on Tubi. If that doesn’t make you want to watch this, does the fact that a character directly shouts out that they are making a movie for Tubi? And if not, why are you reading this?

Scott Hillman also made The Magical Christmas Tree, a movie that is also about an elf, non-gender-specific people finding love and not as much the holidays.  This movie? It’s about Dana (Natalie Cotter) moving into a new apartment building and learning that there’s a cat person (Fawn Williams) who lives there. One day, the cat gets into her house, and she pets her, which strangely gets her obsessed with human/cat consensual BDSM play. The movie in no way judges this, which is excellent! Whatever! Is it love? Maybe! There’s also a binary person, Max Power, played by Socks Whitmore, who is never questioned for who they are; they’re a vital and essential character.

The Cat is also The Bear, a superheroine who was once Sgt. Lori Levy was given animal DNA by a government agency. She ‘s also able to speak and be charming to Dana’s mom, who is Lisa London, Rocky from Savage Beach! Somehow, all the weird comic book moments pay off by the end, too.

This has some green screen that must be seen to be believed, and sound that can barely qualify as mixed. Who cares? This is the purest film I’ve seen in a long time. Man, Cotter and Winters are really good in it. It’s a brave, raw, weird movie. I’m so glad I watched it. Don’t be one of those people put off by how all over the place it feels. Stay with it. Let it breathe.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Tales from the Crypt S8 E11: Confession (1996)

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Warhol Evans (Eddie Izzard), a horror screenwriter suspected of beheading women and keeping their craniums as trophies, is being questioned by Jack Lynch (Ciarán Hinds), who is the kind of tough homicide detective that every cop wants to be.

This is one of those episodes that gets very meta, referring to a book, The Satanic Scriptures, written by Alan Katz and Gill Adler, the producers. There’s also a line where Lynch goes on IMDB and looks up the writer’s credits, asking what Tales from the Crypt is. “Ancient history,” replies Evans, “That was years ago. It’s been canceled now.”

“Okay, that’s enough. I think I see what the problem is. Your eyes are in terrible shape. Probably from watching too much Tales From the Crypt. To fix it we’ll require cohacktive lenses, maybe even radio scare-totomy. Although, there is another test I could perform. We’ll start by turning out the lights and making you look at this. It’s a nasty nugget about a writer who’s pretty fear-sighted himself. I call this one “Confession.””

Directed by Peter Hewett (The Borrowers) and written by Scott Nimerfro, this has a cop so good that — spoiler — he can kill people and get others to confess to it. Then again, Warhol isn’t exactly clean — he was acquitted for molesting a child, he has a ton of weapons in his house, and he does call home to get his girlfriend to get rid of another severed head.

This episode is based on “Confession” from Shock SuspenStories #14. It was written by Al Feldstein and William Gaines and drawn by Wally Wood. The story and ending are similar, but the occult and severed heads are absent.

JUNESPLOITATION: Jacaranda Joe (1994)

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June 27: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Free Space!

In June 1994, George Romero came to Florida’s Valencia College to film a movie he’d wanted to make for some time—or at least part of it.

Working with students at the school, he shot a few minutes of Jacaranda Joe, a movie that was called The Footage in the 1970s. Pre-found footage mania, Romero wondered if a documentary could scare audiences. This would be at some point between The Crazies and Martin, so 1973-1978, during the time that Romero was working on O.J. Simpson: Juice On the Loose and three episodes of the TV series The Winners on Pittsburgh sports heroes Willie Stargell, Bruno Sammartino and Franco Harris.

Keep that sports hero part in your head for a bit.

In all three scripts that were written — major credit due to the University of Pittsburgh Horror Studies website for so many references — a show called Outdoorsman USA brings on major stars and athletes on authentic hunting and fishing trips that are captured raw and shared with the TV audience. There were two different versions —  the “Franco Version” has the beneficiary of Franco’s Italian Army and the man who made the Immaculate Reception playing star quarterback Johnny Wilson, who is trying to leave the NFL behind while the other version has Johnny Shaw, “a star NFL quarterback who is just beginning a career as a country and western recording artist,” who has to be Terry Bradshaw — of who the hero would be, but the action is similar. Somehow, someone kidnaps a baby sasquatch, and the family starts to chase the humans, kind of like Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues, but many years before.

Jacaranda Joe was written by Romero knowing that he would be filming for just ten days with young filmmakers. Valencia had a great class, obviously, as Robert Wise did the same class the year before. In this version, there is a skunk ape in the woods that is found by the crew of Remington, a TV talk show very much like the Geraldo and Sally Jessy Raphael-type shows — Sally Jessy is even mentioned — of the day.

This played on April 10, 2022, thanks to the University of Pittsburgh. Because all things online are captured, it’s in the Internet Archive. There’s not much more than a few scenes, but as you can imagine, it’s exciting to see a new George Romero film. It was also the first movie that the director made entirely outside of Pittsburgh, but not the last.

CHATTANOOGA FILM FESTIVAL 2025: I Really Love My Husband (2025)

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Teresa (Madison Lanesey) and Drew (Travis Quentin Young) are on their late honeymoon, and the marriage isn’t all that great for Teresa. Drew? Everyone loves the guy, and he seems so happy no matter what. Teresa is one of those people who constantly has to tell everyone how much she loves them, even calling an ex on the day of her wedding to do this.

To be frank, Teresa may be one of the most hateable characters I’ve ever seen in a movie. When one of her energy bars almost kills a fellow passenger with a nut allergy, her husband takes the blame. And this makes her angry! And yes, I saw Madison Lanesey write on Letterboxd not to hate this movie because of her character…”I know, I know, she’s hard to love.  But then again, it IS hard to love.”

Then they meet Paz (Arta Gee), a non-binary native whom they hope to seduce. As you can imagine, the sex is great. But when Drew is honest and sleeps with Paz alone — something he got permission for — she flips out and goes hard at him about how she never loved him. He gets on a boat and has a sad sailaway, a broken man.

And what are we to learn from this?

G.G. Hawkins, who directed and co-wrote this with Madison Lanesey and Scott Monahan, appears to be someone with considerable talent. I just couldn’t get past the vapid nature of this film, and even though it’s a lean 79 minutes, it felt like being trapped with a couple that everyone knows really hates each other behind closed doors, regardless of what their social media posts say.

You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles, as well as updating my Letterboxd list of films I’ve watched.

CHATTANOOGA FILM FESTIVAL 2025: Alan at Night (2025)

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Directed and written by Jesse Swenson, Alan at Night is about what happens when Jay (Joseph Basquill) needs a new roommate after his YouTube partner leaves town. It’s only for a month, as his girlfriend Sam (Hadley Durkee) plans on moving in. That brings Alan (Chris Ash) into their lives. He’s quiet; he can’t hold his drink. When he passes out in his room, he appears to be sleepwalking, stealing shoes and eating all the mayo.

Additionally, he becomes possessed and has all-white eyes.

The truth is, I really couldn’t blame Alan for how he felt after getting pranked all the time. As always, I dislike people not asking for consent and found footage, so when Alan got his revenge, I was on his side.

You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles, as well as updating my Letterboxd list of watched films.

Chattanooga Film Festival 2025 Red Eye #7: At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (1964)

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All hail David Dastmalchian! He picked the last Red Eye of the Chattanooga Film Festival, and man, he did it right! Coffin Joe! Also: How amazing is it that this movie was made in 1964? It had to scare the hell out of people.

How badass is Zé do Caixão, or as we know him, Coffin Joe?

Can you imagine the audacity to not just create this character but to become him in the midst of a country where more than 60% of the population is Catholic?

Can you even comprehend how upset people were when José Mojica Marins became the long-fingernail-wearing amoral undertaker driven to continue his bloodline by having a son with the perfect woman while murdering and ruining everyone in his wake? How did they deal with a boogeyman who filled their head with double-talk and Nietzschean statements?

As Coffin Joe would yell, “I challenge your power! I deny your existence! Nothing exists, but life.”

The first appearance of Coffin Joe is in this movie, a film in which the evil undertaker searches for his perfect woman who will bear him the child that will make him immoral. After all, his wife is infertile, so he decides to murder her with a spider. And not just on any day. On a Catholic Holy Day. And then he decides to break another Commandment, coveting Terezinha, the fiancée of his friend Antonio.

Joe and Antonio visit a gypsy who foretells that a tragedy will keep Antonio and Terezinha from being married. This causes Joe to scream at the woman about how the supernatural is a lie, then he makes her warning come true by strangling his friend before drowning him. The very next day, he starts to court Terezinha by giving her a canary. When she resists his advances, he beats her and then assaults her. She curses him and reveals that she will kill herself — one of the gravest sins in the Catholic Church — and come back to pull him into Hell. He laughs, but the next day, she has hung herself.

The police just can’t seem to figure out why all these deaths are happening in this small village, but Dr. Rodolfo does. Coffin Joe responds by tearing out his eyes with his long fingernails and setting him on fire. Problem solved. He remains unpunished and even starts to fall for another woman, Marta. On their date, he sees the gypsy who warns him that he will be punished. That night, as he walks home, the cemetery calls him, the place where all of his victims are burning. He opens the grave of Antonio and Terezinha, and they begin to open their eyes as their mouths are filled with worms and insects. Coffin Joe starts to scream, as he is trapped between life and death, finally paying for his crimes as the church bells ring at midnight.

This is just the start of how strange these movies would become. If you liked the last ten minutes of this, just get ready. It gets really good from here.

You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles, as well as updating my Letterboxd list of watched films.

CHATTANOOGA FILM FESTIVAL 2025: House of Ashes (2024)

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Meat Friend, a short that director and co-writer (with Steve Johanson) Izzy Lee made, is one of the best short films I’ve seen, so I was excited about this feature.

Mia (Fayna Sanchez) has lost her husband and her baby, which has led to her being jailed in her home, as she lives in a state where miscarriage is murder. Under house arrest, she moves in with her new boyfriend, Marc (Vincent Stalba), and tries to get through things with her sanity intact.

But ah, that Bava lighting clues us in that this is in no way paradise. And Marc isn’t a dream partner, either.

So what happened with her husband Adam (Mason Conrad), who was found in their animal clinic with a syringe in his neck, a death that caused her to lose the baby and be arrested for his murder, until it was learned that Adam had killed himself? Marc soon loses it over her memories of Adam, demanding she destroy everything with a memory of him attached and then drugging her despite her being on probation. To make things worse, her probation officer (Lee Boxleitner) continually calls her a murderer, and social media personality Lexi ShokToks (Laura Dromerick) is stalking her, hoping to push her into creating viral content.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where this film no longer feels entirely horror. Yes, the ghosts are from the fantastic, but the lack of body autonomy for women isn’t just speculative fiction. This adds a darkness to this film that haunts every frame.

You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles and updating my Letterboxd list of watched films.

CHATTANOOGA FILM FESTIVAL 2025: In the Mouth (2025)

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I know that you don’t have to love every protagonist in every film, but I somehow found myself watching multiple films at the Chattanooga Film Festival, where each lead made me want to rage-quit the movie. That’s not fair to the filmmaker or the film, so I stuck it out each time. This would be one of those times.

Merl (Colin Burgess) never leaves his house. His home is also enormous and challenging to comprehend. So yes, you can see why he needs to bring on a roommate — the second CFF movie where someone got a roommate and it ruined their life — to make his rent.

That new friend is Larry (Paul Rothery), who has just escaped from jail and is constantly being watched by his criminal associates.

Director and writer Cory Santilli has agoraphobia, and this has many moments that prove this, as Merl can’t leave this place even when he’s months behind on paying the landlady. One reason he never leaves? There’s a giant version of his head sticking out of the front yard.

It’s a quirky film that just didn’t resonate with me, but you may find something to love here. Most of the other reviews I’ve checked online have been overwhelmingly positive, so I think I need to give this another watch.

You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles and updating my Letterboxd list of watched films.

CHATTANOOGA FILM FESTIVAL 2025: Inertia: Re-Making The Crow (2001)/James O’Barr’s The Crow (1998)

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Inertia: Re-Making The Crow (2001): Directed by David Ullman along with Matt Jackson, who in their teen years decided to take an obsession over the film The Crow and recreate it with a version closer to James O’Barr’s original graphic novel. Shot on video and in black and white, this took four years and drove Ullman’s family insane.

The original pitch for this doc was wide in its scope: “I’d like Inertia to be both an examination of how we created our movie and an exploration of the comic from which it came. Using behind-the-scenes footage, photographs, and interviews, the documentary will illustrate the process by which two 14-year-olds successfully adapted a comic of such breadth, texture, and intensity; the challenges their limited resources presented; and the creativity used to overcome them, ultimately showing how passion can overcome adversity.

Additionally, an underlying study of O’Barr’s piece and a character study of the young filmmaker for whom this project became an obsession should be included. The picture should play like Hearts of Darkness meets Looking For Richard.”

The original documentary was attacked for copyright reasons, but over the years, it has played several film festivals and is more than just about the comic book or the movie. It’s about how two young men from Ohio matured as artists and made something together that would inform the rest of their lives.

You can get this movie on VHS from Lunchmeat VHS.

James O’Barr’s The Crow (1998): Created by David Ullman and Matt Jackson over four years, throughout their high school years, this is what SOV is all about: obsessive devotion. When their friends didn’t show up, when their family didn’t understand, they kept making this movie.

On Ullman’s site, he has this quote: “There’s this aura to the book. When you look at it, you feel something. There is blood on the page, and you can sense that. It’s very affecting. I think they captured that beautifully in the Miramax film, and it was our intention at first to make a hybrid of the existing movie and the comic book. But the more serious we became about the project in general, the more we wanted to really delve into the book, explore its themes and characters, create something more of our own.”

Both star in the film, with Ullman as Eric Draven and Jackson as Top Dollar. The sets were in the family bedroom. Over four years, they learned how to take a comic book, transform it into a script and storyboard, and then create art from it.

I get it. I saw The Crow so many times in the theater, I listened to the soundtrack over and over, and there are even Halloween party photos somewhere of me as a chubby Crow, carrying my guitar and a gun. 1994 was a big time for this movie. Here’s to two filmmakers who pushed for this and made it a reality on a budget that’s so much less than Hollywood would ever attempt.

You can watch this on YouTube thanks to Lunchmeat VHS.

You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles, and updating my Letterboxd list of watched films.