Category Archives: Movie reviews

Sizzlin’ Summer of Subterranean Psychotronica 2026: Moon of the Blood Beast (2019)

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Week 2 (June 28 – July 4) – Dawna Lee Heising: Our beautiful QWEEN

I dig what Dustin Ferguson is doing with his movies. They’re not big budget affairs, but they have heart, quick a little over an hour bursts of blood, boobs and beasts, which as we know is pretty much all you need to make a good little movie.

Much like a Tigon movie from the past, this film concerns a small town that protects itself from the outside world by sacrificing a victim once every ten years to the titular Blood Beast. It’s also a lot like 1972’s (well, it wasn’t released until 1976) Track of the Moon Beast, the Richard Ashe film that was co-written by Batman co-creator (some would say main creator) Bill Finger. To hammer that point home, a character named Bernadette (Dawna Lee Heising) watches a scene from that very same movie within this movie.

This movie has AVN Hall of Famer (and guest vocalist on a Lords of Acid album) Alana Evans as an early victim, as well as Julie Anne Prescott (Kill Dolly Kill), Vida Ghaffari (Eternal Code), Mike Ferguson, Alan Maxson, Ken May, Chelsea Newman, Eric Reingrover, D.T. Carney, Rob Mulligan, Valerie Mulligan, Dustin Wonch and Raymond Vinsik Williams.

This has some fun monster costumes and gore to go with all the POV shots. It’s a quick watch and probably better than the film that inspired it, to be perfectly honest. I love that Ferguson debuts these movies on WGUD, an actual TV station, with this one airing on the After Hours show on June 7, 2019.

You can buy it on DVD from this site.

JUNESPLOITATION: See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989)

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DAY 30: ‘80s Comedy!

Sometimes, the chemistry between two legends is enough to carry a movie. See No Evil, Hear No Evil is the definition of that sentence: a high-concept, low-brow collision that remains a mandatory watch for anyone obsessed with the glory days of the Pryor and Wilder pairing.

Directed by Arthur Hiller, this was the third of four collaborations between comedy titans Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. It’s a classic odd-couple setup: Dave (Wilder) is deaf, and Wally (Pryor) is blind. They become an unlikely team when they witness a murder in Dave’s newsstand. Wally hears the shot, Dave sees the killer’s shapely legs, and what follows is a frantic, slapstick-heavy chase through NYC and New Jersey involving a stolen gold coin, a secret superconductor and a whole lot of hijinks, as they say.

The cast is a weird, wonderful mix of genre staples. You’ve got Joan Severance, who had the perfect cold, calculated look for the villainous Eve (and thiose gorgeous gams that Dave notices) and a young Kevin Spacey is in full “goon” mode as Kirgo, long before he hit A-list status. Look for the legendary Anthony Zerbe—a guy who has been in everything from The Omega Man to License to Kill—playing the blind villain, Sutherland. 

The production was a legal mess before a camera even rolled. Joseph Bologna and Renée Taylor (who wrote Lovers and Other Strangers) sold the script in 1984 but later sued Columbia Pictures for a massive payout after being cut out of the rewrite process. Before Wilder was cast, the studio considered Jim Belushi for the role of the deaf store owner. That would have been an entirely different—and significantly less charming—kind of movie.

While the critics at the time—including Roger Ebert—hated it, calling it a “dud,” the audience didn’t care. It sat at number one at the box office for two weeks. My wife absolutely adores this movie, and we watch it at least twice a year.

There is one really good thing that came out of this: Wilder attended the NY League for the Hard of Hearing to prepare for his role. He worked with speech pathologist Karen Webb, who would become his fourth wife. That’s good luck, as he’d already turned down the movie twice, as he was worried the film would mock people with disabilities. He changed his mind when, during his research and meetings with real deaf people, he was told, “People with handicaps do have a sense of humor.” 

Writers Earl Barret and Arne Sultan created Too Close for Comfort, so from all the Cosmic Cow fans, thank you.

Chattanooga Film Festival 2026 Red Eye #7: The Wrong Guy (1997)

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Nelson Hibbert (Dave Foley) is the kind of corporate ladder-climber who thinks he’s a shark but is actually a goldfish. When he loses the executive promotion at Nagel Industries, despite marrying his boss’s daughter, he decides to storm the big boss’s office and unleash a tirade for the ages, yelling “Go to hell, you bastard! I swear. I will kill you! You are dead to me!”

Instead of a promotion, he finds Mr. Nagel slumped over with a knife in his back. Nelson’s brain immediately hits the panic button. He assumes that because he was angry and present, he’s Public Enemy Number One. He bolts and goes on the lam, changing his look, living in the woods and trying to survive off the grid.

The kicker? The office security cameras captured the entire murder, and the police have zero interest in Nelson. He is a fugitive running from a law that isn’t even looking for him, while simultaneously trying to stay one step ahead of the actual killer who starts tracking him down. It’s a farce of errors where the biggest threat to Nelson is his own panicked imagination.

Foley co-wrote the script with Jay Kogen (who wrote for The Simpsons) and Wallace Wolodarsky. You can feel the sharp, cynical humor of the Kids in the Hall era throughout the entire runtime. And David Steinberg was a massive influence on the comedy scene for decades. His background in stand-up and his work on shows like Designing Women and Seinfeld gave him the perfect sensibility to frame this film as a series of escalating, claustrophobic miscommunications.

There’s no way this movie was going to be a success. It’s too weird, too full of character actors I love (Joe Flaherty, Jennifer Tilly and, of course, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson in cameos; what was Bruce McCulloch, causing more cancer?), too all over the place. It’s like an episode of The Simpsons when you were a kid or Mad Magazine. It’s as dense as dense can be when it comes to jokes, and I laughed out loud like six times, which is more than I’ve laughed in weeks.

This never came out in theaters and barely made it to DVD. My kind of movie.

Also: You should know that as a kid, I totally wanted to grow up to be Joe Flaherty. He remains a hero.

You can watch this either in-person or virtually at the Chattanooga Film Festival. For more info, visit the official site.

Chattanooga Film Festival: Emily’s Monster (2020)

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Young Emily is doing what every horror movie child inevitably does: snooping where she has no business being. Her target is the basement, a dark, dusty repository of household secrets. What she unearths down there is decidedly not a lost plaything or a dusty box of old records. It’s something much, much worse. The moment Emily vanishes, the tone shifts—the film sheds its skin, transforming from a domestic mystery into a desperate, frantic hunt for a missing child who is trapped in a space that no longer obeys the laws of reality.

The way this is shot—and the sound design—elevate a very simple idea into a tense short. While the creature design leans a bit too heavily on Spirited Away’s aesthetic—giving it a whimsical, No-Face-esque silhouette that feels slightly at odds with the grit—the sound design and claustrophobic cinematography keep your eyes glued to the screen regardless of the aesthetic choice.

That’s really my only note. Oli Jess has made a more frightening film than others that get ten times the budget and length. 

You can watch this on YouTube. Watch it with headphones.

You can watch this either in-person or virtually at the Chattanooga Film Festival. For more info, visit the official site.

Chattanooga Film Festival 2026 Red Eye #4: Fatal Frame (2014)

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In the video game Fatal Frame, you are Miku Hinasaki, a young woman with a sixth sense for the spectral. Her brother, Mafuyu, has gone missing while investigating the infamous Himuro Mansion. It’s a place so steeped in bad vibes and urban legend that the locals won’t even talk about it. Miku heads into the belly of the beast to find him, only to realize that the mansion is a sprawling, multi-dimensional trap filled with the vengeful spirits of those who died during a botched ritual. But instead of killing things, you capture their souls on film to banish them.

Director Makoto Shibata and producer Keisuke Kikuchi didn’t just want to make a game; they wanted to craft a sensory experience. They drew heavily on Japanese war films and classic ghost stories. They were obsessed with making this the scariest thing possible, to the point where they had to cut some of the more graphic ideas because they were just too intense.

When the game hit North American shelves, the marketing department went full exploitation-hustle, slapping “Based on a True Story” on the box. Did a real mansion in Japan have a creepy ritual? Maybe. Does it matter? Not really.

Mari Asato’s 2014 adaptation Fatal Frame: The Movie (or Gekijōban Zero) is going to throw you a curveball if you think it’s going to be based on the game. Instead of frantic survival horror, this is a much moodier, gothic-drenched melodrama that trades jump scares for a haunting, atmospheric exploration of isolation and forbidden love.

The story centers on Aya Tsukimori (Ayami Nakajō), the coolest girl at a strict Catholic boarding school, who suddenly barricades herself in her dorm room. She becomes an urban legend, as students who kiss a photo of Aya at midnight disappear, only to be found later, drowned. When Michi Kazato (Aoi Morikawa) begins digging into the vanishing of her classmates, she finds herself pulled into a supernatural web that is far older and more tragic than a simple schoolyard curse. The plot gets pretty convoluted, involving a photographer named Mary (Noriko Nakagoshi) who archives the past suicides of women who couldn’t face a society that rejected their love. I

So yes, while sold as a video game tie-in, this is based on Fatal Frame: A Curse Affecting Only Girls by Eiji Ohtsuka, which explains why this feels like a doomed romance influenced by lesbian vampire films. It was directed and written by Mari Asato.

You can watch this either in-person or virtually at the Chattanooga Film Festival. For more info, visit the official site.

Chattanooga Film Festival 2026: On Gallows Hill (2025)

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Edward Shimborske IV—making his feature debut at the ripe age of 24—definitely brings the ambition with On Gallows Hill.

Matthew (Rohan Maletira) was a regular college kid until a rough night in New York City and a fight with a bouncer ends with him being dumped in an alley in the worst neighborhood in the Big Apple. He ends being attacked and turned into a vampire.

Here’s where Shimborske gives us a clever twist: our new bloodsucker can’t just feed on anyone. He’s limited to the blood type he had while human. Poor Matthew is O-, turning his new eternal life into a comedic hunt for the right donor.

He falls in with a crew of underground vampires, including mentor figure Joseph Singer (Sam Smiley) and the dandyish leader of The Inner Circle, Ben (Noah Jacobs). They take pity on him and get him a source for blood while he works for them. 

Toss in a ticking-clock mechanic where vamps turn into desiccated husks if they don’t feed every ten days and a doomed romance with a nursing assistant named Annie Apples (Jill Pierangeli — who has the blood type Matthew needs — and you have a movie that is clearly bursting with ideas. 

Maybe too many ideas, as by the end we also have Mr. James Skinner (Billy Whitehorse), a vampire hunter who pursues him.

The biggest takeaway here is that On Gallows Hill feels like an overextended feature. The high-concept hook of the blood type diet is fantastic and I loved the scene where our protagonist keeps asking women their blood type at a bar. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t quite know how to stretch that premise across two hours without losing steam.

However, the craft on display is worth the price of admission. 

For example, the black, white, and red opening title sequence (crafted by Jasper Morris, Anna Anderson, Jake Johr and Shimborske) really sets the mood. It’s gritty, nightmarish, and exactly the kind of stylistic punch we look for.

Shimborske is clearly a filmmaker who has watched many movies and wants to try everything at once. But there is more than a vibrant pulse beating here. I can’t wait to see what he makes next.

You can watch this either in-person or virtually at the Chattanooga Film Festival. For more info, visit the official site.

Chattanooga Film Festival 2026: Sunshine Girls (2026)

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Directed by Madeleine Hicks, this is the story of Elaine (Clara Vance). She’s teetering on the edge of thirty, living in a world that’s suffocating under the weight of total environmental collapse. More than right now, that is.

Oxygen is a luxury, and humanity is dying. The government solution is a medical procedure that repurposes a woman’s reproductive system to perform photosynthesis. Instead of having a baby, you become a human air purifier.

Elaine joins the Sunshine Girls, a group of these converted women who act as living, breathing lung replacements for society. It’s supposed to be an empowering, life-affirming transformation, but is it? As Elaine begins to thrive, the film peels back the layers to show that when you’re turned into a human plant, you’re also prone to being harvested.

In her director’s statement, Hicks said, “Sunshine Girls is both a love letter and a rallying cry. ​ Women are the sunlight illuminating everything around them. They are nurturing. They are strong. They are giving. They are the seeds from which we grow and the roots that ground us. ​ We want to explore the beauty and tenderness of life-giving, while also acknowledging the potential for violence and suffering alongside it.“

You can watch this either in-person or virtually at the Chattanooga Film Festival. For more info, visit the official site.

Chattanooga Film Festival 2026: The Obsessed (2025)

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Giuseppe is a man defined by the intensity of his fleeting obsessions. One week, he is completely consumed by embroidery; the next, he is tracking bugs for a private investigation. He lives a life of manic, rapid-fire shifts in identity and interest. He is a man who cannot stay still, a human whirlwind of hobbies and fixations.

Everything changes when he encounters a quiet, ethereal balloon seller in the park. For the first time in his life, his frantic internal motor hits a wall. He doesn’t just become interested in her. He becomes fixated on the silence and the stillness she represents. The film tracks his attempts to win her over, not by changing his stripes, but by molding his chaotic energy into something that fits her quiet world.

The film is based on the novel Toritsukare Otoko (The Obsessed Man) by Tomihiko Morimi. Morimi is well-known for his eccentric, whimsical characters, and the film captures this playful spirit through its animated, almost magical realism style. Director Wataru Takahashi’s stylized, fable-like visuals invite viewers into a world of imagination and charm, making the story more captivating.

You can watch this either in-person or virtually at the Chattanooga Film Festival. For more info, visit the official site.

Chattanooga Film Festival 2026: Photo Negative (2026)

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In Jacob Perrett’s Photo Negative, we dive headfirst into the grind of Jen (Karlee Mayfield), a struggling forensic photographer desperate for a lifeline. That lifeline appears in the form of a wealthy, enigmatic couple, Arthur (Taylor Rhoades) and Madison (Casey Notarianni).

The premise is a classic cautionary tale: when a job offer seems too good to be true, it almost certainly is. What begins as a straightforward, high-paying gig—photographing every inch of a luxury home—quickly curdles into a nightmare. As Arthur and Madison’s demands shift from professional to deeply intrusive and sinister, the boundaries of Jen’s reality begin to fracture. Back at home, her friends Lucy (Maddie Morgan) and Melissa (Maribeth McCarthy) sense that something is rotting beneath the surface, but the tension inevitably builds toward a dark, unavoidable climax.

Photo Negative is a stark reminder that if someone offers to fix your life, they usually intend to dismantle it first. While the pacing is deliberate and, at times, pushes the limits of its runtime, it offers a grimy, unsettling experience for those who like their psychological thrillers with a side of voyeuristic unease.

You can watch this either in-person or virtually at the Chattanooga Film Festival. For more info, visit the official site.

Chattanooga Film Festival 2026: This Is Buzz (2026)

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If you grew up watching MTV when they actually played music videos, you might remember a strange, hyper-kinetic show called Buzz that aired 13 episodes in 1990. It was called Buzz, and chances are, you didn’t see it. But you may have seen what came out of it.

Mark Pellington’s new documentary, This Is Buzz, isn’t just a look back at that experimental news program; it’s an autopsy of an analog relic that accidentally predicted the total information overload of the TikTok era.

Pellington, the man behind the camera, reunites with his original co-creator, ABC News producer Jon Klein, to deconstruct how they convinced MTV to fund a news show that rejected the traditional anchor-desk format in favor of a frantic, avant-garde collage aesthetic. The documentary chronicles the 13-episode run of the original series, where the narrative was built through rapid-fire cuts and raw footage. It dives into how they wrangled icons like William S. Burroughs, futurist Syd Mead and William Gibson to opine on a changing world while featuring artists and musicians that wouldn’t necessarily make it on MTV.

The real meat of the film lies in how it frames Buzz not as an artifact but as a prophecy. Pellington interviews those who were there, alongside fans like Chris Gore of Film Threat, to illustrate how the show’s global news compression style became the default grammar of the internet. 

If you recognize Mark Pellington’s name, it’s likely from his transition into feature films like Arlington Road and The Mothman Prophecies, as well as his work with U2.

While Buzz may have influenced the media of today, seeing as it was forgotten, I’m not so sure. Maybe I just chafed at all these tastemakers telling us why they were so important instead of showing us why the show was meaningful. There’s no establishing the thesis; there’s just the fact. This feels like a good extra feature for a box set of the episodes, but for those who have never seen it, it just seems rather hollow. 

MTV was made — at first — on the videos that it was given for free, and even then, it kept black artists off the air and regulated non-mainstream acts to the middle of the night. Hearing NYC intelligentsia art people reminds me of creative directors who opine in their offices instead of actually doing or showing something, in love with being cool and the elements of coolness, and dissecting that undefinable narrative rather than getting over the past and making something new. 

Regardless, this is an interesting examination of a time and place where you could get something like this on the air. But as for all that “MTV is different” today, yes. They no longer play anything but endless reruns of the same old, same old. You can make your own taste; you can be your own Buzz; you can share with the world as easily as clicking to upload a video today. 

Anyway, just watch these episodes of Buzz on the Internet Archive.

Then go make your own shit.

You can watch this either in-person or virtually at the Chattanooga Film Festival. For more info, visit the official site.