Directed and written by John Hayes (End of the World, Dream No Evil, Garden of the Dead, Grave of the Vampire, Jailbait Babysitter, and so many more; he also made adult films like Baby Rosemary, Hot Lunch and Pleasure Zone as Harold J. Perkins), The Hang-Up is all about vice cop Sgt. Robert Walsh (Tony Vorno), who the force uses as an undercover transvestite despite him looking nothing like a woman. He spends his nights dressed as the very degenerates he spends his days arresting with a vitriolic, borderline obsessive hatred. And even when he has his landlady throw herself at him, he can’t get it up. Other than that, his life is horrible as he just sits at home, alone, drinking Coors Light in bed. 

Then he meets sex worker Angel (Sharon Matt) and falls in love. And that’s when things get worse for him. He falls in love with her, and we get the idea by the end that she’s just playing with him, luring him into the underworld that he was so intent on destroying. 

I was pretty much astounded by this. Sure, it’s exploitation and has so much rawness in the way people talk and act toward one another, but it somehow aspires to be so much more. The Hang-Up is a fascinating relic of the roughie era. It’s a film that exists at the intersection of hard-boiled detective noir and the raw, unwashed spirit of the sexual revolution.

Wes (Drew Marvick) wants to be a monster hunter, even if he isn’t very good at it. Yet when he meets a coven of vampiric ladies — Scarlett (Nina Lanee Kent, Murdercise, which was also made by co-directors Angelica De Alba and Paul Ragsdale), Selena (Adriana Uchishiba), Zooey (Meredith Mohler) and Reese (Kansas Bowling) — Wes pitches the idea of a subscription app where users pay for encounters that stop just short of death. This creates a bizarre symbiotic relationship: the vampires get a steady, safe food supply and Wes gets the fame and money he failed to find as a monster hunter.

Great title. Decent poster. And this is shot well, too. Perhaps it doesn’t need to be two hours in length, but it remains fun throughout, even if the motivations of the vampires go from bad to good a few too many times. As the vamps add more women to their blood cult, including Wes’ mother Mimi (Ginger Lynn!), the power all goes to some of their heads.

This also has Jessa Jupiter Flux as Gwen, Wes’ camerawoman sister, and their assistant — and total geek — Quentin (Shane Meyers). So much of the movie is told in montage, but you also get to see plenty of gorgeous vampiric vixens, including Regina (adult star Little Puck), Penelope (Ellie Church), Eva (Bebe Bardot), Neve (Delawna McKinney), Siren (August Kyss), Ronnie (Satta Murray) and Zara (Lo Espinosa). One of them even remarks that she’s excited to be like one of the girls in The Vampire Lovers!

The girls also have to stay ahead of their former master, Harvey (Nick Zagone), conspiracy-obsessed incels and true love. I really loved that Scarlett is so pro-women-in-charge, anti-capitalist, and all about turning other women on to give them a taste of what power is like. 

The film employs a rich palette of pinks, purples, and blues, which masks its indie budget and gives it a dreamlike, music-video quality during its many montages. This improves on the day-for-night flashback at the beginning, and the film looks uniformly good from that point on. The montages drag a bit and some of the elements are confusing, like is Scarlett good or evil and what’s this about a vampire war that gets forgotten just after it’s brought up. But for an indie feature, it’s way more visually interesting than most stuff out there and has its heart in the right — and most fun — place.

You can watch this on Bloodstream.

Director and co-writer Johnnard Harper has made more than twenty movies in a short time. Working with writer Anthony Leone, he’s made a perfect Tubi Original: cheap, outrageous and quick. 

We meet April (Kennedy Williams) and Derek (Joseph Mason), a couple deep in the struggle. They’re trying to make it, but the rent is due, and the bank account is screaming. Their solution? Get a roommate.

What follows is a parade of human wreckage that feels like a fever dream. Every interviewee is either legally insane, looking for a three-way, or both. It’s a montage of desperation that captures the true horror of the modern gig economy. There’s one moment when they meet a potential roommate, Jason, who is a stripper and an OnlyFans creator named Donald Trunk. This scene is incredible because it’s a one-take wonder, as at least two of the actors are visible breaking throughout. No notes.

Eventually, they settle on Megan (Mikiya Scottia). She’s polite, she’s clean, she’s perfect. Of course, because we’ve seen the first five minutes of the movie, we know Megan has already stacked a few bodies. We’re in on the joke; the roommates are the punchline.

This being a Tubi Original, there’s a late-in-the-film twist you’d never see coming, and because I said that, you can see it coming. But you still won’t see it coming. I apologize if this makes no sense, unless you are a watcher of numerous Tubi Originals and then, well, you get it.

You can watch this on Tubi.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joseph Perry writes for the film websites Gruesome Magazine, The Scariest Things, Horror Fuel, The Good, the Bad and the Verdict and Diabolique Magazine; for the film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope and Drive-In Asylum; and for the pop culture websites When It Was Cool and Uphill Both Ways. He is also one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast and can occasionally be heard as a cohost on Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast.

Official synopsis: Set in the late 90’s, Paying for It follows the trials and travails of Chester (Dan Beirne), a cartoonist and Sonny (Emily Lê), a TV host, who are in a long-term, committed, romantic relationship. When Sonny introduces the idea of opening up their relationship, Chester begins sleeping with sex workers, forcing him to face his issues with intimacy and romance in the process. Based on the best-selling graphic novel by acclaimed alternative-cartoonist Chester Brown.

Celebrating the vibrant underground comic and zine era through the experiences of cartoonist Brown, Paying for It connects the past with the present by bringing together emerging comic actors, performance artists, authors, activists, and multimedia creators in front of and behind the camera, and it has resonated for festival audiences and critics alike.

Canadian dramedy Paying for It may be one of the most honest narrative films released this year. Director Sook-Yin Lee brings to the screen a semiautobiographical account of her longtime relationship with alt-cartoonist Chester Brown, first as a couple and then as friends. The pair is portrayed here by Emily Lê as Lee’s cinematic counterpart Sonny and Dan Beirne as Brown.

Lee, who cowrote the screenplay with Brown and Joanne Sarazen, balances the characters wonderfully, making neither one more “right or wrong” than the other, and portraying them as real people making unusual decisions in their lives. Beirne and Lê are both fantastic in their roles, and they lead a sizable supporting cast that includes a wonderful performance by Andrea Werhun as Yulissa, who together with Brown strikes up a highly intriguing intimate relationship.

The tone of the film never falls into straight comedy, with the humor being more of the smile-inducing type rather than going for belly laughs. Nor does the drama become too heavy or didactic. Paying for It simply offers up two people’s unique views on nontraditional relationships and the ways that their behavior affects those around them, giving viewers plenty to chew on long after watching. 

Paying for It opens in theaters on January 30, 2026. 

I don’t know how director Garrett Brawith (who also made FDR: American Badass!) and writer Ross Patterson (Helen Keller vs. Nightwolves) got Kevin Sorbo to say some of the dialogue in this, but this movie is less a film than an exercise in saying really off-color things and then claiming that it’s a joke.

Poolboy is supposedly — in the world of the film — the vanity project of Saint James St. James, who made this when he was ten. Well, this is the sequel. The first one was so racist that no one is allowed to see it.

Sorbo is Jan Van Hammer, who plays Sal Brando, the poolboy of the title. He was hoping to come home from Vietnam to start a pool cleaning business with Fontaine (Deon Richmond), but all he has left is that man’s arm. And he gets back to his house just in time to catch his wife in bed with Eduardo (Bryan Callen). He steals the man’s van and pool businesses, which gets his wife and kid killed by Caesar (Danny Trejo), who is part of a huge national Mexico vs. America conspiracy.

At some point, when Jan Van Hammer is nearly killed, his role is taken over by Jason Mewes.

This is a confusing film. It’s going to offend everyone because of what it says, and yet it wants you to love it by saying, “I’m just kidding!” As always, there’s the danger of laughing at rather than with the film’s themes. But it’s still kind of fascinating, even if it’s way too long and runs out of steam after thirty minutes, as it’s a sketch stretched thin.

You can watch this on Fawesome.