Category Archives: Movie reviews

GENREBLAST FILM FEST: SHORTS BLAST #3 // THE KOLESNIK METHOD

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This series of shorts is curated by acclaimed author and filmmaker Samantha Kolesnik, featuring LGBTQ+ and documentary genre shorts.

The Shaver Mystery (2024): This is an examination of the strangest and most controversial episode of sci-fi history: The allegedly “true stories” of writer Richard Shaver’s encounters with evil underground aliens; stories that are collectively known as “The Shaver Mystery.”

Richard Shaver first encountered Lemuria when the tools at a factory where he worked allowed him to hear other people’s thoughts, as well as torture sessions going on beneath the Earth. He quit his job and became homeless for some time, but on the other hand, he may have also had paranoid schizophrenia, and this was all the result of electroshock treatments.

Shaver disappeared for some time, then began writing to the pulp magazine Amazing Stories, claiming to have discovered an ancient language he called Mantong. Editor Ray Palmer (the namesake of DC Comics’ Silver Age version of The Atom) thought that Shaver was onto something.

Shaver then wrote “A Warning to Future Man,” in which he discussed cities within the Earth, populated by the benevolent Teros and the malevolent Deros. Palmer rewrote Shaver’s allegedly accurate account and created the fictional story “I Remember Lemuria!” which appeared in the March 1945 issue of Amazing Stories. That issue instantly sold out, and then something peculiar happened: thousands of letters began appearing saying that they’d had the same experiences as Shaver.

The Shaver Mystery also boasts Fred Crisman amongst its believers. The real-life inspiration for TV’s The Invaders, Crisman is a conspiracy nexus: he was supposedly one of the three hoboes in Dallas during Kennedy’s assassination, one of the first people in the U.S. to report a UFO and he battled the Demos in a cave during World War 2.

Amazing Stories‘ readership either loved or hated the Shaver stories. According to Wikipedia, “Palmer would later claim the magazine was pressured by sinister outside forces to make the change: science fiction fans would credit their boycott and letter-writing campaigns for the change. The magazine’s owners said later that the Shaver Mystery had simply run its course and sales were decreasing.” One of the most prominent critics of the Shaver stories was a young Harlan Ellison!

That didn’t end the Shaver stories. Palmer credits these tales with the public fascination with UFOs. John Keel’s 1983 Fortean Times piece “The Man Who Invented Flying Saucers” claims that “a considerable number of people — millions — were exposed to the flying saucer concept before the national news media were even aware of it. Anyone who glanced at the magazines on a newsstand and caught a glimpse of the saucer-emblazoned Amazing Stories cover had the image implanted in his subconscious.” Indeed, Palmer was quick to defend the Shaver stories and claim that “flying saucers” were their validation.

Directed by Dean Bertram, this interviews Joshua Cutchin, Maxim W. Furek, Nathan Paul Issac, Gabriel McKee, Bryan Shickley, Tim R. Swartz and Steve Ward, as well as showing interview footage from Richard S. Shaver and Ray Palmer, the editor of Amazing Stories that published all of the Shaver stories. This is an early look at the entire movie, The Man Who Invented Flying Saucers, and I’m excited to see it. You can learn more at the official Facebook page.

Fisitor (2024): Directed and written by Llyr Titus, this is about Ioan, who is stalked by grief for his husband and a nightmarish creature from Welsh folklore, trying to survive Christmas Eve. Made entirely in the Welsh dialect, this is a folk horror that is — here’s that word again — completely of the Welsh tradition. It’s also gorgeous, a black-and-white, stark film that keeps you watching in terror.

Shadow Dancer (2025): A proof-of-concept film by Nikki Groton, an underestimated tap choreographer (Kelsey Susino), battles against surreal and violent hallucinations while trying to come back to her life before she loses the most significant opportunity of her career. Obviously, the nightmares that she sees coming to life — and hears, the sound design in this is fantastic — she isn’t just battling the supernatural. She’s fighting a sexist world that she’s trying to break through. I’m eager to see how this develops into a full-length movie. You can watch it here.

It Burns (2024): Directed by Kate Maveau, this is a short suicide prevention film about a woman dealing with her grief and trauma after her partner’s suicide. I loved the touch of this being dedicated to those who have lost the fight. This brings you into the story straightforwardly and directly, trying to fill in the emotions within something that we all face, as the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) claims that over 49,000 people died by suicide in the U.S. in 2023, which is a death every 11 minutes. Can one life matter? I think that it can.

Drainomania (2025): Directed by Christopher Greenslate, this finds Katie (Sally Maersk) at a crossroads she never realized with her girlfriend L (Gabrielle Maiden). She’s been asked to do something simple: clean the bathroom. Instead, she’s spiraled into a dream sequence that could trap her and destroy their love story. I think this movie is a good reminder to anyone in any type of relationship to respect your partner and always volunteer to clean the bathroom. Maybe it helps that I was once a janitor, because I don’t mind getting things nice and clean. Handsies and kneesies is the only way to clean.

Bath Bomb (2025): Directed by Colin G. Cooper, this starts with Dr. Jordan preparing a bath for his lover, Grant. Grant’s been cheating on the doctor and thinks he doesn’t know. Oh, he knows. This is totally a Giallo, and cinematographer Jeremy Benning gets the most out of the short running time and pushes the colors, the action and the dread with each moment. I learned that you can’t talk your way out of things when you’re naked, in the tub, and a sizzling bath bomb is about to be dropped on you (amongst other things). Totally amazing and one of the highlights of GenreBlast!

The Night Kills Lovers (2025): Jonathan Brito puts together a quick and fun slasher here, as The Caretaker (Daniel-Paul Sampson) introduces the story of lovers the injured — and sick — Wesley (Adam Wesley) and Francis (Matt Gallagher), who is taking care of him but also driving him crazy by putting on a mask and refusing to listen to him explain how dangerous the city is. Even worse, Francis left the door to their apartment open all day, which already had Wesley freaked out. Things aren’t going to get any better! This was a ton of fun!

GENREBLAST FILM FESTIVAL: SHORTS BLAST #2 // RETURN OF THE SCI-FANTASTIC

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The best sci-fi and fantasy shorts GenreBlast has to offer.

The Man That I Wave At (2025): Directed and written by Bob Hylan, this hit on something that I think about all the time. Sam Pamphilon keeps wondering why a neighbor, Marek Larwood, waves at him. They don’t know one another. How has he become so familiar with him? Why does that waving guy in front of the store, those air blowing things, stay at his post all day? Why are people trying to drive him insane? How can we know anyone outside of ourselves, except on a superficial level, and even then, we only know them based on the outward perception and our own unconscious bias? Maybe I’m thinking too much…but this was a great short with a perfect punchline at the end.

Supercritical (2025): The place? A post-apocalyptic nuclear fallout shelter. The issue? A young scientist (Misha Brooks) bothers the team leader (Amanda Bruton) with a series of progressively inane HR requests, including how many days off he gets at the end of the world. Directed and written by John Osment, this does a perfect job of showing off the inanity of the workforce, what it’s like to be an older leader and how the world doesn’t end when they tell us that it’s all over. The struggle of your job will remain.

Song Is a Spell (2023): Director and writer Cameron Kit is “a feminist sci-fi filmmaker and video artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She has directed over 30 films. Cameron is the host of the podcast and radio program They Came From Outer Space, a sci-fi movie review show airing on WRIR 97.3 since December 2018. She is the founder and CEO of YOYOS, a documentary storytelling company focused on future tech like AI, nanotech and Urban Air Mobility.” In this short, an all-girl band, Caliban, accidentally unleashes a spell during band practice when Ana brings her spell book to practice and uses it for lyrics. This almost causes Flow and Rosemary, her bandmates, to split the band. Can they solve problems and actually improve at playing? I had a lot of fun with this one, as it really gets across the yearning of being in a band.

The Weatherman Who Knew Too Much (2025): Directed and written by Kaylin Allshouse, this has washed-up weatherman Barry (Beau Roberts) finding out how to predict the weather from a fortune teller named Great (Catherine Collier). All he really wants is Anglie (Angela Katherine), the bartender whom he sees every night, but as he becomes famous, he must decide what is most important to him. I really could see this as a full-length film and enjoyed this one quite a lot.

Connection (2025): In this short by Tom White, Agent Carsons (Joshua T. Shipman) is tasked with interrogating an extraterrestrial (Trip Rumble), but learns that he himself is the experiment, as the sessions begin to cause visions of his ex-wife (Maggie Gough) and leave a voice inside his head. I really liked the unexpected nature of this — it seems as if you’re being set up in one way and White takes you down a completely different path. Definitely a head-scratcher in all the best of ways.

Deb & Joan (2025): Isaac Rathbone directs and writes this short, in which a scientist (Leah Nicole Raymond) is surprised that a robot (Gabby Sherba) has developed not just a sense of humor, but feelings for her. The lead scientist, Dr. Roman (John Austin Wiggins), demands that she see the astronaut robot as just that, a machine, before a four-year mission to Ceres, a moon of Jupiter. Rathbone said, “Our team is developing a retro-future aesthetic for this project. No ray guns, beehive hairdos or mylar jumpsuits. Instead, audiences will see the future from a perspective of the past. The world and technology of Deb & Joan will have a feeling of continuing evolution as opposed to being polished and sleek.” This film lives up to its promise and succeeds despite its short running time and small budget.

Astrovan (2025): Matt Heder directed and wrote (with Bryson Kearl and Will Hunter Thomasan) this film, one of my favorite shorts that I’ve seen at GenreBlast, in which Max (Andrew Lindh) and his pet pig Cliff want to watch a Trailblazers game, which causes them to get the help of Roger (Steve Agee) and then…aliens.  Van life, cooking recipes, promises to fathers, conspiracy theories…this is like my YouTube Watch Later but all in one well-made short. I loved this and want more of these characters and this story.

USA UP ALL NIGHT: Hollywood High (1976)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Hollywood High was on USA Up All Night on August 6 and October 7, 1994; May 19 and December 9 and 23, 1995; 

“If that’s Charles Bronson, ask him if his tallywacker wants some poontang!”

For that line alone, I stayed with this movie.

Jan (Susanne Severeid, Don’t Answer the Phone) Candy (Sherry Hardin, Ten Violent Women), Monica (Rae Sperling) and Bebe (Marcy Albrecht) spend most of this movie topless and smoking the stickiest of the icky with Frasier Mendoza, hooking up with the Fenz (Kevin Mead; guess who he’s supposed to be) and Buzz (Joseph Butcher, not far removed from playing the latter side of Bigfoot and Wildboy, hanging out with sex symbol of the past June East (yes, Mae West, but played by Marla Winters), having classes with stereotype teachers like the mincing Mr. Flowers (Hy Pyke, Grandpa from Hack-O-Lantern) and the overly horny Miss Crotch (Kress Hytes) when they’re not being chased by a cop, who they eventually hit with a watermelon and take his pants off, revealing that he’s wearing lingerie.

This was directed by Patrick Wright, who often plays the larger truck driver men in movies like this. He also directed a TV movie, Southern Hospitality.

Turner Classic Movies notes the existence of an unrelated 30-minute television pilot, also debuting in 1977, for a prospective series. It had Annie Potts in it and aired as part of NBC’s Comedy Time. There’s also an unrelated sequel.

At least this has a 70s shot of the Cinerama Dome in it. Otherwise, well…

You can watch this on Tubi.

USA UP ALL NIGHT: Bikini Summer (1991)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Bikini Summer was on USA Up All Night on September 26, 1992; March 19 and August 7, 1993; May 20 and June 3, 1994. 

Chester Marley (David Millbern) is supposed to paint the beach house of Mr. and Mrs. Patterson (W. Dean Grey and Katherine Victor, who played Batwoman in The Wild World of Batwoman, Car-Driver Spider Woman in Mesa of Lost Women, and Sheila Frankenstein von Helsing in Frankenstein Island (before working in animation), while they’re on vacation. Instead, he and his friends Richard (Alex Smith), Jazz (Shelley Michelle, Julia Roberts’ body double in Pretty Woman), Mad Dog (Kent Lipham) and Cheryl (Melinda Armstrong) transform it into a party house.

Director Robert Veze came from porn, and it shows. This does not shy away from breasts unless you watched it on USA Up All Night. He wrote it with Nick Stone, who also wrote Sunset Strip. Strange enough, this has a lot of environmental concerns in it, as well as wanting to save a beach, but mostly, you know, tits.

There are three of these films. You can download them from the Internet Archive.

USA UP ALL NIGHT: Frogtown II (1992)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Frogtown II was on USA Up All Night on October 18, 1996 and August 30, 1997.

Directed and written by Donald G. Jackson, this is the sequel — one of many that he made — to Hell Comes to Frogtown. This doesn’t have the low budget of the first one. It’s even lower. It also replaces Roddy Piper with Robert Z’Dar.

Captain Delano (Charles Napier) sends Sam Hell Frog Town to rescue Texas Rocket Ranger John Jones (Lou Ferrigno), who can transform into a frog person, just like he’s back on CBS, due to operations from Professor Tanzer (Brion James) and Nurse Cloris (Linda Singer), who are being forced to do this by Czar Frogmeister.

Dr. Spangle (Denice Duff) is back as well, but I miss Sandahl Bergman. Working with Brandy Stone (Don Stroud), she and Sam Hell have to rescue Jones before the Texas Rocket Rangers are destroyed. USA Up All Night fans will be happy to see Ehonda Sheer in this as Fuzzy, the communicator for the good guys.

Somehow, this feels way longer than it is, and I can’t even think of how much slower it was when it had late-night commercials. But hey — mutant frogs against the chin of Z’Dar. You can do worse.

You can watch this on YouTube.

USA UP ALL NIGHT: Love at Stake (1987)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Love at Stake was on USA Up All Night on June 11, 1992; September 17, 1993; August 13, 1994; December 15, 1995.

John C. Moffitt directed episodes of Not Necessarily the News, Mr. Show, Fridays and more. This is one of his few films, and it was written by former SNL writer Lanier Laney and Terry Sweeney, who was the first openly gay SNL cast member.

Miles Campbell (Patrick Cassidy) is a recent graduate of Harvard Divinity School who has come back home to Salem to work as a parson’s assistant. Another thing that brought him back was Sara Lee (Kelly Preston), whom he had been sweet on for years, not just for her baking.

At the same time, Judge Samuel John (Stuart Pankin) and Mayor Upton (Dave Thomas) are accusing people of witchcraft so that they can get their homes, destroy them and build the Puritan Village Mall. Parson Babcock’s (Bud Cort) mother (Audrie J. Neenan) is a big supporter of this. So is Faith Stewart (Barbara Carrera), a real witch from England, who wants Miles for herself and accuses Sara of doing magic.

Yes, another Barbara Carrera as a witch movie that would be a great double feature with Wicked Stepmother.

This cast is insane. There’s The Shirts frontwoman Annie Golden, David “Tackleberry” Graf playing her husband, Anne “Mama Fratelli” Ramsey, voice of Caspar the Friendly Ghost Norma MacMillan, Dr. Joyce Brothers as herself and Juul Haalmayer as The Executioner. He was an SCTV technician and appeared as a dancer on the show.

Originally called Burnin’ Love, this was made for DeLaurentiis Entertainment Group, which went out of business, leaving this on the shelf. It’s a very sight gag movie, but it has so many great comedic actors that it’s a fun watch.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Darklands (1996)

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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: Darklands tells the story of a newspaper reporter lured into a conspiracy of pagan rituals and human sacrifice whilst investigating the death of a steelworker. 

With Darklands, director Julian Richards delivers a riveting fright-fare mashup of traditional U.K. folk horror and set pieces with a postindustrial vibe. The result is an intriguing work that feels like an elevator pitch of “The Wicker Man (1973)  meets The Road Warrior/Mad Max 2 (1981).”

The film also boasts noir elements as journalist Frazier Tuck (Craig Fairbass) assists newly assigned cub reporter Rachel Morris (Rowena King) in investigating the workplace death of her brother, which seems suspicious to her despite what the local authorities say. This leads him down a deadly path filled with conspiracy theories, modern-day Celtic pagans, nationalist political figures, and men of the cloth, to name but a few of the characters, with a super supporting cast on hand.

Twenty-nine years on, many of the elements seem familiar — some obviously did so as soon as the film was originally released — but there’s plenty of interest here for scare-fare aficionados to warrant a revisit or a first-time watch. 

The remastered Director’s Cut of Darklands, from  Jinga Films, has been released worldwide on multiple streaming platforms including Amazon, Sky, Apple TV, Plex, Google, Fandango, Tubi, Fawesome, and Philo.

Sizzlin’ Summer of Side-Splitters 2025: F.A.R.T. the Movie (1991)

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Sept 8-14 Sketchy Comedy Week: “…plotless satires, many of which were only excuses for drug humor or gratuitous nudity sprinkled with the cheapest of gags. The typical form was a channel-changing structure, which would go from one sketch to the next under the premise that this was just another night at home watching the old boob tube. The medium is the message, baby!”

When I talked about King Frat a few years ago, I wrote that “a farting contest is announced and everyone battles to have the best farts in a scene that goes on longer than you’d expect, then goes about another seven minutes past that.”

This is an hour and thirty-one minutes of farting.

One of seventy-five movies that Ray Etheridge has made, this has eight writers, with Curly Smith and Ray Atherton (the writer of Meatcleaver Massacre and the producer of Death Scenes) working with Etheridge to finish the script. One wonders what the writer’s room smelled like.

Russell (Joel Weiss) thinks he loves Heather (Shannandoah Sorin). He is more certain that he enjoys watching TV and, yes, farts. He loves farts like I love Jess Franco movies. He loves flatulence like I like my dog. Maybe more. He’s obsessed with ass flapping, air biscuits, butt tubas and anal audio.

This has hundreds of people, real sets and feels like it was blown up from SOV to 16mm at certain points. I have no idea how they got the money and the people to stay involved to make this, because it’s a torture test to watch, and yet, I feel the pull of Stockholm Syndrome, and by the end, I was just trapped by it. It made me change my name to Tanya and rob banks.

Somehow, this has a thirty-day shooting and a $43,000.00 budget. When seeking crew for the film, Daily Variety refused to run ads until the word fart was replaced with wind-breaker.

Does it have an elevator fart sketch? You know it.

An extended New Year’s Eve party that nearly breaks up the couple? Yes. The Soup Nazi is also in that scene. He’s not the Fart Fuhrer, but imagine if he were.

There’s an Evening at the Improv looking show; a Sneak Previews moment; plenty of commercials; the voice of Lord Zedd shows up; a game show called Bong Show that has a very young Kesha show up, as her mom wrote the music for this film; Conrad Brooks from Plan 9 from Outer Space and dialogue like this:

Russell: Say it. Bomber. The real gazoo. Slice city, the little sneaker, the big…

Heather: As far as I’m concerned, I do not wish to discuss the subject any further. Case closed.

Russell: Fart. Fart, fart. Fart.

Heather: Are you coming with me tonight, or not?

Russell: When you say fart. Say it, fart, fart. Fart, fart, fart, fart, fart.

There’s also a long moment where Russell keeps trying to make the pizza he is eating create more farts.

The Farley brothers were in a movie called Big Wind on Campus that was also sold as F.A.R.T. the Movie. What do these acronyms stand for? Well, the F.A.R.T. started as a 30-minute VHS sold at Spencer’s Gifts before the full 90-minute version was shat upon us.

This is a movie where child Kesha farts on an old woman. Honestly, we are gonna die young.

The back of the box says: IT’S DEFINITE FART ART.

I’m never watching a movie after this.

You can watch this on Tubi.

USA UP ALL NIGHT: Hot Splash (1988)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Hot Splash was on USA Up All Night on September 28, 1991; February 14 and September 5, 1992; April 9, 1993.

Sometimes I think about the people who took things from me and how they sleep well at night, and here I am, writing about a teen sex comedy in the middle of the night, unable to visualize being able to rest because I have so many of these films to discuss. They can never take that from me. They don’t want to.

Directed by James Ingrassia, Hot Splash is shot in Florida and has Woody (Richard Steinmetz), Jennifer (Andrea Thompson, Detective Jill Kirkendall on NYPD Blue) and Jimbo (James Michael Hall) getting ready for a surfing contest, but then Jimbo angers gangster  T.J. Caruso (Jeremy Whelan). He gets kidnapped, and the surfing kids have to save him.

Then they surf, and you realize that the waves in Florida aren’t like the ones in the California beach movie. They’re pretty small. There are also two scenes at an Arby’s that go on so long that you start to understand that the filmmakers followed the ways of another man who made movies in Florida, Herschell Gordon Lewis, who got KFC to feed every film he made down there. So yeah. Arby’s. This movie will make you hungry for a French Dip and potato cakes.

You can watch this on YouTube.

USA UP ALL NIGHT: Danger Zone 4: Mad Girls, Bad Girls (1992)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Danger Zone 4: Mad Girls, Bad Girls was on USA Up All Night on January 9 and August 20, 1993; May 28, November 25 and December 11, 1994.

My wife always picks the best time to come down and see what I’m watching. She walked in during this, saw all the nudity and said, “What’s this called?” I paused it, she saw the title and stared me down and said, “Mad girls. Bad girls.” It was as if I got caught as a child doing something wrong.

Just look at this sell copy: “Jason Williams (Flesh Gordon) again plays Wade Olson the Harley riding renegade cop. This time, Olson finds himself deep in the Danger Zone when seven angry women kidnap him and take him into the desert away from the law. Sex is their weapon, and revenge is their motive. Mad Girls Bad Girls join them for a wild ride into the Danger Zone.”

Seven women take Wade out to the desert to kill him for jailing their biker men. But who gets to be the one who murders him? Whoever turns him on the most. Most of the movie has Lisa (Amerika, who was also a sex worker in The Kung Fu Mummy), Samantha (Kelly Brown, Brad from Hey Dude), Natalie (Linda Comers), Barbie (Jean Stewart, Nurse Pony in Class of Nuke ‘Em High Part II: Subhumanoid Meltdown) and Jessie (Beverly Trachtenberg, Fortress of Amerikkka) attacking the old man, making fun of his lack of erection and then, weirdly, all trying to have sex with him. The fact that Williams was involved creatively and monetarily may be the reason why.

This was directed by Gregory Vernon Jeffery, who also made Death Riders, and written by Williams with Gregory Poirier, who directed Tomcats and wrote Danger Zone III: Steel Horse War. He also wrote the story for National Treasure: Book of Secrets, which frankly ruined me for the rest of the day. How did he go from this to that?

The other movies in this are 1987’s The Danger Zone, 1989’s Danger Zone II: Reaper’s Revenge, 1990’s Danger Zone III: Steel Horse War and 1994’s Death Riders, all of which have Williams as Olsen and Robert Random as Reaper, other than the last movie, which has Robert Brand (and Leatherface R.A. Mihailoff). Who needed five of these movies when this one is so padded, where we see each biker’s man getting killed in flashbacks from the other movies? And Death Riders is just a compilation and is also called Valley of the Cycle Sluts. 

23 people watched this on Letterboxd before me. Let this knowledge guide your watching.

You can watch this on YouTube.