EDITOR’S NOTE: This movie was watched as part of Salem Horror Fest. You can still get a weekend pass for weekend two. Single tickets are also available. Here’s the program of what’s playing.

Dan (Max Woertendyke) and Jen (Dana Berger) are in the type of relationship where you start to wonder what it would be like without the other person. He’s embarrassed her yet again and as she runs to clear her head, he tries to follow her. The only problem? It feels like they keep going around again and again, around the same path, going through the same motions, the paranormal version of what it’s like to be with each other.

They’re not alone, as the trail around the pond has others who are trapped and doomed to wander in circles as well. Can they escape?

Based on director and writer Dane Elcar’s short film The Pond, this is a dark story that progressively gets grimmer. Some couples are like that, endlessly going through the motion, one trying to stay ahead of the other, both realizing that they are locked into this endlessly repeating unreality.

If you think your relationship is bad, imagine being forced to stay within the same time and place as your partner in a never stopping loop.

This film is big on ideas and low on budget, but when is that a problem?

EDITOR’S NOTE: This movie was watched as part of Salem Horror Fest. You can still get a weekend pass for weekend two. Single tickets are also available. Here’s the program of what’s playing.

Based on true events — when has a movie ever lied to you, this one claims that something much like this happened in 1997 in a Brisbane, Australia recording studio — Bliss of Evil is about the band Prom Night as they practice at Elephant Studios. It’s a family-owned studio, with Uncle Michael (Wayne Bassett) as the boss and Isla (Sharnee Tones) as the recording engineer.

She’s also the girlfriend of the band’s leader Nic (Shanay De Marco). The band has a new guitarist named Lee (Jordan Schulte) as well as bassist Roy (Brendan R Burman-Bellenger) and drummer Rhea (Emily Rowbottom). Hey — they even have a groupie named Courtney (Chenaya Aston).

Things seem to be going fine. But then, why are they in a horror movie, right?

Then Lee kicks this movie into horror business by asking to play the band’s song “Bliss of Evil.” This causes Isla to freak out and undergo a panic attack, but she tells everyone that she can handle it. Obviously, there’s some trauma behind the music.

Enter Bloodface (Corrie Hinschen).

Directed by Josh Morris, who wrote it with Connie Hinschen, this is a movie long on both style and substance. Everything seems filled with dread from the very open, as we see the studio and everything in it covered in blood. We know something horrible is going to happen. We don’t know what, but that worry permeates every second.

Soon, everyone is locked inside with that killer. He just might be the dead guitarist of Prom Night — and the reason why Isla is so filled with nerves and trauma — and maybe, just maybe, this night of bloody horror means something to Isla more than it all seems.

I liked that the kills stay off-screen and that Morris made something pretty stylish for the budget and two weeks or less of shooting time. It’s definitely different than your typical by the numbers slasher.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This was originally on the site on April 21, 2018. The Fog also played this weekend at Salem HorrorFest. You can still get a weekend pass for weekend one or weekend two. Single tickets are also available. Here’s the program of what’s playing.

As the town of Antonio Bay is about to celebrate its 100th anniversary, the stroke of midnight brings chaos. It all starts with an old sailor (John Houseman, in a scene shot after the initial filming was done to add more of an overall scary feel) freaking some kids out with the tale of the Elizabeth Dane. At the same time, Father Malone (Hal Holbrook, adding some star power) drunkenly finds his grandfather’s diary from a century ago, when the founders of the town deliberately sank and plundered a ship full of lepers in order to build the town and the church.

Things get even crazier when a fog rolls in, bringing back the ghost of the Elizabeth Dane and its crew members, who kill the entire ship full of men. And then there’s Nick Castle (Tom Atkins!), who finds a young hitchhiker named Elizabeth Solley (Jamie Lee Curtis!). And oh yeah, DJ Stevie Wayne (Adrienne Barbeau!) is given a piece of the Elizabeth Dane by her son. The entire town flips out overnight, with windows breaking, car alarms going off and dogs barking at the sea.

It doesn’t get any better the next day. The driftwood that Stevie was given mysteriously changes words from DANE to 6 MUST DIE and leaks all over her equipment, making a tape player read part of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”  Nick and Elizabeth seek out his missing fishermen friend and find the body of Nick Baxter with his eyes torn out. It gets worse. The corpse gets off a table and tries to attack her before carving out the number 3. And Kathy Williams (Jamie Lee’s mom Janet Leigh!) chooses to ignore the priest’s warnings that everyone is doomed while worrying about her husband being lost at sea.

Local weatherman Dan (Charles Cyphers from Halloween) has been flirting with Stevie the whole time, but he gets attacked by the fog in a scene that feels like it was lit by Mario Bava. And the fog rolls toward her and her home, where Nick saves her son at the last minute. Finally, the crew of the Elizabeth Dane comes into the town’s church, seeking the gold cross made from their stolen riches. Blake (special effects master Rob Bottin), their leader, grabs it as the crew disappears.

At the end, the priest wonders why they didn’t take him when they promised to kill six. He doesn’t wonder long as the fog rolls back in and he’s beheaded.

This was the first movie Carpenter would direct after Halloween and was inspired by The Trollenberg Terror, a movie where monsters hid in the cloud. It also had a real-life moment that spurred it forward — when promoting Assault on Precinct 13 with his then-girlfriend, producer Debra Hill, Carpenter noticed a strange fog move quickly past Stonehenge.

This was part one of Carpenter’s two-picture deal with AVCO-Embassy (Escape from New York would be the next movie) and was a low budget film with a $1 million dollar budget. That said, Carpenter and Dean Cundey shot it in the anamorphic 2.35:1 format, so it looks amazing. The scenery b-roll that plays as the fog grows closer looks otherworldly and anywhere but California. It’s gorgeous.

After viewing the rough cut, Carpenter felt that the film was terrible and didn’t work. He added the campfire scene at the beginning and several new scenes while reshooting others to be more horror and gore-filled. The budget only went up $100,000, but nearly one-third of the film was reshot.

The Fog is packed with references to other films. Charles Cyphers’ character is named for screenwriter Dan O’Bannon, who made Dark Star with Carpenter. Tom Atkins’ character, Nick Castle, is named for the actor who played Michael Myers in Halloween (he’d later co-write Escape from New York and direct The Last Starfighter), the babysitter’s name is taken from Richard Kobritz, the producer of Carpenter’s TV movie Someone’s Watching Me! And George “Buck” Flower plays Tommy Wallace, named for Carpenter’s art director and the future director of Halloween 3: Season of the Witch and the original It TV movie.

There’s more! John Houseman’s character is named after horror writer Arthur Machen, an Arkham Reef is mentioned as a shoutout to Lovecraft and the town’s coroner is Dr. Phibes. Bodega Bay, the setting of The Birds, is also mentioned.

There’s some great acting in here, particularly the speech Atkins gives about his father almost dying on the ocean. And Barbeau is great as she channels famous New York City DJ Alison Steele, The Nightbird. And Carpenter is in the film as the assistant Bennett who is named after a friend from USC, Bennett Tramer. If that name sounds familiar, Carpenter also used it for Laurie Strode’s potential love interest (and victim of mistaken identity in Halloween 2) Ben Tramer in Halloween. Even Stevie’s car is a reference to another film Carpenter loves: it’s a Volkswagen Thing (her last line, “Look for the fog,” echoes the last line in that movie’s “Watch the skies”).

At one point, John Carpenter mentioned creating an anthology series for TV that would have The Fog create supernatural events in other cities before connective ties to the original film would be shown. Sadly, this series never happened and in 2005, a remake was produced. The less said about that, the better.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This movie was watched as part of Salem Horror Fest. You can still get a weekend pass for weekend two. Single tickets are also available. Here’s the program of what’s playing. Bury the Bride is also now streaming exclusively on Tubi.

Michael David Cummings is better known as Spider One, the lead singer of Powerman 5000. He’s also expanded into making movies, producing the series Death Valley for MTV and then directing Allegoria — which also had his partner/fiancee actress Kyrsy Fox, Scout Taylor-Compton, Lyndsi LaRose, Rachel Brunner and Adam Marcinowski in the cast — before making this new film. You may know his brother Robert a bit better. You know. Rob Zombie.

June Hamilton (Taylor-Compton) is marrying a man named David (Dylan Roarke), who her friends see as, well, maybe a bit too rural. Redneck may be a better term. Yet they all come together to have a bachelorette party in the woods and even June’s sister Sadie (Fox) comes along, despite her disagreeing with every single thing her sister does.

The moment the girls arrive at the hunting cabin of David’s family, things seem off. Carmen (LaRose), Liz (Brunner) and Bett (Katie Ryan) don’t really enjoy all of the stuffed animal heads everywhere, but they try to have the best time they can, thanks to some expensive wine and the chance to spend time together. And then David and his friends Bobby (Cameron Cowperthwaite), Mike (Marcinowski) and Puppy (Chaz Bono) intrude.

The girls are put off by them even further — I mean, what is June doing with a guy missing teeth? — except for party girl Carmen, who takes off into the woods with four of them to supposedly hunt an animal but she takes as the opportunity to do some exotic dancing for her friend’s fiancee’s friends. Everything after this is a spoiler, pretty much, but it ends up with June and Sadie against David and his feral pack after they drink Carmen like shotgunning a beer.

The whole idea of burying the bride is tied into a bottle of backwoods booze that gets buried in a ritual, but the real deal is that this family of rural bloodsuckers lures women back to their hunting lodge, make them have bachelorette parties and then kill them. They must have a whole room filled with penis gag gifts. Except, you know, these vampires can go out in the sun and are really, really easy to kill and given to pontification.

What emerges is a movie that is uneven. When it’s good — as in the closing few moments — it looks great and has some new ideas for the supernatural white trash in the woods genre. And when it’s bad — such as the first half of the movie where every woman treats one another like they hate each other and look, I don’t hang out with just the girls all that often, but I would hope they were a bit more supportive than this — it’s bad. And literally hard to listen to, as sometimes it’s too quiet and as you strain to hear, it suddenly gets too loud, like the Pixies doing a whole bunch of blow and trying to outspend the $426,934.81 Black Sabbath did on Volume 4 and then realizes they have the same audio issues where everything is too loud, but if it’s too loud you’re too old but hey, we’re talking about a movie here and not great bands that established the loud quiet loud style. This is just hard to hear, a problem with lots of modern films or maybe years of said Black Sabbath riffs have made me deaf.

Can we get back to the supernatural white trash in the woods genre? You know who else makes movies in the very same field? Oh yeah, Spider One’s brother. And he makes movies starring his wife. I’m not saying it’s a coincidence but he also has a band that sounded a lot like White Zombie. And maybe other people aren’t going to call this out, because after all, Spider One also does a podcast for Bloody Disgusting. Who knows, maybe he’s a nice enough guy. But it just feels like maybe he could make a better movie, one that doesn’t have its lead watch everyone she knows die and then just crash out on the couch and actually be able to go to sleep. If I have a deadline, I’m awake all night. If I just watched my entire circle of friends get killed by a bunch of NRA bloodsuckers, I’d be a total lunatic. Actually, I’m jealous she can sleep so well in the face of such supernatural concerns.

In the world of rock star directors, Spider One comes in not as high as his brother or Dee Snider and doesn’t have the lunatic outsider art edge that Glenn Danzig brings to the table. Actually, if you didn’t tell me that Spider One made this, I’d think, “Oh, someone tried to make a Rob Zombie movie with all the swearing and weird sex talk but not as intense or idiosyncratic.” And then I saw Spider One in the credits and knew that my theory was correct.

Sarah (Belle Adams) may have never intended to be a witch but comes face to face with the craft when she meets a strange woman at a restaurant. In contrast, Masha has always known that she will one day become one.

In Sarah’s story, “The Boogeywoman,” our heroine is pregnant and her husband cooly informs her that all her visions of witchcraft are just the hormones talking. Oh yeah? Then who is the stalker in the woods casting spells on photos of your wife? Then, as these things happen, a Ouija board gets involved and the darkness sees out.

In “Masha,” the titular protagonist is a woman who knows that her magical powers are there and waiting for her grandmother to die and pass them on to her. Despite her inability to find the man she feels will complete her, she soon finds the power — and the madness — to do pretty much anything she wants.

Although these stories don’t seem to be connected, they are at the end, as the film hints that these women are part of a larger universe. Director Pierre Tsigaridis told Horror Obsessive that “I was really influenced by Italian cinema…Italian horror movies in the ’70s were criticized by Americans because they didn’t follow a typical structure, more visuals over story. In Europe, that was more common.”

This movie starts off with a bang, featuring a witch devouring a baby, and then doesn’t really slow down all that much from there. You can see hints of everything from Suspiria (both versions) and The Beyond to Carrie, Single White Female and Drag Me to Hell in these stories. And the fact that the villain from the first story has an impact on the second excites me for how this series — I hope it’s a series! — of films grows.

I saw Two Witches as part of Salem Horror Fest, where you can watch several shorts and features with their virtual pass now until the end of October. You can learn more about this film on the official Facebook page.

Pedro del Toro, a family man and drug trafficking ally, is ready to get out of the crime life. But is the crime life ever ready to be done with you? As Alan, one of his henchmen, asks him to make one last deal to protect themselves from a rival family, a young girl shows up out of nowhere, just as a small team of Romanian killers known as the Arcana decimate every one of Pedro’s guards.

Lina explains to the survivors that the Arcana are after her because she’s a vampire a part of the Cuervo clan. But while Pedro wants to give in, Alan is going after the Dreadnok-looking army of killing machines.

This movie has quite the cocktail: young vampire vs. warrior caste of Romania bloodsuckers + Mexican mov drama + home invasion thriller. Shake it all up, throw some cool fight scenes, an arrow through the mouth and glowing vampires into the mix and you have a pretty full drink.

Director Rigoberto Castañeda and writer Michael Caissie have combined nearly every movie on their DVD shelves — a little John Carpenter stuck in a fortified place against the odds here, some of The Raid martial arts there, some post-apocalyptic movie looking villains here — and plenty of little hints as their source material, naming the family del Toro and the young girl Lina after Let the Right One In.

I had a blast with this, as its really intriguing to see vampires not be slow moving creatures of the night but instead ninja-like fighting machines. Making cocktails of disparate ingredients is always challenging; here’s to a film that pulls it off.

I saw Origin Unknown as part of Salem Horror Fest, where you can watch several shorts and features with their virtual pass now until the end of October. You can learn more about this film on the official web page.

On the verge of the release of Red Eye 2, a contact lens that can record data and resurface the buried memories of its wearer, a researcher named Margo finds the lead programmer has been murdered. That leads her to Thomas, a detective who has his own past to deal with, all to find out exactly what’s going on.

In his second full-length film, Benjamin Ross Hayden is really trying to tie so many things into one movie: a software company that has all the worst parts of the social media companies that we deal with every day; a detective with an abusive past and a stalker following him; a cool punk hacker named Jade; the monster that looks way cool on the poster.

This really reminded me of a 1990s cyberpunk movie — and I love those movies like three-legged dogs, so you may not — but even I have limits as to how much narrative incoherence I can deal with. This movie looks gorgeous, however, all cool blues and future gleam. And I think there’s a great movie inside here. It just needs to not have so many layers.

I saw Parallel Minds as part of Salem Horror Fest, where you can watch several shorts and features with their virtual pass now until the end of October. This movie is also on Tubi.

I saw The Free Fall as part of Salem Horror Fest, where you can watch several shorts and features with their virtual pass now until the end of October.

Thanks to Jack Hopkins for showing me that I always type Jane Balder and not Badler.