Hoping to find a cure to the disease that is destroying him from within, The Professor follows Agatha on a strange and risky journey into a forgotten but not entirely deserted urban wasteland. Sure, that’s the logline, but this film makes getting there so different, so trippy and so intense.

Kelly Bigelow and Roland Becera did just about everything in this movie from directing, writing, editing, costumes, casting, effects and animation. It’s a truly singular work that presents an ever-evolving series of images that creates a dark mood while presenting what it calls “the disintegration of nature, institutions and people.”

It’s more a series of imagery and tone than an actual narrative film, so if that’s what you’re expecting, well…then this just isn’t going to work for you. If you’re feeling adventurous, however, this movie has a rewarding look and feel. It’s like exploring a series of dark paintings and nearly falling through them, unsure if what you’re seeing is either live action or animation or something in the middle.

You can learn more at the official site.

I watched Agatha at Pigeon Share FrightFest. It’s the UK’s best, brightest, and largest independent international thriller, fantasy, and horror film festival and has three major events each year in London and Glasgow. Learn more at the official site.

As a baby, Shue Sang (Derek Yee) was found in a cave by an elderly childless woodcutter. And like Kal-El, he grew into a man with powers above and beyond normal men. Also, like Superman, he is powered by our sun and sent here before the destruction of his homeworld. Well, it was an explosion that destroyed Krypton, but his world was smashed by the Demon Spawn, who is coming to Earth in the form of an eclipse, which means that Shue Sang has to figure out his powers quickly.

So as you listen to the John Williams score from Superman, you will realize that if Shue Sang is Superman, then Mo Ying the Demon Spawn is General Zod and the evil Regent is, I guess, Lex Luthor. Except that Zod never blew people up real good when he blasted them with laser beams. Also, Shue Sang’s move set might copy the Man of Steel, including powers like flight, super strength and energy beams (well, from the hands if not the eyes), but he also has Mort Weisinger-era Superman family powers too, like being able to have conversations with animals. He can also create laser shapes to fight with, kind of like Lou Ferrigno Hercules. Oh yeah — he can also pluck chickens with his mind. What other hero can do that?

This ends with a crucified princess (Cherie Chung), hopping vampires, an eclipse and a dramatic comeback before a flying laser fight. What other film has a bad guy with an extreme eugenics agenda using his blood to awaken a murderous demon baby? Pure movie drugs, Shaw Brothers strain.

Another film with Death Duel‘s Third Master (Yueh Hua), Full Moon Scimitar starts with Ding Peng (Derek Yee) sparring in sword battles that don’t go to the death. However, he wants to get ahead of his rival Liu Ruo Song (Wang Yong), who sends his wife to seduce him and steal his sword manual before they fight. Our hero is humiliated, leading him to ask his father’s spirit for guidance. He soon meets Qing Qing (Liza Wang) and learns of a weapon called the Full Moon Scimitar. Yet even when he obtains it, he wants glory and honor instead of peace.

Directed by Yuen Chor, this is another tale of the difference between the martial world and the world of normalcy, a place that Ding Peng wants to escape and that Qing Qing wants him to remain in. The martial world is one of shadows and fog, a place lit like a Mario Bava movie, a violent universe where you must be ready to defend yourself at any moment. There is no rest.

This is a movie brave enough to answer the question “When you get to the top of the mountain, what comes next?” It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll, as Bon Scott sang. And when you get there, like an Italian West gunfighter, you have to be ready to defend your title with your life at a moment’s notice. It seems exhausting and unsustainable, as this film’s moral reminds us.

Alter Monrepos (Amélie Daure and Anne-Sophie Charron) has an IV dripping blue liquid into her body, lying on a medical table. Or maybe she’s throwing up. Or is she in hypnotherapy with the cave-dwelling Léandro Lecreulx (Stefano Cassetti)? She could also be hooking up with gas station attendant Chris (director and writer Aurélia Mengin) or El Gringo (Emmanuel Bonami). At least she’s taking photos of everything that happens to her, so that she can show them in therapy and determine what makes her anxious — red — or safe — blue — and then learn what is real. And oh yeah — deal with her mother Rosy (Patricia Barzyk) and get past self-harm and embrace living.

This movie’s PR describes it as “Mario Bava meets David Lynch” but this goes further and better and deeper than that. It’s a world of neon that it stalks through, of desire and despair, of long-buried secrets, of the meanings of colors and a place where it can just all come to a stop so two metallic flaked lovers can grind together while loud mechanical shrill shouts pierce the soundtrack. To compare Mengin’s work to any other creative is a disservice. Here, she announces herself as a bold new voice that will only grow in power and command with each new work. This is not a movie that makes sense and therefore, it makes complete and utter sense. Magical and the note to her father at the end, referring to him as her partner in surrealism, made me wistful.

I watched Scarlet Blue at Pigeon Share FrightFest. It’s the UK’s best, brightest, and largest independent international thriller, fantasy, and horror film festival and has three major events each year in London and Glasgow. Learn more at the official site.

This film comes direct from Justin and Dominic Hardy, two of the eight children of the director of The Wicker Man, Robin Hardy. For years, they’ve said that this movie destroyed their family, but now, they have decided to follow the path of the film and how it was made along with director Chris Nunn and a crew. More than trying to understand how their father made a classic movie, suffered as it was unseen and took it through America where it became a cult film that finally spread back to the UK, only to see writer Anthony Schaffer take most of the credit, this is also about how Hardy had eight children to six women and how the many children have grown together and know one another better than they ever did their father. Now, they try to discover why he could so casually abandon them, obsessed with a film that seemed to go nowhere for so long.

At one point, Hardy believed that he was going to die, so he wrote all of his family letters to be read in the future. Those letters were found in his papers and went unopened until this film. It’s both a funny and sad moment when they are revealed. The true joy is seeing as how Justin and Dominic support one another through this draining experience.

This is less about the behind the scenes experience of the making of the film, which isn’t the story it should tell. That story, of the lives behind its creation, is told quite admirably.

I watched Children of the Wicker Man at Pigeon Share FrightFest. It’s the UK’s best, brightest, and largest independent international thriller, fantasy, and horror film festival and has three major events each year in London and Glasgow. Learn more at the official site.

Last year, Hadley Briggs (Emma Reinagel) barely survived Halloween when her ex-boyfriend went on a killing spree. He’s been in a mental ward since then, but as her hometown prepares for both the holiday and its 300th birthday, the killings have started all over again, just days after she attempts to return to school.

This is the kind of town that doesn’t just create urban legends and brutal crimes, but also gives birth to characters that each seem like they could be the killer, even Hadley, as she has some secrets that she’s kept since she was stabbed one year ago. When a body shows up with “Happy Halloween” carved in his chest — and photos are sent to Hadley and all of her friends, like best friend Peyton (Aline O’Neill) and quarterback love interest Kagan (Graham Weldin) — this gets tense almost immediately.

Director and writer Brittney Greer recognizes the debt that all slashers owe to Halloween and that all slashers made after 1996 owe to Scream. As the killer continues to decorate the town with the body parts of his or her victims, the one thing that comes to the fore is that Greer is able to authentically translate the very human voices and feelings of her teen characters.

I watched Happy Halloween at Pigeon Share FrightFest. It’s the UK’s best, brightest, and largest independent international thriller, fantasy, and horror film festival and has three major events each year in London and Glasgow. Learn more at the official site.