EDITOR’S NOTE: Senior Week was on USA Up All Night on February 29 and October 2, 1992; September 10, 1993 and January 28, 1994.
Directed by Stuart A. Goldman — who mostly directed music-based movies and also produced Leona Helmsley: The Queen of Mean — and written by Jan Kubicki, Senior Week is led by Everett (Michael St. Gerard, who played Elvis in Great Balls of Fire! and the Elvis TV miniseries, as well as Link Larkin in Hairspray), who has hired someone else to write his final essay and gets caught by Mrs. Bagley (Barbara Gruen). She gives him another chance and he does the same thing, kidnapping the nerdy Jody (Gary Keer) to write his paper while everyone else parties at the beach, which brings Mrs. Bagely after Everett.
Our protagonist brings along his friends Jamie (George Robert Klek) and Kevin (Alan Naggar), which angers Jamie’s possessive girlfriend Tracy (Jennifer Gorey, Runway Dreams), who brings her friend Stacy (Leesa Zelkin) to hunt him down. Adding to the proceedings is that Everett promised Jody that he will find him a girl, which our geek does on his own by hooking up with Tracy’s cousin Debbie Sue. (Devon Skye).
This movie actually had some publicity, as the opening scene — filmed at New Jersey’s Palisades Park High School — had nudity in an actual school and it got principal Nicholas Rotonda suspended. Maybe the school board was wondering why someone was still making a teen sex comedy in 1987 in the time between the Porky’s clones and the American Pie clones. He was reinstated after his students protested and asked for their beloved principal — the kind of guy that had no problem with bare breasts in a teen comedy — be rehired.
October 1: Seasonal offerings kicks off with Shocktober 31. 31 days, 31 movies. This October ARROW is bringing back the infamous Shocktober 31 and highlighting some of our favorite horror titles streaming on ARROW each day, guaranteed to make your Halloween go with a scream. From J-horror to giallo, slashers galore, cannibals, witches and more, this spooky season on ARROW has everything you need to carve a pumpkin to, party with or to make sure that you don’t get a wink of sleep! Titles include: Dark Water, Two Witches, Blood and Black Lace.
October 6: ARROW wishes a belated birthday to Elvira Mistress of the Dark. When her great aunt dies, famed horror hostess Elvira heads for the uptight new England town of Falwell to claim her inheritance of a haunted house, a witch’s cookbook and a punk rock poodle. But once the stuffy locals get an eyeful of the scream queen’s ample assets, all hell busts out & breaks loose.
Don’t Look!: ARROW’s Scariest!: Want a movie to scare the life out of you this Halloween? You’ve come to the right place! Don’t Look! collects together all the scariest films on ARROW that will send shivers down your spine until you’re jumping out of your seat. For a Halloween you’ll never forget – because you were chewing off your fingernails while perched on the edge of your seat – Enjoy… if you dare! Titles include: Two Witches, Edge of the Axe, Dementer.
October 11: Ever since his debut was heralded as “a young master’s first masterpiece” by none other than Ingmar Bergman, director Lukas Moodysson has been hailed internationally as one of Sweden’s greatest filmmaking talents, delighting and confounding audiences in equal measure. With his eagerly anticipated new film Together 99 showing at this year’s BFI London Film Festival, ARROW offers a chance to reacquaint yourself with Moodyson’s unique and eclectic oeuvre in No Compromise: The Lukas Moodysson Collection. Moodysson’s eclectic filmography can now be appreciated as the work of a singular filmmaking voice, as avowedly uncompromising and unabashedly political as it is keenly observed, deeply felt and frequently hilarious. Titles Include: Fucking Åmål, Together, Mammoth.
October 13: The Initiation, Rewind of Die AKA House of VHS
Jed Shepherd Selects: Jed Shepherd, the co-writer and producer of horror sensations Host and Dashcam, and one of the writers and directors of Scare Package II: Rad Chad’s Revenge, picks out his favorite titles from the ARROW catalogue, with a mix of cult chills, iconic sci-fi and out a really out-there documentary. Titles include: The Grand Tour, Gwilliam, Who Killed Captain Alex, The Witch Who Came from the Sea.
October 20: So Funny It’s Frightening allows you to celebrate Halloween in a fun way, not in a give yourself nightmares for weeks way? Then So Funny It’s Frightening is for you. Full of films that feature monsters, the supernatural and maybe even a smidge of gore (maybe more than a smidge…) but also packed full of laughs and silliness to take the sharp edge off and leaving you grinning wider than your jack-o-lantern. Titles include: Elvira Mistress of the Dark, Hotel Poseidon, Crow Hand.
Head over to ARROW to start watching now. Subscriptions are available for $6.99 monthly or $69.99 yearly.
ARROW is available in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland on the following Apps/devices: Roku (all Roku sticks, boxes, devices, etc), Apple TV & iOS devices, Samsung TVs, Android TV and mobile devices, Fire TV (all Amazon Fire TV Sticks, boxes, etc), and on all web browsers at https://www.arrow-player.com.
With a slickly designed and user-friendly interface, and an unparalleled roster of quality content from westerns to giallo to Asian cinema, trailers, Midnight Movies, filmmaker picks and much, much more, ARROW is the place to go for the very best in on-demand entertainment.
I’m always sad when Fantastic Fest is over. Every year, it feels like a blur of trying to watch as many movies as quickly and thoroughly as possible. I wish, as I always do, that time could stand still. I am always so appreciative that I am invited to participate.
Here’s a list of what I watched this year. You can also check out the Letterboxd list.
Fantastic Fest 2023 was from September 21 to 28 and has so many movies that I can’t wait to see. You can learn more about this movie and when it is played here.
Noa Altman (Maayan Weinstock) is an actress who has been forgotten due to her age. Every day is a new argument with her husband, martial arts master Uri (Nir Barak), as the money isn’t there anymore and his business is failing. Yet when he kills a Palestinian terrorist, he’s suddenly a big celebrity himself and all of their problems are solved.
Their problems are solved, right?
Director and writer Nadav Aronowicz then asks us, “What if it was all a lie?”
How can Noa stay in love with Uri? Can she feel comfortable as they become successful? And what does this say about the never-ending conflicts between Israel and Palestine?
Fighting terrorists in an action movie is easy.
Real life is where it gets hard to figure out who the bad guys are.
Fantastic Fest 2023 was from September 21 to 28 and has so many movies that I can’t wait to see. You can learn more about this movie and when it is played here.
Maria (Estefanía de los Santos) and Jesús (David Pareja) have just had a baby. He’s tired of her being the only one to make decisions, so he buys a coffee table without asking her. It is the most horrible piece of furniture ever. He pays for it for the rest of the movie.
This is being sold as “an uncomfortable, politically incorrect film with extremely black humor and a brutal tragedy.” That’s truth in advertising.
Directed by Caye Casas, who wrote the script with Caye Casas, this isn’t for everyone. But if you’re ready, I’ll give you a spoiler.
I mean, it’s going to ruin this, because the surprise is what the movie is all about.
So…
The table is missing a screw and it’s not stable. While Jesús is playing with his newborn son, he drops him onto the table and it slices the baby’s head clean off. Now, he has to hide the corpse from his wife, his brother, his brother’s wife and everyone else that comes to see the child, whose head is somewhere under one of the chairs.
If that’s the kind of thing you find amusing, you’re going to love this, one of the tensest times you’ll spend watching a movie. Not for expectant fathers. Or mothers. Maybe not for anyone.
Fantastic Fest 2023 was from September 21 to 28 and has so many movies that I can’t wait to see. You can learn more about this movie and when it is played here.
Bill (Martin Starr), his new wife (Amrita Acharia) and his kids Nora (Zoe Winther-Hansen) and Lucas (Townes Bunner) have all moved to Norway after a mysterious death in the family. As they work to transform the property into a bed and breakfast, they discover that there’s an elf (Kiran Shah) living in the barn. He seems nice enough, he’ll help out and only asks that there are no major changes, no bright lights or any loud noises.
Of course things are going to go wrong.
Directed by Magnus Martens and written by Aleksander Kirkwood Brown, consider this another horror film for the holidays that you may add to your rotation. If you’ve ever wanted to see garden gnomes decimate human beings, well, this is for you.
Fantastic Fest 2023 was from September 21 to 28 and has so many movies that I can’t wait to see. You can learn more about this movie and when it is played here.
After a drunken game of charades, Juan (Brays Efe) witnesses his best friend David fall to the street below and explode into a million pieces in the ultimate dummy drop. Confused and consumed with sadness, he is about to go deep into the world of clay companions and the algorithm that determines how everyone will die.
Yes, Juan’s friend was a golem.
How can you not love a movie inspired by the scene where the German soldier is actually a porcelain doll in Top Secret!?
Directed and written by Juan González and Nando Martínez — also known as Burnin Percebes — this movie finds Juan in the middle of a conspiracy, tracked by a cop (Javier Botet); meeting Maria Pons ((Anna Castillo), a woman who has also seen men explode into bits and pieces; dealing with David’s lover Filtro Valencia (Nao Albet) and wondering why his father (Luis Tosar) doesn’t want to ever discuss the death of the golem.
Maybe working with his dad’s assistant Clara (Bruna Cusí), he will learn the truth.
Fantastic Fest 2023 was from September 21 to 28 and has so many movies that I can’t wait to see. You can learn more about this movie and when it is played here.
Nolan Bentley (Michael Weston) wakes up with his arms tied back behind a tree. After days of no food or water, he may be a little out of it, yet he still notices when The Outdoorsman (A.J. Buckley) pitches a tent next to him and starts talking. He never offers to save him. And Nolan may never know why.
Directed by Marc Schölermann and written by Steve Fauquier, this is a big idea to take the whole way to a full-length movie instead of just a short, but the way this plays with the audience, it does a pretty decent job. Telling any more would give it all away, but Bark is an interesting two-character experiment.
Fantastic Fest 2023 was from September 21 to 28 and has so many movies that I can’t wait to see. You can learn more about this movie and when it is played here.
Yasuko (Keiko Takahashi) is alone. The kind of alone where even though she has a husband and a son, she’s alone. Longingly alone. Trapped at home all day, unless she’s running errands. She lives for her family and the only people that she often interacts with are the constant sales calls and salesmen knocking at her door. Some of them are pretty determined. Not all of them are as deranged as Yamakawa (Daijirô Tsutsumi).
He wants to sell her English lessons and she’s made a mistake by leaving the door just chained and not locked. His invasion of her high rise apartment is dealt with by slamming the door, injuring his hand. That’s not where things end.
Yamakawa — like many of the salesmen — knows way too much about his marks. Now, he starts calling Yasuko constantly, breathing heavy, leaving obscenity-laced messages and even leaving tissues stained with his bodily fluids in her mailbox. He nearly gets into her bedroom before her son comes home from school. Yamakawa is innocent now, joining mother and son for a friendly dinner, an invader smiling at the table.
Director Banmei Takahashi, who co-wrote Door with Ataru Oikawa, has a career filled with movies that infuse sex and violence. Incredibly, Keiko Takahashi is his wife and he puts her through hell here, but in the final moments of the movie, she rises above, literal chainsaw in hand, and pays her attacker back. She never apologized for breaking his hand and she’s not about to apologize now.
This was followed by two sequels, Door II: Tokyo Diary about a call girl and the risks she takes, and Door III, in which a salesgirl is “stalked by the strange and supernatural,” which means that now I need to hunt down both of those movies.
Man, the sound of that doorbell is making me nervous now.
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