Sarah Walker (Alexandra Essoe, who played Wendy Torrance in Dr. Sleep) is an aspiring actress who just can’t seem to break through. Perhaps Satan can help. That’s the central story in this 2014 film that I’ve always believed is way more true than fiction.

It’s directed by Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer, who went on to create the remade Pet Sematary.

Sarah works at Big Taters in between auditions and dealing with her unsupportive friends, like Erin (Fabianne Therese, John Dies At the End) who steals roles from her, her roommate Tracy and director Danny (Noah Segan, who has worked with Rian Johnson on many projects).

After another failed try-out for Astraeus Pictures’ new movie The Silver Scream, Sarah goes to the bathroom and begins tearing her hair out, which actually inspires the casting director. The follow-up, where she is encouraged to strip and transform herself in front of a strobe light, was inspired by a story someone told Widmyer and Kölsch aauditioning for David Lynch. She goes into a trance state and experiences extreme euphoria, but refuses to sleep with the producer at the third audition.

At a pool party celebrating Danny’s next movie — Sarah was promised the lead — our protagonist is surprised to see him kissing Erin, who is going after her part again. She returns to the producer’s house and goes down on him, which begins to change into something new. That change into something new involves throwing up maggots and having her nails and hair fall out, but beauty is never pretty.

Sarah is told she must either embrace the new her or die. She accepts it, kills all of her friends and is reborn a star.

This movie is pretty great, made in a world where modern horror feels soulless. It has a 70’s feel without devoting itself to that decade or coming off as a period film.

You can watch it on Shudder, Amazon Prime and Tubi.

Long estranged from his widowed mother, Keegan Dark is blessed with the uncanny ability to remember his life in videographic detail. However, this strange ability keeps him at odds with his family and loved ones.

Returning home with his boyfriend in the hopes of making amends, he’s shocked to discover that his mother has remarried and that his new siblings aren’t very trustworthy. His investigation into their past is derailed when his mother drops into a coma, his boyfriend seemingly leaves him and the town’s sheriff targets him as the most likely culprit. With allies scarce and time running out, Keegan must fight — and use his remarkable mind — to unravel the secrets that threaten to destroy him.

Shot in Hillsboro and Portland, Oregon, USA, this film has played several festivals and was back in theaters earlier this year before being released on streaming services.

Sean Paul Lockhart, who plays Jake Bishop in the film, has had a pretty interesting life. Under the names Brent Corrigan and Fox Ryder, he acted in adult films for several years before working in mainstream movies like Chillerama and directed the movie Triple Cross.

His first boyfriend introduced a 17-year-old Lockhart into the gay adult industry by acting in a scene with him while Bryan Kocis, the owner of Cobra Video watched. His first contract called for Lockhart to appear in six sex scenes and one non-sex scene in exchange for a used Volkswagen Jetta, a set of tires and rims, transportation costs, vehicle insurance, and money for gasoline.

Kocis and Lockhart dated for a short time and there was litigation over his stage name. On January 24, 2007, Kocis was killed by two Virginia Beach male escorts, Harlow Cuadra and Joseph Kerekes. He was stabbed 28 times before his throat was cut, nearly decapitating him. Then, his home was set ablaze and dental records had to be used to identify the body. His computer survived and was used to identify the men who killed him.

The murder and trials were turned into a book called Cobra Killer: Gay Porn Murder, a play named Cruel Men: In The Lion’s Den and a movie entitled King Cobra.

Anyways — The Dark Place is a decent enough mystery with an interesting hook for its protagonist.

You can watch this for free on Tubi and Amazon Prime. Learn more at the official Facebook page.

DISCLAIMER: This movie was sent to us by its PR team.

Matt Reeves is known for the American remake of Let Me In as well as Cloverfield. He’s had pretty great success at making Apes films, as he was behind both this film and 2017’s War for the Planet of the Apes. He also wrote the fun popcorn flick Under Siege 2: Dark Territory. Oh yeah — and he also created the TV show Felicity.

Ten years later, a group of people in San Francisco struggle to stay alive in the aftermath of the Simian Flu epidemic that’s wiping out humanity, all while Caesar tries to maintain dominance over his tribe of apes located in the Muir Woods.

The humans are led by Malcolm (Jason Clarke, the remake of Pet Sematary) and they accidentally encroach into ape territory in search of a hydroelectric dam. Caesar’s son Blue Eyes and his friend Ash encounter the humans and Carver injures the latter. Koba, a bonobo scarred by human tests, urges Caesar (again, Andy Serkis) to go to war with the humans. However, Malcolm, his girlfriend Ellie (Keri Russell) and son Alexander (Kodi Smit-McPhee, who was in The Road and played Nightcrawler in the later X-Men movies) become friends with the apes, even treating Caesar’s wife Cornelia’s illness.

Judy Greer, who played that role, has a husband who is a huge Planet of the Apes fan. They had a chimp husband-and-wife cake topper at their wedding, while Planet of the Apes and Rise of the Planet of the Apes played at the bar.

Dreyfus (Gary Oldman), another human leader, takes up arms, Koba goes into action. He sets the ape settlement on fire, nearly kills Caesar and blames the humans. When Ash refuses to betray Caesar’s teachings, Koba throws him to his death and locks up anyone loyal to their fallen leader.

War between ape and human is inevitable, even if Malcolm and his family save Caesar and nurse him back to health. Koba must fall, the first human army must be defeated and then the tribes of apes will be ready for the War for the Planet of the Apes.

Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver returned to write this film, joined by Marc Bomback (Live Free or Die Hard, Insurgent, The Wolverine).

I dig that the orangutan is named Maurice, which is a reference to Maurice Evans, who portrayed Dr. Zaius in the original films.

The ending is pretty great, too. Koba is left hanging from a ledge after being knocked down by Caesar. He tries to say that “Ape shall not kill ape,” but Koba has already broken that rule many, many times by killing Ash and other apes. Caesar declares that Koba is not an ape and kills him.

You know that “Cradle of Love” video by Billy Idol? “Janie’s Got a Gun?” by Aerosmith? “Vogue” by Madonna? All David Fincher, made before he got the chance to make Alien 3. We’ll forgive him that — and the fact that he had to work on Jermaine Stewart’s video for “We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off.”

After all, you kind of have to like a guy who has said, “I think people are perverts. I’ve maintained that. That’s the foundation of my career.”

Between Zodiac, Seven, Fight Club and The Social Network, most of Fincher’s work is the kind of stuff that ends up on a poster in dorm rooms. That’s not a bad thing — he’s the dark side of popular film. He’s also behind the Netfilx show Mindhunter.

The real issue I have with him is Gone Girl.

It’s not his fault.

I’ve had to endure Gillian Flynn’s work in all manner of media. Sharp Objects ran our TV for most of 2018. And Gone Girl? This movie gets played in our house at least once a week.

I hated this movie the first time I saw it. And by now, my reaction is the kind of numb ennui that a naked Ben Affleck feels just before you marvel that this movie is brave enough to share a shot of his meat.

Mr. Affleck and his appendage appear in movie as writing teacher Nick Dunne, whose wife — the inspiration for a popular series of chidlren’s books called Amazing Amy — has gone missing on their fifth anniversary. All signs point to the fact that he was an abusive husband and had her killed.

The reason for that conclusion is that he doesn’t seem to care. Perhaps if you had lived with Amy (Rosamund Pike), you may feel the same way. Sure, it started off hooking up at a party and were soon engaged, but after they both lost their jobs and moved to Missouri, Nick got lazy and started cheating on Amy (with Emily Ratajkowski, she of the nudity in the “Blurred Lines” video).

The twist is that Amy is still alive and has framed Nick for murder. She’s planned each step so well, stealing urine from a pregnant neighbor, using he rblood to create evidence that she was hurt and then planting a diary and a multitude of purchases that look like things Nick had bought for himself. Of course, she didn’t expect some backwards yokels to steal her money or that she’d have to hook up with her old stalker, played by Neil Patrick Harris.

So who is wrong? Nick for giving up on their marriage? Or Amy for the things she’d done to so many men in the past? How about both of them? How about some sympathy for me having to watch this movie nearly two thousand times?

But hey — Tyler Perry is pretty good in it, right?

Also: David Fincher shot 500 hundred hours of footage for this movie. 500 hours. Just imagine that.

Somehow, over the last several weeks, I’ve encountered more than three John Herzfeld movies — Switchback, Escape Plan The Extractors, Cannonball (he acted in that Roger Corman produced film) — and now this film.

To get the cast he needed for this movie, Herzfeld started with old friend Sylvester Stallone, who he’s known since the two were roommates at University of Miami. Stallone’s participation led to other actors joining the cast at lower salaries. Herzfeld also brought on another old friend, Danny Aiello, who used the role of Father Paul to recover from the death of his son.

After the founder of Perfect 10 magazine Norman Zada backed out of his investment and sued the filmmakers for a million dollars (I’m not going to say that Zada is a copyright troll because I don’t have the millions to defend myself from libel, but the facts kind of speak for themselves if you look into his thirty lawsuits over the last few years). The film was finally funded via Indiegogo.

Reach Me is all about a self-help book that unites a world full of different characters. It’s based on Herzfeld’s memories of seeing prosperity theology-based televangelist Reverend Ike and reading Napoleon Hill’s self-help book, Think and Grow Rich.

Much like Magnolia or Crash, the story starts as unlinked characters before bringing them all together. There’s Kyra Sedwick as an ex-con, Thomas Jane as an undercover cop, Kelsey Grammer as a mob boss named Angelo AldoBrandini, Nelly as a hip hop star who claims to have written the book, Tom Berenger as the book’s actual author, Terry Crews as one of the author’s friends and even Danny Trejo, Chuck Zito, Tom Sizemore and Cary Elwes.

Stallone paints in the film and the cover of the book was actually painted by him. So there’s that. This is the kind of movie that I endured only because I’ve set the near-impossible goal of watching every single one of his films. Otherwise, I would have never had to suffer through it. If you told me that it was a religious movie, I’d almost believe you.

Here’s the synopsis of this movie from writer/director Stephen Wolfe (Midnight Abyss): “Mark and Kay are out with friends, looking for thrills on Halloween night when a playful ritual takes a turn for the horrific. After unknowingly awakening dozens of possessed baby dolls, their town seems set for destruction and chaos. But with the help of Kay’s brother, Melvin, and angry old man Darius Grumley, the teens must find a way to stop the baby dolls and ward off the evil force of nature that is after their souls.”

There’s a fine line between homage and outright thievery. This film challenges that razorthin border with a copy of the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis straight out of Evil Dead and dolls that feel incredibly close to Dolls and Puppet Master.

That said — the more I stuck with this silly movie, the more I ended up enjoying it, particularly the bad guys, Yegor. By the end of the movie, I was rooting along with the heroes.

There’s plenty of gore of varying quality here and the movie doesn’t take itself all that seriously, which makes it work.

Doll Factory is now available via your favorite streaming platform.

DISCLAIMER: We were sent this movie by its PR agency, but that has no bearing on this review.

Astron-6 is — well, was as the recent release of the collected Divorced Dad is supposedly their last project together — a Canadian film production and directing company founded in 2007 by Adam Brooks and Jeremy Gillespie which later expanded to add Matt Kennedy, Conor Sweeney and Steven Kostanski. They’re known for producing low-budget horror/comedy films that evoke the 1980’s. The fact that their name sounds a lot like Vestron is no accident.

After their initial films — Manborg and Father’s Day — the team moved on to create this tribute/parody of the giallo genre. Gillespie and Kostanski also directed the incredible 2016 horror film The Void, which moves away from the humor of Astron-6.

Film editor Rey Ciso (Adam Brooks) was once a brilliant editor — the best in the world — but that time is far away. Now, he struggles to complete Francesco Mancini’s latest film Tarantola with his assistant Bella. He needs her, as an accident while lost in the madness of editing cost him all of the fingers on his right hand, which are now made of wood.

The loss of those fingers all goes back to Ray getting his start working for Bella’s father, art house director Umberto Fantori, whose debut film The Mirror and the Guillotine won him the success he craved and introduced him to his wife Josephine Jardin (Paz de la Huerta, Nurse 3D, Enter the Void). Eventually, Josephine went mad on Mancini’s next film, which was made to be the longest movie ever. Now, Ray is getting footage of murders sent to him. And to complicate matters, while his wife treats him with disdain, Bella tells him that she loves him.

An unknown killer stalks the studio, killing lead actor Claudio Valvetti and his girlfriend Veronica in a scene that echoes the curtain ripping and blood spraying of Argento’s Tenebre. Margarit Porfiry — another actress on the film — stumbles upon Veronica’s body — hung exactly like the first murder in Argento’s Suspiria — and is struck blind on the spot, making her look exactly like Emily from The Beyond, which the film extends by giving her a dog named Rolfie instead of Dickie.

While her husband Inspector Peter Porfiry (Matthew Kennedy) interviews suspects, co-star Cal Konitz (Conor Sweeney) has his hopes of taking over the movie ruined when a stand-in is found for the lead. Porify’s boss Chief O’Connor wants the case dropped because Margarit is his daughter, but the cop is convinced that the editor is behind the killings, as each murder takes away the fingers of the victim.

Rey has a vision of a dark man with bright blue eyes — Ivan Rassimov, we miss you so — coming after him. Meanwhile, the inspector goes to the insane asylum where Rey lived for some time, meeting Dr. Casini (Udo Kier!), who tells him all about Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. The detective returns home just in time to make love to his wife in a near shot-for-shot remake of the glass smashing love in Sergio Martino’s The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh. The killer then makes his or her way into their home and when the cop tries to break into the room with an axe to save her — kind of, sort of like the cemetery scene in City of the Living Dead by way of The Shining — the killer throws her in the way. In order to not be seen as a murderer, Porfiry cuts off his wife’s fingers and feeds them to her dog.

His boss — and remember, the father of his dead wife — screams at Porfiry back at the station while the killer calls to taunt the cop in a scene much like The New York Ripper. That won’t be the last callback to that Fulci film, either.

Rey has gone over the edge, believing himself to be the killer as his wife treats him horribly. He dreams that he is trapped in a world of smoke and gigantic film cans that seems much like the world inside the painting in The Beyond. He gets a psychic flash that Bella is to be murdered but arrives too late to save her.

Giancarlo tries to finish the movie himself, but an army of spiders — again, The Beyond — attacks and he is killed as well. Rey is brought back onto the film and Father Clarke (Laurence Harvey, Frankenstein Created Bikers) explains to him that editors are the vital connection to the other world that Rey glimpsed in his vision. We’ve now gotten to the part of the giallo where reality stops and the Lovecraftian vision takes over.

Everything goes even crazier, if that’s possible, with Cal menacing Rey with a chainsaw before attacking his wife in front of him, ending with his wife laughing it off as she’d been having an affair with the actor. There’s also an ancient bell tower, more tarantulas, a film canister filled with fingers, occult rituals, Josephine declaring herself to be death itself ala the end of Inferno, a fake-out ending that pulls off The Wizard of Oz while again recalling Fulci — both The Psychic, The Beyond — and a post-credits happy ending where Rey and Bella end up together.

This is one strange film. If you’re not hyper aware of giallo, you may be lost by all the references. And if you are, you may be unable to totally take in the narrative as so much of the film feels like spot the reference. That said, I found myself liking The Editor and excited to see where it would go next. The final sequence as the detective and the editor battle the real killer is actually pretty thrilling. And wow, the music is awesome, with Claudio Simonetti composing the main theme.

There are also references in this film to The Fifth Cord, Black Belly of the Tarantula, Fellini’s Amaracord, Videodrome and even Murder Rock. Obviously, I’ve seen just as many giallo as the Astron-6 guys.

Even better, the credits keep the story going with Rey Cistro listed as the film’s editor. I also adore the posters for the films within the film, which were created by Graham Humphreys.

You can watch this movie for free on Tubi. Shout! Factory has also released this movie on blu ray.

This is another review that was inspired by Good Bad Flicks.

When Stallone was looking for new blood to make the next Expendables movie, he looked to director Patrick Hughes, who had only made one movie and several high profile commercials at the time (he would go on to make The Hitman’s Bodyguard). That theme — of the next generation — is what this movie is all about.

The Expendables are back, still led by Barney Ross (Stallone) and made up of Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren) and Toll Road (Terry Crews). They take a mission to rescue a former member Doctor Death (Wesley Snipes) from a military prison transfer.

On the way back home, they intercept bombs meant for a Somalian warlord, but are surprised by arms dealer Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson), who once led the team alongside Barney before going rogue. He escapes, but not before critically wounding Caesar, who clings to life.

When they get back home, they meet Mr. Church’s replacement — Bruce Willis decided that he wanted more than $3 million for his cameo — Max Drummer (Harrison Ford!). He gives Barney one more chance to capture Stonebanks for war crimes.

Barney makes the hard choice of disbanding his team and works with Boneparte (Kelsey Grammer?!?) to bring on all new members, including John Smilee (Kellan Lutz, who played Tarzan in Disney’s recent live version), Luna (WWE and UFC star Ronda Rousey), Mars (Victor Ortiz, Southpaw) and Thorn (Glen Powell). Oh yeah — one other guy, Galogo (Antonio Banderas) keeps trying to join, saying that he is “very good at warfare, with a good memory and I want to be your friend/”

The new team members and Ross’s rival Trench Mauser (Arnold Schwarzenegger) follow Stonebanks to Romania where he is making an arms deal with the Albanian mob, led by Robert Davi of all people. He’s one of my favorite character actors so it’s a joy to see him in this.

The new Expendables wipe out everyone but Stonebanks, who they try to take to th Hague for his trial, but he escapes and more of his forces show up to capture everyone but Barney, who gets away.

Stonebanks sends a video to Barney, challenging him to come to Azmenistan. Galgo finds our hero and asks to join up and is met by the rest of the team, who decide that they will rescue the new team members.

Will the new members get together with the old ones? Will everyone combine forces to wipe out Stonebanks and an entire country? Will Drummer and Trench come back for the save and bring Jet Li with them? I think you know the answers by this point.

The only bad thing I have to say about this movie is its PG-13 rating. Stallone would come to agree, saying, that it was “a horrible miscalculation on everyone’s part in trying to reach a wider audience but in doing such, diminish the violence that the audience expects. I’m quite certain it won’t happen again.”

There will be at least one more of these movies, with Pierce Brosnan reporting that he’ll be in it and Jason Statham saying, “I’ll do as many as Sly wants.” Terry Crews will not be in another, as in his testimony against WME agent Adam Venit for sexually assaulting him, he was threatened by producer Avi Lerner to drop his case. He decided to take a stand and that stand will include not being in another film for Lerner.