Bailiwick is an ultra-low budget feature film shot in Michigan that stars an all Michigan cast of actors. It tells the story of John, a lonely, quiet man who is given a gift that changes his life. That said, his life needs changing. He’s a quiet man with an abusive boss and co-workers that ignore him. All he goes is watch videos and read books about magic until he receives a flyer for a magic show.

John attends the show and soon is rewarded with a gift from a mysterious stranger that changes his life: a book on magic that will teach him how to do all the tricks he’s ever dreamed of and how to get everything he’s ever wanted. He’s warned not to look too far ahead though.

Can John get the girl of his dreams? Will he be able to do something about his horrible boss? Will he get free cupcakes through the power of a book on magic? Will he get deathly sick like the last person who had this power?

The last act of this movie feels like it changes the motivations of John to the point that you question whether or not he’s been the hero all along. And the ending honestly feels pretty abrupt after all that, with several leaps forward in time.

The film’s PR refers to Bailiwick as less of a worn out modern horror movie and more of an early Roger Corman movie or episode of The Twilight Zone. That seems like a pretty fair assessment. Its low budget doesn’t hurt it that much and you can tell the filmmakers were trying pretty hard here to make it work. The story didn’t 100% work for me, but I hate to tear apart smaller movies that try to do something big.

To learn more, visit this movie’s official Facebook page.

Kenny (Paul Fahrenkopf, The Wire) is a fifty-something DJ with a somewhat aimless life who must contend with his father’s imminent demise, as well as his sister being unwilling to listen — in this drama with comedic moments from writer-director Mike Kravinsky.

Kenny’s father Irv is in the hospital, but a nurse informs our protagonist that the elder man’s body is failing. He’s in constant pain. And they can only fight to keep him alive and in constant pain. Unlike his younger sister, who thinks Irv can get better, Kenny wants his father to make his own choice.

Paul Fahrenkopf was given so much in this role and he knocked it out of the park. If this were a big budget movie — and a big name actor — people would be breathlessly describing how brave his choices were and how real he made it all feel. Sadly, this is a movie that’s already on demand and won’t get to see the eyes of tastemakers. Fahrenkopf has appeared in some roles that you may have noticed in movies like Call Girl of Cthulhu and WNUF Halloween Special. He’s someone to watch and I hope that he gains greater opportunities.

I adored the ending of this and how it left the answer to Kenny’s request of his father wide open. Life has no easy answers and neither does this film.

You can find this movie on iTunes and Amazon Prime.

Note: We were sent a copy of this by its PR company but that doesn’t influence our thoughts.

Five old college old friends meet to get drunk and discuss their annual vacation together. Rob wants to hike in Sweden, but the others all make fun of him. On their way home, Luke decides to get a bottle of vodka in a convenience store. Inside, Rob is killed by criminals when he won’t give up his wedding ring. Luke is too slow to help and can only watch his friend be killed. From these very urban origins, the rural horror of The Ritual begins.

To celebrate their friend, the survivors take the trip he wanted to Kungsleden, or King’s Trail, in Sweden’s Sarek National Park. One of them hurts his knee, so they decide to take a faster path home, but start to discover strange things like animals gutted and hung from trees and strange runes carved in the trees.

Seeking shelter in an abandoned house, the men discover more runes and strange statues, yet they stay there for the night. When Luke wakes from an evening of nightmares, he has puncture wounds all over his chest. As they go deeper into the forest, their feelings toward one another — some blame Luke for Rob’s death — come to light. And they start getting killed off by whatever is tracking them and left hung like the animals they say before.

Soon, only Luke and Dom are left and the latter has been selected as a sacrifice to the Jötunn, who takes human lives and gives immortality in return. Luke must take part in the ritual and submit to the god or die. He refuses and the creature makes him relive his nightmares again and again until he’s able to fight back and make his way to the edge of the woods, a place where it loses its power. Screaming in its face, Luke has survived.

Directed by David Bruckner (V / H / S, Southbound), whose work I hadn’t enjoyed much until this film, this is a great throwback to 1970’s occult horror. It has a dark and sinister feel from the moment everyone journeys into the forest. It doesn’t hold any surprises, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a great ride.

You can check it out for yourself on Netflix.

How do you make a movie about Britney Spears when you have none of her music available to you? Well, you get someone who looks nothing like her, you play loose and fast with the ways things happen and you air it on Lifetime.

Kevin Federline is played by a guy named Clayton Chitty, a name that I have fun yelling out loud because it’s such a great stage name (it’s actually his birth name). That’s probably the nicest thing I can say about this film, one that looks and feels like a Saturday Night Live sketch stretched out to way too long of a running time.

Again, the only songs that are in this are her cover songs, like the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” and The Arrows’ “I Love Rock ‘n Roll.” Sure, they reference her MTV Video Music Award performance, like when she had a snake during “I’m a Slave 4 U.” But man, I know that the 1990’s and 2000’s were cheesy, but were they really this bad?

Not mentioned is the fact that Britney’s video “From the Bottom of My Broken Heart” was directed by former adult director Gregory Dark, whose Dark Brothers team created such 1980’s classics as New Wave Hookers and White Bun Busters. He’d go on to direct See No Evil, a slasher that starred WWE superstar Kane.

If you want to watch this — and you’re partially bonkers like me — just grab the Lifetime Movie Club app. It’s on there.

This social-realist movie from debut feature filmmaker Jason Raftopoulos is all about Jim, a father in the midst of a struggle: he has less than a day to pay back a massive gambling debt, all while trying to look after his young son. His relationship with his son will be tested as his plans to pay back the loan fail and one final chance to repay the violent loan shark puts his son’s life at risk.

Interesting enough, Ty Perham who plays the young Alex in this movie is really the stepson of star Damian Hill. It’s his first acting experience and he really does well, appearing totally natural and seasoned.

Sadly, Hill died shortly after this film was released in Australia. He was only 42 and after seeing his performance here, it felt like there was plenty left for him to achieve.

Over the last year, I’ve had the opportunity to watch a lot more Australian cinema and have been pleasantly surprised at the efforts. West of Sunshine is another film that continues that trend. It will be released here in theaters on January 18 and then you can find it on video on demand as of January 22.

NOTE: We were sent this by the movie’s PR team, but it has nothing to do with our review.

A mother and her 8-year-old son are drifting through life, following her boyfriend as they barely scrape out an existence one small crime at a time. But when she decides to finally leave him and live in a mobile home community, there’s a chance their lives can change.

Imogen Poots is amazing in this movie, which I’d compare to Room. It starts with her character Ali trying to place her son Bone into a foster home and when that seems too difficult, she takes him with her as she conducts a life of crime with her boyfriend Evan. From teaching her son how to train roosters for cockfighting to stealing meals every time they eat, it’s no life.

Anton Yelchin was supposed to star as Evan, but due to his tragic death, his Green Room co-star and friend Callum Turner respectfully took his place. He’s really good in this as well.

There’s no real direction to this, yet that feels like what their life is like. The ending, where she careens down a dangerous road towing the mobile home that should be their escape, is really powerful, though. It’s some great filmmaking and the highlight of the film, other than the strong performances.

Director Vladimir de Fontenay filmed a short of this in his native France a few years ago and this movie is his chance to expand upon that film. It’s definitely worth a watch, but if you’ve lived with this kind of craziness in your family, it may not be an easy one. As Robert, the laborer who allows them to stay in the mobile home park says, “What planet are you people from?”

You can watch Mobile Homes On Demand January 22.

Note: We were sent this by the movie’s PR team. That has no bearing on our review!

I always think about the people that walk past me every day. What are their secret stories? Where will life take them? Where do they go? When I pass a house on a country road, I wonder about the paths of the people who have crossed through its doors. I wonder about the lives that have been lived in the house where I now make my home and the people who will live here after I am gone. God Knows Where I Am tells the tragic story of how a woman came to die in a house that people passed every single day, unaware that she was inside.

In an abandoned New Hampshire farmhouse, the police find a homeless woman’s body. An officer discovers two notebooks that form a diary of starvation, mental illness, devotion and a life that has fallen through the cracks of the system we’ve set up in this country.

Linda Bishop suffered from mental illness for most of her life. The last four months of her existence were spent living in this house, waiting for God and her mystery lover Steve to rescue her as she survived on apples, rainwater and snow during a record-setting winter.

God Knows Where I Am is told in her own words, read by Lori Singer (Footloose, Short Cuts). Her family members, doctors, a judge and police officers also offer their perspectives on her life and death.

Linda was well-educated. A mother. And someone dealing with a severe bipolar disorder with psychosis. She had been committed for three years to a state facility, convinced that the Chinese mafia was attempting to murder her and that she was in the midst of a conspiracy narrative. She successfully fought for her unconditional release and resisted her sister’s protective custody, believing that she too was part of the forces that had amassed against her.

I’m not going to tell you that this is a fun watch. It’s a harrowing tale of a woman slowly dying as she hides in a house, afraid to walk across the street where other people live. With proper care, she may have lived a longer and more full life. Or perhaps this was the way that she was meant to die, on her own terms. The film makes no judgments.

You can watch this on Netflix or visit the official site.

If you’re seen a Friday the 13th movie from 7 to 10, you know who Kane Hodder is. He’s pretty much the man that made Jason into an icon — even after stepping into the successful series after several films (you can argue that Jason doesn’t appear in the first film and only appears in hallucinations in Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning, so Hodder only missed out on four chances to be Jason). But who is the man behind the iconic hockey mask and makeup?

After surviving a childhood filled with bullying and an early career near-death burning, Hodder worked his way up in the stunt game before getting the roles of Jason and Victor Crowley from the Hatchet films. There’s a nice balance here, as Hodder faces the camera and explains how close to death he got, particularly being moved by how he upset a child when she saw his burns.

There’s a lot in here that reminds me of pro wrestling, as Bruce Campbell remarks that most of the heroes from movies end up being the worst people and the worst villains, like Hodder, are the ones that treat their fans and other people the best.

There’s also a wonderful little moment where Cassandra “Elvira” Peterson shares how she and Hodder bonded over their shared survival of being burned. I would have never guessed in her case and felt that was a pretty brave thing to do for this film.

For being the guy who has probably killed more people on screen than any other actor, Hodder comes off as a likable fellow, a great family man and someone willing to discuss his failing, like his OCD that nearly ruined his connection to his family. Plus, the fact that he’s always willing to push himself into new roles and new places in his career is pretty inspiring. It’s well worth a watch!

Want to see this for yourself? It’s on Amazon Prime.

If you need any proof just how much Larry Cohen means to this site, you need only turn to the entire week of his films that we featured last year. I’ve had so many questions for this directorial force about how he got into films, how he ended up directing so many films that meant so much over so many years and where his ideas come from. Luckily, this documentary and its bonus features answer all of them and then some.

Not only does this movie feature Larry Cohen breaking down his career year-by-year, from breaking into television to his blacksploitation and exploitation film career. And not only do you get to hear from Cohen himself, there are also appearances by everyone from J.J. Abrams, Yaphet Kotto and John Landis to Michael Moriarty, Joe Dante,  Mick Garris, Fred Williamson and more.

So many of the reviews of this film talk about how it legitimatizes Cohen’s work, elevating it from the world of exploitation to films with merit. All films are exploitation, all seeking to make money. Cohen’s films succeed because even they’re deeply personal pieces of moviemaking. Even a trifle like Wicked Stepmother exists because Cohen saw the chance to give work to a legend like Bette Davis. And Yaphet Kotto relates that while films like Black Caesar and Hell Up in Harlem are blacksploitation, they also smashed down the doors so that black actors and actresses could get work. And one need look no further than The Stuff or God Told Me To for proof of Cohen’s genius. Not many other directors could transform tales of alien yogurt and ancient astronauts into moral tales that have kept their power for decades.

The blu ray release also includes nearly an hour of Cohen’s stories about his films, more than half an hour of other remembrances by friends and co-workers, a look at the monsters of Cohen’s movies and footage of a convention appearance. I loved the extra Cohen stories, as he’s as unguarded as it gets, unafraid to both bury and praise people as he rambles on about his career.

Do you love movies? Then you owe it to yourself to find this and watch it. It’ll inspire you to look up much of Cohen’s catalog and watch it for yourself.

I’d recommend buying it directly from La-La Land Records, as you’ll get a slipcase autographed by Larry Cohen, Director Steve Mitchell and composer Joe Kraemer, as well as a soundtrack!

You can also watch this on Shudder.

Past Larry Cohen films covered by B & S About Movies:

• Wicked Stepmother
• It’s Alive
• The Stuff
• Q the Winged Serpent
• Full Moon High
• God Told Me To
• Bone