Tag Archives: 2020

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: History of the Occult (2020)

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Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: South America!

Historia de lo Oculto is the first movie by director and writer Cristian Ponce. It is supposed to be the final episode of the 1980s Argentine television news program 60 Minutos Antes de la Medianoche (60 Minutes Before Midnight) and the story of how a conspiracy connects the government to a mysterious corporation that practices black magic.

In fact, the show has already been canceled after trying to expose President Belasco’s economic policies, corruption and ties to the occult. For the last time, host Alfredo (Germán Baudino) brings together Senator Matías Linares (Hernán Altamirano). Sociologist Daniel Aguilar (Luciano Guglielmino) and Adrián Marcato (Germán Baudino), the vice president and co-founder of Kingdom Corporate, Argentina’s largest corporation. Oh yeah — he’s also a warlock. Two of the three have had their names appear in a notebook found at a ritual murder. The rest of the show’s journalists — Lucio (Iván Ezquerré). Maria (Nadia Lozano), Jorge (Agustín Recondo), and Abel (Casper Uncal) are hiding, waiting for word from Natalia (Lucia Arreche) on when it will be safe to leave and when the rally against Belasco will begin.

But while they wait, they have been sent four doses of hallucinogenic tannis root by Von Merkens labs, Belasco’s competition and the only company that would sponsor the show. Do I need to remind you to never take tannis root? Or be part of a ritual that will expose conspiracies?

The truth? Marcato was cast out of his coven and made a deal with the journalists to expose Belasco in return for an artifact he needs. But when everyone wakes up from a ritual that has them see demonic creatures, Lucio’s missing, Abel’s dead and a crazed Maria claims that he was a warlock who was trying to kill them. And for some reason, when people ask how many children others have, answers don’t match up due to alternate realities. And oh yeah, Kingdom Corporate is a coven of warlocks who made a deal with beings from another world and used that power to take over Argentina.

Obviously, Marcato and tannis root comes from Rosemary’s Baby, while this film also has a modern cell phone as an occult icon and 1987 Argentine politics being explored. It’s really dense, and I say that in a significant way. Nothing ever truly happens, despite setting it up, but it works hard to get there.

You can watch this on Tubi.

2025 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 4: Kandisha (2020)

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4. MYTHICAL CREATURES: Though they are hard to capture, you must see one in this feature.

Three teenage friends — Amélie (Mathilde Lamusse), Bintou (Suzy Bemba) and Morjana  (Samarcande Saadi) — invoke the spirit of Aïsha Kandisha (Meriem Sarolie), the avenging creature of Moroccan legend, by using blood and a pentagram. This seems like the worst idea, but we wouldn’t have a movie to watch otherwise. Anyway, the Kandisha is a folkloric character, similar to a djinn, who appears as a beautiful woman but has hooves. She lives near water and seduces men, making them crazy and then murdering them.

Amélie has issues with Farid (Brahim Hadrami ), an ex who tries to rape her, so they ask Kandisha to punish him. It gets out of hand when she demands more sacrifices, including the men of the girls’ families, such as Amélie’s younger brother Antoine (Felix Glaux-Delporto).

Kandisha is a woman raped at the hands of Portuguese soldiers, but her rage kept her from the next world. If one calls her name, they can summon her for revenge. Kind of, sort of Candyman. She’s not the seductress of legend, actually. She exists to destroy men. Sadly, this reminds me that for all the horrors in the movies we love, women have it much worse in the real world.

Directors and writers Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury also made Inside.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Sizzlin’ Summer of Side-Splitters 2025: The Pizzagate Massacre (2020)

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July 14-20  Vanity Project Week: “…it might be said that the specific remedy for vanity is laughter, and that the one failing that is essentially laughter is vanity.” Are these products of passionate and industrious independent filmmakers OR outrageous glimpses into the inner workings of self-obsessed maniacs??

Director, writer, producer, editor and composer John Valley made this comedy which is also tragedy, in the best of ways, and one that reminds me that in the last five years, the world has gotten so weird that even the conspiracies in this movie seem wonderfully wholesome by comparison to the reality we’re living in.

Well, I mean, as much as ritualistic lizard alien sex abuse can be wholesome.

First, let me explain something.

Pizzagate was a conspiracy theory that went viral in 2016. Supposedly, hacked emails between John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair, and politician Anthony Weiner contained coded messages that connected several high-ranking Democratic Party officials and U.S. restaurants with an alleged human trafficking and child sex ring.

One of these places was Comet Ping Pong Pizza in our nation’s capital. The rumors of that place having a child sex ring were debunked, yet on December 4, 2016, Edgar Maddison Welch of Salisbury, North Carolina, opened fire inside the building.  He told police that he planned to “self-investigate” the conspiracy theory and ended up in jail for four years, dying five years later when he pointed a gun at a cop when stopped.

An arsonist also tried to set the building on fire and fake customers even called to jam up the phone lines. Since then, Pizzagate morphed into Frazzledrip, which is all about Hillary Clinton killing a child and drinking its blood, as well as posts about giving children panda eyes. Amazingly — but not at all — these stories often come from white supremacist social media shared on Twitter, 4chan and Reddit before being reported by Alex Jones and his ilk. After all, who doesn’t want the kind of political firepower that comes from the left wing being exposed as a Satanic cabal of New World Order moving children all over the world for sex?

QAnon rose out of this and well, you know how that all went.

Depressed by the fact that the fun world of conspiracies was ruined, like everything else in the world, by these people? Well, maybe we can talk about this movie.

Karen Black (Alexandria Payne) used to work for Terri Lee (Lee Eddy), a very Alex Jones media person who is worshipped for telling the truth in the face of the mainstream (read that as Jew, they sure want to say it) media. Terri wants everyone to know that lizard aliens — or, more specifically, one soccer player who once thought he was Jesus– have a Road to Damascus moment, and this happens. They’re real and are eating children beneath an Austin, TX pizza place. Fired, Karen decides to prove her theory by filming at the pizza shop. But who can take her?

This brings her to a militia meeting, where she meets Duncan (Tinus Seaux) — the film was once called Duncan — a redneck, ultra-right man who believes Terri Lee, her cause, and her claims. He also has a rebel flag on the front and back bumpers, a huge Nazi tattoo and racist ideals, which soon take a backseat to how he feels about Karen. I mean, he shoots another white guy who calls her the n word, but is that because he sees himself as the hero in his own The Turner Diaries or is he truly noble?

The question is, once Karen and Duncan get there, will they find anything? The movie goes to black and doesn’t tell us exactly what happened. Were there lizard aliens? Did they make it to the basement? All we know is that Duncan has opened fire and killed plenty of people, at least one of whom we’ve watched on screen. Now he’s on the run and has nowhere to go but to be another lone nut killer.

That is, unless he can get to Terri Lee. She’ll know what to do.

But can even the people we depend on to guide us through conspiracies not be complicit? How did people feel when Alex Jones was figured out? And now he’s turned on the President, so what happens next? Man, at least Art Bell took a last ride to the other side before we’d have to hear him support that side or take another twentysomething wife so soon after the last one died. It’s hard to have heroes when everyone is bought.

I’ve never been more cynical or more sure that everyone is out to get me than right now, and yet here I sit, down deep in my movie basement, writing my little articles and making dick jokes. The Pizzagate Massacre is, however, a stunning work of art that gives me hope, that shows me that people get it and makes me miss the days when weirdos could just be weird and not running the show.

You can watch this on Tubi.

SYNAPSE FILMS 4K UHD AND BLU RAY RELEASE: The Block Island Sound (2020)

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Something horrible is happening off the coast of Block Island. Birds drop out of the sky, fish wash up on shore and people are losing what’s left of their minds, like Tom, the father of Harry Lynch (Chris Sheffield). He’s becoming angrier and more forgetful by the day. His sister Audrey (Michaela McManus) has come back home just in time to see it all fall to bits.

Directed by Kevin and Matthew McManus (Cobra Kai) and originally airing on Netflix, this could be about electromagnetic hypersensitivity or plantary phenomena or UFOs or just plain something else that we can’t get our heads around. It’s frightening that this can just happen in a small town and transform people you know and love into something else.

An almost Lovecraftian film, this combines family issues, the creeping unknown and the terror that comes from never knowing the truth and just searching forever. The scariest thing is that this feels like it could happen.

The Synapse 4K UHD of this film has a special limited edition slipcover featuring new art from Joel Robinson, while supplies last, a trailer, audio commentary by the McManus Brothers, several video essays on the film’s creation and McManus family home movies. You can get it from MVD.

Spare Parts (2020)

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Ms. 45 is a punk band that seems like they fight the audience as much as they play songs. Sisters Emma (Emily Alatalo) and Amy (Michelle Argyris) only get along when they’re on the stage, while Cassie (Kiriana Stanton) and Jill (Chelsea Muirhead) get along so well that they’re expecting a child. However, on their first tour, they run into Sam (Jason Rouse). They are soon recruited into the army of gladiators that battle for glory in his father, The Emperor’s (Julian Richings) kingdom, which is probably somewhere under Iowa.

But you know, with chainsaws for arms and robot legs, kind of like an import Tokyo Gore Police without the willingness to be as offensive as possible. Sure, faces get chainsawed off, and there’s one incredible moment — spoiler — where a fetus is kept in a jar, removed from one of the girls.

I did, however, like Driller (Ryan Allen), the only gladiator who has ever earned his freedom. And inside this, there’s plenty that could make a much better movie with a willingness to go further as well as be more authentic when it comes to how women actually relate to the world and how punk rock bands work. That said, you can shut your mind off and enjoy a movie where women somehow end up with robot parts in a junkyard empire that’s been around for a hundred years. It’s not perfect, but did you expect it to be?

Director Andrew Thomas Hunt is a partner in Raven Banner and has helped several Canadian projects be released.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Deathstroke: Knights & Dragons (2020)

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Deathstroke: Knights & Dragons started as an animated web series on CW Seed. Once the first episode aired, the series was repurposed into a direct-to-video animated film. Written by J.M. DeMatteis and directed by Sung Jin Ahn, it attempts to make a hero out of Slade Wilson, the villain known as Deathstroke.

Michael Chiklis is the voice of Wilson, a soldier who volunteers for an experimental drug that gives him super strength, enhanced agility and regeneration. He doesn’t tell his lover Adeline “Addie” Kane (Sasha Alexander) that he has become a costumed killer with the help of William Wintergreen (Colin Salmon). When one of his missions takes him to Cambodia, he falls in love with a woman named Lilith who has his child, Rose (Faye Mata) after he leaves. She soon dies in a hit and run accident and he never knows that he has a daughter, as he comes home to marry Addie and they have a son, Joe (Griffin Puatu).

However, in revenge for destroying most of H.I.V.E. (Hierarchy of International Vengeance and Extermination), their leader Jackal (Chris Jai Alex) kidnaps his son. Fighting through his troops, he takes the arm of Bronze Tiger (Delbert Hunt) — this is obviously tied into the New 52 version of these characters, who were friends that served in the Dead Bastards mercenary group together and Deathstroke having to save Bronze Tiger from Slade’s father Odysseus; Lady Shiva (Panta Mosleh), who is also in this story, is another character in this New 52 version of the characters — and saves Joe, but not without his son’s throat being cut, costing him his voice.

Now, ten years after losing his wife and son, Deathstroke must learn about his family and work with Addie to save them. Despite being shot numerous times and even blown to pieces, he keeps surviving. This is an R-rated cartoon, so know that before the kids watch, but they may find it strange that Wilson is treated as a good guy after all he’s done to the Teen Titans.

You can watch this on Tubi.

25 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS CHALLENGE: Slayed (2020)

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73 minutes of your life, Slayed is about the community of Harris County, AZ dealing with the trauma of a Christmas Eve massacre five years before and now, it looks like Santa is coming back to kill all over again at a water treatment plant.

Directors Mike Capozzi and Jim Klock (who wrote this) also appear as Crandle, the only survivor of the last yuletide killings and Officer Jordan, a security guard who had no idea that so many people were killed where he works. The killer gets revealed pretty early and is pretty verbose for a slasher. Also: There is no one likeable in this movie, as everyone is pretty much not feeling the holiday spirit and taking it out on one another.

There’s a lot of running around the sewer plant and if that’s how you want to spend Christmas, I can’t stop you. I mean, I like the tying people up with holiday lights, but that’s pretty much it. Yet it is the season and I hate giving lumps of coal just because I’m sick of people almost backing up into my car when I’m trying to shop. Maybe you’ll like this more than me.

You can watch this on Tubi.

25 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS CHALLENGE: Killer Raccoons! 2! Dark Christmas in the Dark! (2020)

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On Christmas Eve, Casey Smallwood (Yang Miller) finally gets out of a decade in prison for underage drinking. He plans on telling his prison pen pal Darlene (Evelyn Troutman) — the sister of his girlfriend at the time — how racoons caused her death, but then he gets on a train that’s been taken over by domestic terrorists led by Ranger Rick Danger (Mitch Rose) who have PEN15, a killer holiday satellite, and an army of super intelligent, government trained raccoons.

Directed and written by Travis Irvine, this might have a ton of racoons on the poster but there were only two made with the budget. Whatever, they’re awesome. Like, the cutest bad guys ever and I’d rather watch them kill humans than the heroes of this movie being able to stop them.

This really is a sequel to Coons! Night of the Bandits of the Night and it’s like Under Siege 2: Dark Territory which is almost a parody of itself. Your enjoyment of this depends how immature you are. I’m basically a small child that loves poop jokes, so I think that this was made for me. Man, I want to hug those racoons.

You can watch this on Tubi.

RETURN OF KAIJU DAY: Coming Out (2020)

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In America, when Godzilla was dubbed into Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, Godzilla was a man. Yet in its original Japanese form, Godzilla was an it, an indefinable gender. Minilla seems to be a boy, but was adopted. And there was a Little Godzilla born in Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla II. 

In Cressa Maeve Beer’s short, Little Godzilla and Godzilla are in the midst of a battle when the King of the Monsters notices that the child isn’t happy. When home, Godzilla notices that the child is sullen and just sits in their bedroom, watching Sailor Moon. The two kaiju have a discussion over tea, leading to the parent doing research and presenting Little Godzilla with a sweater in the colors of the trans flag.

Before you become upset about wokeness and this infiltrating your kaiju world, remember what I said above. Since the beginning, in Japan, Godzilla has never had a binary gender. It’s only been here where we’ve assumed that Godzilla is a man.

Does it even matter? I’m so pleased that Godzilla can affirm the child’s identity and help her to find her true identity so that they can get back to doing what they do best. Destroy Tokyo and dropkick other kaiju.

Even better, Toho posted this on their official Twitter on the last day of Pride Month a few years back. Here’s to Godzilla embracing being an open parent in the same way that it loves to shoot Atomic Breath in other creature’s scaly faces.

You can watch this on YouTube.

I HOPE YOU SUFFER OCTOBER FILM CHALLENGE: Amityville Vibrator (2020)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The I Hope You Suffer podcast said that “Since everybody is doing these movie challenges now, we made the only one worth doing.” Bring the pain.

Look, if all director and writer Nathan Rumler (Fangboner, Gay for Pray: The Erotic Adventures of Jesus Christ) had done was write this movie’s tagline, “For God’s sake, get off!” and never even made the movie, we’d be fine.

However, I made a deal with a lesser demon to get Arrow blu rays for free, which means that now I must review every Amityvlille movie or pay for their latest releases with something worth way more than my paycheck.

Cathy (Corella Waring, CarousHELL) has done the unthinkable. She’s bought a marital aid at a yard sale, which may be the most wrong of the many wrong things in this movie. The more she and her girlfriend Roxi (Mallory Maneater) use the titular evil wand upon one another, the more chance that the demons that possessed the residents of 112 Ocean Avenue will find their way into their loins. And their souls, I guess.

Also, the vibrator can talk.

Also, there’s Spanky, a possessed ventriloquist dummy that rips off a man’s face and then has sex with a woman.

Also, there’s a murder scene juxtaposed with a sex scene.

Also, a character asks “Perform an exorcism on my (slang for part of anatomy).”

Also, two characters take mushrooms in the woods for real and in real time we watch them wander all over the place.

Meanwhile, Chad (Rumler) — the ex-boyfriend of Cathy — and his partner Mallory (Emily Hilborn) are kind of cosplaying Friday the 13th the Series except they are hunting down all of the cursed objects from the DeFeo house and only have one object left. Yes, the magical vibrator.

That said, in no way is this movie for anyone easily offended by, well, anything. It’s exactly what it promises to be and much, much worse. It’s a grimy, gross and upsetting movie that’s definitely going to have an audience. And well, I guess I’m in it because I have to see every Amityville movie and write them up if I want that UHD of They Call Her One Eye without suffering in Hell for all eternity.

Mitigating factor: a male cover version of the spraying amputation in Tenebre, copious amounts of well-done gore and people who are all obviously having fun making this. Honestly, this movie gave me the same feelings I had watching Cannibal Holocaust and that says to me that despite watching every Bruno Mattei and Joe D’Amato movie this year, I am still human after all.