Once upon a time, let’s say 1987, Mark and John Polonia made Splatter Farm, a shot on video slasher all about twins sent to live with their aunt who soon discover that her handyman is a killer.

Thirty years in film time — and thirty-three in real life — and the killings have begun again in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. What a time for a bunch of teenagers to go and party at the cabin, huh?

This was co-directed by Jeff Kirkendall, who plays Jeremy the killer. He shows up in nearly every Polonia movie, which all have their own strange universe of actors that show up.

While the budget is a challenge — as always in these movies — a slasher doesn’t need hundreds of thousands of dollars to be effective. This sets up the teens — and some older people, as well — and before you know it, the kills come quickly. There’s enough gore — both digital and practical — to keep the bloodthirsty happy.

This doesn’t break any new ground, but it moves quickly and delivers what it promises. It has a great title and poster, which is really half the battle when you think about it. It also has a goofy theme song and only 70 minutes of run time, which is pretty much the length all movies should be.

While John Polonia, Todd Michael Smith and Marion Costly have sadly passed away, for those looking for the next step in the Splatter Farm story, I think you’ll be pretty pleased with this.

You can get Return to Splatter Farm on demand and on DVD from Wild Eye.

For more Polonia related reviews, check out our reviews of Shark Encounters of the Third Kind,  Amityville Deathhouse, Amityville Exorcism, Empire of the Apes and Outpost Earth.

A palindrome is a word or a story that can be read the same forward or backward, which is the idea of the multiple stories within this film. At the same time, it may be about a painter named Anna who becomes famous at a very personal cost while Fred, a patient in a psychiatric facility, is obsessed with saving Anna frombeing killed.

So what is the story about? Is it Fred trying to find a way toward sanity or Anna realizing that she must destroy herself? Or both? Or are they just two sides of the same story? This movie doesn’t give you any answers.

Also: what do the mysterious turn of the last century nurse and doctor have to do with all of this?

If you’re the kind of person who throws their arms up and gets angry at the artier side of film, then this movie isn’t for you. If you’re willing to put an investment into watching something and coming away with your own impression of what the artist was attempting to share, then you may very well enjoy your time here.

This is a movie that doesn’t just try to tackle one issue, but many, and at times it’s scattershot, but that could also be its charm. But like I said, your experience may vary.

“Jill’s got the snake. Julia’s got the flute. Alone, they have nothing. But together, they have a secret weapon to fight the darkness.”

This short may only be around eight minutes long, but it has a neon-hued look and just enough mystery to see where this story will go with more time and budget.

Jill (Poppy Drayton) and Julia (Sierra Pond) break down in the desert and have to fix their car while two men named Earl (Ross Francis) and Joe (Micah Fitzgerald) harass them. What they didn’t realize was just how tough both of these women are, much less the secret appendage that Jill is between her thighs.

High on visual look and ideas and low on time and budget, this has made me take note of David Mahmoudieh, the writer, producer and director of this short. I can’t wait to see what happens when he gets the time and funding to do something big.

You can learn more at the official site.

You know, even in today’s quarantine situation, no part of me ever wants to go to a cabin with my friends for an isolated vacation. I’ve seen too many movies where a bunch of guy pals go up north and end up all dead or worse.

The Retreat is the next one that reminds me that I should stay right where I am, in my wonderful movie room basement, cataloging my Mexican VHS horror favorites and wondering whether or not I should even go upstairs.

Gus and Adam weren’t as smart. They went up to the Adirondack High Peaks of Upstate New York and ended up running into a monster. But now, Gus finds himself all by himself,  going crazy and convinced that he’s being hunted by the Wendigo.

Written and directed by Bruce Wemple, whose Monstrous was about a woman discovering that a trip to — you guessed it — the Adirondack High Peaks of Upstate New York wasn’t such a good idea because one of her friends is possessed by a beast much like Bigfoot. Grant Schumacher, who plays Gus in this movie, was also in that as Jamie, and Dylan Grum, who is Adam here, played Squatch in Monstrous.

Here’s some further advice: if you are going backpacking in the woods, do not take any hallucinogenic drugs. Have we learned nothing from the slasher films of our youth?

The crazy thing is that there may be more than one Wendigo out here in the woods. And beyond just killing people, they like to make them go crazy first. They are also usually cannibals that have tasted the flesh of their fellow man in the forest, if I know my Native American lore (or just remember when Wolverine fought one).

The Retreat is available on demand and on DVD — all hail physical media, look for this at a WalMart near you! — from Uncork’d Entertainment, who were nice enough to send us a review copy.

The third part of Dark Infinity’s Tales for the Campfire trilogy will delight anyone who liked 1983’s Scary Tales or 1997’s Campfire Tales or, well, any horror anthology. A quick burst of gory junk food, this would have fit in perfectly on the shelves of my hometown’s mom and pop video stores, whether that was Prime Time Video or Hollywood Video (not the chain).

Even the cover is reminiscent of one of those multi-time rentals of the lamented past, Return of the Living Dead 3.

As the Campfire Gang — Shawn, Ronnie, Ken, Rebecah and Amber — gathers around the campfire one more time to tell several different stories.

“We One” is definitely a tribute to perhaps the most effective anthology horror story ever, “Amelia” from Trilogy of Terror. “Cole Canyon Creeps” is all about the worst of all ideas, hitchhiking. “The Prisoner” concerns a mental patient menacing an agoraphobic woman on Halloween night*, which is perfect slasher fodder. It’s followed by another slasher story, “The Bitter Half**” and then finally, a tale about “The Gateway” to Hell.

This movie features plenty of locations that you’ll recognize from Child’s Play 2, Halloween III, House, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight.

This is the first of these anthologies that I’ve watched and it moved quickly. So quickly, in fact, that it was over before I knew it. It totally doesn’t overstay its welcome!

You can get your own copy here.

*There are plenty of clips of Night of the Living Dead mixed into the story.

**Mel Novak plays a character named Dr. Challis, in case you didn’t know just how obsessed with 80’s horror this movie is.

I had a friend buy me a copy of The Secret, the Rhonda Byrne self-help book. It was well-intentioned, but it felt like the New Thought of the past and a sanitized version of Chaos Magic that didn’t work quite as well. But hey — everyone needs something to help them get by, and like I said, the thought was in the right place.

Now, the book has inspired a film which I can only imagine will be the first of many.

Director Andy Tennant knows romcoms. After all, he was behind It Takes Two, Fools Rush In, Ever After and Sweet Home Alabama, the kind of movies that the lady in your life wants to put on any time they show up on a Sunday afternoon (and you’d be the jerk wanting to watch The Replacements again).

Miranda Wells (Katie Holmes) is the kind of hardscrabble, yet gorgeous, widow that these movies are all about. She’s raising three kids on her own but a storm blows into town and she has to hire Bray Johnson (Josh Lucas, who was in the aforementioned Sweet Home Alabama) to help fix things up, which includes her life and her family. Bray is pretty much The Secret in human form, because he’s a positive thinker, as well as someone that has a mysterious past that could ruin everything.

Don’t you just hate the third part of the hero’s journey?

If you’re already in for the 90’s stars in this, Jerry O’Connell shows up as well to seal the deal.

There was another movie version of the book in 2006, but that one didn’t have romance, a storm or Katie Holmes trying to raise kids. The universe talked to me and told me not to watch it. However, the universe did tell me to watch this, as we got a screener in the mail and it felt like I was watching too many slashers and perhaps it was time to watch a family-friendly movie about the power of positivity.

Now, for you moment of meta, sponsored by the IMDB trivia page for this movie: Josh Lucas played Mitch McDeere in the television adaptation of The Firm, a role originated by Holmes’ ex-husband Tom Cruise.

Now, back to The Secret. I feel as if my movie writing is now a success, as I have been able to convince movie studios to send me films to get my “expert” opinion. Most of my opinion is based on how much I love movies where people are menaced by gardening implements. That said, when this crossed my plate, I knew that I had finally achieved something worthwhile.

Then my wife said, “Why do you want to watch this movie?”

So I explained The Secret*somehow combines the Protestant teachings of Norman Vincent Peale with the Theosophy of Madame Blavatsky to create a theory that you can reprogram reality without needing to make sigils or set things on fire or masturbate. Then she stared at me even longer, wondered why she married me and went out to smoke a cigarette.

*The movie does this with pizza magically arriving when the children wish it in existence. Maybe I’m being too hard on this book, because if I can conjure pepperoni and extra cheese slices into being, I might have to get more serious about this.