An old man, fated to collect souls for eternity, seeks atonement after trading his daughter’s soul in this feature film debut by South African writer-director by Harold Hölscher.

The bankrupt William Zeil returns with his new wife, Sarah, and adopted daughter, Mary, to the family farm he inherited from his estranged father, with the hopes of starting a new life. Lazarus (the incredible Tshamano Sebe), the farmhand who took care of William’s father in his lonely, final hours, assists them in settling into their new, rural surroundings.

Despite Sarah’s misgivings, Young Mary and the elderly, but spry Lazarus quickly develop a bond as kindred spirits, and William finds a “connection” to his later father through the mysterious, but charming old man. But Lazarus carries a burdensome, dark secret with him, literally, everywhere he goes: a demon child with its insatiable appetite for human souls. And the family soon discovers they should have heeded the local’s weariness of Lazarus’s return from wandering afar.

This moody, supernatural exploration of South African folklore — originally known as 8 in its homeland — with a Blumhouse-level of production quality on par with the likes of Get Out and Ma — is rife with gialloesque insect metaphors regarding eternal life and man’s relationship to nature with it’s talk about moths and worms — and carries a J-Horror vibe of the tales of Toshio (Ju-On, aka The Grudge) and Sadako (Ringu, aka The Ring). The film comes with the occasional subtitles when the local, indigenous peoples speak their native tongue, which may turn off the few; but the production values, cinematography, and acting in this non-Hollywood jump-scares cookie cutter on a budget are expertly crafted and more than compensates for the subtitling.

The Soul Collector is via TriCoast Worldwide and Rock Salt Releasing is coming soon to select theaters, digital and On Demand platforms courtesy of Scream Factory. You can learn more about the film at 8themovie.com.

Here’s the rest of the great films released under the Rock Salt Releasing/TriCoast Worldwide co-banner we’ve reviewed:

Agatha Christine: Spy Next Door
Blood Hunters: Rise of the Hybrids
Bombshells and Dollies
Case 347
Dollhouse
It All Begins with a Song
Lone Star Deception
My Hindu Friend
Nona
Revival
Tombstone Rashomon

Disclaimer: We were provided a screener by the film’s P.R firm. That has no bearing on our review.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies and publishes on Medium.

Bad Impulse is a psychological thriller about family secrets exposed as result of modern technology.

In the aftermath of his attack by loan sharks, Henry Sharpe (Grant Bowler), a suburban husband, father, and successful stockbroker, becomes a paranoid recluse. He comes to install a cutting-edge home security system from the mysterious Lou Branch (Paul Sorvino). The “cutting edge” to system is that each occupant of the household is fitted with an anklet that draws a blood sample and codes their DNA into the system. Henry Sharpe soon realizes his paranoia has placed his family at the mercy of an A.I. that is slowly destroying that which he most wants to protect.

In addition to the marquee names of the great Paul Sorvino and Dan Lauria that we came to see (do we really need to rattle off their resumes?), the film also stars Grant Bowler (Guns Akimbo) and Sonya Walger (Showtime’s Power, ABC-TV’s Parenthood and Lost, and SyFy’s The Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles).

Bad Impulse is the fourth feature film by Michelle Danner, a renowned acting coach who’s worked with the likes of Gerald Butler (Greenland, released on December 18, 2020), James Franco, Michael Pena, and Michelle Rodriquez. She’s currently in pre-production on a fifth feature, The Runner, starring Elisabeth Rohm (TV’s Law and Order). The screenwriter of Bad Impulse and The Runner, Jason Chase Tyrrell, made his debut with 2017’s Ghost House starring Scout Taylor-Compton (Abducted) and Mark Boone Junior (Trees Lounge, American Satan).

Currently on the film festival circuit where it won “Best Narrative Feature” at the 2019 International Independent Film Awards and the “Best Director Award” at the 2019 Culver City Film Festival, Bad Impulse will appear as a DVD, VOD, and PPV in the coming months. You can learn more at the website for All In Films and the film’s official Facebook page.

Update: Bad Impulse will premiere on December 18th courtesy of Gravitas Ventures. You can discover more of their films via trailers on their official You Tube page. Other Gravitas Ventures titles we’ve recently reviewed include Alien Addiction, The Argument, The Arrangement, Don’t Look Back, and The Good Things Devil’s Do. As of July 2021, can watch it as a free-with-ads stream on Tubi.

Disclaimer: We were not provided a screener copy nor received a review request for this film. We discovered this movie all on our own, were intrigued by the trailer and its cast, and wanted to give the film some advance press.

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

Shedding is a retro-magical fantasy with a narrative structure created through an inventive use of music, camera work, editing, and actor-body language that harkens the French New Wave movement of the late ’50s. Shedding is the story of a Panda, a bored house cat who longs to escape his life and go outside—and with the slight tinkling of a wind chime in the breeze, Panda gets his wish: he transforms into a human. And during his daylong journey in the outside world, he helps a grieving mother and daughter at odds over the loss of their son and brother, find peace.

If you haven’t guessed: Shedding isn’t an A-List Hollywood cute-cat movie starring Will Ferrell with an over-the-top interpretation of a human-cat romancing a career-driven Kristen Wiig and redeeming mom Lin Shayne’s broken soul. This is a film about, just what the title says: shedding. About shedding one’s pains, wants, and needs. About finding a “new coat” through coping and bonding with others—and finding an acceptance and “rebirth” in our lives.

As is the case with the works of Claude Chabrol (La Femme infidel), Jean-Luc Godard (Breathless), and Francois Truffaut (400 Blows) this feature film debut by Jake Thomas (award-winning shorts Blessed are the Peacemakers, One on One) is a film of subjectivity and ambiguity; an existential commentary on the human condition through the mind of a cat, the relationships animals have with humans, and how animals help humans deal with the emotions of loss and longing. It’s a film that, as the credits roll, you’re left wondering: Was it real or was it a dream. And if it was a dream, were the human’s part of the cat’s dream, or vice versa. Did the cat help the humans gain a better understanding of their lives, or the humans of the cat?

As we discussed in our recent reviews of the indie-minimalist masterworks The In-Between by Mindy Bledsoe, Wicca Book by Vahagn Karapetyan, Space by Monte Light, Same Boat by Chris Roberti, Double Riddle by Fernando Castro Sanguino, and Ghost by Anthony Z. James these modestly-budgeted tales from the John Cassavetes narrative school of filmmaking that focus on characters and story that are shot with handheld cameras, available lighting, and spontaneous actor improvisation isn’t easily digested by a mass audience—an audience that most likely dismisses the iPhone-based films of first-time filmmakers Jody Barton and James Cullen Bressack (For Jennifer) and have no interest in the recent low-budgeted, iPhone-shot works of multi-award winning director Stephen Soderbergh (Unsane).

Inspired by the likes of his fellow filmmakers who started their careers with low budget DIY feature films, such as Christopher Nolan (Following), Robert Rodriquez (El Mariachi), and Kevin Smith (Clerks), Thomas, who’s worked as a script reader and other various film disciplines for Lakeshore Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, and Warner Bros., began crafting a “storytelling experiment” capturing footage of his cats on an iPhone with the intent of placing the audience in the mind of an animal protagonist. After pouring through the hours and hours of archival footage of his cats to weave a narrative, he then spent the next twelve days iPhone-shooting the second act of his live action fairytale that worked with a combination of script and actor improvisation.

I know. I know. I keep coming back to Will Eubank analogies.

But it’s true: If Will Eubank was able to make the transition with his under-the-radar, low-budget science fiction dramas Love (2011) and The Signal (2014) to directing Underwater, a major motion picture for 20^th Century Fox, the same good fortune will come to Jake Thomas.

It’s not the technology. It’s not the “cost” of the filmmaking tool. It’s the person behind the technology that creates great film. And Shedding isn’t just a great film—it’s an incredible film.

A quick meet-and-greet with director Jake Thomas.

On November 12, 2020, Freestyle Digital Media, the digital film distribution division of Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios, acquired the North American distribution rights. Shedding will be available to rent and own on DVD, digital HD internet, cable, and satellite platforms on December 8, 2020. You can follow the career of Jake Thomas and the film’s progress on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews and short stories of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes film reviews and analysis for B&S About Movies.

Disclaimer: We were intrigued by this film’s advance press and trailer and contacted the filmmaker for a review screener. As you can tell, the film didn’t disappoint.

Renowned surgeon and culinary enthusiast Carmine Braun (Bill Sage) invites a struggling playwright, Jeffrey Duncan, and his wife to his semi-annual dinner party with a promise to fund Duncan’s new production. No sooner do the Duncan’s enter the mansion’s foyer, the weirdness begins at the hands of the party’s eccentric, elitist guests. And the weird visions begin, such as Haley washing her hands in bathroom basin and seeing a swimming goldfish. As the weirdness turns to madness, Jeff and his wife come to realize the guests are practitioners of an ancient religion—and they’re the “centerpiece” of the ceremonial dinner.

Writer/director Miles Doleac is an actor who’s worked on a variety of shorts, indie films and web series (TV’s American Horror Story and Banshee the most familiar) who’s expanded into a behind-the-scenes roll—and has shown tremendous growth on this, his fifth feature film (his others are The Historian, The Hollow, Demons, Hallowed Ground).

While you’ll recognize the marquee name of Jeremy London (T.S Quint from Mallrats, TV’s Party of Five and 7^th Heaven), the star here is familiar U.S. TV actor Bill Sage from the CSI, NCIS, and Law & Order franchises, along with his recurring roles on cable’s Boardwalk Empire, Nurse Jackie, Orange is the New Black, and Power.

Doleac’s an obviously a student of the Hammer-Amicus Institute of British Psychological Horror; he knows his way around the Southern Gothic corridors of his “secluded, creepy mansion” loaded with off-kilter characters. Think Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby and a giallo-bent version of Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut with touch of Paul Naschy’s The People Who Own the Dark (without the zombies), and you’ll enjoy your evening at this dinner party.

The Dinner Party will be available via DVD and Digital from Amazon, Google Play, Fandango Now, iTunes, Vudu, and Xbox, as well as Dish Network, Direct TV and local cable providers on June 5 through Uncork’d Entertainment.

Disclaimer: We were provided a screener by the film’s P.R firm. That has no bearing on our review.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

Brooke MacKenzie of the UPN’s and CW’s Everybody Hates Chris and Steffani Brass of HBO’s Six Feet Under are the centerpieces in this direct-to-video tale about a group of 20-somethings’ vacation stay at a remote cabin in the woods gone wrong. Dabier Snell of the CW’s Black Lightning, Charlie Ian of Damien Chazelle’s award-winning Whiplash, and Tina Cole, whose resume stretches back to the ‘60s U.S. TV series My Three Sons (but you know from her recent work in the cabin-in-the-woods horror, The 6^th Friend), co-stars.

Of course, in these evil rental-cabin-in-the-wood tales, we meet the lone survivor who’s doped up in a hospital bed and suffering from dreams of spinning wall-mounted crosses and phantom strangulations that doctors believe are hallucinations. And the detective and the M.E on the case don’t buy her story. But the professor well-versed in the legend of Abigail sure does.

The best friend of Michele Chadwick (Steffani Brass), Sophia (Brooke MacKenzie), became enamored with a locket found at the cabin and awakened Abigail, a centuries-dead malevolent witch. The flashbacks of the witch’s persecution begin in quick succession and Sophia starts to kill off her friends — murders in which Michele initially takes the blame. Once released into the custody of her grandmother (Tina Cole), Abigail returns to finish the job.

Based on the fact the producer and co-writer on this is Remy MacKenzie — the producer behind the Drive-In and VHS trash classics Evil Town (1987; actually an unfinished early ’70s film, God Bless, Dr. Shagetz, starring a past-his-prime Dean Jagger) and Evils of the Night (1985; with more past-their-prime ’60s actors) — we’re assuming Brooke is related as a daughter, granddaughter, or niece.

Director Jose Altonaga and MacKenzie previously produced the Fast Times at Ridgemont High knockoff Hot Times at Monclair High (1989; with a down-and-out Troy Donahue from Shock ‘Em Dead) that we, at B&S, still haven’t seen after all these years. But if you were a fan of the USA Networks’ “Up All Night” weekends, you may have seen it; the out-of-print DVDs now sell for upwards of $150.00.

Reawakened is available on demand and on DVD from Wild Eye, who were kind enough to send us a review copy. You can learn more about the movie on its official Facebook page and also watch it on Amazon Prime.

All in all: a good job by all for a low-budget indie streamer that’s worthy of your coin.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

The concept of a corrupt prison system using inmates as test subjects dates back to 1771, when the Italian physician and philosopher Luigi Galvani stimulated dead flesh with bioelectricity on the inmates of London’s Newgate Prison. His work, alongside the tales of Johann Konrad Dippel’s experiments in tissue reanimation, fueled Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

And now . . . in an undisclosed future, Warden Crowe and Dr. Brooks conduct “volunteer” clinical trials for commuted sentences at the all-female Saint Leonard’s International Detention & Medical Facility on Saint Leonard’s Island off Ireland’s North Atlantic west coast (based on Spike Island, “Ireland’s Alcatraz” in Cork Harbour, but filmed inside the U.K.’s 400-year old HM Prison Shepton Mallet). Of course, the ends justify the means in the corrupt end of the medical spectrum: the good doctor is developing a cancer-curing drug that could mean a financial windfall to the Warden Crowe.

Just as the experiments go astray—as the test subjects die (graphically) and reanimate—in steps St. Leonards’ newest arrival: Stone (French actor Jess Chanliau in her leading lady debut), an ex-Special Forces and political body guard set up by a corrupt U.S Senator. While the battle lines are drawn inside the prison walls—with Stone leading a small band of survivors against a corrupt guard leading another band of survivors—the island’s small population of 1100 are infected as well, and attacking the prison.

Released in the overseas, international marketplace as Patients of a Saint and rebooted for the U.S. market under the Patient Zero moniker, this second effort by Welsh-born writer-director Russell Owen (the 2013 psycho-thriller Welcome to the Majority) hasn’t done that well in the critical marketplace, with the main complaint being, “we’ve seen it all before.”

While I won’t argue the “derivative” point (and lets be honest: when’s the last time, since the gooey, Italian zom-’80s, we’ve seen a “not derivate” zom-flick), Owen expertly knows how to maximum a tight budget to bring us an A-List Hollywood-styled film that rises above the glut of what’s been way too many Asylum-styled zombie cheap fests. While the Irish and Welsh accents can be a bit trying at times for American ears (as are American-English accents on European ears), Inmate Zero is nonetheless well-acted and undeniably a well-shot horror film. So don’t let the “Americanized” retitle and artwork lead to you believe Russell Owen’s take on the zombie genre is a cheapjack bore fest: it’s packed with plenty of zom-action and top-notch gore effects for horror hounds who like it bloody n’ icky.

Bottom line: I enjoyed this flick! And it gave me chance to work Luigi Galvani and Johann Konrad Dippel into the conversation.

Previously released as a VOD through Amazon Prime, Google Play, and You Tube Movies, you can now watch Inmate Zero as a free-with-ads stream on TubiTv. You can watch the trailer on You Tube.

Disclaimer: We did not receive a screener or review request for this movie. We discovered it on our own and enjoyed the film.

About the Author: You can learn more about the work of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

This Tarantino-esque crime thriller brew (the first, non-horror half of From Dusk Till Dawn) with a shot of whiskey comes from the husband and wife writing team of Kevin James Barry (who directs) and Evalena Marie (who stars).

The noirish boilermaker bubbles with a bank robbery gone wrong as the two robbers take their unwanted — and unknowing hostage — to a seedy, off-season coastal motel in the dead of winter. When they come to realize their boss double-crossed them and they’re trapped in the hotel with no way out, psychosis and paranoia takes over as they turn on each other. And the fact that the motel manager is of the Norman Bates variety doesn’t help.

This is film about hunger: not just from the film’s characters, but from the filmmakers. In a script reportedly written over a frenzied weekend, and with little budget, they put together a gritty crime drama that may remind you of the hungry-budgetary spirit of Tarantino with his debut film, 1992’s Reservoir Dogs, but more accurately, 1993’s Amongst Friends, the debut film by Rob Weiss*.

As you can see by the trailer, while everyone involved is relatively new to the scene with no notable credits, the film is competently shot and acted above the level of most low-budget, self-produced direct-to-video and VOD streaming efforts. Caveat: Since we’re dealing with bouts of paranoia and psychosis, the story take a non-linear approach to convey the character’s deteriorating states. So, if you’re not into a story filled with flashbacks, this may not be the flick for you. But if you enjoy a neo-noir approach to storytelling that keeps you guessing, then there’s something to enjoy.

You can watch Among Them as a VOD exclusively on Amazon Prime or as a free-with-ads stream on TubiTv. You can learn more about the production on its official Facebook page. You can also learn more about the work of Kevin James Barry and Evalena Marie at the Horroble Pictures website.

* We touch on Rob Weiss’s debut film amid our discussions with our “Drive-In Friday: First Time Directors Night” featurette.

Disclaimer: We were provided a screener by the film’s PR company.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

Remember Lucio Fulci’s House by the Cemetery with the basement experiments of Dr. Freudstein getting loose and tormenting the new residents of a New England home? Now, instead of the real estate horror of 1979’s The Amityville Horror, think the home invasion horror of 1971’s Straw Dogs, or the more recent, You’re Next, or the Wes Craven classic, The Last House on the Left (that got ripped by things such as The Last House on the Beach and The Last House on a Dead End Street).

So goes the English-language, but Italian made Dead House: The story of three masked thieves who invade the remote country mansion of a god-playing scientist — and they come to discover his deadly viral experiments in a basement lab that mutates the infected into psychopaths. The film questions how far will men will go into their depravity — which is evident as the invaders force the doctor’s teenaged daughter to watch him and his wife have sex and play other deadly games.

Dead House is the debut film of Brini Amerigo, a writer-director who embraces old school practical effects, which is refreshing in this digital age. The U.S reviews on this haven’t been kind, but as you can see from the trailer, it’s competently shot and above the fray of most direct-to-video streamers.

Originally release as a 2014 European theatrical known as Beautiful People, Wide Eye Releasing rebooted the film for U.S audiences — with a new title and artwork — for its U.S. PPV and VOD debut in 2018. They’re now offering it as free-with-ads stream on their TubiTv channel.

Disclaimer: This was sent to us by the film’s PR firm.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.