Dario Argento’s Demons meets The Blair Witch Project as the movie about a real life haunted hotel (ala The Overlook Hotel from The Shining) turns into a “real movie” via its behind-the-scenes documentary footage.

As Darkness Reigns unfolds, we meet documentary filmmaker Daniel Whitaker (filming himself via smartphone, of course) on the way to host the premiere of his documentary Darkness Reigns — his movie about the failure of Defantus Soul, a Casper Van Diem-starring horror film shot in a real haunted hotel. The original intent of Whitaker’s documentary was to include it as a behind-the-scene vignette-extra on the eventual DVD/Blu-ray of Defantus Soul.

But since the director sold his soul to The Devil to be a successful filmmaker, the demon haunting the hotel seals it off, and kills Casper with a push off the mezzanine. The “deal” was to spook everyone and Daniel would film “real ghosts.” Of course The Devil reneges on the deal and kills everyone. And Daniel got what he wanted: he’s famous and Darkness Reigns is the most-talked about movie in the world. And now a documentary is being filmed about him and his movie.

Yeah, The Devil’s a dick when he needs to be.

Now, the caveat: If you learned your lesson from your steady diet of Nicolas Cage (Arsenal), Eric Roberts (Lone Star Deception), and Tom Sizemore (Zyzzyx Road) movies, you know you get a little bit o’ Casper and a whole lot of everybody else. But what little Casper we do get, he’s a real sport playing up himself as possessed by a demon.

Darkness Reigns is the third feature film by longtime documentary and reality TV purveyor Andrew P. Jones, who made his fictional film debut with the urban drama Kings of the Evening (2008) and Haunting of Cellblock 11 (2014). So, based on his experience, you go in knowing he brings a level of quality to the table that’s a head above most of the direct-to-video horrors in the streaming marketplace.

Wild Eye Releasing now offers Darkness Reigns as a free-with-ads stream on TubiTv.

Disclaimer: The 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.

There’s no stopping low-budget auteur Brett Kelly: He’s 40 credits deep on his 20 year resume — and he’s back in 2020 with his soon-to-be-released meshing of the Ouija board and monster shark franchises with . . . Ouija Shark. Yes, a witchboard that summons an evil shark. The premise is so whacked that you’ll stream it to see what’s rattling around Kelly’s brain.

However, with this offering, he’s meshed the serial killer and human death sport genres (which we explore in our review of The 10th Victim).

Abby needs to get to her sister’s wedding cross-country, but can’t afford the plane fare and she doesn’t know how to drive. Basically, she’s useless. So she ride-shares with her “he’s-not-my-boyfriend,” Mike. Traveling on-the-bone (sorry), they decide that, instead of staying in a hotel, they’ll camp in the woods. And they “hook up.” And Mike disappears. And Abby can’t find the car. And she wonders through the woods and gets caught in a bear trap — and a hungry wolf is on her trail.

She comes to find sanctuary — she thinks — courtesy of three kind hunters who take her to their isolated cabin. Then she discovers that she’s inadvertently become the perfect “contestant”: these hunters fancy hunting humans. And Mike was their last prey. And she finally finds her inner “girl power.”

If you’re a fan of Kelly’s oeuvre and enjoying binging the various low-budget mockbuster hybrids of the streaming universe, such as Raiders of the Lost Shark and Jesse James: Lawman, then you’ll recognize a lot of the dependable, working actors in Countrycide. If your into hicksploitation flicks*, but are burnt out from re-watching all the classics from the ‘70s and ‘80s, such as Hunter’s Blood or Baker County, U.S.A, then this Kelly romp fills that redneck psychos gap.

Wild Eye Releasing is now offering Countrycide as a free-with-ads stream as part of their TubiTv channel.

* For more hicksploitation flicks, be sure to check out our “The Top 70 Good Ol’ Boys Film List” that explores down home films from 1972 to 1986.

Disclaimer: This was sent to us 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.

Florida filmmakers Sam and Cheryl Siragusa (2017’s Carnival Chronicles, 2018’s E.V.I.E; both sci-fi tales) take on horror in their third feature film with this tale steeped in Scottish folklore . . . about a creepy doll.

A family of the Amityville* variety comes to discover they’re the victims of a centuries-old curse when a rare doll starts wrecking havoc. They’ve obviously never read the handbook: never, ever go into any antique stores or second hand shops and buy old trucks. And that those dolls were wrapped up in black plastic for a reason.

As you can tell by the trailer, below, the production values on this low-budget indie are pretty high. So, if you’re into creepy doll movies — and who isn’t — there’s something for you to stream on a Friday night. To tell more, would plot spoil the fun.

What’s exciting is the Siragusa’s have contracted Caroline Munro and ’80s B-Movie scream queen Linnea Quigley for their fourth feature, the currently-in-production 1315 Wickey Way. Considering Munro was in the ’80s VHS classic Maniac and Quigley was recently in Clownado, you know what that film is shooting for: and we love it. Yes, I am digging on the Siragusas. Good stuff!

You can learn more about An Evil Tale on its Facebook page and watch it courtesy of Wild Eye Releasing across all VOD and PPV platforms, as well as DVD.

* Oh, us and Amityville . . . you have no idea. We review ’em all, with our ever-expanding Exploring: Amityville feature.

Disclaimer: This was sent to us by the film’s PR company. That has no bearing on our review.

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.

Think Kaley Cuoco’s Penny from CBS-TV’s The Big Bang Theory with common sense and intelligence — and an emotionally secure boyfriend — and you’ve met University of Toronto particle physicist Siobhan (Victoria Kucher). And unlike the constant “I have a girlfriend” bragging and the “Why can’t I have a girlfriend” whining of her BBT insecure counterparts, Siobhan is in a comfortable, mature relationship with her photographer-boyfriend Sean (Steven Yaffee).

Unfortunately, as with her fellow Big Bangers, she’s a bit self-righteous and passive-aggressive (think Howard Wolowitz’s “I’m an astronaut,” bragging at every opportunity, only less nebbish) and comes to realize she’s outgrown Sean and his free-spirited artschool friends. When she’s offered a physics fellowship at Switzerland’s CERN lab in Geneva and Sean has as an opportunity to attend grad school in Paris, Siobhan feels trapped. They break up, sort of; Siobhan goes off with her more-in-common-in-mind, geeky co-work, Alvin; Sean goes off with DeeDee from his circle of friends.

There are lots of analogies about “particles colliding” and “alternate universes” and “realities,” not just in the scientific sense, but in the relationship sense; that we’re all just particles bouncing around in space and time, always questioning our personal identities and how others determine our identity. This is a movie about how one finds their “voice” in life. And this isn’t a sappy Sandra Bullock time travel romp about a magical mailbox, either.

Skills abound in this feature film writing debut from Sean Gerrard, a graduate from York University’s film program (he’s produced five shorts and worked on several Canadian TV series); he writes with a level of intelligence you don’t see in the low-budget indies we normally review at B&S About Movies. If you’re a fan of human interest dramas like NBC’s This Is Us or ABC-TV’s A Million Little Things — only with a very light, sci-fi twist, there’s something here for you to watch.

The most interesting aspect of the film: Unlike most indies, which shoot it fast, cheap and quick in less than a month — or shorter, Gerrard chose to shoot Space & Time over the course of 11 months to show the “real time” progression of the break up and evolving of Siobhan and Sean’s journey through “space and time.” This is a well-made, intelligent film worthy of your streaming time.

Space & Time is currently available on all the usual VOD and PPV platforms.

Note: That is the clever design of the theatrical one-sheet: we didn’t edit the artwork with the edges cut off.

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

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.

The tagline on the box “A grin from fear to fear” sums up this sarcastic horror comedy, which serves as the feature film writing and directing debut by visual effects artist Torey Haas (V/H/S Viral). His resume in that field is pretty extensive, so you know you’re getting decent, cost-effective practical effects in this E.C Comics-styled horror tale that wears its Romero-Creepshow influence on its sleeve—well, slimy arm. Think of the Canadian (American syndicated) kids horror anthology Goosebumps seeping into The Walking Dead, and you’re in the Atlanta “neighborhood” (where this was shot).

The original theatrical one-sheets for the film, back when it was known as Invasion of the Dead, carried the subtitle: “Starring Desmond and Jake: Paranormal Exterminators,” so it seems there’s an intended franchise afoot. They’re Ghostbusters-styled supernatural enthusiasts who day-job at a Kevin Smith-inspired video store-quickie mart combo. And an unemployed college graduate discovers her remote country home suffers from a (comical) zombie infestation.

So who you gonna call . . . when you’re afraid of zombies?

This brings back the VHS ’80s memories of its similar brethren in Hard Rock Zombies and Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare, only with a superior level of quality courtesy of Haas’s effective zombie puppets. And the actors are giving it their all and having fun. And the new Neon Dead title fits: this film has a very festive and colorful production design. I had a lot of fun with his retro-romp!

Wild Eye Releasing has given this a DVD reboot along with a free-with-ads streaming debut on TubiTv.

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

Wild Eye Releasing recently started their own Tubi channel and they’re now offering their previous DVD and VOD titles as free-with-ads streams. Surfing through their digital library has turned into quite the enjoyable retro-ride—one that takes me back to my 5 videos-5 bucks-5-days days when, at those prices, you’d gamble on anything and everything stocked on those VHS sci-fi and horror shelves. And lately, Wild Eye has been importing some pretty impressive foreign horrors—such as our recently reviewed Australian and Italian neo-giallos Dark Sister and Evil River—as well as this French-made horror.

At first, since we’re dealing with a Euro-horror set piece that uses the admittedly overdone found footage narrative, I figured this micro-budgeted feature film debut from Fabien Delage would go back to the genre’s Ruggero Deodato roots and homage his found footage granddaddy, 1980’s Cannibal Holocaust. In that film, the footage is found and watched—and then a second crew goes out to find the people on the reels. And the story flips from a found footage to a traditional narrative. Rabid Bigfoots instead of cannibals, I assumed; a white inferno instead of a green one, if you will.

What we do get is, instead of an Italian homage, is an inversion of The Blair Witch Project meeting Neil Marshall’s The Descent (who recently gave us the very good Wales-shot supernatural-slasher Dark Signal) that’s seasoned with a soupcon Robert Rodriquez’s digitally-aged retro romp, Grindhouse. So, instead of witches, it’s Yetis (or werewolves or some type of hairy-humanoid) chasing our snowy campers.

As with the recently (very good) reviewed Case 347 that dealt with found footage extraterrestrials, this is another case of “you just roll with it,” as it is explained the footage we’re about to watch was shot by two journalists (Melissa and David; an interviewer and camera man) who traveled to the French-Swiss border in January 1976 with the intention of shooting a documentary for French television. Those recordings were discovered 40 years later, in December 2016—and we’re watching the digitized and edited version of that 8 mm footage. (The retro Super 8 logos and ‘70s-style Motion Picture Rating Code title cards that open the film are a nice touch.) So, along with a med-tech/guide, a British biologist, and an American forensicist, the journalists are off to investigate what’s causing a series of cattle mutilations—and it turns into a search and rescue mission when they learn the scientific team they intended to meet in the mountains has gone missing.

Does this all work? Yes. Better than most micro-found footage romps? Oh, yeah. And even better than most of the Hollywood ones.

Personally, I’m not a fan of A-List directors and major studios jumping into the found footage and smartphone frays to capitalize on genres developed by indie-filmmakers out of financial necessity to tell stories against limited resources. I wasn’t a fan of the major record labels pillaging the ‘80s indie-rock scene to find instant “Nirvana”—so if I’m going to do a found footage romp, I’m rollin’ the streaming dice on the likes of For Jennifer and micro-indies like Case 347—and this indie-feature film debut by Fabien Delage.

It’s been 21 years since The Blair Witch Project re-ignited the found footage genre sparked by Ruggero Deodato—and we’re about five or six dozen films neck deep in the genre. Cold Ground is one of the better ones and worthy of your streaming excavation. It’s an effective calling card that proves Delage is adept at working a limited budget, develops smart characters, and builds suspense and dread with his scripts. And most importantly: he discovers skilled, professional actors who are willing to work below the going rates to trek through the ice and snow to tell his stories against their limited budgets.

So here’s to hoping a major European studio takes notice and gives Fabien Delage the budget and resources he deserves for this next movie. So check him out, won’t you? You can stream Cold Ground for free on Tubi and you can learn more about the Wild Eye catalog at their official website and Facebook pages. And if you’re a found footage fan, well, B&S About Movies is your one-stop shop. Just visit our homepage and enter “found footage” in the search box and search our stuffed digital VHS shelves.

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

Disclaimer: This movie was sent to us by its PR department. As always: you know that has nothing to do with our feelings on the movie.

South Carolina screenwriter and director Tommy Faircloth’s fifth feature is an expertly staged and richly-shot double-homage to the ‘70s European Nunsploitation cycle (Santanico Pandemonium, The Other Hell) and Spain’s Amando de Ossorio’s* early-‘70s “Blind Dead” quartet of films (that ended with Night of the Seagulls). In Ossorio’s universe: sexually promiscuous, road weary travelers are always stumbling into some piece of abandoned, local architecture connected to an urban legend.

Accordingly, we have four requisite dumb travelers—two sisters: one bitchy, one a pseudo-creepy bookworm, and two guys: one a piggish boyfriend and one a hapless dork who wishes he was—who do all the things we expect: losing car keys, looking for shelter from a storm, always having sex on their minds, telling bad dick jokes, toilet humor and, since this is the 21^st century: their cellphones have no signals.

Of course, one person in the group—in this case, Ashley-Kae the bookroom (Erika Edwards, an accomplished cinematographer and editor in her own right; she runs Honey Head Films with actress Kristi Ray; who plays her sister Gabby)—knows all the local history about the abandoned brick church they’ve taken a detour at on their way to her family’s vacation home. And she’s haunted-fascinated by her childhood nightmares of nuns—the infamous Sister Monday (Felissa Rose of Sleepaway Camp fame) in particular, who had a penchant for killing inmates of the neighboring prison . . . just on the other side of those woods.

Yep. Just like the de Ossorio films of old, these dumb travelers resurrect the ghost of Sister Monday—complete with a nice, sharp dagger sheathed inside that large, wooden crucifix she hip slings. (And that testicle-removal-by-holy dagger is a pisser!) (I would have enjoyed some prisoner or priest zoms digging themselves out of the church and prison graveyard—but that’s not a problem with the film, just my sick, twisted nostalgia getting in the way.)

Award-winning indie-horror craftsman Tommy Faircloth got his start in the business like most writer/directors (such as Frank Darabont of The Green Mile and The Mist): as a production assistant on mainstream Hollywood films; Faircloth worked on Die Hard 2, the Danny DeVito-starring Renaissance Man, and the James Caan-starring football drama, The Program.

He made his debut proper with the 1996 horror-parody Crinoline Head and followed up with the direct-to-video efforts Generation Ax (2001), the serious-sequel to Crinoline Head: Dollface (2014), and Family Possession (2016; which also stars Felissa Rose and Erika Edwards). A testament to Faircloth’s ever-improving career: A Nun’s Curse won the “Best Writing in a Feature” at last October’s Nightmare Film Festival and Reedy Reels Film Festival for Faircloth’s Horsecreek Productions.

A Nun’s Curse proves Faircloth has a very promising career as a new voice in horror that’s on par with the horror works of the bigger-budgeted studios A24 and Blumhouse. He knows how to move a camera with an Argentoesque atmospheric ease through the dilapidated corridors. I look forward to his next work, will go back to his earlier works, and hope for a sequel on the exploits of Sister Monday.

A Nun’s Curse is available from Uncork’d Entertainment on all online streaming and PPV platforms in the U.S on May 12. If you’d like a DVD copy: all North American Walmart locations will have it in stores on May 19. You can also visit Uncork’d on Facebook for the latest news on their releases and find more specific information about A Nun’s Curse on Facebook.

And we are diggin’ on the end credits’ nu-metal tune by The Lumberjacks!

* Did you hear the story about the debut picture from de Ossorio’s “Blind Dead” series, Tombs of the Blind Dead, being re-edited into a bogus Planet of the Apes sequel? It ran in U.S Drive-Ins in 1978. True story. We reviewed it as part of our “Ape Week.”

Disclaimer: This movie was sent to us by its PR department. As always: you know that has nothing to do with our feelings on the movie.

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.

Dark Sister is the (very welcomed) U.S. reboot of Sororal, an Australian neo-giallo that weaves the psychosexual tale of the ratty loft shut-in Cassie (well played by Amanda Woodhams in her leading lady debut; ironically looking like Dakota Johnson’s sister). An artist traumatized by the murder of her mother, Cassie comes to realize the nightmares and daytime hallucinations of brutal slayings she commits to canvas (The Paints of Laura Mars, if you will) are the chronicles of a real life serial killer crisscrossing the continent down under. The “dark sister” of the title (the better title of “soraral” means “of or like a sister or sisters”) is a hooded, rainslicker-esque lookalike who totes around a creepy, deteriorating doll that’s connected to a Satanic cult who needs Cassie to give birth to the Anti-Christ.

The reviews on this mixture of giallo and the supernatural haven’t been kind, with critical insight that state this third film—from what I feel is an impressive, developing resume—by writer-director Sam Bennett is merely “style over substance” and his work is “amateurish” and “unrealistic.”

Huh?

Since when did an Italian Giallo—or any of its Spanish knockoffs—of the ‘70s ever put “realism” or “substance” over what were always the main priorities of the giallo genre: art and surrealism rooted in Impressionism and Renaissance art.

The giallo resume of Dario Argento, the leader of the genre, is the cinematic equivalent of Salvador Dali’s melting clocks and M.C Esher’s impossible objects and staircases to nowhere. Giallo is all about the utilization of oozing color palates and oddball light sources, nonsensical supernatural red-herrings to nowhere, psychic links to killers hidden in POV, whispered poetic passages, hyper-sexual oddball red-herring characters, rape and murdered moms, junk science (about sunspots, Y chromosomes, eye-memories, love-chemicals), pedophile fathers, doctors and detectives riddled with kinks and ulterior motives, and a general, overall incoherence set to a soundtrack of jazz-rock noodling and chanting choirs.

And if that makes me a giallo snob, then dip me in yellow paint, feather me in crystal plumage, and dump me in the town square and let me enjoy my Stendhal syndrome episode so I can shed my tears for my mother.

Yes, I’ve watched Paolo Cavara’s Black Belly of the Tarantula and Sergio Martino’s The Case of the Scorpion’s Tale—and every bloody tale concerned with insects and animals—more times than any one person should. I accept Dario Argento’s what-the-fuck plot twists of an intelligent chimp wielding a straight razor and cute girls with psychic links to insects with glee. And regardless of how much I enjoy the films of Riccardo Freda, Umberto Lenzi, and Ruggero Deodato: I’m burnt out on them. But I love the era and adore the genre and I want more . . . but my yellow has turned to brown. And while I know they’re box office hits, I pine for the giallo era over the endless cycle of The Conjuring sequels and the Blumhouse universe’s jump scares.

And that’s how films like The Editor and Dark Sister become part of my beloved giallo library. Bravo, Mr. Bennett. It feels like home to me. (I suggest you pair the Italian-made Evil River with Dark Sister for your double feature this evening.)

Theatrically released in its homeland in 2014, Wild Eye Releasing acquired Sororal—giving it a new title and artwork—for a U.S. streaming and DVD release in 2018. They’re now offering it in 2020 as a free-with-ads stream on TubiTV along with several other films from their catalog.

And here we are, in 2022, with this review still receiving a lot of hits, as horror fans continue to discover this great flick by way of it currently appearing on various Smart TV streaming platforms. Seriously, we love this movie!

Disclaimer: This movie was sent to us by its PR department. As always: you know that has nothing to do with our feelings on the movie.

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.

“It’s not going to work, you know. We’re almost dead.”
— Grandma Mona

When Marcy (Fayelyn Bilodeau) loses her job as a flautist with the Chicago Philharmonic, her girlfriend, and apartment in one fell swoop, she does what most of us have done in the midst of our twenty-something failures: we return to our childhood home.

In Marcy’s case, she’s not only lying low to figure out her next move, but to help her grandfather Archie (Richard Riehle) take care of Mona (Helen Slayton-Hughes), her dementia-suffering grandmother. When Marcy begins to experience the same visions and voices as her grandmother, she realizes a spirit attached to a box of antique tchotchkes has invaded the suburban clapboard home. Helping Marcy in the supernatural battle is Coco, the neighborhood’s Barbie Doll-cum-Tangina Barrons-wannabe (Kiersten Warren), a mysterious phone psychic, and an ice cream truck-based weed dealer with a penchant for the supernatural and horror films.

Now, while that synopsis sounds conventional—like Blumhouse “shock scares” conventional—there’s nothing in the recent haunted house, possession, and supernatural forces-at-play CGI universes of the Paranormal Activity, Insidious, or The Conjuring franchises (or American J-Horror reboots) that will prepare you for phantasmagoric feast that is The Invisible Mother. For you are entering the The Twilight Zone on acid: A world where M.C Escher and Salvador Dali are your overlords: a surrealistic world where you run up a set of ouroboros stairs from a melting world to nowhere. This is a film where you will experience the same excitement the first time you watched the out-of-left field insanity of Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm and Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead. It will become the new “classic” that horror aficionados will slide onto their shelf next to those films for perpetual, over-the-years viewings. It’s a film, like David Robert Mitchell’s amazing Under the Silver Lake that, after your first viewing, you immediately hit the start button to suck on mother’s teat a second time to drink in all the details you missed the first time. Toss the recent pseudo-yellow oozers of Omar Jacobo’s Blood Freaks and David Fowler’s Welcome to the Circle on that list.

“That’s not Taffy . . . that’s something else.”
— Grandma Mona

Those who’ve had an opportunity to see The Invisible Mother on the festival circuit call it a “modern day giallo.” And there’s certainly a giallo influence in the swirling cameras, odd cinematography angles, and vibrant color schemes of the Maestros Mario Bava and Dario Argento—along with Paul Naschy’s penchant for out-of-left-field Spanish red herrings and plot twists, and Spain’s giallo purveyors Claudio Guerin’s and Bigas Luna’s corkscrews for the bizarre.

But there’s also a taste of giallo’s black-and-white noir roots: Is Glorianna (Debra Wilson) a faux-witch with an agenda? Is Coco giving the ol’ Henry James turn-of-the-screw on the old folks? Is Archie gaslighting Mona and did he call Marcy home to twist her into his plan? Are Archie and Coco in consort? Do Glorianna and Coco need Marcy for a sinister, Argentoesque purpose? Is the house on a hellish portal and Marcy is the key? Is Mona really suffering from Alzheimer’s? Is Wyatt’s (Kale Clauson) weed, in fact, laced and causing Marcy’s oneiric state? What is going on in this Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain-inspired world where even Sigmund Freud would question his own sanity?

But then there are the elements of David Lynch’s taste for the oneiric experimental (The Elephant Man, Lost Highway), Andy Warhol’s palate for the perverse avant-garde (Flesh for Frankenstein), the celluloid hyperbole of John Waters (Pink Flamingos, Polyester), and Todd Solondz’s oeuvre of offbeat plots and kinked characters (Happiness and Welcome to the Dollhouse).

And while the VHS centers of my celluloid cortex loaded up copies of the bloody, Neapolitan delights of Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Paolo Cavara, Ruggero Deodato, Riccardo Freda, Lucio Fulci, Umberto Lenzi, and Sergio Martino, I also got my analog buzz on with the J-Horror static of Takashi Miike (Gozu, Visitor Q), Takashi Shimizu (Ju-On, Reincarnation), and Lee Soo-yeon (Uninvited). And while impressionist Alejandro Jodoroswky (El Topo, Holy Mountain, and Santa Sangre) is justifiably named dropped when reviewing The Invisible Mother, I shall trek one step deeper into the underworld: I got some serious supernatural phantasmagoria vibes of the José Mojica Marins variety with his Coffin Joe romps At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul and This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse.

“For years you were like a snail. Happy, hiding. Happy, hiding.”
—Wyatt, the Ice Cream Man

And even after all of that critically rambling, I still haven’t spoiled The Invisible Mother; for this feature film debut by co-writers and directors Matthew Diebler and Jacob Gillman may be difficult to explain, but it’s impossible to spoil. And while I may have led you to believe this film is incoherent, these two neo-giallo enthusiasts, who cut their teeth in the reality television (Matthew Diebler; Catfish, Ice Love Coco) and special effects fields (Jacob Gillman; Sucker Punch), weave a cohesive narrative.

And that’s the intrinsic beauty of The Invisible Mother. It defies convention. It’s an ambiguity open to your interpretation. It’s a film noir riddle falling down an out-of-control Alice in Wonderland “rabbit hole” puzzle wrapped in an Italian murder enigma. Diebler and Gillman crawled inside our bodies to wear us like a Jame Gumb skin suit: they made a film for us, the cinematically nostalgic orphans enamored with ‘70s films reissued on the ‘80s VHS video fringe.

The Invisible Mother is a giallo—yet it’s bloodless. It’s Argentoesque—without the blunt force trauma. It’s fear and dread—with a soupçon of Naschy’s taste for the humorous dark. It’s a psychedelic whirling dervish of primary colors; a realm rife with intricately detailed sets, practical in-camera effects, and stop-motion and reverse photography (by co-writer/co-director Gillman). It’s a film that never shocks or startles. It’s a film where your eyes blaze wide-open at an endless series of unsettling “WTF” moments set to a pseudo-progressive jazz soundtrack (like a Dario Argento film co-scored by Bauhaus and The Normal) that induces nausea. It’s a film rife with all these little moments (of copper fishes, kitschy salt n’ pepper shakers, licorice cookies, pin cushions, 1940s Royal Victorian phones, 1970s oil lamps, and 1980s VHS-era video art from the beyond). It’s a masterpiece of “giallo impressionism” that I want to expose in-a-catch-all-schizophrenic-run-on-sentence-of-hysterical-amazement.

In case you haven’t figured it out: I bow at this movie’s yellow-soaked altar.

The most heartwarming highlight of The Invisible Mother is seeing the long-in-the-business “I don’t know their names, but I know their faces” of Richard Riehle (I just saw him on a re-run of TV’s Roseanne) and Helen Slayton-Hughes (who I just watched in a binge of HBO’s True Blood) given the opportunity to carry a feature film—and both are award-winning fantastic. Reihle’s 400-plus resume since the late ‘80s features his work on Fox-TV’s Grounded for Life and CBS-TV’s NCIS, along with the films Bridesmaids, Bruce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, Casino, and Office Space. Slayton-Hughes was Ethel Beavers on NBC-TV’s Parks and Recreation and appeared in the Metallica romp, Hesher.

You know Fayelyn Bilodeau from her recent appearances on Showtime’s hit series Shameless and TV Land’s American Woman. You’ve seen Keirsten Warren in a wide variety of film and TV appearances since the early ‘90s, such as her feature film debut in Independence Day (Tiffany the Stripper who greeted the aliens on the building roof that got zapped), and her recurring roles in Desperate Housewives and Saved by the Bell: The College Years. And it’s nice to see animated voice artist Debra Wilson, a cast member of my beloved FOX-TV’s Mad TV and Reno 911!, on the big screen. Kale Clauson most recently appeared on TV’s S.W.A.T and Good Girls.

“I am not sure what you’re trying to convey. I simply sell frozen confections. Perhaps I can interest you in some Necco Wafers?”
—Wyatt, the Ice Cream Man

We’re also digging on “Dracula,” the film’s theme song by Geneva Jacuzzi and Bubonic Plague. You can learn more about Geneva’s music at her official website. Then there’s the ambient music of Matt Hill & Umberto serving as the soundtrack. You can listen to all four albums by Umberto on their You Tube page. The embedded playlist, below, will get you to those songs, and more, from The Invisible Mother.

Recently completing a successful, multi-award winning film festival run, Freestyle Digital Media acquired the North American VOD rights. You’ll be able to rent and own copies of The Invisible Mother on digital HD internet, cable, and satellite platforms starting on October 12, 2021. Other films we’ve reviewed through Freestyle Digital Media include The Capture, The Control, Dead Air, Goodbye Honey, Hawk & Rev: Vampire Slayers, and Shedding.

You can stay up-to-date with the latest developments on Instagram, Facebook, and The Invisible Mother.com.

Disclaimer: We discovered this movie via social media, were intrigued by the trailer, and reached out to the filmmakers to provide us with a screener copy.

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.