I had no idea that Toronto had a major Caribana Festival and that Joella Crichton had won it seven times in a row. This particular Caribbean carnival started in 1967 and takes place on the nearest weekend to Emancipation Day which celebrates the day that the British Empire passed the Slavery Abolition Act. See, you can learn something new every day.

Director Chris Strikes, who put the film together with co-writer Sonia Godding, got incredible access to not just Crichton’s life, but her entire family. The film also explores the hard work and planning that goes into preparing for the competition and building the elaborate costumes. Plus, there’s plenty of information on the history of the competition and Carnival itself in Toronto, as well as how it presents a unique window into black and Caribbean-Canadian identity.

Most importantly, the film shows that Caribbean communities don’t have rigid standards of beauty, as most of North America does. It’s also a chance to see Crichton as she attempts to win a historic tenth title in her last ever competition.

Becoming a Queen is now available on demand. You can learn more at the official site.

A former Marine with PTSD is on vacation in the Philippines, a place of sun, romance and murder, as someone is stalking and killing each woman that he get close to, making him the lead suspect in the series of serial murders.

The first film by director Gregory Segal, the murders don’t take the main focus of the movie, as part of it is a detective named Cruz (Mon Confiado) looking for the killer while the marine (Lev Gorn) moves to a smaller island and falls for Delilah (Lovely Abella), a girl who doesn’t fall into his bed as easily as all the others. Cruz soon follows and together, they come up with a plan to capture the real killer.

This isn’t a by the numbers murder mystery and takes great advantage of its location. It’s definitely worth a watch and Segal shows great promise for just his first film.

When asked about the movie, Segal said, “Though I am quite familiar with life in the country, making a film in the Philippines as a first-time feature writer/director was my privilege. I had the opportunity to work with some of the best actors a first-time director could hope for, from both the United States and the Philippines. We tried to tell an even-handed story, seeing the world and its problems not just through an American lens, but acknowledging that viewpoint is just one way to experience the mysteries that people encounter in life. Having been able to wrap up this philosophy in a storyline that is hopefully engaging and suspenseful to people everywhere, I can only feel fortunate for having such a great international team, from my cinematographer all the way down.”   

The Expat is available to rent and own on global digital HD internet and satellite platforms through Freestyle Digital Media.

This first feature from director-actor-writer Mark O’Brien (Ready or Not) is about Frederic (Henry Czerny) a grieving man already struggling with his faith who decides to help an injured Aaron Smith (O’Brien) when the man knocks on his door and claims to be lost in the woods.

Frederic and his wife Ethel (Mimi Kuzyk) invite the man to stay, but Frederic soon begins to doubt why the man is there and the stories he tells. In fact, he could be there to test everything that Frederic — a one-time priest before he got married — knows. He’s already endured the tragic loss of his daughter. What can be next?

Filmed in striking black and white by cinematographer Scott McClellan, this movie is either a man of lapsed faith against the very human past sins made flesh or a home invasion movie. It could be both. As Aaron starts putting his feet up on the table, reading the brochure on the dead child’s funeral expenses, asking some very personal questions and perhaps getting too close to Ethel, this film proves itself to be a long simmering and suspenseful effort that isn’t afraid to its time, nor worried about a small cast. After all, there’s so much talent here.

The Righteous is available on digital and on the ARROW player. Visit ARROW to start your 30-day free trial. Subscriptions are available for $4.99 monthly or $49.99 yearly. ARROW is available in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland on the following Apps/devices: Roku (all Roku sticks, boxes, devices, etc), Apple TV & iOS devices, Android TV and mobile devices, Fire TV (all Amazon Fire TV Sticks, boxes, etc), and on all web browsers at https://www.arrow-player.com.

A Sexplanation is just your typical queer, Asian American, comedic sex education documentary about the universal search for love, connection and family acceptance. It’s also the story of 36-year-old health reporter Alex Liu and his quest to uncover the naked truths, hard facts and no small amount of awkward moments.

As he makes conversation with psychologists, sex researchers and even a Jesuit priest, Alex explores why sex has always caused him — and so much of America — so much shame. After all, he learned that only abstinence would make him a good person, which suppressed his sexuality and made the fact that he was gay very troubling for him.

As he learns that comprehensive sex education is the answer, he also finds out that it’s finally time to have the talk with his parents.

Liu, who directed and co-wrote this movie with Leonardo Neri, said “A Sexplanation follows my quest to confront my sex education — by finally getting a real one.

Growing up, sex felt shameful. My parents never brought it up. School focused on disease, pregnancy, and abstinence. By my 30s, I was surprised by how much shame I still carried. After talking with friends, I realized I wasn’t alone.

The film documents my attempt to strip away this shame, no matter how awkward it might get — even masturbating in an MRI machine (for science!).

Through honest conversations with scientists, educators, and even my parents, I try to uncover some naked truths and hard facts that will get us to a healthier, sexier future.”

Alex is a funny guy and he takes what should be a subject that makes people blush at best and upset at worst and treats it with kindness and humor. This documentary moves so quickly and gets across some great information. It could even be a weekly show and I’d watch every episode. The graphics and editing highlight the main points of the movie too.

You can learn more on the official website and Facebook page for A Sexplanation.

Cómo mueren las reinas is about Juana, and Mara (Malena Filmus and Lola Abraldes), two orphaned teenage sisters who live in an isolated beekeeping country house with their Aunt Inés (Umbra Colombo). You know, between Royal Jelly and Umma, I feel like I’ve seen more bees in horror since the 70s with Invasion of the Bee Girls, The Bees, The Deadly Bees, The Savage Bees, The Killer Bees and The Swarm.

\When their cousin Lucio (Franco Rizzaro) comes into their lives, both of their lives turn into a vicious cycle of seduction and jealousy.

This film isn’t exactly horror but it isn’t drama either. It has an unsettling feeling to it, as the girls and the boy are on the very edge of innocence. I haven’t seen many modern films from Argentina, but director Lucas Nazareno Turturro has really figured out something here, a film where sisterly bonds are fragile and biology changes all of us.

While the sales materials for this movie compare it to The Wicker Man, I’m not certain that’s right. I think it’s mostly because there’s no simple film to compare this to so why not find another uncategorizable movie? Good call.

The Fall of the Queens is available on digital from Uncork’d Entertainment.

First off, the cover art for this film echoes a Bruno Mattei film, so instantly my heart is filled with love and joy. And I’m happy to report that the movie inside — yes, I have a physical copy and you can get yours from SCS — lives up to that aesthetic while also shambling one undead foot into allowing the Eurohorror synth play loud and images to take over the aesthetic, shifting this into absolute movie Fulci territory by the end.

A virus from New Guinea has transformed the streets of Los Angeles into a feeding ground for the walking dead, which gives convicts Warren (Robert Allen Mukes, House of 1000 Corpses)  and Trapper (Ken May, Hollywood Werewolf) make their way to the Valley Relics Museum — an amazing place that collects, preserves, interprets and presents the history of The San Fernando Valley through the objects that it has created, such as BMX bikes and neon signage — to kidnap Mary (Jennifer Nangle, who is also Malvolia the Queen of Screams) and Heather (Traci Burr). As the undead begin attacking outside, they soon find themselves joining forces in an attempt to stay alive.

Director and writer Dustin Ferguson puts out a movie every time you type his name, but that’s a good thing as he actually improves with each film of his that I watch. I love that he has a steady crew that he works with (Lynn Lowry appears as Mary’s mother and Mel Novak is Governor Patrick Adams), as well as nice hints of his inspirations by naming one character Dr. Mattei and having a bar scene that reminds one of City of the Living Dead.

At just around an hour runtime, this movie also doesn’t overstay its welcome. It’s got some decent gore, neat video effects and yeah, that music is toe tapping. Here’s to more wildness from Dustin. Can’t wait to see what he makes next!

Nina and Jan (Sabine Timoteo and Mark Washcke) own an ad agency together and trust me, that brings nothing but stress, particularly with the politically active client they just got hired by.  To escape getting burned out, they take their kids Max and Emma (Wanja Valentin Kube and Jule Hermann) to their seaside vacation retreat, a place that usually offers relaxation but a home invasion makes things way worse and they may not get better.

Beyond just seeing the incident once, we see it from every member of the family, as well as discover the tensions behind the client that Jan didn’t tell Nina about. Max may only be concerned with his pet rat Zorro, but his sister Emma is devastated by the event, which may not have impacted other members of this not-so-tight family unit in the same way.

Director and writer Ronny Trocker has created an interesting movie here that forces you to examine a very simple moment through its very complicated characters. It’s definitely worth your time to track this down.

Human Factors is available on digital from Dark Star Pictures.

I’m a fan of Giant Drag and Annie Hardy, the band’s lead vocalist, guitarist and songwriter. She’s known for the explicit lyrics in her songs and battling hecklers on stage, which really ties into how she acts in Dashcam, a movie that has her on-screen and livestreaming for most of the movie. As she deals with the coronavirus pandemic, she’s been riding around downtown Los Angeles and singing and rapping on her stream. She decides to go to London to visit her old bandmate Stretch and instantly enrages his girlfriend and makes his food delivery job a nightmare.

Then she steals his car and phone.

That’s when she meets Angela, an old woman followed by someone trying to kill her who offers plenty of money to get her out of town.

That’s when things go wrong.

Directed by Rob Savage (Host), who co-wrote the script with Gemma Hurley and Jed Shepherd (who wrote Host), this is based on Hardy’s real life, as Band Car was a show that she did where she improvised songs while she drove based on what those in the chat room sent.

So while I’m a fan of Hardy’s music, I am not a fan of her in this movie, which finds her playing a MAGA anti-vaxxer in the broadest way possible when she isn’t freestyle rapping about shoving things into orifices. It feels either too easy or — if earnest — too insipid and too uninspired — the simplest form of shock comedy that has nuance in a burst and is absolutely and utterly grating at 77 minutes ending with a cute idea of her rapping the credits making this feel like it will never end. I’m worried that I’m going to wake up in a Jacob’s Ladder situation and it’ll still be halfway done.

I will never get the idea of doing found footage or streaming movies in the place of a traditional narrative but I lost that battle long ago.

Dashcam is available in select theaters and VOD from Blumhouse and Momentum Pictures.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A.C. Nicholas, who has a sketchy background and hails from parts unknown in Western Pennsylvania, was once a drive-in theater projectionist and disk jockey, Currently, in addition to being a writer, editor, podcaster, and voice-over artist, he contributes to Drive-In Asylum. His first article, “Grindhouse Memories Across the U.S.A.,” was published in issue #23. He’s also written “I Was a Teenage Drive-in Projectionist” and “Emanuelle in Disney World and Other Weird Tales of a Trash Film Lover” for upcoming issues.

Once upon a time, legendary director Brian DePalma essentially created the “erotic thriller.” The genre had its genesis in the giallo films of the 60s and 70s with obscure plotting, vicious murders, and sex, usually lots of all three of those things. DePalma’s transmogrification of giallo films into the new erotic thriller entailed keeping the almost explicit sex and extremely explicit violence but making the plots more transparent for mainstream audiences and adding a larger dash of comedy, as well as his trademark movie craftsmanship. DePalma is an amazing director. Who else invented an entire genre, other than perhaps George Romero and the zombie film? 

After DePalma’s seminal Dressed to Kill, other less talented folks with less money seized upon the notion of making cheap erotic thrillers. These films, mostly direct-to-video items, were a mainstay of pay services like Cinemax throughout the 80s. Cinephiles who saw names like director Gregory Dark and exploitation movie queen Shannon Tweed on the VHS box or in the Cinemax After Dark listings, knew exactly what they were getting: good looking people mixed up in a blackmail/serial killer/murder-for-love plot punctuated by gauzy softcore couplings accompanied by mist and saxophone riffs. It was a comfortable formula. 

Trashy erotic thrillers eventually lost their charm and fell out of favor, mostly do to the “been there, seen that” nature of these cookie-cutter efforts. But recently, the erotic thriller has returned with a vengeance with the dire Deep Water directed by Adrian Lyne and starring Ben Affleck and current “it” girl Ana de Armas. And then there’s the Amazon Studios film The Voyeurs, a new contender for the title of “most entertainingly trashy erotic thriller.”

After a credit sequence showing close-ups of eyes, scored to a cover of Billy Idol’s “Eyes Without a Face” (this film’s anything but subtle), we meet Sydney Sweeney (Euphoria) and Justice Smith (Generation, Jurassic Park World: Fallen Kingdom), an impossibly attractive young couple, getting their impossibly expensive-looking first apartment together in an impossibly great location, downtown Montreal. As this is a film about these two becoming voyeurs by watching their impossibly good-looking neighbors who never, ever draw the blinds, Sweeney works as an optician. Naturally.

So far, so good. We’re playing by the rules of the genre. And as a bonus, this is all well-filmed, acted, and scored. We have a nice build up with some funny dialogue to a Cinemax After Dark version of Rear Window or DePalma’s Body Double with the couple’s spying some impossibly erotic sex in an apartment across the street and then becoming aroused themselves. Things get ramped up when the two manage to sneak a mirror into that apartment so that they can bounce a laser beam off the window and impossibly hear the other couple’s conversations. Then Sweeney sees something bad happen in the other apartment and is guilt-stricken about whether to tell the woman, who has become her friend by the near-impossible coincidence of buying glasses at Sweeney’s optical business.

If that’s not enough, this thing goes completely bat-shit, off-the-rails crazy with a huge plot twist that you’ll never see coming and is clever but impossible if you do any thinking about it. And yet there are more twists to come, including the use of a WiFi-enabled printer on a non-secure network to send messages.

Sweeney, for her part, carries the film even though she’s playing someone who makes so many sharp character turns, it’s like a stretch of the Pennsylvania turnpike. Writer-director Michael Mohan, who has written and directed mostly shorts, teases the viewer for about an hour with scenes moving toward unveiling Sweeney’s sexy body (described by one character as “magnificent”; I think so too) but then stopping just short. That’s even more suspenseful than the plot itself. After all that foreplay, the film finally lets loose with Sweeney in her undraped, uninhibited glory during a two-minute sex scene. (I can’t recall another mainstream film apart from David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence that features so much cunnilingus.) Let’s just say that it’s a scene destined to become one of the most viewed clips on the Mr. Skin website.

But wait. There are more plot twists to come before the last one right before the end credits roll. By now, you’ll know exactly how I’d describe them. Impossible.

So does The Voyeurs breathe new life into the erotic thriller? Definitely. Clocking in at just under two hours, it’s a tad long (so many plot twists, so little time) but never boring. For my jaded, voyeuristic eyes, the film was a nice surprise. It’s impossibly preposterous at its core, but it’s played so straight-faced by the cast and crew that it’s almost endearing in its trashiness. Making an entertainingly trashy erotic thriller was not such an impossible task after all. Sometimes films just need to be ridiculously fun. The Voyeurs is all that and more.

Alex (Jonathan Tufvesson) is a sound engineer who has accidentally recorded supernatural sounds while shooting a documentary. The voices that he’s captured may not sound human, but they are trying to warn him about someone or something, With a past filled with mystery and a future filled with dread, Alex is haunted by what he has found. Amanda (Rocío Muñoz) shared a past with Alex and a secret, and when she comes back into his life, she also brings numerous dead bodies. Is she the danger he’s been warned about?

Director Giorgio Bruno has put together a film that looks and sounds gorgeous, yet really doesn’t do anything you haven’t seen before. That’s fine — it does have some genuinely wild kills, a bravura moment where a nun is lit ablaze and is way more professional than 99% of the movies you find streaming these days.

I’ve often discussed the sad fact that the Italian horror industry died off by the 90s, but if the films that come out of the country keep looking this good — and can start embracing the off the rails insanity that they once did instead of looking to Hollywood for what’s frightening — then perhaps a comeback can be discussed.

Until then, there are moments in this to enjoy.

They Talk (also They Talk to Me) is available on VOD and DVD from Uncork’d Entertainment.