A Thai-South Korean horror movie? Let’s do this!

This film starts with a documentary being filmed in the northeast part of Thailand to show what happens in the life of a local medium named Nim. She’s possessed by the god Bayan and just the latest in a long line of women in her family who have given their existence over to this deity.

Yet as the movie continues, her daughter presents herself as perhaps the next in line, but it turns out that the spirits that want to enter her body are something…else. I mean, when you cook and eat the family dog, perhaps you aren’t the shaman that will protect your village, you know?

What I really loved about this movie was that it goes from found footage — expected — to something quite unexpected, a movie that transcends where others have been before.

Banjong Pisanthanakun also made Shutter (which was remade in English in 2008 by Masayuki Ochiai, as well as in Tamil as Sivi and in Hindi as Click) and producer and writer Na Hong-Jin made the serial killer movie The Chaser. That means that this has a pedigree and why it won best feature film during the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival.

You can check this out on Shudder. Its got a two hour plus run time, but it’s worth the time and effort, as the found footage style allows you to see a culture that would otherwise remain alien to us.

Several years after a falling out with her family in Detroit, a young mother named Jenny (Eleanor Lambert, the daughter of Christopher Lambert and Diane Lane)  returns to the Motor City to mourn the sudden death of her twin brother Gonzo.

She soon finds herself joining her brother’s strange group of friends and exploring what’s left of Detroit. She learns that her brother was the man that was always there for everyone. But soon, she starts to learn that his death may not be what it seems to be.

So many movies we review seem to be about the inabiity to go home again. Perhaps filmmakers are working out their tough childhoods through their art. This is another example of that, but it’s a story well shot and director and writer Spencer King seems to be just getting started. Here’s to seeing what he does next.

Time Now is available in theaters and on demand from Dark Star Pictures and Uncork’d Entertainment.

After civilization succumbs to a deadly pandemic and his wife is murdered, special forces soldier John Wood goes AWOL to live out the rest of his life in the woods. But we all know that action movies don’t end that way, so Wood has to come back to protect a woman whose blood may hold the key to saving the world. The only problem? The man hunting her down is the same one who killed our protagonist’s wife.

Director Fansu Njie and co-writers Daniel Stisen (who is also the star) and Andreas Vasshaug have put together the kind of movie that used to make a hungover Saturday with basic cable something worth dealing with.

The practical effects are good, the fights are fun and the budget is small. But hey — there’s a setup for a sequel and I think that this crew really loves making action movies. So why not indulge them by watching this and hope that they make more?

Last Man Down is now available on digital and VOD from Saban Films. You can learn more at the official Facebook page.

Keeping up this series’ tradition, this 2021 reimagining is written and directed by women: Suzanne Keilly and Danishka Esterhazy, who also directed The Banana Splits Movie.

In 1993, Trish Devereaux was the only survivor of a massacre caused by Russ Thorn and his power drill. She’s raised her daughter Dana to be overly concerned with safety as a result, but that doesn’t stop her from going to the same campground with her friends — except they have an entirely different agenda.

This movie is the result of Shout! Factory buying the rights to 270 Roger Corman produced titles and decided to remake some of them. I did dig the tributes to the second film, which remains the best in the series, with the guitar and pillow fight sequence getting remade. Actually, that man-on-man pillow battle feels very much a tribute to David DeCoteau too.

Actually, this film is packed with fan service to those that are obsessed with the first and second film. And that’s absolutely fine. This is enjoyable fluff that kind of realizes what it is, has fun with it and doesn’t stick around all that long. Consider it junk food to get you past whatever this week has been doing to you.

When her grandfather dies, Robin (Rachel Nichols) and Leo Murphy (Yohance Myles) return to her birthplace in Germany’s Black Forest to find a terrifying secret waiting for them. Yes, as always, you should never go back home ever again.

Directed, co-written by and featuring acting by Miles Doleac (Hallowed Ground, The Dinner Party, The Historian), this movie also finds him bringing back Jeremy London from Mallrats to play Robin’s grandfather in flashbacks, the kind of dude who makes kids eyeballs out of freshly killed deer.

So before you know it, three witches and the demigod Cernunnos, Lord of the Hunt, are killing everyone and anyone as they hunt the different characters in pairs. There’s an awesome reveal of the demigod which brought Demonoid to mind which is — in my world — a very good thing.

I mean, this is the kind of movie that dares to start with three witches ripping a demon baby directly out of a woman’s stomach. That takes some guts because how do you follow that? This is the best film I’ve seen Doleac create and it’s a marked improvement over his previous movies.

This really surprised me. It’s a quality folk horror slasher hunt movie that has some name actors and a budget used to its fullest.

If you want to see Demigod, you have plenty of choices. It’s playing at the Arena Cinelounge (LA), Entertainment Cine (Boston), Movie Fun Grill (Dallas), Cooperative Theaters (Ohio), Grand Digital Cinema 16 (Detroit) and the Seattle-Tacoma Theatre Alliance Group Varsity 3 (Seattle). You can also find it on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Vudu, Xbox/Microsoft and Comcast/Xfinity.