Director, writer and musician Chris Alexander has taken what most remember from the Blind Dead films — synth-driven slow motion moments of a gorgeous woman being chased through the Spanish countryside by undead Knights Templar — and turned it into forty minutes of fright for Betty (Ali Chappell) who runs through the Canadian countryside in an attempt to avoid a Knight played by Thea Munster.
Imagine if Amando de Ossorio loaned out his creatures to Jess Rollin while allowing Jess Franco to shoot the Sapphic flashback scene of our heroine. As a nice addition for Eurohorror fans, Lone Fleming (Tombs of the Blind Dead, Return of the Blind Dead, It Happened at Nightmare Inn) is the voice that speaks over the film.
This isn’t a movie that I’d recommend to people who haven’t fallen in love with the Blind Dead or European horror where there’s no attempt at all in creating a story, just a mood that endlessly loops into your brain. This isn’t perfect but it gets the idea right. I’d love to see more of what Alexander can do in this definitely acquired taste of a genre.
Dan Mazer, who directed this, is the production partner of Sacha Baron Cohen and co-wrote Borat and Bruno with him. The writers of this were Mikey Day from Saturday Night Live and that show’s head writer Streeter Seidell. If you’ve seen the quality of what’s airing at 11:30 on Saturday nights lately, this movie should be no surprise, as it’s a soulless approximation of something that some people once loved shoved in your face.
It has Rob Delaney and Ellie Kemper as a couple trying to keep the holidays happening despite money issues, the strange antique doll they have and the kid next door named Max (Archie Yates from Jojo Rabbit) who gets left home and battles them when they try to sneak into his house and get the doll back because they think he stole it. It doesn’t even get Home Alone right as with the couple being good people, we don’t want to see the pranks painfully stop their invasion.
Seidell is remaking Inspector Gadget and SpaceCamp as well. It’s Christmas and I shouldn’t be upset about these types of things.
At least Devin Ratray gets some work here and plays Officer Buzz McCallister, who is, of course, Kevin’s brother.
Chris Columbus, the director of the original, said of this movie “Nobody got in touch with me about it, and it’s a waste of time as far as I’m concerned. What’s the point? I’m a firm believer that you don’t remake films that have had the longevity of Home Alone. You’re not going to create lightning in a bottle again. It’s just not going to happen. So why do it? It’s like doing a paint-by-numbers version of a Disney animated film — a live-action version of that. What’s the point? It’s been done. Do your own thing. Even if you fail miserably, at least you have come up with something original.”
The First Purge (2018): The first Purge, that is, the original 2013 film, wasn’t all that great. Yet each sequel has done the exact opposite of tradition by being better than the film that inspired it. 2016’s The Purge: Election Year ended the 12-hour evening of lawlessness, so where do you go from here? A prequel. Can it live up to where the series has gone over three films?
While this entry is written and produced by James DeMonaco, this is the first time he has not directed one of the films, handing those duties over to Gerard McMurray.
Ever wondered how The Purge came to be? Well, to push the crime rate below 1% for the rest of the year and restore the economy, the New Founding Fathers of America (NFFA) decided to test Dr. May Updale’s (Marisa Tomei, slumming it here John Cassavetes style) theory that a one night venting of aggression would do wonders for people’s state of mind.
However, the test doesn’t happen in the suburbs, but instead in the marginalized, low income, black and Latino neighborhood of Staten Island. Despite $5,000 being given to each Purger (you gotta spend money to make money, I guess) and more money offered for each kill, people decide that they wanna party more than they wanna kill. And that’s when the NFFA takes matters into its own hands, sending in mercenary death squads to get the job done.
Can protestor Nya and her brother Isaiah survive the night and the attention of the maniacal drug addict Skeletor (the best part of the film, as he owns the screen from the second he first appears)? Will drug lord Dmitri rise up and defend the neighborhood that he’s pillaged? Will white people wear Klan hoods and Nazi outfits and burn churches to the ground?
Do I even need to answer these questions?
That said — I was entertained by this movie, which is both simultaneously wish fulfillment and dire warning. It’s also so many movies in one, combining a slasher film with a running movie with a dystopian/post-apocalyptic film, then adding a side of gritty urban drama, a crime movie and finally, an action shoot ’em up. It works if you don’t think too much about how The Purge could ever become true. Actually, screw that. Over the past two years, I totally see how it could not only happen, but be endorsed by the American people.
This movie isn’t going to be escapism from the slowly darkening world outside the theater. It’s junk food, sugar-filled candy that conceals a center that we’re all finding harder and harder to swallow. If only the world’s problems were so easily solved within 12 hours that could unite us all by violence, which in these films, seems to solve everything. The real world is much messier, much more depressing and much more oppressive.
That said, if you want to see a Nazi in neon gleaming latex get shot with a rocket, it’s pretty much the best pick you’ll find this summer.
The. Forever Purge (2021): Directed by Everardo Gout and written by series creator James DeMonaco, this is yet another example of “the last Purge” before they announce another sequel. That said, this series has gone from middling to decent to actual pretty good to middling all over again, so I was happy that this pushes the Purge in a new direction: once the killing starts, it won’t stop. Sure, the series has gotten pretty heavy handed, but if the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that the Purge is closer than ever before.
These films always get laughed at for the way they handle social issues and then they make over $52.8 million worldwide over its $18 million budget.
Eight years after Charlene Roan’s presidential election — The Purge: Election Year — the New Founding Fathers of America have regained control of the U.S. government and have re-instituted the Purge. Racism has gotten out of control and this years Purge seems like it will cause more damage than anyone can imagine.
I mean, you can totally see how they tore this from the headlines. That’s kind of why I have a soft spot for these movies, which feel like the last gasp of the exploitation movies that we love that would stare a cynical eye on what was really happening and figure out how to make some money off of it.
Despite all of the film’s main characters surviving the Purge, the next day the killing continues thanks to a faction called the Forever Purgers, who have decided to turn the tables on the rich and show them what it feels like to be undervalued.
It’s easy to be snide and think these films are a waste of time, but for some reason, I’ve found something to enjoy in every film after the first one. I’m really looking forward to Frank Grillo’s character Leo Barnes coming back in the next film, as his journey between The Purge: Anarchy and The Purge: Election Year made for a great story.
The Purge TV series: Lasting two seasons — the first takes place in 2027 and the second season between 2036 and 2037 — the first season was all about what goes into the Purge before it happens, seen from the perspective of several characters as an anthology series. Season two starts as an annual Purge night ends and multiple arcs show why different characters were involved and how the Purge changed their lives.
Alex van Warmerdam, who also made Borgman and Schneider vs. Bax, has really made one of the strangest films I’ve seen at Fantastic Fest, which is a real testament. That’s because it starts like some sort of highbrow art film, as a director worries about the opening night of his new play. One of the actors has a dying wife and can’t keep his mind on his lines. And speaking of wives, the director’s wife is currently having an affair with Günter, the lead actor, whose daughter Lizzy has just discovered that she has a rare disease. And oh yeah — he thinks that the world is against him.
And then everything changes on a level that doesn’t just change the story of the film, it fundamentally changes the way that everyone on Earth views the entire universe.
If you want to be as surprised as I was stop reading right now.
When Günter was four years old, he was found alone in a German forest. Raised by a foster couple, he’s never wondered about his past until a man walks up to him in the street and utters the phrase “kamaihí.” Now, he wants to know exactly who his mother is. And he wants to know what that word means. And he wants to know why so many Catholic priests are following him.
Seriously, this movie does beyond a rug pull. It changes not only the story but the viewer. I know that sounds like pure hyperbole, but that’s what this movie deserves. I watched the last scene several times and blown away by just how audacious it is.
This is a movie that you need to mark down on your watch list. I really don’t want to say much more, because I feel like you owe it to yourself to be surprised.
Here are some more shorts from the Another Hole In the Head Film Festival.
Ringworms (2022): A sinister cult looks to gain occult power through cursed worms and find the perfect host within Abbie, a young woman with commitment issues hours away from receiving a marriage proposal from the boyfriend she doesn’t even think she likes. Faye Nightingale, who plays the lead, is absolutely supercharged awesomeness; so is the direction by Will Lee. A splatter relationship movie that ends with a double blast of garbage disposal and black vomit mania, then topped by a head graphically splitting open to reveal a hand? Oh man — I loved every moment. I want more. So much more.
The Sound (2022): Two years ago, Lily (Sabrina Stull) experienced an incident that caused her to spontaneously start bleeding and lose her hearing. Now, two years later, she attempts to relax with her sister Alison (Emree Franklin, War of the Worlds: Annihilation) but worries that the strange phenomena that impacted has come back.
The Sound is a quick film that has some really well-done camera work and builds suspense nicely, even if it doesn’t let you in all that much on what’s happening. That said, the ending is definitely something and I’d like to know even more of what’s going on.
Directed by Jason-Christopher Mayer (who edited the films American Exorcism, The Doll and Coven; he also did “The Devil You Know” video for L.A. Guns) and written by Mayer and Emree Franklin (she was also in War of the Worlds: Annihilation) from a story by Gage Golightly, this short makes the most of its locations, runtime and budget, leaving you begging for just a little bit more.
Spell on You (2021): Salomé is ten years old and has a wart on her nose. This — and the way her father treats her — leads to her being disgusted by her own reflection. At night, she spies on her parents through the keyhole. And there’s weirdness all around her. I was surprised — I should have studied that English title as this was originally called La Verrue which means the wart and doesn’t spell it out — to discover that Salomé is destined to be a witch and escape the pain of her childhood, the ways that her father treats her — shoving her from his embrace and screaming that she’s infectious with her wart — and embracing who she is truly meant to be. Director Sarah Lasry has created a gorgeous looking film that stands between our real world and the world of the occult.
While Mortals Sleep (2022): Susan’s (Carie Kawa) has had her career as a cold case writer fall apart, so she’s hiding out at a friend’s remote vacation house. When she gets there, she meets Eddy (Will Brill) and Abby (Grace Morrison). He’s digging sludge out of the backyard; she makes a spot of tea a strange and not altogether pleasant affair. They’re the caretakers of the home, or so they say, but then Susan hears a baby cry a room away.
Trust me, that’s no normal baby.
Director and writer Alex Fofonoff may only have two other sorts on his resume, but this tense and well-acted piece points to him as a person of interest. If this was longer — it totally could be — it would be a movie plenty of people were talking about.
Alchemy (2016): Director Brandon Polanco said of this film, “The title, Alchemy symbolizes a cinematic concept designed to give a person who watches this film his or her own experiential transformation. We want our audience to ask themselves how they see the world and their own reality. There is a magical aspect to our film that reflects the viewer’s own personal experiences as they engage with our narrative journey. The film is not meant to be a piece of realism. Through sound and emphasizing color in the production design, we’ve created a visceral and symbolic film to help broaden the audience’s interpretation about the reality of life around us.”
Ian Kevin Scott plays a man who starts with a job interview and ends up discovering a place between multiple worlds, both familiar and otherworldly, exciting and terrifying. It’s really gorgeous and actually quite mind expanding.
Here’s the first take on shorts at Another Hole In the Head that you should seek out:
7 Minutes In Hell (2022): Justin Reager and Shane Spiegel have worked on a lot of kid-friendly projects like Sci-Fi Test Lab and Junk Drawer Magic. They had to have done all of that to get to this, because this feels like a very passionate short film.
It’s a really basic story — a bunch of teenagers breaks into a vacant house just to play seven minutes in heaven — but the telling and the look of every scene — particularly the sound mixing by Katie Harbin and Carli Plute — just makes this work just right.
This feels like it is inspired by Creepshow while at the same time being way better than the recent reinvention of that show. That’s high praise.
Blood of the Dinosaurs (2021): Once, we went to a Mystery Spot and after we walked toward the center of the room, it kept pushing us into the walls and I was young and trying to hold my mother’s hand and it made me cry. Then, we all got on a train and it went through a forest and animatronic dinosaurs appeared and the driver told us to reach under our chairs for guns to kill the rampaging lizards and I yelled and ran up and down the length of the train begging for people to stop and that we needed to study the dinosaurs and not kill them. This was not a dream.
Another story. I was obsessed with dinosaurs and planned on studying them, combining my love of stories of dragons like the Lamprey Worm with real zoology, but then nine-year-old me learned that they were all dead and I had to face mortality at a very young age which meant I laid in bed and contemplated eternity all night and screamed and cried so much I puked. This is also a true story.
The Blood of DInosaurs has Uncle Bobbo (Vincent Stalba) and his assistant Purity (Stella Creel) explain how we got the oil in our cars that choke the planet but first, rubber dinosaurs being bombarded by fireworks and if you think the movie gets boring from here, you’re so wrong.
Can The Beverly Hillbillies become ecstatic religion? Should kids have sex education? Would the children like to learn about body horror and giallo? Is there a show within a show within an interview and which reality is real and why are none of them and all of them both the answer? Did a woman just give birth to the Antichrist on a PBS kids show?
This is all a preview of Joe Badon’s full film The Wheel of Heaven and when I read that he was influenced by the Unarius Cult, my brain climbs out of my nose and dances around before I slowly strain to open my mouth and beg for it to come back inside where it’s wet and safe.
Badon co-wrote this film’s score and screenplay with Jason Kruppa and I honestly can’t wait to see what happens next. Also: this was the Christmas episode of Uncle Bobbo so I can only imagine that this was him being toned down.
Buzzkill (2022): Let me tell you, when you start your animated short off with a logo that says Canon Pictures and looks like Cannon Films, I’m going to love what comes next.
That said, it’s easy to love this movie, which is the story of Becky (Kelly McCormack, who is Jess McCready in the A League of Their Own Series) and Rick (Peter Ahern, also the director and writer), who return to her house after a date and their moment of romance is interrupted by an insect crawling out of her eyeball.
The animation is gorgeous, the story is amusing and I just loved the way that it all pays off. Buzzkill gets in more gross-out and laugh-out-loud moments in its short running time than most movies get in two hours.
Checkpoint (2022): Man, what a ride! I loved this and it made me consider all of the many, many video game characters that I’ve led to grisly deaths over the years.
A man — that’s his name and he’s played by Brett Brooks — must navigate a hostile alien world, learning with each death — which moves him back to the beginning and later to the titular checkpoint — what he needs to do to get to the next level. And then the next. At the end, he realizes that it’s all for Victoria (Erin Ownbey), who he pushed away with his greed. Yet perhaps he’s not the only person — or sin — that has done so.
Directed by Jason Sheedy, who also did the sound, editing, effects and wrote and produced the film with director of photography Matthew Noonan, Checkpoint is filled with tons of gory deaths, as well as a message and heart within. I had an absolute blast watching it — the production design is also incredible — and you should check it out too!
Cruise (2022): I worked in a survey research telemarketing place before I got into advertising and it’s the kind of job that still gives me nightmares. We had a set script that we had to follow, a mysterious room had people listening to us and you didn’t even get to call the number. It would just ring, you’d ask someone if they got their sample of laundry detergent, then they would call you an asshole for ten seconds, then you’d start all over again for ten hours at a time. Often, one of those mystery people would tell you that you were off script and take over and show you how. The worst was if you made a human connection at any point, they would terminate your call. I still wake up thinking that I’m late for my job there, a room of cubicles and no windows and people plugged into headsets as blood for the machine.
Cruise, directed and written by Samuel Rudykoff, finds telemarketer after telemarketer trying to sell a cruise and failure means death.
These days, when scam likely comes up on my phone, I don’t get mad or rude to the people on the other line. I was once them. It was not fun. And, as this movie will show you, you may end up getting them shot right in the head.
This movie was part of the Another Hole in the Head film festival, which provides a unique vehicle for independent cinema. This year’s festival takes place from December 1st – December 18th, 2022. Screenings and performances will take place at the historic Roxie Cinema, 4 Star Theatre and Stage Werks in San Francisco, CA. It will also take place On Demand on Eventive and live on Zoom for those who can not attend the live screenings. You can learn more about how to attend or watch the festival live on their Eventlive site. You can also keep up with all of my AHITH film watches with this Letterboxd list.
Directed and written by Ken’ichi Ugana, who also made the incredible short Vierailijat, this film takes an image that we associate with the pornographic — sexualized tentacles — and applies it to how being in some relationships is lonelier than being all by yourself, as well as alienation and fear of the unknown, across several episodes.
A young woman (Kaoru Koide) trapped in a loveless and definitely sexless relationship is attacked by an octopus alien that hides in her closet and while at first this is assault, it soon becomes the only thing she looks forward to. By the end, everyone in her life, including her boyfriend, has partaken in the sexual nirvana that this creature can create.
Another tale is about a man attempting to win back an ex-lover while training a creature with sweets. As the aliens multiply across Earth, humanity battles back in the third story, with soldiers gathering and killing them. One of those men finds an injured octopus creature and tries to protect it. Finally, two strangers meet in a bar after the aliens have been driven out.
Extraneous Matter Complete Edition does the opposite of what so many of the stories of alien sex in Japanese culture usually do: the story goes on past the sex. In fact, the tentacles being inside humans is such a small part of the story. It’s what is truly inside, the hidden reasons why we do what we do, that get explored within this film. Whether you can see that through all the glistening tentacles and strange looking eight-limbed soft-bodied monsters is your call.
This movie was part of the Another Hole in the Head film festival, which provides a unique vehicle for independent cinema. This year’s festival takes place from December 1st – December 18th, 2022. Screenings and performances will take place at the historic Roxie Cinema, 4 Star Theatre and Stage Werks in San Francisco, CA. It will also take place On Demand on Eventive and live on Zoom for those who can not attend the live screenings. You can learn more about how to attend or watch the festival live on their Eventlive site. You can also keep up with all of my AHITH film watches with this Letterboxd list.
Much like Alien Danger! With Raven Van Slender, this was directed by James Balsamo, who co-wrote it with Bill Victor Arucan and Sephdok Ramone. All three of these men appear in multiple roles in this film, along with cameos from Beefcake the Mighty from Gwar, Rob Halford, Doug Bradley voicing the nefarious General Legs, Sgt. Slaughter, Barry Darsow (Smash from Demolition), The Barbarian, The Warlord, John Landis, Lanny Poffo and Vernon Wells as The Shadow Knight.
This movie has everything from Sherwood Forest to an Egyptian Martian mummy, an intergalactic Ouija board and some of the worst puns you’ve heard since grade school and I say that with complete affection. Imagine if Star Trek had a worse budget and used extensive green screen but Guardians of the Galaxy came before it and you’ll have an idea of what this is all about. That said, I’m not sure if you can even quantify just how much fun it is to watch.
You can buy this directly from the filmmakers at this site.
Directed by James Balsamo — who has directed over fifty movies and also co-wrote this with Sephdok Ramone and Bill Victor Arucan, who plays the hero Raven Can Slender and the villain Overlord Eni, Alien Danger! is a wild ride. It feels like a slightly naughty science fiction comedy yet it also has the feel of a show for kids, which is a strange and pretty fun cocktail.
The cast for this is wild. Tuesday Knight (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master), Tommy Chong, Rob Halford, Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Jos Estevez…it’s like going to a convention without leaving your La-Z-Boy.
There’s also tons of facepaint and plenty of muppets. So yeah, the budget is way low, but the joy is way way high. I had a blast watching this and if I was a kid, I’d be drawing these characters in my notebook the entire next month of school instead of paying attention.
This movie was part of the Another Hole in the Head film festival, which provides a unique vehicle for independent cinema. This year’s festival takes place from December 1st – December 18th, 2022. Screenings and performances will take place at the historic Roxie Cinema, 4 Star Theatre and Stage Werks in San Francisco, CA. It will also take place On Demand on Eventive and live on Zoom for those who can not attend the live screenings. You can learn more about how to attend or watch the festival live on their Eventlive site. You can also keep up with all of my AHITH film watches with this Letterboxd list.
Internet movie criticism is filled with people rushing to champion subpar movies into something beyond what they are while well-made films like What Josiah Saw remain unchampioned.
Directed by Vincent Grashaw and written by Robert Alan Dilts, this Southern gothic is a dark journey into the pain within one family. As the Graham clan — Eli (Nick Stahl), Thomas (Scott Haze) and Mary (Kelli Garner), forever under the shadow of their father Josiah (Robert Patrick) reunite at their remote farmhouse, they must finally face up to the secrets and sins of the past.
In the first chapter, we meet Josiah and Thomas as they fight to keep the family farm from being bought out despite it being haunted by the ghost of Josiah’s wife who hung herself. Josiah ends this segment by, well no easy way to say it, but making his son masturbate his demons out in front of him before telling him that the family must reckon with their sins.
In the second part, Eli must pay a debt to a crime lord by being part of stealing gold from a gypsy-led carnival, which leads to a reading of his future that claims that he’ll die soon before all hell breaks loose. The tense moments in this are near-overwhelming.
Then, Mary and her husband Ross (a near-anonymous Tony Hale from Arrested Development) have a tense dinner part where their need to have children is discussed. She’s had a trauma in her past and had her tubes tied; now she wants a child. Or maybe her husband does. Or maybe they just think they do. It’s true horror, the most real of all.
You may wonder, “Where is the actual horrific horror?” I thought the very same thing until the final segment which brings the entire family together for the last time. As this film jumps from drama to crime to terror, it unites itself with a strong story and assured direction.
I was stunned by this movie and really want you to go in as unprepared for the ending as I was. That said, I want more people to be watching and experiencing this, a film I truly believe in.
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