Tag Archives: 2022

Chattanooga Film Festival: Exo Sapien (2022)

Posted on by

Cass (Liza Scholtz) is the sole survivor of a ship that has crashed on a much darker version of her Earth. She has no memory of who she is and how she got there, only that she has a device constantly counting down to zero as she’s chased by miscreants, scavengers and something…else.

Exo Sapien looks gorgeous and has quite the pedigree, as director and writer James C. Williamson was also the co-producer of another bonkers movie from South Africa, Fried Barry.  His production company, The Department of Special Projects, is a film development and production company that specializes in auteur-driven genre films. You can learn more about them here.

This is just the first part of this story, as there’s a full-length feature being planned. I can’t wait.

You can watch the films of the Chattanooga Film Festiva for half price now until Wednesday. Get your badge right here.

SHUDDER EXCLUSIVE: The Long Night (2022)

Posted on by

EDITOR’S NOTE: This was originally on the site on February 4, 2022. It’s now streaming on Shudder.

While searching for the parents she’s never known, Grace (Scout Taylor-Compton, Rob Zombie’s Halloween) has come back home to the south with her boyfriend Jack (Nolan Gerard Funk) to track down a clue as to where her family may have disappeared to.

But you know what I always say about never going home again? Well, when your home has an apocalyptic cult in it, maybe Grace should have stayed in New York.

Originally called The Coven, this story starts with Mr. Caldwell inviting the couple to his home and offering to share his research into where they’ve gone. But when Grace and Jack get there, he’s nowhere to be found. There’s a big snake in the kitchen, as Grace soon painfully discovers.

And then the car won’t start, leaving them stranded.

And then Mr. Caldwell’s brother Wayne (Jeff Fahey) shows up as a surprise.

And then there’s that cult that worships Uktena, who just might be involved quite intimately in Grace’s past, led by The Master (Deborah Kara Unger from the Silent Hill movies).

For a movie that starts out very cabin in the woods come back home to unearth dark secrets, this shifts into cosmic horror before it’s done, which is a nice surprise. Writers Robert Sheppe and Mark Young have created an interesting tale for director Richard Ragsdale, who has directed several music videos (The Sword “Cloak of Feathers,” Chevelle “Door to Door Cannibals”) and has also composed the music for several movies and video games.

Chattanooga Film Festival: Proyecto Fantasma (2022)

Posted on by

Pablo (Juan Cano) dreams of being an actor but until that happens, he’s paying the bills doing the only acting role he can find, playing a patient that medical school students can practice on, as well as taking part as a paid member of alternative therapy sessions.

Much of this movie — well, maybe not the ghost but who knows — comes from the life of Chilean filmmaker and screenwriter Roberto Doveri, whose friends make up much of the cast.

Pablo had been just surviving when his roommate leaves, which leaves behind back rent, some clothes, lots of plants, a dog and, yes, that ghost that we see entangle itself in everyone’s life by way of incredibly effective animation.

Your mileage may vary on this as it’s talky and meandering, but then again, a ghost has sex with a guy and you don’t see that all that often, so it is something.

Remember — this weekend, you can buy a back half half price badge to watch all of the awesome movies at the Chattanooga Film Festival and see them until 6/29!  Get yours right here!

Chattanooga Film Festival: Honeycomb (2022)

Posted on by

Leader (Destini Stewart), Willow (Sophie Bawks-Smith), Jules (Jillian Frank), Vicky (Mari Geraghty) and Millie (Rowan Wales) have gone all Lord of the Flies Canada edition and leave behind parents and boyfriends to live in the woods all on their own with their own rules and things go about exactly as well as you’d expect when five teenage girls lose their minds.

The girls live under a rule of suitable revenge, which means if someone upsets you, you get to go after them with all the force and madness that an 18-year-old girl who has never left home before can muster which is a metric ton if you were worried about the conversion.

First-time director Avalon Fast and co-writer Emmett Roiko have put together an interesting script, but the performances are stilted and near-student level — I love reading reviews that claim this is intended and makes it a better movie, film people will forgive anything — while the editing is not the best and the sound quality is borderline static at best in some scenes. That said, there are moments that look gorgeous, which stand out and make you wish the same care was delivered throughout the movie.

That said, I do love parts of this, like the letters the girls write to loved ones before they leave, like Leader telling her boyfriend, “When I want you, I’ll come get you.” This feels like a trial run — like your teen years — for something better, remembering the rough edges yet knowing how to imbue them with the honey of experience.

Can’t wait to see what happens next.

Remember — this weekend, you can buy a back half half price badge to watch all of the awesome movies at the Chattanooga Film Festival and see them until 6/29!  Get yours right here!

Chattanooga Film Festival: The History of Metal and Horror (2022)

Posted on by

Metal and horror are the two things that got me out of a small-minded high school during the height of the Satanic Panic and have been part of my life every single day.

So why did I just finish a two and a half hour plus documentary about both and feel let down? Is it the absolute waste of time framing story that I disliked despite Michael Berryman being in it? Or the fact that just like every other one of these talking head endless runtime docs, it devolves into “that’s really the best of the sequels” babble? How many times do we have to hear so many people discuss the same movie and add nothing new to the conversation?

That said, there are a few folks in here who I could listen to at length, like Alice Cooper, Corey Taylor, Phil Anselmo and a few others who genuinely have a lot to say about films and intriguing bands — as much as I dislike his politics, Phil at least name drops Australian maniacs Portal and Ghoul is in it for a second — and that’s what I want to get more of.

This movie takes more than an hour before it glosses over a very important point: horror movies begat heavy metal which has repaid horror movies. Earth was a blues band that kept walking past a marquee for a packed theater playing Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath. A name change later, some lost fingers and a detuned lead guitar line and you have the reason why metal was born.

So yes, some lip service gets paid to Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Arthur Brown or Screaming Lord Sutch, who were true shock rockers before we knew there was such a thing. And in the seven years it took to make this, I can only assume how much was taken out about Marilyn Manson. But true gems like Corpsegrinder mentioning Baltimore’s Ghost Host get lost amongst chest puffery, metal brodom and “this is my family” inanity.

Perhaps the best line is reserved for Gunnar Hansen, who reminds us all that no one should like horror or metal and we should celebrate being outsiders instead of continually feeling that we’re put upon. We choose to have long hair, to wear this vest, to love bands with logos that no one can ever read. Put up the horns and be proud of being something no one is proud of.

If you check out the official page, there are a ton of stars in this movie. I just wish it built to a better story. There’s a glimmer of connecting the two worlds, comparing the video nasty era with the PMRC, but that intriguing notion is quickly dashed. There’s so much to get to, so many people to hear from, but most of this is sadly sound and fury signifying nothing.

Just get Mike McPadden’s Heavy Metal Movies instead. Or watch Trick or Treat.

Remember — this weekend, you can buy a back half half price badge to watch all of the awesome movies at the Chattanooga Film Festival and see them until 6/29!  Get yours right here!

Chattanooga Film Festival: Sleep (2022)

Posted on by

Director and writer Alexandra Pechman (who wrote an episode of the lamented Channel Zero, “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”) has an audacious idea here: film Kate Adams (who was also in her film Thumb) for nearly four minutes in the same unmoving shot as she loses her mind at the sound of home invaders just feet away from her.

Bonus — many bonus — points given for ending this as a variation of the urban legend of the licking dog, yet adding plenty more to that tale. No spoilers — this is an inspired film that truly could only work as a short. Well done.

You can get a back half half price badge to watch all of the awesome movies at the Chattanooga Film Festival and see them until 6/29!  Get yours right here!

Chattanooga Film Festival: What Happened to The Others? (2022)

Posted on by

With just 7 minutes and $6,000 in the budget to tell the story, Douglas Wicker (Bang the Drum: The Life & Death of a Small Town Music Scene, Bad People) deals with a family’s trauma by way of mysterious creatures that they’re been worrying about since grandfather first saw them fifty years ago. Now, it seems as if those things — whatever they are — have returned.

The best part of seeing this as part of the Chattanooga Film Festival was getting to see Wicker interact and explain more of the film, including behind-the-scenes shots. He said that the film is “a love letter to films with amazing folklore and creature biologists like Alien and Pumpkinhead, but also channeling a lot of emotional conflict and concepts I’ve struggled with in my life.”

He also discussed how the run time didn’t allow him to do all that he wanted to do, as he saw the first act as the setup, the second as a rescue mission and the third as a full-blown siege film. I’d love to see him expand this story and get to make this as a larger and longer film, because what is in this short has enough for three movies worth of effects-driven horror.

You can get a back half half price badge to watch all of the awesome movies at the Chattanooga Film Festival and see them until 6/29!  Get yours right here!

Chattanooga Film Festival: The Woodsman (2022)

Posted on by

If you told me that a movie about a man struggling to sell the last three trees out of his lot on Christmas Eve would be one of the best films that I saw at a festival, well, I probably would have laughed. And then probably asked you to show me this magical movie.

I’m so glad that I watched the story of Bernie Davis, a Christmas tree salesman fueling his night with hard sell tactics and no small amount of Jack Daniels served into a coffee cup.

John R. Smith Jnr, who plays Bernie, is beyond fantastic, feeling like he’s lived these cold nights waiting for customers to rid him of the trees that he’s tended to for an entire year. He’s all carnie on the outside and frazzled neurotic on the inside, a man trapped by life to live in a trailer and keep selling these trees every year for some dark reason that we can never, ever know.

Kyle Kutcha also made Survival of the Film Freaks and Fantasm, a movie about the importance of horror conventions. He’s made something great here, a film that focuses its lens nearly throughout on Bernie and finds sad, hilarious, frightening and finally resigned moments in his very strange life.

You can get a back half half price badge to watch all of the awesome movies at the Chattanooga Film Festival and see them until 6/29!  Get yours right here!

Chattanooga Film Festival: Box (2022)

Posted on by

Directed by Jonathan Shander, who wrote the film with Joe Wolff and produced it with Sage Bennett, Box starts Max Rubin as a doomsday prepper whose life is routine, routine, routine. Well, a strange box shows up and throws his whole life into a toe shooting off frenzy.

It isn’t about how the box got there or who sent it, but why the prepper had to even be there in the first place, as the film posits that once things were much more normal. I kind of get it through — I’m still eating all the hundreds of canned meat that I bought when the pandemic started.

You can get a back half half price badge to watch all of the awesome movies at the Chattanooga Film Festival and see them until 6/29!  Get yours right here!

Chattanooga Film Festival: Livin After Midnight (2022)

Posted on by

Robyn Carmack (Robyn Carmack as Audrey DeRossett) is a non-binary vampire who is preparing for their next date, brushing their fangs and prepping themselves for not just romance, but the hunt.

They soon meet Tyler Cates (Evan Vihlen) but for most of the date, all they can think about is the time afterward, scratching and clawing and biting through Tyler’s flesh to his lifegiving blood underneath.

The problem? Tyler has the same plan. What happens when two vampires meet cute — or bloody — and have so many past romantic issues to work through? Can they at least enjoy a great meal — of sorts — together?

Directed by Tom von Dohlen and written by Brant Lewis, this has some twists you can see coming and a few you can’t. It’s certainly got some cute ideas and could lend itself to way more than just a short. With some more budget and time, I’d love to see that happen.

You can learn more about Livin After Midnight on the official Facebook page.

Plus, you can get a back half half price badge to watch all of the awesome movies at the Chattanooga Film Festival and see them until 6/29!  Get yours right here!