GENREBLAST FILM FESTIVAL 2023: Cryptids (2023)

Cryptids started its funding all the way back in 2013 and had an Indiegogo in 2020. These days, years feel so much longer, so I’m sure there have been some people excited to see this for some time.

This anthology is united by a radio show called The Truth Serum hosted by Major Harlan Dean (Joe Bob Briggs). The subject is cryptozoology and the wildcat line is jammed up as each caller tells an increasingly stranger story about the myths and monsters that lurk at night, all while Dean worries that a prank caller and those very same monsters may be even closer than he thinks.

This project was put together by Justin M. Seaman and Zane Hershberger, the same guys who created The BarnThe Barn Part II10/3110/31 Part 2 and Force to Fear. They’ve brought along several indie filmmakers to create the different stories within Cryptids, including Brett DeJager (Bonejangles), Max Groah (Bong of the Living Dead), Johnny William Holt (The Dooms Chapel Horror), Billy Pon (Circus of the Dead) and FX artist Robert Kuhn.

What I loved most about this was how much it felt like listening to the old days of Coast to Coast. This was confirmed when I read some info about the film, as well as it being inspired by Monsters You Never Heard Of by Daniel Coen, a Scholastic book that I read so many times that the cover fell off and I needed to repeatedly tape it back on. In fact, so many of the books of Cohen inspired me to write, including his novel The Monster Maker and his non-fiction books The Greatest Monsters In the WorldThe Encyclopedia of the StrangeSuper-Monsters (with a cover featuring the monster from the end of Night of the Demon) and The Ancient Visitors.

As the calls come in, you get to get in deep — very, very deep in some cases — with the Hopkinsville Goblins, Melonheads, the Loveland Frogman, The Beast of Bladenboro, Chupacabra Death Machines and Bigfoot. As always with anthologies, the stories can be a mixed bag. That said, the gore is more than up to the task to smooth over any cracks and the main story is absolutely perfect thanks to Joe Bob giving a way better performance than in most of the movies he showed on MonsterVision.

This is a great idea for a film and I’m excited that the filmmakers finally got to realize their vision. I don’t want to give too much of a spoiler for one of the later stories, but man, there’s a facial wound in this that really caught me. Like I said — the grisly stuff looks gorgeous.

Cryptids was watched as part of The GenreBlast Film Festival which is from August 31 to September 3. All screenings for GenreBlast are held at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Winchester, Virginia. Passes are on sale through The Alamo Drafthouse Winchester. Learn more at the official site.

GENREBLAST FILM FESTIVAL 2023: Shorts round 4

Here’s the last set of shorts that I watched at GenreBlast Film Festival.

Knit One, Stab Two: This essay film examines the representation of knitters and knitting, in over sixty horror films made by women, from the 1920s – 2020s, across South America, Europe, North America and East Asia. Alison Peirse — who also made Three Ways to Dine Well about eating in horror movies — explores these questions: What happens when the woman knits in a horror film? What might the representation of knitting tell us about social and cultural expectations around gender, genre and age?

Knitting is just one of many stereotyped representations of aging women across over a century of horror cinema, a fact that this movie attempts to get around. It’s really interesting, as is so much of Peirse’s work, which you can find on her website. For a list of the films in this, check out the Letterboxd list I made. This is so worth your time.

PeccadilloLorenzo (Huitzili Espinosa) is an 18-year-old boy struggling to come out to his religious family of female tailors. It’s difficult as he must be a man filled with machismo, yet he stares longingly at the dresses that they work day and night to create. But to them, being gay, much less wearing female clothes, the kind of sin that is stuck in his mind so much that he constantly has vision of the devil (Pablo Levi), who appears in song and dance numbers whenever the urge to be who he want to be strikes Lorenzo.

Director Sofia Garza-Barba has made a work of art that beyond sings. I loved every single moment of this, a movie that not only has something to say but looks like a painting come to life while it does so.

Some Visitors: Jennifer (Jackie Kelly) is home alone, mourning the loss of her child and worried about a recent series of home invasions. Then the door rings and brings Jeff (Clayton Bury) into her life. Jennifer seemingly makes the worst mistakes, like letting Jeff into her home, telling him that she’s there alone and revealing way too much about her life. But just like The Strangers, Jeff is not alone. There are two other intruders (Carlie Lawrence and Richard Louis Ulrich).

Director and writer Paul Hibbard mentioned on Letterboxd that this is going to become a feature, so I don’t want to ruin what happens for anyone. I’ve seen some say that it’s Funny Games if Brian De Palma directed it. And that’s close — the split-screens and super quick jump edits that hammer home the reveal do that pretty well — but this film feels like even more than that. I thought that once one of the masks from The Purge showed up that this was going to just be all the basics of home invasion and modern horror played out in a shorter film, but then I realized by the end that Some Visitors was using everything that I expected against me and when it happens, when you get it, it’s jaw dropping. So well done.

Raja’s Had Enough: Raja is a creature — an angel? — in human form working at The Afterlife Bureau, the place where souls are processed into the next life after their death. Fed up after years of processing femicide victims, Raja (Anisa Butt) decides to change fate and go to Earth with the goal of stopping the murder of Zooey (Veronica Ellis), a woman she doesn’t even know.

Directed by Ekaterina Saiapina and written by Axelle Ava and Lisa Gaultier, Raja’s Had Enough has a unique look and concept as well as an audience-pleasing idea. Raja may not understand humanity, but she can comprehend that all of the death that she sees as paperwork has actual pain within it. Perhaps some computer error can change things for the better.

IkalaWe always like to think that we are the Rebellion, but more often, it feels like we’re the Empire. In this short, directed by Maninder Chana,  a Sikh prisoner trapped in solitary confinement turns to his faith to make a daring escape before U.S. forces destroy a Mujahideen camp to cover up their role in funding the runaway terrorist organization. The attack goes FUBAR and everyone is dead except for the Sikh prisoner trapped in a solitary cell with little light or hope of getting out. Now the U.S. bombers are on their way to erase what’s left of the base. This film is one that shows us the other side and is quite daring in how it does so.

The Erl King: The erl king is “a sinister elf who lingers in the woods. He stalks children who stay in the woods for too long, and kills them by a single touch.”  In this film, directed by Genevieve Kertesz, who wrote the script with Keith Karnish and Rachel Weise, a young woman named Leora (Emma Halleen) leaves her strict village when she is seduced by the erl king (Marti Matulis). That said, his love is as horrible as the rules of the people who she has grown up with, leading her to having no place in the world other than alone. This film has incredible effects and the erl king looks as realized as a larger budget film. Really well made and intriguing short.

Bowling 4 Eva: Kristina (Olivia Claire Liang), a troubled teen girl, spends her time talking to men online and bowling with her grandfather, all while she is increasingly medicated by her psychiatrist. Directed and writer Aelfie Oudghiri, this gets a lot of the 90s right and not just the gigantic bell bottomed jeans. This is the kind of movie that I hope for when I watch shorts in a festival, one that shows me a world that I am not part of and never will be and lets me feel like I am inhabiting it.

I also never thought that I would watch a movie where insane bowling score monitor illustrations come to life.

Partnr: This is the story of Jackie (Melinda Nanovsky), whose bionic boyfriend Ethan (Brian Barnett) has just proposed marriage. Directed and written by Kaylin Allshouse, this is the story of finding a happily ever after as well as what love with an actual human can feel like. When a perfect love is created, is it really all that perfect? Or is it just what you think that you want? This film asks that question and tries to answer it.

Even in the future, people will still go to bars and sing karaoke. That is one of the many things that I have learned from this movie. I also really liked the black and white color scheme of the scenes between Jackie and Ethan as they are in bed versus the colors in the other scenes.

A Ben Evans Film: Directed by Bret K. Hall and James Henry Hall, who wrote the script with Josh Malerman, this is about a kind, yet delusional man named Ben Evans (Sky Elobar) who makes a film starring his recently dead parents. Yes, if you can get past the idea that a man is moving around the bodies of two deceased old bodies, well, you may enjoy this.

I wonder how much of this movie was inspired by the films of Charles Carson, who the documentary A Life On the Farm went into detail on earlier this year.

Exactly like the short The Lizard Laughed, Elobar is so great in this. What a strange concept and well made short.

These shorts were watched as part of The GenreBlast Film Festival which is from August 31 to September 3. All screenings for GenreBlast are held at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Winchester, Virginia. Passes are on sale through The Alamo Drafthouse Winchester. Learn more at the official site.

GENREBLAST FILM FESTIVAL 2023: Livescreamers (2023)

Livescreamers is the sequel to 2020’s Livescream and is about the Janus Gaming team. This diverse team of eight content creators and video game players are super popular online. As they play through the latest horror game together, they’re trapped in a surreal caste that goes after their darkest and most hidden secrets. The only way they can all get out alive is by putting their trust in one another, which is easier said than done.

With game design inspired by Resident Evil, Outlast, Until Dawn and Dead by Daylight that was created on the Unreal Engine, this movie goes beyond found footage to become a “screenlife” found footage slasher.

Directed, written and produced by Michelle Iannantuono, the Janus Gaming team is led by Mitch (Ryan LaPlante) and includes Jon (Christopher Trindade), Taylor (Coby C. Oram), Zelda (Anna Lin), Gwen (Sarah Callahan Black),  Lucy (Neoma Sanchez), Dice (Maddox Julien Slide), Davey (Evan Michael Pearce) and Nemo (Michael Smallwood, Marcus from Halloween Kills), a gamer who is afraid of the audience who is constantly watching the team.

The movie gets into not only the toxicity in the gaming industry, but also in the communities that grow around it online. Yet for these players, they’re doing more than dealing with hurt feelings and ruined online experiences. Each injury their characters endure causes damage in the real world.

Livecreamers is interesting. I spend all day in a virtual office and I’m unsure that I wish to spend my free time in a similar setting, but I enjoyed the film.

Livescreamers was watched as part of The GenreBlast Film Festival which is from August 31 to September 3. All screenings for GenreBlast are held at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Winchester, Virginia. Passes are on sale through The Alamo Drafthouse Winchester. Learn more at the official site.

GENREBLAST FILM FESTIVAL 2023: Poundcake (2023)

Poundcake is a slasher killer who hunts white cis men and quite literally pounds them to death. As we see the Greek chorus of podcasters comment throughout the film, no one really cares that white straight men are being killed, much less the fact that they’re chained around the throat and sexually assaulted. And then Poundcake moves on to those very same men as a target, but ones that are woke, and yet the lack of caring seems to continue.

You know how it seems like every comedian has a podcast? Well, it feels like almost every character in this movie has one, too.

Either you’re going to absolutely love Onur Tukel’s (That Cold Dead Look In Your Eyes) film or you’re going to hate almost every moment of its running time. At once, it asks you to be enraged about the bad deeds of white men of power while also tearing at every single other group, as if being equally offensive makes up for the offensive ideas like, oh, rape can be funny.

It’s also about Asian women being anti-black, woke white men becoming too weak, dudes who want to be gay but want to do it with their wives around so that it’s not as gay, bad standup and then the fact that we should all just try and get along.

The actual slasher part is just a small portion of the movie. The podcasts and reaction are the rest and some parts work — everyone wants to be connected to the killings, even if it’s by the smallest of ways — and others don’t, as you start to lose track of who all these people are and if they even matter because, after some time, they don’t.

This is one of those movies that people will get upset and say, “You just don’t get it.”

Well, I did, it wasn’t as smart as it thought it was and where it could have really been incendiary, it came off as a prankster child so smugly sure of its own success that you don’t want to agree with any of it.

Poundcake was watched as part of The GenreBlast Film Festival which is from August 31 to September 3. All screenings for GenreBlast are held at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Winchester, Virginia. Passes are on sale through The Alamo Drafthouse Winchester. Learn more at the official site.

GENREBLAST FILM FESTIVAL 2023: Love Will Tear Us Apart (2023)

As a child, Wakaba (Sayu Kubota) had to deal with a bully of a father and even more negative treatment in school. Perhaps that why she always protected Koki, a boy who was treated the worst of everyone by the bullies. That stopped, however, when two of the boys were found dead and Koki killed himself some years later.

Years later, Wakaba is all grown up and on the way to a vacation to the woods with some girls and a musician that she has always been a fan of, Kohei Shirasaki. Yet like a trip to a slasher camp, everyone that interacts with her is murdered by a killing machine with a mechanical mask. In fact, only she and one other person survive the attacks. As Kamiyama, a police officer who was also the father of a girl who was killed, investigates, people close to Wakaba continue to get murdered in horrific ways. Has Koki never gone away?

Until now, I had only seen short films from Kenichi Ugana like Vierailijat and Extraneous Matter Complete Edition. This is even stranger than those films, if that’s even possible, because it’s somehow a sweet romance, a hilarious bit of comedy and a slasher, sometimes all at the very same time. It also feels odder and way more transgressive than the feeble stabs at strange that people rave over in Western elevated horror. This is no navel gazing but instead somewhat inspired levels of sustained weirdness.

Love Will Tear Us Apart was watched as part of The GenreBlast Film Festival which is from August 31 to September 3. All screenings for GenreBlast are held at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Winchester, Virginia. Passes are on sale through The Alamo Drafthouse Winchester. Learn more at the official site.

GENREBLAST FILM FESTIVAL 2023: Murdercise (2023)

Pheobe (Kansas Bowling) is cast in an aerobics video but she’s unhappy with how everyone is acting. Isn’t this a serious workout video? Then why is everyone acting so sexy on camera, like Candy (Jessica Flux), Nikki (Adriana Uchishiba), Monique (Victoria Dementieva) and Cassandra (Krystal Shay)? Oh Pheobe, don’t you realize you’re in a movie that started with a shower scene and a murder?

The whole video is the brainchild of Dominica Stromboli (Ginger Lynn!) and her husband Frankie (Josh Parks), who are making the video to find something to keep their daughter Isabella (Nina Lanee Kent) out of trouble. But when Candy pushes Phoebe too far, heads — and all manner of other body parts — are going to roll.

Murdercise might not replace Killer Workout and Death Spa in your rotation of 80s workout slashers but if it was made in 1986, it would have definitely played USA Up All Night. That’s a compliment. But this is an indie movie on a small budget, albeit one made by people obviously having a blast making it. That said, if you watched late night cable horror or rented every slasher that came out on the mid 80s, well, you’ll love every wacky minute of this.

Murdercise was watched as part of The GenreBlast Film Festival which is from August 31 to September 3. All screenings for GenreBlast are held at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Winchester, Virginia. Passes are on sale through The Alamo Drafthouse Winchester. Learn more at the official site.

Zombie Rage (2023)

With segments from directors Johnny Lektrik, Mark Kiazyk, Ken Brewer and John Ward, Zombie Rage gives you more zombie action than two or three movies all in one. It starts with “CKX News,” in which reporter Nelson Bighammer (Nelson Mayer) discovers that all of the crime that’s been happening in Winnepeg has been caused by the walking dead. Well, that and a little kid who is downtown for some drugs.

Speaking of drugs, “Two Stoners and a Zombie” has Tom (Tyler Ulrich) and Jerry (Keith Johnson) completely miss the fact that zombies walk the Earth, going so far as to even bring a bitten man named  Brian (Lawrence Waller) back home, which endangers the girls — Brenda (Brandi Krueger), Tanya (Meghann Rose Pino) and Nicole (Dominique Langford Rousseau) — who hang out with them.

In “Flesh Attack,” a thief played by Andriana Garbiso uses the zombie attacks to rob even more houses, but leaves the door way too open for the shambling horde. “Veronica’s Bachelorette Party” seems like a time for Veronica (Traci Burr) to celebrate the last guy she’ll ever get to have sex with before marriage before learning that the dancer (Doug Waugh) has been bit at a convenience store. The last story, “A Walk In the Park,” has the goings on in a sexed-up park get stopped by, you guessed it, the living dead.

For a low budget movie, the effects are pretty strong in this movie and you can tell that the filmmakers have a real love for the genre of zombie movies. I wish there was some connectedness to the stories, but as it stands, this is definitely a fun time at the streaming movies.

GENREBLAST FILM FESTIVAL 2023: Shorts round 3

Here’s the next set of shorts that I watched at GenreBlast Film Festival.

Red VelvetWhen Jack (Austin Lynn Hall) learns that the end of the world is on its way, he’s in the middle of getting an escort from the For A Good Time escort agency. She’s on her way and as she knocks at the door, he isn’t sure that he wants to invite in someone with all the warnings on the TV and radio. Except that Cassandra (Alisha Erozer) is pretty much a dream girl and she’s just begging to come inside. As she heads to the shower to clean herself up, he’s shocked when there’s another knock on the door and Cassandra is waiting outside.

Directed and written by Blake Simon, this looks incredible and moves so quickly that I wanted more. Great effects, well-shot visuals and even the colors look gorgeous. I’d love to see how he keeps this quality together for a full length film.

Jess Is a Clown NowYou know how there’s often a shocking reveal at the end of a slasher that explains it all to you? Director and writer Rylan Rafferty has put together an entire short filled with with those reveals that go on and on until they build into absolute baffling insanity.

Jess (Kara Jobe) has become a clown, as the title reveals. Mom (Lizabet Latvala) and dad (Randy R. Roberts) are already dead and Megan the gardener (Brianna Ripley) who may or may not be the half-sister or ex-girlfriend or not even connected to Jess may or may not be responsible. Stick with it, because this will take you to plenty of places and beyond.

This is a really fun short and I’d love to see if there’s anything else to this story.

The Haunted Baby Carriage from HellSpencer (Dylan Wayne Lawrence) and Cameron (John Reddy) have just moved into a new house- Kelli Maroney is their real estate agent Regina Kobritz, who is named for Mrs. Kobritz in The Fog — and discover that they are haunted by an old baby carriage. You know, if there’s one thing scarier than those wicker old wheelchairs like in The Changeling, it’s an antique baby carriage.

The bigger problem? Everyone thinks that they are finally announcing that they are adopting a baby, which doesn’t help, because that carriage shows up at the worst possible times. Director and writer J.T. Seaton has created something really great here, starting with a solid idea and infusing so many of the things that we all love from horror into a short that just plain works.

The Universe and You: Dr. Terry Hathaway (Cameron Dye, who has a ton of acting credits, including The Last StarfighterOut of the Dark and a lot of episodic TV) has a cable access show sometime in the 1980s. Most of the callers want to ask him how to get ESP or to say Uranus on TV, but one caller claims that he’s been on the show over and over again and only Hathaway can understand that they are after him because only the two of them know a horrible secret. You can hear that there’s something alien on the other side of the line and it’s hunting the caller.

Director and writer Brendan Mitchell has created something that could be cliche here and instead made it into something that’s wonderful. It has a really well-shot look and goes from comedy to horror effortlessly.

Butt StuffI always wondered about those guys who buy those sex doll torsos. the ones that cut a woman’s body off and just make the sex areas. Like, well, the butt.

The hero of this movie is one of those guys. And the butt sex toy he bought isn’t just a piece of foam or rubber, it’s actually a sentient and fully aware as well as being fully in love with him.

Yet once he’s found actual love, he keeps jamming the butt under the bed. Or throwing it in the garbage. And that won’t do. That butt is going to get some revenge.

I really liked director and writer April Yanko’s short. It didn’t need the bug at the end, as the scene of the butt attacking her former love was enough. Otherwise, this is really great with some really solid special effects.

RighteousDirector and writer Ethan Grossman ​​​​​​has created a film that shows the nightmare of many children as their parents enjoy their empty nest perhaps a little too much and want to fill it a little bit. As a family gathers for Shabbat for the first time in a while, dinner doesn’t go as planned when mom and dad introduce a new “friend” to the family.

This is shot really well and feels more horrific than any monster that could show up in any other movie.

From AboveThe second short that I’ve seen from Zachary Eglinton at GenreBlast, this black and white starts with audio from House On Haunted Hill before following a man outside into a dark and foggy night. As he holds a flashlight, the camera stays tight on his face before revealing a full moon. You know what that means — something is out there, something deadly.

From Above is quick but really a fun short, shot well and showing promise for what comes next.

Candor: Created by Timothy Troy, this is a quick film where a woman is reflecting with her date after they engage in a hot and steamy act. Stick with it, as it has a great reveal and the camera work is quite good for this under two-minute film. Paige Bourne, who plays Lena, is also quite good.

Fetch!: Jaime (Eduardo Saucedo) has warned his new dog sitter Brandy (Nicole Fancher): Logan should never lose his yellow ball. She feels like she can handle this job, because after all, her pet sitting company Fetch! has never had anything less than a five-star review.

Yet the first day back from the dog park, she finds the remains of some animal and is offer $50 and a guaranteed perfect review if she cleans it and Logan up. But when this happens again and again, as well as when she thinks back to what Jaime told her about where Logan got his name and his missing best friend, she wonders if she could be dealing with something more than just a dog.

No matter what he does in this movie, the actor playing Logan, Logan Bigtooth, is a good boy.

Play DeadThis movie is going to upset some people.

Robinson (Derek Martin) and Clementine (Yael Leberman) are on drugs and in the woods, looking for the final resting place of the man known as Elvis (Samuel Shurtleff). He’s left behind a videotape demanding that whoever finds him makes him famous by desecrating his corpse. Well, he gets exactly what he asks for.

There’s one moment when Clementine asks the more clean cut Robinson if she frightens him. I’ve been there, dude.

HIMSKids are frightening.

Krsy Fox directs, writes and stars in this film in which she plays a mother whose daughter Lulu (Elle Riot Fox) tells her that there’s a monster named HIMS that lives in her bed. A creature with long nails that just waits for people to go to sleep and sometimes, well, he’s bad.

Fox is the fiancee of Spider One, the lead singer of Powerman 5000 and director of Bury the Bride, which she also appeared in. This is really well made and I’d be up for seeing what she can when she makes a full-length movie. It really captures just how weird little ones are.

Foreign Planetary: On her last day on Earth before being forced to return to her planet of origin, a young woman must find a way to stay in her new home. Foreign Planetary, directed and written by Tiffany Lin, has some big ideas and major world building despite its short running time.

Angie (Chelsea Sik) can’t survive on Earth without a special device that regulates her emotions, something that makes her wonder if what she’s feeling is real or if it’s being created by the machine. What she does know is that she has to get her brother off their home planet and to do that. she has to stay on Earth by any means necessary.

There are no major science fiction blockbuster effects in this but what minor effects appear are so well-crafted that they feel authentic and true. This feels like enough of a story to last for an entire film and I’d love to see what could come of that.

These shorts were watched as part of The GenreBlast Film Festival which is from August 31 to September 3. All screenings for GenreBlast are held at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Winchester, Virginia. Passes are on sale through The Alamo Drafthouse Winchester. Learn more at the official site.

GENREBLAST FILM FESTIVAL 2023: Crypto Shadows (2023)

I don’t understand cryptocurrency, but perhaps this movie — which also reflects Gamergate — proves to me that it’s so frightening that maybe I’m better off this way. In an attempt to remove herself from the sexual harassment at her game development job in the city, coder Cara Hammond (Mikayla Iverson) has gone into the woods, so to speak, and found a new home in the rural California countryside.

There, she’s working as an aspiring cryptominer generating new coins in cryptocurrencies with an algorithm of her own invention, she discovers mysterious code embedded deep inside the mining data. Her discovery turns into an investigation for the truth, which quickly turns into a fight for her life. When you’ve spent this much time and energy burying a secret and have this much power, one lone person in the middle of nowhere is expendable, right?

Directed by James Fox, who co-wrote the script with Amy Kay DuBoff, this gets deep into Faraday cages that control voltage and machine code yet never goes above your head. Iverson is also often the only person on screen and is able to keep the story moving all by herself. An interesting movie that does way more than you’d expect from its budget, this will keep you thinking.

Crypto Shadows was watched as part of The GenreBlast Film Festival which is from August 31 to September 3. All screenings for GenreBlast are held at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Winchester, Virginia. Passes are on sale through The Alamo Drafthouse Winchester. Learn more at the official site.

GENREBLAST FILM FESTIVAL 2023: Forever Home (2023)

Directed by Sean Oliver, who co-wrote Forever Home with Drew Leatham, this is the tale of Ryan (Leatham) and Jules (Sammie Lideen), a young couple who have moved across the country and somehow unwittingly spent all of their money on a new home. To top it all off, they soon learn that it’s haunted.

Before that, they’re surprised by Alice the realtor (Colleen Hartnett). They have to go through all the paperwork, which is always way too much and caused me flashbacks. Then they go around and introduce themselves to the neighbors. And then their first night alone in the house is interrupted by Max (Cody Hunt), who seemingly moves right in.

And soon enough, they learn they don’t just have one ghost in the house — Peggy (Shelly Boucher), who they thought was a neighbor! — but actually three ghosts if you count the kids, Esley and Gavin (Maddox and Xander Simmons).  To try and get some peace, they hire a professional. They hire a medium named Megan Marjorie Markle IV (Alison Campbell) who ends up getting killed in the house and haunting Ryan, Jules and Max.

Maybe when a medium comes in and has packages to sell you, you should know that you’re in trouble.

That’s when they also learn that if you die in the house, you’re stuck there forever. And if they aren’t careful, they’re going to join him. Forever Home is an interesting film because it’s just as much about relationships and real life as it is the world of ghosts. The effects might not be the fanciest you’ve seen, but it’s definitely a movie with heart and soul.

Forever Home was watched as part of The GenreBlast Film Festival which is from August 31 to September 3. All screenings for GenreBlast are held at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Winchester, Virginia. Passes are on sale through The Alamo Drafthouse Winchester. Learn more at the official site.