Directed and written by Michael Fausti, this film takes place in 1968, 1983, and 1992, starting with Alice Kyteller (Ayvianna Snow) in 1992, telling the police that her husband, Austin (Adrian Viviani), has gone missing. The problem? When Detective Franc Alban (Amber Doig-Thorne) asks when she last saw him, the answer is eight years ago. And how does this tie to a series of murders in 1968 that Iris Young (Alice Stevenson), the daughter of TV psychic Cassandra Young (Dani Thompson) — who is now a professional dominatrix — claims to know the answer to?
Shot by Kemal Yildirim, this looks incredible, a film noir serial killer movie that transcends time and space to bring together seemingly unconnected people and times. There are so many questions. Why is Austin in photos with Detective Alban’s mother? Is every cop corrupt? And is every woman a femme fatale?
This is a movie set in a world that I would greatly enjoy living in, but I know I would never survive. It’s worth a visit.
Destry Allyn Spielberg is the youngest biological child of director Steven Spielberg and his second wife, actress Kate Capshaw. She’s been a model, an actress and grew up on film sets, which is how she was inspired to become a director. This is her first full-length movie.
I kind of love this “Parents Need to Know” from Common Sense Media: “Parents need to know that the horror film Please Don’t Feed the Children stars Michelle Dockery and contains significant violence and jump scares as well as swearing. Variations on “f–k,” “s–t,” “ass,” and “bitch” are used throughout. A virus is turning adults into cannibals, while child carriers are being hunted down and killed. Characters are chased, captured, drugged, tortured, and killed. They experience fear and witness the cold-blooded killings of their loved ones, including younger siblings. People are stabbed, shocked via a collar, shot at close range, and killed. The movie has themes of cannibalism and lots of blood. Wounds are shown in close-up. Two young people kiss, and people are glimpsed in their underwear.”
All the cannibalism is fine. It’s the underwear we need to be concerned about!
Mary (Zoe Colletti) is trying to escape the government officials who are trapping and killing kids, the carriers of a virus that turns people into cannibals. She joins up with Vicky (Regan Aliyah), Ben (Andrew Liner), Seth (Josh Melnick), Jeffy (Dean Scott Vazquez), and Crystal (Emma Meisel), who are trying to get as far away as possible and attempt to cross the border into Mexico. After some injuries, they seek safety at Clara’s (Michelle Dockery) house. She claims to be a nurse and even offers to make them cookies, but the truth is much more sinister. Not everyone will survive, obviously.
No one can trust each other, but when you live in a world where the government is killing adults, blaming children and locking down the world, well…would you? Mary just wants the kids to herself to replace her kids, who died as a result of the virus. She’s helped by a cop named Fitz (Giancarlo Esposito) whose loyalties seem to shift between helping and harming the group.
Spoiler: This is another movie that concludes with a young girl setting a house on fire.
Written by Paul Bertino, this film was allowed to continue filming during the SAG-AFTRA strike last year because it was not tied to a studio. It also had some issues with funding and paying its cast, but that’s how low-budget films go.,
After visiting a house in Amityville, real estate agent Keith (Chris Lohman) finds himself in another dimension within the home. He is trapped, constantly finding himself in the same room, no matter which door he takes.
What are backrooms?
Between 2011 and 2018, a photograph of a large, carpeted room with fluorescent lights and dividing walls circulated on 4chan, and it just felt off. An anonymous user desribed this space like this: “If you’re not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you’ll end up in the Backrooms, where it’s nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you.”
It’s actually a photo of the second floor of what was once Rohner’s Home Furnishings in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, that has been converted into a HobbyTown. Now, that strange image is the home to an RC racing area, Revolution Racing.
Also known as liminal space, backrooms often are “a place or state of change or transition; this may be physical (a doorway) or psychological (the period of a olescence). Liminal space imagery often depicts this sense of “in between,” capturing transitional places (such as stairwells, roads, corridors, or hotels) unsettlingly devoid of people.”
As for this movie, you will feel like you’re in a liminal space that never ends, as it takes 68 minutes for an Amityville movie set in California to unfold, with one person screaming and talking to himself while TV news fills the gaps, or, as we say, pads the film.
Director, writer, and actor Joe Hollow’s new film is all about Jack Russo (Hollow), who suffers from a severe case of writer’s block that he hopes can be resolved by a retreat to the woods of Quebec and a trip to his family home with his wife, Sienna (Debbie Rochon). She may have cheated on him with his best friend, she may have ruined their marriage — he may have ignored her, to be fair — but she’s also gotten involved with the Death Dealer (also Hollow), a demon who sends a VHS tape — Violent Love — in the mail marked “Inspiration.” As a writer, I get it — I know what it’s like to not know what to write next, but I’ve never watched a snuff tape to get it together.
There are two other demons, Mr. Grimm (yes, Hollow), who has a mirrored face that resembles another Canadian film, The Mask, and the laughing harlequin called Livina (Adriana Uchishiba), who is also involved in this, as well as moments taken from Driller Killer. There’s also Vivienne (August Kyss), a woman who decides to take her own life — a theme throughout this — but is given one more chance at life or something like it by the Death Dealer.
It’s easy to dismiss microbudget horror as cheap and poorly acted. Sure, most of it can be. But when it’s something interesting like this film, these movies can transcend budget and allow you to fully see the vision that its creator had in mind, even with limitations. Sure, some of the bad guys’ voices are hard to decipher, the editing is a bit all over the place, and sometimes things look really well-lit and color-balanced, and at others, like a basic cable movie, but so what? Experiencing low-budget films means leaving your mind open and being a bit more understanding, just like when we used to watch regional horror films.
Flesh of the Unforgiven is now streaming on Amazon Prime and Apple TV+. You can learn more at the official Facebook page.
Official synopsis: We’ve seen them fight, we’ve seen them chill, but in BABY ASSASSINS 3, we see Chisato (Akari Takaishi) and Mahiro (Saori Izawa) at the apex of their skills as they take on a brutally nihilistic freelance killer who aims to take their place atop the assassin food chain. Director Sakamoto Yugo and action director Sonomura Kensuke are back with the most exciting and dangerous chapter in the Baby Assassins saga to date. This time, it’s a fight for their lives.
The Baby Assassins films rawk mightily, with loads of incredible, beautifully choreographed martial arts set pieces and terrific performances by the two leads, Akari Takaishi as the highly extroverted Chisato and Saori Izawa as the more reticent Mahiro, both working together as a duo of professional killers. Obviously the third entry in the series, Baby Assassins 3 (though formerly titled Baby Assassins: Nice Days) finds writer/director Yugo Sakamoto delivering what may arguably be the most accessible of the trilogy. This is due in part to toning down the more annoying aspects of the characters’ personalities a bit — they are often more sullen and hot-tempered in the previous films — and some of the zaniness that goes along with that. But hey, the series wouldn’t have made it to a third entry if viewers didn’t love their chemistry.
Though this is certainly the darkest film in the trilogy, not to worry, as plenty of comedy is still in the mix to balance out the proceedings quite effectively. Sôsuke Ikematsu co-stars as unhinged freelance killer-for-hire Kaede Fuyumura, whose target for his 150th kill is the same as the girls’ next assigned job.
Action director Kensuke Sonomura delivers jaw-dropping fight choreography, including frenetic, mesmerizing set pieces, from close-quarters martial arts inside a tight hallway to wide-open gunplay sequences involving chases down multiple floors. Baby Assassins 3 is worth watching for its action alone, but the performances from Takaishi, Izawa, Ikematsu, and the fine supporting players are all highly commendable as well, and Sakamoto invests the relationship between Chisato and Mahiro with impressive dramatic weight.
Baby Assassins 3 is an absolute blast. Whereas in many action sequels we can expect the protagonists to survive whatever is thrown their way, making viewers less invested in fight scenes because of predictable outcomes, Sakamoto delivers tension multiple times in this entry as to whether either young woman will live to see Mahiro’s quickly upcoming 21st birthday. Action film devotees, action comedy fans, and Japanese comedy aficionados should consider Baby Assassins 3 a must-see viewing.
Baby Assassins 3, from Well Go USA, debuts on Digital and Blu-ray on August 26, 2025.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Apologies for how late this is — catching up on so much work!
Lynch/Oz. Doc of the Dead. The People vs. George Lucas. 78/52.
Director and writer Alexandre O. Philippe has made so many good movies about movies and this — which explains the influence of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre — is just as good, if not better. Patton Oswalt, Takashi Miike, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Stephen King and Karyn Kusama all speak to what makes the film special to them, why it’s stuck in their heads and inspired their own work.
Many reviews of this film seem to make light of the fact that Chainsaw isn’t a critical darling. What do you expect of a movie with the tagline, “Who will survive and what will be left of them?” For me, it’s the reason I found my way into marketing, as the idea of those words sparked something in me that I couldn’t forget. That’s been my goal my whole career: to write words that talked others into things in the same way. The economy of that sentence, the images and ideas that it plays before your mind’s eye…it’s perfect.
A file stolen by organized crime, a movie that mainly played grindhouses and drive-ins for almost a decade, a film more frightening and bloody in the descriptions people had of it than what they really watched. A film made in the sun, in the heat of Texas, a movie where no one made money — other than that mob mentioned — for a decade or more. A film that maybe Tobe Hooper couldn’t live up to because he kind of made a Citizen Kane first time out.
Other reviews call out that Roger Ebert only gave Chainsaw two stars, or that people looked down on it and still do. Good. It’s the kind of movie that shouldn’t be safe. It’s a bastard: a grimy descent into the worst man can be, yet Leatherface basically just wants to work and be with his family. His evil isn’t evil; maybe the Sawyer family isn’t horrible, despite what they do. We just don’t understand their ways and should never try to be part of the strange, dark hallways of the world in which they live.
What do I know? I’ve seen Chainsaw so many times. I dressed as Leatherface for every haunted house my high school art club put on. I was fascinated by this documentary, which, instead of mixing up the talking heads, just gives you long conversations with each of them. This is like a good talk about a film you love with people who share your passion. What else did you expect?
EDITOR’S NOTE: Apologies for how late this is — catching up on so much work!
The seventh installment in the V/H/S franchise, this has a framing device with director Jay Cheel receiving an anonymous email with footage of actual aliens, similar to the Canadian urban legend of Farrington House.
“Stork” is directed by Jordan Downey, who wrote it with Kevin Stewart. Based on artwork by Oleg Vdovenko, it has a police group known as W.A.R.D.E.N. fighting an alien creature that looks like a stork and eats brains and then baby birds them into infants’ mouths.
“Dream Girl”, directed by Virat Pal — and co-written with Evan Dickson, has two paparazzi tring to get photos of superstar Tara, a Bollywood actress who ends up being an android who can take faces and body parts and wants to “rule as a commoner.”
“Live and Let Dive” by Justin Martinez, who wrote it with Ben Turner, is pretty harrowing, as aliens interrupt skydiving, turning a birthday celebration into a violent first-person shooter. I loved this part, as it feels absolutely insane and never lets up.
“Fur Babies” by Christian and Justin Long feels like the kind of shock ending made by people who only watch the HBO Tales from the Crypt and never read the comic book or saw the Amicus films. A bunch of animal activists literally go to the dogs when a taxidermy expert transforms them into human puppy hybrids. Oh, Justin Long, you can’t stop loving getting turned into animals, can you?
“Stowaway” is directed by Kate Siegel and written by Mike Flanagan. It tells the story of a woman who stows away on an alien ship and finds herself on a trip across the galaxy, where she is healed by nanites that enter her body.
Every franchise eventually goes to space. At least this one — for the most part — does a great job of it.
Someone asked me the other day, “Have you seen Weapons yet?”
Nope.
“Sinners?”
No.
“These are the most important horror movies of the year. Why haven’t you?”
Because I have all these Popeye and Mickey Mouse slashers, and then Amityville…
After moving into a mysterious rental house in Amityville, New York — that’s how it always happens — artificial intelligence programmer Stuart Birdsall (Chris Heikka) encounters an evil force that kills his wife Vicki (Laura Schubring) and friends, but leaves him alive to go insane.
Another day in Amityville.
Directed and written by Matt Jaissle, this is better than you’d think. That’s because he’s the same maniac who made The Necro Files, so some of that madness is infused here. He also made Amityville AI, which is the start of this story. Also: He understands the Amityville + noun = success formula. He also gets that you must have a great tagline. This one? For God’s sake, stop the simulation.
Throw in a skeleton man and you get a movie that actually spent more than five minutes in scripting, which is four minutes more than most Amityville movies get. That’s right — this is an actual decent Amityville movie! That’s terrifying!
Directed and written by Chris Skotchdopole, this starts the morning after Shane (Rigo Garay) blacks out on the night he marries Leah (Ella Rae Peck). As they get to a remote location for their honeymoon, they soon find themselves blackmailed by a waiter, John (John Speredakos), and a bartender, Rose (Lorraine Farris), from the wedding, who know something he did that he can’t remember. But they don’t want money. They want to be business partners for their invention, The Crumb Catcher.
At one point, Leah tells Shane that he’s unlovable, which makes me ask why they’ve been together so long. or why he’s so worried about losing her because of the video that John and Rose have. It seems like everyone in this is unlovable, if you want to be honest.
Kind of home invasion, kind of relationship introspection, Crumb Catcher is, well, unique. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, as several viewings may prove that to me.
Extras on the Arrow Blu-ray release of this movie include a new commentary track by Skotchdopole, recorded exclusively for Arrow Video in 2025, as well as Catching Crumbs: The Making of Crumb Catcher, a 38-minute behind-the-scenes, featuring interviews with the film’s cast and crew, created exclusively for Arrow Video; two short films by the director, a trailer, an illustrated collector’s booklet featuring an introduction by producer Larry Fessenden and new writing on the film by Richard Newby and Tori Potenza and a reversible sleeve featuring original artwork by Tessa Price and Sister Hyde. You can order this from MVD.
“Amid a mysterious deadly outbreak called the ITCH. A widower and his estranged young daughter take sanctuary in a department store, only to realize the real terror is inside with them.”
Directed, written by and starring Bari Kang, this has a disease call the Itch, which makes you scratch yourself, mutilating your body until there’s not much left. Jay and his daughter Olivia don’t just need to survivor those who have this infection; the normal humans are just as deadly, as Jay’s convenience store is invaded by Henry (Douglas Stirling) , a customer, and Miguel (Patrick Michael Valley) and Gabriella (Ximena Uribe), two burglars who end up trapped inside as the world comes to an end just past the metal barricade that has been pulled down.
Kang said, “ITCH! is inspired by a true event I witnessed at my family’s discount store,which also serves as the main setting for the movie. Without revealing too much, I saw abizarre scene involving a wild customer which left a lasting impression on me. This experience compelled me to create a film around it. I grew up watching movies from the70s, 80s, and 90s. As an immigrant, I often felt like an outsider, and film became my refuge, and my work drew inspiration from that era of filmmaking. My previous films were influenced by my long-time idols, Scorsese, Tarantino and Melville. With ITCH!, I aimed to pay homage to classic horror films like Dawn of the Dead, The Mist and 28 Days Later.”
An interesting, single location take on the zombie movie, ITCH! also has plenty of commentary on the nature of grief and what it’s like to be an immigrant in today’s America.
You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles, as well as updating my Letterboxd list of films I’ve watched.
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