Charlie Bailey (Eric Tabach) hosts the Paranormalcy podcast, struggling to get noticed as a crowded white guy with a podcast space. I can relate. Then, he meets Duncan Slayback (Gabriel Rush), who tells him he can prove that ghosts don’t exist. After all, his fiancee died and has never come back to him. To further prove his point while Charlie is recording him, he shoots himself in the head before claiming that he won’t haunt our protagonist.

Except that Duncan does come back from the dead.

He becomes the show’s co-host, using his ghostly powers to find missing things and get into peoples’ heads. Soon, Charlie succeeds and has the money to support himself and his pregnant girlfriend, Brie (Kaikane). Yet when Duncan starts to ask too much, including getting revenge on the man he claimed killed his fiancee, all as a rival podcast, Jasper (Charlie Saxton) tries to reveal how Charlie can do so many ghostly things.

Maybe Charlie shouldn’t have trusted Duncan. Yet once he’s too deep, well, he’s stuck. He can’t escape the call of doing his show, the rush of getting followers, the need to be part of something. Again, I understand. This hit very close to me. And it’s a really intriguing film in which the lead is unlikeable, yet you want him to grow and get past it until, yet again, it’s too late.

Dean Alioto directed and wrote this film, marking his return to genre films after a long hiatus since creating The McPherson Tape. Featuring cameos from Dave Foley and “Master of Horror” Mick Garris, this movie exceeded my expectations. It has surprising twists and turns that I never saw coming. If you can watch it, I highly recommend you do!

The Last Podcast screens as part of the 2025 Calgary Underground Film Festival, which runs April 17–27. For more information, visit https://www.calgaryundergroundfilm.org/.

From the CUFF guide: “From the depths of space, Dracula has devised his most dastardly plan yet: turning the residents of Marlow into his personal army of vampire zombies. Terror grips the town as a full-blown zombie outbreak erupts, leaving chaos in its wake. A motley crew consisting of a grizzled detective, a sceptical rookie cop, a chain-smoking greaser, and a determined young woman band together to save the world from — (see title). Packed with gruesome special effects, b-movie miniatures, and gut-busting laughs, Vampire Zombies…From Space! is a bloody comedy that has its foundation in horror films of the 1950s.”

Directed by Mike Stasko, who wrote the script with Jakob Skrzypa and Alex Forman, this has appearances by Night of the Living Dead‘s Judith O’Dea, Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman, Tim & Eric’s David Liebe Hart and Saw VI’s Simon Reynolds.

Dracula (Craig Gloster) is from space — he has a son, Dylan (Robert Kemeny), too! — and they’ve come back to Earth to kill everyone — all in black and white. He had once attacked the family of Roy MacDowell (Erik Helle) and killed most of them, making the entire town think that Roy is a killer. When Roy’s daughter Susan (Charlotte Bondy) is killed, everyone blames him, but his daughter Mary (Jessica Antovski) is ready to convince Police Chief Ed Clarke (Andrew Bee) that there really are aliens. She joins with Officer James Wallace (Rashaun Baldeo) and local tough guy Wayne (Oliver Georgiou) to save her town.

With an evil council of vampire aliens that includes Coppola’s Dracula (Martin Ouellette), Vampira (O’Dea) and Nosferatu (David Liebe Hart), a store called Ed’s Wood & Hardware, a public jerk off bandit played by Kaufman, tons of gore and a heart that beats right because it’s making fun with, not at, old movies, this is one to find and love.

You can learn more on the official site.

Vampire Zombies…From Space! screens as part of the 2025 Calgary Underground Film Festival, which runs April 17–27. For more information, visit https://www.calgaryundergroundfilm.org/.

I had a roommate who used to tell us Yinzers how much better everything was in Philadelphia. He would go on and on about the excesses of Wing Bowl and I’d think, “Who could live through such a thing?”

Now I have my answer.

From villain Damaging Doug to the vomiting of Matt “Sloth” Dutton, champion “El Wingador and unlikely winner Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas, this takes you inside the Wing Bowl, from the first small event to the gigantic ones at the end, moments of overeating, too much drinking and out of control behavior, like Mize, who would smash beer cans into his head.

From 1993 to 2018, this was the Super Bowl for Philly, until days after the twenty-sixth year in the Wells Fargo Center, the Eagles won their first championship. Before that happened, people would regular eat 500 wings, often getting nauseous, as fistfights in the crowd and nudity would fill the day, which started at 6 A.M.

Suggested by WIP-FM Philadelphia show host Angelo Cataldi, this gets nearly every major celebrity — of sorts — into this, interviewing them and showing them in action. Sure, WIP didn’t share footage, but did you expect them to? This was like Roman circuses and even the stories told by my old roommate can’t compare to the reality.

Here’s hoping this doc gets wide release.

No One Died: The Wing Bowl Story screens as part of the 2025 Calgary Underground Film Festival, which runs April 17–27. For more information, visit https://www.calgaryundergroundfilm.org/.

I’ve been way too lax in reviewing this movie, which I’ve been wanting to see for a long time. Sometimes, when I love a filmmaker, such as Christopher Bickel, whose The Theta Girl and Bad Girls are both incredible watches, or an artist, I always worry about their next work.

What was I thinking?

This movie is so perfect for me. Just imagine, a more well-thought-out Midsommar that has actually seen The Wicker Man — and on drugs, mind you — but also knows about collecting records, the joy of finding lost media and understands the allure of strangeness like the Arica, Source Family/Father Yod/Ya Ho Wa 13 and the Process Church and how today’s youth only gets the cool veneer of these lost groups — well, The Process is now kinda sorta Best Friends Animal Shelter — and not the at-times harsh reality. It’s easy to love black metal for its aura of kvlt, yet I doubt you’d participate in the burning of a stave church.

Made for the price of a used car, this movie finds Pater Noster and his band/church lying low after recording several albums in the distant past, one found by Max (Adara Starr), a record store employee that probably only is there to get the discount and build up her own collection of albums. Store owner Sam (Shaley Renew), co-worker Abby (Sanethia Dresch), Gretchen (Shelby Lois Guinn), and Jay Sin (Josh Outzen) get obsessed with the songs. When an invitation to visit the actual Pater Noster compound comes to Max, they all decide to go. Armed with info from cult podcaster Dennis Waverly (Tim Cappello, not playing a sax), they think this is going to be a laugh.

Maybe they haven’t watched the films of Herschell Gordon Lewis or I Drink Your Blood.

Meeting Pater Noster (Mike Amason) may be the last thing they do.

Even crazier is how perfect the music is for this film, featuring The Restoration, Brandy & the Butcher, Turbo Gatto, EZ Shakes, Stagbriar, Ass/Bastard, In/Humanity, Transonics, Hot Lava Monster, Marshall Brown and Larb as well as Tim Cappello playing that sax.

Here’s how the movie was sold on Indiegogo: “The movies we make are punk rock demo tapes. We operate outside of Hollywood and traditional distribution routes. We make movies for people looking for something different, not defined by focus groups and corporate interests. You won’t find this movie in a Walmart because it doesn’t belong in a Walmart.”

That couldn’t be more true. This feels truer to the insane spirit of drive-in movies that you wonder, “Who is this for, other than me?” than any movie I’ve seen in years. Yet it feels real, lived in, authentic. This is, quite literally, the actual shit. A movie where you feel for the victims just as much as for the victimizers, a place where you think that you too could be trapped, because as much as I love the cults of the 70s, I know I would never survive.

A near-perfect film. Find it and live in it now.

Pater Noster and the Mission of Light screens as part of the 2025 Calgary Underground Film Festival, which runs April 17–27. For more information, visit https://www.calgaryundergroundfilm.org

From the CUFF program: “The story of D.O.A. frontman Joey “Shithead” Keithley, who transitioned from a punk activist musician to politician when he was elected for the Green Party in Burnaby, BC. In 2018, punk icon Joe Keithley turned art into reality by winning a council seat in his hometown of Vancouver. When he ran for reelection in 2022, his campaign demonstrated how music can still effect change, even in these surreal times. Something Better Change documents Keithley’s 40+ year journey as an activist musician in Canada’s most iconic punk band, and how it informs him as a Green Party politician today.”

Scott Crawford also directed Creem: America’s Only Rock’n’roll Magazine and Salad Days: A Decade of Punk In Washington.

This features appearances by Ian and Alex MacKaye, Duff McKagan, Jello Biafra, Beto O’Rourke, Keith Morris, and Dave Grohl as it tells the story of how Keithley has transitioned from frontman to politician.

As The Stranglers said in the song of the same name:

“Something’s happening and it’s happening right now
You’re too blind to see it
Something’s happening and it’s happening right now
Ain’t got time to wait”

Joe didn’t want to wait for someone else to do the things he saw that weren’t happening. This shows the journey of someone who once went by Joey Shithead, from punk to a man concerned about his neighbors. Unlike many politicians, he talks about the actions he wants to take, not just running for power or popularity.

I encourage you to see this movie — check out the Facebook and Instagram pages — because it’s inspiring to see someone take action because they genuinely believe in it. It reaffirmed my faith that sometimes, good people do good things.

Something Better Change screens as part of the 2025 Calgary Underground Film Festival, which runs April 17–27. For more information, visit https://www.calgaryundergroundfilm.org/.