The film positions the pandemic not just as a health crisis, but as the ultimate permission slip. When Jimmy (director, writer and everything else Timothy J. Gray) loses his job, the social contract expires. The accidental death of his neighbor’s dog acts as a gateway snack, a moral crossing that convinces him that in a world that’s stopping, he can finally start.

Jimmy then kills and eats several people, many of whom are also Timothy J. Gray. If you’re someone who doesn’t deal well with SOV or pandemic cinema, filmed by a small crew of sometimes just one person, this may not be the movie to start with.

One of the most surreal elements of the film is Gray playing almost every role. This creates a bizarre atmosphere where Jimmy isn’t just killing strangers; he is essentially harvesting different versions of himself. Is Jimmy actually killing neighbors, or is this a psychological manifestation of his own self-loathing and isolation?

Knowing Gray is often the only person behind and in front of the camera adds a layer of genuine madness to the performance. You aren’t just watching a character lose it; you’re watching a filmmaker work through the logistics of a one-man gore-fest.

You can get this from Janice Click.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Chris Stokes never lets you down. You know, when he and Marques Houston put together a Tubi Original, you’re about to get high entertainment, some level of sleaze, and the kind of viewing experience that quickly goes by. 

Sean Stevens (Nate Wyatt) is one of the world’s biggest pop stars. After being robbed and knocked out, he wakes up in an unfamiliar bed. That’s when he’s introduced to Stacy Freeman (Asia Holiday), who tells him he is in a safe place.” However, safety is an illusion; Stacy reveals herself as his biggest fan and claims she is the only one who can properly care for him. As you can imagine, she goes all Misery on him, keeping him locked up all for herself because she’s a megafan of his singing and makes him perform just for her. Sure, he only has one song, but come on. Just go with it.

Stacy isolates Sean from the outside world, gaslighting him by claiming his family doesn’t actually want him back, hoping to convince him that they only want to profit from his fame. While the world searches for the missing star, Stacy keeps him captive, driven by the fact that she has been waiting so long for this moment. Who can blame her when she builds a specialized room for Sean, not for his comfort, but as a studio where he is forced to write and record an entire album dedicated solely to her, Phantom of the Paradise-style.

Of course, like all Stokes’ projects, this ends with a cliffhanger, and I assume that the second — and third — films were all shot at the same time. I don’t see that as a bad thing. When a movie has a psychotic fake wedding ceremony, you can never hate on it.

I love that — like Italian exploitation directors of old — Stokes starts from a template, whether that be an erotic thriller, a child gone bad movie or, in this case, a kidnapping by someone with mental issues movie. Then, he fills his cast with people of color and goes from following the blueprint into his own thing, unafraid if things feel off or weird. These movies exist in their own universe, and if Tubi really were the mom-and-pop video store I dream it is, they would have their own shelf with his name above it. Kudos.

You can watch this on Tubi.

The beauty of this new Strangers movie is that somehow, some way, it has made The Strangers: Prey At Night into a much better movie just by virtue of its existence. Just like The Strangers – Chapter 1, this was directed by Renny Harlin, written by Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland, and shot in Slovakia. 

Does Renny Harlin have photos of studio heads with goats? Because seriously, how does one make some of the biggest bombs in Hollywood history and keep coming back? Who is demanding his movies? Who wanted three Stranger movies that start with the worst conceit: What if a home-invasion movie, centered on the randomness and lack of knowledge about the why of its antagonists, overly explained their motivations to the audience?

Anyways, we’re in Venus, Oregon, a place where we learn that Pin-Up Girl is really a waitress named Shelley (Ema Horvath) and she and the rest of the Strangers — Scarecrow and Dollface — are looking to finish off Maya (Madelaine Petsch), a victim who lost her husband (Froy Gutierrez) but survived their last assault. Now she’s in a hospital, which may as well be Haddonfield Memorial Hospital. She’s half-alive, the cops are covering things up, and she soon is chased throughout the place by the Strangers, even hiding inside a morgue drawer with the body of her dead boyfriend.

As her family makes plans to get her out of town and to Portland, she hooks up with Nurse Danica (Brooke Johnson) and her roommates Chris (Florian Clare), Gregory (Gabriel Basso) and Wayne (Milo Callaghan). Don’t get used to them or the cop who helps her, Billy Bufford (Joplin Sibtain).

At least Maya is able to kill a wild boar and eliminate one of the Strangers, but not before we learn that Shelley and the man who would become Scarecrow attended a school together, where they killed a girl named Tamara. And now you know, I guess.

This whole thing felt pointless, but I was trapped on a plane and couldn’t exactly walk out, so I at least finished it. I await the last chapter, as I will probably watch that on a long flight as well, my chosen place to see movies I feel obligated to watch.

Wes (Drew Marvick) wants to be a monster hunter, even if he isn’t very good at it. Yet when he meets a coven of vampiric ladies — Scarlett (Nina Lanee Kent, Murdercise, which was also made by co-directors Angelica De Alba and Paul Ragsdale), Selena (Adriana Uchishiba), Zooey (Meredith Mohler) and Reese (Kansas Bowling) — Wes pitches the idea of a subscription app where users pay for encounters that stop just short of death. This creates a bizarre symbiotic relationship: the vampires get a steady, safe food supply and Wes gets the fame and money he failed to find as a monster hunter.

Great title. Decent poster. And this is shot well, too. Perhaps it doesn’t need to be two hours in length, but it remains fun throughout, even if the motivations of the vampires go from bad to good a few too many times. As the vamps add more women to their blood cult, including Wes’ mother Mimi (Ginger Lynn!), the power all goes to some of their heads.

This also has Jessa Jupiter Flux as Gwen, Wes’ camerawoman sister, and their assistant — and total geek — Quentin (Shane Meyers). So much of the movie is told in montage, but you also get to see plenty of gorgeous vampiric vixens, including Regina (adult star Little Puck), Penelope (Ellie Church), Eva (Bebe Bardot), Neve (Delawna McKinney), Siren (August Kyss), Ronnie (Satta Murray) and Zara (Lo Espinosa). One of them even remarks that she’s excited to be like one of the girls in The Vampire Lovers!

The girls also have to stay ahead of their former master, Harvey (Nick Zagone), conspiracy-obsessed incels and true love. I really loved that Scarlett is so pro-women-in-charge, anti-capitalist, and all about turning other women on to give them a taste of what power is like. 

The film employs a rich palette of pinks, purples, and blues, which masks its indie budget and gives it a dreamlike, music-video quality during its many montages. This improves on the day-for-night flashback at the beginning, and the film looks uniformly good from that point on. The montages drag a bit and some of the elements are confusing, like is Scarlett good or evil and what’s this about a vampire war that gets forgotten just after it’s brought up. But for an indie feature, it’s way more visually interesting than most stuff out there and has its heart in the right — and most fun — place.

You can watch this on Bloodstream.

Director and co-writer Johnnard Harper has made more than twenty movies in a short time. Working with writer Anthony Leone, he’s made a perfect Tubi Original: cheap, outrageous and quick. 

We meet April (Kennedy Williams) and Derek (Joseph Mason), a couple deep in the struggle. They’re trying to make it, but the rent is due, and the bank account is screaming. Their solution? Get a roommate.

What follows is a parade of human wreckage that feels like a fever dream. Every interviewee is either legally insane, looking for a three-way, or both. It’s a montage of desperation that captures the true horror of the modern gig economy. There’s one moment when they meet a potential roommate, Jason, who is a stripper and an OnlyFans creator named Donald Trunk. This scene is incredible because it’s a one-take wonder, as at least two of the actors are visible breaking throughout. No notes.

Eventually, they settle on Megan (Mikiya Scottia). She’s polite, she’s clean, she’s perfect. Of course, because we’ve seen the first five minutes of the movie, we know Megan has already stacked a few bodies. We’re in on the joke; the roommates are the punchline.

This being a Tubi Original, there’s a late-in-the-film twist you’d never see coming, and because I said that, you can see it coming. But you still won’t see it coming. I apologize if this makes no sense, unless you are a watcher of numerous Tubi Originals and then, well, you get it.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Editor’s note: Cinematic Void will be playing this movie on January 24 at 7:00 PM at The Sie Film Center in Denver. You can get tickets here. For more information, visit Cinematic Void.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joseph Perry writes for the film websites Gruesome Magazine, The Scariest Things, Horror Fuel, The Good, the Bad and the Verdict and Diabolique Magazine; for the film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope and Drive-In Asylum; and for the pop culture websites When It Was Cool and Uphill Both Ways. He is also one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast and can occasionally be heard as a cohost on Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast.

Official synopsis: Anything That Moves follows nubile sex worker Liam who bikes with his girlfriend — his partner in both business and pleasure — through the city delivering snacks and divine satisfaction to his love-hungry clients. Meanwhile, a serial killer’s gory murders are piling up and all the evidence seems to point back to the lovers’ bed. 

If you have been wondering what Ginger Lynn and Nina Hartley are up to these days, writer/director  Alex Phillips has you covered with his latest feature Anything That Moves. The two actresses add adult-film authenticity to this tale of bicycling sex workers Liam (Hal Baum) and his girlfriend Thea (Jiana Nicole), who get caught up in the case of a serial killer who targets Liam’s clients.

The film’s aesthetic combines 1970s era porn vibes with that decade’s sleazy, gory grindhouse horror gruesomeness. There’s more here than mere pastiche, but social issue elements and sincerity tend to get muddled amongst all of the calculated weirdness and exploitation activity.

There’s no denying the fine 16mm cinematography work by Hunter Zimny, who marvelously captures the oppressiveness of both the Chicago summer and the powers that be that try to hold down the sex workers, along with the sex scenes that vary from tender to violent as well as the decidedly graphic horror mayhem. The performances are all committed in their own ways, from the more sincere to the over the top, the latter including Frank V. Ross and Jack Dunphy as two police officers accusing Liam and Thea of being prime suspects.

Anything That Moves is a unique vision. If you’re in the mood for what Fantasia’s official synopsis describes as “a psychosexual dark comedy thriller” that bounces around but never seems to quite settle on a main thematic focus, it’s certainly worth a view. 

A decade after they were in middle school together, Rowan (Ryan de Villiers) takes on Mag (Jane de Wet) as his roommate, and her obsession with him grows. She may claim she’s a hag — and the film has characters remind her that this is outdated terminology — but she’s really just an old-fashioned, obsessed with him.

Directed and written by Sam Wineman (Queer for Fear: The History of Queer Horror), this begins with Rowan struggling to get over the death of his fiancée and struggling to work every day in a coffee shop in the lobby of an office building. He and his boss, Opal (Adore Delano), try to get noticed by the music executives who come in and out for a drink, but they barely get noticed. Or even worse, when Rowan does get seen by one of them, it’s just for a casting couch down low situation.

Before Rowan came out, he dated women. One of them was Mag, and she feels like that was the only time that she was loved. Now, she is back in his life, in what she compares to Will & Grace. Soon, she’s worked her way in, butting heads with his best friend K.C. (Anja Taljaard) and alienating everyone else in his life.

I actually loved this. Sure, it’s kinda sorta Single White Female, except that Mag writes insane songs about love being a shell, gets into a MMF threesome with Rowan and his personal trainer when they’re drunk, and oh yeah, puts his electric toothbrush into her lady business and jills off with it, knowing he’s going to be scrubbing his bicuspids with it that night. This has a go for it sexual energy that’s great; it’s not afraid to go there. And go further.

Also: Never eat apples if you’re staying with your best gay friend and his stalker ex-straight hag.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Directed and written by Jezar Riches, Fan of Mine inverts what you expect: diva singer Yari Iris (Angeleah Speights) is getting her life back together after a tragedy and going on tour. She decides to meet one of her fans, Mackenzie Sunday (Sylena Rai), and they end up having a real connection. Except that, well, this is a Tubi movie, so Yari quickly becomes friends with the fan and her family.

This even sets up a sequel, just like so many Tubi movies. Yari has her mother trapped in the house and a dead husband. Instead of getting herself together and recording her new music, she decides to get as close as she can to Mackenzie’s family, eventually inviting herself in and even taking care of everything, such as stopping a school bully. When she decides to get with Mackenzie’s husband, even he comes around to the fact that she’s lost it. But when a star is used to getting anything they want, there’s no way that she’s going to take no from anyone, even a family.

I love it when people post horrible reviews of Tubi movies. It’s like drinking Malort and thinking you’re getting champagne. No, you’re getting Malort. It’ll get you drunk, real drunk, but you’d better be ready for everything that entails, like having your mouth taste like eating from an ashtray would improve the taste. Similarly, making light of Tubi movies for their bad scripts, ridiculous moments, and poor acting is an indictment of you, not the films you watched.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Remember Married to a Balla? Skye (Dominique Madison) tried to get away from her abusive pro-athlete husband, Sandino Washington (Emanuel Alexander), and protect her sons, Justice (Darian J. Barnes), Kareem (Alonte Williams) and Jordan (Mario Golden). At the end, Skye shot him and then played football with her sons. 

So how do we have a sequel?

Sandino lived.

Directed by Emily Skye and written by Jacqueline Davis, Jamal Hill, and Tressa Azarel Smallwood, this movie reunites Skye and has her fall in love with a man from her past, Dr. Brett Langston (Jataun Gilbert). She left him all the way back in high school for Sandino, and he’s been in love with her ever since. Maybe she gets over her half-dead man quickly, but one of her sons is more interested in getting into the drug game than having a new dad. As for her oldest, he’s in college and is like when a sitcom character goes away due to a contract issue. He’s in this, but not for long.

Does Sandino get what he wants and trap Skye again? Can she have a career and love? Do we find out what a balla is? Will we get a third Balla movie? All these questions and more will be answered.

You can watch this on Tubi.