I’ll be the first to admit that David Lynch’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi masterpiece Dune from 1984 is deeply flawed. Deeply. That being said, I love the film.
Read MoreA Bullet for Breakfast (2020)
A Bullet for Breakfast is a short film now available to view on YouTube from writer and director Wade Hampton about... well I’m not quite sure, to be honest. There are several masked murderers, a woman named Miss Brickle that seems to have magical powers, and a vague plot revolving around various characters all trying to get to some mcguffin but we aren’t given much more than that. The whole time I was watching this I couldn’t help but feel like I had missed something like this is a piece of a larger story or the latest in a series.
Read MoreThe Amusement Park (2019)
In 1973, George Romero was commissioned by the Lutheran Society to make an educational film about ageism and elder abuse. The resulting film, The Amusement Park, is probably the most fucked up PSA ever made, and was considered so disturbing by the investors that they refused to release it. Once believed to be lost, a print of The Amusement Park was found in 2018, restored, and is now getting a wide release on the Shudder streaming platform.
Read MoreManiac Cop (1988) #RetroReview
William Lustig's Maniac Cop was released on May 13th in 1988 and features a trio of genre heavyweights in Tom Atkins, Bruce Campbell, and Richard Roundtree. A funky meld of action and horror, it manages to craft a sort of subversive response to the vigilante cop subgenre. In honor of its thirty-third anniversary, let’s take a look back.
Read MoreHere Are the Young Men (2020)
Boys will be boys in Here are the Young men, where the dark side of early adulthood is explored in millennial Ireland. Cool girl Anya Taylor-Joy overshadows a trio of troubled friends in this coming of age tale that hints at some truly dark and disturbing possibilities but comes up frustratingly short. Three Irish lads leave school without much of a plan for the future, except for engaging in one last hedonistic summer of fun.
Read MoreLapsis (2020)
Low-budget science fiction can be very tricky to pull off successfully. How do you believably world-build with the financial and time constraints common to indie productions? Lapsis embraces these limitations, a quirky social commentary that still serves up and explores some very big ideas.
Read MoreDonny's Bar Mitzvah (2021)
Absurd, bizarre, and decidedly politically incorrect, Donny’s Bar Mitzvah is ostensibly a found footage comedy that is supposed to be a VHS recording of a bar mitzvah in a small town in Michigan from 1998. However, the film isn’t concerned with strictly maintaining that conceit and uses the VHS look and ‘90s videography editing flourishes more for visual aesthetic. In any case, I found the movie to be unrelentingly funny, even though the rapid-fire gross-out silliness sometimes gave way to some dark and uncomfortable humor.
Read MoreMother Noose Presents Once Upon a Nightmare (2021)
There’s a point during the opening credit sequence of Mother Noose Presents: Once Upon a Nightmare where a sexy Red Riding Hood type character is riding her bike through the woods when she is suddenly attacked by a werewolf. The werewolf slashes her across the chest, conveniently ripping her shirt to expose her breast, which in turn leads to a close-up of the werewolf getting an erection and ejaculating. It was also at about here where I started questioning every life decision that had lead me to this moment.
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