INTER-STATE (U.S., 2025)
Official synopsis: An idealistic scientist gets recruited by a tech startup with claims of inventing teleportation, but in a freak accident she brings an alien creature into our world: The Tracksuit Man.
Writer/director/editor Sam Gorman’s Inter-State wonderfully shows how imagination, quality acting, writing, and helming, and sheer chutzpah can help create a fun science fiction feature that overcomes its budgetary limitations to deliver an entertaining time. Aubrey Clyburn makes for a superb protagonist as Ben, a young, underemployed woman living with her ailing aunt. When Ben has an opportunity to work on a startup teleportation project with the titular “company” — actually two entrepreneurs named Theo (Max Mooney) and Adrian (Aidan Macaluso) working out of a barn — she jumps at the chance, only to find that the trio has unleashed a series of violent creatures on their unsuspecting town. The screenplay has us rooting for the success of the trio’s project, even if Theo and Adrian aren’t as easy to invest in as Ben . . . and that’s by design. Bonus points from me for the dimension-hopping Tracksuit Men giving off the very cool vibe of monsters from the original The Outer Limits TV series!
THE MAN WITH THE BLACK UMBRELLA (U.S., 2025)
Official synopsis: On January 8th, 2015, a man with a black umbrella broke into 818 Hilltop drive at 3:38 a.m., committing a double murder. The investigation that ensued proved that some murders shouldn’t be solved.
With his found footage horror film The Man with the Black Umbrella, writer/director Ricky Umberger crafts a murder mystery with occult elements. The performances, plot, and direction are all solid, and there are plenty of creepy set pieces — one particular incident in a funeral home is a real chiller. There are certain tropes and cliches in many found footage horror movies that tend to be reasons why the subgenre is less interesting to viewers who are not fans of it, and unfortunately, The Man with the Black Umbrella includes several of them, such as wandering around a location for a long period of time with not much happening, and the dreaded “Who edited all this together?” and “Why and how is the character still carrying a camera through all this?!?” questions arising. Plenty of talent on both sides of the camera is on display here and found footage devotees will find much to enjoy, but those not enamored with found footage horror aren’t likely to be converted by The Man with the Black Umbrella.
Inter-State and The Man with the Black Umbrella screened as part of GenreBlast, which ran August 29–31, 2025 in Winchester, Virginia.
