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DanXIII

1,300 stories

Sinister Shorts: Girls Night 2, Blind Ben Says, and Jingle!

Hey creeps, let’s focus our eerie eyeballs on a few new sinister shorts comin’ our way! Girls Night 2 Writer/Director David Teixeira returns with the sequel to his original short (this is all assumption…I have no idea if there actually is a Girls Night Part Uno, and I’m far too busy microwaving pizza rolls to check Google)! Anyway, the long and the short of Girls Night 2 is as follows: Jess (Marina de Sousa) hangs out with her pal Pierre (Vincent Conty) spending a night screening films and having terrible nightmares about being accosted by a sinister slasher from her past. Before long the paradigm is flipped and the maniac appears in the really real world bringing with it secrets and murder! Having not seen the first part of the story, Girls Night 2 is easy enough to follow with it’s standard stalk n’ slay scenario. Where the short shines is in it’s fever dream, giallo-esque qualities, where strange dreams

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DanXIII

Apr 6, 2018

ForeignIndieMovies

Movie Review: Accident is a Beautiful, if Lightweight Thriller

Two women on their way to a music festival hitch a ride with two dudes in a stolen car. Things get slightly rapey and the car goes a shootin’ down into a ravine, where our “heroes” become trapped in the overturned vehicle. Horribly wounded the gang tries to survive the night with little chance of rescue…but can they survive each other and the evil that greed can inspire? While the story line, as evidenced by my lil’ synopsis up there may be a bit lightweight (I actually would call it compact, streamlined, and uncomplicated), Accident more than makes up for it in visual panache. Director Dan Tondowski and Cinematographer Maxime Cointe have created a masterpiece (in the ‘looking good’ department that is) of long, unbroken shots and serpentine camera moves (both natural and digitally enhanced) that are rather astonishing at times, and they also manage to effectively dial it back once the protagonists become trapped within the confines of the

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DanXIII

Apr 2, 2018

IndieMovies

DVD Review: Curse of the Mayans is a Serviceable Sci-Fi Adventure

Dr. Alan Green (Steve Wilcox…who looks alarmingly like Ridley Scott) discovers a manuscript that he believes holds the key to solving the disappearance of the Mayans centuries before, which results in him hiring a team of spunky spelunkers headed by Danielle Nobel (Carla Ortiz…who thankfully looks nothing like Ridley Scott since she has a nude scene) to put that pesky parchment to the test! Well these folks bitch and moan and trek through the jungle for a long, long time before they arrive at an underwater tomb from which they unleash an evil from beyond the stars. Kicking out the positive jams; this film is extremely well shot, and features some truly beautiful locations (yup, the film makers actually filmed in Mexico, at ancient Mayan ruins) that add an immeasurable amount of production value to Curse of the Mayans. Along with those vistas comes some solid acting, and a unique (if uneven) story…but the real show stopper is the cool

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DanXIII

Mar 31, 2018

Movies

Movie Review: Valley of the Rats is a New Spin on the Beloved Giallo Genre!

I’m just going to begin this revoltin’ review by saying Valley of the Rats is one hell of a hard fright flick to review…but I’m going to do my level headed god damn best… The long and the short of the narrative goes as follows: A dude is accused of killing his girlfriend, but isn’t formally charged with the crime. So, that being the case, he rents a limo, and rides around town following leads and having philosophical debates with various shady dudes about the evil city and how it relates to existence. As more of the case is revealed via flashbacks, the narrative becomes loser, the dialog more sparse, and the end result is akin to having a fever dream while watching a classic giallo flick (think sex, violence, and symbolism in equal measure). I’m not going to beat around the bush here my creeps; Valley of the Rats is about as nontraditional a film as you will find.

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DanXIII

Mar 28, 2018

ForeignIndieMovies

Movie Review: The Twilight People is an Obscure Creature Feature you Need to See!

A diver named Matt (played by John Ashley and his sideburns) is brought aboard a ship and kidnapped by it’s crew, led by the Aryan Steinman (played by Jan Merlin and his horribly dyed hair), to a remote island where a Doctor (Charles Macaulay, who you cats would know as Dracula from William Crain’s classic Blacula) is performing bizarre experiments to turn beasts into men (now before you scream “This is a rip-off of The Island of Dr. Moreau!”, let me tell you that this film is blazingly original as the doctor here is named “Gordon”). Anyway, ol’ Dr. G tells Matty that he personally selected him to become a super-being, which leaves our hero unimpressed, so he decides to escape from this island hell. Lucky for him, the Doctor’s gorgeous daughter Neva (Pat Woodell) decides to help him along with the off-the-wall manimals locked in the doc’s dungeon basement…and with that back-up what could possibly go wrong? As derivative

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DanXIII

Mar 27, 2018

IndieMovies

Movie Review: Ghoul School is a Gloriously Absurd Fright Flick Experience!

Steve and Jeff, a couple of hard-luck horror hound losers that attend a high school that has to be down the street from Nuke ‘Em High, find their very existence turned upside down when some thugs accost the school’s janitor looking for some…some…I’m not sure they say exactly…and push a mysterious button that releases deadly toxins into the school’s water supply that turns the student body (more specifically the swim team) into flesh-eating, blue skinned, razor toothed monsters! Along the way, Joe Franklin (ask your grandparents kids) and Jackie “The Jokeman” Martling (ask your parents kids) show up for no reason (well Jackie showed up to throw his merch all over every nook and cranny of the scenery), extreme gore splashes across the screen, hard rockin’ ensues, lines are flubbed, and our “heroes” attempt to save the day! Low budget, low brow, and gloriously absurd, Ghoul School is a whole heap of fright flick fun! There are plenty of ridiculous

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DanXIII

Mar 26, 2018

IndieMovies

Movie Review: 4/20 Massacre is an Impressive Modern Slasher Flick!

I usually find stoner flicks to be absolutely dreadful, pandering, horsecrap of the highest order…like I’d rather have hepatitis of the asshole than watch one. So imagine my absolute delight when 4/20 Massacre darkened my doorstep… The story of 4/20 Massacre goes as follows: 5 young ladies head out into the woods over the 4/20 “holiday” to celebrate their friend Jess’ (played by the ever-welcome Jamie Bernadette giving another kick-ass performance) birthday. Upon arrival they are given a dire warning from the local Forest Ranger (a tour de force performance from James Storm) to stick to the trails and avoid the hill country which is home to some hard-ass pot farmers…like of the murderous variety. Being the experienced woodspeople that they are, the women get lost almost immediately, and have a run in with a shell-shocked dude that escaped one of those said hard-asses mentioned a sentence ago. Regardless of the now double douse of “stay the fuck out of

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DanXIII

Mar 25, 2018

IndieMovies

Movie Review: Imitation Girl is Thoughtful Sci-Fi at it’s Best!

A wad of black ooze rockets down from the stars and lands on some kids spank mag and assumes the form of Julianna Fox (Lauren Ashley Carter), the world’s leading porn star (I swear to you this is an arthouse sci-fi drama…just bear with me). This creature, Imitation, wanders through the desert before she is taken in by a family from whom she learns about humanity and actually being a human being. Meanwhile, in New York City, Julianna is growing weary of the adult biz (and her drug dealing side hustle), and she jumps at the chance to audition for a prestigious musical conservatory (seems she was a great pianist before she took up the skin flute) after a chance meeting with an old teacher. Eventually our alien protagonist becomes aware of who she copied, and sets off to the city to meet her other half face to face. While the description above sounds like it could easily dovetail into

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DanXIII

Mar 23, 2018

IndieMovies

Movie Review: But Deliver Us From Evil is a Jumbled Mess of a Fright Flick

The biblical succubus Lilith returns in the modern age (and appears in Georgia) and begins murdering religious figures around town (and by murdering I mean seducing them and making them explode) which baffles the local police (though in truth constructing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich seems like it would be an insurmountable challenge to these geezers). Eventually our slinky antagonist makes her way to a local college campus and begins to stalk sad sack new student Jeremiah who’s lineage as a long lost offspring of a Pastor with the power to destroy the demon makes him a threat. Holy shit, But Deliver Us From Evil, you are one stinking piece of cinematic hot garbage! The whole affair seems like a series of random scenes stitched together with some sort of whisper of a plot thrown in…and about that plot; with it’s strong religious overtones was this film made for the church goin’ crowd? Well if so, there is a

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DanXIII

Mar 21, 2018

ForeignMovies

Movie Review: Cold Hell is a Dark Thriller With a Unique Perspective!

Ozge (Violetta Schurawlow) has it tough all over; she’s a Turkish cab driver livin’ in Vienna which makes her about as popular as a fart in a submarine with the locals, and most of her family isn’t too keen on her either. As you may guess, this makes Ozge a bit anxious, so she heads to the local gym to kick dude’s asses up under their hats (as well as the occasional policeman or customer). As fate would have it, there’s a real sick ticket roaming the streets, torturing sex workers of the Muslim faith to death, and our heroine gets a glimpse of this madman (and vice-versa) as he makes like the wind and blows the scene after killing Ozge’s prostitute neighbor. After dealing with unsympathetic cops, Big O’s nightmare comes true as the killer returns and the two battle in an out of control taxi (a real jaw-dropper of a sequence I must say). This leads to a

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DanXIII

Mar 15, 2018

DanXIII

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