Horror Fuel
☰ Browse the Crypt
Author

Joseph Perry

652 stories
Horror Fuel

Genre-Movie Mecca FilmQuest Reveals Its 2021 In-Person Lineup

Provo, Utah’s FilmQuest film festival has announced its lineup of cinematic genre-cinema gems — including 14 feature films and dozens of short films from around the world— for its 2021 in-person lineup. The fest takes place from October 29–November 6. Following is the official press announcement. FilmQuest, one of the largest genre festivals in the country and one of MovieMaker Magazine’s 2021 “Top 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee,” announced its 8th annual edition. The 2021 in-person lineup is headlined by the Tim Blake Nelson, Angela Bettis, and David Arquette starring Ghosts of the Ozarks, Netflix’s The Old Ways, The Free Fall starring Andrea Londo and Shawn Ashmore, and the Slamdance Best Documentary winner Code Name: Nagasaki. Taking place October 29th–November 6th in downtown Provo, Utah, the festival is requiring all guests be vaccinated, following a model it was able to test run successfully in May. “We were able to host our postponed 2020 festival this past May in-person,

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Sep 24, 2021
Horror Fuel

Wreak Havoc Horror Film Festival Delivers Shocks and Shudders in North Carolina

Vampires, ghosts, slashers, and all manner of monsters — human and otherwise — descend on North Carolina as Wreak Havoc Horror Film Festival kicks off the Halloween season October 1st and 2nd, 2021, with award-winning independent horror features and short films from around the world. Following is the official press information. While most businesses and services have experienced shortages of both products and staff, this local horror film festival has not seen a shortage of blood, screams or terror. Seven years ago Wreak Havoc created a film festival and has cultivated a loyal following by hosting a festival of world premieres, new directors and writers, as well as fan favorites of the triad and surrounding areas. This year will be no different when we return to Marketplace Cinemas in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, October 1st and 2nd. Festivities and frights will begin Friday October 1st at 6pm with an introduction and exhibitions and a WORLD PREMIERE of Birthday Boy, a short

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Sep 24, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: The Parapod: A Very British Ghost Hunt (2021)

If you are like me, The Parapod: A Very British Ghost Hunt will be your first experience with Ian Boldsworth and Barry Dodds, and their wildly popular podcast The Parapod. No need to worry, though, as this fun paranormal documentary serves as both a fine introduction to the duo and their work and what must be a blast to long-time listeners to see the gents in film form. Boldsworth is a skeptic, while Dodds believes in such supernatural things as ghosts and curses. The crowdfunded film sees the pair travel — in a converted hearse with the Parapod logo on the doors — to reputedly some of the most haunted locations in the United Kingdom, such as the “screaming woods” of Pluckley and an underground crypt in Edinburgh said to be used by a coven. All along the road trip, Boldsworth sets Dodds up as the butt of jokes and pranks — such as rather suddenly being told that he

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Sep 23, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Toronto International Film Festival): Saloum

Director Jean Luc Herbulot’s Senegal/Congo coproduction Saloum is an insane mind-blower. This genre mash-up is as fun as it is suspenseful and poignant. Bangui’s Hyenas is a trio of mercenaries — Chaka (Yann Gael), Rafa (Roger Sallah) and Minuit (Mentor Ba) — on a mission to bring a cartel drug lord to Dakar, Senegal, with a load of gold on hand. When their plane encounters a problem, they are forced to land on the Saloum Delta. The four men seek shelter at a lodging camp run by a man named Omar (Bruno Henry), who Chaka claims to know, though Omar doesn’t recognize him. Minuit senses that Chaka is keeping a dangerous secret from the rest of the trio, and a mute woman guest named Awa (Evelyne Ily Juhen) complicates matters when she threatens to expose the men, who are going under aliases, to local police captain Souleymane (Ndiaga Mbow) unless they let her escape with them. Herbulot, who cowrote the

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Sep 17, 2021
Horror Fuel

Beyond Fest Returns to Indoor Big Screens with a Bevy of Amazing Fear Fare

Los Angeles’ Beyond Fest returns to indoor cinemas this year with a stellar lineup of horror, science fiction, and genre-film goodness. From September 29th–October 11th, the festival features cutting edge fear fare from around the globe including world and west coast premieres, 4K restorations of beloved classics, and much more. Following is the official press announcement. Beyond Fest, the highest-attended genre film festival in the US, is excited to announce its complete slate of 2021 programming comprising 39 features, including 8 world premieres, 4 US premieres, and 17 West Coast Premieres. Following a sold-out residency at the Mission Tiki Drive-In in 2020, Beyond Fest returns to theaters for 10 days of cinematic excess from Wednesday, September 29th–Monday, October 11th. Built in partnership with the American Cinematheque, Beyond Fest will screen at the Legion Theatre, Aero Theatre, and Los Feliz 3 with all ticket sales going to the 501c3 non-profit film institution. Attendance to all screenings require physical proof of vaccination

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Sep 17, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Reviews (Toronto International Film Festival): You Are Not My Mother and A Banquet

Beginning with one of the most harrowing scenes in recent memory, writer/director Kate Dolan’s Halloween-set Irish horror outing You Are Not My Mother serves up traditional European folklore in a modern urban setting. The result is one of the most thrilling, eerie cinematic experiences of this year. High-school student Char (Hazel Doupe) reluctantly accepts a ride to school from her seemingly depressed mother Angela (Carolyn Bracken), who almost drives the car straight into a horse. Angela disappears later that day but returns in a few days; however, she now seems to be in lighter moods, more active, and more engaged regarding spending time with Char. At first the bullied teen seems cautiously optimistic about her mother’s new behavior, but soon Angela begins displaying increasingly disturbing bearings. Char’s grandmother Rita (Ingrid Craigie), who makes talismans for protection, warns Char about a supernatural presence behind Angela, but Char wants none of that because she has heard schoolmates and neighbors mock her family

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Sep 14, 2021
Movie Reviews (Toronto International Film Festival): Kicking Blood and Mlungu Wam (Good Madam)

Movie Reviews (Toronto International Film Festival): Kicking Blood and Mlungu Wam (Good Madam)

Director Blaine Thurier’s Kicking Blood is a stylish vampire film that, like The Addiction (1995) and other entries in the genre, deals with these undead creatures’ thirst for blood as a chemical dependency. Anna (Alana Bale) is one such bloodsucker, and when she invites alcoholic and suddenly homeless Robbie (Luke Bilyk) to her place and tells him “I’m going to suck your blood and get high . . .”, he invites her to do that but after one last request. He then pours a bottle of booze down the sink and proclaims that he will never drink again as long as he lives. Intrigued by his oath, Anna refrains from biting him, and as she goes on to admire his determination to stick to his promise when giving in to his cravings would be so easy, she begins to rethink her lifestyle. Her vampire partners with whom she hunts, Nina (Ella Jonas Farlinger) and Boris (Benjamin Sutherland), are none too

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Sep 13, 2021
Horror Fuel

Fantastic Fest Announces Its Final Wave of Films for 2021

From folk horror to the supernatural to insane horror comedies and much more, this year’s Fantastic Fest is poised to present some of the most incredible scare-fare of 2021, along with science fiction, thrillers, action, and other genre gems. With a silent classic, restored fare from the 1980s, and of course world premieres, Austin’s Fantastic Fest presents amazing fare from around the world. Thos who can’t make it to Austin during the fest can still join in on the virtual portion of Fantastic Fest, FF@HOME, which takes place 9/30-10/11 on Alamo On Demand. Following is the official press release announcing the final wave of films for this year, along with information about how you can watch from home or at the festival. Fantastic Fest is proud to announce the final wave of programming for the festival’s 16th edition, featuring the widest selection of weird and wonderful films gathered from across the globe to screen in Austin, TX, from September 23rd

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Sep 12, 2021
Horror Fuel

Toronto International Film Festival 2021: Our Half-Dozen “Have to See!” Horror Films

Shocks and shudders abound during Toronto International Film Festival’s (TIFF) hybrid event September 9–18, 2021, with in-person cinema screenings in Toronto and digital screenings available to viewers across Canada. Among the incredible international line-up of horror, science fiction, thriller, and other genre-cinema styles are the following six stand-outs, which Horror Fuel highly recommends. My comments follow in italics after descriptions adapted from TIFF’s official program and website. Kicking Blood “Blaine Thurier’s sultry, perma-stoned, ultra-modern spin on the vampire genre evokes cult-horror figures like George A. Romero and Stuart Gordon.” Fusing the grittiness of George Romero’s Martin with the sly theatricality of Stuart Gordon’s early films (Re-Animator, From Beyond), Blaine Thurier’s Kicking Blood reimagines vampire mythology by transplanting it to the bohemian world Thurier has satirized since he began making films. Instead of the usual desiccated, tormented aristocrats with impossibly innocent victims, Thurier’s undead are hipster scavengers and swingers, their victims luckless hangers-on and drunks. Vampire Anna (Alanna Bale) is disappointed

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Sep 9, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Arrow Video FrightFest): The Retaliators

Strap on your seat belts and turn the volume up loud for The Retaliators (2021), a high-octane combination of revenge thriller, crime drama, and outright horror movie from codirectors Samuel Gonzalez Jr. and Bridget Smith. Power plays, power tools, and power chords abound in this gore-fueled exploitation shocker that serves up a fair amount of surprises. In the film’s opening sequence, two women have trouble with their van and are attacked by what look to be either zombies or backwoods mutants (I won’t spoil what they actually are). A bloodied rescuer attempts to save one of them, laying the groundwork for the scare fare ahead. Pastor John Bishop (Michael Lombardi) is the widowed father of two daughters, living in a peaceful, upscale small town. His teenage daughter Rebecca (Abbey Hafer) accidentally witnesses a crime in progress and is ruthlessly murdered by a vicious baddie named Ram Kady (Joseph Gatt). When local cop Jed (Marc Menchaca) offers Bishop an opportunity at

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Sep 2, 2021

More from Joseph Perry

Horror Fuel

Genre-Movie Mecca FilmQuest Reveals Its 2021 In-Person Lineup

Provo, Utah’s FilmQuest film festival has announced its lineup of cinematic genre-cinema gems — including 14 feature films and dozens of short films from around the world— for its 2021 in-person lineup. The fest takes place from October 29–November 6. Following is the official press announcement. FilmQuest, one of the largest genre festivals in the country and one of MovieMaker Magazine’s 2021 “Top 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee,” announced its 8th annual edition. The 2021 in-person lineup is headlined by the Tim Blake Nelson, Angela Bettis, and David Arquette starring Ghosts of the Ozarks, Netflix’s The Old Ways, The Free Fall starring Andrea Londo and Shawn Ashmore, and the Slamdance Best Documentary winner Code Name: Nagasaki. Taking place October 29th–November 6th in downtown Provo, Utah, the festival is requiring all guests be vaccinated, following a model it was able to test run successfully in May. “We were able to host our postponed 2020 festival this past May in-person,

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Sep 24, 2021
Horror Fuel

Wreak Havoc Horror Film Festival Delivers Shocks and Shudders in North Carolina

Vampires, ghosts, slashers, and all manner of monsters — human and otherwise — descend on North Carolina as Wreak Havoc Horror Film Festival kicks off the Halloween season October 1st and 2nd, 2021, with award-winning independent horror features and short films from around the world. Following is the official press information. While most businesses and services have experienced shortages of both products and staff, this local horror film festival has not seen a shortage of blood, screams or terror. Seven years ago Wreak Havoc created a film festival and has cultivated a loyal following by hosting a festival of world premieres, new directors and writers, as well as fan favorites of the triad and surrounding areas. This year will be no different when we return to Marketplace Cinemas in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, October 1st and 2nd. Festivities and frights will begin Friday October 1st at 6pm with an introduction and exhibitions and a WORLD PREMIERE of Birthday Boy, a short

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Sep 24, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: The Parapod: A Very British Ghost Hunt (2021)

If you are like me, The Parapod: A Very British Ghost Hunt will be your first experience with Ian Boldsworth and Barry Dodds, and their wildly popular podcast The Parapod. No need to worry, though, as this fun paranormal documentary serves as both a fine introduction to the duo and their work and what must be a blast to long-time listeners to see the gents in film form. Boldsworth is a skeptic, while Dodds believes in such supernatural things as ghosts and curses. The crowdfunded film sees the pair travel — in a converted hearse with the Parapod logo on the doors — to reputedly some of the most haunted locations in the United Kingdom, such as the “screaming woods” of Pluckley and an underground crypt in Edinburgh said to be used by a coven. All along the road trip, Boldsworth sets Dodds up as the butt of jokes and pranks — such as rather suddenly being told that he

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Sep 23, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Toronto International Film Festival): Saloum

Director Jean Luc Herbulot’s Senegal/Congo coproduction Saloum is an insane mind-blower. This genre mash-up is as fun as it is suspenseful and poignant. Bangui’s Hyenas is a trio of mercenaries — Chaka (Yann Gael), Rafa (Roger Sallah) and Minuit (Mentor Ba) — on a mission to bring a cartel drug lord to Dakar, Senegal, with a load of gold on hand. When their plane encounters a problem, they are forced to land on the Saloum Delta. The four men seek shelter at a lodging camp run by a man named Omar (Bruno Henry), who Chaka claims to know, though Omar doesn’t recognize him. Minuit senses that Chaka is keeping a dangerous secret from the rest of the trio, and a mute woman guest named Awa (Evelyne Ily Juhen) complicates matters when she threatens to expose the men, who are going under aliases, to local police captain Souleymane (Ndiaga Mbow) unless they let her escape with them. Herbulot, who cowrote the

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Sep 17, 2021
Horror Fuel

Beyond Fest Returns to Indoor Big Screens with a Bevy of Amazing Fear Fare

Los Angeles’ Beyond Fest returns to indoor cinemas this year with a stellar lineup of horror, science fiction, and genre-film goodness. From September 29th–October 11th, the festival features cutting edge fear fare from around the globe including world and west coast premieres, 4K restorations of beloved classics, and much more. Following is the official press announcement. Beyond Fest, the highest-attended genre film festival in the US, is excited to announce its complete slate of 2021 programming comprising 39 features, including 8 world premieres, 4 US premieres, and 17 West Coast Premieres. Following a sold-out residency at the Mission Tiki Drive-In in 2020, Beyond Fest returns to theaters for 10 days of cinematic excess from Wednesday, September 29th–Monday, October 11th. Built in partnership with the American Cinematheque, Beyond Fest will screen at the Legion Theatre, Aero Theatre, and Los Feliz 3 with all ticket sales going to the 501c3 non-profit film institution. Attendance to all screenings require physical proof of vaccination

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Sep 17, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Reviews (Toronto International Film Festival): You Are Not My Mother and A Banquet

Beginning with one of the most harrowing scenes in recent memory, writer/director Kate Dolan’s Halloween-set Irish horror outing You Are Not My Mother serves up traditional European folklore in a modern urban setting. The result is one of the most thrilling, eerie cinematic experiences of this year. High-school student Char (Hazel Doupe) reluctantly accepts a ride to school from her seemingly depressed mother Angela (Carolyn Bracken), who almost drives the car straight into a horse. Angela disappears later that day but returns in a few days; however, she now seems to be in lighter moods, more active, and more engaged regarding spending time with Char. At first the bullied teen seems cautiously optimistic about her mother’s new behavior, but soon Angela begins displaying increasingly disturbing bearings. Char’s grandmother Rita (Ingrid Craigie), who makes talismans for protection, warns Char about a supernatural presence behind Angela, but Char wants none of that because she has heard schoolmates and neighbors mock her family

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Sep 14, 2021
Movie Reviews (Toronto International Film Festival): Kicking Blood and Mlungu Wam (Good Madam)

Movie Reviews (Toronto International Film Festival): Kicking Blood and Mlungu Wam (Good Madam)

Director Blaine Thurier’s Kicking Blood is a stylish vampire film that, like The Addiction (1995) and other entries in the genre, deals with these undead creatures’ thirst for blood as a chemical dependency. Anna (Alana Bale) is one such bloodsucker, and when she invites alcoholic and suddenly homeless Robbie (Luke Bilyk) to her place and tells him “I’m going to suck your blood and get high . . .”, he invites her to do that but after one last request. He then pours a bottle of booze down the sink and proclaims that he will never drink again as long as he lives. Intrigued by his oath, Anna refrains from biting him, and as she goes on to admire his determination to stick to his promise when giving in to his cravings would be so easy, she begins to rethink her lifestyle. Her vampire partners with whom she hunts, Nina (Ella Jonas Farlinger) and Boris (Benjamin Sutherland), are none too

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Sep 13, 2021
Horror Fuel

Fantastic Fest Announces Its Final Wave of Films for 2021

From folk horror to the supernatural to insane horror comedies and much more, this year’s Fantastic Fest is poised to present some of the most incredible scare-fare of 2021, along with science fiction, thrillers, action, and other genre gems. With a silent classic, restored fare from the 1980s, and of course world premieres, Austin’s Fantastic Fest presents amazing fare from around the world. Thos who can’t make it to Austin during the fest can still join in on the virtual portion of Fantastic Fest, FF@HOME, which takes place 9/30-10/11 on Alamo On Demand. Following is the official press release announcing the final wave of films for this year, along with information about how you can watch from home or at the festival. Fantastic Fest is proud to announce the final wave of programming for the festival’s 16th edition, featuring the widest selection of weird and wonderful films gathered from across the globe to screen in Austin, TX, from September 23rd

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Sep 12, 2021
Horror Fuel

Toronto International Film Festival 2021: Our Half-Dozen “Have to See!” Horror Films

Shocks and shudders abound during Toronto International Film Festival’s (TIFF) hybrid event September 9–18, 2021, with in-person cinema screenings in Toronto and digital screenings available to viewers across Canada. Among the incredible international line-up of horror, science fiction, thriller, and other genre-cinema styles are the following six stand-outs, which Horror Fuel highly recommends. My comments follow in italics after descriptions adapted from TIFF’s official program and website. Kicking Blood “Blaine Thurier’s sultry, perma-stoned, ultra-modern spin on the vampire genre evokes cult-horror figures like George A. Romero and Stuart Gordon.” Fusing the grittiness of George Romero’s Martin with the sly theatricality of Stuart Gordon’s early films (Re-Animator, From Beyond), Blaine Thurier’s Kicking Blood reimagines vampire mythology by transplanting it to the bohemian world Thurier has satirized since he began making films. Instead of the usual desiccated, tormented aristocrats with impossibly innocent victims, Thurier’s undead are hipster scavengers and swingers, their victims luckless hangers-on and drunks. Vampire Anna (Alanna Bale) is disappointed

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Sep 9, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Arrow Video FrightFest): The Retaliators

Strap on your seat belts and turn the volume up loud for The Retaliators (2021), a high-octane combination of revenge thriller, crime drama, and outright horror movie from codirectors Samuel Gonzalez Jr. and Bridget Smith. Power plays, power tools, and power chords abound in this gore-fueled exploitation shocker that serves up a fair amount of surprises. In the film’s opening sequence, two women have trouble with their van and are attacked by what look to be either zombies or backwoods mutants (I won’t spoil what they actually are). A bloodied rescuer attempts to save one of them, laying the groundwork for the scare fare ahead. Pastor John Bishop (Michael Lombardi) is the widowed father of two daughters, living in a peaceful, upscale small town. His teenage daughter Rebecca (Abbey Hafer) accidentally witnesses a crime in progress and is ruthlessly murdered by a vicious baddie named Ram Kady (Joseph Gatt). When local cop Jed (Marc Menchaca) offers Bishop an opportunity at

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Sep 2, 2021
Next →