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Joseph Perry

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Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Panic Fest 2021): The Blazing World

Carlson Young makes a flashy-looking splash with her debut feature film The Blazing World, which she directs, cowrites (with Pierce Brown), and stars in. The film is rich in gorgeous imagery and dreamlike set pieces, but could use a bit more in characterization and story. Young twin sisters Margaret (Josie Fink) and Elizabeth (Lillie Fink) are playing in a field with fireflies around them. Inside their stately home, their parents — Tom (Dermot Mulroney) and Alice (Vinessa Shaw) Winter — are fighting, verbally and physically. Elizabeth falls into the family’s pool and drowns, with the parents running outside when they hear Margaret’s screams. As the parents pull Elizabeth out of the pool, Margaret turns to look away from the horror and notices an odd man — Udo Kier as Lained — beckoning her to join him as he stands near a wormhole-like portal. Flash forward about 20 years to Margaret (Carlson Young of Scream: The TV Series), who is now

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 16, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: In the Earth

Warning note for potential viewers: In the Earth contains several strobe effects and should be avoided by those who have concerns regarding that. Writer/director Ben Wheatley returns to his British folk horror roots of Kill List (2011) and A Field in England (2013) with his latest U.K. feature, In the Earth. It’s an absolute trip — complete with psychedelic sequences — that plays on pandemic fears, isolation, and otherworldly nature entities. Dr. Martin Lowery (Joel Fry) arrives at a makeshift outpost in the forest during the third wave of a virus that has brought death and paranoia to the nation and beyond. He and park ranger Alma (Ellora Torchia) set out on a multiple-day hike to deliver materials to the research site where a missing colleague of Lowery’s, Dr. Olivia Wendle (Hayley Squires), has been out of contact for some time. They are attacked, robbed, and left barefoot. As the forest becomes more claustrophobic with each step, the pair find

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 15, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Panic Fest 2021): Jakob’s Wife

Horror film icons Barbara Crampton and Larry Fessenden make the most of headlining the horror comedy Jakob’s Wife. Their on-screen chemistry togethers drives the film, making it and them a blast to watch as Crampton’s character is possessed by a newfound will for independence that goes hand in hand with a new thirst for blood, and there are certainly bucketloads of the red stuff on display. Crampton plays Anne Fedder, a woman who gave up a wild younger lifestyle and dreams of exploring the world 30 years earlier to marry Pastor Jakob Fedder (Fessenden), a seemingly mild-mannered man given to religion and a life of routine. When Anne’s old flame Tom Low (Robert Rusler) returns to the Fedder’s small town to explore a business deal, he and Anne explore the old mill where they used to hang out together. Old Feelings flare up, they kiss, and mere moments later, Tom is attacked by a pack of rats and Anne finds

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 14, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Panic Fest 2021): Red Snow

A frustrated, unpublished novelist who writes vampire romances finds what may be either the chance of a lifetime or a fast ticket to doom in writer/director Sean Nichols Lynch’s Christmas-set horror comedy Red Snow. Taking its horror as seriously as its dark and sometimes daffy humor is funny, the film strikes a fine balance of the two elements and delivers a fun, fast-paced viewing experience. Dennice Cisneros stars as Olivia Romo, a twentysomething writer who holes up in the Lake Tahoe house that she recently inherited after her mother’s passing. When a bat flies against her home and appears to be seriously injured, she tries to nurse it back to health in her garage. The bat turns out to be an actual vampire named Luke (Nico Bellamy), who is being sought after by vampire hunter Julius King (Vernon Wells of Death House [2017], Await the Dawn [2020], and more than 200 other appearances). Olivia hides Luke and assists him in

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 13, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Panic Fest 2021): Honeydew

You may have taken wrong turns with horror movie protagonists and wound up in terrifying rural areas with them before, but you have never been on a ride quite like the one the main characters go through in director Devereux Milburn’s macabre Honeydew. The film is a dizzying, discomfiting experience full of surprises that gives a new flavor to backwoods fright fare. Rylie (Malin Barr) is a PhD student researching a strain of fungus that affects wheat crops. She and her actor boyfriend Sam (Sawyer Spielberg) travel to a rural area affected by the fungus as part of her work for dissertation. When a landowner tells them that they must leave his property immediately but their car won’t start, they stumble upon a house owned by eldery farmer Karen (Barbara Kingsley), who calls her neighbor to come give their battery a jump. He doesn’t show, so the young couple winds up eating a meal with Karen and her adult son

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 12, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Panic Fest 2021): The Last Matinee

Director Maximillano Contenti’s Uruguayan shocker The Last Matinee (AKA Red Screening and its original title of Al morir la matinée) goes all in on the thrills and gore in its telling of a murderer going on a bloody rampage inside a cinema. The film is a hybrid of slasher movie motifs and giallo film aesthetics, with an obvious love for cinemas — from the ticket and projection booths to the seats to areas you never knew existed — added for good measure. Ana (Luciana Grasso) is a university student whose father works as a projectionist in a Montevideo cinema in the early 1990s. She insists one rainy night that he go home and rest rather than working a double shift, as she has watched him enough over the years to know how to work the equipment. Planning to study while a horror movie unspools for the audience — which includes a couple on an awkward date, three drunk minors and

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 10, 2021
Horror Fuel

Fantasia Opens Its 25th Edition with Québécois Zombie Comedy “Brain Freeze”

The Fantasia International Film Festival had a hugely successful virtual version in 2020, and the fest will be online again this year as it celebrates its 25th edition. Today Fantasia announced that its opening film will be Québécois zombie comedy Brain Freeze from director Julien Knafo, and revealed the ultracool poster for its 2021 edition. Following is the official press announcement. The Fantasia International Film Festival will be celebrating its 25th edition as a virtual event accessible to audiences across Canada, with a dynamic program of scheduled screenings and premieres, panels, and workshops running from August 5 through August 25, 2021, once again using the leading-edge platform created by Festival Scope and Shift72. As the summer approaches, the festival will be following advice from local health authorities, with the possibility of also adding a range of flagship physical events to the lineup. Last summer’s virtual edition was a phenomenal success, screening to 85000 spectators and amassing a record amount of

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 9, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Cinequest Cinejoy): Demon

Thriller, horror, surrealism, dark comedy, and neo noir elements — director George Louis Bartlett’s genre-mashing Demon has all of those and more. It’s an ambitious independent film from the United Kingdom that is sometimes grounded and sometimes all over the map, but always intriguing. Ralph (Ryan Walker-Edwards) goes on the run after a small fine he incurred while oversleeping past his stop on a train balloons into a large amount that he can’t afford to pay. With the help of his friend Kent (Jacob Hawley), he holes up in an old forest motel to try to elude a bailiff bent on collecting the fine. While there, he goes through a series of real and imagined situations ranging from the bizarre to the terrifying to the deadly. Bartlett, who cowrote the screenplay with Theo McDonald, has created an interesting character in Ralph and surrounded him with quirky characters and weird proceedings. Shot mostly in black-and-white, the director knows his budgetary limitations

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 1, 2021
Horror Fuel

Sinister Six: A Half-Dozen Films We Can’t Wait to See at Panic Fest

The ninth annual edition of Kansas City’s Panic Fest grows closer, as the hybrid edition takes place from April 8–18, 2021. I mentioned in Horror Fuel’s previous article about the festival that I have seen — and can highly recommend — some of the films scheduled, including Canadian horror comedy Vicious Fun, killer stuffed animal comedy Benny Loves You, and Australian horror comedy An Ideal Host, the unsettling An Unquiet Grave, folk horror The Old Ways, and Canadian science fiction feature Parallel Minds. Now I want to share six films on offer for Panic Fest that I can’t wait to watch. The official festival descriptions follow, with my thoughts in italics after each listing. The Carnivores D: Caleb Michael Johnson Regional Premiere, 1h 17min Alice and Bret’s dog Harvey is dying, and he’s ruining everything. What had been a bright little family is quickly getting consumed by clouds of self-doubt, suspicion, and a disturbing amount of ground beef. Dramedy and

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Mar 30, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: The Toll

In the eighties it was camping, for more recent years it was computers, and most recently the quickest way to Horrorville in cinema is to use a ridesharing company. Writer/director Michael Nader’s The Toll goes beyond the usual thriller angle of either the driver or the passenger being a potential killer to drop its two main characters off in a supernatural zone not too far from the original destination, yet at least one dimension away. Cami (Jordan Hayes) is exhausted from a series of flight delays and less than thrilled about visiting her father at his rural home. Her rideshare driver Spencer (Max Topplin) is a socially awkward, talkative person, and after an initially uncomfortable start to their ride, things take a turn for the weird and deadly when the pair journeys into an area where their phones and Spencer’s car stop working. After a while of playing the blame game and distrusting each other and then having to trust

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Mar 29, 2021

More from Joseph Perry

Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Panic Fest 2021): The Blazing World

Carlson Young makes a flashy-looking splash with her debut feature film The Blazing World, which she directs, cowrites (with Pierce Brown), and stars in. The film is rich in gorgeous imagery and dreamlike set pieces, but could use a bit more in characterization and story. Young twin sisters Margaret (Josie Fink) and Elizabeth (Lillie Fink) are playing in a field with fireflies around them. Inside their stately home, their parents — Tom (Dermot Mulroney) and Alice (Vinessa Shaw) Winter — are fighting, verbally and physically. Elizabeth falls into the family’s pool and drowns, with the parents running outside when they hear Margaret’s screams. As the parents pull Elizabeth out of the pool, Margaret turns to look away from the horror and notices an odd man — Udo Kier as Lained — beckoning her to join him as he stands near a wormhole-like portal. Flash forward about 20 years to Margaret (Carlson Young of Scream: The TV Series), who is now

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 16, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: In the Earth

Warning note for potential viewers: In the Earth contains several strobe effects and should be avoided by those who have concerns regarding that. Writer/director Ben Wheatley returns to his British folk horror roots of Kill List (2011) and A Field in England (2013) with his latest U.K. feature, In the Earth. It’s an absolute trip — complete with psychedelic sequences — that plays on pandemic fears, isolation, and otherworldly nature entities. Dr. Martin Lowery (Joel Fry) arrives at a makeshift outpost in the forest during the third wave of a virus that has brought death and paranoia to the nation and beyond. He and park ranger Alma (Ellora Torchia) set out on a multiple-day hike to deliver materials to the research site where a missing colleague of Lowery’s, Dr. Olivia Wendle (Hayley Squires), has been out of contact for some time. They are attacked, robbed, and left barefoot. As the forest becomes more claustrophobic with each step, the pair find

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 15, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Panic Fest 2021): Jakob’s Wife

Horror film icons Barbara Crampton and Larry Fessenden make the most of headlining the horror comedy Jakob’s Wife. Their on-screen chemistry togethers drives the film, making it and them a blast to watch as Crampton’s character is possessed by a newfound will for independence that goes hand in hand with a new thirst for blood, and there are certainly bucketloads of the red stuff on display. Crampton plays Anne Fedder, a woman who gave up a wild younger lifestyle and dreams of exploring the world 30 years earlier to marry Pastor Jakob Fedder (Fessenden), a seemingly mild-mannered man given to religion and a life of routine. When Anne’s old flame Tom Low (Robert Rusler) returns to the Fedder’s small town to explore a business deal, he and Anne explore the old mill where they used to hang out together. Old Feelings flare up, they kiss, and mere moments later, Tom is attacked by a pack of rats and Anne finds

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 14, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Panic Fest 2021): Red Snow

A frustrated, unpublished novelist who writes vampire romances finds what may be either the chance of a lifetime or a fast ticket to doom in writer/director Sean Nichols Lynch’s Christmas-set horror comedy Red Snow. Taking its horror as seriously as its dark and sometimes daffy humor is funny, the film strikes a fine balance of the two elements and delivers a fun, fast-paced viewing experience. Dennice Cisneros stars as Olivia Romo, a twentysomething writer who holes up in the Lake Tahoe house that she recently inherited after her mother’s passing. When a bat flies against her home and appears to be seriously injured, she tries to nurse it back to health in her garage. The bat turns out to be an actual vampire named Luke (Nico Bellamy), who is being sought after by vampire hunter Julius King (Vernon Wells of Death House [2017], Await the Dawn [2020], and more than 200 other appearances). Olivia hides Luke and assists him in

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 13, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Panic Fest 2021): Honeydew

You may have taken wrong turns with horror movie protagonists and wound up in terrifying rural areas with them before, but you have never been on a ride quite like the one the main characters go through in director Devereux Milburn’s macabre Honeydew. The film is a dizzying, discomfiting experience full of surprises that gives a new flavor to backwoods fright fare. Rylie (Malin Barr) is a PhD student researching a strain of fungus that affects wheat crops. She and her actor boyfriend Sam (Sawyer Spielberg) travel to a rural area affected by the fungus as part of her work for dissertation. When a landowner tells them that they must leave his property immediately but their car won’t start, they stumble upon a house owned by eldery farmer Karen (Barbara Kingsley), who calls her neighbor to come give their battery a jump. He doesn’t show, so the young couple winds up eating a meal with Karen and her adult son

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 12, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Panic Fest 2021): The Last Matinee

Director Maximillano Contenti’s Uruguayan shocker The Last Matinee (AKA Red Screening and its original title of Al morir la matinée) goes all in on the thrills and gore in its telling of a murderer going on a bloody rampage inside a cinema. The film is a hybrid of slasher movie motifs and giallo film aesthetics, with an obvious love for cinemas — from the ticket and projection booths to the seats to areas you never knew existed — added for good measure. Ana (Luciana Grasso) is a university student whose father works as a projectionist in a Montevideo cinema in the early 1990s. She insists one rainy night that he go home and rest rather than working a double shift, as she has watched him enough over the years to know how to work the equipment. Planning to study while a horror movie unspools for the audience — which includes a couple on an awkward date, three drunk minors and

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 10, 2021
Horror Fuel

Fantasia Opens Its 25th Edition with Québécois Zombie Comedy “Brain Freeze”

The Fantasia International Film Festival had a hugely successful virtual version in 2020, and the fest will be online again this year as it celebrates its 25th edition. Today Fantasia announced that its opening film will be Québécois zombie comedy Brain Freeze from director Julien Knafo, and revealed the ultracool poster for its 2021 edition. Following is the official press announcement. The Fantasia International Film Festival will be celebrating its 25th edition as a virtual event accessible to audiences across Canada, with a dynamic program of scheduled screenings and premieres, panels, and workshops running from August 5 through August 25, 2021, once again using the leading-edge platform created by Festival Scope and Shift72. As the summer approaches, the festival will be following advice from local health authorities, with the possibility of also adding a range of flagship physical events to the lineup. Last summer’s virtual edition was a phenomenal success, screening to 85000 spectators and amassing a record amount of

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 9, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Cinequest Cinejoy): Demon

Thriller, horror, surrealism, dark comedy, and neo noir elements — director George Louis Bartlett’s genre-mashing Demon has all of those and more. It’s an ambitious independent film from the United Kingdom that is sometimes grounded and sometimes all over the map, but always intriguing. Ralph (Ryan Walker-Edwards) goes on the run after a small fine he incurred while oversleeping past his stop on a train balloons into a large amount that he can’t afford to pay. With the help of his friend Kent (Jacob Hawley), he holes up in an old forest motel to try to elude a bailiff bent on collecting the fine. While there, he goes through a series of real and imagined situations ranging from the bizarre to the terrifying to the deadly. Bartlett, who cowrote the screenplay with Theo McDonald, has created an interesting character in Ralph and surrounded him with quirky characters and weird proceedings. Shot mostly in black-and-white, the director knows his budgetary limitations

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 1, 2021
Horror Fuel

Sinister Six: A Half-Dozen Films We Can’t Wait to See at Panic Fest

The ninth annual edition of Kansas City’s Panic Fest grows closer, as the hybrid edition takes place from April 8–18, 2021. I mentioned in Horror Fuel’s previous article about the festival that I have seen — and can highly recommend — some of the films scheduled, including Canadian horror comedy Vicious Fun, killer stuffed animal comedy Benny Loves You, and Australian horror comedy An Ideal Host, the unsettling An Unquiet Grave, folk horror The Old Ways, and Canadian science fiction feature Parallel Minds. Now I want to share six films on offer for Panic Fest that I can’t wait to watch. The official festival descriptions follow, with my thoughts in italics after each listing. The Carnivores D: Caleb Michael Johnson Regional Premiere, 1h 17min Alice and Bret’s dog Harvey is dying, and he’s ruining everything. What had been a bright little family is quickly getting consumed by clouds of self-doubt, suspicion, and a disturbing amount of ground beef. Dramedy and

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Mar 30, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: The Toll

In the eighties it was camping, for more recent years it was computers, and most recently the quickest way to Horrorville in cinema is to use a ridesharing company. Writer/director Michael Nader’s The Toll goes beyond the usual thriller angle of either the driver or the passenger being a potential killer to drop its two main characters off in a supernatural zone not too far from the original destination, yet at least one dimension away. Cami (Jordan Hayes) is exhausted from a series of flight delays and less than thrilled about visiting her father at his rural home. Her rideshare driver Spencer (Max Topplin) is a socially awkward, talkative person, and after an initially uncomfortable start to their ride, things take a turn for the weird and deadly when the pair journeys into an area where their phones and Spencer’s car stop working. After a while of playing the blame game and distrusting each other and then having to trust

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Mar 29, 2021
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