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Joseph Perry

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Fantaspoa Announces Final Wave of Its 2021 Feature Programming

Highly acclaimed Brazilian genre film festival will hold its seventeenth edition from April 9th through the 18th, 2021, showcasing 160 shorts and features from around the world. From the Mexico-set folk horror of The Old Ways to the French dark fantasy Jumbo to the Canadian science fiction feature Parallel Minds, the fest offers an incredible array of top-notch genre films. Following is the official press announcement. As previously announced, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Brazil’s long-running Fantaspoa Fantastic Film Festival will celebrate its seventeenth edition completely online and free of charge. The 2021 edition of the beloved South American genre festival is supported by a special grant from the Brazilian government, which is offered to relevant cultural events amidst the pandemic. The festival has renewed its partnership with Darkflix, Brazil’s immensely popular streaming service aimed at fantastic genre cinema. Fantaspoa’s festival directors are keenly aware of the fact that no live events will take place in the cinemas of

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Joseph Perry

Mar 27, 2021

Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews

Movie Review (SXSW Online 2021): Here Before

Writer/director Stacey Gregg’s Here Before (U.K., 2021) is a Northern Ireland-set feature in which a mother begins to believe that the new neighbors’ young daughter may be the reincarnation of her own deceased daughter. The film is a gripping examination of grief bolstered by a terrific performance from Andrea Riseborough. Laura (Riseborough) is a rather well-adjusted person, considering her daughter died a few years earlier. She still grieves, but has a seemingly happy, loving relationship with her husband Brendan (Jonjo O’Neill) and their teen son Tadgh (Lewis McAskie). When new neighbors move in next door with a little girl of their own — Niamh Dornan as Megan — who would be right around the age of Laura’s daughter, Laura and Megan hit it off with rides home from school and dinner invitations. Things take a puzzling turn for Laura, though, when Megan insists that she has been in the area before — according to her parents, she hasn’t — and

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Joseph Perry

Mar 25, 2021

New 'Offseason' Clip Arrives Ahead Of Its Premiere On Shudder

Film FestivalsReviews

Movie Review (SXSW Online 2021): Offseason

Writer/director Mickey Keating’s latest horror film is Offseason, a terrific, atmospheric chiller that blends Lovecraftian themes, Southern Gothic, conspiracy thriller, and other elements. The result is a brooding stranger-in-a-familiar-yet-strange-land offering that delivers the creeps quite satisfactorily. Marie (Jocelin Donahue) and her significant other George (Joe Swanberg) travel to the island where her mother Ava (Melora Walters), a once famous actress, was buried after the cemetery caretaker wrote, saying that Ava’s grave had been desecrated. The couple must get past the Bridge Man (Richard Brake), who initially refuses them admittance to the island because storm season is starting, and once they do, they find the locals to be less than welcoming and forthcoming — with no sign of a caretaker. Marie and George attempt to leave the island the same way they came, but instead find the road blocked where it was open just moments earlier. They then find themselves in increasing danger as they try to piece together the strange

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Joseph Perry

Mar 23, 2021

Film Festivals

Panic Film Fest Hybrid In-Person and Virtual Online Lineup Offers a Stellar Array of Chillers and Thrillers

The ninth annual edition of Kansas City’s Panic Fest is loaded with amazing horror, thriller, and genre films, and it will combine both in-person and online screenings. The hybrid edition takes place from April 8–18, 2021. I have seen a few of the films on tap, and can tell you that you will be hard-pressed to find a funnier horror comedy this season than Canadian offering Vicious Fun, while killer stuffed animal comedy Benny Loves You and Australian horror comedy An Ideal Host offer their fair shares of laughs and shocks, as well. Films such as An Unquiet Grave and The Old Ways take darker approaches to fear-fare, and science fiction fans will find features such as Parallel Minds much to their liking. Following is the official press release. Panic Fest kicks off two weeks of genre packed programming as the ninth annual festival begins April 8, 2021, virtually and in person at Screenland Armour in Kansas City, MO. “We

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Joseph Perry

Mar 23, 2021

Film FestivalsReviews

Movie Review (SXSW Online 2021): Broadcast Signal Intrusion

Using the real-life 1987 Max Headroom signal hijacking of a television broadcast and the viral Tara the Android video of “I Feel Fantastic” as jumping-off points, director Jacob Gentry’s 1999-set Broadcast Signal Intrusion is an effective thriller that dwells in the realms of paranoia and conspiracy theories. Bolstered by a top-notch performance from Harry Shum Jr. as a widower who stumbles on the mysterious titular event and finds himself obsessed by it, the film is an intriguing journey down a curious rabbit hole. Shum Jr. portrays James, who repairs audio and transcribes VHS media to DVD. One night, he accidentally catches sight of an eerie broadcast of a person dressed up like a TV character — a female robot adopted by a typical 1980s sitcom family — whose voice is masked by audio garble. When James learns that there are actually multiple broadcasts, including one that may or may not actually exist, he begins trying to piece together connections to

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Joseph Perry

Mar 22, 2021

Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews

Movie Review (SXSW Online 2021): The Feast

Welsh shocker The Feast is an unsettling, eerie slice of horror cinema that jangles the nerves and does a beautiful job of slowly unraveling its secrets until its mind-boggling third act sticks the landing. This is instant classic fright fare, and the film will be hard to topple from its current spot as my favorite horror movie of this year. Food server Cadi (Annes Elwy in a superb performance) is filling in for the woman who usually helps Glenda (Nia Roberts), the wife of politician Gwyn (Julian Lewis Jones), prepare dinners for guests in the couple’s sumptuous, high-tech country home. Invited to dinner are businessman Euros (Rhodri Mielir) and neighbor Delyth (Caroline Berry), and reluctant to attend are the couple’s oldest son Gweirydd (Sion Alun Davies), who is preparing for a triathlon when not displaying perverse behavior, and Guto (Steffan Cennydd), a drug-addicted would-be musician. The events of The Feast unfold over the course of one evening, from preparation time

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Joseph Perry

Mar 18, 2021

ForeignMoviesReviews

Movie Review: The Heiress

The latest entry into the recent generational familial horror film cycle is the U.K. chiller The Heiress, directed by Chris Bell. It is a supernatural outing that grounds itself well in the real world and that features a solid ensemble cast led by Candis Nergaard as a woman haunted by evil and misunderstood by those closest to her. Claire (Nergaard) has been recently given to seeing things in the house that she shares with her sister Anna (Jayne Wisener) after the death of their grandmother. Things get so bad that their mother (Denise Stephenson) wants her to seek religious counsel and their father (Mark Arden) wants her to go to a psychiatrist. Claire is put away in a psychiatric facility, but whatever it is that is haunting her gets even more malevolent — and far more dangerous — when she is away from her home. Bell, working from a screenplay that he cowrote with Danny Prescott, Kelly Prescott, and Jezz

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Joseph Perry

Mar 15, 2021

Film Festivals

Brazil’s Fantaspoa Film Festival’s First Half of Its 2021 Lineup Includes Monsters, Murderers, and the Mystical

Brazil’s Fantaspoa Fantastic Film Festival will repeat the free, online format that worked splendidly for it last year for its 2021 edition. The first batch of its scheduled offerings for this year includes horror films and horror comedies from around the globe. Following is the official press announcement. Fantaspoa Fantastic Film Festival announced via Deadline that, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, its seventeenth edition will again be held online and completely free of charge. The 2021 edition of the beloved South American genre festival is supported by a special grant from the Brazilian government, which is offered to relevant cultural events amidst the pandemic. The festival will also renew its partnership with Darkflix, Brazil’s immensely popular streaming service aimed at fantastic genre cinema. Fantaspoa’s festival directors are keenly aware of the fact that no live events will take place in the cinemas of Porto Alegre in 2021. Theaters currently remain closed due to a worsening of the virus and

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Joseph Perry

Mar 11, 2021

MoviesReviews

Movie Review: Son

Irish/U.SA./U.K./Singapore coproduction Son is a dread-filled supernatural horror film that goes to some surprisingly dark places. It is an early entry for my top 10 favorite horror films of the year. Irish writer/director Ivan Kavanagh’s Son opens with a young woman named Laura (Andi Matichak of the 2018 version of Halloween) being chased down by some men who she manages to escape. She then gives birth — to a baby she proclaims that she doesn’t want — in her escape vehicle. The story then jumps ahead eight years. Laura is now a schoolteacher and the loving mother of her son David (Luke David Blumm). She suffers from PTSD because of her earlier escape from a cult (not a spoiler; this is revealed early on) but has seemingly built a rather happy life for herself and David. That is, until she checks in on him one night and finds her sleeping son surrounded by a group of people. After she goes

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Joseph Perry

Mar 5, 2021

Film Festivals

SLASH Filmfestival Sets New 2021 Dates and Opens Submissions

Vienna, Austria’s SLASH Filmfestival features horror, science fiction, fantasy, and other genre films from around the world — both features and shorts — and the fest has opened submissions for two exciting events this year. Following is the official press announcement. SLASH Filmfestival, Austria’s leading festival for Fantastic Film and the second-most heavily frequented Viennese film festival after the Viennale, has set new dates for 2021. The three-day mini festival SLASH 1/2 is postponed to June 17 to 19, 2021. The main event in fall will take place as scheduled. The twelfth edition of SLASH runs from September 23 through October 3, 2021, taking place in four cinemas with a total of five screens. Submissions for 2021 SLASH now open! SLASH 2021 short and feature film competition The submissions to the 12th SLASH Filmfestival are now open! Filmmakers from across the world are invited to submit their work via FilmFreeway. Both short films (30 minutes or less) and feature films

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Joseph Perry

Feb 25, 2021

Joseph Perry

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