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Joseph Perry

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Horror Fuel

The Unnamed Footage Festival Announces 24-hour Webathon 4th Edition

Found-footage horror movie fans need to mark March 26th on their calendars because that is the date that San Francisco’s Unnamed Footage Festival will hold a live, one-time-only, day-long marathon of features and shorts, as well as Q&As with filmmakers and industry professionals. All the details follow in the fest’s official press release. Since 2018, the Unnamed Footage Festival has brought a unique and often obscure selection of found footage horror, first-person POV cinema, and faux documentary to San Francisco, with previous festivals being hosted at the historic Balboa Theatre, the Roxie Theater, and ATA. Strange times call for strange measures, and like so many other events, the fourth edition of the annual film festival is moving to a virtual landscape in the form of a 24-hour long webathon. UFF24hr will be a live, one-time-only, day-long marathon of weird and exclusive in-world camera features and shorts, alongside Q&As with filmmakers and industry professionals. Beginning on March 26th at 7 PM

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Feb 19, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: “Reunion”

Familial horror has been a hot subgenre the past few years, and the New Zealand chiller Reunion is a fine entry into that category. Although the film is rich with the dark arts and the supernatural, it is bolstered by fine drama with performances focusing on a highly tense mother-and-daughter relationship and a secret that threatens to drive their troubled family even further apart. Ellie (Emma Draper), heavily pregnant and recently separated from her abusive fiancé, returns to her childhood home — fittingly, a large, dark gothic dwelling — after her grandparents pass away to finish a book she is writing about science and the occult. Unbeknownst to her, her estranged mother Ivy (Julia Ormond) is there, ostensibly to work on preparing the house for appraisal while taking care of family patriarch Jack (John Bach), who is suffering from dementia. Ellie’s old flame Gus (Cohen Holloway) is doing restoration work on the house. Ellie and Ivy are at odds from

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Feb 6, 2021
Horror Fuel

“The Blare Rabbit Project,” a Found-Footage Film That Really Was Thought Lost, Debuts at MidWest WeirdFest

Many found footage films assert to be discovered after a certain amount of time, but The Revenant director Kerry Prior’s The Blare Rabbit Project can actually lay claim to having been rediscovered after being shot in 1999 and then considered lost. The film will finally have its world premiere this March at MidWest WeirdFest. Following is the official press announcement from the festival. A found footage feature film, thought lost for over 20 years, is finally seeing the light of the projector booth at its world premiere this March. Kerry Prior, acclaimed Hollywood special effects artist and the visionary director of the cult horror hit THE REVENANT, lensed the found footage film THE BLARE RABBIT PROJECT in 1999. There is still some mystery as to why that film – once set for commercial release – was suddenly pulled and apparently lost for over two decades. But now, the re-found, found footage film is having its very first public screening at

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jan 29, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: The Night

Hotel horror is a well established subgenre in fear-fare cinema, and with classics such as The Shining (1980) and Psycho (1960) leading the pack, followed by worthy entries and a share of also-rans and outright bombs, it isn’t easy to put an original spin on new films in that category. Director Kourosh Ahari tries to do just that with The Night, and although many tried and true tropes are present, he serves up enough atmosphere and fine performances to make his film well worth a watch. The Night focuses on Babak Naderi (Shahab Hosseini) and his wife Neda (Niousha Noor), who have moved from their native Iran to the United States. After leaving a small dinner party with friends and showing off their brand new tattoos randomly chosen out of their tattoo artist’s book — one of the early red flags for this ill-fated couple — they leave with their baby girl, with a stubborn Babak insisting on driving even

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jan 27, 2021
Horror Fuel

Attention Filmmakers: Lund Fantastic Film Festival Announces 2021 Dates and Call for Entries

After a successful hybrid edition in 2020, Sweden’s superb Lund Fantastic Film Festival is preparing to go the hybrid route once again this year and is currently seeking film submissions. Following is the fest’s official press announcement. Having weathered the storm of 2020 with a hybrid edition, the Lund Fantastic Film Festival is gearing up for its 27th edition. This fall, from October 30th until November 5th, the Swedish festival will go hybrid once more, with a mix of live events and virtual screenings. Special announcements and summer events will follow in the months to come but, as always, no festival can exist without the works of talented artists. With that in mind, the festival is now ready to receive your submissions and looks forward to exploring genre cinema in the broadest sense since Lund Fantastic aims to help stretch the limits of the imagination, and to reinforce the intrinsic value of imagination in films. From the shudder-inducing to the

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jan 24, 2021
Horror Fuel

MidWest WeirdFest Announces Seven Superb Features for Its 2021 First Wave

If you are looking for cinematic fare that delves into the strange, the quirky, and the bizarre, look no further than Wisconsin’s MidWest WeirdFest, which each year presents an outstanding array of narrative features and documentaries from around the globe. The festival’s first wave announcement for its March 5–7, 2021 edition continues that tradition with seven fine features including horror offerings drawing on Lovecraft and Poe to one man’s consuming passion to find African cryptid Mokele-Mbembe and beyond. Following is MidWest WeirdFest’s official press announcement. MidWest WeirdFest announces its first programming wave for 2021 today. The cinematic celebration of all things fantastic, frightening, paranormal, and just plain weird, is now in its 5th year. The festival takes place March 5-7, 2021 at the Micon Downtown Cinema in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. “The world has never seemed so weird. Neither has MidWest WeirdFest’s program of cutting-edge cinema,” says festival founder and director Dean Bertram. “It’s filled with alien abductees, serial killer victims

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jan 22, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Ten Minutes to Midnight

Office politics have never gotten quite the cinematic workout that they do in director Erik Bloomquist’s Ten Minutes to Midnight. To say that it goes down unexpected paths would be an understatement, and that is just part of the bizarre fun of this well-made shocker. Caroline Williams (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 [1986], Halloween II [2009], and more than three dozen other horror outings) plays Amy Marlowe, a veteran disc jockey whose night starts off with a bat bite during an approaching hurricane on her way to work — and things are only going to get worse for her. She soon finds out that this will be her last night before being forcefully retired by her smarmy, sleazy boss Robert (William Youmans) and replaced by his new, young protégé Sienna (Nicole Kang of Swallow [2019] and the Batwoman TV series). Station security guard Ernie (Nicholas Tucci of The Ranger [2018] and You’re Next [2011]) has locked down the building because

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jan 19, 2021
Horror Fuel

MidWest WeirdFest Launches Indiegogo Campaign in Support of the Festival’s Fifth Edition

Cinema lovers interested in the paranormal, UFOs, cryptids, and unusual film fare should absolutely love what Wisconsin’s MidWest WeirdFest has to offer. Each year, the fest features top-notch narrative and documentary features and shorts from around the world, and this year, the fest has launched an Indiegogo campaign to help continue its tradition of bringing the fine fare for which it is known and to support its home base, Eau Claire’s Micon Downtown Cinema. Full details, including perks available to contributors, follow in the official press announcement. For examples of the intriguing films that MidWest WeirdFest offers, check out the Horror Fuel reviews for Bad Witch and Squatchmore from last year’s edition. MidWest WeirdFest, the cinematic celebration of all things fantastic, frightening, paranormal, and just plain weird, is now in its 5th year. And today, it is asking for your help to make this year’s event another success, by checking out the festival’s Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. The 2021 festival takes

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jan 19, 2021
Horror Fuel

Dark Star Pictures Announces Free Virtual Film Festival of Its Recent Genre Features

Be ready to catch up on six of the most highly touted, cutting-edge horror films and thrillers from around the world plus a special secret screening when Dark Star Pictures serves up a free virtual film festival from January 22–24, 2021. From the offbeat vampire outing Climate of the Hunter to the quirky, moving tale of a young woman’s sexual attraction to an amusement park ride Jumbo and beyond, Dark Star Pictures and Bloody Disgusting are serving up a half-dozen can’t miss movies. Details follow in the official press announcement. Los Angeles-based Dark Star Pictures and horror leader Bloody Disgusting are set to host a groundbreaking weekend event from Friday, January 22 to Sunday, January 24, 2021, celebrating the distributor’s most recent acclaimed international genre offerings. The lineup will feature selections from Sundance, Fantasia, Nightstream, and Cinepocalypse, including PVT CHAT, Koko-Di Koko-Da, Jumbo, Attack of the Demons, Dirty God, and Climate of the Hunter. The festival will lead up to

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jan 15, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Hunted

Belgian/French/Irish coproduction Hunted is a revenge thriller that riffs heavily on both Little Red Riding Hood and The Most Dangerous Game, along with a long legacy of exploitation woman-seeking-revenge films. Though the main plot beats in director Vincent Paronnaud’s feature may be quite familiar, Hunted is wonderfully stylized and bolstered by two rip-roaring lead performances. After an opening sequence with a campfire story played out in animation that sets a mythical, mystical tone, viewers are introduced to Eve (Lucie Debay), who is stressed out from her job and her relationship. She’s on the road for a business trip in an unspecified European country and goes out to alleviate some stress at a bar, where she meets The Handsome Guy (Arieh Worthalter), who viewers are tipped off about that he has some bad things on his mind. When he and The Accomplice (Ciaran O’Brien) stuff Eve in the trunk of their car, it’s obvious that they have horrible plans for her,

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jan 15, 2021

More from Joseph Perry

Horror Fuel

The Unnamed Footage Festival Announces 24-hour Webathon 4th Edition

Found-footage horror movie fans need to mark March 26th on their calendars because that is the date that San Francisco’s Unnamed Footage Festival will hold a live, one-time-only, day-long marathon of features and shorts, as well as Q&As with filmmakers and industry professionals. All the details follow in the fest’s official press release. Since 2018, the Unnamed Footage Festival has brought a unique and often obscure selection of found footage horror, first-person POV cinema, and faux documentary to San Francisco, with previous festivals being hosted at the historic Balboa Theatre, the Roxie Theater, and ATA. Strange times call for strange measures, and like so many other events, the fourth edition of the annual film festival is moving to a virtual landscape in the form of a 24-hour long webathon. UFF24hr will be a live, one-time-only, day-long marathon of weird and exclusive in-world camera features and shorts, alongside Q&As with filmmakers and industry professionals. Beginning on March 26th at 7 PM

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Feb 19, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: “Reunion”

Familial horror has been a hot subgenre the past few years, and the New Zealand chiller Reunion is a fine entry into that category. Although the film is rich with the dark arts and the supernatural, it is bolstered by fine drama with performances focusing on a highly tense mother-and-daughter relationship and a secret that threatens to drive their troubled family even further apart. Ellie (Emma Draper), heavily pregnant and recently separated from her abusive fiancé, returns to her childhood home — fittingly, a large, dark gothic dwelling — after her grandparents pass away to finish a book she is writing about science and the occult. Unbeknownst to her, her estranged mother Ivy (Julia Ormond) is there, ostensibly to work on preparing the house for appraisal while taking care of family patriarch Jack (John Bach), who is suffering from dementia. Ellie’s old flame Gus (Cohen Holloway) is doing restoration work on the house. Ellie and Ivy are at odds from

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Feb 6, 2021
Horror Fuel

“The Blare Rabbit Project,” a Found-Footage Film That Really Was Thought Lost, Debuts at MidWest WeirdFest

Many found footage films assert to be discovered after a certain amount of time, but The Revenant director Kerry Prior’s The Blare Rabbit Project can actually lay claim to having been rediscovered after being shot in 1999 and then considered lost. The film will finally have its world premiere this March at MidWest WeirdFest. Following is the official press announcement from the festival. A found footage feature film, thought lost for over 20 years, is finally seeing the light of the projector booth at its world premiere this March. Kerry Prior, acclaimed Hollywood special effects artist and the visionary director of the cult horror hit THE REVENANT, lensed the found footage film THE BLARE RABBIT PROJECT in 1999. There is still some mystery as to why that film – once set for commercial release – was suddenly pulled and apparently lost for over two decades. But now, the re-found, found footage film is having its very first public screening at

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jan 29, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: The Night

Hotel horror is a well established subgenre in fear-fare cinema, and with classics such as The Shining (1980) and Psycho (1960) leading the pack, followed by worthy entries and a share of also-rans and outright bombs, it isn’t easy to put an original spin on new films in that category. Director Kourosh Ahari tries to do just that with The Night, and although many tried and true tropes are present, he serves up enough atmosphere and fine performances to make his film well worth a watch. The Night focuses on Babak Naderi (Shahab Hosseini) and his wife Neda (Niousha Noor), who have moved from their native Iran to the United States. After leaving a small dinner party with friends and showing off their brand new tattoos randomly chosen out of their tattoo artist’s book — one of the early red flags for this ill-fated couple — they leave with their baby girl, with a stubborn Babak insisting on driving even

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jan 27, 2021
Horror Fuel

Attention Filmmakers: Lund Fantastic Film Festival Announces 2021 Dates and Call for Entries

After a successful hybrid edition in 2020, Sweden’s superb Lund Fantastic Film Festival is preparing to go the hybrid route once again this year and is currently seeking film submissions. Following is the fest’s official press announcement. Having weathered the storm of 2020 with a hybrid edition, the Lund Fantastic Film Festival is gearing up for its 27th edition. This fall, from October 30th until November 5th, the Swedish festival will go hybrid once more, with a mix of live events and virtual screenings. Special announcements and summer events will follow in the months to come but, as always, no festival can exist without the works of talented artists. With that in mind, the festival is now ready to receive your submissions and looks forward to exploring genre cinema in the broadest sense since Lund Fantastic aims to help stretch the limits of the imagination, and to reinforce the intrinsic value of imagination in films. From the shudder-inducing to the

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jan 24, 2021
Horror Fuel

MidWest WeirdFest Announces Seven Superb Features for Its 2021 First Wave

If you are looking for cinematic fare that delves into the strange, the quirky, and the bizarre, look no further than Wisconsin’s MidWest WeirdFest, which each year presents an outstanding array of narrative features and documentaries from around the globe. The festival’s first wave announcement for its March 5–7, 2021 edition continues that tradition with seven fine features including horror offerings drawing on Lovecraft and Poe to one man’s consuming passion to find African cryptid Mokele-Mbembe and beyond. Following is MidWest WeirdFest’s official press announcement. MidWest WeirdFest announces its first programming wave for 2021 today. The cinematic celebration of all things fantastic, frightening, paranormal, and just plain weird, is now in its 5th year. The festival takes place March 5-7, 2021 at the Micon Downtown Cinema in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. “The world has never seemed so weird. Neither has MidWest WeirdFest’s program of cutting-edge cinema,” says festival founder and director Dean Bertram. “It’s filled with alien abductees, serial killer victims

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jan 22, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Ten Minutes to Midnight

Office politics have never gotten quite the cinematic workout that they do in director Erik Bloomquist’s Ten Minutes to Midnight. To say that it goes down unexpected paths would be an understatement, and that is just part of the bizarre fun of this well-made shocker. Caroline Williams (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 [1986], Halloween II [2009], and more than three dozen other horror outings) plays Amy Marlowe, a veteran disc jockey whose night starts off with a bat bite during an approaching hurricane on her way to work — and things are only going to get worse for her. She soon finds out that this will be her last night before being forcefully retired by her smarmy, sleazy boss Robert (William Youmans) and replaced by his new, young protégé Sienna (Nicole Kang of Swallow [2019] and the Batwoman TV series). Station security guard Ernie (Nicholas Tucci of The Ranger [2018] and You’re Next [2011]) has locked down the building because

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jan 19, 2021
Horror Fuel

MidWest WeirdFest Launches Indiegogo Campaign in Support of the Festival’s Fifth Edition

Cinema lovers interested in the paranormal, UFOs, cryptids, and unusual film fare should absolutely love what Wisconsin’s MidWest WeirdFest has to offer. Each year, the fest features top-notch narrative and documentary features and shorts from around the world, and this year, the fest has launched an Indiegogo campaign to help continue its tradition of bringing the fine fare for which it is known and to support its home base, Eau Claire’s Micon Downtown Cinema. Full details, including perks available to contributors, follow in the official press announcement. For examples of the intriguing films that MidWest WeirdFest offers, check out the Horror Fuel reviews for Bad Witch and Squatchmore from last year’s edition. MidWest WeirdFest, the cinematic celebration of all things fantastic, frightening, paranormal, and just plain weird, is now in its 5th year. And today, it is asking for your help to make this year’s event another success, by checking out the festival’s Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. The 2021 festival takes

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jan 19, 2021
Horror Fuel

Dark Star Pictures Announces Free Virtual Film Festival of Its Recent Genre Features

Be ready to catch up on six of the most highly touted, cutting-edge horror films and thrillers from around the world plus a special secret screening when Dark Star Pictures serves up a free virtual film festival from January 22–24, 2021. From the offbeat vampire outing Climate of the Hunter to the quirky, moving tale of a young woman’s sexual attraction to an amusement park ride Jumbo and beyond, Dark Star Pictures and Bloody Disgusting are serving up a half-dozen can’t miss movies. Details follow in the official press announcement. Los Angeles-based Dark Star Pictures and horror leader Bloody Disgusting are set to host a groundbreaking weekend event from Friday, January 22 to Sunday, January 24, 2021, celebrating the distributor’s most recent acclaimed international genre offerings. The lineup will feature selections from Sundance, Fantasia, Nightstream, and Cinepocalypse, including PVT CHAT, Koko-Di Koko-Da, Jumbo, Attack of the Demons, Dirty God, and Climate of the Hunter. The festival will lead up to

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jan 15, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Hunted

Belgian/French/Irish coproduction Hunted is a revenge thriller that riffs heavily on both Little Red Riding Hood and The Most Dangerous Game, along with a long legacy of exploitation woman-seeking-revenge films. Though the main plot beats in director Vincent Paronnaud’s feature may be quite familiar, Hunted is wonderfully stylized and bolstered by two rip-roaring lead performances. After an opening sequence with a campfire story played out in animation that sets a mythical, mystical tone, viewers are introduced to Eve (Lucie Debay), who is stressed out from her job and her relationship. She’s on the road for a business trip in an unspecified European country and goes out to alleviate some stress at a bar, where she meets The Handsome Guy (Arieh Worthalter), who viewers are tipped off about that he has some bad things on his mind. When he and The Accomplice (Ciaran O’Brien) stuff Eve in the trunk of their car, it’s obvious that they have horrible plans for her,

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Jan 15, 2021
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