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Joseph Perry

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DocumentariesFilm FestivalsForeignMoviesParanormal

MidWest WeirdFest First Wave Announcement Promises Aliens, Monsters, Cryptids, and Demons

MidWest WeirdFest— a cinematic celebration of all things fantastic, frightening, paranormal, and just plain weird — has announced its first programming wave for 2020. The fourth annual installment of the festival takes place March 6–8, 2020 at the Micon Downtown Cinema in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. “MidWest WeirdFest is back with the type of cutting edge genre, paranormal, and underground cinema that our regular attendees have come to expect, and that first-time fest-goers are going to adore,” said festival founder and programming director Dean Bertram. “We are delighted to announce this year’s first wave of feature programming. From murderous puppets and ghostly encounters, through legendary beasties and UFOs, to Lovecraftian nightmares and serial killers, the festival’s 2020 program is loaded with weirdness — some of it real, some of it imagined, and much of it from that mysterious twilight territory that lays in between.” The first seven feature films announced follow. I saw Puppet Killer as part of Canada’s Blood in

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Joseph Perry

Feb 4, 2020

Film FestivalsForeignMovies

Movie Reviews (Horror-on-Sea Film Festival): Day of the Stranger; Millennial Killer; One Must Fall

Day of the Stranger Fans of Weird West films (such as Billy the Kid Versus Dracula [1966] and Curse of the Undead [1959]) and psychedelic westerns (for example, High Plains Drifter [1970]) should find plenty to enjoy in ultralow-budget U.K. outing Day of the Stranger. Advertised as “the only British guerilla-shot acid western ever made,” this film from writer/director Thomas Lee Rutter (Bella in the Wych Elm short [2017]; The Forbidden Four [2012]) delivers a haunting, surreal vision that begins as a boisterous, brutal take on western tropes before going into full-on phantasmagorical territory. Bounty hunter Caine Farrowood (Dale Sheppard) is under the employ of sadistic outlaw Loomweather (Gary Shail of The Bride [1985] and Shock Treatment [1981]) when things go south after a job and he finds himself on the edge of death. He then awakens to find himself at home with his pregnant wife Christina (Maryam Forouhandeh), who disapproves of his work. He soon heads out on a

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Joseph Perry

Jan 30, 2020

Film FestivalsForeignMovies

Movie Reviews (Horror-on-Sea Film Festival): The Barge People, The Psychics, Blood Tulips

U.K. shocker The Barge People is director Charlie Steed’s follow-up to his 2017 gorefest Escape from Cannibal Farm. In this new offering, Steed takes the basic premise for the original 1977 version of The Hills Have Eyes, moves the vacation location to British countryside canals, and adds some cool-looking monsters to the mix. The result is a fast-paced effort driven by one brutal onslaught after another, but greatly aided by some nice dramatic sequences involving loss and grief, and the breakdown of class differences. Sisters Kat (Kate Davies-Speak in a riveting performance) and Sophie (Natalie Martins) go on a canal barge trip with their boyfriends. The two men — nice guy Mark (Mark McKirdy) and obnoxious Ben (Matt Swales) — don’t get along from the start. When they accidentally bump the barge of some “You think you’re better than us?” types including hot-headed Ricky (Kane Surry) and Jade (Makenna Guyler) and later encounter the group in a watering hole that

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Joseph Perry

Jan 23, 2020

Film FestivalsForeignIndieMovies

Movie Reviews (Horror-on-Sea Film Festival): Horror Shorts — Lonnie Knutsengripper: Man, Myth and Movies; Off Fleek; The Pit; and Shredders

Lonnie Knutsengripper: Man, Myth and Movies This U.K. comedy focuses on Lonnie Knutsengripper, the fictitious, hard-drinking American producer and director of more than 300 “classic” horror films. He reminisces about two films that he made in England: Interred (1982) and its sequel, the Sh–house Strangler (1990). In the first film, a maniac flushes hapless victims down the toilet in his bar. The victims are “going down the pipe . . . alive!” according to one police officer. In the follow-up movie, the same killer escapes from an insane asylum and targets homosexual victims. As readers might guess, the comedy here is broad and occasionally lewd, but director Richard Rowbotham (who plays Knutsengripper) and screenplay writer David Fenn (who plays the killer) fearlessly keep the gags coming at a frantic clip in this microbudget tribute to microbudget shot-on-video horror features of yesteryear. Off Fleek Teenager Emma (Shona O’Sullivan) is having a “no phones at mealtime” dinner on her birthday with her

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Joseph Perry

Jan 15, 2020

EventsFilm FestivalsForeignIndieMovies

Final Girls Berlin Film Festival Preview: Killers, Thrillers, and Chillers of All Stripes Are on Tap

The fifth edition of Final Girls Berlin Film Festival takes place February 6–9, 2020 at City Kino Wedding as the fest continues to raise the bar by showcasing horror movies written, directed, and/or produced by women and nonbinary filmmakers. Festival codirector Eli Lewy calls this year’s festival edition the “most expansive and international yet, presenting a wide array of films by visionary filmmakers that represent the diversity and originality that can be found in the current horror landscape.” The exciting program features eight curated short blocks and nine feature films, a horror-inspired self-defense workshop, an exhibition, a festival party with multimedia drag performances, and specialist talks on horror martyrs, made-for-TV horror, “female monsters,” and “bad mothers” in Mexican horror cinema. “Horror is a very elastic term,” said fellow co-director Sara Neidorf, “and we’re excited to discover films that make us question and expand our conceptions of what horror can be, both in ways that are distant from and uncannily near

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Joseph Perry

Jan 14, 2020

Film FestivalsForeignIndieMovies

Movie Reviews (Horror-on-Sea Film Festival): Horror Shorts — Bitten, Boo, and Retch

Horror-on-Sea Film Festival, which runs January 10th–19th at Park Inn by Raddison Palace, Southend-on-Sea, U.K., features an incredible program of horror and horror comedy features and shorts from around the world. Following are reviews of three of the short films that will screen at the festival. Bitten When a woman’s (Francine Torres) dog returns home with a bite after a mysterious struggle with an offscreen foe, she lovingly treats the injury before heading out on a first date. While she is away, Iggy the dog transforms into a man (Michael Curran) and the adventures he gets up to in this supernatural comedy are nothing compared to the hijinx that ensue when his owner returns home, to put it mildly. Curran gives a fearless, fully unclothed performance that hilariously captures canine traits and tendencies. Torres deals out a good deal of laughs, too, and the pair provide fine comical chemistry in Bitten, a superbly crafted, great-looking short from director Sarah K

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Joseph Perry

Jan 9, 2020

Film FestivalsReviews

Movie Reviews (Another Hole in the Head Film Fest): Horror Shorts — The Boy with the Sombrero, Hell Hath No Furie, Wendigo, Azrahel, and La Noria

The Boy with the Sombrero Written and directed by Constantien Konstin While walking with his mother (Dawn Briceño), a young boy (Cristiano Briceño) sees the titular character (Broadie Briceño) nearby, but his mother does not. After returning home and spending time with his father (David Briceño), the boy learns that he wasn’t merely seeing things. This slow burner pays off nicely with a sudden shocking climax. Kudos to Alicia Barry for her impressive makeup and special effects work. Hell Hath No Furie Written, directed, and animated by Kitty Faingold This fun, wicked short boasts a unique style of hand-drawn animation heavy on red and black. Its tale of three furies hanging out and getting on each other’s nerves is both comical and violent. The music and sound design by Max Mannone round out Faingold’s short well. You can watch Hell Hath No Furie now at https://vimeo.com/372211393. Wendigo This short from Large Ark Films shows how three friends learn the hard

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Joseph Perry

Dec 30, 2019

MoviesReviews

Movie Review: Come to Daddy (2019)

Learn as little as possible about Come to Daddy — that includes avoiding trailers, though the one presented below thankfully avoids the film’s biggest reveals — and prepare for a highly uncomfortably blast. Director Ant Timpson’s genre-bending feature is chock full of secrets, well-calculated twists, and bravura performances. Family drama, gruesome set pieces, pitch-black humor, and even some poignant bittersweetness collide in the story of man-child Norval’s (Elijah Wood, Maniac; Cooties) travels to a remote beach house to meet his father, who abandoned Norval and his mother 30 years earlier. Norval was initially nervous about the reunion, but nothing prepared him for the verbal abuse and physical threats he receives courtesy of his highly aggressive, judgmental father (Stephen McHattie, Pontypool; Dreamland ), who chides Norval about his substance abuse recovery despite his own fondness for the bottle. In a nail-bitingly tense scene, the father plays an excrutiating game of mental chess regarding how well Norval actually knows rock music legend

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Joseph Perry

Dec 30, 2019

Film FestivalsMovies

Movie Reviews (Another Hole in the Head Film Fest): Beneath the Black Veil and Giantess Attack versus Mecha Fembot (both 2019)

Director Jason M. Koch — no stranger to controversy with his ABCs of Death 2.5 (2016) segment “M is for Munging” and his grisly feature 7th Day (2013) — tackles Chritsian faith and lack thereof in his latest film, Beneath the Black Veil. The lives and marriage of Genna (Samantha Jean) and her husband Aaron (Michael Acosta) are shattered when their child is killed by a driver. When the driver is not punished by law for the accident, the couple plots to take their anger at God out by killing the driver and breaking all of the Ten Commandments. This proves difficult when Aaron cannot find the willpower to leave their house, and then finds himself growing grotesquely sicker. Meanwhile, Genna’s behavior becomes ever odder, alarming her coworkers and close friend. Koch, who wrote the screenplay based on a story by Stephen Biro (writer of the American Guinea Pig films), doesn’t shy away from blasphemy in this body horror/occult horror

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Joseph Perry

Dec 19, 2019

Film FestivalsMoviesReviews

Movie Review (Another Hole in the Head Film Fest): The Dead Ones (2019)

Director Jeremy Kasten’s The Dead Ones tackles current hot-button issues about high school violence, including school shootings and bullying, with a supernatural spin. The film will likely take many viewers out of their comfort zones, and this challenging outing is bound to remain in the minds of those who see it for a good while. Four teenagers — introverted Alice “Mouse” Monroe (Sarah Rose Harper), former juvenile hall charge Scottie French (Brandon Thane Wilson of 2011’s Lovely Molly), psychologically troubled Katie Foster (Emily Davis of Lovely Molly and 2010’s Ghosts Don’t Exist), and Katie’s violence-prone boyfriend Louis Friend (Torey Garza) are tasked by school faculty member Ms. Persephone (Clare Kramer of Tales of Halloween [2015], the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series, and Kasten’s The Thirst [2006]) to spend what would have been their summer vacation in detention, cleaning up a huge mess at their high school. As these characters are introduced and that initial set-up is begun, The Dead

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Joseph Perry

Dec 10, 2019

Joseph Perry

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