CategoryFilm Festivals
Horror film festivals worldwide — lineups, awards and the titles that break out of the festival circuit.
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All My Friends Are Dead, the first film of a new horror franchise, has now revealed its cast at Cannes, and it is filled with a horde of young, exciting actors. Jade Pettyjohn (“Little Fires Everywhere”) and dancer and social media sensation JoJo Siwa join cast members Jennifer Ens (“Chapelwaite”), Ali Fumiko Whitney (Cabin Girl), Justin Derickson (“The Midnight Club”), Julian Haig (“Riverdale”), Cardi Wong (“Are You Afraid of the Dark”), Jack Doupe-Smith (Salad Days), and Michaella Russell (“WandaVision”). The film is directed by horror veteran Marcus Dunstan, who is behind The Collector franchise, Saw IV, and Feast. The upcoming horror film was written by Josh Sims (“PBC”) and Jessica Sarah Flaum (“PBC”). All My Friends Are Dead “follows a group of college friends as they head to the year’s biggest music festival. When they get a killer deal on an Airbnb, they waste little time celebrating their good fortune. Their weekend of partying quickly turns into a nightmare as
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesNewsThriller
Out of Cannes comes casting news about the upcoming “elevated” horror film Please Don’t Feed the Children, the feature directorial debut of Destry Allyn Spielberg. The cast includes Zoe Colletti (Only Murders In The Building, Boo Bitch and Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark), Regan Aliyah (Marvel’s Ironheart and Netflix’s XO KITTY), Andrew Liner (‘Vampire Academy,’ ‘Bang Bang,’ ‘Gray Matter’), and Michelle Dockery. In Please Don’t Feed The Children, “after a viral outbreak ravages the country’s adult population, a group of orphans head south in search of a new life, only to find themselves at the mercy of a deranged woman harboring a dangerous secret.” Please Don’t Feed the Children is produced by Jason Dubin (Who Invited Charlie?, Babysitters) and his Perry Street Films banner, Josh Kesselman (“The Great,” “Devil’s Peak”), and Michael Hagerty (“Old Henry”). Set to begin principal photography in Santa Fe, New Mexico, next month, the film was penned by Paul Bertino. Destry Allyn Spielberg is
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesNews
A sexagenarian chauvinist thinks he has met his match with Claudia, who — or in this case, which — happens to be a mannequin. On Saturday, May 27th at 3:45 p.m., the feature film Claudia — directed by Edward Westrop — will have its world premiere at The Romford Film Festival. Following is the official press release. Claudia is a black comedy about a misogynistic, sixty-something year old man named Raymond who forms an emotional relationship with a life-sized, female mannequin. This film aims to put a darkly comedic twist on the topic of domestic abuse when Raymond realises that the mannequin, who he names Claudia, is the perfect vessel for his misogynistic, backwards relationship values. Director of Claudia Edward Westrop is a self-taught filmmaker whose western-themed, stop-frame animation Cloaked Rider was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015. Claudia is Westrop’s first feature film and has already been selected by the Out of the Can International Film Festival
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EventsFilm FestivalsMoviesNews
Year after year, Chattanooga Film Festival curates a stunning array of genre films, and its 2023 edition — running June 23rd through the 29th — follows this tradition. The fest will offer a hybrid edition, so those who can’t make the big-screen event have the chance to watch some of the offerings from the comfort of their own homes. Following is the official press announcement. Hot on the haunted heels of their tenth-anniversary announcement, organizers of The Chattanooga Film Festival (CFF) have once assembled a first wave of strange and fantastic cinema for their hybrid edition this year. First up is the North American premiere of a film primed to knock the socks off CFF’s longtime fans – filmmaker Jonas Trukanas‘ perfectly executed Lithuanian slasher WE MIGHT HURT EACH OTHER. Trukanas’ briskly paced hoot of a horror film is one of this year’s true standouts and another title presented by Screambox. WE MIGHT HURT EACH OTHER has all the makings
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
MINORE In director Konstantinos Koutsoliotas’ Minore (Greece, 2023), sailor William (Davide Tucci) comes to a small Greek coastal town while on shore leave, searching for someone who has been missing from his life. He befriends tavern server Aliki (Daphne Alexander), and soon the pair must join forces with the rest of the townspeople to battle against strange creatures coming from the sea. This is a winning horror comedy with a strong Lovecraftian vibe. It boasts a sizable cast whose members all give fine performances, and the characters — the screenplay is by Koutsoliotas and Elizabeth E. Schuch (The Book of Birdie) — are written so well and in such an endearing manner that viewers will want all of them to survive the invasion. That’s a rarity in horror and horror comedies recently, with so many unlikable characters in many movies of late with no one to really root for. The creatures look pretty cool and get plenty of screen time
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesReviewsShort Films
The Dream Machine Cowriters/codirectors Josef Hermansson Embring and Philip Sterner have crafted a trippy work, Swedish short The Dream Machine. A young man (Alec Toselli) buys the titular device advertised on late-night television in hopes of easing his insomnia, or at least coming to grips with it, but this being a science fiction thriller, naturally using the machine leads to odd consequences. The filmmakers make the most of a small, sparsely decorated apartment, almost bare except for technology circa the short’s early 2000s-setting. The result is a mind-boggling lo-fi mind bender. The Fore-Men Writer/director Adrian Bobb’s The Fore-Men reveals its secrets slowly, and quite satisfyingly so. Sophia Walker and Gabriel Darku give fine performances as they star as what seems to be the lone survivors, at least in their area, of some cataclysmic event that brought the far past and present colliding together. Bobb makes the most of using what viewers don’t see to build mystery and tension and then
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesNews
Tim Burton fans were thrilled to learn that a sequel to his classic Beetlejuice is in the works. During the Discovery showcase at CinemaCon, Warner Bros shared a sizzle reel of upcoming titles and logos. Among them was Beetlejuice 2. So, we can say that it is officially confirmed. The sequel, which is set to begin production between now and June, will see Burton in the director’s chair with star Michael Keaton, Beetlejuice himself, returning. Last we heard, Jenna Ortega, who also stars in Burton’s series “Wednesday,” is in talks to play the daughter of Lydia, Winona Ryder’s iconic character. “Wednesday’s” second season is on its way from Netflix. Will update you when we know more.
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
If you are looking for a film that is decidedly different from just about anything you have watched recently, look no further than director Isti Madarász’s Hungarian feature Halfway Home (Átjáróház, 2022). This film, which boasts supernatural elements galore, is perhaps the most charming, whimsical consideration of love and death that you are likely to see this year. Kriztián (Péter Bárnai) and Ági (Vivien Rujder) were both rescued from a hospital fire at birth. Kriztián was raised by a witch, which may help him after he is late for a first date — the pair are unaware of each other’s shared hospital story — with Ági. His tardiness resulted in her accidental death. Luckily for Kriztián, he has just landed a new job as a morgue attendant where the dead who have something left undone before their demise wait for a certain period, ascending into Heaven if their desire is fulfilled or meeting with a sadistic demon if it is
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesReviews
Becky’s back, and that’s bad news for another bunch of neo-Nazis. In The Wrath of Becky, Lulu Wilson reprises the titular role in this sequel to 2020’s Becky, in which a preteen girl wastes a group of white supremacists who killed her father. This time around, a trio of them hassle her at the restaurant where she waitresses, and after she embarrasses one of them, they invade the home of the woman with whom she is staying and do some nasty business, including stealing her beloved dog Diego. Interestingly, the codirectors and writers of Becky didn’t repeat their roles for this sequel, which was helmed by Matt Angel (who also costars as one of the baddies) and Suzanne Coote, and written by Angel with Coote receiving a story credit. The pair give the sequel a decidedly more humorous tone than its predecessor, and I had a blast watching Becky deliver comeuppance to the villains and get herself out of trouble,
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesReviews
Director Colton Van Til takes a trippy deep dive into the dark heart of a 1950s American family in Meltdown: A Nuclear Family’s Ascension into Madness. This impressive fear-fare feature combines disorienting visuals — those with photosensitive epilepsy or other photosensitive issues are hereby warned — with a chilling mystery and heated drama. Political candidate for city office Norman (William Elsman) and his wife Ruby (Hannah Beck), who served as a nurse in the armed forces, put on a brave front as Norman ramps up his campaign, with the unexplained disappearance of their youngest son a few years earlier still weighing heavily on them. Their teen daughter Joan (Maleah Goldberg), meanwhile, is secretly dating Galen (Finn Roberts), the son of Norman’s Bible-verse–spouting political rival George (Eric Hanson) and his heavily drinking wife Teresa (Celena Rae), and their preteen son Harry (Joshua Weatherby) is freely going against his parent’s wishes. If that all sounds volatile enough already, add a dinner party
Continue reading →
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Film FestivalsMoviesNews
All My Friends Are Dead, the first film of a new horror franchise, has now revealed its cast at Cannes, and it is filled with a horde of young, exciting actors. Jade Pettyjohn (“Little Fires Everywhere”) and dancer and social media sensation JoJo Siwa join cast members Jennifer Ens (“Chapelwaite”), Ali Fumiko Whitney (Cabin Girl), Justin Derickson (“The Midnight Club”), Julian Haig (“Riverdale”), Cardi Wong (“Are You Afraid of the Dark”), Jack Doupe-Smith (Salad Days), and Michaella Russell (“WandaVision”). The film is directed by horror veteran Marcus Dunstan, who is behind The Collector franchise, Saw IV, and Feast. The upcoming horror film was written by Josh Sims (“PBC”) and Jessica Sarah Flaum (“PBC”). All My Friends Are Dead “follows a group of college friends as they head to the year’s biggest music festival. When they get a killer deal on an Airbnb, they waste little time celebrating their good fortune. Their weekend of partying quickly turns into a nightmare as
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesNewsThriller
Out of Cannes comes casting news about the upcoming “elevated” horror film Please Don’t Feed the Children, the feature directorial debut of Destry Allyn Spielberg. The cast includes Zoe Colletti (Only Murders In The Building, Boo Bitch and Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark), Regan Aliyah (Marvel’s Ironheart and Netflix’s XO KITTY), Andrew Liner (‘Vampire Academy,’ ‘Bang Bang,’ ‘Gray Matter’), and Michelle Dockery. In Please Don’t Feed The Children, “after a viral outbreak ravages the country’s adult population, a group of orphans head south in search of a new life, only to find themselves at the mercy of a deranged woman harboring a dangerous secret.” Please Don’t Feed the Children is produced by Jason Dubin (Who Invited Charlie?, Babysitters) and his Perry Street Films banner, Josh Kesselman (“The Great,” “Devil’s Peak”), and Michael Hagerty (“Old Henry”). Set to begin principal photography in Santa Fe, New Mexico, next month, the film was penned by Paul Bertino. Destry Allyn Spielberg is
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesNews
A sexagenarian chauvinist thinks he has met his match with Claudia, who — or in this case, which — happens to be a mannequin. On Saturday, May 27th at 3:45 p.m., the feature film Claudia — directed by Edward Westrop — will have its world premiere at The Romford Film Festival. Following is the official press release. Claudia is a black comedy about a misogynistic, sixty-something year old man named Raymond who forms an emotional relationship with a life-sized, female mannequin. This film aims to put a darkly comedic twist on the topic of domestic abuse when Raymond realises that the mannequin, who he names Claudia, is the perfect vessel for his misogynistic, backwards relationship values. Director of Claudia Edward Westrop is a self-taught filmmaker whose western-themed, stop-frame animation Cloaked Rider was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015. Claudia is Westrop’s first feature film and has already been selected by the Out of the Can International Film Festival
Continue reading →
EventsFilm FestivalsMoviesNews
Year after year, Chattanooga Film Festival curates a stunning array of genre films, and its 2023 edition — running June 23rd through the 29th — follows this tradition. The fest will offer a hybrid edition, so those who can’t make the big-screen event have the chance to watch some of the offerings from the comfort of their own homes. Following is the official press announcement. Hot on the haunted heels of their tenth-anniversary announcement, organizers of The Chattanooga Film Festival (CFF) have once assembled a first wave of strange and fantastic cinema for their hybrid edition this year. First up is the North American premiere of a film primed to knock the socks off CFF’s longtime fans – filmmaker Jonas Trukanas‘ perfectly executed Lithuanian slasher WE MIGHT HURT EACH OTHER. Trukanas’ briskly paced hoot of a horror film is one of this year’s true standouts and another title presented by Screambox. WE MIGHT HURT EACH OTHER has all the makings
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
MINORE In director Konstantinos Koutsoliotas’ Minore (Greece, 2023), sailor William (Davide Tucci) comes to a small Greek coastal town while on shore leave, searching for someone who has been missing from his life. He befriends tavern server Aliki (Daphne Alexander), and soon the pair must join forces with the rest of the townspeople to battle against strange creatures coming from the sea. This is a winning horror comedy with a strong Lovecraftian vibe. It boasts a sizable cast whose members all give fine performances, and the characters — the screenplay is by Koutsoliotas and Elizabeth E. Schuch (The Book of Birdie) — are written so well and in such an endearing manner that viewers will want all of them to survive the invasion. That’s a rarity in horror and horror comedies recently, with so many unlikable characters in many movies of late with no one to really root for. The creatures look pretty cool and get plenty of screen time
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesReviewsShort Films
The Dream Machine Cowriters/codirectors Josef Hermansson Embring and Philip Sterner have crafted a trippy work, Swedish short The Dream Machine. A young man (Alec Toselli) buys the titular device advertised on late-night television in hopes of easing his insomnia, or at least coming to grips with it, but this being a science fiction thriller, naturally using the machine leads to odd consequences. The filmmakers make the most of a small, sparsely decorated apartment, almost bare except for technology circa the short’s early 2000s-setting. The result is a mind-boggling lo-fi mind bender. The Fore-Men Writer/director Adrian Bobb’s The Fore-Men reveals its secrets slowly, and quite satisfyingly so. Sophia Walker and Gabriel Darku give fine performances as they star as what seems to be the lone survivors, at least in their area, of some cataclysmic event that brought the far past and present colliding together. Bobb makes the most of using what viewers don’t see to build mystery and tension and then
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesNews
Tim Burton fans were thrilled to learn that a sequel to his classic Beetlejuice is in the works. During the Discovery showcase at CinemaCon, Warner Bros shared a sizzle reel of upcoming titles and logos. Among them was Beetlejuice 2. So, we can say that it is officially confirmed. The sequel, which is set to begin production between now and June, will see Burton in the director’s chair with star Michael Keaton, Beetlejuice himself, returning. Last we heard, Jenna Ortega, who also stars in Burton’s series “Wednesday,” is in talks to play the daughter of Lydia, Winona Ryder’s iconic character. “Wednesday’s” second season is on its way from Netflix. Will update you when we know more.
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsForeignMoviesReviews
If you are looking for a film that is decidedly different from just about anything you have watched recently, look no further than director Isti Madarász’s Hungarian feature Halfway Home (Átjáróház, 2022). This film, which boasts supernatural elements galore, is perhaps the most charming, whimsical consideration of love and death that you are likely to see this year. Kriztián (Péter Bárnai) and Ági (Vivien Rujder) were both rescued from a hospital fire at birth. Kriztián was raised by a witch, which may help him after he is late for a first date — the pair are unaware of each other’s shared hospital story — with Ági. His tardiness resulted in her accidental death. Luckily for Kriztián, he has just landed a new job as a morgue attendant where the dead who have something left undone before their demise wait for a certain period, ascending into Heaven if their desire is fulfilled or meeting with a sadistic demon if it is
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesReviews
Becky’s back, and that’s bad news for another bunch of neo-Nazis. In The Wrath of Becky, Lulu Wilson reprises the titular role in this sequel to 2020’s Becky, in which a preteen girl wastes a group of white supremacists who killed her father. This time around, a trio of them hassle her at the restaurant where she waitresses, and after she embarrasses one of them, they invade the home of the woman with whom she is staying and do some nasty business, including stealing her beloved dog Diego. Interestingly, the codirectors and writers of Becky didn’t repeat their roles for this sequel, which was helmed by Matt Angel (who also costars as one of the baddies) and Suzanne Coote, and written by Angel with Coote receiving a story credit. The pair give the sequel a decidedly more humorous tone than its predecessor, and I had a blast watching Becky deliver comeuppance to the villains and get herself out of trouble,
Continue reading →
Film FestivalsMoviesReviews
Director Colton Van Til takes a trippy deep dive into the dark heart of a 1950s American family in Meltdown: A Nuclear Family’s Ascension into Madness. This impressive fear-fare feature combines disorienting visuals — those with photosensitive epilepsy or other photosensitive issues are hereby warned — with a chilling mystery and heated drama. Political candidate for city office Norman (William Elsman) and his wife Ruby (Hannah Beck), who served as a nurse in the armed forces, put on a brave front as Norman ramps up his campaign, with the unexplained disappearance of their youngest son a few years earlier still weighing heavily on them. Their teen daughter Joan (Maleah Goldberg), meanwhile, is secretly dating Galen (Finn Roberts), the son of Norman’s Bible-verse–spouting political rival George (Eric Hanson) and his heavily drinking wife Teresa (Celena Rae), and their preteen son Harry (Joshua Weatherby) is freely going against his parent’s wishes. If that all sounds volatile enough already, add a dinner party
Continue reading →
