Independent horror: micro-budget features, short films and first-time filmmakers doing more with less — and often doing it better.
Back ‘round 1973, filmmaker Robin Hardy unleashed the ultimate folk horror banger, The Wicker Man. If you’re not familiar (and you absolutely should be), The Wicker Man concerns a police Sergeant who travels to a remote Scottish island to investigate the case of a missing child. Once there he discovers the strange pagan rituals of […]
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Official synopsis A lost girl unexpectedly takes part in a midnight hike to explore local urban legends and monsters, only to find herself among the mysteries of the dark trail. Review As an aficionado of high strangeness since at least first grade of elementary school — Bigfoot and Nessie were my gateway cryptids at that […]
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Winchester, Virginia’s GenreBlast Film Festival is renowned for serving up an annual selection of weird, wild, independent cinema, and this year’s 10th edition shows exactly why. Running September 3-6, 2026, the festival offers chillers, thrillers, and chucklers aplenty. Following is the official press announcement. GenreBlast Film Fest has announced its lineup for the tenth year of their international independent genre film festival. The four day in-person event will showcase fourteen feature films and seventy-five short films from around the world as well as the results of their annual screenplay competition. Emanating from the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Winchester, Virginia, GenreBlast continues to champion truly independent genre cinema and features an eclectic lineup of cross-genre films. The fest prides itself on being an eccentric mixtape of genres and filmmakers. Of the fourteen features selected this year, there are two world premieres, one U.S. premiere, two east coast premieres, six regional premieres, and three Virginia premieres. Josh Stifter’s action comedy GET THAT
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Bobby Sweet (Ricky Glore, who also wrote and directed the picture) spends his days slinging burgers and unclogging toilets at the local fast food eatery, but he has high hopes on becoming a musician and enjoying all of the prestige that comes with it. Bobby’s boss Nick (Andrew Gordon) has other ideas for our hero’s future… namely taking over the operations of the business because he can’t leave it to his disappointing offspring. Bobby wants to warble out his tunes, but he agrees and after Nick buys the farm Bobby finds himself in the middle of a scheme by Nick’s daughter Laddie (Eileen Earnest) to increase business by introducing a new ingredient to the restaurant’s offerings. It doesn’t take a genius to suss out what that ingredient truly is, and before you can say “Motel Hell”, that man-centric mystery meat really takes the fast food biz by sinister storm… and Bobby can spend his time working on his craft as
Continue reading →
Dig this one; the Blood Countess herself Elizabeth Bathory (Jessa Jupiter Flux, Murdercise, Onlyfangs ) has survived the centuries and settled down in suburbia! Meanwhile, Jenny (Angel Nicole Bradford, Backwoods Blood Feud, The House That Eats Flesh) is having a shitty go of things as of late… she’s trapped in an abusive relationship and she’s completely broke. The solution to at least one of those probs comes in the form of a job offer from Bathory her damn self, and the gig really sucks too, as it involves looking after Liz’s insane sister… who lives in a bathtub, eats raw meat, and snarls all of the damn time. The job lasts roughly one second before Bathory works up an arcane boobs n’ blood style bedroom bedazzlement and marks our heroine with a sigil that gives her a taste for human flesh and additionally, at no extra fee, marks her as the vessel for the offspring of the demon king, Asmodeus!
Continue reading →
After being expelled from Tromaville High School, our highly tatted, skimpily dressed heroines D.d. (Elizabeth D’Ambrosio) and Mercy (Mercedes The Muse, who also wrote and directed the picture… as she did on Troma’s Divide & Conquer as well as many more) try their level-headed best to secure jobs in the real world… but after a series of disastrous work place experiences (at least one of which features that ol’ family fav; un-simulated on-screen pissing) our protagonists discover that a virus is turning horny men’s dicks into monsters (also dicks)… dicks with faces that expel green jizz. As anyone would, they arm themselves with dildo-based weaponry and queef balloons and take to the streets to do battle with those phreaky phalluses as The Super Tromettes! Before long they discover that the virus is man-made and after recruiting new members into their ranks… including the ADHD-riddled roller-skatin’ Hypergirl (split-tongued dynamo Knotty Peach, also from Divide & Conquer) and disabled tech-genius Tekno (Jade
Continue reading →
After some intro bullshitting around from Uncle Lloyd himself, the story of Sugar Cookies begins in earnest… High falutin’ porno producer Max Pavell (George Shannon) accidentally kills his starlet, Alta Leigh (Lynn Lowry, Shivers, Cat People) after a lil’ sexy-time gun-play. Well, that just won’t do… so our prize-winning dick of a leading man immediately goes into damage control claiming the whole debacle was a suicide… and he even gets his casting director, Camila Stone (Mary Woronov, Death Race 2000, Rock n’ Roll high School) to cover for his whereabouts on the night of the incident. Speaking of Camila, she is also tasked with finding a new leading lady for Max’s porn ventures and soon she begins introducing eager starlet Julie Kent (Lowry pullin’ double duty) to the lavish lifestyle… the only hitch is, Camila begins to fall in love with Julie… Will that be enough to keep Julie out of Max’s dangerous sex games? Sugar Cookies is as scattershot
Continue reading →
If you spent any part of the early 2010s staying up far too late on forums, chances are you still lose sleep over that pasty, wide-eyed, lip-less face warning you to “go to sleep.” Now, the legendary internet urban legend Jeff the Killer is leaping ancient Creepypasta lore straight into movie theaters. Tongal—the community-powered studio fresh off high-profile collaborations with Netflix, Disney, and Pharrell Williams has officially snapped up the film rights for its very first original horror feature. Move over, The Backrooms; the OG meme horrors are taking over Hollywood. A Match Made in Surreal “Fever Dream” Heaven Leading the charge into the digital dark arts is filmmaker and viral phenomenon Savanah Moss. Her surreal, genre-bending short-form videos have earned her over 15 million devoted followers. Fresh off the festival circuit with her acclaimed short Funny Bunny, Moss is stepping into the feature production ring. And she’s working alongside Hollywood heavyweights Mark Korshak (Peppermint) and Michael McKay (The Age
Continue reading →
A haunting first trailer has arrived for The Latcher, the debut feature film from writer-director James Hunter. The Australian indie horror thriller centers on Alice, an overworked midwife portrayed by Lucy Lovegrove. Hollowed out by an unspoken personal tragedy, Alice becomes relentlessly tormented. She faces waking nightmares of a sinister entity creeping out from the dark bushland and into the home where she lost everything. A Chilling Exploration of Unspoken Sorrow Rather than relying on standard jump scares, The Latcher leans heavily into atmospheric and psychological dread. In a recent chat with Cinema Australia, Hunter described the film. He compared it to a study of what waits in the silence of grief and what creeps in when sorrow goes untended. He noted his intention to capture the deeply unsettling sensation of staring into the pitch-black darkness until something terrifying begins staring right back. “The Latcher is a story about what waits in the silence of grief, what clings to us
Continue reading →
Italian filmmakers well and truly got balls deep into any and all American genre cinema trends in the ‘70s and ‘80s in order to make some dough. That eloquent statement brings us to the subject of Discoploitation… yup, that’s right, or pals in Italy saw Saturday Night Fever and said “Fuck yeah, we can do that!” And they did… in a way… and now I’m going to take a gander at the results courtesy of Severin’s new Blu-ray boxset; Disco Italiana! Things kick off with American Fever (1978)… Our hero Tony (Mircha Carven, SS Experiment Love Camp) works as a mechanic by day and tears it up in his white suit on the disco floor at night… he’s also an aspiring actor. All isn’t carburetors and the Hustle however, and Tony finds himself getting involved with Lisa (Zora Kerova, Antropophagus, Cannibal Ferox)… yet another aspiring thespian that he talks down from a suicide attempt. While contending with that, Tony has
Continue reading →
Back ‘round 1973, filmmaker Robin Hardy unleashed the ultimate folk horror banger, The Wicker Man. If you’re not familiar (and you absolutely should be), The Wicker Man concerns a police Sergeant who travels to a remote Scottish island to investigate the case of a missing child. Once there he discovers the strange pagan rituals of […]
Continue reading →
Official synopsis A lost girl unexpectedly takes part in a midnight hike to explore local urban legends and monsters, only to find herself among the mysteries of the dark trail. Review As an aficionado of high strangeness since at least first grade of elementary school — Bigfoot and Nessie were my gateway cryptids at that […]
Continue reading →
Winchester, Virginia’s GenreBlast Film Festival is renowned for serving up an annual selection of weird, wild, independent cinema, and this year’s 10th edition shows exactly why. Running September 3-6, 2026, the festival offers chillers, thrillers, and chucklers aplenty. Following is the official press announcement. GenreBlast Film Fest has announced its lineup for the tenth year of their international independent genre film festival. The four day in-person event will showcase fourteen feature films and seventy-five short films from around the world as well as the results of their annual screenplay competition. Emanating from the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Winchester, Virginia, GenreBlast continues to champion truly independent genre cinema and features an eclectic lineup of cross-genre films. The fest prides itself on being an eccentric mixtape of genres and filmmakers. Of the fourteen features selected this year, there are two world premieres, one U.S. premiere, two east coast premieres, six regional premieres, and three Virginia premieres. Josh Stifter’s action comedy GET THAT
Continue reading →
Bobby Sweet (Ricky Glore, who also wrote and directed the picture) spends his days slinging burgers and unclogging toilets at the local fast food eatery, but he has high hopes on becoming a musician and enjoying all of the prestige that comes with it. Bobby’s boss Nick (Andrew Gordon) has other ideas for our hero’s future… namely taking over the operations of the business because he can’t leave it to his disappointing offspring. Bobby wants to warble out his tunes, but he agrees and after Nick buys the farm Bobby finds himself in the middle of a scheme by Nick’s daughter Laddie (Eileen Earnest) to increase business by introducing a new ingredient to the restaurant’s offerings. It doesn’t take a genius to suss out what that ingredient truly is, and before you can say “Motel Hell”, that man-centric mystery meat really takes the fast food biz by sinister storm… and Bobby can spend his time working on his craft as
Continue reading →
Dig this one; the Blood Countess herself Elizabeth Bathory (Jessa Jupiter Flux, Murdercise, Onlyfangs ) has survived the centuries and settled down in suburbia! Meanwhile, Jenny (Angel Nicole Bradford, Backwoods Blood Feud, The House That Eats Flesh) is having a shitty go of things as of late… she’s trapped in an abusive relationship and she’s completely broke. The solution to at least one of those probs comes in the form of a job offer from Bathory her damn self, and the gig really sucks too, as it involves looking after Liz’s insane sister… who lives in a bathtub, eats raw meat, and snarls all of the damn time. The job lasts roughly one second before Bathory works up an arcane boobs n’ blood style bedroom bedazzlement and marks our heroine with a sigil that gives her a taste for human flesh and additionally, at no extra fee, marks her as the vessel for the offspring of the demon king, Asmodeus!
Continue reading →
After being expelled from Tromaville High School, our highly tatted, skimpily dressed heroines D.d. (Elizabeth D’Ambrosio) and Mercy (Mercedes The Muse, who also wrote and directed the picture… as she did on Troma’s Divide & Conquer as well as many more) try their level-headed best to secure jobs in the real world… but after a series of disastrous work place experiences (at least one of which features that ol’ family fav; un-simulated on-screen pissing) our protagonists discover that a virus is turning horny men’s dicks into monsters (also dicks)… dicks with faces that expel green jizz. As anyone would, they arm themselves with dildo-based weaponry and queef balloons and take to the streets to do battle with those phreaky phalluses as The Super Tromettes! Before long they discover that the virus is man-made and after recruiting new members into their ranks… including the ADHD-riddled roller-skatin’ Hypergirl (split-tongued dynamo Knotty Peach, also from Divide & Conquer) and disabled tech-genius Tekno (Jade
Continue reading →
After some intro bullshitting around from Uncle Lloyd himself, the story of Sugar Cookies begins in earnest… High falutin’ porno producer Max Pavell (George Shannon) accidentally kills his starlet, Alta Leigh (Lynn Lowry, Shivers, Cat People) after a lil’ sexy-time gun-play. Well, that just won’t do… so our prize-winning dick of a leading man immediately goes into damage control claiming the whole debacle was a suicide… and he even gets his casting director, Camila Stone (Mary Woronov, Death Race 2000, Rock n’ Roll high School) to cover for his whereabouts on the night of the incident. Speaking of Camila, she is also tasked with finding a new leading lady for Max’s porn ventures and soon she begins introducing eager starlet Julie Kent (Lowry pullin’ double duty) to the lavish lifestyle… the only hitch is, Camila begins to fall in love with Julie… Will that be enough to keep Julie out of Max’s dangerous sex games? Sugar Cookies is as scattershot
Continue reading →
If you spent any part of the early 2010s staying up far too late on forums, chances are you still lose sleep over that pasty, wide-eyed, lip-less face warning you to “go to sleep.” Now, the legendary internet urban legend Jeff the Killer is leaping ancient Creepypasta lore straight into movie theaters. Tongal—the community-powered studio fresh off high-profile collaborations with Netflix, Disney, and Pharrell Williams has officially snapped up the film rights for its very first original horror feature. Move over, The Backrooms; the OG meme horrors are taking over Hollywood. A Match Made in Surreal “Fever Dream” Heaven Leading the charge into the digital dark arts is filmmaker and viral phenomenon Savanah Moss. Her surreal, genre-bending short-form videos have earned her over 15 million devoted followers. Fresh off the festival circuit with her acclaimed short Funny Bunny, Moss is stepping into the feature production ring. And she’s working alongside Hollywood heavyweights Mark Korshak (Peppermint) and Michael McKay (The Age
Continue reading →
A haunting first trailer has arrived for The Latcher, the debut feature film from writer-director James Hunter. The Australian indie horror thriller centers on Alice, an overworked midwife portrayed by Lucy Lovegrove. Hollowed out by an unspoken personal tragedy, Alice becomes relentlessly tormented. She faces waking nightmares of a sinister entity creeping out from the dark bushland and into the home where she lost everything. A Chilling Exploration of Unspoken Sorrow Rather than relying on standard jump scares, The Latcher leans heavily into atmospheric and psychological dread. In a recent chat with Cinema Australia, Hunter described the film. He compared it to a study of what waits in the silence of grief and what creeps in when sorrow goes untended. He noted his intention to capture the deeply unsettling sensation of staring into the pitch-black darkness until something terrifying begins staring right back. “The Latcher is a story about what waits in the silence of grief, what clings to us
Continue reading →
Italian filmmakers well and truly got balls deep into any and all American genre cinema trends in the ‘70s and ‘80s in order to make some dough. That eloquent statement brings us to the subject of Discoploitation… yup, that’s right, or pals in Italy saw Saturday Night Fever and said “Fuck yeah, we can do that!” And they did… in a way… and now I’m going to take a gander at the results courtesy of Severin’s new Blu-ray boxset; Disco Italiana! Things kick off with American Fever (1978)… Our hero Tony (Mircha Carven, SS Experiment Love Camp) works as a mechanic by day and tears it up in his white suit on the disco floor at night… he’s also an aspiring actor. All isn’t carburetors and the Hustle however, and Tony finds himself getting involved with Lisa (Zora Kerova, Antropophagus, Cannibal Ferox)… yet another aspiring thespian that he talks down from a suicide attempt. While contending with that, Tony has
Continue reading →
