CategoryIndie
Independent horror: micro-budget features, short films and first-time filmmakers doing more with less — and often doing it better.
2,258 stories
ForeignIndieMovies
Ricardo (Jorge Mota), an old man who feels he has wronged his family, and Caroline (Daniela Love) a morbid, death obsessed young woman (or as I like to call her, Daniel XIII’s girlfriends 96 -05 editions) enter the eponymous Forest of Lost Souls to commit suicide (what did you think you’d do in a place like that, earn a Forestry badge?). As they converse, we learn of their pasts and find out just how far they are willing to go in their quest for eternal rest. Well, one of the two becomes a lost soul, and one turns out to be one of those knife wielding psychos the kids are always on about these days and heads out to do some murder biz…and no, I’m not going to tell you which one and spoil a movie you’ve never heard of no matter how many nudes you send… The Forest of the Lost Souls is an uncomplicated flick, divided into two
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IndieMoviesReviews
3: An Eye For An Eye begins as a married couple abduct a man they feel is responsible for the wife’s rape years previous. The main of course professes his innocence, but this doesn’t stop them from tying him up and trying to torture a filmed confession out of him. This all seems fine and dandy (minus the legal and moral quandaries it brings up), but there is another small problem…they may have the wrong man…and the sexual assault may have never taken place. The most intriguing thing about 3: An Eye For An Eye is that it manages to do a whole lot, with a whole lotta nothing; one main location, three actors, a minimum of props and effects…you’d think that may not be enough to hold your interest for nearly an hour and a half, but thanks to incredibly strong performances, and an excellent narrative that keeps the audience guessing and the tension mounting this is one of
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
In a post-apocalyptic version of the wild west, folks covet a storytelling device (itself a primitive tattoo needle) and relate tales of a strange orb, the arte factum (think Heavy Metal‘s Loc-Nar) and it’s passage from owner to owner…you guessed it my fine fiends, we have an arcane anthology on our horrid hands (and I’ll be giving my two cents on each segment as we go)! Our wrap around takes place in a saloon in that nightmare world mentioned above, and it acts as a hub for each yarn spun…also the Four Horseman show up because…who the fuck cares; it’s cool! First up we get a tale of a warrior tattooing himself with the artifact as a creature comes to collect a the glowing orb he possesses. This was brief, but cool…I’d like to see this tale expanded. Next up we get the story of an omniscient being who possesses that special sphere watching the lives of a couple in
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
In a hidden bunker far below the Earth, a strange (and by strange this dude is an actual, full on monster) commandant (Nima Forghani) devises strategies for a great war. When not preoccupied with that, or snorting the ashes of cremated soldiers like cocaine, he focuses much of his unwanted attention on his secretary (Tiffany Astrid); a vamp that would give Vampira a run for her money. Looking for a way out of her predicament she enlists the aide of a soldier (Douglas Mckenney); who resides in a giant birdcage within the bunker when not doin’ the army biz, to help her with her demonic dilemma. Filled with gobs of silent film atmosphere, fever dream imagery, and a thing or two to say about war and women’s place in a tyrannical male society inspired in part by the film’s co-writer (along with Byron C. Miller who also edited the film)/actor/producer Nima Forghani’s experience growing up in 1980’s Iran; a country
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
After a cold open where a couple o’ vloggers get their asses handed to them by a murderous scarecrow, we dive right into the story proper of Old Man of the Rooks; namely a real black widow of a woman named Deb (Susan Willis) keeps murdering her spouses on her remote farmland along with the help of her brother Dan (David Barney). Well one of the dudes she done wrong was a Scottish warlock, and now roams the grounds as that aforementioned scarecrow who offers up blood sacrifices to a witch who dresses up like a crow (a very cool visual). Said scarecrow soon offs Dan and then begins playing mind games with ol’ Deadly Deb who is going to have one hell of a time stayin’ alive with so much supernatural shenanigans afoot on her property! As you may surmise by the description above, Old Man of the Rooks has one major thing going for it; and that’s originality.
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IndieMovies
Merrymaker Campgrounds has a bit of a bad rep…I mean sure two girls were savagely murdered there a few years back, but the case was chalked up to an animal attack and that’s all she wrote, right? Fuck no, what the hell kind of fright flick would that be?!! Enter horror author/college professor/philanderer Roland Baumgarner (Christian Oliver) who just so happened to write a book based on that hot mess mentioned above and heads out to Merrymaker to cut the ribbon at the camp’s grand re-opening. Once there he meets the rangers in charge; Anita and Poppy Bishop (Larisa Oleynik and Christine Donlon respectively), grizzled hunter Burl Wolf (Don Frye, and some frazzled survivors that claim they were fucked up six ways to Sunday by a monster…”animal attack” my ass! Of course the killing continues on and secrets are revealed that challenge everything our heroes know about the monster and themselves! Let’s start with the positives with Animal Among Us…and
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
Usually when I have to lay my putrid peepers on an arcane anthology things take a turn for the horror biz, but recently I was sent a picture packed with yarns of a sci-fi bent, all with the theme of artificial intelligence as their linking narrative element. Let’s see how the disparate stories (these shorts are presented “as is” with no connecting framing narrative) of A.I. Tales stack up, shall we? First up comes Seed; the story of a man named Nathan (Nelson Lee, who also wrote and directed the film) who’s family and friends gather to celebrate his birthday, but rather than being a joyous affair things take a turn for the melancholy as our protagonist reflects on the life he has lead with the folks gathered, warts and all. So why is Nathan so glum…why because it is his 40th birthday and there fore he must be reduced to just his consciousness and give up his body in
Continue reading →
IndieMovies
Annoying, pain in the ass Callie (Meredith Mohler) is an obnoxious social justice warrior who spends her life reporting the supposedly offensive actions of her fellow students in spectacularly over-the-top fashion. Things are going swimmingly for her quest to find the ultimate level of butt hurt when a legendary serial killer returns and picks up the murder biz he started years previous. This chaps Callie’s ass big time as now the town is more concerned about being slaughtered and becoming real victims rather than the one she pretends to be every minute of the day. Speaking of pretending, Callie, along with her pal Ian (Jesse Dalton) devise a plan to fake an attack by the maniac (after Callie accidentally kills a fellow student) to put the spotlight back on our long suffering heroine. This of course goes over about as well as a fart on a submarine and our slice n’ dice antagonist targets that annoying bitch…err, I mean Callie
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
After a whole mess of sheep, a cowboy (sheepboy?!!) in a furry vest playing the one armed bandit, rando joyriding, and four music changes (a heavenly chorus. some synthy fart noises, a brassy upbeat number, and some sort of stock score music) we get down to the real business with Godmonster of Indian Flats…namely that this film is batshit insane and possibly the product of a certified schizophrenic (or a director desperately trying to meet their run time…not a lot of difference really). Following all that we get a banjo band with a beatnik playing in a traditional old west saloon (like straight out of a John Wayne movie costumes and all)…and we finally get going on the story to this picture; namely that dude mentioned previous finds one hella fucked up newborn lamb (after he experiences a psychotronic freak out)…a find that is whisked away to the lab of scientific manly-man Dr. Clemens (E. Kerrigan Prescott…Christ, they just should
Continue reading →
IndieMovies
The Sunset Society are a cadre of vampires (played by sunset strip rock icons such as Tracii Guns and Dizzy Reed…and Ron Jeremy?!!) who meet in an opulent mansion (the exterior of which is inexplicably realized through animation…we’ll get back to that in a paragraph or so) to drink the blood of strippers (apparently), and shoot the shit with their overlord Ace (Lemmy) and his mate Sophia (Phoebe Dollar). As that goes on, we also get some hoo-ha about some footage of the Society that has been secretly shot and is in danger of exposing the clan to the world of mortal men. Bodies are switched, blood is drank, and ropes are jumped… Where to even begin with the uneven ride that is Sunset Society…for starters, it is painfully obvious that the film is comprised of two separate elements that have been Frankensteined together to create a cohesive fright flick. The main meat of the narrative; a secret tape (supposedly
Continue reading →
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ForeignIndieMovies
Ricardo (Jorge Mota), an old man who feels he has wronged his family, and Caroline (Daniela Love) a morbid, death obsessed young woman (or as I like to call her, Daniel XIII’s girlfriends 96 -05 editions) enter the eponymous Forest of Lost Souls to commit suicide (what did you think you’d do in a place like that, earn a Forestry badge?). As they converse, we learn of their pasts and find out just how far they are willing to go in their quest for eternal rest. Well, one of the two becomes a lost soul, and one turns out to be one of those knife wielding psychos the kids are always on about these days and heads out to do some murder biz…and no, I’m not going to tell you which one and spoil a movie you’ve never heard of no matter how many nudes you send… The Forest of the Lost Souls is an uncomplicated flick, divided into two
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
3: An Eye For An Eye begins as a married couple abduct a man they feel is responsible for the wife’s rape years previous. The main of course professes his innocence, but this doesn’t stop them from tying him up and trying to torture a filmed confession out of him. This all seems fine and dandy (minus the legal and moral quandaries it brings up), but there is another small problem…they may have the wrong man…and the sexual assault may have never taken place. The most intriguing thing about 3: An Eye For An Eye is that it manages to do a whole lot, with a whole lotta nothing; one main location, three actors, a minimum of props and effects…you’d think that may not be enough to hold your interest for nearly an hour and a half, but thanks to incredibly strong performances, and an excellent narrative that keeps the audience guessing and the tension mounting this is one of
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
In a post-apocalyptic version of the wild west, folks covet a storytelling device (itself a primitive tattoo needle) and relate tales of a strange orb, the arte factum (think Heavy Metal‘s Loc-Nar) and it’s passage from owner to owner…you guessed it my fine fiends, we have an arcane anthology on our horrid hands (and I’ll be giving my two cents on each segment as we go)! Our wrap around takes place in a saloon in that nightmare world mentioned above, and it acts as a hub for each yarn spun…also the Four Horseman show up because…who the fuck cares; it’s cool! First up we get a tale of a warrior tattooing himself with the artifact as a creature comes to collect a the glowing orb he possesses. This was brief, but cool…I’d like to see this tale expanded. Next up we get the story of an omniscient being who possesses that special sphere watching the lives of a couple in
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
In a hidden bunker far below the Earth, a strange (and by strange this dude is an actual, full on monster) commandant (Nima Forghani) devises strategies for a great war. When not preoccupied with that, or snorting the ashes of cremated soldiers like cocaine, he focuses much of his unwanted attention on his secretary (Tiffany Astrid); a vamp that would give Vampira a run for her money. Looking for a way out of her predicament she enlists the aide of a soldier (Douglas Mckenney); who resides in a giant birdcage within the bunker when not doin’ the army biz, to help her with her demonic dilemma. Filled with gobs of silent film atmosphere, fever dream imagery, and a thing or two to say about war and women’s place in a tyrannical male society inspired in part by the film’s co-writer (along with Byron C. Miller who also edited the film)/actor/producer Nima Forghani’s experience growing up in 1980’s Iran; a country
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
After a cold open where a couple o’ vloggers get their asses handed to them by a murderous scarecrow, we dive right into the story proper of Old Man of the Rooks; namely a real black widow of a woman named Deb (Susan Willis) keeps murdering her spouses on her remote farmland along with the help of her brother Dan (David Barney). Well one of the dudes she done wrong was a Scottish warlock, and now roams the grounds as that aforementioned scarecrow who offers up blood sacrifices to a witch who dresses up like a crow (a very cool visual). Said scarecrow soon offs Dan and then begins playing mind games with ol’ Deadly Deb who is going to have one hell of a time stayin’ alive with so much supernatural shenanigans afoot on her property! As you may surmise by the description above, Old Man of the Rooks has one major thing going for it; and that’s originality.
Continue reading →
IndieMovies
Merrymaker Campgrounds has a bit of a bad rep…I mean sure two girls were savagely murdered there a few years back, but the case was chalked up to an animal attack and that’s all she wrote, right? Fuck no, what the hell kind of fright flick would that be?!! Enter horror author/college professor/philanderer Roland Baumgarner (Christian Oliver) who just so happened to write a book based on that hot mess mentioned above and heads out to Merrymaker to cut the ribbon at the camp’s grand re-opening. Once there he meets the rangers in charge; Anita and Poppy Bishop (Larisa Oleynik and Christine Donlon respectively), grizzled hunter Burl Wolf (Don Frye, and some frazzled survivors that claim they were fucked up six ways to Sunday by a monster…”animal attack” my ass! Of course the killing continues on and secrets are revealed that challenge everything our heroes know about the monster and themselves! Let’s start with the positives with Animal Among Us…and
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
Usually when I have to lay my putrid peepers on an arcane anthology things take a turn for the horror biz, but recently I was sent a picture packed with yarns of a sci-fi bent, all with the theme of artificial intelligence as their linking narrative element. Let’s see how the disparate stories (these shorts are presented “as is” with no connecting framing narrative) of A.I. Tales stack up, shall we? First up comes Seed; the story of a man named Nathan (Nelson Lee, who also wrote and directed the film) who’s family and friends gather to celebrate his birthday, but rather than being a joyous affair things take a turn for the melancholy as our protagonist reflects on the life he has lead with the folks gathered, warts and all. So why is Nathan so glum…why because it is his 40th birthday and there fore he must be reduced to just his consciousness and give up his body in
Continue reading →
IndieMovies
Annoying, pain in the ass Callie (Meredith Mohler) is an obnoxious social justice warrior who spends her life reporting the supposedly offensive actions of her fellow students in spectacularly over-the-top fashion. Things are going swimmingly for her quest to find the ultimate level of butt hurt when a legendary serial killer returns and picks up the murder biz he started years previous. This chaps Callie’s ass big time as now the town is more concerned about being slaughtered and becoming real victims rather than the one she pretends to be every minute of the day. Speaking of pretending, Callie, along with her pal Ian (Jesse Dalton) devise a plan to fake an attack by the maniac (after Callie accidentally kills a fellow student) to put the spotlight back on our long suffering heroine. This of course goes over about as well as a fart on a submarine and our slice n’ dice antagonist targets that annoying bitch…err, I mean Callie
Continue reading →
IndieMoviesReviews
After a whole mess of sheep, a cowboy (sheepboy?!!) in a furry vest playing the one armed bandit, rando joyriding, and four music changes (a heavenly chorus. some synthy fart noises, a brassy upbeat number, and some sort of stock score music) we get down to the real business with Godmonster of Indian Flats…namely that this film is batshit insane and possibly the product of a certified schizophrenic (or a director desperately trying to meet their run time…not a lot of difference really). Following all that we get a banjo band with a beatnik playing in a traditional old west saloon (like straight out of a John Wayne movie costumes and all)…and we finally get going on the story to this picture; namely that dude mentioned previous finds one hella fucked up newborn lamb (after he experiences a psychotronic freak out)…a find that is whisked away to the lab of scientific manly-man Dr. Clemens (E. Kerrigan Prescott…Christ, they just should
Continue reading →
IndieMovies
The Sunset Society are a cadre of vampires (played by sunset strip rock icons such as Tracii Guns and Dizzy Reed…and Ron Jeremy?!!) who meet in an opulent mansion (the exterior of which is inexplicably realized through animation…we’ll get back to that in a paragraph or so) to drink the blood of strippers (apparently), and shoot the shit with their overlord Ace (Lemmy) and his mate Sophia (Phoebe Dollar). As that goes on, we also get some hoo-ha about some footage of the Society that has been secretly shot and is in danger of exposing the clan to the world of mortal men. Bodies are switched, blood is drank, and ropes are jumped… Where to even begin with the uneven ride that is Sunset Society…for starters, it is painfully obvious that the film is comprised of two separate elements that have been Frankensteined together to create a cohesive fright flick. The main meat of the narrative; a secret tape (supposedly
Continue reading →
