REVIEW: Night’s End [2022]

It’s just about moving forward. About halfway through director Jennifer Reeder and writer Brett Neveu‘s Night’s End, a character explains to Ken Barber (Geno Walker) that the ghost haunting his apartment may in fact be haunted herself. Colin Albertson (Lawrence Grimm), the occult author whose book inspired Ken to create a “spirit jar” in hopes of exorcising his unwanted guest, details research into the ghost’s identity which would point to her own mother becoming a demonic presence desperate to torture her child’s trapped soul in a “ghost loop.” While that’s…

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REVIEW: Little Shop of Horrors [1986]

I’m just a mean green mother from outer space and I’m bad. Know which version of Little Shop of Horrors you’re watching before sitting down because you might be in for a surprise if you don’t. Having grown up with the theatrical cut often finding its way onto my television, I have a clear picture of how the story is supposed to end. There’s a visual reprise of the “Somewhere That’s Green” sequence with bright lights, mowed grass, and an outrageously strange bud popping out from the middle of a…

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REVIEW: Offseason [2022]

Wherever I went, there they were. When your dementia-riddled mother starts screaming about nightmares following her and demons crawling out from the water, it doesn’t matter how lucid she appeared to be beforehand. You tell her what she wants to hear, try to make her as calm and comfortable as possible, and wait for the inevitable. That’s what Marie Aldrich (Jocelin Donahue) did when Ava’s (Melora Walters) clear eyes and confident voice spun an outlandish tale surrounding the isolated island where she grew up and left without ever going back.…

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REVIEW: The Seed [2022]

I feel amazing. Childhood friends Charlotte (Chelsea Edge), Heather (Sophie Vavasseur), and Deidre (Lucy Martin) never get to hang out anymore. Life and adulthood have a tendency of keeping once inseparable cliques apart, but they’re hoping a once-in-a-lifetime meteor shower is just the excuse to finally get them together again. What better reason is there for Heather to use her father’s isolated modern mansion in the middle of nowhere? She can cajole Charlotte’s analog and low maintenance “nerd” away from her nine-to-five grind as well as Deidre’s ultra-popular social media…

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REVIEW: Slapface [2022]

Was it all because of me? We don’t know what Lucas (August Maturo) did to find himself in the back of Sheriff Thurston’s (Dan Hedaya) car towards the beginning of Jeremiah Kipp‘s Slapface (an expansion of his short film), but it couldn’t have been anything good. I don’t say that because of what being there means. He obvious did something to warrant an “arrest.” I say it because of what Thurston tells Lucas’ older brother and guardian Tom (Mike Manning)—the boys survived the car crash that claimed their parents—upon taking…

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REVIEW: Hellbender [2022]

I went hunting … for a laugh. As an accused witch is lifted into the air by the rope in the hands of three women, we anticipate the worst. There’s no choice considering we already know what the latest DIY-horror from the Adams Family (John Adams, Toby Poser, and their daughter Zelda Adams) is about. So, if hanging as a test for witchcraft means the victim remains alive, what comes next? Does she rise even higher before decimating those who dared to think they could destroy her? Does the fact…

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SLAM22 REVIEW: Honeycomb [2022]

Do not come looking. Tired of always waiting to see what the boys want to do, five teenage girls during the summer between high school and college decide to take matters into their own hands. Why should they waste so much time playing second fiddle to Emmett (Emmett Roiko) and company’s immaturity? Why blindly accept the demands bestowed upon them by their parents through part-time jobs and curfews? Maybe they only did those things to begin with because they had no other choice. So, when Willow (Sophie Bawks-Smith) invites the…

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SUNDANCE22 REVIEW: Something in the Dirt [2022]

You can only fall so fast. Directors Justin Benson (who also writes) and Aaron Moorhead go back to their roots with a lo-fi, (mostly) single locale sci-fi similar to their debut feature Resolution. Rather than a cabin in the woods, however, Something in the Dirt takes place within a cheap, lease-free, sight-unseen Los Angeles apartment. The tenant is a long-time area bartender named Levi (Benson) who’s hoping to jump ship and leave the city after his pursuit of something meaningful left him with only frustration. It’s within walking distance to…

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REVIEW: A Quiet Place Part II [2021]

They’re not the kind of people worth saving. Part of the appeal to A Quiet Place was its vacuumed existence as a chapter in the lives of people as they are right now without any desire to pretend who they were or what they may become is relevant. It’s not because it can’t be. The Abbott family can’t afford to remember or dream because alien creatures have decimated Earth. If not for the fact that young Regan (Millicent Simmonds) was born deaf and therefore pushed the rest of them to…

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REVIEW: The Scary of Sixty-First [2021]

Murdered. Raped … Sacrificed. Noelle (Madeline Quinn) and Addie (Betsey Brown) really want the reduced-price townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan they visit. We’re told the former never held a “real” job and the latter barely scrapes by as an aspiring actress despite her father having enough wealth to cut a check if she’s willing to ask. Their credit shouldn’t allow them to see it let alone buy it, yet they’re enjoying a warm beer celebration amidst dusty furniture they’re told is theirs to keep a few hours…

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REVIEW: A Cure for Wellness [2017]

You won’t come back. Capitalism has become pathological to the point where your work and the industry you work in doesn’t need to benefit society if it keeps your wallet full. It’s why the white working class is prone to vote against itself at elections under the false sense that they’re just one lucky break away from being a millionaire and thus shouldn’t shoot themselves in the foot now simply because they haven’t gotten there yet. It’s why the willfully oppressed can look upon someone gaming the tax system that…

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