Tough Films For The Rough Crowd

  Horror fans of a certain age fondly remember a time, long ago, when they would wander the isles of video stores as children, their eyes popping at the lurid, ghastly cover art, beckoning impressionable minds into a netherworld of sex and violence, seducing them with images of torn flesh…

  Due to the COVID-19 crisis, the 2020 version of the Chattanooga Film Festival went virtual, running from May 22-25. But even though all films and events had to be moved online, the programmers of one of the best genre film festivals in the U.S. managed to put together an…

  Due to the COVID-19 crisis, the 2020 version of the Chattanooga Film Festival went virtual, running from May 22-25. But even though all films and events had to be moved online, the programmers of one of the best genre film festivals in the U.S. managed to put together an…

  Due to the COVID-19 crisis, the 2020 version of the Chattanooga Film Festival went virtual, running from May 22-25. But even though all films and events had to be moved online, the programmers of one of the best genre film festivals in the U.S. managed to put together an…

You can find stuff like PRIMER or PI, and other indie delights that reveal true talents and outsiders’ perspectives. DON’T RUN isn’t a revelation mostly because it’s technical issues and storytelling problems bog it down, but it is clearly a passion project with some legitimately good ideas and moments of strong execution. Hopefully writer/director/producer Ben Rood is able to take this movie and use it as a way to another project, while learning from the pitfalls of DON’T RUN and constantly improving (as all artists must).

In a field as crowded as the “prostitutes and killer pimps” subgenre of exploitation movies, sometimes its takes decades for the better entries to rise to the top. Critically reviled when it was released in 1982, VICE SQUAD is now considered a classic with an all-timer performance by Wings Hauser….

Growing up, I loved spoofs. Having a satellite dish in the early ’80s was a wondrous time for a kid who feasted on movies like AIRPLANE!, TOP SECRET!, and raunchy comedies like REVENGE OF THE NERDS and POLICE ACADEMY. At the same time, because my dad controlled the TV remote…

Give the makers of HUMAN ZOO this: they do manage to capture the soulcrushing, brain-numbing ennui of the situation their characters find themselves in. We’ve all seen this kind of SAW-a-like before, multiple times over, in the past couple decades: a diverse group of folks attend a casting call for…

Illfonic is back in the spotlight with Predator: Hunting Grounds, a new game similar to their previous efforts but now based on the PREDATOR franchise. A small company based out of Golden, Colorado, Illfonic is looking to re-capture the success from their 2017 release of Friday The 13th. For those of you that have been dying for new F13 content, you may want to read this before looking to Predator: Hunting Grounds for that fill.

When offered to review a biopic on legendary NHL goalie Terry Sawchuk, my knee-jerk reaction was to pass. But throwing away an opportunity to review a movie outside of my comfort zone seemed like a missed opportunity—I’m glad that I didn’t. Because while GOALIE is ostensibly a sports biopic, it’s more a film with which anybody that has struggled with grief, substance abuse, and primal determination can identify.

Gratuitous violence, hypersexuality, and other aspects of extreme cinema have been co-opted by the Hollywood studio system. I can see how this would be frustrating for an independent filmmaker. Glad to see that there are directors out there that are still making fucked up movies that will piss off your parents. Director Dustin Mills has created a raw ’80s throwback film with SLAUGHTERHOUSE SLUMBER PARTY.

A good horror movie is always good, a bad horror movie can still be fantastic fun—but the worst thing a horror movie can be is boring, especially when it’s insecure of how boring it actually is. Unfortunately, that last group describe Dustin Mills’ SLAUGHTERHOUSE SLUMBER PARTY. An hour and a half of softcore porn-esque boring. In fact, I have definitely seen more entertaining softcore in my day and I have 100% seen more entertaining parody porn.

CRY HAVOC is a true anomaly that is based on precedent set by other films (and other actors), but remains pretty singular. There have always been attempts in filmmaking to ride fads, make a cashgrab off a person or title, or basically exploit something that is familiar with a less expensive version that usually is also less polished yet more bizarre. While there have certainly been attempts to make action heroes in the mold of Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and the rest (including bringing in various siblings to pull in unsuspecting audiences)—there really wasn’t anything like Bruceploitation.

Like most horror fans, I consider William Friedkin’s adaptation of THE EXORCIST to be one of the best films ever made—no matter what genre we’re talking about. Given the massive success he had with the horror genre, it’s a bit surprising that he only really returned to it three times in…

There is a larger exploitation movie evolution at play in HELLHOLE that is far more interesting than the movie itself. Despite being released in 1985, it feels very much like a ’70s women-in-prison flick that has been dropped through a time warp into the strange mid-’80s world where Judy Landers…

[Disclaimer: I have become friends with the filmmakers of TAPEWORM over the years, after first seeing their short films at festivals and championing their works. I don’t believe that colored my reception of TAPEWORM, but it’s important to note and you can find other reviews on Rotten Tomatoes for comparison.]…

Film noir and other varieties of crime movies aren’t my genre forte. What little bit of knowledge I do have about these styles let me recognize the tropes that are necessary to create the proper aesthetic. Brooding moody characters, dramatic tension, and an almost predictable story arc are all part…

The plot of the remake remains largely similar—Jill is escaping the city on the brink of destruction, with Nemesis hot on her heels, but it’s the individual pieces that are changed within the game: shuffling events, plots, and characters to throw us off our game and give us some nasty surprises along the way. When you’re playing the game, you cannot say in all honesty this is a carbon copy experience.

What if a bunch of tropes were combined into one plot like a bizarre chimera of sci-fi romcom? The result would be SAME BOAT, a new independent film from co-writer/director/star Chris Roberti in which a time traveling assassin stalks his prey on a cruise ship while gradually falling love with her and out of love with his given task. SAME BOAT boasts a lot of inventiveness in both its story and its production, but is undercut by a few missteps that rob it of being as excellent as it could have been.

Every generation needs an epic road movie that helps define who they are. The only thing more exhilarating and truthful than going on a driving journey is being able to vicariously live through and enjoy a road movie that has adventure, drama, and a life-affirming thread woven throughout it. A…

CULT OF THE COBRA came amidst a waning period for behemoth in the genre film world. In the 1950s, Universal Studios finished out their great run of science fiction, fantasy, and horror pictures they’d been excelling at since the monumental releases of DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN in 1931.

I love when a filmmaker’s ambition outpaces their skills or resources. The collision of weird tones that results sometimes creates something truly unwatchable, but at other times, the result is a piece of outsider art that causes the viewer’s brain to nearly break as it tries to process what is…

Now in 2020, the greatly anticipated sequel Doom Eternal has finally been pushed to consoles and let me tell you—the wait was worth it. As in 2016’s entry, Doom Eternal is light on plot, with the game’s primary plot focusing on killing three Hell Priests so that their continued harvesting of Earth’s energy will not lead to total decimation of the planet’s resources. It’s A to B to C, really, with your main goal being maiming, murdering, and massacring anything and everything that gets in your way. I get a thrill out of the way the DoomGuy (or Doom Slayer, as he is canonically known here) is revered as a hero to those who seek his help or feared by the innumerable demonic enemies that get in his way towards finishing his quest.

We could all use a good laugh right now. Several shorts in the SXSW programming did a remarkable job of cracking me up—like BASIC, for example—but few made me smile as much as DADDIO. A mixture of sorrow and silliness that is surreal but oddly grounded, the film packs a lot of emotion, truth, hilarity, and humanity into its short running time.