by J Hurtado

Review: THE RANGER, Fun and Bloody Punk Horror

There is a deep and undeniable connection between punk music and horror films that goes back decades. From the very beginning of the punk music movement in the '70s, bands and fans used horror imagery to separate themselves from those...
by J Hurtado

Review: THE MEG, Jason Statham Vs. Giant Prehistoric Shark

2018 has been a great year for big budget monster movies. Audiences have already been attacked by giant robots in Pacific Rim: Uprising and mutated wildlife in Rampage, and the trend continues with director Jon Turtletaub's latest feature, The Meg....
by Kurt Halfyard

Fantasia 2018: It's a Wrap on Montreal's Wonderful Summer Camp for Genre Fans

The 22nd Fantasia International Film Festival has come to a close. Hats off to anyone with the stamina to make it from the early July beginning to curtain closes in August. We know a few folks who do the three...
by J Hurtado

Fantasia 2018 Review: BROTHERS' NEST, A Dark Family Plot Goes Sour

A pair of hapless brothers plot to ensure their inheritance stays in the family in Brothers' Nest, the latest film from director Clayton Jacobson. Jeff (Clayton Jacobson) and Terry (Shane Jacobson) are middle-aged brothers who have come up with a...
by J Hurtado

Fantasia 2018 Review: ANNA AND THE APOCALYPSE, Toe-Tapping Teens Fight Yuletide Frights In This Zombie Musical

What do you get when you mash up High School Musical, Shaun of the Dead, and The Nightmare Before Christmas? The answer is director John McPhail's brilliant new Christmastime zombie musical, Anna and the Apocalypse, one of the most joyful...
by J Hurtado

Fantasia 2018 Review: The Dead Don't Rest In THE NIGHTSHIFTER

Stênio (Daniel de Oliveira), a Brazilian morgue worker, spends his nights talking to the corpses he has laid out on the slab. I guess I can imagine the kind of loneliness that might come along with a job like that,...
by J Hurtado

Review: THE DARKEST MINDS, Their Teenage Angst Has A Snore Count

Debutante director Jennifer Yuh Nelson's adaptation of the best selling young adult novel, The Darkest Minds, hits screens across the country this Friday, and anyone looking for something fresh and exciting in the world of teen action films is bound...
by J Hurtado

Fantasia 2018 Review: TOKYO VAMPIRE HOTEL Is A Rambling Mess Of Incoherent Violence

Earlier this year, Sono Sion's Tokyo Vampire Hotel was released on Amazon as a nine part series examining the conflict between rival clans of bloodsuckers vying to control the world's supply of blood. While the series did release on Amazon...
by J Hurtado

Fantasia 2018 Review: ONE CUT OF THE DEAD Is A Rope-A-Dope Knockout Punch Of A Film!

You're probably going to hate the first half hour of Ueda Shinichiro's new zombie comedy, One Cut of the Dead.  And that's totally fine. The thing is, you're kind of supposed to. Framed as a lo-fi, single-take, behind the scenes adventure...
by J Hurtado

Fantasia 2018 Review: VIOLENCE VOYAGER Will Blow Your Goddamned Mind!

Japanese provocateur and innovator Ujicha's Violence Voyager is one hell of a trip into the mind of a madman. Filmed in the super obscure, and off-the-wall animation style known as gekimation, Violence Voyager is an unforgettable experience both in terms...
by J Hurtado

Frontières@Fantasia 2018: Five Standouts From Official Selection Pitch Session

Frontières is the premier name in international co-production project markets for genre films around the world. With events in Cannes, Amsterdam, and the flagship operation at Montreal's Fantasia, Frontières has become the place to be to pitch new projects in...
by J Hurtado

Fantasia 2018 Review: THE DARK Is Inside All Of Us

There is a monster inside of all of us. A monster made out of pain, frustration, and fear. A monster fed by neglect, trauma, and anger that rears its ugly head when we get tired of fighting. In director Justin...
by J Hurtado

Fantasia 2018 Review: INUYASHIKI Is Sato Shinsuke At His Very Best

Sato Shinsuke knows his way around a manga adaptation. After half a dozen successful such endeavors, it's really little surprise that his latest film, Inuyashiki, is another adaptation of a written work that was also recently adapted in anime form...
by J Hurtado

Fantasia 2018 Review: THE WITCH: PART 1. THE SUBVERSION, Kickass Korean Science Fiction Action

We join director Park Hoon-jung's The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion in the middle of a massacre. The bloody corpses of children litter the ground in what appears to be a medical facility/prison in a cleansing at the behest of...
by J Hurtado

Fantasia 2018 Review: PARALLEL Examines The Ethics Of The Multiverse

Mexican filmmaker Isaac Ezban definitely has a type. After impressing festival audiences with his debut feature The Incident, a film about people stuck in an eternal moment, and The Similars, in which identities being to shift when a group of...
by J Hurtado

Fantasia 2018 Review: LOI BAO Is A Fun Martial Arts Oddity From Vietnam

It's been several years since the Vietnamese film industry had its moment as the next big thing in martial arts action. Back in the late '00s, led by incredible performer Johnny Tri Nguyen and director Charlie Nguyen, Vietnam was beginning...
by J Hurtado

Now on Blu-ray: Lovecraft Lives In DAGON & BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR From Vestron Video

Lionsgate's specialty imprint Vestron Video Collector's Series soldiers on with the North American Blu-ray debuts of a pair of H. P. Lovecraft adaptations from Brian Yuzna's Fantastic Factory. First up is the 2001 Stuart Gordon directed Dagon, a tale of...
by J Hurtado

Fantasia 2018 Review: CHUCK STEEL: NIGHT OF THE TRAMPIRES Is Gloriously Un-PC Trashy, Gonzo Fun

To say that I was wary of a stop-motion animated feature tribute to the glorious excess of Cannon-style '80s action films is an understandment. Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires could either go very right, or very, very wrong. I'm...
by J Hurtado

Fantasia 2018 Review: ROKUROKU Is A Confounding Low Budget Mess Of An Ominous Omnibus

It's been several years since the gonzo Sushi Typhoon-style of Japanese horror/exploitation cinema was en vogue, but that doesn't mean there still isn't room for someone to bring it back. Among the most successful filmmakers of that period in the...
by J Hurtado

Fantasia 2018 Review: ROOM LAUNDERING Is A Cutesy Film About The Dead Teaching Us How To Live

Another solid entry in the quirky-Japanese-comedy genre, Katagiri Kenji's Room Laundering is the sweet tale of a girl who sees dead people. The basic premise is based upon the law stating that landlords must divulge to potential tenants when a...