Fantasia 2019 Review: Nakashima's IT COMES, A Wild Multi-Thread Horror Ride
There are few filmmakers in Japan whose work is quite as immediately recognizable as Nakashima Tetsuya. Even as he has evolved over the last fifteen years from the candy-colored pop explosion of Kamikaze Girls to his gritty 2015 thriller, World...
Fantasia 2019 Review: In 1BR, Apartment Hunting Can Be Murder
There is nothing fun about finding a place to live, especially in a new city where you have no friends or relatives to help you. Sarah (Nicole Bloom) has just arrived in Los Angeles with dreams of becoming a costume...
Fantasia 2019 Review: Kimo Staboel's DREADOUT, Yet Another Solid Solo Debut From The Former Mo Brothers
In an amazing coincidence that I presume will become more and more common as time goes along, Fantasia 2019 boasts not just one, but two films that utilize people entering buildings wherein deadly tragedies have occurred as a method of...
Fantasia 2019 Review: BLOOD & FLESH: THE REEL LIFE AND GHASTLY DEATH OF AL ADAMSON Examines A Hollywood B-Movie Mystery
Al Adamson wasn't what you'd call a superstar filmmaker. Toiling in the world of super low budget B- and C-grade drive-in fare from the early '60s through the early '80s, Adamson was responsible for inflicting more than thirty films upon...
Fantasia 2019 Review: MYSTERY OF THE NIGHT, A Woman's Scorn Awakens A Dark Spirit In The Phillipine Forest
Played out against a backdrop of political strife and religious domination, director Adolfo Alix, Jr.'s Mystery of the Night is a gripping tale of love and loss in the early 20th century Spanish-occupied Phillippines. An island nation under the thumb...
Fantasia 2019 Review: CHIWAWA Warms Up An Old Formula With Mediocre Results
A tale as old as time, director Ninomiya Ken attempts to revitalize the story of a woman driven into the arms of madness in the search for acceptance in Chiwawa, his follow up to the festival hit, The Limit of...
Fantasia 2019 Review: CRITTERS ATTACK!, Among The Most Fun Franchise Rejuvenations In Years
The Crites are back at Fantasia 2019 with the world premiere of the fifth feature in the Critters franchise, Critters Attack!, from the writer/director of the 2016 festival hit The Cleanse (AKA The Master Cleanse), Bobby Miller. One of the...
Fantasia 2019 Review: JESUS SHOWS YOU THE WAY TO THE HIGHWAY Will Smash Your Brain To Pieces
Truly original artistic voices are few and far between. When it comes to contemporary genre cinema, a few innovators come to mind when one thinks about the 21st century. Filmmakers like Khavn from the Phillippines, Q from India, Sono Sion...
Fantasia 2019 Review: THE DEEPER YOU DIG Is A Fascinating Micro-Budget Psychological Horror With A Great Origin Story
A mother, Ivy (Toby Poser) and her daughter Echo (Zelda Adams) live alone out in the country. They seem to share an unusually close relationship, despite the fact that Echo is of the age where a young girl would be...
Fantasia 2019 Review: SADAKO Goes Back to the RING Well, Brings Up Fresh Ideas
For thew opening night of Fantasia 2019, the festival goes back to the well - and its roots - with the North American premiere of Nakata Hideo's Sadako. A return to the iconic Ring (Ringu) series Nakata kicked off back...
Review: Michael Dowse's STUBER Is A Wild Comedic Ride Through The LA Underworld
Kumail Nanjiani is either the luckiest or unluckiest Uber driver ever. A couple of years after his breakout semi-autobiographical feature The Big Sick, in which Nanjiani plays a stand-up comedian moonlighting as an Uber driver who just so happens to...
Production Underway on WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED, Feature Doc Debut of Director Kier-La Janisse
Our friends at Severin Films may be best known for their amazing cult home video releases of forgotten bizarro gems, but over the last several years they've had some sucess on the festival circuit with their original feature length documentaries...
Fantasia 2019 Curtain Raiser: A Guide Through 3 Weeks of Genre Frenzy in Montreal
The Fantasia International Film Festival runs from July 11 to August 1 this year in the lovely, and often sweltering, province of Quebec, Canada. Three weeks across multiple venues running all day and night --- a supreme genre feast of...
Blu-ray Review: SWING TIME, Or, How To Interrogate Blackface And Love The Dance
Holy shit, this was a tough one. There is no more iconic dance pairing in the history of Hollywood than Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Over the course of sixteen years from 1933 to 1949, Astaire and Rogers starred together...
London Indian 2019 Review: GHOST OF THE GOLDEN GROVES
An avant garde ditych set in the jungles of West Bengal, Ghost of the Golden Groves is a trippy Indian sci-fi fantasy sure to engage more adventurous viewers. Made in two parts by directors Roshni Sen and Aniket Dutta, known...
Now on Blu-ray: Italian Cop Action Masterpiece THE TOUGH ONES Shines In New Collector's Edition
Of the many genre booms in Italian cinema between the '50s and '80s, few were as successful and prolific as the Poliziotteschi craze of the late '60s and '70s. Crazed adrenaline-fueled gonzo action films based around take-no-prisoners cops and the...
Melbourne 2019: ScreenAnarchy Reviews First Glance Features
Now for something a little different. The Melbourne International Film Festival, like every year, has revealed its First Glance titles. These are a hodgepodge of different program streamed films and documentaries to whet the appetite prior to the full guide...
Review: INTO THE DARK: CULTURE SHOCK, An Attempt To Wake Up From An American Nightmare
America is a nation at war with itself. Just like a distressingly ballooning number of countries around the world, the United States is growing ideologically fractured at an alarming rate. The political middle is dropping away almost entirely in favor...
This September Arrow Video Will Set Fire To Your Bank Balance With Bava And More
Here we go again, Arrow Video has unveiled their September release lineup and it's a doozy. Fans in the US have a trio of new special editions to look forward to, while UK get one helluva box set. First of...
Review: SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME Scratches The Superhero Itch
Heads up: This review contains spoilers for Avengers: Endgame. The first post-Endgame Marvel film attempts to lighten the somber mood created by that film's very heavy character work by sending Tom Holland's Spider-Man on an international school trip designed to...
