All Posts

UNDER GLASS, written by Colin Wilson & Jay Mclendon, directed by Jay Mclendon is a slice-of-life kind of film about the trials and tribulations of being a rideshare driver. It's not so much a linear path story, but rather a series of encounters with a wide variety of passengers that our laconic driver (Mitchell Brinkley III) interacts with over the course of multiple shifts. If you have ever worked a hum-drum, repetitive job that included dealing with the public, this film sh

LAMINA, the lastest feature from the mind of writer/director Wolfgang Lemkuhl, is a sci-fi noir/thriller with a dash of black humor. Actually more than a dash, and while it's certainly no comedy, the film is pretty damn amusing. The story follows David (Daniel Probst) a kind of hard-working everyman who spends his days sanding marble and hardwood floors, and his nights sitting outside of his ex-wife's loft yearning for the life he once had. This humdrum routine is interrupted

A SENSE of DREAD, written by Greg McGowen and directed by Michael Peter Bolus is a slow-burn mystery/conspiracy film. Four men, strangers all, are recruited as contractors to work for a mysterious company and sent on what appears to be a routine clean-up mission to an abandoned base. Samuels (Kevin McCorkle) is the IT guy. Michaels (Michael Peter Bolus) is maintenance and is full of world-weary sarcasm. O’Neel (Michael Town) seems like a catch-all everyman, while Mac (Greg

3 is a romantic comedy/drama with some mild supernatural elements, written by Michael K. Ward and directed by Peter Ney. Kai (Caleb Ruminer) is an elementary-school art teacher that has a simple, pleasant, albeit boring life. Not that he doesn't have some issues, being plagued by bad dreams and family woes, but things seems to be going along on cruise control, which works well enough for the moment. This all comes crashing down when his job is cut due to bureaucratic nonsense

PSYCHE is a psychological, sci-fi, arthouse thriller (with mild horror undertones) from writers Gibran Lozano & Stephon Stewart, and directed by Stewart. It opens with text about the nature of Limbo, some narration, and then with that scant information we are thrust directly into the story of Mara (Sarah Ritter) who wakes up in a desert-like otherworldly place, after being (dumped, maybe?) in what looks like a body bag...or a shroud. She is then met with a self-activating com

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, directed as well as adapted to the screen by Colin Patrick Ryan, is a true-to-text adaptation of Shakespeare's comedy, transplanted to modern-day suburban Oklahoma. I think your mileage may vary, depending on how much of a lover of the Bard's prose you happen to be. Without going too much into the plot, which is a faithful adaptation of Shakespeare's play, here's a very quick rundown. Essentially, the roguish Sir John Falstaff (Walter Shatley) trie

THE YELLOW BALLOON: THE CURSE OF VINCENT VILE is a horror/comedy film written by Robert J. Carrera and Directed by Jason D. Morris that kind of plays like a mashup of EVIL DEAD 2 and TUCKER & DALE VS EVIL, with a dash of ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES thrown in for good measure. The story opens with horror influencers Lisa (Timothy Waldron) and Amanda (Leah Bernard) up in an old cabin creating content when they are visited by Vincent Vile (Scott Somers) and his yellow balloon.

DEATH CIPHER by writer/director Wade Patterson is a microbudget, shot in 12 days noir-ish thriller/mystery that feels very much like a "Pandemic Film" which, if you've been around for the last six years or so, is very much its own genre. It has a cold open of some slightly disturbing imagery on an old CRT television set, which does a great job at setting the tone. The rest of the film that follows takes place in the apartment of Nora (Ashley Gennarelli) a journalist with a pr

ONLY FEET by writer/director Walter Wright is a dark erotic neo-noir thriller that shows some thinking outside the box storytelling ideas that I like to see out of an indie film. It follows the fortunes of Jace (Chance Dawson) and Bella (Robin Covington) a couple of near down-and-outers that are living on a dwindling supply of money out of a fancy hotel. Well, as luck(?) would have it, Jace stumbles into what seems to be an opportunity of a lifetime, posting feet pics on a si

Writer/director Michael Marco crafts a mean, gritty, and tense little crime thriller with BLIND BLOOD. It opens to the sound of food wrappers crinkling and two hit men/drug dealers/cleaners jawing about tacos in a Pulp Fiction-y kind of way. This is our introduction to Jack (Mark Hanson) and Raoul (Michael Marco) Shortly after this conversation the boys have to enter a run-down house and take care of some "business." The next thing you know, it's nine years later and Jack (th

BLACK GOAT is a UK micro-budget folk-horror film written and directed by David Hinds. Now, I'm gonna go on record right now and say that for my money, folk-horror always seems to hit a little harder coming out of Europe for me, mainly because it has the sheer weight of history and clashing cultures behind it. So this was a creepy, moody little piece of low-budget cinema that worked well on a lot of levels. It opens with a young couple hiking/camping in Blackwood Forest...and

VELVICIDE, directed by Kenneth Perkins, is a difficult film to categorize. It's kind of a thriller, kind of a drama, kind of a mystery, kind of a psychological horror film. It's a movie that refuses to be pinned down to one certain thing, and that's a pretty neat trick. It opens in a suicide prevention call center where Callum (Jon Devlin) is having a rough go of it with a very disturbed caller. When that ends, his very next caller is Velvet (Gea Rose Henry) in a bit of distr

STEEL CITY, directed by Shawn DaWain Holt and Quinsonta Boyd, is a fun little movie. As I've read elsewhere, this film kind of plays out like "First Blood on a budget" and I think that sums it up pretty well, all things considered. It starts with ex-military drifter Max (Shawn DaWain Holt) wandering into town (sound familiar?) and while he's not hassled by Brian Dennehy the local sheriff, he does end up saving someone being chased by the local thugs, one Winston (Kyle A. Lee)

There are fewer film genres that I enjoy more than a good noir, and SHIFT by writer/director Max Neace delivers the goods and then some. This is a period piece set in the late 90's in a Chicago storage facility, and while that seems like an unlikely setting for this type of film, man does it ever work. The tale opens with our scrappy hero Tom (Connor McGill) just starting a job as the late night watchman/custodian at Your Storage - scrap that. The film starts with an office c

BEAUTIFUL, PAM by director J.R. Stokes is proof-positive that you don't need a huge budget and tons of resources to tell a compelling, gritty, and engaging story. The story follows Pam/Richard (Tom Ciorciari) a Trans sex worker dealing with a host of problems during the week leading up to their son's 18th birthday. Pam is an addict, HIV Positive, suicidal, and having an identity crisis, all on top living out of a hotel room and doing the dirty and dangerous job of being a str

WHISPERS is a Bulgarian-American first-time feature from writer/director Miroslav Petkov, which in and of itself is a crazy kind of ambition to attempt! The movie begins as a found footage film that quickly turns into a split-narrative suspense/horror story that largely does away with the found footage except for a few flashes here and there. People are going missing in Bonnivar park, including journalist Simon Peterson (Rudy Ledbetter) featured at the beginning of the tale,

HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION, the 3rd feature-length effort from writer/director Kenneth R. Frank is a gentle, meandering coming-of-age-story that follows the fortunes of Grace (Raquel Sciacca) a young girl on the cusp of womanhood that suffers from a few fears, namely the water, flying, and I suspect of leading an unfulfilling life. Grace's mother Clara (Christina Elise Perry) hauls the family down to Grandpa's house, former big-league ball player Richie (Jerry Colpitts) w

THE PARTY is a solid coming-of-age teen drama from director Kevin Stevenson and writer Ryan McCoy, adapted from the YA novel "Party" written by Tom Leveen. It takes place over the course of one night, following the fate of Beckett Montgomery (Sara-Catherine Bellamy) who acts as our through-line, and the various friends/associates of hers that all intersect at The Party in the title. Beckett is suicidal over the loss of her mother to illness, Morrigan (Michelle Redman) has a t

This is a slick little thriller/action/comedy flick from director Mark Hensley that edges its way into Tarantino Territory without ever fully diving into it, which is a good thing. We have a lot of converging stories that mostly take place in one apartment, which belongs to the suicidally depressed Elaine (Kat Mahard)There's the down-at-the-heels party clown John (Joe Heck) the possible assassin neighbor Sharon (Monazia) and the nameless hitman (Zachariah Axel) The story ki

This is a wickedly good little indie Sci-Fi thriller from UK-based writer/director Derry Shillitto. For a debut feature film, this movie comes out of the gate swinging hard! It's set in a near-future Britain and follows the fate of youthful troublemakers Shawn (Sonny Middleton) and Tish (Elleese Bradshaw) who get caught up in a gangland deal gone bad. After a stint in juvenile detention, they are shipped off to a special, somewhat shadowy school for a form of "re-integration"