A razor-sharp look at the gap between trying to make ends meet and providing quality personal care for aged relatives as well as a chilling supernatural story, Mary, from codirectors Jo Rou and Dan Riordan, is an equally thought-provoking and spine-tingling psychological horror short. A year to the day that his mother Mary passed away, […]
Author: Joseph Perry
Overlook Film Festival Brings a Full Slate of Monsters, Mysteries, and Murderers to New Orleans
The Overlook Film Festival brings another hair-raising selection of horror and horror-adjacent features and shorts to New Orleans next month. Whether you prefer creature features, slasher cinema, or dark humor, the fest has something for all manner of fright-fare aficionados. Following is the official press announcement. The Overlook Film Festival is proud to announce its […]
The Chattanooga Film Festival Announces the First Wave of Its Virtual Lineup
The Chattanooga Film Festival (CFF) always delivers an incredible selection of chillers, thrillers, the funny, and the outrageous, and this year’s edition — once again virtual — certainly keeps that tradition alive. The fest has announced its first wave of films, and from the frightening (such as The Ones You Didn’t Burn) to the freaky […]
SLASH ½ Film Festival Once Again Paints Vienna’s Filmcasino Red
SLASH, Austria’s premiere festival for fantastic film, has just announced the first wave of feature titles for its annual SLASH ½ edition from May 5–7, 2022, at Vienna’s Filmcasino. Check out the superb options so far! Following is the official press announcement. This year’s SLASH ½ features films once again showcasing the dazzling range fantastic […]
[Review] The Man from Boggy Creek [MidWest WeirdFest]: Short-Film Documentary Pays Tribute to Independent Filmmaker Charles B. Pierce
In their documentary short The Man from Boggy Creek, cowriters/codirectors Paul Glover and Scott McKinnon pay tribute to maverick independent filmmaker Charles B. Pierce, whose movies The Legend of Boggy Creek and The Town That Dreaded Sundown are favorites of many a fright-fare fan. The Legend of Boggy Creek was a huge influence on such […]
Panic Fest Celebrates 10 Years with Joe Bob Briggs, Mick Garris, and 80+ Fright-Fare Films
Kansas City’s renowned Panic Fest returns to the big screen this year from April 28-May 8, with a virtual version on tap, as well. Helping to celebrate the festival’s 10th year will be in-person appearances by The Last Drive-In‘s Joe Bob Briggs and Darcy the Mail Girl, as well as Sleepwalkers director Mick Garris — […]
[Review] THE ALIEN REPORT [Unnamed Footage Festival]: Unique Found Footage Science Fiction Effort Belies Its Lower Budget
Writer/director Patrick Donnelly’s The Alien Report (2022) is one of the most ambitious and best-looking found footage features in recent memory. Boasting high-quality practical and visual effects, including terrific footage of creepy extraterrestrials, the film is well worth seeking out. Braxton Hale stars as the unnamed narrator, a teenaged alien abductee who has planted tiny […]
Brazil’s Fantaspoa Heads Back to the Big Screens for Its 2022 Edition
Brazil’s highly acclaimed genre film festival Fantaspoa makes its triumphant return to cinemas from April 15–May 1after two years of online editions. With plenty of fear fare on tap, ranging from F. W. Murnau’s 1922 classic silent vampire film NOSFERATU: A SYMPHONY OF HORROR to the new French horror comedy SOME LIKE IT RARE, with […]
[Review] Master [SXSW]: Historical Horrors Haunt Two Black Women at an Elite University
An unflinching look at modern-day American racism through the lens of a supernatural horror film, writer/director Mariama Diallo’s Master is a terrific effort that shocks on multiple levels. Gail (Regina Hall) has just been named the first Black house master of one of New England’s Ancaster University houses, which the predominantly white faculty members dwell […]
Found Footage Freakiness Abounds This Month at San Francisco’s Unnamed Footage Festival
Found-footage horror fanatics, get your drool cups ready: San Francisco’s Unnamed Footage Festival is back on the big screen with a slate of new and repertory films featuring everything from invading extraterrestrials to vicious slashers to vengeful spirits, and beyond! Following is the official press announcement. After a year in cyber captivity, the Unnamed Footage […]
[Review] The Martyr [MidWest WeirdFest]: Meet the Woman Trying to Clear the Name of a Man Who Some Claim to Be a Monster
Margot K. Juby, British author of the 2018 book The Martyrdom of Gilles de Rais, has spent much of her life fascinated with de Rais, the controversial French historical figure who was once made a Marshal of France for his valor in the war against the English but later tried and executed for crimes ranging […]
[Review] Not Alone — The Life Above [MidWest WeirdFest]: Could Some UFOs Be Aerial Living Creatures?
For much of recorded history, and especially since the earlier 20th century, people have reported unexplainable phenomena in the skies. From strangely behaving lights to cigar-shaped objects to classic flying discs, many have wondered about the origins of these entities. Are they from alien worlds? Are they military aircraft? Or something else altogether? In the […]
Wisconsin’s MidWest WeirdFest Delivers Science Fiction, the Supernatural, and the Surreal
Wisconsin’s MidWest WeirdFest has announced the full lineup for its 2022 edition from March 4-6, and it’s a wild one, as always! This unique film festival offers up a bounty of cinematic strangeness, including documentaries and narrative features about alien contact, cryptid creatures, and slasher mayhem. The official press announcement follows. MidWest WeirdFest announces its […]
[Review] It Came from the Kitchen! [Final Girls Berlin]: Lighthearted Creature Feature Boasts Some Old-School Effects
We’ve all had those days, sometimes even weeks, when straightening up our living spaces just doesn’t rate high on the old to-do list, until something happens that makes it absolutely necessary. Jackie (Savannah Zito), the protagonist of writer/director Jessica Salgado’s creature feature short It Came from the Kitchen!, is having an especially hard time with […]
Genre-bending Horror Short YOU’RE DEAD HELEN Receives Oscar Nomination and New Trailer
The excellent short film You’re Dead Helen (AKA You’re Dead Hélène and its original title T’es morte Hélène; 2021), which Gruesome Magazine called “a remarkable genre-blending effort that takes viewers on a ride through three different storytelling genres and a wide range of emotions” in an enthusiastic review, has been shortlisted for Oscars nomination and […]