'The Deeper You Dig' (2019) Movie Review

Some families have certain activities they like to do together, but making eerie, low-budget horror movies isn’t usually one. During the credits of The Deeper You Dig the phrase, “An Adams Family Film” (not Addams Family) pops up on screen. And sure, it’s good for a chuckle, but it’s also an accurate representation of what you’re about to see. It’s nothing if not a family affair. Written and directed by husband and wife team John Adams and Toby Poser, the couple also star in two of the three main roles. The third? Filled by their daughter, Zelda Adams.

'Knives And Skin' (2019) Movie Review

“I need to know there’s a way out of this place.” So says one of the many teenage characters in writer-director Jennifer Reeder’s Knives and Skin. For kids in a small town, one that feels oppressive and choking, like it’s squeezing the life out of you at every turn, it’s a common feeling. This undercurrent flows through the surreal adolescent noir that borders on magical realist fable or allegory.

Brooklyn Horror Film Festival: 'Porno' Movie Review

This is an updated version of an earlier review.

If you lament the lack of graphic genital torture or exploded testicles in modern horror cinema, you’re in luck. First time director Keola Racela’s  Porno has the cure for what ails you. It also has demons, repressed religious nerds, an uptight straight edge kid, and more Encino Man references than one might initially expect. Gory, ridiculous, and often legitimately scary, it’s a perfect movie to watch late at night, preferably with a rowdy, intoxicant-lubricated crowd.

'Riot Girls' (2019) Movie Review

An alternate 1995 where a mysterious disease kills off all the adults and warring gangs of kids—the poor kids from the East Side of Potter’s Bluff and the preppy jocks from the West Side—battle for turf and survival. With that logline, it’s no wonder Jovanka Vuckovic’s Riot Girls made my top 50 most-anticipated movies of 2019 list. 

NBFF 2019: 'The Incredible Shrinking Wknd' Movie Review

The living-one-day-over-and-over again conceit has been played for comedy (Groundhog Day), sci-fi (Edge of Tomorrow), and horror (Happy Death Day). But regardless of the genre set up, or task the characters must accomplish, they inevitably use this rinse-dry-repeat recipe as a tool of introspection, to learn about themselves as much as they learn about the external world, and as a method of change. In that regard, Spanish writer-director Jon Mikel Caballero’s The Incredible Shrinking Wknd follows suit, though it puts its own unique spin on the formula. 

'The Divine Fury' (2019) Movie Review

If you haven’t been waiting for a South Korean MMA exorcism movie, Kim Joo-hwan’s The Divine Fury is here to inform you that you need to get your priorities in order. It deftly blends horror and action and is sure to call to mind the likes of Blade at times, while grappling with weighty themes of loss, faith, loss of faith, and evil.

Fantasia 2019: 'Jesus Shows You The Way To The Highway' Movie Review

With a title like Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway, you probably expect to something a bit outside of the mainstream. Also, considering it comes from Miguel Llansó, the writer/director behind 2015’s equally off-kilter Crumbs, strange things are in store. And Jesus doesn’t disappoint, combining science fiction, cold war spy thrillers, superheroes, Afro-futurism, and enough surreal flourishes to make Jodorowsky’s head spin.

Fantasia 2019: 'Depraved' Movie Review

This is an updated version of an earlier review.

The Frankenstein story has been adapted, tweaked, and tinkered with countless times across every medium. With Depraved legendary filmmaker Larry Fessenden gives the tale a lo-fi indie horror spin, though it’s more concerned with Brooklyn hipsters dealing with trauma than typical genre trappings.

Fantasia 2019: 'No Mercy' Movie Review

A modern incarnation of a muscle car, a silver mustang in this case, rumbles across the screen. A woman in a red dress and high heels, her legs noticeably scuffed and scraped and bloodied, emerges. In casual but deliberate fashion, she walks across an auto shop. She asks a question of the mechanic working beneath a car. When he pokes his head out to answer, she smashes him with a sledgehammer. So begins South Korean director Lim Kyoung-tack’s revenge thriller No Mercy.

Fantasia 2019: 'Harpoon' Movie Review

You might think a movie with three total characters—four if you count an occasional narrator—is, by necessity, simple and straightforward. After all, how much intrigue can a trio of early twenty-somethings really get up to? Maybe cool your jets a second, Hoss, and give Rob Grant’s thriller Harpoon a try. 

Fantasia 2019: 'Shooting The Mafia' Movie Review

We take journalists of all stripes for granted, but they often put themselves in harm’s way to document and expose. Such is the case with Italian photographer Letizia Battaglia, who spend decades on the front lines chronicling the violence and iron-fisted control of the mafia over life in Sicily. Fascinating and fearless, documentarian Kim Longinotto points the camera at her in Shooting the Mafia.

Fantasia 2019: 'The Legendary Stardust Brothers' Movie Review

This is an updated version of an earlier review.

Dear The Legend of the Stardust Brothers, where have you been all my life? Seriously, this lost Japanese musical oddity from 1985 fills a gaping chasm in my soul I didn’t even know was there. It also has maybe the most WTF twist I’ve ever seen, and this is a movie that’s basically non-stop WTF moments from one end to the other.

Fantasia 2019: 'J.R. "Bob" Dobbs And The Church Of The SubGenius' Movie Review

When I was in high school, a friend sent away a dollar—this is back when mail order was a thing—and received a packet of stickers featuring the clip-art face of a grinning, 1950s-ideal-of-white-suburbabn-American-man clutching a pipe between two rows of perfect teeth. Along with the stickers were various pamphlets and leaflets extolling the virtues of a wingnut religion that, at least at first glance, appeared to be an elaborate joke. This WTF literature was my first introduction to The Church of the SubGenius. To this day, I’m still not entirely certain of the veracity of this particular religious sect, but now, thanks to Sandy K. Boone’s documentary J.R. “Bob” Dobbs and the Church of the SubGenius, we can all bask in the underground strangeness.

Fantasia 2019: 'The Prey' Movie Review

Richard Connell’s short story “The Most Dangerous Game” has, officially or otherwise, served as the basis for countless action movies. Hard Target, Surviving the Game, Bloodlust!, and countless otehrs—not to mention all the straight adaptations—all draw from the tale of men hunting men. Now we can add Cambodian actioner The Prey, from Jailbreak director Jimmy Henderson, to the pile.

Fantasia 2019: 'DreadOut' Movie Review

Dammit, teens, when are you going to learn no amount of social media follows is worth venturing into haunted abandoned buildings? For the sake of horror movies, I hope the answer is never. And at least they didn’t learn before Kimo Stamboel—one half of the Indonesian filmmaking duo The Mo Brothers (Headshot)—delivered his first solo directorial effort,  DreadOut.

Fantasia 2019: 'The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil' Movie Review

This is an updated version of an earlier review.

To lump all South Korean cinema together and paint the industry with a singular, this-is-what-they-do brush is to do it a disservice. It cuts across genre boundaries, topics, and subsets, with standouts in each category along the way. But goddamn, do the South Korean filmmakers do dark, thoughtful crime thrillers really well. Oldboy, I Saw the Devil, The Yellow Sea, the list goes on. The latest addition to this canon is Lee Won-tae’s The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil.

Fantasia 2019: 'Master Z: Ip Man Legacy' Movie Review

This is an updated version of an earlier review.

This will surprise absolutely no one, but Yuen Woo-ping can stage the hell out of a fight. The guy is a legend for good reason. And he displays this particular skill front and center in his latest directorial effort, Master Z: Ip Man Legacy, which features choreography on par with some of his best. Inventive and thrilling, it runs the gamut from incredibly technical martial arts acumen to high-flying wire artistry that calls to mind his work on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. 

Fantasia 2019: 'The Deeper You Dig' Movie Review

During the credits of The Deeper You Dig the phrase, “An Adams Family Film” (not Addams Family) pops up on screen. And sure, it’s good for a chuckle, but it’s also an accurate representation of what you’re about to see. It’s nothing if not a family affair. Written and directed by John Adams and Toby Poser, the couple also star in two of the three main roles. The third? Filled by their daughter, Zelda Adams.

Fantasia 2019: 'Sadako' Movie Review

(C)2019 "Sadako" Film Partners

In 1998, with Ringu, Hideo Nakata helped kick off an American obsession with Japanese horror that continued to wield a heavy influence through the 2000s. Now, two decades, multiple sequels and remakes, and countless knock-offs down the line, the director returns to that well yet again. The latest chapter, Sadako, maintains the standard creepy, atmospheric vibe at the same time it updates the franchise mythology for a YouTube, anything-for-clicks generation. I mean, it’s hard to make a killer VHS tape scary in a day and age when no one even has a VCR, right?

Fantasia Festival 2019: 6 Films We've Already Seen

For the first time I have the opportunity to cover the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal. Well, sort of. I’m covering it remotely, which is cool in one regard, because, comprised almost entirely of genre movies, it skews right into my wheelhouse. It’s one of the big film festivals I’ve most wanted to check out in my time on this beat, and while I won’t get to be there, boots on the ground, to hang out with a bunch of fine folks in person, I still have the chance to check out a ton of movies I’m rather jazzed to watch.