'Koko-Di Koko-Da' (2018) Movie Review

We’ve seen the Groundhog-Day-as-horror conceit before, most recently with the Happy Death Day movies. But in Swedish oddity Koko-di Koko-da, writer/director Johannes Nyholm takes the concept to straight-up psychological nightmare territory. Twisted and terrifying, it offers a time-loop of grief, death, and adorable animated shadow puppet bunnies and birds, which he also manages to turn scary and unnerving as all hell. 

'Villains' (2019) Movie Review

Mickey (Bill Skarsgård, It) and Jules (Maika Monroe, The Guest, It Follows) are a wannabe Bonnie and Clyde. Drug addled, wild, and in love, they plan to rob their way to Florida, with an overly idyllic dream of selling sea shells on the sea shore. Until they break into the wrong house. When circumstances dictate they invade the home of George (Jeffrey Donovan, Burn Notice) and Gloria (Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer), a stuffy, seemingly uptight couple, they get so much more than they bargained for and we find out who the real bad guys are. So goes Villains, the new horror-comedy from writer/directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen (Stake Land 2). 

NBFF 2019: 'The El Duce Tapes' Movie Review

During the intro of U.S. premiere of The El Duce Tapes at the North Bend Film Festival, the host, at a loss for words, asked, “Who here is familiar with The Mentors?” To which a few of us raised our hands and one audience member replied, “Unfortunately.” “Well, you know what you’re in for,” he said, pointing our way. “The rest of you…” and he trailed off with nervous laughter. That sums it up pretty well. If you know, you know; if not, hold the hell on and get ready for some conflicted feelings.

NBFF 2019: 'The Gasoline Thieves' Movie Review

From the first moments of Edgar Nito’s The Gasoline Thieves, tragedy seems inevitable. The film opens with a dark, tense scene where to rival crews attempting to siphon off gas in the Mexican desert violently clash. This creates an ominous, inescapable cloud that lingers over everything to come. That isn’t to say the film is without moments of heart or levity, but it’s impossible to shake the feeling that bad things are in store.

NBFF 2019: 'Extra Ordinary' Movie Review

Rose Dooley (Maeve Higgins) has a special talent, she can communicate with the spirit world. But after a tragic accident took her similarly gifted, paranormal-investigator father from her as a child, she shuns her abilities. Instead, she subsists as a driving instructor in a small Irish town, deflecting constant supernatural requests from locals. All that changes, however, when washed up one-hit-wonder Christian Winter (Will Forte) attempts to call forth evil forces to resurrect his career and, in the process, possess a young girl to serve as a virgin sacrifice. With nowhere to turn, the girl’s frantic father, Martin Martin (Barry Ward), himself tormented by the bitter ghost of his dead wife, turns to Rose, who, nurturing a serious crush, decides to pitch in and help.

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.