The Dark and the Wicked

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This gallery contains 9 photos.

The Dark and the Wicked begins with a woman (actress Julie Oliver-Touchstone) living on an isolated farm in a nondescript, rural area, with her dying, bedridden husband (Michael Zagst).  The son (Michael Abbott Jr.) and daughter (Marin Ireland) return for their father’s impending death and… Continue reading

Lovely Molly

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This gallery contains 9 photos.

Back in 1999, director Eduardo Sánchez took the horror world by storm, giving us not the first found-footage film, but certainly one that changed everything–The Blair Witch Project. Ten years later, in 2011, Sanchez returned as… Continue reading

THE PACT: A Short-Film to Feature-Film Comparison and Review

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This gallery contains 16 photos.

I am always a little bothered in the end, when I learn that the title of a movie has nothing to do with the movie.  The Pact is just such a film that had me… Continue reading

The Dead Outside

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This gallery contains 8 photos.

With real-life horrors of COVID19 and their lingering effects, can movies about pandemics ever be novel again?  (No pun intended.)  Hitting too close to home for many, with too much… Continue reading

CRAWL or DIE 2 – Sci-Fi Horror with Nicole Alonso Returns

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This gallery contains 21 photos.

BackyardFilms is excited to announce the upcoming sequel(s) to their 2015 breakout horror feature, CRAWL or DIE (written and directed by acclaimed Indie director, Oklahoma Ward), starring actress and singer, Nicole Alonso… Continue reading

OPEN 24 HOURS

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This gallery contains 6 photos.

Hallucinations in movies are rarely done right.  If done correctly, visual hallucinations should be cowitnessed by the audience, only when the affected character is also looking in the direction of the hallucination.  If the audience sees an objective view that the affected person… Continue reading

HONEYMOON

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This gallery contains 6 photos.

Some of the most disturbing moments in life are those when your spouse is having a moody reaction to something and you don’t know why.  He/she isn’t acting “normal,” and what the hell could it be?  “Is it something I… Continue reading

Incident in a Ghostland

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This gallery contains 8 photos.

Most movies that attempt meshing imagination with reality fail miserably.  For most, the routes taken to connect and disconnect the two are paved with confusion and inconsistency; in the end… Continue reading

THE HUNT: “Fair and Balanced” Political Satire for the Times

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This gallery contains 6 photos.

It is almost amazing that a movie about warring conservatives and liberals would be made during such volatile political times.  Perhaps now, as things are worse than ever, such a movie wouldn’t be made; perhaps a bit earlier was just… Continue reading

WITHIN THESE WALLS

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This gallery contains 7 photos.

Within the walls of the mind are hopefully buried the worst of our experiences, our guilt, and our fears.  Hopefully, they will remain forever hidden… Continue reading

SHADOW PUPPETS

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This gallery contains 12 photos.

Years ago, at a local Half Price bookstore, while looking through a vat of $2.00 DVDs (the ones they really want to get rid of), I happened upon a movie called Shadow Puppets.  From the title alone, I thought it… Continue reading

THE LODGE

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This gallery contains 7 photos.

Grace (Riley Keough) is the only survivor of a mass cult suicide she witnessed as a child, nearly twenty years earlier.  She has recovered from her trauma, only with medication, time, and protection from memories.  But, trouble is brewing again… Continue reading

Burning Kentucky

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This gallery contains 10 photos.

I recently attended the Flyover Film Festival in my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.  This year’s festival featured six films, all helmed by female directors, with all films accepted based on their quality and a required connection to Kentucky.  (Yes!  This year… Continue reading

JULIA 17

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This gallery contains 24 photos.

Just as incest, abuse and abandonment are real-world horrors, so is Julia 17–a surreal, stream-of-consciousness mind trip, where images and events flow as dreams, or sometimes as nightmares.  But, Julia’s nightmares… Continue reading

Tony

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This gallery contains 7 photos.

Tony (written and directed by Gerard Johnson) is a movie exactly about what it is sometimes subtitled–a “London Serial Killer”–ironically, far from the banality implied.  As the tagline says, “It’s always the quiet ones.”  Yes!  If ever there was a … Continue reading

The Dark Tapes

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This gallery contains 7 photos.

I always love a good found-footage horror film.  However, finding a good one is not so easy these days.  Since the first mainstream example in the genre–The Blair Witch Project in 1999–such a film with anything original and different to … Continue reading

Enter Nowhere

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This gallery contains 5 photos.

Enter Nowhere (the supernatural thriller/mystery from director Jack Heller) is the story of three people who find themselves lost in the same unknown place, in a wooded area, near a ramshackle cabin in the woods.  Every attempt to escape the … Continue reading

Thirty Proof Coil

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This gallery contains 7 photos.

Thirty Proof Coil (from writer/director Will Schmeckpeper) begins with a foreboding fish in a bowl, cutting to close-ups of a woman’s bare feet, as she scurries from room to room in a house.  Blue jean shorts and a midriff-baring top … Continue reading

Lonely Holidays

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This gallery contains 8 photos.

Wouldn’t you love to have some company for the holidays?  Wouldn’t you like to receive the perfect gift from your special someone?  Wait!  Before you say yes, turn on your brain and think.  Who is it?  How long have you … Continue reading