Tag Archives: independent horror

Nightmares Film Festival

Car Wheels on a Gravel Road

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Tinsman Road

Screens Sunday, October 19 at 2pm

by Rachel Willis

Writer, director, and star Robbie Banfitch crafts a unique, documentary-style film with his feature, Tinsman Road.

Banfitch plays Robbie Lyle, a documentarian focused on capturing his mother Leslie’s (Leslie Ann Banfitch) belief that her missing daughter is now an angel.

Leslie’s grief is tangible, and as the “documentary” progresses, her hold on reality seems more and more tenuous. Her belief that her daughter is now a visiting angel is met with tender skepticism by her son. When she asks if he believes in psychics, she answers his no with the assurance that while “some are scams,” hers is real.

Leslie Banfitch’s naturalism helps sell the documentary approach. Her ability to fully encompass a woman who believes her missing daughter now haunts her life is not only heartfelt but convincing. Her performance sets the film apart from similar, weaker fare. Robbie’s own grief feels two-fold. Not only does he also mourn the loss of his sister but feels helpless in helping his mom with her grief. It’s a heart wrenching dilemma.

Eerie elements underscore the fact that, while this is a movie about a grieving family, it’s also a horror film. It’s these subtleties from the very beginning that slowly suck you in. The film also pulls artfully from the true crime genre.

The camera work and low-budget quality of the movie both heighten the tension and add to the sorrow surrounding the characters. Though the style has certainly been overused in the horror genre, Banfitch manages to make it feel like a necessary choice.

Certain moments feel unnecessary, but they’re few and far between. The removal of one or two scenes may have helped tighten pacing. But these are small imperfections, easy to overlook.

Tinsman Road‘s slowly building dread gives way to a shattering climax. The intensity of the third act is stomach churning, especially after the quiet meditation on grief that came before it. Banfitch rewards your patience with the finale.

Grief and horror have often gone hand in hand, and Banfitch offers up a worthy contribution.

New In Theaters

Candy Colored Clown

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Somnium

by Hope Madden

Hollywood is one big nightmare. That’s essentially the plot of writer/director Rachel Cain’s feature debut, a dreamscape where you’re never certain what Gemma (Chloë Levin) is experiencing and what she’s imagining.

Levine’s cinematic presence, no matter the film, is wholly natural, utterly authentic. There’s nothing uncanny about her. Her humanity and vulnerability inform every moment she’s onscreen. That may be why she’s such a perfect central figure in horror films like The Ranger, The Transfiguration, and The Sacrifice Game. However unnatural the plot or nemesis, Levine is a profoundly human anchor.

In this surreal Hollywood fable—part Neon Demon, part Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, part Inception, part The Substance—Gemma leaves a small town in Georgia to chase her Hollywood dreams. Lonesome, rejected, lost and always one step away from homelessness and failure, she takes a job at an experimental sleep clinic where people dream their way into believing they can achieve their ideal future.

Gamma works nights, studying scripts and babysitting sleeping clients. By day she auditions, faces rejection, daydreams about her old life, and flirts with the possibly creepy, possibly benevolent Hollywood insider, Brooks (Jonathan Schaech).

But the daydreams are leaking into her waking moments, huge chunks of time keep disappearing, and there’s this contorted figure with a twisted spine she keeps catching in her peripheral vision.

Cain’s script lacks a little something in originality—hers is hardly the first cautionary tale about striking it out on your own in Hollywood. Still, in subverting the idea of big dreams, playing with the notion that perception is reality, and mining the vulnerability and predatory nature of those with and without power in Tinsel Town, she hits a nerve.

She leaves too much unresolved, which is frustrating. But scene by scene, Cain casts a spell both horrifying and hopeful. Though the entire ensemble is strong, Levine is her secret weapon. The film falls apart if you don’t feel protective of Gemma, if you don’t long for her to succeed. Characteristically, Levine has you in her corner, even when lurking doom waits behind her in the shadows.

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Some Dude with a Mop

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The Toxic Avenger

by Hope Madden

My friend has photographed Lloyd Kaufman’s testicles. That means that in a game of Six Degrees of Lloyd Kaufman’s Testicles, I would win.

In other news, a bunch of talented, funny humans have rebooted Kaufman’s iconic 1984 Troma classic, The Toxic Avenger. There are few films I have more impatiently anticipated than this, plagued as it was by a two-year delay in distribution. But now you can see writer/director Macon Blair’s reboot in all its goopy, corrosive, violent, hilarious glory.

Though the story’s changed, much remains the same (including Easter eggs a plenty!).

Winston (Peter Dinklage), single stepfather to Wade (Jacob Tremblay) and janitor at a factory that makes wellness and beauty supplements, finds that he’s dying and his platinum insurance doesn’t cover the treatment that could save his life. Attempting to steal the money to cover the treatment, he saves a whistleblower (Taylour Paige) from a group of horror core hip hop parkour assassins but winds up in a pool of toxic sludge.

Let’s pause for a second to marvel at this cast. Dinklage is one of the most talented actors working today, and as Winston he is effortlessly heartbreaking and tender. He’s also really funny, and this is not necessarily the kind of humor every serious actor can pull off.

Paige, who has impressed in Zola and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, among other film, also seems built for Blair’s particular brand of Troma comedy. And Tremblay, beloved since his excruciatingly perfect turn in Room as a small boy, gives the film its angsty heartbeat.

Plus, Kevin Bacon as the narcissistic weasel owner of the wellness and beauty empire killing the planet. He hates to be called Bozo (IYKYK).

Blair made his directorial debut with 2017’s underseen treasure, I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore, though he’s better known as the lynchpin performer in many of Jeremy Saulnier’s films (Blue Ruin, Green Room, Murder Party). He and Kaufman both deliver laughs in small roles, but he impresses most as the mind behind the mayhem.

His vision for this film couldn’t be more spot-on. Joyous, silly, juvenile, insanely violent, hateful of the bully, in love with the underdog—Blair’s Toxic Avenger retains the best of Troma, rejects the worst, and crafts something delirious and wonderful.

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Coked Encounters

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Jimmy and Stiggs

by Hope Madden

Few filmmakers capture drug fueled horror mayhem quite like Joe Begos (Bliss, VFW). His latest is an exercise in minimalism. Not in terms of drugs or mayhem, just filmmaking.

An alien invasion horror flick, Jimmy and Stiggs sees Jimmy (Begos), an out of work filmmaker, hitting the stuff hard in his LA apartment when he blacks out and loses an entire night. Certain an alien abduction was involved, and that those slimy sardine MF’ers are coming back for him, he calls his best friend Stiggs (Matt Mercer) for advice.

The thing is, Stiggs is six months sober and hasn’t spoken to Jimmy in ages. In fact, in an opening sequence shot go-pro style from Jimmy’s inebriated point of view, we learn that Stiggs isn’t interested in producing Jimmy’s new film, news that sends Jimmy spiraling.

Still, worried for his old friend’s sanity and welfare, Stiggs shows up at Jimmy’s place just in time for the aliens to return.

What Begos creates, in a quick 80 minutes with mainly two actors and one increasingly and impressively demolished set, is DIY filmmaking at its most profanity strewn.

Given the sheer volume of cocaine and whiskey, the incoherence of the plot feels right at home. Begos amplifies the nuttiness with wild cuts, possible dream sequences, time shifts, and the periodic use of first person, go-pro POV sequences. The result is a dizzying, black-light colorful excuse to bash practical FX aliens to bits and let their day-glo goo decorate the apartment.

On the downside, Begos is no actor, and even 80 minutes of isolation with Jimmy and his coked-up ranting feels too long. Mercer fares better, leading some Apocalypse Now type insanity that plays really well in this context.

Jimmy and Stiggs was shot over 4 years, beginning during lockdown and extending until completion, mainly in Begos’s LA home. It’s a wild bit of alien fun that fades to black just before it outstays its welcome.

Shudder Premiere

Wait a Minute, Mr. Postman

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Dead Mail

by Hope Madden

Welcome to Peoria, IL sometime in the mid-1980s. A little mystery has taken hold of the post office. Letter sorters found a necklace in an envelope with the wrong address on it. It looks valuable, so that means Jasper (Tomas Boykin) will put his skills to the test to try to sleuth out who the jewelry belongs to and return it to its rightful owner.

There’s also this torn, bloody piece of paper about a kidnapping.

Filmmakers Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConaghy’s thriller Dead Mail builds on a wildly unrealistic concept: smalltown post offices with super-secure back rooms where pains are taken and spies may be accessed to solve mysteries behind lost mail. And yet, their analog approach to this period piece gives it a true crime feel you never fully shake.

The authenticity is not just in the lo-fi look—although the set design, costumes and hair are spot on. The wholly convincing performances, especially from two of the cast mates, pull you in.

Boykin’s low key, unflappable turn as the dead letter investigator quietly anchors the film—so quietly that the machinations around him are more likely to draw a “huh, I had no idea the Peoria post office went to such pains to track down lost mail” than they really should.

But the bulk of the film is carried on John Fleck’s shoulders. As Trent, the seemingly harmless organ enthusiast who has a man trapped in his basement, Fleck’s delivers magnificent work. There’s a beautiful loneliness in his performance that makes Trent irredeemably sympathetic.

DeBoer and McConaghy (Sheep’s Clothing), who co-write and co-direct, invest in character development enough to complicate your emotions. You’re genuinely sorry to see what happens to some of these characters, and yet, you just can’t hate Trent.

A couple of characters are there more for comic relief than anything, but even they are somewhat delicately drawn. And though the premise on its face is outlandish, every detail in the film convinces you you’re watching nonfiction.

Filmmaker and cast investment pays off. Dead Mail is clever, intriguing and wholly satisfying little thriller.

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A Walk in the Woods

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Lovely, Dark, and Deep

by Hope Madden

What is the draw of the deep woods? Ticks? High likelihood of injury with haphazard chances of rescue? Cocaine bears?

Even the obvious reasons to steer clear of the woods can’t deter a lot of people. Writer/director Teresa Sutherland’s Lovely, Dark, and Deep links two risks that have haunted writers and creators throughout existence. Some people go crazy in the woods, and many get lost in there and never come out.

“And into the forest I must go, to lose my mind and find my soul.” John Muir said that. The “father of the National Parks” may not have predicted Sutherland’s translation.

Sutherland drops new ranger Lennon (Georgina Campbell, Barbarian) in the National Park back country, where she will spend the season mainly alone in her ranger hut. Does she know that Ranger Varney (Soren Hellerup) disappeared last season?

Likely it wouldn’t dissuade Lennon, who has a past to reconcile and some podcasts on missing people to listen to.

Campbell’s performance shifts as Lennon’s determination makes way for absolute confusion and terror. What begins as single-minded pursuit shows itself to be desperation in disguise. Willfulness gives way to horror as Lennon’s investigation turns up wooded weirdness and wickedness she did not predict.

Wide shots and drone work keep Lennon dwarfed by an increasingly claustrophobic forest, though Campbell never lets the character feel overmatched by nature. Not nature. But a disorienting woods as deep as these (it’s actually Portugal) can easily conceal a lot that is far from natural.

Sutherland’s film is a bit of a slow burn, but once it hits its stride, she throws an unsettling assortment of hellish visions at you. You don’t have to have a natural (and really healthy, I think) fear of the woods to know it’s time to get the F out of Jellystone.

Nightmares Film Festival

Driven

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Trunk

by George Wolf

You get the sense early on that the German thriller Trunk may have some pleasant surprises in store.

Malina (Sina Martens, terrific in a physically demanding role) wakes up to find herself badly injured and confined to the trunk of a car. The trunk is ajar, and before the driver returns to shut her inside, Malina is able to retrieve her cell phone.

And lemme guess, the phone’s almost dead, right?

FULL POWER.

Okay, then, here we go! Dialing a series of well-chosen contacts, Malina has to 1) stay alive, and 2) piece together what’s happening while she looks for an escape route.

Writer/director Marc Schießer proves a solid triple threat here, also handling the editing duties with a deft hand and solid instincts for pacing and tension.

The cinematography is on point, as well. And while this particular trunk seems unusually roomy, Scheiber consistently lands precisely the type of claustrophobic camera angles and POV shots that Liam Nesson’s recent car-centric thriller Retribution tried in vain to achieve.

You may end up sniffing out some the mystery at play, but even so, Schießer’s finale will be no less satisfying. Trunk is a tense, crowd-pleasing thriller, one that adds enough detours to a well-traveled road until it’s fun again.

So climb in, and enjoy the ride.

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American Nightmare

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Ghosts of the Void

by Christie Robb

Jason Miller’s directorial debut Ghosts of the Void is successfully unsettling.

Jen (Tedra Millan, Daddy’s Girl) is barely keeping her shit together. She’s been supporting her husband Tyler’s (Michael Reagan, Lovecraft Country) ambition to become a novelist. He’d shown promise in college, but now they’ve been evited from their home and are trying to find an inconspicuous place to park for the night with only $40 and the contents of the car to their names.

They’ve driven to the “nice” side of town, just outside a country club’s fence. But physical proximity to the middle class will not be enough to secure their safety.

Jen’s not slept in weeks. They don’t have health insurance. And what’s with those creepy masked folks in the woods?

The film flashes back from the couple’s chilly car to scenes of the past, depicting the growing strain of the financial and creative pressures on their marriage and Jen’s growing emotional servitude to an unstable partner.

With a cast of just eight people and a very limited number of locations, Miller delivers an unexpected amount of creeping unease. Danger could come from multiple angles, so you find yourself scanning the screen, hoping to keep one step ahead of the jump scare.

Millan and Reagan deliver layered and realistic performances that keep the pace of this slow-burn of a character-driven horror moving.

With themes of financial and housing insecurity and lack of access to health care,  Miller really taps into the ways in which the American capitalist system can easily shift from an ambitious dream to a living nightmare.

Nightmares Film Festival

The Beast of Walton St.

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by Brandon Thomas

A good creature feature is hard to do on an indie budget. Many filmmakers have tried – and failed spectacularly – to bring monsters to life with little money and even worse, little imagination. The Beast of Walton Street bucks that trend by delivering thrilling monster mayhem and a steady supply of wit and heart. 

In a nameless Ohio town, a beast is roaming the Christmas decorated streets and picking off the most vulnerable: the unhoused. Friends Constance (Athena Murzda) and Sketch (Mia Jones) live on the fringes of society – barely scraping by and living in an abandoned auto repair shop. As the two notice more and more of the city’s at-risk residents disappearing, they decide to take matters into their own hands and defend their town from the ravenous beast. 

There’s a palpable level of energy that flows through the entirety of The Beast of Walton Street. Director Dusty Austen’s competency behind the camera is evident and admirable. The level of care and skill shown toward the craft of filmmaking is immediately recognizable in the editing, blocking, lighting, and shot composition. Craft is something that unfortunately falls to the wayside in many indie films, but in The Beast of Walton Street it’s on full display.

Austen is wisely economical when it comes to showing the titular beast (which is actually a werewolf). How Austen chose to shoot and edit around the beast is truly impressive. This reviewer was reminded of Ridley Scott’s Alien on more than one occasion. The ferocity of the werewolf is never lost on the viewer and so much of that is due to Austen’s confident handling of craft.

On the flip-side, the human element of Beast of Walton Street is just as impressive. While Murzda carries the film as the lead, both she and Jones have a delightfully charming chemistry that makes the beast-less scenes just as fun. While neither actor has a long resume (yet!), their comfort and flexibility in front of the camera is evident. 

The Beast of Walton Street doesn’t reinvent the werewolf wheel, but what it does is offer up an Amblin-esque punk rock creature feature, and that is more than enough for me.

Nightmares Film Festival

Departing Seniors

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by Hope Madden

With her feature debut, director Clare Cooney skates some familiar ice but tweaks the high school slasher enough to produce a charming, compelling and strangely fresh slasher with Departing Seniors.

Jose Nateras’s script centers on Javier (Ignacio Diaz-Silverio), a high school senior who loves his best friend Bianca (Ireon Roach) and his gig on the high school paper, and maybe new guy William (Ryan Foreman). Otherwise, high school blows, but it’s almost over and then – even if Ginny (Maisie Merlock) steals his slot as valedictorian – he and Bianca will be out of this Podunk town and on to better things.

Graduation can’t come soon enough, though, because Ginny and her letter-jacket buddies have amped up the bullying. Things are so bad Javier barely even notices when the first of the popular jock dumbasses dies in the pool of apparent suicide.

At its best, Departing Seniors breathes life into the tropes of coming-of-age horror films. Cooney has gathered a truly talented and memorable group of young actors to elevate a clever if somewhat predictable take on the high school slasher. This cast, top to bottom, impresses and Nateras writes characters that they can sink their teeth into.

Diaz-Silverio reimagines the bullied teen with tenderness, resilience and humor. An exceptional, empathetic central figure, it is impossible not to root for Javier. 

Roach continues her streak (after Jennifer Reeder’s Knives and Skin and Perpetrator as well as Nia DaCosta’s Candyman) of carving memorable characters regardless of screen time. She brings a relatable, cynical humor that also emphasizes Javier’s kindness.

The traditional plotting eventually limits the film’s creative success and the speechifying undoes a lot of the nuanced storytelling that preceded it, but you never stop caring about the characters. Departing Seniors subverts every one-dimensional high school slasher cliché to deliver a startlingly empathetic and effecting thriller.