Tag Archives: independent horror

Nightmares Film Festival

Playing (Murder) House

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American Dollhouse

Screens Friday, October 16 at 6:30pm at Nightmares Film Festival.

by Daniel Baldwin

Most slasher movies these days tend to harken back to either the “unstoppable killer” fare of the late ’80s popularized by Freddy and Jason or they set their sights on attempting to be the next Scream-style meta-slasher. While there’s nothing wrong with either pathway, it is nice when we are occasionally still handed one that falls more in line with the subgenre’s earlier efforts from the late ’70s and early ’80s.

John Valley’s American Dollhouse is such a film. There may be some DNA from the other two aforementioned classes of slasher present here, but this is way more a maniac psychodrama than it is a masked killer riff.

There is no mystery as to who is bringing the violence to suburbia here. Kelsey Pribilski’s Sandy is creepy terror on two legs and she makes an absolute meal out of her viciously weird villain.

Sandy inhabits a world that resides between the psycho slashers of old – think The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and When a Stranger Calls – and the modern horror masters of today. There are also shades of Hereditary and Weapons here, as well as some visual stylings akin to the work of Oz Perkins. The cinematography is just as standout an element as Pribilski’s performance, making American Dollhouse even more of a must-see for horror fans.

This is one to watch out for, folks.

Nightmares Film Festival

Ride or Die

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Liv’s Last Ride

Screens Friday, October 16 at 10:30 pm at Nightmares Film Festival.

by Brandon Thomas

A secluded cabin in the woods is a benchmark in the horror genre. From The Evil Dead to Cabin Fever and The Cabin in the Woods, few settings offer such a surprisingly rich canvas for horror filmmakers. Liv’s Last Ride might not find itself in the upper echelon of cabin-based fright flicks, but it makes a strong case to be in the conversation.

After renting a cabin to celebrate the upcoming marriage of the titular Liv (Sutter Nolan), a group of friends finds themselves wrestling with old resentments, bargain-basement strippers, and some very unwelcome masked party crashers. As the bodies stack up, so do the questions behind the killers’ motivations. 

Liv’s Last Ride is the kind of film I’d call a “kitchen sink” movie. Namely, there’s something in it for everyone. The acting is top-notch. The cinematography looks like it belongs in a movie from a studio. The characters are interesting and well cast. And maybe most importantly: the movie doesn’t skimp on the kills. Director Thaddeus Armstrong (who also acts in the film!) has crafted a crowd-pleaser that manages to check a lot of boxes while not feeling like it’s trying to check boxes. 

The cast deserves special notice as so much of the film involves them bouncing off one another in a single setting. It’s an especially talky film, but enjoyably so given how much of the humor is character based and comes from their interactions. The black humor in Liv’s Last Ride isn’t necessarily from the violence, but more so from how easily—and without much thought—these characters drag each other down or end up turning on one another. 

Liv’s Last Ride is the kind of fun horror comedy that could easily become a sleepover classic. Even with the darkness at the film’s periphery, that ornery sense of fun stays front and center for the entire running time. 

Nightmares Film Festival

Cutting Up

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Friday the 69th

Screening Thursday, October 15 at 10pm at Nightmares Film Festival.

by Brandon Thomas

With a novel approach to a movie-within-a-movie, Friday the 69th scares up plenty of laughs with this comedic slasher.

A couple of down-on-their-luck adult filmmakers attempt to jump on the profitable slasher bandwagon by using their already established cast and crew. As they work their way through the first table read of the script, the filmmakers slowly realize that they might be in over their heads. 

Mimicry of the 70s & 80s film aesthetic reached a fever pitch after the release of Grindhouse in 2007. Although the film wasn’t a massive success, horror fans and filmmakers alike latched onto the deliberately beat-up look that defined so many exploitation horror flicks. While those original films had this look because of age, poor projection, and limited budgets, many homage films deliberately aimed for it, but they didn’t always hit the mark. Friday the 69th is one of those films that successfully manages to match that vintage aesthetic while also having a personality of its own. As someone who’s watched a lot of those early grindhouse-era films, Friday the 69th has all of the hallmarks: scratches and dirt, missing reels, overlit scenes, and very questionable acting.

Many of the jokes within Friday the 69th require a certain understanding of the horror genre, but the film doesn’t feel the need to constantly go “Get it?! Get it?!” You either get the joke, or you don’t. The jokes come so furiously that you’re liable to miss at least a handful each scene. And they’re good jokes too! Writer/Director Alex Montilla’s knack for infusing humor with his love and knowledge of horror cinema is on full display.

Despite covering a lot of the same well-trodden cinematic ground, Friday the 69th still offers up 91 minutes of solid gags and laughs.

Nightmares Film Festival

Uh Oh, You Saw It!

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When You See It

Screens Saturday, October 17 at 8pm at Nightmares Film Festival.

by Daniel Baldwin

Found footage is a tricky subgenre. Its very appeal – the gimmick of being shown first-hand footage of some sort of horrifying incident – can also be its prison. One is bound tightly by the format. Deviating from it too much can break an audience’s suspension of disbelief. On the other hand, if one doesn’t deviate enough, their film won’t stand out from an ever-increasing pool of titles.

When You See It manages to deftly walk that line, delivering an increasingly tense experience akin to the subgenres titans, The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity. While it does opt for the stock “paranormal investigators actually may have finally encountered the paranormal” narrative that most films of this type have these days, it does do it better than most.  

Without giving anything away, director John Abbott’s When You See It manages to play around in that sandbox in some interesting ways. This is aided in a major way by the performances, which are a lot more natural than in most similar films. The editing is also on point, ratcheting up the tension at a steady pace from start to finish.

Found footage fans will find a lot to love here. If this is your subgenre of choice, you’re going to want to seek it out, be it on the festival circuit or when it arrives in wider release on down the road. Those with an aversion to the subgenre are unlikely to be converted, but if you’re open to this kind of tale, When You See It will deliver the goods.

Nightmares Film Festival

Serious Baggage

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The Curse of Tahu’a

Screens at 4pm Friday, October 16 at Nightmares Film Festival.

by Hope Madden

Thanks to a script full of surprises and one very committed performance, Benjamin Busnel’s The Curse of Tahu’a provides gripping, unpredictable thrills.

Moea (Marie Kauffmann) works in an air traffic control tower on a small Pacific island. The little airport is closing due to a massive incoming tropical storm, but before Moea can lock up, she gets a distress signal. A tiny plane that should not have been allowed to take off from a neighboring island is now in danger and the pilot needs Moea to help her land.

Kauffman gets two opportunities—two scenes—to act alongside other flesh-and-blood performers. The rest of the film’s 90 minutes, she spends alone in that glassed-in tower talking on the radio or a phone. That’s a tall order for an actor, but Kauffman impresses.

Moea is not your standard heroine, and neither Kauffmann nor Busnel go out of their way to warm you to her. She’s unpleasant, disliked, a bit harried, and deeply damaged, all of which Kauffmann—thanks in large part to a clever script light on exposition—conveys authentically.

Scripting with Myriam Dupuis, Busnel leads you to believe that you know where things are going early with the distressed airplane, but then he zigs when you expect a zag and suddenly things get supernatural.

It’s again mainly due to Kauffmann that the turn works without feeling silly. She navigates a script that upends one common trope or genre cliché after another to deliver a tense nightmare.

This is efficiency in filmmaking: barely more than a single set, barely more than one face on the screen, streamlined storytelling, effective sound and set design, and anxiety that increases with the storm. Busnel’s feature debut announces him as a filmmaker worth seeking out.

Nightmares Film Festival

Don’t Answer

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Death Came Knocking

Screens at 3pm on Sunday, October 18 at Nightmares Film Festival.

by Hope Madden

A slow build, a single location, and 16mm camerawork combine to craft an intense, uncomfortable throwback horror in writer/director Eric Yoder’s Death Came Knocking.

The film opens with hard drinking, tough talking Aunt Carolyn (Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2’s Caroline Williams) stopping by her sister’s old house to pick up the car. The LA house is being demolished in favor of a new mall, and while cousins Julie (Jacqueline Barone) and Aaron (Mario Silva) pack up, Aunt Carolyn will drive the car cross country to her sister’s new home.

It’s an organic way to deliver backstory, and then we’re alone with the two young adults who do a little packing and a bit of dancing while they snap Polaroids and smoke indoors (because it’s the 1970s, and that happened then).

Then the doorbell rings. Aaron wisely sends the man at the door away, but Julie lets him in because women in 1970s movies always do the dumbest things. But Yoder makes the most of his aesthetic, drawing clear comparisons to the Savage Cinema of American 1970s independent horror, most explicitly, Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left.

Slowly, Yoder tightens tensions as the film moves from a horror of manners toward a home invasion flick. First, it’s Daniel (Rey Marz), then his pregnant wife Marlene (Bix Krieger), and soon enough, Daniel opens his case, and we meet Jasper, the ventriloquist dummy.

And nobody wants that.

Marz delivers an expert performance, aw-shucks good guy one minute, amused sadist the next. The period aesthetic and practical effects help the film overcome some plotting and pacing issues, and the unapologetic violence certainly shocks, but also feels fitting in a film so entirely influenced by Seventies horror.

Nightmares Film Festival

Life’s Only Gettin’ Greater

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Flytrapper

Screens 2pm Saturday, October 17 at Nightmares Film Festival.

by Hope Madden

Forty-five seconds into director Drew Britton’s Flytrapper and I was hooked. Co-writer/co-star Georgia Lee King cuts the most fascinating figure as Crystal, a psychopath who is defiantly, delightfully, dorkishly certain of herself.

Crystal’s days of marauding and cutting sick rap beats are interrupted by an unannounced visit from her BFF, Melonie (Leah Piescinski).

Britton’s approach is naturalistic. Nothing feels staged, takes linger, and a very lived-in relationship emerges between the two leads. But this is not your average scary movie. Flytrapper is like if Ken Loach made Napoleon Dynamite as a grisly, female led horror.

The humor is so natural and delightful that the sudden bursts of violence really startle. King’s performance is ferocious and funny with surprising depth and vulnerability. Piescinski’s quiet turn never steals the spotlight, but offers something authentic and tender. The pair’s chemistry and delivery are the secrets to the levity.

You never feel as if Flytrapper is mocking these two characters in the way that other films centered on social misfits sometimes do. King and Piescinski understand Crystal and Malonie so well that, while you can never predict where the story is leading, the surprises land as natural—albeit misguided—choices they would make.

The movie looks great, too. Set in a small, lakeside town with no air conditioning in a sweaty summer, Flytrapper immerses you in an environment that suits its tale. You feel dropped into a town where most shops are still cash only, where WIFI is hard to come by and the surveillance state is still miles and miles away.

It’s a gorgeous, low-fi environment where friendship, murder, and musical creativity flourish. But Britton does lean into absurdity now and again with gloriously weird dream sequences.

It’s an odd combination, but it works wonderfully to deliver a genuinely unique cinematic experience.

Nightmares Film Festival, Outtakes

Car Wheels on a Gravel Road

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Tinsman Road

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.

Outtakes

Wait a Minute, Baby

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Son of Sara

by Hope Madden

It’s hard to do something new with the “pregnant with Satan’s baby” formula. There are only so many ways it can go, and you can’t hope to unseat Rosemary’s Baby. But writer/director Houston Bone and a game cast breathe weird life in this oft-told tale.

Sara (Chloe Van Landschoot) is very pregnant. Overdue, huge, and constantly vomiting, she’s ready to be done. Her devoted girlfriend Carol (Tymika Tafari) takes good care of her. Still, Sara’s definitely not entirely OK.

She runs into Troy (Garrett Hnatiuk), the pre-Carol fling and baby daddy, and feels strangely compelled to take him up on his offer of dinner. Back at his house. Out in the middle of nowhere. With his mom (Jane Moffat).

While moments of Act 1 smack of cliché —certainly that package of bloody ground chuck in the refrigerator—Bone’s script and his actors’ talent, plus Sara’s convincing pregnant state, keep you invested.

Bone gives his cast breathing room, never rushing a scene, always lingering just long enough for someone to be intriguing. That could be Hnatiuk’s awkwardly seductive dancing, Tafari’s disdainful glare, Moffat’s contemptuous sneer, or Landschoot’s childlike gesturing. The chemistry between and among the actors is top notch, and the way they inhabit their characters ensures even formulaic scenes feel unusual and fresh.

Son of Sara is not a spendy affair, but it rarely feels trapped by its budget. Bone and crew make great use of what funds they do have, and the filmmaker’s instinct for relationship-driven humor and discomfort overcome nearly every cinematic setback.

Even if a few beats buckle under familiarity, the underlying change in theme quietly upends a status quo expectation in enormously enjoyable ways. Son of Sara has an F-you quality to it that doesn’t draw attention to itself and is all the more satisfying for it. It’s fun, tightly constructed, compellingly performed horror and you’re out in under 90 minutes. What do you have to lose?

Shudder Premiere

Comfortably Numb

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by Hope Madden

Touch Me

About a decade ago, filmmaker Amat Escalante made a movie about sexual frustration, bad decisions and tentacle sex. The Untamed grounded the fantasy in a profoundly ordinary and relatable human drama, limiting the absurdity and amplifying the horror.

Addison Heimann leans far more absurd with his tentacle sex horror Touch Me, a potent drug metaphor that speaks to a modern malaise.

In a lengthy and surprisingly effective opening monologue, Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley, exceptional) explains her situation to her psychiatrist. A weirdly good-looking alien in a tracksuit (Lou Taylor Pucci) came to save the planet from climate change and convinced Joey to have cross-species intercourse. His touch made her mind go quiet for the first time in her life, but she fled because she nearly died.

Still the lure of a quiet mind proves too much and soon Joey and her best friend Craig (Jordan Gavaris) cave into temptation and find themselves hooked.

Which doesn’t sound funny, but Heimann’s delightfully accepting glimpse at modern slackerism paired with Pucci’s wide-eyed narcissism and hip hop moves keep things light despite a lot of truly dark turns. At its core, Touch Me is about deeply damaged people struggling to face a reality that cannot make them happy and the incessant temptation of hard drugs to silence that anxiety.

For that reason, the silliness sometimes seems tone deaf. That, or the dramatic turns seem maudlin. But only briefly, mainly because of the commitment of Heimann’s small but talented cast.

Dudley and Gavaris affect a believable co-dependence, their banter a familiar and humorous cadence of self-loathing and support. Dudley is particularly impressive in a role that holds the metaphor, horror and silliness together. And Pucci hits a perfect tone for oblivious track-suited narcissist.

The writing does not always serve the actors as well as they serve it. There are holes in logic that Touch Me laughs off by pointing them out—a fun tactic, but not a solution. And the whole feels slight given the deeper ideas sewn throughout. But the film is an enjoyable, sloppy, relatable mess with insight and fun to spare.