Sperm swimming toward an egg and the sounds of satanic incantations. From the opening shot, Gonzalo Calzada’s film, Luciferina, is unambiguously concerned with demonic possession and motherhood. That it sticks to its themes must be applauded — but in the actual experience of watching the movie there is less to applaud. Natalia’s (Sofía Del Tuffo,…
Molly (Julia Batelaan, “Kill Mode”) is Max Rockatansky, Furiosa and Katniss Everdeen all rolled into one. Sounds pretty spectacular, right? While totally rad(iated) in concept, this micro-budget action epic, Molly, from directors Colinda Bongers and Thijs Meuwese is pretty unwatchable in execution. The setting is “Sunder Land,” which will greatly amuse fans of Northern English…
A Taste of Phobia never threatens to touch greatness. But, like all horror anthologies, there are inspired moments and passable individual efforts. You just need to filter out the hairs in the soup. Thankfully, I’ve brought my sieve. This is a collection of 14 micro-movies, mostly pertaining to body horror. Each short is named for…
From “Black Christmas” through “Silent Night, Deadly Night” and onto “Krampus,” there is a fine tradition of Christmas-themed horrors running through the decades, and Red Christmas, the feature debut from writer-director Craig Anderson, fits comfortably into the canon. The Christian festival of family and giving is the perfect backdrop for an ultra-violent cautionary tale about…
Deadly Virtues: Love.Honour.Obey., the latest film from Ate De Jong — the Dutch veteran director whose career goes back to and beyond “Drop Dead Fred” — is a raw, creepy, silly, and ultimately fairly powerful captive thriller. De Jong makes good use of his deliberately bland single location and draws intense performances from his small,…
Vampyres is based on a 1974 cult classic. I haven’t seen the original, but it looks perfectly sleazy, decadent, and nasty, so I’m sure it’s right up my alley. Unfortunately, its successor is charmless and devoid of such luxuries as acting and a decent script. Which kind of means it fails at being a bad…
The cerebral time-travel thriller Counter Clockwise is quite a piece of work, with a punchy script and tight editing and direction, all set to an eerie score. If you enjoyed Shane Carruth’s “Primer,” take a gander at this one — it has all of the intriguing metaphysical concepts, but is a little easier to follow….
