The Katyn Massacre was a series of mass executions of Polish nationals carried out by the Soviet secret police in April and May of 1940. Though the Soviet Union claimed that Nazi Germany had orchestrated the slaughter in 1941, it officially acknowledged responsibility for the killings in 1990, after decades of state-sponsored cover-ups. Piotr Szkopiak…
“Scribbled, shot and cut by Giorgio Serafini,” read the titles at the end of The Executioners, as Tim Polecat’s jaunty song “Another Word for Hate” bounces on the soundtrack, as if what we just saw was all a bit of tongue-in-cheek fun. But there’s nothing fun about Serafini’s hateful home invasion horror movie. Four twenty-something…
Writer/director/co-producer Deon Taylor (“Meet the Blacks”) oversees Traffik, a disposable mystery-suspense project with all the anticipation and edginess of sitting in traffic on the inner loop of I-495 West outside Washington D.C. His pseudo-tense thriller incorporates all the clichéd conventions imaginable: Pretty people in peril, normally smart people doing dumb things, remote romantic getaway shot…
Ignoring Thomas Wolfe’s observation that “You can’t go home again,” brothers Justin (Justin Benson, “Dementia”) and Aaron Smith (Aaron Moorhead, “Contracted: Phase II”), as an expression of completion, return to a California cult from which they had escaped ten years ago. Written and directed by Benson and Moorhead, The Endless is a low-budget psychological drama…
Gogo (Michael S. New, “Night Kill”), a wacky Bangkok taxi driver straight out of a “Hangover” sequel, picks up Jim (James Landry Hébert, “Gangster Squad”) and Julie (Scout Taylor-Compton, “Halloween”) from the airport. They’re a happy-go-lucky American couple who unfortunately haven’t seen the prologue for Ghost House, in which a homeless witch shoves her fist…
I think it’s fair to say that Last Seen in Idaho is a well-balanced, albeit cheesy, thriller. It has a straightforward plot with the expected number of twists and it includes strong, believable, even relatable lead characters who are portrayed with an acceptable level of competence. Now, I know that sentence isn’t exactly a ringing…
A common rite of passage for college seniors is their last Spring Break — they get together with friends in a tropical location for sun, drinks, and fun before they graduate and enter “the real world.” Intent on making her final Spring Break worth a little more, Olivia (Lucy Hale, “Scream 4”) has instead signed…
