Just a quick reminder that we’ve launched our companion podcast/newsletter, “Classics Weekly,” a brand-new Podcast/Newsletter devoted to classic films. Our first episode, devoted to “Casablanca,” launched this week. It’ll all be very similar in format to Horror Weekly, but since it’s only one film each week, we can go more in-depth with trivia and commentary. The second episode, “Singin’ In The Rain,” comes out next week, with many more to follow, Sign up for the newsletter or subscribe to the podcast at
https://www.classicsweekly.com
In addition, the latest issue of Horror Monthly is now on sale. Check out
for links to pick it up in print or as an eBook. This month includes all the usual reviews, 37 films’ worth, as well as a retrospective on the five original “Planet of the Apes” films PLUS a short story!
But this week, right here, we’ve got five more movies and some short films. We’ll start out with a comedy, “eVil Sublet,” and then go with one that has no humor at all, “The Wait.” The three that follow are a mixed bag: the depressing “The Devil’s Bath,” the mental “Booger,” and the ridiculous “Population Purge.” We’ll follow these up with three short films. It’s a wild week!
Don’t miss out on our next members-only edition of the newsletter, coming toward the end of October. Paid subscription info can be found at https://www.horrorweekly.com/
Indie Films:
eVil Sublet (2024)
● Directed by Allan Piper
● Written by Allan Piper
● Stars Jennifer Leigh Houston, Charlie Tucker, Sally Struthers, Katy Sullivan, Helen Hong
● Run Time: 1 Hour, 45 Minutes
● Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
The cast, script, direction, settings, and props all made for a really good movie. It’s heavy on the humor with plenty of horror elements too. Tropes are used effectively, and it’s got some clever bits. We liked it a lot, more than we expected.
Spoilery Synopsis
A man plays a prank on his wife that goes very badly. Credits roll.
“East Village” is abbreviated eVil. A couple, Alex and Ben, argues about how the eVil apartment is too cheap. Parker, the realtor, takes them inside, describing it all the way up the steps. It’s fully “decorated,” but it’s very dark. She mentions some drawbacks, including the former owner killing his entire family. “A lot of the previous owners came to horrific ends.” Still, it’s got high ceilings, a garden, and a big kitchen, so there’s that. They take it!
We cut to a woman who bought a ventriloquist dummy at a thrift store, and it ended up killing all her roommates. Or at least she dreamed it. Ned and Lorne are “Psychics,” and Lorne does a reading on the doll- she used it as a sex toy.
Alex and Ben move into the new apartment. Oliver, Hedy, and Ben’s sister help with the move. Alex figures out that turning on the lights actually makes the place darker. The more lamps she plugs, the darker the place gets. Late that night, doors open and close, and Sis listens to a weird man outside yelling at the sky. When she sees a New York cockroach, she decides to go to a motel instead.
On the second day, more things act strangely in the house. Alex, Ben, and Sis go to the carnival. They go on a haunted house ride, and Alex gets stuck inside. Ned and Lorne walk up and Lorne grabs Alex’s head– “They need our help,” Lorne laments. That night, Alex experiences some weirdness with the doors.
At the carnival, Lorne starts tracking down Alex from a photo. Alex cleans the black mold from the bathroom, but then it all grows back worse. She does a voiceover ad that sounds great to her, but her agent says it’s all messed up. When she listens, there are ghostly voices on the recording. She’s ready to move out now, but Ben says it’s time to see her psychiatrist again.
After three weeks, Alex complains about her psychiatrist to Hedy, her ex-wife. Meanwhile, Lorne has a nightmare about Alex, who is sleepwalking. The power goes out, so Alex has to go into the basement.
Oliver comes over and meets Lisa, the neighbor, who came over for a dinner party. Except, she’s not real and makes him choke on an olive. One of the EMTs has a heart attack going up the steps, but he doesn’t have insurance. Oliver dies, but Ben has to leave town for a work thing, leaving Alex home alone to deal with sleep paralysis.
Alex and Hedy go to see Madame Moon, a Chinese Fortune teller– no, she’s a financier, a fortune maker. They look up a couple that sound like “The Conjuring couple, only gay.” Yeah, it’s Ned and Lorne. They know all about her building’s vicious history. There have been hundreds and hundreds of deaths in that apartment. All the deaths come in threes; Oliver was one, who will be the other two? It’ll calm down after two more people die.
Alex and Hedy go looking for Reena, the actual owner of the apartment. She may be letting Alex and Ben take the hit for the deaths so she can move back in. Reena lives in a storage locker and has a sad story for them. She’s very sympathetic until she starts getting racist and homophobic. When she gets all MAGA on them, the conversion is over.
This leads to a haunted karaoke number with Alex and Hedy which leads to a kiss between the old exes. She goes home, but the strangeness hasn’t stopped. She calls “The Great Manfredo,” a guy that Ned recommended. Meanwhile, Ned and Lorne sense that it’s time for the final two deaths to happen, so they hurry right over there.
Manfredini is strange and reads tea leaves and Alex’s palm; he just might be a creeper. As he drugs Alex and moves on her, the ghost attacks and kills him– that makes two. The ghost slowly stomps after Alex, who is too drugged up to walk any faster. She sees all sorts of strangeness as she walks through the basement. She does eventually escape and runs to the bar. Meanwhile, Ben is coming home early.
Ben arrives, and it’s clear that something is wrong in the apartment. Alex, Lorne, and Ned arrive right behind him. The ghosts possess Ben, and kill Lorne with an Ax. That’s three deaths.
Alex, Hedy, and Ben go to the storage locker and confront Reena. “There’s nothing in that apartment that’s as evil as you.” We see that Lorne didn’t really die, he’s hospitalized – they used the story to lure Reena back into the apartment, which wastes no time in taking its third death.
Later, Alex and Ben have learned to live with the apartment, which is still active but harmless. It’s still better than a more expensive place. Hedy, Lorne, and Ned come over for dinner and drinks. Happy ending?
Brian’s Commentary
It’s just full of horror movie cliches, but it works with them and rolls with the inherent silliness. The orange-faced man in the top hat is actually pretty cool for a villain. Sally Struthers as a horror movie baddie? Why not?
The trailer didn’t blow us away, but the film itself was far better than we expected.
Kevin’s Commentary
I especially enjoyed the likable characters and the decor of the apartment. It’s a very fun movie, and like Brian said, was better than I expected. I would highly recommend it.
The Wait (2024)
● Directed by F. Javier Gutierrez
● Written by F. Javier Gutierrez
● Stars Victor Clavijo, Ruth Diaz, Moises Ruiz
● Run Time: 1 Hour, 42 Minutes
● Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s a dry, hot, and sweaty movie set in an arid part of Spain. Things start out okay for the hero and make a decline to terrible, but we wonder if it’s entirely his choices or outside factors. It’s a slow burn that progresses steadily enough to be engrossing with a good wrap up.
Spoilery Synopsis
Don Francisco talks to Eladio about raising his family in the mountains. Francisco says he’ll allow Eladio and his family to live on the estate out in the country. Credits roll.
Three years later, Eladio teaches his son how to shoot a gun on the estate, which Eladio manages. Eladio’s wife, Marcia, doesn’t like her son, Floren, learning to shoot, but she has to go along with it. Very soon after, Floren brings home a big buck.
Eladio goes to town, and Don Carlos says he’s sold thirteen stands for hunting, but Eladio says that’s not safe; bullets will be flying everywhere. Don Francisco would never approve of that, but there’s money involved, and Eladio needs more. The family is very poor, and they argue over missing shirts. Marcia hears about what Don Carlos wants, and she wants the money, urging Eladio to do the illegal hunting operation. She calls him a coward.
The hunters arrive, and there are a lot of them; Eladio has allowed more than he was supposed to, and Don Carlos pays him the promised bribe. Flores goes with them to count how many bucks get shot. The first thing that gets shot that day is Flores.
Back at home, Marcia counts her money. Both she and Eladio wonder why the truck is driving back to them in such a hurry. They’ve brought Floren’s body home, and Eladio knows that this is all his fault.
Eladio starts drinking; he had formerly given it up, but no more. Marcia says “God is punishing us.” The next morning, Eladio sees that the clothesline is missing, and so is Marcia. He and his friend Saulo, along with many others, search for her all day. They eventually find her, half-eaten by wild boars.
Eladio goes to the bar, where he hears that Don Carlos will be in town all week, hunting. That night, Eladio visits the old man and hits him in the head with a rock. He takes the old man home to bury him, but Carlos gets out of the car and runs away. The old man grabs Eladio’s gun and shoots him– with salt pellets. Carlos doesn’t get a second chance.
As Eladio digs a hole for the old man, he hits something, a box with a big padlock. In the morning, he shoots open the lock. Inside, he finds a mummified deer skull and box with a tooth inside. Saulo comes over for a beer and says Eladio needs to leave this place, as it has too many memories. He’s also brought a letter from Don Francisco, who knows about the secret arrangement and is evicting him.
Eladio drives his car into the lake to kill himself, but that doesn’t do the job. He does find some of Don Carlos’s papers, and they all have the number thirteen on them; he can’t read, but he knows his numbers. The police come around, looking for Don Carlos, and they notice the dog has gone missing. The dog has gone rabid and chases him into a cage where he cuts his hand on barbed wire. When he does get out, he loses his wedding ring down the drain. When he digs in the drain, he finds a snake– it’s just a bad day.
Eladio climbs down into the septic tank to find the ring, but that only makes things worse. He doesn’t get the ring back, but he does find a bif wadded up ball of barbed wire wrapped around something. He clips the wire open carefully, and inside it is a boar’s heart, along with the clothes that went missing earlier– one item from him, Marcia, and Floren.
Later, Eladio makes some soup and he finds Marcia’s foot in the pot. Then he grows fangs and turns into a wild boar. Nope–just a dream. In the morning, he grabs his shotgun and leans into it; he sees zombie Marcia, who calls him a coward again. He;s just about to do it when he sees the papers from Don Francisco; his signature matches the one on Don Carlos’s paper. Thirteen stands were legal and approved all along, and everyone knew it but him.
Eladio rides to Francisco’s house and finds all sorts of weird things inside. The place is covered in dust. He also finds pictures of families with sons dated every three years or so. All these families look just like his, and none of them lasted.
Eladio goes to town, to the bar again, and he confronts Don Francisco, who is there along with the rest of the town. “I didn’t expect you to make it this far. None of them did. They took their own lives. All of them. We’re not allowed to intervene, just wait.” The whole thing with thirteen stands was all a setup for tempting Eladio. This is something that the land demands every three years, and the whole town is in on it.
As the smug old man smokes, Eladio’s arms fold up like his coveralls at home. In the crowd, he sees his wife and son.
Brian’s Commentary
We learned that Spain is a sweaty place where it never rains.
It’s a slow tale of a man who makes one bad decision and pays for it over and over again. The wild boar transformation scene is good, but it’s just a dream. It’s well acted, and the sets are great, but it’s very slow moving with no explanation until the very end.
There are hints throughout that Eladio is cursed somehow, but it’s never really spelled out until the end, and even then, we don’t get a lot of details. It might all tie in with some bit of Spanish mythology that I’m not familiar with, but the magic here doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
Still, it was a really good exploration of madness brought on by guilt over one bad decision and how it all spirals out of his control. It was slow, but good!
Kevin’s Commentary
I liked this one quite a bit. It moves slowly but steadily, building one thing on top of another. Bad choices and guilt combine with dark magic to pile on a guy who can’t get a break. The acting seemed very natural from everyone, making for an engrossing film.
Mainstream Film:
The Devil’s Bath (2024)
● Directed by Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz
● Written by Severin Fiala, Veronika Franz
● Stars Anja Plaachg, Maria Hofstatter, David Scheid
● Run Time: 2 Hours, 1 Minute
● Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
The Devil’s Bath is an old term for depression, and this movie has it in abundance. Life was hard in the old days, made harder by mental illness. It’s beautifully filmed but on the long side and seriously grim. It was more fascinating than entertaining, but we don’t regret seeing it.
Spoilery Synopsis
It’s Austria in the 18th century. A baby cries, and his brother, Christoph, picks him up to calm him down. Christoph’s father calls, so he leaves the baby alone. A tired-looking woman comes and takes the baby into the woods. She walks up the mountain and throws the baby off the giant waterfall. She then runs to the castle where she says, “I’ve committed a crime.” Later, we see a man cutting off her fingers, and we see her severed head in a cage. Credits roll.
We cut to a younger-looking woman weaving a crown of ivy and packing a few things. Then she, her brother, and her mother wheel a cart with a chicken through the woods. She’s Agnes, and the crowd carries her around for the wedding; she’s getting married to a man named Wolf. Afterward, they play “Whack-a-chicken” in the field, like a pinata with a live chicken. He puts a blindfold on her and leads her through the woods where he’s bought a house. He’s spent all his money on the land, and took a mortgage as well. She hates it, but she doesn’t argue with him.
There’s a big party, but they’re all Wolf’s friends, and she doesn’t have anyone. Her brother is there, and, as a wedding gift, he gives her a finger from that woman from earlier. It’s a fertility charm. She then prays to be a good wife and mother. That night, she wants sex, but he’s got other ideas, which she finds… disappointing.
In the morning, Wolf is gone. She goes looking for him and sees a poster of the child-murdering woman stuck to a tree. Then she finds the dead woman and her head set up in a shrine in the woods. She takes a close look, but that doesn’t get her upset. Then, she runs into Wolf’s mother, who puts her to work right away. We see that Agnes doesn’t really fit in with Wolf’s family. Her mother-in-law has lots of helpful advice, but it’s also more than a little intrusive.
That evening, she once again puts the finger under the mattress, and once again, she tries to have sex with her husband, who rolls over and goes to sleep.
Agnes goes out with the mother-in-law, Ganglion, to do the laundry. She makes a friend there, who shows her some interesting places out in the woods. She comes home late, and the old lady has already made dinner for Wolf. They’ve burned all of Agnes’s little nature trinkets in the fire. Agnes complains that Ganglion doesn’t like her and comes around too often.
While fishing the next day, Agnes finds a big cow skull, which is supposed to be bad luck. That night, a man comes to the door, yelling that there’s something wrong with Lenz, one of Wolf’s friends. She follows the men to Lenz’s place, where he’s hung himself. The men cart the body away as Lenz’s mother screams and wails.
At the funeral, the priest points out that Lenz was a suicide, even worse than the baby-murderer. They toss the body into a field to rot.
Agnes stands outside the house and listens to Wolf and his mother complaining about how useless she is. She goes to her own mother’s house and sleeps in the barn until her brother catches her. Wolf literally tries to drag her home with him, but she really doesn’t want to go.
Old lady Ganglion doesn’t approve. The goats are ill with neglect, and she blames Agnes. They send her away to a man who sticks her with needles to “let the melancholy out.” She’s supposed to pull it back and forth until it festers; “That’ll let the poison out.” On the way home she “finds” a baby. Wolf and his mother say she can’t just take someone’s baby, but there was no one there. Sure enough, there are people out there looking for the baby, which she drops off and runs away.
Agnes steals the Baby Jesus from the church and starts singing to it, pretending it’s hers, but it melts. Wolf cries and yells that she won’t get out of bed or wash herself. She eats some kind of poisonous powder that just makes her sick. She confesses that she took rat poison.
Wolf carries Agnes to her mother’s house, where he explains that she is in “The Devil’s Bath.” In the morning, after sleeping at her mother’s, she wakes up, cleans up, eats a butterfly, and leaves.
She runs into a little boy in the woods and follows him to a shrine. As they pray, she stabs the little boy, who wails and screams for help until she stabs him again. She marches over to the castle, knocks on the door, and turns herself in: “I’ve committed a crime.”
They cut her hair, give her a new, clean dress, pray over her, and then she confesses her sins to a priest. She admits that she killed the boy so she would be executed and wouldn’t have to kill herself. The priest absolves her, and she’s finally happy. They put up a poster about Agnes’s crimes and then sew her into an animal skin, still alive and drag her outside of town. Wolf is there, and then a man cuts Agnes’s head off. They gather up her spurting blood, and everyone gets a taste!
There’s a big party afterward, and everyone dances.
Brian’s Commentary
Well, that’s one way to get out of an unhappy marriage.
“The Devil’s Bath” is an old term for depression.
Agnes is an outsider, and no one will talk to her or explain anything, and then they will treat her like an idiot because she doesn’t catch on. Everyone acts surprised when she gets depressed. They don’t outright abuse her, but they don’t make her at home, either.
We get some hints early on that Wolf might be gay, and he sure doesn’t like having sex. He seems nice enough and concerned for Agnes’s well-being, but he’s otherwise completely clueless.
It’s an interesting drama about old-time mental illness, but it was far too long.
Kevin’s Commentary
That latest technology hospital she goes to for the festering thread treatment is really something. The locations it was shot in were great, and it’s well-made in every way. It was a good watch, but I’m not sure I actually enjoyed it.
Booger (2024)
● Directed by Mary Dauterman
● Written by Mary Dauterman
● Stars Grace Glowicki, Garrick Bernard, Heather Matarazzo
● Run Time: 1 Hour, 18 Minutes
● Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Here we have grief and depression jumbled up with very strange happenings, making us and the main character wonder how much is real and how much is in her head. All is eventually explained, and it’s an entertaining trip getting there. We give it a thumbs up.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on phone videos of Izzy playing with Booger the cat. The cat just showed up one day. We cut to some time later, and everyone is calling about attending Izzy’s memorial service; she’s died. Anna is now past due on all her bills since her roommate has died. Credits roll.
Depressed, Anna lays on the bed and listens to the rats in the attic. She finds Izzy’s phone and watches videos from Izzy’s point of view. Later, Booger the cat bites her and runs out the open window. She walks all around the block calling “Booger!” She talks to Izzy’s mother, Joyce, who puts a bandaid on the bite wound.
Anna’s boyfriend, Max, comes over, and she mostly ignores him. The wound on her hand continues to hurt. She’s also still worried about Booger, who still hasn’t come home and goes out looking for him at night. She’s suddenly terrified of a dog, and the sound of the halogen lights really annoys her. She goes home and absent-mindedly starts chewing on her own hair.
Anna starts putting up posters for Booger around town, and the woman at the pet shop is annoying; Anna is too distracted by the caged bird to notice. In the morning, she wakes up under the coffee table. At work, her boss, Devon, wants her to come back to work, but she’s just not interested in that anymore. She goes out with Max and pukes up a hairball in the restroom. Is she becoming a cat?
Joyce comes over to sort through Izzy’s stuff and lets it slip that Izzy was planning to move out soon anyway, which Anna had no idea about.
Anna has gotten in the habit of putting out cat food to tempt Booger to return, but this time she isn't thinking and takes a big lick from the can. The next morning, she wakes up out in a field in the park. She rubs her face on a tree and gets distracted by ants and blowing trash.
Anna gets home to find that her power has been shut off; she hasn’t been paying her bills. Since that means the fridge is off, she starts eating the cat food more seriously. This results in more barfing and it’s full of dark black hair– but Anna is blonde.
It’s time for Izzy’s memorial service, and while she’s gone Dennis, the landlord comes to fix a leak in her bathroom and finds a real mess. At the memorial service, Anna notices that she’s growing fangs and then passes out. Afterward, Max wants to sing karaoke– he thinks she’s not accepting Izzy’s death well.
She ends up storming out in anger, but when she gets home, she finds all her stuff out on the street; Dennis has evicted her. Her boss calls and fired her. As she takes the call, she bites the head off a rat. She follows that up by going to a bar and meeting a guy who thinks she’s weird. It soon gets weirder, with her licking him all over. He leaves when she bites him.
Max comes into the bar and walks Anna home. He’s supportive and very calm. She talks about losing Booger, but Max says Booger’s been gone for two years now. He was gone long before Izzy died.
Anna wakes up at the pet shop, in a cage with another cat. She and the cat break loose and run down the street. They both crawl up a fire extinguisher and into an open window.
Anna finds Izzy’s beat-up bicycle, paints it, and puts it on Izzy’s memorial sculpture. Then she goes to Max’s place and showers and cleans herself up. She hugs Max; she’s better now. We cut to Booger, that cat, who is just fine living on his own.
Brian’s Commentary
So much puking; the filmmakers obviously own a real cat. I suspect they challenged themselves to have the film that says the word “Booger” the most times in history.
It’s more of a psychological story of weird grief-coping mechanisms than straight horror. It’s entertaining, but it’s just barely horror.
Kevin’s Commentary
It makes us think that it’s going the horror direction for a while, but it’s just an extreme case of dealing with grief and depression. I thought it was very good, and I loved how it resolved.
Population Purge (2024)
● Directed by Brian Johnson
● Written by Brian Johnson, Toby Osborne
● Stars S. Lamar Wilson, Peter Holland, Lyndsey Soto
● Run Time: 1 Hour, 24 Minutes
● Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Despite the title, it doesn’t have anything to do with the Purge series of movies. There was, and is, a plague and bad people did, and are doing, bad things and it’s post-apocalyptic with most of the population dead and the rest struggling to survive. We can’t say that it was very good in any way. The story is disjointed and doesn’t make any logical sense, the acting is hit and miss, the editing is strange. We wouldn’t recommend this one.
Spoilery Synopsis
We get a voiceover about the deadly outbreak of a new disease. It was a government program to “manage” the population. Everyone was poisoned by the government, only the rarest blood types (AB+) were allowed to survive. Regular people can only survive with regular blood transfusions of AB+. Credits roll.
Onslow, the District Warden, is in charge of executing some criminals, and he seems to enjoy his work. Elsewhere, Maya is a scavenger, going through closed shops for stuff to take.
We cut to people in the wilderness shooting at each other and fighting.
Maya and her grandfather, Charlie, live alone in a compound. She helps him donate blood to help others. He demands to take the blood into town himself, “The woods are full of scalpers just waiting to get their hands on us.” Charlie goes to Jade’s, who buys his blood for the black market.
Onslow brings his son to Naomi, who is the camp doctor. The son is sick, and the disease is spreading. What he needs is clean AB+ blood; he needs more than his ration. She tells him to start buying black market blood, but he yells that that’s against the law. He wants to find a source of the blood; an unregistered AB+ survivor. Naomi tells him about Jade.
We cut a montage of Maya killing grungy people in masks. A strange blonde woman saves Maya from the baddies.
Onslow talks to his wife’s grave, and he regrets the whole situation; maybe he’s not really a complete lunatic. We cut to a group of scalpers who complain that their “donors” are drying up and dying. Onslow’s men beat up Jade and find out about Charlie. Onslow goes to the scalper next for more information about the source.
Charlie and Maya talk about his life and career as a performer in front of mannequins. She thinks he’s trying to kill her and knocks him out. On the next run to town Charlie is ambushed, but he beats the guy to death. The blonde woman sees it all. Charlie arrives at Jade’s just in time to see her die.
The scalper and his goon catch Charlie in the woods. Maya shows up and shoots them both. She lectures him about the reality of the situation.
Naomi tells Onslow that Charlie is her husband. Charlie needed to be put in an institution long ago; he was dangerous to his audiences. She also tells him about Maya.
Naomi and some guards go to Charlie, and he deals with several of them. Onslow’s son dies, and he heads to Charlie’s because Naomi never returned with Charlie.
Naomi convinces Charlie to pack a bag and leave, and then they hide from Onslow when he gets there; Maya seems to have vanished entirely. They all chase each other around the funhouse maze. Onslow gets the drop on the pair, and they can’t beat the stronger leader. Onslow shoots Charlie just as someone offscreen (we’re to assume it’s Maya) shoots Onslow.
We cut to Charlie in a mental hospital. He’s just written a script called “Population Purge,” but the announcement comes on the speaker about the real thing happening outside. The voice on the speaker explains how his euthanasia will progress. The doctor injects him and then, as he dies, Naomi comes in for a visit.
They read the last page of his script, and it’s the ending for the movie. Charlie gets up from being shot with Naomi’s help.
We cut to Maya, walking through the park and leaving for the “real world.”
Brian’s Commentary
So the whole thing was just a story made up by a man about to die?
First, this has nothing to do with any of “The Purge” series, but I suspect whatever audience it manages to get will not realize that.
There are a lot of scenes here that just make no sense and have no context. Charlie and the Abraham Lincoln thing. The man with the poison gas. Maya in her combat montage, when she never leaves camp. A lot of the actors wear masks of some sort, but it’s never explained why. A chunk of this was obviously filmed in a haunted house attraction.
The acting is a mixed bag. Charlie was interesting. Onslow was alternating between lunatic and tragic. Maya was just plain miscast, not looking at all like some kind of warrior.
It’s an interesting idea that’s completely implausible, it’s mostly poorly acted, and a lot of it doesn’t make sense, even considering the whole plot is ridiculous.
I declare this a stinker.
Kevin’s Commentary
This is a rare one where Brian and I are pretty much in full agreement on a movie being bad. I hate to say that about a project that people put time, effort, and money into, but this just wasn’t very entertaining. The acting isn’t strong, the story is weak, the effects are poor. As Brian said, a lot of the setting appears to be a haunt attraction, which I bet is really good with night lighting and fog but not so good for the bright light of day.
Short Films:
Short Film: The Changing Room (2022)
● Directed by Sam Evenson
● Written by Sam Evenson. Jeff Speciale
● Stars Jamie Taylor Ballesta, Alan Maxson
● Run Time: 4:25
● Watch it:
What Happens
A woman finds a dress in a boutique and wants to try it on. The changing room is right there, but it also has a “do not enter” sign on it. She decides to try the dress on anyway.
The inside of the changing room is mirrored on opposite walls, giving that fun “infinity effect” that everyone loves to pose in front of. This time, however, she might not be alone…
Commentary
There’s no dialogue here and only one character. Changing rooms are inherently creepy, especially in modern times with easily hidden cameras. It’s very clearly shot, especially the mirror effects, and it’s always very obvious what’s happening. We never find out why, but that’s part of the mystery.
Short Film: Nightmare at Camp Bloodbath (2023)
● Directed by Dylan Arnow
● Written by Dylan Arnow
● Stars Marlee Forsyth, Adam Bussell, Alex von Klemperer
● Run Time: 5:33
● Watch it:
What Happens
We’re told it’s Friday, October 13th, Halloween Night (Yeah, I know!).
Greg and Becky, two camp counselors, return to their cabin to find the place ransacked by counselors from the other nearby camp. As they prepare to clean up the mess, they run into Terence Fisher, the local mass-murdering masked psychopath. Things do not go well…
Commentary
It’s another parody of the Friday the 13th films, taking many of those films’ tropes and running with them. It’s a comedy, but it looks good, in full retro-80s style, and it doesn’t go on too long and overstay its welcome. It’s good!
Short Film: Couples Therapy (2024)
● Directed by Tim Hendrix
● Written by Mae Catt
● Stars Rob Pinkston, Bevin Bru, John Alton
● Run Time: 12:12
● Watch it:
What Happens
Rob talks to his prisoner. Rob is a serial killer. The man tied to the chair has no hope until Rob’s girlfriend comes home early and looks surprised at the whole situation. When Rob slaps a bow and gift card on the man’s face, she lights right up. This is a rare serial killer couple! On the downside, their relationship needs some work– it’s a good thing Rob captured a couples’ counselor; maybe he can help!
Commentary
As the pair talk about their problems, we get more and more information about their lives and situation. We also wonder if the doctor is going to be able to talk his way out of the situation. We do, in fact, get all our questions answered, except for one: who’s gonna clean up all that mess?
It’s true love!
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