It’s rough around the edges here and there, but “The Fiancé” manages to be a unique idea that allows for some interesting moments of horror and drama altogether. I like how director Mark Allen Michaels turns transforming in to a monster in to something of a metaphor for how the relationship between our main characters is doomed to fail. Dallas Valdez plays Michael, a wealthy man who is on the verge of losing all of his money after criminal dealings with the Russian mafia. Convinced his beautiful wife Sara, as played by Carrie Keagan, will leave him, he invites her up to a cabin in the woods to propose to her. Meanwhile a Sasquatch is on the loose, murdering people and hunting down whoever gets in its way. We follow a documentary crew and a small group of hikers as they’re all injected in to the movie to transform the mythical beast in to a valid threat.
Author Archives: Felix Vasquez
Fetish Factory (2017)
In the “Fetish Factory” every male client comes attached with his own fetish and arrives to the special mansion to watch some of the best and sexiest burlesque performers realize some of their weirdest fantasies. Director and writer Staci Layne Wilson delivers a horror comedy that’s admittedly rough around the edges but has enough charm and laughs to entertain audiences that enjoy a bit of kink with their zombie carnage. Carrie Keagan plays burlesque performer Bettie, a dancer at the Fetish Factory who takes on the persona of Bettie Page for her clientele and dances almost every night. After a mysterious wild storm takes hold of Hollywood, the walking dead begin swarming the Fetish Factory mansion, prompting the surviving dancers to fight off the hordes of flesh eating zombies.
Doctor Strange (2016)
I freely admit that I was skeptical until the very end that comic book fans would ever get a good or respectable movie about “Doctor Strange.” Some comics just don’t translate at all to the cinematic medium. Thankfully, director Scott Derrickson proves me wrong, providing a cinematic adaptation of “Doctor Strange” that’s very much its own superhero tale while also embedding itself as a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Marvel spirit is in full force here, but the movie does take the source material seriously while subtly injecting a sense of whimsy here and there. “Doctor Strange” comes during a good time where movie audiences like some magic with their adventures, and Doctor Strange is that kind of fantasy movie for comic book fans that they’ve always wanted.
Hulk: Where Monsters Dwell (2016)
You can’t get anymore Halloween than teaming up Marvel’s monstrous Hulk alongside the Sorcerer Supreme Doctor Strange. On Halloween Night, demons begin wreaking havoc in New York City, prompting Doctor Strange to do everything he can to slay them and bring them in to his holding cell in his temple. Thankfully he calls upon the Incredible Hulk to help him, and Hulk is more than happy to oblige in stomping some demons. Little does Hulk know that the demons are manifestations of human victims that are being held hostage by the villainous Nightmare who has kept them held in their own dream plains. Strange ventures in to the dream dimension to save Bruce Banner when Nightmare begins using the Hulk to hurt Strange.
Dr. Strange (1978) (DVD)
The 1978 TV movie “Dr. Strange” is one of the many failed pilots for a potential series based on a Marvel comic. This is yet another of the many seventies pilot movies that didn’t just misunderstand the source material, but didn’t have enough of a budget to realize the concept of its characters. Dr. Strange is a man who battles demons and monsters, and uses his will to use magic. “Dr. Strange” looks like a supernatural version of “Quincy M.E,” following a Dr. Stephen Strange as he focuses his efforts on troubled patients in his hospital while accidentally entering in to the magical arts. The movie even goes so far as setting up the entire series with the beautiful Jessica Walter as the series’ primary antagonist, but the storyline is a big hint at a sequel that would never come. It’s probably a good thing since the pilot movie is ninety minutes and we only get to see Dr. Strange in full garb in the final half hour.
The Cleansing Hour (2016)
It’s very rare that short horror films leave me wanting more once the credits have rolled, but “The Cleansing Hour” pulls off a short but eerie tale about possession gone wrong. Damien LeVeck’s short film feels like an episode of “Tales from the Crypt” where the characters get exactly what is coming to them when they dare to dabble in the supernatural as a means of deception. Lance and Drew are two failed filmmakers that have managed to storm the web with their webcast that streams live exorcisms to the public.
The Handmaiden (Ah-ga-ssi) (2016)
Park chan-wook is no stranger to delivering some of the best character studies that also pack a sense of sexual perversity, and pain within its seams. “The Handmaiden” is one of his most epic in scope dramas that also manages to be one of the most erotic romances I’ve seen in a while. “The Handmaiden” is pure ambition that succeeds in delivering something of a labyrinthian narrative of crime, salvation, and romance that begins as a simplistic drama. It takes a brilliant artist like chan-wook to handle a film that morphs in to various themes and experience various tonal changes without it completely falling apart, but Park chan-wook handles it by making each new turn around the corner absolutely suspenseful.