The Phantom Hour (USA) (2016)
A group of people is called to a mysterious castle for various reasons and odd happenings abound. Written and directed by Brian Patrick Butler, this short pokes fun at vampire tropes with a classic dinner invitation set-up and a touch of modernity. Butler’s character of Bryce shows his sense of timing and his humor, being a perfectly awkward and funny assistant or Renfield to Nikolai. The actor playing this vampire, Luke Anthony Pensabene, is nicely impressive while not entirely scary which works in this setting. The film is really funny and goes for it, holding no punches, its old school, classic horror look ads to its fun with its credits in front of the film and nice cardboard décor in some parts. It’s campy, it’s funny, it’s a bit ridiculous, and mainly it’s a lovely horror comedy short, a difficult sub-genre to work in.
Category Archives: List Junkies
Emilie Black’s FrightFest 2016 Wrap-Up
Normally I get to see a few films from FrightFest through contacts and much later on when they are finally released through VOD or on disk. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to manage to see a few in other places such as festivals and conventions. This year, I got to see 21 of the feature films and I did my best to give each a fair assessment.
Here’s a gathering of all of Cinema Crazed’s coverage for FrightFest 2016.
HollyShorts Film Festival 2016 Shorts Selections Part 2
The short film festival HollyShorts took place in Hollywood August 11th to 20th, 2016. It showcased a ton–yes a ton–of short films from the US and around the world. Here are more short reviews of some of these bite-sized films. This is Part two of the HollyShorts Film Festival Round Up.
HollyShort Film Festival 2016 Shorts Selection
The short film festival HollyShorts took place in Hollywood August 11th to 20th, 2016. It showcased a ton–yes a ton–of short films from the US and around the world. Here are short reviews of some of these bite-sized films.
“Injustice for All” and Other Joker Themed Shorts
With the release of “Suicide Squad” in theaters and its Joker making movie headlines, now is the perfect time to look at a few shorts and fan films starring or about The Joker; or “Mr. J,” if you’re nasty.
Injustice for All (USA) (2016)
Lex Luthor visits Harleen Quinzel who is kept in solitary at Arkham Asylum to find out as much as he can about her beloved Mr. J. Through her storytelling and expanded scenes of The Joker’s activities, we see a bit of his past and his visits with other DC characters including Catwoman. This short film written by Donavan Darius and Joseph Bryce Hart and directed by Danny Mooney is a look at The Joker taken from a different angle compared to most of his feature film appearances.
Fantasia International Film Festival 2016 Wrap-Up
This year’s edition of Fantasia was their 20th, having missed only three or four, I was eager to attend this anniversary year. As usual since moving from Montreal to Southern California, I was only able to attend for a short period, so I made sure to enjoy it as much as possible, making it a point to see films with a crowd and going to the official festival pub while attending the same week as the market and a few friends. I also made a point to see as many movies as possible, seeing a grand total of 28 films for which the reviews can be found at the below this piece (before the list of winners).
Five Reasons Why You Should Buy “In Memorium”
I am proud to say that ever since Amanda Gusack sent Cinema Crazed her found footage film “In Memorium” back in 2006, we’ve been fans and have tried to spread the word about it to everyone who would listen. Amanda Gusack’s found footage horror film is a brutally eerie and creepy take on the sub-genre. I received an email from Ms. Gusack recently that “In Memorium” can now be rented on Amazon. If you’re a fan of “Paranormal Activity” when it was still a creepy ghost movie with an air of mystery and mystique to it before the sequels bogged it all down, “In Memorium” is right up your alley. It’s a creepy, well directed ghost tale and one I still boast about, and these are five reasons you should give it a shot.