With a divorce and house sale pending, a police detective is put on the case of several ritualistic murders being committed her in town. As she investigates and finds clues, she loses more and more of her mind.
Category Archives: Movie Reviews
Terrifier (2017) [Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival 2017]
A crazed clown terrorizes a group of young women and the people trying to help them on Halloween night.
Written and directed by Damien Leone, Terrifier takes the scary clown idea and ups the violence from recent films such as IT and makes the kills bloodier and more brutal. The film has some definitely good ideas and the clown’s design is interesting and creepy for sure, but for those without coulrophobia, the clown is only as scary as the performance for him. This is something that will be touched on in a little bit. The story here is the classic slasher on Halloween night story; a killer maims and hurts a group of people on Halloween night. The difference is in the execution which is well done here but still feels a bit like more of the same at times. The title, Terrifier, gives an expectation for the viewer that this will be terrifying and unless you are really scared of clowns, the film is only a little scary and not quite terrifying.
Imitation Girl (2017) [Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival 2017]
A being falls to Earth and copies the first image of a human it sees. Living as this girl, she starts learning about family, love, and life. As she does, the girl she has copied lives her life in New York, working in the adult industries and slowly losing herself. As their lives evolve, their meeting is unavoidable and may bring them more than they expect.
Don’t Let the Devil In (2016)
Newlyweds John and Samantha’s (Marc Slanger and Jordan Lewis) marriage is already crumbling after an abortion. John’s boss offers to relocate him to a small town in Maryland in hopes to heal and to oversee the development of a casino. But the small town they move to aren’t happy that he’s there and set something sinister in motion. Don’t Let the Devil In was written and directed by Courtney Fathom Sell.
Assholes (2017)
In the directorial debut of Peter Vack, Assholes opens up with a recently sober Adah (Betsy Brown) talking to her psychotherapist. She complains about having to compete with her brother for their parent’s affection and laments how horny she is. She soon falls off the wagon at her brother’s house and eventually runs into her brothers best friend Aaron (Jack Dunphy) at their psychotherapist’s office and begin tumbling down the rabbit hole of depravity, indulgence, and awkward comedy.
Death Metal (2016) [Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival 2017]
Panhandling plus satanic riffs equates to all out of carnage and bloodshed in writer/director Chris McInroy’s return after Bad Guy #2 with horror short Death Metal. Lars spends his day in the park, strumming his guitar with a tip jar at his side. Instead of money, it’s insults that are thrown his way. After lamenting to his father, and being completely negligent, Lars returns with an evil axe that makes him sound like he actually can play the instrument well.
Filippa (2017) [Horrible Imaginings Film Festival 2017]
A father comes home to his daughter playfully wanting to play hide and seek. As he searches for her, something is clearly not as it should be.
Written and directed by Alexander Rönnberg, Filippa plays on parental fears and a father’s wants, hopes, dreams, and nightmares. The short film does so by showing just a small activity between a father and daughter and adding a fear element that just about any parent can relate too. Here that fear of losing a child gets more complex as the film advances and does so in subtle, nuanced ways that give the film a power over the viewer that is strong, impressive, and soft all at the same time. It’s one of those shorts that does not put things up in the viewer’s face and lets the viewer find their own fear and dread in the story. The film builds a nice family vibe and then adds this fear slowly and sneakily at first and then it all adds up to a sense of dread that permeates the atmosphere.