Welcome to Willits (2016)

A group of friends goes camping near Willits, CA. There, the locals grow very potent weed and smoke it as well while they are attacked and abducted by aliens on the regular.

The film is written by Tim Ryan and directed by Trevor Ryan who team up here to give the viewer a completely insane experience in which it’s hard to know what is true and what is a hallucination. The film plays with this constantly with only a few characters being sober and all there. The film also mixes in a tv show the locals watch called Fist of Justice which stars Dolph Lundgren. This addition sounds ridiculous at first, but it works in the film’s context. The way it goes back and forth between the two groups of people and the tv show creates a chaotic feeling for the story that works great with its insanity. The way characters created here are ridiculous but feel like real people in their environment and against one another.

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The Reunion (2016) [Horrible Imaginings Film Festival 2017]

A man goes into the woods looking for a missing young man with his trusted gun and his will to find him.  What he finds turns out differently than planned.

In filmmaker Francisco Silva’s short film about a man looking for something in the woods and finding out much more than he expected, he explores what one may find on the other side of the darkness and that is may not always be what one expects.  The way the film is written brings horror elements to this story and creates an interesting mystery with a surprising ending.  The film is kept simple in story and dialog as well as setting and development.

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It (2017)

Andrés Muschietti’s “It” has proven in a year of really bad Stephen King adaptations, that it is very possible to put one of King’s most popular novels on screen and remind us once again why King is King. Muschietti, like Tommy Lee Wallace before him, has the daunting task of compressing an eleven hundred page novel in to what will end up being a five hour epic. Yet, “It” manages to come out mostly unscathed as a film that is both a spooky horror film and a stellar coming of age drama. Much like “Mama,” Muschietti’s work on “It” ends in a film that can be appreciated as a human drama and a pure horror movie packed with heart, scares, insight in to growing up in an unforgiving, cruel world.

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Survivor Type (2012)

So you saw “The Dark Tower” and were meh on it, but then you saw “IT” and were all over it.  As “Mr. Mercedes” is available for streaming and “Gerald’s Game” is coming soon, how else is a die hard Stephen King fan supposed to satiate their thirst, their need? Shorts, of course.  After watching tons of Stephen King short film adaptations, one of them stands out head and shoulders above the rest and every fan should make it a point to find it and see it.

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Red Christmas (2017) [Horrible Imaginings Film Festival 2017]

A widow, Diane, and her family celebrate their final Christmas at the family home. Typical family feuding is interrupted by a cloaked stranger. Unfortunately for them, he doesn’t come baring gifts but vengeance.  Red Christmas was written and directed by Craig Anderson and stars horror legend Dee Wallace, Geoff Morrell, Sarah Bishop, David Collins, Janis McGavin, Sam Campbell, Gerard O’Dwyer, Bjorn Stewart, and Deelia Meriel.

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