The Woods (2014)

Posted on February 9, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

Director Remington Smith’s “The Woods” is quite an accomplishment, mainly because it’s a film set in the middle of a snowy tundra implementing zero special effects. The centerpiece of “The Woods” is our character’s surroundings and how she has to adapt to the snowy wasteland of the woods. Apparently Smith and cinematographer Joshua Yates used mostly natural lighting for their film, resulting in a masterfully eerie and haunting short film set during a fight for survival. There’s so much conveyed in “The Woods” and yet there isn’t single word of dialogue spoken.

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Southbound (2016)

Posted on February 9, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

I am loving the resurgence of the horror anthology and how horror filmmakers are playing with the format. “Southbound” is very much a new horror anthology that holds no title cards or segues, but instead features five stories that intersect in some way or another. It’s almost like “Pulp Fiction,” but just not as brilliant. in fact, in the end, it’s really a mixed bag of horror tales that are held up by a genuine sense of terror and unease that seeps through the film from beginning to the end. Even when I wasn’t completely invested in a tale, I appreciated the unnerving aesthetic set amid the endless and desolate back roads of America.

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Galaxis (1995)

Posted on February 8, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

I consider Brigitte Nielsen to be one of the sexiest women to ever grace the big screen in the eighties. She’s a bomb shell and in her heyday was a pure sexual force that I worshiped in films like “Red Sonja.” I won’t argue that her skills as an actress, but at her prime she was insanely sexy. So with that said, I can’t stress how boring a film has to be for me to doze off during a movie starring Nielsen. “Galaxis” is a bland and soulless science fiction epic that garners all of the tropes of the genre that were tired by the early nineties and are even more worn by 1995. I’m frankly shocked there wasn’t an opening scroll setting the stage for the film like “Star Wars,” but writer Nick Davis thankfully dodges that stale gimmick and jumps right in to a massive conflict we can’t enjoy because it’s not the central focus of the movie.

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Superhero Movie (2008)

Posted on February 8, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

“Superhero Movie” is a comedy that’s remained off the radar for a long time since its release, and that’s a good thing. As a comedy it’s a pretty solid spoof of the “Spider-Man” movies, mocking the inherent silliness and idiocy of the Sam Raimi movies. And ironically enough it manages to be a much more creative and coherent superhero picture than “Spider-Man 3” ever hoped to be. I don’t disagree that the movie is a mixed bag of humor that tackles the superhero movie craze, as well as old hat superhero tropes, but it’s succeeds as an entertaining novelty and a respectable guilty pleasure.

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The Shutterbug Man (2015)

Posted on February 5, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

Man is “The Shutterbug Man” amazing. The only complaint I can lobby toward it is that it feels more like a prologue to a feature length horror film than an actual short, but i hope director Christopher Walsh turns this idea in to a horror movie somewhere down the line. Told in brilliant and haunting Stop Motion. the legendary Barbara Steele narrates the tale of “The Shutterbug Man.” With simplistic albeit immensely effective and haunting stop motion, Christopher Walsh tells us the tale of the Shutterbug Man, a local who spent his time taking pictures. He could only really take pictures of horrific sights and suffering as it granted him a sick pleasure.

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Josh Kirby… Time Warrior: Chapter 1, Planet of the Dino-Knights (1995)

Posted on February 5, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

Watching “Josh Kirby” is like watching a lost series from the Action Pack stunt from television in 1995, where you almost expect it to air alongside “Hercules.” in truth, the series of six films unfolds like one short kids television adventure series, and even for a movie aimed at kids, it’s hard to catch up. There’s so much about this universe, that the movie opens with a five minute montage of scenes from the movie that’s somehow meant to keep us up to speed with what we haven’t seen yet. Really, it feels like filler and an odd place to place such a device when it’d be suited more appropriately for the second part of the film series.

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Dead Sharks (2015)

Posted on February 4, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

Nic Barker’s short film is an idea that could have easily translated in to a compelling romance drama. Barker practices the idea of mumblecore and it works beautifully to convey a foursome of relationships that have either reach their expiration date, or are about to very soon. “Dead Sharks” is more of an ensemble drama based around the Woody Allen quote about how relationships have to move forward like sharks or they die. These relationships are attempting to move forward, but it doesn’t take a genius to see they’re dead.

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