Cooties (2015)

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Directors Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion couldn’t have assembled a better troupe of character actors than the one in “Cooties.” If you’re going to cast some of the best, you’d best put them in a good movie, and “Cooties” is great. It’s part “Class of Nuke Em High,” part “28 Days Later,” and part “Night of the Living Dead.” The team of Murnion and Milott compose a sick and hilarious amalgam of horror comedy that actually manages to build a very difficult premise. How do you fight hordes of children? And even if small children were running rampant and eating people, would you be able to murder them out of self defense?

Clint is starting his first day teaching summer school at Fort Chicken elementary school and is preparing for a hard go of it with some rather bratty children populating his school. Things go from bad to worse when a young girl bites in to a tainted chicken nugget that infects her with a horrible virus that transforms her in to a flesh eating savage.

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Thanatos (2015) [Horrible Imaginings 2015]

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[Horrible Imaginings Film Festival San Diego 2015]

Thanatos is partially inspired by the personification of Death in ancient Greece. Hsin-Yen LU’s student film of the same name follows a young photographer who captures an image of Death as a young woman. He becomes captivated and enamored with her, his interest becoming obsession as he stages his own death multiple times to be able to see her again and again and to photograph her each time. He desperately wants to go with her but she cannot take him as it his time has not come yet.

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Mexico Barbaro (2014) [Horrible Imaginings 2015]

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[Horrible Imaginings Film Festival San Diego 2015]

Mexico Barbaro is an anthology film containing 8 short films by Mexican filmmakers all based on traditions and legends. It is however more like a collection of shorts as the movies are not interwoven and there is no wrap around story. Each of the shorts here can stand on their own and the only thread connecting them is the theme. As with any anthology, some of the shorts are much stronger than the others. Here the best three are the opener Tzompantli, the second one Jaral de Berrios, and the closing short Dia de los Muertos.

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Bloodsucking Bastards (2015) [Film4 FrightFest 2015]

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Film4 FrightFest 2015

Office work can be soul sucking, it can be deathly boring. Evan works in such an office where there is very low morale and sales are not going well. To help this situation, his boss Ted hires Max, Evan’s old nemesis. Shortly after this, odd things start happening and eventually Evan believes something is very, very wrong in the office. After the first dead body turns up, he tries to get help from the HR person, his ex-girlfriend who think he must have gone crazy. Eventually, a second incident gets Evan to reach out to his best friend Tim for help. They eventually round up their rag tag three musketeers with Frank, the office security guard who knows more than he lets on. Together, they take on Max and his vampire minions.

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Shocker (1989): Collector’s Edition [Blu-Ray]

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It baffles me to this day that “Shocker” is still considered one of Wes Craven’s best films. It’s especially baffling considering Craven has not only pulled off much better genre films, but because “Shocker” is really just a remake of “Nightmare on Elm Street.” A vicious serial killer wreaks revenge on his pursuers through supernatural means which allow him to shift through his own dimensions, can contact our protagonist through dreams, and does battle with a lone teenager who enters his realm in the finale and confronts him. It’s the exact same film from beginning to end, except it has a much more prevalent self awareness than “Nightmare” did.

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Stung (2015) [FrightFest 2015]

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FrightFest 2015

Julia has inherited her father’s catering company and has a big event to work at Mrs. Perch’s estate. This is a yearly event and is attended by the most affluent people in town; it could make or break her. To help her out, she has hired bartender Paul who has a less than subtle crush on her. Mrs. Perch and her son Sydney are what some might call a bit eccentric and their mansion also has a beautiful greenhouse filled with very lush plants and flowers. As Julia, Paul, and a stoner musician hired for entertainment prepare for the event, slightly bigger than usual wasps come out of an in ground nest quickly becoming a pest but no more than regular bugs. After the dinner guests arrive and start mingling, more and more wasps show up. Soon the mayhem starts as really big wasps take over and attack the guests, implanting their eggs in them which eventually burst out of their human hosts as even bigger wasps looking to attack anything that moves.

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We Are Still Here (2015) [FrightFest 2015]

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FrightFest 2015

Anne and Paul Sacchetti lost their son to a car accident. In an effort to move on, they relocate to New England, to a quaint looking house made for a family. No sooner have they arrived do odd things start happening. Higher than normal heat in the basement, frames falling over, possible apparitions, … A few weeks into their living there, the Sacchettis are visited by the McCabe and are told that the house needs a family. As the phenomena multiply, Anne becomes certain it’s their dead son letting them know he’s there with them. To get to the bottom of this, she invites her friend May who is a medium to come spend a weekend and possibly try to reach her son. Once May and her husband Jacob arrive, something is clearly not right. One day, while May and Anne are out shopping, the men have a séance which turns very bad and is followed by all hell breaking loose.

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