Life is hard in Hollywood for a budding filmmaker who works as a dog groomer to make ends meet. As he struggles to survive and get his career going, Mike Pinkney daydreams and makes experimental videos and meets the girl of his dreams. As he tries to get his future to be good, he struggles through work, with his dreams, with his rat infested apartment, his landlord, and his possible relationship.
Girl in the Basement (2016)
Jared Skolnick and Kt Baldassaro’s short thriller is a vicious bit of human introspection that explores how far we are willing to go to survive. Not to mention what areas of darkness of our humanity we’re willing to explore if it meant living for just one more day. Despite the somewhat over the top finale, Kt Baldassaro’s performance is powerful and absolutely gut wrenching. You can almost feel every bit of pain and torment she experiences, and almost root for her, despite the fact the situation she is in offers absolutely no hope or light at the end of the tunnel. Kt Baldassaro plays Susan Larch, a young medical student who is attacked by a serial killer outside of her house and kidnapped.
Ash vs. Evil Dead: The Complete First Season [Blu-Ray]
You have to love Bruce Campbell’s attitude toward “Ash vs. Evil Dead.” He’s like that angry dad who you keep asking for bike for your birthday and he keeps telling you that he has no money, and to shut your trap, or he’s locking you in the basement with the other bad kids. Then on your birthday, he shows up with a brand new bike and says “Well I got it because… you know… you’re a good kid, and you wouldn’t shut up about it. Now go get me a pack of smokes.” Bruce is that kind of man who loves his fans despite the gruff exterior and rewarded us with “Ash vs. Evil Dead” because we wouldn’t shut up about it. And because, you know, you can’t have Ash without Campbell. Just in time for Halloween, “Ash vs. Evil Dead” gets everything right about the “Evil Dead” movie series.
Out of the Woods (2016)
The new film from underground film icon Antero Alli offers a challenging consideration of identity. It is a provocative endeavor that mixes mysticism with sharp satire and rueful emotional drama, and the result is a profound statement on how we see ourselves and how we want to be perceived by others.
DC’s Legends of Tomorrow: The Complete First Season [Blu-Ray/Digital]
DC and Warner beat Marvel to the punch by comprising a superhero team made up of some of the most popular bit players from the DC television-verse, ending in a pretty mixed result. Season one of “Legends of Tomorrow” is a scattered and pretty crazy series of episodes that finds a rag tag group of DC’s heroes and villains coming together to stop the evil Vandal Savage. Along with the confusing time paradoxes, the writers and producers seem to be scrambling to also keep up with their long list of team members, conflicts, sub-plots and the like resulting in only a mediocre start from out of the gate. What happens when people like The Flash and Arrow are busy with their own enemies?
Let Me Make You a Martyr (2016) [Fantasia International Film Festival 2016]
The official plot for Let Me Make You a Martyr is “[a] cerebral revenge film about two adopted siblings who fall in love and hatch a plan to kill their abusive father.” (IMDB.com) Watching the film, the plot doesn’t seem that simple. Multiple people plot to have another killed while living difficult lives as best they can, some trying to do some good at the same time.
Atmo HorrorX (2016) [Fantasia International Film Festival]
This review must start with a warning: Even though this reviewer watched this movie attentively, getting any of it was very, very difficult; if not nary impossible, so external information sources had to be sought, mainly from IMDB and the Fantasia program book. That being said, let’s start with its official summary on IMDB: “Through a surreal chase of spying, Catafuse, a dubiously dressed creature, hunts humans with the help of Molosstrap. But in a world ruled by the pharma industry, reality becomes so complex, that the mastering of insanity might just be the only way out.”