Two couples in their twenties book a room with a particularly big bed at a sex club, to explore some options for one of the guys’ birthday. Once on the bed, it becomes clear that supernatural forces are at play as they start hallucinating and being picked off one by one. A cop investigating the aftermath discovers more than he expected and is pulled into the situation deeper than he planned.
Dolemite (1975)
In the realm of cinema, the 1975 blaxploitation feature “Dolemite” might be the closest thing that the medium has to folk art: its raw form carries strains of both naivety and shrewdness, resulting in a work that is mesmerizing for its utter lack of polished structure.
Kidnap Capital (2016) [Fantasia International Film Festival 2016]
Phoenix, Arizona. A group of kidnap victims are taken in a house like many others. There they are kept captive, beaten, and forced to contact family and friends for their ransom. Part of the group is an expecting couple who are split up as they keep the men and women separately. The father-to-be does everything he can to protect his wife and unborn child.
Realive (2016) [Fantasia International Film Festival 2016]
Marc Jarvis has made a good life for himself, a successful career, a house by the beach, great friends, and the love of his life by his side. That is until he is diagnosed with an incurable disease. He decides to live to the fullest and die on his own terms, then get cryogenically frozen until a time when his disease can be cured. When this day comes, he is put back together like some kind of futuristic Frankenstein’s Monster and brought back to life.
Session 9 (2001) [Blu-Ray]
Brad Anderson’s supernatural thriller is perhaps one of the most criminally overlooked genre entries of the early aughts. In a time where most audiences are embracing cinema about the supernatural, “Session 9” deserves another look and so much more praise than ever. Director Anderson doesn’t opt for cheap jump scares and shocks, so much as he does a slow boil and uneasy thriller that culminates in a rather disturbing explosion. Upon first viewing “Session 9” it’s safe to say the climax threw me for a loop and kept me thinking about it for days. “Session 9” feels so much like a real life dramatization of actual events, thanks to director Anderson’s digital photography and tendency to film in one setting for the duration of “Session 9.”
Clown (2016) [Blu-Ray/Digital]
For such a unique premise and concept, it’s surprising how unremarkable “Clown” ends up being, in the end. Despite its best efforts, “Clown” feels like a short film that perhaps should have stayed a short film, as most of its narrative feels spread out to fit a hundred minutes. And I don’t know how they’ll pull off a sequel, if the final scene is any indication. “Clown” probably watches a lot better as a short film, but it breezes through the premise in the first thirty minutes and stops being interesting by the end of the first hour. Kent is an average dad who finds out the clown he had booked for his son’s birthday has cancelled. Anxious to keep his promise of a clown, Kent goes rummaging through his basement and finds a clown suit locked in a mysterious chest.
X-Rated Alley: Up in Flames (1978), Tinto Brass 4-Set
Unofficially based on The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and Mr. Natural underground comics, “Up in Flames” is an adult film stinker that looks like someone took a bunch of stoners and tried to create their own X Rated comedy for the local grindhouses. At only an hour in length, we meet a trio of slacker stoners that are given one more day to come up with rent for their apartment, or else they’re going to be kicked out.