The Dead Room (2015)

Posted on April 12, 2016 by Emilie Black

“The Dead Room” was written by Kevin Stevens and director Jason Stutter who crafter a story seen many times to which they unfortunately bring very little that is new and very few genuine scares. After a family flees their new home in fear for their lives, a trio of investigators is sent by an insurance company to prove or disprove the family’s claim that it’s haunted by malevolent spirits. The haunted house sub-genre having been done to death over the last few years and throughout horror’s history is not re-invented here. Stevens and Stutter do have the advantage of being one of the few films about this set in New Zealand that I know of.

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Dazed and Confused (1993)

Posted on April 6, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

Richard Linklater is a master at handling multiple storylines as well as various characters, allowing them to gel in to one very cohesive cinematic experience. Other directors would have a hard tie balancing out so many storylines, but “Dazed and Confused” manages to not only unfold in to a fun narrative, but also builds a myriad fascinating characters you’ll either love or hate by the time “Dazed and Confused” is over. A virtual successor to “American Graffiti,” this time Linklater follows a slew of characters over the course of one hectic night in the late seventies, as summer begins and school finally lets out. Director Linklater doesn’t have a singular thread bonding his characters, save for his ensemble’s core desire to find one last adventure before the summer comes around demanding some new form of responsibility outside of school.

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The Demolisher (2015)

Posted on March 31, 2016 by Emilie Black

After Samantha is brutally attacked by a gang on the job, she becomes handicapped and her husband Bruce does all he can to help her live her life and get better. While being the dotting husband she needs, he also has a need to exact revenge on the gang who did this. He embarks on a vigilante journey to avenge her and to try to put his mind at ease. This however leads him down a path of violence and paranoia. His mind begins to slip and he begins taking his issues out on a young woman who they previously crossed paths with.

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Doppelganger (2010)

Posted on March 24, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

Good grief is Drew Daywalt one of the best indie horror filmmakers working today. It’s not many filmmakers that can deliver constantly frightening and surprising short films that pack wallops of surprise endings and twists that’ll leave you breathtaken. Daywalt is a master of drawing out the scare, and often times he even gets away with a jump scare. It’s not many filmmakers I allow to throw a jump scare my way, but Daywalt takes the often cheapened device and turns it in to a fun little way to book end his horror films. And damn it, he gets me every time.

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Disturbing Behavior (1998) [Blu-Ray]

Posted on March 10, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

I’d be hard pressed to call “Disturbing Behavior” a stellar horror film, but as an artifact of the late nineties teen horror boom, it’s a worthwhile effort by an “X-Files” creative mind. “Disturbing Behavior” fosters a fascinatingly looney tone that works in favor of the premise, even when it strives for inadvertent camp. James Marsden plays Steve, a newcomer to Cradle Bay who has just move in with his family and little sister. Steve is instantly accepted in to the reject crowd of the school, as led unofficially by Nick Stahl’s character Gavin. Despite the strange rift between cliques in the local high school, Steve writes off the separation as simple pack mentality, but is told by Gavin that the popular crowd also known as “Blue Ribbons” are actually more sinister than they seem.

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Darth Maul: Apprentice – A Star Wars Fan Film (2016)

Posted on March 7, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

As a Star Wars fan, one of the biggest disappointments of sitting through 1999’s “The Phantom Menace” was watching the creation of one of the most amazing villains of the “Star Wars” cinematic universe, only for him to show up for about five minutes, be killed, and then never spoken of again. This character that was on mugs, and t shirts, and posters was almost non-existent in future films. “Apprentice” is a fantastic and dare I say perfect, fan film that shows what would have happened if George Lucas subtracted twenty minutes of screen time from Jar Jar Binks in favor of more emphases on the sheer danger and threat that was Darth Maul. Maul should have been the recurring villain in the prequels and could have salvaged the otherwise terrible films.

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Deadpool (2016)

Posted on February 16, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

Superhero movie fatigue, my balls.

“Deadpool” is proof positive that the comic book movie is alive and well and prone to various iterations of the comic book movie mold beyond capes, tights, and bat ears. “Deadpool” is one of the most anti of anti-heroes ever conceived. He’s a man who works for any side that’s appealing to him, and you can never quite pin down whether he should be a friend or foe. Wilson like Marvel comrades The Punisher and Iron Man are never villainous, but also not the clean cut superheroes we’d expect. In the end, Wilson is about self gratification, even though he tells himself that his intentions are pure. He’s a man who loves being vile and obnoxious. Even Wade Wilson during the opening of “Deadpool” explicitly states that he is by no means a hero, and we’re given extensive insight in to how he lived his life before he became the “merc with the mouth.”

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