Dylan’s New Nightmare: A Nightmare on Elm Street Fan Film (2023)

I love a good fan film. On rare occasions they can offer up interesting ideas and concepts. “Dylan’s New Nightmare” is an ambitious and interesting fan film in that its concept works for and against the final film, in the end. While the whole concept of a follow up to “New Nightmare” is a good one, it’s problematic in that: it basically feels like a proof of concept for a sequel, and “New Nightmare” isn’t canonical to the rest of the series. With “New Nightmare,” Wes Craven was holding up a magnifying glass, stepping back to examine the overwhelming expectations and pains of success.

It was also not on the timeline of Freddy Krueger, as the monster in the film was not Freddy Krueger.

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Apocalypse Clown (2023)

It’s not hard to figure out why “Apocalypse Clown” premiered to nothing but sell out shows in this year’s “Fantasia Film Festival.” Even after so many years watching so many unusual movies, I have never really seen anything like “Apocalypse Clown” before. And I doubt I ever will again. That’s both a good thing and a bad thing, as George Kane offers up such an original and surreal apocalyptic comedy. I was so confused but amused at what I’d been watching, as director and writer Kane opts to spotlight a movie that focuses on some of the most unlikely protagonists imaginable.

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We Kill for Love: The Lost World of the Erotic Thriller (2023)

If you grew up in the eighties or nineties with cable television, there was always a few occasions where you’d be cruising through the channels looking for something to watch. And there was always a chance you’d happen upon channels like Showtime, Cinemax, or HBO and inevitably stumble on to an erotic thriller. These glossy movies were made cheap, and fast, and almost always featured a hard boiled male protagonist as well as an absolutely sexy woman, and always featured softcore sex. From the late eighties to the end of the nineties, the erotic thriller was a popular facet of late night television and video store shelves.

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Here For Blood (2023)

Warning: Spoilers pertaining to the movie abound.

You really haven’t seen it all until you’ve seen a wrestler elbow drop a flesh eating zombie multiple times until its head explodes. That’s that thing about “Here for Blood.” It has a ton of good ideas and a great sense of humor about itself, but it gets lost in so much filler and narrative excess. What could have been a simple and fun home invasion thriller turns in to a convoluted survival film about cults, and sacrifices, and masked killers, and anointed prophets. It’s all a movie that could have been so much better with tighter editing and fifteen minutes trimmed down.

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