The 5 Choice Indie Shorts of 2019

As with every single year, we try to cover as much indies as possible, but we just never have the time to see them all, sadly. As with previous years, this top five comprises five of the best indies I saw all year. It’s not to say the films that didn’t make the list are terrible films, or that the films the other writers on Cinema Crazed enjoyed aren’t good, either. This is merely my own subjective list of five independent film shorts I highly recommend to you that I saw this year. It’s good to remember this is opinion, and not gospel.

If you want to see what films the Cinema Crazed collective consider A+ Indies, visit the link included!

Also, be sure to let us know some of the best indie films you saw all year!

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Silver Bullet (1985): Collector’s Edition [Blu-Ray]

I admittedly have a long relationship with “Silver Bullet” as it’s a bonafide childhood favorite horror movie that I’ve seen at least a thousand times. Years later, it’s managed to hold up very well, and that’s thanks to the fact that it embodies what often can break or make a Stephen King tale. There’s a strong sense of folklore and urban legend mythology behind the tale of “Silver Bullet” and King manages to combine so much from a murder mystery, a whodunit, a family movie, and a creepy werewolf picture in to a horror gem that earns its place in the pantheon of great King adaptations.

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Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

With director JJ Abrams returning to the “Star Wars” universe once again (taking the reins for Rian Johnson), he’s able to repeat history of generations’ past. He offers fans the final film of a three movie saga that never quite hits the high bar set by the previous films. “The Rise of Skywalker” is a great movie in its own right, but like “Return of the Jedi” it is held back due to many unfortunate screenplay inconsistencies, characters that don’t do much of anything, and blatant retconning that Abrams commits to at the expense of the story. “The Rise of Skywalker” is a very good movie and great closer to the Skywalker saga, warts and all.

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Black Christmas (2019)

At the end of the day you can’t even call “Black Christmas” a remake. It’s not even a re-imagining when you get down to it. At first it bears a slight resemblance to the original film’s themes, but once it shows all of its cards, it’s just aping the title for brand familiarity. And it fails, big time. “Black Christmas” has good intentions with a very relevant message, but it forgets story, suspense, and inherent terror, in exchange for a silly, preachy, and convoluted premise.

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It Chapter Two (2019) [Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital]

At this point I’m just glad that the new “It” adaptation didn’t get split in to a trilogy. “It Chapter One” was great just as it was, I thought “Chapter Two” needed to be the book end. Thankfully it truly is the finale I was hoping for as a poignant, complex, and heartbreaking film about the horrors of the past, and trying to prevent the nightmares of our childhood from deciding who we are and can become as adults. Once “The Losers Club” is forced back in to Derry Maine, they have no choice but to confront their own personal monsters before fighting the physical manifestation of their demons known as Pennywise.

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Prophecy (1979) [Blu-Ray]

John Frankenheimer’s survival horror film came in the midst of horror films that often preached something about conservation or the risks of pollution which would inevitably spawn some kind of monster in nature. Films like “Piranha” and “Orca” were all common place, and “Prophecy” is one of the many of its ilk. While it’s not exactly a great movie, “Prophecy” is a good enough man vs nature horror film about pollution and the fall out from corporate greed and irresponsibility.

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