Shithouse marks a promising debut from writer-director Cooper Raiff, effectively capturing the awkwardness and insecurity of the collegiate experience. One’s reaction to the coming-of-age dramedy Shithouse will likely depend on how one relates to its central protagonist, Alex (writer-director Cooper Raiff), a white, middle-class,…
Gay indie cinema is full of well-meaning films centering on toned, good-looking twenty-somethings searching for deeper connection while overcoming their demons and past traumas. By that measure, co-director/co-writer/leading man Matt Fifer‘s Cicada fits right in, depicting the tentative relationship that develops between Ben, a…
A masked man breaks into the home of a seemingly happy and well-adjusted couple. She is appropriately terrified; he seems nonplussed by the events, explaining that it happens every night, and that once they incapacitate the intruder, he will vanish. He is right. So…
It takes truly talented people both in front of and behind the camera to make something as abysmal as French Exit, a misfire of epic proportions. Director Azazel Jacobs, while not exactly a household name, certainly showed promise with his previous features, including Terri…
Evil Eye marks an improvement on the first wave of Welcome to the Blumhouse titles, but remains a mostly ineffective at developing either genre styling or any visceral power. Evil Eye, the latest release in Amazon’s exclusive Welcome to the Blumhouse film series, carries on…
There is a kernel of a good idea buried somewhere within the shitstorm that is the new horror-comedy It Cuts Deep. Unfortunately, writer-director Nicholas Santos, making his feature-film debut, has no idea how to extract it, resulting in an insulting and reductive film that…
Vincent Paronnaud’s new horror-thriller Hunted opens with a campfire tale brought to life using a gorgeous animation style that combines black, blocky cut-outs and a background of ethereal gold. The message is bluntly stated: “The company of wolves is better than that of man.”…
The Wolf of Snow Hollow is yet further, winning proof of Jim Cummings’ singular artistic voice. Much like his debut feature, 2018’s Thunder Road, director-writer-actor Jim Cummings’s The Wolf of Snow Hollow is delightfully off-center, a feathered fish that thrives on its singular weirdness and…
Black Box is a lazy, boring, and self-serious entry in the Welcome to the Blumhouse project. The second feature in Amazon’s Welcome to the Blumhouse film series, Black Box is ostensibly more of a horror film than the just-released The Lie. That said, a dude crab-walking…
I Carry You With Me, the debut narrative feature from renowned documentary filmmaker Heidi Ewing (The Boys of Baraka, Jesus Camp) is a well-intentioned misfire, the type of film that could only come from a place of love and respect. In attempting to tell…
