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Joseph Perry

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Romford Film Festival Spoiler-Free Film Reviews: “Kill Your Lover,” “Ill Fares the Land,” and “Have a Good Day”

Kill Your Lover (U.K.; 2023) The fractured relationship between former rock musician Dakota (Paige Gilmour) and her manipulative, much more conservative boyfriend Axel (Shane Quigley-Murphy) is toxic in more ways than one in codirectors/cowriters Alix Austin’s and Keir Siewert’s feature Kill Your Lover, winner of Romford Film Festival’s Best British Feature Film award. Just as Dakota is ready to finally break things off with Axel, he develops a contagious condition that causes him to develop strange markings on his skin, vomit, and cause acidic burns to anyone he touches. Flashbacks show the relationship from its beginnings to yellow and red flags developing to the horrific present. Gilmour and Quigley-Murphy give super performances as two very different people who somehow found themselves in a relationship that both probably should have known better than to start. The body horror is as strong as the psychological torture on display, for which Hair & Makeup Designer/Prosthetics Designer/Special Effects Makeup Artist Rebecca Wheeler and her

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
May 29, 2024

Film Maudit 2.0 Reveals Its 2024 Fifth Edition Lineup

If you are a cinephile seeking the uncommon, the unexpected, and the out-there, you will be interested in Los Angeles’s Film Maudit 2.0 festival, taking place this June. Following is the official press announcement. The 5th edition of Film Maudit 2.0, Highways’ showcase and celebration of outré films, runs June 12-16, 2024. A re-imagining of French artist Jean Cocteau’s 1949 one-time only festival, Film Maudit 2.0 features a range of narrative, documentary and experimental films that are deliberately bold, extreme, confrontational and unusual. The 2024 edition of the festival returns with a new range of works of cinema from 20+ countries addressing socio-political issues and taboo subject matter that challenge conventional artistic assumptions and sexual mores, and includes: The World Premiere of Molly Wurwand and Ryan McGlade’s MyImaginary Life for Someone(Narrative; Mockumentary/Dark Comedy, 2023), an uncanny tour through a labyrinth of mysterious linked Los Angeles McMansions circa Y2K, provides a dreamlike glimpse into the lives of unique women who live

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
May 27, 2024

Fantasia’s 2024 First Wave Announcement: From the Horrifying to the Hilarious

Canada’s Fantasia International Film Festival brings a drool-worthy feast of genre cinema to Montreal every year, and the first wave announcement for the fest’s 2024 edition — set for July 18 through August 4 — boasts a buffet of amazing features. Following is the official press announcement. The Fantasia International Film Festival will celebrate its upcoming 28th edition with an electrifying program of screenings, workshops, and launch events running from July 18 through August 4, 2024, returning yet again at the Concordia Hall and J.A. de Sève cinemas, with additional screens and events at Montreal’s Cinémathèque québécoise and Cinéma du Musée. The festival’s full lineup will be announced on July 3, but this past Thursday, Fantasia exclusively revealed its first seventeen titles and a first look at its 2024 poster art. Please find the information below. The festival’s 2024 poster art, created by Montreal visual artist Donald Caron, brings back two of the festival’s most-beloved characters from earlier editions, returning

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
May 17, 2024

Spoiler-Free Review: “Department of Paranormal Affairs” (Calgary Underground Film Festival)

If you’re in the mood for a brisk supernatural comedy, you need look no further than the new Canadian six-part episodic short-form series Department of Paranormal Affairs. The series boasts highly likable characters in decidedly irregular situations. In the world of Department of Paranormal Affairs, ghosts, vampires, and other things that go bump in the night are real. This branch of the government deals with them in a different way than usual in series and movies. Rather than hunting them down to dispose of such entities, this agency looks to help them fit in positively with human society. The department’s civil servants consist of Director Greg LeGrow (Donovan Workun), who does as little as possible; Scott Power (David Feehan), the straight-laced rule follower of the bunch; and new hire Jenny Hicks (Nancy Ngo), who initially would rather punch a ghost than read a book about how to properly deal with one. Series creator Feehan, who shares screenwriting credits with Jessy

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 29, 2024

Spoiler-Free Film Review: “Witch” 

In Witch (U.K, 2024), codirectors Craig Hinde and Marc Zammit — who cowrote the screenplay with David Baboulene — have crafted a feature that combines gothic horror and folk horror with a science fiction element. In a small English town in 1575, young wife and mother Twyla (Sarah Alexandra Marks – KILL KANE, HELP) is falsely accused of witchcraft and will be put to death if found guilty. The young woman accusing her is Johanna (Mims Burton), who herself is on trial for murdering her parents — she even walked around the town holding both of their severed heads. Twyla’s blacksmith husband William (Ryan Spong) does everything he can to save her, even accepting the help of mysterious stranger Thomas (Russell Shaw). The main villains are the ruthless Judge Hopkins (Daniel Jordan), who seemingly never met a person he couldn’t accuse of something, and the local marshall (Fabrizio Santino), who follows the judge’s orders, sometimes at the threat of death.

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 29, 2024

Spoiler-Free Review: “Loch Ness: They Created a Monster” (Calgary Underground Film Festival)

Director John MacLaverty’s terrific documentary Loch Ness: They Created a Monster looks at the personalities involved in the search for Nessie, the legendary monster of Scotland’s Loch Ness, during the heyday of that searching, the 1970s and early 1980s. It’s a fascinating look at the men and women who devoted large parts of their lives to try and discover solid proof of the famous cryptid’s existence. The documentary illustrates the difference in attitudes between then and now, when scientific researchers, businesspeople, photographers, and other professionals had a more open-minded view toward high strangeness including the probability of a large, undiscovered beast living in the lake than today. That was a time when imagination felt stronger than cynicism, and skepticism was not quite as prevalent as it is now. Among the personalities featured in Loch Ness: They Created a Monster — through archival footage and interviews, and modern interviews with family members and colleagues, as well as surviving explorers — are

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 25, 2024

Spoiler-Free Review: “Dark My Light” (Fantaspoa 2024)

A serial killer who murders on the beach is running amok in an otherwise quiet coastal town, but that’s not the strangest thing going on in writer/director Neal Dhand’s science fiction thriller Dark My Light (2023). Detective Mitchell Morse (Albert Jones) seems to be losing his grip on reality, and that could lead to even more mayhem. Morse is assigned to the case with new partner Dreyfus Trier (Tom Lipinski), who has returned to his home town from the big city after a controversial incident on the force there. Morse is also going through a separation with his wife Emily (Keesha Sharp). He has a lot on his mind, which seems to be overloading. To give away more of the plot than the above would be doing a disservice to Dark My Light because it deals in mystery. I found myself wondering exactly what was happening once Dhand laid out some of the first puzzle pieces, then I started trying

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 19, 2024

Panic Fest 2024 Spoiler-Free Film Reviews: “The Buildout” and “Killington”

The Buildout (2024) Aficionados of enigmatic cinema and high strangeness should find plenty to like about writer/director Zeshaan Younus’ The Buildout. After the death of one of their sisters, friends Dylan (Hannah Alline) and Cameron (Jenna Kenall) go on a motorcycle and camping excursion in the desert before Dylan leaves her old life behind and joins a religious group there. Cameron is skeptical of what she believes is actually a cult but tries to support her friend. Viewers see hints of danger involving members of the religious group. Younus leaves much of the proceedings open to interpretation as Dylan and Cameron begin opening wounds about their relationship. Cinematographer Justin Moore captures both the beauty and eeriness of the desert setting wonderfully. Alline and Kenall give top-notch performances, and Younus does a fine job of providing enough information for viewers to become invested but only enough so that we are left with some tantalizing puzzle pieces for our imaginations to fill

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 19, 2024

Pigeon Shrine FrightFest Reveals Poster and Change of Venue for Its 25th Anniversary

London’s Pigeon Shrine FrightFest, the U.K.’s premiere horror and genre-film festival, celebrates its 25th anniversary this year from August 22-26, moving to the ODEON Luxe Leicester Square, and today revealing its fantastic poster for this year. Following is the official press announcement. Pigeon Shrine FrightFest is proud to unveil Graham Humphreys’ stand-out poster design for 2024 which marks the 25th anniversary of the UK’s most popular genre festival and the festival’s move to the ODEON Luxe Leicester Sq. Graham said today: “Although FrightFest marks its first quarter century, the significant change of venue is this year’s focus. The soaring black Art Deco tower of the ODEON Luxe Leicester Square (completed in 1937) is as iconic to London as the Art Deco Empire State Building in New York (completed six years earlier, in 1931). In the 1933 movie King Kong, the giant primate scaled the Empire State Building. It seems a fitting homage to have our own monster scale the Leicester

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 17, 2024

Spoiler-Free Short Film Reviews: “Bookworm,” “Hevel,” “Souling,” “Dark Mommy,” “Spooky Crew,” “I Could Just Die, and That Would Be Alright” (Overlook Film Festival)

Following is a capsule review roundup of six of the short-film shockers that screened at this year’s edition of New Orlean’s Overlook Film Festival. Bookworm Bookworm (Ratón de biblioteca; Spain, 2023) from director Javier Yañez envelops viewers in a phantasmagorical vibe before suddenly ramping up the visceral shocks. Irene (Aria Bedmar in a wonderful performance) is a young librarian in 1979 Spain who wants to become a writer, much to her mother’s dismay. Irene and her fellow librarian often see the ghost of a young man — though they can’t quite catch a glimpse of his face — browsing books. Determined to try to make contact with this potential soulmate, Irene sets out to find out what his visage looks like. With beautiful set design and cinematography, Bookworm both charms and chills. Hevel In writer/director David Grace’s Hevel, devout Jewish woman Edra (Mor Cohen) begins a Shabbat service. A dybbuk has other plans for her, however, in this demonic possession

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 16, 2024

More from Joseph Perry

Romford Film Festival Spoiler-Free Film Reviews: “Kill Your Lover,” “Ill Fares the Land,” and “Have a Good Day”

Kill Your Lover (U.K.; 2023) The fractured relationship between former rock musician Dakota (Paige Gilmour) and her manipulative, much more conservative boyfriend Axel (Shane Quigley-Murphy) is toxic in more ways than one in codirectors/cowriters Alix Austin’s and Keir Siewert’s feature Kill Your Lover, winner of Romford Film Festival’s Best British Feature Film award. Just as Dakota is ready to finally break things off with Axel, he develops a contagious condition that causes him to develop strange markings on his skin, vomit, and cause acidic burns to anyone he touches. Flashbacks show the relationship from its beginnings to yellow and red flags developing to the horrific present. Gilmour and Quigley-Murphy give super performances as two very different people who somehow found themselves in a relationship that both probably should have known better than to start. The body horror is as strong as the psychological torture on display, for which Hair & Makeup Designer/Prosthetics Designer/Special Effects Makeup Artist Rebecca Wheeler and her

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
May 29, 2024

Film Maudit 2.0 Reveals Its 2024 Fifth Edition Lineup

If you are a cinephile seeking the uncommon, the unexpected, and the out-there, you will be interested in Los Angeles’s Film Maudit 2.0 festival, taking place this June. Following is the official press announcement. The 5th edition of Film Maudit 2.0, Highways’ showcase and celebration of outré films, runs June 12-16, 2024. A re-imagining of French artist Jean Cocteau’s 1949 one-time only festival, Film Maudit 2.0 features a range of narrative, documentary and experimental films that are deliberately bold, extreme, confrontational and unusual. The 2024 edition of the festival returns with a new range of works of cinema from 20+ countries addressing socio-political issues and taboo subject matter that challenge conventional artistic assumptions and sexual mores, and includes: The World Premiere of Molly Wurwand and Ryan McGlade’s MyImaginary Life for Someone(Narrative; Mockumentary/Dark Comedy, 2023), an uncanny tour through a labyrinth of mysterious linked Los Angeles McMansions circa Y2K, provides a dreamlike glimpse into the lives of unique women who live

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
May 27, 2024

Fantasia’s 2024 First Wave Announcement: From the Horrifying to the Hilarious

Canada’s Fantasia International Film Festival brings a drool-worthy feast of genre cinema to Montreal every year, and the first wave announcement for the fest’s 2024 edition — set for July 18 through August 4 — boasts a buffet of amazing features. Following is the official press announcement. The Fantasia International Film Festival will celebrate its upcoming 28th edition with an electrifying program of screenings, workshops, and launch events running from July 18 through August 4, 2024, returning yet again at the Concordia Hall and J.A. de Sève cinemas, with additional screens and events at Montreal’s Cinémathèque québécoise and Cinéma du Musée. The festival’s full lineup will be announced on July 3, but this past Thursday, Fantasia exclusively revealed its first seventeen titles and a first look at its 2024 poster art. Please find the information below. The festival’s 2024 poster art, created by Montreal visual artist Donald Caron, brings back two of the festival’s most-beloved characters from earlier editions, returning

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
May 17, 2024

Spoiler-Free Review: “Department of Paranormal Affairs” (Calgary Underground Film Festival)

If you’re in the mood for a brisk supernatural comedy, you need look no further than the new Canadian six-part episodic short-form series Department of Paranormal Affairs. The series boasts highly likable characters in decidedly irregular situations. In the world of Department of Paranormal Affairs, ghosts, vampires, and other things that go bump in the night are real. This branch of the government deals with them in a different way than usual in series and movies. Rather than hunting them down to dispose of such entities, this agency looks to help them fit in positively with human society. The department’s civil servants consist of Director Greg LeGrow (Donovan Workun), who does as little as possible; Scott Power (David Feehan), the straight-laced rule follower of the bunch; and new hire Jenny Hicks (Nancy Ngo), who initially would rather punch a ghost than read a book about how to properly deal with one. Series creator Feehan, who shares screenwriting credits with Jessy

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 29, 2024

Spoiler-Free Film Review: “Witch” 

In Witch (U.K, 2024), codirectors Craig Hinde and Marc Zammit — who cowrote the screenplay with David Baboulene — have crafted a feature that combines gothic horror and folk horror with a science fiction element. In a small English town in 1575, young wife and mother Twyla (Sarah Alexandra Marks – KILL KANE, HELP) is falsely accused of witchcraft and will be put to death if found guilty. The young woman accusing her is Johanna (Mims Burton), who herself is on trial for murdering her parents — she even walked around the town holding both of their severed heads. Twyla’s blacksmith husband William (Ryan Spong) does everything he can to save her, even accepting the help of mysterious stranger Thomas (Russell Shaw). The main villains are the ruthless Judge Hopkins (Daniel Jordan), who seemingly never met a person he couldn’t accuse of something, and the local marshall (Fabrizio Santino), who follows the judge’s orders, sometimes at the threat of death.

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 29, 2024

Spoiler-Free Review: “Loch Ness: They Created a Monster” (Calgary Underground Film Festival)

Director John MacLaverty’s terrific documentary Loch Ness: They Created a Monster looks at the personalities involved in the search for Nessie, the legendary monster of Scotland’s Loch Ness, during the heyday of that searching, the 1970s and early 1980s. It’s a fascinating look at the men and women who devoted large parts of their lives to try and discover solid proof of the famous cryptid’s existence. The documentary illustrates the difference in attitudes between then and now, when scientific researchers, businesspeople, photographers, and other professionals had a more open-minded view toward high strangeness including the probability of a large, undiscovered beast living in the lake than today. That was a time when imagination felt stronger than cynicism, and skepticism was not quite as prevalent as it is now. Among the personalities featured in Loch Ness: They Created a Monster — through archival footage and interviews, and modern interviews with family members and colleagues, as well as surviving explorers — are

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 25, 2024

Spoiler-Free Review: “Dark My Light” (Fantaspoa 2024)

A serial killer who murders on the beach is running amok in an otherwise quiet coastal town, but that’s not the strangest thing going on in writer/director Neal Dhand’s science fiction thriller Dark My Light (2023). Detective Mitchell Morse (Albert Jones) seems to be losing his grip on reality, and that could lead to even more mayhem. Morse is assigned to the case with new partner Dreyfus Trier (Tom Lipinski), who has returned to his home town from the big city after a controversial incident on the force there. Morse is also going through a separation with his wife Emily (Keesha Sharp). He has a lot on his mind, which seems to be overloading. To give away more of the plot than the above would be doing a disservice to Dark My Light because it deals in mystery. I found myself wondering exactly what was happening once Dhand laid out some of the first puzzle pieces, then I started trying

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 19, 2024

Panic Fest 2024 Spoiler-Free Film Reviews: “The Buildout” and “Killington”

The Buildout (2024) Aficionados of enigmatic cinema and high strangeness should find plenty to like about writer/director Zeshaan Younus’ The Buildout. After the death of one of their sisters, friends Dylan (Hannah Alline) and Cameron (Jenna Kenall) go on a motorcycle and camping excursion in the desert before Dylan leaves her old life behind and joins a religious group there. Cameron is skeptical of what she believes is actually a cult but tries to support her friend. Viewers see hints of danger involving members of the religious group. Younus leaves much of the proceedings open to interpretation as Dylan and Cameron begin opening wounds about their relationship. Cinematographer Justin Moore captures both the beauty and eeriness of the desert setting wonderfully. Alline and Kenall give top-notch performances, and Younus does a fine job of providing enough information for viewers to become invested but only enough so that we are left with some tantalizing puzzle pieces for our imaginations to fill

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 19, 2024

Pigeon Shrine FrightFest Reveals Poster and Change of Venue for Its 25th Anniversary

London’s Pigeon Shrine FrightFest, the U.K.’s premiere horror and genre-film festival, celebrates its 25th anniversary this year from August 22-26, moving to the ODEON Luxe Leicester Square, and today revealing its fantastic poster for this year. Following is the official press announcement. Pigeon Shrine FrightFest is proud to unveil Graham Humphreys’ stand-out poster design for 2024 which marks the 25th anniversary of the UK’s most popular genre festival and the festival’s move to the ODEON Luxe Leicester Sq. Graham said today: “Although FrightFest marks its first quarter century, the significant change of venue is this year’s focus. The soaring black Art Deco tower of the ODEON Luxe Leicester Square (completed in 1937) is as iconic to London as the Art Deco Empire State Building in New York (completed six years earlier, in 1931). In the 1933 movie King Kong, the giant primate scaled the Empire State Building. It seems a fitting homage to have our own monster scale the Leicester

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 17, 2024

Spoiler-Free Short Film Reviews: “Bookworm,” “Hevel,” “Souling,” “Dark Mommy,” “Spooky Crew,” “I Could Just Die, and That Would Be Alright” (Overlook Film Festival)

Following is a capsule review roundup of six of the short-film shockers that screened at this year’s edition of New Orlean’s Overlook Film Festival. Bookworm Bookworm (Ratón de biblioteca; Spain, 2023) from director Javier Yañez envelops viewers in a phantasmagorical vibe before suddenly ramping up the visceral shocks. Irene (Aria Bedmar in a wonderful performance) is a young librarian in 1979 Spain who wants to become a writer, much to her mother’s dismay. Irene and her fellow librarian often see the ghost of a young man — though they can’t quite catch a glimpse of his face — browsing books. Determined to try to make contact with this potential soulmate, Irene sets out to find out what his visage looks like. With beautiful set design and cinematography, Bookworm both charms and chills. Hevel In writer/director David Grace’s Hevel, devout Jewish woman Edra (Mor Cohen) begins a Shabbat service. A dybbuk has other plans for her, however, in this demonic possession

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 16, 2024
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