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Joseph Perry

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Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Panic Fest 2021): Honeydew

You may have taken wrong turns with horror movie protagonists and wound up in terrifying rural areas with them before, but you have never been on a ride quite like the one the main characters go through in director Devereux Milburn’s macabre Honeydew. The film is a dizzying, discomfiting experience full of surprises that gives a new flavor to backwoods fright fare. Rylie (Malin Barr) is a PhD student researching a strain of fungus that affects wheat crops. She and her actor boyfriend Sam (Sawyer Spielberg) travel to a rural area affected by the fungus as part of her work for dissertation. When a landowner tells them that they must leave his property immediately but their car won’t start, they stumble upon a house owned by eldery farmer Karen (Barbara Kingsley), who calls her neighbor to come give their battery a jump. He doesn’t show, so the young couple winds up eating a meal with Karen and her adult son

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 12, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Panic Fest 2021): The Last Matinee

Director Maximillano Contenti’s Uruguayan shocker The Last Matinee (AKA Red Screening and its original title of Al morir la matinée) goes all in on the thrills and gore in its telling of a murderer going on a bloody rampage inside a cinema. The film is a hybrid of slasher movie motifs and giallo film aesthetics, with an obvious love for cinemas — from the ticket and projection booths to the seats to areas you never knew existed — added for good measure. Ana (Luciana Grasso) is a university student whose father works as a projectionist in a Montevideo cinema in the early 1990s. She insists one rainy night that he go home and rest rather than working a double shift, as she has watched him enough over the years to know how to work the equipment. Planning to study while a horror movie unspools for the audience — which includes a couple on an awkward date, three drunk minors and

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 10, 2021
Horror Fuel

Fantasia Opens Its 25th Edition with Québécois Zombie Comedy “Brain Freeze”

The Fantasia International Film Festival had a hugely successful virtual version in 2020, and the fest will be online again this year as it celebrates its 25th edition. Today Fantasia announced that its opening film will be Québécois zombie comedy Brain Freeze from director Julien Knafo, and revealed the ultracool poster for its 2021 edition. Following is the official press announcement. The Fantasia International Film Festival will be celebrating its 25th edition as a virtual event accessible to audiences across Canada, with a dynamic program of scheduled screenings and premieres, panels, and workshops running from August 5 through August 25, 2021, once again using the leading-edge platform created by Festival Scope and Shift72. As the summer approaches, the festival will be following advice from local health authorities, with the possibility of also adding a range of flagship physical events to the lineup. Last summer’s virtual edition was a phenomenal success, screening to 85000 spectators and amassing a record amount of

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 9, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Cinequest Cinejoy): Demon

Thriller, horror, surrealism, dark comedy, and neo noir elements — director George Louis Bartlett’s genre-mashing Demon has all of those and more. It’s an ambitious independent film from the United Kingdom that is sometimes grounded and sometimes all over the map, but always intriguing. Ralph (Ryan Walker-Edwards) goes on the run after a small fine he incurred while oversleeping past his stop on a train balloons into a large amount that he can’t afford to pay. With the help of his friend Kent (Jacob Hawley), he holes up in an old forest motel to try to elude a bailiff bent on collecting the fine. While there, he goes through a series of real and imagined situations ranging from the bizarre to the terrifying to the deadly. Bartlett, who cowrote the screenplay with Theo McDonald, has created an interesting character in Ralph and surrounded him with quirky characters and weird proceedings. Shot mostly in black-and-white, the director knows his budgetary limitations

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 1, 2021
Horror Fuel

Sinister Six: A Half-Dozen Films We Can’t Wait to See at Panic Fest

The ninth annual edition of Kansas City’s Panic Fest grows closer, as the hybrid edition takes place from April 8–18, 2021. I mentioned in Horror Fuel’s previous article about the festival that I have seen — and can highly recommend — some of the films scheduled, including Canadian horror comedy Vicious Fun, killer stuffed animal comedy Benny Loves You, and Australian horror comedy An Ideal Host, the unsettling An Unquiet Grave, folk horror The Old Ways, and Canadian science fiction feature Parallel Minds. Now I want to share six films on offer for Panic Fest that I can’t wait to watch. The official festival descriptions follow, with my thoughts in italics after each listing. The Carnivores D: Caleb Michael Johnson Regional Premiere, 1h 17min Alice and Bret’s dog Harvey is dying, and he’s ruining everything. What had been a bright little family is quickly getting consumed by clouds of self-doubt, suspicion, and a disturbing amount of ground beef. Dramedy and

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Mar 30, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: The Toll

In the eighties it was camping, for more recent years it was computers, and most recently the quickest way to Horrorville in cinema is to use a ridesharing company. Writer/director Michael Nader’s The Toll goes beyond the usual thriller angle of either the driver or the passenger being a potential killer to drop its two main characters off in a supernatural zone not too far from the original destination, yet at least one dimension away. Cami (Jordan Hayes) is exhausted from a series of flight delays and less than thrilled about visiting her father at his rural home. Her rideshare driver Spencer (Max Topplin) is a socially awkward, talkative person, and after an initially uncomfortable start to their ride, things take a turn for the weird and deadly when the pair journeys into an area where their phones and Spencer’s car stop working. After a while of playing the blame game and distrusting each other and then having to trust

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Mar 29, 2021
Horror Fuel

Fantaspoa Announces Final Wave of Its 2021 Feature Programming

Highly acclaimed Brazilian genre film festival will hold its seventeenth edition from April 9th through the 18th, 2021, showcasing 160 shorts and features from around the world. From the Mexico-set folk horror of The Old Ways to the French dark fantasy Jumbo to the Canadian science fiction feature Parallel Minds, the fest offers an incredible array of top-notch genre films. Following is the official press announcement. As previously announced, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Brazil’s long-running Fantaspoa Fantastic Film Festival will celebrate its seventeenth edition completely online and free of charge. The 2021 edition of the beloved South American genre festival is supported by a special grant from the Brazilian government, which is offered to relevant cultural events amidst the pandemic. The festival has renewed its partnership with Darkflix, Brazil’s immensely popular streaming service aimed at fantastic genre cinema. Fantaspoa’s festival directors are keenly aware of the fact that no live events will take place in the cinemas of

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Mar 27, 2021

Movie Review (SXSW Online 2021): Here Before

Writer/director Stacey Gregg’s Here Before (U.K., 2021) is a Northern Ireland-set feature in which a mother begins to believe that the new neighbors’ young daughter may be the reincarnation of her own deceased daughter. The film is a gripping examination of grief bolstered by a terrific performance from Andrea Riseborough. Laura (Riseborough) is a rather well-adjusted person, considering her daughter died a few years earlier. She still grieves, but has a seemingly happy, loving relationship with her husband Brendan (Jonjo O’Neill) and their teen son Tadgh (Lewis McAskie). When new neighbors move in next door with a little girl of their own — Niamh Dornan as Megan — who would be right around the age of Laura’s daughter, Laura and Megan hit it off with rides home from school and dinner invitations. Things take a puzzling turn for Laura, though, when Megan insists that she has been in the area before — according to her parents, she hasn’t — and

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Mar 25, 2021

Movie Review (SXSW Online 2021): Offseason

Writer/director Mickey Keating’s latest horror film is Offseason, a terrific, atmospheric chiller that blends Lovecraftian themes, Southern Gothic, conspiracy thriller, and other elements. The result is a brooding stranger-in-a-familiar-yet-strange-land offering that delivers the creeps quite satisfactorily. Marie (Jocelin Donahue) and her significant other George (Joe Swanberg) travel to the island where her mother Ava (Melora Walters), a once famous actress, was buried after the cemetery caretaker wrote, saying that Ava’s grave had been desecrated. The couple must get past the Bridge Man (Richard Brake), who initially refuses them admittance to the island because storm season is starting, and once they do, they find the locals to be less than welcoming and forthcoming — with no sign of a caretaker. Marie and George attempt to leave the island the same way they came, but instead find the road blocked where it was open just moments earlier. They then find themselves in increasing danger as they try to piece together the strange

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Mar 23, 2021
Horror Fuel

Panic Film Fest Hybrid In-Person and Virtual Online Lineup Offers a Stellar Array of Chillers and Thrillers 

The ninth annual edition of Kansas City’s Panic Fest is loaded with amazing horror, thriller, and genre films, and it will combine both in-person and online screenings. The hybrid edition takes place from April 8–18, 2021. I have seen a few of the films on tap, and can tell you that you will be hard-pressed to find a funnier horror comedy this season than Canadian offering Vicious Fun, while killer stuffed animal comedy Benny Loves You and Australian horror comedy An Ideal Host offer their fair shares of laughs and shocks, as well. Films such as An Unquiet Grave and The Old Ways take darker approaches to fear-fare, and science fiction fans will find features such as Parallel Minds much to their liking. Following is the official press release. Panic Fest kicks off two weeks of genre packed programming as the ninth annual festival begins April 8, 2021, virtually and in person at Screenland Armour in Kansas City, MO. “We

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Mar 23, 2021

More from Joseph Perry

Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Panic Fest 2021): Honeydew

You may have taken wrong turns with horror movie protagonists and wound up in terrifying rural areas with them before, but you have never been on a ride quite like the one the main characters go through in director Devereux Milburn’s macabre Honeydew. The film is a dizzying, discomfiting experience full of surprises that gives a new flavor to backwoods fright fare. Rylie (Malin Barr) is a PhD student researching a strain of fungus that affects wheat crops. She and her actor boyfriend Sam (Sawyer Spielberg) travel to a rural area affected by the fungus as part of her work for dissertation. When a landowner tells them that they must leave his property immediately but their car won’t start, they stumble upon a house owned by eldery farmer Karen (Barbara Kingsley), who calls her neighbor to come give their battery a jump. He doesn’t show, so the young couple winds up eating a meal with Karen and her adult son

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 12, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Panic Fest 2021): The Last Matinee

Director Maximillano Contenti’s Uruguayan shocker The Last Matinee (AKA Red Screening and its original title of Al morir la matinée) goes all in on the thrills and gore in its telling of a murderer going on a bloody rampage inside a cinema. The film is a hybrid of slasher movie motifs and giallo film aesthetics, with an obvious love for cinemas — from the ticket and projection booths to the seats to areas you never knew existed — added for good measure. Ana (Luciana Grasso) is a university student whose father works as a projectionist in a Montevideo cinema in the early 1990s. She insists one rainy night that he go home and rest rather than working a double shift, as she has watched him enough over the years to know how to work the equipment. Planning to study while a horror movie unspools for the audience — which includes a couple on an awkward date, three drunk minors and

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 10, 2021
Horror Fuel

Fantasia Opens Its 25th Edition with Québécois Zombie Comedy “Brain Freeze”

The Fantasia International Film Festival had a hugely successful virtual version in 2020, and the fest will be online again this year as it celebrates its 25th edition. Today Fantasia announced that its opening film will be Québécois zombie comedy Brain Freeze from director Julien Knafo, and revealed the ultracool poster for its 2021 edition. Following is the official press announcement. The Fantasia International Film Festival will be celebrating its 25th edition as a virtual event accessible to audiences across Canada, with a dynamic program of scheduled screenings and premieres, panels, and workshops running from August 5 through August 25, 2021, once again using the leading-edge platform created by Festival Scope and Shift72. As the summer approaches, the festival will be following advice from local health authorities, with the possibility of also adding a range of flagship physical events to the lineup. Last summer’s virtual edition was a phenomenal success, screening to 85000 spectators and amassing a record amount of

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 9, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review (Cinequest Cinejoy): Demon

Thriller, horror, surrealism, dark comedy, and neo noir elements — director George Louis Bartlett’s genre-mashing Demon has all of those and more. It’s an ambitious independent film from the United Kingdom that is sometimes grounded and sometimes all over the map, but always intriguing. Ralph (Ryan Walker-Edwards) goes on the run after a small fine he incurred while oversleeping past his stop on a train balloons into a large amount that he can’t afford to pay. With the help of his friend Kent (Jacob Hawley), he holes up in an old forest motel to try to elude a bailiff bent on collecting the fine. While there, he goes through a series of real and imagined situations ranging from the bizarre to the terrifying to the deadly. Bartlett, who cowrote the screenplay with Theo McDonald, has created an interesting character in Ralph and surrounded him with quirky characters and weird proceedings. Shot mostly in black-and-white, the director knows his budgetary limitations

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Apr 1, 2021
Horror Fuel

Sinister Six: A Half-Dozen Films We Can’t Wait to See at Panic Fest

The ninth annual edition of Kansas City’s Panic Fest grows closer, as the hybrid edition takes place from April 8–18, 2021. I mentioned in Horror Fuel’s previous article about the festival that I have seen — and can highly recommend — some of the films scheduled, including Canadian horror comedy Vicious Fun, killer stuffed animal comedy Benny Loves You, and Australian horror comedy An Ideal Host, the unsettling An Unquiet Grave, folk horror The Old Ways, and Canadian science fiction feature Parallel Minds. Now I want to share six films on offer for Panic Fest that I can’t wait to watch. The official festival descriptions follow, with my thoughts in italics after each listing. The Carnivores D: Caleb Michael Johnson Regional Premiere, 1h 17min Alice and Bret’s dog Harvey is dying, and he’s ruining everything. What had been a bright little family is quickly getting consumed by clouds of self-doubt, suspicion, and a disturbing amount of ground beef. Dramedy and

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Mar 30, 2021
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: The Toll

In the eighties it was camping, for more recent years it was computers, and most recently the quickest way to Horrorville in cinema is to use a ridesharing company. Writer/director Michael Nader’s The Toll goes beyond the usual thriller angle of either the driver or the passenger being a potential killer to drop its two main characters off in a supernatural zone not too far from the original destination, yet at least one dimension away. Cami (Jordan Hayes) is exhausted from a series of flight delays and less than thrilled about visiting her father at his rural home. Her rideshare driver Spencer (Max Topplin) is a socially awkward, talkative person, and after an initially uncomfortable start to their ride, things take a turn for the weird and deadly when the pair journeys into an area where their phones and Spencer’s car stop working. After a while of playing the blame game and distrusting each other and then having to trust

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Mar 29, 2021
Horror Fuel

Fantaspoa Announces Final Wave of Its 2021 Feature Programming

Highly acclaimed Brazilian genre film festival will hold its seventeenth edition from April 9th through the 18th, 2021, showcasing 160 shorts and features from around the world. From the Mexico-set folk horror of The Old Ways to the French dark fantasy Jumbo to the Canadian science fiction feature Parallel Minds, the fest offers an incredible array of top-notch genre films. Following is the official press announcement. As previously announced, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Brazil’s long-running Fantaspoa Fantastic Film Festival will celebrate its seventeenth edition completely online and free of charge. The 2021 edition of the beloved South American genre festival is supported by a special grant from the Brazilian government, which is offered to relevant cultural events amidst the pandemic. The festival has renewed its partnership with Darkflix, Brazil’s immensely popular streaming service aimed at fantastic genre cinema. Fantaspoa’s festival directors are keenly aware of the fact that no live events will take place in the cinemas of

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Mar 27, 2021

Movie Review (SXSW Online 2021): Here Before

Writer/director Stacey Gregg’s Here Before (U.K., 2021) is a Northern Ireland-set feature in which a mother begins to believe that the new neighbors’ young daughter may be the reincarnation of her own deceased daughter. The film is a gripping examination of grief bolstered by a terrific performance from Andrea Riseborough. Laura (Riseborough) is a rather well-adjusted person, considering her daughter died a few years earlier. She still grieves, but has a seemingly happy, loving relationship with her husband Brendan (Jonjo O’Neill) and their teen son Tadgh (Lewis McAskie). When new neighbors move in next door with a little girl of their own — Niamh Dornan as Megan — who would be right around the age of Laura’s daughter, Laura and Megan hit it off with rides home from school and dinner invitations. Things take a puzzling turn for Laura, though, when Megan insists that she has been in the area before — according to her parents, she hasn’t — and

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Mar 25, 2021

Movie Review (SXSW Online 2021): Offseason

Writer/director Mickey Keating’s latest horror film is Offseason, a terrific, atmospheric chiller that blends Lovecraftian themes, Southern Gothic, conspiracy thriller, and other elements. The result is a brooding stranger-in-a-familiar-yet-strange-land offering that delivers the creeps quite satisfactorily. Marie (Jocelin Donahue) and her significant other George (Joe Swanberg) travel to the island where her mother Ava (Melora Walters), a once famous actress, was buried after the cemetery caretaker wrote, saying that Ava’s grave had been desecrated. The couple must get past the Bridge Man (Richard Brake), who initially refuses them admittance to the island because storm season is starting, and once they do, they find the locals to be less than welcoming and forthcoming — with no sign of a caretaker. Marie and George attempt to leave the island the same way they came, but instead find the road blocked where it was open just moments earlier. They then find themselves in increasing danger as they try to piece together the strange

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Mar 23, 2021
Horror Fuel

Panic Film Fest Hybrid In-Person and Virtual Online Lineup Offers a Stellar Array of Chillers and Thrillers 

The ninth annual edition of Kansas City’s Panic Fest is loaded with amazing horror, thriller, and genre films, and it will combine both in-person and online screenings. The hybrid edition takes place from April 8–18, 2021. I have seen a few of the films on tap, and can tell you that you will be hard-pressed to find a funnier horror comedy this season than Canadian offering Vicious Fun, while killer stuffed animal comedy Benny Loves You and Australian horror comedy An Ideal Host offer their fair shares of laughs and shocks, as well. Films such as An Unquiet Grave and The Old Ways take darker approaches to fear-fare, and science fiction fans will find features such as Parallel Minds much to their liking. Following is the official press release. Panic Fest kicks off two weeks of genre packed programming as the ninth annual festival begins April 8, 2021, virtually and in person at Screenland Armour in Kansas City, MO. “We

Continue reading →
Joseph Perry
Mar 23, 2021
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