Tag: Salem Horror Fest
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For the final bit of Salem Horror Fest coverage, a week after the festival has now concluded, I wanted to bring readers’ attention to Conor Soucy’s electrifying short film, The Conduit. Winner of the Jury Award for Best Short Film at Salem Horror Fest 8, The Conduit is a taut, white-knuckle experience that utilizes the…
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If I were to share with you the list of my most anticipated films of 2025, Izzy Lee’s House of Ashes would be circling the top of that list. Izzy Lee is the kind of director with a fearless eye for horror, often taking a politicized issue and intelligently contorting it to something even more…
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This year’s Salem Horror Fest theme is “The Horror Within,” stories and truths about ourselves we haven’t yet entertained, the fundamental aspect of identity, and who we are to ourselves and others. All of the films I’ve seen over the festival weekend massively embody the theme on personal levels, but Get Super Rad’s (Directing duo…
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Influencer horror is probably the subgenre that has taken me the most time adjusting to, but it is absolutely one that is on the rise. Movies like Influencer, #ChadGetsTheAxe, The Seed, Sissy, and Deadstream have blown up over the past few years telling stories about what’s beneath the veneer of internet personalities. My biggest gripe…
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In the midst of preparing for the 2022 Fantasia Film Festival, one film stood out above many others. Fantasia always has its impressive share of science fiction, horror, and genre films, yet Vera Drew’s trans-superhero and metaphoric fable, The People’s Joker, was one that I, and I think a lot of other critics had at…
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Jill Gevargizian’s The Stylist was one of the most delightful surprises of 2020. Outside of Sweeney Todd, we hadn’t really seen a hairstylist killer, which gave the film an original feeling. Not to mention there were two fantastic performances from Najarra Townsend and Brea Grant. Gevargizian, who is a trained hair stylist, put a lot…
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My favorite horror concepts are always the ones that are right in your face, and writer-director Nick Verdi’s Sweet Relief is abundantly that. A slow roll of suburban moral panic, Verdi paints the Rockwellian portrait of a sleepy small town and fills it with uproar over a viral internet challenge. It’s a song we’ve all…
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If there’s anything I know about Takeshi Kushida, it’s that he can craft a visually striking horror movie. Whatever side of the fence you fell on with Kushida’s debut feature, Woman of the Photographs, you can’t say it wasn’t a lavishly colored and beautifully shot debut feature. Kushida’s artistic prowess combined with a love/hate relationship…
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Typecasting is a terrible thing that happens far too often in the horror genre. Fans are often quick to embrace the idea of seeing their favorite “scream queens” or slasher icons return for new rounds of chaotic violence filled with one-liners, gore, and a possible final chapter to a beloved character’s storyline. As much as…
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Dima Barch sits on a linen sofa. From the other end of my computer screen, I see his soft eyes, wide smile, and slightly tussled hair as I mess with the settings on Zoom, which has logged me out and won’t let me record. Barch is calm, patiently waiting for me to ask him about…