We Love Horror Movies

The guys over at Rock Bottom Video are some of the most talented filmmakers in the indie scene today, and I don't think enough people know it. I have long touted that their film Fangboner was the best underground comedy I had ever seen - and that coming from someone who poured their heart, blood, soul, and hard-earned cash into making an underground comedy. Then, you know what happened? Nathan Rumler went and made Gay For Pray: The Erotic Adventures of Jesus Christ, and my entire life has changed for the better. Okay, so you're probably reading this right now, after seeing the title for the movie, and you likely had one of two reactions. Either you were immediately turned off at the idea of a movie with obvious sacrilegious themes, and you have no desire to ever see the film no matter what I say...or, also just as likely, you're hankering to get your hands on a copy to see what all the fuss is about. Well, let me tell you what all the fuss is about: Jesus Christ...

Kuso is being touted as the "grossest film ever made," but I don't know if I'd personally go that far. What is gross, anyway? Is puss and jizz gross? Are open, oozing sores and feces in the face gross? I suppose it's all about the viewer. I, for one, just thought it was a laugh riot. Kuso means "shit" in Japanese vernacular, but it is also used to describe items of a "poor quality," and I'm sure this title was chosen specifically for that reason. The movie is certainly full of shit, as there's plenty of feces throughout. There's also lots of ooze, puss, spit, and semen, too. If it comes out of a body, it probably makes an appearance here. The movie is a series of slightly interconnected stories, told through random televisions in what is, apparently, a futuristic Los Angeles after a devastating earthquake. To be fair, the only reason I know that is because that's what the description says on Shudder, where the film is cur...

This one is a little different for me, because technically speaking, One Last Time is not a movie at all, but a web series. It's also not really horror, it's actually a superhero film...but with a bit of a twist. This one comes straight out of Pennsylvania, the home of West 2nd Productions and writer/director Luke Ramer, who actually is normally a horror filmmaker, and is currently in production on his feature The Taxidermist. But before that film went to lens, Ramer and his crew went to work on One Last Time, which he release episodically to YouTube last year. The story follows Brian (Brian DiBonaventure), a once superhero who has settled down to live a normal life in rural Pennsylvania. He has a home, a wife, and a baby on the way, and life seems pretty great...until one day he is driving through town and spots an enemy from a life he's tried to put behind him. That ensuing battle ends in a bloody mess courtesy of a speeding train, and the events of the series es...

Fox Trot Productions makes features faster than any company I have ever seen. Emir Skalonja, writer and director, is constantly putting out new projects, and the thing about the movies that sets them apart from a lot of people cranking things out is that these films are all actually good .

Putting together a really good anthology is hard. I’ve done it myself, and it’s a daunting task. No matter what kind you’re making, no matter how long it is or how many segments or episodes, you’re always going to have hits and misses. Even the greatest anthology series and movies of all time have their bad moments. So when you’re sitting down to enjoy a new anthology film, you never know what you’re going to get; Then you put in Chuck Conry’s Door 1 of the 5 Doors to Hell , and the ride begins… After an extended period staring at the shelves in an independent video store, two couples are given an old VHS tape by the proprietor. They’ve seen practically every damn horror movie in the place, but this one is different. It’s a shot-on-video style horror, he tells them. You know they’ve never seen anything like it. So they take it home, and the nightmare begins. I’ll stop right there though, because it’s not just a nightmare. It’s also a damn hilarious, meta piss-take on horr...

Although we definitely love horror movies here, we also really like comedy films. And when you combine the two, and do it well, you are really tickling our fancy.

Cemetery Theater is a small outfit out of Northern Maine, but despite their size, they’re creating some incredible shorts and features – and in record time, no less. Currently following up their 30-minute short Sleep Eater with a feature-length titled Sleep Eaters, director Shane Grant had time to slip in the making of another short – shot over only a few days – called Blind Date. A man named Matthew shows up for his blind date, finding that the woman, Claire, is literally blind. After a night out to dinner at a local diner and to a movie – where Claire talks about loving horror movies (and the pair watch Sleep Eater on the big screen, because what else would horror fans watch?) Claire seems to have entranced Matthew after a crystal necklace she wears begins to glow – he can’t look away. He starts to have visions of his childhood, and the violent and disturbing end that his Father meets…but was it all a dream? Matthew drops Clair...

I always wished that I was old enough to have lived through all the Atomic Age horror and sci-fi films, so that I could have spent my Saturday afternoons seeing creatures morphed with animals, insects, or other beings thanks to radiation or nuclear powers, terrorizing people and cities on the screen while I nervously ate my bag of fifteen-cent popcorn and nickel soda pop. Thankfully, I am not the only one who has a love for these Golden Age horror-fests, because it is only with such a deep appreciation for those movies could someone have made Inhumanwich!, a film in which an astronaut is accidentally merged with his Sloppy Joe sandwich while in space, and crashes back to earth…hungry for flesh….as he slowly moves like a saucy Jabba the Hutt over the town, eating people and leaving their bones behind. The movie is one of the funniest films I’ve watched in a long while. It is exactly like what I imagine a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 movie would be like if instead of watching...

They say confession is good for the soul, but what about all those souls the confessor has taken along the way? Writer and Director Emir Skolonja has released a crazy new film, Confessions of a Homicidal Prostitute, a gore-fest with one of the most literal titles I’ve seen since Big-Ass Spider. The film follows Lilith, the prostitute and title character, who is sitting down with a man to explain her violent lifestyle. You see, Lilith is a killer. She’s murdered her pimp, who she explains beats her and rapes her constantly. She murders Johns, because they’re married and they’re scum, and they talk about women like they’re nothing. What started out as an act of (almost) self-defense from a customer who liked it a little too rough, Lilith explains how she delved into killing. She’s remorseless and her conscience is guilt-free; after a while, the bloodlust becomes a turn-on. I whole-heartedly enjoyed this movie. While being a bit rough around the edges...

Writer and director Emir Skalonja puts out movies so fast that this site is rapidly becoming a FoxTrot Productions review page. The fact of the matter is, though, that Skalonja can put out films at a rapid-fire rate, and still produce some of the best movies the underground has to offer today. His latest, a 13-minute short called Ave Satanas, is probably his most ambitious in terms of visual style. It’s so great as a viewer to watch a filmmaker to have several films, all fall into the same genre, yet all have such unique voices, looks, and styles. It’s actually refreshing that not only does Skalonja make films extremely fast and for extremely cheap money, but they come out fantastic. Ave Satanas starts with a woman, Mary (Nicole Skalonja) in the woods. She is meeting with a Satan worshipping witch, Evanora (the stand-out Krystal Shenk) and explains that she has been raped by two men. She is asking for help. She seeks vengeance and, even though she may have to ...