A review of the new horror film, at Fantasia Festival now (and on Shudder soon) — “Did you hear the one about the guy stuck in the bathroom with a god?” asks Wes (Ryan Kwanten) a little bit into Rebekah McKendry’s horror feature Glorious. He’s talking to the disembodied voice (JK Simmons) coming from the mysteriously-dark stall next to him, a voice that claims to belong…

A review of the new YA film, at Outfest and on Amazon Prime — “What do you want to remember from high school?” Kelsa (Eva Reign) is a high school senior in Pittsburgh. She’s looking forward to graduating and heading off to college, hopefully bound for New York or Los Angeles, excited to live somewhere where no one knows who she is. Because Kelsa…

A review of the new comedy, at Outfest and on Amazon Prime now — In My Fake Boyfriend, stuntman Andrew (Keiynan Lonsdale) is convinced by his best friends Jake (Dylan Sprouse) and Kelly (Sarah Hyland) to let them deep-fake him a boyfriend for social media. …

A review of the new film, screening at Outfest LA — The concept of the Chekhov’s gun is a cliché at this point; every film fan knows that if there’s a gun in the first act, it’s gonna go off by the end. Unidentified Objects might be the first movie I’ve ever seen with a Chekhov’s Chekhov, though. The film’s main…

A review of the new horror film, at Fantasia Festival now — Cecilia (Aisha Dee) is popular. Sure, she was bullied as a kid—don’t call her Sissy—but now she’s an influencer, a self-help guru with more than 200K followers on Instagram. She guides her fans through hyperventilation sessions, seated in a rope circle on the ground that functions as her “safe space.”…

An interview with the director of ‘Swallowed’ and ‘The Ruins’ — “There’s a whole weird, dark web of fucked-up shit happening in my mind,” horror director Carter Smith tells me. He’s talking about his photo series All the Dead Boys, which is part horror and part porn, perfectly walking the line between sexy and scary. The drop-dead-gorgeous models in his pictures…

A review of the new documentary, at Outfest now — A couple of years ago, I was lucky enough to see a Pat Rocco retrospective at UCLA, which houses the filmmaker’s archive. I had no idea who he was before I was invited to check it out, but I was blown away by his films. We were shown shorts like…

A review of the new sci-fi/horror drama, at Fantasia Festival — That Rahul Kohli sure is a charming rascal, isn’t he? Internet boyfriend status aside, the man’s just really good at what he does. Case in point: Next Exit, writer-director Mali Elfman’s new uncategorizable film. Part horror movie, part road-trip comedy, and part sci-fi, Next Exit is also a drama about…

A review of the new documentary, at Outfest now — The art scene of the Lower East Side in the early 80s sounds like a thrilling place to be. Sure, most of the artists lived in poverty approaching abject squalor; after all, Ed Brezinski, the subject of new documentary Make Me Famous, lived in a sixth-floor walkup across the street…