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REVIEW: Night of the Slasher [2016]

2016/11/10 Jared Mobarak

“I can wait until you’re dressed” You’re the sole survivor of a horror movie incident that has literally left you speechless with an ear-to-ear scar across your throat. Do you continue your life with straight-edged celibacy to ensure you never commit the genre sins that got you cut in the first place? Or do you do whatever is necessary to bring your assailant back to wreak some revenge? Well, if you’re like Jenelle (Lily Berlina) the answer is always going to be the latter. So you work out what it…

REVIEW: Pigskin [2016]

2016/11/092016/11/09 Jared Mobarak

“Go Magpies!” Their publicists would be remiss not to mention that the same school Pigskin director Jake Hammond and co-writer Nicola Newton attend is that which graduated It Follows creator David Robert Mitchell. I personally couldn’t stop thinking about the latter while watching thanks to the horror underpinnings of a creepily deformed figure trailing high school cheerleader Laurie (Isadora Leiva) around. Mix that sense of dread with a poppy synth soundtrack a la Drive and you can get a feeling for what Hammond and Newton deliver. The vision is impeccable,…

REVIEW: The Opera Singer [2016]

2016/11/03 Jared Mobarak

“I never thought I’d find myself here. Yet here I am.” I often think that my lack of feeling towards pets prevents me from truly appreciating supposedly emotionally heartwrenching works because my initial reaction is to laugh. I chuckle much like the filmmakers behind John Wick wanted me to as it hinged its entire revenge plot on the death of a dog. That example was easier to understand on a practical level, though, because the titular character’s wife had died and left him this friend posthumously. The puppy was an…

REVIEW: Transience [2013]

2016/11/03 Jared Mobarak

What is the packet that George (Timothy J. Cox) gives Tom (Joshua Michael Payne) in Tan See Yun‘s short film Transience? This question is running through my mind in desperate need of an answer because without one the whole proves too esoteric to reconcile. We know these two men are a couple—the former responsible, caring, and career-oriented with the latter younger, independent, and perhaps resentful—but we don’t know why they’ve drifted or why/if they should reignite their waning passion. There are of course obvious motivations whether it’s nondescript universal frustrations…

REVIEW: Linda LeThorn & the Musicbox [2012]

2016/08/18 Jared Mobarak

“She is really good at this job!” There’s nothing generic about Linda LeThorn & the Musicbox, Meg Skaff‘s quirky psychological study delving into the mind of a damaged young woman who left her aunt behind to endure a fatal disease alone despite promising to remain by her side. Linda (Aundrea Fares) was obviously affected by her decision, a flashback showing the girl bright and clear with sassiness to complement her keen business sense. Today, however, sees her defeated, slack-jawed, and depressed. She continues her once booming pet-sitting responsibilities, but the…

REVIEW: Lake Nowhere [2016]

2016/08/14 Jared Mobarak

“My blood is liquid offering” Directors Christopher Phelps and Maxim Van Scoy take a page from Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez‘s book by delving into slasher fare of old for their own grindhouse-type homage of Italian blood-letting, maliciously Evil Dead-esque vines, and a murderer in the vein of Leatherface and Jason Voorhees protecting a lake of perished souls. The film is Lake Nowhere, titled after the final 45-minute or so “feature” that follows trailers for the unmade When the River Runs Red and Harvest Man alongside a commercial for fictional…

REVIEW: Piper [2016]

2016/08/112017/01/28 Jared Mobarak

It’s really quite amazing how consistent Disney/Pixar is at telling six-minute long, vibrantly rich stories without words. Each year passes with a new one arriving to build upon the last, sometimes embracing the “fun” side of things and sometimes as an expression of love. I’d put Alan Barillaro‘s Piper in the former category as its titular sandpiper has plenty of the latter with a loving mother coaxing her baby from the brush. Mom shuffles down to the shoreline, plucking a seed from the sand to show her child from afar.…

REVIEW: Supot [2016]

2016/07/27 Jared Mobarak

“What if I can’t stand the pain?” For some rural villages in the Philippines circumcision is a rite of passage for young boys. We’re not talking surgical removal by a doctor as a baby, though. This tradition takes place at age ten by a designated patriarch with a sharpened blade and rock. Each boy soaks in water to soften the foreskin, chews some guava leaves, and looks up into the sky as the knife comes down. To us it’s barbaric; to them it’s an evolution towards manhood. When cut you…

REVIEW: Lights Out [2013]

2016/07/18 Jared Mobarak

It’s a bona fide YouTube to Hollywood transformation story for David F. Sandberg who along with actress Lotta Losten has been creating ultra-short horror treatments on both the Google-owned platform and Vimeo since 2013. It started with Cam Closer and has continued all the way into this year with Closet Space en route to his digital award-winning Lights Out earning a big screen, feature length adaptation (and the director’s chair to another James Wan-produced picture in Annabelle 2). These things are around three minutes long and they pack in creepy…

FANTASIA16 REVIEW: Never Tear Us Apart [2016]

2016/07/142016/07/21 Jared Mobarak

“I was attacked by a cougar once. Her name was Janice.” It plays out exactly how you know it will, but it’s no less funny as a result. Sid Zanforlin‘s (co-written by Chris Bavota) short film Never Tear Us Apart has everything you’d want from a horror with naïve wanderers, cannibalistic hicks, dismemberment, and a healthy dose of blood. But don’t discredit its humor either, a tone introduced directly after watching the screams of an unnamed victim (Mark Anthony Krupa) tied to chair bleeding. James (Matt Keyes) and Colin (Alex…

REVIEW: Hell-Bent [2016]

2016/07/12 Jared Mobarak

“May you write some great pieces on this” For whatever reason, screenwriters Lorenzo Cabello and Shayne Kamat refused to turn their script about an underachieving journalist and his demon acquaintance into a deal with the devil scenario. Kudos, guys. There’s ample opportunity too considering Michael’s (Justin Andrew Davis) struggles to find the confidence to fight for a promotion against his cutthroat competition Beth (Ashley Kelley). Ricky (Steven Trolinger‘s demon in question) tells Michael that he better not disappoint him if he agrees to be the subject of this latest make-or-break…