FANTASIA17 REVIEW: Lowlife [2017]

“It is my great honor to grant you your wish on such a special day” An ex-junkie, ex-convict, and luchador enter a fish taco shack … the punch line is a three-pronged adventure through Compton while engulfed by the shadow of a lunatic pimp moonlighting as a black market organ wholesaler. Director Ryan Prows and the rest of his quintet of writers (Tim Cairo, Jake Gibson, Shaye Ogbonna, and Maxwell Michael Towson) bring together a menagerie of monsters, fiends, thugs, and criminals all searching for an escape in their violently…

Read More

REVIEW: Dead Bullet [2016]

“I wanted to give you everything” If you’ve seen writer/director Erik Reese‘s debut Train to Stockholm—a personal, introspective drama—the thought of him helming a down and dirty Nevadan desert revenger doesn’t necessarily come to mind. But that’s exactly what he’s done with Dead Bullet, the successful genre jump as good a calling card as any for his talents. Starting closer to his adopted home of Finland, Reese reworked a Scandinavian-set script that didn’t quite come together as he’d like for the sweltering heat and casino bells of his hometown in…

Read More