REVIEW: Ayla [2018]

You still see her sometimes, don’t you? It doesn’t matter that it’s been thirty years since Elton’s (Nicholas Wilder) sister died at age four. He still sees her in the corner of his eyes, the shadows, and his mind. This sense of longing has taken hold of his actions many times throughout his life as evidenced by the scars on his forearms—a pattern of self-violence for which his mother Susan (Dee Wallace) and younger brother James (D’Angelo Midili) are keenly aware. But the hope is that those days are behind…

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REVIEW: We Are Still Here [2015]

“The house needs a family” Sometimes the spirits clinging to your old home prove the least of your worries. Just ask the Sacchettis (Barbara Crampton‘s Anne and Andrew Sensenig‘s Paul). Attempting to restart their lives after the tragic death of their son months earlier, the couple moves to Aylesbury for peace, quiet, and a former mortuary turned residential property with a price-tag they couldn’t resist. She’s the spiritualist of the two, feeling a presence that could only be her boy Bobby comforting her. He’s the pragmatist, responding in kind with…

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REVIEW: Upstream Color [2013]

“How are you supposed to help someone like that?” I think we can now officially declare writer/director Shane Carruth far from a one-hit wonder. As the years ticked by with nothing to glimpse on the silver screen, no one could have been blamed for thinking this former software engineer simply had nothing more to say. His journey to cinema was far from conventional and his critical praise almost too universal to ever be matched. And with a predilection for the obtuse, obscure, and intellectually challenging, no Hollywood studio would ever…

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