It’s an odd week, and an even odder mix of films this time. We’ll start off with “Bats” a nature-gone-wild story from 1999, then travel back in time to watch Bela Lugosi ruin Chinatown in 1936. We’ll then take a freaky gander at a very unusual “Wolf Girl” (2001). “The Sound” is up next, a 2025 film about mountain climbers, followed by 2015’s “Anarchy Parlor,” a terrible tattoo tale.
And, as always, we’ll have five short films.
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Mainstream Films:
1999 Bats
Directed by: Louis Morneau
Written by: John Logan
Stars: Lou Diamond Phillips, Dina Meyer, Bob Gunton
Run Time: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
The poster is cool. The science is bad. The movie is pretty good. It’s a genetically-engineered-creature-gone-wrong kind of movie with a big body count. There’s not a lot new here, but it’s got some entertainment value.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open in Gallup, Texas as Quint and Emma, a young couple, drive out to an isolated make-out spot. Quint notices something strange outside the car and investigates. As a train passes by behind them, a giant bat breaks in through the windshield and kills them both. Credits roll.
We cut to Skull Valley, Arizona. Jimmy talks to Dr. Sheila Casper, who’s crawling around in a tight bat-filled cave herself. They’re rudely interrupted by a helicopter containing Dr. Tobe Hodge and Dr. Alexander McCabe. They are needed for a bat-related “biological emergency.”
The group soon arrives in Texas, where they are met by Sheriff Emmett Kimsey. The three scientists do an autopsy on the young couples’ bodies. They were, in fact, killed by bats, but that’s not normal. There have been some animal deaths, but bats don’t do that. McCabe mentions that these bats are special– two bats escaped from a lab. They need to kill the two bats before they can contaminate others with their unique viruses.
Another body is found, and it was done by way more than two bats. The mayor wants to avoid a panic and insists they all keep it quiet. McCabe explains that the bats are more intelligent and aggressive, and now they’re omnivorous. If these bats infect the general population during a migration, that would be… bad. Dr. Casper says they need to kill all the contaminated bats before this gets any worse.
Casper and Sheriff Kimsey talk about her love for bats. Suddenly, a swarm of CGI bats chases them, and they barely manage to hide in the car. They crawl all over the car, trying to get in; it’s very tense. When Jimmy and the deputy arrive, they get swarmed as well, but then the bats all fly away. All but one, which they put in a cage. They spot McCabe’s original two bats, but they escape as well. They inject the captured bat with a tracker and release it– but then the two leader bats tear it apart.
Dr. Hodge gets the CDC to evacuate the town, and the swarm is slowly migrating in that direction. We cut to the town, where we see people doing normal things. The bats start killing the townspeople, and everyone else comes outside to watch. Among many others, the deputy gets eaten and there are many explosions. Dr. Hodge gets eaten as Casper watches, and then the bats all just fly away.
In the morning, the army arrives as the surviving townspeople are evacuated. The army wants to blow up all the mountains and the town itself, but the Sheriff, Casper, Jimmy, and McCabe want to keep looking for the leader bats and save the town. The sheriff plays opera music as the others move into the town’s school.
Casper wants to crawl into the bat cave and set up equipment that’ll freeze all the bats to death. McCabe overhears the plan and starts getting a sketchy look; he’s gonna do something dumb.
The army locates the bats, who are hiding inside a huge mine. The bats attack and kill most of the army men. McCabe admits that he designed the bats to be “perfect killing machines” and he’s called them to where the characters are set up. “You let them out of the lab, didn’t you?” Casper accuses. Yep– he’s a mad scientist.
Everyone runs around doing things as the bats attack the school. McCabe runs outside, and his two “babies” tear him apart and then leave. “I guess they got what they came for.”
The sheriff, Casper, and Jimmy show up at the mine in the morning, and everyone’s dead. The soldiers got the whole mine wired with explosives and the refrigeration equipment, and the main characters just have to get it all working before the military bombs the whole place.
Casper and the sheriff go down into the mines wearing armored breathing suits. They soon fall into a waist-high pool of bat crap. Then they find millions of bats in their lair. They figure out how to turn on the cooling system, but then the leader bats wake up and get all menacing. After a crazy battle, they kill one of the leaders and run for the way out of the caves.
Jimmy blows up the cave entrances at the last minute. He calls the army to stop the air attack. The bats in the cave all freeze to death, trapped in their cave. Everyone goes home.
Later that night, we see the other leader bat crawl out of a hole– and get promptly run over by a truck.
Brian’s Commentary
The bats are described as “omnivorous,” but they only seem to go after people. It’s a good thing that a country sheriff, a bat scientist, and her sidekick know all about army explosives and high-tech refrigeration units, huh?
The CGI bats don’t hold up very well, but otherwise, it’s all pretty good. There were only two actual live bats used in the film. The town gets wiped out in the middle of the film, something that usually happens in the finale of these kinds of films.
I saw this when it came out, and I remembered it being better than this.
Kevin’s Commentary
Has Robert Gunton ever played a good guy? Partway through, I said his character wasn’t being enough of a weasel, and sure enough ,he came through. I hadn’t seen this before, I only hoped it was better than this. It was in the middle of the road all around, but it was more entertaining than not. Like Brian said, the CGI hasn’t held up, but the practical effects are pretty good.
1936 Shadow of Chinatown
Directed by: Robert F. Hill
Written by: Robert F. Hill, William Buchanan
Stars: Bela Lugosi, Bruce Bennett, Joan Barclay
Run Time: 1 Hour, 11 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
We watched the officially edited version cut down from over four and a half hours of fifteen serial episodes. It was released this way - cut to movie length - at about the same time as the serials. The end result still manages to feel too long and dull after it gets going - the full thing would be excruciating. The poster gushes about flaming action, dynamic thrills, and eerie mystery, but it was pretty tame.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open in San Francisco, on the docks. A woman reads a letter about destroying the competition. She calls Victor Poten; they’ve discussed this, and now it’s time to act. She offers him $10,000 to ruin the merchants of Chinatown. He says with his machine, he can do it easily.
Poten gets his gang together and they synchronize their watches before their plan. The men dress up like Chinese and spread out over Chinatown. They blow up smoke bombs, shoot off guns, and cause mass confusion.
Joan comes to her editor, Martin, about getting to the bottom of this crime. She’s a reporter, and she’s desperate. Martin’s servant Willie explains the crime to her: someone wants to break up the Chinese tourist trade. She continues investigating with the local beat cop. She pesters the police chief and mayor, but they don’t even believe she’s a real reporter.
Joan watches a Chinese man, Tom Chu, be kidnapped off the street and follows them. A remote-control statue drops him down into a pit. Poten and Sonya smirk at the success of their plot.
Joan goes missing, so Martin and Captain Walters go looking for her in Chinatown. Joan uses a mirror to signal for help, and Martin sees what’s going on, goes inside, and finds her. Captain Walters gets the wrong idea and arrests Martin as being part of the gang.
Sonya and Poten talk about finishing his work. He’s obsessed with revenge, but she’s more reasonable, only caring about business.
Joan is reassigned to Los Angeles to cover a story there. Sonya is also going to L.A. Grogan, one of Sonya’s crew, wants to get rid of Poten. Poten comes in and catches Grogan, then hypnotises him. Poten then boards the ship in disguise to kill Grogan. Grogan calls Martin to tell him everything, but just before he can spill the beans, Poten shoots him with a poison dart, knocking him out instantly.
Later, Poten grabs Grogan from the infirmary and dresses him up in Poten’s disguise. When it’s time to disembark, Grogan gets off, and the police go after him. Somewhere down the line, Sonya decides she’s had enough of Poten and goes to the police.
Martin catches up to Sonya and starts interrogating her as Poten comes in. She also soon winds up hypnotised. She eventually wakes up and tells the heroes about Poten’s devastating devices. Joan writes up Sonya’s story for the papers, and her boss still gives her no credit. Joan and Sonya figure out that Martin’s heading into a trap and drive right over. Meanwhile, Martin and Willy Fu battle one of Poten’s henchmen. Martin and the thug fall off the roof; Martin lands on the fire escape, but the thug is killed.
Poten hooks up a trap, fixing it so that the chandelier falls. Sonya pushes Martin out of the way, saving him and dying in the process. This leads to a car chase through town, ending when Potan drives his car off the end of the dock and drowns.
Joan writes the story for the paper and tells Martin about it. He just called the paper and had her fired. He won’t have his wife working on a newspaper. Happy ending?
Brian’s Commentary
Lugosi is Poten, a mad scientist with a criminal gang. He can still hypnotize people with just a stare, which is convenient. He’s described as a Eurasian, but he still just looks like regular Bela Lugosi.
In one scene, Poten hypnotises Grogan to obey him, and in the next, he’s boarding a ship to kill him. There was something in-between that must have been edited out. Why was Grogan important enough to keep alive through most of the film? Actually, there’s a lot here that doesn’t really make sense, most likely due to poor editing. Then again, a fifteen-episode serial, unless tightly plotted, could easily forget details between episodes.
Martin and Joan spend most of their time arguing about his misogyny. It’s considered a good thing when he gets her fired in order to marry her.
This was edited down from the four-plus hour serial, and it still managed to get really dull for the middle twenty minutes. The first twenty minutes are bearable, but it goes downhill fast. If they only included the best parts of the original here, I can’t imagine trying to sit through more than four hours of this cheaply made mess.
Kevin’s Commentary
I want to say it would have made more sense to see the unedited serial, but I’m grateful not to have to sit through the whole thing. This was pretty dull, and it wouldn’t be fun sitting through four times as much of it.
2001 Wolf Girl
Directed by: Thom Fitzgerald
Written by: Lori Lansense
Stars: Shelby Fenner, Shawn Ashmore, Tony Denman
Run Time: 1 Hour, 37 Minutes
Watch it:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s a story about a traveling circus sideshow with a serving of horror on the side. There is a lot of music, dancing, freaks, and strange talents filling the movie, and it’s a unique take on a werewolf tale. Despite many interesting people to look at, it’s not quite as interesting as it should be, managing to drag a bit here and there. We liked it more than disliked it.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on teenagers walking through the woods, looking for something. Krystal, Beau, Cory, and Whiffler run into Ryan out there, and they pick on him. Suddenly, the circus drives by. It’s not a whole circus, just the sideshow, freaks and geeks and monsters, as the song plays.
The leader of the show, Harley Dune, stops and tells the others to set up here. The main attraction is Tara Talbot, the Wolf Girl. She talks to Athena, the fat lady, about what it was like back when Athena wasn’t so fat. All the teens from earlier stand in the woods and watch the wolf girl do mundane chores.
We cut to the big evil factory across the way, where the scientists talk about developing new genetic enhancements. Dr. Klein steals one of the lab rats and hides it in her purse. She’s Ryan’s mother. They talk about a wolf being loose in the area, and there’s a posse out looking for the wolf.
The sideshow opens, and we watch the orchestra of Little People as Christoph/Christine sings a whole song as the other attractions wheel through behind her. Ryan peeks through the window as Tara gets ready for her act. Harley Dune sings a song about plucking the bearded lady.
Beau and the other teens knock on Tara’s door, and they have a hunting dog, ready to cause trouble. Harley interrupts their fun and throws them out. Tara’s act is next, and Harley makes it all sound really interesting. Beau, in the audience, throws dog poop at her.
After the show, she washes the poop off her face. Harley and Athena talk about how terrible audiences are today.
The four troublemakers walk home through the woods as wolves howl all around them. Beau beats up Ryan as a real wolf watches from not far away.
In the morning, Tara finds a note that says she can get help for her problem. It’s from Ryan, and she goes to see him. He takes Tara to his mother’s lab where she works on depilatories. He shows her a hairless mouse. He injects her when she decides to go along with it.
As she walks home, Tara hears wolves howling. She goes to the pet groomer’s and eats a poodle. No, it’s just a sudden craving and fantasy.
Before her show that night, Tara gets a bad headache. The four baddies are back in the audience for tonight’s show as well. Beau and Krystal throw darts at her this time. In pain, she breaks out of her cage and attacks Beau. Harley distracts the audience with a dwarf-striptease act. He wonders how Tara was able to break through the bars on her cage.
Tara and Ryan go off alone; they really like each other. Ryan says her attacking Beau was a side-effect of the drug, but she argues that it was all just part of the show. He promises another treatment tomorrow. In bed, she dreams of hunting and killing sheep.
Morning comes, and we watch Tara shower. Yep, she’s hairy all over, but she’s also losing globs of hair, so the treatment may be working. Ryan’s mother interrupts, so Tara ends up dosing herself, this time larger than before. Ryan tells his mother about dating “an oddity.”
Ryan and Tara go to a diner, and the waitress is weird about it. She talks about her birth and how her parents hid her away and took her to Harley for protection. Beau mouths off, and she claws him. She goes to the restroom and drinks from the toilet bowl.
At home, Beau looks at himself naked in the mirror and cries. He’s poorly endowed, and he doesn’t like it. Tara accidentally sees him, so he follows her back to her trailer and shoots at her. This results in the two of them chasing each other around the woods. She tears him apart.
In the morning, Tara’s lost more body hair, but now crawls around on all fours. She also finds bloody clothes, which she does not like.
Back at Ryan’s house, the pet rabbit eats himself. His mother says experimental animals do that sometimes. Tara wants another treatment, but he’s not willing to continue because the rabbit went psychotic.
Krystal, Cory, and Whiffer find Beau’s body and laugh at his little “thing.”
Back at the show, Harley introduces the Wolf Girl, but this time, she attacks him. Someone yells that she killed Beau, and there’s a whole stampede, literally bringing down the house.
Tara runs into the woods and injects herself again. There’s a mob of people with torches out searching the woods. Harley confronts Ryan about what’s happening to Tara, but Ryan runs away. Kristen, with her gun, runs into Tara, but she doesn’t recognize her without all the fur.
Tara looks perfectly normal now but bites Krystal anyway. Ryan shows up and grabs the pistol and fires. He shoots the real wolf as Krystal wakes up and can’t find her tongue.
In the morning, Harley packs up the whole show and leaves town. Athena cries at leaving Tara behind, but they don’t need the trouble. Tara, on the other hand, watches them leave and crawls around the woods naked, hairless, but more wolflike than ever.
Brian’s Commentary
There’s a story here, but it’s way overshadowed by the sideshow acts and musical numbers. This was filmed in Romania, and it’s never quite clear in what year this takes place.
Tim Curry playing an unequivocally good guy? Who knew that was possible?
It’s an interesting take on the usual werewolf story, but it’s also a little on the dull side. I didn’t hate it, but I’d also have a hard time really recommending it.
Kevin’s Commentary
Any movie with Grace Jones in it is automatically at least pretty good. The rest of the freaks, geeks, and oddities were interesting as well. And their take on the werewolf aspect was unique. It still managed to drag a bit here and there. It was entertaining, but not great.
2025 The Sound
Directed by: Brendan Devane
Written by: Brendan Devane
Stars: William Fichtner, Jocelyn Hudon, David Clennon
Run Time: 1 Hour, 44 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
The movie includes real rock climbers, rock climbing drama and stories, and lots of dizzying footage - that part of the movie is impressive if you’re into that. It’s unfortunately pretty low-key on the horror. The story is basic, and most of the acting isn’t very strong. It didn’t appeal to us too much.
Spoilery Synopsis
In 1959, in British Columbia, a man on a mountain hears roaring off in the distance and tries to climb down to escape the thing, which pulls his rope right back up again. He falls. Back in Washington, DC, the report says the mission failed, but they will continue to monitor the area. They will recruit more assets. Credits roll.
In the modern day, much more modern mountain climbers scale the face of a vertical mountain. When they come down, they hear that the “Forbidden Wall” has just been opened after fifty years.
We cut to Kurt and Sean talking over Facetime about making the climb, which’ll be tough, but doable. Sean’s father Conner doesn’t approve; Connor’s own father was the man who died in the pre-credit sequence. Sean explains that he doesn’t really have a choice– he has to do the climb. They wonder why the tribe is allowing access now, all of a sudden, and why only certain people were invited to climb.
Sean drives to the base of the mountain and meets the other climbers. Colton is there, and he’s happy with the weather; he knows this is going to be hard and strange for Sean. No one knows why they’re allowed to climb today, but there’s a good chance no one else will be allowed in the future.
Kerrie wants to climb, but Colt won’t allow it; she has to stay on the ground to coordinate. He says she can go on the next climb, if there is one. They’ve got a guy named “Radio” who does the communications and radio. Colt gives the climbers the rules and restrictions for the climb. Chief Guyustees, the leader or the tribe, reiterates the rules. Brad, Jesse, Lucky, Justin, Emily, Kristen, Sean, and the others get ready. Everyone knows about Sean’s grandfather, who died on this mountain.
Radio reports that he can’t explain all the static on the radio. The first team of two starts climbing anyway. Sean stays with the ground crew as a backup, and he talks to the Chief that night, “You need to finish what your grandfather couldn’t. I’m not talking about the climb. There’s an evil on top of the rock, trying to escape. The legends talk of an evil that came to our world many years ago. It needs two people to escape.” The Chief wants Sean to go up and seal the creature inside the mountain. “Embrace the quiet in your head, and you can defeat it.”
Lucky tells his life story as the climbers’ tent hangs on the straight side of the mountain. In the morning, the climb continues, and everyone suddenly gets a weird vision or hallucination. The radios stop working completely; they’re being jammed.
Kristen and Brad run into some strangeness. Brad is possessed by the creature, and he climbs the rocks like Spider-Man. He chews through her safety line, but before he can kill her, comes to his senses and falls. Kerrie sends Sean and Justin up to help her. Colton wants to continue the climb, leaving Kristen to the two rescuers. We get a climbing montage.
Almost immediately, Justin hurts himself and has to return to camp, leaving Sean to rescue Kristen alone. Kerrie decides to join them to take charge. Chief Guyustees tells her to rescue Justin but not to go any higher.
Radio gets Brad’s helmet-cam and looks at the footage on there. It shows what Brad did, and it’s very weird. He tells Kerrie and Justin, back in camp now, all of this.
Up high, Kristen tells Sean all about what Brad did to her as they camp for the night. He tells her about the evil entity that the Chief told him about.
Lucky wakes up in the middle of the night, and Emily is gone. No, she’s possessed and pulling his lines out of the cliff face. Sean and Kristen hear a terrible noise that wakes them up. Emily ends up falling as well. Lucky, Colton, and Jess argue about what they just saw. Lucky wants to go down, but Colton refuses to go back down.
Radio sends his information to an expert, Bill, who explains that there was something “attached” to the audio signal that shouldn’t be there. He does some audio magic and now they can hear the creature, “Come to me.” They boost the radio and tell the others they all need to come down; Kerrie and Radio believe the monster story now.
Colton radios Sean and Kristen, the three will still try to complete the climb. They abandon Kristen, who is not happy.
Radio suggests that maybe Colton has been possessed. Up on the top of the mountain, Colton admits he’s working for the Agency. Kirsten finishes the climb, and she’s not acting normally. The three sees a weird glowing rock, a meteorite. Suddenly, Lucky shows up with black eyes and attacks them all. It leaves him and goes into Kristen, who kills Lucky.
Down on the ground, the Chief does a ritual. Up high, the rock glows. Suddenly, two magic Indians appear on the mountaintop and fight Kristen. They lose.
Sean hits the magic rock with the Chief’s magic totem, and everyone falls down. Colton says “It’s not over, they’ll never stop,” and then dies.
Sean and Kristen parachute down from the mountaintop.
In Washington, the government guy gets a call saying the Forbidden Wall is clear now. Sean goes home and his parents are happy he survived. He’s got a crazy story…
Meanwhile, back on the mountain, Colton wakes up, not dead and fully possessed.
Brian’s Commentary
If the creature wants to go down, why does it keep attacking the climbers? Why not just behave and ride one out?
In the first ten minutes, I was about to comment on the horrible acting and dialogue, and then I noticed that all the people on-screen were actual famous mountain climbers, not actors. That’s actually kinda cool, especially since they didn’t stick around for the whole film. I assume they were also consultants, as all the mountaineering seems very authentic. The first half hour could have been a documentary.
The cinematography was amazing, lots of drone shots and tense side-of-the-mountain climbing. The acting, except for a few of the experienced actors, was all pretty mediocre. A couple of the actors literally phoned in their roles through videoconferencing.
This is a movie for mountaineering fanatics, not horror movie people. If I were into mountain-climbing, I’d probably love this one, but I’m not, and I didn’t.
Kevin’s Commentary
Much of the rock action and scenery was real, with professional athletes involved in the production. This was basically a climbing movie with some horror elements. And when the Chief did his spell to make two magic Indian warriors appear, I wasn’t really on board with it anymore - that was just silly. It was okay, but not enough horror to satisfy me.
2015 Anarchy Parlor
Directed by: Devon Downs, Kenny Gage
Written by: Devon Downs, Kenny Gage
Stars: Robert LaSardo, Jordan James Smith, Tiffany DeMarco
Run Time: 1 Hour, 38 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was simultaneously quite good and not so good. Robert LaSardo carries the cast. The gore is excellent and often makes you wince in sympathetic pain. But it’s on the slow side for the first hour. We liked it more than we disliked it, but it’s hit and miss.
Spoilery Synopsis
We watch a heavily-tattooed man warming up, and we see many instruments and bottles nearby. And a very bloody table. We cut to Vilnius, Lithuania as the credits roll.
We cut to a dance club with Lithuanian rappers. There is a group of Americans there, and they’re having a gooooood time. The three girls talk about Jesse, Kevin, Brock, and how hot they are. The six Americans are invited to a private house party, and it’s some house.
Amy has to go pee and can’t find an unoccupied bathroom, so she sneaks upstairs. A heavily tattooed woman shows a lot of interest in Brock. She’s Uta, and she’s a tattoo apprentice; she suggests coming to see “The Artist.” Amy goes along with Brock to see the Artist.
They arrive at the parlor, and the Artist comes in. He gets started on Amy’s tat while Uta takes Brock down to the basement for a fun time. After some discussion, Amy picks a “Love Forever” tattoo from the book. Uta injects Brock with something as they have sex. The Artist drugs Amy with a drink. They both pass out.
Brock wakes up in a dungeon operating room, and the Artist has many surgical tools there. He slices off Brock’s pre-exiting tattoo with a scalpel and then peels it right off. He explains that he’s injected them with a paralysis drug. He then cuts off Brock’s ear as Brock screams throughout. The dog gets the ear as a snack.
“The skin is the ultimate canvas,” the Artist explains as he professionally flays a nice rectangle of skin off Brock’s back. It’s… quite graphic. He takes the “canvas” and hands it to Uta to prepare it in the next room. He then cuts Brock more and watches him bleed out.
Meanwhile, Amy and Brock’s other friends have left the club and gone back to the hotel for sex. By morning, they notice that Brock and Amy didn’t come back last night.
The Artist starts working, tattooing Amy’s face. Kevin, Jesse, and the girls arrive in the upstairs parlor looking for their friends, but the Artist says they left around 4 a.m. They leave, but Kelly notices the tattoo from Brock’s arm is hanging in a frame on the wall. Jesse’s being a jealous jerk because he thinks Amy shacked up with Brock somewhere, and he leaves the group. He goes off to a strip club.
Kelly, Stephanie, and Kevin return to the shop and confront Uta. They all go downstairs to look and very quickly, all three are rendered unconscious.
Kelly and Stephanie wake up in the dungeon, but Stephanie’s on the table. The Artist comes in and calms everyone down before announcing that he has to leave to deliver to the Swiss. He leaves everyone in Uta’s hands, but insists that she not hurt Amy.
Uta skins Stephnie like we’ve seen before, but she forgets to use the spatula tool and tears the skin. She gets angry and slices Stephanie’s throat. Meanwhile, the Artist delivers finished products and we see the skin chunks are literally used as a canvas, as it’s got a man’s portrait painted on it now.
Kelly gets looks and fights with Uta and escapes. She runs down the street screaming but is caught and nearly raped and killed by a street gang–until the Artist shows up and shoots them all dead.
The Artist explains the tradition of family portraits on human skin to Amy. “These paintings are priceless. Every painting is a soul. You sit in a gallery of souls.”
Jesse and his stripper friend come to the parlor and talk to Uta. Jesse finds Kevin beaten and hanging from the ceiling as his friend gets knocked out by Uta. He finds Amy, tattooed and tells the Artist, “This wasn’t the deal. Only Brock.” Turns out, Jesse’s got one of those paintings of himself. Jesse and the Artist argue about what to do with Amy, and that goes badly for Jesse.
The Artist unties Amy and tells her that Jesse’s fate is in her hands now. Amy and Uta fight, but Amy’s more motivated this time– and she’s got a baseball bat.
Next thing we see, Amy has Uta chained up and has cut out her tongue. She slices her throat and then goes over to Jesse, who’s on the cutting table. She says his back is perfect and then goes at it with a scalpel.
Some time passes, and Amy’s the Artist’s new apprentice. We see a portrait of Amy on the wall now…
Brian’s Commentary
The gore here is impeccable and very uncomfortable to watch. Other than that, the acting is atrocious from everyone other than Robert LaSardo, who is always fun. It was terribly slow until the last half hour, when it spiced things up a bit. It was hit-and-miss, but overall, I’d say watch it if you like bloody torture porn.
Kevin’s Commentary
Thank goodness Robert LaSardo was in this, I thought he did an excellent job - and in a larger role than he usually gets. The story concept was good and creepy, and the practical effects were nice and juicy. But the supporting cast was on the weak side, and it drags quite a bit for stretches without enough happening.
Short Films:
2025 Short Film Minor Anger Issues
AKA “Küçük Öfke Sorunlari”
Directed by: Can Sagir
Written by: Erdeniz Tunç
Stars: Oguzhan Alton, Ahmet Atakul, Fatih Coskun
Run Time: 6:45
Watch it:
What Happens
Mert’s teacher complains about him always starting fights in school, and that if he keeps this up, he’ll never amount to anything. Mert’s got anger issues since his parents split up; he lives with his older brother now.
Later, the brother talks to Mert about keeping the beast inside under control before going to bed. As the boy tries to get to sleep, he hears something very bad come into the apartment…
Commentary
Sometimes “The Beast Within” is all you’ve got, as Mert and his brother learned. It looks good, it’s well-acted, and it doesn’t really go where we’d expect. And that music over the closing credit’s a banger as well.
It’s low budget, but it shows what you can do with that limitation.
Nice!
2025 Short Film Mary
Directed by: Alexander Chehrazi
Written by: Alexander Chehrazi, Max Markov
Stars: Lanisa Dawn, Alex Gravenstein, Alex DuBois
Run Time: 17:34
Watch it: Not Yet. It’s on the festival circuit
What Happens
A young couple, Tom and Briana, text back and forth about their upcoming date. Later, at the bar, he’s a little late to arrive, but they’ve both been at this online dating thing for a while. They complain that people aren’t “real” online. Still, they like each other, and he invites her to his place. On the way out, she sees someone sketchy in the corner. When she looks again, the stranger is gone.
They head to his place in his car, but she sees that strange man there again, at Tom’s house.
What’s really going on here? Who’s Mary, anyway?
Commentary
This is well shot and the characters are both believable and likable. It gets more and more tense as the suspense builds and we hear more about Briana’s past. Even as we get the explanation, it gets worse and worse until the end.
It’s very good!
2018 Short Film Bathroom Troll
Directed by: Aaron Immediatio
Written by: Aaron Immediatio
Stars: B Sanchez, Melissa Connell, Hannah Gold
Run Time: 16:36
Watch it:
What Happens
Cassie goes to the school restroom, where she overhears the cool girls talking. When they learn she’s in there, they yell at her because she doesn’t look like a girl. This all escalates into a real fight, and Cassie runs home to her mother. Her mother, however, is a hardcore Satanist, and she might know a way to get revenge. Still, is that what Cassie really wants? Is revenge really a good thing?
Commentary
This looks good and is well-acted all around. The girls get what they deserve, and it’s mostly a happy ending for Cassie. It’s got a lot of parallels to “Carrie,” and the similarities between the character names can’t be a coincidence.
The troll looks good and has a few genuinely creepy moments. The whole idea of a bathroom troll is fairly ridiculous, but this isn’t a comedy. I liked this one a lot!
2017 Short Film Skipped
Directed by: Faisal Hashmi
Written by: Faisal Hashmi
Stars: Tarek Ghandour, Ghaleb El Saadi
Run Time: 4:26
Watch it:
What Happens
A man alone in the office late one night. The piles of paper seem to get bigger, not smaller. There’s just not enough time to do all of it. Suddenly, he sneezes, and poof- the paper is already filled out? How did that happen? He tries it again, and it works. He can skip time ahead!
What could go wrong?
Commentary
If this was actual time travel, then he’d have had to actually do that work at some point, right? Then again, it’s never a good idea to think too hard about time travel– it might give you a nosebleed.
This fun, nicely made international short has no dialogue, but you can always tell exactly what’s happening.
It’s fun!
2025 Short Film Chomp
Directed by: Cricket Arrison, Suki-Rose Simakis
Written by: Cricket Arrison, Suki-Rose Simakis
Stars: Cricket Arrison, DeMorge Brown, Kate Freund
Run Time: 9 Minutes
Watch it:
What Happens
We watch as two newscasters read us the evening news. They do the usual witty banter and then sign off. We then cut to a woman in the dark who repeats everything they say. She’s a little weird. On the next broadcast, we see that she’s an intern at the station.
Things are about to get a lot weirder…
Commentary
We don’t get much of an explanation in this one, but it’s pretty clear what’s going on. It’s well shot and looks good; the dialogue isn’t great, but that’s probably intentional to show how “fake” the news reporting is.
I’d like to think this was all in the studio next door to “Late Night with the Devil.”
It’s great!
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