At just over three minutes, including credits, Daphne has very little time to establish itself. Rather than rushing toward a scare, writer-director Ryan McGee, better known online as Caulkdraggin, spends almost all of that runtime creating a feeling that something is fundamentally wrong. The film opens through the eyes of Joshua as he speaks with Professor Caulkdraggin, who describes Daphne in glowing terms.
Read MoreCrack, Cash, and Chaos: Heat Score Is Pure Underground Mayhem
One of the biggest mistakes a movie like Heat Score could make would be pulling its punches. Thankfully, directors and brothers Robert and Devin Burkosky never even consider it. Part crime comedy, part exploitation throwback, and part fever dream tour through Edmonton's seedy underbelly, Heat Score feels like it landed somewhere between a Troma production and the wave of retro genre parodies that have become increasingly popular in recent years.
Read MoreWhen Healing Hurts: Archangel Delivers an Emotional Gut Punch
For more than a decade, filmmaker Sam Platizky and his team at Narrow Bridge Films have built a reputation through comedy, horror, and the occasional hybrid of the two. With Archangel, however, Platizky takes an unexpected turn into dramatic territory, delivering a deeply personal and emotionally grounded short film that feels less interested in spectacle than in something far more challenging: compassion.
Read MoreGuerrilla Metropolitana's Dariuss Is a Fever Dream You Survive, Not Watch
"The most important questions are the unanswered ones." Take a moment to let that sink in. Then forget everything you think you know about horror cinema and press play on Dariuss.
Read MoreData Not Drama Finds Heart Inside the Algorithm
For someone whose entire life exists online, Jenessa Miller spends much of Data Not Drama profoundly alone. Writer-director David Ramer's intimate sci-fi drama follows the influencer behind the wildly successful "Data Not Drama" brand, a woman who has built a career sharing herself with millions while carefully withholding the parts that matter most. What begins as a clever satire of content culture gradually evolves into something far more affecting: a story about loneliness, vulnerability, companionship, and the universal desire to be understood.
Read MoreIsabel Hagen Strikes a Perfect Note in On a String
There are funny movies, and then there are movies that catch you so completely off guard that you find yourself laughing harder than you have in months. On a String belongs firmly in that second category. Written, directed by, and starring Isabel Hagen, the Tribeca Best Screenplay winner follows a Juilliard-trained violist attempting to navigate New York's classical music scene while still living at home and trying to figure out what adulthood is supposed to look like.
Read MoreThe Legend of Van Dorn Review: A Civil War Drama That Finds the Man Behind the Myth
Historical dramas often succeed or fail based on whether they can make familiar events feel fresh. The Legend of Van Dorn, directed by Shane Stanley, takes a different route by focusing on a fascinating Civil War figure who remains largely unknown outside history circles. The result is an engaging period drama that blends military strategy, romance, ambition, and tragedy into a story that feels both intimate and consequential.
Read MoreThe Benefactress: The Dirtiest Mirror in the Room
I'll be honest: The Benefactress is not the kind of film I would normally gravitate toward. Had director Guerrilla Metropolitana not personally reached out and asked for an honest, open-minded opinion, it's likely this would have remained outside my radar. After watching it, however, I found myself unable to dismiss it.
Read MorePure Scum Is a Relentless Descent Into Privilege, Panic, and Self-Destruction
From the moment Pure Scum begins, it wraps you in a cloud of dread. There is an immediate sense of discomfort and uncertainty hanging over every scene, as though something terrible is always waiting just around the corner. That feeling never really lets up. Instead, writer-director Gideon Aroni's debut feature keeps tightening the screws, building constant rising action that leaves you wondering not if things will get worse, but how much worse they possibly can.
Read MoreLockjaw Is the Most Awkward Hangout Movie You’ll See This Year
There's a version of reality where Lockjaw becomes one of those beloved cult indies everyone swears they discovered first. The kind of movie that would have had its trailer playing before every Miramax release in the late '90s until it slowly wormed its way into the consciousness of a certain type of film fan. Watching Sabrina Greco's debut feature, it's hard not to imagine it existing in that timeline.
Read MoreHigh Body Count, Low Ambition: The Boy from Below
Horror fans of a certain age will immediately understand what The Boy from Below is trying to do. Set largely on Halloween night in 1997, the film follows video store clerk Quinn Curtis as a masked killer begins turning slasher movies into reality. Director Tory Jones has described the project as a tribute to the video store era and the classic slashers that shaped his love of filmmaking, and that passion is evident from the opening frame.
Read MoreInside the Madhouse (1887): When AI Filmmaking Meets Nellie Bly's Fearless True Story
There are stories from history so astonishing that they barely need embellishment. Nellie Bly's 1887 undercover investigation of New York's Women's Lunatic Asylum is one of them. At just 23 years old, Bly deliberately convinced authorities she was insane, allowing herself to be committed so she could expose the abuse, neglect, and inhumane conditions hidden behind the institution's locked doors.
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