Gregory Hatanaka’s A Man Is Dead is an indie crime drama that refuses to play by traditional rules. On paper, it’s about a man pushed to the brink by betrayal and violence, leading him down a path of vengeance. But in execution, it’s far more than a genre exercise—it’s a restless, experimental meditation on guilt, regret, and the role of the artist in confronting mortality.
Read MoreBigfoot: Primal Encounter (2025)
Directed by Jamie Grefe, produced by Gregory Hatanaka, and shot with gritty intensity by Kevin Stevenson, Bigfoot: Primal Encounter is not your average creature feature. While its title teases cryptozoological thrills, what emerges is a strange and engrossing hybrid of backwoods thriller, gothic melodrama, and grindhouse-inspired horror. The film centers on Steve Walker, a hapless journalist better known for writing an advice column than breaking hard news.
Read MoreShadow Death (2025)
Chris Spinelli’s Shadow Death is a brooding, atmospheric horror feature that blends small-town paranoia with a surreal dive into medical experimentation and criminal underworld intrigue. What begins as a standard slasher premise—an unknown killer dragging victims into the void of shadows—quickly spirals into something more ambitious, weaving threads of science gone wrong, drug trafficking, and supernatural menace. The story centers on Detective Taylor, who, alongside Detective Solace, finds himself unraveling a mystery that is far bigger than the string of disappearances terrorizing Emerson.
Read MoreBoiling Point (2024)
Gregory Hatanaka’s Boiling Point, co-written with Jamie Grefe, is a searing indie crime thriller that brings both grit and chaos to the screen. Starring Gio Drasconi as Michael, a desperate bar owner fighting to keep his livelihood, and Luca Toumadi as Sidney, his closest ally turned potential liability, the film immerses viewers in a world where mob pressures, paranoia, and betrayal intersect. At its core, the story is simple yet effective: Michael’s bar is barely surviving, and when the mob decides it wants control, his life spirals into a storm of threats, shifting loyalties, and violent ultimatums.
Read MoreDreams for Lease (2025)
Rob Roy’s Dreams for Lease arrives as a chilling blend of sci-fi and horror, a film that is as unsettling for its ideas as it is for its imagery. At its heart, the movie asks a provocative question: what if even our most private refuge—sleep—was no longer our own? The story follows Maya, a woman plagued by relentless nightmares.
Read MoreWarren County (2025)
Frank Palangi’s Warren County is a lean, unsettling indie horror-thriller that thrives on atmosphere, tension, and a sense of dread creeping through the cracks of small-town life. With a brisk 62-minute runtime, the film wastes no time plunging its audience into a patchwork of serial killings, strange encounters, and unnerving performances that give the quiet New York countryside an aura of menace. The film unfolds as an anthology of interconnected stories, anchored by the voice of “Just Rick,” a true-crime podcaster who tries to piece together the grisly history of murders in the region.
Read MoreEnter the Samurai: Making of Samurai Cop 2 (2020)
Enter the Samurai, directed by Brent Baisley, is a raw and often chaotic behind-the-scenes chronicle of the unlikely resurrection of Samurai Cop, a film once relegated to the annals of so-bad-it’s-good cinema. At just under an hour, this documentary captures the messy, passionate, and frequently absurd process of making Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance. While the sequel itself was divisive, this making-of film is arguably far more compelling than the movie it documents.
Read MoreGirl Upstairs (2024)
Kevin Van Stevenson’s Girl Upstairs is a haunting, slow-burn thriller that blurs the line between fantasy, trauma, and isolation. Written by John Gee, the film introduces us to Dulce, a reclusive artist who has shut herself away in an apartment above a movie theater. What begins as a quiet portrait of agoraphobia soon spirals into a surreal meditation on creation, obsession, and the fragile boundary between safety and danger.
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