In Cold Light feels like it wandered in from a different decade. Not in a cosplay way, not drenched in retro fetishism, but in tone. It carries that lean, mean, morally murky energy of a late-night cable thriller from the 70s or 80s.
Read MoreSlow Burn, Sharp Sting: No-See-Ums Finds Its Bite in the Final Act
No-See-Ums takes its time getting where it’s going, sometimes too much time, but when it finally decides to bite, it lands a surprisingly satisfying sting. At first, this feels like familiar horror territory. College kids, spring break, a remote location, and the slow realization that something is very wrong.
Read MoreHulk Smash… and Slice: Lou Ferrigno Goes Full Texas Chainsaw in The Hermit
When conventions started taking over Houston, I was all in. It felt like someone had cracked open a portal to my childhood and dumped it into a giant convention center. Booth after booth of collectibles, artists sketching your favorite characters on the spot, panels filled with people whose voices practically raised you.
Read MorePour One Out for Logic: The Napa Boys and the Joy of Total Absurdity
From the jump, The Napa Boys feels like it starts halfway through its own mythology. Not in a clever mystery box way, but in a what did I miss and was I supposed to already love these people kind of way. The movie drops you into wine country with zero patience for orientation, which is either part of the joke or a dare to the audience to catch up or get out of the way.
Read MoreClovers: Slots, Meth, and the American Hangover
Premiering at Slamdance Film Festival 2026, Clovers drops us into Asheboro, North Carolina, once labeled the fastest-dying city in America, and refuses to let us look away. Directed over a multi-year stretch by Jacob Hatley and Tom Vickers, the film centers on a quasi-legal strip mall casino and the orbit of people who land there when other structures collapse. What sounds like a gimmick becomes something heavier.
Read MoreThe Boy With the Floppy Hair: A Love Letter to Almost
Some short films try to tell a story. This one tries to bottle a feeling. The Boy With the Floppy Hair plays less like a traditional narrative and more like a whispered confession set to moving images. It is closer to a music video than a plot-driven short, built on impressionistic fragments of New York City and the ache of something that never quite becomes what you want it to be.
Read MoreA Thousand Characters, Infinite Swords: Blades of the Guardians Goes for Broke
There is a certain kind of movie you discover as a teenager, usually late at night, half burned onto a DVD, that permanently rewires your brain. For me, that was stuff like Iron Monkey 2 and Legend of the Drunken Master. Movies where the plot barely mattered as long as the fights ripped.
Read MoreThe Ugly Isn’t Easy, and That’s the Point
The Ugly lets you know immediately that it is not interested in comfort. From its opening moments, there is a quiet wrongness hanging over everything, the kind that does not announce itself with shock but with unease. This is a film that settles in slowly and refuses to leave, trading momentum for mood and patience for dread.
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