Many years ago, a young Cole (Jordan Kronis) was more interested in playing video games than helping his little sister put up the Christmas lights. While trying to string lights on the roof, his sister accidentally hung herself right outside Cole’s bedroom window. While at the funeral, Cole is haunted by the previously mentioned lucha Christmas spirit (Nicolas Grimes), who is banished to haunt Cole until he can find forgiveness for the death of his sister....

Forget working for free. Bobby has an opportunity to meet up with Penny (Noelle Smith), a girl he just met. Bobby needs X and Flip as his wingmen for Penny’s other friends, Cupcake (Jordan Webber) and Freddie (Ayana Ferguson), as blind dates. Their meetup takes place at the Higher Grounds coffee shop, and the six teens muddle their way through awkward conversation, but through an extraordinary set of circumstances, the three boys and girls pair up in a very safe romance....

Picture Mark in your head: He has long frizzy blondish hair, which is as crazy and untamed as his carefree personality. His large, bushy beard emanates from his pen-like chin. He wears a red polo shirt and denim blue jeans. Piercing bright blue eyes gaze at you while gentle creases adorn his forehead. “I don’t think of myself as an eccentric,” Mark tells us. “I saw these wild parrots. They were a big mystery to me, and I wanted to find out who they were....

Raymond claims he can help Jon, thanks to something called Electronic Voice Phenomenon, or EVP. According to the premise of EVP, the dead can communicate with the living via detuned radios and televisions. Raymond plays Jon a static-heavy tape which he, in the interest of plot mechanics, immediately accepts as proof of Anna’s postmortem existence (I was more reminded of the good old days, when parents’ groups spent hours listening to heavy metal albums backwards in the hopes of hearing secret Satanic messages)....

The plot’s nothing new. A beer-guzzling slob (Daniel Ballard) abuses his beautiful wife (Gillian Moura) and she’s had enough. But just as she’s about to pull the trigger and blow him away, two thugs looking for a hefty sum of stolen cash beat her to it. Or do they? As always, I’m extremely critical of short narrative movies, and can usually find some tiny flaw that weakens the story—but not this time....

But this trip to San Diego was a little more special. Regular long-time readers of the site will remember the trip I made to the San Diego Asian Film festival a couple years ago. I came back with a report of great films and an all-around amazing group of people that put on this classy event. Just goes to show how far a well thought out goodie bag will get you....

Nurse Faith (Chrissy Metz) keeps her troubled comic-drawing daughter, Charm (Annalise Basso), away from society and on pills. Faith believes that her daughter has seizures and turns into a beast when her temperature gets too hot or cold. One night, two burglars (Scout Taylor-Compton and Connor Paolo) attempt to rob the home on Christmas. Unbeknownst to them, the thieves’ intrusion unlocks a long-kept family secret, and a monster rears up to pursue the two home invaders....

So, it comes as no surprise that Gaty would finally team up with his longtime friend – another notorious nice guy – horror film legend George A. Romero to undertake one of the most unusual, ambitious and fan-friendly film projects ever conceived. The film is “Diamond Dead,” a nearly indescribable mix of horror, comedy and rock ‘n’ roll (courtesy of “Rocky Horror Picture Show” composer Richard Hartley). The story, formulated by genre artist Brian Cooper and rewritten by Romero, about a rock band that returns from the dead redefines the term high concept, but the truly revolutionary thing about “Diamond Dead” may be the fan driven approach that the filmmakers have taken with pre-production and promotion with the Diamond Dead” website....

Vinny (Gianni McLaughlin) breaks down in a church. The priest, Father Joe (Joesph McLaughlin), agrees to hear the man’s confessions. Thus Vinny describes his juvenile delinquency. Eventually, a relative offers the man a chance to make some real money. Vinny does a good job, which puts him in with The Don (Paris Branda). But as the years go by, The Don demands more and more, forcing Vinny to sacrifice his love (Milly-May McLaughlin) and his soul....

The dramatic crime tale takes us into Crow and Coyote’s waiting game. As the pair waits for the money to arrive, which feels like an eternity, Crow frets over the fact that the others are not coming because of Coyote’s fatal actions. All the while, Coyote is working hard to keep his short temper at bay. Writer/director Derek Sitter wrestles with America’s wealth disparity as it exists today — a problem not so different from the time of Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and Grapes of Wrath....

The movie takes the form of a domestic whodunit, and as Roth (played by Colin Hanks) attempts to solve the mystery, he ventures out of his protective bubble and back into the world. Roth carries around the smelly digit like a talisman, and his investigations lead him to such exotic locales as his neighbor’s apartment, the local mini-storage, and a sketchy taxidermy shop. Along the way he reconnects with and is aided by his best friend and his slovenly father (Tony Shalhoub)....

Code Red: Diaries of Madness is the story of Code Red Lifestyle founder Cristy Nickel. At the age of 46, the now famous life coach decided to return to her former passion of bodybuilding and compete in the Arnold Classic after an over decade-long hiatus. The first question that came to my mind was, “Why?” and the second question was whether it was even possible. Code Red accompanies Cristy on her journey to a historic return to the bodybuilding stage....

As a first-time director, did you experience any difficulty both starring in the movie and running the show behind the camera? No. It was blast. There were times when we would argue, but that’s to be expected. What was the budget (roughly) and exactly how did you secure the money? After the Sundance screenwriter’s lab a lot of film companies were interested in reading my script. None of them liked it....

Creatures of Necessity opens thirteen days after the kidnapping of fallen actor Isabella Costini (Mindy Gilkerson). Drugged at a party, Isabella finds herself tied to a chair with three “parasites” (as she calls them) arguing amongst themselves over their next move. Her kidnappers, code-named Platinum (Dane Oliver), Diamond (Andrew John Morrison), and Nitro (Isaiah Locust), are in a panic because the job was only supposed to last four days, and they’d be paid $1 million once it’s done....

At the local Peoria post office, Ann (Micki Jackson) and Bess (Susan Priver) are looking over mail with indecipherable addresses. In one envelope, they come across a necklace and take it to Jasper (Tomas Boykin), their expert at finding where mail is meant to belong. He calls up his friend Renee (Nick Heyman), who manages to whittle down the options to just a small handful of names. The next day, Jasper is looking into the note from the prologue when someone bursts into his office and kills him....

Dog Spelled Backwards allows Tim to tell his story and dive into the story of the dogs he trains. Working with dogs is a philosophical experience for Tim. Each training session or moment working with these animals brings further enlightenment and joy into Tim’s life. Director Richie “Abstrak” Soto captures these inspirational moments by allowing Tim to elaborate on his relationship with each dog while featuring tons of footage of each dog bringing positivity to Tim’s worldview....

Anne de Carbuccia first became an environmental artist through her father, the publisher of famed ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau. Her interactions with Cousteau inspired her to visit the most troubled locations in the world and create art installations at each spot called Time Shrines, involving an hourglass and a skull representing life. Her goal is to document how our planet changes by showing what we have, what we’re about to lose, and what we’ve already lost....

https://twitter.com/FortniteGame/status/1125052534836617216 With that in mind, it is perhaps unsurprising that the title has emerged as one of the new ways that Hollywood studios are looking to promote their next big blockbusters. In recent months a special event was held in the game related to the release of Avengers: Endgame, while a special set of items related to John Wick were also issued to mark the launch of John Wick 3: Parabellum....

Film Threat has been reviewing films for 23 years, and we plan on continuing to do so. With over 11,000 reviews since the inception of the website alone, our policy has always been “you send it in, we’ll review it.” Pretty simple, right? That’s not going to change, but we do need to modify how films are sent to us. In the past, folks have just sent their films to the Film Threat headquarters, with no real guidelines....

Sitting through Gareth Edwards’ (Monsters) lumbering, muddled Godzilla certainly is no party. We could spend all day listing its shortcomings but how’s this for starters: the guest of honor is an hour late. This is the 28th feature to star the lizard king so you might imagine they’d have this down to a science. You’d be wrong. The latest makes Roland Emmerich’s maligned 1998 update look like Alien. Which is fitting because the real stars are a pair of giant mantis mutants that look like they were inspired by a Giger doodle....