Doug Jones – Missile Test

Filmmaker Mike Flanagan has made quite a career for himself in horror, having now racked up an impressive filmography as a writer, director, editor, and producer. His credits include a pair of well-received Stephen King adaptations and some excellent single-season television shows. He began, like many other artists, from humble beginnings. Flanagan’s first feature-length film was Absentia, which had a budget of around $70,000, and was partially funded through a successful Kickstarter campaign.

Absentia follows sisters Tricia and Callie (Courtney Bell and Katie Parker). Life hasn’t been easy for the two. Callie, in desperate need of stability, is a recovering drug addict who has come to stay with Tricia in Glendale, California. Meanwhile, Tricia is married, but her husband, Daniel (Morgan Peter Brown), has been missing for the past seven years, and it’s time to have him declared dead in absentia so she can collect on his life insurance policy, get the creditors off her back, and move on with her life. Oh, she’s also into her third trimester, the father being Detective Mallory (Dave Levine), who has been handling her husband’s missing persons case. That is some drama. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Absentia”

Sundays are usually pretty slow for me. The day and evening tend to drift by, lost in the newspaper, a book, televised sports, leisurely cooking, and the occasional shitty movie. It was late one Sunday that I came across an awful latter-day Godzilla film dubbed into Spanish (that I subsequently reviewed, along with its sequel). I usually get all heavy thinking out of the way before the sun goes down, and a mindless movie is a great complement to the relaxed nature of a Sunday evening. Paradoxically, this past Sunday’s fare, while mindless, was also frenetic and violent. But it was enough to satisfy the craving for bad cinema that I think all of us have a weak spot for. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Doom”