Indonesian horror has been receiving some attention in recent years, mostly thanks to some pretty good entries from the country. So it is not surprising that the said country’s highest-grossing local film is from the horror genre. KKN di Desa Penari currently holds the title of the highest-grossing film in Indonesian history. Sadly, the film’s

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TikTok dances emanate eerily around you, a cacophony of booming cackles emit from influencers as they forcefully push their latest merch (that was most likely made in some far-off, exploitative sweatshop factory), internet challenges beckon you to push your physical and mental health to the brink for ‘views’…welcome to 2023. In recent years, the found

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Eric Schaller’s latest anthology, Voice of the Stranger, starts with a foreword exploring the birth of its title. Deftly put Schaller explains, “The title for my collection is taken from the song ‘Green Pastures’. The relevant lines read, “We will not heed to the voice of the stranger, for he would lead us on to

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The Helios Syndrome

The Helios Syndrome is a 2023 supernatural thriller novella penned from the mind of Vivian Shaw. Born in Kenya, Vivian moved to the US, where she earned a BA in art history, an MFA in creative writing and publishing arts, and currently works as a professional freelance editor and proofreader. She is most notable as

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  Despite being one of Japan’s biggest film studios throughout the late 40s and 50s during the golden age of Japanese cinema, Daiei was struggling by the mid-60s and had to slash budgets for their productions. This eventually led to a merger with Nikkatsu in 1970, followed by bankruptcy in 1971. Somewhat overlooked is Daiei’s

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There is something about bad media that can be extremely attractive in some cases. Why The Room is still revered while The Exorcist II is panned? This fine line between so-good-it-is-bad and please-kill-it-with-fire-bad is still baffling. Maybe because we have always tried to make sense of this oddity, we end up being drawn to absolute

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Audition 1999

Audition (1999) is the scariest movie of all time. I say that without hesitation or hyperbole. No other director is as effective with their imagery as Takashi Miike is here, and no other film elicits fright as consistently on a tenth viewing as the first. The film is a delightful descent into madness executed nigh

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perfect blue book

Paraphrasing the words of a certain author, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a book will be almost always better than its movie adaptation. Yes, almost always because, despite the clear propensity of the written source being much more interesting and developed, sometimes flukes happen and the movie is indeed superior. That is why

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Bite is a 2022 British horror thriller, written and directed by James Owen, with additional writing from Tom Critch. Although a trained trauma surgeon, James started creating short films around 2017 with the comedy short Jaffacakes (2017), with Bite being James’ feature-length debut. After a failed robbery of a dog fighting ring, young con artists

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Give Me Pity

“Ever try to lose yourself? No! Because you’re too busy trying to find yourself.”      -Sissy St. Claire Subversive feminist filmmaker Amanda Kramer returned to this year’s Fantastic Fest with a bizarre journey into the dark soul of one woman’s struggle for identity.  Visually astounding, GIVE ME PITY! takes the form of a prime-time,

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