Festivals and Conventions

Being a long-time fan of Ralph Bakshi, a subversive and controversial animation director known for using the technique of rotoscoping, I had high hopes for the SXSW 2021 screening of The Spine of Night, his new animated film. When I heard it had a similar dark science fantasy tone to …

It’s always exciting to see what the next generation of filmmakers has in store for us. At this year’s SXSW Film Festival, we were graced with the Texas High School shorts block, an entire film block made by a group of enterprising Lone Star high school students. Beyond the Model …

Kicking off my auspicious start to the 2021 SXSW Film Festival screenings is a film I immensely anticipated. Sound of Violence, the feature film debut from writer and director Alex Noyer, shook me in ways I could’ve never imagined.  Conjured from his short, Conductor, Noyer molds a maniacal narrative with …

I recently had the privilege of watching Paul Dood’s Deadly Lunch Break, which premiered at SXSW 2021. This is a phenomenal dark comedy directed by Nick Gillespie (read our interview with him HERE) and was co-written by himself, Brook Driver, and Matt White. The film stars Tom Meeten (read our …

Synopsis for A Black Rift Begins to Yawn: Through a mysterious circumstance, two former classmates come into possession of their deceased professor’s set of cassette tapes, which possibly contain recordings of strange signals from beyond the stars. As the women dig into the recordings, they begin to feel memories, the …

Recently, I had the opportunity to watch the documentary, Morgana, for the San Francisco Indie Fest 2021. I believe that pornography films, especially in the United States, are more times than not associated with being “dirty.” That wasn’t the vibe I got from the synopsis at all, and this is …

Revenge horror is one of the trickiest subjects to pull off in a unique way to break the typical film formula. My favorite film of the last year was Promising Young Woman, so I knew when picking which short block to write for The Final Girls Berlin Film Festival this …

A few years back, I reviewed Jill Gevargizian’s (check out our interview with her HERE) horror short drama, The Stylist, for Women in Horror Month (read that review here) and fell in love with it. When I heard it was being made into a full-length feature, I knew it was …

One of the really cool things I get to do here at PopHorror is review films. Short films are my absolute favorites. Combine that with one of the best festivals out there and I am so in! I easily picked the short film block, Cabin Fever-Isolation Horror, for the Final …

New year, new movies! I’m so excited to start 2021 with one of my favorite fests, the Final Girls Berlin Film Festival. This year, they’re screening 12 Hour Shift a film I’ve been wanting to see since I first read another PopHorror writer’s thoughts on it. The trailer is chock full …