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The American Civil War provides a landscape of ready-made horror, a canvas of human cruelty that needs no supernatural embellishment. Resurrection Road begins on this familiar, blood-soaked ground. It presents Barabbas, a man who escaped the shackles of slavery only to find himself in the chains of the Union army, imprisoned and facing a court-martial.

His racist commanders present him with a choice that is no choice at all: lead a small unit of Black soldiers on a suicide mission into the Arkansas mountains or face the hangman’s rope. The objective is to silence the guns of Fort Defiance, a Confederate stronghold from which no Union soldier has ever returned. His reward for success is the oft-promised, seldom-delivered dream of 40 acres and a mule.

The film establishes a grim bargain, where freedom is a commodity to be earned through impossible odds, hinting that the cannons and rifles of the...

Prolific Oklahoma-based helmer Mickey Reece – now at Fantasia with “Country Gold” – will join forces with “It Follows” producer David Kaplan on his upcoming feature “The Cool Tenor,” Variety has found out exclusively.

The film, set in a vaguely dystopian future and co-written by John Selvidge, sees a retired widow who weds an unstable jazz enthusiast but becomes obsessed with avenging her late husband’s death.

“It’s more of a thriller, but it’s still funny. You will never have to worry about me making a serious movie,” assures Reece, intending to keep his signature sense of humor intact.

“I didn’t know I had a unique sense of humor until people told me that. Essentially, I try to turn every movie into a comedy. It has always been about the same thing for me: ‘What can we do to have fun?,” he says.

Currently casting and looking to shoot later this fall,...

Those uncertain just how seriously Paul Verhoeven intended us to take the alternately earnest and lurid nunsploitation of “Benedetta” will be even more flummoxed by Mickey Reece’s “Agnes.” , in addition to being too underdeveloped and tonally wobbly to satisfy in themselves.

Unlike the squirrelly genre-bender that was the director’s last feature, “Climate of the Hunter,” conceptually near-random “Agnes” does not find its own singular terms to work within. Viewers lured in by the horror-movie marketing will be particularly irked by this bait-and-switch oddity, which Magnet releases to limited U.S. theaters and VOD on Dec. 10.

When a young nun suddenly begins ranting obscenities in a “demonic” voice at a Carmelite convent, the bishop informs Father Donaghue (Ben Hall) that he must attend to the situation. He’s been trained for such possession cases but is most reluctant to go, as he doesn’t “really believe in this medieval woo-woo” anymore,...

Agnes begins how any other possession film might––with the discovery of a demonic presence. When the convent of Saint Theresa fear there’s evil inhabiting the body of one of their young nuns, they outsource help from the diocese. Things quickly, expectedly start to unravel from there. But director Mickey Reece wants you to forget everything you know about possession and exorcism in film––or, well, maybe not. Because part of what makes his new feature Agnes work so beautifully is its very upending of expectations for that particular horror subgenre. With over twenty-five feature films thus far, spanning his career since 2008 as a lower-budget indie darling––and who impressed with a wider reach with last year’s Fantasia staple Climate of the Hunter––Reece makes clear how films like The Conjuring franchise have been failing us. Reece (alongside co-writer John Selvidge) has crafted a disarming, funny, incredibly unique...

Submit your vote for Reviewer of the Year!

Every year, the Classic Horror Film Board recognizes the best in the horror/sci-fi/fantasy realm with the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards. Fans of the genre can vote for their favorites in over thirty categories, and this year, Cinelinx would like to ask you to vote for one of our own, staff writer Victor Medina, as Reviewer of the Year (Category 29)! We've even included the ballot below so you can vote!

Votes must be submitted by copying and pasting the ballot into your personal email, making your choices, including your name, and sending it in. Votes for Reviewer of the Year are write-in only, so you must be sure to include Vic's name yourself under Category 29 when you vote. Pre-filled ballots are not allowed, so we can't do it for you! Remember, you must write in "Victor Medina, Cinelinx.com" yourself.