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Chicago – Another Chicago creator has a World Premiere. Alyssa Thordarson, who makes her director debut with Michael Glover Smith, will present the short “Paper Planes” at the AfterImage Film Fest on April 15, 2023.

In “Paper Planes” a woman (Shaina Schrooten) – who suffers from agoraphobia – and the Airbnb guest across the hall (Thordarson), strike up a correspondence that becomes something more during the Christmas season. The short film was written by Ms. Thordarson and co-directed by Chicago indie film favorite Michael Glover Smith (“Relative”). “Paper Planes” also marks Alyssa’s directorial debut. Click Paper Planes for information and tickets for the World Premiere.

Alyssa Thordarson Makes Her Directorial Debut with ‘Paper Planes’

Photo credit: AlyssaThordarson.com

First-generation Icelandic/American, Alyssa Thordarson grew up in the Midwest, and studied at The Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York City and at Columbia College Chicago. Her debut screenplay “After (A Love Story...

Horror is, without question, still the backbone of cinema, even as cinema struggles in these uncertain times. This year saw a number of wins for the genre; original movies like Smile, Barbarian, and X and its prequel Pearl achieved both critical acclaim and box office success, and franchises like Scream, Predator and Hellraiser were all reignited with praised returns.

Like last year, there were a lot of horror movies to watch in 2022. This resulted in movies slipping through the cracks as the year continued, and bigger releases held the spotlight.

These ten hidden gems might have been overlooked at the time, but it’s never too late to discover them.

An Ideal Host

“An Ideal Host”

After circulating at multiple film festivals for a good two years, the Australian horror-comedy An Ideal Host quietly surfaced on streaming platforms this year. Robert Woods and Tyler Jacob Jones‘ offbeat collaboration amassed a...

Stars: Jeremy King, Maria Olsen, Joshua Miller, Stef Estep-Gozalo, Shaina Schrooten, Steph Barkley, Chelsey Grant, Jack Hartwig, Haley Bishop, Jemma Moore, Caroline Ward, Emma Louise Webb, Radina Drandova, Graham Skipper, Kelli Maroney | Written by Alexandra Barreto, John Karsko, Jed Shepherd, Aaron B. Koontz, Cameron Burns | Directed by Alexandra Barreto, Anthony Cousins, Jed Shepherd, Rachele Wiggins

Scare Package II: Rad Chad’s Revenge picks up where the original Scare Package left off at Rad Chad’s funeral. But this isn’t going to be a normal funeral because shortly after Moria wheels in a TV and Vcr, the mourners find out that Chad has a surprise for them, four short films each with a test after it.

Set on New Years Eve 1989, “Welcome to the 90s” written and directed by Alexandra Barreto (Lady Hater) is a spoof on slasher films that sees Tony the Killer pass up the ladies of Sure...

Written by Tim Seeley and Michael Moreci, Revealer will be available exclusively on Shudder on Thursday, June 23rd. We caught up with director Luke Boyce for our latest Q&a, who talked about his work with Tim Seeley and Michael Moreci to develop this project, filming the movie during the pandemic, working with an incredible cast, and he gives an update on the Revival movie:

How did this project come about, and can you talk about working with Tim Seeley and Michael Moreci to tell this story?

Tim Seeley and I have been working together for some time and wanted to do something original and smaller, and we had developed a couple of projects with Michael Moreci. So when Covid happened, and we went into quarantine, we all started discussing the possibilities of developing a story that we could make within Covid restrictions. We started talking to our producers, Sarah Sharp and Brett Hays,...

What better setting for a Biblical apocalypse than an XXX novelty shop with peep show booths picketed by religious zealots who, more often than not, protest as a means of projecting their own internalized “sins”? That’s where we meet Angie Pitarelli (Caito Aase) and Sally Mewbourne (Shaina Schrooten) at the start of director Luke Boyce and screenwriters Michael Moreci and Tim Seeley’s Revealer. The former is heading inside to take an extra shift. The latter is screaming at her to repent. These women have a fun (if acrimonious) rapport considering they’ve been at this dance for what we can assume is years as neither gains any ground. Angie isn’t going to quit her job and Sally isn’t going to quit God. Sadly, neither will save them from judgment.

Isn’t that the rub? Whether you lead a carefree lifestyle refusing to kowtow to those who...

Stars: Caito Aase, Shaina Schrooten, Bishop Stevens | Written by Michael Moreci, Tim Seeley | Directed by Luke Boyce

Angie Pitarelli and Sally Mewbourne (Shaina Schrooten; Scare Package II: Rad Chad’s Revenge) know each other, but they aren’t exactly friends. Angie works a peep booth at The Revealers Bookstore. Sally spends a lot of time there too, only she’s protesting against this den of inequity.

It’s summer 1987 and Angie has picked up an extra shift to help with the bills. This means an extra day of dealing with not just Sally but her boss Ray and a parade of obnoxious patrons. But she’ll soon be wishing that was all she had to deal with as she and Sally are trapped in the store as what seems to be Armageddon unfolds outside.

Director Luke Boyce working from a script co-written by a pair of comic writers Michael Moreci...

Angie (Caito Aase) is a stripper who makes her living in the Revealers bookstore and peep show. Sally (Shaina Schrooten) is a fundamentalist Christian who routinely protests outside it. One day, when unexpected events plunge the wider world into chaos, the two find themselves trapped together in adjoining peep show booths. Can they put their differences aside and help each other to escape? Is there anywhere to escape to? If we wander through the tunnels beneath the building for long enough, will writer/director Luke Boyce find any additional ideas?

There’s a curious coyness about this Shudder original, which clothes itself in the garb of exploitation cinema but then has its stripper heroine keep all of her underwear on, without even hinting at its removal. Even the blood and gore is pretty tame by genre standards. The mutated penis ‘snakes’ which appear in due course are fairly well rendered but we’ve seen.

As we exclusively told you last week, the apocalyptic, neon-soaked horror movie Revealer has been picked up by Shudder, set to premiere in the US and beyond on June 23. Director Luke Boyce‘s Revealer stars Caito Aase (Black Mold) and Shaina Schrooten (Scare Package II: Rad Chad’s Revenge). Watch the official Revealer trailer down below! In the film, “What started […]

The post ‘Revealer’ Trailer – Shudder and ‘Hack/Slash’ Creator Take You Back to 1987 This Summer appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.