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Jessica Belkin (Pretty Little Liars) plays a small-town gal on the edge in Last Straw, filmmaker Alan Scott Neals edgy debut horror thriller. Expect plenty of blood and several jaw-dropping twists as Belkins desperate character, Nancy, hangs on for dear life after a group of masked assailants make a surprise visit while shes working the night shift at a rural diner. But Belkin welcomes gritty film and TV roles in stories filled with jump scares and psychological pivots. In a recent MovieWeb interview, the actress shared her love of horror thrillers, noting:

I was a blood-sucking vampire, Wren, on American Horror Story: Hotel. I always had a thing for horror growing up. I was the weird kid that would be like, I love horror. It was a full-circle transition back into horror [with Last Straw]. I remember feeling like this was my first...

The Funeral

Stars: Ahmet Rifat Sungar, Cansu Türedi, Tekin Temel | Directed by Orcun Behram

Cemal, a lonely hearse driver, has been entrusted to secretly transport the body of a murdered young woman, Zeynep, to her parents’ home at their final request. But he hears strange groans from the back of the vehicle during the journey, even though Zeynep hasn’t got a pulse. As her body comes back to life, the moment he sets eyes on her, Cemal falls in love with the undead woman. So he must constantly feed her flesh by committing his own murders, even if it means dealing with the police force’s attempts to capture a serial killer.

The Funeral start strong – our protagonist tasked with keeping a body quiet for 30 days is an intriguing premise and poses a Lot of questions about how and why but all that is left behind when the the supernatural element comes into play.

It’s not the small town diner setting that makes Last Straw – the feature directorial debut by Alan Scott Neal – stand out, though it does give it a fresh angle for its home invasion thrills. It’s the unique narrative structure that not only leans into the prevalent feeling of rage but reframes the visceral violence that ensues. While Last Straw ultimately fails to stick to the landing, the commitment to escalating the tension and violence through rage-fueled characters fascinates all the same.

Twenty-year-old Nancy (Jessica Belkin) feels trapped and fed up with her life. Stuck in a transitionary period post-high school, Nancy tries and fails to care for her dead mother’s beloved car and hangs out with her still-in-high-school best pal Tabitha (Tara Raani). Nancy also happens to be bitter about an unwanted pregnancy, which compounds her frustrations with working at her dad’s (Jeremy Sisto) diner as a waitress-turned-manager.

Blue Finch Films has boarded worldwide sales on horror-thriller, “Last Straw,” set to have its world premiere at the Sitges Film Festival before making its way to Beyond Fest next month.

Written by Taylor Sardoni, “Last Straw” pays homage to the pressure cooker genre films of the past and aims to present a raw and unrelenting twist on the home-invasion thriller. The story revolves around a young waitress working the late shift alone at a rural roadside diner. Her life takes a terrifying turn when she becomes the target of a group of masked assailants. As the night unfolds she must muster all her strength to survive.

This film marks the directorial debut of Alan Scott Neal and the cast includes Jessica Belkin (“American Horror Story”), Jeremy Sisto (“Thirteen”) and Taylor Kowalski (“Snowfall”). The original score is composed by Alan Palomo of Neon Indian and the cinematography is by Andrey Nikolaev.

An older woman’s dead body lies on the floor in the opening scene of writer/director Laurence Vannicelli’s Mother, May I? The camera pulls back slowly, revealing a rustic but lived-in cabin near a lake. This is followed by a brisk montage as the body is collected, cleaned, and finally incinerated before the ash is poured into a plastic container and presented to her son, Emmett (Kyle Gallner).

When the funeral director (Michael Giannone) offers his condolences and suggests a more attractive urn for the remains, Emmett promptly declines. Immediately after obtaining the ashes, Emmett and his fiancé Anya (Holland Roden) drive back to the cottage, where Emmett offers the following eulogy: “Thank you for giving me life. And the house.” He then dumps the ashes, without ceremony, into the lake, observing that “She’s fish food” compared to the plastic container that “is gonna last forever.”

These...

Genre regulars Kyle Gallner and Holland Roden star in the horror psychological thriller Mother, May I?, which will be receiving a theatrical and VOD release from Dark Sky Films this Friday, July 21st. With that date just a few days away, we’ve gotten our hands on the trailer for the film, and you can check it out in the embed above.

The feature writing and directing debut of Laurence Vannicelli, Mother, May I? has the following synopsis: Emmett wants to clean and flip his recently deceased mother’s house: get in, get out, and avoid any trauma still lingering from when she abandoned him as a young child. Anya, his fiancé, see’s this as an opportunity to finally force Emmett to deal with his trauma because she believes it is preventing him from being the partner she needs. So she convinces him to take mushrooms to get him to let go.

"A boy's best friend is his mother." Dark Sky Films has unveiled an official trailer for the indie horror film called Mother, May I?, made by filmmaker Laurence Vannicelli. This premiered recently a genre festival, and opens on VOD to watch this summer in July. When his fiancé, Anya, starts behaving like his recently deceased mother, Emmett is forced into a nightmarish game of therapy... or is it a possession? He then tries mushrooms to let go of his trauma from his past involving his mother, but it seems to make things worse. In this trippy horror film, actors Kyle Gallner and Holland Roden experience a strange, Oedipal nightmare that involves a dead mom, some magic mushrooms, and an unexpected transformation. The small indie cast also includes Michael Giannone and Chris Mulkey. This looks super creepy (I don't want to experience any of this) and surreal, with lots of strange...

Just four months ago, we heard that genre regular Kyle Gallner and Holland Roden had signed on to star in horror thriller Mother, May I? Now teaser trailer for Mother, May I? has arrived online, and you can check it out in the embed above.

Dark Sky Films has acquired the North American distribution rights to Mother, May I? and are planning to release the film sometime in the spring or summer. Collider has confirmed that the project is being presented to potential international distributors at the European Film Market.

The feature writing and directing debut of Laurence Vannicelli, Mother, May I? shows what happens when a man’s fiancée starts behaving like his recently deceased mother, leading him to confront his deepest traumas to free her from the bewildering possession.

Gallner and Roden are joined in the cast by Chris Mulkey (Cloverfield), Michael Giannone (Don’t Look Up), and Daphne Gaines...

Kyle Gallner has a long list of genre credits. Red, The Haunting in Connecticut, Jennifer’s Body, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Red State, The Walking Dead, The Cleanse, Alien Code, Ghosts of War, Scream, Smile. Now you can add another title to the list, because Deadline reports that Gallner stars in the upcoming horror thriller Mother, May I? with Holland Roden. Roden is no stranger to genre work, having previously taken on roles in Teen Wolf, Lore, Channel Zero, Cry of Fear, House of Dust, Escape Room: Tournament of Champions, Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman, and Obsessed to Death.

Dark Sky Films has acquired the North American distribution rights to Mother, May I? and are planning to release the film sometime in the spring of 2023.

The feature writing and directing debut of Laurence Vannicelli, Mother, May I? shows what happens when

a man’s fiancée starts behaving like his recently deceased mother,...