SASQUATCH folds paranormal and true crime together
by Roderick Towers, Contributor
Was Bigfoot responsible for a triple homicide in the early 90’s?
A Ghost Waits
Directed by Adam Stovall
Starring MacLeod Andrews, Natalie Walker, Sydney Vollmer and Amanda Miller
Running time: 1 hour and 20 minutes
by Judson Cade Pedigo
I am a mark for ghost movies. Give me a movie, put a ghost in it, I’m so there. Ghosts movies come in all shapes and sizes but you reach a point where you’ve seen one ghost, you’ve seen them all. This is why, when I first heard about A Ghost Waits, which was being billed as a “supernatural rom-com,” I knew that I had to track it down. I’ve been known to dabble in romantic comedies. I won’t admit to it now but in high school I was heavily invested in the fate of Ross and Rachel, but I digress. As much as I love ghost movies, I also enjoy a good mash up and I was interested to see these two genres combined. Much like how the great philosopher Cher once asked of us, “Do you believe in life after love?”, first time filmmaker Adam Stovall wants to know “Do you believe in love after life?”
Read MoreNow Presenting: Moviejawn's Summer 2020 Issue
by Benjamin Leonard, Best Boy
Greetings movie friends! As I’m sure most of you know, in addition to our website which mostly covers new movie reviews, we also make a quarterly print zine. I thought it’d be fun to give everyone a quick glance at all the films that are covered in our most recent issue (which focuses on circuses, carnivals and fairs) and where you can find them. Step right up! to follow the links for the titles and it’ll take you to a listing of where it can be found (mostly powered by JustWatch.com).
Read MoreScream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street
Directed by Roman Chimienti and Tyler Jensen
Featuring Mark Patton, Cecil Baldwin and Marshall Bell
Running time: 1 hour and 39 minutes
Jessie Forever
by Judson Cade Pedigo
Do you remember that time that Captain Kirk went looking for God in space and then he taught Spock how to sing “Row, row, row your boat”? Or when Michael Myers was replaced with Halloween masks that turned kids faces to bugs using the power of Stonhenge? How about when Jason Voorhees turned out to be Roy the paramedic? Every long running movie series has one, the entry that is...how shall we say...received less favorably than the others. For many Freddy Krueger fans the black sheep in the franchise has always been Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge. Times have changed, however, and these once reviled movies are now being rediscovered and celebrated. Halloween III is more popular than it’s ever been, Roy the Paramedic just got his own action figure, and Captain Kirk singing “row row row your boat”...well some things are better off forgotten.
Read MoreKOKO-DI KOKO-DA
Written and directed by Johannes Nyholm
Starring Peter Belli, Leif Edlund and Ylva Gallon
Running time: 1 hour and 26 minutes
by Roderick Towers
Horror is a genre that is often open to interpretation. Some entries are easy to spot while others camouflage themselves under the banner of drama, mystery, or thriller. For me, movies like Requiem for a Dream, We Need to Talk About Kevin and Blue Velvet are, without a doubt, horror movies. Blue Velvet, in particular, I would call a nightmare movie. Everything from the color palette, to the soundtrack combine to provoke a feeling of dread in the audience. Something is not quite right and we know it, like the feeling from a nightmare that doesn’t quite fade upon waking. Make no mistake, Koko-Di Koko-Da is a horror film but more than that, it is a nightmare come to life.
Read MoreA H-H-Haunting We Will Go
by Roderick Towers
Bigfoots. Haunted houses. Loch Ness Monsters. Bermuda Triangles The ghost kid hiding in Three Men and a Little Baby. Oh, hello there. You’ve just caught me making a list of my favorite things. I’m Roderick Towers, paranormal enthusiast. What’s a paranormal enthusiast you ask? Why, that’s someone who is enthusiastic about the paranormal. I would love to be a paranormal investigator but who has that kind of time? My research is mainly divided into two areas, borrowing books from the library and watching movies. The library is an important tool for anyone, especially those in the field of sussing out the unknown and mysterious. Support your local library kids. Some of the ghostly motion pictures that enamore me the most are known as “old dark house” movies. This is a genre where a group of people find themselves in a crumbling estate, usually due to an inheritance, and must make it through the night, often with a killer on the loose. I love visiting these decrepit old dwellings but since there are no haunted houses within driving distance, I must take my trips through the magic of the movies. Allow me to take you on a tour through a few of my favorite eerie travel destinations.
Read MoreLiving with Luz
Luz
Written and directed by Tilman Singer
Starring Luana Velis, Johannes Benecke and Jan Bluthardt
Running time: 1 hour and 10 minutes
by Judson Cade Pedigo
I’ve been in the middle of a movie drought. It happens every now and then, you’ve got movies for days (as the kids say) but no time to watch them. The biggest problem about a movie drought is that I get so thirsty for entertainment that when I finally do manage to catch a flick, it becomes the greatest movie ever. During the great drought of 04’ I walked away from Black Knight starring Martin Lawrence by starting an aggressive “for your consideration” letter writing campaign to the Academy even though it was already three years old at that point. What can I say, it spoke to me. Like I said, I’ve been stuck in this movie drought for the last few months, so when Luz, the debut feature film from Tilman Singer arrived from out of nowhere, I fell hard. Now, are these just the misguided affections of a man desperate for movie companionship or is it true? I can safely say that this is movie love at first sight.
Read MoreFlim-Flam and Other Such Scams
by Judson Cade Pedigo
Recently, I was looking through my daughter’s bookshelf for a bedtime story when I came across something that would change the course of my life forever, a Step Into Reading book about Harry Houdini. Some might call it fate or just my habit of being a packrat (I supply myself with such a steady stream of junk that I’m constantly finding things that I’ve bought but have totally forgotten about. So it’s like getting it all over again! I’m like the dude from Memento except with a staggering Paypal Credit balance instead of a dead wife.) but I became an instant Houdini fan. I guess I’d always taken Houdini for granted. I knew he was a master magician and also a lazy plot point for the writers of Last Action Hero to get that kid into movieland (Magic ticket my ass, McBain!) but that was about it. Now I know, Houdini is the greatest man who ever lived. What I’ve found most interesting is Houdini’s war on fake mediums. As spiritualism became fashionable in America following the end of World War I, for every sincere follower this new religion gained, it attracted just as many opportunists willing to take advantage of the bereaved for their own financial gain.
Read MoreGhost Spoilers
Spoiler Alert: This is a spoiler warning concerning a spoiler that won’t be spoiled but if you are the kind of person that doesn’t even want to know about the possibility of anything spoiler-worthy being spoiled then I am sorry that I just spoiled the fact that there is something contained in the movie discussed worth spoiling that I won’t spoil any details of but sometimes just knowing that there is something to spoil can pre-spoil the whole viewing experience for someone averse to going into a movie with even a hint of pre-show spoilers, just brace yourselves that the following review will spoil the fact that there is a potential big spoiler to address but will only address said spoiler in the least spoilery way possible in order to minimize the spoil effect. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Read MoreKeeping Continuity is as Easy as Child’s Play: A Guide to the Madness of Mancini
by Judson Cade Pedigo
As Justice League opened with a less than heroic debut, (I dunno, I still think 96 million is a lot of money. If I get a hundred bucks in my wallet I feel like Scrooge McDuck) people are already speculating how Warner can reboot their entire cinematic universe. What world are we living in where a reboot is the only answer? A world gone mad, mad with reboots. Used to be when we got say, a Star Trek the Motion Picture, they didn’t just scrap the entire “enterprise”, we just had to wait a little while until we got a Wrath of Khan. If something doesn’t work, I don’t think that throwing all that time and money away for a fresh start is the answer. What happened to taking a little extra time to fix what didn’t work and make something worthwhile instead? In this new world where Spiderman gets two reboots in 15 years, this is clearly not the case. Horror fans have been hit especially hard by this trend. They are cheap to produce and, if done right, can yield high profits. There have been sequels to remakes, prequels to remakes, sequels to prequels of remakes, sequels to earlier entries, creating such a mess that you really need a manual to figure out what you’re about to see. This is why Wikipedia was invented. Leatherface was the first to fall, then Michael Myers, Jason, and then they did the unthinkable, they recast Freddy Krueger. That last outing didn’t do so well for them so guess what word we heard next: reboot. While we’re waiting for the reboot of the reboot of A Nightmare On Elm Street, we can look to one of the last remaining horror icons still continuing their original story from the 80’s, Chucky the killer doll. Somehow, Don Mancini, the creator of Chucky, is responsible for writing every installment of the series about a Good Guy doll gone bad. What makes Mancini a rare breed in this day and age is that he embraces something that’s become a dirty word in Hollywood, continuity. It’s become increasingly easy to just rewind the clock and hit the reset button, but Mancini not only embraces what’s come before, he celebrates it.
Read MoreGoin' on a Slay Ride
by Judson Cade Pedigo
It’s that time of year again, but recently, I have become obsessed with scary Christmas movies. It’s become a tradition of mine to leave the holly in the box and deck the halls with boughs of horror. It wasn’t always this way. For years there was no way I would allow any frights near my Christmas lights. It probably started when I was younger, seeing the Silent Night Deadly Night series all lined up in a row on the video store shelves. Ax-wielding Santas? Decapitated nuns? Blood-soaked demonic toys? No thanks! It just all seemed so wrong. Christmas has always been special to me and there was no way I wanted to see the profound mixed with the profane. That is until I stumbled across a little movie called Christmas Evil.
Read MoreWitchy Poo
by Judson Cade Pedigo
Moviejawn confession time: I’m a Dario Argento poser. If I’m sitting around having a few drinks with the guys and everyone starts talking Argento flicks, you’ll notice I get real quiet. Sure I’ll nod at the appropriate times and join in giving three cheers to Dario but what I’m really doing is frantically trying to remember if I had read any reviews or at least a plot synopsis about any of these films on my old cd-rom edition of Cinemania '95 back in the day. Usually I come up blank. I can’t even recall that many of his movies. Hold on, don’t tell me. There’s Phenomena, I know that one…um…Bird with the Crystal Plumage? Maybe? Then there’s uh…Stab You in the Eye, Stab Your Face, and my personal favorite Razorblade to Your Eyeball? I think? It’s true, I don’t know from Argento. About the only things that I do know about the man is that he’s very Italian and his movies are crazy, crazy as shit.
Read MoreThe Best Policy
by Judson Cade Pedigo
Sometimes you just gotta lie. I don’t follow sports, politics, or the news (it’s fake now I hear) so sometimes the only common ground I have with people is movies. I’ve been a certified movie snob since 1994 (I got my certificate after denouncing The Lion King for being too hollow and derivative). Sometimes it’s better not to reveal my true feelings while in casual conversation. Yeah, X-Men Origins: Wolverine wasn’t bad (It was. Adamantium bullet my ass), I should probably go see The Accountant (nope), Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem used excellent lighting techniques to allow us to easily follow the plot and action (ok, maybe I never actually said that one). I once argued with Johan, my arch nemesis from the dorm, that American Pie was just as important as any Hitchcock movie. (Another fib, I didn’t actually believe that but it was fun putting that bee in his bonnet.) You’ve got to bend the truth a little but you start to run into trouble when you lie to yourself. A lie is not a lie if no one can hear it, right? Since movies are all that matter, a trespass against the cinema can be the greatest offense. Yeah, I’ve lied about movies, I’m not proud, and the biggest whopper of them all started as I sat in a darkened theater on May 19th, 1999 and first saw the words "Episode I: The Phantom Menace."
Read MoreTime to Chime
by Judson Cade Pedigo
Movies aren’t a big deal anymore. I’m sorry you had to read it here and I’m sorry I had to say it but it’s true. Back in the day, when a movie was released it was an event but now the business model seems to be to throw Chris Pratt in front of the cameras, hope it makes that opening weekend bank, and then dump it into the internet streams where people can watch it while waiting at the doctor’s office or getting their oil changed. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Yeah movies, no big deal. Time was you could tell if a movie was going to be a hit based solely on its fast food promotional drink cups. (Case in point, the summer of ‘93 I doubled down hard on Last Action Hero over Jurassic Park. It was about a kid who could go into the movies! If only I had listened to the cups. The Jurassic drinks were gorgeous while the Action offerings had the effect of making you feel like a drunk trying to decipher a Magic Eye poster. Magic ticket my ass, McBain).
Read MoreGoodbye Yellow Brick Road
by Judson Cade Pedigo
We all have our favorite scene from the classic Technicolor marvel that is The Wizard of Oz. There are so many iconic moments to choose from. Going over the rainbow! The entrance to Munchkin land! Following the yellow brick road! Getting electro shock therapy! Wait…WHAT? That’s not from the Wizard of Oz but it is in the often over looked sequel Return to Oz released by Disney in 1985. Children’s films from that period weren’t afraid to go into some dark territory (Mola Ram ripping out hearts in Temple of Doom, Phoebe Cates’ Santa speech from Gremlins, Large Freaking Marge!) but this movie goes into full on nightmare mode for much of it’s two hour runtime. It’s like the producers sat down and went, “You know all the songs and things that people love about the first one? Let’s throw all that out and try to scare the shit out of everyone instead!” For a sequel to one of the most popular movies of all time it’s so much weirder than it needs to be, which is great. Return to Oz is a dark children’s fantasy that is up there with Labyrinth, The NeverEnding Story, and The Dark Crystal.
Read MoreIt Ain’t All Death Rays and What Not: The Other End of the World Movies
by Judson Cade Pedigo
Whenever I think of end of the world movies, I don’t always go to alien invasions, zombie plagues, or sinister Halloween mask manufacturers with a penchant for catchy jingles. What end of the world means to me is finding out that Anthony Michael Hall has been showing your panties off to a bunch of geeks, or that the love of your life is dating a guy named Blane (that’s not a name, it’s a major appliance) or that feeling you get when you just wrecked your old man’s prized Ferrari. Now that’s some world-ending shit right there. I really doubt I’ll ever see an alien war ship blast anything near me but I have been broken up with and that really sucks. This is how the world ends, not with a bang but with me whimpering on the couch with a sixer of budget beer and a movie. Here are my top three picks for what I like to call, “I Just Got Dumped and My World is Falling Apart So I Just Want to Watch a Movie to Take My Mind off Things but Why Do I Keep Watching Movies about Relationships, This is Only Making It Worse.”
Read MoreForever D.E.B.S.
Directed by Angela Robinson (2004)
by Judson Cade Pedigo
I’ve been thinking a lot about the movie D.E.B.S lately and I’m not sure exactly why. D.E.B.S is a perfectly fine movie, not particularly remarkable at first glance but that’s exactly what makes it so extraordinary. The D.E.B.S are a group of young women trained to be an elite task force by a highly top secret spy organization. Stylistically the movie looks and feels like any mainstream teen movie released in the early 2000’s like Agent Cody Banks or Drive Me Crazy. Here’s the thing though, about thirty minutes into the movie we find out that one of the D.E.B.S might end up falling for the super villain with world domination plans. That’s a plot twist we’ve all seen before except here the actual twist is that the villain is actually a villainess and the story is not girl meets boy but girl meets girl. It’s one that I didn’t really see coming because the movie looked so glossy. That’s an interesting take and had me paying attention to a movie I normally wouldn’t have paid attention to. The script is funny, the cast is great, and the whole thing moves along wonderfully. It’s just fun. It’s really a teen romance wrapped in the guise of a spy spoof; the only difference is that it’s actually a coming out story. The film itself doesn’t let that detail weigh it down - while it is commented on, the movie is more concerned with being a fun action comedy and it succeeds. We need more movies like D.E.B.S I think, movies that are nice, normal mainstream movies that just happen to have a gay element because guess what, a coming out story is normal, it always has been, it’s just the rest of the world that has been a little behind at catching up.
Read MoreTo All My Friends
by Judson Cade Pedigo
Well, hello there. I didn’t hear you come in. I’ve just been going over the guest list for my celebration. What am I celebrating? The only thing worth celebrating my friend: movies. I’m putting together the ultimate invite list for my big bash. It’s kind of like a Quinceañera…except with less dancing and more movies. Wait, what? Of course you didn’t get my invitation, you’re not invited. Don’t be like that, nobody that I ACTUALLY know is going. Maybe you misunderstood me. This is just for me and a couple of close friends, my movie friends. You know, movie friends. Let me explain.
Read MorePump Down the Jams
by Judson Cade Pedigo
It’s Moviejawn’s one-year anniversary. Happy birthday guys! I found out about this monthly movie revue just recently so this is all happening so fast! Truth is, I’m still not even sure what a jawn is (I think it’s internet talk like totes, or whip, or nae nae. I just can’t keep up with what the kids are talking about these days). I’m glad I did run into the Jawn because I think reading it increases my cool factor by about 10 (previously 0). One year of celebrating film and spreading the good word to the masses. This calls for a celebration and a celebration calls for a party.
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