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DEATH TO SMOOCHY is available to watch for free on Tubi, amigos!

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In THE TRAVEL COMPANION, a struggling documentarian named Simon (Tristan Turner) has one professional (and personal) thing going for him: the friendship with roommate Bruce (Anthony Oderbeck).

Bruce works for an airline and has Simon signed up as his travel companion, allowing Simon to nab free flights to anywhere on standby seating. For a documentary filmmaker, the ability to nab desired locations for free is crucial, allowing Simon to get rare footage on the cheap.

Does he know what the movie's gonna be about? Not yet, but that's something he's marinating on.

While Simon stresses over his movie, Bruce starts a relationship with Beatrice (Naomi Asa), a fellow talented director capable of handling budgets and sets Simon couldn't even dream of. And now, the airline perks are being placed into question, so Simon tries his damndest to keep his friendship alive whiel assuring those tickets stay in his grasp.

The movie is less ha-ha funny and more relatably funny, laugh-not-to-cry funny to a guy whose own creative project often feels like it consumes him at the expense of time and memories spent with his loved ones.

It's gorgeously photographed (New York is a fuckin' cheat. code.) and the jazz score is lush and frenetic. The movie doesn't necessarily tie everything together in a bow, but I'll choose to see that as an experiential stopping point. Wood and Mallis based the movie in part upon personal experiences so I imagine the lessons learned only extend as far as their own conclusions. Maybe we'll check back in in 2036's THE TRAVEL COMPANIONS (There's definitely gonna be a baby involved.)

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THE TRAVEL COMPANION is making its way around the country in select theaters - Find showtimes here.

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UNDERTONE is best watched within two visual extremes: a movie theater and a laptop. What remains the same in those two instances is the intended environment: no distractions, enveloped by sound, whether from a Dolby Atmos sound system or a good pair of over-the-ear headphones.

This is a movie where what you hear is the star of the show and what you see sets the stage for you to have no escape from some disturbing terror.

Evy (Nina Kiri) is the host of horror podcast The Undertone, joined by best friend and co-host Justin (Adam DiMarco). One night, Justin shares an anonymous email received that features 10 different audio files. The files tell the story of a married couple seemingly experiencing a haunting. Typical fare for skeptic Evy but as the audio unfurls, she notices her environment growing a little darker, spookier than normal.

Tuason is currently tapped to direct the next PARANORMAL ACTIVITY installment but I've no idea how he'll top what's done here. UNDERTONE is simple, predictable, even, but handled with such care and elegance that the result remains the same: a nail-biter of a haunted house movie that left me walking out of the theater with residue chills. This is a - great - fucking movie.

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UNDERTONE is now available to watch in select theaters or on PVOD.

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I interview Rushabh Patel, executive producer and star of the new horror movie I KNOW EXACTLY HOW YOU DIE. Patel stars as Rian, a author who's checked into a dilapidated motel in order to finish his horror novel. However, the events he writes down on his laptop start coming to life, up to and including Rian meeting his protagonist, Katie, who's being stalked by a serial killer. Now, Rian must team up with Katie in order to save her from the most gruesome fate.

I KNOW EXACTLY HOW YOU DIE veers into surreal territories, moments where time and reality bend so I asked Patel about how to remain anchored in a performance that lends itself to such chaos.

This is also Patel's feature debut as a producer so I also had to ask what he learned from working as an executive producer, being down and dirty with the movie from its inception. His answer is simple but crucial. Y'all gotta listen to this.

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I KNOW EXACTLY HOW YOU DIE is now available to watch, buy or rent on VOD.

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I KNOW EXACTLY HOW YOU DIE is pitched as SCREAM meets STRANGER THAN FICTION, about a horror writer (Rushabh Patel) who realizes their story is coming to life within a dilapidated motel. Now, he needs to help his protagonist (Stephanie Hogan) escape the gruesome fate of being stalked and murdered by a serial killer.

I appreciate some of the ideas presented, mainly the idea of someone covering up their internal turmoil with creative endeavors to routinely diminishing results. I like the idea that this writer is now forced to take on a different sort of responsibility to his characters and story; the stakes impose more heavily whenever real flesh and blood are involved.

However, i found I KNOW EXACTLY HOW YOU DIE to be mainly a half-formed smattering of these ideas, often discarding character development and a sense of tension, urgency for meandering runtime-extending conversations and the kind of dream sequences that serve a similar attention-grabbing purpose as waving a set of keys in front of a baby's face.

I think this team has potential but this movie ain't it.

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I KNOW EXACTLY HOW YOU DIE is now available to watch, buy or rent via video on demand.

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In DOLLY, a couple's romantic hike turns into a nightmare when they stumble across a mysterious hulking figure, dressed as a doll: dress, corn-yellow wig, and cracked porcelain mask.

You've seen horror movies. Weirdos in the woods rarely bring good news.

The woman, Macy (Fabianne Therese), is kidnapped by the gargantuan doll and brought to their house to live as the newest plaything. How will Macy escape? That's the flick.

And it's at this point that I find myself wanting to stretch DOLLY into one of a few directions, kinda like how FRIDAY THE 13TH improved on its initial concept of "masked campground killer."

Do we go into Dolly's psychology? Unlike Jason, there is internal conflict, gesticulated passionately in Max the Impaler's performance. Tender, though clumsy, maternal instincts clash with bratty, violent tantrums. Dolly seems to want to compensate for a love or stability they've clearly lacked in their own lives. I don't need a CHAINSAW MASSACRE kind of prequel, but I find myself drawn to this back-and-forth, wish to put Dolly in more situations to understand where they'd like to be as opposed to where they mentally are.

We could also go for grimy gonzo. Director Rod Blackhurst wastes no time in treating body parts as a child would their macabre plastic graveyard of toys (My mind reverts to my son's decapitated board of Hungry Hungry hippos.) It's not just the gore, either. Blackhurst relishes in the disgust inherent within the dirtiest dollhouse on Earth. Just saying, there's a pacifier lying around that has to have the entire Hepatitis alphabet crawling all over it.

The last direction we could borrow from Jason Voorhees? Unabashed silliness. DOLLY could uppercut a dude's head clean off and I wouldn't bat an eye. Some of this humor seems self-aware, poking a cheeky finger into the face of horror tropes. I wouldn't mind if DOLLY 2 further followed Tobe Hooper's example and eschewed its attempt at existential terror in favor of goofball parody.

However, as it stands, the mixture leaves me unsatisfied. The movie's too bare-bones to flesh out its best character or relish in the nastiness. Macy simply makes the kind of decisions serving only to stretch out the runtime instead of providing an audience facsimile to root for. And by the sixth time Macy gains an upper hand only to allow Dolly the chance to get up and chase her again, I've rolled my eyes to the extent of twisting off their stalks.

I don't endorse this movie. I endorse its potential. What's the saying? "Go write your first novel. When it's done, bury it in the backyard. Then, walk back inside and start work on your first novel."

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DOLLY is now available to watch, buy or rent via video on demand.

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In HEEL, a 20-something ne'er-do-well named Tommy (Ansel Boon) spends his night engaging in total debauchery. Any ingestable pill, powder or liquid is taken. In equal measure, every possible form of fluid is publically expunged from his body. Bouncers are sucker-punched. Women are seduced with inebriated charm. No form of property is safe.

Tommy is a fucking shithead. And at the end of the night, he's kidnapped.

He wakes up in a dingy basement, chained to the wall by a collar around his neck. A schlubby 40-something named Chris (Stephen Graham) greets him, announcing his intent to reform Tommy into a productive member of society. His team is a family affair: reclusive wife Kathryn (Andrea Riseborough) & sensitive son Jonathan (Kit Ratuksen). As you can expect, Tommy doesn't take too well to this.

I'd expect more grime and nastiness with this kind of bad-dude-gets-kidnapped flick but HEEL immediately takes a sharp left turn. What starts as Tommy's attempt to slyly feign trust from the family evolves into mutual understanding and respect. This focus on relationships and Tommy's moral growth leads me to eventually question: Was all of this for the greater good? The chloroform, the elaborate railing system allowing Tommy to explore the home while still chained?

When compared to our current prison system, is this approach a better shake? As is often with Jan Komasa's films (SUICIDE ROOM, CORPUS CHRISTI), the answers aren't so clear and it makes for cinema that lingers in my mind after the credits.

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Búi Dam is on The Movies talking about his new documentary, BIRITA, which premieres today as part of the Copenhagen International Documentary Festival (CPH:DOX for short).

BIRITA is named after Búi's mother, Birita Mohr, a legendary presence and actor in Faroese theatre. (The Faroe islands are located between Iceland and Norway, currently part of the Danish kingdom, though the independence movement is loud and fuckin' proud.)

Birita was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2011 and since then, hadn't performed on stage. In a bid to give his mom another at-bat and help her channel this joy and experience which lives baked into her bones, Búi put together a prodcution of Shakespeare's KING LEAR, casting his mom in the title role.

He talks about the process of crafting the play, lessons learned about his mother and the relationship with his own aging, what legacy he'd like to leave behind for his children, and much more.

BIRITA premieres at CPH:DOX today, March 15, at 16:15pm. More details can be found here.

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SLANTED is about a Chinese-American teen (Shirley Chen) who undergoes an experimental surgery to transform her body into that of a blonde, blue-eyed white girl. She steps in looking like Shirley Chen, comes out looking like McKenna Grace. Why? She wants to be prom queen. She wants to be exalted, adored, loved, appreciated for her contributions, not dismissed or treated unfairly due to her race and oh...this is gonna backfire, isn't it?

I interviewed writer/director Amy Wang about the movie, its origins, symbology, production process and the intricacies of building a unique dual role using two actresses. Listen on and venture forth!

SLANTED is now playing, only in theaters.

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SLANTED is the debut of writer-director Amy Wang, about a Chinese-American teenager (Shirley Chen) who undergoes an experimental surgery in order to become white. Not like skin-bleaching white. I mean, blonde hair, blue-eyed, McKenna Grace.

Joan Huang, ever since her emigration to the U.S. from China as an elementary-school-aged kid, has absorbed and subsequently lived by racial hegemony. Fair-skinned, thin blondes reign supreme. Dark-haired Chinese girls do not. Prom queens don't look like her. The artists plastered on her bedroom walls also don't look like her. Hell, her Snapchats don't even look like her, partially due to a skin-lightening filter made by Ethnos, a company who keeps sending texts praising her loyalty to said filter, offering her a chance to change her life forever.

Joan can dress the part of the school's local Regina George protege Olivia (Amelie Zilber), even dye her hair the same color, but as Olivia says, in one of the movie's most scathing lines, "I can still see your black roots." Something more drastic must occur.

Joan finally gives Ethnos a shot. They offer her the ability to surgically transform her body, skin tone, hair color, facial structure, all of it, in order to abandon her Chinese identity and become white.

Enter Jo (McKenna Grace). She looks like the ideal Joan's always searched for. On the street, she turns heads, elicits the warmest, friendliest smiles. Joan is now beloved, at the expense of the body and face she's always known.

And as one can expect from a body horror movie, the MONKEY'S PAW of it all eventually rears its head but what I think allows SLANTED to stand apart from its most-often pitched combination of THE SUBSTANCE & MEAN GIRLS is the length of time by which I learn about Joan Huang. I meet her hard-working dad (Fang Du) who's more optimistic about adopting Americanisms than her mom (Vivian Wu). The movie reveals how racial hegemonies, contradictions and all, are adopted into the psyches of immigrant children. Joan doesn't see this rejection of her Chinese self in service of the benefits of assimilation as anything other than normal. To her, a surgery that rips her hair out of her scalp and cracks her jaw/orbital bones into a mold of a different genetic makeup is merely the logical path forward. She wants to be prom queen, right? Exalted, loved, adored? Like we all do.

The roots of this self-hatred run deep and as a result, craft a portrait of someone with little stability regarding her own identity. It's already tough to be a teenager but Joan thinks she has no other recourse. Hell is the body of a teenage girl rejected and judged by the world.

SLANTED is now playing, only in theaters.

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