Rowan is a young woman dealing with her only remaining parent suffering from family trauma, and turning to increasingly brutal and ominous social media. Her imagination and obsessions run wild, as she descends into the madness of dubious influences. As Rowan plows through snuff films, self-mutilation YouTube videos, and bizarre dark web social media, her innocence slips away. Will she accept the support of the only two people who love and care for her? Or, will she allow the fascination with a hidden world of nastiness to claim her?

Ogle and Pagniano, two young and talented filmmakers, took on a workshop challenge to produce a micro-budget independent movie, and It Needs Eyes was the remarkable result. It is a testament to the level of technology now available to aspiring independent movie makers that a film with this much polish can be accomplished for only $30,000. But for all the terrific 4K camera visuals and drone shots, it is the acting that carries this movie.

Rowan doesn’t want to stay with her Aunt Mella, but she doesn’t have a choice. Her mother passed away a long time ago, and her father is recuperating under mysterious circumstances at a hospital. Rowan is a typical teenager, consumed with social media on her phone. She is a bit of an introvert, however. Curiously, she doesn’t spend time texting friends or posting on Instagram, like so many teens. Instead, in her grief and confusion, she dives deep into the dark web. She searches for “Fucked up videos”. This includes bizarre animations, advice on narcotics, random street violence, humiliation, self-mutilation, and even stumbles into some snuff films that shake her to her core.

But she can’t look away from what she sees. She is addicted. And she is lonely.

Her Aunt Mella does her best to encourage her to get some fresh air and away from her phone. One night, she notices a purple glow coming through her bedroom window. From a neighboring house, waving from her bedroom window, is Alex. The neighbor girl flirts with Rowan while she simultaneously performs as a sexy cam girl for libidinous men online. They are mirrors of each other. Rowan is the girl who appears cautious and innocent on the surface, but is secretly obsessed with the darkest sins of humanity. Alex is a flamboyant rebel who has a sweet and caring disposition under the surface. The two of them mesh instantly and become inseparable almost immediately.

Unfortunately, finding a new girlfriend doesn’t break Rowan’s fascination with the far corners of the dark web. She became obsessed with 8mm film videos of a strange group of people at a Camus-like, absurd, and existential party, featuring Fish Tooth, an actress who had been reported missing many years ago. These videos are oddly melodramatic and full of expressions of frustration, loss, and rage. Rowan identifies with Fish Tooth’s disconnection from reality and strange behavior. Also, Rowan becomes fascinated with a nearby reputedly haunted island, which she believes holds the key to many of her morbid mysteries. These two mysteries tug at Rowan like a siren’s call.

These haunting attractions are filling the void in her life that the absence of Rowan’s father left behind. As she learns more about her dad, she spirals deeper into the unhealthy social media she has been ingesting. It is up to Alex and Aunt Mella to pull her out, but it may all just be too late.

It Needs Eyes manages to connect by defying the expected portrayals of the characters. All three main characters —Rowan, Alex, and Mella —could have easily slipped into stereotypes and caricatures. Instead, they rendered fully fleshed-out protagonists worth rooting for. Achieving great chemistry and natural performances from actresses with such short resumes is a victory for this production.

In a bit of fun irony, perhaps the most nerve-wracking scene in the film is when Rowan sneaks into her Aunt’s room to steal a credit card so she can subscribe to Alex’s cam-girl channel. Such stress! I don’t say that to diminish the horror aspects of the film, but the horror in this film is more suffocating than savage. The dread creeps up and slowly consumes Rowan, who isn’t as afraid as she should be.

It Needs Eyes reminds me of Videodrome. Memories of “Long Live the New Flesh!” echoed early in the movie, and these allusions were amplified with a hand out of the TV moment. Technology is a poor substitute for relationships, and Rowan is slow to recognize this. I would have liked more of the fantastical elements in the film, which don’t materialize until the third act. However, Ogle and Pagniano invested heavily in the character arcs, and the movie works emotionally; perhaps that restraint paid off.

I struggled with the jarring juxtaposition of the Fish Tooth story, even though it is crucial for the movie’s payoff. The tone is unnatural in the surreal videos, in contrast to the naturalistic depiction of Rowan, Alex, and Mella. I recognize that Rowan found those weird videos compelling, but I was less engaged with them, and it bogged down the pacing of the film. It Needs Eyes delivers a melancholy and surreal ending that delves fully into metaphysics and will be worth debating with your friends after the credits roll.

This is a big step up for the young duo of Ogle and Pagniano. I am a big fan of their collaborative short film, “We Got a Monkey’s Paw,” a hilarious cautionary tale that utilizes the classic monkey’s paw device. Pagniano directed it, and Ogle starred and produced the short. The result is pure horror comedy short gold. However, Pagniano’s feature debut, Sunset on the River Styx, was an ambitious feature film that, for me, overshot its ambitions. I found the brooding, slow-burning script too meandering, and the pacing a bit of a drag. Fortunately, It Needs Eyes fully restored my faith in the duo.

It Needs Eyes won the Ghoul D’Or prize for Best Feature Film at the Portland Horror Film Festival. Watch as this duo continues to develop their craft. Hopefully, this film will inspire a studio to give them a bigger budget, as I would love to see how they can spin their inspiration with proper funding. The film embraces a liminal horror medium, and some of the still-life cinematography is gorgeous. Emblematic is the close-up eye imagery. The digital media in the cornea is not a special effect, but rather a carefully composed, tight shot, with a very patient actress and a good eye (pun intended) from the directors. Get up close, and get the shot!

Both Lebish and Leiva are destined for greater things. Both of them are hugely attractive and demonstrated real thespian chops. I would love to see both of them flourish within the horror genre. Perhaps as the Pagniano and Ogle team continues to develop their brand, they can continue to work together.

Hosted by Brian and Gwen Callahan, directors of the PHFF. On the stage are Zack Ogle, Isadora Leiva, producer Travis Campbell, and the sound designer Nathaniel Smith. I missed Brian’s opening question. The Q&A begins with Nathaniel responding to Brian’s first question about the sound production. The session was fun and lively, but be warned: There are some spoiler items in the Q&A.

I discussed It Needs Eyes with Zack and Travis in the upstairs lounge at the Hollywood Theater. My favorite part of attending film festivals is discussing movies with their filmmakers. Give it a listen!

It Needs Eyes is currently in its early stages of the festival circuit run. They have many upcoming festivals scheduled to showcase the movie. The next festival they have announced is a return to Portland for Queer Screams, taking place from August 1-3 at the Clinton Street Theater. So, if you missed it the first time here in PDX, it will be back soon!

The MPAA has not rated this movie. There are some gnarly images, particularly for the streaming nasties that Rowan watches, and there are suggestive sexual situations, but mature teens would appreciate the movie. However, audiences will reflexively wince and cover their eyes during some scenes. An R rating would be appropriate. Fans seeking a rock-em sock-em violence showcase will likely be disappointed, but those looking for an introspective and character-forward drama will enjoy this film. It’s a thoughtful and emotional palette of dread.

Now and again, a character actor with a proud working history in Hollywood gets a big break as the headliner of a horror film. Being first in the call sheet has not been common in Ethan Embry’s career, but his 106 titles have stamped him as a reliable “that guy” character actor ever since his youthful turn in Vegas Vacation 28 years ago. Li Jun Li hasn’t been in the business as long as Embry, but she, too, has a multitude of mostly TV credits to her name, but has found herself on a bit of a hot streak, having performed in the recent horror hit, Sinners. Together, they deliver a terrific chemistry that weaves a complex, decades-old relationship. This protagonist-forward story carries a great deal of emotional weight, looping, twisting, and ultimately becoming heartbreaking.

This movie is saturated with loneliness and regret, interspersed with some fun and silly absurdity to keep you engaged until the startling finish. Prepare to scratch your head. Not to say the film is confusing, but it does have layers of ambiguity and hints of alternate realities that move down parallel paths. A second watch may be required to catch all the idiosyncrasies of the plot.

Ren Arnold is a hot mess. He may not show it on the outside, but self-destruction lies right below the surface. He recently separated from his wife, Connie, who took their son with her. Ren lives with constant regret. He feels stuck in the lonely seaside hamlet, unable to parley his previous baseball skills into a ticket out of town. Now he is stuck as a sheriff’s deputy, relegated to chasing off high school drinkers and availing himself of their ill-gotten booze.

The office summons him to a situation for him to investigate. Alma, one of his old high school crushes, is wandering the misty highway outside town, carrying the corpse of her mutilated dog, Tigger. She is found walking the road in a tank top and shorts, soaked to the bone, and covered in blood. When Ren takes her back to the office for questioning, she claims that a wolf and a herd of goats destroyed her dog. She implores Ren to kill the wolf. Ren then sneaks off to watch his son pitch, accompanied by the new deputy Murphy, as Ren pounds impounded beers under the bleachers. He makes a drunken fool of himself in front of his wife and son, and while on his way home, runs into the goats and wolf Alma described, but he fails to kill the wolf, which becomes a bipedal wolfman.

Fortunately for Ren, the werewolf disappears. Was this a drunken dream?

The next day, Ren is approached by Alma at the sheriff’s office, and she asks him on a date. He anxiously agrees, but he has forgotten that that night, Jack is staying with him. Jack tells his dad to take the date, and that he’ll be fine. Ren knows that a baseball scout had come to see Jack pitch, and he is vicariously excited for his son to achieve what he could not. Ren goes on his date with Alma, not knowing that he won’t see his son again.

The wolf has struck again.

Ren’s life not only turns upside down, but sideways as well. A manhunt is on to find Jack, but strange forces are at play. Is there a cult? What is that werewolf? What’s up with those sheep? Why is everyone in town getting sick? Deja vu takes hold, and flashbacks interrupt Ren’s line of thinking. Reality bends and twists as motives are revealed, alibis fall apart, and a horrible and uncomfortable truth comes to the fore.

Ren is the ultimate unreliable narrator. Living in a drunken haze and suffering from mountains of anxiety and stress, Ren confronts his world from an unstable platform. The story features many quirky characters, and there are some genuine Twin Peaks vibes at play. Alternately, consider the ’90s sitcom Northern Exposure, but with a helping of mean and nasty to go along with the small-town PNW experience. Portland has a saying: “Keep Portland Weird.” That ethos carries over to the Oregon coast for this movie.

Embry shines in this role. Ren is a character with a lot of depth and texture. Embry manages to draw out joy, rage, sorrow, and confusion in a palpable portrayal. Li Jun Li is delightful and hard to pin down. I loved watching her in Sinners, and she mirrors Embry well. For me, the revelation is the young actor Lukas Jann. There is a Timothy Chalamet quality to his work. (It helps that they look similar.) Jann plays Jack with natural grace. Nothing forced, and he is the emotional core of this plot. The ensemble embodied the eccentricity of an isolated small town that enjoys breaking stereotypes.

Weird can get in the way of clarity, though.

Michael Patrick Jann plays sleight of hand with his filmmaking. Sets and locations unexpectedly change without explanation. Ren appears to be living in a lovely suburban home, but later wakes up in a ramshackle trailer home. Which one is the real home? Curious, indeed. Alma has many varied forms, and yet none of them are thoroughly investigated. Again, unreliable narrator. Who, or what, is Alma? Eye of the beholder, I assume. She isn’t a figure of Ren’s imagination, as other characters interact with her. Is this a strength or a weakness of the film?

My thoughts are mixed.

I loved the cast and characters. The emotional current through the movie won me over. The ending is devastating. Be prepared for that. And, allow yourself just to get lost in the plot nuances. This movie relies heavily on thematic resonance rather than logic or reason. Alma and the Wolf deftly uses absurdism, and does not overplay its hands. Among the crowd-pleasing scenes is the confrontation between Ren and Murphy and the flock of “deadly” goats. Does it make sense? Hello no! Is it fun? Absolutely.

There is some risk in the mixed tone of this movie. Like a David Lynch film, it draws you in and out of conventional storytelling, blending purely wacky moments. It spends much of the time building up how unusual and endearing the characters are, and then it crushes some of them in a jarring fashion. The costumes were… adequate. We do get a good transformation scene, but the monsters aren’t anything to write home about. The wolf, werewolf, and goats take a back seat to the psychological trauma.

The Oregon coast also plays a significant role in the film. There is a Brontë-esque quality to the coast in winter. Mist, gloom, and beach grass apply a folk-horror quality to the visuals. It is both lovely and sad. If this film had been shot in the summer, it would be a different story. The northern Oregon coast is spectacular in the summer, but in the winter, it can be quite gloomy.

It worked for me. I’ll watch it again, and I’ve seen it three times now. I had the opportunity to interview Ethan for the film, but sadly, my recorder batteries gave out mid-recording. I managed to record a lively Q&A session at the Portland Horror Film Festival, and I think you’ll enjoy it.

Alma and the Wolf is still on the festival circuit. It is rated R for some strong violent content/gore, and language. This Paramount picture is now available streaming on many platforms, including Amazon Prime.

Perhaps it is the reputation of the Pacific Northwest as being a bit quirky and a haven for eccentric individuals seeking to escape civilization. Maybe it’s something in the Cascade fresh waters. Whatever it is, horror has a damp home in the upper left corner of the continent. In a genre that heavily relies on the cabin-in-the-woods trope, few places have more iconic woods than the forests of Oregon and Washington.

However, the Pacific Northwest is more than moss-covered damp forests; it is a region of great variety. Rocky coastlines that are moody and craggy. High plateau landscapes with big sky that are just a few hours’ drive from major metropolitan areas. And it’s located between the movie-making meccas of Los Angeles and Vancouver. (Vancouver, of course, being part of the PNW) Oregon, in particular, hands out film subsidies to attract filmmakers, and many independent horror directors have taken advantage of the moody environment and the money.

In addition, the region has a reputation for cryptids. McMinnville, Oregon, hosts an annual UFO festival that attracts a large number of visitors. The Crater Lake Monster. (Which is largely a cryptid created by cinema… few people actually believe in a Nessie in Crater Lake.) Recently, a number of PNW mermaid horror movies have been created. And, of course, Sasquatch, the king of the cryptids, is the legend that dominates the region.

Because portions of the PNW are isolated, it attracts anarchists and isolationists. Sometimes they actually come to clash with each other (consider the riots of 2020). For all its progressiveness, the Pacific Northwest also harbors a number of Nazi skinhead groups. We’re not proud of that, but they are here. Hollywood has picked up on this, and we got one of the great films of the new millennium with Green Room. There is also a reputation of the area being a haven for serial killers, notably the Green River Killer, who terrified the citizens of Puget Sound during the ’80s and ’90s.

With all that as a reference, give a listen to Eric, Liz, Mike, and Heather talk about our favorite horror movies that take place in Cascadia.

I scream. You scream. We all scream for jump scares! Properly executed, this is the trope that will get audiences shrieking in terror. Use it too often, and it dulls the impact. Timing and setting is everything for the jump scare.

Our Formal Declaration of a Jump Scream:

Jump scares exploit the human’s natural fight or flight response to a threat, causing an automatic physical reaction like quickened heart beats and adrenaline rushes. A scene that shocks and frightens you so that you suddenly move.

The Scariest Things Team is not hardened to good jump scares. Heather is a screamer. Mike is a jumper. Liz and Eric like to watch Mike jump.

Filmmakers employ different methods to deploy their jump scares. Sometimes there is a buildup of tension, building anticipation. (The jack-in-the-box). Other times, they catch an audience when their guard is down, in a false sense of security. But, you have to be careful, if you utilize the jump scare too often, there may be diminishing returns for the scares.

Used in: Alien, The Thing, Paranormal Activity, The Grudge

Used in: Sinister, Exorcist III, Friday the 13th
This technique sometimes gets employed at the end of the movie once the audience thinks that the danger has passed.

Used in: Scream, Halloween, Paranormal Activity 3, Poltergeist
Variants of this include the classic monster under the bed or monster in a closet trope.

This movie has FOUR all-time classic jump scares. Three jack-in-the-box moments and a cat jump scare for the ages!

Overlook, the great New Orleans Horror Film Festival, has delivered its goods. Long-time Patreon supporter of The Scariest Things, Robyn Marcotte, joined us to share her experiences with Eric and Liz on the festival. More than ever, I found that I didn’t have enough time to see nearly enough of the movies. Still, I was able to catch eight feature films and 23 short films. You have to pick and choose, as it is physically impossible to see all the movies. So, it became a bit of a guessing game as to what was going to be the best watch. In this episode, we share our thoughts on everything we did at the Festival.

Did I make the right choices? I’d like to think so. There were some excellent movies.

Here are the movies that I was able to review:

Other movies that we saw that don’t have reviews yet:

Liz and Robin weren’t particularly impressed with those movies, and in the case of Shrouds, Liz is convinced that David Cronenberg has lost a few steps.

Films we weren’t able to see:

If you are looking for additional recommendations, the movies that we probably should have caught is Touch Me, which won the Overlook Grand Jury Award, and Best Wishes to All which took home the Jury’s Scariest Film Award.

The biggest takeaway you should have is that film festivals are enthralling. It’s a bit overwhelming, and you won’t be able to see or do everything… and particularly in a tourist City like New Orleans, you should get to spend some time outside the theaters. Go to the after parties, do the trivia, and some of the panels. My experience with Crypticon (a fan convention) convinces me that you will enjoy the festival much more when you get a chance to meet and greet other festival attendees and the special guests.

Overlook has been trying very hard, and has been succeeding at improving the festival experience. It’s not a cheap festival, but compared to other festivals like SXSW or Sundance, it is a bargain, and it is ALL HORROR. Thanks to Robyn for joining us this year, and we will see you all again in New Orleans Next year!

This year, I made a point of seeing all of the horror shorts film blocks at the festival. The feature films were excellent this year, but you can always catch the features that show at Overlook in the cinema or eventually streaming. The short films are labors of love that are condensed kernels of horror that are not as easily found.

I thought it would be good to celebrate the festival’s best horror shorts by getting together with the people who made them. I interviewed nine filmmakers to discuss their experiences making the movies in a casual discussion with each other. Several of them were having their world premiere showings at Overlook. Horror shorts are allowed to take bigger chances than feature films. Big feature films are the product of many parents, with the director, writer, editor, and studio all having an influence on the final product. In the case of these films, often, it is a singular vision, with one person serving in all of those roles. When you get to show your film at a festival like this, it is a considerable achievement.

There were 22 horror shorts shown in this year’s festival, and they were grouped by theme. Group one: Freaky, Group two: Apocalypse Pretty Soon, and Group 3: The Furies. Congratulations to Katie Rife, the short film curator for the event. Her selections played off each other very well and provided a broad array of interesting concepts and styles. I hope the festival bundles these films up in packages that will become available for viewing by a larger audience. (Including you!)

Directed by Luke Zwanziger
Starring: Lowell Deo, Joel Austin

“A mad botanist experiments on an unwilling human subject to give plants a fighting chance against climate change.”

A mad science eco tale where the protagonist and antagonist could be flipped. A mad scientist is doing horrible things to people for all the right reasons. An average Joe just doing his ethically questionable job. Pair that with leveled-up stop motion puppetry and makeup work, and you can understand why this short has been a fan favorite in many film festivals.

Watch the trailer for Vines

“When Maya commits to a month of sobriety and takes up sculpting as a hobby, her crab sculptures terrorize her former drinking buddy — her brother Toby.”

Pure, wild absurdism. It is almost too strange a film to describe accurately. Dry January shows off the risks you can execute in a short film that a studio would surely prevent. A woman takes to crafting a crab sculpture that comes to life as a hunky crab man who barfs up curious trivia and aphorisms to live by in the middle of the night. What? Hey, it works. I really enjoyed this film, which is an homage to the struggles of recovery but taken in an amusing direction. You will never see another film like this one. Trust me.

Some of the great fun facts that got barfed out by the crab man:

Who knew?

Watch the Trailer for Dry January

A traveler stops to rest in a clearing of a haunted forest. Soon, they learn they have stumbled upon the lair of a terrifying troll who demands gifts for passage.

The Traveler and the Troll won the Best Short Film award at Overlook. It received a raucous response during my viewing, as the clever and hilarious dialogue paired with an astonishing puppet that would be at home in Jim Henson’s workshop. The story lures you in with the classic fairy tale tropes and engages you with lovely production and silly banter. The troll isn’t all that terrifying, but he is terrific. The world premiere film also claimed an honorable mention award for Creature Design.

“A member of a famous K-Pop boy band whose face has been disfigured by an accident must undergo surgery to repair his fracturing image.”

This medical malfeasance tale of a pop star who loses everything, his dreams ruined by a car wreck, reflects on vanity and the price of fame when the beauty is lost. What is the price you would pay to get it all back? Body horror and surgical reconstruction echo films like The Substance and The Skin I Live In. Benedict Chiu is early in his short filmmaking career and pulls off a stylish and tight production.

Watch the Trailer for Boy Band

“Eager to make new friends, Kate attends a slumber party, but the night takes a sinister turn when the girls decide to play a strange party game.”

Have you ever felt like you were in over your head in a social setting with new people? There might be something off, but the peer pressure is overwhelming, and you are determined to see past the awkwardness and gut it out. Such is the fateful decision in front of our protagonist. Every sign points to danger, but fearing rejection, she joins an unsavory activity. Short and punchy. This was the world premiere for Call Earl.

“A young trans woman is chased into a junkyard while being followed home late at night. There, she must outwit her predator and summon the strength of a goddess. ”

Cruelty won the Scariest Short Film Award at Overlook, and deserved it. It features traditional serial killer stalker tropes and inverts the power paradigm. Some nifty effects and using Kali as a protector was a fresh perspective I would like to see made into a feature. The crisp editing ramps the tension and punctuates the story with a perfectly gory end that satisfies on many levels.

Watch the Trailer for Cruelty

An aging boy band decides to sell their souls for fame and fortune. Unfortunately, not reading the fine print could prove disastrous. Wickedly funny, with a song served two ways: Once as a pop harmony number, and following a fateful blood pact, a death metal version of the same song. Shades of Spinal Tap and Puppet Show vibes abound. Oh, how the mighty have fallen… and risen again! This was the world premiere for Arson.

Directed by Alejandro Artiles
Starring: Maykol Hernández, Leticia Torres, Marta Zubiría, Ryo Ruiz

“Isolated in the La Palma observatory, Fran must face the last thing any parent wants to hear.”

Los Muchachos deservedly won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Short Film at Overlook. Like Pontypool or Orson Welles’ reading of The War of the Worlds, this story utilizes radio audio clues to create the fear in your mind. The zombie apocalypse is coming, and Fran is working in his observatory when the world changes due to a comet passing through the stratosphere. His wife and son are experiencing the coming apocalypse firsthand, and he is helpless as the reality sets in. The film was so powerful that the audience was stunned into silence when the credits rolled. Riveting.

“Frankie reunites with her toxic community and must tap into her dark side to survive unscathed.”

Pro tip: Don’t mess with a witch’s family unless you’re fully prepared to accept the consequences. Slush paints a grim picture of returning home to a closed-minded community, an allegory for our divided times. Frankie is a clever witch whose sense of justice takes some unique methods of revenge. From someone who also lives in the Pacific Northwest, I feel that the urban-rural divide is startlingly real in this depiction.

Watch the trailer for Slush

Directed by Stacy Haiduk & Sophia Tatum
Starring: Stacy Haiduk, Sophia Tatum, and Reina Hardesty

“Lana and Strode, a mother and daughter, take to the road for a five-day killing spree.”

It’s the great American road trip with daywalking vampires. Real-life mother and daughter Stacy Haiduk and Sophia Tatum channel their inner Thelma and Louise in this blood-soaked romp through the desert southwest. Mom wants to continue preying upon the unsuspecting humans the way they always have, with seduction. The daughter wants a more direct approach. This short film oozes style and sexy confidence, and oh, that beautiful Cadillac. Want one.

Watch the Trailer for Brand New Cadillac

Directed by Ishkwaazhe Shane McSauby
Starring: Benairen Kane and Kim Savarino

“A burgeoning romance between two Natives takes a sinister turn as one grows suspicious of the other’s Indigenous heritage in this darkly comedic nightmare.”

I also caught this film as part of the SXSW Midnighter Shorts programming. Pride in your cultural heritage can forge strong bonds. But when you sense that someone is trying a bit TOO hard, warning signals flare. Such is the case with our two protagonists in The Beguiling. What initially feels like a bonding over shared indigenous experiences and common ancestry becomes awkward; the motivations of the relationship are in doubt, leaving you wondering who is appropriating whom. You need to pay close attention as the clues are subtle, but you get clued in simultaneously with the characters, and then it’s too late. Only one of them is leaving the apartment.

Watch the Trailer for The Beguiling

It Ends resonated with me in a meaningful way. This is not only because the film is highly entertaining and a brilliant think-piece but also because of what it represents. It Ends is an announcement of the arrival of inspiring young talent in the horror genre to a stage reserved usually for veteran horror auteurs. The cast and crew are so young and gifted. Alex Ullom and producers Carrie Carusone and Evan Barber recently graduated from Florida State University’s film school, and this is their first feature film. This is also the debut feature for the talented cast, and the crew are all peers, experience-wise. This is a Gen Z production from front to back.

The film punches way above its weight class, with the smooth production design, snappy editing, and punchy and often hilarious dialogue. It Ends presents a powerful emotional heft. There is a dream-like quality to the plot, and it asks the audience to be patient as the characters puzzle their way through this existential trap. It might be guilty of staying on the path a little too long, and the movie moves into melancholy in the third act, but none of this diminishes what is a stellar first outing from all involved. The extended time we spend with the protagonists bolsters the emotional weight of the story. We care about these people because we get to know them, and we feel the torment of the trial.

Remember these actors. I would not be surprised if some, if not all of them become bigger stars down the road. The producers picked the cast from a casting call of 500 actors, and they made the correct selections. There is a natural chemistry between the four of them, and it feels like we are watching old friends going through the cauldron together. It helps that each character has a distinct role to play in the car, and the group performs like a well-tuned chorus.

We join our protagonists preparing to depart for some late night revelry. They pile into a Jeep Cherokee, and immediately the familiar strains of close friendships kick in. Teasing, goading, storytelling, and tough love judgements ensue. Highlighted in the road trip conversations is a hypothetical “what if” game that Fisher introduces to his friends.

50 Hawks, 10,000 rats, a guy with a gun, and 5 gorillas. You pick two to defend you and the rest are coming to hunt you.”

Fisher proposing an outlandinsh scenario to his friends in the car.

Though, at the time, this absurd conceit feels like the nutty banter that we all have had with our friends, it foreshadows some bizarre existential questions they will be asking themselves soon. What would you do if something preposterous happened? After driving a long while into the woods of the Florida panhandle, Tyler gets concerned that they are on the wrong path. They must have missed a turn, but nobody remembers ever seeing any turn. No intersections, no traffic lights, no buildings, and no other traffic. The remote road is a meandering line. Making things more confusing, none of them can recall their destination.

Tyler turns the Jeep around, backtracking to find a location they recognize. Eventually, the road comes to a dead end. Nobody saw any turns or intersections in their retreat, and while Tyler wanders past the “Road Ends” sign into the woods, a horde of panicky people surges out from the wood and lay siege to the vehicle, desperately trying to get control of the Jeep.

Our protagonists manage to escape from the mob, but not without injury. After driving a few miles, they stop to gather their wits. Once again, crazed people pour from the woods, and they flee once again, back up the road, not caring where it goes so long as they can get out of the woods. The road continues. There are no hills, there are no gaps in the forest, and they cannot find a horizon. They have timed the oncoming hordes to 1 minute 30 seconds at each encounter, so they don’t have enough time to scout any stop fully.

Unfortunately, the road keeps going without a break. Tens of miles become hundreds, and nobody in the car is tired or hungry. The car seems to be running without consuming fuel, and the road to nowhere continues. Soon, the group starts to question the reality of their situation. Are they dead? Is this hell or purgatory? Are they dreaming? Is this an alternate reality? Do any of them have dark secrets that would curse them to an eternity on this road? What did any of them do to deserve this?

Eventually, monotony and frustration take over, testing their will. How much more can they endure? Will any of them give up? Miles turn into hundreds of miles, which turn into thousands of miles. It’s a devastating toll, but occasional variations in the pattern offer glimmers of hope but no answers. Is there an end to the road, and if there is, who will make it to the end?

Alex Ullom knows what the road represents, but he’s not telling, which is for the best. There are so many allegories at play. I personally think this is a paved River Styx, without Charon, the dread bargeman. But like the unfortunate travellers, I find this to be an unsolvable mystery, and this is just a theory. The power of the movie is listening to the conversations about solving this road riddle. Even when the tedium saps the traveler’s will, the conversations remain pointed and natural.

Thematically, I couldn’t help but draw comparisons to two other movies I saw at the festival: Hallow Road, which deals with truth and consequences using the front seat of an SUV as the dramatic stage, and Redux Redux, a multiverse-looping revenge thriller. Hallow Road focuses on traveling a dark and lonely road while receiving awful information, forcing grim and fateful decisions. Redux Redux puts its characters through a repetitive grinding paradox loop that challenges them to persevere or give up the mission. It Ends combines those two concepts, and though all three movies are intellectually challenging, It Ends provides the most philosophical depth.

There is risk in a Fate Twist movie. The pattern needs to repeat enough times to be identifiable but still interesting. You also need to know where to put the off-ramp. The characters are supposed to get frustrated, but the audience shouldn’t. This movie is careful enough to avoid that trap, but perhaps only just in time. Traveling down an endless road pushes your ability to focus on the road ahead, and you can feel it along with the characters. To counter this tendency, It Ends cleverly uses character titles in the third act, which announces “This is new!” and re-calibrates the audience’s expectations at each title drop.

Some people might not like the story’s ambiguity, but I appreciate the care with which the philosophy unspools. The movie hits with an early crescendo, featuring perhaps the best jump scares of the whole festival, but then it settles into a more introspective pace. I have overheard some people describe the tone of this film as depressing, but I felt a surge of hope at the movie’s end. Perseverance pays off.

Ullom is poised to be a generational voice for Gen Z horror films. His knack for dialogue is fluid, with adroit comic and poetic timing. I hope he gets the opportunity to grow into that role. (No pressure!) For concepts this big and well thought through to come from a mind that is that young (He was 23 when he conceived this movie), it is staggering to think what he might accomplish. Most directors with his level of experience would be tinkering with short films or getting apprenticeships on bigger productions. This movie feels like it was produced by a veteran crew with a confidence of purpose.

At the Overlook Film Festival, the festival’s director described this project as hitting a home run in their first major league at bat. The cast and crew should take a slow trot around the bases and enjoy the moment. It’s not perfect, but the film has been executed very well. Touch ’em all!

It Ends will be on the festival circuit for a while longer as it looks to land a major distributor. It Ends premiered at SXSW and was followed up at the Overlook Film Festival. The next stop will be the Florida Film Festival on April 13. The movie is currently not rated, but I suspect it would receive a PG-13 rating, and it would be a great movie for younger audiences. These are young characters who are starting to figure their lives out and could intellectually challenge a teenage audience.

If you have been listening to our podcasts, you know that I have placed Good Boy at the top of my most anticipated horror movies of 2025. I am a sucker for horror movies featuring canines, and Good Boy impressed the hell out of me. Indy is the charismatic lead protagonist of this film. The humans are the supporting cast, and we have been spared any ersatz animal voice-overs or animals behaving like humans. No horror movie- heck, maybe any movie regardless of genre- has a more honest depiction of dog behavior while centering the entire story around them.

A cell phone has been ringing in an apartment, where a worried Indy lies on a couch, allowing it to ring… because he’s a dog. He can’t answer the phone. Neither can his master, Todd, who is having seizures. Vera enters the apartment, aghast at Todd’s condition, and rushes him to the hospital.

When we next see Todd and Indy, they are taking possession of Todd’s grandfather’s home, which has been abandoned since he passed away under mysterious circumstances. The dilapidated house is without power, but Todd is fortunate that his neighbor remembers him from Todd’s childhood. His neighbor gives Todd a spare generator so they can have a little light and enough power to watch Grandpa on old home videos.

Indy senses there is something wrong in the house. The audience is made aware of the potential curse in the house from a phone conversation between Todd and Vera, but of course, Indy will have no concept of this curse. He smells something is off, and he can hear the remnants of occupants past, and some shadows drift in and out of the corners. As Todd’s conditions worsen, he is oblivious to the danger closing in. Indy tries his best, but his owner’s physical, mental, and emotional state dissolves, and he is extraordinarily vulnerable to the curse put upon the house and the family.

The dog does his absolute best to try and save Todd, but can he rescue his master before the dark forces overwhelm him?

It took Leonberg three years and 400 days to achieve what is a monumental passion project. In an age of digital animals in movies, Good Boy is an honest and tangible effort that radiates from the screen. Indy is charisma personified and is radiates supreme pet vibes. You root so hard for Indy. All the limitations of a dog are present here, but the film does everything it can to let you see and feel what Indy perceives.

Nothing here is cheap. Everything is earned. There are no cloying attempts to anthropomorphize Indy. They let the dog be the dog, and we get to be on the ride-along program with Indy. The directorial choices are subtle and tremendously effective.

The movie isn’t perfect, though. I think the backstory of the curse could have been better illustrated in the videos of Larry Fessenden. The motivations of the ghost aren’t clear, and the nature of the curse is rather ambiguous. Perhaps I will understand the situation better upon a second viewing, but that background could have been a bit better fleshed out. While Indy is about as easy a character to root for in a horror movie, Todd is a bit prickly. He represents damaged goods and makes poor decisions, so he is not easy to connect with.

I admit to being biased. I am a dog owner, and I love dog movies. However, this also makes me critical of the proper use of dogs in a horror film. This is the Colossus of dog horror movie achievements. Indy is not a dog trained to be an actor, save for his work on this movie. Getting the performance out of Indy was a trial of patience, but it also suggests great intelligence for this retriever.

Good Boy is a special movie. Because of the power imbalance between a specter and a dog, the dread builds throughout the film, offering some excellent scares. Audience members in my theater cried. This movie will put you into the wringer, particularly if you are a dog lover. At one key moment, I said aloud, “Oh, don’t you DARE!” Self consciousness be damned, I was invested in Indy.

I have placed Indy at the top of my Horror Movie Dogs We Love Dead list, surpassing Jed from The Thing and Cujo. Indy operates on a wholly different doggy level. Good Boy is intense, but it would be suitable for younger horror fans. The movie has not received an MPAA rating yet, and apart from some foul language, it could receive a PG-13 rating. Though not very violent or gory, it is very intense. There are high emotional stakes in this movie. It was also very early in the festival circuit, and the movie has not yet received a distribution package, though Ben Leonberg believes he is close to getting a deal done.

Note that there is also a 2023 horror movie called Good Boy, which involves a creepy guy dressed up like a dog. THAT IS A DIFFERENT MOVIE. Ensure you check out the correct one when eventually looking for it streaming.

We will let you all know when the movie receives a release date. Good Boy had its world premiere at SXSW, and was part of the programming at the Overlook Film Festival.

Good Boy, Indy. Such a good boy.

Here is the audio interview I had with Ben Leonberg discussing Good Boy:

As we roll into the peak of festival season, we are given a glimpse at what movies are coming to try and scare you. In January, the announced movies are usually known commodities. Your sequels. Your reboots. A couple months in now, and we have a better sense of what offerings are on the table. In Episode 196, The Scariest Things talks about our most anticipated horror films of 2025.

As you might expect, this is much more of an art than science, as rarely does the most anticipated movie at the beginning of the year-end up as the favorite movie by the end of the year. For Liz, she hit the bullseye with Oddity last year. The buzz going into SXSW was strong, and the movie delivered. Similarly, two years ago, Talk To Me was getting lots of notice from Sundance, the earliest of the big festivals. The hype proved accurate. Some films spend a year in Limbo but build up a lot of good press, like Late Night With the Devil.

However, nobody saw When Evil Lurks coming. And sometimes, we have great hopes for some of the big sequels and reboots, like Halloween Kills or Exorcist Believer, only to be disappointed at what could have been. And yet, sometimes, the big studios deliver offerings like The First Omen. Like baseball’s opening day, the season begins full of optimism. The trend lines usually show up by June when the big festivals have run their course. 2024, even in the rearview mirror, was a bit of a mixed bag. The Scariest Things was divided about the outcome. Some thought, “Meh,” and some of us thought the year had great depth.

What will 2025 bring? Listen in, and then one year later, we’ll see who was right and wrong! At this point, we’re still playing darts.

In Podcast Episode 80, we explored the Western Zodiac by reviewing our birth years, examining what movies came out in the year we were born, and determining what those movies had to say about our taste in cinema. It was an interesting experiment in podcasting, so we thought we’d try it again, this time with the Eastern Zodiac.

The idea was simple: each year represents a different animal on the celestial wheel. We pick a movie that includes said animal and figure out how original we can be with our selections. Or, at least, that was the original intent of this podcast. Mike took it differently than Eric, Heather, and Liz, as he looked for aspects of the animal representatives and found movies that met those themes.

So, we beg your pardon for any confusion, but I think you will agree that this will be a most original podcast. There are three sets of animals in movies, and one is an abstracted traits movie for each year on the Lunar Zodiac. It’s in a speed-round method, so we plow through a lot of movies very quickly!

According to the Lunar horoscope, The Year of the Wood Snake is a time of big opportunities. This is a shedding of the skin year, a time of renewal and potential. The snake is wise and intuitive; this could be a year of challenge and opportunity. The skin-shedding nature of the year of the snake also offers up the potential to change your appearance and, perhaps, the way that you approach your challenges.

The wood snake, in particular, suggests that you plan carefully and think strategically. Make thoughtful and analytical decisions. Though this year may be one of great promise, set realistic goals. Be wary; this may be a year when others try to manipulate or cheat you. It’s rather grim tidings, if you are following current politics.

Turning our thoughts to horror movies. Think cool, calculating, methodical, persuasive… what horror movie does this make you think of? Or… if we boil it down to the simplest form: What is your favorite snake-themed horror movie? You can go philosophical, or you can go literal. We’ll give you both in Episode 195.

Snake Characteristics:
You are charming, elegant, sophisticated, witty, and charismatic. Snakes tend to be intelligent, creative, and ambitious. You have leadership potential, but you tend towards manipulation and are prone to jealousy. Snakes hold grudges and have good memories. Work on being more humble, compassionate, and forgiving of others.