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(This film was featured at the Third Annual Sin City Horror Fest.)

You may remember from some years back, an excellent and very weird little film called CURDLED. In that movie, a woman working on a crime-scene cleaning crew developed a morbid and growing romantic fascination with the serial killer whose messes they were hired to clean up.

ONE MUST FALL puts a very different spin on that scenario. Two down-on-their-luck office drones replace their dead-end jobs by signing up with a crime scene cleaning crew. But a question not asked very often does arise: what if during the process of cleaning up, they discover that the perpetrator of a crime has never left the crime scene?

They soon learn the terrifying answer, as they're preyed upon by the city's first reported serial murderer. And he is one for the books. Practical effects lovers who hate CG embellishments are going to LOVE this, as director Pantoja makes sure that his effects team gets to plumb their budget as much as possible, for some incredibly gory "murder-death-kills" that wouldn't be out of place in many of the major, more extravagantly-budgeted slasher franchises.

The cast is game for all of the grueling paces that director Pantoja puts them through, but you won't walk away from this one without the memory of actor Barry Piacente stained on your brain indefinitely, as the grandiose and remorseless serial murderer who gets off on torture and murder...and those who cross his path will be lucky if he gets right to the 'murder' part!

Unless he returns as a supernatural killer of some kind, ONE MUST FALL doesn't look like it's going to be spun off into yet another franchise. But even if not, it's a great one-off, and a perfect introduction to Pantoja's work, a director whom I hope will become another major name in the genre!

(This film was featured at the Third Annual Sin City Horror Fest.)

Say the phrase "fan film", and usually it's enough to inspire cringing and lots of eye-rolling responses, especially when they're as awful as they can possibly get. But good news! NEVER HIKE ALONE isn't one of them!

A pleasant diversion from the recent legal SNAFUS entangling the FRIDAY franchise, director Di Santi's "love letter to Jason Voorhees" stars DREW LEIGHTY as social media sensation "Kyle McLeod", whose specialty is taking on the Great Outdoors, and photographing his adventures for his fans in real time. His latest hike takes him into uncharted territory, where he decides to cut his traveling time in half, through an area clearly marked with a "NO TRESSPASSING" sign. (There's Red Flag Numero UNO.) It gets really dicey, once he realizes that the actual place he's ventured into is...the spot where a certain camp was once located, and has been attached to some pretty gruesomely legendary stories...stories which he soon discovers were all too true.

With a minimal cast (including a franchise icon whom fans will love seeing), Di Santi manages to keep the suspense taut and gets maximum scares out of the scenario that don't feel cheap or unearned. He also does triple duty here, not just by writing and directing, but also by putting his own spin on Jason, in a way that other "Jason" actors (especially Kane Hodder) would gladly stamp with their 'Seal Of Approval'. And the ending implies a possible sequel...one I personally wouldn't mind seeing one little bit. New Line could do a lot worse than to give Vincente a shot at doing whatever the next installment in the franchise is...he's certainly proven himself with a film that excels beyond what normally passes for a "fan film".

(This film was featured at the Third Annual Sin City Horror Fest in las Vegas) WHERE do I even begin?

WARHOL. WATERS. WISEAU. Names that you've come to know, and even love, as masters in the area of "outre" cinema. MULTIPLE MANIACS. DESPERATE LIVING. PINK FLAMINGOS. FLESH. TRASH. HEAT. BAD. THE ROOM. Titles that have stood the test of time as some of the most genuinely out-there, notable pieces of 'fringe' filmmaking that people have written dissertations and even their Masters' thesis about. Even that last one, where Wiseau seemed to come in late on being "IN" on the joke.

Well, there's no denying it - writer/director Michael Keene is in on it from the very beginning, and if you're not familiar with any of the cinematic artists I just mentioned, chances are that his new film, THE HEAD, won't be for you. AT ALL. Note I said that in caps. There's a good reason behind that. No matter if you can recite the entire script of FEMALE TROUBLE, you still may not be ready for what Keene has in store for you. But you'll certainly know it within the first few minutes.

Think of a film like Alex Cox's REPO MAN. Slava Tsukerman's cult masterpiece, LIQUID SKY. John McNaughton's trippy, blackly comic sci-fi horror opus THE BORROWER.

Now, try to imagine what any of those films would have looked like, if the filmmakers responsible for them didn't have a dime for a budget. And no, I don't mean barely two pennies to rub together. I mean ZIP, NADA, NYET. Oh, and the only thing they had to shoot their projects on was a VHS camcorder from the Eighties.

If you can envision that, you almost have Keene's film in mind.

And in spite of the fact that the movie on the face of it seems absolutely pointless to the very edge of absurdity, it does have a plot. And that absurdity is the point.

Boy-meets-head. Boy-falls-in-love-with-head. Head-completely-ruins-boy's life. Wash, rinse, repeat.

And that's still oversimplifying the glorious outrageousness of Keene's vision. Besides being a loving tribute to all of the ballsy lensers of the Eighties, who had nothing but a vision and let nothing stop them in the realization of it, THE HEAD pops a big, punked-out middle finger up at big-budget, pretty-to-look-at, completely empty multiplex blockbusters, by daring to be, for lack of a better way of putting it - an "anti-movie" movie.

There isn't anything here that would be out of whack in your average Troma film. Lloyd Kaufman would be happy to have it in his library. Hell, he might even try to ACQUIRE it when he hears about it!

And showcasing some of the best punk thrash cuts that Las Vegas has to offer, it may not have won the Festival award for Best Score, but I sure as hell want that soundtrack!