Author: Peter 'Witchfinder' Hopkins

If you’re hungry for a superhero film that’s less fantastical CGI and power-responsibility pep talks, and more willing to dive into society’s sordid underbelly like Netflix’s acclaimed “Daredevil”, then “Rendel” is sure to be the hero to answer your call. Jesse Haaja’s feature film debut is a blood-splattered love letter to genre classics showcasing the director’s remarkable ability to balance inspiration with carving a unique identity and world for our masked anti-hero. For example, wonderfully framed stealthy takedowns and brutal brawls wouldn’t feel out of place in Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” trilogy, but are infused with a raw brutality…

NEXT OF KIN *** New Zealand 1982 Dir: Tony Williams. 86 mins Jackie Kerin is excellent as a young teacher who inherits the Montclair Retirement Home from her dead mother, returning to the small town of her childhood, where the only significant change in 20 years is the installation of a new public loo. A sequence of unsettling events suggest her late mother’s belief in an “evil force” lurking in the home might be true, as her private calls are infiltrated and elderly residents start dying in larger than usual numbers. Existing somewhere between a haunted house movie and an…

Painted Creek Productions’ presents the action packed trailer for their much anticipated sci-fi action thriller ABEYANCE. Multi award-winning filmmaker and actor Harley Wallen (Betrayed, Moving Parts) wrote, produced and directed this film and it stars Scout Taylor Compton (Rob Zombie’s Halloween 1 and 2), Richard Tyson (Kindergarten Cop, There’s Something About Mary), Billy Wirth (The Lost Boys), Mel Novak (Quentino Tarantino favorite Game of Death) and Vida Ghaffari (FOX’s The Mindy Project). Synopsis: After helping to create a revolutionary invention with great implications Bridget (Erika Hoveland), finds a character flaw in the company they’ve partnered with to develop the prototype…

CURSE OF THE SCARECROW * UK 2018 Dir: Louisa Warren 84 mins A young woman returns to her families farm where 20 years earlier she and her brother witnessed their parents murder at the hands of what seemed to be a scarecrow. Legend has it that hundreds of years ago on that land villagers caught a thief and strung him up to be eaten by crows. It is said now that for 2 days every 20 years his spirit returns in the form of a scarecrow to kill whoever owns the farm or wanders into the land as a way…

STALK *** USA 2018 Dir: Michael Coulombe. 5 mins An effectively executed horror short from L.A. based filmmaker Michael Coulombe, following his earlier work for Horror House Media, SOUNDBITE. This is constructed around one of the most prolific of all modern horror movie set ups: a woman (Kara Schaaf) walking home from a party on Haddonfield-like nocturnal suburban streets is stalked by a shambling figure (Tyler Gallant) with a big knife, a white mask and a fondness for prowling around and jumping out from behind bushes. The subjective viewpoints and familiar looking neighbourhoods echo the vintage slasher movie inspiration, and…