★★★★ Directed by: #JoeAnderson, #NadineVincent Written by: #JoeAnderson, #PaulCampa Starring: #JohnBakerButler, #TateDewey, #JohnRousseau Film Review by Lucy Clarke There has always been a long documented struggle between the artist and the record label. While the band seeks for creative enlightenment, the record label aims to squeeze every dollar out of their music before they’re put on the shelf. Today, there are new claims of controlling managers, but this is a tale as old as time, and this uneasy relationship has existed since the birth of music itself. This parasitic relationship between the record label and band often worms its way onto studio albums, from Pink Floyd’s Have A Cigar with its lyrics, “Oh, by the way, which one’s Pink?”, to Kate Bush’s sarcastic Wow. But Portrait of a Rocker: B Side portrays a slightly different record label executive. Eddie Chapman (John Baker Butler) has a nose for business, but he also has a deep, unstoppable passion for music. After stumbling into a bar hosting an open mic, Chapman spies a promising boy band playing covers. He sees something in them they don’t see themselves. Eddie Chapman is a music exec who seems to be a shade similar to the record label executives encountered both by Kate Bush and Pink Floyd. Like a dog sniffing for truffles, it appears that Chapman is good at finding exactly what he wants - money. He wants to sell all of it, the band, the record, their style. But, on the other hand, he is also the same exec who waxes lyrical about a James Brown concert and how that experience instrumentally changed him as a person. John Baker Butler works hard here to portray a nuanced exec who juggles his financial ambitions with the thrill of finding real talent. It’s here where Joe Anderson and Paul Campa’s writing really shines. The decision to put the music exec at the centre stage of this story is a wise one, but it’s also incredibly innovative. The musician’s rise to fame now has gone a bit stale, and the turn from unknown to superstar is so predictable. However, the choices music executives make are, by contrast, rather unexplored. Luckily, directors Joe Anderson and Nadine Vincent knew where to put their emphasis. Chapman is a dynamic character, whereas the two bandmates, Beck Flowers (Tate Dewey) and Lloyd Lester (John Rousseau), are too green and too directionless to be an audience favourite. This short film feels like a scene from a much longer movie. It leaves you eager for more and wondering if there’s more to this story than just a mere ten minutes. Portrait of a Rocker: B Side thrusts the music executive into the limelight, and it succeeds in creating a vivid and dynamic character for the audience to invest in. It also moves away from the two-dimensional, aggressive music executives often encountered in music and movies. Instead, Eddie Chapman is fiercely passionate about music, and this is a passionately filmed short film which leaves you wondering what the A-Side is like.

★★ Directed by #JoyMarzec Starring: #AmielynnAbellera #SageOwens #MatteoJonesScammell Film review by Nathanial Eker Stop me if you've heard this one. 'A nun, a train-hopper, and a unsupervised child go on a road trip around New Mexico.' No, that isn't a bad joke, it's the premise of I Am That, a film that boasts undeniable potential, but ends up buried under its own tenuous plot when it should've been forty-five minutes shorter and much tighter. This comedy - adventure lacks the charm, wit, and elegance to pull off a layered story, with a deep message concealed by funny jokes. Instead, this trip to heaven is characterised by bizarre pacing, sloppy writing, and an inconsistent soundtrack. Skylar is a cloistered nun. After her sister dies, she suffers an intense crisis of faith and embarks on a pilgrimage to her grave, to decide whether religion is still for her. Along the way she meets a Samurai obsessed adolescent named Mickey and a drifter named Tamas. The three travel the state and debate some of life's biggest questions. Director and writer Joy Marzec makes admirable efforts to write a compelling and quirky comedy. I'd be surprised if there wasn't more than a little Taika Waititi in this director's favourite film list as the I Am That gives off Hunt for the Wilderpeople vibes throughout, which is no bad thing. Regrettably then, both scenes and characters are handled so clunkily that - with the exception of the troubled Skylar - they're almost impossible to connect with. Tamas and Mickey are the most egregious perpetrators, as both feel like little more than character archetypes. We've seen the melancholy drifter and the runaway child before, but just who are these people? Why (spoilers) does the cheery Mickey do a personality 180 and decide to kill himself when he merely sees his bruised Mother for the first time? It defies logic and makes for characters that are inconsistent at best and wholly unbelievable at worst. The supporting characters fare better, though few are memorable. Marzec does do a good job of establishing this world as a reality far-removed from ours, though the overly-pessimistic view of people is a tad depressing. Indeed, the constant blows to our characters prevent any development and makes the stilted chemistry between our main trio even more jarring. There are opportunities for sparks to fly, but unfortunately neither the writing or performances are solid enough to make me believe in them. Where praise can be given is in the film's atmosphere. Marzec takes their time and sets a scene well, establishing a desolate mise-en-scène that creates a Western-inspired tableau of New Mexico. The camera also follows the action well, though the frequent sharp pans can feel unnecessary at times. The change of aspect ratio when Skylar leaves the captivity of the temple is a nice trick, though the mind boggles why Marzec didn't use the smaller screen size when inside, and expand when Skylar escapes, as opposed to the opposite. Pacing becomes a consistent issue too, as I Am That miraculously manages to be both sluggishly lethargic, while simultaneously creating unacceptable ellipses between scenes that leave character motivations unclear and plot beats devoid of logic. The soundtrack does little to aid the film's frantic pacing too, as it lacks consistency. At times we hear a solid and earnest acoustic guitar, appropriate for the setting and tone (good), then a mixture of early grunge rock (more questionable), and most randomly of all, synth music (not good at all). But what about the message? A film that uses a pious protagonist with an ailing faith is an excellent device to explore big theological questions and explored those questions are. Faith is an essential component, not just for Skylar, but for Tamas and Mickey too. Their faith in religion, freedom, and family binds them together. It is this theme that ultimately offers I Am That salvation and saves it from total damnation. While no firm answer is given as to whether organised religion is the answer to life's problems, that's the point. Like in life, different and sometimes widely devout views are presented and ultimately, there is no answer. There are just people and their faiths. This blunt realisation that self determination and personal belief is more important than any one group's point of view is a powerful and touching point in an otherwise flawed film. Much of I Am That is admirably tenacious and clearly well made. Regrettably much more of it is unfocused and misses its intended mark. I Am That reviewer that must give this ambitious-yet-floundering film a two star rating.

★★★ Directed and written by #GigiHozimah Starring #JennyHutton, #JamesParenti, #SindaLeeNichols, #DimitriFisun Film Review by #JackBottomley Tackling any kind of metal health issues is difficult and especially when you cast a light on the internal struggle and thought processes that occur. And with this constant battle sometimes comes the even more difficult issues of existentialism, and portraying this on the screen can be a hopeless or grey experience. Writer/director #GigiHozimah takes on this challenge and while her film That Abandoned Place has some striking imagery and a very invested central performance, the very nature of the subject matter does reflect in the final product, which - personally - made this a very unenjoyable experience for this writer for a number of personal reasons. However, that is not to say that this is not a film that has some very difficult dialogues to address and challenging themes to think on. The film stars #JennyHutton as April, a young woman taken on her existential journey, after an attempted suicide has her break down and think about life in ways that are new, illuminating and frightening. The slow pace and visual direction may not be suited to some tastes, as indeed may the long stretches of grave subject matter and endurance-testing hopelessness, as life’s challenges surround, overwhelm and drown the lead at many points. In fact, even the final note, which offers some comfort, may still not quite offer the lifeline some viewers are hoping for. But, #GigiHozimah’s film is a realistic depiction of how the mind can work under such times of challenge. That Abandoned Place pulls you into it’s sometimes uncomfortable thought process and shows how love, art and companionship cannot always offer the redemption at the time but can perhaps be the key to ensuring that life goes on and we can find a solution, as we find a reason to live rather than a reason to die. Hutton convinces entirely in the lead role and even when the film seems to linger far too long on particular imagery (though it looks consistently good thanks to #ReneCastillanos’ cinematography), her humanity shines through. Even as her soul is being tortured by the love (#JamesParenti offers strong support as her loving partner Artem), loss and ideology of living, you will her character forward and hope for a satisfying moment for her. To what extent that comes is kind of up to your reading but That Abandoned Place is rather brave to go into the mind like it does and must be commended for how effectively and honestly it does so. I may not be able to say I “enjoyed” it but I recognised it (a heck of a lot more than one should) and Hozimah has countless important things to say in this work, which may reach a number of people. Admittedly it can feel very lyrically fanciful and maybe a tad too artsy at points but is a strong emotional piece of film, which maybe would have made for a far better structured short than feature but which still is a piece of work that touches (or rather pinpoints) seriously important subjects, affecting many lives. #JackBottomley

★★★ Directed by: #YanaIvantcheva Director: Yana Ivantcheva Writen by: London Taylor (aka London King) Starring: London Taylor (aka London King), Adrian Gawell Music video review by: Brian Penn In that far and away time known as the 1980s; a promo video was the ultimate marketing tool in launching a new artist or promoting that all important single release. It enabled record companies to control exactly what, when and how we heard new material by an artist. However, the intervening years have completely altered how consumers access music; social media now connects us more directly with a recording artist. It seems a remarkable feat the promo video has survived with so many alternatives at our fingertips. ‘Ice to the Fire’ is the first single from London's second EP 'Antichrist Child’. Something of a child prodigy she started performing and writing her own songs at the age of 14. After a stint playing with various bands she recorded her first single ‘Sinking in the Darkness’ in 2011. A multi-faceted artist, she is also an actor and writer with her second novel in preparation. The video itself is a solid if standard product brimming with soft focus shots of London reclining seductively on a bed and then in a candle scented bath. She bemoans a misfiring relationship when the man in question shows up with a bottle of champagne. Before and after shots in a night of passion are served up with the obligatory 'guy likes her but doesn’t love her' narrative. This level of predictability wouldn’t be an issue if it was executed with more edge. The overall package is pleasant enough but looks and sounds far too safe. I was hoping for a Pink or perhaps a Lady Gaga, but got something between Katy Perry and Taylor Swift. Not necessarily a bad thing but they should aim for something stronger and less formulaic. #BrianPenn

★★★★★ Directed by: #FinnCallan Written by: Finn Callan Starring: #MelaniaCrisan #JessicaMunna #AnnaFraser Film Review by: Bruna Foletto Lucas Guest is a short film written and directed by Finn Callan that relies on a simple enough premise – Mary, a young woman takes extreme measures to rid herself of a nightmarish presence. Callan’s short, though, is nothing but simple. With a minimalist plot and scarce dialogue, the short film is told through the sophisticated cinematography by Fyodor Houtheusen, Trifa Keedo’s editing and sound design, and most of all through the eyes of the characters. The look is of the utmost importance in Callan’s short - Melania Crisan, who plays Mary, locks our attention with her vulnerable gaze and invites us to feel her pain whereas Jessica Munna, who plays the woman who helps Mary, invites us to care for the stranger from a detached perspective, and finally, Anna Fraser, who plays the guest, the otherworldly creature who haunts Mary, penetrates us with her frightening stare. As terrifying as the guest’s stare is, it holds our look, so much so that by the end of the short we understand and sympathise with Mary’s actions. Francesca Giacovelli is the name behind the design, make up and prosthetic special effects – she is the one to blame if you can’t stop thinking about the guest’s face after the film is over. Drawing from Callan’s sketch, Giacovelli brought to life one of the aspects that makes the guest so scary. Its minimal face complements the eerie atmosphere the film creates and sustains throughout the short, and its bulging eyes enhance the uneasiness felt by Mary and us. Callan’s short film offers a mature and complex understanding of the horror genre. He understands the simplicity of his story and develops its emotional depth. What Mary sees is an omnipresent creature that permeates her life to the extent that its presence cripples her. What she chooses to do is a desperate yet cathartic measure that, whoever has a trauma or past experience that escapes unconsciousness and slips into the realm of the consciousness, can relate to her and her distraught demeanour. The emotional depth mentioned above is enhanced through, firstly, sound design. In moments when there is no dialogue, the sound design sutures the open questions proposed in the narrative; secondly, the bleak colours combined with the secluded area wherein the film is shot heighten the feeling of loneliness Mary feels. The subjective shots as well as the open and wide shots augment the guest’s omnipresence. Moreover, the frontal close ups of the characters that focus on their eyes and linger just enough to make us uncomfortable privilege their emotions. Guest plays extremely well with its arsenal and Callan proves to have a refined and practical ability to convey his ideas.

★★ Directed by: #MaritaStocker Documentary film review by: Brian Penn The opening frames of this documentary could have come straight from the director’s manual of film making. Marita Stocker perfectly captures the use of light and shade portraying the decaying Paliashvili Music School in Tbilisi. Fresh faced students play for elderly, disillusioned tutors. The juxtaposition of ageing faces with peeling walls gives the impression of a care home in terminal decline. But this is a music school fighting for survival in a country that doesn’t give priority to the performing arts. Sat upon a hill overlooking the Georgian capital it has seen better days, and was once a hot house for the country’s leading musicians. It provides a curious almost cliched view of Eastern Europe, when the iron curtain separated people from western ideals and progress everyone else took for granted. Time has apparently stood still untroubled by the modern world. Their perspective is grey and one dimensional, you half expect students to turn up in flairs and hot pants such is the old cold war feel of the piece. Teachers, pupils and administrators contrast sharply in their demeanour. There are touching exchanges between a kindly, grey haired piano teacher and her young charge. The embittered principal complains that too many teachers are leaving; but his colleague insists they are too old to work anywhere else. Meanwhile, staff complain about the quality of instruments that can no longer be tuned. It’s almost a metaphor for the school itself as the future gets progressively bleaker. Aside from the smartly captured visuals there is little to recommend this film. Listening to mournful teachers discuss inner workings of the tenor flute doesn’t exactly set the pulse raising. Nor does it inspire much hope in human nature and it’s easy to lose interest in the eventual outcome. I can’t imagine there will be much interest in this film outside of Georgia or even Tbilisi.

★★★ Directed by #DerrickBorte Written by #CarlEllsworth Starring #RussellCrowe #CarenPistorius Film Review by George Wolf I remember watching that classic TV movie Duel with my mom in the early 70s. It was tense and exciting (a young Spielberg directed!), but the thing that most unnerved Mom was the fact that…SPOILER ALERT… you never find out why that truck driver was terrorizing a frazzled Dennis Weaver. Unhinged offers no such ambiguity. Russell Crowe is just really pissed off. Well, the unnamed driver Crowe plays is, anyway. The Man has lost his wife, and his job, and now he’s in traffic getting beeped at, passed and gestured to by a woman in a big hurry. The Man catches up, rolls down the window and calmly explains civility to young Kyle in the back seat (Gabriel Bateman from Lights Out and the Child’s Play reboot) while asking Rachel in the front for an apology. She declines, so The Man vows to show Rachel (Slow West’s Caren Pistorius) what a bad day really is. Things get nasty in a hurry. And though the script from Carl Ellsworth (Red Eye, Disturbia) often flirts with ridiculous, it offers more clever construction that you might expect. The premise certainly recalls Falling Down, but Ellsworth isn’t interested in darkly comic social commentary. This is an overt explosion of murderous male rage, one that also manages – almost as an afterthought – to deliver a blunt cautionary tale about smart phone addiction as effective as any we’ve seen on film. Director Derrick Borte (The Joneses) keeps the pace moving nicely with tension and bursts of brutality, which is perfectly fine for a disposable thriller. What’s even better, he knows what the real point of all this is. Russell on a rampage. That’s it. You want some of that? Crowe and Unhinged deliver it, with all the when’s, why’s, and how’s right up in your face. You know, so Mom won’t be left hanging. #GeorgeWolf

★★ Directed by #HenkPretorius Written by #HenkPretorius #JenniferNicoleStang Starring #JemimaWest #ChristopherDane Film Review by Hope Madden The first thing you’ll likely notice in writer/director Henk Pretorius’s supernatural thriller The Unfamiliar is that the distant hero— the one who comes home from war only to shut down emotional or psychological answers to problems, instead relying on power tools and car repair to soothe a wounded mind—is a woman. Izzy (Jemima West) returns from a tour in Afghanistan and immediately feels out of sorts at home. It’s as if she doesn’t even know her husband or oldest daughter, her son’s turned into some kind of lurking weirdo, and she’s weighed down by guilt for leaving home while her youngest was just an infant. So, when the hallucinations start, PTSD seems a likely culprit. The truth is, the gender swap draws attention to some of the laziest horror clichés that we’ve come to simply accept without dissection. It is absolutely fascinating to watch a man carry a baby around, no real purpose but to stare with furrow-browed concern as his wife struggles to come to terms with the situation. By enlisting a female character to behave so erratically in service of a weak story, Pretorious seems to be intentionally pointing out the idiotic leaps in logic audiences are willing to make. You cannot miss every hackneyed beat, it’s brilliant. If only that were really the purpose. If it’s ironic that Pretorious’s fresh approach to casting only draws attention to his clichés, wait until you see what he does with cultural appropriation. Why is Izzy’s family having supernatural problems? It seems her husband may have disturbed something sinister by researching native Hawaiian culture. You see, his family must pay for the fact that he steals their stories to make a buck. (Note: This is where Pretorius makes up a bunch of disconnected “native” stories, abandoning the logic of PTSD in favor of a woefully underdeveloped and racially insensitive subplot, all with the hope of making a buck. It’s like rain on your wedding day, people.) If there is one movie trope that we simply must retire—and there is clearly more than one—but if we can retire only one, please can it be that of the magical brown person who sacrifices themselves for the benefit of the whiteys? Please, Jesus, please? Can we just let whitey figure it out for herself or die trying? Not today, it seems. But if no one spends money on films like The Unfamiliar, maybe, slowly, the cliché will die on its own. #HopeMadden

★★★ Directed by #RichardTanne Written by #RichardTanne Starring #LiliReinhart #AustinAbrams Film Review by Cat McAlpine Henry Page is a romantic. He’s also unremarkable, he muses in moody voiceover. But senior year of high school might just be the year that something interesting finally happens to him. When Grace Town transfers on the first day of class and joins the school newspaper, Henry is immediately smitten. But people are rarely the things we imagine them to be. Richard Tanne (Southside with You) wrote and directed this adaptation of Krystal Sutherland’s novel, “Our Chemical Hearts.” Tanne’s camera haunts dusk and after-dark more often than not, with even his daytime shots heavily shadowed. He finds gorgeous lighting in an abandoned warehouse and develops a grittier finish to this YA romance that’s rare for the genre. But no matter how often Grace (Lili Reinhart) promises she’s “fucked up,” the film doesn’t go as dark as it wants to. In the end, Chemical Hearts is about a middle-class kid pining after a broken girl. While some twists and turns make the story more interesting, the narrative is distracted by Henry (Austin Abrams) who is as he promises to be – unremarkable. Chemical Hearts also suffers from a heavy serving of quirky character traits. Henry’s not normal, he practices the Japanese art of kintsukuroi – repairing broken pottery with gold seams. Grace stands thigh deep in a koi pond, monologuing about humanity’s fate to be briefly rearranged motes of start dust. How did the koi end up in an abandoned warehouse? Spoiler alert, we never find out. For all its false depths, Chemical Hearts also ruminates on death, guilt, and suicide in fair measure. But the grief is twice removed and mostly mystery. Grace’s healing process is constantly measured by her capability to fully love Henry. We don’t get the opportunity to explore her growth outside of him. Chemical Heart’s constant insistence that being a teenager is the hardest part of life will fall flat for older viewers who have already survived the gauntlet of adolescence. Meanwhile, the younger audience will likely appreciate a story that reminds them that life doesn’t always go the way you want it to. #CatMcAlpine

★★★ Directed by: Tim Barrow Written by: Tim Barrow Starring: Tim Barrow, Elspeth Turner, David Tudor Film Review by: Robert Stayte Schizophrenia is often a subject matter that is seen in a negative light in cinema, being the defining thing that makes villains “off”. Riptide is an independent Scottish film that tries to take a more realistic and empathetic attitude to the disorder, coming from sophomore director Tim Barrow. Despite not having any expectations for this film, I was presently surprised, as Riptide is a decent and engaging movie. The Schizophrenic Jacob (Tim Barrow) gets released from a mental institution and lives in his flat in Edinburgh, with a job but without any close friends or relatives to keep him occupied. One day whilst driving near a beach in the Highlands in a bid to do something with himself, he sees a woman walking into the ocean. He goes to save this woman, named Eva (Elspeth Turner) and the two start to have a relationship that becomes hard to maintain due to Eva’s absences and strange behaviour. Riptide’s strongest attribute is its direction, which manages to be atmospheric and weird in a way that draws you in. It simulates the mind of someone with schizophrenia in a manner that may or may not be accurate but is gripping none the less. This style utilises intentionally choppy editing techniques, tight close ups and sound editing that is also choppy yet fits the mood and tone of each scene. Despite the general look being very cheap and unpolished, director Tim Barrow overpowers it and makes you forget about it. The story also has a decent structure that manages to be varied and unpredictable, so the direction is not making up for an uninteresting script. There is also no copping out regarding the depiction of Schizophrenia, the intention of Jacob being a sympathetic unthreatening character stays the same all throughout and the writing succeeds in making him one. If there is a problem script-wise, it is that the otherwise heartwarming ending goes on too long. There are about three instances where I thought the film had cut to credits, but it kept going. Also, the narrative tries to raise ambiguity sometimes in regard to whether Jacob is imagining his experiences with Eva, but the payoff is weak enough to make one wonder why this plot element was brought up in the first place. There is a good amount of heart when it comes to the main relationship and that comes from the chemistry between Turner and Barrow. Both are believable as two lonely individuals who like each other and whilst Barrow’s lead performance does not show a lot of range, he still convinces. The other actors do a good job as well. Riptide is a surprisingly decent indie film that succeeds in its intentions and has a lot of heart and emotion. It is available on Vimeo for free, so watch it and see if you get something out of it.

★★★ Directed by: Philip Brocklehurst Written by: Philip Brocklehurst Starring: Jonathan Skye-O’Brien, Allie Denison, Roxane Cabassut Film Review by: Darren Tilby Lockdown and social distancing laws have made it incredibly difficult for filmmakers to work over the last half a year. But some have persevered and found workarounds to the problems Covid-19 has produced - but to varying success. And “varying success” is certainly the case with Writer/Director Philip Brocklehurst’s lockdown-produced, ten-minute-long short film, Moving On. A film which concerns Vincent (Jonathan Skye-O’Brien), a young man, struggling to move on from his relationship with ex-girlfriend, Michelle (Allie Denison). So broken up is he that, after not too much thinking, he deduces he has only two options left: find someone else or take his own life. But what if you can’t do either? A small group of three – all of whom had to film their scenes and send the footage to Brocklehurst to edit – comprises the entirety of the movie’s cast. The characters themselves are relatively standard genre concoctions; unremarkable in construction or development. But the screenplay, performances and dialogue (despite having occasional delivery and response problems) are really quite good. And when you factor in the unique circumstances surrounding the film’s construction – the actors were stuck in their own homes, miles away from one another and could only be directed through Skype – the fact it turned out as well as it did is impressive. Moving On truly is both a product and a victim of its time. And nowhere is that more apparent than in its aesthetics. It won’t surprise you to hear the camerawork is a little basic; as I said before, the actors recorded their scenes on their own cameras (likely phone cameras), while editing, too, (I believe) was done from home. It’s noticeable at times, sure, and at its worst, it’s a little disconnecting. But, of course, lockdown presented a considerable stumbling block to overcome, there were always going to be issues left and compromises that had to be made. On the whole, though, I feel that Brocklehurst and his team have very competently made these difficult circumstances work for them. Performances are solid, the dialogue feels natural, and the pacing is spot on. And at the end of the day, while I don’t think Moving On is as good as it should perhaps have been, it’s much better than it could easily have ended up.

★★★ Directed by #AaronBKoontz Written by #CameronBurns #AaronBKoontz Starring #MaloraWalters #DevinDruid #NoahSegan Film Review by Hope Madden The horror Western is an under-explored subgenre. There have been some great ones. In fact, just two years ago filmmaker Emma Tammi took a look at isolation and outlaws from a female perspective with her effective nightmare The Wind. Co-writer/director Aaron B. Koontz (Scare Package) pits a bunch of women against some scurrilous train robbers in a Wild West ghost town for his latest, The Pale Door. The title is a Poe reference, a line from his poem The Haunted Palace. Poe wasn’t much of a gun slinger, but that doesn’t matter because the title has nothing to do with anything. Just go with it. You’ll enjoy Koontz’s odd concoction more if you do. Little brother Jake (Devin Druid) and big brother Duncan (Zachary Knighton) grew up on opposite sides of the law. Duncan runs the Dalton Gang, a bunch of quick shootin’ and hard drinkin’ outlaws. But that’s not the life Duncan ever wanted for his bro, who sweeps up at a saloon and saves his nickels to buy back the old farm. Until the gang is one man down with a big payday coming on the next train. Jake steps in, the gang robs the train, but this score is not what they expected and next thing they know, wouldn’t ya figure it? Witches. I am all in for a ghost town full of witches—it’s like a Scooby Doo episode gone wonderfully off track. Production values do not evoke a period and the props are hardly authentic, but the atmosphere is fun and the cast has a good time. Pat Healey is the wrong-headed good choice he always is. Noah Segan (who directed one of the shorts in Koontz’s Scare Package) is basically playing Noah Segan, but luckily that character is always so entertaining. Veteran character actor Stan Shaw is mainly saddled with exasperated entrances and hypermasculine melodrama (because this is, after all, a Western). Meanwhile, Bill Sage (We Are What We Are) charms as a kind of poor man’s Bruce Campbell. (That’s not an insult. We can’t all be Bruce Campbell.) So the gang finds themselves in a sort of Wild West Titty Twister (let’s assume you’ve seen From Dusk Till Dawn), and young, wholesome Jake may be their only hope for survival. Does the leap from Salem to Western ghost town make sense? It does not. How about the basic internal mythology, the blood ritual, the sex, the ending? Not really. And no one will accuse The Pale Door of taking a female perspective. But for a witchtastic Western, is it fun? Edgar Allen Poe couldn’t have made it any more fun. #HopeMadden