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WILLOW AND WU begins where most workplace comedies end—with exhaustion, heartbreak, and a desperate need for space. Kathy Meng’s short film captures that fragile space between personal and professional identity through a simple, disarming premise: a recently dumped assistant, Willow, finally earns a day off only to be tasked with helping her boss’ husband with an unusual errand. What follows is a tender, awkward, and transformative encounter that says more about human connection than grand declarations ever could.

RADIOLAND MURDERS sets its metronome to “fever pitch” and mostly never touches the dial again. Set during the launch night of Chicago station WBN in 1939, it’s a love letter to the golden age of live radio wrapped inside a slapstick whodunit. The premise is tailor-made for manic parody: as programs, commercials, musical numbers, and sound-effects bits tumble out on schedule, bodies start hitting the floor off-mic. The writers scramble, the director panics, the cops do what they do, and the broadcast must keep rolling because dead air is unforgivable—even when people are dying. It’s a knowingly silly conceit, and the film embraces it with gusto.

DON’T BE LATE, MYRA is on the screen for just fifteen minutes, but its impact stays with you long after the credits fade. Writer-director Afia Nathaniel crafts a taut and devastating short that captures the everyday terror faced by girls navigating unsafe worlds, turning a single missed school bus into a microcosm of society's failure. It’s a small film with enormous weight, balancing tension and empathy with precision and purpose.

Russell Whaley’s feature, CALAMARI, is a sharp, twisted, and surprisingly funny psychological horror film about ageism, desperation, and what it means to sell yourself just to stay alive—sometimes literally. What begins as a grounded commentary on workplace exploitation, featuring Jerry Gureghian in an incredibly powerful role, turns into a darkly comic descent into horror and psychological collapse. It blends the offbeat tone of dark comedy with the unease of a nightmare that never stops tightening its grip.

OTHER begins with unease: this isn’t just a haunted house story—it’s a story about the rules that outlive the person who made them. After her mother’s death, Alice returns to a home that still feels organized by someone else’s hand. Its order is oppressive, its quiet too deliberate, its memories arranged like evidence. What follows isn’t about ghosts or monsters; it’s about inheritance—the kind that teaches you what to fear, how to behave, and when to stay silent.

DEVIL IN DISGUISE: JOHN WAYNE GACY makes an early promise—it’s not here to mythologize a murderer. It’s here to look at the people left behind, the ones who refused to stop asking questions. Instead of another “monster study,” the series reframes the story through victims’ families, determined investigators, and a city that failed to see what was in plain sight. It’s a patient, unsensationalized retelling that trades spectacle for consequence, and in doing so, finds a rare kind of power: empathy without indulgence. (There’s still plenty of Gacy for the diehards out there, and I would argue this was one of the most chilling portrayals put to screen.)

DELIVERY RUN doesn’t try to reinvent the survival thriller, but it understands what makes the genre work: desperation, isolation, and one terrible night that refuses to end. Set across icy backroads and dimly lit stretches of nowhere, it follows a man with nowhere left to go and too much debt to turn back. Alexander Arnold plays Lee, a delivery driver whose gambling habit and bad decisions have caught up to him. After a night of risky bets and half-formed lies, one small act of defiance sets off a chain reaction — and somewhere out in the dark, a snowplow starts following him. What begins as an inconvenience turns into a pursuit, and what starts as a chase becomes a reckoning.

There’s something unsettlingly honest about CANDY APPLE, the kind of film that doesn’t just try to entertain but also expose those moments that matter. Set in New York City’s chaotic streets, it’s a dark comic portrait of failure, art, and the reality of living on the fringes of society. Dean Dempsey writes, directs, and stars alongside his real-life father, Texas Trash—a casting choice that turns what could’ve been a mere character study into something raw and personal. This isn’t a film that hides behind metaphor or clean descriptions; it stares directly into dysfunction and asks you to sit with it.

THE WEEDHACKER MASSACRE aims to be a slasher parody — a scrappy meta-horror that tries to outwit its own limitations by acknowledging them. It’s the kind of production that lives somewhere between homage and chaos, where enthusiasm often outweighs precision. There’s a certain charm to that balance when it works; when it doesn’t, the cracks show fast. This one sits somewhere in between — funny in moments, frustrating in others, but undeniably sincere about its love for the genre it’s poking at.

I’m a sucker for documentaries, and an even bigger sucker for Halloween, so this had me psyched! SCREAMITYVILLE is less a traditional documentary and more of a love letter to Halloween itself — an ode to neighborhood creativity, lights, and the strange comfort found in the eerie hum of suburban extravaganza. At just under an hour and a half, it abandons typical documentary conventions for something more immersive and sensory in flavor. It’s not about explaining; it’s about experiencing. Director Ryan Archibald trades interviews and context for texture and tone, crafting a chronicle of how ordinary front yards transform into worlds of imagination each October.

DAIEI GOTHIC VOL. 2 hands us the quiet authority of films that treated ghost stories as grand morality plays rather than pulp diversions. There’s no need for spectacle or cheap thrills here — the unease comes from atmosphere, consequence, and the persistence of guilt. The collection of three restorations — THE DEMON OF MOUNT OE, THE HAUNTED CASTLE, and THE GHOST OF KASANE SWAMP — this second volume continues the mission of exploring Japan’s kaidan tradition with grace and gravity. These are stories of haunting, but also of humanity, where the supernatural acts as both punishment and mirror.

There’s a rare kind of comfort in a documentary that understands its place in the holiday canon without trying to redefine it. BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIES EVER! knows exactly what it wants to deliver — warmth, nostalgia, and the cheerful spirit of cinematic tradition — and it does so with confidence and sincerity. This extended version takes the concept of revisiting beloved Christmas films and transforms it into an affectionate, celebratory conversation about why these stories continue to define the season. It isn’t about revelations or deep dives into production history; it’s about rekindling the feelings these movies create and honoring the people who made them special in the first place.

VINDICATION SWIM approaches the biopic like a test of endurance, not just for its protagonist but for its production. The film recreates Mercedes Gleitze’s historic 1927 swim across the English Channel with striking authenticity, capturing both the physical and psychological toll of her journey. What sets this dramatization apart is its commitment to realism—shot in the actual Channel, with lead actress Kirsten Callaghan performing the demanding swims herself. That choice transforms the sea from setting to adversary, grounding the film’s grandeur in sweat, current, and cold.

THE ISLAND centers on a teacher and his students, cut off from the mainland and confronted by a family whose way of life turns everything they believe in upside down. It’s a survival horror premise you’ve seen before—civilization trapped in the wild—but the way this 1985 Hong Kong film filters that scenario through humor, class friction, and a streak of maliciousness gives it a lived-in personality.

The film opens with laughter and kids sprinting under a bright Florida sky as if the world itself is their playground. That energy is the hook: the promise that childhood can generate its own fireworks even when the grown-ups are scrambling to keep the lights on. THE FLORIDA PROJECT understands that contradiction intimately. It sets the thrill of summer freedom right next to the reality of near-homelessness, and refuses to flatten either side of the equation. The result is a compassionate, observed portrait of a community living week to week, where joy is real and consequences don’t wait.