McLean‘s Hometown News Site

PSYCHIC MURDER may only run ten minutes, but it crams in a surprising amount of tension, satire, and complexity into those frames. Directed and co-written by Brandon Block, the film tells the story of Billy (Will Bernish), a struggling young stand-up comic born with a three-fingered hand. Early on, Billy can’t quite find his voice on stage. His jokes lack confidence, and his physical differences are something he avoids fully embracing. The breakthrough comes when he begins folding his own disability into his material, using humor as a way to claim ownership over his body and his story. It’s a moment that feels both triumphant and slightly uneasy, as the film wisely doesn’t present self-deprecating humor as an uncomplicated solution.

Director and co-writer Brandon Christensen has long demonstrated an interest in using horror to explore more than just jump scares. The film’s setting—a quiet 1980s suburb where Halloween is still a community event—immediately feels familiar, yet the story avoids playing like a mere nostalgia cliche. Instead, it builds suspense by centering on Deena (Jessica Clement), a college student reluctantly taking a last-minute babysitting job while back home for the weekend. It’s a premise that sounds classic on paper. Still, Christensen and his brother Ryan give it a fresh twist by intersecting Deena’s ordeal with the investigation of Sheriff Rod (Ryan Robbins), who receives a chilling package suggesting a previous murder may only be the beginning.

Sometimes the most unexpected journeys carry the deepest emotional weight. DARUMA takes that familiar notion and reshapes it into a story that’s genuinely heartfelt in its humanity. At its core, this indie drama doesn’t hinge on disability as a narrative gimmick; instead, it highlights fully realized characters who happen to live with disabilities, allowing their complexities to take center stage. While the film started a little slowly, I wasn’t entirely sure where it was going, but it picked up in the second and third acts to offer a complete story that will get you in your feels!

THE INNKEEPERS is the type of ghost story that lingers long after the credits roll, not because it overwhelms you with cheap jolts, but because it patiently wraps you in unease until the silence itself feels threatening. Ti West’s 2011 indie gem has always thrived on atmosphere, and with Dark Sky Selects bringing it back in a fully restored 4K UHD steelcase release, its reputation as one of the most effective modern slow-burn horrors feels more solid than ever.

Country music’s origins are often romanticized, but THE MUSIC WE CALL COUNTRY does something better: it traces the genre’s roots with detail and genuine affection for the people that shaped its sound. At just under an hour, Greg Gross’ documentary is concise yet not rushed, offering an exploration of the 1927 Bristol Sessions and the first wave of country superstars, including Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family.

Family dinners are rarely as peaceful as the movies make them out to be. SUNDAY SAUCE leans into that chaos, delivering a bold, biting, and unexpectedly moving portrait of identity and inheritance—all packed into a brisk 14 minutes. Writer-director Matt Campanella’s short, fresh off its selection at the Oscar-qualifying HollyShorts Film Festival, proves that he has a knack for finding the emotional fault lines hidden beneath familiar rituals.

Some stories yell for your attention; others leave a lasting impression through moments told. ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS belongs to the latter. At only twenty-one minutes, Franz Böhm crafts an experience so immediate and emotionally raw that its brevity feels deceptive. This is not a war story told from afar, but an intimate portrait of survival shaped by those who lived its horror.

LARGO captures the enormity of global crises through the eyes of those most affected, offering an unfiltered look at the refugee experience from a child’s perspective without slipping into sentimentality. At just 19 minutes, the short is an emotional powerhouse, striking a balance between grief and hope.

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR: AN AMERICAN POET is a compact but potent short film that dramatizes one of America’s most overlooked voices at a time when those words were desperately needed. Written and directed by Kane Stratton, the 10-minute drama reconstructs a moment from 1903 Dayton, Ohio, in which Dunbar, one of the first influential Black poets in American literature, stands against the incomplete promises of the Emancipation Proclamation forty years after it was signed. With a small cast and contained setting, the film succeeds in amplifying the timeless urgency of Dunbar’s call for compassion and sympathy.

BEYOND TRAINSPOTTING – THE WORLD OF IRVINE WELSH promises to take viewers further than the title that defined a generation, but what it ultimately delivers is a lively, sometimes messy documentary that never quite decides what it wants to be. Directed by Ray Burdis and Ian Jefferies, it assembles an impressive lineup of contributors—from rock icons like Iggy Pop and Bobby Gillespie to longtime collaborators like Danny Boyle and Ewan McGregor—yet the strongest presence throughout is Irvine Welsh himself. His voice, his wit, and his honesty remain the film’s greatest strengths, even when the documentary around him struggles.

Hollywood history is full of improbable success stories, but few properties seem more unlikely in retrospect than the ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.’ Four anthropomorphic turtles trained in martial arts by a rat in the sewers of New York hardly screams mainstream appeal, and yet the franchise became a worldwide cultural juggernaut. Writer-director Vin Nucatola seizes on this irony with his 2019 short ITALIAN TURTLES, a nine-minute comedy that imagines the pitch meeting where it all might have begun. Equal parts parody and affectionate nod, the film thrives on deadpan humor and exaggerated performances that lean into the absurdity of trying to explain something so bizarre in a corporate setting.

The premise of FRENCH LESSONS sounds deceptively simple: two men meet in Los Angeles for a conversation before leaving for Cannes. Yet in its eight-minute runtime, the short becomes an exploration of the endless tug-of-war between commerce and creativity. Directors Kyle Garrett Greenberg and Anna Maguire position the film at the intersection of satire and genuineness, offering a brisk but layered reflection on how ego, ambition, and industry can make even a simple meeting feel like a battle of wills.

The pairing of BLUE (1968) and FADE IN (1973) in Imprint Films’ limited edition hardbox is one of those archival moves that could only come from a label willing to champion overlooked oddities. At first glance, these films might not seem to warrant such lavish treatment: one is a Western that has long carried a reputation for being miscast and misguided, and the other is a troubled romance that was buried by the studio system. But together—along with Daniel Kremer’s 2024 documentary CRUEL, USUAL, NECESSARY: THE PASSION OF SILVIO NARIZZANO—they create a narrative about ambition, compromise, and the kind of filmmakers whose legacies slip between the cracks of cinema history.

SOMNIUM doesn’t waste time presenting itself as a straightforward horror story. Instead, Racheal Cain’s debut feature embraces the unstable terrain of dreams and ambition, using both as fuel for a haunting exploration of identity, exploitation, and the desperate pursuit of success. It’s a film that feels pulled straight from the subconscious, where every room hides another reflection of fear and every door opens onto an opportunity that could just as easily devour you.

Some films whisper from the edge of consciousness, asking viewers not to understand them but to inhabit them. SANATORIUM UNDER THE SIGN OF THE HOURGLASS, the new feature from Stephen and Timothy Quay, belongs entirely to that realm. After a two-decade hiatus from feature-length storytelling, the brothers have returned with a piece that is less a conventional narrative than a moving installation. This artwork navigates a space between cinema, sculpture, and the realm of dreams. It is as much a test of patience as it is a demonstration of creativity and imagination; it exists in the space between admiration and frustration.

THE FANTASTIC GOLEM AFFAIRS wastes no time announcing its intentions: this is not a world bound by rules. Within the first minutes, a rooftop game between friends ends with one of them plummeting to his death — only his body doesn’t break in the way ours would. Instead, he smashes into porcelain shards, as if he were never human at all. It’s a shocking image, absurd and unsettling, that sets the tone for what follows: a surreal odyssey where death, bureaucracy, and friendship intersect in a Spain that feels both familiar and utterly alien. This film isn’t what you think it will be, and then when you think you understand what it is, it resets expectations and becomes something else entirely.

STRANGER EYES is one of those films that gets under your skin before you even realize how deeply it has sunk in. Marketed as a surveillance thriller, it begins as a story of a couple unraveling in the wake of their daughter’s disappearance, only to transform into something far more — a meditation on observation, grief, and the ways people fracture under relentless scrutiny. While its icy craftsmanship is in the tradition of cerebral European and Asian thrillers, Yeo Siew Hua’s direction never settles for homage. Instead, it carves out its unnerving exploration, sometimes alienating in its patience, but never less than fascinating.

High school movies never truly go out of style; they simply reflect the anxieties and experiences of each generation. ALMOST POPULAR joins that lineage with a familiar setup—a pair of misfit best friends chasing the approval of the cool kids—but it spins that story with a blend of modern social media, heartfelt friendship, and a clear love for the teen comedies of the ’90s and 2000s. Director Nayip Anthony Garcia makes his feature debut with something that manages to be both broad and unique, balancing humiliation with a sincere message about self-worth.

In the late 1990s, Hollywood was eager to mine television nostalgia, repackaging classic titles with blockbuster budgets. LOST IN SPACE arrived in 1998 as part of that wave, promising an epic rebirth of the campy 1960s series into a sleek, effects-driven spectacle. With a cast including Gary Oldman, William Hurt, Matt LeBlanc, and Heather Graham, it looked poised to be both a crowd-pleaser and a new franchise starter. Yet, despite moments of genuine entertainment and now with an Arrow Video 4K restoration that reminds us of its visual ambition, the film never quite found its footing. Instead, it became a curious artifact: half-genuine family space adventure, half-awkward reminder of the perils of big-budget remakes.

In 2003, Platinum Dunes, the studio newly founded by Michael Bay, took a gamble: remaking Tobe Hooper’s 1974 horror landmark THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. At the time, the decision sparked anger among purists who believed the original should remain untouched. What followed was a grisly, unapologetic reimagining from director Marcus Nispel and screenwriter Scott Kosar. It would not only become a massive box office success but also ignite a wave of horror remakes throughout the 2000s (for better or worse). Two decades later, the film remains as divisive as it was at release — but it’s hard to deny the impact it left.

When Platinum Dunes rebooted THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE in 2003, the film split audiences but proved the franchise still had teeth at the box office. Only three years later, the studio doubled down with THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING, a prequel meant to show how Leatherface and the Hewitt family’s reign of terror began. Directed by Jonathan Liebesman and written by Sheldon Turner and David J. Schow, the result is a relentlessly grim entry that aims to be the nastiest of the Chainsaw films yet. Whether that approach works depends entirely on what you want from this series.

THE INNKEEPERS is a horror film that refuses to chase the easy scares, instead embracing atmosphere, character depth, and long stretches of unease before unleashing its most frightening moments. Directed and written by Ti West, this 2011 indie film has slowly grown into a cult favorite, largely due to its commitment to being a slow-burning ghost story. Now, with its 2025 release by Second Sight Films, the film has a chance to reach a new generation of viewers who may not have experienced its subtle yet lasting impact upon its initial release.

When Jess Franco took the director’s chair for THE VENGEANCE OF DR. MABUSE in 1972, he wasn’t interested in adoration. This is no faithful continuation of Fritz Lang’s hypnotic criminal mastermind, nor even a straight adaptation of Norbert Jacques’ novels. Instead, it’s a rebranding — a “Mabuse” in name only — that allowed Franco to indulge his pulp obsessions: exotic assassins, seedy nightclubs, grotesque henchmen, and half-serious sci-fi conspiracies. The result is a brisk, 76-minute cocktail that feels like a collision between a Euro-crime programmer and a feverish jazz improvisation.

From its opening moments, LILLY LIVES ALONE presents itself as more than just a haunted house story. Martin Melnick’s debut feature blends small-town paranoia, generational trauma, and surreal horror into a fevered spiral where certainty becomes impossible. This isn’t a film that divides the natural from the supernatural. Instead, it traps the viewer inside the same disorienting headspace as its protagonist, where the only constant is unease.

BRUTE 1976 drags the viewer back to an era when horror didn’t wear a polished facade. It was hot, sticky, bloody, and dangerous—cinemas that smelled like sweat and gasoline. Marcel Walz taps into that grime-soaked decade with a vision that’s both homage and rebellion, creating a film that feels like it crawled out of a barn in the middle of nowhere and refuses to let you look away. This isn’t just a throwback; it’s a statement that horror still has the power to be feral and utterly unforgettable. With one of the most jaw-dropping lines ever spat on screen—“Killing makes me so wet?”—BRUTE 1976 makes it clear that its goal isn’t comfort, it’s infamy.