John Farrell is an affordable housing attorney living in West Chester Pennsylvania. He once travelled the weird west as Carrie A. Nation in Joker's Wild at: https://jokerswildpodcast.weebly.com/
A few years ago I wrote an editorial discussing the shocking majesty of Hidden Frontier, a no-budget Star Trek fan film that reached for the stars and became one of my favorite shows of all time. Since then I ate through every sequel and spinoff and made my way deeper
Gates of Delirium tries to meld a lot of concepts into a concise package, and it mostly succeeds at combining area control, set collection, and the horrific aesthetics of Lovecraft’s Yog-Sothothery. Gates of Delirium, like the rest of the world, doesn’t understand that Lovecraft’s stories were made
Friday the 13th has been quiet since its dubiously received 2009 remake, but a group of fans and professionals put that to right with two films that continue the legacy in all its violent, campy glory. Friday the 13th: Vengeance (2019) and its sequel Friday the 13th Vengeance 2: Bloodlines
Well before Neil Gaiman’s nightmarish fantasy comic was adapted by Netflix, recent film school graduates set out to adapt the source material in all its beautiful and horrific glory. This was back in the days when Joseph Gorden Levvit’s failed film adaptation was an early rumor, when Nicholas
Buried as it is between the mountains and the desert, Boise Idaho doesn’t have much of a film industry. What it does have, secreted among its streets in the often child-cluttered rooms of an unassuming house, is one very strange thing in common with the TARDIS: that, just sometimes,
In the Joker’s long career, he has strayed far from his origins as a criminal mastermind. Oh, he commits a lot of crimes in modern interpretations, but from the anarchist with a cause to the deranged loner to the wisecracking psychopath, people have been less interested in seeing how
Crow’s supernatural revenge thriller is a dark urban fairy tale replete with some of the finest and most effective artistry I’ve seen in years. If you give one fan film a chance to succeed, try Crow. This foray into James O’Barr’s world of gothic horror is
photo credit: Justin Mane’s Crow, 2022
You might not believe me, but the modern groundbreaking filmmaking isn’t coming from major studios. The most heartfelt, intelligent, and thought-provoking work I’ve seen in the last few years was all made by unofficial channels by people who otherwise might never
