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RNRF X Salem Horror Fest: “Official Selection”, Summoners

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I hate watching movies on my computer. Obviously it’s a personal choice but I’d much rather see a movie on a bigger screen whether it’s a TV or a theater (And yes, I know I could do any number of things to project from my laptop to one of those devices). That said, I’ve bit the bullet regarding the 2023 Salem Horror Fest batch of films RNRF decided to review and found that especially regarding Horror flicks, there’s no place to hide when the screen is inches from your face. Which is kinda fun? Sure, I could switch to another tab or skip ahead but what’s the point of that when you choose to go Horror? That said, while our SHF picks this year have been stellar they’ve yet to be scary. Until Summoners.

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RNRF X Salem Horror Fest: “Official Selection”, In A Dark, Dark Room

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“Evil Never Goes Away”

So says an ominous voiceover at the start of director Denis Sobolev’s In A Dark, Dark Room and over the course of the film you’ll see exactly what evil can do tempting both innocent and not so innocent folks in a small provincial town near the capital with their wildest dreams. Like Weird Science if the teens decided to go the witch route instead of Frankenstein, the new Ukrainian film from Sobolev is an interesting entry into the witchcraft genre.

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RNRF X Salem Horror Fest: “Official Selection”, T-Blockers

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“A Transgender & Queer Film By Alice Maio Mackay” is really the only thing we needed to read for us to dive headfirst into the latest from the So Vam director with barely a plot revealed. T-Blockers is a delightful Queer empowering film that simultaneously denounces and stands up to bigotry with some powerful statements throughout on the current state of the world voiced by some richly crafted characters from Mackay and Benjamin Pahl Johnson (Give writers all the monies!!!!)

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RNRF X Salem Horror Fest: “Official Selection”, Stag

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We’ve gotten to the point with our Salem Horror Fest coverage where we find ourselves questioning what should go into a great film review? Do you want the entire plot spoiled for you so as to highlight how clever certain moments are or do you keep it vague and general? Especially with Stag from director and writer Alexandra Spieth and its’ slow build to big reveals. We’ll keep it contained for now because who doesn’t like a surprise or two or three?

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RNRF X Salem Horror Fest: “Official Selection”, Brightwood

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From the trailer, we pegged Dane Elcar’s Brightwood as Open Water meets Friday The 13th and we’ve never been more psyched to be pretty much entirely wrong in our initial assumption. Sure, Brightwood takes place in a solitary wooded location with an annoying couple at its’ center (We’ll get to that) but unlike that Indie shark flick at least, as you get deeper into the film you’ll find that you actually don’t want to root for the shark/antagonist to devour your main characters here after all.

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RNRF X Salem Horror Fest: “Official Selection”, Pou (Peacock)

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This sub-genre has always been around but in recent years, there’s definitely been an uptick of Horror films falling under the banner of “Art Horror” or “Elevated Horror”. Without naming names, because we try to keep it positive in these pages, there have been some recent much-hyped about ones that we found to either be trying too hard, heavy handed, or just plain boring. Pou (Peacock) from director Jaco Minnaar, however, is one such film that hits all the right notes.

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RNRF X Salem Horror Fest: “Wicked Shorts”, That Halloween

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Salem Horror Fest has it all. You have your slashers, new school Horror, throwback Horror, Queer Horror, Art Horror, Foreign Horror, and even pint-size Horror with their abundance of short films in the “Wicked Shorts” category that are grouped by locale and all play over both weekends of the festival. Next year we’ll try and get in early but for this year, we focused on That Halloween which was written and directed by Mike Hickey.

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RNRF X Salem Horror Fest: “Official Selection”, The Forest Hills

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“The horror. The terror. The macabre.”

That’s a line often repeated in The Forest Hills by main protagonist/antagonist Rico (Chiko Mendez) and we think it’s a pretty apt description of the psychological elements that flow throughout the film written, produced, and directed by Scott Goldberg.

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RNRF X Salem Horror Fest: “Official Selection”, Follow Her

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A statement on fame. A statement on consent. A statement on privacy. A statement on the state of the world today and the way social media controls so much of our daily lives. Welcome to the wild journey that is Sylvia Caminer’s Follow Her.

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RNRF X Salem Horror Fest: “Official Selection”, Bliss Of Evil

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Hmmm… let us think on this one a minute, shall we? We’ve already committed to reviewing what we can from the incredible lineup presented by Salem Horror Fest this year when we see that the synopsis for Bliss Of Evil entails the trials of a sound engineer, a Rawk band, and it all happens within a recording studio. If that’s not kismet for this deal then we don’t know what is.

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