Escape From Tomorrow
Blu-ray l DVD l Instant l Netflix
Directed by Randy Moore
Written by Randy Moore
Starring Roy Abramsohn, Elena Schuber, Katelynn Rodriguez, and Jack Dalton
Mankurt Media
Not Rated | 90 Minutes
Release Date: January 18, 2013 (Sundance)

As a middle class father of two small children, I can attest to the stress and outright fear parents have in regards to Disney. Whereas Disney used to be a bastion of princes and princesses shrouded in the cloud of a particular happy mouse, in recent years Disney has become an almost omnipotent global force, controlling sports network ESPN, Marvel, and Star Wars. Basically if you have children of any age, you are a customer of Disney whether you like it not. It’s many a child’s dream to visit one of the countless Disney theme parks. However the child’s dream very often is a parents’ nightmare. Enter Randy Moore, the visionary director of the unbelievably surreal Escape From Tomorrow which debuted at Sundance in 2013.

Moore did not have positive Disney experiences as a child, and OH BOY you can tell. While some critics have called this “a mid-life crisis movie,” I feel something darker and deeper afoot.

Wondering what’s new for September 2014 in Netflix Instant? There’s plenty, but I’m here to give you some recommendations, since Netflix likes to make it difficult for you to figure out what’s new in their service in movies and television series.

Some of my favorite picks include Arrow: Season 2; Walking Dead: Season 4; Good Morning, Vietnam; Flubber, and School of Rock. A bunch more are listed here below. Note – some are up today, while others will be released throughout the month.

All Cheerleaders Die
Blu-ray l DVD l Instant
Directed by Lucky McKee and Chris Sivertson
Written by Lucky McKee and Chris Sivertson
Starring Caitlin Stasey, Sianoa Smit-McPhee, Brooke Butler, Tom Williamson, and Felisha Cooper
Moderncine
Not Rated | 89 Minutes
Release Date: October 31st 2013 (USA)

All Cheerleaders Die is so unoriginal throughout that it somehow becomes totally original by the end. The film is co-written and directed by Lucky McKee (May, The Woman) and Chris Sivertson (I Know Who Killed Me), remaking their original debut in 2001. Despite that, it seems spliced together from footage found in the Buffy, Charmed, and I Know What You Did Last Summer editing rooms.

Once all these pieces are in place, All Cheerleaders Die somehow defies the odds; rather than becoming predictable and silly, it is a wild and crazy way to spend an hour and a half. In a movie with revenge, magic, hot vampire-zombies, and a villain who eats enchanted stones, it’s hard not to find at least something to like.

Omnivores
Directed by Oscar Rojo
Written by Oscar Rojo
Starring Mario de la Rosa, Paco Manzanedo, Marta Flich, and Fernando Albizu
Netflix |
Amazon Instant Video
Not Rated | 84 Minutes
Release Date: September 20, 2013 (Spain)

Currently streaming on Netflix is Omnivores, a Spanish horror film that debuted last year. The film opens in a dingy cabin where a woman lays dying next to her young son. The boy, with no recourse, is left to cannibalism and is discovered in a gruesome scene.

We jump years later to Marcos Vela (Mario de la Rosa), a celebrity food critic. His next assignment: explore the world of underground clandestine restaurants. These aren’t your typical restaurants. They are gatherings of rich foodies who pay through the roof for the finest and sometimes strangest cuisines. Kobe beef with truffles, the dreaded fugu fish of Japan, nothing seems too expensive or off limits to his new gastronomical friends. It’s through these connections that he begins to hear rumors of a “restaurant” that serves the ultimate in rare cuisine: human flesh.

Chaika: The Coffin Princess
Directed by Soichi Masui
Produced by BONES, Kadokawa Pictures
Voice cast: Chika Anzai, Junji Majima, Yuko Hara, Chiwa Saito, Iori Nomizu, Kazutomi Yamamoto, Kenzuka Satou, Saeko Zogo, Shuta Morishima, Yoshimasa Hosoya, Yumeha Koda, Takaya Hashi, Yui Makino.
Air dates: Streaming Wednesdays at 1:00 p.m. CDT on Crunchyroll

Let’s say your father died a violent death and his killers had scattered his body parts all over the world, and you were on a quest to gather his remains together in order to give him a proper funeral. Now, let’s say you don’t remember much of what happened up until your father’s death, but everyone is saying he was an evil magical emperor who was utterly defeated in a world war, and a corps of warriors is chasing you, bent on preventing his remains from being gathered together again. One more complication: Let’s just say you’re not the only offspring of the late emperor with the same aim in mind. It seems that everyone in the world is against you, except for two saboteurs and a dragon that hides in the guises of a little girl and a cat. That’s the set up for Chaika: The Coffin Princess, now currently streaming on Crunchyroll.