The Dinner Party
DVD | Digital
Directed by Miles Doleac
Written by Miles Doleac & Michael Donovan Horn
Starring Bill Sage, Lindsay Anne Williams, Jeremy London, Mike Mayhall, Alli Hart, Sawandhi Wilson, Ritchie Montgomery
Studio: Uncork’d Entertainment
Not Rated | Run Time: 115 minutes
Release date: June 9, 2020 (Digital/On Demand/DVD)

Plenty of horror movies in recent memory have used the “dinner party” as a plot device to mixed results, and Miles Doleac’s The Dinner Party does bear some resemblance to contemporary horror films like The Invitation and Would You Rather, but that’s only in the set up. After that the film follows with a beautifully shot, super gory, cannibal cult movie with a highly intellectual script, great soundtrack, and slick sense of humor.

Jeff (Mike Mayhall) and his wife Haley (Alli Hart) arrive at a beautiful mansion for the titular event, Jeff hoping to get his latest play produced by their wealthy hosts. Jeff wants things to go perfectly and that means Haley better behave. It’s clear from the onset Jeff is psychologically abusive, and we learn through a series of flashbacks that Haley has a very dark and troublesome past. They are greeted at the door by the obnoxiously playful Sebastian (Sawandhi Wilson) and we soon meet the dinner table of guests including Sadie (Lindsay Anne Williams), Carmine (Bill Sage), who is both a doctor and chef, famous author Agatha (Kamille McGuin), and Vincent (Doleac).

Fender Bender
Blu-ray
Director: Mark Pavia
Screenwriter: Mark Pavia
Cast: Makenzie Vega, Cassidy Freeman, Dre Davis, Lora Martinez-Cunningham, Bill Sage
Distributor: Scream Factory
Unrated | 91 Minutes
Release Date: October 4, 2016

“A crash course in terror.”

Written and directed by Mark Pavia (Stephen King’s The Night Flier), Fender Bender is a full-throttle throwback to ’80s slasher flicks. The movie begins with a woman (Cassidy Freeman, Longmire) on the phone, chatting with a friend about the fender bender she got into earlier in the day. She pours a hot bath (and a glass of wine) and tries to unwind, but her relaxing night in is interrupted by a text from the man who rear-ended her.

“Enjoy the bath,” the message reads. Turns out the driver is a deranged killer, stalking women using the personal information they provide during traffic accidents. Dressed in black leather and a bondage mask, the driver stalks the woman through the house before stabbing her to death with a custom-made switchblade with a car door handle – an extension of the black muscle car he uses to pursue his victims.

Boy Wonder
Netflix Streaming
DVD
Directed by Michael Morrissey
Starring Caleb Steinmeyer, Zulay Henao, James Russo, Bill Sage, Tracy Middendorf
Inception Media Group
Originally Released: August 12, 2010

As geeks, we’ve often posed the question: “What if someone really tried to do what Batman does?” The Christopher Nolan Dark Knight trilogy affixed a gritty, yet epic realism to the concept of The Batman, and Kick-Ass gives us a look at a teenager having a shot at being a superhero… but neither is rooted in the darker nature of reality. Enter: Boy Wonder – in spite of its name, the indie film is essentially a vigilante revenge movie, but takes on the concept of a teenager taking on board vigilante justice, without costumes and without the resources of one Mr. Bruce Wayne of the 1%.

Penned and directed by Michael Morrissey, Boy Wonder tells the story of Sean Donovan, a brooding teenager portrayed by Caleb Steinmeyer, who from all appearances is a quiet, isolate teenager striving to do well at school. Yet behind the daytime mask, Donovan carries the weight of being witness to the murder of his mother when he was a younger boy.