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Short Film ‘Mama’s Boy’ is a Lesson in Psychological Horror

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Sometimes you see a film described as psychological horror and it’s pretty tense. Other times…you sit back when the credits roll and think, “Jeez, I need a shower…and maybe a drink…or two…”

Mama’s Boy, a new short film by independent filmmaker Samantha Kolesnik, is firmly in the second category.

Kolesnik has been making a name for herself in the horror genre in the last couple of years, especially, not only as a writer/director of award-winning short films, but also as co-founder of the Women in Horror Film Festival. With Mama’s Boy, she proves herself highly capable of holding her audience in a grasp with measured tension with only the briefest moments of respite to breathe.

At its core, the film is a treatise on the fallout of sexual abuse and the irrevocable damage caused by a mother’s love turned dark and rancid as a rotting corpse.

Joshua (Malcolm Mills), the central character, has never learned to exist in the world of healthy relationships. The only way he knows to make connections is by debasing himself the way that he was debased by his own mother.

He is confused, lonely, and depressed, and we watch as those emotions slowly give way to rage.

Mills is a revelation in the role of Joshua turning what could have been a caricature into a believable, sympathetic young man. His every action seems to be a plea for connection combined with the revulsion of the only kind of love he knows.

He will do anything to be free, but he doesn’t know how to be free.

Outside the acting and direction, composer Landon Knoblock’s score must be mentioned. His music does exactly what a film score should do, perfectly complementing each moment in the film, even in its moments of silence.

Ultimately, Mama’s Boy is a form of transgressive horror. It does not pull many punches, and will draw its audience into a world they most likely never wanted to see. Yes, it is the worst possible scenario, but it is grounded in the all too disgusting reality that so many adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse have faced.

The film will soon make its way onto the film festival circuit and I encourage you to see it. For more information and to keep up on the latest news, you can follow the film on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and their official website.

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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