Actress and filmmaker Maria Tran’s bolstering independent film career is making headway in the festival circuit with the new psychological action drama, Echo 8. Filming took a few years with the film ending up in post-production with trailer footage finally making its debut late last summer, followed by a series of screenings already underway since ramping up local screening efforts last Fall. (My review can be found here.)
It’s been a few weeks since the banner release of actor and director Joe Cornet’s new Western, Gunfight At Rio Bravo. A sequel is currently in toe and Cornet and lead star and producer Alexander Nevsky have been campaigning for both films, with the first having had its red carpet press premiere last month in Arizona.
Two years after crowdfunding, shooting, and completing post-production on Haste, director Aeddan Sussex’s new action short is now online for the masses to take a gander at. That’s five minutes of snackable action and drama featuring UK stunt cats Jon Alagoa and Danny Darwin, with choreography by Alagoa, and a score by Justin Bell (The Matrix Resurrections, Cloud Atlas).
What’s happening right now with “Terrifier 2” is something that basically never happens. A modestly-budgeted independent slasher movie gets a higher-budgeted (but still very modest) sequel? Sure, fine. That’s not unheard of. That sequel getting released on hundreds of screens across the U.S.? That’s a rarity. Even rarer still is that sequel continuing to gain momentum as the weeks go by. Yet, that is exactly what “Terrifier 2” is doing.
Brothers George and Harry Kirby just want to entertain fans of action on screen. The pair have done this by directing more than a dozen short films where the main focus is on action and, most importantly, fun. While they honed their craft with these films (and built a sizable online fanbase to boot), George Kirby steadily established a name for himself in the Hollywood stunt industry. His most high-profile work (so far) came as the fight coordinator on the 2021 blockbuster VENOM: LET THEIR BE CARNAGE but he has also been a stunt performer on such major films as ROUGE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY, JUSTICE LEAGUE, and DOCTOR STRANGE.
Lucky McKee has been one of the largely unsung heroes of horror cinema, for around 2 decades now. From his debut feature, “May” to his more recent work, “Old Man”, McKee has proven himself time and time again as one of the best filmmakers today at making truly interesting character pieces.
Every new action film starring Scott Adkins is a reason to celebrate. The British actor and martial artist has long been one of the most reliable performers in the genre. Not only committed to delivering the best possible on-screen action with every new project despite any budget or schedule limitations, his “story first” mindset and dedication to the craft of acting are unparalleled among his action film contemporaries.
Christian Sesma seemingly never stops working. A self-taught filmmaker, Sesma has been directing since 2006 at an incredibly productive rate. In that time, he has completed (and found distribution) for more than twenty feature-length genre films.
This year’s Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2) was a lot of fun. I know I already wrote up an article about the event in general, but there was so much at this year’s con that I still have to talk about! While walking around and looking at the art for sale, I came across the Autistic Tiger booth. It looked interesting so I talked with David Villec who told me that the artist was his son. I looked over and saw a small child in a tiger costume happily drawing away. The artist is Tiger. Who is nine years old. Who has autism.
Taken by Christina Ortega for @FCSyndicate
British crime movies focused on revenge are frankly a dime a dozen. So when one comes along that separates itself from the crowd, that’s a film worthy of excitement. BULL, the new film from writer/director Paul Andrew Williams (LONDON TO BRIGHTON) is definitely that. It tells the story of a low-level enforcer, the titular Bull (Neil Maskell, PEAKY BLINDERS), who returns to town to look for his missing son and take revenge on the people, including his wife and her mob boss father (David Haskins, SID AND NANCY), who viciously double-crossed him ten years prior.
Neal McDonough has the sort of resume that most actors would kill for. Working nonstop since the early 90s, he has had memorable roles in more noteworthy projects than can be easily listed. McDonough has been prominently featured in BAND OF BROTHERS, JUSTIFIED, MINORITY REPORT, RAVENOUS, ARROW, and CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER for example. And that impressive list barely scratches the surface of the truly staggering amount of quality work McDonough has turned in for movies, television, and even video games over his 30+ years of acting.
Paul Solet is a filmmaker who has been making strides in the movie industry for over a decade. Coming onto the scene with the brutal and unique zombie film GRACE. He went on to solidify his name as a creator to keep eye on with work as one of the main writers on the space exploration series MARS for National Geographic as well as continuing to spearhead his own film projects like the true-crime documentary TREAD, about a fortified bulldozer that wreaks havoc on a small town, and the thriller BULLET HEAD, featuring Antonio Banderas, John Malkovich, and Adrien Brody as three criminals trapped in a warehouse with a seemingly unstoppable guard dog.
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