"The Cinema Show"

Episode #128

Grab a bucket of popcorn and a large drink - the boys have a super-long bonus-sized episode this time around! Up first is Gift, Keep, and Ditch featuring breakfast cereals of yore and then it's on to the feature presentation as they discuss some of the movies from the recent 2022 edition of the Popcorn Frights Film Festival. Join them as they FOLLOW HER through this FINAL SUMMER in the lead-up to the THIRD SATURDAY IN OCTOBER to the TINY CINEMA where we'll all be LIVING WITH CHUCKY.

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"...and the Award Goes To --" - The Popcorn Frights 2022 Award Winners

Living with Chucky, dir. Kyra Gardner

August 29, 2022 // -- As its eighth edition comes to a close after eleven nights of in-person and virtual programming, Popcorn Frights Film Festival is proud to announce its juried and audience awards that were selected from its lineup of 113 films (36 features and 77 shorts films from 20 countries) in 10 categories. This year’s jury consisted of members of national media and local filmmakers, who chose to honor Florida filmmaker Sylvia Caminer’s FOLLOW HER with the Jury Prize for Best Feature Film. In announcing the Feature Film Prize for the film, the jury said the following: “A socially relevant horror movie for modern times, Sylvia Caminer’s Follow Her features a completely unpredictable screenplay bystar Dani Barker with a twist at the end that rivals The Sixth Sense. Caminer’s directing style is near perfection, and we can’t wait to ‘follow her’ into her next film.”

Follow Her, dir. Sylvia Caminer

Popcorn Frights Film Festival Movie Review: "Living with Chucky” (2022)

"We're Friends Till The End, Remember?"

by Joseph Perry

Living with Chucky director/cowriter Kyra Elise Gardner did just that, as her father is special effects wizard Tony Gardner, who designed the Chucky and Tiffany dolls for some of the Child’s Play film franchise features. Gardner’s enlightening documentary did two things for me: it made me appreciate the franchise more, as someone who is just a casual fan and skipped the middle two entries, and it gave me an appreciation of the family-like bonding behind the films and TV series, the latter of which really is the main aim of this film.

Popcorn Frights Film Festival Movie Review: Final Summer

Final Summer is a Nostalgic Trip Back to the Slasher Classics From the 80s

-by Mike Imboden

Imagine, if you will, your last summer before heading off to college.  High school graduation is in the history books and the days of big hair, glam rock, and the rest of the decade of excess is getting farther behind you in the rearview mirror as the 1990’s loom in front of you, full of possibilities.  You need some extra cash and so, like the last few years before this one, you sign on as a counselor at a summer camp, certain that THIS year will end in the exchange of phone numbers with a certain someone and - if you’re lucky - the exchange of something a bit more. You’re not the only one with summer plans, though, and while yours are like many others, there’s always one who has decidedly… different ideas of how to spend their summer.

Not the person you want to see on the last night of summer camp

It’s 1991 and Camp Silver Lake is closing its doors on its last season before it’s sold.  This news comes as a surprise to the counselors who are tasked with getting everything put away and cleaned up. It probably shouldn’t be a surprise, though, when it’s revealed that “accidents” have befallen the camp every year and are attributed to the camp’s urban legend of a former groundskeeper named Warren Cooper, who was believed to be a bit unstable.  When a masked figure wielding an axe shows up, what was a night of work and camaraderie becomes a night of survival.

Popcorn Frights Film Festival Movie Review: The Third Saturday in October

{Note: Go read the review for The Third Saturday in October Part V and then come back to read this)

Jakkariah "Jack" Harding (Antonio Woodruff) is back again to… wait, this isn’t a sequel, it’s the ORIGINAL “lost” entry in The Third Saturday in October franchise and boy, is this a doozy!

Back in 1979 "Jack" Harding has a date with an electric chair courtesy of the killing spree that he was responsible for.  In attendance as witnesses are Ricky Dean Logan (Darius Willis) and Vicki Newton (K.J. Baker), unrelated parents of a couple of Harding’s victims. Oddly, Harding is scheduled to be buried directly following the execution, but when Ricky and Vicki arrive at the cemetery they discover, to their horror, that Harding is still alive and now on the run!

Popcorn Frights Film Festival Movie Review: Third Saturday in October Part V

Try to follow along here.  The Third Saturday in October Part V is the fourth sequel to the “lost slasher” film, The Third Saturday in October, however there are no parts two, three, or four - but there IS a part one and we’ll get to that a little later. Y’see, writer/director Jay Burleson has crafted a two part homage to the heyday of the slasher sub-genre and video stores where you’d often find a sequel before stumbling across the original entry - so the recommended viewing order here is Part V followed by Part I.

As any good sequel should, this starts off with a flashback montage of the three sequels from the 1980s (the original was released in 1979, as the story goes) before we hit our “current” time of 1994 and the titular third Saturday in October when everyone is glued to their TVs for the annual college football rivalry game between  the Alabama-Mobile Seahawks and Tennessee A&M Commonwealth. Again, like any good sequel, we’re treated to a killing by franchise star Jakkariah "Jack" Harding (Antonio Woodruff) just a few minutes in.  

Popcorn Frights Film Festival 2022

Popcorn Frights Hybrid Film Festival’s First Wave Features Chucky, Slashers, and Monsters

artwork by Kent Hernandez

Can’t get enough behind-the-scenes info about Chucky?  Need more retro slasher flicks in your life? Hankering for some classic comic book art revelations? Popcorn Frights, Florida’s finest fear-fare film festival, has all this and much more in store, as it returns this year from August 11-21 with another lineup sure to make horror movie aficionados reach for their drool cups. For those unable to travel to the fest, this year’s edition of the festival features a hybrid component that reaches all across the United States. From creature features to aliens to zombies to silent classics and beyond, Popcorn Frights has something for every manner of horror movie lover. Check out the official press announcement below, and for more information visit www.PopcornFrights.com.