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Sundance 2021: ISIS Sex Slave Doc ‘SABAYA’ Uncovers Hell on Earth

Hogir Hinori’s haunting POV documentary Sabaya takes us to hell itself: Syria’s ISIS-run Al-Hol encampment. There, captured Yazidi (Kurdish religious minorities) women are kept as sex slaves. Beaten, raped, sold into marriage. Forced to convert to Islam. Sold again. Raped. Beaten. Sold. They are known as Sabaya. In the Yazidi Home Center in northeastern Syria, Mahmud, Ziyad, and an extremely brave and bold network of former Sabaya women plot, plan, and execute the rescue of these women.  Read More

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Sundance 2021: ‘IN THE EARTH’ Combines Axe Slashers and Lovecraftian Horror With Hallucinogenic Style  

Creating horror has been and will always be a sociopolitical act and with In The Earth, British auteur Ben Wheatley reflects the reality of the pandemic back at us in startling, disorienting fashion. The result has notes of all kinds of horror, but most distinctly a tent-in-the-woods slasher crossed with Lovecraftian cosmic horror, all set to the backdrop of some airborne viral infection that’s driven the population into quarantine and starved them for a cure. Read More

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Sundance 2021: Two Emotionally Wounded BFFs Are Going to Kill Themselves ‘ON THE COUNT OF THREE’

Jerrod Carmichael and Christopher Abbott do a high wire balancing act in tragicomic suicide bromance On the Count of Three, a movie that’s sure to leave viewers shaken and maybe just a bit disturbed, but nonetheless absolute certain of what Carmichael came to say.  Read More

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Sundance 2021: ‘MOTHER SCHMUCKERS’ A Depraved, Cringe, Bad-Taste Comedy With Echoes of ‘It’s Always Sunny’ 

Like an even more depraved episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, if they did a Belgian spin-off starring the McPoyle twins, crossed with the no-holds-barred slapstick comedic absurdity of Dumb and Dumber and the fourth wall-breaking, ultra-low-budget shenanigans of The Eric Andre Show, Mother Schmuckers is tasteless and offensive and grotesque. And it had me cackling in no short measure.  Read More

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Sundance 2021: #Adulting is Sinister and Weird in Bizarro Fable ‘JOHN AND THE HOLE’

Kids grow up so fast these days or so the adage goes. In Pascual Sisto’s anti-coming-of-age dark psychological thriller John and the Hole, this phrase is taken quite literally when 13 year-old John (Charlie Shotwell) decides he’s old enough to be the man of the house, drugs his family, and stuffs them in a literal 20-foot hole in their backyard.  Read More

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Sundance 2021: Crowd-Pleasing ‘CODA’ Allows Other “Voices” to Soar

Inclusive, funny, original, and genuinely moving, CODA is just about the most wonderful start to the 2021 Sundance Film Festival that you could hope for. This endearing fish-out-of-water coming-of-age story about the only hearing daughter in a deaf family embracing her love of singing feels like a revelatory discovery; not only is it a standout film in and of itself but it’s the kind of movie that uses inclusiveness to tap into new voices and entirely new types of stories. Read More

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Devotion is Cursed In A24’s Latest Great Horror ‘SAINT MAUD’

“Never waste your pain” Maud (Morfydd Clark) advises, her voice rarely rising above a whisper, even in voiceover. A devout palliative nurse with quite a bit of emotional baggage, Maud searches desperately for meaning. More often than not, she finds that meaning in her own pain; pain suffered in the name of God. With Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), an ex-dancer knocking on the doorstep of the afterlife, she just might have found her purpose on this earth: to redeem and purify. Saving a soul proves nasty business, especially as intimate personal relationships blossom, but Maud will stop short of nothing to do just that, consequences be damned.  Read More

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Brutal ‘WRONG TURN’ A Hugely Enjoyable Franchise Detour into Wild Backwoods Schlock 

A spin-off in name only, Wrong Turn (2021), from relative newcomer director Mike P. Nelson, takes the cult inbred-cannibal horror franchise in a totally new direction, pivoting away from the signature cornerstones of the slasher series towards something just as unflinching, addictive, and brutal but one that’s meant to be taken more seriously. And with no apparent cannibalism.  Read More

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‘THE FATHER’ Strands Audiences in the Cruel Grasp of Dementia 

A formal experiment in the mental unraveling genre that boasts a tour de force Anthony Hopkins performance, The Father explores the existential horror of memories gone to soup. Begging audiences to step into the shoes of those experiencing Alzheimer’s, the debut film from writer-director Florian Zeller is an experiment in witnessing first-hand the cruelty of a disease that strips one’s mental facilities down to the nub.  Read More

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The Sundance 2021 Movies We Can’t Wait to See

Each and every year, figuring out what to watch at the Sundance International Film Festival is a journey in and of itself. Last year, I saw a good smattering of my favorite films of the year in Park City, including Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor and others that played the fest, like Dinner in America, later made its way onto that same list. This year, things are different. For the first time in its celebrated history, the entire festival will be conducted online. While this means no late-night parties, no skiing on those powdery Utah slopes, no rubbing elbows with your favorite celebrities, and less standing in blisteringly chilly queues, it also means enjoying Sundance from the comfort of your own couch. Read More