Infrared is now available on digital platforms and will be released on Kings of Horror on August 5, 2022. Photo: google
Terror Films released found footage horror film Infrared, starring The Room’s Gregory Sestero, worldwide on digital platforms on July 22 and it will be available on Kings of Horror on August 5, 2022. (Terror Films, 2022)
Infrared – A paranormal investigator and his production crew gain access to a mysterious, abandoned school but when the thrilling haunt turns deadly, the team must race to uncover the terrifying truth before they become the school’s next victims. Jesse Janzen, Leah Finity, and Lori Richardson also star in the spooker.
“Infrared is first and foremost a horror film, but at its heart, is a movie about siblings reconnecting in a time of need. Often in horror films, we find ourselves rooting for the characters we don’t like to die, so it was important for us to develop characters that we wanted to survive, creating a larger emotional investment for those watching. With this intention in mind, we set out to wholly develop their backstories and create a believable connection. From there we tackled the darker themes and scares within the film, workshopping ideas with our actors, and giving them the freedom of collaboration within our improvisational process. This film is injected with humor, tension and scares, and we really hope that nobody finds an owner’s manual in their basement.” – Directors Robert Livings and Randy Nundall Jr.
Infrared movie poster. Courtesy photo, used with permission.
The television adaptation of the Paper Girls comic book series is available on Amazon Prime Video. Photo: google
Paper Girls is a mystery/science fiction comic book series written by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Cliff Chiang, published by American company Image Comics. Paper Girls follows the story of four 12-year-old newspaper delivery girls (Erin, MacKenzie, KJ, and Tiffany) set in Stony Stream, a fictional suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. As they are out delivering papers on the morning after Halloween in 1988, the town is struck by an invasion from a mysterious force from the future. The girls become unwillingly caught up in the conflict between two warring factions of time travelers. The television adaptation premiered on Amazon Prime Videoon July 29, 2022 and consists of eight episodes. (Wikipedia, 2022)
Paper Girls is a science fiction drama television series created by Stephany Folsom based on the comic book series. It stars Camryn Jones as Tiffany Quilkin, Riley Lai Nelet as Erin Tieng, Sofia Rosinsky as Mac Coyle, Fina Strazza as KJ Brandman, and Ali Wong as Adult Erin. The girls become unwittingly caught in a conflict between warring factions of time-travelers, sending them on an adventure through time that will save the world. As they travel between our present, the past, and the future – they encounter future versions of themselves and now must choose to embrace or reject their fate.
This series premiered on Friday July 29 and I just watched the first episode and judging by the comments online, it is being compared to Stranger Things (I have never watched that show). The first episode introduces the main characters and sets off the time traveling where the first meet Adult Erin. Being a big fan of science fiction, especially time travelling, it looks interesting. The story line goes back and forth between the past, present, and future so I hope I do not lose interest because I really want to see it through. The best thing is that all eight episodes are available now, so I can probably binge watch the entire season.
The Western Express show off their nuevo-retro style of Texas country with new single “Flower Of The Rio Grande.” Upcoming album Lunatics, Lovers & Poets is due out August 9, 2022. Courtesy photo, used with permission.
Lone Star State honky-tonkers The Western Express are aware of the renewed interest in the eras of country music that inspire them—and the major-label artists who are leading that surge in popularity with radio-friendly hits—but they are not chasing trends. “My first real concert was the Judds at the Houston Rodeo in the late ‘80s. I sang George Strait songs at every talent show I could enter as a kid,” says Stephen Castillo, one half of The Western Express, along with Phill Brush. “I’ve just always been immersed in it.” Their sound is real, and it goes deep. Their new album Lunatics, Lovers & Poets will be out August 9,2022. (The Western Express, 2022)
Phill Brush and Stephen Castillo, together known as The Western Express, met via Craigslist in early 2018 and bonded over their shared love of first-rate songwriting and the country hits of the 1980s and ‘90s. Drawn to the tragic or notable lives of writers and performers such as Dean Dillon, Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz of Watchhouse, and Chavela Vargas, Brush and Castillo’s unique set of influences are balanced with classic country troubadours like Willie Nelson, Hank Williams, and Alan Jackson. It is through this lens that they refract a sound all their own. Touching on classic pop country, Latin blues, gospel, and even a little outlaw, The Western Express are cultivating their one-of-a-kind brand of Texas country.
Pro Country debuted The Western Express’ “Flower of the Rio Grande,” the first single from their upcoming full-length album, Lunatics, Lovers & Poets. With a swaggering, moody Mex-Tex feel, “Flower of the Rio Grande” tells the story of a lovelorn man roaming the desert, as Castillo puts it: “searching for the dark-eyed woman who now only lives in his dreams.” A lonesome fiddle and a reverbed-out electric guitar dance in and out of Castillo’s vocal melody, painting a perfect, cool desert evening scene. “He wants her and she knows it,” says Brush. “And she’s not giving in that easily.” Fans can check out the music video for “Flower of the Rio Grande” now and stream it.
The nine songs on Lunatics, Lovers & Poets work together despite their differences—much like Brush and Castillo themselves—because of Castillo’s strong, but not self important, songwriting decisions. There is an old-school storytelling style masking deeply personal reflections in “Flower of the Rio Grande,” and “Leyenda,” unflinching honesty over upbeat melodies in “Trust Me, You Can’t Trust Me” and “Emptying Me,” and straightforward, dancehall-ready love stories in “You and Me and the Neon” and “Lovin’ You for a While.”
“I took the craft of writing these songs seriously,” explains Castillo, who wrote much of the album during a solo trip to West Texas in the fall of 2018, “but the songs themselves don’t take themselves very seriously.”
Lunatics, Lovers & Poets track list:
Honky Tonk Saints
Flower of the Rio Grande
You and Me and the Neon
Trust Me, You Can’t Trust Me
Leyenda
Lovin’ You For A While
Last Apology
Emptying Me
Quesadilla Mamacita
Catch The Western Express on tour: August 4 – Austin, TX – Broken Spoke Dancehall (Album Release Show) August 7 – Helotes, TX – Floore’s Country Store August 19 – College Station, TX – Calvary Court
Tiffany Williams pays homage to her family and every other long line of coal miners with stunning new song “All Those Days of Drinking Dust” from upcoming full-length debut All Those Days of Drinking Dust, out August 19, 2022. Courtesy photo, used with permission.
Singer-songwriter Tiffany Williams is the daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter of eastern Kentucky coal miners, but the more she introduced herself to audiences that way at her live shows, the more she felt guilty about it. “I hadn’t done anything to deserve claiming that,” she says. What she meant is that she did not have to make the same sacrifices or take part in the back-breaking labor that they did, yet she was proudly sharing and identifying with that part of her culture and heritage. In actuality, Williams is an award-winning fiction writer and a self-described lexophile who has taught high school English and studied Appalachian speech and sociolinguistics in graduate school—not to mention working as a dialect coach on the set of “The Evening Hour,” which debuted at Sundance in 2020. She shares a stunning example of a sum of her lifetime of parts; the title track from her debut full-length album, AllThose Days of Drinking Dust, due to be released August 19, 2022. (Tiffany Williams, 2022)
“All Those Days of Drinking Dust” was written, in a way, to purge Williams’ guilt about attaching herself to her forebearers’ hard-working Appalachian lineage, and what came from it is a hauntingly beautiful tribute to not only her family but to generations of families like hers; folks who spent their lives working beneath the mighty Appalachian mountains. Those mountains, as the song says, “are the only ones that watched us ripe and rot / and hold the bones of both our living and our dead”—the “ripe” and “rot” a reference to Shakespeare’s As You Like It. “From the first-line echo of the original coal miner’s daughter Loretta Lynn, this song pays homage to a succession of coal mining forebears and talks about living life in the shadow of the harrowing vocation—how it comes to bear on the body, the spirit, and the people making a home in fraught yet beloved coal country,” says Williams.
Americana Highwayspremiered “All Those Days of Drinking Dust,” writing, “Williams’ rich vocals hold sorrow and longing, and the album promises to be one of this year’s favorites.” Produced by legendary Lexington, Kentucky-based Duane Lundy, All Those Days of Drinking Dust will be released on August 19. Fans can pre-order or pre-save the album ahead of its release and listen to the album-opening title track. All Those Days of Drinking Dust represents a monumental convergence of each chapter of Williams’ life.
Williams and Lundy recruited an eclectic band of pickers from the Commonwealth that add energy and nuance to each track. Virtuoso cellist Ben Sollee lends a ghostly vibe to “The Sea,” while J. Tom Hnatow adds bass, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and steel to other tracks throughout. There is percussion from Tripp Bratton; contributions on keys, acoustic, and electric guitars from Justin Craig; fiddle stylings from Ellie Miller; and Taylor Shuck on banjo. Fellow Kentuckian and noted New York Times best-selling novelist Silas House adds vocals to a lively duet. Lundy not only produced and contributed keys but also engineered and mixed the recording.
All Those Days of Drinking Dust track list: 1. All Those Days of Drinking Dust 2. Carletta 3. Harder Heart 4. Know Your Worth 5. The Sea 6. Wanted It To Be 7. When I Come Back Around 8. Don’t Give A Damn 9. No Bottom 10. The Waiting
The Ghost Lights will be released on digital on August 26 followed by the Terror Films Channel September 2 and Kings of Horror on September 9, 2022. Courtesy photo, used with permission.
Coming this August from Terror Films isThe Ghost Lights, a spine-chilling new science-fiction thriller about a journalist on the search for truth about extra-terrestrial life. The Ghost Lights will be released on digital on August 26 followed by the Terror Films Channel September 2 and Kings of Horror on September 9, 2022. (Terror Films, 2022)
The Ghost Lights – A journalist returns home after the death of her father and discovers a mysterious cassette tape describing strange disappearances and mysterious lights appearing in the skies of West Texas. In an effort to connect with the memory of her late father, she sets out on a cross-state road trip to discover the truth. Billy Blair (Jonah Hex), Katreeva Phillips, and John Francis McCullagh uncover an X-File in this summer’s most intriguing genre jaunt.
The Ghost Lights begins as a photographer is taking pictures outdoors and exploring the area. The action then fast forwards to the present as Alexandra, a journalist, returns home to Dallas for her father’s (Arthur Steve Bennett) funeral but as it turns out, she is too late because the funeral has already taken place. When she goes to her father’s house to look around, she finds a mysterious cassette tape and it turns out to be her father’s interview with a miner from the small town of Terlingua, Texas. It is set on October 15, 1978, and he is interviewing Mario Cuevas in the Wild Cactus Saloon. Mr. Cuevas has a story to tell about the ghost lights in Terlingua. He claims that people have been seeing these lights for years and they disappear if they get too close to the lights. Intrigued by the story and hoping to learn more about her father, Alexandra sets out on a road trip to Terlingua to see for herself and continue the story he began.
It is promoted as a horror story, but The Ghost Lights is much more than that. It is a drama about loss, guilt, and coping with a loved one’s death. Halfway through it turns into a suspense thriller because a mysterious man, supposedly a ‘man in black,’ begins chasing Alexandra because she might be getting close to the truth. Without giving too much away, on top of the original interview, there is another one that takes place in the present that hints at what really happened to her dad. In the end, she manages to reconnect with her dad as she originally intended. The cinematography is stunning and the soundtrack sets the appropriate mood throughout this suspenseful and haunting story. The interview scenes are in black and white, giving them a melancholy feel. Having personally been to Marfa and West Texas in general, this movie accurately portrays the atmosphere, mood, and general spookiness of the region. Overall, The Ghost Lights is part family drama, part science fiction movie about the possibility of extraterrestrial life and the government’s attempt to stifle any and all investigations. It explores the human condition through the universal themes of family, coping with tragedy, and the ongoing search for the truth.
*Thank you to October Coast for an advance screening.*
The Ghost Lights poster. Courtesy photo, used with permission.
Orders From Above is now available on digital. Courtesy photo, used with permission.
Vir Srinivas’ writing and directorial debut, Orders From Above has picked up awards or nominations at four world festivals, including Cannes and Mannheim. It is available on iTunes and all major digital platforms including YouTube, Vudu, Apple TV, and Amazon Prime Video. The 87-minute film is based on the interrogation of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann by Israeli police. (Gravitas Ventures, 2022)
Orders From Above – Winner of Best Historical Film at Cannes World Film Festival. Fifteen years after the end of World War II, Israeli police officer Avner Less interrogates Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the Final Solution. Adolf Eichmann is finally captured and brought to Israel to stand trial, but without enough evidence to prosecute him, Avner Less needs a confession from him. Directed by Vir Srinivas, with Richard Cotter, Peter J. Donnelly, Darrell Hoffman, and Emmanuel Drakakis.
Glasshouse is now available on digital and On Demand. Courtesy photo, used with permission.
Kelsey Egan’s directorial feature debut Glasshouse is now available on digital platforms including Google Play Movies & TV, Vudu, Amazon Prime Video, and YouTube. This dystopian science fiction thriller stars Jessica Alexander, Kitty Harris, Helton Pelser, Adrienne Pearce, and Anja Taljaard. It received rave reviews at the 2021 Fantasia International Film Festival and is currently 91% positive on Rotten Tomatoes. (Glasshouse, 2022)
Glasshouse – A family consisting of a mother, three daughters and one son isolate themselves in a greenhouse, which the mother calls the Sanctuary, to escape the Shred, a dementia-like toxin that erases people’s memory. All is well until the sisters are seduced by a Stranger who shatters their peace and stirs a past best left buried.
D.M. Cunningham’s 3 Demons starring Haley Heslip and Laura Golinski. Courtesy photo, used with permission.
If you love horror movies, here is a recent release. D.M Cunningham’s 3 Demons, a supernatural horror film headlined by Peter Tell, is available on Google Play Movies & TV, Vudu, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and YouTube from Uncork’d Entertainment. (Uncork’d Entertainment, 2022)
3 Demons – A deputy is tasked with watching over the body of a recently deceased woman until her family can arrive and claim her. As his curiosity gets the better of him, he inadvertently concludes an unfinished ritual. With the conjuring now complete, strange and sinister forces begin to target him. As his past is unearthed, he is forced to face his own demons with terrifying consequences. Haley Heslip, Laura Golinski, Jovonnah Nicholson, Zoë Cunningham, and Sherryl Despres also star.
Keith Leopard, a home entertainment industry veteran with more than 23 years of experience in purchasing, acquisitions, merchandising, marketing and analysis of major studio and independent supplier to the home entertainment market, founded Uncork’d Entertainment in July 2012. The Company focuses on distribution in six areas: Digital Media, Physical Home Entertainment, Aggregation, Theatrical and Television, Foreign Sales, and has secured relationships across all platforms to ensure films reach the widest audience possible.
Emerald Blue will be out July 29, 2022 and features backing band Jano Rix, Myles Weeks, and Dan Walker; Engineered by GRAMMY-winner Trina Shoemaker at Dockside Studios. Courtesy photo, used with permission.
For an artist who grew up, in his words, “beside the turbulent, chocolate milk of the mouth of the Mississippi,” it is no wonder that Andrew Duhonwas so awestricken by his time exploring the Pacific Northwest over the past few years. But it was when Duhon connected the shades of his unfamiliar surroundings with the depth of color in his partner’s eyes that sparked the writing of “Emerald Blue,” the title track of his upcoming album. (Andrew Duhon, 2022)
Holler. premiered the music video for “Emerald Blue,” writing, “…‘Emerald Blue’ sits happily at the crossroads of harmony-drenched pop, rustic Americana, Appalachian folk and about a half-dozen other styles, all meeting and mixing around the warmth of Duhon’s vocals; world-weary, stretched and full of soul.” Fans can watch the music video for “Emerald Blue”, check out previously-released singles “Everybody Colored Their Own Jesus” and “Castle On Irish Bayou,“ and pre-order or pre-saveEmeraldBlue ahead of its July 29.
Joined by Jano Rix on drums, percussion, and harmonies; Myles Weeks on upright and electric basses and harmonies; and Dan Walker on keys and accordion, Duhon headed into Maurice, Louisiana’s storied Dockside Studios with GRAMMY-award winning engineer and longtime collaborator of Andrew’s, Trina Shoemaker, to capture every inch of vibe and beauty and texture each song had to offer.
The tracks on Emerald Blue show serious time spent in listening mode—both to himself, and to the world around him. These are songs that come from a very particular time and place, when so many of us—often alone with our flaws and feelings, with few of our regular, dependable distractions—were forced to face hard truths. And yet, using the time-tested language of folk, of the blues, storytelling and soul-searching, voice and keys and strings, Andrew Duhon proves himself worthy of heroes like John Prine—who makes a fantasy cameo in “As Good As It Gets,” the album’s closer—by similarly crafting four-minute worlds in song, that feel purely timeless, as old or as young as the chronic condition of stumbling across Earth with a human heart. Emerald Blue shows us the vast worlds that can be discovered and traveled when we sit still, and the breathtaking vistas on view when we look within—or at the people right beside us.
Catch Andrew Duhon on tour: 7.21 – Boulder, CO – The Barn – Benefit Concert 7.22 – Pallisade, CO – Pallisade Brewery 7.29 – Lafayette, LA – Grouse Room 7.30 – New Orleans, LA – One Eyed Jacks 7.31 – Mobile, AL – Callaghan’s 8.01 – Birmingham, AL – Dave’s Pub 8.02 – Decatur, GA – Eddie’s Attic 8.03 – Asheville, NC – The Grey Eagle 8.04 – Greenville, SC – Radio Room 8.05 – Charlotte, NC – The Evening Muse 8.07 – Raleigh, NC – Pour House Music Hall 8.10 – Port Townsend, WA – Wheeler Theater 8.11 – Seattle, WA – Tractor Tavern 8.12 – Portland, OR – Doug Fir 8.13 – Kingston, WA – Concerts in the Barn 8.14 – Nine Mile Falls, WA – Live at Andre’s 8.17 – New York, NY – Cafe Wha? 8.18 – Wayne, PA – 118 North
The single ‘Salt Life’ is from the upcoming LP Family Time, out July 29, 2022. For fans of Zac Brown Band, Jimmy Buffet, Chris Stapleton, and Corey Smith. Courtesy photo, used with permission.
Recording artist Bobby Cool’s new tune “Salt Life” kicks off with a bit of blue-collar perspective. But it is only a matter of time before the tides turn the song into an easy-going, smile-inducing ode to the upsides of close proximity to a large body of water. In the end, driven by lively harmonica counterpoint, Cool’s character is fully and happily committed to not worrying whether the grass is greener on the other side. With “Salt Life”—like the rest of his upcoming album Family Time—Cool blends bluegrass, Americana, and country into a rousing, good-time mix of genres. (Bobby Cool, 2022)
Fans can reel in Cool’s coastal mood for themselves by checking out “Salt Life”, check out the previously-released “American Dream,” and pre-order or pre-saveFamily Time ahead of its July 29 release right here.
At the end of February 2020, Cool and his producer Adam Haynes (bluegrass fiddler for The Grascals, Dailey & Vincent, and others) tracked 13 songs over the course of two days. Two weeks later, the world would shut down and a two-year journey would commence to release into the world what would finally become Family Time. On Family Time, Cool shares musical snapshots of small and large moments that define family life and captures intimately the grooves and creases, the craziness and the humor, the regrets, and the celebrations of living together in songs that resonate so deeply we feel as if he has written them just for us. In the end, it is clear that Bobby Cool revels in telling a good story as much as he does in trying to live one out. He sings songs that reach us wherever we find ourselves in our lives, touching us, healing us, and embracing us with music that fills our hearts and reminds us that life’s most important events happen on family time.
SA Examiner 