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Another Hole in the Head 2025 Festival Audience Awards will be up January 10th 2p (PST)

Updated: Jan 10


22 ANOTHER HOLE IN THE HEAD FILM FEST

December 5th - 18th 

Balboa Theater San Francisco

December 1st to 31st, On-demand via Eventive

The 22nd Annual Another Hole in the Head Film Festival: A Celebration of the Wild, the Weird, and the Wonderfully Unexpected. Now in its 22nd year, the Another Hole in the Head Film Festival continues its mission to bring bold, boundary-pushing cinema to adventurous audiences. This year’s festival dives deep into the worlds of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and beyond, offering a global showcase of fearless independent filmmaking. Audiences can expect dozens of feature films and hundreds of short films that redefine genre storytelling—each one a testament to the imagination and creativity thriving in today’s indie film scene. Whether it’s mind-bending sci-fi, darkly comic horror, or genre hybrids that defy easy labels, the 2025 lineup promises to challenge, thrill, and inspire.



2025 Festival Trailer



2025 Festival Poster







Press Articles Below


9 films to see at S.F.’s Another Hole in the Head Film Festival

By Pam Grady, ContributorNov 25, 2025

A bounty hunter in search of a mysterious briefcase discovers there are things worse than eviction for tenants of a rundown apartment complex overdue on the rent in “LandLord.”

Another Hole in the Head: Begins online Monday, Dec. 1. Through Dec. 31. $17-$25 for live events; $10 online; $40-$160 pass. Online and at Balboa Theatre, 3630 Balboa St., S.F. ahith.com

Remington Smith’s vampire saga, in which the bloodsucker is the slumlord who owns the joint, is among the treats in store as the 2025 edition of Another Hole in the Head unspools Monday, Dec. 1 through Dec. 31 at the Balboa Theatre and online.

The festival mixes genres, as well as the new and old. 

In the experimental realm, filmmaker Jorge Torres-Torres’ “Raising Phoenix (A Joaquin Phoenix Extensive Filmography)” offers an offbeat exploration of the Oscar-winner’s career using clips from his oeuvre. “Shopping for Superman” is a documentary examining the existential threats facing comic book stores. Horror and comedy meet in “Kombucha,” a film director Jake Myers describes as “David Cronenberg’s Office Space” for its blend of body horror and satire.

On the classic side, AHITH presents James Whale’s “Frankenstein” (1931), Stuart Rosenberg’s “The Amityville Horror” (1979) and John Carpenter’s Kurt Russell-starring dystopian masterpiece “Escape from New York” (1981) on 16mm.

Fritz Lang’s eerie vision of the future “Metropolis” (1927) appears in a new AI-colorized edition with a re-score by The New Pollutants. The San Francisco psychedelic doom band Sleepbomb appears live with their re-score of the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle “Conan the Barbarian” (1982).

Nov 25, 2025

Pam Grady




2025 ANIMATION NEWSLETTER FROM ASSIFA-SF

Nov 29, 2025

(This is a section from the newsletter mentioning AHITH)

HAVE A WEIRD TIME ONLINE OR AT THE BALBOA THEATRE The 22nd annual event will be December 5 – 18 at the Balboa Theater, 3630 Balboa St, San Francisco and from December 1 to 31, on demand via Eventive.  Programs iclude Shrine of Abominations (2025), a stop motion horror film that was shot at Tippett Studio Animation, and BlackFlag (2025) animation from Italy.  The latter is set in an oppressive regime that celebrates violence and uses propaganda to promote absolute control and the loss of individual freedom. There is also a program of 9 animated shorts with Metropolis.  The shorts demonstrate “how artists are using AI to expand the language of film itself.” 

The full schedule includes programming details and ticket information.   www.ahith.com or https://holehead2025.eventive.org/welcome






Screen Grabs: Let’s get weird for the holidays at Another Hole in the Head

Blood-sucking landlords, hilarious hoagies, deadly influencers, bad haircuts: 'Tis the season for the 22nd freak film fest

November 30, 2025

Holidays themselves are horror enough for many, and holiday horror movies such a thing by now that quite a number of folk have a personal favorite to watch each year. (In fact, so popular are the original Yuletide slashers Black Christmas and Silent Night, Deadly Night, both have been subjected to multiple remakes and/or sequels.)

But for the truly dedicated, all of December should be dedicated to cinema of the macabre. They get their wish with the latest edition of Another Hole In the Head, the festival whose focus on sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and more, i.e. the miscellaneously “wild, weird and wonderfully unexpected,” returns for its 22nd edition this week. The online edition on Eventive does indeed run all month long, December 1-31, with quite a number of titles available via streaming only.

The in-person program, held at SF’s Balboa Theatre, occupies a shorter if busy span December 5-18. It opens this Fri/5 with two indie US features (both accompanied by shorts): Daniel W. Bowhers’ Beyond the Drumlins finds a crew of university researchers waylaid by mysterious powers during a field trip in the woods; Kyle Misak’s more darkly comedic Bad Haircut has another collegian suffering some things far worse than the title predicament when he goes to get his faulty follicles fixed by one very peculiar barber.

Eating and drinking also prove potentially very hazardous to your health in Dead Bloom (toxic farm soil), The Undistilled (moonshine), self-explanatory Kombucha, and Spanish Free Buffet, about a Chinese restaurant where the menu gets a bit Eating Raoul, if you know what I mean. Likewise there are cautionary tales involving freelance housecleaners (Interaction), accepting stray dinner invitations (The Hanged Man), participating in community stage endeavors (Theater Is Dead), visiting that inevitable cabin in the woods (Weekend at the End of the World), and stumbling onto satanic cults (world premiere A Reservation). 

Also represented among Hole Head’s features are true-crime (Dorothea, a rather camp dramatization of a 1980s Sacramento boarding-house proprietress’ serial-killing spree), documentary (Shopping for Superman, a history of comic book stores), and horror anthologies (Hans Christian Andersen-derived Danish Adorable Humans, midwest quartet The Driftless). Animation goes way out on various limbs in the Pasolini-inspired Italian phantasmagoria BlackFlag, as well as surreal Shrine of Abominations, which may appeal to Mad Godfans. Also on the dystopian sci-fi tip are the Mexican Beings aka Seres and Volume 7, a visually striking B&W futuristic drama from Greece. Other nations encompassed onscreen include the U.K. (Foul Evil Deeds), Spain (Lily’s Ritual), Japan (The Invisible Half) and Finland (Shadowland). 

If you prefer your genre content vintage, there are plenty of opportunities to scratch that itch, including 16mm showings of James Whale’s 1931 Frankenstein—the one that made a star of Boris Karloff—and 1979’s The Amityville Horror on Thurs/11. John Milius’ 1982 version of Conan the Barbarian will be revived Sat/13 with a live “re-score” by SLEEPBOMB, while Mon/15 brings Fritz Lang’s silent

masterpiece Metropolis, newly colorized, and rescored by The New Pollutants. John Carpenter’s 1981 Escape From New York gets the 16mm treatment on Wed/17, and the next night Hole Head’s on-site component ends with that original 1984 Silent Night, Deadly Night—its killer-Santa antics showcased (if that’s the word) in projected VHS. Before the festival’s official start on Friday, there’s also a special Tues/2 screening at Alamo Drafthouse New Mission of Mary Harron’s 2000 American Psycho—a prime example of a very good movie adapted from a completely awful book. 

Among all these well-known revivals, a true obscurity is 1984’s Charon aka The Jar, an incomprehensible widescreen oddity in which a 30-ish bachelor picks up a distraught, wounded older man after a car accident. He brings him to his apartment to “clean up,” but when the stranger vanishes, finds himself left with a jar in which a grotesque troll doll/fetus-like creature is pickled…or something. Our hero almost immediately begins experiencing hallucinations, nightmares, et al., and cannot seem to get rid of the nasty thing no matter how he tries. Director Bruce Toscano, writer George Bradley and star Gary Wallace all seem to have never made another film, before or since. Is this near-plotless curio good? Well, not really. But it is strange enough to make you very curious just what the makers intended—and you can ask Wallace, who will be present for a Q&A after the recently restored film’s screening.

That still doesn’t cover the whole program gamut, which also includes several “shorts blocks,” yet more features, in-person appearances, and more. Here are a few recommended highlights we were able to check out in advance:

Hoagie

Hole Head always offers plenty of comedy alongside the bloody thrills and spills, frequently in movies that intermingle all three. That is certainly the case with Matt Hewitt’s anarchic feature, in which a milquetoast suburban dad (co-writer Ryan Morley) acquires the titular pulsating organic whatsit from a rural store. Eventually what his kids term a “puke sandwich” gives birth to a pint-sized being with supernatural powers—one avidly being sought by its prior owner (Stephen Heath), a crazed alt-right militia leader who’ll stop at nothing to get “my homunculus” back. Occupying terrain at the intersection of Napoleon Dynamite, E.T. and The Toxic Avenger, complete with power-ballad montage, this is a relentlessly juvenile exercise in splatstick whose witty direction and some inspired performances make it pretty dang funny. 

Influencers

This sequel to writer-director Kurtis David Harder’s streaming hit Influencer a couple years ago has its surviving would-be victim Madison (Emily Tennant) realizing that serial murderess Catherine (Cassandra Naud) is alive and unwell, still wreaking havoc on well-heeled tourists and online personalities around the world. She tracks the perp down in the luxury resorts of Southeast Asia, where the two young women slowly, lethally close in on one another. Though you have to suspend a certain amount of disbelief (how could Catherine, who has a very prominent facial birthmark, hide in plain sight from authorities for so long?), this Ripley-esque thriller for the internet age is full of entertaining twists, as well as handsome sites in multinational locations. 

The Killing Cell

No horror-centric fest would be complete without at least one “found-footage” narrative, and this effort by James Bessey and Karsen Schovajsa (who are also in the cast) manages to be a cut above average in a frequently tired subgenre. Five friends venture to a long-shuttered private prison facility in rural Georgia that was notorious for its abuses, intending to videotape their nocturnal poking-around for a web show exploring “haunted” places. Needless to say, what they find is much, much worse than the mild shivers hoped for. Straightforward and nasty, this doesn’t boast any particularly original ideas, but goes from creepy to brutal with impressive dedication.

LandLord

Tasked with recovering a briefcase full of loot, a no-nonsense bounty hunter-hitwoman (Adama Abramson) infiltrates a nondescript Kentucky apartment complex. But in seeking her quarry, she realizes something awful is going on here—tenants seem to be disappearing i.e. getting murdered on a regular basis. You know that thing about vampires needing to be invited into homes by their victims? Well, that doesn’t apply if the bloodsucker owns the building. Remington Smith’s gritty thriller recalls other inventive modernizations of vampire lore, like Near Dark and Let the Right One In, while staking out its own distinctive, blood-soaked terrain. 

Raising Phoenix

A different kind of “found footage feature” is the assemblage constructed entirely of parts from other, prior movies, some excellent recent examples being San Francisco cinema homage The Green Fog and Soda Jerk’s subversive political commentary Hello Dankness. Jorge Torres Torres contributes his own unique spin with this loose life-story narrative about a protagonist who suffers a traumatizing shock as a child—one portrayed from grade-school youth to middle age by Joaquin Phoenix, or rather by clips drawn from his entire career to date. Only the later parts are likely to be very familiar, as they utilize scenes from variably famous, more recent films like Joker and Gladiator. You may well have forgotten, or never knew, that before fame the actor appeared in all kinds of TV detritus, from an Afterschool Special to Murder, She Wrote. This clever construct also utilizes footage from other, non-Phoenix-related projects, some 300 altogether, creating an exquisite-corpse monster out of mismatched puzzle pieces.

The 22nd annual Another Hole in the Head runs Fri/5-Thu/18 at the Balboa Theater in SF. Its On Demand programs will be available December 1-31. Full schedule, film, ticket and other info can be found here.

48 Hills welcomes comments in the form of letters to the editor, which you can submit here. We also invite you to join the conversation on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. 





SF/ARTS (in print)





Movies: Another Hole in the Head fest, Vogue marquee celebration, ‘Kill Bill,’ ‘Judging Juries’

by Anita Katz, Bay City NewsDecember 1, 2025

Genre madness, a restored marquee, a ferocious bride, and some valiant librarians are coming to theaters this busy week. 

A feast for genre fans and others drawn to weird, wacky and bloodcurdling fare, the Another Hole in the Head Film Festival is back with its 22nd edition of indie horror, sci-fi and fantasy cinema. In-person screenings, at San Francisco’s Balboa Theater, begin Friday and continue through Dec. 18. Online viewing is available throughout December. Dozens of feature films and hundreds of short films starring vampires, witches and serial killers screen at the festival, delivering everything from cheap scares and creative escapism to disturbing dark material. The Balboa slate launches with “Beyond the Drumlins,” a folk-horror and sci-fi thriller about an archaeology dig that turns terrifying. “Bad Haircut,” a horror comedy about a guy with hair issues who visits a “miracle worker” barber who turns out to be a madman, shares the Dec. 5 bill. Special presentations of classic genre pictures, too, are noteworthy. James Whale’s “Frankenstein” (1931) is being shown on original 16mm film. Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” (1927) screens in a re-scored, artificial intellience-colorized form described as a “bold experiment in cinematic restoration.” Other featured oldies include “The Jar” (1984) and “The Amityville Horror” (1979).  Additional selections include “The Driftless,” featuring Midwestern horror tales; “Weekend at the End of the World,” a cabin-in-the-woods comedy; “Dorothea,” inspired by the true story of 1980s grandmother and serial killer Dorothea Puente; “Kombucha,” an office-horror comedy; and short films. The Another Hole in the Head Film Festival is a project of SF IndieFest. Tickets are $17 for most programs. Visit ahith.com for more details.

(read the rest of the article in the link below)




Bay Area arts: 9 cool shows, events and concerts to catch this week

From Latin legends Mana to a banned-books bingo game to holiday-favorite 'Messiah,' here are some great shows to catch in the Bay Area.

The film fest we need right now

If those hummable, inescapable Christmas tunes are earworming their way right through your brain and even driving you a little batty, perhaps it’s time to chill out at the 22nd annual Another Hole in the Head film fest. Dedicated to the freaky and fantastical, this Bay Area treat running Dec. 5-18 offers a respite from the swirl of sugar-caned madness. 

In addition to 16mm screenings of genre gems such as 1931’s “Frankenstein” and 1979’s “Amityville Horror” (both Dec. 11), and the 1982 Arnold Schwarzenegger bloodbath “Conan the Barbarian” (Dec. 13) — spruced up with a live “re-score” — and even “Escape From New York” (Dec. 17), there are new offerings that aspire to attain future cult status.

We highly recommend screenwriter/director Tim Connery’s polished Midwest-set “The Driftless” (6:30 p.m. Monday), essentially a quartet of terror-laced tales that get told to customers at an out-of-the-way antique shop owned by one very odd fella. Each story works; my fave is about an alcoholic country singer bingeing on a bad bottle of spirits. Connery, who will be attending, is a natural-born and gifted storyteller and director.

In director Remington Smith’s aptly titled and enjoyable “LandLord” (8 p.m. Sunday), a vampire landlord sucks dry his renters at a scrappy apartment complex dry (insert metaphor here) while a bounty hunter has her eye on someone dwelling there.

Details: Screenings at San Francisco’s Balboa Theatre; a streaming version of the festival will be available through Dec. 31; most screenings cost $17; on-demand films are $10; holehead2025.eventive.org.

– Randy Myers, correspondent





Our Frightening Five: A Quintet of Recommended Features at Another Hole in the Head Film Festival

Written by Joseph Perry

San Francisco’s Another Hole in the Head Film Festival is renowned for showcasing the weird, the wacky, and the wondrous in cutting-edge cinema, and this year’s edition shows exactly why. With both in-person screenings and a virtual edition, genre-film aficionados can even join in from the comfort of their couches for the entire month of December.

I’ve reviewed five of this year’s offerings for previous festivals that Another Hole in the Head Film Festival attendees will want to put on their need-to-see lists, and after the fest’s official press announcement — following, in italics — you’ll find quotes from and links to my reviews of those recommended films. For more information, visit https://www.ahith.com/.


Now in its 22nd year, the Another Hole in the Head Film Festival continues its mission to bring bold, boundary-pushing cinema to adventurous audiences. This year’s festival dives deep into the worlds of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and beyond, offering a global showcase of fearless independent filmmaking.

Audiences can expect dozens of feature films and hundreds of short films that redefine genre storytelling—each one a testament to the imagination and creativity thriving in today’s indie film scene. Whether it’s mind-bending sci-fi, darkly comic horror, or genre hybrids that defy easy labels, the 2025 lineup promises to challenge, thrill, and inspire.

The cinematic celebration unfolds December 5–18 at San Francisco’s legendary Balboa Theater, where audiences can experience the festival’s electrifying lineup on the big screen. Many screenings will feature in-person appearances and Q&As with filmmakers, offering fans a rare chance to connect directly with the creative minds behind the films.

For those who prefer to watch from home — or want to keep the festival spirit going all month long — On-Demand screenings will be available December 1–31 through Eventive, bringing the weird, the wild, and the wonderful straight to your screen.


Adorable Humans 

Synopsis: Four separate yet interconnected chapters, each of them a contemporary horror-adaptation of a story by Hans Christian Andersen, tell four stories about fate and acceptance, about love and loss.

“Put the kiddies to bed because this Danish anthology of Hans Christian Andersen adaptations is decidedly not for them. Adorable Humans is abundant with sex, drugs, and yes, rock and roll — not to mention no shortage of violence — with each segment deserving of the description ‘macabre.’” Full review here.

Weekend at the End of the World

Synopsis: Best friends Karl and Miles have an opportunity to strike it rich, the only thing that stands in their way is the end of the world.

“I am a big fan of horror comedies done well, and I can honestly say that I haven’t laughed out loud at one in recent memory as much as I did with director Gille Klabin’s Weekend at the End of the World. A buddy comedy with plenty of fear-far elements, the film is an absolute blast.” Full review here.

Kombucha 

Synopsis: A mind-altering drink makes employees work themselves to death.

“. . . a highly amusing chills-and-chuckles film that boasts super performances from its cast members, solid direction and pacing that builds to a weird, wild climax . . . Kombucha comes highly recommended for horror comedy aficionados and anyone less than enthused with their corporate office climate.” Full review here.

Influencers 

Synopsis: In the picturesque landscapes of southern France, a young woman’s chilling fascination with murder and identity theft sends her life into a whirlwind of chaos.

“ . . . ramps up the insanity from the first film [Influencer], and though you may have to willingly suspend some disbelief once in a while, you’ll be doing it for the sake of enjoying a full-throttle horror outing that has no shortage of kills and thrills. Influencers is full-on fun scare-fare entertainment that comes highly recommended . . .” Full review here.



Reviews From Another Hole In The Head 2025

by Peter Wong on December 8, 2025


Marco Bolognes’ animated film “Blackflag” is not telling a story (or even three stories) despite the claims of its 17th century European military gear-clad hostess who wears kabuki makeup.  Its real focus is depicting life in this alleged futuristic utopia.

The model for Sendai City appears to be the company town.  The Sendai Corporation plays a carefully unspecified role in the city’s day-to-day operations.  The only education the incredibly popular program “The Truth About Sendai City” provides is purely political propaganda.  This should not be surprising as “Blackflag”  shows Sendai City is an Orwellian dystopia.

Normally positive words such as “democracy” turn out to have a directly opposite meaning.  “Truth,” for example, turns out to not be the product of questioning and inquiry but the unthinking acceptance of official dogma.  As the “Blackflag” line goes, “Truth is found in surrender.”

This “Truth About Sendai City” episode presents three interconnected stories about “love, power, and freedom.”  In “Love,” soldier Alan Sheen aka Orange (could this be the voice of famed science fiction writer Bruce Sterling?) travels through Sendai’s underbelly to obtain memory chips and stamp out members of the Resistance.  In “Power,” the efforts of Commander Eva Sanchez of the Babylon Federation to crush the Resistance is connected to an election battle between incumbent Von Spieldorf and challenger The Prince.  Finally, in “Freedom,” an amnesiac assassin named Sian gets recruited for a mission connected to a certain electoral candidate.

Criticizing the episode of “The Truth About Sendai City” for lacking empathetic characters misses the point of the show.  It packages via entertaining violence repressive and fascistic messages.  The lack of plot mechanics or believable characters turns out to not be a bug in these stories.  Viewers are encouraged to cherish the depicted violence, whether it’s tearing someone to shreds in the wrestling ring or launching a ruthless Pete Hegseth-like military attack in an area filled with civilians.  In several chilling moments, several viewers become sexually turned on by depictions of vicious torture.


The spectacle depicted in “The Truth About Sendai City” episode turns out to be the least important aspect of the film.  That’s why “Blackflag” deliberately alternates between showing excerpts from the program (indicated by the flag symbol in the screen’s lower right-hand corner) and everyday life in Sendai City.  The viewer of Bolognes’ film notices that TV monitors are so pervasive, they’re replacements for train windows and present at yoga classes and high-end restaurants.  It could be argued these screens double as government surveillance monitors.

Then again, it could be reasonably argued that Sendai City’s ordinary citizens have internalized their own repression.  A mother discourages her child from developing independent thought by reading a book.  Instead, she tells him to put the book down and watch and learn from the officially approved television program.  Journalists, particularly those not beholden to the Sendai Corporation, appear to be totally absent.

Repression is externalized in other ways besides “The Truth About Sendai City”  Homes have posters bearing such slogans as “Kill For Democracy” and “Power Is The White Sword Of Democracy.”  One viewer’s bookshelf includes such tomes as Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and Mussolini’s “Doctrine Of Fascism.”  There’s even a throwaway image of a Fritz Lang Street sign on the Sendai City level known as Metropolis.

Famed director Pier Paolo Pasolini provides the biggest creative influence on “Blackflag.”  The film opens with a pair of Pasolini epigraphs balefully regarding television and the messages it sends out to viewers.  A leash scene in “The Truth About Sendai City” is a nod to Pasolini’s notorious classic “Salo, or The 120 Days Of Sodom.”

“Blackflag” is realized in a hodgepodge of animation styles.  Computer animation depicts Sendai City’s “Blade Runner”-like urban landscape and the Babylon Federation’s military machines.  The people of Sendai and their living spaces are depicted in a mix of cel painting and photographic cutouts (the latter is usually limited to facial expressions).

It could be argued the nonsensical nature of “The Truth About Sendai City”’s stories is a choice on Bolognes’ part.  He’s out to criticize the deliberate use of spectacle as a means of transmitting repressive messages.  Having the “Blackflag” viewer become emotionally invested in the story within the story goes against the director’s aims.

More hardcore genre film fans are likely to find Bolognes’ film an unsatisfying viewing experience.  Once it’s clear the credo of “order, security, and freedom” conceals the operations of a relentless dystopia, “Blackflag” stops going any further in its insight.  There’s not even the consolation of a little worldbuilding to deepen the viewer’s understanding of how Sendai City came to be.  Had there been a connection to the real world phenomenon of various tech bigwigs’ plans to build their own cities, that would at least strengthen “Blackflag” as a cautionary tale.

***

A couple of clever twists brings some fresh blood to Remington Smith’s horror action drama “LandLord.”  Pun aside, Smith’s film plays fair with traditional vampire lore, yet also adds an extra ingredient which shakes out the mustiness of tradition.

An unnamed Black bounty hunter’s new job takes her to a semi-ratty apartment complex.  Her goal is to retrieve a valuable briefcase stolen by the son of some well-off people.   However, her job gets complicated when she’s stuck with a suddenly orphaned boy named Alex.  The reason for this complication happens to be named John William Lawrence.  He’s the vampire who killed Alex’s mother Rachael as well as other residents of the building.

What takes “LandLord” to another level is its marriage of the familiar trope of a powerful small town individual with one particular bit of vampire lore.  Vampires can’t enter a person’s home unless they’re invited in.  But what happens when the vampire happens to own the apartment building the unsuspecting victim is renting from?  The result: the renters become options in a bloodsucker’s tasting menu.

It turns out conventional authority figures won’t stand up to Lawrence for one reason or another.  Chris the Black apartment building manager eagerly helps Lawrence in hopes that one day the vampire will grant him the boon of eternal life.  Sheriff Cooper is all too happy to look the other way when seeing the evidence of Lawrence’s killings.  Reverend Micheaux plies his trade at Lawrence’s sufferance as the vampire also owns the land the church is on.     .

Alex’s desire to avenge Rachael’s demise despite these challenges is a laudable one.  But it also turns out to be a desire he’ll have great trouble fulfilling.  Lawrence happens to be an adult while Alex is a child.  Even with human opponents close to his age, Alex has his posterior handed to him.  The bounty hunter, whose fighting knowledge might have started tipping the scales Alex’s way, doesn’t believe in the existence of vampires.  In fact, she thinks the neck bite she got from Lawrence can be handled by ingesting powerful antibiotics.

Even if Alex is quicker to realize Lawrence is a vampire, he still lacks information about means of destroying this figurative Dracula sibling.  In a nice touch, the boy watches TV broadcasts of old horror movies for ideas for defending against or even killing vampires.

The horror movie research is just one of the character moments Smith gives his three main characters.  Lawrence’s luxuriating in watching movie footage of a sunrise is a nice nod to what he lost by gaining eternal life.  The Bounty Hunter’s few possessions include an old picture from her younger days as well as what appears to be a box of ashes.  Her trait thus plausibly hints at why her caring about Alex’s fate is more than just part of the plot mechanics.

Genre fans will be happy “LandLord” doesn’t skimp on either the chills or action departments.  The “follow the moving van” sequence is capped by a very disconcerting discovery.  (Thankfully, Smith doesn’t overdo it with the gory imagery.). The church shootout provides a satisfying level of action in the best “John Shaft takes down white slimeballs” tradition.

The genre trappings may provide “LandLord”’s framework.  But the depiction of the unnamed town’s caste dynamics elevates the film above disposability.  It doesn’t seem a coincidence that the town’s chief law enforcement officer and the vampire who owns half the land in the town are both white.  Chris’ pleading to be turned into a vampire can also be read as his desire to jump from the lowest social caste to the town’s most powerful caste.  The people who temporarily stay in the apartment building are generally Black folks of a lower caste whose disappearances will not be mourned.

Smith deserves plaudits for making this low-budget marvel as compelling as it is.  “LandLord” may have been shot in Louisville, Kentucky.  Yet it punches above its weight in a way films with triple its budget and made on either American coast fails to achieve.

***

Dallas Richard Hallam’s “Interaction” is one of this year’s Another Hole In The Head must-sees  It’s a slow-burn tale of horror rendered in painterly strokes, one where post-film discussions will be sparked regarding the motivations of its enigmatic anti-heroine.

That woman is Rebecca.  This generally silent and taciturn woman does gigs cleaning houses of people who are at least upper middle class.  She listens to her recordings while doing her work.  But what she’s recorded isn’t music.  It’s the intimate conversations of the people she does jobs for.  Thanks to the bugs she’s planted at her employers’ homes, she hears everything from painful confessions to violent arguments.  When the cleaner for hire steps out of the proverbial shadows to interact with her employer Sarah and the emotionally troubled Martin, the eventual results will chill the viewer.

Rebecca is essentially an invisible person.  To the people who hire her, she’s just there to provide a service.  One employer doesn’t bother to even learn her name and refers to her as “Miss Maid.”  Outside of her gigs, Rebecca appears to live alone.  She does not appear to have any close friends.

Yet it would be a mistake to assume loneliness spurs Rebecca’s audio voyeurism.  Whenever the viewer sees this cleaner listen to one of her recordings, there’s a pronounced lack of affect on her face.  The viewer can only guess whether she’s taking a distant scientific attitude towards what she hears or if she needs a reminder as to what a particular feeling is like.  Interestingly, the handwritten descriptions on Rebecca’s tapes refer to a particular emotion such as sadness or fear.

The planting of recording bugs demonstrates that this maid for hire is more than just a passive observer.  She doesn’t lose any sleep over breaking into her employers’ homes or even stealing personally significant items such as a baby blue blanket.  But she also uses her knowledge of her employers’ secrets to disrupt their lives.  She notoriously plants her used panties on a couch where a man secretly had sex with a woman who wasn’t his significant other.  Later this maid for hire deliberately leaves out broken glass near a barefoot sleeping man.

The horror of “Interaction” isn’t broadcast but revealed in subtle ways.  The hate and anger directed at Rebecca by a woman whose life she ruined may cause her to cry.  Yet that incident doesn’t stop the cleaner’s voyeuristic activities.  More significantly, her face is expressionless as she examines Martin’s secret stash of photographs.  Yet the probable nature of those photos don’t become clear until the film’s end.

Speaking of Martin, the film’s bravura moment comes during a phone conversation between the mentally disturbed man and the maid.  Instead of a stale talking heads sequence, Hallam ingeniously renders this conversation in an extended black and white sequence which only infrequently involves them talking face to face.  Sometimes Rebecca talks behind Martin or vice versa.  There’s a strong erotic charge to what they talk about, including such violent acts as throat choking or inserting a scissor blade in a ribcage.  But the most startling image is a full frontal shot of a face, half Martin/half Rebecca as they talk to each other.  Ironically, even in this erotically charged atmosphere, the maid’s face still remains impassive.

Impassiveness can sometimes be the trait of an actor unable to emote.  Yet Suziey Block, who plays Rebecca, doesn’t have that problem.  In Block’s case, that impassiveness is a mask that makes her character a more terrifying figure than a loud in your face scene-chewer.

(“Blackflag” is available for online streaming until December 31,2025.  For further information about the film and for advance tickets, go here.

(“Interaction” screens at 7:45 PM on December 14, 2025 at the Balboa Theater. (3630 Balboa Street, SF).  For further information and tickets about the film, go here.)


Another Hole in the Head Film Festival 2025 Previews: Lily’s Ritual, Interaction, The Hanged Man, Where Darkness Dwells

December 11, 2025

Written by Joseph Perry

Horror Fuel continues our series of recommendations for San Francisco’s ongoing Another Hole in the Head Film Festival. Brief comments follow each film’s synopsis.

Lily’s Ritual

Synopsis: Set during the autumn equinox in the late 20th century, Lily’s Ritual follows four friends who journey to a secluded forest house to perform a witchcraft initiation and complete a sacred circle of the four elements. Lily — a quiet, pale, and withdrawn young woman newly welcomed into the group — has been chosen to embody the element of air.

What begins as a peaceful white-magic ceremony rooted in nature soon descends into a diabolical nightmare. Unbeknownst to her, the ritual’s true purpose is far darker than she imagines . . . and Lily herself is the intended sacrifice. Visually striking and steeped in the spirit of ’90s horror, Lily’s Ritual revives the era’s atmospheric dread while embracing the bold sensibilities of modern genre auteurs. A chilling tale of trust, transformation, and terror, it stands as a tribute to the enduring power of supernatural horror on the big screen.


If you’re in the mood for well-crafted throwback Spanish supernatural horror, director Manu Herrera has you covered. Lily’s Ritual boasts cool-looking practical makeup and gore effects to accompany its chilling atmosphere. 

The next two films, Interaction and The Hanged Man, are both candidates for feel-bad horror film of the year. Recent examples include The Dollmaker, The Coffee Table, and its reimagining Turkish Coffee Table. Like those three films, Interaction and The Hanged Man are the types of films that you’ll be glad you watched and that will haunt you long after watching, but many viewers will think twice about a rewatch. I mean all of that in the most complimentary ways possible — this is harrowing stuff.

Interaction

Synopsis: Rebecca cleans houses to make ends meet, but her true passion is recording her clients without their knowledge. Eavesdropping on their private moments, she compiles a library of fights, family meetings, confessions and hookups — an array of emotions to taste-test, rewind and revisit as she likes. When she encounters Martin, a self-secluded man who harbors violent fantasies, Rebecca creeps down from her voyeuristic listening post. Helpless to resist, she engages with him in a visceral but contactless transaction — as grave as life and death but just within earshot.

Suziey Block gives a riveting performance as housecleaner Rebecca that is reason alone to check out Interaction.  Director Dallas Richard Hallam pulls you into Rebecca’s private eavesdropping world and then delivers a highly disturbing third act.

The Hanged Man

Synopsis

A doorman is unexpectedly invited to a dinner at the secluded estate of one of the wealthy families he serves. But as the evening unfolds, he begins to suspect that the invitation wasn’t just an act of kindness.

Director Korab Uka is the type of lower-budget indie shocker for which genre film festivals were made. The ensemble cast is solid, and The Hanged Man delivers plenty of weird as well as food for thought.

Where Darkness Dwells

Synopsis: Assigned to a missing person case, reporter Trish Bostwick follows the trail to a secluded asylum hidden in the New England woods. But everything changes when a knife-wielding stranger hijacks her car, plunging her into a descent of paranoia and madness. Where Darkness Dwells is a psychological thriller that thrusts viewers into the shadowy heart of New England lore, where Lovecraft meets folk horror in terrifying ways. 

Tara Perry gives a striking lead performance as a woman traumatized by an attack who is now a reporter looking to cover more impactful news stories than the listicles she has been churning out. Her latest investigation leads to a hellish outcome in director Michael May’s eerie chiller.  

Lily’s Ritual, Interaction, The Hanged Man, and Where Darkness Dwells screen as part of San Francisco’s Another Hole in the Head Film Festival, which runs December 5–18, 2025 at the Balboa Theater, and for those who prefer to watch from home, On-Demand screenings will be available December 1–31 through Eventive. For more information, visit https://www.ahith.com/.






 
 
 

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