The second independent film I’m featuring this week is The Horror Vault, a cheerful comedy about two young people in love, frolicking in the flowers, snow and gentle summer breeze. Or, maybe, it’s a compilation of several short horror films inspired by Tales from the Crypt, Masters of Horror and Creepshow.

Here is a description of these tales of insanity and terror:

• “When John Met Julia” is a modern twist on Romeo and Juliet, except everything goes a bit wrong…for poor John anyway. Written and directed by Kim Sønderholm, starring Claire Ross-Brown (Love Me Forever, Pistoleros) as Julia and Kim Sønderholm (Craig, Brutal Incasso) as John.
• “Delusion” is a black/white 50ies style of horror drama, directed by Mark Machillo, starring Jonaton Trent (Alone with her, Slaughter, Fashion Victim), Heather Tom (The Bold and The Beautiful, The Young and The Restless) and many others.
• “Alone” is a story about being all alone in a sorority house on a dark night. Written and directed by Kenny Selko, featuring Mandy Amano (Ghosts of Goldfield, Coyote Ugly), Jerod Edington (Ghost Month, E.R) and Guy Nardulli (Jekyll, House M.D).
• “Mental Distortion” is a story about Pete, waking on on his floor, about to do a gruesome find. Directed by Kim Sønderholm who also plays Pete, supported by Maja Muhlack (One Hell Of A Christmas, Westbrick Murders) and Barbara Zatler (Craig, Hellride).
• “Dead To The World” has english actor and director Russ Diaper (Deadly Pursuit, The Demon Within) take a stab at the Ted Bundy legend from a new perspective. In supporting roles are Paul Kelleher (Meatcleaver Massacre, Moonlight Murders) and Joyia Fitch (Midsomer Murders, The Last Hangman).
• “Disconnected” directed by David Boone and Josh Card is a black and white little threat of the absurd – dark humor and crude and explicit torture mixed in one.
• “Echoes” by Gabriel Dowrick, the australian addition about a man, waking up, tied to a bed in what seems to be a nursing home, knowing little of what is going on.
• “The Demon” by Thomas Steen Soerensen is the story about a man chased by his own ghosts and desires, which is about to explode as he picks up a young pretty woman hitchhiking at the side of the road, coming seemingly from nowhere. Or is she?
• Finally, “Retina” by JP Wenner starring Rachel Grubb and Heather Amos, is a black and white and extremely absurd and nihilistic story about… Well – you’re the audience – you decide!

The Horror Vault is arriving on DVD soon, supposedly within the next couple days, and can be purchased at http://www.thehorrorvault.net/

Note: I have not seen The Horror Vault and am merely making readers aware of this release. I cannot speak to whether it’s any good or not, but hopefully it is!

Every once in a while, I receive a request to review or feature an independently produced film that has been made. I don’t have a time to review a bunch of movies that will probably never be seen by the vast majority of my readers, but after receiving several requests in the last week, I figured I’d do some quick blog posts about them. I’m probably opening a can of worms here, but I figured I’d give these films some free PR. Note that I haven’t seen this movie so am making no statement about how good it is, but I respect independent filmmaker’s attempts to promote their movies.

Nemesis is about a rapper who isn’t actually a rapper. I’m not huge into street films or rapper films, but Nemesis has a pretty neat concept: a young man rises to fame as a rapper named Nemesis, but his name, street creed and everything else is fictionalized. A creation of the record label with the sole purpose to sell records, the man now known as Nemesis finds himself in an awkward position. To sell records, he must prove his badassedness, but to do so, the record label fabricates a feud between him and his childhood friend. As the feud spirals out of control, the young rapper must make a tough decision as to whether he should continue doing what he’s doing or give up this false persona that is causing so much harm.

I described the movie pretty poorly, I think, but you can read the full synopsis here.

So the movie has an interesting twist to the rise-to-fame-street-thug model, though what probably interests me the most is actress Suzie Abromeit (pictured here). She’s… quite good looking.