Connect with us

News

Writer/Director Randy Gonzalez Talks Real Fear in His Horror/Comedy Short ‘Amigos’

Published

on

Randy Gonzalez is sitting on a gold mine. Actually, it’s a short film called Amigos, but I’m not sure that in the long run “gold mine” wouldn’t be a more accurate term.

The horror comedy short has only just begun its festival run, but it’s already generating big buzz for its timely subject matter, intense performances, and darkly comedic moments.

In the film, two Latino men (Gonzalez and his co-director Gino Vento) find themselves chained to a radiator by a white guy who claims he’s trying to save them. Little do they know that he really is, and their worst nightmare is just outside the door…

No I’m not going to tell you what happens, of course. I will say, however, that Amigos looks deep into the issues of racism in America and poses a terrifying possibly not-too-distant future.

I had the good fortune of not only meeting but speaking on a panel with Gonzalez at this year’s Nightmares Film Festival in Columbus, Ohio, and he agreed to sit down and chat with me about his journey and how the film came to be.

“I’ve known Gino [Vento] for a long time,” he explained. “We were in a hardcore punk band and toured the world together before we ever decided to try acting. We went to acting classes and started getting booked at auditions, and finally, I was like ‘We should try directing and making our own movie.’ It was just the next step.”

They decided a short film would work best for their first solo project and they sat down to hammer out a concept that they thought would work when they hit on something they both knew all too well.

“We were trying to figure out why two guys could be trapped in this apartment,” Gonzalez said. “Why would they be there? What could be so scary? And I said, ‘Well, racism is terrifying,’ and we knew exactly where we were going from there.”

The film tackles racism and its fallout without flinching. There are monsters in Amigos but the monsters are all-too-human, and like so many horror comedies the laughter is born out of very real tension.

Horror has always tapped into societal fears, reaching into the dark parts of the collective unconscious and creating pathways for audiences to purge their anxieties, and Gonzalez and Vento navigate this landscape beautifully.

“With everything that’s going on right now and with the person who is in office at the moment, there just seems to be this hate coming off people right now,” he said. “They see someone in office promoting that kind of vibe to people in marginalized communities, and they think they can do it, too.”

It’s a hard reality for many to face, but no one feels it more keenly than members of those marginalized communities right now which is why Gonzalez and Vento have been so excited about audience reception for the film.

“That’s the best feeling as a first time filmmaker,” Gonzalez pointed. “I’ve seen it with two audiences now and they laughed and cheered at the same parts both times. And hearing the applause at the end? That’s just awesome.”

Amigos is currently making the rounds on the film festival circuit so there’s a good chance that it will be playing near you soon! Check out the trailer below.

'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?

Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

Movies

‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

Published

on

It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?

Continue Reading

Movies

‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

Published

on

Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?

Continue Reading

News

Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

Published

on

Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?

Continue Reading