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Willem Dafoe Stars in Mediterranean Thriller ‘The Birthday Party,’ Now Streaming on Lionsgate+

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Willem Dafoe leads a Mediterranean-set psychological thriller that just hit Lionsgate+ on Prime Video.

The Birthday Party follows Marcos Timoleon, an Aristotle Onassis-style tycoon throwing a lavish bash for his daughter Sofia on his private island in the late 1970s. The party becomes a powder keg when Sofia arrives with news of her own, just as her controlling father secretly plots a major decision about her future.

Writer-director Miguel Ángel Jiménez crafted the drama around the clash between Marcos and Sofia as the party spirals into chaos. The cast includes Vic Carmen Sonne, Joe Cole, Emma Suárez, and Carlos Cuevas. Producers Giorgos Karnavas, Adria Mones, Erik Glijnis, Leontine Petit, and Kurban Kassam brought the 103-minute feature to life.

The film taps into themes of power, control, and family secrets, set against the Mediterranean backdrop. As guests arrive and night falls, the decadent celebration builds toward what the filmmakers describe as a heartbreaking climax.

Lionsgate+ offers the film ad-free as part of its $6.99 monthly subscription on Prime Video, with a seven-day free trial available. The service positions itself as the streaming home for Lionsgate’s extensive catalog of dramas, action franchises, and comedies.

For indie filmmakers, it’s another example of how talent-driven thrillers can find their audience through streaming platforms, even without a traditional theatrical run.

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Garden State Film Festival Marks 25 Years of Launching Indie Filmmakers

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Long before New Jersey had a film tax incentive, the Garden State Film Festival was already building the state’s indie film ecosystem. Now, as it approaches its 25th anniversary in March 2027, the nonprofit is pushing to raise $10,000 to keep that work going.

GSFF has screened Academy Award-winning documentaries like A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin and Freeheld. This year, two GSFF alumni films, Saverio and Lawyered Up, made it to the international stage at the American Pavilion during the Cannes Film Festival.

The festival runs March 18–21, 2027, across New Jersey venues, expecting about 20,000 attendees. Beyond the fest itself, GSFF operates year-round film clinics for students who’ve never picked up a camera.

“Every great film needs someone to believe in it first. For 25 years, that’s been our job,” the festival wrote in its DAF Day fundraising appeal. “For many New Jersey students, our year-round film clinics are the first place they pick up a camera and realize their stories matter.”

The goal: give independent voices a stage, especially voices that might otherwise go unheard. As production investment accelerates across New Jersey, GSFF connects that growing industry to filmmakers, audiences, and communities who helped build it from the ground up.

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Sean Ono Lennon’s Fashion Doc threeASFOUR: FULL CIRCLE Gets U.S. Theatrical Premiere

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Sean Ono Lennon is stepping behind the camera for his documentary directorial debut, and it’s landing at Film Forum on November 13.

threeASFOUR: FULL CIRCLE follows three avant-garde designers, Gabi Asfour, Angela Donhauser, and Adi Gil, who’ve spent 25 years working together as a New York City fashion collective. Their clients include Björk, Marisa Tomei, and Chloë Sevigny. But despite the impressive reputation, they’re struggling to pay rent on their Chinatown studio while funding their intricate runway creations.

Co-directed by Brian C. González, the film mixes archival footage with intimate looks at the trio at work. It’s a portrait of artists who chose experimentation over commercial success, and a reflection on creative resilience and collaboration.

The doc had its world premiere at the 2026 Tribeca Festival. Lennon also co-wrote and produced War Is Over!, which won the 2024 Academy Award for Best Animated Short.

It’s a story about staying true to your vision even when the rent’s due, the kind of struggle indie creators across every medium know all too well.

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All-Girl Metal Band Takes On Vampires and Werewolves in Horror Film ‘Devour’

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An all-girl heavy metal band fights for survival against vampires, cannibals, a werewolf, and a warlock in the supernatural horror film Devour, hitting select theaters October 9 and digital platforms October 13.

The film stars Heidi Shepherd, vocalist for metal band Butcher Babies, alongside KateLynn E. Newberry, Gus Langley, and Alex Lucchesi. After a disastrous gig leaves them stranded, the band encounters a woman in danger and gets trapped in a remote town controlled by a powerful warlock. To survive until morning, they’ll have to tap into dark powers of their own.

Director Scott B. Hansen, who previously made the festival favorite Bad Candy, went heavy on practical effects. The creatures were created by Wayne Anderson, whose credits include Stranger Things, IT: Chapter One, and Avatar: The Way of Water. Anderson and the OX FX team built the film’s vampires, werewolves, and cannibals using creature suits, prosthetics, makeup, and animatronics instead of relying on digital effects.

Devour has already racked up over a dozen festival selections and won Best Feature, Best Director, and Best Vampire Feature at the Freakshow Horror Film Festival. It also got a shoutout on Chris Jericho’s Talk Is Jericho podcast.

Hansen, who’s directed music videos for Meshuggah, Willie Nelson, and Motionless in White, brings his music roots into the film, where the band’s identity and the supernatural horror are closely intertwined. For genre fans looking for practical creature work and metal energy, this one’s a bloody ride.

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Scottish Indie-Pop Trio BIS to Play First U.S. Show in 25 Years at Powerpuff Girls Cast Reunion

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A Glasgow band that soundtracked a generation’s Saturday mornings is coming back to the States for the first time in over two decades.

BIS, the indie-pop trio behind The Powerpuff Girls’ original end theme, will perform at The Heroes of Townsville on November 7 at Glendale’s Alex Theatre. It’s their first U.S. concert in more than 25 years, and it’s happening alongside a full reunion of the show’s original voice cast and creative team.

The event brings together Catherine Cavadini (Blossom), Tara Strong (Bubbles), E.G. Daily (Buttercup), series creator Craig McCracken, and Lauren Faust. Linda Simensky moderates, with Eric Bauza hosting.

BIS made their name in the ’90s with tracks like “Kandy Pop” and “Eurodisco,” mixing pop hooks with punk energy and disco rhythms. But for a whole generation of animation fans, they’re the sound of Cartoon Network childhood. Their music also turned up in the Jet Set Radio games, cementing their cult status.

Saturday Morning Cartoons United is producing the fundraiser, with proceeds benefiting Starlight Children’s Foundation and the nonprofit’s ongoing animation celebration work. The night also features Next Friday: Magical Meow Meow, an indie animated short by Jen Nguyen and Mary Ramos, plus a pop-up marketplace and photo ops.

It’s a rare crossover moment: the voices, the creator, and the music that helped make The Powerpuff Girls a pop-culture fixture, all in one room.

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V/H/S/MIXTAPE Turns Sound Into Terror When It Hits Shudder This Friday

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The V/H/S franchise is cranking up the volume. V/H/S/MIXTAPE, the latest entry in the found-footage horror series, drops on Shudder this Friday with a lineup that treats music and sound as weapons of pure fear.

This time, the anthology goes all-in on audio terror. Four segments explore how rhythm, noise, and music can haunt, possess, and destroy. Directors Ernest Dickerson, RZA, David Moreau, and Renee Zhan each bring their own spin on sonic dread.

Highlights include “Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance,” where a studio reboots a cursed puppet show with help from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. In “The Music of Mr. Sze,” Dickerson follows a film student documenting a tormented musician’s reclusive life. RZA’s “Death Tone” centers on a sound engineer chasing her late father’s vision of the ultimate track. And in “Heartbeat,” a pair of YouTube urbex influencers get trapped in a decommissioned military facility used for sonic experiments.

Tying it all together, GWAR hosts an MTV-style wrap segment from hell, complete with music videos directed by Tobias Forge and Flying Lotus.

Early reviews call it tailor-made for October marathons, with Daily Dead praising its “amp-bursting bang” and SlashFilm noting the franchise has finally found its groove.

For horror fans ready to let sound mess with their heads, this one’s dialed in.

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Yûta Shimotsu’s Body Horror Satire NEW GROUP Hits Shudder Next Month

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A cult-like mentality spreads through a Japanese high school, turning gymnastics routines into a dance of death. That’s the premise of NEW GROUP, a body horror film from writer-director Yûta Shimotsu that streams on Shudder starting November 6th.

The film follows high school student Ai as people around her become mindless followers capable of transforming everyday exercises into something deadly. Shimotsu, who studied mechanical engineering before moving into filmmaking, co-wrote the script with Momoko Sahara. The cast includes Anna Yamada, Yuzu Aoki, and Pierre Taki.

Critics are calling it more than shock value. Rue Morgue praised its “underpinning of social commentary,” while Bloody Disgusting called it “an incredible, unpredictable body horror masterpiece that doubles as an indicting satire of Japan’s society.” MovieWeb noted its “daring and utterly confident trip into the pitfalls of societal norms.”

Shimotsu made his feature debut with BEST WISHES TO ALL in 2023 after years directing commercials and shorts. NEW GROUP screened at Fantasia International Film Festival and Sitges before landing on Shudder.

At just 82 minutes, it’s a lean slice of social horror for anyone tired of conformity.

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Dark Sky Films Drops Blood-Soaked Single-Night Thriller HUMAN This Month

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A woman home alone. A dating app mishap. And a whole lot of blood.

Dark Sky Films brings HUMAN to select theaters and VOD on October 23, following a West Coast premiere the night before at Laemmle Glendale. Director Matt Stuertz (Tonight She Comes, RWD) takes audiences through a claustrophobic nightmare that unfolds over one terrible evening.

The film follows Dani Ferris (Jackie Kelly), exhausted and alone, who just wanted a little late-night distraction before bed. Instead, she gets dragged into a supernatural horror show packed with bodily fluids and emotional chaos. Every relationship becomes a gamble. Every hour brings a new threat.

Stuertz keeps the tension cranked as Dani rides out a night of friends, lovers, enemies, guns, and things far beyond natural. The single-night structure keeps things tight. The practical effects keep things gross. Critics at Fright Fest and Obscura Film Fest have already called it relentless, vibrant, and stomach-turning in the best way.

The cast includes Brock Russell, Cecily Dowd, Jeffrey Decker, and Mia Sydney. David Neiss wrote the script.

For indie horror fans craving something unstable and hallucinatory, this one’s landing just in time for Halloween season.

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Stephanie Economou Blends Grunge and Sci-Fi for HBO’s ‘Lanterns’ Soundtrack

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Grammy winner Stephanie Economou just dropped the full soundtrack for HBO Max’s Lanterns, and it’s a wild mix of ’90s rock grit and cosmic sound design.

The composer pulled from Nirvana, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, and Portishead to build the musical DNA for John Stewart, Hal Jordan, and the town of Rushville. She layered traditional guitars and drum kits with found sounds like glass bottles, scrap metal, and chains, then threw in synths to create what she calls a “tactile, dynamic sonic world.”

For the Green Lantern Corps and alien species, Economou went full experimental. Reversed violas, degraded strings, trombone mouthpiece sounds, and processed upright basses created the unsettling alien motifs. The Lanterns theme itself bends and shifts in ways that hint at something off about the Guardians.

The soundtrack also includes “Away From Home (Rushville’s Lament),” an original song featuring Ari Mason and Wayne Ingram. It’s meant to capture the resilience of the people caught in the cosmic chaos.

Economou made history in 2023 as the first-ever Grammy winner for Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games. Now she’s bringing that same boldness to a major superhero series, proving indie-minded composers can reshape blockbuster sound.

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Legendary Polish Composer Jan Borysewicz Scores Nintendo Switch 2 Exclusive Horror Game

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A new behind-the-scenes video reveals how legendary Polish composer Jan Borysewicz crafted the soundtrack for ONYX: The Dark Grip, an upcoming horror title exclusive to Nintendo Switch 2.

Broken Mirror Games, the horror imprint of Bloober Team, released a video featuring CEO Piotr Babieno and Borysewicz discussing the music creation process. The composer worked with FILMharmonic Orchestra, Prague to produce the game’s score.

“I didn’t approach this game as a pure horror title,” Borysewicz says. “My focus was more on evoking a sense of unease through the music, but paired with elements of hope.”

The timing connects with a Netflix biographical drama about Borysewicz’s life dropping October 7th, directed by Kristoffer Rus.

ONYX: The Dark Grip was announced in September during Nintendo Direct. The game takes full advantage of handheld mode, with players touching the screen to manipulate objects, tilting the system to unleash godlike powers, and even blowing into the microphone to warm a character called The Vessel.

“Horror is such a distinct genre that I consider music to be one of its most vital elements,” Babieno says. “That’s why we always try to work with the best.”

Built exclusively for handheld play, the game treats the Switch 2 as a physical window into its world. It’s a reminder that Nintendo hardware still inspires developers to experiment with interaction design in ways other platforms don’t.

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