A disastrous first date is about to become the least of their problems.

“The Lonely Crowd,” a new romantic crime thriller from first-time feature director David St. Clair, follows Peter and Ashley as their awkward dating app meetup spirals into something far more dangerous.

After a tense evening fueled by assumptions and frustration, Ashley storms out. But when Peter finds her being harassed outside and steps in to help, he’s suddenly pulled into a world of corrupt cops, kidnapping, and stolen cash.

The film stars Adam Wesley and Taylor Anne Danehower, with supporting turns from Giancarlo Carmona, Jon Oshei, Haley Spencer, Blair Chambers, and Andrew Mena. St. Clair, who also wrote the script, built the story around modern dating fatigue and the tension between men and women struggling to connect.

“Beneath the suspense lies a story about what happens when people see each other as stereotypes rather than individuals,” St. Clair said.

“The Lonely Crowd” premiered exclusively on Amazon in May 2026 and is now streaming on YouTube, Tubi, and Fawesome, with more platforms coming soon. The film is produced by Jim St. Clair and David St. Clair under their banner Desario Productions.

A prank gone wrong turns into a night of carnage in Penny Lane is Dead, an Australian horror film landing on Shudder August 28th.

Director Mia-kate Russell sets her debut feature on a sweltering 1986 night, where Penny Lane is celebrating college acceptance with her girlfriends Toni and Amy. When Penny’s jealous cousin Kat decides to spike some cupcakes as a joke, the party devolves into bloodshed. The film doubles as a sapphic love story wrapped in brutal Ozploitation throwback style.

Russell isn’t new to genre work. Her shorts have racked up over 30 awards and screened at SITGES and Screamfest, with Liz Drives and Maggie May each pulling over 100,000 views on ALTER. Critics are already calling Penny Lane is Dead “darkly funny” and “cathartic” (Dread Central), with Bloody Disgusting praising its “modern sapphic lens.”

The film stars Bailey Spalding, Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn, Tahlee Fereday, and Alexandra Jensen. Russell, who made the jump from makeup artist to director, shot the 88-minute feature in Australia with DP Liam Gilmour.

For indie horror fans tired of the same old scares, this one’s bringing the ’80s energy with a fresh perspective.

A hand-animated version of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is coming in 2027, and Dark Sky Films just dropped the first official still.

The project uses rotoscoping, artists tracing the 1974 original frame by frame, entirely by hand. No AI. The goal is to preserve Tobe Hooper’s performances and intensity while creating something visually new.

Leading the animation is Paul Beck, a Richard Linklater regular who worked on Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly, and Apollo 10½. He’s joined by animators Max Peake, Nate Bayless, and background artist Jeremy Martinez.

Fans get an early peek during Texas Chain Saw Day on August 18, when the original film returns to theaters nationwide in 4K. Attendees will see exclusive behind-the-scenes footage showing the rotoscoping process and early clips from the new version. Only in theaters.

There’s also a four-minute audio prologue created by Dread Central and the horror podcast Creepy, narrated by Jon Grilz. It recreates the August 18, 1974 murders before the chainsaw ever starts. Also theater-only.

Special Q&As are happening in LA with original cinematographer Daniel Pearl, and in Austin with cast members Teri McMinn and Allen Danziger.

Texas Chain Saw Day is now officially recognized as a holiday by the National Day Archives. Tickets are available through Fathom Entertainment.

Before Saturday Night Live, before SCTV, there was a scrappy Toronto production of Godspell that somehow assembled comedy’s future royalty in one place.

Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Gilda Radner, Dave Thomas, Victor Garber as a hippie Jesus, and Paul Shaffer as musical director. The 1972 show was supposed to run a few weeks. It went for over a year and a half.

While the show was still running, Martin and Levy joined the original Second City Television cast. Garber left to star in the Godspell movie. A few years later, Lorne Michaels was building SNL and cast the first person he remembered from that Toronto production, Radner. The rest is history.

Nick Davis’ documentary You Had to Be There captures the whole unlikely story through interviews with the surviving cast, plus Stephen Schwartz, Dan Aykroyd, Mike Myers, and Lin-Manuel Miranda. Executive produced by Judd Apatow, the film makes the case that this one musical was the petri dish for the comedy revolution that followed.

The doc opens September 18 at Film Forum in New York. For indie filmmakers, it’s a reminder that lightning-in-a-bottle moments happen when the right people collide at the right time.

A location scout spends six years navigating New York’s apartments, rooftops, and pet stores. Then she makes a movie about it.

Paula González-Nasser’s debut feature THE SCOUT follows Sofía, a young location scout hunting down perfect interiors for a TV pilot. Over the course of one day, she slips in and out of strangers’ homes, adjusting her personality to connect while juggling mounting parking tickets and impatient crew commentary. It’s a quiet portrait of invisible labor, the kind that makes television possible but rarely gets acknowledged.

González-Nasser knows this world intimately. She scouted locations for High Maintenance, Russian Doll, Search Party, and Kelly Reichardt’s NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS before stepping behind the camera. That experience shows. Critics are calling THE SCOUT “deeply, witheringly funny” (The Playlist) and comparing it to Wim Wenders’ PERFECT DAYS for its contemplative style.

The film premiered at Tribeca 2025 and earned González-Nasser a spot on Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces in Independent Film” list. She’s also produced work that landed at Sundance and picked up Slamdance nominations.

THE SCOUT opens September 25 at Film Forum in New York. For indie filmmakers grinding through unglamorous production roles, it’s a rare chance to see their reality reflected on screen.

Warren Ellis is getting weird again. The writer behind Transmetropolitan and Netflix’s Castlevania has a new graphic novella dropping this November from Image Comics, and it sounds delightfully unsettling.

Ghost Drive Station teams Ellis with Grammy-nominated artist Lordess Foudre, who’s done album art for Soccer Mommy and Kasablanca. The story follows a cynical investigator sent to figure out why a research station in the desert has gone dark. What he discovers is an immortality experiment that’s gone catastrophically wrong.

Ellis describes the protagonist as a “haunted investigator with no time for the modern world,” which tracks. The press release name-drops True Detective, Event Horizon, and the Backrooms, so expect noir grit mixed with cosmic dread.

It’s also deeply personal for the main character. The whole thing kicks off on the anniversary of “the worst thing that ever happened to him,” which suggests the investigation will cut deeper than a typical mystery.

Ellis has been relatively quiet in comics lately, so this marks a solid return. Foudre’s music design background should bring some visual texture to the desert horror vibes.

Ghost Drive Station hits shops November 18 and will be available digitally across all major platforms. For fans of Ellis’s darker, weirder work, this one’s worth watching.