Another Hole in the Head 2025 Round-up
We’ve already looked at six films recently screened as part of the Another Hole in the Head Film Festival. You can click the following links to read up on any of those:
Another Hole in the Head 2025 also screened a few films we covered at other film festivals. You can check out the coverage on those films below.
There are still four more movies in need of some attention. From a documentary to a tale of generational plant trauma. From an indecipherable anthology to a quiet drama inside a pending apocalypse…Another Hole in the Head presented another diverse pool of films to choose from this year.
Beings
Directed by Sandro Arceo
Written by Sandro Arceo
Starring Romanni Villicana and Dolores Heredia
Plot summary – In a dystopian future gripped by water and medicine shortages, inventor Lucio races against time to repair his malfunctioning medical robot—a last hope for survival in a crumbling world.
Beings is not a horror movie…which is part of why it ends up here in the wrap-up instead of receiving its own write up. It has some sci-fi elements but not the kind that probably jump to your mind immediately. This is grounded sci-fi. While it is set in a dystopian not too distant future…it mostly takes place inside of one residence. This future has a shortage on medicine and tells the story of Lucio (Romanni Villicana) an inventor trying to repair a medical robot.
Lucio is out of money and options…taking up residence with an older woman in return for fixing things around her house. He’s burrowed too much money from his parents to expect any more help…and he’s in debt with someone else. He goes so far as trying to sell his car…and finds the car doesn’t even work. Tough sledding for someone quietly trying to save, or at least improve, the world.
Beings is more of a personal drama than it is a sci-fi movie. It’s a perfectly fine one…just not really what we cover here. So, we’ll move right along.
Dead Bloom
Directed by Damien Paris and Domonic Paris
Written by Damien Paris and Domonic Paris
Starring Danny Fehsenfeld, Lilith Mesidor, Sadie Katz, Shea Vaughan-Gabor, Caleb White, David Chattam and James Fahselt
Plot summary – Dead Bloom is a horror film rooted in environmental dread and ancestral consequence. In a desolate area a buried chemical compound awakens something monstrous. A struggling Black family settles on the poisoned land. Decay, madness, and violence follow. Years later, a new family inherits the property, awakening horrors long dormant. Blending parasitic flora, multi-generational trauma with corporate greed perpetuates the dehumanizing of people of color creating a chilling story of rebirth and reckoning, where the past is never dead, only buried.
Dead Bloom, unlike most of the movies that find themselves in the wrap-up articles, is a horror film. The reason it is relegated to a smaller amount of coverage is because I watched it well over a month ago and then became very ill for over two weeks and I couldn’t put together a full review of the movie without watching it again. To be clear, I did not become sick because of Dead Bloom. On the contrary, I quite liked it.
Dead Bloom begins long before the main story takes place. We watch a family come across something deadly in the land…and how quickly and permanently it affects them. It’s a strong way to show and not tell the dangers that await the characters in our main story, set years later. What follows is a tale of imminent danger, death and increasing violence. While I can’t give it a full review…nor can I even find so much of a trailer to try and job my memory…what I can do is tell you that Dead Bloom kept me engages throughout its unique story. It’s one to look out for whenever it comes around.
Foul Evil Deeds
Directed by Richard Hunter
Written by Richard Hunter
Plot summary – A collection of short stories showcasing the wide variety of evil behavior human beings are capable of.
The plot summary above oversells what Foul Evil Deeds really is. Do you remember in 2017’s Twin Peaks: The Return when David Lynch made us watch a man sweep the floor for like three minutes? Foul Evil Deeds is that as a movie. Except it was awesome when Lynch did it. You can watch a guy wait for his dry cleaning before watching a different guy wait for the copy machine to print his copies. The movie jumps through small moments in a rotating cast of people’s lives. We view things from a fly on the wall perspective. The problem is that no one is doing anything interesting. It’s like flipping channels when there’s nothing on.
The film’s perspective seems to simply be that there’s bad behavior everywhere. A preacher watches porn. A boss deals with the fallout of unwanted physical contact at work. Everything plays out slowly. Slower than real-life unfolds. I try to give experimental films the benefit of the doubt…but Foul Evil Deeds stretches my limits on doing so.
Shadowland
Directed by Otso Tiainen
Written by Kalle Kinnunen and Otso Tiainen
Starring Richard Stanley
Plot summary – Leave your troubled past behind and get a fresh start in the hidden enclave nestled in the French Pyrenees, where magic and witchcraft are woven into daily life. This remote region attracts a motley crew of people – including priestess Anaiya, sorcerer Uranie and chaos magician Iranon – who eschew modernity and try to transform from their former troubled personae, embracing the local occult-tinged faith. Former Hollywood filmmaker Richard Stanley finds himself in the region, too, after losing everything in the film industry, self-manifesting as a spiritual leader in the community. When shocking allegations of Stanley’s past domestic abuse are brought into light, his local admirers must confront the true nature of their beloved chosen home. Is the region truly transformative or have they been ruthlessly manipulated by a false prophet?
About halfway through Shadowland I wondered if this was going to be a puff piece for this strange region of friendly cultists. The only thing that gave me hope (and concern) that it would become something else was the presence of director Richard Stanley. I was aware that Stanley had been accused of abuse by multiple women. It makes the first half of Shadowland a weird experience. It’s a well-made doc about an interesting subject…but the Stanley of it all served as a distraction. Especially when it focuses on how the region has been such a positive experience for him following his falling out in Hollywood after the debacle that was The Island of Dr. Moreau.
When the documentary takes the time to celebrate Stanley’s return to directing with 2018’s The Color Out of Space…I became worried. When the allegations are brought up and the movie gives Stanley a platform to deny, defend himself and denigrate his accusers…I became angry. Thankfully, Shadowland doesn’t turn out to be soft on him at all. It turns its attention to the allegations…painting Stanley in a much worse light.
It even gives one of his accusers a voice in the project (text at the end of the film informs us that they interviewed more…but they chose not to appear). The colorful characters in the region are shown to have a pretty level head about Stanley…believing him to be revealed as a phony who doesn’t represent what they stand for. I guess Shadowland does end up being a puff piece about the enclave…just not in the way it probably set out to.
