Showing film results: From 2 to 12
I love horror. I’ve loved it since I was twelve and my friends from Boy Scouts showed me Friday the 13th for the first time. With almost a decade of experiencing the genre, I have learned that there are things more terrifying than jump scares and gore, for example, the fear of the unknown. Sure, the monster or crazed killer might be scary, but when you can’t see who- or what- is killing people, the viewer’s mind is left to fill in the blanks, projecting their own fears onto the antagonist and making it seem much scarier. Everything is more frightening when you’re in the dark, and Samuel Freeman’s Don’t Look in the Dark uses this aspect of horror to its fullest effect.
(ASBURY PARK, NJ) -- The ShowRoom and Asbury Park Movie Club present Remembering Reiner, a three-film retrospective celebrating the remarkable, genre-spanning career of filmmaker Rob Reiner, screening Wednesdays throughout February. The series includes screenings of This Is Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally, and The Princess Bride.
12th House is an abstract short from Ilona and Israel Laboy, a psychedelic menagerie of strange imagery which seems to hold a deep, personal significance for the filmmakers yet can just as easily be enjoyed as a simple barrage of the bizarre. The first few shots act as a rapidly ascending gradient into maximalism, beginning with an almost entirely grayscale shot of the main character walking in a daze on the beach, with barely perceptible accents of color in her makeup. More color is added with the introduction of a graffiti-laden phonebooth, standing as a monument of vibrance against the background of a dull gray ocean, before the film finally reaches a crescendo and embraces the visual aesthetic of psychedelic overstimulation which will characterize the majority of the short, with the setting transitioning from the black-and-white beach to what appears to be either a bar or restaurant drenched in multi-colored neon lighting.
(RAHWAY, NJ) -- Mahoning Drive-In Road Show 2026 presents "Original/Rip-Off" 35mm Double Feature of "The Exorcist" & "Beyond the Door" at Union County Performing Arts Center (UCPAC) on Saturday, February 28, 2026. Doors are at 6:00pm. First screening is 7:00pm.
(LONG BEACH ISLAND, NJ) -- Lighthouse International Film Society presents a screening of The Voice of Hind Rajab on Thursday, February 5, 2026 at Long Beach Island Foundation of Arts & Science at 7:30pm. Based on the actual audio recordings of a 5-year-old Gazan girl trapped in a car with the bodies of her family members, the film blends documentary filmmaking with dramatization to maximize the emotional impact of this tragedy without ever seeing the little girl or the place where she lay dying.
Sun Ra: Do The Impossible, directed and produced by Christine Turner, is a kaleidoscopic documentary portrait of the visionary jazz musician, composer, and poet known as Sun Ra and the musical, historical, and philosophical currents that shaped him.
ANDA is the directorial debut of Jayendra Ganta. Despite it being his first film, he showed no fear in taking on something extremely conceptual and outlandish. There are really only about five set locations, yet the movie feels drastically bigger due to the surrealist ideas and some of the visuals. It, in short, follows an older woman, Norma, who has reconnected with her mother for the first time since her teenage years. This is hard to discern at first due to her mom appearing much younger than she should, even younger than Norma herself. It is revealed throughout the film how this is achieved with a special serum that involves a strange form of sacrifice, tied to Norse culture. Seemingly, a weird alien mummy is the key to procuring this elixir, and after a while of caring for it, one can sap it of the goo. This looks to be grown from a bird that is fed a certain diet to allow this, birds are a common image in the film. A story is told by Norma’s mother about a master who wanted control and got a bird, this did not work quite as expected so he ended up clipping the wings off of it, which made it more subservient to him. This is likely as it knew that even if it were let out of the cage, it still would never truly be free.
The 2026 New Jersey Film Festival has screenings this weekend on Friday, January 23, Saturday, January 24 and Sunday January 25. Check out the Festival schedule and more info at this link: https://newjerseyfilmfestivalspring2026.eventive.org/welcome
Al Nigrin, Executive Director and Curator of the New Jersey Film Festival, sits down with Trina Bardusco, director and producer of the short documentary A Way to Be Together, for a filmmaker interview. A Way to Be Together will be screened on January 24, 2026.
Portrait of a Monastery is a documentary by John Decker that follows the life of monks in the Order of the Holy Cross. They mainly rely on the teachings of the Rule of St. Benedict, focusing on peace, prayer, and work. This documentary differs from others by choosing to omit interviews. This gives it a very unique feel, as Decker instead chooses to highlight the beauty in and around the Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, New York. Scenes tend to jump from nature to the monks singing or partaking in regular activities. Everything is captured very gorgeously and makes use of the sounds that are present, rather than adding music in post-production, leading to birds heard chirping or the beautiful songs of the monks. Decker’s cinematography makes you feel as if you are there witnessing this in real time, and the use of the sounds that are naturally occurring adds to this. The outside shots tend to be very still, and there is a serene quality to these that encapsulates the way the monks must feel.
