Dan Tabor
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Senior Writer on Cinapse.net & Contributor on ScreenAnarchy.com | 🍅 approved critic | Member @OFCS, PFCC | email: Dan.Tabor@Outlook.com
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Articles by Dan Tabor
PFF 2026: More Than Movies: The Philadelphia Film Festival Finds Its Stride
It’s officially been over a decade since I started attending the Philadelphia Film Festival in a press capacity. Thirteen years, to be exact. And the festival has gone through a host of changes over the years, finally arriving at what this year feels like its most fully realized form. As a local festival, it’s been hard not to compare it to other national fests I’ve attended, but over the last two years, something rather surprising has happened.
NEW GROUP Review: The Horrors of Falling in Line
Yûta Shimotsu's (Best Wishes to All) New Group is about as subtle as a sledgehammer with its metaphors for conformity and the erasure of individuality in Japanese society. But subtlety isn't really the point. What the film lacks in nuance, it more than makes up for in sheer audacity and the increasingly gut-wrenching ways it drives those ideas home.
PFF 2026: The Unbearable Loneliness Of Living Forever – I DON’T WANT TO DRINK YOUR BLOOD ANYMORE Review
Andrew Sullivan’s I Don’t Want to Drink Your Blood Anymore, which recently screened at the Philadelphia Film Festival, is a heartbreaking, unusually specific take on the vampire myth. Rather than romanticizing immortality, the film zeroes in on one of its biggest downsides: the passage of time. It’s an intriguing premise that becomes the crux of the narrative. The film follows Eiko (Miki Ishikawa), who becomes a vampire while still living at home with her family.
PFF 2026: A Family Affair: MAKING MARIE ANTOINETTE Review
With Marie Antoinette celebrating its 20th anniversary, the cult favorite is getting a well-deserved moment in the spotlight. The festivities include a costume exhibition at Versailles, a new 4K restoration currently making the rounds, and a documentary about the making of the film, Making Marie Antoinette which I just caught at the Philadelphia Film Festival.
Jenn Wexler and Lulu Wilson on THE LAST TEMPTATION OF BECKY – FULL INTERVIEW
📸: LĂ©ah Pitre-Gaspari It’s been two years since everyone’s favorite fascist-killing firebrand Becky joined the CIA. When we catch up with her in The Last Temptation of Becky, she’s still struggling with those pesky anger management issues, once again landing in hot water after losing her temper and leaving another bad guy dead in her wake. With her future at the agency hanging by a thread, she’s given one last chance to prove she can follow orders.
PFF 2026: DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID review – Radu Jude’s diary of class warfare
Seriously, I applaud the Philadelphia Film Festival for not only including Radu Jude in its Masters of Cinema sidebar, but also screening his latest film, Diary of a Chambermaid, as part of it. Following Kontinental ’25, Jude once again takes an existing work and remixes it in his own inimitable way, this time drawing inspiration from Octave Mirbeau’s 1900 novel of the same name.
PFF 2026:The Algorithm of Death: Confronting the Horror of NAZA – Review
The best way to understand Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor’s controversial documentary NAZA, which examines the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, is to start with its title. NAZA is a term reportedly used within Israeli military and intelligence circles as shorthand for human collateral damage.
PFF 2026: The Cycles of THE CYCLE: An Interview with Writer/Director Jordan Downey
Jordan Downey’s The Cycle which I caught at the 35th Annual Philadelphia Film Festival and is currently available on Shudder is a film where the themes ultimately become the driving force of this engrossingly ambitious midnighter that’s chock full of surprises. The film follows Meg Garland (Deborah Ann Woll) a renowned forensic anthropologist who is called from her body farm where she studies human decomposition to give some insight on a grisly crime scene.
PROJECT SHAMROCK Cracks the HALLOWEEN Code
Classic Halloween fans, we are SO back!!! Jason Eisener, who most of us probably remember from Hobo with a Shotgun, may have just pulled off the impossible: fixing the continuity of the original Halloween franchise with a five-minute short film. Now freely available on YouTube, Project Shamrock: The Secret Origins of Michael Myers Exposed feels like both a love letter to the franchise’s most divisive lore and a proof of concept for a potential return to the original timeline.
PFF 2026: BUNKER is a Hyper-Relevant Exploration of Fear and Hope
With The Bunker, playwright-turned-filmmaker Florian Zeller crafts a hyper-relevant narrative, enlisting real-life couple Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz to explore what happens when obscene wealth, paranoia, and marital discord collide. Bardem plays Miguel, a once-idealistic architect living in London with his wife of 17 years, Sofía (Cruz), who works in publishing, and their two young daughters.
PFF 2026: You Can’t Escape The Past In Jordan Downey’s THE CYCLE – Review
Jordan Downey’s The Cycle which I caught at the 35th Annual Philadelphia Film Festival and hits Shudder tomorrow is a film where the themes ultimately become the driving force of this engrossingly ambitious midnighter that’s chock full of surprises. The film follows Meg Garland (Deborah Ann Woll) a renowned forensic anthropologist who is called from her body farm where she studies human decomposition to give some insight on a grisly crime scene.
2001 Reasons to Head to the 2026 Philadelphia Film Festival
This week, the Philadelphia Film Festival takes over the City of Brotherly Love, kicking off Thursday, October 15th, with Noah Segan’s The Only Living Pickpocket in New York and running through October 25th, when Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut brings the festivities to a close. This year marks the festival’s 35th year with over 100 films screening across 10 days.
DEVOUR Review: Artificially Flavored
Before I dig into Devour, which arrives in select theaters October 13th and VOD soon after, we need to get the elephant in the room out of the way: this movie contains A LOT of generative AI. And I don’t mean the kind you might blink and miss, either. We’re talking full-on, Sora-generated 10-second Dollar Tree NyQuil hallucinations.
V/H/S/MIXTAPE Review: The Kills Keep on Coming
Halloween is creeping up, which means a new V/H/S is landing on Shudder today, just in time for some post-trick-or-treat trauma. Since the series’ resurrection, V/H/S has largely traded its loose narrative throughline for an annual theme, and while the franchise has mostly played things pretty safe by horror-anthology standards, V/H/S/Mixtape finds a surprisingly fresh hook in that subtitle: Every found footage segment is built around sound or the concept of an old school mixtape.
PRIMETIME Review: Have a Seat
As someone who has followed Chris Hansen and his various predator-catching endeavors for a decades, I feel like Primetime is pretty much the best-case scenario for a narrative about him. So grab your cookies and sweet tea, pull up a chair, and let’s talk about Primetime.
Fantastic Fest 2026: WHAT HAPPENED TO DORIS Turns a Real-Life Nightmare Into Familiar Horror
Heather Graham brings grit and vulnerability to a supernatural thriller that too often loses sight of the woman at the center of its story. Nick Simon’s What Happened to Doris takes the real-life account of Doris Bither—the woman whose terrifying experiences inspired the book and eventual film adaptation The Entity—and gives the story a modern genre makeover.
TIFF 2026: PARADISE LOST Review: Grief in the Machine
Paradise Lost takes an intriguing psychological horror premise and layers it with sci-fi metaphor that feels almost unnervingly relevant to the world we’re currently living in. The South Korean film, which just premiered at TIFF, opens on a picture of domestic bliss. Single mother So-young (Kim Hyun-Joo) is getting her young son, Sun-woo, ready for a day at camp in Musan, a sleepy fictional mining town in rural South Korea. It’s an idyllic setup that the film wastes little time dismantling.
HOPE Review: All Gas, No Brakes
Na Hong-jin (The Wailing, The Chaser)’s Hope hits theaters this Friday, and the film feels like nothing less than South Korea’s answer to the American blockbuster. At a reported $46 million, it’s the most expensive South Korean film ever made, and every dollar is seemingly thrown at putting an enormous monster movie on screen. But what makes Hope so interesting is where Na chooses to set that spectacle: the small, isolated rural community of Hope Harbor in North Korea.
CUDDLY TOYS Review: Exploitation On HER Terms – Screening at the New Bev. on 35MM Sept. 7th @7:30pm
Sorry cinephiles, Kansas Bowling is cooler than you. At 17 years old, while most of us were going to the multiplex to check out the latest blockbuster, Bowling was writing and directing her first feature film, B.C. Butcher, shooting it on 16mm in her parent’s backyard and financing it by bussing tables. Two years later, that scrappy little backyard production found its way into the hands of Troma and got a proper release.
Conspiracy, Carpenter and Carnage – ONSLAUGHT Review
It’s been kind of surreal watching Adam Wingard’s career unfold over the last decade as a fan, especially in the wake of You’re Next. That film felt like the moment where he was going to become one of the defining genre directors of his generation – and then, somehow, the road to getting the studio recognition he deserved turned out to be a much stranger one.
BUDDY Review: Smile, Sing, Survive
BUDDY Courtesy of Roadside Attractions and Saban Films Now, Buddy is a film I’ve been patiently waiting for since it premiered at Sundance earlier this year. I loved Casper Kelly’s segment in V/H/S Halloween, “Fun Size,” and this felt like a natural next step from that delightfully unhinged sensibility. More importantly, I’m fascinated by the premise that taps directly into the bizarre cultural hatred/love surrounding Barney’s meteoric rise from the early ’90s through the late aughts.
NY's MUSCLEFEST: Part Film Festival, Part Celebration of Underground Trans and Queer Cinema
Running September 3-6, Muscle Distribution and the Roxy Cinema present MuscleFest, a four-night mini-festival celebrating the distributor's deep-cut restorations, alongside a fearless slate of underground trans and queer cinema. I discovered Muscle Distribution last year at Fantastic Fest with their restoration of Dildo Heaven, the charming "Nudie Cutie" from octogenarian filmmaker and "Queen of Sexploitation" Doris Wishman.
TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA: Digging Into the Symbolism of Little Death
What does Spider-Man: Brand New Day have in common with Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma? Oddly enough, both films, released this summer -- one a queer slasher, the other a two-billion dollar grossing MCU entry -- use the exact same piece of visual symbolism to represent female dissociation.
Arrow Heads Essay – Appeasing the Box Office Gods: TROY in 4K, THE ODYSSEY and Hollywood
Revisiting Wolfgang Petersen’s TROY alongside THE ODYSSEY reveals how Hollywood reshapes ancient myths to reflect the audiences and values of its time. While too much has been made of the content and casting of Christopher Nolan’s more inclusive take on The Odyssey, there’s a much more interesting way to understand these competing interpretations: as windows into the eras in which they were made.
RIVERBEND Review: Racist Ass-Kicking With a Conscience
1989’s Riverbend feels like the kind of film that arrived a decade too early, which probably explains why it slipped into obscurity for so long. Directed by Sam Firstenberg—yes, the filmmaker behind Ninja III: The Domination (1984) and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo—the film sidesteps the brutality of the typical “Vietnam vet on a rampage” thriller in favor of something far more thoughtful.
Reelblack Renaissance: Michael Dennis On Launching a Boutique Label Dedicated To Black Cinema
Photo by Silvia Schablowski It’s a great time to be a film fan, especially with boutique disc labels consistently digging up unsung cinematic gems that have been forgotten, overlooked, or simply left sitting on the shelf for far too long. Reelblack Renaissance is one of the latest labels to enter the market, and its mission feels particularly important right now.
BIG BABY Review: More Than Just Another Slasher
I’m not going to lie—I was a little apprehensive about checking out Spider One’s latest film, Big Baby. But thankfully my love for his previous feature, Little Bites, ultimately won out. On paper, Little Bites sounded like it was simply putting a fresh spin on vampire mythology. Instead, it completely blindsided me. It was a remarkably thoughtful piece of horror that used vampires as a vehicle to explore addiction, domestic abuse, and the sacrifices of motherhood with surprising emotional depth.
Spider One & Krsy Fox On BIG BABY And The Horror Of Putting Yourself Out There – INTERVIEW
Last week, ahead of its digital release this Friday, I had the chance to sit down with Big Baby writer/director Spider One and the film’s star, producer, and editor Krsy Fox. I previously spoke with the duo back in 2024 about their excellent horror debut Little Bites, so it was a pleasure catching up to discuss their latest collaboration.
Behind the Screams of BIG BABY: A Conversation With Brandon Scott
Brandon Scott in BIG BABY. Courtesy of Screamfest. Last week, ahead of its digital release, I had the chance to sit down with Brandon Scott, the star of Spider One’s latest horror outing, Big Baby. Scott plays Adam, a struggling creative whose fragile confidence shatters after a pair of horror podcasters brutally eviscerate his work online.
LITTLE BITES Review: Where Vampire Myth Meets Domestic Horror
One of my biggest surprises at Fantastic Fest back in 2024 was Little Bites, the latest film from Spider One, the frontman of Powerman 5000 and sibling of Rob Zombie. I first heard about the film at the fest through one of its stars, Barbara Crampton, who couldn’t stop singing the praises of her collaboration with the filmmaker after appearing in Little Bites and teasing the project that would eventually become Big Baby.
Fantasia 2026 THE SPECIALS Review: Dancing Yakuza and city pop collide in a wildly entertaining assassin comedy
While Eiji Uchida’s (Greateful Dead) The Specials is shockingly not the only film screening at Fantasia this year to feature dancing Yakuza, it definitely leans further into melodrama than its organized-crime counterpart, Break Free. The film follows a team of elite assassins assembled by the Yakuza for one very specific reason: they all have a background in dance.
Fantasia 2026: “As long as Nazis are around, we need Becky fighting them.” – Jenn Wexler and Lulu Wilson on THE LAST TEMPTATION OF BECKY
📸: Léah Pitre-Gaspari It’s been two years since everyone’s favorite fascist-killing firebrand Becky joined the CIA. When we catch up with her in The Last Temptation of Becky, she’s still struggling with those pesky anger management issues, once again landing in hot water after losing her temper and leaving another bad guy dead in her wake. With her future at the agency hanging by a thread, she’s given one last chance to prove she can follow orders.
Fantasia 2026: BLACK ZOMBIE Review: Reclaiming the Monster
As long as I can remember, I’ve loved zombie movies. I saw Dawn of the Dead way before I probably should have—on VHS, no less—and watched as the creature evolved from a niche horror icon into one of the genre’s most recognizable and grotesquely fascinating figures. It wasn’t until I got older that I discovered the films that existed before Night of the Living Dead, tracing the zombie back to its actual cultural roots.
Fantasia 2026: I LOVE PARIS Review: Clout Is Thicker Than Blood
Screenshot I Love Paris is a morbidly funny mockumentary that lands somewhere between the vampiric absurdity of What We Do in the Shadows and the fascinating train wreck of watching fame consume someone whole in The Moment. The film follows Ami, better known by her stage name Paris (Aminata Thiboult), an aspiring pop star with severe main-character energy who’s desperate for her big break at an upcoming music festival.
Fantasia 2026: THE LAST TEMPTATION OF BECKY Review: Becky Declares Open Season on Fascists
It’s been two years since everyone’s favorite fascist-killing firebrand Becky joined the CIA. When we catch up with her in The Last Temptation of Becky, she’s still wrestling with those pesky anger management issues, once again landing in hot water with the director after losing her temper and leaving yet another bad guy dead in her wake. With her future at the agency hanging by a thread, she’s given one last chance to prove she can follow orders.
Fantasia 2026: HER PRIVATE HELL Interview: Nicolas Winding Refn on Fantasy, Violence, and Fatherhood
Last week I made the pilgrimage to Montreal for the 30th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival, which opened with the Canadian premiere of Nicolas Winding Refn’s latest film, Her Private Hell. While Refn has always filtered reality through a neon soaked lens—from Pusher to Drive and Valhalla Rising —his newest work feels like the moment he finally cuts the tether altogether.
Fantasia 2026: RUBBERHEAD Review – A Practical Effects Legend Faces His Greatest Monster
I have a soft spot for niche documentaries that shine a light on unsung creative geniuses, and Rubberhead The Life & Monsters of Steve Johnson is an unconventionally candid portrait of not only one of practical effects’ unsung masters, but also the darker side of an industry in transition.
Fantasia 2026: IDOLS Review – Chasing Fame at Any Cost
Idols is my favorite kind of short: immensely satisfying, impeccably produced, and packed with enough story to leave you wanting more. Directed by Matt Halsall and starring rising South Korean actress Hojo Shin (XO, Kitty), the film wastes no time pulling you into its deceptively simple premise. Shin plays Kim Min-ha, a hopeless idol trainee desperately auditioning for one last shot at K-pop stardom.
Fantasia 2026: OUR EFFED UP WORLD Review – A Weird, Wonderfully Personal Sci-Fi Hangout Flick
One of the great joys of film festivals is stumbling across something you weren’t planning to see and discovering a film you can’t stop thinking about. That was exactly the case Monday afternoon when, looking to fill a gap in my schedule, I wandered into Our Effed Up World the latest feature from prolific Australian trans filmmaker Alice Maio Mackay (T Blockers, The Serpent’s Skin). Remarkably, it’s already her seventh film at just 21 years old.
Fantasia 2026: ATTACK ON PARADISE Review – High-Rise Hell
After a full day of kung fu and action at Fantasia, I decided to close out my night with the world premiere of the Belgian/Dutch DTV actioner Attack On Paradise. At first glance, the film feels like a mashup of The Raid and Dredd, but what elevates it beyond simple genre imitation is its surprisingly relevant cultural subtext.
Fantasia 2026: YOU ARE THE FILM Review – When Life Becomes Cinema
It seems director Junta Yamaguchi has finally escaped the time loop. After collaborating with writer Makoto Ueda on Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes and River, Ueda takes the reins as both writer and director this time around, and proves the duo’s signature blend of whimsy, DIY ingenuity, and delightful weirdness is very much alive.
Fantasia 2026: BREAK FREE Review – Enforcer by Day, Influencer by Night [Review and Screening Q&A Video]
Yu Nakamoto’s Break Free has to be one of my biggest surprises of Fantasia. The film follows the Mikami clan, a struggling Yakuza family whose livelihood has been threatened by new anti-organized crime legislation, leaving them fighting to maintain both their finances and their reputation.
Fantasia 2026: CHERRY AND VIRGIN Review – Love in Full Color [Review and Screening Q&A Video]
Dating nowadays is hell, let alone if you’re a thirtysomething virgin manga artist. That’s the delightfully awkward premise at the heart of Masanao Kawajiri’s animated masterpiece, Cherry and Virgin. The film just world premiered at the Fantasia Film Festival. The film follows erotic manga artist Ryo, whose best friend dies alone and still a virgin.
Fantasia 2026: [Video] Masterclass: Nicolas Winding Refn Moderated by Katie Rife
If you weren’t lucky enough to make it out to Montreal last night for Fantasia’s deep dive into the career of Nicolas Winding Refn, fear not—I’ve got you covered. Moderated by film critic Katie Rife, the masterclass discussion held July 17, 2026 at Fantasia was far more than a simple career retrospective.
Fantasia 2026: Jane Schoenbrun Slashes Through Nostalgia in TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA [Review and Screening Intro/Q&A Video]
Jane Schoenbrun is, for my money, one of the most exciting new auteurs working today. While their debut, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, became an indie sensation that somehow transcended the pandemic through sheer word of mouth, it was I Saw the TV Glow that truly announced the arrival of a singular voice in queer horror.
Fantasia 2026: THE ORIGIN OF ULTRAMAN Screening Review & Event
July 17 marks the original broadcast date of Ultraman, which first debuted 60 years ago. To celebrate the anniversary, Fantasia hosted the Canadian premiere of The Origin of Ultraman—which had only opened in Japan on July 3—and turned the screening into an unexpectedly special evening for tokusatsu fans. What made the event so memorable is that it wasn’t even advertised as such.
Fantasia 2026: HER PRIVATE HELL Is a Neon-Soaked Meditation on Fatherhood [Review and Screening Intro/Q&A]
Probably my most anticipated film heading into Fantasia this year was Nicolas Winding Refn’s return to the big screen after nearly a decade with Her Private Hell. Opening the festival with Refn in attendance—accepting a receiving a Career Cheval Noir —the screening quickly made one thing abundantly clear: not only is Refn back, he’s bigger, bolder, and stranger than ever. With Her Private Hell, Refn finally cuts the last tether to reality.
CFF 2026: FIRST FEATURE a Love Letter to DIY Filmmaking
First Feature, which premiered at the Chattanooga Film Festival, is a documentary that sat unfinished for more than a decade before finally crossing the finish line. That delay ultimately becomes one of its greatest strengths. The film chronicles the making of a 2014 student feature by an endlessly passionate, wonderfully eccentric filmmaker who spent five years completing his labor of love. Left alone, both projects could have easily been lost to time.
CFF 2026: PHOTO NEGATIVE An Unforgettable Picture of Despair
I’m grateful to Chattanooga Film Festival for giving audiences the chance to experience the dense, transgressive DIY nightmare that is Photo Negative. While it opens with a compelling hook for horror fans—Jen (Karlee Mayfield), a young forensic photographer haunted by the gruesome images she documents—the film refuses to remain in familiar territory.
CFF 2026: BLOOD AND GUTS – Home Movies, Homemade Monsters, and Family Bonds
One of my most anticipated films at this year’s Chattanooga Film Festival was Blood and Guts, a feature-length documentary portrait of DIY indie-horror darlings The Adams Family. For those unfamiliar, the Adams Family is exactly that—an actual family.
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