WGTC
If you don’t know who Mickey Keating is yet, you will. Soon. Independent horror fans have seen three of his films over the last year-and-a-half or so, and he’s already finished shooting another one primed for a 2016 festival premiere (maybe?). His latest film, Carnage Park, was my only Sundance 2016 review, but that didn’t stop me from properly catching it again during South By Southwest at Austin’s Alamo Ritz. C’mon, what goes better with a bloody, politically paranoid, Neo-Noir Western than a Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Milkshake?!
Variety
Crafting a convincing tale of survival against steep odds in a harsh, unforgiving landscape would seem to be out of the reach of most low-budget independent filmmakers. Fortunately for twin-brother directors Alex and Andrew Smith, they’re able to rely on a key visual effect that won’t show up on any ledger sheet: the mountains around Montana’s Paradise Valley. Gorgeously shot in Big Sky Country, and stripped down to its most elemental components, “Walking Out” strands father-and-son hunters played by Matt Bomer and Josh Wiggins in the wilderness after an accident, and its unabashedly folky, less-is-more approach proves quietly moving.
Variety
If you can imagine a multi-movie-mashup of boardroom suspenser, “Die Hard” redux and zombie apocalypse — well, too bad, director Joe Lynch and scripter Matias Caruso have already beat you to the punch. “Mayhem,” their rousingly gonzo thriller about the violent commingling of infectious disease and corporate malfeasance, is a smartly constructed and sardonically funny indie with attitude that somehow manages the tricky feat of being exuberantly over the top even as it remains consistently on target.
The Hollywood Reporter
Actor Michael Shannon serves as one of the executive producers of this timely drama centering on the romance between a Pakistani and a Mexican-American woman.
