Things have been super busy as we enter “spooky season”, but for the next couple months, we are going to try to spotlight at least one indie film every week that you can Watch Online for Free! Today we are taking a look at a horror/sci-fi/comedy.
Mandao Returns is from director/writer Scott Dunn and stars Jenny Lorenzo, Jim O’Doherty, Sean Liang, Alexandre Chen, Gina Gomez Dunn, and Alexandre Chen.
Official Description: Jay Mandao astral projects back in time to save the life of a B-movie star. However, as Jay and his friends mess with time, they fall down a rabbit hole of conspiracies, murder, and an insidious Hollywood cult. (Source: Scott Dunn)
Mandao Returns is available to watch online at no cost on Tubi TV, and you can check out the trailer for the independent film here.
Let us know what indie horror flicks we should spotlight in the comments or message us on Twitter!
Today’s Watch Online for Free spotlight is An Intervention by director/writer Dan Eden, a comedic “mockumentary about a woman throwing her ex an intervention.”
The movie features Katie Binkley, Kara Brinkman, Kaitlin Eden, Kini Hudson, Jeremy M. Eden, Kevin Kirchman, and the director himself, Dan Eden as a documentarian within the movie.
Official Description: Chelsea Bledsoe and her husband Graig throw a surprise intervention for her old high school boyfriend, Henry, with a mismatched group of acquaintances from back in the day to fill out the guest list. (Source: IMDB)
The comedy was fully improvised and impressively shot over just two days. The movie was distributed online from Indie Rights Movies.
You can watch the AnInterventiontrailer here, then head over and watch the full movie for free on Tubi TV.
I love that YouTube has a wide variety of movies to watch for free, but I wish there was a better way to search them (the free section is just a jumbled mess of movies from all years & genres). While scanning through the options, I stumbled on three movies I haven’t seen in 20 plus years. A collection of Ernest comedies to watch for free!
For those who don’t know him, Ernest P. Worrell, played by physical comedy legend Jim Varney, was a clumsy/goofy yet lovable doofus who saved Christmas, went to camp, and was scared stupid (to name a few of his hijinks). If you don’t know the character, you for sure know Varney’s voice as he provided it for Slinky Dog in Toy Story and Toy Story 2. The Ernest character started in commercials, then moved to TV where Varney received a Daytime Emmy, and finally made the leap to movies in 1987 where the character was featured in 9 movies.
What does YouTube have streaming for free right now?
ERNEST GOES TO SCHOOL Description: Jim Varney’s recurring dim-bulb character Ernest P. Worrell returns in this film as a school maintenance man seeking to obtain a high school diploma. Watch on YouTube
ERNEST RIDES AGAIN Description: Buffoonish Ernest and his dimwitted pal Abner unearth a huge cannon reputed to contain the crown jewels of England. Watch on YouTube
SLAM DUNK ERNEST Description: Ernest P. Worrell becomes a basketball star after an angel bearing an uncanny resemblance to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar gives him a pair of magic sneakers. Watch on YouTube
What movies from your childhood have you stumbled on while scanning through free movies? What movie marathons have you been able to put together?
We had a chance to talk with writer/director Mauro Ferritto, whose latest film The Pre-Drink hit Amazon last year. Learn more about his comedy about feuding best friends.
Who? The cast of The Pre-Drink includes Paul Rabliauskas, Jared Story, Mike Campbell, Nick Christie, Jessina Cheffins, Andrea Ginter, and Georgianna Oakley. Our director of photography was Zach Wolf, sound was Mathew Riediger, and I produced, wrote, directed, and edited it.
I knew I wanted to shoot a comedy feature, so I approached a few comedians in Winnipeg who I’ve been watching live and have been following for a few years now. I approached Paul first to see if he wanted to be in the movie, and he gave me a quick yes, to which I was surprised and elated. His close friend is Jared Story and I knew if he had a familiar face on set with him, the acting would come out more naturally and be a win-win. Jared is also a hilarious comedian and they played off each other well. Mike and I went to the University of Winnipeg together taking film. and we have kept in touch ever since. He nailed the part of Noah. I auditioned Nick for the lead and Jessina, Andrea, and Gerogrianna auditioned and it was an easy yes from my end as they’re all funny in their own ways with great acting chops.
Farmery Brewery were immensely kind and generous enough to give us free beer to use in the shoot. Which I was really happy about because I hate seeing water in beer bottles in movies, or worse yet, every label of every beer ripped off. It was great to have a real beer company (and real beer) in the film.
What? The story is about the complications of friendships. It touches on power struggle, deception, coming of age, and letting go of what you can’t control. The movie centers around four friends, two of which are fighting due to rumors that one slept with the other’s girlfriend, and one friend is in the middle trying to hash things out. Noah (Mike) is there as a buffer and a close acquaintance. Nick’s character, Dean, attempts to mend things, in his own way, and have everything be back to how they were – and all of this an hour before his wedding, where he also needs to pick one best man.
It’s a (mainly) one location comedy, so it’s something of a pressure cooker in one home with moments of humor peppered throughout. This movie was financed by my Visa, so using my house was really the only option. Having comedians as my actors, and writing something that had high conflict to keep the story moving and interesting, was informed by the budget, and was a great filmmaking experience.
Where? Most of the movie takes place in a house (Dean’s house). We filmed outside at Assiniboine Park, and over the Moray bridge, to grab a few exterior scenes, but the bulk of the movie is several rooms in a house.
When? We started shooting in April 2016, set in present day, and it was released in January of 2020. We shot every weekend for about 6 months, then came the edit. And I’ll admit, it took an embarrassingly long time to edit – not so much the actual cutting and sound and color grading (although that is a time consuming task, and I now have a new respect for editors), but for me to be courageous enough to finish the edit instead of giving up. At the time, and I think many filmmakers go through this, when you’re in the editing suite with your movie and you see a first cut, it can be tough to look at every frame you decided was good at the time. Now you have fresh eyes thinking “what the hell is this?” Scorsese has said that if you’re not physically ill when you’re editing, something’s wrong – and now I totally get that.
Why? Why I made this film? I was itching to shoot a feature film and direct- no matter what that entailed. So you start looking at what you can’t do and what you can do, and that informs the kind of movie you’re going to make. I had access to some really great comedians, I had my house, and I had a friend with a decent DSLR, and a lens we split for. That all pointed to a one location comedy. So with that in mind, I started working on the screenplay and a story within that frame.
Why are the characters doing what they’re doing? Dean loves nothing more in his life than his friends, and he’s on the verge of losing his two best friends. I think we can all relate with having a falling out with a friend in your group, and you can’t all hangout any more. You almost have to pick sides, or at least schedule your hang outs separately, and Dean is doing everything in his power to avoid this. So he lied, cheated, fought, and manipulated his way to try and fix things. Of course that never works out.
Paul’s character, Gabe, and Jared’s character, Zach, are on the outs. Gabe is accused of sleeping with Zach’s girlfriend, Alyssa, and Zach wants nothing to do with this friendship anymore. When drunken secrets spill they deal with their issues and do hash things out, but things are never the same. People grow up, you grow out of your friends, and we all move on in one way or another. In a way, this is a coming of age movie for guys in their 30s, with ambiguous morals but grounded in reality.
Before you go all in with horror movies for Halloween (we will have more horror suggestions soon!), why not try an indie romantic comedy? What Love Looks Like is an anthology movie with “five interwoven love stories that explore the ups and downs of finding love.” The movie was directed by Alex Magaña and stars Josh Gilmer, Nathan Kohnen, Connor Wilkins, Kyle Meck, Jack Menzies, Kate Durocher, Taylor Alexa Frank, and Ana Ming Bostwick-Singer. The movie was released online by Indie Rights Movies.
You can watch What Love Looks Like for free on TubiTV or Amazon (with Prime), and you can follow the movie on Facebook to learn movie about the cast & crew.
Check out the trailer for My Best Friend’s Famous, an independent buddy comedy from director Kevin Ignatius and co-written by Ignatius and Nick Psinakis. The movie focuses on an actor who “gets jealous when his less talented best friend lands a starring role on a hit TV show.” The movie stars Psinakis along with Mindy Sterling, Ryan O’Neal, Anne Akhila, Darryl Gudmundson, Brady Matthews, Domenique Fragale, Alexandra Case, Mick Thyer and Keith Myers. You can watch My Best Friend’s Famous for free on Tubi TV.
I’m not the biggest fan of remakes, but sometimes they jell and get a smile from me (The Brady Bunch in 1995, 21 Jump Street in 2012). Dax Shepard and Michael Peña are perfectly cast in the remake of the classic TV series, with Shepard also on directing duties. They are surrounded by an awesome supporting cast that includes Adam Brody, Kristen Bell, Vincent D’Onofrio, Jessica McNamee, Ryan Hansen, and Maya Rudolph. The movie comes out on March 24th, 2017. You can check out the trailer here.
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