Calendar: December 5-11, 2025
Our movie and media Calendar appears every Friday/Saturday on C-U Blogfidential and caters to the downstate region anchored by Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA.
~~~~~
MILESTONES | Happy Birthday to You!
12/6: Andy Due (producer/performer, Rubber Chicken Films/RL3 Productions, Charleston, IL)
12/8: Britten Traughber (photographer, Britten Traughber Photography, Tucson, AZ)
12/10: Sidney Taiko (editor/publisher, Storm Cellar, San Diego, CA)
FIELD REPORT DU HQ | From Wherever It May Be Said
As promised, CUBlog has been marching through all the relevant movie-centric topics of Champaign, Urbana, and the cities beyond that are fit to post, so this week we might as well give in to Ye Ed’s instincts, inspired by last week’s oddball “Images” investigation, and file a Report that is all about the thrilling and chilling going on in our scene. So much of the original output engineered by our creators and producers has fallen under that catch-all category, in fact, that we could publish a horror mag entirely dedicated to it (…don’t tempt us…) but, for the moment, it’s best if we keep the scary score right here!
To start, our friends Chase & Shep (Chase Todd and Aaron Sheppard) plan to celebrate their fifth anniversary of 217 grooviness this Sunday, December 7, with a livestream that will launch on Facebook starting at 7 p.m. Join them to revel in all things C&S including their music and comedy/horror shorts, as well as Todd and Phil Hazen’s more recent films and podcasts, which includes a surprise out of left field that made its internet debut on Friday, October 16, at Found TV, a haven for fans of found-footage entertainment we have cited a couple of times previously in our coverage. THE WITCH HOUSE is a short made by Ontario filmmaker and animator Ron Chevarie (OSMOSIS JONES, SPACE JAM), who plays a relic hunter setting out to locate “El Libro de Los Muertos,” the cursed book from “Camp Chasenshep” that has wreaked havoc in several C&S movie joints to date. You can watch THE WITCH HOUSE right here with a free or paid account, while Chevarie’s other first-person excursions into the supernatural and paranormal, produced under his Haunted Lodge Productions label with his wife Jan, include a feature called THE WHO INCIDENT, also at Found TV, and a new hour-long excursion, ALIEN BTS, which went live at the “Stash – Sci-Fi Cinema” channel on YouTube last week on Thursday, November 27, as well as on Found. Apparently, several guests from the found footage/phenomena indie film scene make appearances in ALIEN BTS, so be sure to watch it all the way through with eyes wide open. Don’t blink!
And then, if you’re like us and believe that every day has the potential to bring a little Halloween cheer even though it’s now December with a healthy covering of snow on the ground, you won’t mind that we’re finally getting around to sharing our next ghoulish ditty. Episode 29 of THE ANDY DUE SHOW went live with its deadpan undead humor the same day as did THE WITCH HOUSE, October 16, and finds our friend in humorous non sequitur and malapropism, Andy Due of Rubber Chicken Films, up to his trademark wit with a love letter to the ghoulden days of horror. Slashers of the Eighties, Frankenstein’s monster, Vincent Price, and more receive a loving send-up and his lab assistants include the witchy Zoe Due, the vampy Kaity Bequette, the electrifying Austin Beaty, and the head-turning Gela and Dave Rediger from Camp Nostalgic Studios. Fright of frights, a solo upload of the Frankenstein sequence set to the classic novelty single “The Monster Mash” performed by Bobby “Boris” Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers – the in-episode version features an original take, recorded by Due, of the 1962 hit – has amassed more than twenty-seven thousand views! You can watch the full episode and much more on YouTube.
~~~~~
~~~~~
Now, we’ll stitch together a few short notes. Southern Illinois resident Jed Brian, producer of the indie slasher UNLISTED OWNER, shared on Facebook two weeks ago his “one million views” plaque from YouTube, which he earned due to his writing and acting work in a myriad of horror film shorts posted to the channel of southern California filmmaker Alex Magaña, ACMofficial. And Decatur area resident Jessie Seitz, the make-up effects artist and director, shared on Facebook that her long-gestating documentary on women in her creature-crafting field, MONSTER GIRLS, will have its world premiere tonight, December 5, as part of the “Late Shift at the Grindhouse” program at the FilmScene theater in the Chauncey building of downtown Iowa City, Iowa. And Springfield area resident Ash Hamilton, editor of Horror-fix.com and the filmmaker behind HOLES IN THE SKY and FINAL DAYS, has begun production on his next found-footage feature called MANGLED: THE SHELBYVILLE TORTURE TAPES, a true crime docudrama that posits a notorious serial killer is still at large. And Monticello resident Robert Christian, through his Champaign-based company Dreamscape Cinema, has finally released the middle chapter of his “evil taxidermist” trilogy, C.O.R.N. II: MIND HARVEST; featuring genre vet Jessica Morris and the returning Robert Donovan, his follow-up is being represented by Playa Media Group and can now be viewed on Tubi with its predecessor. Christian attended the American Film Market in the Century City neighborhood of Los Angeles last month to hobnob and solicit support and sales for future projects.
To close on an exciting yet bummer note, we were going to hype the improbable home video release by American Genre Film Archive of THE MOVIE ORGY, once thought untenable due to it being made up of several hours’ worth of unlicensed clips. But, never say never? The Blu-ray edition was revealed this past Monday, December 1, on the Vinegar Syndrome website and the legendary mash-up, created by future Hollywood filmmakers Joe Dante and Jon Davison, has already sold out. Toured to college campuses through the early Seventies and rarely seen since, THE MOVIE ORGY had one of its very first public play dates at the University of Illinois in May of 1971. You can read more about it in a prior Report and, hopefully, the folks at AGFA and VinSyn will consider a second run to give more folks a chance to get it.
IMAGERY DU C-U | Picturing Our Scene on the Screen
~~~~~
Relative to our Report in the arena of stranger things, we’ve been meaning to share a few thoughts on a home video release that your humble editor had no clue about until he caught sight of it recently at the Deep Discount website. LOVE, BLOOD, & AZTEC DEMONS is an anthology of the only remaining fragments from the unique genre features made by the Mexican-born director, Juan F. Moctezuma II, and the connoisseur of this obscure talent just happens to be our long-time friend, Alaric S. Rocha. He has put a lot of effort over the last decade-and-a-half into hunting down what he can and assembled his findings in the full-length documentary, WHERE IS JUAN MOCTEZUMA?, completed at long last by his company, Blue Bassoon Pictures. It received a world premiere presentation on Sunday, August 24, as part of the FrightFest London festival with himself and producer Rana-Joy Glickman in attendance, while everyone at CUBlog has been doing their best to avoid spoilers until we can see the findings for ourselves.
~~~~~
~~~~~
Until then, we have the LOVE, BLOOD precursor issued as a bare-bones DVD-R by Leomark Studios in September of last year. Ye Ed ordered it, of course, because he really wanted to get a sense of Rocha’s exhaustive research. (For the DVD adverse, it is also available to stream on several ad-supported services.) Our neighbors in Champaign-Urbana who joined us for the New Art Film Festival during its run at the Art Theater may have seen the preliminary restorations of Moctezuma’s work that we chose to feed your curiosity – namely, the segments of UNA MUJER SIN PRECIO (A PRICELESS WOMAN) from 1961 and LAS FIERAS (THE BEASTS) from 1969 that were included in the sixth NAFF in 2015. Rocha appears onscreen as our guide and lends context to these clips as well as other existent material from the filmography – TIEMPO DE MORIR (TIME TO DIE) from 1959, DEMONOID from 1971, and the sole American effort, 1000 PATHS OF DEATH from 1977. We’re given insight as to why the film elements are in tatters and how the main thrust of this maligned artist’s efforts was really directed at wooing the love of his life, actress Lisa de la Luna, and spurning naysayers, including the luchador star El Escorpión. It’s a wild tale that is fleshed out in the documentary proper, from what little we can tell.
~~~~~
~~~~~
Taking in the slim volume of evidence presented here by Rocha, it’s clear there is something charming and a touch romantic baked into the hokey exploitation trappings of what was accomplished by Moctezuma, who moved north after DEMONOID and parlayed his experience into roles on the sets of comparable B-level fare in the United States prior to filming 1000 PATHS. With limited means back in Mexico, he employed science fiction conceits in stage-bound sagas to explore lost loves, be it time travel in TIEMPO DE MORIR or robotic reincarnation in UNA MUJER, and more supernatural shocks in grainy hand-held melodramas, either to reflect on political strife in LAS FIERAS or the trespass of contemporary ignorance on ancient cultures in DEMONOID. Moctezuma seemed to be swinging for the fences with 1000 PATHS, interjecting an “El Topo” or “Man with No Name” type wanderer into a lush, yet frozen, tundra haunted by marauders and half-living zombies; what Western audiences were to make of such an unorthodox riff on the “future wasteland” adventure, a Hollywood staple in that moment with the likes of THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR, DAMNATION ALLEY, and A BOY AND HIS DOG, is baffling to consider.
~~~~~
~~~~~
It is probably moot to compare the wide range in Moctezuma’s precious few features and the previous films of Rocha himself, who had also explored storytelling and genre in several modest efforts before peering into this rabbit hole. A producer, director, writer, and visualist in his own right, Rocha hails from Mount Carroll and Decatur, Illinois, studied music theory and composition at Lawrence University in Wisconsin, attended film school at DePaul University in Chicago, and worked for a spell in Champaign at the former Prairie Production Group. From there, he’s been a filmmaking and film history instructor at DePaul, the Los Angeles Film School, Tecnológico Monterrey in Mexico, and now Ithaca College in New York. His shorts, several of them made or photographed in our area, include a violent dark comedy (MERRY CHRISTMAS!), a dreamlike chain gang drama shot with black-and-white 8mm stock (WINTER), a sexy noir involving tango dancers (DEADLY EMBRACE), a romantic comedy hinging on a sticky situation (PICKING A WINNER), a moody fantasy involving a spirit (OREAD), and a tense Pandora’s box unlocked by a gifted musician (THE TONE OF EMMA ZAHN’S VIOLA). Are there parallels in ambition here? Possibly. Is it coincidence, irony, or fate that Rocha’s first feature film is about a fellow creator whose own feature films are veritable specters? Decide for yourselves, dearest armchair investigators.
As we await our opportunity to learn what answers might ultimately satisfy the question, WHERE IS JUAN MOCTEZUMA?, we simply hope that Team Rocha has done justice in preserving the legacy of Juan F. Moctezuma II* for modern-day cineastes, scholars, and exploitation-savvy audiences. The best bets on getting started with this topic are to watch LOVE, BLOOD, & AZTEC DEMONS and check out the JUAN MOCTEZUMA trailer. You can also look through his profile at Internet Movie Database as well as this older fan website that is loaded with juicy hot takes on his career. If more comes to light, we’ll be sure to share it with the class on CUBlog. Bully to Blue Bassoon Pictures for even piecing together this much.
LOVE, BLOOD, & AZTEC DEMONS: THE LOST FILMS OF JUAN F. MOCTEZUMA II is written, produced, and directed by Alairc S. Rocha. Development producer is Stephanie Salvy. It features Rocha and stars, via archive materials, Juan Roberto, Lisandra Tena, and Miguel Núñez (TIEMPO DE MORIR), Alec Torres, Carlos Rogelio Diaz, Ben David Garza, Núñez, Tena, and El Escorpión (UNA MUJER SIN PRECIO), Gabriela Mayorga and Dagoberto Zolio Soto (LAS FIERAS), Antonio Monroi, Jorge Karlóz, Elisa Dei, Adrian Rodriguez, Mayorga, and Tena (DEMONOID), Javier Lopez, Alexandria McKinley, Peyton Cherry, and Tanner Huff (1000 PATHS OF DEATH). 2024, color/black & white, 74 minutes, English and Spanish with subtitles.
~~~~~
~~~~~
*If you noticed the asterisk and hunted down this footnote, then we’ll preface it by saying that we pride ourselves at CUBlog in doing our best to get the details right and use good judgment in characterizing what we write about. It is rare that we play along covertly with how any film group or studio wishes to promote their own work, but we’ve made a brief exception here with WHERE IS JUAN MOCTEZUMA?
This is primarily to honor Rocha’s commitment to the bit in embellishing upon a Moctezuma hagiography that [SPOILER] is of his own creation, What the filmmaker and his collaborators, many of them students from his teaching assignments, have established on a lean budget and over more than ten years is admirable: clever and era-specific details in the film excerpts, hilarious faux anecdotes on the circa 2007 fan site, slightly suspect IMDb credits added to the profiles of legitimate productions, a mock-up page in the 1976 LOGAN’S RUN issue of Cinefantastique magazine with Moctezuma coverage, and much more. Overall, it’s an elaborate construct that is also an appreciation for the rich history of Mexican cinema and folklore, which Rocha is now openly admitting in interviews, and we tip our hat to the world they’ve built. An extra bow goes to Lisandra Tena (FEAR THE WALKING DEAD), who appears as the reluctant love interest “Lisa de la Luna” in various guises throughout the project, for sticking it out as well. [END SPOILER]
CONFIDENTIAL ALMANAC | Dates in Film Culture History
55 Years Ago … November 1970: Location filming commences in the Champaign and Vermilion counties of east central Illinois on BAD CHARLESTON CHARLIE, an independent action-comedy feature derived from the exploits of Prohibition-era gangster and dubious local legend Charlie Birger (1881-1928). Bad Charleston Charlie Associates and Studio 9 Productions are partnering on this motion picture, having set up a central office in Champaign and received investment funds from local businesses, while the main architect of the operation is producer, co-writer, and star Ross Hagen, who recently appeared in the television show DAKTARI and the theatrical Elvis Presley vehicle SPEEDWAY. Industry professionals that Hagen is welcoming from Los Angeles include director Ivan Nagy, cinematographer Michael Neyman, assistant directors Eric Lidberg and A.J. Lorea, and performers Kelly Thordsen, Hoke Howell, Dal Jenkins, Carmen Zapata, and John Carradine. Community members and University of Illinois students are also playing roles on both sides of the camera, according to articles in the November 7 and 11 editions of the Daily Illini, in scenes being photographed at Kickapoo State Park near Danville, the tiny town of Fairmount located between Danville and Champaign, and coal mining country in southern Illinois to depict Birger’s exploits before his turn to crime. Interior segments will be completed on sound stages once the visitors return to California. Word is that CHARLESTON takes a lighthearted approach to the Birger saga, making him out as a bumbling Al Capone idolizer instead of a Robin Hood type with a mean streak as he is described in scholarship; the screen story retains his real-life row with the Ku Klux Klan while it downplays his scuffles with the law and omits his clashes against the rival Shelton brothers gang that involved airplane bombings and assassinations. It is unclear what distributor will release CHARLESTON in the near future or what is next for Studio 9, which local participants Martin D. Wright and Charlie Lo Bue formed with the help of Hagen and Lidberg based on the latter’s experience as partners in a Hollywood entertainment company, Triforum, Inc. [R]
LOCAL FILMS & EVENTS | Support Your Media Storytellers
@ Flyover Film Studios, Rantoul, IL
“Swappin’ Around the Christmas Tree” event (12/6, 12-6 p.m.) Information
@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
Chambana Film Society* presents “The Savoy Arthouse” feat. HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS (12/7, 3 p.m.)
NOW PLAYING | Champaign-Urbana Area
@ AMC Champaign 13, Champaign, IL
100 NIGHTS OF HERO*, DHURANDHAR (in Hindi with English sub), FACKHAM HALL*, FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S 2, JUJUTSU KAISEN: EXECUTION (animé) (in Japanese with English sub or English dub), KILL BILL: THE WHOLE BLOODY AFFAIR (re-release), SENTIMENTAL VALUE (in Norwegian and English), ETERNITY, NOW YOU SEE ME: NOW YOU DON’T,WICKED: FOR GOOD, ZOOTOPIA 2 (animation) (12/5 on), ELLA MCCAY (12/11 on) *single screenings daily
@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
DHURANDHAR (in Hindi with English sub), FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S 2, JUJUTSU KAISEN: EXECUTION (animé) (in Japanese with English sub or English dub), MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG (filmed stage musical), ETERNITY, NOW YOU SEE ME: NOW YOU DON’T, NUREMBERG, RENTAL FAMILY, THE RUNNING MAN, WICKED: FOR GOOD, ZOOTOPIA 2 (animation) (12/5 on), The Metropolitan Opera: The Magic Flute (12/6, 1 p.m., recorded), UFC 323: Merab Dvalishvili vs. Petr Yan, more (mixed martial arts) (12/6, 9 p.m., simulcast), ELF (12/6, 4 & 6:30 p.m.; 12/7, 3 & 7 p.m.; 12/10, 7 p.m.), “Andre Rieu: Merry Christmas” (concert film) (12/7, 3 p.m.; 12/10, 7 p.m.), WEDDING CRASHERS (12/11, 4 & 7 p.m.)
@ Pine Lounge, 1st floor, Illini Union, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Illini Union Board presents CAUGHT STEALING (12/5-12/6, 7 p.m., free w/i-card)
@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
The News-Gazette Film Series presents IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (12/6, 1 & 7 p.m.), “Holiday in Whoville” annual event feat. HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS (1966) (12/7, 12 p.m. doors, cartoon at 1, 2, 3, and 4 p.m.)
Events featuring locally produced movies are marked with an asterisk (*). Additional “Now Playing” and “Coming Soon” listings appear after the jump!
~~~~~
NOW PLAYING | The Cities Beyond
@ The Fischer Theatre, Danville, IL
FischerFest presents “Celebrating the Life & Legacy of Dick Van Dyke” feat. national premiere of DICK VAN DYKE: 100 CELEBRATION (documentary) (12/6, 5 p.m. doors, 6:30 p.m. program; sold out), FischerFest presents “Celebrating the Life & Legacy of Dick Van Dyke” feat. BYE BYE BIRDIE, THE COMIC, MARY POPPINS w/Chuck Koplinski (12/7, 11 a.m.-9 p.m.)
@ Golden Ticket Cinemas Ale House, Bloomington, IL
FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S 2, MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG (filmed stage musical), WAKE UP DEAD MAN: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY, WICKED: FOR GOOD, ZOOTOPIA 2 (animation) (12/5 on), ELF (12/6-12/7, 10 & 10:15 a.m.)
@ The Harvest Moon Twin Drive-in, Gibson City, IL
ZOOTOPIA 2 (animation) (Screen 1), THE POLAR EXPRESS (animation) (Screen 2) (12/5-12/6)
@ The Lorraine Theatre, Hoopeston, IL
WICKED: FOR GOOD (12/5-12/7), HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS 25th anniversary (12/11 on)
@ The Normal Theater, Normal, IL
WHITE CHRISTMAS, “Queering Horror” feat. CARNAGE FOR CHRISTMAS (12/5), ELF, IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, KILLER RACCOONS! 2! DARK CHRISTMAS IN THE DARK! (12/6), IT HAPPENED ON 5TH AVENUE, THE POLAR EXPRESS (animation), THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL (12/7), IN BRUGES (12/8), DIE HARD (12/9), A CHRISTMAS STORY (12/10), ELF (12/11)
@ The Onarga Theatre, Onarga, IL
ZOOTOPIA 2 (animation) (12/5-12/7)
@ The Princess Theatre, Leroy, IL
ZOOTOPIA 2 (animation) (12/5-12/7)
NOW PLAYING | Midwest
For detailed and curated listings of Chicago-area film presentations and related events, please visit the fine folks at Cine-File and subscribe to their definitive “Cine-List” weekly blast. And for northern Illinois industry news, be sure to read Reel Chicago, Screen Magazine, and the Chicago Reader.
COMING SOON | Area-wide Events
NEW! 12/15
Champaign Movie Makers* meeting
@ Esquire Lounge, Champaign, IL, 7 p.m.
NEW! 12/18
Film Fanatic Movie Nights* presents THE FALL
@ Gallery Art Bar, Urbana, IL, 6:30 & 9:30 p.m.
NEW! 12/20
Chicago Filmmakers presents “Picture ReStart” short film series
feat. final program, “Bringing It All Back Home”
@ Chicago Filmmakers Firehouse Cinema, Chicago, IL, 6 p.m.
NEW! 1/16-1/18, 2026
Champaign Movie Makers* “48-Hour Film Competition”
@ Lincoln Square, Urbana, IL, 7 p.m.
4/3-4/10, 2026
28th annual Wisconsin Film Festival, Madison, WI
4/9-4/12, 2026
36th Onion City Experimental Film Festival, Chicago, IL
COMMUNITY & CAMPUS SERIES | Champaign-Urbana area
Chambana Film Society presents “The Savoy Arthouse”
@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL, 3 p.m. unless noted otherwise
12/14: SONG SUNG BLUE (2008); 12/21: LOCKE; 12/28: “Short Docs” program
~~~~~
Compiled by Jason Pankoke.
~~~~~
“Calendar du C-U”
© 2025 Jason Pankoke/C-U Blogfidential
[T −89]