Alyssa Vitale

Alyssa’s love of movies began at a young age when she had her first theatrical experience watching The Lion King on the big screen as a four year old. A trip to Universal Studios only two years later introduced her to the concept of filmmaking (not to mention Hitchcock’s Psycho) and quickly expanded her cinematic interests beyond just animated films. This interest continued through childhood and once she was in high school, Alyssa began going to the movies at least twice per week, took several film classes, and began writing reviews.

Although her interest in film never waned, Alyssa did not go to school for film, opting instead to pursue a career in science. She graduated with a B.S. in Zoology and Ecology & Environmental Sciences (while still managing to sneak in a few college film courses) and continued on, receiving an M.S. in Wildlife Ecology in 2015 for her work on black bear denning ecology. During this time, Alyssa significantly ramped up her film watching and review output.

In March of 2019, Alyssa expanded beyond just written reviews and started the Mainely Movies YouTube channel, where she provides video reviews of both new releases and older films and produces an assortment of other movie-related content. In addition to reviewing films, Alyssa teaches college biology and makes far too many movie references during her lectures, very few of which her students ever seem to get. She lives in Maine, just outside of Derry – ahem – Bangor and when she’s not hanging out with Pennywise, she enjoys organizing her ever-expanding blu-ray collection and watching at least one movie every single day.