Demonic suggests a few novel, fascinating twists to the horror template, and then runs away from them as fast as it can. In the six years…
Beckett rides the talents of its stacked crew to the most generic possible destination. On paper, Beckett would seem to hold plenty of promise. Directed by…
After a mediocre attempt at reviving the jiangshi hopping vampire movie as one half of the directing team behind Vampire Cleanup Department, Hong Kong actor…
Raging Fire is fairly staid as a cop-film actioner, but it proves that Donnie Yen, even as he approaches 60, can still deliver. When credits roll…
Although shot before Canada went into lockdown, Brain Freeze is the rare film that benefits from being mapped onto the COVID-19 pandemic. Seen in the…
Enemies of the State fails to probe deeply, content with its story’s sensational surface at the expense of more meaningful study. Produced by genius documentarian and…
Jolt is an ironically-titled dud, its rote thriller stylings utterly unervating. Tanya Wexler’s Jolt is like a fake movie playing on the television in a better,…
Air Conditioner is a beautiful, thoughtful work of easygoing charm and surprising intellect. As far as cinematic representations of heat go, Ernest Dickerson’s work on Do…
At first glance, Aleksey German, Jr.’s House Arrest is a satire aimed squarely at Russian state repression and censorship. David (Merab Ninidze), a University professor,…
The final Fear Street entry is something of a mixed bag, thriving in its eponymous past setting but floundering a bit as the series comes…
George Romero’s two 1978 releases, Dawn of the Dead and Martin, represent the director at the apex of his career as an artist who had…
In La Civil’s final shot, Cielo (Arcelia Ramírez) sits on a bench outside her home in Mexico. At the end of a long, fruitless journey…
Fear Street Part 2 improves on Part 1 in nearly every way, a slick slasher of high energy, genre play, and legitimate pathos. The second film in…
This first Fear Street entry suggests possible upward momentum for the trilogy, but disappoints as a slasher in its own right. There’s promise to Fear…
The Forever Purge is suitably cynical and cathartic effort, righting some of the series’ previous wrongs and more bluntly tackling America’s systemic evils. Since James DeMonaco’s…
America: The Motion Picture is a dopey, dated take-down of American exceptionalism that occasionally hits its target. America: The Motion Picture, the debut feature from Frisky…
Dynasty Warriors buries its littered, low-key strengths under a deluge of CGI nonsense. What does it mean to adapt the video game series Dynasty Warriors,…
Superdeep is only horrific in how much deadening exposition it forces viewers to endure. The idea that the deepest hole ever drilled into the Earth,…
Peter Rabbit 2 wishes it were a Paddington film. It isn’t. It’s fair to say Will Gluck’s Peter Rabbit 2 wants a piece of the Paddington pie.…
Ghost Lab works as a bit of weirdo fun for a while, but the film’s playful tone is obliterated halfway through and never recovers. At…