Akilla’s Escape is an unfortunate mishmash of cliché and amateurism, never quite clear what it wants to say or be. Akilla’s Escape begins with a long montage sequence of archival photos set to the pulsating vibes of Bob Marley & the Wailers’ “Punky Reggae…
The risible Misfits marks a career low point for director Renny Harlin. Nick Cannon’s here too. Once, he was one of the most reliable directors of action in Hollywood, with out-and-out magic like Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, and The Long Kiss Goodnight punctuating his resume. But…
Rarely has horror felt as inert as it does in the tedious Censor. The opening credits to the new horror film Censor feature a montage of gory and violent scenes courtesy of what the British once referred to as “video nasties,” low-budget horror and…
Caleb Michael Johnson’s sophomore feature amounts to little more than a clumsy attempt at intellectual horror. We open on a shot of a dog’s wagging tongue, while cozy French lounge pop plays in the background. Then, we cut to a supermarket where a woman…
Deliver Us from Evil fails in both its attempts at severe drama and action spectacle, proving an equal opportunity offender in the process. If the title of Hong Won-chan’s nihilistic slog of a crime thriller Deliver Us from Evil points to anything, it’s that the…
Little of the personality or energy of Barrett’s scriptwork is on display in Seance, a drab, generic horror dud. Since 2010’s A Horrible Way to Die, Simon Barrett has largely made his name writing director Adam Wingard’s horror movies, a run which hits its…
Not everything works in Sound of Violence, but its effective balancing act of authenticity and go-for-broke bonkers keeps things singing. Writer/director Alex Noyer intends the title of his debut feature Sound of Violence extremely literally. As Alexis Reeves (Jasmin Savoy Brown) explains in her introductory…
The Dry perhaps ends too tidily, but it remains a welcomingly straightforward and visceral thriller that plays fair with its audience. Robert Connolly’s The Dry begins with aerial shots of a barren, wasted landscape, rows upon rows of dead farmland stretching across the horizon. The jagged…
Profile’s subject matter is more than a little silly, but its thrilling Screenlife tinkering speaks to the form’s malleability and still-untapped potential. 2021 really might be Timur Bekmambetov’s year, an achievement the director/producer has been slowly building toward ever since the game-changing release of…
The Columnist successfully balances a line between the satirical and sobering, and delivers some nice genre play in the process. Ivo Van Aart’s darkly comic horror film The Columnist fits solidly within the well-worn genre of serial killer/slasher flick. However, Van Aart and screenwriter Daan…
