There’s been no shortage of lamentation here at InRO about how the contemporary Hollywood studio system has mostly abandoned mid-range, mid-budget action movies in favor…
The premise is hit-or-miss: imagine a circus troupe in the vein of the Fantastic Four, but situated smack in the middle of Nazi-infested Rome, witnesses…
When Ria Khan (Priya Kansara) holds a kung fu stance, it has the effect of transforming the rich colors, the intricate design, and the long…
Arriving just 70 seconds into the film, the inciting incident of Damián David Szifron’s To Catch a Killer might break some kind of informal record…
Director Julius Avery’s The Pope’s Exorcist announces its particular tenor right from the opening scene, as Father Gabriele Amorth (Russell Crowe) arrives by moped to…
The latest installment of the Evil Dead franchise, Evil Dead Rise, opens with a sequence that will be instantly recognizable to longtime fans of the…
Joaquin Phoenix’s first scene in Beau Is Afraid takes place in his therapist’s office, setting the story in motion while also presenting a roadmap of…
The hardest working man in show business, otherwise known as John Swab, is back with One Day as a Lion, the director’s third feature of…
High-concept comedy Mafia Mamma comes courtesy of Catherine Hardwicke, a director who never met a potentially interesting premise she couldn’t sabotage with her bland visual…
Teenagers are awful — that’s an objective truth. Throw in a hefty dose of economic privilege, and you’ve got the recipe for some real chickenshit…
Let’s start with a little personal history: when this reviewer caught the live-action adaptation of Norman Bridwell’s endearing giant canine in 2021’s Clifford the Big…
These days it feels like we’re more frequently encountering stories of people — particularly men — obsessed with legacy. Characters yearn for a sense of…
Kurt Wimmer’s mirthfully overwrought Children of the Corn, a revamp of one of horror’s longest and least-consequential franchises, is more fun than it should be.…
The found footage genre has proven itself to be quite resilient, particularly in the realm of horror. Pioneered by Ruggero Deodato, director of the 1980…
Two new horror films arrive on screens this week which, paired together, suggest a kind of state-of-the-genre address: Christopher Smith’s Consecration offers a lovingly constructed…
With all the various traumas and psychological afflictions on which character-driven horror has touched in recent years, it was only a matter of time before…
“I would do anything for my children,” says Jess (Michelle Monaghan), a phrase she repeats like a mantra that gradually takes on a more sinister…
Let it be said that indie writer-director John Swab is currently the hardest working man in show business, with his second film of the still…
An unexpectedly maverick prequel/sequel hybrid to one of the biggest mainland Chinese blockbusters of this century, The Wandering Earth II ditches the more rigid genre…
Though still relatively early in his career, initial indications are that arterial spray and pulverized bones are to Brandon Cronenberg’s filmography what unnatural orifices are…