The Birthday Cake doesn’t offer anything original, but its small-scale mob stylings will likely please a certain moviegoing demographic. If the Internet is to be believed,…
Gaia is a masterwork of oppressive mood, a brutal, almost Biblical portrait of creation and destruction. There’s an ancient, malevolent force living in the depths of…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
The Djinn offers plenty of playful throwback chills, but boasts eye-roll messaging and doesn’t quite know who its audience is. Anyone expecting the gore and camp…
The Paper Tigers doesn’t pull it all together dramatically or narratively, but its genre reverence is a steadying force. Reverence looms large in Quoc Bao Tran’s…
Cliff Walkers is a visually slick and violent spy flick that avoids propaganda and imbues its proceedings with considerable emotional and existential weight. Don’t let a…
Separation is yet another slog from director William Brent Bell, a logic-less and unscary bit of low-bar horror filmmaking. Director William Brent Bell has been…
Bloodthirsty is bland amalgam of werewolf flick signifiers and horror film clichés that do little to establish any unique voice. Reviewing Eight for Silver at…
For the Sake of Vicious doesn’t reinvent anything, but is a lean, nasty thriller that doubles as a remarkable calling card for the directing duo.…
Vanquish is bad, bizarrely so, but it’s at least not boring in its own dumpster fire way. After a few hits as a writer, including…
Wheatley’s latest both builds and holds tension effectively, harnessing the director’s penchant for psychedelia and bruising horror to brutal effect. When Martin remarks at the…