The Deep House is a claustrophobic, otherworldly bit of throwback horror that welcomingly pivots away from modern, flattened genre sensibilities. Forget indie insufferability: it seems vogue…
The Beta Test is a bold advancement for Jim Cummings as a filmmaker, supplementing his films’ familiar character with greater formal skill and precise critique. Over…
Gaza Mon Amour finds inspirations in canonical “Mon Amour” films, but takes care to emphasize the present moment and the wya images ferment under occupation. Arab…
Eternals makes its aims clear, but the whole enterprise is frictionless, resulting in one of the most flavorless Marvel films to date. Meet the Eternals,…
Antlers is a competently made but shallow horror effort, slathered in trauma-heavy metaphor and a questionable abuse narrative. Writing about new horror movies can sometimes feel…
Next of Kin feels untethered from the Paranormal Activity franchise, an unscary film that resists both its found footage formula and any narrative cogency. Paranormal Activity: Next of…
Freeland stumbles when it feels compelled to inject arbitrary conflict, but is an otherwise sturdy, necessarily cynical portrait of modern economic peril. The legalization of recreational…
Warning: Warning is an absolute disaster. An existential slice of sci-fi, Warning is the kind of film that practically begs for a thorough post-mortem. It’s quite…
Val suggests talent behind the camera, but it’s largely wasted on a wisp of an idea. There’s a deep, dark mystery at the heart of director…
OK, so things don’t really vanish anymore: even the most limited film release will (most likely, eventually) find its way onto some streaming service or…
Minyan is a delicate film of subtle power, smartly weaving several threads into a rich coming-of-age portrait. Set in 1980s New York, Eric Steel’s Minyan is…
The juggernauts of the fall festival season — Venice, TIFF, NYFF — cast a long shadow, which means that smaller autumn festivals too often get…
Cicada is tonally uneven and its sum is less than its parts, but it still often works on the strength of its authenticity and small honesties.…
Last Night in Soho is a seductive and sumptuous Giallo riff, but suffers from a final act that undermines much of the film’s early power.…
The Spine of Night is a grisly, singular work of nerdcore unorthodoxy that occasionally stumbles but manages to stay upright. The Spine of Night is a…
Bulletproof is a Wiseman-like doc of observation and contrast, refusing sensationalism and impressively navigating its slippery material. Todd Chandler’s Bulletproof is a present-tense documentary, not at…
Roh trades only in tropes, and subverts any inherent eeriness with its heavy-handed application of mood. Emir Ezwan’s debut feature, Roh, is part of an emerging…
Passing’s insularity is both a blessing and a curse, but its internalized emotions simmering just beneath the surface manage to speak volumes. Based on the…
Violet is a distinctly 21st-century woman-celebrating flick, perhaps a bit saddled by its too trite messaging, but still something of a feminist force of nature.…
The Souvenir: Part II plays out largely as protracted epilogue, a fumbling, detached work that negates the first film’s powerful ending. Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s 1778 painting…
Snakehead foregrounds its lead actress to magnificent effective, offering a film far more singular than its generic setup suggests. Snakehead starts with a rather deceptively benign…