Review: The End of Oak Street (2026)

It's kind of funny that The End of Oak Street delivered on the broken promise of the latter Jurassic World movies.  While those movies teased but ultimately only gave us glimpses of dinosaurs in the suburbs, this film gives it to us in spades.  For a PG-13 movie, it has a surprising amount of violence (though it does refrain from being gory) and does not hesitate when killing off the various denizens of the neighborhood.  It gives us everything we wanted from Jurassic World that we were denied, and I respect it for that.

To give a summary, in July of 1982, the Platt family finds not only themselves, but their entire neighborhood transported to the distant past.  Dinosaurs quickly invade the neighborhood and the family finds itself struggling to survive.  As is often the case with films produced by JJ Abrams, there is also a healthy amount of family drama akin in the vein of the great Spielberg movies of the 80s.

For obvious reasons, this story feels familiar in many ways - hell, the movie almost forces a Spielberg-esque bicycle scene with son Brian (Christian Convery) - and director David Robert Mitchell leans into it mostly successfully.  The film isn't completely devoid of subversions, but a seasoned moviegoer is going to predict most of the major beats should they wish to.

Mitchell mostly avoids this by keeping things moving at such a pace that you don't have time to think, but there is something to be said for using familiar tropes to focus on the character work being done.  Anne Hathaway, as the family matriarch Denise, is particularly good in her role in a way that the movie didn't need but is much better for having.  Ewan McGregor, who plays Greg, the father, doesn't have quite as much to work with but nevertheless also gives his character details that enrich the movie in small ways.

The dinosaurs are probably on the more accurate end of movie creations, though not without creative liberties.  Some of these work well - the body proportions are off in a way that adds to the surrealism of the situation - but some of them feel odd.  Having the long-necked dinosaurs (I dare not try to guess which they are supposed to be given the mix of dinosaurs shown) covered in what looks like hair just feels weird as opposed to surreal.

There are two main criticisms I would have for the film, both on the 'personal pet peeve' end of the spectrum.  The first?  There is an obvious hole in the story where a sapphic storyline involving the daughter Audrey, played by Maisy Stella, was meant to be.  In a time period with the type of president we have, running away from any LGBT storyline feels like a deliberate choice, and not one that makes me comfortable.

The other main critique involves a mild spoiler - so mild that I hesitate to even call it a spoiler.  Anyone who has watched a movie can see a certain plot point coming, but consider this the spoiler-warning paragraph before I delve into it.

So, there is a family dog that disappears early in the film and of course it shows up in a pivotal moment to save the day.  I'm not against this.  This is a certain type of movie, and in this type of movie, the dog is going to live.  That is fine.  What is not fine is this movie going out of its way to kill multiple cats.  One, I would not be happy about, but I could live with - especially since it is one of the first hints that something is wrong.  But multiple?  Including a scene where it is several dinosaurs picking at the corpse of one?  It just feels so unnecessary that it rubbed me the wrong way very late in the movie.

Would I recommend this?  Probably.  It's a fun time, and it gives us something we haven't seen in awhile onscreen.  But I'd more likely recommend Primitive War before this one.

6 out of 10.

Review: Buddy (2026)

I seldom come across a movie that I want to recommend to everyone I know where I recognize that - at best - the number of people who will love it as much as I do might hover around 3 in 10.  And that's if I am lucky.  But dammit, Buddy is such a darkly fun time that I will continuously send people into it with as little warning as possible.

My only knowledge going into this movie was that it was a horror movie that escalated quickly and that parents had taken their children to see it, somehow missing that it had an R rating.  And honestly, that was sufficient.  This is a movie that pays dividends by going into it blind - not because of surprises (though there are some), but because the movie is such an experience that the less you know, the better.

Which makes writing a review difficult, I must say.  The most I can say about the plot is that Buddy is a children's show character and it is a horror movie.  The performances are pretty great across the board - though I will point out that it felt like Topher Grace put in minimum effort in a very stock role - the set design and score are pitch perfect, and humor is just the right amount of dark.

Director Casper Kelly (who co-wrote this with Jamie King) had not directed a feature-length movie before this, and was mostly known for the Adult Swim short film "Too Many Cooks", does not hesitate in the slightest with the material.  There is a confidence to this direction that serves the movie well - I think someone who approached this film with irony or skepticism would have doomed it, so Kelly taking the reins worked in its favor.

The main critique I would have - aside from Grace's performance mentioned above - is that there is a section of the movie that feels completely unnecessary.  It's the only segment that feels like it could be cut, though it is likely in to keep the movie at a respectable length of 96 minutes.  It's also the only section that feels shocking for shock's sake.

But overall, this is a fun movie.  Definitely not for everyone, but I would still encourage everyone to see it.

8 out of 10

Review: The Fog (1980)

Four reviews in, I feel like I should have a checklist for my Carpenter reviews.

Excellent performances, including some all-time great ones?  Check (in this case, Hal Holbrook as Father Malone and Adrienne Barbeau as Stevie Wayne)

Outstanding musical score?  Check

Atmosphere for days?  Check

A simple story, well-told and directed?  Check, check check.

Inspired by a visit to Stonehenge, Carpenter and Debra Hill co-wrote this story of Antonio Bay, a small coastal town celebrating its 100th anniversary when a mysterious and deadly fog starts appearing.  We follow various characters as they try to uncover the mystery of the fog before they fall victim to it.

If Halloween is an elemental fable of Good and Evil, then The Fog is a ghost story told around the campfire.  In fact, the movie opens with such a scene, a perfect tone and mood setter to prepare the audience for the story about to unfold.  All plot can be explained by this premise: why does the fog suddenly start rolling in? Because 100 years is a significant anniversary.  Why do the ghosts and their fog only appear at a specific time?  Because that is the same time their murderer's conspired against them.  The movie never outright explains this, but trusts the viewers to pick up on the hints dropped throughout.

I mentioned the performances, but it really cannot be stated just how good Adrienne Barbeau is in this movie.   It's almost criminal that this role didn't propel her to mega-stardom - though, perhaps, she never wanted that - it easily stands with Jamie Lee Curtis's performance in Halloween, or Kurt Russell's in The Thing as among the best to appear in Carpenter's filmography.

Perhaps it was the mixed reception to the film during its initial release.  Like many of Carpenter's films, it was only later reassessments that properly credited the filmmaker for his effective storytelling.  Either way, this performance - secluded from the rest of the cast by virtue of the character running a radio station from a lighthouse - ties the movie together.

Carpenter quite effectively uses the fog in setting the scenes.  Much has been written about the various iconic scenes in Halloween, but much less the ones in this film.  The fog - with an otherworldly glow -  slowly cresting over the hillside and descending on the lighthouse, or the various victims pulled into it with only glimpses of what it harbors are startling effective.

Cinematographer Dean Cundey again works with Carpenter on this film, to its extreme benefit.  At times, Antonio Bay feels like it might be the last town on Earth, and much of that can be credited to Cundey's cinematography.  The night scenes have a stillness to them that is plain, but somehow wrong - there's a tension in the shots even before we first encounter the titular fog.

If the movie is letdown from Carpenter's previous theatrical feature, it's only because his previous film was Halloween, which would be a tough act for anyone to follow.  But 'not quite as good as Halloween' is a compliment, even if it doesn't quite sound like it.  If  you want to watch a horror film, this is a solid selection.

8 out of 10

Fun fact:  This is the third straight film to feature Charles Cyphers and Nancy Loomis and somewhat sets the stage for Carpenter to frequently collaborate with the same actors.

Review: Halloween (1978)

When I decided to do my John Carpenter marathon, I debated skipping this movie.  What review could I write that would anything new to this heavily-discussed masterpiece?  Is there anything to add to the discussion at this point, 48 years later?  In some ways, it is easier to discuss the sequels (and their wide range of quality) than the original, since - outside of Halloween II (1981) - they are much less discussed and picked-apart as this one.

This is, quite literally, a perfect horror movie.  Moody, atmospheric, almost elemental in its storytelling, it's not surprising that the movie is credited (incorrectly, I might add) with being the first slasher - while Black Christmas and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre predate it, the influence this film had vastly outshines those films, great though they are.

The film almost reads better as a fable: this is a battle between Good (Laurie Strode, famously played by Jamie Lee Curtis in a star-making performance) and Evil (The Shape - sometimes called Michael Myers - as played by Nick Castle).  Only the pure can survive the corruption of Evil's creation, and God help anyone else who encounters it.

The film also has it's soothsayer in Donald Pleasence's performance as Dr. Sam Loomis, one of the all-time great horror performances (expect me to make that statement in several of Carpenter's upcoming films - part of his legacy is ushering in some of the best the genre has ever seen).  His various monologues and asides provide just the right amount of heightened surrealism to the movie that gives it that elemental feel.

Carpenter also did composing work for this film, and created one of the best musical scores of all time, with the title theme being recognizable to even the most unlearned of movie buffs.  The cinematography - done by Dean Cundey - is also a standout part of the film.  Bright yellows during the daytime, and an almost impossible blue to the night scenes, Cundey's contributions cannot be understated.

This is one of those horror movies that I think everyone should watch.  Not just because I am a fan of horror, but because it is a standout in a genre that has far more duds than it has masterpieces.

10 out of 10.

(A fun aside:  One of the movies watched during the babysitting scenes is 1951's The Thing From Another World - a movie that Carpenter would remake 6 years later)

Review: Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)

Now this is a great movie!

Part of the reason I wanted to do a John Carpenter marathon was because there were so many I had never seen.  While Dark Star was more of a mixed bag, Assault on Precinct 13 very quickly won me over.  A low budget exploitation film where Carpenter had complete creative control, this film follows Lieutenant Ethan Bishop (Austin Stoker) as he is assigned to a precinct shortly before it closes.  On this last night, a series of incidents results in Ethan, along with prisoners Napoleon Wilson and Wells (Darwin Joston and Tony Burton) and secretary Leigh (Laurie Zimmer) having to fortify the building as a gang out for revenge attacks.

This is a mean movie.  It opens with police killing a group of gang members (which is somehow not the inciting incident, though it contributes to it), has a little girl shot while buying ice cream (the real inciting incident), and brutally kills off the majority of the cast during the initial onslaught by the gang members.  While a few do make it past that initial onslaught, none outside that main four (and Mr. Lawson, the father of the murdered girl) last terribly long into the movie.

What follow is a fight for survival, with a tentative alliance between the prisoners and the police officers as they try to survive the hail of bullets.  While this is an action movie first, the dialogue between the members of this alliance is legitimately good, far better than one would expect in an exploitation movie.

Stoker and Joston both do an excellent job.  Stoker elevates a fairly stock character, while Joston has to maintain an air of ambiguity his entire performance - something he more than succeeds at.  The smaller roles are also strong, with Nancy Loomis as secretary Julie being a stand out.

I cannot say enough good things about this movie.  Carpenter makes the set feel like a character, and not a single shot is wasted.  The viewer never gets confused about the layout, and the ever-present threat of the gang helps provide an almost oppressive tone.

I would definitely recommend this to fans of the action genre, and even those that are more cool on it.  This is the John Carpenter quality I expected.

8 out of 10

Review: Dark Star (1974)

This review feels like it needs a multitude of caveats.  It was originally a student film, but had edits and reshoots to get to theatrical length.  Said edits shifted it towards a G rating, and said reshoots were a year after the first version of the film was completed.  The resulting film is charming despite (or because?) it wearing its low budget on its sleeve.

Set in the mid-22nd century, the movie follows the crew of the Dark Star, a scouting ship with a sentient AI managing the ship's systems that also has sentient bombs to deploy on unstable planets.  The crew has been on its mission for 20ish years, and their ship is suffering from numerous malfunctions, which has also caused the death of their commanding officer.  The remaining four members are in various states of cabin fever and try to keep themselves entertained in various ways.

Did I mention the film is a comedy?

The comedy is hit and miss, with some bits working especially well: a series of scenes where Pinback (Dan O'Bannon - who also co-wrote the film) is trying to recapture an alien he has brought onboard as a sort-of mascot is fairly solid, and a conversation between the ship and the bomb is also fairly amusing.  But for every scene that works, there is another where the humor doesn't quite land.

The movie is mostly interesting as the first film directed by John Carpenter.  While you do see some of his trademarks, it doesn't quite showcase just how talented he actually was, nor would any contemporaneous moviegoers have expected that the maker of this movie would eventually make three of the greatest horror movies of all time (Halloween, The Fog, and The Thing).

Would I recommend it?  Yes.  The special effects are dated (again, this movie wears its low budget on its sleeve), the acting is a weird mix of good and bad (each actor has good scenes and bad scenes), the story is fairly barebones (though it spins some gold despite this), but despite these criticisms, the movie works.

What would I rate it?  That isn't a simple question.  As previously mentioned, every comment feels like it needs a caveat.  However, I did enjoy the movie.

I'll give it a 6 out of 10, but I could get away with giving it anywhere from a 5 to an 8 depending on my mood.

Review: Backrooms (2026)

How to review a movie like Backrooms?  Based off a creepypasta turned YouTube series, the film follows Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) a furniture store owner who discovers an entrance to the titular Backrooms within his store, and Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve), Clark's therapist who is dealing with her own trauma.  The movie is almost dreamlike in its structure, and it plays with how trauma affects memory while still telling a straightforward story.

I don't quite think that film succeeds at all of its goals - the ending in particular will likely make people throw their hands up in frustration - but it captures an altogether off-putting tone throughout its runtime that makes it well worth watching.

The movie is amazing for how well directed it is by first-time filmmaker Kane Parsons, who had his own Backrooms webseries prior to making this film, with plans to continue said series even after this movie's wild success.

Parsons takes a fairly sparse script and just fills it to the brim with mood and otherworldliness. For a film that could very easily have become 'actors walk through rooms with weird decorations,' Parson deftly dodges that trap with interesting shots and camera movements and - most importantly - no false jump scares to break the tension.  Said tension almost becomes overwhelming in parts due to Parsons refusal to give an easy break.

In fact, that might be one of the greatest strengths of this movie: It trusts that the audience can wait.  The movie isn't scary in the modern sense that the audience would expect, but takes a more traditional slow build approach.

It helps to have Oscar-caliber actors in the lead roles (both Ejiofor and Reinsve have been nominated in recent years) who are capable of filling in the details of these characters and make them feel perfectly human in a situation that feels like it has dream-logic.  There audience won't feel the need to ask why these characters keep going back into the Backrooms, thanks in part to both actors perfectly calibrating their performances to the tone and tenor of the film.

With so much praise for the film, it hurts to have to get into why I ultimately think it doesn't work, but I will: the script just needs a bit more of everything.  The actors fill out their characters well, but we could use a bit more of information other than the therapy sessions and vague memories.  The ultimate resolution is a good ending for the film, but it feels like it leaves out just a little too much of an explanation of what is going on.  The final shots tie into the themes of the movie, but could have used a few more threads so that 'backrooms ending explained' isn't a top search term.

Despite my feeling that the movie ultimately fails to cohere at the end, I am thankful for its existence.  I'd rather have what I consider an interesting failure over what could have been a cheap gore movie that had nothing to say.

6 out of 10, but I could see this one growing on me.

Review: How to Make a Killing (2026)

How to Make a Killing follows Becket Redfellow (Glen Powell), the son of the disowned Mary Redfellow (Nell Williams) who sets about killing various Redfellow family members to move his name up the list of heirs since - while still exiled - he is still among those who could inherit Whitelaw Redfellow's (Ed Harris) billions of dollars.

As the description implies, this is a dark comedy.  I think it is also meant to be satirical - more on that later - but the dark comedy is the main selling point of the film.  We have to get some laughter out of the various ways Becket removes those ahead on him, or the whole movie falls apart.  The movie mostly succeeds at this.  It needs to be meaner (really, it needs to lean more into the satire sitting just at the edges of it) and if it had gone in an American Psycho-but-funny route this might have been an easy 10 out of 10.  But the need to sand off the edges - Powell's Becket doesn't even begin to approach the depravity of Christian Bale's Patrick Bateman - ultimately holds the movie back, resulting in an ending that just doesn't work given the material before.

Which I hate, because many of the performers are clearly having a good time.  In addition to Powell and Harris, the movie has Topher Grace, Zach Woods, and Bill Camp among the family members along with Margaret Qualley as a childhood friend of Becket and Jessica Henwick as his love interest.  All of them give perfect performances for the movie.  It really is an acting showcase, the simple roles given life and idiosyncrasy by the performers who really elevate this film.  The writing really only fails Powell - and even then, mostly at the end - and given the relative size of the roles I don't think anyone fails to make a mark in the screentime given.

Again, it's just the structure of the film that keeps it from greatness.  Powell is just too damn likeable as Becket.  There needs to be charm, sure, otherwise Henwick's Ruth would never become a love interest, but it needed to read as more a facade than the actual Becket.  Powell is clearly doing what is expected of the performance, but each kill becomes less and less credulous the more time we spend with the character.

I almost wish they had gone with a different ending.  It could've still been cold and cynical like the current one, but it needed to be different from the one we end up getting.  It doesn't gel with the character Powell has given us - but it could have if a few changes were made.

Would I recommend this film?  Yes.  Despite the ending, it is overall a fun movie and Henwick and Powell have some real chemistry.

7.5 out of 10

Review: Iron Lung (2026)

Iron Lung, based on the game of the same name, is written and directed by Mark Fischbach (better known as Markiplier), who also stars.  It follows Simon (Fischbach), a convict who 'volunteered' to man a completely sealed sub (nicknamed the Iron Lung) on a distant plant covered with an ocean of blood.  If he can complete his mission, he will be released as a free man.

Pretty basic summary and let me tell you, the movie itself does not give you much more than that.  And it really cripples the film to be so vague, especially when you factor in that the entirety of the film is set within the submarine.  So there is lots of repetition and lots of repetition, with a few dashes of other repetition.

Now, that doesn't have to kill the film - I'd even venture to say that Fischbach somewhat overcomes this despite everything - but the movie definitely could've benefited from maybe having a second writer help out.  Because, in addition to the repetition, the movie is much to vague for its own good.

For a SciFi film - and this is every bit (and almost more) a SciFi film than it is a horror film - you can have a certain amount of mystery about the world, but you need to make up for the lack of specificity in the world by doubling down on it with the characters.  And Simon is not much of a character.  They imply all sorts of thing about his past - some of it even drives his actions in consequential points - but there is an almost criminal lack of detail to the character that keeps the viewer at arm's length even as we need to be rooting for him to escape his various circumstances.

We are already left frustrated by the plot - we never really learn why Simon has been sent to this particular area, or why they want him to collect the samples he does - so missing out on a rich character made this movie a little bit of a struggle.  Even what we do get - The Quiet Rapture that is affecting the universe - is intentionally left as a mystery.

Fischbach does okay as a director and as an actor.  I think someone a bit more seasoned might have found some variations in the performance (did I mention the film is repetitive?) that would've enriched the viewing experience.  The direction occasionally does some interesting things, but I think the challenge of effectively using such a limited space might have been underestimated.

That's really all that can be said about the film.  I think it is a good first effort, and I was interested and invested enough throughout, I just hope any future projects have a bit more collaboration to help the end product.

6 out of 10

Review: Mimics (2026)

It's an odd feeling, watching a movie and seeing that it is a compromised version of itself during the theatrical experience.  Such as the case of Mimics, the killer dummy movie directed by and starring Kristoffer Polaha.  All throughout you can see what the movie wanted to be, but for whatever reason - time constraints?  budget?  a forced PG-13 rating? - it doesn't quite deliver what it seems to want to show the audience.

But I get ahead of myself:  Mimics is the story of Sam Reinhold (Polaha), an aspiring comic whose main schtick is to do voice impressions while also using a puppet on stage.  He gets signed by a mysterious agency with the condition that he use a ventriloquist dummy.  He quickly discovers that it is more than just a dummy, but ignores it as fame and fortune come his way.  His grandfather Melvin (Stephen Tobolowsky) and love interest Virginia (Moriah) notice something is wrong and try to help.

Now, to give the clearest example of how the movie obviously wants to be something other than what it is, I'll use the least spoiler-y but accurate example.  It is very quickly implied that the dummy is more than a dummy and that it can move and act on its own.  We even get an extended kill sequence where it shows us the dummy is the one committing the acts.  And that is the only scene in the entire film where we see the dummy behaving in such a way.

Other characters die, but it's either a weirdly implied death (we do not see anything other than the character dying, and it is just as weird as it sounds) or it reads as more 'cursed object' than malevolence from the dummy in question.  It's a frustratingly incomplete movie in this regard - we are clearly supposed to think the dummy is doing everything, so why so much coyness after we have already seen it in action?

The movie also explains-but-not-really the agency that hires him (and it is implied, did so before and will continue to do so after) and forces him to use the dummy.  There's mythology there - mostly discovered by Virginia - but it never fully connects the dots nor explains what the agency gets out of signing these stand up acts.  It's as if the film is missing 2 or 3 pages of exposition spread throughout the running time.

The movie is also personally hard for me to watch, as it features bad-but-they-are-trying stand up (which is uncomfortable to watch) and then later with mean-spirited stand up (which is even more uncomfortable to watch).  Polaha does a good job in his portrayal, which made me that much more anxious while watching the movie.

Of the other main performances, special mention must be given to Tobolowsky who gives a performance at least two levels higher than this film even asked for, made all the more surprising given that I mostly know him for his comedic work.  Chris Parnell has a fun slightly-larger-than-cameo performance as a late night host, but Tobolowsky stands out as best in show by a mile.

Which isn't to say anyone is bad - I don't think any of the performances miss the mark - it's just that none of them really stand out.

And that really summarizes the film as a whole.  Not too bad, not too great, but ultimately forgettable.  It doesn't have the necessary camp that it needs to overcome the many shortcomings of its compromised story.  I won't say I'd never recommend it, but it would never be my first choice.

5 out of 10

Review: Primate (2026)

Warning: This review will be heavy on the spoilers.  Not explicitly, but to really get to my main criticism of the film, I do have to talk a bit about some of the character deaths.  I will refrain from names, but after going back and forth with myself on how to get to the meat of the criticism, it is just easier to refer to what happens than try to allude.

Primate follows a Ben, a chimpanzee raised by a researcher and taught to sign.  Ben gets bitten and infected with rabies just as Lucy Pinborough (Johnny Sequoyah) arrives to visit her father Adam (Troy Kotsur) and sister Erin (Gia Hunter).  Her mother (who has died before the film starts) is the researcher who raised Ben and the family keeps him around as a kind of pet.  Joining Lucy on this family visit are her college friends Kate and Nick (Victoria Wyant and Benjamin Cheng) and college frenemy Hannah (Jessica Alexander).  Why are so many people visiting her family?  To increase the body count, of course!

This is a mean movie.  No Duh! you think to yourself, It's about a killer chimpanzee!  And you're not entirely wrong about that, but also not entire right.  This movie approaches the kills with a sense of brutality you don't see in too many horror movies.  It's not quite at Terrifier levels, but the first kill of the movie involves someone's entire face being ripped off and that isn't even the most extreme one.

I can appreciate a mean horror movie.  What I don't appreciate is one that wants to be hardcore while still remaining gutless.

Because that is a pervasive problem with the movie.  It wants to shock you with its kills - which, they are graphic and brutal - but it isn't going to dare do something like kill one of the core family members.  Every other person is very obviously a meatbag and every member of the family has script immunity that would make a freshman screenwriter blush.  The amount of attacks - from a rabid chimpanzee, I feel the need to note - that the family members survive with minimal damage borders on parody.

None of this breaks the movie, but it is frustrating for someone who frequently watches horror movies to see this film pull back in such an obvious way.  I'm not saying everyone has to die, but other than a bite one of them receives, everything is pretty much shrugged off, including one part where I am pretty sure all the fingers of one of the characters are bent backwards with an audible snap.

Compare this with one of the meatbag characters who, while getting the goriest kill of the movie (one that will make Best Of lists in the future, I am sure) also has a weirdly rapey buildup before getting to the kill.  Rapey from the chimp, I feel the need to note.  It is obviously meant to push boundaries, and I think others could write a dissertation on how to read that scene, but juxtaposed with what happens with the family, it feels like they are in two different movies.

Or possibly three different movies.  You'll notice Troy Kotsur, a deaf actor, plays the father.  You'd think this would play a more substantial part in the movie, but there is only one scene that really uses his inability to hear to up the tension.  He doesn't get much focus (he is away from the house for the bulk of the movie) but the scene hints at a much for interesting - and likely much more terrifying - version of this film.  It's a missed opportunity.

You'd think with all of these complaints, I'd hate the movie, but it's actually fairly solid.  The kills are great, there is just enough character development to make our characters feel like real people, and the CGI on the chimp is amazing.  It is just so tantalizingly close to being an even better version of itself.  I do think most horror movie fans will enjoy it, and I'd easily recommend it despite my critiques.

7 out of 10

Review: Anaconda (2025)

Reviewing this movie feels a little mean.  It's a perfectly fine film that accomplishes its modest goals and putting a full critical lens on it - which is entirely unnecessary yet here am I doing so - is a bit like being a bullying a small child.  So I will open by saying that this movie isn't bad, it just that it far too often settles for 'good enough' when it could have easily gone for good.

The movie follows a group of childhood friends as they decide to shoot an indie sequel/reimagining/remake of the 1997 so-bad-it's-good movie of the same name.  Griff (Paul Rudd) has acquired the rights to the film, and they set off to the Amazon with a dream and a hired snake owned by Santiago (Selton Mello) to fulfill a childhood dream of making movies together.

I do want to say that the friendship between Griff and Doug (Jack Black) is the best part of the movie.  While Kenny (Steve Zahn) and Claire (Thandiwe Newton) complete the friend group, the Griff/Doug pair is the heart of the film.  And Black and Rudd play it well - more than the movie or the script really call for.  Rudd especially is giving his character all sorts of shading - pay attention to the scene where he springs the idea of remaking the movie - and is the easy best in show.

Sadly, they are really the only ones given anything worthwhile by the script.  Zahn has a few funny bits, but is mostly sidelined while Newton only serves as a love interest and is criminally underused given what she is capable of.  Every other character is a cypher (though Mello does get a few great bits as the snake-handler) and it sucks because all of them have the potential to be funny the movie just doesn't care about them.

When the movie is focused on their poor attempts at making their version of Anaconda, it is at its best.  However, it moves away from that far too quickly and becomes an almost-cliche when it does.  Not only that, but the movie starts to drag in these parts, which is deadly for a feature as short as this one.  A mid-movie twist exists that I don't think surprised anyone, and still the movie continues on past that resolution (with a few meta-jokes about movie production thrown in that do help)

That might be the biggest sin of the film:  It has too many tonal shifts while still trying to play to a wide audience that is expecting a much purer comedy.  I don't know if it should've cut these plotlines out or found a way to better integrate them; maybe they had to cobble them together after substantially trimming the original script and this was the best they could do.

Again, the movie is acceptable.  I think most people will laugh and enjoy it, but I also think by the middle of the year most will have forgotten the majority of the movie.

5 out of 10.

Review: We Bury the Dead (2026)

A problem that many movies have today is that they are mis-marketed.  For example, if you saw the trailer for We Bury the Dead, the recently released Australian horror movie, you would assume that it is not only much more action-packed than the film actually is, but also much more traditional in story structure.  Which this movie is most assuredly not.

We begin in media res, with Ava (Daisy Ridley) flying to the Australian island of Tasmania to assist with a mass casualty event caused by US military experimentation.  The Tasmanian capital of Hobart and much of the surrounding population has been killed by a type of EMP, and Ava and others are going to help with disposal and to potentially find their own missing loved ones who lived in or were visiting the area - Ava's husband having been on a retreat  in the southern part of the island when the accident occurred.

Upon arrival, we hear rumors of some of the dead standing up, but not really alive.  This inspires fear and hope among those with loved ones in the areas, even if the military has a strict Kill on Site order for any of those that 'wake up.'  As the southern part of the island will be the last to be cleared, Ava gets the help of Clay (Brenton Thwaites) to sneak away from her group and try to get to the hotel her husband was staying at.

Now, the time between Ava arriving in Tasmania and her leaving to search for her husband is much longer than that summary would have you believe.  And that is where the marketing for this movie fails it.

This section of the movie is so essential to the story and, if you are not prepared for a protracted world- and character-building section of the film, then it will drive you crazy as it makes you wait for the zombies.  They are hinted at throughout, but the movie is in no rush to get to them.  Instead, we get character work from Ridley and Thwaites and see the monotony of the clean-up of such an event.

When we do eventually get to the zombies, they are worth the wait.  The sound they make is probably the best and the grossest sound for zombies I have come across, and I have seen far, far too many zombie films.  I won't spoil the sound, but it made both myself and the person I was watching the movie with turn away from the screen - it's that effective.

In a way, it's almost a bummer when the road trip part of the film starts.  We do see more zombies - with some fantastic makeup work - but it is at this point where the movie begins to fall into many of the cliches common to the genre.  When a third character is introduced, acting suspicious, I don't think anyone in the theater was surprised at the direction that the film took.  Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but for something that had been decidedly different from most zombie films, seeing it devolve into the cliche is a bit disappointing.

However, the film still works surprisingly well.  While much slower-paced than expected, it tells a good story in unexpected ways, even if it does leave a few big questions unanswered.

7 out of 10

2026 Movie List

The Movies:
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
Backrooms
Buddy
The End of Oak Street
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die
Hoppers
How to Make a Killing
Iron Lung

Mary Beth Barone: Galaxy Brain
Mimics
Mortal Kombat II

Primate
Sarah Millican: Late Bloomer

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Scary Movie
Scream 7
Taylor Tomlinson: Prodigal Daughter
Thrash
We Bury the Dead