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
Beware Boiúna
Buddy
Digger
The End of Oak Street
Godzilla Minus Zero
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die
Heart of the Beast
Hoppers
How to Make a Killing
Iron Lung
Lee Cronin's The Mummy

Mary Beth Barone: Galaxy Brain
Mimics
Mortal Kombat II

Primate
Resident Evil
Sam Morril: Incorrect
Sarah Millican: Late Bloomer

Send Help
Scary Movie
Scream 7
Supergirl
Taylor Tomlinson: Prodigal Daughter
Thrash
We Bury the Dead
Wildwood

Review: Wake Up Dead Man (2025)

I can see what made this movie divisive.  It's much less a comedy than the previous Benoit Blanc movies (those being Knives Out and Glass Onion), it has much less of beloved detective (I'd have to see official - or unofficial -  screen times to confirm, but I'd say that Daniel Craig's onscreen presence is drastically lower than Josh O'Connor and possibly on par with the larger supporting performances in this same film), and I'd say it has some of the most uneven acting of the franchise (though I will go into specifics on that later in the review).  However, this slight deviation from the norm works incredibly well in my opinion.  It's too early to say if this is my favorite in the series, but it certainly can make a case for the most compelling.

We start this movie with narration from Pastor Jud Duplenticy (O'Connor) as he tells the audience how he came to be the associate pastor at Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude under Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin).  We see the young pastor arrive and how Jefferson treats Jud - not very kindly - as well as Jud's attempt to meet and get to know the church 'clique' played by Jeremy Renner, Glenn Close, Kerry Washington, Thomas Haden Church, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, and Daryl McCormack.  We also quickly learn that this clique is, by Jefferson Wicks's design, pretty much the only attendees of the church as he chases out any new parishioners and that they, like Jefferson, view Jud as an outsider who doesn't belong.

These introductory scenes are where we first get our discrepancies in performance: O'Connor is actually quite brilliant in all of his interactions, but while some rise to his performance - notably Close and Scott - the rest fall between satisfactory and uninspired.  Writer/director Rian Johnson has generally been fairly good at casting actors to inhabit the satirical character archetypes for these movies, but the more serious timbre of this movie makes these early scenes feel misplaced, both in performance and tone.  It doesn't derail the movie in any way, but it certainly prepares the audience for something more akin to the previous films instead of what this one ultimately ends up being.

Eventually, we get to our murder (for what good is a whodunnit if there isn't a murder to be solved?) and Blanc enters the story.  The movie presents itself as something of a locked door mystery: the character who dies does so in a room with only a single entrance, and all of our suspects are either in the pews of the church or clearly visible to those populating the pews.  One can make an educated guess - I was only partly correct with mine - on who is guilty, but the movie takes its time getting to the reveal.  In a subversion of the usual storytelling of this series, not only do we get Jud working with Blanc fairly early, but we spend most of that time watching what amounts to a character study of a young priest grappling with guilt (though, minor spoiler, not the guilt of this specific murder) and trying to hold on to a faith that has been tested and is wavering in the face of an impossible situation.

I think that switch from the formula, more than any other, plays into the reception this movie has received.  I loved it.  It helps that O'Connor gives what may be the best performance not just of this movie, but of the series - and I only hesitate in definitively saying it is the best because I want more time to sit on this film before making such a claim.  But while the previous 'assistants' to Blanc have had their own inner lives, we never saw one laid this bare for us, the audience, to see.  And as it deals with personal faith - always a touchy subject - I can very easily see it making some uncomfortable.

Now, I alluded to the inconsistency of the rest of the cast earlier, and I do want to get into the specifics of what I think went wrong, but I do want to say that only one of these performances do I consider to be a bad performance.  Most are perfectly adequate for the film, but they do not rise to the masterclass that O'Connor is giving, which makes them stand out.

First, the performances that did meet that level:  Glenn Close, Andrew Scott, and Daniel Craig.  Craig, though given less of the focus than he normally does, still finds new shades and twists to Blanc, and it never feels like this is a new person with the same name.  Close gives a devoted and rigid performance - watch the way she carries herself in various scenes and you will notice all the subtle ways she displays her character's emotions.  Scott, given far less than the other two, still feels like the most realistic of the archetypes; an almost mundane awfulness that fits the tonal shift far better than the others.

Kerry Washington and Daryl McCormack hit the archetypes well, they just don't fit into this movie.  Drop them into Knives Out or Glass Onion, and they would be great, but this movie calls for a little bit more in the performance and neither quite hits that mark.  They feel a bit too large for what this movie needs.  On the opposite end, Mila Kunis (as the local police chief) isn't playing an archetype, but almost fails to be a character entirely for lack of anything noteworthy for her to do.  She's fine, but you could grab any other half dozen actresses and their performance wouldn't deviate from hers in any way.  Kunis has proven how electric she can be onscreen - Black Swan proved that - but this script doesn't give her much to stretch those acting chops on.

Spaeny and Church both have that room to breath that Kunis was missing, but they underplay it a bit too much.  Both are closer to the 'real' performance of Scott, but don't quite punch it up enough when they need to.  Again, neither are bad, they just feel like they are missing something.

Josh Brolin as Jefferson though is the most frustrating of the performances though.  He is so good at so much of the performance:  the bullying, the mind games, the manipulations, the self righteousness - all of it is perfectly played.  It just lacks charisma.  I can see that character doing everything that he does, I just don't see how he gets a devoted clique out of it.  It's Jim Jones without the magnetism, and the performance desperately needs that missing piece.  It's constantly on the cusp of brilliant except for that.

Now, the bad performance: Jeremy Renner.  I don't know what happened here, but it is easy to imagine he wandered onto the set, did a single take, then packed it in for the day.  The characterization is weirdly inconsistent - it's hard to point to any particular moment in the movie where two of his scenes feel like the same character.  Renner is capable of being great, but this performance isn't just phoned in - it's a partially erased message on the answering machine.  Bridget Everett - as a two-scene, mostly vocal performance - does more in her 5 minutes of screentime than Renner does with an embarrassment of opportunities.  A totally misjudged performance.

Outside of the performances, this movie continues the franchise's streak of great production design.  The church and rectory both feel very real, and we spend a large amount of time in them without them ever feeling fake.  Not only that, but the levels of both are used incredibly well to keep the movie dynamic in what would read as a static setting.

So, even as I write this, I see how I go back and forth between praise and criticism, between joy and exasperation: this movie is contradictory, but in the best way.  I will not judge anyone who doesn't enjoy it, but the various faults of this movie only serve to make the bright spots shine even brighter.

8 out of 10