Review: Beware Boiúna (2026)

No giant snake movie will ever be as good as 1997's Anaconda.  Not because of the quality, but because it is a perfect storm late 90s cheese, creature effects (both practical and CGI), and misguided filmmaking, topped off with an absolutely legendary performance from Jon Voight.  In a way, the 1997 Anaconda is the inverse of Jaws.  No shark movie could ever live up to that 1975 classic because Spielberg made one of the most perfect films of all time that also happened to be a shark movie.  Anaconda, while not even in the same neighborhood as Jaws (not even in the same city, and possibly state, depending on which you decide to use for reference), is such a pure-blooded example of everything wrong and amazing about genre films that any other giant snake movie can only hope to catch half as much as the lightning in a bottle as Anaconda caught.

Which brings us to Beware Boiúna, 2026's giant snake movie that is a more in line with that 1997 film than the 2025 one starring Paul Rudd and Jack Black.  And guys, it is so close to topping it.  It is a very good movie that is two poor decisions (one small, one impossibly large) from being a genuinely great one.  It is a much more serious movie, though sincere in its seriousness in such a way that it works for the film.  It studiously avoids cheese and every character is given substantially more depth than this genre usually calls for.

Set in Colombia in the present day, the film primarily follows a humanitarian group, - Alli, Callum, and Proctor (played by Jessica Rothe, Will Close, and Christophe de Geest) -  the boat crew taking them down the Amazon river to provide said aid, - Lena and Raul (Kiana Madeira and Jamie Newball), with Lena also on this trip to try and find her brother Jorge (Sergio Herrera) - and the suspicious group sent to study the land for future road builds that becomes antagonistic towards the first group - Brennan and Shawn (Logan Marshall-Green and Jackson Bews).  Now, there are a couple of extra characters associated with the last group, but let's just say they don't matter too much in the long run.

Soon, all of these characters find themselves at a destroyed camp where they encounter the legendary Boiúna - a gigantic snake of legend comparable to the Titanoboa - who proceeds to attack everyone who has wandered into their domain.  It quickly becomes a battle to survive the Amazon and the snake, with high stakes as it becomes clear that no one is safe.  And I do mean no one.  This movie is not afraid to kill any character, something desperately missing from the majority of horror movies.

The time we spend getting to know all of these characters (rest assured, this movie does not rush to get to the titular snake) works wonders to get you invested once the death and destruction begins.  You genuinely root for the characters to survive, and the majority of the deaths actually affect the viewer.  Every moment feels earned.  Even better, they don't try to explain the presence of Boiúna.  There's legends of a giant snake, they discover the legend is true, and then they try to survive.  No muss, no fuss as far as that plot point goes.

Now, I did allude to a pair of mistakes that keep the movie from being truly great.  One of these is fairly minor: the set up for a payoff that never comes (an unfired Chekov's Gun, if you will).  It doesn't really affect the movie, but you wonder why they spent the time on it they did if no follow up was going to happen.

The other involves a character death.  I won't say who, except to say that it is the only death that doesn't feel earned.  It almost feels wrong for the character to have died.  Story-wise, I mean.  Characters meet all sort of undeserved fates in these movies, but from a story structure view, this death didn't work.  It's a really gaping flaw in an otherwise great movie.

The performances are good across the board, with Marshall-Green giving the best performance by a mile and one I did not expect from an actor who usually does solid if unspectacular work.  The effects for the snake are well done, with a real sense of weight to the beast.  The Amazon is scary enough on its own, and works well as the setting for a creature feature.

Would I recommend this one?  In a heartbeat.  While I would tweak it a little bit myself, this is a great creature feature that never stops going once it starts.

8 out of 10.

Review: The Food of the Gods (1976)

Sometimes, watching a movie is like going on a date.  You look at the profile (poster) and maybe read a little bit of their likes and dislikes (i.e. check out various reviews) and then take the plunge.  The Food of the Gods might not be The One as far as these sort of relationships go, but it will definitely be one that I talk about for years.

The film follows a random group of people on an island - and I do mean random: we get a married couple where the wife is 9 months pregnant, a (pro?) football player hunting with his friends, a dog food company owner and his bacteriologist assistant (for if there is one thing you need as the maker of dog food, it is a bacteriologist) and an older couple who live on the island - as various wildlife eats the titular food of the gods and grow to enormous size.  They also develop a mean disposition.

You look at that profile and you have to swipe right, you know?  There are so many red flags interesting tidbits in this that you have to go out with it at least once, to see if the crazy level is really that high.  And, my dear audience, it is.

Like The Empire of the Ants, this uses a mix of terrible special effects to display the large beasts.  Bad puppets - and maybe people in costumes, though I can't say that happens definitively - forced perspective with obviously composite shots, and I'm not exactly sure what they do during the wasp attacks, but I do know that one of them doesn't fly around so much as spin in wild circles in the same section of screen until a gunshot makes it explode.

It was during one of these early moments that I began to fall in love with this movie.  A man walks into a chicken coop and gets attacked by a giant rooster.  He fights off the fakest looking rooster head I have ever seen, yells at the owner of said rooster (completely ignoring the also-enormous chickens also in the coop) and after she scolds him for going into the coop, he drops his complaint and asks to use her phone.  No discussion of what just happened - in fact, he doesn't discuss the giant rooster at all after this point - just moving on as the plot dictates.

There's something to be said for directness, and I was already planning a second date as my passion for this movie grew.  We get to the wasp attack, the owner of the dog food company wants to market and sell the food of the gods - which, since I failed to mention, looks like a flavorless porridge that is leaking from a rock - everyone finds themselves trapped at the older couple's cabin as giant rats swarm around them - how could I not want to watch this again?

But then, cold water was thrown on me just as I expected things to heat up.  For the people fight back against the rats (which, fair) and the movie slows to a crawl as the same argument is had - with slight variations - for far too long of this film's otherwise fleet 88 minutes.  The movie eventually picks up again - the solution is to blow up a dam that in no way, shape or form able to hold the amount of water that pours from it - as if trying to win me back after a bad argument.  And it almost does.  But that draggy section forever means that this passion can only occasionally be indulged.

Would I play cupid with this film and other horror fans?  Probably, as there is so much to enjoy about it.  But far too many others would look at my relationship with this film and judge us both harshly, so I would be selective about who I would recommend it to.

4 out of 10, but what a 4 it was.

Review: The Gingerdead Man (2005)

Tonight's movie was not supposed to be The Gingerdead Man.  I had planned on going to the actual theater to see one, but was instead persuaded to throw this one on.  This had been on my radar as a potential watch - though never near the top of the list - and it seemed an acceptable trade-off since it looked like campy fun.

I was gravely mistaken.

This movie is bad bad.  70 minutes long and you feel every second of it.  Charles Band (producing and directing) is famous for his quick productions, but maybe a little more time on the script and a lot more time on everything else and maybe this could be salvaged, but honestly, I'm not sure anything could save this.

The premise, fairly ridiculous, is this:  killer Millard Findlemeyer (Gary Busey, giving a surprisingly low-key performance) is put to death based off the testimony of Sarah Leigh (one of the most dry yet successful jokes the film makes), played by Robin Sydney.  He vows revenge and somehow ends up possessing a gingerbread man in Sarah's family bakery.  How that happens is never really explained - Wikipedia tells me that Millard's mother mixes his ashes with gingerbread spice mix, but nothing in the film alludes to this - but possess it he does to enact his vengeance.

Tiny killer movies can work - Child's Play has famously lasted for decades, and I am a big fan of the Puppet Master series also produced by Band - but this movie puts precious little effort into doing anything to make our murderous cookie threatening.  You can tell when they actively give up on it by just giving him a gun with endless bullets.

The movie does have a couple of good moments - mostly from Ryan Locke as love interest Amos (the character names are a running joke) - but when the third best moment of the film is the end credits, you are in a dire situation.  Really, thank God for Ryan Locke, who is easily best in show, and to a lesser degree Jonathan Chase as Brick.  I'm not quite sure Chase's performance is good, but it is interestingly weird in a way this movie desperately needs.

How this movie spawned as many sequels as it did - along with being a recurring character in the much longer Evil Bong series - I will never know.  But hey, apparently quite a few people like this franchise, so I guess make that money.

Would I recommend this?  Not even a little bit.  Watch at your own risk.

2 out of 10

Review: The Mangler (1995)

The first movie for this year's October marathon has some pedigree:  Directed by Tobe Hooper (who directed The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) from a short story written by Stephen King, with main characters played by Robert Englund (of A Nightmare on Elm Street fame) and Ted Levine (a few short years after his The Silence of the Lambs performance).  This had all the makings of becoming a horror classic.  However, audience response was muted and critics were savage: it was only in recent years that it has emerged as a cult favorite.  All of this seems surprising, until you read the plot summary and discover that this movie is about a demonically possessed laundry press.

You read that correctly. I have read the short story (which varies slightly from the movie, but only a little bit) and mostly wanted to check out this movie to see just how much they would adhere to the premise.  Would they be true to the story like the adaptation of Carrie?  Would it be similar but notably different like The Shining?  Or would just the name be used and the story not be related at all, a la The Lawnmower Man?  I got my answer, and now I grapple with how I feel about the movie.

The movie isn't bad by any stretch.  England hams it up (complimentary) as our villain, Bill Gartley.  Levine also hams it up (derogatory) as our protagonist, Officer John Hunton.  The movie gives the gore fans what they want with multiple people pulled through the laundry press - with the film happily showing us the results.  The plot, while ridiculous, is played straight and explained well enough, even if the ending of the film feels a bit unearned.  It's very much a mixed bag in the truest sense.

I'm not quite sure it deserves cult status, but worse movies have attained the same so I can't be too worked over it.  It's just weird that this one made it to that level when it isn't really that campy.  I suppose some of that cult comes from devotees of Stephen King or fans of director Hooper, but the former has better adaptations and latter has better films that this.

It's acceptable, I think.  For every good decision there is a terrible one - sometimes at the same time involving the same thing! - but it doesn't do anything truly terrible throughout.  It's just... a random horror movie.  No movie is so bad that everyone hates it - there is always at least one devoted fan - but I have seen many enthusiastic recommendations for this one.  And I can normally figure out where the cult sprang from, even if I don't feel the need to join.  This one has flummoxed me though.

Would I recommend this to others?  I don't know.  It's not the worst way to spend an hour and a half, but I doubt it would ever be the first movie I would grab.  But who knows?  Stranger films than this one have moved into the rotation.

6 out of 10.

Review: Resident Evil (2026)

I want to like this movie more than I do.

I believe in the adage of 'the characters don't know what genre of movie they are in' and try not to go too hard against 'dumb decisions' made by the characters (I doubt I would be clear headed under pressure) but this movie stretched me to the limit of what I will allow a horror movie character to get away with.  Because Bryan (Austin Abrams), our protagonist for this entry, very quickly knows what sort of genre he is in and still makes many, many, many bad choices.

Despite this, the movie is a fun time, it's just one that consistently frustrates me because director Zach Cregger, co-writing with Shay Hatten, could very easily have made small changes to fix the issues with the film.  Stop having Bryan stare, dumbfounded, at the various monsters and maybe have him react?  Or even better, have him oblivious to some of it until the moment the action starts.  It's like watching someone who can hit a home run instead settle for a double.

And rest assured, the bad decisions are not limited to Bryan - every character in this makes poor decisions counter to their knowledge of what is going on, save one.  That one remaining still makes bad decisions, but at least they have no idea what is going on when they make said decisions.

Which is a bummer, because there is quite a bit to enjoy with this entry.  The humor, for the most part, is spot on.  It goes on slightly too long and makes for some awkward moments later in the movie, but I'd definitely say it is a strength.  The acting is also pretty strong across the board, though a good 80% of it falls on Abrams.

Several of the action set pieces are also well done, with Creggar staging some interesting sequences.  He also manages tension very well, with a tunnel scene keeping the audience on the edge of their seats without doing anything other than showing a dimly lit section.  The goods are there, just frequently missing better characters.

Would I recommend it?  Certainly.  Even with my complaints, I'd say this is easily amongst the best this series has to offer, but it might leave some frustrated at the potential greatness it toyed with.

6 out of 10

Review: Heart of the Beast (2026)

In Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, there is a scene between Brad Pitt's Cliff Booth has a sparring match with Bruce Lee (Mike Moh).  The point of this scene, beside adding a bit of action by way of flashback, is to show how strong/good a fighter Cliff is in a not-so-subtle way so that when he fights off multiple other characters later on in the movie, we believe it.  Heart of the Beast, directed by David Ayer, does something similar with James Belmont (Brad Pitt, again) - albeit in a much more subtle way (I shudder to think what a less-subtle version would be) - having a scene where James mentions his military career to help lend credibility to his toughness in the later lost-in-the-wilderness scenes.

It helps initially, but this script by Cameron Alexander stretches the bounds of plausibility well beyond the point of that early conversation.  The script also defeats the film in other ways, both big (you feel every second of this 101 minute movie) and small (someone involved doesn't quite know how many days are in a week).  By being such a slow moving picture, I had time to not only notice that small issue with the days in the week, but various other missteps that a punchier or more action-packed script would've helped to cover.

There's nothing wrong with a more meditative approach to this sort of story, but (to compare it to yet another movie) much like The Revenant in 2015, there is meditative and then there is draggy this film is much more the latter than the former.  It's not as long as The Revenant (thank God), which is a small favor to the audience.  However, there were far too many moments where it lingered in moments where the extra time added nothing to the story.

Even the one thing that gives this movie novelty over the many, many similar films - the dog suffers from PTSD - barely has any bearing on the story.  It doesn't come up in any meaningful way, and for something that the trailers make a point of showing, the lack of any meaningful arc coming of it feels weird - almost like something was cut from the script.

I've made it four (now five) paragraphs into this review without mentioning anything other than the screenplay issues, and I haven't even mentioned them all.  I almost want to make a quick bullet-point list of all the other problems, but it would edge into spoiler territory.  Plus, a review should also cover other aspects of the film in question without harping on one particular part of it, no matter how bad it is.

The film has three characters outside of the dog: in addition to Pitt, J.K. Simmons makes a cameo appearance as someone for Pitt to exposition-dump onto and Anna Lambe shows up for a part so small the character doesn't even have a name.  Because of this, the bulk of the film rests on Pitt (who is adequate to bad, depending on the scene) and the dog Odin (Uber for most of the movie, various other dogs for flashbacks).

The dog is fine, for the most part, but director Ayer has absolutely no idea how to shoot the non-action scenes that focus on the dog in a cinematic way.  So many of those scenes can be summarized as 'the dog stares pensively at James' that I have to wonder if the screenplay gave Ayer to little to work with that he just gave up.

Dang, I am back to the script issues again...

Since we already circled back to it, I think Pitt also struggles with a screenplay that either has no understanding of how an injured body behaves, or.... really, that is the only explanation.  James goes  through quite a bit of abuse in this movie and whether or not that affects his trek through the wilderness seems to depend on what actions the script demands of the character in each particular scene.  It's almost as if scenes are out of order.

This review is coming across as exceptionally negative, but this movie's mediocrity gives me so little to praise about it.  If pressed, I'd say the cinematography is well done, and Simmons is always a solid performer.  That is about all I can commend though.

Would I recommend this movie?  A resolute 'No' - though I get the feeling that most would not be quite as harsh on it as I am.  A forgettable movie.

4 out of 10

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.