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