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

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

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

Review: Jaws 2 (1978)

So, here's the thing, I think we, as a society, are too hard on this movie.  There are two reasons for this:  The first is that it is a sequel to one of the greatest movies ever made - one that doesn't really need a sequel.  When you are following up a stone cold classic there is a high bar to be met, and Jaws 2 does not meet that bar.  It doesn't even get close, but what movie could?  Many a sequel has met a similar fate.  The Lost World: Jurassic Park immediately comes to mind as another sequel treated harshly and, like Jaws 2, later sequels would prove that it could've been much, much worse.

The second reason, and far more relevant to this review, is that the is no credible way to do this sequel and not stretch the bounds of believability.  The audience can very easily believe that somewhere another giant shark starts terrorizing a beach community.  If you really want characters from the first film to return, it isn't too much to have them contacted and brought in to assist against this new threat.  They could have easily made this movie make sense with a few changes to the script.

Instead, we get the very same community again facing a giant shark, the very same leadership refusing to believe that there is a shark, and the very same family having to defeat said shark to save the day.  And I get it.  You want Roy Scheider to return after his absolutely iconic performance as Martin Brody in the original.  Lorraine Gary is the wife of the (at-the-time) president of the studio, so bringing her back to make sure the budget is where it needs to be makes sense (she also is great as Ellen Brody).  Having filmed in the area before gives familiarity to those behind the camera.  I understand why certain choices were made.

But damn do those choices hobble this movie in substantial ways that can't really be overcome.  I will still argue for its value as far as the movie-watching experience is concerned.  It is a perfectly fine movie and it has some pretty great scenes scattered throughout even if it never reaches the highs of the original.  It just needed to be completely divorced from the original to be judged fairly, but the screenplay makes that an impossible task.  The movie as it exists is so tied to the previous one that any attempt to comment on it without bringing up its predecessor is a herculean task.

To expand on the summary from above:  Another shark starts terrorizing Amity Island, with it initially killing two divers photographing the sunken boat from the first movie.  They just so happen to get shots of the shark during the attack, and when Brody finds the camera and gets the photos developed, he immediately sees the shark and wants to shut down the beaches.  And no one believes him.

And we have already hit the point where the audience is collectively saying "Are you fucking serious?!"  It's such a dumb plot point.  If you excise this from the movie - maybe just have Brody continue to be suspicious after the earlier deaths in the film, then develop the pictures and immediately go to rescue his two sons.  You've removed the dumbest part of the plot and made it ten times more believable as far as ridiculous sequels go.  Maybe slide in another random attack if length is a concern, but this ostracization of Brody is unnecessary.

Because if you ignore that subplot (and I highly recommend you do), you have a modestly effective killer creature film.  The early attack on the skier and the boat driver is well done, as is the later attack on the sail-boating teenagers.  I'd say the latter scene is the movie at its best as it captures the terror and confusion inherent in such an attack, along with setting up the flotilla of crashed boats that leaves them stranded.  The scene where they try to save an unconscious Mike Brody (Mark Gruner, who I am not ashamed to say I had a huge crush on when I was younger) is incredibly tense.

One can certainly argue that this is a slasher movie with a shark as the killer, but even by that standard, it is perfectly fine.  You get just enough fleshing out of the teenagers to be able to separate them from one another.  Scheider as Brody is a solid actor who carries the film well despite absolutely hating the script and production, with a fight breaking out between him and director Jeannot Szwarc.

While Jaws is an easy recommend, I'm a bit more ambivalent on this one.  I enjoy it, and think it is unfairly maligned, but I can't really argue with people who think the plot is stupid (since it is for large parts) or that it can never live up to the first film (also a legitimate complaint).  I'd guess I'd recommend it with the mentality of treating it as a purely popcorn flick:  Don't take it too seriously and just have fun.

7 out of 10

Review: The Faculty (1998)

Tonight's movie was not supposed to be The Faculty: The plan had been to watch Night of the Comet, a borderline horror film from 1984.  However, issues with the Blu-ray player forced me into a streaming solution, so this film was quickly slotted in.  Thus, I ended up with the second movie from 1998 to feature Josh Hartnett (after the previously-reviewed Halloween H20, his debut film).

This movie is a combination of The Thing, The Breakfast Club, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers: partly homage (there is a decapitated head that crawls across the ground that couldn't be anything but) and partly a twist on those various movies' formulas.  And it is a fun twist on them.  It doesn't rewrite any of the genres it is pulling from, but it does use the tropes wisely.

The plot: Aliens are invading a small town by sticking parasites inside the brains of various people, with them starting at the local high school.  Various students (played by Elijah Wood, Josh Hartnett, Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall, Shawn Hatosy, and Laura Harris) realize that something weird is going on and work to stop the invasion.

Now, in case you didn't notice, that is quite a stacked cast for our students.  It also extends to the titular faculty, with Robert Patrick, Piper Laurie, Bebe Neuwirth, Famke Janssen, Jon Stewart, and Salma Hayak.  How this movie got such a cast, I cannot say (did director Robert Rodriguez have that much pull post-From Dusk till Dawn?), but it definitely works in the film's favor.  Most of these actors could play these roles in their sleep, but everyone is 100% committed to the characters they are playing.  Patrick, in particular, is having a blast as the asshole football coach.

If I am going to criticize any aspect of the script, it would be that the students figure out the basics of the aliens far too fast.  Part of that is because of the runtime of 104 minutes (precious little time given how many characters there are), but it would've been nice if the discovery of weaknesses/anatomy were discovered by accident or happenstance.  Even with the caveat of the smartest one being a drug dealer who makes his own drugs (to give him science credibility, I guess?), it reads as a bit forced.

To keep this review relatively short (compared to my other reviews) this is a fun little time capsule and an above-average teen horror flick.  An easy recommend

7 out of 10

Review: The Relic (1997)

The Relic follows Dr. Margo Green (Penelope Ann Miller), an evolutionary biologist at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, and Det. Vincent D'Agosta (Tom Sizemore), a lieutenant with the Chicago Police Department, as a strange series of killings occur in and around the museum.  The killings are especially brutal, with entire brains removed from the head - and the full brain is never recovered.  What could be doing such a thing?

A monster, to answer that question.  For The Relic is a creature feature, one where the creature is partly played by the best CGI 1997 had to offer (so, very dated as of 2025) and partly played by a creature designed by the legendary Stan Winston that has aged very well.  The movie makes you wait a long time for a full shot of the creature - possibly too long, given that we know there is a monster about long before the characters do - but once it is revealed, it is quite a site to behold.

The creature is one of the main reasons I chose to revisit this movie after having not seen it in many years.  It's an inventive design, an amalgamation of multiple animals that - at least in the practical appearances - blend into a familiar yet otherworldly monster that feels truly threatening.  It's a bummer when the CGI takes over (though it is above average for the time period) because that loss of weight to the creature really takes you out of the movie.

But back to our plot:  Our cold open shows us Dr. John Whitney (Lewis Van Bergen) interacting with a tribe in Brazil.  This tribe gives him something strange to drink, which appears to affect him both physically and mentally.  We then cut to him desperately trying to get his cargo off of a ship before it leaves and being refused.  Why does he need that cargo so badly?  We won't find out until near the end of the movie, so buckle up.

The movie plays at being a mystery for a good chunk of the first half of the movie, which is the weaker half by far.  Most of this time is spent with Vincent and his partner as they try to figure out what is going on (and he seems to be the only one that realizes something especially weird is going on).  We do break away from him to see Margo and her museum adventures (namely: checking out some weird fungus on the leaves sent to them by Dr. Whitney), but mostly we are waiting for the two storylines to converge as the plot spins its wheels far too long with subplots from the book that don't really have any bearing on the main story.

At least it is well acted.  Miller and Sizemore both carry the film easily without ever feeling like they are above the material.  You also have Linda Hunt, James Whitmore, and Chi Muoi Lo providing vivid characterization in their supporting roles (Lo, in particular, plays an annoying sleazeball incredibly well).  Even the bit parts have some nice moments scattered throughout.  It helps keep the movie entertaining before we get to the monster, which is a good thing since the plot meanders a bit.

Once the monster reveals itself - during the big exhibition on Superstition, to make sure things are already as creepy as possible - it's basically a race to see who will survive and who will escape (and how will they defeat the monster) until the finale.  While I might sound blasé about it, the use of the exhibit is one of the strongest bits of production design in the film.  It allows the film to be purposely dark and sets a great tone going into the final act of the film.

Would I recommend this film?  Yes.  It's a bit dated in the graphics, but it works really well as a creature feature, and it is worth it for the practical version of the monster.  It doesn't rewrite the genre, but it is a fine way to spend a couple of hours.

7 out of 10

Review: The Black Scorpion (1957)

The Black Scorpion follows a pair of geologists, Drs. Hank Scott and Arturo Ramos (Richard Denning and Carlos Rivas) as they go to investigate a new volcano that has formed in Mexico.  Along the way, the meet and have Teresa Alvarez (Mara Corday) join them, and also discover that prehistoric giant scorpions have been released by the volcano and are terrorizing the countryside.

So, I kind of love this movie?  It's such a weird juxtaposition of plotlines and acting.  Once the giant scorpions make their appearance, you'd expect that to dominate the plot.  The script has other ideas though, as we spend far to much time (soooo much time) on the romance plot between Hank and Teresa.  Like, they go out for an extended dinner scene at one point.  While the threat of giant scorpions is still present.

The scorpions are a mix of three different movie techniques: overlaying an actual scorpion over the film footage (also used in parts of Empire of the Ants); stop-motion animation done by Peter Peterson - who worked on The Giant Behemoth - and supervised by Willis O'Brien of King Kong fame (the 1933 version); and a scorpion 'head' to use for close up/reaction shots.  Which I will let speak for itself

Who expected the movie poster to be so spot on?

The stop motion effects are actually very, very good.  I'd say they are better and more realistic than some of the CGI used in movies today, and that's probably about a third of the reason this movie lives on today (the other half being its appearance on MST3K).  While the budget was greatly reduced here vs their other movies, they still worked some magic for the scorpion scenes.

But back to the script:  For as destructive as these scorpions are (and as large, they can easily pick up and flip a tank) there is precious little urgency from our main characters.  Even as they themselves are fleeing the creatures, it's played more as a mild inconvenience than something life-threatening.  Normally I'd complain about the introduction of a child to up the stakes, but thank God they did or our main characters would never have felt urgency.

That lack of urgency does cause the movie to drag at points, but there is enough destruction scattered throughout that it never feels too long.  It definitely gives the audience a pretty stellar final battle with the biggest of the scorpions.  But even that scene has a moment of weirdly lackadaisical delivery and an inadvertently hilarious setback for the characters.

Can I recommend this film?  Yes, with the caveat that it is probably best watched with friends and mockery ready to go.  Don't take this movie seriously - have fun with it.

It's really a 4 out of 10, but I'll give it a bonus point for the chuckles I got mocking it.

5 our of 10

Review: Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later (1998)

My main goal with this month's horror movies has been to watch movies I had never seen before.  Or, failing that, had not watched since I was a child.  This was mostly successful, sans three of the movies (Psycho, Psycho, and Clown in a Cornfield all failed both criteria, though the latter Psycho was probably the closest to meeting my criteria).  However, sometimes you just want a comfort watch, and while Halloween H20 (I am dropping the unnecessary and stupid 20 Years Later) isn't a masterpiece, it's nice to go into one of these films knowing exactly what to expect.

Directed by Steve Miner - who also directed the second and third Friday the 13th films, along with producing Dawson's Creek - seems an odd choice.  With more experience with the pre-Scream slashers, there is a bit of rough edges to his work on one filled with 90s cynicism and irony.  He does a fine job - I'd say there are two scenes that are absolutely stellar from a horror perspective - but there feels like a lack of enthusiasm for the project.

The film famously was the first starring role of Josh Hartnett - getting a special 'Introducing' credit - though he isn't given much to do once Michael Myers reaches the school where he and his mother, Headmistress Tate (Jamie Lee Curtis) - actually Laurie Strode with a faked death and name change - attend and work.  It's mostly the Jamie Lee Curtis show, though her and Hartnett do get some nice scenes together during the plot establishment part of the movie.

That plot: 20 years after the first two movies (four, five, and six are erased from this timeline), Laurie Strode has son and severe PTSD.  She drinks heavily, especially around Halloween, and is overprotective of her child.  He has just turned 17 and has grown tired of this, and after Laurie initially refuses to let him go on a school trip to Yosemite, he makes plans with his girlfriend Molly (Michelle Williams) and friends Charlie and Sarah (Adam Hann-Byrd and Jodi Lyn O'Keefe) to have an impromptu Halloween party.

At the same time, Michael Myers (played by stuntman Chris Durand) has broken into the now-dead Dr. Loomis's house and killed Marion (Nancy Stephens, reprising her role from the original) and stealing all of Loomis's information on Laurie.  Two neighbors of Marion also get killed, including actual 17-year-old (at the time) Joseph Gordon-Levitt in what may have been a surprise cameo?  Either way, it is fun to see him kick the bucket before the opening credits.

Michael uses the stolen information to get to Laurie, people die, there really isn't anything new to the plot once we get to this point.  There's some weird humor in the film - I think an attempt to be hip where they fail horrendously.  They are much more successful in the many homages to other horror films - Janet Leigh appearing as a secretary whose first line is complaining about a clogged shower, Laurie telling John (Hartnett) 'to go to the McKenzies' - but if someone complained about too many references, I wouldn't be arguing too strongly against them.

Despite its flaws, this might be the best film in the series after the first two.  The 2018 legacy sequel could've made a claim before the second and third films retroactively made it worse, so H20 - flaws and all - continues to hold that title.

Would I recommend it?  Only if you want more Halloween after finishing the first two films.  I'd definitely recommend skipping all of the other sequels and remakes (though I have not seen the infamous Halloween III that does not feature Myers in any way) and stopping with this one.

6.5 out of 10