Brian Tallerico

A movie that reminds viewers that blockbusters can be morally and thematically complex while they’re entertaining the hell out of you.

With its effective visual language and strongly directed performances, “Backrooms” is more promising than anything else, a sign of what could be built within this subgenre and what its creator could make in the future.

There’s enough death and dismay to make that question surprising, but Victorian Psycho often feels too much like a comedy, one of those movies that nudge-nudges you with a “can you believe this” tone to the filmmaking without giving us enough to believe in.

In a sense, this is Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Throne of Blood,” one of the other Kurosawa’s unequivocal masterpieces, and it earns that comparison in every way.

Mungiu keeps Fjord riveting by letting it unfold as a moral and social quandary more than a mystery.

Say what you will about Refn’s worst work, he often felt like a visionary instead of a replicator. Maybe Hell is discovering that there’s nothing new to say.

A meta reading of “Propeller” is more interesting than the film itself, which is tragically hampered by a distinct lack of ambition and performances that never quite find the right tone. It’s a gift that Travolta made for himself and his family, something he likely wanted to leave as a part of his legacy. That doesn’t make it a good movie.

Our favorite slasher movies are often a little rough around the edges, a little unhinged, and a little inconsistent. And very few of them are this wildly entertaining.

While it’s a bit disheartening to see such a unique performer given such a traditional bio-doc, what comes through in “Life is Short” is the affection for its subject from pretty much everyone he’s ever worked with.

This devastating drama is an act of remembrance for its filmmaker, who has been open about how much of this story is her own. It’s also a reminder of the power of filmmaking to turn the deeply personal into relatable art, and an announcement of a major talent, one who has made the best film of the year to date.

It is a relentlessly brutal movie, one that too quickly becomes monotonous in its cruelty, numbing instead of thrilling viewers.

If all of the dots don’t connect, that feels almost intentional, a way to create a personal connection with the viewer that may be different than anyone else’s. Some will struggle with the lack of cohesion; for others, it will be the best thing about “Mother Mary.” Both are right. And so is Mother Mary when she says these metaphors are exhausting. More movies should be exhausting.

Admittedly, “Noah Kahan: Out of Body” will play better to fans of the subject’s music, but it works as well as it does because it refuses to just be fan service, choosing instead to really capture the complexity of how fame doesn’t alleviate things like anxiety, sometimes even feeding that internal beast.

What “Scream 7” should have or at least could have been, “Faces of Death” effectively digs deeper into the themes that the Ghostface franchise has only been flirting with recently, particularly the impact of becoming not just numb to online violence but weaponized by it.

It’s a film that struggles to maintain its nightmare grip on the viewer as the repetition becomes more numbing than entrancing.

Its worst sin isn’t its stupid characters doing stupid things; it’s that the whole thing feels remarkably lazy, failing to find any tension or even B-movie thrills. You can insult my intelligence within the world of a film, but not in the actual filmmaking, if that makes sense. This movie sure doesn’t.

Chime is yet another reminder that Kurosawa is one of the world’s masters when it comes to unpacking the remarkably fragile line between good and evil.

There are times when what should be escapism approaches “Hostel” levels of viciousness, just one of the many issues with a film that seems incapable of settling on a tone.

Hokum rises above so many films like it because it takes its character’s plight seriously, never winking at the audience, even as the impossible happens.

It’s a sporadically fun movie with obvious influences, but it also lacks in stakes and personality, getting repetitive long before it ends.

Everyone here understands how to thread that needle of being broadly goofy while also keeping the film from turning into a parody. It’s a comedy that’s consistently displays its eccentric personality but rarely feels like it’s desperately pushing a punchline for a laugh.

The Lonely Island brand of humor might at first seem like an awkward fit for horror, but there’s an art to the timing of a well-done splatter flick that shares filmmaking DNA with comedy.

It helps a great deal to have a wickedly fun ensemble ready to play this murderous game, led once again by a physical, engaged, immediate performance from Samara Weaving.

Riley understands that satire can embed messaging in the whimsy. You’ll walk out of this one feeling boosted.

Genuinely inept in every way, “Scream 7” is far and away the worst of the franchise, a shallow rendering of things that worked better in other films.

Sadly, “Dreams” never figures out what it wants to say, and what it does convey is done with so little affect or pulse that it almost feels like an intentional choice to tell a “hot” story in as “cool” a way as possible.

It’s wrapped in an original, funny piece of entertainment, but this is also undeniably a warning.

It’s a narratively simple film that has been interpreted differently by dozens of critics since its Cannes premiere last May, but it’s one that is impossible for this critic to shake, a reminder of what movies can do when they loosen the restraints of traditional narrative and remember that images are meant to evoke as much as they are to explain.