Brian Tallerico

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.

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.

The third chapter is better than the middle one by virtue of having at least a few new ideas and one less CGI wild boar, but it’s still a shapeless mess, a movie that might have worked as the final act of one film.

It’s such a non-movie that it actually becomes difficult to review because there’s so little to hold onto that it dissipates from memory while you’re watching it. There are no laughs. The plot is inane. The action choreography is insulting. It is such a lifeless piece of product creation (not filmmaking) that even writing about it feels like a waste of time, much less watching it.

Luke Greenfield’s atrocious Playdate is a remarkably stupid movie that thinks you’re remarkably stupid too.

It’s a messy movie that produces frustration instead of fear, and its nods to commentary on gender roles and the need to become and stay beautiful feel shallow and insincere.

It turns out the creators of this cash grab are aggressively unwilling to go much of anywhere at all.

Edward Berger’s “Ballad of a Small Player” is one of the most over-directed films I’ve ever seen. And I’ve been playing this specific game for a long time.

Yeon Sang-ho’s The Ugly is a dour, depressing drama, a movie that gets so lost in its lethargic structure that it feels like a chore.

Ultimately, “Eenie Meanie” is a collection of clichés in search of an actual movie. Too often, Shawn Simmons mistakes profanity for toughness and violent outbursts for plot, trapping us with what is mostly a bunch of loathsome idiots for 94 minutes without the craft of a Tarantino or the visual acumen of a Wright to make it worth the captivity.

Ultimately, it feels like Cognetti has lost sight of what people loved about the first movie.

Desperation destroys comic timing, and this thing is drenched in the flop sweat of a stand-up comedian who knows he’s losing his audience.

Give me a silly movie that knows it’s dumb on a hot summer day every year. This isn’t that. It’s so much dumber than it thinks it is.

There’s just so much missing, including logic.

Daniela Forever, Nacho Vigalondo’s first film since his excellent “Colossal,” eight years ago, is a baffling disappointment, a sci-fi mindbender with echoes of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Inception,” but no idea what to do with its many ideas or what it’s ultimately trying to say.

It feels like all the good ideas during the pre-production of “Until Dawn” were sanded down until the film lost almost all of its edge, wit, and actual horror. All that’s left is a depressingly repetitive exercise in hyperactive editing, overheated sound design, and forgettable characters.

The Amateur skims the surface of what has worked in spy thrillers of the past, never finding its own rhythm, identity, or personality.

Cognetti’s skill with found footage does him no favors here, as this flick is laden with awful dialogue, worse performances, dumb plotting, and a truly inane ending. Set your horror GPS to a different location.

Locked starts promisingly, and then almost refuses to really go anywhere, trapped by its own concept and unwillingness to do anything thematically richer than “wealthy people be crazy.”

It’s a story about how people hide their true selves behind costumes like the perfect wife or even the forced whimsy of Tulip Season. Its tragic misstep is how much it refuses to actually look under those surfaces.

Yes, great musicals have been built on “the power of love” before. But pulling that off requires something this movie never has: a heartbeat.

Ostensibly a commentary on celebrity culture and the fawning journalists around it, “Opus” is one of those movies that throws talking points at the wall without having an actual point of view on any of them.

By and large, "Dear Santa" feels as if someone took a Diary of a Wimpy Kid book and added some truly weird Satanic mythology.

Some of the voice work elevates what could have been a total disaster, and the legendary Alan Menken drops a couple of entertaining compositions, but it's a largely forgettable venture that families will watch during Thanksgiving break before the Netflix algorithm buries it forever.

There’s so little “fun” here, feeling as if everyone is merely fulfilling an obligation. I was excited for another time jump movie with a twist. After this one, I just wanted my time back.

Jason Blum is a powerful, underrated force in the industry, but I wish he would empower his chefs to cook more interesting horror movie meals.

Consistently boring in a manner that almost feels defiant, “Slingshot” plays as a shallow COVID lockdown allegory for most of its runtime, before insultingly spiraling off the rails. It feels like a movie that hates its characters. And hates you too.