David Jenkins

Watkins’ slick direction and McAvoy’s frankly terrifying performance make this an effective, worthy if not essential entry into the “If you go out to the woods today…” creepy canon.

It’s a fascinating, chilling, if limited study of how the endless cycle of global warfare plays out.

It’s an unhurried story, one which drinks in the details of existential ennui suffered by kids who are supremely aware of the fact that they’ll probably have to take a bullet very soon. The question that remains is which direction will it come from.

It’s superior to the stuffy, lore-obsessed recent Scott films, yet doesn’t hold an atmospherically flickering candle to the original or its sequel. It also doesn’t have the rough-and-ready, overreaching character of Fincher’s famous folly. Yet it makes for a decent time at the pictures, and the grinding first half is worth enduring for a pleasantly rip-snorting finale.

There’s a breezy panache to Wang’s direction, and he’s very good at capturing the comic skulduggery of, say, early instant messaging apps. It’s a shame, then, that it doesn’t have an original bone in its gangly, hunched frame.

Celiloglu’s carefully calibrated performance, combined with a screenplay which never descents to scurrilous signposting, makes Samet a person of endless literary intrigue – a monster and a martyr trapped inside the same body.

Shawn Levy’s Deadpool & Wolverine is a mixed (ball) bag indeed, definitely not unendurable, and even boasting a couple of nuggets of misty-eyed nostalgia that aren’t instantly undercut by playground irony, but for the most part it does boast the hit-and-miss qualities of polytechnic sketch comedy.

If the spectacle of a film high-fiving itself from across the decades makes you feel physically nauseous, and one that opts for minor variations on a tried-and-tested formula over doing and saying something, anything even vaguely interesting, then hop into your busted blue Chevy Nova, hightail it past the Beverly Hills city limits and never look back.

What makes Sasquatch Sunset a cut above what some might perceive to be an extended Funny or Die sketch is that it’s crafted with such care and with a sense of cinematic grandeur, achieved via Mike Gioulakis’ gorgeous, mussy cinematography and the gentle pastoral sounds of The Octopus Project on the soundtrack.

As a piece of compelling and coherent narrative filmmaking, Hounds is unfortunately a fun beginning, a silly ending and with a mid-section that’s missing in action.

This time around it’s the same characters, the same gags, the same minions, the same wacky yet bland animation style, yet all with massively diminishing returns.

MaXXXine is the weakest chapter in this throwback horror saga as West just cannot seem to decide what film it is he’s making. And by the time he does, he sadly opts for the most boring and narratively underwhelming one.

The entries into this wicked compendium are more interesting due to their differences rather than their similarities, suggesting that all types of people have their lives ruined by some variety of existential conundrum. And that is something that creates a sprawling lattice of deep human connectivity.

Despite some pacing issues and the fact it leans a little to heavily on extended visual longeurs, this is a fine second feature from Mortensen.

Witless nonsense is still witless nonsense when it’s in quote marks, and following a strangely detailed set-up, the film lurches into a second half in which the kill count rises exponentially, alongside the feeling of skull-compounding boredom.

Jim Davis’ once-witty comic-strip creation is no slouch when it comes to commercial tie-ins, but The Garfield Movie somehow marks some kind of obscene apotheosis of this dark art.

It’s a film that heads to the shadowy spots that most filmmakers on this sceptred isle don’t even know exist; every frame exuding both a breathless confidence and a warped visual literacy which suggests a director on a mission to do anything to make an audience feel something – which is completely refreshing to behold.

It passes the test that all these films must undergo with flying colours: yes, it makes you want to watch those incredible movies.

The film is beautifully staged and executed, maintaining well-defined emotional contours and never allowing things to descend into mainstream sentimentalism.

This is a grimly refreshing and confident toe-dip into the world of horror, and we hope Duane choses to revisit this atmospherically murky pool.

What begins as an apparently modest, small-scale drama, ends in a moment of ethereal beauty, for both characters and viewers.

Despite its laid back tone and a committed performance from Erivo, the film lacks for surprise and innovation, slowly edging towards a revelatory climax that only the most narrow-sighted of viewers would not have seen coming from a million miles off.

Where this film excels is in the basics – it doesn’t take any risks and just choses to do the simple things well.

Silver Haze is a hacked-away crosscut of life on the social fringes, a Molotov soap opera powered by committed performances and containing characters who are, to a man, sculpted with genuine depth and humanity.

The Sweet East takes an admirably measured look at societal fracture in the modern age, and its use of arch provocation becomes a device to represent a highly recognisable vernacular of despair, where obscenity (both verbal and corporeal) is the only language that cuts through the chaff.

It’s a chilling and expertly constructed work which goes on to suggest that our finicky anxieties will end up getting the best for us.

One thing to emphasise is that this is a very funny film, yet the humour doesn’t ever come from jokes or contrived set-ups. It’s more a sense of looming realisation that this caper – explained and justified over a single pint in a pub – is even more flawed that we ever might have imagined.

Everything about the film is undercooked and lazy, and one is led to hope that this franchise is put back in the deep freeze for a very long time.