Dennis Harvey

The care that goes into Veronica’s assembly is still ultimately let down a bit by its content: This movie just takes too long getting somewhere that isn’t different enough from umpteen other recent “haunted family” chillers in the “Conjuring” mode.

Journey’s End never feels over-talkative, dull or even particularly claustrophobic. Much of the credit goes to the astute writing and punchy yet understated staging. But primarily, the film keeps audiences engrossed in the personalities involved, their fatigue, disillusionment and residual humanity, as well as the tenderness they extend towards one another where needed.

Even if the ending falls something short of memorable, Juggernaut still holds attention as a strong, well-acted effort that effectively walks the line between dysfunctional family drama and revenge thriller.

Riedelsheimer is well-matched to Goldsworthy’s methods and interests.

Midnighters is brisk and eventful. Yet as a thriller driven by constantly worsening straits, it’s not as cleverly twisty as it would like to be, nor are the well-played characters granted enough dimensionality for their dynamics to be all that surprising or convincing.

David Turpin’s screenplay is adequate but slender, with rather too few complications and a foundational mythology that, when finally revealed, proves pretty skimpy itself. That doesn’t trouble O’Malley. He brings so much gloomy, lustrous visual enchantment to the tale that it feels quite bewitching while you’re watching it.

Just when you thought nothing new could be done with the undead, “The Cured” pulls off a fresh take on zombie terrain.

Becks is the kind of modest, non-earthshaking indie enterprise that ends up being so satisfying mostly because it’s about a character type familiar from real life but all too under-represented at the movies.

Outside In feels eventful, even somewhat suspenseful, as we worry that being around so many screwups of one sort or another might endanger Chris’ still-fragile freedom.

Though well-cast and competently written, The Ritual owes its primary effectiveness not so much to story or character per se as to the unsettling atmosphere Bruckner and company have eked out of the forest itself.

Heinz, demonstrating considerable assurance in his feature directorial bow, makes good use of the chemistry between the two musicians.

Hamm’s bleary but still debonair presence, Gilroy’s cynically witty dialogue, and the not-quite-confusingly-large array of colorful characters underline how Beirut aims to be less a statement about Middle Eastern strife than a good yarn propelled by the unpredictable currents of international politics.

Artfully assembled and often entertaining, the diverse whole nonetheless doesn’t quite gel, with the film finally coming off as somewhat pretentious and heavy-handed.

Its intrigue and action neither very well developed nor integrated, Showdown in Manila feels like a checklist of elements typical of such movies — hey, where’s our training montage?!? — with arthritic-level connective tissue.

If this hour-long collage might fairly be summed up as little more than an inspired goof, of primary interest to cineastes, it’s nonetheless one whose giddy fun will hold up for such an audience through repeat viewings.

The script has been written compactly if without great imagination by Nicolas Aaron Mezzanatto, and directed likewise by actor-turned-helmer Donowho, whose work here reps an uptick from his prior, mostly B-grade horror features.

Though lent a degree of executional grace by helmer Mark Pellington, Nostalgia nonetheless emerges an inorganic experiment that might’ve seemed more at home developed for the stage or as a novella.

Solidly pro in overall packaging yet cliched, pedestrian and indistinct in specific contributions, this thriller never finds (let alone raises) its own pulse.

All told, it’s a well-crafted but middling drama whose attention-catching gimmick only gets in the way.

Mainwood’s fidelity to Briggs’ illustrative aesthetic is welcome, as it maintains a homey, appropriately somewhat retro air redolent of pencil sketches and pastels. Hewing to the book’s sparse text is a little less ideal.

There’s scant room for characterization, and when the dialogue isn’t banal or cringe-inducing, it aims for generic smirking-wiseguy quippage. No matter: The performers rise ably to what are primarily physical (rather than “acting”) demands, the energy level is fairly non-stop, and there’s a lot of visual stimulus to keep idle minds further occupied.

Antiporno has plenty of nudity and (non-graphic) sexual content. Nonetheless, viewers seeking titillation are much less likely to be satisfied than those who’ll appreciate this surreal, aesthetically bold gizmo as the latest left-turn in its creator’s idiosyncratic career.

What ultimately keeps “Land” from rising above mediocrity — even to the level of guilty pleasure — is that Ian Patrick Williams’ screenplay is such a stock compilation of gangster tropes, the film has little chance of developing a personality all its own.

The result is a film that somehow manages to be fairly watchable, yet nonetheless really needed intervention from the conceptual stage onward.

Though at first glance this ironically-sweet-and-very-sour mix might seem unappetizing, even repellent, it soon becomes fascinating in its oddball complexity.

Smrz brings considerable gusto if not much conceptual originality to the pileup of dire crises, keeping the pace brisk and seriocomic tone variable.

Too much of “Bombshell” skims over Lamarr’s more troubling and troubled aspects to paint her in somewhat stock terms as the victim of keep-her-on-that-pedestal misogyny.

Writer-director-star Steve Goldbloom’s debut feature is an uneven trifle overly dependent on the familiar, uninspired comedy of immature man-boys behaving badly. But it has an ace up its sleeve in the person of historied veteran Rita Moreno, whose unpredictable performance in an underwritten role gooses things to an amiable degree.