Frank Scheck

Writer-director Kelker never establishes a consistent tone, eventually aiming for a tragic conclusion that feels hopelessly unearned.

It may be Hot Sugar's Cold World, but that doesn't mean we have to live in it.

Blumhouse has certainly proved very successful with its inventive, low-budget approach to horror, but now that the company is spewing out movies like an assembly line, more and more duds are starting to appear. Everything about this effort, including its hackneyed, overfamiliar title, smacks of laziness and a cynical indifference to its lack of originality.

Far stronger on atmosphere than actual suspense, Grand Isle plods along in tedious fashion, not helped by its awkward framing device that gives it the feel of a Southern fried police procedural.

Despite the best efforts of the talented lead performers and an overqualified supporting cast, this is a movie for which you should practice social distancing.

The charisma-endowed Washington and Sy do all they can to make the proceedings engrossing but even they are hard-pressed to make it interesting.

Director/co-screenwriter Pearry Teo succeeds in investing the silly proceedings with spooky visual stylishness, providing enough scary demons and possessed mannequins to deliver the requisite jump scares. Unfortunately, the film also features sound, which results in the audience being able to hear the inane dialogue accompanying the familiar horror tropes.

Depicting the very long, violence-filled night that ensues after a group of young people trespass in a creepy, abandoned prison, Against the Night proves as generic as its title.

The dialogue suffers from a strained, turgid quality, most resembling a daytime soap opera.

Whatever you have to pay, it's too much.

Making her feature directorial debut at the tender age of 70, veteran actress Connie Stevens delivers an obviously heartfelt but sadly unfocused melodrama in the form of Saving Grace B. Jones.

Onscreen, it somehow manages to be at once wildly overblown and terminally boring.

This talky, ham-fisted effort proves particularly disappointing because it should have been much better than it is.

It would, after all, take a sleuth of Hercule Poirot-like talents to discern what attracted these supremely talented (not to mention, in the case of one of them, Oscar-winning) thespians to such lame, cliched material.

As recently as last year's "Motherless Brooklyn," Willis has proven that, when he feels like it, he's capable of giving interesting performances. Although no one begrudges him a decent living, it's frustrating that he seems to be settling for such low-rent VOD Steven Seagal/John Travolta-style vehicles at this point in his career.

Despite its effort to double as a sincerely impassioned message about female empowerment, My Way mainly comes across as a relentlessly self-serving promotional vehicle.

Lacking suspense and at times bordering on unintentional silliness in its characterizations, the film is a misfire that sorely disappoints as it comes from the director of such acclaimed efforts as The Syrian Bride and The Lemon Tree.

Shot inconsistently in the series’ mockumentary style, which often finds the characters delivering direct addresses to an unseen camera crew, the relentlessly tedious film is devoid of laughs.

Despite its very brief running time, the film feels plodding, never quite managing to land either the intended dark humor or scares to which it aspires. You can admire its ambitions but lament the missed opportunities.

At a lean, mean 90 minutes or so, Ambulance might have been a guilty pleasure. Instead, it’s the sort of cinematic thrill ride so overstuffed that you can’t wait for it to be over.

For all its admirable intentions and the terrific performances by its talented ensemble, Inherit the Viper fails to have any genuine impact. Neither weighty enough to satisfyingly explore its themes nor sufficiently suspenseful to work as a straightforward thriller, the film proves dramatically inert.

It’s a shame, because Cuoco’s well-honed comic skills are very much on display and Oyelowo, working in a lighter vein than usual, seems to be enjoying himself. Which is more than you’ll be able to say about the viewers of this tired action-comedy retread.

Combining its adventure and romantic plotlines in painfully hokey fashion, The Space Between Us (the title is a pun, get it?) is so ludicrous that only a cinematic stylist might have been able to pull it off.

Let's Go to Prison ultimately feels as long as a stint in the big house.

This latest installment of the horror movie spoof franchise is mainly notable for its Charlie Sheen/Lindsay Lohan cameos.

There’s plenty of imagination on display in The Blazing World, but it’s buried amidst the narrative and stylistic self-indulgence that assumes we’ll be interested in going on this very strange and ultimately enervating journey.

Notable Bollywood producer-director Vidhu Vinod Chopra makes a highly uneasy transition to American films with this weirdly baroque modern-day Western that, while it boasts undeniably imaginative visual and plot flourishes, is far too absurd to take seriously.

It’s especially sad to see such notable actors as Caan and Patric reduced to appearing in this sort of bottom of the barrel, direct-to-video fare.

This lame effort represents international collaboration of the most mediocre kind.

Despite the high-stakes drama, there's nary a compelling moment throughout, and some of the characterizations, especially Stormare's villainous Sanitation Department honcho, are so absurdly one-note that it's hard not to think that the film is meant as parody.

Using the Desperate Hours template that has fueled countless thrillers since, Survive the Night is a particularly forgettable example of a tired subgenre that, like so many of Willis' recent efforts, squanders his still estimable movie-star charisma.

The film ultimately becomes bogged down by its meandering dialogue, generic characterizations and such mild attempts at suspense as one of the quintet worrying about a brother in New York City.

Its largely Hispanic cast and extensive Puerto Rico locations lend a unique quality to Paul Kampf's prison drama starring Laurence Fishburne as a morally corrupt warden. Unfortunately, those elements are the only original aspects of this turgid exercise in prison movie clichés which doesn't even manage to be convincing as melodrama. Although certainly well-meaning in its condemnation of capital punishment, Imprisoned is too dully executed to achieve its desired impact.

This overly convoluted and contrived farce features a typically scenic setting and an engaging performance by Helena Noguerra in the central role but otherwise has little to recommend it.

It's never remotely involving, and you can feel the lead performers straining to handle their acting chores. The exception is Haddish, who is so convincingly scary and menacing here that you wish her character were in a better, dramatic movie.

It's certainly an imaginative concept for a detective story, but the storyline gets so convoluted and baroque that unintentional humor sets in. By the time we learn the outlandish motivation of the time-traveling serial killer and her true identity, the twists have been coming so fast and furious that we've long stopped caring.

This is the sort of bad film that can only come about as the result of misguided ambitions.

Such an utterly routine, formulaic and forgettable example of its genre that watching it becomes an exercise in endurance. Even the always welcome presence of veteran actor William Fichtner, terrific as usual, isn't enough to save it.

Playing somewhat like a juvenile version of "Rosemary's Baby," this inept, incoherent attempt to cash in on young girls who can't buy a ticket to the R-rated "Saw V" (or are too lazy to sneak in) will be out of theaters long before the Halloween pumpkins start to rot.

The Happys never manages to find a consistent tone, awkwardly blending broad comedy with serious emotional moments that don’t come off. It also attempts to weave in serious discussions about sexuality and ethnicity in Hollywood, generally via stilted dialogue exchanges in which the themes are explored in boldface fashion.

Despite its promising set-up, Hostile Border lacks narrative tension, with the screenplay by co-director Kaitlin McLaughlin never quite coming into dramatic focus. The characterizations feel sketchy, and the paucity of dialogue proves more frustrating than atmospheric.

A thoroughly undistinguished addition to a genre that probably reached its peak a quarter-century ago with "An American Werewolf in London."

The animation, consisting of both traditional 2D and CGI, is impressive, and there’s certainly a lot of it. But it never feels as joyful as you’d hope, too often coming across like corporate machination than inspired imagination.

A slow-burn psychological thriller all too visibly wearing its cinematic influences on its sleeve, Beach House delivers suitably ominous atmospherics but doesn't seem to know where to go with them, ultimately resorting to familiar genre tropes.

Featuring many of the same grandiose elements as those predecessors, Moonfall looks and sounds like a would-be cinematic blockbuster but comes up painfully short in its ham-fisted execution.

This dour, uninspired, Hispanic-themed variation on the profitable "Step Up" dance movies is unlikely to similarly rouse teens.

Expend4bles — the number is in the middle of the word, get it? — represents a nadir for a series that began as an entertainingly nostalgic throwback to old-school action movies and the square-jawed muscle men who starred in them.

Now that the filmmaker has reached a certain age, she no longer seems to have her finger on her generation’s pulse. Case in point: The Hot Flashes, a ribald comedy whose menopause-referencing title is all too indicative of its pandering humor.

You all too vividly feel the strenuous efforts of everyone involved, from the actors struggling to bring life to their one-note characters while hitting all their marks to the cinematographer keeping his camera aimed exactly where it's supposed to be.

Although Rulin displays a compelling neurotic edge as the driven Emily, Chenoweth and Modine are unable to breathe much life into their schematic roles, while the supporting players are basically saddled with conveying a compendium of quirks.

An indie ethnic comedy clearly hoping to become the Jewish equivalent to "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," this well-timed offering, which arrived in time for Passover, is unlikely to have that sort of crossover appeal, or any appeal at all, for that matter.

The screenplay co-written by Nicholas Thomas and director Luke Greenfield fails to mine the potentially humorous premise for the necessary laughs, with nearly all of the gags falling thuddingly flat.

It's So Easy and Other Lies makes for a tedious cinematic experience that will only be appreciated by McKagan's hard-core fans. And even they're likely to come away less than enthusiastic.

A puerile combination of raunchy sex comedy and bland action vehicle, CHIPS will likely manage the difficult feat of simultaneously alienating fans of the original series and newcomers who will wonder why a buddy cop comedy displays so much homosexual panic.

Manages to be insulting both to slasher movies and lesbians. Where's the gay rights movement when you need it?

Reduced to a teen girl empowerment vehicle that trots out every show business cliche about sacrificing your values for stardom, the film is a non-starter.

Attempts scares and yucks in equal measure and fails to deliver either.

Playing the emotionally shut-down driver for an escort service, the actor provides what little interest there is to be found in this otherwise aimless depiction of urban alienation.

This low-rent frat house comedy is at once far more vulgar and decidedly less anarchic than its obvious inspiration and should flunk out of theaters before this year's crop of freshman students even finish unpacking their bags.

Ultimately a hollow and pointless exercise.

The bottom line: Mirthless and unmoving drama about a depressed stand-up comedian finding a new life as a kindergarten teacher.

Attempting to mix emotional pathos with broad farce, the film fails on both levels.

Features sitcom-style stock characters and situations, not to mention the sort of ethnic stereotypes to be found in TV ads for fast-food Mexican restaurant chains.

The hilariously dirty insult comic Lisa Lampanelli shows up all too briefly as Engvall's shrewish wife.

Silent Hill is not a place you want to go, and that applies for moviegoers as well as this videogame adaptation's characters.

The unfortunate result is that you wind up thinking how much more you'd prefer to be rereading that contemporary classic than watching this tedious exercise.

Disjointed and confusing, the film fails to live up to the promise of its spooky setting. There’s a good horror film to be made from this story, but The Axe Murders of Villisca isn’t it.

Sadly, Oliver Daly's kid-oriented feature only strains hopelessly for Amblin Entertainment-style magic. The result is that A.X.L. feels in desperate need of repairs.

Thanks to the efforts of the talented filmmakers and the committed performances by the all-in cast, there are some undeniably spooky moments. But you have to sit through an awful lot of tedium to get to them.

Self-destructs in its quest for comic outrageousness.

The film is the product of the same production company responsible for such previous Willis duds as "Vice," "The Prince," and "Fire With Fire." Either the Die Hard star enjoys working with them, or he's being blackmailed.

The whole enterprise seems like an advertisement for the breed, the ownership of which will apparently improve your life immeasurably while making a holy mess of it.

Smiley, is unfortunately less scary than, say, the prospect of your significant other accidentally discovering your search engine history.

All of [Cages's] natural charisma is unable to compensate for the plodding narrative and thin characterizations.

Gary Dauberman’s haphazard screenplay merely piles on the cheap scares, with director Leonetti cranking the volume up to 11 to accentuate the frequent jolts. It all adds up to a compendium of horror movie clichés.

Even more egregious than the film's concept is its execution, as it somehow manages to make scenes of drug addiction, hustling and even brotherly incest quite tedious.

Ultimately this is utterly forgettable stuff, not even managing to fulfill its mandate of mindless summer fun.

This is the sort of film for which the term "tearjerker" was invented, but this one jerks them so violently you may need medical attention afterwards.

Unfortunately, despite his obvious passion for the genre, Luke doesn't yet have the cinematic chops (or clearly, the budget) to effectively put his vision onscreen.

Managing to make the films of Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock look like dry, scholarly treatises by comparison, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed more than lives up to its subtitle.

The proceedings quickly degenerate into deafening video game-style fiery mayhem featuring endless explosions and depictions of human combatants melted into anguished looking skeletons.

Despite its serious subject matter, Mob Town assumes an oddly comic tone for much of its running time, coming across almost like a spoof at times. Unfortunately, nothing in it is particularly funny, and the deadly pacing makes the movie seem much longer than it is.

Considering its lurid story arc and troubled characters, the film almost feels tamped down as Hunter strives to create an atmosphere of mystery and slow-burning tension. What he delivers instead is tedium, where even the climactic reveal proves both underwhelming and predictable.

Whatever social commentary is intended in this cautionary tale, it is lost in the overall thematic murkiness, and the film is reduced to being a series of increasingly silly, ultra-violent episodes.

It’s all pretty tedious, with Miller failing to infuse the proceedings with the stylistic flair necessary to compensate for the cliché-ridden plotline, whose twists can be seen a mile away.

So unrelentingly violent that all but teen boys might as well stay home.

Co-scripted by a slumming Bret Easton Ellis, The Curse of Downers Grove is all over the place in tone, never managing to decide what kind of film it wants to be.

The film has its sporadic pleasures, mostly provided by Bella, who effectively conveys Destiny’s enjoyment of her over-the-top murderous and sexy antics, and Michael Madsen, as Lisa’s supportive stepdad.

The only thing missing from God Bless the Broken Road is compelling or believable drama.

Despite its noteworthy cast who presumably had some time to fill between better gigs, this is the sort of instantly disposable B-movie effort that Quentin Tarantino would have chucked in the wastebasket after a first draft.

Not only is this film's form clichéd, so is its content.

Unfortunately, A Convenient Truth doesn’t manage to sustain its comic premise over the course of even its admittedly brief feature-length running time. The thin joke would seem more appropriate fodder for a brief sketch towards the end of a Saturday Night Live episode when time needs to be filled.

Instead of being drawn in by Daniel’s spiral, we observe it from a distance. The result is that Longing, presumably intended as a cathartic meditation on grief, simply feels absurd.

Straining mightily for a mythic quality and reaching a predictably melancholic, violent conclusion, Road to Paloma mainly comes across as a vanity project star vehicle.

The Rapture won’t come soon enough for the unfortunate souls forced to suffer through Left Behind.

Alien Outpost doesn't even manage to do justice to its thematic conceits, failing to weave in its current day parallels in sufficiently thoughtful fashion.

This misbegotten horror film deserved to go direct to video. Or cable. Or oblivion.

A low-rent monster movie that could well have been released by American International in the early 1970s, Primeval boasts a level of cheesiness that should well merit it a regular rotation on late-night cable.