G. Allen Johnson

When you walk out of the theater feeling more empathy for the tortured monster than his Bride, the experiment has failed.

Sirât is a film of impression and feeling, not logic or plot.

It’s a train wreck, but certainly a watchable one that almost plays like fan fiction.

Cameron is such a good filmmaker that even though he seems to be out of ideas, the three-hour, 17-minute running time chugs along efficiently on pure craftsmanship. But is that enough?

It’s not a cookie cutter superhero film or predictable horror film. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it’s form without enough content.

One reason why “The Conjuring: Last Rites” is so uninteresting is it takes one hour, 21 minutes for the Warrens to agree to enter the haunted house that we all know they’re going to enter from minute one.

By taking the “dark” out of the dark comedy, “The Roses” can’t decide what it wants to be, and becomes as flimsy as its setting: Mendocino is played by a seaside town in Devon, United Kingdom, and it looks more like New England than Northern California.

Cave, who gained notice with much-lauded Hulu feminist horror film “Fresh” (2022), is too busy condescending to her characters to be invested in what happens to them.

The last half-hour of “Opus” is an unbearable slog, with an unsatisfying ending.

All this could work, but Perkins never finds the proper tone in what is almost a spoof of the horror genre.

Complete with cliches and culturally cringe-inducing stereotypes — poor but happy villagers, sweaty villains — Peruvians will hardly use this film in their tourist advertising.

It’s a film that feels instantly antiquated, despite its attempts to capture Gen Z angst.

Moana 2 is finally here, ready to assault audiences this holiday season with one of the most ill-conceived sequels in Disney history. It took three directors to sink this movie — Dana Ledoux Miller, Jason Hand and David Derrick Jr. — and it’s so bad it feels like they did it on purpose.

How can you screw up a movie that has Lady Gaga? Here’s how: Make it claustrophobic, with the first half a brutal prison picture and the second half an excruciatingly dull courtroom drama.

Think of all the ways “Apartment 7A” could have slyly addressed these times, or, conversely, more fully explored the practices of the Castavets’ cult. Instead, it's just a retread, and that’s why it’s bad. The devil is in the details.

The Front Room becomes an exercise in psychological torture porn; it’s a movie you endure rather than enjoy.

A Quiet Place: Day One is about a cancer patient in hospice who hopes to die with dignity. Also, there are terrible monsters threatening humanity. What an odd idea for a horror prequel.

For all the beautiful scenery and Thoreau-like contemplation, Evil Does Not Exist stalls, then implodes.

The only inspired part of “Abigail” is the performance of Weir, a 14-year-old Irish actress best known as the title character in Netflix’s “Matilda the Musical.” She brings verve and joy to her vampire ballerina, dancing circles around the rest of the cast.

The Peasants is filled with sniping, fistfights, brutal violence and sexual assaults and becomes unbearable through its nearly two-hour running time. Most of these characters you wouldn’t want to spend more than five minutes with, if that.

Snoop has obviously made a real-life impact in his community. Too bad he couldn’t make one in reel life as well.

The only thing that keeps Wish afloat is DeBose’s voice, who elevates so-so songs such as “At All Costs” and “This Wish” with a powerful lilt.

The problems with Thanksgiving are many, starting with the awful script by Jeff Rendell. Not only is the story — concocted by Roth and Rendell — predictable, but there is not one clever line of dialogue in the whole 107-minute film. The cast and characters are bland.

The problem with Fingernails is it takes itself too seriously. Co-writer and director Christos Nikou takes a clinical, dramatic approach to such a high-concept, over-the-top and ridiculous premise. He seems so enamored by the concept of the movie that he forgot that the movie was supposed to be about relationships and not the testing.

It seems Joris-Peyrafitte can’t decide what film he is making, and as a result we’re left with a jumbled mess with a slapped-together resolution that will satisfy no one.

Director Sammi Cohen takes an attention-deficit disorder approach to storytelling, in which every feeling and plot twist is punctuated by a current pop song, and any hint of emotion or thoughtfulness is interrupted by a needle drop.

Petzold said he conceived of the film during the pandemic lockdown — that makes sense, considering the sparseness of the setting and small cast — and was inspired by the character studies of French filmmaker Éric Rohmer and Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. Unfortunately, he needed inspiration from another great artist: Christian Petzold.

The Out-Laws is dead on arrival.