Jim Vorel

Lovers of classical opera will no doubt find it to be a sumptuous treat.

In the moment, what it does do well is tease the increasingly metaphysical conclusion that is swiftly approaching, which looks to shed some of the “slasher movie” trappings and embrace the idea of a supernatural evil that resonates and repeats across centuries and generations of lives. Here’s hoping that the Fear Street trilogy can stick the landing.

What Scream VI ultimately lacks, on the other hand, is a clear sense of what it’s trying to say beyond the literal plot unfolding on screen.

If only Jennifer Jason Leigh had been available for a few more days of shooting, perhaps Night Always Comes could have put some flesh on the bones of its family drama, enlivening what is otherwise an overly familiar crime caper, but like an absent parent, the supporting elements of the film just can’t be counted on when you need them.

A queer ghost story with devastating emotional power and transgressive themes of domination, selfishness and abandonment, it is all too often hamstrung by plodding stylistic choices and a thin script that stretches many of its interactions until they’re so thin, threadbare and ethereal that they end up just as spectral.

Judged purely on the promises made by the title, it’s hard to see Godzilla vs. Kong as anything but a success. As a film, on the other hand, Wingard’s G v. K often still feels like it’s held together with copious amounts of cinematic duct tape.

The feeling is one of depletion, as V/H/S/99 begins robbing past hits in a grim effort to keep itself mobile and vital.

All in all, Get Away becomes surprisingly effective by the time all is said and done, bleakly satirical, bloody and a far cry better than the trite parody of director Steffen Haars other 2024 collaboration with Nick Frost, Krazy House.

Together, these intersecting storylines yield more than enough funny, gross and surprisingly sweet moments to keep Freaky Tales chugging merrily along, even though it feels quite clearly calculated for the midnight festival crowd in particular.

Sweeney may have taken this role with Oscar statuette dreams and “legitimate actress” intent, but thanks to its sketchy screenplay and languid boxing bonafides, the result tends to be as dull and thudding as gloves striking a heavy bag.

Ultimately, Borderline’s various threads threaten to unravel, but it succeeds in making a point about delusion and both unrealistic expectations and the lies we tell ourselves to make it through the day.

Destined to be divisive, it’s a piece of modestly indulgent arthouse horror that is equal parts bewitching and belabored, but at least it has the good instinct to trim itself to a short runtime that doesn’t allow it to become genuinely grating.

The Italy-set farce can boast 96 minutes of smooth comedic chemistry, but struggles to organically integrate its believable characters with the madcap situation it’s building around them, ultimately feeling like it’s missing some final push into more subversive territory.

Snyder is trying to do so much here that the whole thing practically collapses under its own weight, a victim of its own attempt at bombast and visual iconoclasm.

It’s arguably led astray by an imperative to swing in the direction of pulpier (and sellable) revenge story, backloading its genre goods so deeply that when they finally arrive late in the game, they derail the more contemplative mood that has been established. Tornado is left stranded between tones, set adrift without a rudder.

Havoc doesn’t lack for recognizable faces for the American market, not with Tom Hardy, Timothy Olyphant and Forest Whitaker front and center. But it’s also not really interested in giving those performers real roles to chew on. Rather, Havoc is primarily a canvas for Evans to paint in bullet holes and viscera, delivering wave after wave of hilariously over-the-top, comic overkill, at least in its back half.

At the end of the day, Sweethearts just feels wan and inconsequential as a result of its lack of focus.

Anyone nostalgic for their grandmother’s cooking will no doubt feel its inexorable pull toward the kitchen.

This is a showy exercise, Ponciroli purposefully hamstringing one dimension of his film and then expecting to be praised for rising above the very adversity he created, and not even the bloodthirsty action can salvage it from pretentiousness.

It benefits from a strong central protagonist’s performance, but is simultaneously let down by a screenplay that collapses under the slightest bit of scrutiny. Clown in a Cornfield simply isn’t as smart as it needs to be in order to prove that it’s more than its title.

Don’t Die offers an engrossing window into the mania of a unique individual, one with the outlandish resources to do something that no normal person would even be able to dream about attempting.

Don’t Move’s protagonist may be rendered inert, but the film retains just enough energy and menace to spare.

Psycho Therapy’s screenplay derails it in its closing minutes with genuinely whiplash-inducing abruptness, running out of gas when it’s still seemingly far from its natural finish line.

Adulthood makes the occasional odd choice, setting up elements that seem like Chekhov’s gun-type instances that never get around to paying off, and it’s never quite as tense as Winter probably envisioned it would be, even when it builds up a head of steam. But there are enough moments of either well-calculated gallows humor or generational commentary to keep things moving briskly along, and both Gad and Scodelario find room to have a new definition of maturity thrust upon them.

In a field full of would-be auteurs flailing against cliche and artistic malaise, Powell somehow manages to take a deeply familiar outline and breathe enough life and verve into it to truly stand out.

We're presented with a mixed bag that feels emblematic of the series itself: Peaks and valleys have always been the norm.

Sadly, even a perfectly workable premise needs engaging writing, directing and performances to bring it to life, and in this capacity, Netflix’s new feature Brick is as utterly inert as its title–likewise reused from Rian Johnson’s far more interesting high school neo-noir from 2005.

Occasionally funny in spite of itself, particularly when relying on tried and true slapstick zaniness and the admittedly irresistible performance of Christopher McDonald as Shooter McGavin, it steadily becomes a punishing endurance run that belabors the same handful of gags to the point of nausea.