Katie Rife

Donoso does put an effort into maintaining visual interest throughout this micro-budgeted character study, alternating between professionally shot, full-frame tableaux and intimate, grainy camcorder footage, accentuated with light touches of Brakhage-style experimental montage. However, it remains an undeniable—and inconvenient—fact that the most interesting aspects of If They Soak Me are all offscreen.

Fauna has some smart things to say about how the drug trade and its attendant stereotypes have changed the Mexican popular imagination. You just have to pay attention to follow the film’s many idiosyncratic twists and turns.

Experienced performers take the film partway, but the script kneecaps everyone—especially MacDowell, who suffers the worst of the film’s dialogue-based indignities. Happy or not, you might find yourself wishing it would end already.

At its heart, Dead Talents Society is an affectionate ode to East Asian horror cinema, and its earnestness — and silliness — are key to its appeal.

Although it has some delightfully grotesque monsters, Mr. Crocket is a kids’-show horror spoof that isn’t ready for primetime.

It’s not an unbearable film, but it’s not a particularly consequential one either, despite the boldness of its themes. In this case, a star’s big comeback comes not with a bang but a whimper.