Marco Vito Oddo

Sure, Afire's message of the inevitability of death and the absolute need to embrace life can be a little on the nose. Still, Petzold puts his own spin on the old message, by inviting the audience to laugh and cry as four lives get intertwined in a very honest and human way.

The main characters of Femme are more than one-dimensional representations of the part they play in society. They are complex human beings, filled with contradictions and trying to get by despite past traumas.

Director Margarethe von Trotta delivers a thoughtful exploration of love in a patriarchal society, which ends up being surprisingly hopeful considering how cruel reality can be.

While Disco Boy is gorgeous to look at, a more coherent script would have done wonders to hold the movie together.

The Survival of Kindness might be too abstract for its own good, a creative decision that will alienate a good part of its potential audience. Still, this is a remarkable return for de Heer, as The Survival of Kindness lingers with you long after the credits roll, forcing the viewer to reflect on the tough questions of race and power it explores.

Everything is glued together by another Dafoe performance that proves he’s one of the greatest actors of all time, especially when given enough room to tap into the lunacy of his characters. In short, Katsoupis managed to craft a crowd pleaser that still has something interesting to say.

Sweeney's take on Winner reflects the emotional whirlwind the young woman went through after FBI agents showed up in her footsteps. Thanks to her, Reality is a mesmerizing experience that doesn’t hold any punches and will shake any viewer to their core.

While Manodrome doesn't always manage to keep steady pacing, it still serves as a unique character study for Jesse Eisenberg's angry and destructive young man.

With BlackBerry, Johnson manages to craft a thrilling and moving story about friendship, pride, and the brutality of the free market.

By appealing to the more casual moviegoer without losing the best things she brings to the table, Miller has birthed her best film yet.

Smith is still a competent director, and Consecration can boast some moments of brilliance sprinkled all over it. However, the messy script drags Consecration down, and fans still expecting a new Triangle will have to wait a little longer.

Attachment explores the joys and tribulations of new love, splicing a delicate love story with truly horrifying elements.

Sometimes, Deshon’s obsessive attention to detail drains some of the fun from Daughter, and the movie might burn too slowly to please every horror fan. Still, the movie is a rare achievement, turning a small budget and a simple story into a cinematic experience we can unravel to find new things over multiple viewings.

The way Huesera favors metaphor above clarity will undoubtedly push some viewers away. Still, horror fans willing to approach Huesera with open hearts will be gifted a unique experience that exposes the violence of reducing women to their role as mothers.

What hurts Waking Karma more than anything else is the lack of polishing both the screenplay and direction got. And with a little more production time, the movie could have become something more memorable.

Director Brad Anderson’s Blood is one of the rare vampire movies to focus entirely on the subject of drug addiction, which could make it a refreshing entry to the subgenre. Unfortunately, Blood’s script leans too heavily on tropes. Besides that, Anderson’s competent direction cannot help with Blood’s mixed messages about drug addiction and an ultimately unlikable protagonist.

If only All Jacked Up and Full of Worms had a script capable of bridging the gaps between its most inspired moments, it could be praised as a refreshing experiment of shock cinema.

There's Something Wrong With the Children is fine as it is for a casual watch, but it’s painful to watch such a talented cast trying to salvage a bland horror film that had so much potential to be unforgettable.

The movie is as sloppy as a horror movie can be, but that also contributes to its charm. The only major downside of the experience is a drag of a first act, that’ll most certainly scare away impatient horror fans, and with good reason.

Despite all its flaws, Door Mouse remains an interesting cinematic experiment. And we must commend Jogia for his devotion to comic book language.

The Offering won’t get any points for originality, but people looking for well-crafted horror can’t go wrong with Park’s latest film.

Scare Package II: Rad Chad’s Revenge suffers from the same issue as superhero media in the last few years, as it demands some homework to be done so you can follow and maybe enjoy the story the movie is trying to tell. That won’t be an issue for hardcore fans, but Scare Package II: Rad Chad’s Revenge still didn’t find a way to make the franchise more widely accessible.

While being far from perfect, Violent Night is just too fun not to revisit, which means it can become a new holiday classic in the years to come.

Since a creature feature lives and dies by its monster, Troll has the clear advantage of conjuring a magnificent beast from Scandinavian folklore. Of course, that might not be enough for viewers looking for something fresh to watch. Even so, Uthaug ultimately succeeds in developing a movie that’ll most likely please fans of giant creatures.

Blue’s Big City Adventure is a movie aimed at preschoolers that’s also enjoyable for adults, with exciting musical numbers that help break the simple story and explore the street art history of New York City. Add to that nods to the franchise’s past and the return of the original hosts, and you get a movie you won’t mind your children watching over and over again.

Where Slumberland truly shines is with its cast. While Slumberland is one of Barkley’s first feature credits, along with Spirited, the young actress already shows she can deal with a huge range of emotions. And while Slumberland’s story can feel bloated, Barkley’s Nemo is the emotional anchor that holds everything together. The biggest surprise of Slumberland, though, is Momoa, who embraces a dad energy we didn’t know he had.

Benson and Moorhead have always been able to make the most of small budgets and confined spaces. Nevertheless, Something in the Dirt is the most minimalist project they ever created. Yet Something in the Dirt might be their most ambitious movie, as they dedicate two hours to an intimate study of meaning as the main motor of human life.

More often than not, we can ignore the message if we’d like and just enjoy a scary movie. Prey for the Devil, however, seems to have been developed as deliberate propaganda.