Mark Hanson

William Brent Bell’s film proves that not every horror concept has the potential to be franchised.

As a peek into the relationship between sports, media and capitalism, National Champions feels like a beginner’s playbook.

Given that Mel Gibson makes little attempt to instill any sense of physicality to this dispiritingly paint-by-numbers affair, it becomes easy to understand the marketing of the film’s 4DX theatrical option as an act of overcompensation.

Mostly notable for its distracting resemblance to Rick Rosenthal’s Halloween II, Chapter 2 suggests for a while a needlessly extended epilogue to the first film.

Like any number of Exorcist wannabes, David Midell’s film is a special kind of hell.

Every story beat is unimaginatively cribbed from better films and every tepid exchange of dialogue is unconvincingly performed.

Any ambiguity over the veracity of the story’s events is quickly jettisoned to adhere to the demands of the leaden slasher-film plotting.

Fresh is pitched as a kind of genre corrective, except its tone-deaf cheekiness only results in a feeling of dreary regression.

The film resembles less a realistic peek into the modern slavery of immigrants in America as it does grist for the torture porn mill.

The film is nothing but a chintzy promotional tool for Celine Dion.