Matt Donato

The Void is a portal back to the 80s, hinged on immersive practical effects work that picks up the slack of a slighter story.

Annabelle: Creation is no lifeless dummy. Plotting may run a bit thin and coincidental, but David F. Sandberg whips up bone-chilling scares and hefty doses of peek-through-your-fingers imagery.

Pet Sematary: Bloodlines tastes a bit better than a nothingburger, but lacks seasoning that you’d hope for from something tied to Stephen King’s bibliography.

In essence, Bloody Birthday is the old horror film, The Bad Seed, multiplied by three on the crazy scale, but far less chilling.

Split is never as clever or poignant as it thinks it is, but James McAvoy won't let it be forgotten, either.

It’s broody and disciplined, soaked in the pungent style of foreign auteurs who molded Scorsese’s own love of film – yet overburdened by a downward spiral lacking fire and unforgiving features.

It’s a sullen, trauma-driven approach to horror that’s far less traditional and reliant on human monsters amidst magical mysteries—not a killshot. This prolonged approach lacks decadent suspense or encompassing dread.

The technical merits and performance strengths are beyond competent here, but that’s before the 90-minute mark washes everything in the dullest shades of unsustained tension.

Nice Days doesn't execute its emotional or comedic beats with the same enthusiasm, but the pulverizations are still bountiful — there's plenty of bruised and bloody aggression to save the day.

Greedy People is somewhat tonally amiss, but not long enough for the experience to self-destruct. It's a fine working backward whodunit from the inside out.

Michôd’s military dramedy is more about press tours, TV interviews and power plays. That’s what makes this Netflix new release redeeming in its political poignancy – but having Brad Pitt doesn’t hurt.

Doctor Strange is the psychedelic kung-fu spectacle that Marvel hoped director Scott Derrickson would deliver, but it’s got a strange problem – the doctor himself.

In its braggadocios final form, genre fans have a unicorn watch that surely won’t be replicated anytime soon. Points for creativity, points for ambition, and points for a studio showing the balls to back provocative genre cinema.

Sing runs on some serious super-piggy performance power, even if the emotional notes are expected.

Raven’s Hollow is drenched in 1800s allure as cursed mythology overtakes eastern American realism. Still, you’ve likely imagined far gnarlier nightmares based on Poe’s works than what’s delivered by these lackluster visual effects. To quoth Donato? Quite a bore.

Cabin Fever: Patient Zero certainly lives up to Eli Roth's gory standards, but individual enjoyment will hinge on one's love of schlocky B-Movie antics.

Rainbow Time is all over the place dramatically, but somehow Linas Phillips ties together a sometimes wacky, otherwise off-beat family dramedy from perspectives unknown.

There's Something Wrong With The Children is an energetic but expected kiddies-gone-killer tale that wades into some murky waters.

Dear Joe Lynch, please let me see your Director’s Cut ASAP? Knights Of Badassdom is an unfinished product, but it passes based on the content our director was able to salvage.

Godzilla: King Of The Monsters lays many a colossal Kaiju smackdown, but human arcs crumble under the heavy weights of those 'Zilla-sized behemoths they're forced to shoulder.

It's hard not to anticipate many of Verhoeven's moves, but Isabella Huppert is too good to ignore in Elle.

The Rehearsal is much like any coming-of-age melodrama, and while its meat is a little overdone, its intro and finale bookends do make up for a lack of flavor in between.

Scoob! is an enjoyable-enough start to the Hanna-Barbera cinematic universe, but may leave Mystery Inc. superfans feeling robbed of the Scooby-centric reboot that such a title suggests.

They Live in the Grey is a modest indie with thematic layers and evergreen mortal dread that could use two or three more editing bay passes.

47 Meters Down navigates choppy waters, but ultimately manages to deliver some prime summer-time screams.

With shades of Get Out, Culture Shock, and The Forever Purge, American Carnage is yet another frightening-enough, albeit bogged-down, tale about how the American Dream is no longer for everyone.

There's an endearing, homestyle warmth to the kooky sci-fi dramedy. Think Joe Swanberg's "Mumblecore" roots by way of Charles Band's late-night horror schlockiness – and I mean that with love.

Cobweb feels like an incomplete collection of horror ideas that aren't explored to their full potential, but it ultimately succeeds thanks to deranged performances by Lizzy Caplan and Antony Starr.