Matt Donato

Attack Of The Lederhosen Zombies doesn't quite live up to its eye-catching name, but still offers enough undead snowboarding mayhem worth a horror laugh.

Wildling may swerve last-minute into a less dense finale, but Bel Powley's performance is worth this fierce and untamed coming-of-self arc that's so exquisitely female-centered.

Its technical motions are janky and unpolished, but that doesn’t discredit Mackay’s stronger voice as a storyteller and scene composer. So Vam is a tale of intent versus execution, masking low-budget gumption with passionate narrations.

Fantastic Beasts is both a slice of magical monster mayhem and severely underwritten storytelling, landing somewhere between “pretty passable” and “zany fun” – but certainly nothing fantastic.

Performances are the spectacle, and both actors do a tremendous job translating the worst feeling any parent can experience. It all depends on your patience for slow-burn horrors, and if there's enough nightmare fuel to stay along for the ride.

Ang Lee’s depiction of life after war (or on leave) is a respectful one not without derivative roadbumps, but honest in appeal.

An under 90-minute runtime does the film a massive favor, but Stanleyville is still an overextended last-person-standing confrontation of life’s ultimate acceptance that fulfillment may not ever be achievable.

Captain Marvel is a recorded mixtape of familiar MCU beats that sets Carol Danvers up for success, but as a period standalone, struggles to be anything we haven't yet seen from superhero cinema.

As the word “m#th&rf$ck*r” loses meaning, you can’t help but appreciate a wholly predictable – yet unapologetically confident – action goof that’s far funnier than it should be.

The magic here is in underground experiences and questionable decision making, all twisted like junky copper wiring that’s unraveled into something more useful.

My Best Friend’s Exorcism is gateway horror that puts storytelling above terror. It’s steady on its 1980s teenage-girl friendship drama, but other elements around the messaging stumble.

The Outwaters is found-footage fearlessness that needs to be seen to be believed, but will be met by only the most divisive of reactions.

Role Play hardly spices up the subgenre with its saucy date-night games, never as action-packed as Mr. & Mrs. Smith or as sweetly sincere as the rom-com classics that inspire this undercover tale about finding that special someone worth killing over.

Screenwriter Scott Teems reflects on Leigh Whannell and James Wan’s Insidious franchise by showing the Lamberts after a decade’s worth of otherworldly traumatic repression, which disappointingly gets away from what’s otherwise made this series so sinisterly supernatural.

Sting is sweet, silly and savage in sectioned bursts, but fails to pull everything into an intricately woven web of creepy-crawly terrors.

Too much of a good thing becomes John Ross’ curse, as Grimcutty renders his demonic scowl impotent after the umpteenth close-up. Stick your landing, not your opening—Grimcutty works itself backward into a forgettable cyber-folktale fate.

Fist Fight suffocates a genuine script with easy, intro-level juvenility.

Gretel & Hansel is a full course meal when it comes to cinematography and production design, but the sleepy, hollow narrative pacing is just too stogy to overcome.

Here Alone is a sometimes-striking, sometimes-repetitive glimpse into apocalyptic drama that struggles to offer anything new.

Murder On The Orient Express is an antique mystery that chugs along at 5-miles an hour without any turns that might jolt viewers in the slightest.

Dogman is one of those curios that you don't understand how it got made and just kinda marvel while it's happening, but once you try to put all the pieces together, nothing fits, and you're left wondering what the hell you just watched.

Destroy All Neighbors is a horror-comedy with a fun premise and creative effects but it’s messy in too many ineffective and wrong ways, like listening to a 20-minute jam session that never finds its hook.

The Space Between Us is not without bright spots (celestial production design dazzles, Butterfield’s niceties are refreshing in today’s day and age), but it’s ultimately more a slog than serendipitous romance.

It's a heartbreaking tragedy, dreamer's comedy, and saucy stumble through double-edged "success" stories, but most of all? It's a bloated, brass-band-swingin' mess.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a sloppy and gratuitous killing spree with standout deaths but a poorly written story that ruins the experience.

You’ll find laughs, zaniness and plenty of signature slow-motion jiggling, but it’s buried under a burdensome two-hour procedural.

The Blackcoat's Daughter aims for lofty satanic thrills, but gets lost in visuals that oversell a barbed but tangled nightmare.

Dark Glasses is forgettable. It’s also an upgrade for contemporary Dario Argento.

Bloodshot shoots to kill, but with the accuracy of a Stormtrooper - off the mark and leaving much to be desired.

Ma is a showcase for Octavia Spencer's ability to turn her typecasted traits into utterly disturbing obsession destabilization, but the film's less potent genre punch never lives up to its main character's psychotic allure.

The Grudge feels like "just another remake," which is a shame with such a previously style-forward director at the helm.

True Memoirs Of An International Assassin scores a few lucky shots, but ultimately overstays its welcome.

Your enjoyment of Child's Play will depend on if "Chucky 2.0" is funny enough for your horror comedy tastes, because without investment in Kaslan's "Buddi," there's not much to appreciate beyond a few gnarly slasher deaths.

Kids vs. Aliens brings gloopy, grotesque practical effects to a childlike sci-fi thriller that fails to shine outside kill sequences and costumes.

Ben Browder's follow-up to Bad Kids Go To Hell is less stylized and more generic, even with the same private-school mean streak.

There's nothing uniquely surprising or exceptionally rousing, which is a shame given the unfathomably dreadful predicament and an interesting turn of a performance from Dave Bautista. It's a film without sensation that feels like it's pulling its punches across the board – development is stunted, ideas lack passion, and the camera avoids visible violence – before the ending strolls off into the sunset with barely any goodbye.

Where Josh Ruben’s Scare Me soars thanks to tension delivered through imaginative monologues, LaBute’s latest is mostly benign chatter that rambles its way to an unimpressively expected conclusion.

Writers Kevin Biegel and Scotty Landes adapt Kreischer’s unbelievable viral story about robbing a train with Russian mobsters into a retrospective on the comedian’s tumultuous history with excess—a tonal misfire of fantastical absurdity clashing against emotional confessions.

The Twin builds mysterious dread rooted in paranormal possessions and possible cult activity, but its ill-serving payoff vaporizes the crippling weight of loss fastened to each character.

Flock Of Dudes is light on both bro-bonding shenanigans and worldly drama, despite boasting such an enviable cast of comedians.

Though not a terrible film, Insidious: The Last Key fails to live up to the franchise's high standards.

There are glimpses of comparably daydreamy thrillers like Come True or The Feast that give themselves to the fantasy of mania, but A Banquet fails to grab attention like these more ambitious companions. It all builds up to a cinematic Irish exit.

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker suffers the misfortune of having a director who cares more about digging up a franchise's past than moving forward with an original story.

Evolution is undeniably beautiful, but it's a small-scale story which ignores a larger world that needs far more exploration.

SiREN never takes Bruckner's original idea and runs with it, failing to capitalize on a demonic romance that so many V/H/S fans demanded to see more of.

Allied is a prestige drama without the prestige, wooden in appearance and lacking any true drama.

Leave tells a story about the monsters of humanity, but is shy about terrifying its audience—a tragic flaw that cuts the genre’s volume like unplugging an amplifier mid-performance.

The Windmill is all about kills, but can't generate enough energy to power this derivative, sometimes nonsensical plot.

The Reef: Stalked is another middling mid-budget fin flick that’s tonally confused somewhere between Shark Week and Lifetime.

Odar does his best to manipulate Las Vegas’ seedy underbelly (City of Sin, after all), but so much of Sleepless feels like recycled, seen-it-before action genre gristle. The stuff you chew while hoping a little fatty goodness is left.

It’s an odd “rock and a hard place” production about survival of the fittest mentalities that can’t help but indulge soapy relationship dramatics amidst an otherwise dire entrapment, which will probably leave most laughing and irritated at the wrong times.

This Is Your Death is a brilliant concept, but tonal mishandling makes for another media takedown that's all bark and no bite.

Sand Castle is an Iraq war story about certain futility, but there's a certain redundancy to political overtones that preach what we've been hearing all along.

Dog Eat Dog is all bark and no bite, playing around in a sandbox of vulgarity with little rhyme or reason.

The Birth Of A Nation is not without inherent power, but Parker struggles to evoke anything besides surface tellings of textbook atrocities.

Michael Jai White's million-dollar presence and fancy fighting techniques aren't powerful enough to overcome dull scripting and odd performance choices.

Keeping Up With The Jonses plays everything so disappointingly safe.

Kramer plays with surreal department store catalog visuals and body-swap quirkiness, leaning heavily on interpretive dance to convey meaning. There's nothing like it, but with such extravagant boldness comes risks, and they don’t always pay off.

The Predator guts and slashes its way to gory sci-fi mediocrity, but is further failed by abysmal pacing that loses characters, subplots and interest along the way.

It's a frustratingly one-note experience that boasts technique and potential, ultimately undone by a narrative blandness painted by numbers. Separately, everything works — the plan just never comes together.

Winchester is a familiar haunted house shuffle about an infinitely more interesting topic, but you must play with the hand you're dealt - win, lose or draw.

A Road House movie shouldn’t be boring, especially this boring. A Road House movie shouldn’t have to enhance its fight choreography in post-production, nor should it be such a tonal mishmash. I guess Liman didn’t get the memo? His Road House remake is an uninspired chore that never properly unleashes Gyllenhaal or nails even the most basic functions of bar fight nostalgia porn.

Fear Inc. wastes a devious idea on a slew of reveals that bring momentum to a crushing halt.

This is one sluggish curse that wouldn't wake even Sleeping Beauty.

Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare is a bleak, mean-spirited take on a childhood classic that trades Peter’s sparkle-bright magic for overbearing seriousness and disappointingly straightforward thrills.

The Bleeder is a surface-value, party-first boxing dramedy that pulls its punches and goes too far into "charismatic sleazeball" territories.

The problem is that 40 Acres simply sprinkles its few unique ideas atop a shambling post-apocalyptic template.

It’s a shame. Jeff Ryan’s Mean Spirited voices relevant and vile concerns about social media soullessness, but its commentary is neutered by shaky execution.

Doctor Sleep is a conflicted and unwieldy sequel attempting to unite worlds (King and Kubrick) while telling an original story from yet another filmmaker's viewpoint (Flanagan) that never blends together.

History of Evil has something to say about the sad state of our nation–-and where it’s headed should we continue to regurgitate the same racist bile—it just doesn’t justify the means before its end.

You can’t fault an attempt to transform a viral sensation into the next bonkers realization of contemporary horror that exploits our ever-volatile online climate—but you can always fault a genre film that doesn’t do the chosen genre justice.

Railroad Tigers is an action epic that wants to be a comedic goofball, as it fumbles both aspects when trying to meld them together.

Casper Kelly psychotically spoofs the strangest of strange horror titles that turn anything into a murderous entity while unraveling deadly severe social commentaries. It’s abstract art, theater camp, found footage foolishness, hunt-and-stalk depravity — Adult Swim Yule Log is a whole lot of things but, even with a full 90 minutes, few angles feel fully fleshed out.

Lion may be a little too Oscar-bait-y, but it's not without loud emotional roars.

This is just the sweeps-week Fast And Furious that jumps the shark, ready to right itself come next season – and it better. Dominic Toretto’s team deserves to go out in a blaze of glory, not a slippery skid that can’t be controlled.

Lazareth is sluggish, low-energy, and not particularly suspenseful, but most of all, it squanders a stellar Ashley Judd performance in a period where her silver screen appearances are becoming scarcer and scarcer.

Sweeney takes plenty of risks in a lead role that’s rigorous and emotionally demanding, but the film ultimately feels a bit surface level considering how it approaches horror.

The Retaliators tries to transform musical stardom into a rock n’ roll horror epic, but suffers from “too many cooks” syndrome as the end product plays disjointed and can feel like a music video demo reel.

All Fun and Games is an appetizer of a movie served as the main course, lacking in creativity when it comes to turning childhood games into pure horror.

There’s some fun to be had as this reality-show-gone-mad dashes about London’s streets, but never with enough character to be something unfamiliar.

Warren Beatty's Howard Hughes retrospective, Rules Don't Apply, is equally tone-deaf in humor and drama, cobbled together in ways that never seem to fit.

Bad Santa 2 is the same holiday depravity with half the enthusiasm, too drunk on its own despicable tone.

Reverse the Curse calls its shot with confidence but doesn’t possess the fundamentals to bomb a home run, barely getting on base with this out-of-synch heartwarmer that’s icy to the touch.

Morbius is unspectacular in ways that waste the potential of what could be an intriguing hybrid of sinister horror and superhero thrills.

The Cloverfield Paradox is a monster-sized misfire that feels disconnected from the franchise it’s crashing.

Tyler Perry never wants to scare you, and I assure you, he never will. Perry DOES want to make you laugh though, succeeding when jokes are bite-size and contained – but most scenes ramble on and on as Madea searches for multiple ways to land the same punchline.

The Great Wall is like the disaster of 47 Ronin all over again, except the action is a bit more fantastically barbaric and Damon isn't all that bad himself.

Happy Death Day is a generic PG-13 horror purgatory that's lived on repeat until even weaker motivations take us farther out of any semblance of storytelling thrills.

Dead men may tell no tales, but with Disney's latest Pirates sequel, I'm not convinced that living men can tell tales with any more intrigue.

It's a suspenseful family drama that drowns in the location's surroundings, unable to capitalize on its Shyamalanian influences.

Gudegast's film feels almost artificially programmed in its adherence to criminal caper tropes, unable to steal our hearts with the bromantic charms of cops and robbers with boundary issues.

If you haven’t feasted on Indonesia’s bounty of recent horror releases, don’t start here. Dancing Village: The Curse Begins is like elevator music in comparison.

Tank 432 does right in building battlefield tension without any gunfire or attacks, but misses its mark in neatly wrapping up yet another paranoid psychological thriller.

Screamboat isn't a good movie, but it can be an entertaining experience if you only care about indulgently bloody kill sequences.

The Last Breath is competent to a point, without ever exceeding — or even achieving — baseline aquatic horror standards.

It’s a generic blend of human drama and otherworldly horrors. Consumed never makes the most of its Wendigo punctuations, whether hampered by budgetary limits or to-the-point scripting that overstays its welcome at nearly 90 minutes.

Goodnight Mommy might be passable as a standalone, but it’s impossible to recommend over the original. Matt Sobel and ​​Kyle Warren venture somewhere new that still doesn’t differentiate nearly enough for its quieter approach.

XX is a mundane horror anthology at best, and a slow-burn experience that never reaches a boil at its worst.