Matt Donato

While there's a randomizer sense to everything, frights abound, and there's a mercilessness that bites down hard. Execution may slip and slide, but Daniels doesn't waste his first crack at the ghoulishness of this Earth or deep below.

Though Green may alienate some audiences with choices nowhere near as terrifying as William Friedkin’s original, something about the film’s heart endears beyond another exorcism retread satisfied to follow the same blasphemous beats.

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.

One or two jokes might cause a titter, but the other ninety-eight percent of this unfunny deflation has nothing to offer but hormonal awkwardness without the gut-busting payoff.

Jack Goes Home is a swirling storm of emotional ravaging that’s eventually personified by action, but it never comes together as wicked, cohesive storytelling. Give this one a watch, but just know the risks going in.

The Vatican Tapes relies heavily on its third act, but if you can stomach its more generic beginnings, you'll be treated to an exorcism story with higher stakes than normal.

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

The Collection is one of those horror films that really makes you sound like a deranged psychopath for recommending, but demands to be spread like a mind-controlling plague.

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.

The Abandoned is a steadfast and creepy haunted flick, until the final five minutes sink the entire production. It'll work for some, but sadly not for most.

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

The Devil Conspiracy is a high-concept religious action flick with horror influences that sells its ambitions short but still entertains despite itself.

Brad Peyton oversees a futuristic action thriller that frequently plays like a clone of other cautionary tales about AI – but those movies, shows, games, and books don’t have Peyton’s secret weapon: Jennifer Lopez. She’s able to command the screen, bicker with software programs, and sell a convincing heroine’s arc from behind a mech-suit’s windshield.

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

The Bye Bye Man is an unfathomably inept horror film; one that’s an obvious byproduct of The Babadook/It Follows brand of horror success. It is, without apology, one of the emptiest, nonsensical haunted thrillers ever to fail genre audiences.

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.

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

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

Between picture-in-picture viewers, pop-up ads, reality posing as unreality, and a seconds-long attention span, Baby Invasion is a Reddit thread vision board with little to offer.

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

Here, genre hybridization is a losing battle, sacrificing scares and intensity in favor of corny jokes about Instagram not yet being invented.

This year's Inside remake swaps Bustillo and Maury's brutalization levels for beyond-generic thrills that are more frustrating than fierce - whatever that's worth.

Rupture is the kind of ill-conceived film that gives Michael Chiklis the campy role while keeping Peter Stormare on background duty.

Knights of the Zodiac fails to inspire enough excitement to meet the prospect of future sequels with its lackluster visual effects and rather clunky storytelling.

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

The Turning is a failed ghost story on almost every conceivable level with a third act that's flat-out unforgivable.

There’s not a single character worth caring about, and even less artistic licence to appreciate. This is a dirty, depraved love-letter to horror that’s written in a bunch of different colored crayons to mask such simple words with distracting colors.

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

The Amityville Murders wastes historical reverence on a paint-by-numbers ghost story that relies too heavily on eyesore animated effects.

Rodriguez’s transformation is hackneyed and ham-fisted, Hill’s action lacks excitement, unnecessary comic-book panel swipes add “character” – there’s nothing noteworthy about this hunt for retribution.

Keeping Up With The Jonses plays everything so disappointingly safe.

Director Nikolaj Arcel blends dystopian weirdness and temporal hellbeasts until all that remains is an emulsified, grey gunk, which is then forced down our throats for 95 minutes. Flavor gone, identifiers eviscerated.

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.

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

This isn’t a new breed of terror, just another neutered reboot churning all the same mainstream gears.

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.

Fifty Shades Darker is a befuddling, messy erotic "thriller" that shifts tones faster than audiences can keep up with.

While The Scribbler isn't exactly in contention with the best that the comic book genre has to offer, Katie Cassidy utilizes the numerous voices in her head to create a unique hero for a bit of stylized freshness.

It’s a remake that lacks identity, urgency and enthusiasm—such a shame after Keith Thomas’ outstanding horror debut.

The Garfield Movie is silly to a fault, feels seventeen hours long, and lacks any pulse of life.

Quite simply, it’s impossible to “enjoy” a film that makes you feel even worse about the society we live in – especially when it’s so gobsmackingly unaware itself.

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.

Hellboy feels editorially chopped to bits, tonally disjointed and created from clashing perspectives that make for the type of "dark, gritty" reboot that misunderstands why certain "dark, gritty" reboots end up working.

Obvious and sometimes aggravating no doubt, but still effective in raising blood pressure given a backstory so instilled with old-school cultism.

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.

Area 51 is everything that's wrong with not only found footage films, but also weak-minded sci-fi thrillers that think crazed talking heads and fuzzy shadows are scary enough.

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.

Brahms: The Boy II seems to want nothing to do with its original, which is an odd and detrimental outcome for your direct continuation of Brahms' ongoing story.

No lies; there are a handful of moments that strike a smile. That said, enjoyment is fleeting like the glee of biting into candy only to find, seconds later, that it's black licorice flavor.

It's a Frankenstein'ed monstrosity made of different horror approaches, except instead of bringing something to life, unrevivable ideas remain limp and useless.

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.

It’s not that Soisson created a terrible movie, but Cam2Cam is late to the party, brings absolutely nothing notable, and sits in the corner without making a peep.

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 takes the Terrifier 2 approach for a sequel with an absurd dedication to glorious slasher violence. It's inarguably better than the original, but that’s not saying all that much.

Bay's latest Transformer title is a daunting behemoth of a film and you can feel every ounce of dead weight, as sins of the past are committed without any signs of stopping.

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

Like a flashlight that's running low on juice, you can feel the life oozing out of Nightlight with every faint flicker.

Many have done worse with similar setups, which isn't exactly a glowing recommendation - but hey, if you love Pierce Brosnan enough, you should be fine with I.T.

Borderlands is an abysmal waste of a beloved franchise that takes a kooky band of murderous misfits and drains the life out of their first adventure together. Eli Roth is no James Gunn, and this film has none of the lovable lunatics, awe-striking sci-fi visuals, and out-of-this-world storytelling of Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy.

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.

Pierre Morel's uninspired work behind the camera goes hand in hand with the film’s nondescript title, dragging viewers through a moodless, toothless action hybrid that, at its best, plays as forgettably inept even with ammunition flying in all directions.

Five Nights at Freddy's 2 gives sequels, video game adaptations, and gateway horror movies a bad name.

Officer Downe is a vicious, violent bit of midnight madness that shoots first, and then shoots again for good measure. No need to ask questions.

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.

Categorizing Rings as "horror" would be a disservice to genre films, because at least the lowest of the low attempt a scare here or there.

Collateral Beauty is a Hallmark tear-jerker in the worst way, so out of tune with human emotion that it almost becomes satire.

Krazy House is "krazy" for all the wrong reasons.

Underworld: Blood Wars is the kind of mainstream horror I want to champion, but lackluster technical aspects nullify Kate Beckinsale's kick-ass performance.

Duchess is a flat and forgettable riff on Guy Ritchie classics that doesn't have an ounce of the wit, charm, or glorious mayhem.

Kurt Wimmer’s newfangled Children of the Corn is a rotten husk of a Stephen King adaptation.

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.

Martyrs is the exact movie we feared it'd be - a forgettable remake of a far more prolific foreign success story.

From start to finish, Fantasy Island is lacking wicked wonderment and poignant reboot vocality. You'd be best off skipping it.

When people complain about the death of mainstream comedies, it’s bottomfeeding films like Playdate that are the genre’s executioner. No energy, no wit, just a tasteless and tacky sequence of events that barely manages to clear the bar for what’s still considered a movie.

Hellraiser: Judgment is a stuffy police procedural masquerading as a torturous Pinhead franchise entry.

It's a shame Silent Hill: Revelation suffers the same doomed fate as most modern horror movies, bumbling through a shockingly disconnected screenplay which strings together moments that could have been salvaged otherwise.

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey is noteworthy only for its name, as it turns out that blending slasher blood with Pooh’s honey together is like oil and water: it just doesn’t mix.

Even those who are deathly afraid of clowns will have trouble finding enjoyable bouts of horror in this survival thriller.

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

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

Plainly put, Last Girl Standing explores a unique horror convention from a fresh angle, but can’t execute when it counts.

The Frontier is a stale film from another era, with an unfortunate story that's about as frail as a tumbleweed.

The Axe Murders Of Villisca is too familiar a haunted house story to be anything more than generic.

Pitchfork is defined by a country dance sequence with full boot-stomping choreography - not a great sign for a horror movie.

The Snare is so without substance that you might not even remember watching it.

Don't Kill It is some DIY insanity that leaves more scattered limbs than an overturned Halloween decoration truck.

No ifs, ands or Bubs about it, the memory of Day Of The Dead: Bloodline will decay at lightning speed. There’s nothing new here that Romero didn’t do better, only a downgraded horror watch with lesser value.

The Pool is a bonkers blast from beginning to end. Each wave of misfortune crashes down harder than the last, pummeling a walled-in main character with sadistic spite.

Expressive and appropriate costume design looks the part, but the experience doesn’t fully embrace what kill-or-be-cracked-open thrills are openly promised.

Writer/director Kipp expands his short into a feature that at times struggles to elongate an otherwise poignant message, leaving other worldbuilding details behind in a way that undercuts structural integrity. I’m all for awareness, but wonky narrative stumbles aren’t ignorable.

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.

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.

Unhuman is a good-enough breed of afterschool special horror that succeeds in championing positive messages between sloppier fights with the risen dead.

Shady lunatics are stuck in a lavish woodsy manor where they’re encouraged to explore their repressed issues to their most destructive ends — and that’s not even all of the devious entertainment available. It’s got storytelling hiccups along the way as Meir favors the absurdity of singular moments over and over, but that’s also part of its sharp-toothed charm. Come curious, leave bloody. That’s the path to enjoyment.