Matt Donato

With Patriots Day, Peter Berg translates national tragedy to cinema screens with power and purpose for the second time this year – yet the question for many is with wounds still healing, do we really need to be subjected to recreations of a hateful act still fresh in our nation’s history?

It’s an enjoyable movie-night combination of lightning quips, genuine friendship and observational humor paced with Sonic’s “gotta go fast” attitude. Score one for video game fans!

This is a very funny, perfectly scored...exciting, albeit overlong exercise in pushing MCU boundaries to their franchise breaking point.

Bad Boys: Ride or Die might explore too many plotlines or bolt between too many characters, but brains-free enjoyment reigns supreme.

The Leech is a seedy, nefarious and scrappy morality tale that excels on the backs of its big-swinging performers.

It's a solid Friday night spookshow with solid bones and a divisive finisher — harmless horror entertainment that at least strives to be better than ordinary.

Curse Of Chucky is a vicious return to form for one of horror's most legendary icons, terrorizing victims in the purest, darkest form of criminal insanity.

Truthfully, there's a shorter iteration of "Slash/Back" that I'd adore — but I still like what premiered at SXSW. You can't help but want to champion the film's trademark sweetness, shining a light on badass little girls who take on their entire community's enemies.

Jackie is Natalie Portman's show, and she never wastes an opportunity to dazzle as JFK's glamorous grieving widow.

The Autopsy of Jane Doe is an age-old story of family horror that benefits from an approach focused on dark whimsy instead of typical genre jumps.

Sing 2 is more of the same, which is dandy.

A Monster Calls gets off to a rocky start, but once Neeson's talking tree starts spouting tales of wisdom, everything tightens as the tears start flowing.

Violent Night might take a hot minute to find its footing and keeps plucking low-hanging wordplay sugar plums, but at full strength, nobody's stopping Santa from making this year the reddest Christmas imaginable.

Furies is a double-barreled adrenaline shot of ladies-first action extravagance that shines a light on Vietnamese genre cinema.

For what it’s doing and for how visually appealing it can be, Dark Harvest delivers October ickiness with a crooked smile.

Tom George succeeds in telling an excitably ambiguous case within a self-deprecating whodunit satire, even when employing the easiest tricks in the manual.

Cult Of Chucky roots itself in nostalgia long enough to shock us all by flipping the Child's Play franchise on its head in an invigorated, inspiring, and oh-so-deadly way.

Look into the eyes of My Father Die, and you’ll see honesty. Never once does writer/director Sean Brosnan go out of his way to present “revenge” as a worthwhile venture, as he evokes the beastly nature of such drastic measures.

Renfield makes a mess of its story at times, but does a good enough job getting gorgeously gruesome with its vampire action sequences to win us over with cartoonish gore – and Nicolas Cage's Dracula is one for the ages.

With a steely reserve and killer instinct, Extraction 2 thrives as a buffet of brutality that plays back the mercenary thriller hits with a fresh coat of camouflage paint.

Grab on for dear life and expect a freakish, wild, and seriously f#cked up ride from start to finish - which, of course, is every horror fan's dream.

Spider-Man: Far From Home is the upbeat teenage "road trip" comedy antidote to post-Endgame doom and gloom that Marvel fans deserve.

Queen Of Katwe is pretty typical Disney magic, but dynamic performances add a little more oomph to Phiona Mutesi's amazing true story.

Haaga knows what works, and ensures that we get heavy doses of the good stuff (although more Alisha Boe would have been nice).

Lowlife is a dirt-nasty nonlinear debut for Ryan Prows, sewn together from vengeful, spite-driven tales of urban survival.

Annabelle Comes Home is crowd-pleasing horror entertainment that’s both fun and eerily frightening.

Goofball rockstars created a silly, schlocky haunted thriller with their friends, and that’s the vibe Studio 666 brings. If you’re a Foo Fighters admirer looking for a horror-comedy, you define the demographic.

What Influencer brings to the party lands with a softer impact in the messages it preaches, but that doesn’t prevent a twistier predatory narrative from snagging our attention like a buzzworthy viral sensation.