Matt Donato

Belktibia's feature debut comes with compelling sequences as a mother fights against what seems like the entire world, but murky motivations hold one back from getting fully emotionally invested.

This is an irreplicable experience that speaks volumes about following your dreams despite the challenges that await. The reward will always be worthwhile, even if it’s just about the friends you make and NPC cops you massacre along the way.

What Lowe accomplished in only her second full-length feature in roughly eight years shows such promise as a daring filmmaker with an original voice that deserves a megaphone, and I can only hope it doesn't take eight more to see what comes next.

My Dead Friend Zoe opens wounds and douses them in peroxide — the immediate sensation stings, but eventually cleanses and soothes.

Garland may have just delivered one of the most vicious and unrelenting watches of the year, one that I’ll keep debating and untangling both in my head and with others for a good long while.

Azrael is both familiar and unique, blending genre comforts with a risky idea. Luckily, it all works, paying off a relatively massive gamble that benefits from Samara Weaving's star power.

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.

Y2K is a deadly unserious disaster comedy featuring fantastic cyber-monster effects and humor inspired by the time period.

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.

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.

Morgan’s feature debut is as stunning, diabolical and boundary-pushing an emergence as any filmmaker could hope to achieve.

Molli and Max in the Future is the textbook definition of an indie darling that executes well above its obvious production restraints, as unique and boundlessly ingenious a film you'll find in today's media landscape.

It's a hilarious low-low-budget, rough-around-the-edges oddity that makes me very happy, and I hope someday it'll make you feel the same crisp beaver-beatin' joy.

The corroded mineral walls, dehydrated trees, and all of nature’s other décor are wonderfully shot, and the performances aren’t to blame, but The Seeding just doesn’t have the storytelling mindset to protect its characters from looking like fools instead of victims of horrific circumstances.

Kaluuya and co-writer Joe Murtagh preach a message from the heart, but the inner workings of The Kitchen ring more hollow than the remarkable visuals suggest.

Erik Bloomquist’s direction is composed, and his co-written screenplay with Carson plays on politician-slamming themes, yet Founders Day is still a second-tier slasher that crosses too many plotlines in an overly complicated small-town massacre.

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.

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.

Gray plays to the simplest pleasures of heist cinema and wins us over because sometimes it’s alright to simply be dependable and straightforward.

The Conference is one of the better slashers released this year if you’re in the mood to watch liars and brown-nosers get hacked, skewered and brutalized to bits, pulling overtime at the right moments.

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.

It's A Wonderful Knife might make its points with steel blades, but that doesn't negate the saccharine earnestness that assures this one as a new Christmas horror favorite with a heart three sizes bigger than you'd expect.

When Evil Lurks is a capital “H” horror film that risks it all and hits the jackpot, pummeling its audience into submissions and still leaving us asking for more.

In the hit-and-miss subgenre of horror anthologies, V/H/S/85 is a shining beacon. Filmmakers are given the space to explore a gamut of ideas, none of which feel restrained to fit a specific anthology mold.

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

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.

Wake Up makes its impression like a candy bar with a razor blade at its core. It's a sweet little treat for action-horror fans that hurts so good, as long as you're in the mood for visually traumatic, hopeless vibes.

Eileen is a nifty little shapeshifter of a thriller made of tremendous parts, just lacking a bit of steam upon exit.