Rob Staeger

Any sensible person would gun it right out of the theater.

Slipshod in every way, The Final Project can't even be bothered to show the important stuff.

Haunted houses come in many shapes and sizes, and the title location in Abandoned Mine is the only fresh coat of paint this one gets.

Director Mitchell Altieri helms the thriller with a sure hand.

Fewer cops and more full-tilt vampire batshittery might not have resulted in a more coherent movie, necessarily, but almost certainly would've made for a more captivating one.

The scenery looks just fine, however; it's the performances and dialogue that wobble and creak.

Muck pairs a repellent concept with amateurish dialogue, acting, editing, lighting, and pacing.

Ultimately, these feral pooches pose no danger that couldn't be solved by staying inside, boarding the windows, and barricading the doors. It's not a bad approach to the film itself.

The Lennon Report loses some steam in its second half as the immediacy of the operating theater dissipates in press conferences and obituary voiceovers. Even so, Profe does an admirable job walking us through the day's events, weaving together the accounts of people on the scene.

What could have been a wordless slog is inventive and even buoyant, as Molly crosses the baked Nevada landscape. And then, like a dog turd lurking in the middle of a jelly doughnut, a needless, brutal rape scene poisons the whole experience.

Ahearne deftly builds the suspense, raising the stakes before steering the story into surprising new directions. Despite its modern premise, B&B feels classic — a Hitchcockian nail-biter without a platinum blonde in sight.