Contrary to modern fairy tales, Squeal doesn’t have a clear moral lesson, giving the viewer the hard work of reaching their own conclusions. That’s part of what makes Squeal so enticing, as the film allows multiple readings about vile work structures, the possibility of being happy in an abusive relationship, animal abuse, and even the meaning of freedom itself.

The Swearing Jar is a decent idea, but the screenplay and editing draws attention to itself in a way that takes away from the film’s biggest moments—a shame considering these moments could’ve been extremely effective if handled in a slightly different way.

Everything in Jeepers Creepers: Reborn is cringe-inducing to the point that even getting to the credits becomes a chore. And the fact the movie is taking itself seriously only makes everything more painful.

752 Is Not A Number is not only a depiction of one man's grief and search for answers where justice is impossible, but is also one of many prologues in a much longer story about the fight for lasting change.

Dear Zoe has its heart in the right place, but its reliance on creating one too many schmaltzy moments for the characters, and trying to be too many things at once, hold it back from being anything noteworthy.

Blue’s Big City Adventure is a movie aimed at preschoolers that’s also enjoyable for adults, with exciting musical numbers that help break the simple story and explore the street art history of New York City. Add to that nods to the franchise’s past and the return of the original hosts, and you get a movie you won’t mind your children watching over and over again.

While The Leech starts out sturdy yet simple, feeling more like a psychological thriller than anything, when it takes a leap into the full-fledged spectacle of horror, it is worth getting lost in along with the characters.

With This Place Rules, Callaghan has captured who America actually is on a larger canvas, and while the manner in which he paints lessens its impact, who we are underneath it all is where it finds slices of grim truth all the same.

The documentary doesn’t seem interested in expanding the conversation, and getting to the roots of modern society’s issues.

The movie is sensible enough to feature Native American characters and actors and give them some space, but they’re never made a protagonist in their own story.

What hurts Waking Karma more than anything else is the lack of polishing both the screenplay and direction got. And with a little more production time, the movie could have become something more memorable.

It is in its willingness to peer directly through the looking glass that most other science fiction works would blink in the face of where Animalia taps into something that remains as spectacular as it is elusive.

The indie dramedy Who Invited Charlie? washes away any reservations you might have about a movie set in the COVID times and, more importantly, lets Adam Pally show us what he is capable of.

Those willing to overcome its lack of coherence will be rewarded with a wacky story that only genre cinema can offer.

Prom Pact is the perfect choice of flick for you to watch when you’re in the mood for something light and fun. It has an excellent cast, the jokes come easily and never feel forced, and the story is a true celebration of friendship and how you should always do your best to not let your people down – and work hard to apologize if you do. John Hughes would be proud.

Whatever one takes away from it, the final moment of melancholy it taps into is crossed with the joy of seeing a film free itself by eschewing our expectations to just be. It may leave some feeling adrift as a result, but the truth of its emotional experience would demand nothing less.

Citizen Saint treats the sensitive subject with the subtlety it deserves. While some of the answers the movie proposes might be uncomfortable, it still shines for never falling prey to oversimplifications.

Director David Jařab fails to capture the same enthralling energy of Conrad's original story, resulting in an experimental film that too often misses the mark.

If She Came at Night is so capable of going from well-timed comedy to dramatic moments, the movie has Peková to thank above anyone else.

While The Hypnosis doesn't always handle the character of Vera as well as it could, the movie is still a great piece of social satire. Above everything else, it deserves praise for standing in favor of a life that's less performative and more attentive to one's desires.

Even if Smiling Georgia could trim some minutes from its already short 62-minute runtime, the documentary is still fun and poignant enough to get us smiling in the end.

If We Have Never Been Modern had been produced in Hollywood, Křenková would be an early candidate for an Academy Award thanks to her passionate take on Helena. Chlupáček knows that character should be at the center of a movie that’s all about the human experience, which is why the director gives Křenková plenty of space to shine. And shine she does.

Ultimately, watching Scream of My Blood is not so different from watching Gogol Bordello live, thanks to the perfect balance of unhinged fun and political purpose.

Booger is a bold and refreshing journey into grief and the damaging effects of holding it in when it desperately wants to claw its way out.

It is the worst thing an action film can possibly be: forgettable.

The core concept of Bride versus Groomsmen could have led to an exciting action flick, yet when not even the action scenes work as they should, it’s hard to defend Til Death Do Us Part.

It is a film that sets out to sink its teeth into something a bit deeper and more inventive only to merely serve up an experience with little to actually chew on.

For a film about a supposedly historic and harrowing journey to the moon, it never manages to charter any new territory of its own.

For all the classic horror stories it gestures at, Killer Book Club never is able to tell a memorable one of its own. No matter how many empty escalations and confrontations with the killer it makes its way through, the real clown show is the film itself.

Even as Butterfield continues to try to bring something resembling gravitas towards the end of the film, it all just peters out. No matter how many quick cuts and bursts of sound it throws at you, everything it goes for falls flat on its back.

By the end of Hate to Love: Nickelback, it’ll be hard to hate these four guys, and in some ways, that’s sort of the point—putting a human face on a band that is often seen as little more than a meme.

The Movie Teller is a beautiful and moving look into how cinema can bring a community together and how art can help to heal broken hearts.

As a whole, Arquette's directorial effort is fun, but forgettable. Despite pulling out laughs from viewers here and there or Dafoe and Morrone's impeccable deliveries, the plot doesn't quite stay with you.

Elkann is a visionary with the ability to create specific, gorgeous worlds and unique characters, especially when it focuses on the relationship between Pupa and Gianna. The themes that arise during the film are riveting, but it stops short of fully diving into them and their implications.

From its simple but effective production design right down to Jinkings’ excellent performance, Toll provides a multi-layered picture of what Suellen’s life is like.

Lost Ladies manages the rare feat of being a joyride and a meaningful social commentary at the same time.

As far as feature debuts go, Purev-Ochir delivers a solid offering, one that showcases her strengths and leans into the soul of her original short, elaborating on an intriguing concept to impressive results.

For horror fans who prefer a more subtle and nuanced brand of horror that verges on the very outskirts of psychological horror, the lo-fi grunginess of Falling Stars will certainly appeal to them, though the outcome may leave them with more questions than answers.

While it is not going to be among the very best of 2023 when it comes to its story, the craft that went into its presentation is unlike anything you’ll see this year or any other. It manages to burst through the surface of its frequently stormy narrative waters and grab hold of your heart just as it does your eyes.

It is the vibrancy to the presentation that remains the standout though the performances are also good fun.

Brutal Heat delivers a curious experiment that never fully embraces the potential of its concept.

Much like the scene from which it gets its name, where a photo from an old album is flipped to reveal those four words, turning things over and holding them up to the light is the necessary starting point to finding the truth.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid Christmas: Cabin Fever is still a greatly enjoyable entry in the animated adaptation landscape that mostly captures the essence of the novels. Most importantly, it doesn’t forget that kids’ insecurities can make them reckless and even unlikable, and that’s okay because, eventually, they’ll learn from their mistakes.

It becomes apparent that the story is trying to do too much, with far too little time to do any of it well.

With vaguely established threats and storylines, Megamind vs. The Doom Syndicate is the movie equivalent of meeting a friend you missed for many years only to realize that the encounter didn’t really need to happen.

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.

Where the original remains a work of art that is as entertaining as it is well-made, this remake proves to be nothing more than an empty and thunderously stupid approximation of an action film. Neither thrilling nor tense, it's simply dead on arrival.

Breathe is empty bluster and nothing more. It’s like a vacuum of where a movie should be, sucking all the air out of the room until nothing is left.

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.

[Bartholomew] gives us insights into her character more naturally than some of the occasionally forced dialogue, showing us glimpses of her increasingly fractured mind through an embodied performance. Even when the film doesn’t fully capture the spirit, the spell she casts gets awfully close.

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.

Bionic is another sci-fi dud for Netflix, bringing nothing new to the genre and not much more to its action sequences.

A Part of You is touching and effective without ever veering into emotionally manipulative or exploitative territory, which is not an easy feat when you’re dealing with this subject matter, especially in this genre

I was ready for Kill Your Lover to be a better concept than execution, but that’s not true. Its flaws are apparent, from a forced feature duration to inevitable conclusions, but there’s nothing detrimental enough to ruin an otherwise impressive original horror creation.

It all falls apart as there are no personal touches, character specificities, or horror sensibilities that fill in the many gaps of this hollow script.

Despite a strong central performance from Sasha Luss, Latency works against its own concept and falls into cliché thriller tropes.

Please don’t misinterpret this scathing review as an encouraging push to check out what could be a ridiculously flawed watch with friends. Agent Recon is unwatchable and doesn’t deserve your patronage.

The film has one mode, and it's never coy about its intentions to pry tears from your ducts as often as possible. If you're in the mood for a Shakespearean J-drama about mortality, stock up on hankies and let 'er rip.

Polished off by a vibrant cast, Annick Blanc’s feature debut is an impressive feat and a refreshing and minimal twist on the “eat the rich” trend in Hollywood.

For a lower-budget actioner, Murder Company is absolutely worth its eighty-six-minute runtime.

The Outlaws is a lean Western tale of paranoia and betrayal that mostly hits the target, but lacks greater all-around development.

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

Nice Days doesn't execute its emotional or comedic beats with the same enthusiasm, but the pulverizations are still bountiful — there's plenty of bruised and bloody aggression to save the day.

We Are Zombies wants to be like Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland, though lacks the cleverness to pull this off.

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.

The dialogue is cringy even by Universal Soldier sequel standards, performances more wooden than Pinocchio, and combat showpieces are a shambles of digital effects that spike not even a tingle of bruised and bloodied excitement.

The Soul Eater is by no means an offense to horror procedurals. Bustillo and Maury are clearly directing someone else’s script (derogatory), but they still smuggle their signature dread-shellacked brand in wherever possible.

If you're in the mood for a good slasher flick that doesn't try and reinvent the genre, then All My Friends Are Dead is a perfect fit!

If this movie-length follow-up proves anything, it's that the team behind the show hasn't lost a step in picking up where the story and these characters left off — but there are also more than enough signs that Wynonna Earp could continue in some form, if everyone is still all in.

The film is indeed reminiscent of other satirical comedy horror flicks of times past, but it still has its own unique soul. And thank goodness it exists in our realm!

The end result is a highly entertaining, highly provocative film that brings the best of a revenge thriller with a boost of a bit of deeper cultural expression.

This is the story of one who stood up, with all his faults and flaws, one whose ideology you may not agree with, but whose capacity to show justifiable rage speaks for those too cowardly to act. It’s here that Pink’s film derives its most impressive impact, and while few may mourn for The Last Republican as both the nation and the world race toward a chaotic, uncertain future, the end result is easily one of the best docs of the year.

In the end, Chapman’s film serves as a portrait of a family rendered in three dimensions, capturing both the strength and human frailties of these individuals in a detailed fashion.

Boong is a rich coming-of-age tale that touches on important issues without ever losing its playful tone or big heart.

Meet the Barbarians provides a light yet engaging look into how communities are built and maintained, and how differing aspects of their identities can form something better when people of disparate backgrounds are brought together.

If the filmmakers behind The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee can’t even bother to properly honor that legacy by putting in the kind of effort he did, then you’re better off just picking up one of his many Hammer films instead.

Empire Waist features a moving tribute to friendship dressed up in a bright, colorful package.

A fun and frantic vampire film with darkly comic performances amidst its clever life lessons.

As a whole, Devara: Part 1 is a bold and engaging tale marked with a pair of excellent performances by starN.T. Rama Rao, Jr., alongside a bold antagonist outing from Saif Ali Khan.

In the beginning, it feels like this will be a fresh and fun take on all of those masked villains, but sadly, it quickly becomes little more than a paint-by-numbers slasher that forgot what it was trying to be in the opening scene.

Stream meanders, spending too much time saying so little. Quirks aren’t explained, we’re plopped into a scheme without much catchup, and the entire experience is bloated beyond reason. There’s a tighter edit of Stream somewhere, but it ain’t this version, much to my disappointment.

There are gaps filled with nothing but silence; still, for a no-budget indie, it’s still constructed rather competently.

It's a film with several strong elements, though some issues in the scripting and execution limit its ultimate impact.

Heavier Trip is another gift to metalheads that has me hungry for a third, hopefully with a return to the more renegade nature of their original kitchen-sink odyssey.

It's trying to be a slasher movie so we ultimately have to judge it by those standards. And as a slasher, with its thin plot and flat killer, Haunt Season doesn't cut it.

While it may not be essential viewing for fans of the anime series, there's still more than enough in My Hero Academia: You're Next to keep both longtime fans and eager newcomers intrigued.

Chain Reactions finds the beauty in the despair, and how fine cinematic storytelling isn’t confined to tales of good winning over evil. It’s a love letter to horror, art, influence, and how Tobe Hooper and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre changed cinema forever, whether you can stomach it or not.

Puzzle Box is a middle-of-the-road found footage film; not great, and not horrible, but it's the characters that make it memorable.

Mr. Crocket is a bloody good time that takes all your favorite childhood television shows and gives them a hellish makeover.

None of it would be as effective if we didn’t care about these characters, and thanks to the strong ensemble and precise direction, the film slowly reveals itself to be a film worthy of consideration.

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

This isn't the scariest zombie movie you'll ever see, and the second act begins to drag as it readies itself for the finale, but if you want a highly original one that makes you feel, Die Alone is flesh worth sinking your teeth into.

All in all, the movie is a series of missed opportunities to create compelling storylines, and it's a shame that it doesn't use anything it presents on the screen to its advantage.

An Almost Christmas Story is a clear homage to the bygone era of holiday storytelling. Its attempt to emulate that era does admittedly lead to some familiar beats, but An Almost Christmas Story has enough charm and personality to make up for that.

A solid performance from Jason Patric does give the film a little bit of extra mileage, but weak action and an utter waste of Sylvester Stallone's talents as both an actor and action star bog the film down in too many issues to count.

Mononoke doesn't just deliver great works of art in every frame. It challenges you to keep up with it.

It's a good adaptation that stays true to the source material, but Chapter 2 still falls short of adaptational greatness.

If Breakup Season has a lesson for us, it is that relationships can end even when we least expect it and that it hurts like hell. It is an odd message to deliver on a date such as Christmas, but even odder is how cozy it feels. The movie is bittersweet, sure, but the sweetness is still there.