Director Brad Anderson’s Blood is one of the rare vampire movies to focus entirely on the subject of drug addiction, which could make it a refreshing entry to the subgenre. Unfortunately, Blood’s script leans too heavily on tropes. Besides that, Anderson’s competent direction cannot help with Blood’s mixed messages about drug addiction and an ultimately unlikable protagonist.

While Disco Boy is gorgeous to look at, a more coherent script would have done wonders to hold the movie together.

Even with Fiennes and Chastain giving it their all in a manner that makes the story far more engaging than you would expect, they can’t carry it all on their own. The most ambitious and audacious performances in the world can’t overcome storytelling that is otherwise safe to the point of being timid.

It is a thriller that frequently flirts with becoming an out-and-out horror film only to never quite arrive there. The result is a middling work that is occasionally interesting, as we see how it attempts to strike a balance between these two distinct ideas. Regrettably, it ultimately can’t hold itself together when it counts.

Narratives about identity are important, but Elemental lacks the delicate nuance needed to tell these stories.

Despite all its flaws, Door Mouse remains an interesting cinematic experiment. And we must commend Jogia for his devotion to comic book language.

Dicks: The Musical is a decidedly big swing and a genuinely weird take on the musical that has its moments, but also feels a bit stretched too thin given its concept.

Metal Lords ends just when it feels like it’s finding its footing, with its characters taking too much time to address their flaws, leaving the music and the bonds that have been formed via the music, on the back burner for too long.

All The Old Knives attempts to convince its audiences that it is a tawdry game of chess, but in reality, it’s a game of checkers. Pine and Newton are its saving grace, with their performances elevating it just above the waters of drowning in its own self-importance.

It’s truly impressive that Fowler has found a way to integrate the wild world and characters of the Sonic the Hedgehog games into the real world in a way that actually works, but it’s a shame that it comes at the expense of the story of friendship that made the first Sonic the Hedgehog film so charming.

For all the ways Botet and company put their hearts into giving it some life, the film is persistently defined by death of not just its characters, but of creativity itself.

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.

While Haynes isn't at his best with May December, a talented cast and an intriguing story make the film an entertaining exercise all the same.

Where Thornton's narrative falters, his camerawork and directorial eye are stronger than ever.

In the end, Meg 2: The Trench is not much different from the first installment in the franchise, for better and mostly worse.

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

The movie is as sloppy as a horror movie can be, but that also contributes to its charm. The only major downside of the experience is a drag of a first act, that’ll most certainly scare away impatient horror fans, and with good reason.

Plemons, Collins, and Segel elevate this basic story beyond more than just a generic noir homage, but it’ll likely leave the audience like Nobody: willing to accept less when they should be asking for more.

For all the anticipation about this being a star turn for Styles, the lack of depth in his performance and of the film itself ensures it won’t leave nearly the impression it set out to.

In its own way, Persuasion is trying to persuade its audience that Austen was brilliant in her modernity, when Austen already handled that quite well without Cracknell, Bass, and Winslow’s help.

If only All Jacked Up and Full of Worms had a script capable of bridging the gaps between its most inspired moments, it could be praised as a refreshing experiment of shock cinema.

Whatever joy you get in individual moments is lost in the shuffle of a film that far overstays its welcome.

It’s a shame that such a solid set of performances are brought down by an underlying thread of jingoism, one that’s hard to put too fine a point on until the film’s final scene. The final shot of the film is a punch to the throat, a distinct flourish on Friedkin’s part that I absolutely adored, but its origins leave me feeling more than slightly queasy.

Fans of the Italian director have probably not seen it, and it’s surely the strangest film he’s made, with signs of his favorite cinematic elements he would bring into later, more well-known films.

Even without the questions about the veracity of the story, its rah-rah style makes it feel superficial rather than sweeping. In the end, Flamin’ Hot comes across as a selling of a story and a brand rather than a genuine retelling of one.

Susie Searches has its heart in the right place, and this could’ve been the beginning of an interesting mystery series of sorts, full of intriguing characters, twists and turns that are hard to see coming—even for Susie. But the mishandling of tone and unusual shifts in logic and character motivations makes this film more of a mystery in itself.

Ultimately, the new Hellraiser isn’t entirely bad. It’s just bland. Forgettable. And in the world of horror films, isn’t that worse than being bad?

The twist is detailed but not too convoluted, and in my view, it's not easy to see coming. If anything, A Haunting in Venice is a reminder that even when we are inundated with mystery stories, no one does it like Agatha Christie, and it's hard to believe that someone ever will again.