For all its reliance on gore and good old-fashioned jump scares, the film rarely raises the pulse.

Farewell to the Flesh exhibits a savvy awareness of its own political limitations.

As slipshot and lazy as it all is, it passes the time as air-headed escapism, and does manage to save all its vaguely-original moves for a bulky final act that delivers some decent spectacle.

It’s all very stupid, if only sometimes in an amusing way.

Stuckmann’s debut may borrow from the found footage boom of noughties horror, but like many of today’s horror films, it suffers from explanation-fatigue.

Though not beyond salvaging as The Carpenter’s Son offers some moments of biblical horror, including an Hieronymus Bosch-like depiction of hell, it doesn’t succeed in pushing past mild discomfort. There is still not enough to drag it down into truly blasphemous depths.

There’s perhaps a kernel of a good film here, and a lead performance that’s better than it has any need to be, but shoddy execution, lazy world-building and a complete failure to capitalise on any of the potentially interesting threads that (perhaps accidentally) appear means 65 has less of an impact than the harrowing final episode of 90s sitcom The Dinosaurs.

The unfocused script from outclassed first-timer Ross never really follows through on what should be its foundational idea, led astray by underdone subplots and vague relationships between its characters.

The film doesn’t have the detail or imagination to fill in the gaps of a well-worn story with anything convincing.

Where Gump managed to steal a nation’s heart with its hokey aphorisms and up with people outlook, Here actively repels with its generic insights into the evolution of family, society, civilisation, the whole bit.

Far from converting viewers, this merely cashes in on their backward-looking nostalgia, without moving forward to anything better, or even half as good.

Marching Powder is neither interesting nor relevant enough to warrant being discussed within a wider cultural or socioeconomic context.

The film sits somewhere between hope and realism, an ode to public service for an audience whose optimism is running low.

The depths of failure here are difficult to overstate, beginning with bringing Platt back to the role he originated on stage despite his age.

It’s hard to imagine a more superficial and safe film, although there is the suggestion that all the juicy stuff has been compartmentalised and stored up for a possible sequel.

It’s a bold play worth seeing, if only to watch Marlon Wayans get the ball and run.

Beyond its nonsensical plot, the film imagines the audience will be delighted by a myriad of references to the first film – but in Dominion it feels less like watching a beloved band play their greatest hits and more like watching them hawk merch to pay for an expensive divorce. Embarrassing.

What’s most disappointing is that the raw talent is all there, and every single person involved here can be proud of having made quality, soulful, intelligent work in the past. It’s sad, then, that this chaotic compilation effort extorts their celebrity and has them make the subliminal case for an ongoing viewer journey that involves the purchase of a Switch 2 (or, in the case of parents/​carers, maybe having them consider picking up a Virtual Boy on eBay).

A few laughs accrued from Bugs Bunny, but mostly a depressing slog

To Vaughn’s credit, at least Argylle isn’t as gleefully misogynistic as the Kingsman films, but that’s a bit like saying “Well, at least the pigeon shit didn’t get in my mouth” after a pigeon has shat on your face.

The film is not wanting for alluring, dramatic situations, but the filmmakers seem at best haplessly blind and at worst blithely dismissive of their potential.

I have to hope that sooner or later the bubble will burst, and a film as insulting to audience appetites and intelligence as this will be some sort of larger lesson for Hollywood. Probably not though. There’s always another D-tier comic book character waiting in the wings for their spin-off moment.

It’s all desperately silly.

The performances too somehow emulates the game’s awkward, unnatural voice acting, a key contributor to both works’ uncanny dreamlike ambience. Rarely has a film better evoked a PlayStation 2 game.

At least there is dedication to the spectacle of practical stunt work, owed to director Jonathan Eusebio’s background as a seasoned stunt performer.

An overabundance of celebrity cameos and some incoherence aside, The Bubble succeeds because it is just so damn fun. Even with a departure from Apatow’s more muted direction there is an abundance of laughs.

The film falls flat due to the fact that it’s a tonal disaster zone. It’s like paying entry to a funfair only to find out you’ve wandered into an open counselling session which is being led by a slipshod college undergraduate.

With its insistence on truth even as it strays from the historical accounts it hinges on, The Ritual fails to scare, entertain or convert. Even though the seasoned professionals attached manage to hold their own, Pacino and Stevens can’t save The Ritual from itself.

The plot is slipshod, the jokes are weak and the animation style offers very little to lodge into the memory.

Jim Davis’ once-witty comic-strip creation is no slouch when it comes to commercial tie-ins, but The Garfield Movie somehow marks some kind of obscene apotheosis of this dark art.

You watch this film not so much in anger, but with the shrugging, pitiful sense that each of its stars will be able to buy a new saloon car, or have their pool retiled.

In order to fill the measly 96-minute run time, there are many flashbacks, both from Maya’s perspective and from the killers as children, arguably making them ​‘strangers’ no longer. These flashbacks repeatedly hamper the film, knocking the thrill out of its pace and entertainment.

Witless nonsense is still witless nonsense when it’s in quote marks, and following a strangely detailed set-up, the film lurches into a second half in which the kill count rises exponentially, alongside the feeling of skull-compounding boredom.

There is no joy to be found in the way that Roth parades out his actors in bad cosplay of characters from the series and strips them of any humanity.

There’s just something gratingly cheap about the affair, from script to cinematography to performances, as if no one involved wanted to be there.

Ultimately The Strangers: Chapter 3 offers no redeemable qualities and is so vacuously unremarkable that it is already in the process of being forgotten.

If there’s such a thing as conflict-sploitation, then Sean Penn has made a genre classic.

Blood and Honey is not a good film but it is the type of film where scenes specified to take place at 3am are filmed in obvious daylight.

Frost takes a fairly conventional documentary approach, but it serves as a comprehensive introduction to a master of her craft.

Visually and dramatically, the film doesn’t reinvent any wheels, nor does it set out too, instead happy to splice together a satisfyingly intense period drama with some nice moments of genre pay-off.

With five decades to plow through, director William E Badgley manages to skilfully compact the Rebel Dread’s political awakening and leftfield creative escapades into an insightful document of an integral fragment in British pop history.

It’s with a strikingly minimal amount of dialogue that Haider Rashid’s Europa poignantly evokes how those bearing the brunt of state violence enter a physically and emotionally soul-destroying state of purgatory.

Even as TO’s quest revolves around personal freedom, individuality, and reaching a quasienlightenment, there is a conflict between his agency and the film’s metaphysical tone.

No two trans stories are the same, and it’s validation, empathy and community, rather than Donna’s achievements, that make up the cornerstones of the film.

Blurring the line between reality and fiction, Aussel hones in on what it is to lose someone as an adolescent in sequences that are stripped back conceptually but pack an emotional punch.

It’s compulsively watchable hokum, sometimes earnest, sometimes daft, but always trying to reach beyond its grasp. And there’s no reason why Emelonye wouldn’t make the transition from Nollywood to Hollywood in the next decade or so.

Fiori exemplifies both an excellent command over form, as well as a great affinity for poetic storytelling, using all the tools at her disposal to get to the devastating truth at the core of the film: that instead of providing the necessary support to underprivileged children trapped in generational cycles of incarceration, the Italian state chooses to criminalise their behaviour.

The subtext behind the pilgrimage is that an act of kindness from decades ago can stay with a person and compel them to shake off the shackles of shame. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is about the lengths that even skeptical people will go to for each other, a length that defies all logic.

The heartache of wasted time and missed love is a familiar arena in queer drama and while Lie With Me rets on classic tropes, it still makes for a moving reflection on adolescent love.

Tense, funny and genuinely chilling in places. A strong tonal balancing act.

The chemistry between Dolan and Macdonald is pure Withnail and I, with Amiss presented as a tragic chatterbox whose splenetic rants are peppered with moments of droll poetry.

It’s a strange, disjointed film that lacks a clear structure and a satisfying denouement, even if O’Neill excels at channelling her prior years in the emotional doldrums via her stern, seen-it-all-before manner.

Designed to replace the controversial final two episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion, The End of Evangelion expands the series finale’s contemplation of emotional crutches and human connection to an apocalyptic scale.

Pain, pleasure, the desperate urgency to express yourself and the sincerity of youth coalesce to electrifying ends.

It’s a chilling and expertly constructed work which goes on to suggest that our finicky anxieties will end up getting the best for us.

The film is beautifully staged and executed, maintaining well-defined emotional contours and never allowing things to descend into mainstream sentimentalism.

Here the island’s geography and the natives’ mythology merge into an overlapping mystery which will ultimately bring about the young woman’s emergent self-knowledge, as she metamorphoses into a very different kind of adult.

The film is underscored by endearing and comedic moments that keep it from falling flat, but it’s ultimately challenging to see beyond the structurally rote contrivances on display.

The film may not be lacking in emotion – Tengarrinha’s emotions are portrayed through the combination of realism and surrealism – but this ultimately comes across as disconnected due to the lack of political contextualisation, leaving an emotional weight missing from the film.

Hussain’s film deftly explores the emotional toll of existing as a modern man who feels out of step with the world around him.

If we look past the obvious limitations of a shoestring budget, we find a gift: a lovely, tactile film with such a nuanced depiction of the ever-shifting tides of mother/daughter dynamics, overflowing with love and care as much as it is with a vibrant colour palette and gorgeous textures.

Where Favoriten differentiates itself from the aforementioned films is in its combination of formal and emotional complexity.

This 20th anniversary refit/remaster of 2004’s cult rock- shock-doc Dig! proves that no amount of inadvisable retroactive tinkering can diminish the quality of a core product that’s this good.

It’s refreshing that Rivers and Williams have an understanding that, just because the camera is pointing at you, it doesn’t mean you need to narrate your actions and speak to the audience down the lens.

The idea of finding that perfect other but having to back away due to circumstance certainly has value, though Tezel does paint Kira and Ian as the only pure souls in a world of self-involved fools. And as such, they’re never entirely likeable or relatable heroes.

Hudson’s film makes room to acknowl­edge that this is a fam­i­ly affair. Mol­ly is at the epi­cen­tre, but the rever­ber­a­tions impact every­one around her.

There’re no wheels being rein­vent­ed here in terms of tone or nar­ra­tive, but it is a very sol­id genre runaround that is ele­vat­ed by its occa­sion­al and wel­come laps­es into soul­ful intro­ver­sion.

The few sin­cere inter­ac­tions between this cen­tral trio are the sole high­lights of the film, as Fel­lows’ com­e­dy tal­ents are wast­ed in a flim­sy script.

The stans themselves are not massively interesting, and the film is happy to frame them as whimsically eccentric nerds rather than anything more psychologically problematic (which would confirm to a truer definition of the term ​“stan”.)

Turestedt is quietly superb in the lead and she carries the film’s themes on her shoulders with Jack-in-the-box tension, her veneer as a successful Swedish television presenter mimicking the repression she’s facing in her life.

The handmade qualities of this world amplify the sense of devastation. The characters, whose designs resemble Barras’s work on My Life as a Courgette, each have distinct personality in their design as well as a visible human touch on their surface which creates a level of immersion.

Even to a viewer who’s not particularly taken by their idiosyncratic and knowingly difficult sound, it’s a pleasure to be in the company of two people who are so proficient at articulating their inner feelings.

Bulk is a self-unravelling noir sci-fi which gleefully ties its various threads into impressive granny knots of self-referrential absurdity.

With lots of appealing wildlife and landscape photography to keep things lively, there’s much to cherish in this charming little film.

George MacKay is the Record Keeper, in charge of interrogating Faithfull, and she very candidly speaks about her life in her own words in order to decipher the gulf between who she really was and how she was marketed.

Running at just under 90 minutes, the film Ekner has crafted not only examines the politics and socioeconomics of each country she visits, but also channels the atmosphere of each locale via potent vistas and exhilarating revelry. The danger she speaks of early on in the film is expressed as a looming threat, yet the final result yields the same mood of a wildly passionate love affair.

While it’s a decently entertaining exploration of an interesting figure’s life, there is not much of substance to say regarding the treatment of female artists or the lasting legacy of the Surrealist movement.