Frankenstein Created Woman is an entertaining aberration in a series of films that have a tendency to run together somewhat, combining beloved tropes of the format–the laboratory sets and sci-fi rigmarole have never looked better than here–with a fresh take on this particular brand of mad science, which sees the title character looking inward, toward the primordial origins of what makes us human.

It’s not as sordid as it plays at, but Bone Lake is wickedly entertaining nonetheless.

Roth and Rendell find the perfect balance of humor and horror, understanding the absurdity of their premise while still making their characters buy into the world. What that creates is a film embracing its own silliness, free of irony, while avoiding the pitfalls of oversentimentality.

Hotel Mumbai may not be a perfect example of its genre, but its restraint from ideological grandstanding and a top-notch technical control of tone make it worthy of a watch.

While never didactic or patronizing, the movie should expand the horizons of some viewers and be validating for others who may see themselves on screen. But to be successful, the movie also has to be entertaining. And Anything’s Possible is.

The opening of the movie has some perfectly timed visually-delivered laughs, like an early car scene involving an accidental failure to reverse, and the bottle-episode staginess of later scenes limits the visual invention. Still, by this point you’ve boarded the ride, and Oh, Hi! keeps you captive in a way that Iris only dreams of: by sheer force of Gordon’s personality.

Kuras avoids fashioning Lee as a generic war biopic by using Miller’s life story as a means through which to explore the myriad experiences of women during war.

It’s a pretty great blockbuster if you don’t think about it much.

I found myself oscillating between being impressed by The Sweet East and feeling like it was trying very hard to impress me. And it did, though probably less than it intended.

The results are mixed, but while Hell Hole is not the family’s best film, it is proof that they’re still among the most fascinating and consistently entertaining players in the horror game.

Ultimately, it’s unfortunate that Call Jane can’t decide whether it’s a character study or the study of a movement, as it’s a visual pleasure that successfully tiptoes in both directions before retracting its more confrontational opinions.

At the very least, it manages to remind us of how miraculous the commitment of human ingenuity can be, when it comes to making a new life possible.

Totally Killer isn’t as great as the sum of its parts, but its playful sincerity and creative chase sequences make it an easy, enjoyable Halloween watch that couldn’t have come at a better time.

If you’re blessed with matching taste, where you’ll put up with a bunch of over-literal, stiff-backed oddballs dealing with a clone crisis, you’ll find a rewarding and gut-busting film that’s lingering ideas are nearly as strong as its humorous, thoughtful construction.

As stimulating as it is, the animation ends up being more pictorial than expressive—an initially fancy but eventually rather monotonous way to dress up what is ultimately a mundane drag of a detective procedural.

Garai’s array of filmmaking techniques are impressive and haunting, breathing an unsettling melancholy into her script.

The Valet parks itself squarely between the lines of established genre tropes, but with such precision and flair that you can’t help but be charmed.

Going against the grain of a cultural landscape desperate to pretend like the COVID-19 pandemic never happened, Hammel dives headfirst into her exploration of the specific ways the universal experience of lockdown drove us all insane.

Director Chris Robinson’s go at Shooting Stars doesn’t reach the heights of its genre’s potential, but it’s not a completely blank slate either. It sits somewhere right in the middle of both worlds: You can feel the inspired approach to the material at a basic craft level, but it’s also never particularly surprising that it went straight to streaming on Peacock.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice acts as something of an inverse to its predecessor: Whereas the first film follows a relatively simple throughline of small-town domesticity coming crashing down under the sudden cognizance of life after death, its sequel is defined by an excess of storylines, all vying for their claim to a meager slice of the 100-minute runtime.

[Keaton] has the kind of presence that makes you sit up and pay a little more attention to whatever he’s saying, and his restless, punchy manner is unsentimental enough to sell sappy material, even as he appears to sidestep it. Goodrich ultimately requires more sidestepping than one man can handle.

Matthew López’s take on the story suffers from breakneck pacing, shallow characterizations across the board, and filmmaking choices that sometimes baffle, and sometimes betray the film’s low budget. It’s a disappointing, slapdash cash-in that does a disservice not only to McQuiston’s book, but the genre it’s part of.

Even at their breeziest, Crano’s punchlines cost exorbitant amounts of discomfort.

Dunham’s filmmaking remains disciplined throughout, building pressure within that’s eventually released in explosive violence. That’s what the title promises, after all. But that promise doesn’t blunt the jolting effect of The Standoff at Sparrow Creek’s storytelling or the gutpunches dealt in its climax.

For what it is, Fall is an excellent white-knuckle affair of the highest order, and it succeeds in what it sets out to do: Keep you locked in for an hour and 45 minutes with thrills, terror and suspense.

At times, Armand threatens to lose itself entirely in the fever dream it conjures, like the film itself is going to reach its combustion point and ignite, but it gets just enough of its disquieting atmosphere across to lodge in the memory all the same.

That Buffalo Girls makes its stand as an empowering journey of perseverance and champion’s spirit, rather than a reflection on the larger societal underpinnings is not to its detriment.

The movie is an incessant interrogation of what our young people are becoming, what they want and what the rules are to get it, yet its humor and humility make it stand out as one of the better recent satires.

While Wyrmwood: Apocalypse might be described as a brains-off zombie flick that’s best when at its most insane, it’s certainly not braindead. Engines rev as zombies breathe toxic-colored fumes, homemade outposts defend against hungry undead outside, and horror-action excitement ramps almost with a vivid, videogame cinematography that’s escapism through extreme, baddie-brutalizing violence.

Wakefield is… well, let’s just say, its insights into human nature are limited, at best.

Fans of the director will doubtlessly find his latest overly familiar, while the Miike-uninitiated will be left scratching their heads as to how chocolate and peanut butter don’t quite make the whole confection more delicious.

Being Eddie is not the all-access, honest recounting of a star’s rise that some fans would no doubt like for it to be, and it may well be intended to mostly serve as a table setting for the stand-up return that Netflix will presumably announce one of these days. But despite its shortcomings, the sharp-eyed viewer will still glean some interesting tidbits about the comedy legend from what is left unsaid.

Reynolds, as ever, seems both happy to be there and faintly self-mocking about his never-ending quest for validation. A better movie could tease out of that tension, or allow its star to unravel a little, rather than just get knocked around. Free Guy is too busy mashing buttons.

More studio comedies should take chances on their principal cast members the way I Want You Back does. Even if little else here worked, at least Day and Slate do.

Without giving any spoilers away, the rest of the Once & Always is both chock full of Easter eggs and callbacks for longtime fans and pays haphazard regard to basic storytelling elements like continuity and history.

Perhaps the most endearing aspect of Sly is how it re-emphasizes that the real Stallone is, in fact, a pretty chatty, even loquacious guy. Even his references to his own limitations name-drop enough artists to undermine that lunkheaded image.

While a little dark and a little unsteady—and boxed in a bit by the limitations of its genre—Flora & Ulysses still hits most of the right beats and manages to find some resonant, intelligent things to say about some pretty grown-up topics.

By laying off the action-movie gas pedal, Plane makes Butler, performing in his native Scottish accent, more warmly likable than he’s been in years.

Does the experience improve under the influence? Possibly. Then again, Yuasa’s work is effectively intoxicating on its own merits, squiggly and colorful, animation off-kilter enough to send you on a cinematic trip so long as you let it wash over you.

A protracted folkish horror story that mistakes miserablism for period accuracy.

Like the best “food porn” movies, Ramen Shop is an expression of authentic passion, the kind fostered by abiding connections not simply to food but to the people, places and times food recalls.

While not compelling enough to be one of the two options—either a destructive or awakening force for our own personal simulations—winkingly proffered in the doc itself, A Glitch in the Matrix still has genuinely gripping segments.

Great slashers manage to construct a fragile sequence of interactions and objects that tumble down and exact a gory toll—Sick understands this better than most.

Abigail is a brutal, bloody blast.

This is a confidently directed and visualized debut with a strong central performance, albeit one not fully supported by its screenplay.

The Rental has De Palma vibes with Fincher’s cool, but lacks the former’s exploitative pleasures and the latter’s cinematic expertise. It is, however, satisfyingly composed in terms of approach, giving the audience flashes of brutality to come or shooting it from a distance, heightening the shock and lending bloodshed sharp flinching power.

Lovers of classical opera will no doubt find it to be a sumptuous treat.

Cuckoo is a twisty, giallo-inspired, semi-body horror mystery that double acts as an impressive lead showcase proving that Schafer is more than just an “it girl.”

What sometimes resembles a goof on Stephen King becomes a form of tribute to the author’s ability to mine terror from the mere facts of living.

Most of the time, though, How to Train Your Dragon’s live-action craft fails to match the equivalent in its animated counterpart, even with original filmmaker Dean DeBlois on hand for his live-action feature debut.

If The Year of Spectacular Men makes any kind of statement, it’s that Madelyn and Zoey ought to work together more often. Put simply, they’re amazing, lively, sharp, snarky with a side of cheer—for the time being The Year of Spectacular Men feels like their gift to us, an unexpected blend of comedic tones and a perfectly bittersweet summertime respite.

Despite walking well-tread but welcome ground, My Sailor, My Love never fully takes advantage of the comfort that comes with repeating familiar story beats.

Rosaline gets some things absolutely right—the casting of Dever, the use of music to lampoon genre clichés, its creative point of view—but it misses the mark it establishes for itself. It’s a misguided work that highlights the insincerities that have emerged in Hollywood’s recent charge towards “inclusion” and “diversity.”

For much of its runtime, Good Fortune sustains a kind of witty, neo-Capra sensibility. When it comes time to bring that sensibility up to date, Ansari politely skips out.

What’s delivered is a flat drama with some admittedly striking nature photography, though the biggest survival struggle becomes that of your own attention span.

It’s unclear whether Frank actually wants to make sense of his subject’s complexities, but regardless, Remembering Gene Wilder doesn’t succeed. Its center remains unknowable, conceivable only in brief flashes.

It somehow manages to lack both the true moral murk of a great noir, while also eschewing the elemental drama of a great Western. It’s pretty good at both, though, and Tost seems like he knows it, without letting the movie’s solid craft go to his head.

If The Hero works at all, it’s because Elliott brings a measure of emotional truth to even the most sentimental of plot developments, and because Haley exudes such warm patience for his lead actor’s rhythms and cadences.

The stylistic intentions of PVT Chat welcome not only a rigorous examination of our own personal proclivities, but a sincere respect for the boundaries inherent in the sexual inclinations of others.

Lingua Franca has a lived-in sensibility facilitated by Sandoval’s empathy and understanding of what Olivia’s going through. It’s the film’s best quality: a firsthand knowledge driving an earnest request to be seen and respected, as an American and as a woman. Olivia isn’t asking for much. There’s no reason to deny her.

Heart Eyes can’t help but swoon at the rich tradition of slashers serving as first-date fodder. It’s not especially scary, but it’s a thrill all the same.

Through all its filth, cynicism and poison-inked vengeance, Babylon cannot help but to be a devoted worshiper at the altar of cinema—and its admiration proves infectious.

Disappointing but not outright disastrous, Skincare never penetrates past superficial observations of how beauty, success and artificiality constantly commingle among the Los Angeles elite.

While there is a literal amount of truth running through the semi-autobiographical Suncoast, its glossy, uncertain cutesiness is as fake as Ron DeSantis’ height.

I can’t imagine any child actually enjoying this film, let alone a child who is familiar with and fond of the original animated adaptation.

Though the film doesn’t break any new ground in the realms of buddy comedies, road movies or teary-eyed tales of man’s best friend, it does take itself seriously enough to actually, if superficially, engage with the institution it depicts with some semblance of a critical gaze.

At times, Rogue Agent feels reluctant to fully engage in the kind of deception that might make it a trickier, more “fun” piece of work; it’s almost too tasteful for its own good.

Authenticity has a time and a place, but even without it, Reece creates a wonderful cinematic experience.

In the moment, what it does do well is tease the increasingly metaphysical conclusion that is swiftly approaching, which looks to shed some of the “slasher movie” trappings and embrace the idea of a supernatural evil that resonates and repeats across centuries and generations of lives. Here’s hoping that the Fear Street trilogy can stick the landing.

It’s an honest to goodness real movie with a mind of its own; practical FX work and creature design help, too, as essential to what distinguishes The Wretched from its influences as the Pierce brothers’ writing.

A completely detached exercise in bewilderment that’s enigmatic nature comes off less Lynchian and more “unfinished scriptian,” director Pascual Sisto’s feature debut aims for intrigue but settles comfortably in mediocrity.

Where The Big Short was bold and enlightening, this is just well-trodden ground, trod over once again in a fashion that feels decreasingly novel.

Ocean’s 8 feels a bit like a high-end knockoff in that way that lots of spinoff films can, although the compensation is the familiar delights of watching smart characters do their job very, very well.

Over all, the profound performances, the even-lit digital cinematography that gives the film a docudrama feel, and Moussaoi’s impressive voice as a first-time feature helmer turns Until the Birds Return into an engaging work on the universality of human nature.

Coster-Waldau and Greis-Rosenthal have a fierce chemistry and passion that coats every conversation they have with one another, whether it comes from a place of love or, later, of disdain. They push each other to their limits in nearly every scene, upping the ante with each glance and loaded word.

Onward has sections where you worry that it’s a disaster, but it turns out to have more emotional oomph than initially apparent.

Helmed by veteran music video director Dave Meyers and co-written by Lopez and Matt Walton, the visual album is, first and foremost, dazzlingly romantic. It is also minorly self-reflexive, gratifyingly excessive, ham-fistedly and lovingly referential, and gleefully riding the pendulum between the nostalgic warmth of a well-designed movie musical and the cool uncanny valley of a contemporary digital sci-fi.

Abominable may not offer much when it comes to a unique premise, especially after two other features have beaten it to the punch, but it’s nonetheless a wholesome bit of family fun with an impressive focus on themes of overcoming grief, propped up by a visual feast.

There may be bolder DC superhero movies, but despite that body-horrific transformation, Blue Beetle sure is the nicest one in a while.

The voiceover-heavy storytelling is exhausting and weightless, despite Keshavarz’s clear affection for and closeness to these women.

Bolstered by a sharply competent central performance as well as darkly intoxicating shots of an ancient city, Zeros and Ones is an act of artistic abstraction that is mostly rewarding in its ambiguity.

Tetris is repetitive, melodramatic and surprisingly uneventful.

Wheaton is the film’s first exceptional element. The second is Stevenson’s restraint.

Prickly characters and a knack for mortifying situations strain to break free from When You Finish Saving the World’s limited and dispassionate plotting.

What Scream VI ultimately lacks, on the other hand, is a clear sense of what it’s trying to say beyond the literal plot unfolding on screen.

The resulting film from Eddie Alcazar is shallow and silly pseudo-experimental sci-fi, made by those assured that they were making something edgy and interesting. To err is human, to film it is Divinity.

As much as director James Mangold’s cinematic interpretation had going for it prior to pre-production, it’s a pity it only seldom succeeds—largely due to the decisions made way back before Darren Aronofsky was attached to helm.

The movie’s action is no-nonsense, no-frills explosions and machine gun stuff, and it lacks the soaring vision of Villeneuve; Sollima is much more of a plunge-forward linear filmmaker. That approach has its advantages, though, and while I wouldn’t have wanted Sollima to try to tackle some of the thornier ethical issues of the first film, he’s more than capable of rampaging through and past them here.

Complete with MGMT tracks and low-rise jeans, Saltburn is a stylized take on the early 2000s, capturing the hollow aspirations of a generation raised on the grit and glamor of early reality TV.

What’s most distinguishable about Bad Trip is the way that it depicts the public which it interacts with. The film never aims to humiliate or dehumanize its subjects—instead of being disparaged or mocked in the name of comedy, bystanders are portrayed as more of a righteous tribunal than mere crabs in a barrel.

It’s true, the specifics of The Thursday Murder Club’s story aren’t anything special, but the film is fairly remarkable in the way it centers and uplifts older characters, giving them stories that don’t revolve around distant family, precocious grandkids, or the bleak prospect of their impending deaths. Yes, the club’s members are all pushing eighty, but they’re each vibrant, fully realized characters who still have things they want out of life.

A small cadre of performers and a play-like production—split into three contained acts that leap decades and single-location settings—keep the indie charmingly subdued, but the movie is so literal when drawing attention to its own underdeveloped themes that it boldly challenges you to be ignorant of the genre’s most basic philosophical bullet points.

Kingsman: The Secret Service may lack the sophistication of its peers, but damned if it doesn’t know how to have a good time.

Like many of the bright suggestions The Pod Generation offers, it would have been better left trimmed from the story, not because the outcomes and repercussions of the tech shouldn’t be explored but because there isn’t room to explore them all in under two hours.

The movie is exhausting, but when we’re talking about the DCEU, we have been the victims of far worse. The movie bores you but, perhaps newest for this universe, it does not drain your will to live. One takes progress where one can find it.

As a piece of revisionist mythmaking, the film employs a staunchly feminist, Aboriginal liberationist lens, one perfectly molded for Purcell’s specific gaze.

It’s the palpable, playful chemistry between Emmanuel and Sy that finally gives this version of The Killer a reason to exist. Their rapport is a little bit sexy, witty and plenty world-weary. Every time they reunite, the film crackles back to life.

Gorgeous and gross in equal measure, propelled by the sense that anything could happen, Like Me is a visual feast.