Like the nasty comic books of many a misspent youth, Creepshow 2 is, deliberately, a sometimes lurid and overdrawn anthology. It consists of three unconnected tales of modern American death, a Creepshow comic book come to life. It is as if Romero and director Michael Gornick are determined to spare grownups the embarrassment of taking horror seriously. [01 June 1987]

If you have missed Janis Joplin, and if you have looked forward to Bette Midler's debut in a role she seemed born to play, you should leave the theatre at that precise moment. Almost everything else in and about The Rose, except a few concert sequences and the occasional occasions when Miss Midler falls out of character and into her stage persona of The Divine Miss M, is infuriatingly tedious, depressing, pretentious, obvious and downright pushy. [10 Nov 1979]

The movie, which banks on the popularity of the rest of the series rather than concern itself with details such as motive, doesn’t add up to much. Annabelle: Creation is a series of slowly opened doors and close-ups of a truly ugly doll whose makeup must have been done in the dark by a deranged artist similarly possessed.

A lazy, hasty effort that offers little beyond a few jack-in-the-box startles and a high body count, including Hewitt's bouncing about in a shirt half-unbuttoned over a bikini top.

Though Lillard's excitable tone keeps promising wild comic adventures, the sequences are uniformly flat and humour-free.

Other than a few gratuitous montage sequences, plus a patently clumsy echo of the shopping scene in "Pretty Woman," Marshall refuses to pull his share of the load, forcing his beleaguered cast to fend for themselves.

Distinctly humdrum, The Last Legion, a boy's adventure story that seems to have been dragged out of the vaults of some early-sixties TV series.

The Boondock Saints II does, from time to time, display a vulgar charm. Or maybe it just wears you out.

Stylistically, Baird seems keen to position Filth as a spiritual sequel to "Trainspotting."

Nothing - not great actors, brilliant direction, splendid costumes or beautiful people - could boost Troop Beverly Hills over the obstacle presented by its screenplay. [22 March 1989]

It's not really serious, not especially funny, and not noticeably scary. Strikeout.

At times, the film is more fun than it deserves to be, and it's probably a lot more fun if you're a 13-year-old with an addiction to "Bully: Scholarship Edition."

The film doesn't work, it ain't charming.

Sarah Michelle Gellar is not faring well as a horror-movie scream queen. Gone are the attitude, wit and verve she used to routinely display in the title role of TV's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

As directed by Bob Giraldi, well-known for his work in rock videos, Hiding Out manages to offer a brief catalogue of the cliches from both genres, before allowing the teen flick to take over. The film is essentially a series of comedy bits in the service of an MTV soundtrack. That soundtrack, which includes the first revelation of K.D. Lang and Roy Orbison's duet on Crying, may be the film's only creditable achievement. [10 Nov 1987]

Now, forcibly deported to Chicago and peopled with American stars, the same story is huffed and puffed and squeezed into an entirely different cultural context. Guess what? Sayonara sushi, hello turkey.

The Wraith reveals itself as little more than formula teen-audience lure. Of some merit to the whole enterprise are two things: the lovingly photographed desert scenery and the hip and lively music score that drowns out most of the turgid dialogue. As far as the acting goes, it's a pity there are no blinds on the screen. [25 Nov 1986, p.D7]

The biggest high comes from the images evoked by the title alone, or the title in tandem with the movie poster, doesn't it?

A British flick based on the first novel in a popular teenage spy-thriller series by Anthony Horowitz, looks promising but, unfortunately, doesn't measure up.

As a story, The Star Chamber is a better comedy than mystery thriller. Even Yaphet Kotto's fine performance as the coldly objective homicide detective, Harry Lowes, can't save the film from its inherent absurdity. [5 Aug 1983]

Add them up and the sum has a certain mathematical inevitability: Really annoying characters, really annoying movie.

A determined romantic comedy with a theme, and damned if it won't see it through.

Guaranteed neither to offend nor delight.

The coolest-looking movie of the year is surprisingly lame.

Warning: If you are experiencing nausea, headache, fatigue or vomiting, you might have just watched Songbird.

After a car accident “aggravates an old skull fracture trauma,” Jane returns to the family-death-farmhouse, where she takes way too long to figure out the incredibly obvious person responsible.

Director Adam Shankman pushes together scenes with little rhythm or flow. Writers Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant ignore credibility, throw in pointless sight gags, treat humiliation as comedy and use tiresome ethnic stereotypes. In short, Diesel doesn't get the help he needs.

In concert with composer Bill Conti and scriptwriter Larry Gelbart, Neighbors has become a hyper insult festival in which four people pointlessly humiliate each other in a variety of increasingly vicious ways. Sample dialogue: "Leave that warthead alone. C'mon, we've got cesspools to suck." It's enough to make you nostalgic for the Shavian wit of The Gong Show, for the genteel grace of Saturday afternoon wrestling. [19 Dec 1981]