Zack Clopton's 2025 Film Retrospective

 

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ZACK CLOPTON'S 2025 MOVIE RETROSPECTIVE!!!"

 

I've been posting to Film Thoughts for seventeen years. In that time, blogs have become obsolete and forgotten, save for a small group of hold-outs like me. I've never had any success or popularity doing this. I just do it because I like it. It's fun. This past year, I did find myself having a minor crisis of belief in myself. Simply, a feeling of whether I had lost the ability to finish a project I start. I still don't know if I can do that. At the very least, at the urging of a friend, I decided to give this thing another shot. With the year ending, here is my traditional list of every new release I watched in the last twelve months, ranked from my most favorite to my least favorite. 

 

Some have made the case that 2025 wasn't a great year in cinema. Admittedly, it did seem that the highs were a little rarer and the lows were more frequent. Still, lots of good or interesting stuff in here. My list topped at 180 titles last year, a fairly ridiculous number, and I fell fairly short of that total in 2025. I maxed out at 158 new releases seen. Which is still a lot by any measure. In fact, it is my second highest number for a year, as my previous runner-up year was 2024 at 151. I have to be satisfied with being second best, I suppose. Anyway, here's THE LIST in its magnitude. 

 

 

 

FOUR STARS

1. Sinners

A movie of great texture. Every shot is filled with details that makes the setting seem like a fully formed world. Embraces the shared histories of blues music, black communities of the American south, Hoodoo, vampire mythology, and Mississippi. “Sinners” is also a hard-hitting monster/action mash-up. Once the vampires outside become known to the humans inside, this turns into a tense stand-off. Expertly crafted action sequences, of brilliantly devised gun fights, extremely physical close-quarters fights, and lots of spurting blood. Blues music is depicted as spiritually transcendent, melodies filled with so much emotion that they pierce spectral boundaries. The cast is excellent, lead by two extraordinary performances from Michael B. Jordan.

2. Friendship

Tim Robinson's ability to leap between maximizing the anxiety inherent in social awkwardness, acting like some sort of shaved Bigfoot trying to learn how to be a human, and bellowing fits of exaggerated, profane, comedic rage must be among this decade's most consistently hilarious bits.  By essentially telling a psycho-stalker story from the perspective of the lunatic, "Friendship" mines hilarity and a quiet unease from the most mundane of social faux-pas. There is surely something in here about how fragile the illusion of masculine success is, the impotence apparent in trying to be something you're not, and how dudes crave the approval of their fellow bros often past the point of reason. (Which might be a statement on U.S.'s foreign policy???) The undercurrent of the surreal and menacing beneath the facade of American normality, ever-present but never quite tipping over into pure nightmare logic, is emphasized by the sitcom-like visuals. It's heady stuff but because hysterical absurdist one-offs always border that darkness, that inner meaning, "Friendship" remains among the funniest, most entertaining films of the year.

3. The Long Walk

In a totally fucked-up world, what keeps you moving forward? “The Long Walk” is partially about the value of political violence, if such acts can truly bring about a better tomorrow or if kindness is the only path forward. Such social concerns aside, “The Long Walk” is simply a relentlessly effective piece of storytelling. The title screen is held off until the first bullet rips through the first victim, a brutal moment that sets up the level of realism on-display. Lawrence's film focuses on the compelling performers bringing these surprisingly fleshed-out figures to life. All of whom gift their characters with an amount of quirks and details, that typically colorful King-ian dialogue and gift for back-story truly triumphing here. Never burdening itself with the background of its setting, this dystopian alternate universe feels vivid, people having lived desperate lives in this crumbling empire.

4. The Ugly Stepsister

Then, as now, 'tis simple truth: Womanhood is the gravest horror story of all. “The Ugly Stepsister” deconstructs “Cinderella” primarily by pointing out that this is only a fairy tale from her perspective. Her stepsister and stepmother are also trapped in a time where women are held to improbable beauty standards, humiliated and subjugated into objects for men. To this reading, writer/director Emilie Blichfeldt adds lots of sickening body-horror, in the form of antiquated plastic surgery, wince-inducing self injury right out of the Brothers Grimm, and a gut-pulling finale of epic sickness. I felt a great deal of sympathy for Lea Myren as a girl who is told by everyone that she's not good enough. The complexity of the film is represented in how both the Cinderella figure and the stepsister are sometimes cruel, sometimes acting out their pain, sometimes simply trapped in this world. An elegant electronic score, fine costumes and art direction, and squirm-inducing sound design brings it all together perfectly. 

5. 28 Years Later

Stranger, harsher, and unsettlingly familiar. Danny Boyle immediately proves he hasn’t lost his edge, staging ferocious set pieces that recapture the original’s panic. An inexperienced, deeply vulnerable child protagonist is centered in a world where kids are absolutely not spared. Alex Garland's script expands the limits of what a zombie can even be while sketching a fully realized post-collapse Britain. a haunting sense of time repeating itself. Imagery and themes of pandemic dissonance, Brexit-era isolationism, and a civilization living with normalized catastrophe give it a sharp contemporary resonance. There is an inescapable, haunting sense of time repeating itself, even when the plotting leans a little too hard on last-minute rescues and franchise setup. Still, the result is blisteringly tense, frequently terrifying, and unexpectedly tender, climaxing not with a monster showdown but a coming-of-age beat that lands hard.

6. The Surfer

The bloated, water-logged corpse of masculinity, cooking on a sun-soaked summer beach. Ego-death and actual death in the sand, a nightmare about a man stripped of everything he has and mocked and humiliated at every turn. Identity is lost as archetypal roles, of father and son, haves and have-nots, the past and the present, blur against each other. Will the next generation be doomed to repeat these same events or can the cycle be broken? The audience waits with baited breath for its star to go Full Cage and it is so rewarding when he finally does. A miasma of Aussie energy, trippy visuals, and a dream-like score that is absolutely intoxicating. 

7. Armand

The uncomfortable truth is, when a young kid does something extremely inappropriate, it is usually because he's emulating something his parents did. “Armand” uses this idea, in the form of a decidedly off-screen second grader doing something very bad with a classmate, as a jumping off point for some very thorny discussions. How much can a mentally ill parent be blamed for the actions of their children? What degree of unhealthy behavior can be excused by lingering psychological wounds? Does any family look good with a deep enough examination? Playing out as a tense chamber drama, that knows exactly when you turn the screws and when to opt for expressive bursts of interpretive dance, “Armand” is centered by a fantastic performance from Renate Reinsve and a chilling atmosphere of suggestion and implication. 

 

THREE AND A HALF

8. One Battle After Another

Politically loud, deliberately silly, jangly with nervous energy, rad. Packed with Pynchon-esque code names, nuns with machine guns, skateboards, bombs, and Johnny Greenwood’s anxiety-inducing score. Moves like a proper action film while still feeling idiosyncratic, fascinated by the ways sexual dynamics and political power entangle. Surprisingly blunt for a 130 million dollar studio movie, portraying government authority as cartoonishly racist institutions that persecute innocent and violence against the state framed as justified. Its villains are powerful yet clownish, sexually obsessed with the very people they seek to wipe out. Leonardo DiCaprio, perpetually stoned revolutionary forced back into action, has big old white guy energy that is knowingly contrasted with the vitality of the younger generation. Gorgeously shot, tightly edited, frequently funny, and often nerve-wracking, the film doesn’t quite escape its shaggy-dog looseness, but it barrels forward with confidence and style. Maybe hopeful about what comes next too.

9. Dead Talents Society

Supernatural farce that gleefully takes the piss out of every variation on the creepy ghost girl clichés that have come to define Asian horror. The comedy is broad but deployed with expert timing, often making this feel like a live-action “Looney Tunes” short in the best way. Silly pratfalls set each other off, one after the other, like a finely-tuned machine. Despite the madcap goofiness of it all, the script takes its characters’ emotions entirely serious. A montage depicting the protagonist’s sad life and how her dad still loved her anyway genuinely made me misty-eyed. I also love how fully formed the ghostly world is, taking one idea and getting as many jokes and clever sequences out of it as possible. 

10. Mickey 17

The meat grinder mentality of capitalism taken to its most brutal extreme but played as slapstick comedy, instead of tragedy. Robert Pattinson has gotten so good at projecting a puppy dog quality, dopey but too innocent to dislike. Bong Joon Ho's sci-fi exaggeration of our modern job market nightmare struck some as too on-the-nose. I think it's exactly right, especially its depiction of a decadent, idiotic, sleazy con-man of a white supremacist leader, so in bed with a creepy Christian cult and corporations that there's no meaningful distinction between the two. I love how the alien critters both feel strange enough to be unearthly while still remaining oddly cute. The “blue collar workers in space” premise of “Alien” is given a detailed modern upgrade here. I enjoyed the wacky digressions. Is the ending too optimistic, considering the bleakness of the material up to that point? Yes but sometimes you gotta hand the little guys a win. 

11. Superman

Leaping into a new world, fully formed but unburdened by back-story, the film rightly expects universal themes to carry the audience. A pocket dimension, a super-dog in a cape, an elemental shapeshifter, a stream of anti-matter, and a rift in reality tearing a city apart must simply be accepted. Superman is tangled in an international conflict with obvious real-world analogues, about propaganda, xenophobia, billionaire-driven disinformation campaigns, and threats to the free press. Corenswet plays the character as utterly human, trying to do the right thing in a complicated world. His easy chemistry with a perfectly cast Brosnahan and the chaotic, adorable Krypto are emotional anchors. The film is overstuffed, the budding Justice League the surest sign of this, and features the standard CGI destruction. However, Gunn finds a personal layer. His “Superman” is the ultimate foster child, who discovers that who he is now is more important than where he came from. The ideas of protecting the powerless, letting someone's actions speak louder than their social status, and believing in the intrinsic worth of life are what we should all aspire to. That's what Superman represents to me and what he represents in this movie. 

12. Weapons

A mystery, presenting a haunting series of disappearances. Like Justine, we are an outsider and, like Archer, we are looking for answers. Each segment ends with a cliffhanger, the script designed to draw you ever-more into this narrative. Strictly through visual means, the mechanics of the otherworldly forces at work are explained. There's explosive moments of brutal gore, before veering towards mad cap retribution. The characters in “Weapons” are surrounded by modern conveyance and have their every move recorded. It still doesn't protect their children. Is “Weapons” inspired by school shootings? After a fascinating first half, the film turns towards providing concrete answers. I left “Weapons” wanting just a little bit more.

13. Frankenstein

Del Toro's much anticipated “Frankenstein” features gorgeous production design, powerful uses of color, elegantly gothic sets, and lovely costumes. The film proves to be an interesting synthesis of Shelley's novel and other classic adaptations of the story. Del Toro gets lightning bolts, an ominous tower, and a mill full of huge turning gears in here. (While adding a criticism of the war industrial complex and some light sadomasochistic homoeroticism.) By fore-fronting the themes of a neglectful father and an abandoned child, parallels to humanity's status as the abandoned children of a silent God comes to mind. While Jacob Elrodi is fantastic as the creature, the script makes the monster so sympathetic as to dampen the complexity of the material, turning him into nothing but a misunderstood outsider – with an implicitly romantic connection to the female lead – and sanding down his more monstrous actions. That leads towards a weirdly sappy ending, the weakest element of an otherwise scrumptious gothic feast. 

14. Dangerous Animals

This is more than simply “Wolf Creek on shark-infested waters” because Sean Byrne takes the time to invest his characters with actual heart. Hassie Harrison makes Zephyr a heroine that simply won't give up, no matter how much abuse she suffers. Josh Heuston is such a sweet guy as Moses. You genuinely hope to see these two survive and worry about if they won't. Meanwhile, Jai Courtney's burly physicality is well suited to a murderer that is equal parts threatening, strangely chummy, and deeply fetishistic about his obsessions. The violence in this movie truly hurts, this viewer wincing on multiple occasions. Only one bad line of dialogue drains any tension from this grisly, unpredictable thriller. 

15. Predators

Obviously, the sexual abuse of children is an utterly vile crime. However, I've never been comfortable with the way “pedophiles” – whether they have actually harmed a child, consumed CSAM, or even lusted after children – have become an acceptable target for some people's most sadistic tendencies. It never actually seems to be about protecting kids, does it? By showing the deleted scenes of “To Catch a Predator” episodes and detailing its sordid legacy, “Predators” explores the complicated intersecting paths of punishment, justice, context, and sympathy. Quietly, it expresses a clear disgust with turning acts of vigilantism into a public spectacle, of commercializing moral outrage and removing any degree of human understanding. Chris Hansen comes across as someone who once had good intentions but sold them all out in favor of an easy buck. Maybe we, as a culture, shouldn’t have turned the act of entrapping potential child molesters into slapstick comedy, ya know?

16. Eternity

“Eternity” has an amusing depiction of the afterlife, where different types of paradises are sold to the recently deceased as if they are destination vacation spots. This provides a good number of laughs, as does some excellent use of Da'Vine Joy Randolph. However, “Eternity” also has a heaping dose of heart. I found myself invested in Elizabeth Olsen – affecting a funny old Jewish lady accent – being forced to choose between the two men she loves. It's a conflict that is genuinely challenging, as she loves both of them, and the script gives room to that dilemma. Miles Teller is also way more appealing than usual as the equally crotchety second husband. There are a number of really sweet interactions here that made me go “awwww.”  There's also a neat, “Being John Malkovich” style chase through the repressed memories of the mind in the last third too, so that was cool. 

17. Mr. K

For many years, I've had a reoccurring dream about tearing open a wall and seeing pulsating flesh and sinew underneath. “Mr. K” is the first movie I've seen that puts this visual on-screen. This is part of an absurdist nightmare comedy, that also feature a hotel that is both inescapable and slowly getting smaller, a normal man mistaken for a messiah, roving brass bands, a hundred ways to cook an egg, and catty old French ladies. What any of it means exactly is hard to say, despite the occasional ruminations on life and death. It's never as unsettling or funny as it wants to be. However, watching Crispin Glover slowly go from the most reasonable person in the location to a screeching nut – doing what he does best, in other words – is an entertaining experience. 

 

THREE STARS

18. Eddington

Ari Aster attempts to replicate the feeling of living through 2020 by shoving as many of the year's hot button topics – the pandemic and all its anxieties, police brutality and the responding protests, white supremacy, conspiracy theories, PizzaGate, cults, crypto-currency, gun violence, the rise of A.I. and the inevitable environmental collapse it points towards – into the framework of a modern western. Through it all, Aster observes the rotting corpse of masculine entitlement as the main connecting fiber between these themes, in the form of a pathetic protagonist desperate to gain any degree of control over his spiraling life and a horny teenager saying anything to impress a girl. It's debatable whether this builds towards any concrete point or if Aster is merely running down a checklist of topics. Still, this does gather up some of the anxiety-inducing and nightmarish tone of the director's superior, previous films. While not entirely unpredictable, its story does include a few surprises, alongside uncomfortably vulnerable performances and a keen cinematographic eye. 

19. The Fantastic Four: First Steps

After only four or three previous attempts, we finally got a pretty good “Fantastic Four” movie. Bringing a retro-futuristic approach to these characters, setting this in an idealized high-tech 1960s, was an incredibly smart decision. It gives the movie a feel distinct from other superhero flicks. The script gets the interplay between the team, a family that bickers and have a special camaraderie, just right. The cast is well chosen, Pedro Pascal proving to be a surprising effective Mr. Fantastic. My favorite part was the outrageous, super-science-y techniques Reed and his pals cook up to resolve their larger-than-life adversaries. Despite all the things it has going for it, “First Steps” still can't overcome the average Marvel house style, especially in regards to its CGI special effects and action sequences. 

20. Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q Lazzarus

I've always thought “Goodbye Horses” was a beguiling, fantastic song and the mysterious circumstances surrounding the phenomenal voice that brought it to life have long fascinated. Eva Aridjis' documentary gives us all the answers to the questions of where Q Lazzarus came from, what motivated her, why she disappeared, and what happened to her afterwards. More importantly than that, the film allows us to get to know this bigger-than-life personality, a woman as immediately striking and compelling as her singing voice. Her story is a heart-breaking one, of a dream repeatedly deferred largely by circumstances out of her control. Yet this is a tribute, not a funeral dirge, to the artist that was and the life she lived. 

21. Dog Man

I did not expect this to be my favorite animated film of the year. First off, it's unexpectedly gorgeous, a level of detailing to the backgrounds and character models that almost make them appear made of fur and paper. Having the title character actually do dog-like things is a great, reoccurring source of laughs. Most of all, I found myself surprisingly invested in the relationship between the neurotic cat villain and his clone-son. He's so grumpy and the kid is so adorable and watching him open up his heart to the tyke is precious! Like many kids' cartoons, the comedy gets a bit manic at times. By the end, you definitely start to feel a little tired. However, “Dog Man” is eccentric and clever enough to defy my expectations. 

22. Xeno

A clever updating of the “E.T.” premise, that makes the stranded alien a proper otherworldly horror. The kids have very modern problems: A single mom with depression, an alcoholic step-dad with abandonment issues, and a government too well versed in the intimidation of outsiders and advanced interrogation tactics. Lulu Wilson finally finds a perfect fit for her thorny charm, as a gutsy tomboy who loves creepy crawlies. I like how everyone in the movie is a damaged, messy person, with keenly observed personalities. Paul Schneider gets a hell of a monologue, about how shitty dads beget shitty dads. I admire the favoring of practical creature effects over computer generated ones but I do wish Croak’s design was a bit less derivative. I do like his stubby coffee table legs. I knew this one won me over when the downbeat ending made me sad. 

23. Death of a Unicorn

Sets what you might call a fairy tale, a story where the wicked are punished and the virtuous prevail, among pharmaceutical CEOs. Some of the gags are a little too broad but I mostly enjoyed the satire. If you buy into the gulf between father and daughter, the emotional arc is surprisingly sincere. A lot of fun is had contrasting the modern idea of unicorns with their wilder roots. Fills its ranks with beloved character actors and stars and allows them to play totally to type. The sweeping mountain setting and beautifully designed sets are lovingly photographed. Some of the CGI isn't flawless but I did enjoy the practical monster effects we get throughout.

24. Abraham's Boys

Moody horror slow burn that asks us to consider whether Van Helsing would be a good dad or not. “Abraham's Boys” seeks to deconstruct the image of the noble vampire hunter, following the perspectives of his sons who have been raised to believe in the same things. The result is a tense feeling of uncertainty, that mirrors growing up with a dictator of a father. Chilly cinematography, a strong performance from Titus Welliver as the patriarch, and an entombing sense of isolation further makes this a clever variation on the Dracula story.

25. The Shrouds

Cronenberg’s most personal film since “The Brood.” A chilly, kinky, and deeply uneasy meditation on grief that folds his lifelong obsession with bodily decay into contemporary technology. The film treats grief not as a noble ache but as a messy tangle of love, resentment, ownership, and erotic fixation. Truly, the dead are never through with us. Physical decomposition, digital networks, and spiritual attachment are linked into a single mesh. Screens follow us into the grave and mourning becomes another app-mediated obsession. A shifting espionage plot and possibly imagined conspiracy echo his classic paranoia-driven narratives. Low-budget and talk-heavy, this is emotionally invested while also being distant, pairing frosty aesthetics with raw feeling. An old master thinking out loud about death, desire, technology, and what we leave behind: Refusing transcendence, insisting instead on rot and the persistence of the body. 

26. Bugonia

Streamlines the wackiness of the Korean original and waits to deploy the trademark Yorgos' dread-filled absurdity as a bomb dropped at key moments. Instead, the film is largely devoted to capturing the mood of our current age. (Making this Lanthimos' “Eddington.”) In that this is a series of terse conversations and debates between an unhinged conspiracy theorist that nevertheless kind of has a point, a cold-hearted corporate overlord attempting to reason with him via therapy-speak platitudes, with the anxiety of impending ecological collapse and a looming sense of apocalypse floating over it all. Also notes of a drug crisis, skepticism of pharmaceutical companies, and childhood trauma from sexual abuse. Jesse Plemons is funny in his wild-eyed convictions, Emma Stone is chillingly icy, and I was mildly insulted by the neurodivergent side-kick who is a figure of freak show mockery. The editing and cinematography is as tight as Lanthimos' films ever are. The post-note and final montage are a mega-dose of absurd humor and weirdly poetic morbidity, a compliment to the cartoonish ultra-violence indulged in from time to time. An odd one, even within the context of this guy's career. 

27. Orwell: 2+2=5

With the rampant abuse of the phrase “Orwellian” over the years, here comes a film that pinpoints what elements of our modern world actually do eerily line-up with the author's writings. All the ways those in power distort the truth and remake reality to maintain their own authority over the the lower classes are explored here through blisteringly edited montages of actions taken by governments all over the world and throughout history. It's dismaying stuff, repeatedly making you realize that ol' George saw all this coming a long time ago. Biographical information about Orwell's life are sprinkled in here, via readings of his own journals, which are interesting but do feel somewhat apart from the rest of the movie's goals. 

28. Together

A movie about the anxieties and pressures of being in a long-term relationship, with the supernatural threat operating as a literalized metaphor for those concerns. Michael Shanks' script is a little shapeless but he's actually good at the horror stuff. The cinematography includes a lot of striking visuals. The sound design is especially eerie. Distorted flesh, crackling bones, twisting limbs, and ripping skin are a guaranteed way to make audiences wince. "Together" is actually a lot funnier than I expected but is not an insincere story. It takes the relationship at the center seriously. There's no doubt that the real chemistry between Franco and Brie goes a long way towards making the audience invested in these two. The emotional climax of the story – loving someone enough to let them go, giving up everything for your partner,  needing a person like you need oxygen – got to me.

29. Predator: Badlands

After decades of only being an antagonistic man-killer, “Badlands” moves the titular alien into the hero role. This goes hand-in-hand with a healthy expansion of the lore before crash-landing on a crazy death-planet full of inventively creative monsters. Elle Fanning is nicely utilized as a bright-eyed android girl to accompany the snarling Predator on this journey. The script has an almost video game-like structure, providing lots of power-ups for the hero as he traverses through different environments. This leads to a somewhat mechanical, predictable feel but the movie also ends with a surprise kaiju battle, so I can't stay mad at it. 

30. Invader

Mickey Keating's latest low budget horror quickie aligns our perspective with immigrants adrift in an America that's openly hostile to them. This creates a quiet sense of unease before the protagonist – Vero Maynez, one to watch – stumbles into far greater danger. Keating is quoting “Halloween” extensively: The seemingly innocuous but strangely desolate suburban setting contrasted with an intentional void of a villain who practices bizarre, off-putting rituals. At the same time, Keating subverts expectations by following our slasher killer pass the point where this story would usually end. The slow start and shaky visuals takes some getting used to but I found this to be an effective little experiment.

31. Caught Stealing

Sometimes, a movie isn’t much more than a bunch of wacky characters bouncing off each other and that’s okay. “Caught Stealing” is actually highly amusing for most of its runtime, with its bickering Russian enforcers, Rabbi mobsters, chatty bar patrons, and a cute kitty. A strong cast is assembled to bring these memorable players to life, with Matt Smith and Regina King – who should be nominated for Best Supporting Actress for this but probably won’t – stealing the show. Some elements of the intentionally loose script are better handled than others. If “Caught Stealing” has any weak point, it’s a protagonist whose character arc is clear as day from the moment his formative trauma is revealed. The needle drops maybe highlight the nineties setting too much but the score rocks.

32. Dead Mail

As far as Shudder-core, synthwave, retro throwbacks go, this is one of the more genuine feeling examples. There's an intimate, grainy, but carefully approached sensibility to the cinematography and editing. Directors Kyle McConaghy and Joe DeBoer, or whoever did the casting here, have a good eye for actors with interesting looking faces. We only get brief peeks into the lives of the characters here but whole lifetimes are suggested around them. This is a story of hyper-specific fixations: The ins-and-outs of home-made synthesizer technology, hunting down addresses from the briefest of hints, erotomania around a particular type of man. It makes the film feel like the work of the same kind of eccentrics, tinkering in their basements. A story that jumps around and weaves back to its beginning might throw some off. The ending is not entirely satisfying though the faux “based on a true story” post-note won me back. 

33. The Life of Chuck

If movies were merely the sum of their parts, “The Life of Chuck” would be Mike Flannigan’s masterpiece. The final moments of the apocalyptic first segment and the spontaneous dance number driven second installment are so astute, meaningful, and energetic. The supporting cast is packed with character actor greats: Mark Hamill and Mia Sara as wise grandparents, Kate Siegel and Carl Lumbly doing what you pay them for, genre veterans like Heather Langenkamp and Matthew Lillard getting to stretch their muscles as one-scene wonders. Unfortunately, the film is also loaded with the worst tendencies of Stephen King as a writer, including a wise old black man, psychic visions, and a heavy-handed sentimentality. “The Life of Chuck” is far too aware of its own profundity, especially once the last third reveals the script’s hand. Which is a bummer because the movie actually comes close to doing some big ideas justice. Such as how time folds in on itself and people and places reappear throughout. 

34. Good Boy

Gains a lot of tension out of putting a dog in danger but not as a mere gimmick. The film is committed to replicating the way a dog would see the world. Indy's master is always at the center of his attention, a sniff of a lost collar gives him its entire history or a dark night becoming a swirl of color. The cluttered house, captured by a notably still camera, creates a haunting ambiance throughout. The antagonistic spirit is depicted as symbolic of the rot and decay that comes for us all eventually. Throughout we have Indy, a very good boy that proves to be not only a surprisingly textured actor but a deeply sympathetic figure to follow on what would probably have otherwise been a standard low-budget ghost movie.

35. Lesbian Space Princess

On paper, this is the most 2010-era Tumblr movie possible and, in some respect, it definitely is... At the same time, I found the genuinely neurotic main character rather lovable. You end up rooting for her to succeed on this quest. Mostly though, this takes a number of funny running jokes and exploits them for all their worth. Such as the amusingly improvised songs and the succession of puns tying together the sci-fi and queer themes. I suppose this speaks to my cis white guy-ness that the sexist talking spaceship and the Straight White Maliens were my favorite parts of this. When combined with the lo-fi animation, the impression is one of friends joking around and spitballing ideas, which is a pretty good place for this to occupy. 

36. Cloud

Kiyoshi Kurosawa's take on the shoot-out genre is, unsurprisingly, more of an icy thriller than a traditional action movie. The director's trademark use of silence and sparse sound design, empty interior spaces, and practically non-verbal protagonists reoccur here, utilized to create a few chilling confrontations, midnight surprises, or tense stand-offs. The film's main observation seems to be that, once you've hardened your heart to most effectively make a buck, graduating to killing another person isn't that big of step. The slow pacing and vaguely defined characters makes this tricky to get into at times, while also making the number of twists much harder to be caught off-guard by. 

37. Novocaine

The first half-hour of this is actually a cute romantic-comedy, Jack Quaid kind-hearted and charming in his social stiltedness, Amber Midthunder a fine hold-the-manic pixie dream girl. This precedes a shift into being an ultra-violent action flick with a side-eyeing sarcasm to much of its carnage. That points towards the film’s trouble in blending its genres, the jokes and grisly fight scenes and crime plot and love story all functioning side-by-side without integrating. Thrusting a dweeb like this protagonist into such a scenario is fun for a while but looses some of that spark once it starts to play Nathan Caine’s disability as a straight-up superpower. (One imagines a human being would’ve bled to death long before he starts to show any weakness.) Save for a few overdone moments, the action choreography is well done. The gore is cringe-inducing, the cast gets a couple of laughs out of me, and the whole thing is oddly sweet given the copious bloodshed and callousness towards the injuries incurred. 

38. Chain Reactions

Personal reflections on a Texas chain saw massacre. Finding unexpected parallels between unrelated cinematic branches is why films like this have value. It makes me glad that Patton Oswalt has the same interpretation of the cosmic implications and anti-capitalist subtext of “Texas Chain Saw Massacre” as I do. Alexandra Nicolas-Heller's memories of the film intertwining with the Ash Wednesday bush fires, links to Australian cinema, and the use of color is fascinating stuff. I loved Takashi Miike commenting on how a chance screening of “TCM” changed his life and his theories on cinematic violence. Stephen King's thoughts on the use of suggestion in horror are less interesting than his memories of watching “The Blair Witch Project” while fucked-up on pain killers. Karyn Kasuma's gender essentialist reading strikes me as more shallow, a weak note to end on. I'm glad everyone finds Leatherface to be a somewhat sympathetic figure. I do wish the doc drew from a wider group of artists influenced by the film. All of the people interviewed are involved in movies or the horror genre. Would've been nice to see someone totally outside that sphere waxing philosophically on meat hooks.

39. No Other Choice

A cold, darkly comic take on modern employment as a humiliation ritual. The sharpest insights come from how instantly a stable, dignified life collapses under capitalism, making Man-su’s desperation painfully recognizable. Chan-wook Park steers the material into bleak farce. That tonal shift is also the film’s weakness. Sprawling subplots, especially a grotesque rival’s domestic misery, dilute the focus. Park’s detached, almost clinical gaze keeps real emotional identification at arm’s length. Still, cinematography is rich. The editing meticulous and the moral trajectory that implicates the entire family is unsettling. A smart indictment of a system that treats workers as disposable but one that never quite hits with the ferocity of Park’s best work.

40. Locked

Anthony Hopkins as an anti-woke psycho tormenting a charmingly scummy Bill Skarsgaard in a high-tech car is decently entertaining. If only because watching these two try to out-ham each other is fun. Unlike most confined space thriller, this realizes the limitations of its own premise. Half-way through, it becomes a trashy and gory killer car flick, a far more fun and twisted set-up. Makes you wonder why the whole movie wasn't like that, ya know? This gets surprisingly nasty at times, painful injuries being put on-screen. The stuff about fathers and daughters – much less class conflicts – are way too heavy for so silly a movie. Still, I was emotionally invested enough to find the final scene sweet.

41. So Unreal

Amanda Kramer's video essay on virtual reality and how the digital has changed our daily lives, as reflected through both the big budget cinema and low-brow schlock of the eighties and nineties, is consistently interesting. The prose is thoughtful, poetic, and funny. Debbie Harry's narration is fittingly robotic but quite comforting. The video montages, kitsch-y transitions, and electric music are all well assembled. As a collection of brief tastes of some of the ideas and images this subgenre has to offer, this is pretty good. It probably could've stood to be Kier-La Janisse levels of dense though. I waited with baited breath throughout over whether “Serial Experiments Lain” or “VR.5” would get a mention, two programs technically outside the scope of a film about films but, come on, both would've perfectly fit in. 

42. Fear Street: Prom Queen

As someone who merely enjoyed, didn't love, Leigh Janiak's “Fear Street” trilogy, maybe I was willing to cut this little liked follow-up more slack. I admittedly remember 1994 better than 1988 but “Prom Queen” does, to my eyes, do a decent job of capturing that late eighties, day-glo, big hair aesthetic. This is sort of like “Heathers” as a slasher film, with its bitchy teen girls in-fighting and power plays, which is right up my alley. The red slicker makes for a cool killer look and the gore is fantastic. Nearly the entire film playing out over the course of one night is a neat trick, very indicative of the subgenre's glory days. The characters are simple but with a likable attitude, the ending is predictable but satisfying, the soundtrack is a little too on-the-nose.

43. The Severed Sun

The desolation of authority within quasi-Christian cults, witchcraft as a form of rebellion against patriarchal control systems, sweeping but isolated rural country sides, pagan rituals within the deep dark woods, glacial pacing, and soundtracks heavy on eerie dissonance are frequently touched upon topics within the folk horror realm… However, this one does it all a bit better than most. The sense of repressed longing and bad men making bad decisions within the community is conveyed nicely. The grainy photography has a keener sense of place and negative space than I expected. Toby Stephens makes for a compelling evil pastor. I’m glad somebody finally used the “Uncle Boonmee” trick of a black figure with glowing eyes standing among green nature for a horror villain. I wish this one had a little more time and money to show what happens to this village after it all falls apart but the lean runtime is absolutely a benefit at the same time.

44. Reflection in a Dead Diamond

Bruno Forzani and Hélène Cattet's latest free-association, cinematic miasma of EuroSleaze vibes mostly draws inspiration from sixties spy-ghetti flick. It's Bond versus a female Diabolik, with random seasoning from giallo and samurai flicks, wrapped up in a dream logic meta-narrative where memories, films, comics, and the present blend together. There's lots of kinkiness, sex, latex skin being sliced off, bold visuals, groovy music, eye and diamond symbolism, and something about men both desiring and needing to destroy the vivacious women who confront them. I don't know what the hell the story is suppose to be exactly but it's pretty neat and fun to look at and listen to and let wash over you like black paint, a splattering of blood, or a colorful cocktail. 

45. Elio

Pixar is working with familiar themes here, of learning the value of family, outsiders forging friendships, and finding your place in the world. How charming you find this will largely depend on whether you think the title character and his wiggly alien buddy Glordon are adorable or not. I did and, subsequently, enjoyed this one a lot. The alien civilization created here is colorful and creatively executed. The gag of the intergalactic conqueror villain also being a neurotic single dad and a kid thrust into the role of cosmic diplomat produced plenty of chuckles. The trope of a running joke being introduced in the first act and paying off in a sincere, sweet way at the end always works on me. Also, this might be the only Disney movie featuring a subplot inspired by John Carpenter's "The Thing," another welcome bit of weirdness.

46. The Colors Within

Sometimes a family is two haven't-figured-it-out-yet lesbians and their twink. A sleepily paced, somewhat shapeless slice-of-life story that disarms the viewer with its charming characters and an overriding sense of gentleness. The conflicts emerge from people believing they've let others down or can't be open about what they truly feel. Those original songs are pretty catchy and watching them come together is satisfying. The ability of the protagonist to experience emotions as colors results in some lovely visuals, atop the already graceful and ornate animation. Disappointingly, it does not play into the rock concert climax, which could have benefited from some more high-energy editing. Nevertheless, this feels like a warm hug and is a good addition to anyone's Christmas movie canon.

47. The Naked Gun

Extremely faithful to the Z.A.Z. spirit of the original, the new “Naked Gun” ensures there's a new wacky sight gag, dead-pan one-liner, or crude joke every minute or so. A lot of them are quite funny too. Overlapping voice-overs, the mounting absurdity of various forced confessions, Pam Anderson's extended scat singing, and a mountain-top vacation gone witchy and played out to its loopiest extension are my favorite moments. Liam Neeson is an ideal lead, willing to make a clown of himself while mostly staying straight-faced. Like most spoofs, the film has trouble maintaining that zany energy for its entire runtime, started to flag a bit before the end. But I laughed a whole bunch, so mission accomplished. 

48. Bring Her Back

The reigning theme of "Bring Her Back" is the world's tendency to assume adults will approach children with pure intentions and the frequency of that trust being violated. We know these kids are getting out of a bad situation and the film repeatedly mines queasy tension from putting them into a worst one. Sally Hawkins strikes an eccentric but lovable persona at first. The hints that Laura is not as trustworthy as she seems pile up quickly. A sickening act of sabotage is when it becomes clear that we are dealing with a monster. Hawkins is terrifying in the way she swings between an acceptable outward persona and her vile actions. As awful as what she does is, the script makes sure to always put what she's doing in context. "Bring Her Back" examines how pain can turn someone who was previously a kind individual into a beast. The Philippous are clearly extremely talented guys, who excel at dread-filled atmosphere and intensely uncomfortable moments of cinematic violence.

49. Final Destination: Bloodlines

Is this a metaphor for loving somebody through a mental illness, even if you don't entirely understand? “Bloodlines” juggles this commitment with the sometimes messy realities of being part of a family. This might be the entry in the series most willing to walk the line between comedy and grisly mayhem. A sequence involving an MRI machine surely ranks among the franchise's most painfully executed deaths. At the same time, these moments of sickening gore occur right alongside blatantly comedic beats. It's honestly refreshing to see the filmmakers behind “Final Destination” admit that these are basically splatstick movies at this point. God bless Tony Todd, a consummate professional right up to the end.

50. Grand Theft Hamlet

Shakespeare wrote his prose for the common man, supposedly, so it's fitting that his work has now been transformed into the populous media of a massive multiplayer online video game. Obviously, the contrast between the high-standing of the Bard's text and the violent absurdity of “Grand Theft Auto” is the main source of entertainment here. The digital avatars attempting to put on the play while people shoot at them is consistently funny. Watching this crazy dream grown from two dude's in-jokes to an actual, organized program is neat. As a documentary, some of the scenes are obviously scripted and a bit melodramatic... Though main brain behind this idea having an argument with his real wife's digital stand-in, only for him to get killed in-game and have to run right back to her, is a good moment. 

51. Zootopia 2

As with any sequel to a buddy cop movie, the action is escalated from the first. The comedy is also cranked up to a caffeinated frenzy that is overbearing at times. Nick and Judy’s dynamic is inverted, with the cop being the loose cannon and the con man becoming the reluctant one. This feels more obligatory than inspired, especially since the couple is still trapped in the eternal will-they-won’t-they holding pattern. That hesitation bleeds into the themes too. The film gestures at anti-racist, anti-ruling-class critique, portraying Zootopia’s institutions as deeply corrupt. Disney bravery has a ceiling so the sequel never dares to follow those ideas to their logical conclusions. Celebrity guest stars who announce themselves too loudly and a twist-villain structure that's hardly a surprise also stick out to me. Still, the world-building is genuinely fun, the mystery is mildly involving, and I liked Gary the Snake. 

52. Companion

I'm not one to get hung-up on plot holes but “Companion” features a few that really took me out: A guy who can hack a robot not knowing where its solid state storage is, the power of love against software, a random bystander helping a lot off-screen. It bends towards a feel-good ending that counteracts the spirit of a clever, grim thriller about patriarchal control. Up to that point, surprising story turns and a willingness to keep riffing on its concepts kept me hooked. Sophie Thatcher does well as both a heroine we can root for and someone discovering truths about themselves. Jack Quaid portrays a type of sexism that is not screaming theatrics but much more common. If only the film was willing to follow that observation to its proper conclusion.

53. The Rule of Jenny Pen

The highlight of this is, easily, John Lithgow at his most unhinged. He gives such a fantastically nuts performance, always bordering between hilarious and menacing, that you accept his mediocre Australian accent. Geoffrey Rush rides a subtler line, between unlikable and an old man holding on to the last shred of his dignity, and makes a worthy opponent for Lithgow. As an allegory for how easily tyranny can grip any community, it could stand to be deeper. The editing and visuals manages to make the extremely limited setting more cinematic. Unfortunately, the story dribbles off to an abrupt, flagging ending and the hints and suggestions concerning the villain's back story never amount to much. Still, after "Driving Home in the Dark," James Ashcroft is truly establishing himself as New Zealand's new horror director to watch.

54. Lurker

Beguiling but not quite fulfilling. I think this operates as a metaphor for the deal with the devil people make when pursuing fame, how would-be celebs cultivate a parasocial connection with fans and put up with stuff they probably shouldn't so as to stay in that intoxicating spotlight a little longer. I related a lot to Matthew, his loneliness, his desire to be apart of something bigger, the bitterness he felt about being discarded by someone who doesn't want him as much as he needs them. I wish the performances were not so internal, that the film wasn't only interested in existing in that place of tension over how far this will go, rather than truly pay it all off. 

55. Wolf Man

A remake that delivers a beast far more man than wolf. The curse is presented as infectious disease but the anxieties that motivate the story are much more personal. Blake's greatest fear is becoming his dad, the transformation acting as a metaphor for the inevitable realization that he's as capable of being a monster as his father was, the need to behave a certain way calling to him. Sweeping cinematography draws attention to the beauty and savagery of the natural world. The split in focus between millennial Daddy issues, Cronenbergian body horror, and a marriage dissolving damages all elements. As a siege picture, this works a lot better. Limiting most of the movie to so few locations allows the audience to be more aware of the few resources the characters have at their disposal. The director has a good eye for when to keep stuff off-screen and when to viscerally thrust it into our faces.

56. Presence

A ghost story in which the camera assumes the spirit's perspective presents many fascinating ideas, about the audience's own role in this story and the setting. The expressive cinematography does a great job of making the haunting the main character, despite us never seeing them. Watching this group of people, coming apart at the seams in many ways but a very normal family in many other ways, navigate their problems is well executed. While an intriguing ambiance of melancholy is established early on, the script proves increasingly literal as it explains more of its own ideas. Good twist ending though. 

57. The Siege at Thorn High

Seemingly every surface and object has a layer of grime on it in this film, quickly establishing a gritty mood. That grim tension only increases as the situation gets worst for the characters, each deadly act being more gruesome than the one before it. There's definitely an arc here, of a hero with good intentions falling into a world where violence is the way of life. Befitting the Indonesian genre film template, this eventually escalates to hard-hitting, swift moving melee combat that is quite well done, if intentionally less acrobatic than some other examples. The siege set-up allows for a decent amount of suspense to build, despite the characters largely remaining archetypal. Having no awareness of the history of racial violence in Jakarta, I can't speak with any authority on whether its a sensitive treatment of the real events that are alluded to. Aside from coming down firmly on the “racism is bad” side of the debate, this is definitely much more an exploitation movie with bone-breaking action than an even-handed social issues drama. 

58. Lost in Starlight

My heart has long since atrophied and decayed meaning, when I feel myself actually wanting to see a couple stay together in a movie, I know I've been won over. “Lost in Starlight” can never quite bring the love story between its lead characters and the Mars exploration sci-fi subplot together into a satisfying way. Nevertheless, the leads have chemistry and their romance – overly contrived meet-cute aside – is well done. One could accuse the guy stumbling across a recording of his girlfriend's mother that perfectly explains her trauma as contrived but the segment is surprisingly touching. There's enough surreal flourishes to justify this being told in animation. Songs aren't too bad either. 

59. Holland

Nobody makes a movie about a seemingly perfect small town life unless they plan to reveal a horrible secret later on. “Holland” appears to be a movie about a neurotic woman accidentally creating the scandal she is hoping to avoid because she's bored with her outwardly normal life. And it is kind of about that but the insane twist in the second half still caught me off-guard. I enjoy the intentional exaggeration of the sets, costumes, and settings. The performances share a similar artificiality, which is something Nicole Kidman excels at. The dream sequences exemplifies this heavy-handed touch but some of those are good too. (Such as a good use of blood drinking Pomeranians.) The ending should've gone a lot darker, possibly saying something about the privilege of a white woman in small town America, but the script backs off from that and largely squanders the meaning of a key subplot. 

60. Nobody 2

Much like the first “Nobody,” this is an indecisive subversion of the Dadsploitation flick that acknowledges how self-destructive and ridiculous the hero's actions are while also luxuriating in the righteous dad fury he unleashes. Sequel escalation means this is even sillier than the first, with RZA having a ninja fight with Daniel Bernhardt, a brawl on a duck-themed boat, a showdown in a booby trap laden water park, and Sharon Stone as an extremely over-the-top villain. Timo Tjahjanto in the director's chair insures that the action is gorier, wilder, and more frenziedly choreographed than in the first one. Even if the novelty of Bob Odenkirk as a not-so-retired bad-ass is obviously not as fresh this time, despite Odenkirk's ability to bring all his schlubby charm to the role. 

61. The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie

Purists will argue about the characterization of Daffy and Porky or the inclusion of some modern references among the jokes. However, I think “The Day the Earth Blew Up” does a good job of maintaining the frantic energy you'd hope for from a “Looney Tunes” feature. The silly gags come fast and quick, with more of a perverse edge than I expected. I liked the neurotic alien antagonist, the random shifts in animation style, and the copious shout-outs to classic sci-fi monster movies. The plot changes several times, which is not unexpected but does point to how this gang is probably better suited to shorts. Still, I enjoyed this plenty. Animation is nice too, fluid and expressive.

62. Thunderbolts*

Despite being based on second-string characters, “Thunderbolts*” turns out to be a scrappy, surprisingly heartfelt misfit adventure. Its early stretch leans heavily on “found family” rhythms and its action is sometimes mediocre, the film eventually carves out its own identity by embracing the dysfunction of its heroes: depressed, stalled millennial and losers whose unresolved trauma reflects on our national malaise. The Void is potent metaphors for depression and the occasional horror-tinged imagery gives the movie some of its most memorable moments. Florence Pugh’s messy pathos, David Harbour’s sad-sack charm, Wyatt Russell’s brittle bravado, and a surprisingly affecting Lewis Pullman make for a strong cast. The film avoids feeling overly burdened by MCU continuity until its franchise-mandated, abrupt ending.

63. Predator: Killer of Killers

“Killer of Killers” sees the sturdy “Predator” outline playing out four times in a row. There's an undeniable cool factor in the concept of the Predator fighting Viking warriors, of a shinobi and a samurai teaming up against the same alien, or a WWII dog-fight with an UFO. The themes are universal, the characters straight-to-the-point, to get us hooked as quickly as possible, since the film only has so much time to showcase each segment. This also leaves plenty of room for kick-ass action. It's incredibly clear that Dan Trachtenberg loves playing in this sandbox, each hunter outfitted with their own technological gimmick. The freedom of animation allows a lot more leeway in what can be shown here versus in a live action film.

64. Spinal Tap II: The End Continues

As with any late career reunion tour by aging rock stars way over the hill, “Spinal Tap II” is both totally unnecessary, lacking in vital energy and sharpness, and a little embarrassing for all involved. Which isn't to say I didn't laugh more than a few times. While the bits are undeniably clunkier, and the celebrity guest roles feel overdone, these three guys can still get up to some proper bickering from time to time. The running gags about cheese appreciation, ghost tours, and an excess of fuzz peddles all got fine chuckles out of me. In other words, a pleasant time can be had simply watching the guys on-stage again, playing the hits.

65. Monster Island

Warms my heart to see overseas filmmakers still mash up elements from Hollywood movies to make their own B-grade monster flicks. This is essentially "Hell in the Pacific" versus "Creature from the Black Lagoon," with bits of "The Defiant Ones" and "Predator" thrown in too. The rubber suit creature effects are cool, the gore is gnarly. The two leads are compelling in their homoerotic tension. The film's appeal falters whenever it breaks the two guys up. The cinematography is a bit dark, the editing kind of shaky, and the script doesn't have enough ideas to fully flesh this out. But any movie where a Japanese POW fights a Gillman with a samurai sword is getting a thumbs up from me.

66. Megadoc

I enjoyed “Megapopolis” but “Megadoc” makes it clear how such an odd project came about. Highlights include an aggressively eccentric Shia LeBouf arguing with a clearly baffled Francis Ford Coppola, a rehearsal process involving weird improvisational games, a running tally of what the budget was spent on, and Aubrey Plaza acting like a whimsical goblin. It's clearly no way to make a big budget sci-fi epic but, much like the finished film, there's something admirable about a wildly misguided endeavor in service of high-minded – if deeply out-of-touch – ideas. The doc is a bit sloppy but provides such a fascinating snapshot of a chaotic production that I wish it was an hour longer. 

67. Heart Eyes

Combining slasher flicks and romantic comedies was presumably done because both are equally formulaic, which makes it odd that not that many of the clichés are on-display here. What “Heart Eyes” does have is amusing lead performances from Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding, whose chemistry is convincing. The kills are campy and bloody. The cinematography is weirdly very nice in the first third, before becoming overly green for the rest of the run time. There's only some of the obnoxiously self-aware dialogue Josh Ruben and Christopher Landon are known for. It peaks at the drive-in theater sequence, the extended third act being a total snooze after a decently entertaining first eighty minutes. 

68. The Monkey

Perkins finds a potent stand-in for the ever-unpredictable, often cruel finger of fate in the teeth-baring toy simian. When combined with a story swimming with childhood resentment, “The Monkey” feels like digging through the past in search of some sort of answer to the random chaos of the universe. An extended act of gallows' humor, the death scenes go for outrageous gore comedy and bend towards cartoonish splat-stick almost immediately. Some of the wackier beats feels a bit awkward. The script captures King's authorial voice, using specific language and odd turns-of-phrase. Theo James makes for a compellingly anxious lead, while Tatiana Maslany brings some heartfelt pathos to the ill-fated mother.

69. Spooktacular!

Simply for the huge collection of vintage footage, commercials, photographs and advertising material devoted to America's first great Halloween theme park, “Spooktacular!” is worth seeing. The story of the park's rise and fall is not that compelling in-and-of itself, the editing is choppy and riddled with stock footage, and the pacing is somewhat lumpy. But for a Halloween dork like myself, this is an extremely cozy and loving tribute to a grand horror park of the past. Highlights include decades-old gossip about Tiny Tim and John Krasinski recalling a time he saw a performer dressed as Dracula get punched in the face by a customer, before the filmmakers immediately show an interview with that exact same performer. 

70. Materialists

The joy of the romantic-comedy is watching pretty people be charming together. “Materialists” certainly has that. Dakota Johnson comes to life more so than in any of the trash I've seen her in. Pedro Pascal is effortlessly charming and Chris Evans has an undeniable charisma in the realist, best realized role in the film. However, “Materialists” is also about how dating apps and/or capitalism have reduced all of human interaction – romance most of all – to coldly comparing a set of stats with pie-in-the-sky wants. A pointed moment has a woman admit that the threat of being sexually assaulted is an unavoidable aspect of being female. All of this suggest that the film has much higher ambitions than the frothy pleasures of the genre it inhabits. However, the darkest and most cynical conclusions the script points towards cannot exist in an inherently upbeat format such as this, meaning “Materialists'” ending feels like a weird compromise. (Though I guess people make decisions that don't make sense in real life, certainly when matters of the heart are concerned.) There is something intriguing about the tension between these two instincts and that makes the film watchable, despite not totally working. 

71. Havoc

Now I understand why Netflix kept this on a shelf for a couple of years, not because it’s bad so much as it’s non-commercial in its bleakness. This is a modern noir where cops, gangsters, and politicians are all equally corrupt. The only loyalty left with any meaning is a parent’s devotion to their child. The violence is gruesome, bloody, and cruel, without any honor at all. The title presumably comes from the plot being a tangle of different scheming criminal factions, with a few too many supporting characters and subplots to keep track of. One suspects Gareth Evans saw “John Wick” and all its imitators pulling from “The Raid’s” approach to action and decided to top them, with a more frenetic and intense night club shoot-out. I do wish the action had that level of dynamic movement and brutality more often. I like that Tom Hardy’s rejection of movie star glamour means every slick fighting move he does hurts him as much as it does the other guy. Messy but grimly compelling.  

72. Primitive War

You can tell actual dino nerds worked on this. Deinonychus are accurately depicted as doberman-sized, feathery scrapers. When “Jurassic Park” style raptors do appear, they are pinpointed as an as-yet undiscovered species... Because this movie is set in 1968 and Utahraptor, the specimen their size and shape point towards, wasn't unearthed until 1993! The pterosaurs have furry down coats, the sauropods have colorful head crests, and the T-Rexes are spiny, chunky bruisers. The CGI is not Hollywood blockbuster levels but remains surprisingly good for a modestly budgeted production. There's quite a lot of novelty in “Primitive War” committing to being a hard-R horror/action hybrid, seeing dinosaurs truly rip people apart. Yeah, the ra-ra pro-militarism tone is a weird fit for the story being told here. The characters each get one attribute and nothing more. The expletive laden dialogue is oppressively macho. The movie is way too long, interest visibly sagging anytime the dinosaurs aren't on-screen. Also, I was continuously amused by the clichéd Vietnam War movie soundtrack that uses alternate – and presumably cheaper to license – versions of all the expected hits. This remains the kind of schlock that delivers what it promises.

73. The Thing with Feathers

Unlike most “elevated” horror flicks about grief, “The Thing with Feathers” doesn't play its supernatural element as solely metaphor or an in-universe fact but as something in-between. The titular feathery thing is obvious symbolic of mourning but everyone in the household experiences it as a literal reality too. That is an interesting touch, even if the visual of a humanoid bird man is still more silly than chilling and the film never quite generates scares. David Thewlis' vocal performance as the rhyming, patronizing spectre is well done. The film probably would've prospered from a leading man whose natural inclinations is subtly and not theatrics but Benedict Cumberbatch still gives a decent performance. The depiction of a newly-widowed dad trying to raise two sons is sincerely handled. The cinematography is moody and I appreciate how this slowly emerges as a story about the creative process as a way to digest loss.

74. Deathstalker

Steven Kostanski's favorite thing to do is fill his movies with latex-y, weird, slimy, goofy creatures and, boy, does he indulge himself with “Deathstalker.” A little goblin wizard sidekick, red-skinned demonic zombies, drippy bog beasts, and a multi-faced stone behemoth are some of the highlights here. During its best moments, the film embraces the lunk-headed heavy metal coolness of its premise, via four-bladed swords, Harryhausen-ian skeleton warriors, or copious decapitations. However, a tone less knowingly tongue-in-cheek probably would've served this better. Daniel Bernhardt – who, naturally, finds reasons to kick people – is surprisingly funny in the lead and there's some amusing gags and lines along the way. However, an attempt to play matters of the heart straight bristles against the otherwise flippant tone. And stuff like this is always funnier when it's played straight. 

75. The Toxic Avenger

Macon Blair has done a good job of maintaining the maximalist Troma tone. His "Toxic Avenger" is packed with dismemberment, profanity, freakish creature effects, a fatal fisting, bizarre digressions, and one urinating monster dong. The movie is cheap looking, anti-capitalistic, self-aware, hyperactive, and obnoxious. There is enough pointed weirdness that I chuckled a fair amount but the comedic timing is too often off. What keeps the movie afloat is a cast trying hard to invest this utterly manic material with heart. Weirdly, the relationship between Toxie and his kid is the heart of the film. If nothing else, the unlikeliness of a new “Toxic Avenger” starring Emmy, Golden Globe, and Teen Choice Award nominees is a novelty that's hard to overlook.

  

TWO AND A HALF STARS

76. Honey Don't!

The novelty of telling a hard-boiled detective story, starring a gay woman who sleeps around as much as your average private dick, goes a way. The top-shelf cast, typically colorful Coen-esque supporting characters and dialogue, goes further yet. Unfortunately, the story is a mess of plot points that meander all over the place. Honey's focus seems to jump around from scene to scene, the script stumbling to assemble these unrelated threads into some sort of coherent whole. At the same time, how am I suppose to not enjoy a sex and blood filled saga with a sun-drenched Californian setting, Marguet Quilty and Chris Evans hamming it up while Aubrey Plaza smolders? I'm not sure if it arrives at any sort of satisfying conclusion but I still mostly enjoyed my time here. 

77. Beast of War

The lesser of 2025's Aussie shark thrillers from somewhat well-known cult directors. Like seemingly every ensemble war movie this year, I wish the guys here were a little more fleshed-out and individualized. (Though, as in “Monster Island,” there's also some amusingly homoerotic undercurrents.) However, I do admire the way the script manages to continuously make this bad situation worst, without pushing the boundaries of plausibility too much. I certainly didn't expect any extensive melee combat in the last act! Perhaps most importantly, the shark shenanigans are extremely well done. The underwater beastie is portrayed as an almost unstoppable force of nature, its entrances into a scene always given the proper pomp and circumstance. Doesn't reinvent the wheel but a sturdy genre exercise.

78. Die My Love

Lynne Ramsey's latest feel-bad psycho-drama focuses less on replicating a panic attack and more on plunging us into the day-to-day misery of postpartum depression. Jennifer Lawrence drifts in and out of memories, plagued by sexual frustration and constant annoyances. The result is a cinematic endurance test, replicating the daily malaise of the protagonist's situation with only occasional moments of weirdo humor or poignancy. (The latter mostly thanks to supporting parts from Sissy Spacek and Nick Nolte.) It's an effective idea but the problem is that we never see the central married couple in any sort of ordinary mode. Lawrence is already acting like a wild animal from the first scene, making it harder to relate to her descent into a very personal hell. Counts for something that Robert Pattinson's husband character is depicted as merely insensitive and clueless and not a full-on villain.

79. Hallow Road

“Hallow Road” is very stage play like in its construction, nearly the entire film taking place within a car. Most of the script is composed of the two people inside talking, among themselves and the various voices on the telephone. Director Babak Anvari is well aware of the limitations of set-up, trying to make the premise as cinematic as possible with some nice cinematography and use of color. Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys are committed to the material and give strong performances. Unfortunately, “Hallow Road:” is sunk by a heavy-handed script that has to explain all its thematic concerns, about the choices a parent has to make and what exactly they owe their children. This extends to the late-in-the-film introduction of folk horror elements, which are bluntly explained rather than allowed to exist on their own terms. If only the film had focused more on the central image of driving further and further into deep, dark, twisting woods. Kudos to the sound design team for creating some impressively disgusting off-screen noises. 

80. Found Footage: The Making of the Patterson Project

A movie appearing to be about one thing – a mockumentary about the hellish making of a crappy found footage horror movie – that slowly reveals itself to be about two other things – an actual horror movie and a depiction of a relationship collapsing – is a fun idea. The scenes devoted to wrangling incompetent actors, surviving nutty producers, and navigating unfortunate circumstances are the funniest bits. I do wish the eventual reveal that the crew has stumbled into an actual supernatural scenario was kept in the background, existing only as hints and suggestion, for much longer period than the blood-splattered finale. The underwhelming resolution further suggest that the filmmakers didn't have quite enough ideas to sustain this one. The cast is likable. 

81. The Running Man

Edgar Wright willfully represses his trademarks as a filmmaker and tries to make a mass appeal, big budget blockbuster. The results are mixed. The action scenes are fairly well done. I'm still not convinced that Glenn Howell is the next great movie star but he does have a burly physicality that is appealing. Unfortunately, the script is lumpy as fuck. The comedy too often falls flat. The cultural satire feels oddly antiquated. The one-liners are annoying. The comedic supporting characters, played by a revolving door of wacky guest stars, are distracting. Instead of running all the way to the finish line, the pacing dips in and out in uneven waves. This has something like three endings and none of them are Stephen King's, pointing to the lack of conviction behind the whole project. 

82. Sangre Del Toro

Hearing Guillermo del Toro wax philosophically on his influences, his favorite books and movies and paintings and so forth, is fairly consistently interesting. The man definitely has a way with words, notable in the way he describes his fondness for Mary Shelley or the closing lines of the doc. The director talking about the Mexican culture that birthed him is more insightful. I wish this sturdy but unexceptional doc had more of that stuff, more insight into what drives del Toro to tell the stories he does and the experiences that shaped him. More talk about his childhood nightmares, for example. Seeing his collection on display is pretty cool though, despite the movie around it being the kind of thing that once would’ve been confined to the realm of DVD special features. 

83. The Legend of Ochi

Wearing its influences on its sleeve, “Legend of Ochi” attaches a Wes Anderson-esque tweeness to a “Gremlins” and “E.T.” type narrative, all while drawing inspiration from eighties Jim Henson fantasies. The result is too meditative for its own good, the story lacking much in the way of urgency and hitting far too many familiar beats. Willem Dafoe is given some amusing dialogue to croak but the lead actress is wooden as can be. That little Ochi – like Baby Yoda, Gizmo, and a snub-nose monkey mashed together – sure is cute though. The film gets by for a while on the charm of that critter, its whimsical special effects, and some lovely cinematography. 

84. Keeper

Lacks the bold dreaminess and clarity of vision and tone of Osgood Perkin's prior riff on a fairy tale had. “Keeper,” instead, feels like the director's response to “Barbarian,” in that its about a woman ignoring her instincts to get the hell away from a man displaying many red flags, turns into a basement-set monster movie eventually, and has some feelings about motherhood. Unfortunately, Tatiana Maslany – whose sardonic sharpness and doe-eyed vulnerability are otherwise highlights – is not given any actual agency as a character. When the antagonist inevitably has the tables turned on him, via yet another invocation of dommy-mommy power dynamics, it feels like the work of a self-punishing man fulfilling a very specific fantasy. Perkins still has the ability to craft some striking imagery, present in the final shot and the supernatural being's eventual appearance. (Not that the movie is ever willing to actually commit to being a creature feature.) Sadly, that's all in the back-half after a first half too enamored of mushroom trip nightmare sights that lack any genuine power. Needed more monkey!

85. Chaos: The Manson Murders

Any new take on Charles Manson feels ethically suspect and creatively redundant, which is exactly why Errol Morris adapting Tom O’Neill’s book sounds more promising than it probably is. Morris dutifully walks through the well-worn facts of the Tate-LaBianca murders with slick archival footage and the usual true-crime ominousness. O’Neill’s central, eyebrow-raising theory is presented: That Manson may have been a MKUltra success story as part of a CIA-backed scheme to discredit the anti-war movement. It’s a compelling idea but the film never quite commits to interrogating it or debunking it. Instead, equal time is given to prosecutors, conspiracy, and the obvious fact that cult leaders don’t need CIA brainwashing to ruin vulnerable people’s lives. At a brisk 96 minutes, Chaos feels under-cooked, tacky in its use of true-crime aesthetics, and oddly like an ad for O’Neill’s book rather than a fully realized film. Still, in an era where conspiracy thinking feels less fringe than ever, it’s an interesting, if frustrating, meditation.

86. Shelby Oaks

Stuckmann's willingness to blend together different horror styles – found footage, demonic thriller, mockumentary, folk horror – is mildly clever. “Shelby Oaks” does generate a convincingly shadowy ambiance, with nicely rotten sets and eerie sounds. The found footage segments are well done, suggesting enough to keep you off-guard. However, the dialogue is occasionally clumsy. The story's villains leave out photographs that detail what they've been getting up to. The last act is foreshadowed in a heavy-handed manner. The script does not leave much room for the inner lives of its heroines.

87. The Moogai

A few elements elevate this slightly above the many other ambient folk horror enterprises that use its demonic threat as a metaphor for mental or cultural instability. Drawing directly from Aboriginal legend gives this a cultural specificity that is welcomed, despite not having nearly as much to say about forced assimilation and identity as it clearly wants. I also like that this embraces being a proper monster movie, the titular boogie man being an actual physical presence governed by certain rules and not merely a representation of a bigger idea. The creature effects are a bit stiff but I like the double-faced design. Meyne Wyatt gives a good performance as the difficult heroine, the audience understand why she makes the decision she does, but this is still too reliant on ghostly visions and suggestions of paranoia. 

88. Ziam

The sturdiest of action movie set-ups – a lone hero fighting through an isolated location full of bad guys – being combined with a zombie apocalypse sounds awesome, right? And, for a handful of minutes, it is. Prin Suparat has little in the way of on-screen charisma but he sure as hell can deliver the punishment. When focused on fisticuffs meeting the undead, “Ziam” is bad-ass.  Sadly, that only makes up a few scenes in a movie with stock characters and few novelties in narrative and setting. Saddling the hero with a kid sidekick does not raise the stakes so much as it holds the action back. Whenever “Ziam” feels like it's finally building up some momentum, it then goes back to a holding pattern. Repeat until credits. 

89. Tron: Ares

Disney, you've spent 43 years trying to make “Tron” happen. It's not going to happen! I'll give “Ares” some points. It is less fatally entrenched in its own dorky-ass lore than “Tron: Legacy” was. Setting more of the movie in meatspace might have been a factor there. The visual effects are fantastic, especially once the movie recreates the look of the original. The Nine Inch Nails soundtrack is undeniably cool, all pulsating synth and infectious beats. Unfortunately, the middling plot and archetypal characters are not the main thing holding this one back. Jared Leto remains a deeply unappealing leading man, a massive void of charisma that seems deeply uncomfortable every second he's on-screen. Not even a passion for Depeche Mode can make up for that, man. 

90. Man Finds Tape

The found footage/mockumentary hybrid seems to be emerging as the favored style for the subgenre these days. This one has a few good ideas: A sudden burst of squirm-inducing parasitic horror, playing on a common trypophobia, the otherworldly imagery of a staircase spiraling into nothingness, a supernatural metaphor for the sway a persuasive leader can have over his followers. A plot twist is more distracting than compelling. Some awkward exposition is stapled on. I couldn't quite escape the feeling that this would be scarier and more interesting if it excluded the framing device and documentary structure all together though. 

91. The Gorge

The questions presented by the first half, such as whether the protagonists are guarding some sort of gateway to Hell, ultimately prove much more interesting than the answers provided in the second half. A long distance romance, conveyed via messages on signs and across a gorge, is a fun premise. While Miles Teller still can't be both charming and grumpy at the same time, it's hard not to be enchanted by Anya Taylor-Joy as the prettiest sniper ever. Their chemistry goes a long way to sucking the viewer in. The reveals concerning the true nature of the Gorge are deflating on their own before the movie shifts away from both romance and horror in favor of fairly generic action shenanigans. Also would've been cooler if the monsters were anything other than rotten tree people zombies and if so much mediocre CGI wasn't pile on top of them. 

92. The Glassmaker

Pakistan’s first fully hand-drawn animated feature is visually and tonally beholden to what people think of as the Studio Ghibli style, which does not stop it from being nice looking. As a gently paced love story between two people kept apart as much by social conditions as their own shyness, this is cute. The setting is a world not too dissimilar from our own, save for a few fantastical elements here and there, which is a nice touch. As a story about a country torn apart by military conflicts beyond the public’s control, with evident real world parallels, this is more muddled. I like how it gets suddenly very dark in the last act but this one can’t bring its different threads together into a satisfying whole. The glassblowing sequences are neat though. 

93. It Ends

An endless back road, to be driven down forever, is a suitable idea for some sort of existential purgatory. (Or a metaphor for the anxiety of facing down the uncertainties of adulthood, as may be the case here.)  When focused on the naturalistic banter and interaction between the small group of friends that make up the film's ensemble, “It Ends” has a sharp perspective. However, the film does run into the limits of setting an entire narrative largely within a car very quickly. The rules governing this transitory state of being are never clearly defined and an ambiance of dread cannot be sustained outside of a few scenes. The filmmaker and cast are ones to watch though.

94. Dinner with Leatherface

A very sweet tribute to not only a genre icon but a real mensch and clearly someone the filmmaker loved. The personal anecdotes about Gunnar Hansen, from his friends and co-workers, are certainly the most valuable elements of this doc. All the behind-the-scenes tidbits about “Texas Chain Saw Massacre” are well trotted territory. His other credits, dire as some appear, at least provide stories we haven't heard a hundred times before. The talking heads from fans and convention regulars, some having nothing but a tenuous connection to the subject at hand, don't add a lot. It's not much of a movie but Edwin Neal talking about his last weekend with Gunnar or the recollections of the man's work as a poet, naturalist, and local historian make this worth seeing

95. Marshmallow

“Marshmallow” earns a lot of points for being a retro-style summer camp slasher that actually cast age-appropriate kids in the main roles and faithfully captures a laid-back, eighties ambiance. This has a strong first half, with above-average performances from the kids and a convincingly spooky campfire story. Unfortunately, the nightmare freak-out scenes are distracting in their editing and presentation. The twist is something of a new idea for a premise like this but, the more the movie explained its ideas, the less I liked it. It leads towards another twist minutes before the credits roll, which I liked even less. 

96. Strange Harvest

Telling a Lovecraftian horror story via the format of a true crime documentary is an admittedly novel approach. (If nothing else, it's a smart way to shake-up the found footage angle.) The gore effects that make the crime scenes so vividly depicting are, indeed, quite startling. However, once you figure out where this story is headed, a good deal of tension is sucked out. True crime docs are told in the past tense and when the serial killer is trying to bring about the end of the world, that kind of tells you how successful he was, right? That causes the pacing to sag considerably in the second half. 

97. The Spirit of Halloweentown

Fly-on-the-wall observation of St. Helens, Oregon – the real place where “Halloweentown” was filmed, the movie otherwise having little connection to this documentary – in the weeks leading up to their town-wide October celebration. The vibes alternate between cozy and tedious. When focused on the grieving woman who finds relief leading the festivities or the cheerleader couch trying to reconnect with an estranged father, this is quietly compelling. When attention turns to the crazy-eyed Jesus freak leading a one-woman protest against the holiday, it becomes hilarious. The subplots about the local ghost hunter or the new bar owner getting canceled over a bad Yelp review, it's fairly dull. Adore the Halloween parade montages though.

98. Love Hurts

When this is doing the Jackie Chan thing, action scenes that mix physical comedy and interactive props with dynamic movements and hard-hitting blows, it's moderately entertaining. Ke Huy Quan and the rest of the cast aren't as fast or able to absorb endless punishment the way the Hong Kong guys could but the fight scenes are still well done. The script over-explains itself and drags the story down with additional subplots while also never feeling properly invested in its own characters. The sappy romantic elements aren't sincere enough to be accepted and the comedy is too often broad. (For example, a cameo from one of the “Property Brothers?”) Still, there's some fun to be had in the free mixing of various different cultural ingredients. 

99. Trap House

Tonally, this almost feels like two movies cut together. On one hand, you have a very pedestrian Dave Bautista action movie, in which super-good American cops blow away evil Mexican drug dealers in gory manners without any interrogation of the morality or the context of these decisions. These moments are presented almost artlessly. On the other hand, you have a kid-friendly story of teens breaking the law to do the right thing, getting in over their heads but still succeeding. That element works better, if only because the kids have more personality and banter than the grown-ups. Sort of like a grittier Disney flick, with a spark of youthful energy to it. When those two halves meet, the teens feel out of place and the film can't make its violence – a loss of innocence, a better movie would observe – have any impact. A plot twist about one character is especially laughable. Sophia Lillis gets the monologue that is the emotional heart of the story, making the decision to reduce her to a damsel-in-distress in the last third all the more disappointing. 

100. Jurassic World Rebirth

I enjoy a good theme park ride and "Rebirth" does provide those thrills. The video game-like structure of fetch quests, puzzles to solve, power-ups falling from the sky, level-by-level environments, and a final boss creates a pulpy momentum. The family trying to escape the mosasaurs is intense. The Quetzalcoatlus is a formidable threat, the mountainside location dynamically executed. Hiding from winged raptors in a grungy convenience store is suspenseful. The T-Rex stalking through a riverbed is striking. Edwards brings along some of the sense of scale and misty awe-and-terror he's displayed before. The script, nominally by David Koepp but clearly smoothed out by committee, trots out flat characters, labored exposition, and plainly stated themes about personal responsibility and corporate greed. The mascot baby dino is as shameless as it is inevitable, the whole enterprise is unmistakably a product built to keep shareholders happy. "Rebirth" is definitely schlock but schlock that gave me my money's worth.

101. Four's a Crowd

Alex de la Iglesia's highly unpredictable career continues with this broad comedy about the ride-share from Hell. This is one of those comedies where the characters are, I do believe, intentionally rather annoying. That does not make this the most inviting watch and listening to these four bicker and nitpick at each other for the first half-hour isn't much fun. For a brief period in the middle, this becomes an solid physical comedy, as the anxieties of driving on a jam-packed freeway are turned into a series of outrageous sight-gags. A selection of unlikely turns pile up in an amusing manner. I was laughing consistently at that point. Never quite recovers after that, leading to a shaggy conclusion featuring one of the more improbable cinematic declarations of love I've seen this year. 

102. Rounding

My mom worked nights on the palliative unit for thirty years. I've seen the kind of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion a job like that creates. It would be fertile ground for a horror story... Unfortunately, “Rounding” was definitely one of those scripts intended to be a low-key drama before someone threw in a ghost or visions of madness to make it a commercially viable horror film. The obligatory visions of madness lack punch, the frost-bitten foot is gnarly, the suggestions of supernatural evil go nowhere, the monster looks cool but is never fully observed. That's the problem with “Rounding.” Despite having a strong lead performance and presenting a compelling mystery you can get sucked into, this feels like a project that is all whispery ambiance and implications that always backs away whenever it's actually about to go anywhere. That's before an intentionally deflating reveal and an abrupt end, the credits rolling just as “Rounding” feels like its finally picking up some steam. 

103. Until Dawn

The characters are all very annoying. The plot never justifies why any of this shit is happening, with hints at a wider mythology not being well handled. (Peter Stormare shows up to be sinister, not an unwelcome addition.) The time loop gimmick allows this to periodically become a different type of horror movie. No attempt is made to blend these different styles but it's still the most fun thing going on here. The slasher sequences and spontaneous human combustions are a lot of silly, gory fun. David F. Sandberg gets in one of his trademark clever jump-scares. The possession and ghost episodes are lame. The very zombie-like take on the wendigo is alright but heavy on the loud shrieking. In other words, this needed to be dumber.

104. A Working Man

The story has an unnecessary number of steps, weaving far too many bad guys – each one in need of execution before the runtime winds down – into what should be a simple “save the girl” story. This needed another injection of goofiness, though I do appreciate how cartoonishly evil the villains get. The script goes for "John Wick"-ian self-mythologizing when eighties action camp would've worked better. (Especially since all the dialogue is the blankest type of exposition.) The direction is too murky, the confrontations over-edited probably to disguise that its star is not as limber as he used to be. Watching Jason Statham do his thing is still reasonably entertaining, especially when matched with a comic book exaggerated supporting cast and over-the-top violence. This is at its best when featuring bikers in samurai helmets and hilariously giant shots of the moon and not when glorifying guns and waterboarding. It's a miracle the bad guys are Russian underworld types and not racist caricatures, though the Latino characters still need the mighty whitey to save them and the woes of the single father are unnecessarily highlighted.

105. Black Phone 2

Since a new “Nightmare on Elm Street” and the fabled snow-set “Friday the 13th” movie refuse to manifest in reality, Scott Derrickson decided to make both. As a sequel to a film I remember little about, I suppose this explores some interesting paths, as far as the protagonist being realistically traumatized. Madeleine McGraw kind of steals the show, as the foul-mouthed little sister. Ethan Hawke has fun hamming it up as camp-gay Freddy Krueger. Unfortunately, the reminder that this was directed by the same guy who made “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” emerges anytime the weirdly Christian mysticism side rears its head. That exposes the deep dorkiness here, also apparent in the cheesy dialogue, a repeated need to explain what is happening, and an inability to make the supernatural and dream elements of the story work. Whenver the characters start talking about taking away the killers' powers, it lost me. How much do you think Derrickson wanted to shoot the entire movie through the faux-8mm filter used in the dream scenes? 

106. Pets

A documentary as fluffy as the adorable critters it highlights, only slightly more academically valuable than a Facebook montage of cute animal moments.... But, yes, it is really cute. I like the little snapshots we get of people's lives and the bonds they have with their four-legged friends. The interview with children are adorable and the inevitable turn towards discussing how short a time we share with our fuzzy buddies is poignant. Sometimes, you simply need to watch a collection of children and puppies, kitties, and other cute things be their lovable selves.

107. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle

The original “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle” is a camp classic of the nineties domestic thriller subgenre, a style of story that is inherently conservative in its values. This quasi-remake tries to reflect a more aware time. It makes the married couple interracial and the heroine bisexual... Except the lunatic nanny is also queer, seems to be a bad influence on the development of the couple's daughter, and rejects motherhood. I don't think director Michelle Garza Cervera and writer Micah Bloomberg set out to make a movie about how the institution of hetero marriage is threatened by crazy lesbians grooming our children but... I'm a privilaged white guy so what do I care about the potentially offensive message here, intended or otherwise? The biggest change in the story, in terms of the villain's motivation, attempts to add more complexity to the protagonist isn't as interesting as I think the film thinks it is. Maika Monroe is an entertaining villain but Mary Elizabeth Winstead is wasted as the role of a woman who is right and only seems crazy. I can't help but wonder if this would've been better if they had swapped roles. The brief bursts of violence are well done.

108. A Mother's Embrace

Cristian Ponce's follow-up to “History of the Occult” finally got state-side distribution this year and feels like a trifle in comparison. Multiple elements are bandied about without coming together into a coherent whole: Squirming parasites and visions of eldritch gods, some cult shenanigans, the grief of a dead parent, the ravages of age, some ghostly activity, a creepy carnival funhouse. It's all well done and Marjorie Estiano is a compelling heroine. When the film ends abruptly, you feel like not much has been revealed or resolved, furthering the impression that this is more a half-formed collection of ideas than a fully realized narrative. 

109. Rabbit Trap

Clearly the filmmakers behind this one ignored my previous warning that we have no need for more moody, whispery English folk horrors featuring uncanny rabbits. The focus on unearthly sounds and the utilization of actual Welsh fairy lore does give “Rabbit Trap” some novelty. (Despite neither aspect being used to its fullest.) The most interesting thing going on here is Jade Croot's gender ambiguous performance as the changeling child. The script is more upfront about the subtext of all weird kid movies, that these stories were likely created to explain neurodivergent brain chemistry. As someone recently diagnosed as on the spectrum, I'm not sure how to feel about that, as the depiction here vacillates between sympathetic and fearful. The use of creeping vegetation in the last act is intriguing, Dev Patel brings some vulnerability to his role, but the whole thing is still too damn vague for its own good.

110. Love Me

Machines trying to become human by imitating the surface level rituals of their long dead creators is a fascinating premise. The early scenes of “Love Me,” devoted to its mechanical protagonists formulating their own personalities, are intriguing. Once this becomes about watching DoorDash looking animated avatars argue, it becomes a lot less interesting. The characters become highly neurotic without developing much in the way of depth, making it hard to be too invested in their strife. Steven Yuen and Kristen Stewart have flat chemistry, further sinking the love story. Needed more gender-fluid sex scenes. 

111. Frewaka

Honestly bums me out a little that so many of the visuals and ideas here – pagan rituals as horror set-dressing, isolation among the European countryside, familial trauma passed between mother and daughter, creepy goats – have been so heavily used in recent years. “Frewaka's” thematic concerns feel more personal than many folk horror also-rans. When not exploiting wren boys for easy chills, this shows a better understanding of folk traditions than some. The uncertainty in whether the protagonist is slowly beginning to share her patient's madness or if these supernatural events are genuine is interesting. Unfortunately, the token vagueness rampant to this style of horror keeps this from formulating into a cohesive whole, leaving the viewer with some mildly spooky ambiance and not a whole lot else. 

112. Push

David Charbonier and Justin Powell's third movie about a more-resourceful-than-they-seem protagonist being pursued by a dangerous force within a confined building is not as uncomfortably tense as “The Boy Behind the Door” or as clever as “The Djinn.” “Push” devotes more time to establishing the sprawling mansion location, with many long and very quiet scenes of the realtor moving around it. Alicia Sanz makes for a believably scrappy heroine but her character's bereaved backstory is standard issue at this point. You're never as invested in her as you would have to be for this to work. When the suspense finally kicks in the second half, Charbonier and Powell prove, once again, that they are experts at shoving vulnerable people into dangerous situations that get increasingly dire for them. This is essentially a slasher movie, its hospital set final scene functioning as its own “Halloween II”-style sequel, but probably could've used more of the subgenre's expected flesh and blood to enliven that dull first act. 

113. Birdeater

I appreciate the way this fucks with the viewer via creative musical choices, off-kilter camera movements, harsh edits, and weird sound effects. From the first scene, it's evident that long-simmering resentments and barely contained secrets will eventually boil over into chaos. More than an hour passes before any of that pays off, while the audience must put up with belligerent characters turning the screws on each other. To further that frustration, a cathartic rush of violence never actually comes and “Birdeater” ends on a vague note. The main moral I took away from this is “don't invite your wife-to-be to your bachelor party,” which probably was not the intended message.

114. Captain America: Brave New World

A victim of Disney's damage control maneuvers. The commitment to continuity is such that even a giga-nerd like me was left adrift. Extensive reshoots and rewrites lead to a disconnect between many scenes. A lot of the movie hinges on characters that feel otherwise unimportant. The result is a “conspiracy thriller” written for children. “Brave New World” may also be the most neo-liberal movie ever made. The government has made mistakes but all the problems are the result of nothing systemic. There's a quiet, cowardly support of Israel. How do we defeat a brightly colored horror elected to the highest office?  Why, you talk to him! See, the evil president isn't so bad! When not weighed down by the contrived script or heaps of mediocre CGI, Anthony Mackie has the verve to be a movie star, grappling with the question of “Will this country allow a black man to represent it?” He also has homoerotic tension with every male character, surely an interesting choice.

115. Vicious

“Vicious” begins as Bryan Bertino, once again, showing off his skills for creating a cinematic safe space that is then invaded by ruthless interlopers, a sense of dread-filled hopelessness, and a tightly wound soundscape of creepy noises and suggestions. As a one woman show for Dakota Fanning as a deeply messy person, trapped in her own depression and anxiety, this also starts strong. Unfortunately, the movie quickly gets lost in its own therapy-speak infused horror metaphor for self-loathing and pain. The rules governing this particular curse are not fleshed out well. The film soon comes to rely on creepy shit happening for no reason. The otherwise good sound design begins to lean on the screeching noise too often. Before the end, this starts to feel rudderless. 

116. George A. Romero's Resident Evil

These genre history docs have got to ditch the melodramatic framing devices, as they do nothing but pad out the run time and suggest the director would rather be making a narrative feature. Something else they should probably stop doing is filling time with Wikipedia-like synopses of their subject's career and works, intercut with interviews from fans and minor players. The actual meat arrives about an hour in, compromising a podcast-like summation of Romero's script. Probably would've been a fun monster movie but not a masterpiece and doesn't sound like it would've gotten produced in any universe. The doc itself is mildly interesting and a heart-felt enough tribute to the man but probably should've been a short instead. 

 

TWO STARS:

117. It Was Just an Accident

Am I stupid? “It Was Just an Accident” is stage-like in its often stationary framing, lack of music, and dialogue-driven story. Everything we learn about the characters, their shared history, and what is driving their behavior is delivered via shouted, furious arguments. Despite the impassioned pleas of the talented cast, there is never any attempt to flesh these people out. They exist as ideas, symbolic of all political prisoners of the Iranian government. The central figure of the plot spends nearly the entire movie unconscious. Cast members come and go. People spend a lot of time verbally sparing about what they are doing but what drives them ultimately remains a mystery. A lengthy subplot suggests much about the moral convictions of these characters but confirms nothing. That persistent vagueness is maintained throughout a climax that builds and builds to... Nothing, before a final scene full of literal off-screen implications but no concrete conclusions. I don't get it, man. 

118. Kryptic

The first scene suggests this will explore cryptozoology through a cosmic horror lens, a neat idea. Instead, this quickly becomes a story about an identity-less woman – Chloe Pirrie, giving a decently dazed performance – exploring different modes of femininity, with flashes of slimy body-horror and weird monster sex. Normally, I'd be all for that but “Kryptic's” script is frustratingly episodic. The film is almost entirely made up of our heroine bumping into different people, interacting for a bit, and moving on. Never building to a graspable point, this ultimately comes across as aimless and unformed. Good use of Kim Wilde's “Cambodia”

119. Drop

Christopher Landon's latest elevator-pitch – a thriller about AirDrops – plays things too straight-laced for such a silly premise. There's exactly one moment of decent suspense, when our heroine has to grab an SD card before her date comes back, but it occurs early on. After that, it's clear that “Drop” has no other tricks up its sleeve. Flashy visuals, like text messages appearing on-screen or some fast-moving P.O.V. shots, are not enough to disguise that this is a flick with limited settings mostly about a woman checking her phone. The villain's identity is revealed way too soon, the last act gets increasingly goofy, the characters' traumatic back stories are route as can be. 

120. The Carpenter's Son

Crafting a horror movie around the Infancy Gospel of Thomas – a Biblical deleted scene about how Jesus had his Christ superpowers right from the beginning but wouldn't become divinely wise until he was a little older – is a bold idea. Unfortunately, “The Carpenter's Son” whiffs it. Rather than play into the existential terror of being foster-dad to a physical embodiment of God, the film focuses on run-through demonic horror tropes like scary voices and creepy kids. This falls into the modern indie horror trap of mistaking lots of whispered dialogue, ambient sound design, and suggesting much more than showing far too often. Nic Cage rocks it in a few scenes and there's a mildly interesting but brief depiction of Hell but it's not enough to elevate a good idea executed flatly. 

121.  The Conjuring: Last Rites

Oh boy, does “Last Rites” grossly overestimate how scary a mirror is. The script desperately attempts to make this last minute addition to “Conjuring”-verse lore into an enemy grand enough for a final movie. Chaves is capable of creating an eerie horror set-piece. My favorite moment involves re-winding a home movie, in order to spot a demonic face in the grainy footage. Naturally, this scene immediately leads into a very goofy jump scare. Any time a suitably tense or freaky feeling is established, it's immediately squandered on a big, loud special effect. Whatever merits these movies have, the chemistry between Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga remains adorable.

122. The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man

One must admire the audacity of building a super low budget conspiracy thriller around this very strange true story. As you might expect, the fictional expansion is extremely reliant on gross-out humor. The presentation is gritty, the technique is crude. The storytelling is not much concerned with coherence. The film can be commended for how many variations it comes up with for the messy crimes. The soundtrack of poop themed parodies inspires a few laughs, though I think the lyrics could've used some work. (And if any film was calling out for a Scatman John needle drop!) However, you can only watch the same joke being repeated so many times. A theme about the callousness of society towards those in need does somewhat emerge but it is lost among meandering subplots. It is tempting to commend the weirdness on-display here but the film ultimately emerges as nothing but a rather literal cinematic shitpost.

123. Opus

The main observation “Opus” shouts at us through its first hour is “You ever notice that a pop star's cult following is kind of like an actual cult?” Yeah, man, that's why they call it a “cult” following. I kept waiting for the film to make some deeper point than that but, as it finally lurched towards being an actual horror movie in its last half-hour, it became increasingly clear it does not. (I guess a young black woman being the only person to notice something weird is going on is also present, here and in several other recent movies.) The bigger problem is that “Opus” never establishes why its enigmatic idol is so beloved. We hear people heap praise on him but what he touches in the hearts of his followers, why they are so devoted to him, remains frustratingly unexplored. Truthfully, the mechanics and psychology at play here – both in terms of religious worship and fandom – are not delved into. Instead, the script seems designed to take down egotistical pop princesses who can't handle any degree of criticism while the painfully over-long epilogue vaguely jabs at the media's tendency to make stars of monsters. Now, I love John Malkovich. Watching him play a primadonna space cadet is always fun. The songs he's given aren't bad either. However, he seems unforgivably miscast as a flamboyant Prince/Elton John/Bowie-like superstar, that was supposedly the biggest singer of the nineties despite seeming more seventies or eighties in style, a misstep the film can never overcome. 

124. Mond

It sucks to be a woman, no matter what country you are in. “Moon” is an Austrian production set in Jordan and spoken in a variety of languages. The opening images is of Florentina Holzinger, who gives a thoughtful and internal performance, being pinned to the mat and losing a fight. When she arrives in a foreign country, she's there to teach the girls how to fight. Her efforts don't make much of a difference, unable to stand up against the patriarchal and international forces that take different forms all over the globe. It's a very worthy idea and “Moon” contains at least one genuinely shocking act of violence. Unfortunately, the movie is so cold and distant in its approach that we never get much of a bead on the four girls the protagonist seeks to protect. The crushingly slow pace and stark direction further makes this one a cold, isolating watch.

125. Smile for the Dead: An Examination of Spirit Photography

Naively, I assumed that anyone would know that spirit photography is a well understood hoax, as easily discredited as any other relic of the spiritualism movement. “Smile for the Dead” devotes a lengthy sequence to a photography expert explaining how these trick images were created only for the director/host to still insist that surely not all these photos are faked. As an in-depth exploration – or as in-depth as a 56 minute film can be – of a seriously niche topic, I do appreciate the attention to detail here. The expert interviewed are knowledgeable on the subject and make some interesting observations. The presentation mixes up the standard talking head interviews enough so as not to be dull. However, once again, I went in hoping for an exploration of why people believed in obviously fake things and instead got a wishy-washy argument for the credulity of some goofy bullshit.

126. HIM

Exposes on the cult of hyper-masculinity and the inevitable self-destruction it reaps have been done before and better. The football angle is something new, at least, and the film runs smoothest when operating as a drama about ruining your life to be the very best, like no one ever was. A conversation about sacrifice and compromise in a sauna is more intense than any of the deliberate horror sequences. “HIM” desperately tries to mine creepiness out of pro-sports imagery, like mascots and painted-up fans, but it's never anything but goofy. The script hammers the metaphor of becoming an athletic superstar being like a deal with a devil as much as possible. The Gatorade commercial visuals and editing are similarly over-the-top. The climax leaves us completely uncertain who to root for but the gory violence is well done. 

127. Witchboard

Of the two words in the title, “witch” is emphasized over “board” in this telling. The poltergeist activity of the original returns when a little spilled gumbo and a sandwich slicer result in a surprisingly gory mishap. The film needed more of that bloody sense of recklessness. More than a few times, Russell's “Witchboard” throws CGI spectres into the viewer's face. What causes this to droop the most is a script overburdened with back story. The moment Emily is announced as a former junkie, you know that the witchboard is going to become her next addiction. It's all mercenary plot construction, not an expression of a bigger idea.

128. Dracula: A Love Story

The French film industry's creepy uncle, Luc Besson, does his take on Dracula. By which I mean he more-or-less follows the same outline as Coppola's version, positioning the count as a tragic antihero who wants to be reunited with the great love his holy mission denied him. Oh yeah, except someone made the decision to play the story mostly as campy comedy for some reason. Dracula gains his seduction powers from a specially engineered perfume and this is a weirdly prominent plot point. Renfield is replaced with three CGI gargoyles. Caleb Landry Jones puts on a goofy accent, most of the rest of the cast is quite bad, but Christoph Waltz reliably amuses somewhat. This is generally ill-advised but I can't help but enjoy watching how this classic tale is remixed yet again on some level. If nothing else, there's some okay goth set dressing and a decently executed carnival sequence. 

129. M3GAN 2.0

I'm on record as a certified “M3GAN” hater but will begrudgingly admit that this sequel is an improvement. If only because it abandons all pretenses about making its deeply un-serious title character scary and goes totally for camp. “M3GAN 2.0” still isn't good. There's way too much fucking plot, with multiple MacGuffins, a series of double-crosses, and a dependency on technobabble that is irritating. The script depends on us caring way more about the plucky comic relief than was advisable. The inability to make up its mind about whether we should be afraid of M3GAN and the technology she represents or love her smart-ass antics is a big indicator of the lack of focus. Admittedly, the pint-sized murder machine is better used as a sarcastic commentator forced to work with her enemies than a villain. “Terminator 2”-ing the first movie and shifting the focus to action seems like a decent idea. Except AMELIA, Ivanna Sakhno's psycho eyes aside, has none of the threatening power or charisma of the T-1000. The action scenes are over-edited, covering up what might be some decent stunt work. Once again, making this a bloodless PG-13, instead of an over-the-top grisly R, significantly drains the fun factor. I liked the random Steven Seagal homages and some attempt was made this time to make the niece an actual character but, by the end of the inflated runtime, I was definitely tired of this shit.  

130. Dark Match

The behind-the-scenes world of pro-wrestling, especially the small time promotions, is a rich setting for a horror film. The best elements of “Dark Match” arise largely from that destination, where performers risk their health and deal with sleazy businessmen to put on shows for little pay and less exposure. Earthy performances from Ayisha Issa and Steven Ogg establish that humanity. Otherwise, I find myself growing very weary of the faux-retro, would-be cult classic style so prevalent in Shudder originals. The day-glo colors, the synth soundtracks, the appeals to outrageousness have all been seen a hundred times before. For a movie about physical combat, the fight scenes are choppily edited and dispassionately choreographed. Chris Jerico does not distinguish himself as the main villain, the story holds few surprises, and there's three endings for some reason.

131. KPop Demon Hunters

The appeal of K-pop alludes me which means many of the crowd-pleasing musical moments here simply don't hit for me. It bothers me that the characters repeatedly re-state their handful of defining traits, that visual sight gags happen in quick bursts that fuck with the tone and pacing, or that so much of the action takes place exactly in the center of the frame: All elements designed to benefit cutting the movie up into short form content, for bite-sized mobile viewing and social media sharing. Never mind that the characters and their conflicts are archetypal at best, that no sense of tension ever builds up, or that the story feels both hopelessly melodramatic and completely unimportant at the same time. Not to mention that the plot never once questions the intentions of the pop music industry, the cult-like adoration of fans, the commoditization of art and people, or even provides any especially novel or interesting ideas about its demonic threats. The character designs are cute and some of the action scenes are dynamic. I liked the blue tiger critter that acts exactly like a dumb-ass house cat.

132. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2

Much like the previous film, this sequel kneecaps itself by over explaining its own elaborate lore. (Which becomes sillier the more supernatural abilities and backstory it presents.) The characters remain clunky devices, who spend more time delivering exposition than feeling like real people. The two female leads give dreadful performances, the two "Scream" alumni are over-the-top evil, while Josh Hutcherson can do nothing but be along for the ride. The plot is both too simple, with its cartoonishly single-minded threat, and rushing around in its attempt to tie together too many plot threads. The practical puppet effects are excellent but the uncertainty behind how to approach these mascot murder robots points, once again, towards the premise's greatest weakness. Is this a dumb, trashy slasher series about the highly toyetic monsters killing those that offend them? Or is it a big budget Saturday morning cartoon strictly for kids, about how everyone wants to be friends with the jolly, not-especially scary animatronics? A few too many jump scares and a reliance on reheated, creaky ghost girl cliches ultimately overshadows what these flicks are decent at, such as their atmospheric settings or a hinting at the darkness behind how entertainment is marketed to children. Glad to see that Wayne Knight is doing alright for himself and I enjoyed the "Halloween" shout-outs.

133. Stitch Head

Man, I really wanted to like this because it's a kids movie drawing directly from classic horror tropes. Unfortunately, “Stitch Head” is totally devoid of spooky vibes. It leaves the castle setting behind after the first act, moving to a traveling carnival whose freak show is as harmless as can be. When combined with the very cuddly monsters, utterly forgettable songs, lame jokes, and highly generic character traits, you're left with a flick really only intended for the youngest, most undiscriminating viewers. Especially since Stitch Head's relationship with his Frankenstein-ian father figure exists only at the story's margins, making the moral about self-acceptance harder to accept. Imagine how much better this one would have been if done with stop motion, instead of rubbery CGI, and with just a pinch of actual gothic flair or weirdness.  

134. A Cursed Man

The idea of a filmmaker willingly trying to get cursed and documenting any effects is an interesting one. I'm quite fascinated with the idea of ritual magik, of a group of people agreeing something is real to the point that the human mind treats it as so. Unfortunately, “A Cursed Man” is not interested in exploring the psychology and science behind this. Instead, director Liam Le Guillou centers himself, outright explaining the film as a way to confirm his own bias that magic probably exists. Which makes the conclusion he comes to foregone, if especially underwhelming. Otherwise, the only value this has is as a documentation of rituals. The film foolishly starts with the coolest, some hoodoo smoke blowing, and works its way backwards to the silliest, white nerds dancing around in robes in the woods. Along the way, Le Guillou talks to goofballs who think thoughts can influence random number generators and that telepathy is real, neither of which have much to do with the topic at hand.

135. Ash

To disguise that this is an extended homage to “Prometheus” “Alien,” “The Evil Dead,” and “The Thing,” the film utilizes a scattered memory flashback structure that doesn't accomplish much more than making the story harder to follow. The reliance on flashy visuals – including the psychedelic colors and synth score required for Shudder exclusives – similarly play as attempts to cover that this isn't more than the sum of its parts. I mostly found the reliance on stretched-out faces, shrieking gore, and very boring parasite horror more annoying than anything else. The reoccurring joke about the chipper medical robots was funny. The film at least has the frame of mind to let Iko Uwais beat up some people, despite mostly wasting his talents. 

136. Bone Lake

A so-called “erotic thriller” that is too cowardly to get any of its lead actors naked and keeps almost all its sex off-screen. This speaks to a lack of genuine transgressive spirit in a movie that desperately wants to be seen as edgy. Starting with a pierced ball sack was a bad idea if the next nastiest thing the writer can imagine is a mere admittance of incest here and there. That's the big problem with “Bone Lake:” A story like this depends on catching the viewer off-guard but the script's every movement is completely predictable. The characters are bad people in very boring ways, which makes it hard to care about their fates, with the villains being annoyingly preachy. Some Raimi-esque camera movements in the last act or psychedelic colors in a few moments is not enough to make up for how weak this particular sauce is. 

137. Hurry Up Tomorrow

I don't know anything about The Weeknd, meaning I didn't know “Hurry Up Tomorrow” is essentially a long-form music video for his new album. What I do know, now anyway, is that The Weeknd is not a very good actor. He speaks with a whinny, wheezing voice throughout the entire film and never expresses emotions beyond sweaty panic and blank irritation. The swirling camera movements and frantic editing does create a cocaine-driven mood of desperation though. Jenna Ortega being established as some sort of psycho stalker and Barry Keoghan at maximum bluster creates a sense of tension over where this might be going. Once Ortega does a “Misery” to her idol, she simply explains to him what a genius he is over and over again while dancing to his older songs. It's at this point that “Hurry Up Tomorrow's” status as a vanity project driven by pure egotism is confirmed. Songs and music aren't bad, which makes sense considering that is its primary author's area of expertise.

138. Rosario

 
One of those movies where the characters explain everything they're doing as they are doing it. This includes trying to look up information on the supernatural threat at hand via Google. It's evident, from the beginning, that this story is functioning as a metaphor for what first generation immigrants sacrifice to give their children a better life than their's. If you missed that, the script makes sure to flatly explain it, especially during an unnecessarily extended twist ending. Some of the slimy creature effects and twisting body-horror seem like it could be cool, if the movie wasn't so darkly lit that I could barely see anything. No offense to Emeraude Toubia, who seems like a personable enough actress, but I'm not sure she's got the muscle to carry what is practically a one woman show. Features Air Fryer-Fu, David Dastmalchian hamming it up, and some mildly decent isolation. 

139. Hell of a Summer

Another attempt to fill the Jason Voorhees shaped hole in our collective hearts, Finn Wolfhard's jokey slasher throw-back doesn't make the cut. The characters are kind of annoying, especially the overly enthusiastic lead. (Who is, har-har, named Jason.) The early scenes have the right laid-back, summer vacation vibes. However, the funny lines do not come frequently enough. As a body count flick, it's lacking much in the way of gore or suspense. I truly dislike how much the killer laying down their entire motivation in a climatic monologue, “Scream” style, has become a reoccurring feature of this subgenre.

140. Warfare

A big nothing of a movie. Sticks us inside a war zone with zero introduction or definition to any of the characters and no cultural context for these events at all. While there might have been a compelling visceral quality to recreating a fire fight so closely, it's hard to become invested with so little grounding. The implication seems to be that war is a thing that just happens sometimes but, boy, Our Troops sure are brave. When paired with the depiction of Iraqi forces as utterly faceless antagonists who, like everything else in the film, never have their motivations or feelings expanded on, the accusations of propaganda become hard to dismiss. Yet even effective propaganda would demand we care about the American heroes, which this script pointedly does not give us cause to do. Which begs the question of why the fuck this movie exists at all! With little else to latch onto, I will say the sound design and gore effects are well done. 

141. Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever

A good example of how attempting to cover all sides of an issue is not always conductive to making a coherent documentary. There are times when “Don't Die” is clearly disgusted by Bryan Johnson. It tries to mine emotions from his bond with his son but their interactions never stop feeling weirdly incestuous. That's before the blood-swapping ritual, and strangely fetishistic accompanying photoshoot. When the guy gets gene therapy and starts referring to himself as a superhero and a god, it's hard to read that as a positive depiction. (Not to mention the screen time given over to criticism of the obvious wealth inequality at work here.) At the same time, “Don't Die” feels like an advertisement for Johnson's health regime products. He earlier refers to his lifestyle as a cult but, despite that, the film treats him gathering a group of “friends” around him as a positive ending, not the beginning of his L. Ron Hubbard phase. The film explores his Mormon background a little, how he traded one strict religious lifestyle for another, but can't find a satisfying answer to the question of why someone who self-described himself as depressed and sick of life then decided having more life forever was his solution to the problem. 

142. Clown in a Cornfield

Another attempt to modernize the eighties slasher. There are easy jokes about young people not being able to operate a stick-shift or a turn-dial phone. The references to online culture are shallow and never inform any of the characters' personality. Ultimately, no attempt is made to elevate the kids above archetypes. From earlier on, the film adopts a blatantly obvious theme: The older generation always resents and fears the younger ones. This proceeds a narrative turn that is so heavily foreshadowed that it's difficult to call it a twist. You could replace the clown with any other costume and the story would remain unchanged.

143. The Strangers: Chapter 2

Builds an entire movie around the last act of a slasher, the part when it's only the final girl running from the killers. This sets up a pattern. Maya will be chased to a new location. A person will appear to help her. They will reveal a tidbit of information before the Strangers murder them, starting the cycle again. The desperate attempts to stretch this premise out lurches towards feral hog-assisted unintentional comedy. Explaining what the Strangers want and where they come from is obviously antithetical to what makes them scary. The glimpses we get at their Secret Origins are not compelling. The stalking through the hospital and horse stables aren't bad, before we understand that the sequel has no further tricks up its sleeve.

144. Happy Gilmore 2

I love the original “Happy Gilmore” but the idea of an almost thirty years later sequel did not strike me as promising. This concern was well-founded, as “Happy Gilmore 2” is overly reliant on reminding us of gags from the first movie. Nearly every memorable character, no matter how minor, is shouted-out or reprised. The new jokes the sequel cook up mostly prove uninspired, such weak running gags about bad breath, Happy's alcoholism, or his large idiot sons. There's a laundry list of celebrity cameos, all of which prove more distracting than amusing. The goofy visual comedy this time has a sweaty desperation to them, such as the “extreme” antics of the antagonistic golf league. Sandler can still deliver a funny line every once and a while but he seems listless and tired throughout. Christopher MacDonald gets a moment or two as well. But it's mostly as sad and unnecessary as I expected. 

145. O'Dessa

A would-be midnight movie with little subversive edge and not much in the way of new ideas. A deeply dorky energy reverberates throughout the attempts to make this sci-fi setting a universe onto itself, like making up goofy terms for well-known objects. Not that the movie actually spends much time in its setting, the story zeroing in on a love story between its lead characters when it should be expanding outward into this world. There are vague criticism of reality television, another poorly defined element in a film that doesn't seem to have many concrete ideas behind the dystopian cliches deployed here. Sadie Sink makes a decent lead and proves that she can sing, despite the songs all mostly sounding the same. 

146. Ne Zha 2

If a film grosses over two billion dollars and tops the global box office for the year, one assumes it must have universal appeal. Instead, from the first of its 144 minutes, “Ne Zha 2' bombards us with extensive back story, magical attacks with varying effects, multiple mystical MacGuffins, familial connections and eons old rivalries, and so many characters that each is introduced with on-screen text. Allegiances shift so often that I frequently had no idea why these people were fighting or who I was supposed to root for. The tone swings wildly between extremely melodramatic declarations and enormous action sequences and obnoxious comic relief focused on bodily excretions and annoying side characters. The middle section is focused on the reliable plot of fighting a succession of kung-fu masters before I became completely lost again during the endless climax. Some of the animation is neat looking but I found the character designs hideous. Perhaps I lack the proper cultural context for this one...

147. Borderline

A movie about a celebrity stalker, with fictional parallels to real life figures like Madonna and Dennis Rodman, that does nothing to comment on any of these events or people. In fact, there's never any explanation for why the stalker – Ray Nicholson, mugging furiously while doing nothing to escape his father's shadow – is so enamored of this star. The already unfocused story, moving in far too many showy directions at once, gets more cartoonish as this heads towards an obnoxiously scattered climax. Samara Weaving and Alba Baptista as a doe-eyed psycho give it their all to save this thing. And they almost do that, during an impromptu duet, before the movie crashes right back into stupid bullshit. The music supervision budget for this thing must've been huge. 

148. I Know What You Did Last Summer

This reboot goes through all the steps without finding what was interesting about the original, probably because “I Know What You Did Last Summer” was always lame bullshit. The characters – who have no connection to the 1997 ensemble – all seem entitled to a bright future without once grappling with the consequences of what they've done. It's apparent that we are supposed to find these traits endearing. Something else lacking is a sense that the main characters are in danger. Despite the killer ostensibly being after Ava and her friends, everyone around them seems to be dying instead. Another example of the sequel's lack of creativity is two separate scenes where someone can't hear a victim's cries for help because they are listening to music too loudly. The sequel wants to invoke vague notions of relevancy without commenting on these issues in any way.

149. The Ritual

Certainly, it must be possible to make an exorcism movie in the modern age without directly emulating “The Exorcist.” “The Ritual” sure doesn't bother trying. The besieged girl tied to a bed vomits, contorts her body, makes the room shake, speaks languages she couldn't possibly know, and goads the clergy into anger by mocking their darkest secrets. The central source of conflict is whether the girl is actually possessed by a demon, as the Father Merrin stand-in believes, or if she's merely mentally ill and getting closer to death every day, as the Father Karras type believes. When the girl is doing obvious devil shit, it doesn't create much suspense around that question though. To fill the void, “The Ritual” throws in uninspired loud noises and weird visions. I really hated the visual approach the filmmakers took, heavy on the artificial hand-held camerawork and crash-zooms, out of some misplaced hope of lending realism to the ridiculous material. Al Pacino hams it up, like he usually does these days, but Dan Stevens plays the material mostly straight, single-handedly elevating this from totally disposable to only mildly annoying. 

ONE AND A HALF STARS

150. The Age of Disclosure

No more enlightening or better assembled than your average episode of “Ancient Aliens” but twice the length and more self-congratulatory. At one point, someone says the White House's unwillingness to confront the possibility of UFOs would undermine people's faith in the government. Buddy, that craft left the space-dock long ago. One of the theses behind this is that high-ranking military officers and fighter pilots are more creditable than anyone else when it comes to sighting weird flying shapes. How does Marco Rubio, who believes lots of stupid shit, speaking on this topic benefit the cause? The actual evidence on display is blurry footage of smudges in the sky. “Age of Disclosure” is mostly composed of self-serious dudes making all sorts of outlandish claims without any evidence. I love when conspiracy theorists say the government has to discredit them when they're talking about space-time “warp bubbles,” underwater civilizations, and a Deep State faction at war with other countries to reverse-engineer alien tech. The guy who claims somebody within the government thinks UFOs are demons is funny, and revealing in a way he didn't intend, but most of this is more boring than amusing. Way too much of the burly beardo rambling, not enough eye-patch guy. 

151. V/H/S/Halloween

Cranking “V/H/S” installments out yearly has led to serious diminishing returns. “Halloween” might be the series at its most willfully abrasive, overly reliant on the shock value of killing kids. The wrap around segment is a senseless joke that never becomes amusing. Anna Zlokovic's story is an extended gross-out with too many loud jump-scares. Casper Kelly's “Fun Size” tries to turn a goofy threat into a serious villain with a lack of interior logic to what happens to the obnoxious characters. “Kidprint” tries way too fucking hard to be nasty and shocking, leading to a very easily predicted twist ending. The climatic episode makes the best use of the October atmosphere and has fun turning classical Halloween costume monsters into more blatantly evil forces... Before going back to the in-your-face infanticide. Paco Plaza's ghost story is okay. 

152. Compulsion

A fake giallo for fake perverts. That inauthentic quality is present in the electronic score – that's more eighties than seventies, dude! – and flat photography. Despite the leering camera angles and frequent nudity, this never grasps a sense of eroticism or sensuality, much less depravity. The tacky crash zooms and overheated performances suggest self-aware parody but there's no laughs to be had in the jumbled investigation scenes or tedious series of betrayals and back stabbings. The Maltese setting is nice and the opening murder is cool but "Compulsion" has no propulsion behind its cheap thrills and nothing else to sustain it. Someone, somewhere, failed Neil Marshall.

 

ONE STAR

153. Red Sonja

Long-brewing second attempt to adapt the She-Devil with a Sword tries to cover up the character's problematic aspects – the chain-mail bikini is begrudgingly included with heavy irony and the curse concerning her romantic partners is ignored – by doubling down on Pop Feminism 101. The villain is a cowardly tech-bro with Mommy Issues who gaslights his hench-woman. Feminine goodness is connected with protection of the Earth, healing, and love. The climax is not an epic duel but Sonja lecturing the bad guy. This is made all the more patronizing by Sonja rarely succeeding by her own merits, repeatedly falling into victory through luck or simply because the story dictates it. All the characters are one-note, any deaths that occur having no impact. The dialogue and plot exists simply to explain what is happening. The themes of faith and nature versus technology are shoved-in with minimal fleshing out. Matilda Lutz cannot overcome the awkwardness of the script while Robert Sheehan is such a boring dork as the villain. The fight choreography is unambitious. Some real money was spent, as the sets and costumes are decent and the CGI is passable, but clearly the resources did not go to writing or casting. Missed a prime opportunity for a Brigitte Nielsen cameo. 

154. The Premiere

Movies should, generally speaking, have actual plots and comedies would, ideally, contain more than one joke. The impression I get of “The Premiere” is that director/star Sam Pezzullo created this character, an egomaniac dip shit who wants to be admired like a successful writer or filmmaker but has no actual creative impulses. Rather than sculpt a proper narrative around that, they just kind of made it up as they went along. A big problem here is that the protagonist is obviously a nut but the film repeatedly plays him as the straight man against nuttier characters, which doesn't really work. I watched this because of the “Scream: The Musical” hook, which is abandoned after the first half-hour, after which an already loose movie becomes totally aimless and largely annoying.

155. Your Host

Wow, I guess we are nostalgic for the 2000s-era “Saw” wannabes now. Shortly after the characters are introduced, they are arguing and shouting profanity at each other, immediately making it difficult to care about their entanglements and whether any of them live. The murderous game show premise suggests a silliness that the would-be grit of the presentation is at odds with. This is most apparent in Jackie Earle Haley's screeching, sweaty performance that is entirely lacking in any threatening energy or psychological depth. All of that is before “Your Host” reveals itself as some sort bizarre anti-#MeToo screed, about how those damn females are always making up allegations to ruin good men's lives. The pneumatic press kill is cool and Joelle Rae looks cute with short hair but this is otherwise an inessential project. 

156. The Home

Swiping the mystery structure from “Get Out” in service of an obvious moral about previous generations bleeding the youth dry and leaving a ruined world behind.  Such a clear outcome drains any suspense from the narrative. Not that the film has room for that anyway. Every other scene is packed with some pseudo-shocking imagery, like latex mask sex, improvised dental surgery, a warped face or skinless bodies. The absolute revulsion the film feels towards elderly people, their naked bodies and the suggestion that they might have sex drives despite being old, struck me as discriminatory in a way I thought Hollywood had outgrown. The film's desperation to keep your interest results in a “John Wick”-style action climax that is somehow the stupidest part of this very dumb movie. Pete Davidson's rat-boy charm is not enough to make this mess worth wading through. 

 

HALF A STAR

157. Traumatika

Gratuitous abuse of “trauma,” as in lamer “elevated” A24-core, is one of dozens of clichés shamelessly deployed in “Traumatika.” Point-of-view shaky-cam shit, evil relics from foreign countries with warnings that people ignore, pointy-eared demons jumping out, self-aware jump scares that would almost be funny if they weren’t so annoying, and meaningless pot-shots at the media all get trotted out before a sudden lurch towards slasher shenanigans at the end. This is alongside specific moments from “Skinamarink,” “Talk to Me,” “Resident Evil: Village,” and “Terrifer” being stolen. That last point of influence is evident in the aggressive edginess of on-screen father-on-daughter rape, a self-applied coat hanger abortion, and child murder. That removes any amusing element from a number of very silly moments, like a random dancing little girl, multiple goofy faces, an ancient Iranian head-banging in the desert, serially bad dialogue, or a googly eyed Instagram filter being applied to a monster. The insanely bad structure, which leaps around in time willy-nilly, suggests these laughs were not intentional. There’s a good face exploding, a sole moment of art amid all this muck. I’m surprised this got a wide release but not surprised that Saban Films was the company to do it.