Practical Magic 2 (2026)

Score 2 / 5

Yet another legacy sequel graces us this month, unceremoniously opening the door to spooky season by reminding us why the '90s were better. Y'all know I'm no enemy of this endless new genre, but at some point audiences must surely come together to stop revisiting pre-millennium material to line the pockets of studio executives, right?

The 1998 cult classic Practical Magic carved a curious niche for many of us. A causally feminist comfort film that's a bit too sexy and scary for kids but too simple for mindful, invested viewing, the film manages to appeal and repulse simultaneously. Its gentle and memorable charms seem to be what has remained in fans' minds: midnight margaritas, self-stirring teaspoons in idyllic suburban homes, and needle drops so pointed that even nonsensical ones (yes, "Coconut" has a reprise here) feel like blunt-force trauma to the head. A film so mainstream and artistically parched it needs to tell viewers how to feel at each significant moment is not one meant to be taken seriously.

Yet here we are, almost thirty years later, returning to the Owens sisters. Akiva Goldsman inexplicably adapts this sequel to the original (from a novel by Alice Hoffman) and seems more interested in rehashing familiar ground than in capitalizing on new moments of comfort, joy, or inspiration. Yet he curiously also insults the memory of that first film more than once, begging the question why this film even exists.

Sandra Bullock's Sally ended the first film with happiness (and with Aidan Quinn, arguably synonymously), yet at the start of this one we learn he's been dead for decades. Apparently shortly after their wedding, Sally was forced to reckon with the Owens family curse yet again, denying her the life with him she fought for that whole movie. Oh well, Goldsman says, too bad. Let's try again!

Sally is determined to protect her daughters from similar heartbreak, so she swears off romance and enchants her children to forget they are even witches. The story proper begins with her now-adult daughters (though their ages and mannerisms are wildly confusing on that front) discovering that they are, in fact, witches and that their love lives carry a curse in real time. Bullock is immensely unlikable in this role. Not only is her character pretty awful in constantly attempting to control others by not communicating healthily, but she's also doing her Bullock thing: a sort of arch, dry caustic wit leveled at everyone around her but coming from a place of obvious and obnoxious self-repression. While surely most fans want to see Bullock being Bullock, I'd have rather watched a movie about Sally Owens. Sue me. 

Thankfully, Nicole Kidman swoops in to carry us through when we need her most. Her Gillian is a sort of Steve Nicks-esque sunflower who blooms on screen, never featured as she deserves but graciously nudging along key characters on their own paths. Director Susanne Bier (of too many titles to name, though I was both surprised and pleased to see her name attached to this feature) thankfully softens the blows of this film, making it perhaps less intense than it could have been. In her hands, the film is a patented love-letter to the original, evidenced by its early focus on the home life of the Owens women. Aunts Jet and Frances -- who I always thought were lesbian but are apparently actually really sisters? -- are shown providing for their community in peace and respect, which is nice. 

But then, instead of leaning into that dynamic and crafting a theme of community-building and intergenerational bonding, Practical Magic 2 dives into a fresh attempt to undo the Owens women's curse by its newest generation. Promptly doing away with Jet, the film aggressively says "goodbye" to its aged cast members in a way that feels both perfunctory and genuinely honorable. I'm not sure why Dianne Wiest had to be the one to go, but at least we get an underused Stockard Channing for the rest of the runtime. And Jet's plot is as bewilderingly awful as Sally's: these women's secrets are what is really cursing their family! Maybe the real practical magic in this world is simply telling the truth. Alas, Bier and Goldsman focus their time not on such ripe opportunities but on a convoluted new plot about a book and a raven and another book and a seer living in England and the whole thing is just absurd in the worst way. 

Characters don't communicate with each other well, resulting in annoyingly avoidable problems that render the film's runtime -- about half an hour longer than its predecessor -- an egregious slog. Two men show up to tempt the younger two generations of characters, including Lee Pace in a smoldering sort of role, and you probably don't need a crystal ball to guess where their plots will end up. I still couldn't tell you all the ins and outs of this tangled mess of a movie, even though Gillian and Sally are the exact same characters as before and people constantly act against their own interests.

Hope (2026)

Score: 3.5 / 5

The latest South Korean genre-mixing epic, Hope springs from the creative mind of Na Hong-jin, whose last feature film was an excellent horror titled The Wailing, a full decade ago.

Police chief Bum-seok watches over Hope Harbor, a small rural village near the Demilitarized Zone. Called out by a cousin to investigate some mutilated cattle outside town, Bum-seok returns to discover his town under attack. Bodies of townspeople litter the bloody street and buildings lie in wreckage that could have come from a tornado. He follows its path through town, finding friends alive and dead alike, none of whom seem able to understand the sudden violence visited upon them. Yet every time he slows to take a breather, another explosion, crash, or scream pierces the atmosphere, spurring him on to its source.

This takes almost an hour, nearly half the film. And it's magnificent. Na's command of suspense and production design make it an absorbing story indeed, as we learn tidbits of the chief's life and of those around him even as we follow him into danger. Na makes sure we never know more than the hero, and even the cinematography rarely lets us see more than what Bum-seok can see. We weave amongst dense sets and dressing, always in disastrous mess, often splattered with blood, each shot of which could be frozen and dissected for more information than we need. With each new crime scene, we're left wondering what on earth could cause such calamity? And can we trust the townsfolk, some of whom are intentionally painted as antagonistic.

Bum-seok's journey through his suddenly, mysteriously apocalyptic town is paralleled, in the plot, by that of his cousin in the forested mountainside nearby. He and his hunting friends search for answers to their original question in the woods before coming across... well, let's just say an answer to the film's central question of who or what is slaughtering the countryside. If you have any interest in seeing this film, I strongly recommend that you go in cold. There are moments of the viewing experience that can only be earned through your ignorance. You've been warned. 

Suffice to say that, even when the direct cause of the chaos is revealed at the end of act one, it's not really explained until later. Long tracking shots (the cinematography is utterly magical and transportive here; I was gasping as much by the action as by how they pulled off some of these shots) force us ever further into a treacherous, violent landscape, still smoking from its destruction. My mind jockeyed between possibilities in various genres before this one solidified itself. And while the journey to that revelation is more than worth a screening, I have to confess some dissatisfaction with the film's climactic ending. After the big reveal halfway through, the film levels up into a frenzied action flick, centered around an extended car chase through the ruined town that had me consistently on the edge of my seat. This sequence, CGI and all, gives any action scene coming out of Hollywood a run for its money and then some.

Yet by the time I was finally starting to feel some action weariness, the film's climax started. While I won't spoil it here, I think it's important to convey that the ending is wildly unsatisfying to this viewer. It riffs on a classic Western structure, of course, but in its final moments, the film swings us around to its surprise antagonists' perspective in a bizarre and wholly unexpected way. Thus the film's B-plot -- what I think of as its adventurous creature feature half, led by the hunting party and their discovery -- overwhelms its A-plot -- the riveting action of Bum-seok trying to save his home -- and ends itself right on the cusp of what, really, seems to be a missing second half. Not that I could endure more of this after two and a half hours of continuous action.

I could have, instead, used a bit more of the film's heart. A fellow cop shows up who is miraculously trained in field hospitals, offering some help to our hero and having his back in a big way. A couple locals provide ominous foreshadowing about what they know and what they've seen. But we don't really get to know or care about any secondary or tertiary characters, and that causes the film to feel more forgettable than it should. Arguably there's some drama towards the end, hinging on our understanding of the antagonists, but I found it unwelcome and nonsensical. Arguably, it's meant to complicate our viewerly desire for revenge and equilibrium, but I'm not sure the screenplay provides enough for that to be a convincing rhetorical move. And after the first half of the film visually sets up Bum-seok as its unlikely hero, the second half withdraws from this, making him feel weak and afraid in disingenuous ways to the film itself.

I wonder if there's a reading of this film in which Na is undermining and reversing the typical Western tropes of a hometown hero fighting off invaders. Here, that's how things start, but certainly not how they end. Characters become greedy and bloodthirsty, almost monstrous themselves, devolving before our eyes and under pressure from the calamity unfolding around them. And by the end, we're invited to consider the perspective of the invaders instead as being more righteous. Or at least more entertaining, which may also be the point. If so, Na is a genius who should be slapped for not finishing his commentary here and instead seeming to point at the need for a continuation of the story. 

Buddy (2026)

Score: 4 / 5

You've heard of the recent spate of gory horror flicks based on children's tales now in the public domain, yes? While I haven't yet experienced the guaranteed atrocities -- Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare, Bambi: The Reckoning, and Pinocchio Unstrung -- the trailers for Buddy had me worried about something similar. The titular figure, an anthropomorphic giant orange unicorn manifesting as a man in an oversized mascot costume, is a clear analogy to a figure like Barney or Big Bird, hosting an "educational" children's show teaching morals like telling the truth, being a friend, and cleaning up our messes. He snaps, going on a rampage with an axe, butchering the other characters trapped in his world.

But the film was -- to my surprise -- a psychological thrill ride loaded with deep questions about nostalgia, identity, and the dangerous ways we interact with both. Combining themes of absurdist entrapment from Severance and The Truman Show with Samuel Beckett's plays might be a lot to say of this film, but it certainly had me making those associations over its brief but effective 90-ish minutes. Actually, the best analogue to this film would be creator Casper Kelly's short film entitled Too Many Cooks, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in nightmare scenarios around childhood television shows. Actually, this might make for a cool double feature with Jane Schoenbrun's I Saw the TV Glow for the same reason. That which is comforting and fun becomes darker and dangerous as we sense its sinister reality bleeding into our own. 

The films' first act was my favorite: a Groundhog Day-esque series of truncated "episodes" of It's Buddy are strung together, end-to-end, as we meet the various child actors and their puppet-like friends who inhabit the television world. The mail carrier and nurse are human adults, but there's also a talking train engine, mailbox, backpack, flowers, and a giant friendly rabbit. The show is knowingly creepy -- Kelly clearly had a lot of demented fun riffing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" into a cult chant with adoring lyrics to the orange unicorn --and is designed to prey on millennial discomfort with knowledge of who inhabited those beloved yet inherently uncanny characters. Kelly slows things down with an incredibly deliberate pace, stretching out the film while packing in details and philosophic musings with gobsmacking economy. I think I counted at least three "episodes" before our first possible break from the show's usual format, and it feels like it, though I'm sure barely half an hour had passed by first bloodshed.

Because, dear reader, blood indeed flows. This is no gorefest like I feared, which makes Buddy's chosen moments of violence particularly nasty. No spoilers, but things start fairly tame and mysterious, but when Kelly decides to fuck with us, he doesn't hold back. Buddy himself -- voiced by Keegan-Michael Key -- is patently unhinged, a sort of charismatic and aggressively intimidating cult leader who demands everyone listen and adhere to his sense of how things should be in his world. His purported wisdom gets shallower and more desperate over time, and when he resorts to violence to maintain his control, he does so with a detached, almost cheerful inevitability. With cheerful voice he metes out both instructions and punishments in the style of Mr. Milchick in Severance, a sort of forcedly sweet hierarchical superior's tone that chuckles even as it tells you to obey.

The child actors are all excellent, and the featured adult roles -- especially by Cristin Milioti and Topher Grace -- added a wholly unexpected parallel dimension to the film when they're introduced in its second act. I can't spoil any more about the film's plot or structure because this truly is an experience you need to enter cold. With sly references to things like Beau is Afraid, Poltergeist, and even The Wizard of Oz, Buddy works on several levels simultaneously, engaging your mind and spirit with its twisted sense of what disturbs and unsettles us. While its ending left a bit to be desired from me -- it's shockingly bleak, and seems to want to open the door for a sequel I'm not sure we need -- this one will haunt my waking brain for some time yet.

Pressure (2026)

Score: 4.5 / 5

If you had told me that a surprise favorite film of the year would be a war movie wherein violence is only expressed in words and the battlefield is meteorology, I might have told you you were thinking of the wrong decade. Something like a mix between Eye in the Sky and a golden-era The Weinstein Company dramas, Pressure takes as its setting the planning headquarters for D-Day in the days leading up to that pivotal offensive in WWII. Allied leaders gathered in a large country estate in England are busy strategizing in secret, frenetically wiring various officers and logistics agents in preparation for the massive amounts of boats, planes, soldiers, and weapons that will be needed in what might well be the most complex and dangerous invasion in Western history. And they need the weather to cooperate. 

Opening with the "practice run" of sorts to D-Day, we see General Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser, playing the future US President with a grim and fierce edge) horrified by the catastrophe. Exercise Tiger resulted in over 700 fatalities due to breakdowns in communication and shortsighted planning. The US General and his British and Naval counterparts remain determined that their invasion will continue as scheduled, though this time they're bringing in extra hands to help strategize. Every detail will be accounted for. Nothing can be left to chance, not even the tides, waves, or sunshine. Unfortunately, those are the precise things that can never, truly, be predicted.

Summoning James Stagg, named by Winston Churchill as the best meteorologist in the world, Eisenhower sets him up in Southwick House. Stagg (played by a prickly and immensely unlikable Andrew Scott to great effect) is immediately antagonistic toward the office. Brought in last, he is short-tempered and austere with the other scientists and soldiers. He has no patience for their piano-playing in headquarters. He shouts at a construction worker in front of everyone. He kicks out his own liaison to the General so he can have a laughably large office space to himself, privately. He forces his team to recheck every bit of data and to collect ever more. He may have only limited knowledge of how to be a decent coworker, but he doesn't care; that's not why he's there. He's there to do his job and to save lives. 

Because, as the film unravels itself as a chamber piece, the real drama isn't how D-Day will unfold. It's when. A storm is brewing over the Atlantic, and Stagg's awareness of the jet stream and the chaotic nature of weather in and around the UK makes the proposed invasion day unlikely to the point of foolhardiness. Troops will be swamped in boats unable to reach the coast of Normandy if they approach at the wrong time during the storm. Unfortunately, Stagg is also up against an unexpected rival: the American meteorologist in the same office (an always reliable Chris Messina) is certain that the Allies will have clear skies on the planned date. When asked about it, he uses maps of atmospheric pressure -- note the double play on the title, which also describes the immense psychological and social pressures for the event planners -- from previous years to demonstrate the reliability of his forecast. Yet, as we know, 1940s meteorological science was a far cry from what it is today, and only Stagg seems aware that the jet stream is a real phenomenon. He's also the only one who seems to care that the other general's prior experience was in North Africa, a far cry atmospherically from coastal Western Europe. It's the kind of curious footnote in the film that makes me want to learn about the scientific history of such things. Alas, our homework is never complete.

Adapted from the play of the same name by David Haig (yes, the actor! Who knew he is also a playwright?), who co-wrote this adaptation with director Anthony Maras (Hotel Mumbai), Pressure is a thrilling and psychologically taxing viewing experience. Apart from a brief prologue -- the aforementioned bloodbath that opens the film in garish, candy-colored horror -- and an introduction and conclusion that give some emotional context to Stagg's character, the entire film takes place in and around Southwick House less than a week before the planned invasion. Meanwhile, Stagg is under additional pressure, worried that his pregnant wife in hospital could be bombed by Axis planes blitzing the nation. The whole thing is written to within an inch of its own life, and yet it works magnificently, partially thanks to inventive and vivid cinematography that never makes it feel theatrical. Kerry Condon delivers an unexpected but brilliant performance as Stagg's liaison to the General, the latter's secretary Kay Summersby, who acts as a sort of humanistic lynchpin between the male egos. In fact, all the performances rely on her to become more sympathetic as the film continues, until you're inching toward the edge of your seat in hopes that they'll succeed in their endeavors. 

The film's opening text says "This is a true story," not based on or inspired by, and yet by the film's halfway point, I was chewing my tongue in worry that their efforts may fail. That's how powerfully written, acted, and designed this film is.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (2026)

Score: 5 / 5

Jane Schoenbrun does it again, and this time, in a film that feels tailor-made for me personally. Have you ever felt that way about a film? Scholar and writer Pierre Bayard suggests that we all have a book inside ourselves that is always looking for its perfect match from an external artist, and that our preferences in art are shaped by how well (or not) new art "fits" our mold. I don't know how they did it, but Schoenbrun did that for me here.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma concerns, like their previous work, the power of pop culture/art to inform and even determine the identities of young people who consume it. Specifically, it targets fans of '80s slasher franchises who grew up with endless sequels in which Jason and Freddie and Michael are illogically killed and resurrected ad nauseam, roving the American landscape to slaughter sinners from rural Texas to suburban Illinois to Manhattan itself. During this film's opening credits, we're treated to dated and merchandised material related to a fictional version of such IPs, the Camp Miasma franchise, which clearly owned a major stake in the cultural milieu of the in-film world.

Yet, in Schoenbrun's hands, the film is not merely an homage or satire of Friday the 13th. It knowingly and explicitly recalls so many pop horror references -- including name drops like Neve Campbell and Heather Langenkamp, among others, that felt surprising and perhaps even a bit unethical considering their lives and continued careers -- that it often feels less like a fictional film and more like a film student's capstone project. There are also constant overt references to noir and queer films, the most obvious being Sunset Blvd and Sleepaway Camp, which add to the heady mix of cerebral and sensual pleasures offered once the story gets going.

And while I won't get into the plot much here -- it's perhaps the single element that might pull the uninitiated through the otherwise queer horror fever dream -- I do want to recognize that, despite its flamboyance and metatextual fictionality, this might be Schoenbrun's most grounded and accessible feature film yet. Their previous two films -- both excellent, if more understated and quietly disturbing -- premiered at Sundance as experimental and off-kilter entries, garnering cult praise and status as a result. Similarly, in this film, the main character (played by Hannah Einbinder, fresh off Hacks) has just debuted her film at Sundance; we're told it was basically Psycho from the perspective of the shower head, which had me cackling aloud. She's now been tasked with reviving an old, problematic slasher franchise for a studio hoping to capitalize on the queer and progressive niche-to-fringe audience market. After all, you get enough of the weirdos and freaks onboard, and suddenly the niche is mainstream.

In doing so, she becomes obsessed with the original star of the first Camp Miasma film to the point of tracking down the recluse, who has bought and currently lives isolated in the setting of that original film. Enter Gillian Anderson as the unbelievably erotic and insane glamazon who challenges the young filmmaker at every step while inviting her to be more human, less idealistic, and to create real meaning in her art. I was reminded more than once, too, of Chuck Tingle's Bury Your Gays in this film's unabashed lampooning of what happens when big business attempts to dictate new art. Frankly, that the slasher villain of this franchise is a queer mess of a person who wears a sort of camera obscura on their head that is at once vaguely vaginal and reminiscent of characters in Silent Hill; the killer is also called "Little Death," which leads us to lots of potential conversations about violence, orgasms, and one of the most articulate artistic explorations I've ever seen about how and why queer women might especially love these kinds of "unwoke" horror series.

Schoenbrun's direction and writing here is unparalleled in its constantly multiplying layers of meaning. Taking inspiration from classical art, they even manage to pull off an embedded story by showing much of the original "Camp Miasma" film that made Anderson's character a star (and a Norma Desmond wraith haunting the site of her own peak and rot). Humor abounds, especially in the first act, including a few sequences with excess of food -- both candy and fried chicken in gluttonous quantities each -- that had me attempting to stifle my laughter in the chillingly quiet theater. Much like the cartoonishly stylized violence we'll be subjected to in the film, these moments indicate for me that Schoenbrun is adding even more themes here about the consumables that plague artists seeking satisfaction. When in the throes of writer's block or creative drought, we so often gorge on unhealthy sensory things that feel instantly gratifying but never quite fulfill. 

And this is all just the tip of the iceberg. The backgrounds of many scenes are painted in matte style, almost glaringly obvious. A vibrant and emphasized color palette keeps things gay and dreamy. Offbeat needle drops imbue a semi-nostalgic sense of calm and comfortable unease throughout. This film will have many more screenings in my living room, so if you missed it in its limited theatrical release, please know that I'll literally never not want to watch this with you. It's very possibly my favorite film of the year. Let's get into it.

Coyote vs. Acme (2026)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Much like other films of its ilk -- Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Space Jam come readily to mind -- Coyote vs. Acme manages to straddle the age gap with aplomb, offering plentiful laughs and thoughtful cleverness suited for all ages. That this film was shelved for so long and almost scrapped entirely by the studio is a chilling reminder that our presence and financial support of titles at the box office matters and is consequential in terms of what gets produced and distributed!

Opening with a bizarre and delightful notice that the film is "based on a true story," we begin with a prologue indicating that a crime caper is underfoot. An animated Dr. Lorre (modeled after the late great character actor) flees armed Acme agents in his lab, using all kinds of strange company products to deter and stall his pursuers. He's leaked intel to a mysterious contact, but he's caught before he himself can escape. This plot will pick up again later, and while it's not the main focus of this film, it does inform the eventual climax, in which a massive company seeking ever greater profits in order to monopolize and rule the world is brought low by underdogs who have finally had enough of its abuse and exploitation. Hmm... perhaps it's no surprise Warner Bros. nearly axed it for a fucking write-off.

Anyway, screenwriter Samy Burch (whose magnificent work in May December feels like a far cry from her work here, yet she's clearly one of the most capable and insightful new voices we have) masterfully crafts a fun, silly story that should appeal to all ages. After a thrilling opening, she shifts us to a classic setup that feels equally nostalgic and hilarious: Wile E. Coyote, the famous emaciated and nonverbal predator, uses an endless supply of Acme products to attempt to catch and kill his nemesis, the impossibly fast-moving Road Runner. Visual and aural gags abound in this raucous sequence that had some of the loudest laughter I've ever heard in a cinema, and I was easily the youngest person present. 

There's a purity of purpose and of joy in a film like this, thanks to Burch as well as director Dave Green, that doesn't hinge on franchise continuity or on product placement. This movie isn't trying to get kids to buy new action figures or lunch boxes, and there's no annoying music or slapdash action. To be sure: there is action here, but it doesn't have the frenetic editing and obnoxious score that plagues most animated fare for kids these days. This movie knows its primary audience may well be millennials and older generations who could bring their kids or grandkids to appreciate something a bit more mature in nature.

Which sounds weird when so much of the film involves an animated homicidal canine attempting to use rocket shoes to catch his prey, but it works surprisingly well.

The story proper, as indicated by the title, concerns Coyote's ennui about constantly failing in his compulsion. He turns to legal action against Acme after seeing an ad for Will Forte's legal firm. I don't remember Forte's character's name, but it doesn't really matter. He's the "nice guy" lawyer who probably started with a sense of purpose and has been so battered by life that he really only exists to settle cases now. His settlements, moreover, are almost always in favor of Acme itself, who pays pittance to cartoon characters with grievances. In this world -- a strange one that perhaps other films in the IP have addressed, but that depicts cartoon characters living in tandem with the real world, despite having a fairly tertiary role as entertainers instead of fully-fledged citizens -- nobody else seems to care what happens to cartoons as long as they're funny and fairly inconsequential.

At first annoyed and then begrudgingly inspired by Coyote's determination to bring Acme to task, Forte -- along with the audience -- gets swept up into a hybrid mystery-action courtroom drama saga and eventually decides to go for Acme's jugular. They're making, he discovers, intentionally flawed products for cartoons as test subjects, so they can refine their products for much larger and more devious purposes in the "real" world, for humans. Of course, Foghorn Leghorn is the owner of Acme, but he's basically untouchable behind his cadre of sycophants and bullies, led by John Cena and Tweety Bird. Forte is the film's everyman: a down-and-out guy who finally finds a calling, a purpose, and whose earnest efforts to that end are a foil to the rambunctious and often self-sabotaging efforts of Coyote and the other cartoon characters. Even the other humans are a bit ridiculous, but fittingly so. Lana Condor plays the other emotionally affecting role as Forte's assistant (and niece), and their paired performances are so well attuned to each other that it's remarkable to think they're often sharing the screen with invisible scene partners.

Some people might take umbrage with the oft-reiterated mystery plot line, and some might balk at a somewhat inflated runtime. But those are small potatoes when the film's boons keep returning on our investment. I can't even begin to recount the sheer joy of cameos by some of our favorite animated characters in unexpected ways, including Taz, Daffy, and of course Bugs himself. Luis Guzman's strait-laced judge is an absolute pleasure, as is Martha Kelly's deadpan legal partner. There's a car chase, an insane asylum, a tunnel with a train, Goldbergian machines, vaudevillian slapstick, clever puns and adult humor, and a surprisingly touching theme that coalesces in the denouement about the duality of friendship and purpose. We're all chasing our roadrunners, but what do our roadrunners think of us?

Passenger (2026)

Score: 2 / 5

So... hope that your car doesn't get scratched, or you'll be haunted to death?

Andre Ovredal is a solid filmmaker, as evidenced by his remarkable streak of horror films, including Trollhunter, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, The Last Voyage of the Demeter, and of course The Autopsy of Jane Doe, which is a perennial favorite of mine. But even the best practitioners don't land every attempt, and while Passengers has its moments of terror and technical prowess, this was a miss for me. It doesn't even feel like an Ovredal film, and it often gave me the impression it was rushed through production and maybe even had a mix-up of behind-the-scenes folks, because some of its elements simply don't follow through or make sense in retrospect. I'm not even sure I remember enough of it to offer a useful review, but do let's try.

Paramount chose to release Ovredal's latest without much advertising and on a mischosen weekend based on other releases. We might wonder if they did so to "bury" it and push it out of their queue. Even without much public interest (things like Scary Stories and the Dracula chapter can drum up their own audiences just by virtue of their title, whereas this one is generic to a fault -- yes, even in its title), the film should still excite fans of Ovredal in general. It's a low-budget scarefest with only Melissa Leo as a known star in a bit part, and its plot is the kind of B-movie shlock we love to see at midnight screenings and drive-ins.

Belonging to the odd subgenre of "car horror," the film concerns young people driving out in the boonies as they're haunted and hunted by a mysterious and deadly titular hitchhiker. Yet this one is not quite like Duel, The Hitcher, or The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, doubtless because its big bad is -- you guessed it -- a nonhuman, malevolent entity. It pulls more from the likes of Jeepers Creepers in that regard, so if you like that vibe, definitely give this one a try. Ovredal drowns the film in palpable darkness and almost vicious attention to things like headlights and turning signals, so it's a visual feast for anyone eager to peer into the darkness to see that which they probably don't want to see.

There's a suitably spooky opening scene about two young men getting attacked by said ghoul, but the real story -- if "story" is a reasonable word for a road trip through hell -- starts when a young couple (Jacob Scipio and Lou Llobell) move into their renovated van and flee the city to live on the road. This nomadic lifestyle is gaining popularity these days of unaffordable life in conventional settings, but it's obvious these kids are in for trouble. Despite initial excitement, the two aren't really feeling great about such a life six weeks into their new routine; rather, she's not, and it seems less likely that they'll revert to another plan than that they'll break up due to their different expectations and dissatisfactions. Yet before we get into the Nomadland of it all, they come across the boys from the first scene -- what's left of them -- and unwittingly pick up the demonic spirit that caused the horror.

Unfortunately, we get a lot of time spent on the main couple, and they just didn't work for me. We learn a lot about their past, their proclivities, their interests and activities; I just didn't care about any of this wdrldbuildling. We need it (otherwise they're just flesh to become carnage), but I'd have liked more substance to them, and ideally that they'd match attempts at theming once the horror kicks in. Thankfully, the film avoids needless exposition on the Passenger himself, allowing the mystery and horror to take over. That does make some plot points feel underbaked, as we're never quite sure what the "rules" are for him, but I think that helps with the tension in this instance. The plot's premise is too basic and derivative for me to care much about "lore" it might try to build. Think of this kind of film like a ghost story around a campfire; we don't need logic, we need scares.

That is something Ovredal handles well, as always, alongside his cinematographer and editor. There's a scene where the female lead walks across a large empty parking lot at night to her van, and my skin was crawling as the camera spun around her, each time revealing something just wrong in her vicinity. Like the distance between herself, the store, and the van, or the approaching figure of the Passenger himself. Another memorable sequence takes place as the couple camps out to watch Roman Holiday in the woods with their projector, which they end up using to try and light the forest in their attempts to ward off their attacker. These moments will stick with me, even if I don't remember most of the rest of the film. It also -- and this surely sacrificed my pleasure -- often results to intentional comedy, which sapped the film of much of its horror. One-liners, often admittedly clever, are dropped a little too often, and at least one soundtrack choice heading into an important scene made it feel more like a rock concert than a climactic confrontation. 

Nothing wrong with a fun little thrill ride like this, and frankly it's a fine piece of filmmaking. It just doesn't carry much heft or offer anything original, feeling a little too derivative and a little too simple. On the other hand, I'd happily pop this in on a low-stakes date night or Halloween party, especially if it was outside or in a drive-in. Not everything needs to be hyped or promoted to be worthwhile, and many fine films offer serviceable entertainment for those of us who just enjoy squirming in our seats once in a while. 

The End of Oak Street (2026)

Score: 5 / 5

"Greg, you only go to church at Christmas and now you're telling the kids God's looking out for us?"

Do you remember, back in '80s and '90s blockbuster releases, when you could walk out of a film quoting it at several parts because there were some real zingers? "Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?" "I'll have what she's having." "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." It was also always about the delivery, and that's something that has gone out of style. Nowadays it would sound cheesy to declare such lines with the same gusto; we've largely moved to a more internalized acting style on screen, with flatter timbre and diminished range of pitch. Just close your eyes and listen to "content creators" online; it's mind-numbing to hear such droning, yet it's affecting all of us and being reflected on the silver screen. Point being: the filmmakers and cast, in this case, knew exactly what kind of film they were making. 

The End of Oak Street throws us back to 1982 in both its setting and its style. Housewife Denise (Anne Hathaway) is secretly writing a novel that seems to verbalize her desire to divorce Greg (Ewan McGregor). Meanwhile, Greg has lost his job and works as a pizza delivery driver to try and make ends meet. Of course this is an absurd premise, but we go along with it (EDIT: I may be mistaken, but I don't think Denise has a job. I'll have to see it again to be sure). Their kids, teens Audrey and Brian (Maisy Stella and Christian Convery), have their own issues that stem directly from their parents' domestic strife: Audrey's a loner and Brian's acting out. Their secrets will all have a reckoning before this drama concludes because, stylistically, these films focus on and usually reinforce the nuclear family, the American dream, and simple morality.

Their neighborhood, in an idyllic Michigan suburb called Flowerdale, is awash in bright amber glow, pulsating with that nostalgic and tactile warmth we recognize from 30+ years ago. This is the kind of dreamlike neighborhood Laurie Strode inhabited in Halloween; that film was shot in California but set in Illinois, and Oak Street was shot in Georgia but set in Michigan. Something about them warmer climes sure does work for a welcoming atmosphere in realizing the world of the film. This is the kind of neighborhood that feels like what we should want. Broad manicured yards with well-maintained fences and community pathways between for the school kids to navigate; clean front porches filled with people, especially during the apparently regular neighborhood block parties; established old trees and gently curving roads; trios of bullies on bikes and teens reading on the roof outside their upstairs window. There's the kindly elderly lady down the street who is Denise's only confidante, the irritable and constantly complaining next door neighbor who threatens the dog, and even the suspiciously tokenized new Black family in the neighborhood, whose daughter will befriend Audrey. Only Audrey, much to Brian's confusion. 

David Robert Mitchell, the Metro Detroit native whose previous films include It Follows and Under the Silver Lake, seems to have quite the bone to pick with these quiet, nice suburbs and their grotesque underbellies. Conspiracies and sex and violence in the geopolitical heart of the American Dream. This time, he compounds his critique not with an embodied moralistic curse or with a trippy odyssey through paranoid possibilities. This time, he... well, in a sense, yes, he does that here, too. But he allows these characters to grow naturally and breathe together. He allows us to get to know and care for them: to see them at ease at dinner, cracking jokes and gossiping about the neighborhood drama. They're so lovely, it hurts extra when the parents start fighting and we're moved to the kids' perspective. These characters aren't communicating healthily, the filmmakers beat us over the head with. This is the dissolution of the family and the neighborhood.

This is also the kind of archetypal nostalgic town that features an omniscient librarian who lives in a beautifully tended, massive green Victorian mansion atop the town's tallest hill. When, researching in the library, Denise fails to identify a mysterious and large new plant in a neighbor's backyard, the librarian instantly recognizes it as an extinct plant from twenty million years ago. And Denise -- and we -- aren't meant to think of that as odd or coincidental or really fucking lucky. We're just supposed to go with it. Because of course our childhood librarian would have been able to instantly identify a prehistoric sapling from a single Polaroid image. 

Oh, right. Did I mention? The twist happens when the family wakes up after a freak storm to discover that carnivorous and predatory dinosaurs are roaming their neighborhood. 

Yeah, this is a horror film, though one determined to make a fairly general audience feel safe and entertained. You might not have guessed it based on my words thus far; that's because the film is really about the family dynamics, and the spectacle is really just a means to enhance and entertain around that drama. Between a few brief moments of awe, this film, much like Jurassic Park, is mostly a strung-together series of increasingly intense set pieces involving the family members fleeing, hiding from, or fighting back against an onslaught of large, reptilian monsters. Actually, much like 65 from a few years ago, this is a rare example of a dinosaur movie for adults that isn't related to the aforementioned franchise. And it's one that, importantly, also makes dinosaurs scary again. These aren't familiar beasts like the T-rex or velociraptors of Isla Nobler; these are freakish, feathered horrors hell-bent on chasing their terrified prey and feasting in the middle of paved roads and mulched flower beds.

The extent to which we want to add meaning to this film will vary on your context. I could not help focusing on some of the surprisingly thoughtful dialogue about philosophy and religion (as you may have guessed from my opening quote), and so I found myself wondering about the Garden of Eden, monstrous reptiles, angelic portals, a devastating fire, two kinds of pristine paradises smashed together, and the characters' forbidden fruits. Most of the film's plot -- from violent episode to intense emotional conversation to violent episode -- feels structured in a predictable, comfortable manner. This fits with the characters' actions, as they repeatedly attempt to batten down their hatches and make themselves more safe by hiding inside, pretending things are normal as they listen to music or drink the last of the milk while they hear neighbors screaming and being eaten just outside. What does it take for sleepy, comfortable American suburbanites to wake up and get to work? To go outside and help the people who need it? Ah, but it's so much easier to convince yourself things outside aren't as bad as they seem; that the media is lying to us so why should we bother to investigate; that personal security is even possible when the world is burning around us.

The horror of the film stems from attempts by the characters to normalize what is, functionally, irrational and actively harmful. A shotgun blast often isn't enough for these monsters. If you think you're safe on the roof, wait till the pterosaurs swoop in. While scouting, the parents come across a mating pair of giant, hairy long-necked herbivores. And when you think you've seen it all, an enormous albino snake slithers all through the house in eerie silence until someone finally notices it and saves its intended prey. And don't get me started on the wormholes. These aren't reasonable things, which makes it all the more anxiety-inducing for us watching when the family starts tearing off cabinet doors to haphazardly board up their windows. Do you really think two two-by-fours and a couple nails will stop a triceratops from smashing through your bay window?

Regardless, what's amazing about this film is how much it packs into a speedy, exciting, and consistently entertaining ninety-something minutes. Plenty of suspense and action for the fans of classics, gore for the horror fiends, inspiring romance for both parents and kids, a feel-good sense of community (and, perhaps, some subversive critiquing for the debaters), a gorgeous and rousing score by Michael Giacchino that felt inspired by John Williams. I hummed theme music as I left the cinema, and immediately started quoting it. At one point, Hathaway tearfully admits that she's "just trying to figure out the least scary way to handle this," which will haunt me for a while yet. These aren't heroic characters in an epic struggle against a dangerous new world. This is the story of a family dissolving and suddenly being forced to choose to help each other try to survive at least a little longer as they come to terms with their own bleak doom.

Easily the surprise of the year, The End of Oak Street is already a forever favorite of mine. It's the kind of rare art that feels tailor-made for me. If Stephen King wrote a Steven Spielberg film inspired by Jumanji and the end of The Lost World: Jurassic Park, this would be it. It's high-concept, chock-full of viewing pleasures, and a perfect end-of-summer flick. And I couldn't be happier with it.

In the Grey (2026)

Score: 3 / 5

Guy Ritchie's latest rambunctious action-filled crime film is a bit of a misnomer.

When something is in a gray area, we usually mean that a situation is morally complicated to the point that no action can be clearly identified as right or wrong. So when Rachel (Eiza Gonzalez), a lawyer and high-stakes strongman for the wealthy and naughty, describes in her opening narration that she lives and works "in the grey," I didn't expect a plot featuring what she'd later call a pincer operation. Before long, we understand that how she recovers debts for rich and powerful clients is to hunt down and corner the debtor using both legal and extralegal means. This means, basically, things like freezing their assets and being formally investigated by court order as well as sending out specialists for violence and terror, all so the debtor pays up. I'm not sure that constitutes ambiguity so much as it describes having a foot in two worlds; she's a merc vigilante who happens to also serve justice in court. It sounds more like the plot of a Shondaland series, doesn't it?

Her best help are her two sons, easily a decade older than she. Sid and Bronco (Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhaal) are quirky leaders of a mercenary commando squad, a team of elite operatives who can infiltrate and basically wage war as needed to pressure Rachel's targets into paying their debts. Apparently she saved them, in the recent past, from death row in a foreign prison, and they must have sworn an oath of loyalty to her; Ritchie doesn't tell or show us much, beyond a brief flashback to said release from prison, and some intentionally funny yet confusing language about "mom" and "boys" between the characters. In typical Ritchie style, the rapid-fire dialogue is dry and layered, rendering it occasionally difficult to parse and consume; I watched with subtitles, which helped considerably. 

The performers, at least the leads of whom have worked with Ritchie before, feel lived-in and comfortable, as if we already know them, too. These aren't performances that take us some time to appreciate or settle into; they just are these strange, Coen-brothers-esque people with verbal shorthands and disarming alertness despite seeming so bored. It's like seeing John Wayne or Clint Eastwood in a Western, or Doris Day in a musical: these people seem to simply be their character, even in the public eye, even decades later. Obviously the guys look great, and inasmuch as we can know anything about their internal lives -- the film is quite opaque on that front; this is by no means a movie for studying characters -- it seems they're a couple. Hard to tell, their exact relationship, but one claims the other is his husband and they express love in a stilted, stoic, realistic way. They're definitely more than just brothers in arms, at any rate. And this, too, shapes the unique tone of this film, with its intentionally playful machismo. They and their team share a beautiful dynamic we don't often see in mainstream films, and there are some fun elements of gender play that feel like a throwback to old Howard Hawks movies.

Also typical of Ritchie's projects, there's a profound diversity of eye candy in the film. Despite not capitalizing on the beautiful bodies of his stars, Ritchie offers up a smorgasbord of costumes, locations, and action to keep us interested. Or, rather, entertained. I never once cared about the plot of this film, mired in excessively detailed technicalities of international banking and tactical invasion of an island fortress. Caring about the superficial elements is the game in this kind of film: gorgeous vistas of Saudi Arabia and the Canary Islands, a vehicular chase on dangerous roads and lots of firefights, and knockout habiliments that include seersucker, desert robes a la Lawrence of Arabia, and some devastating suits. These are what carried me through this film.

Which is good, because I am still not entirely sure about the plot specifics. Not due to any fault of the filmmakers, though; this thing is edited to death (by Martin Walsh, prolific editor extraordinaire) in clever montages with explanatory voiceovers about all the various schemes and plots as they unfold. Sometimes live action flash-forwards help us understand that the plan is unfolding as planned, intercut as they are with the map or diagram. But the quick pacing and constant stream of voiceover monologuing left me feeling breathless, bemused, and sometimes befuddled. This may work well for viewers who enjoy the sensory overload that is life with our cell phones, but not so much for me. I enjoy breathing while watching a movie, and being able to focus on something.

And, for goodness' sake, if you're going to cast Rosamund Pike in something, please let her show off. She deserves more time to shine.

Insidious: Out of the Further (2026)

Score: 2.5 / 5

I had rather hoped the series would end with the wrapping of the Lambert story in its fifth installment, The Red Door. But the Further indeed goes further this summer, and its diminishing returns are a disappointing validation of my hope. 

Insidious: Out of the Further continues its franchise-building in this sixth installment. Instead of continuing the trends of Chapter 3 and The Last Key in following medium and psychic Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) in other paranormal investigations of her long career, the film decides to start a new story. Well, mostly. At the risk of spoiling a key moment for you who might be interested (and who haven't seen any trailers or cast lists), Elise does indeed show up to mentor and save this new protagonist, but it's only in the Further. Because of course, at the end of the first film, she dies. It seems she is continuing her work of shepherding people through the Further and safeguarding the living who enter it, a sort of posthumous chaperone delaying her own rest for the good of others. 

And boy, do we need help. The Further, the series' concept of another dimension like limbo, is bursting with the dead. Ghosts and demons lurk in its ever-swirling misty darkness, and they crave escape and the chance to live again. so when dental hygienist and single mother Gemma (Amelia Eve, of The Haunting of Bly Manor) starts astral projecting, they swarm. Gemma is just trying to have a normal life with her daughter Maya and her cop boyfriend Nick (Brandon Perea, of Nope and Twisters), but she's haunted by memories of her mother, who killed herself twenty years prior. After that upsetting opening sequence, we learn that her mother was mentally unwell through a smattering of flashbacks. What's spooky is that Gemma is starting to act in similar ways, paired well through visual design and composition for our viewing benefit. While she may not be fully conscious of her astral projecting, she is keenly aware that spooky, ghastly figures are stalking her and often invading her home, which is also her childhood house. 

Unfortunately, the film spends far too much time on other elements of plot and theme to be really coherent. The film I just described would have been lovely, especially once Gemma meets Elise and they start ghost hunting. We don't need an extensive backstory for the new villain, a monstrous ghost named Cyrus who, we eventually learn, was a death cult leader and retains his following in the Further, promising them all life again in the living world. We don't need Elise to have an additional character be her avatar in the living world; no shade to Maisie Richardson-Sellers as full-time tattoo artist and part-time medium Clare, who performs very well, but whose role is written seemingly for the sole purpose of having more bodies to scare, injure, and kill in a scary movie. We could have simplified the story, used another generic but visually stimulating demon or entity -- heck, use Cyrus, but cut the dialogue and endless "research" they do on him, and trust the audience to work it out for ourselves! -- and gotten on with the drama and scares.

Because that's what an Insidious audience wants at this point. Family drama and scares. This franchise is to horror films what haunted houses are for Halloween. For those who seek out its unique pleasures, it's a staple in our diet. We want the brooding atmosphere, endless grim anticipation, cheap shocks with jolts of harsh light and sound, zany characters launching themselves from pervasive darkness, and a wandering sense of the netherworld coming too close to our own. Haunted houses aren't for everyone, and you can certainly enjoy Halloween without them, but they bleed into our consciousness even in the festive decoration aisle at your local hardware and grocery stores. Similarly, Insidious isn't for all horror fans, but franchises like this set the standard for those surface-level scares and wickedly fun spectacles of the genre, while proving the financial viability of the genre on an institutional (indeed, global) level. 

But director and writer Jacob Chase manages to handle some clever and novel set pieces effectively, so don't write off this film as a wholly skippable blip in the franchise. I squirmed right out of my seat in not one but two nasty scenes in a dental chair, and there's a nightmarish scene that takes place in a pillow fort -- and no, I will not be elaborating beyond extolling its Backrooms-flavored claustrophobia and its uncanny sound design. It's a spooky little ride that manages to be charming, nonsensical, thrilling, and mostly forgettable, so perfect for a movie night with friends or a date. And it's got some truly bizarre moments (the grapefruits, anyone?) sure to provoke entertaining conversation, if not quite stimulating.