28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026)

Score: 3.5 / 5

The unpleasantness of Danny Boyle's usual style is mitigated here by a daringly beautiful attempt by Mia DaCosta to inject artistry and -- dare I say -- beauty into a world overrun by zombies. There was no way the titular set would have been built for Boyle's 2025 return to the franchise if more wasn't to come. The bone temple, a glorious and instantly iconic memento mori for the characters of 28 Years Later, deserved a film of its own, rife with arcane rituals, demonic drag, and deeper thematic merit than this franchise has ever had. And, thankfully, DaCosta was exactly the right person for the job.

Pitfalls and all, this material has never been my favorite, even within the fairly specific genre of post-apocalyptic zombie horror. The Rage virus, groundbreaking in its 2002 debut, is now so familiar in conceit that writer Alex Garland and the creators have needed to add new kinds of zombies and start categorizing them by mutation, yet another typical problem in this subgenre. With its attempt at edgy immediacy through shaky camerawork and more or less natural lighting, the series has never quite managed to achieve visual artistry on par with its occasionally sophisticated themes. DaCosta, approaching the whole affair almost as a dark fantasy, helps us view the world with more awe. Which is unexpected and a bit jarring, as this is the first entry to be temporally connected to the setting of its predecessor. How many franchises do you know of in which the third entry is, itself, a planned trilogy?

That's not to say this film isn't as gratuitously, viscerally cruel as the others. The story concerns young Spike (Alfie Williams), who starts in a bad place immediately following the events of the previous film. If you recall, a grotesque group of parkour thugs under command of "Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal," a seemingly sociopathic cult leader (Jack O'Connell), saved Spike from a group of the infected, inviting the wee lad to join them. It does not bode well, and the opening of The Bone Temple solidifies our fears as Jimmy orders Spike to fight to the death against his Fingers (the name he gives his tracksuit-wearing followers, who individually have variations of the same name like "Jimmima" and "Jimmy Shite"). It is revealed to us that they believe Jimmy's father is "Old Nick," the Devil, and this blood sacrifice merely a regular occurrence in their lives together. Spike survives and is inducted into their order as a new Jimmy, but his life gets more violent and less safe by the day. Even when he cautiously befriends Jimmy Ink (Erin Kellyman), who tries to help shield Spike from their most barbaric acts and from Jimmy Crystal's wrath, it's a far cry from safety.

Thankfully, the film crosscuts Spike's journey with that of Dr. Ian Kelson, played again by Ralph Fiennes in full command of his considerable craft. His introductory scene is a montage of him collecting rotten corpses in what appears to be an eccentric routine to continually improve the bone temple he's constructed; he goes about the macabre affair while absentmindedly singing hits from Duran Duran (the opening is "Girls on Film," which when I finally recognized nearly slayed me dead). Kelson lives in a bunker beneath his temple and spends the remainder of his time studying Samson, a giant of a zombie who apparently craves the sedation from Rage provided by drug darts Kelson uses. While under the influence, Samson is placid and Kelson develops what amounts to a friendship with him. Whether through teaching Samson language or dancing to the music, Kelson will make the connection.

Fiennes is magnetic in this role: a crazed humanist, a generous and hospitable mad scientist, an artist in every way yet alone and humble, the character he has constructed is impossible to nail down, and he constantly surprises us in his demeanor. He's also the saving grace of the film, which spends far too long tormenting young Spike (and us, by extension). When one of the Fingers spot Kelson and Samson chumming it up one day, he's sure he's seen Old Nick and demands an audience from Jimmy Crystal, who suddenly knows he's made quite a pickle for himself. Thus intersect the two plotlines of the film just in time for its magnificent climax.

This was never meant to be a character study, so the snippets of flashbacks to the "before times" of Kelson and Samson didn't really work for me, though we definitely needed more ways to connect with them. But even with these, none of the characters really feel fleshed-out by the screenplay or in performance. Other than Kelson. Fiennes takes a mostly nonverbal character and turns him into a fountain of stimulation. When, in the climax, Kelson performs as Old Nick in order to satisfy his unwelcome, threatening audience of Fingers, Fiennes is dressed in some kind of demonic drag (a cross between War Boys in Mad Max and the Cenobites from Hellraiser) performing Iron Maiden's "The Number of the Beast" in a drug-induced rave replete with mosh pit and pyrotechnics. It's electrifying to behold. It also introduces a wholly unexpected theme of religious theatrics into consideration, one that deconstructs the artifice even as it elicited audible laughs from me, mostly due to Fiennes's otherwise deadpan, quietly monotonous delivery of his lines out of character. Though he so often plays the villain, we must never forsake his profound gift for comedy.

By film's end, DaCosta has done something rare in film. She crafts a visual and aural experience meant to push us along to the point of questioning, earnestly, how and why God would allow such horrors on earth. That's a dark place to go, even with fun and scares along the way. But the sensation I had, upon a recent rewatch, was not that of nihilism or despair. And, no, I'm not talking about the ending, which offers yet another obnoxiously optimistic little cliffhanger ending reminding us that there's another installment yet to come; that just pissed me off, yet again. No, the hope I felt was far more spiritual and human. In a cast of characters basically rendered dead inside from their hopeless, interminable existence, we're made to feel that Kelson actually made a difference. No spoilers here, but the film's proper finale (before that inexcusable stinger) validates and valorizes his life as an ethical doctor in this hellscape and offers encouragement to viewers feeling a similarly bleak outlook on a world gone mad.

The Marvels (2023)

Score: 3 / 5

Much will be made of CGI overload, of confused plotting and endless sequels, of franchise and superhero fatigue. Some might bleed into my thoughts here. But, generally speaking, few people are considering The Marvels on its own terms as a film. Maybe that's deserved, being the thirty-third feature film in the MCU, where nothing is really standalone anymore and everything leads to yet more projects in an ever-expanding multiverse of characters, stories, themes, and media. Public interest in the juggernaut of IP is waning -- if not collapsing -- but that doesn't discredit the films, franchise, or genre as a whole. When people bellyache and despair of Disney and Marvel and superheroes, they're saying far more about themselves than about the art.

So for this, I'll just list my ruminations on each key element of storytelling here, because I have no coherent observations or arguments for the purpose of lionizing or decrying this film. For me, The Marvels is one of the least satisfying and most confusing MCU films, but it's a lot of fun in its breezy (and mercifully brief) running time.

The plot? A mess. This film seems meant to be the lynchpin of several disparate storylines, something the MCU will need to continue doing to tie together the multitudinous tapestry it's created. The problem for me is that I can hardly remember where all these characters originated or why they're all significant. Principally, the film is meant to be the sequel to Captain Marvel -- and frankly I barely remember that film -- continuing Carol Danvers's (Brie Larson) vague intergalactic antics with the Kree and the Skrull. I can scarcely remember who they are, except that Lee Pace played an evil Kree in the second Thor film and Ben Mendelsohn played a good Skrull at some point, unless I've mixed them up as well. Essentially, and I do mean bare basics here, Danvers had destroyed the AI ("the Supreme Intelligence") that ruled the Kree homeworld of Hala, unwittingly leading the Kree into civil war and planetary desolation. So their new leader, a revolutionary warrior named Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), seeks magical "quantum bands" to restore Hala and save her people by siphoning resources from other planets. Earth is on the list.

The characters? Mostly disappointing. The leading actresses are mostly wonderful. Larson continues her cool, prickly leading streak. Teyonah Parris remains one of the most compelling and delightful additions to the entire franchise as Monica Rambeau, though her lack of a codename is still frustrating after her introduction in WandaVision; thankfully, this film recaps enough of her story via flashbacks that you don't need to have seen it to understand her, but you do need to have seen Captain Marvel. Iman Vellani is just as cute and energetic and slightly irritating as she was as Kamala Khan in Ms. Marvel (which I saw but also don't remember well), and I was able to follow her arc here without recalling previous information. With their varied personalities and styles, I was excited to see them team up, become quantum-ly entangled, and kick ass. And while they are richly realized on screen, they are pitted against one of the most bland and forgettable villains yet, despite Ashton's clear desperation to make something exciting out of a flat, nondescript character.

The writing and direction? I'd compare the storytelling efforts here to a juggling act with smoke and mirrors for flair. Director Nia DaCosta (Candyman, Little Woods) also co-wrote, and I was so excited for her voice, especially with a team of females fighting a female villain in a franchise dominated by men. Unfortunately, we don't get much of her voice because she's too busy trying to recreate and continue the distinct flavors of the other characters. Scenes with Khan are frenetic and cutesy, loaded with Gen Z-isms and dynamic special effects; scenes with Rambeau are more stately and dignified, mirroring her wisdom and warmth; moments featuring Danvers tend to be a bit sassy and wry, as she is clearly the most powerful superhero in the MCU but also just a badass woman. The screenplay is a mess, too, co-written by committee (writers from WandaVision and Loki penned this mess) attempting to mash up these characters for the first time while sharing enough backstory to get by and also ham-fisting exposition into almost every scene.We get enough breaks with frenzied, kinetic action that it doesn't feel to forced, but a second viewing reveals a sort of tripping skip in terms of pace.

Oh, and I haven't even mentioned that you also need to have seen the miniseries Secret Invasion to know what Nick Fury has been up to in space for the last few years, and even with that knowledge now (I hadn't seen it before seeing The Marvels) I am very confused as to his doings with the Skrull and Kree as well as Samuel L. Jackson's characterization, which is much different here. Here he does basically nothing except offer snarky commentary, and I am none the wiser as to what he's doing, why the whole tentacled-cats thing keeps happening, and how it ties in with anything else in the larger franchise.

The visuals? My opinion here is firmly my own, but I don't understand why people hate on CGI so much. Don't get me wrong: superhero movies tend to overuse it, and I don't think it's always necessary or effective in terms of storytelling. But the number of people who call certain CGI elements "bad" or "cheap" clearly don't know how much work and money go into these shots. Let's work toward avoiding these words and start talking about what's actually on screen, because there's so much nuance to unpack. In this movie particularly, I had trouble understanding what, exactly, the womens' powers were, despite lots of talk about harnessing light energy, because it all just sort of looked like rainbow-colored light that comes out of their hands and eyes. When Dar-Benn rips holes in space and pirate resources from other planets, we're presented with now obnoxiously familiar images of black holes and global destruction, and it's not as awe-inspiring as it used to be.

You'd never know that master cinematographer Sean Bobbitt was behind the cinematography, as choppily edited and fast-paced as the film is. Further, even primarily dramatic scenes without lots of CGI are flatly lit and so packed with unnecessary set pieces and props that the emotional energy gets lost in the mix. When the chaos starts -- Dar-Benn claims one of the quantum "bangles" which somehow then entangles the three heroes -- we flip around between the Marvels with an apparent disdain for continuity and rules. They keep telling each other not to use any powers to avoid swapping places, but they all keep doing it; worse, they apparently only change places sometimes while using their powers, which makes the whole thing feel like a half-baked gimmick.

In the end, there's also not really an end. SPOILER ALERT. Monica's sacrifice sends her off into another dimension (or something, because nothing is sacred anymore and who knows what's coming next) in which her mother is alive but also not her mother, and in which she meets Kelsey Grammer's Hank McCoy "Beast." I'm excited for the X-Men to join the MCU, and it makes sense with the multiverse crap, but I wish for less buildup and more cohesion. Meanwhile, the short-lived team of women leads Kamala to go off on her own, locate Kate Bishop (seen in Hawkeye, because why not throw in yet another miniseries we need to have seen to make sense of this?), and suggest they start a new team of young Avengers. Oh, and Carol casually flies through Hala's sun to repower it and help restore Hala for the Kree. Because she can apparently just do anything. It's all fun until it's eye-rollingly irritating. Getting an actual conclusion for literally any of these multiplying characters and plots would be great, and relying on audiences to have seen literally every MCU production to make sense of ongoing films is not great.

Candyman (2021)

Score: 5 / 5

As is now in vogue, we've been blessed with another remake that's actually a sequel but uses the same name and ignores previous sequels in its franchise. This time, it's Candyman, and it's bloody terrifying. Beginning twenty-seven years after the original 1992 film, we're introduced to Troy as he tells a spooky story. Bringing his audience -- including us -- up to speed on the lore, he recounts the events of the first film, when Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen) lost her life in an evil night of blood and fire; in describing her as mentally ill and wicked, we see right away the power of folktales and urban legends. As Lyle studied the phenomenon of an urban legend, she herself has now become one. Interestingly, her story is entertainingly retold around an upper-class apartment in Chicago proper, giggled over by wealthy young black adults whose own upbringing in a gentrified district makes them skeptical of the horrors of what was once Cabrini-Green.

Troy is not the main character of this Candyman, though Nathan Stewart-Jarrett plays him very well; I worried for most of the movie that this lovely and flamboyant man or the man-candy on his arm would end up gutted. Horror doesn't usually allow the gays to be happy, and Candyman doesn't usually allow anyone else to be happy. The main character, rather, is Troy's sister's boyfriend: Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II from Aquaman, The Trial of the Chicago 7, and Watchmen), an artist whose mindfulness of the gentrification of his home neighborhood informs his art. Thankfully, his girlfriend Brianna (Teyonah Parris from If Beale Street Could Talk and WandaVision) is successful and mostly supportive of his work. As they hear the story from Brianna's brother, they discuss the central problems plaguing that particular historical context in the same way commentators and scholars have since Bernard Rose's original film came out. Brianna pointedly says, "White people built the ghetto and then erased it when they realized they built the ghetto."

Anthony wanders Cabrini-Green looking for inspiration for his next work. Once poked by his muse -- a bee, which of course is more than just a bee -- he creates violent works of the deaths of Black people in the neighborhood. Once put on display in a gallery run by a man named Clive (surely a nod to the short story source material by Clive Barker), things really get scary. Could the blatant capitalist commodification of Black lives and livelihoods have caused the bloody onslaught that takes two white people's lives in the gallery after hours? Or could it have been their flagrant disrespect of legends and a people group they know so little about? Either way, Candyman appears and blood is spilled.

Anthony learns a lot in a short amount of time, and it's in his scene with William (a deliciously sinister Colman Domingo), an older man who knows a little too much about the urban legend. But he's deeply endearing, and says lines that were surely penned directly by Jordan Peele, who serves here as writer and producer. Describing the perseverance of the myth, he notes that many men have died and been caught up in the Candyman story, as if a new horrific death of a Black man is needed to remind people about racism and police brutality. But, he says grimly, "one white woman dies and the story lives forever." William even provides Anthony his own origin story for Candyman, based on a run-in he had with a seedy figure as a child. My favorite line 

And herein dovetail the thematic elements, any of which are fascinating but, altogether, make the film an angry bonfire of an experience. This movie deepens and widens the monster's myth from the original film by carefully situating the intensifying violence on Black bodies by whiteness as its center point. Saying the name of Candyman -- literally the tool of his conjuring -- by the end of this movie becomes a sort of rallying cry for vengeance; it's also the rallying cry of current movements against abusive and deadly police tactics against Black people. Candyman becomes a sort of vindicator whose horrors might be a force for good if the endless cycle continues. In this way, Candyman radically makes use of the explicit fact that the real world is more horrifying than things dreamed up in supernatural fiction. There's a reason Lovecraft Country was recently popularized by HBO.

But that's not to discount the body horror here. The original was scary because of its gory content back when gore was becoming silly; this one fully embraces its skin-ripping, blood-gushing realism and more than once elicited groans and yelps from the auditorium in which I sat. Director Nia DaCosta (Little Woods and the upcoming MCU film The Marvels) harnesses a unique and deeply confident visual style that shook me to the core, one that knowingly and gleefully gooses the audience with morbid humor and jump scares before bulldozing us with existential dread. Her opening sequence, which features Sammy Davis Jr. singing "Candy Man" over reversed studio and distributor logos, leads into chilling shots of a foggy Chicago at twilight, shot upside-down and backwards from the street level. 

And then there's the story itself, which is so profoundly intelligent and unexpected that I gasped often out of sheer viewing pleasure. DaCosta's work is pitch-perfect, as is her direction of an excellent cast. The disgusting sound mixing and riveting cinematography clearly work toward DaCosta's intended vision. And the audacity of this screenplay in humanizing and communalizing the monster we've feared for three decades, while making him so much more horrifying through a wealth of real history that spans centuries, is nothing short of devastating. “Candyman isn’t a he,” William tells Anthony before warning him to stay away, “he’s the whole damn hive.” And if you had told me a sequel that we all thought was just a remake would be able to make the original make more sense rather than add a bunch of crazy new stuff, I'd have laughed at you. Five times. Maybe into a mirror.

Little Woods (2019)

Score: 4 / 5

Nia DaCosta's debut is a masterwork of what we might call frontier filmmaking. Though at times Little Woods feels like a graduate thesis, I don't mean that disparagingly. This is a deeply emotional, surprisingly timely tale of sisterhood in an environment utterly hostile to female existence. It reads not unlike a chamber piece in the American northwest, with taut drama and simple thrills carrying us along at a slow but steady pace.

Tessa Thompson takes a masterful turn as Ollie, on probation after being caught illegally crossing the U.S./Canada border; eventually we learn she was probably running drugs, as this opportunity again presents itself to her. As she begins "breaking bad", we might say, we see the intense factors that have influenced her decision and the cruelty of being a lone woman in a man's harsh world. She works odd jobs for local construction men until her sister Deb (Lily James in a no less skilled performance) announces her pregnancy. Ollie and Deb have been estranged-ish since their mother died, and Deb already has a son she can scarcely provide for.

The women face homelessness and destitution from multiple sides. Deb learns how expensive it will be to have a child and so chooses to abort it; the only legal clinic is hundreds of miles away. When she shows up for her illegal operation, the predatory men attack her. Ollie, meanwhile, is threatened by a local drug dealer angry that she's operating on his turf; he demands 30% of her profits or she will need to run drugs across the border for him. As is so often the case in these kinds of stories, circumstances become dire enough that Ollie is forced to work for him again and perform the run.

What is magnificently different about this story, though, -- SPOILER ALERT -- is it's shockingly happy ending. Things get almost unbearably bleak during the movie, and it's hard to imagine this ending well for anyone involved. But Deb escapes her predators and has a safe and legal operation in Canada, Ollie successfully runs the drugs without getting them caught, Ollie learns that she's landed a promising job in Spokane, and the sisters reconcile. The final haunting image of them crossing safely back into the U.S. is incredibly hopeful even as it speaks, ironically, to the border crisis at our southern border with Mexico. Little Woods is a rare gem that uses the structure of well-worn plot but flips it upside-down and repurposes it for a completely novel story that hits a little too close to home.