Scream 7 (2026)

Score: 3.5 / 5

"What's your favorite scary movie?" Kevin Williamson, the brilliant writer behind my favorite horror franchise, returns this time in double duty as both writer and director to a series foundering in the wake of some awful producing decisions. Without going into the muck of the business, suffice to say that the exciting plots and characters of Scream 5 and Scream 6 are on a bit of a hiatus (let us hope not abandoned permanently). Given his thankless job of taking the reins from what was clearly a planned trilogy and trying something different, independent, and ultimately safe, Williamson performs a Herculean task here to mostly successful results. While this will almost certainly rank lowly among fan favorites, I do think it's important to always take the art on its own terms; as such, we'll not be discussing the casting/directing/writing upsets that led us to this point, and rather focusing on the film itself and its place within its series.

Unlikely as it might seem after so very much crime there, the Macher house yet stands in Woodsboro, California. Drawn to the "true crime" setting of his own favorite serial killers -- and enthusiastically aware of the long-festering rumors of Stu's possible survival -- a young man and his girlfriend book the large estate as a sort of AirBnb for a spooky night. Given the material's tendency to blur the lines between history and reality, trauma and reckoning, heroism and cruelty, it's a bit surprising that we haven't really seen this yet; usually, it's Gale profiting off the fictionalized lives of others, yet here (and in our digital age) we see a potential nobody profiting off the tragedies that have occurred in this storied house. Who owns the Macher residence now? Who knows? Like the inevitable killer lurking in plain sight in the decked-out Halloween-esque attraction, it could be anyone.

Chandelier-related kill and all, the opening is effective and had me thrilled to be back in the world of Scream. We immediately shift to our protagonist: Neve Campbell back again in the spotlight as Sidney Prescott, of course. And while it makes sense -- indeed, easily could have been the character's development far sooner -- it's pretty damn cool to see her as a mother whose daughter is now being threatened by the horrors plaguing her life. Sid is a bit too strict and cold for my preference, but Campbell plays mama bear with a firm rigidity that hearkens to Jamie Lee Curtis's Laurie Strode in her final three Halloween titles. The difference is that Sid seems to not want to deal with Tatum as a burgeoning adult; she won't talk about sex with her daughter specifically, though she's aware of Tatum sneaking boys into her room. Even Tatum's name suggests a curious choice from her mother; similarly, Williams kept Mark as the name of Sid's husband (after being mentioned briefly before), but for some inexplicable and infuriating reason, it's not Mark Kincaid (Patrick Dempsey) but rather Mark Evans (Joel McHale), who is coincidentally the police chief. It's just an insulting switch for fans, not least because McHale plays Mark as kind of creepy.

Thankfully, Williams seems aware that, if we're not continuing the same story from Scream 6, we probably don't care about the plot. So he doesn't focus on character development for legacy folks. Instead, he launches into a series of solidly entertaining kills with enough intrigue around each to propel the whodunnit mystery forward. There's a stylish and memorable theatre kill, though one any theatre artist will decry as being outrageous; it's gotta be one of the most unsafe tech rehearsals ever, with a terrible teacher and stage manager. Soon after, there's a brutal, intense Ghostface attack in Sid's home. By this point, the film has revealed that it's playing things safe: this is a run-of-the-mill slasher whodunnit with characters we love. I don't hate that; frankly, if the worst this franchise can do is spin an entertaining variation on familiar ideas, I'll take it any day over more than half the shlock pumped direct to streaming. Yet, as a fan who knows what Williamson and this series is capable of, it's disappointing to see them not taking bigger risks. Even the cinematography feels more like something out of the classic Weinstein Company catalog than something from Dimension; bland, amber lighting and too much unnecessary editing sap what should be a dynamic vision of shadow and LED while forcing us to exist in real time and space with visceral kills.

Unfortunately, the cast of characters assembled here feel both rote and archetypal at this point, and none are given much opportunity to shine. Their collective energy simply doesn't electrify us, even as they discuss Important Themes like AI and societal collapse; unfortunately, it all feels a bit "too little, too late," not unlike listening to an old man complain about his 2020 election results six years after the fact. When Gale finally shows up -- looking fabulous, as usual -- she's joined by the two Meekses, Chad and Mindy, who are a breath of fresh air in this film. Weird as it is to see them without the other half of their "Core Four," Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding are as likable and endearing as ever, even if their reasoning for working with Gale is murky at best. All together, the heroes set the metafictional stage for us: Trauma is their life. Actually, once the killers are revealed, one of them literally says that to Sid, in the film's most glaring move into metafiction. And what trauma! Much like in the previous two films, these kids are brutalized in this film; Mark, who I would have been fine to see go in favor of the real Mark coming back into Sid's life, inexplicably survives.

While I liked the killer's use of AI to literalize "ghost faces" of previous Ghostfaces, I wish Williamson had leaned into it more. These films work because they are timely and state-of-the-art, bound by the technology of their setting. But Williamson shies away from it, instead trying to make a connection between new tech and old memories; I don't think it works to have nostalgia be a driving force for a film in this franchise. Yet moments of nostalgia that could only speak to real fans do land well. I'm thinking of Sid finally allowing Gale to interview her, including Roman in the lineup of killers, and the legitimately terrifying slow-mo reveal of the second killer, all of which are not really meant to gain new fans but are very much geared to satisfy longtime fans.

Yet the idea of self-help being a gateway to insanity and murder is so tasty that I cannot deny loving this movie. I love the fun whodunnit, the occasional grisly spectacle, the genuinely scary knives-behind-every-door suspense. And I love that this franchise just keeps going.

Wake Up Dead Man (2025)

Score: 5 / 5

I hope Rian Johnson makes Knives Out Mysteries the rest of his career. Easily my favorite in what is now a veritable series of consistently excellent films, Wake Up Dead Man is also easily one of my favorites of 2025. 

This time around, Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig delivering an inexplicably more interesting character, now three films in) is called to a small town parish in upstate New York. The Gothic setting is heightened by a new murder mystery: Reverend Wicks (gruff Josh Brolin), a charismatic and emotionally abusive monsignor dies, mysteriously and alone in a small closet adjacent to the sanctuary where he had been performing a Good Friday service. Johnson spends the entire first act of this five-act narrative in the parish community, so we get to know the dynamics at work first. Wicks gets a reassigned assistant pastor, a young former boxer (!) named Duplencity (a tortured Josh O'Connor), whose dark past and tendency toward violence make him all the more interesting to a burgeoning cult leader like Wicks. The parishioners are all naturally highly suspicious, including Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Thomas Haden Church, Cailee Spaeny, and of course Glenn Close as the devout and imperious right-hand woman of the head priest. In Johnson's capable imagination, however, their likely guilt isn't just a matter of fact; he forces us to consider, with each, the very realistic reasons they might fall prey to a toxic gospel, and how similarly we might do the same.

See, Johnson is of course doing an Agatha Christie thing, but he's also very much doing an America-in-the-2020s thing with these movies. In the first, he roasted insular families of wealth and the ways in which they prey on marginalized workers in a cruel twist of murder mysteries and legacy wealth; in the second, he skewered a wider swath of privileged people in the category of being "stupid rich" and how they prey on each other in a post-moralistic parable about capitalism. But now we shift -- though the motivation may still be about money -- to the realm of faith. Karl Marx famously called religion "the opium of the people," and Johnson seems eager to inject us with a counterdrug. In an age of fascists taking power in the "land of the free," it's telling that Johnson wants us to consider how religious conservatism and sociopolitical desperation leads to cults of personality.

Yet rather than merely scorching the devout -- or, indeed, painting this as a full-blown cult, a la Kevin Williamson's series The Following -- Johnson uses this focus to mine an opportunity. Rather than lambasting the faithful as weak or ignorant, much less willfully wicked, he develops the characters toward each other, reminding them (and us) of commonalities rather than irreconcilable differences.

Visually, Johnson hasn't been this strong since The Last Jedi. He and cinematographer Steve Yedlin create real magic with their lighting in this film, evoking Dutch Golden Age paintings with a dash of fever-dream lighting technique. Thick atmosphere and nebulous backgrounds are repeatedly pierced by golden, amber, or even white light through various doorways associated with life and death. The first especial time I noticed the gorgeous feast of color and light was, indeed, when Blanc arrives to the church at the start of the second act, and his shadow is superimposed over the bare wall over the shoulder of the man who needs him most. This motif is repeated twice in the film, for pointed thematic effect.

And indeed help is needed. The cast of murderous characters share something in common: not love of money, or paranoid false friendships, or even monstrous secrets, but in fact their anger. These characters, though desperate for healing, belonging, and purpose, all share a penchant for anger in its various forms. While Johnson's messaging, by film's end, is demonstrably about understanding other perspectives, de-escalating violence, and a counter-instinctive type of empathy, it's fair to say his approach to this material feels like his own angriest yet. Easily the richest thematic yarn he's yet spun in this franchise -- maybe ever -- Wake Up Dead Man also features an aggressive visual dynamic that demands to be see on as large a screen as possible, and with the best sound system. It's a crying shame so many people will watch this on phone screens.

I don't think I could accurately recount the plot to you, and I've seen it twice now. Johnson's plots, however, are intentionally unpredictable/unsolvable. His enduring legacy with these Benoit Blanc mysteries is more about why these murders happen than just about who dunnit. You know? Blanc even riffs on a Mulder and Scully dynamic with his young priest friend, essentially pairing a man of science with a man of faith as they grapple with inhumane questions. In Johnson's masterful language, they reach some profound epiphanies that will leave you shaken. Murder will always out; the battle for the soul, however, takes center stage in the best Knives Out mystery yet.

The Woman in Cabin 10 (2025)

Score: 2 / 5

The Woman in Cabin 10 is a go-to title for anyone curious about author Ruth Ware. I confess I haven't read it, but the buzz was somewhat inescapable, at least in certain circles. I have, however, read another title from Ware, and while Spiece's Pieces isn't and won't be a reading blog, my experience with her prose bears some relevance here. A few years back, I read Ware's In a Dark, Dark Wood, eager for a new voice in mystery/thrillers and seeing her name on a lot of store shelves. My impression was one of dismal mediocrity: following a path worn down by Gillian Flynn and Paula Hawkins while blatantly ripping off Christie and Hitchcock, Ware's narrative was simplistic and obvious, culminating in a final reveal so insipid and stupid that it soured me to her permanently. Even her somewhat intriguing ideas -- namely, her setting, in that novel -- are swept away by obnoxiously moralistic and unrealistic motivations for the main characters, which seem to be the point of the novel, rather than the climax, which is at best an afterthought.

So when I learned that Ware's perhaps most well-known title was getting Netflix treatment, I was not particularly excited. Yet the trailer intrigued me; I'm a sucker for anything that even loosely resembles The Lady Vanishes or a Poirot mystery, and this looked like a modern version of Death on the Nile. In the hands of Simon Stone (The Dig), and starring Keira Knightley among a cast of fabulous actors, a single watch of this on Netflix renders it a fun and simple distraction this winter. As meatier fare, however, this dish leaves a lot to be desired. 

Investigative journalist Lo (Knightley), rattled by witnessing the murder of a source, opts to take on a breezy, luxurious project to reset her professional regulation. Invited by dying billionaire Anne on a superyacht cruise to Norway, Lo is tasked with hobnobbing with wealthy guests and writing them up in a puff piece exalting their philanthropic activities. Anne, terminally ill with cancer, is opening a new charity as her final legacy, supported by her husband Richard (Guy Pearce); what Richard and everybody else doesn't know, however, is that Anne is going to donate her entire fortune. Anne tells Lo this privately, which gives Lo some pause. Why doesn't Richard know? Or the other guests, who seem to be longtime friends? Perhaps, we can almost hear her thinking as she gazes at the opulence around her, these people are all snivelling sycophants hoping for a slice of Anne's pie.

At least, that's the direction this could have taken. Instead, almost immediately, Lo encounters an unidentified, bedraggled woman onboard who suddenly disappears in what Lo believes to be a crime. Loose cigarette butts, a bloody handprint, and a body thrown overboard en route are more than enough to spark her hysterics. Crew and passengers alike dismiss her, yet her growing indignation make them all quite hostile. She's upsetting the applecart, yes, but also sucking up energy that should be spent glorying in Anne's fading glow. And when they all learn of her recent trauma, they chalk it all up to Lo simply losing the plot. It doesn't help that her flirtatious ex, Ben (David Ajala), has been assigned to this cruise as her photographer. 

Apart from the obvious ties to other projects already mentioned, this film never really feels like its own thing. As with any murder mystery, the primary joys are to be found with its cast; unfortunately, this cast isn't given much to do, as their screenplay spends almost all its time with Lo. Though Knightley is eminently watchable doing the same kind of acting she always does, Lo always feels beholden to her caricature writ broadly; intensity is great, but she never feels like a real person thrust into a bizarre and sinister situation. This means that, apart from Ajala, no other actor gets a chance to do much more than play their thinly written, archetypal role. Pearce is greasy and smug as an overprotective and likely gold-digging hubby; Gugu Mbatha-Raw pops in a few times for good measure; Kaya Scodelario, Hannah Waddingham, and David Morrissey float around like vaguely suspicious red herrings in couture. There's a rockstar and a doctor, a crew uniformly in line behind a forced facade, and some consternation over the fate of Anne's fortune.

But all amounts to much less than the sum of its parts, narratively, in a story that consistently underwhelms with its predictability and rote beats. What works much better is the visuals, if only because the yacht and ocean are so beautiful to behold. Stylishly sapped of most of its color, an icy bluish-gray palette pervades each frame, so that the beautiful actors in their leisurely boating outfits become the only real reason to watch this movie. And I do mean that, because by the final act, so absurd in its machinations, I wanted to just turn the wretched thing off and keep the memory of furtive glances and trysts in the glassy hallways below deck as murderous designs lurk around each corner. Better to go watch Flightplan instead.

Shelby Oaks (2025)

Score: 4 / 5

Much will be said of Chris Stuckmann's pedigree and history, yet apart from its inspiration, these things will be said to effectively limit Shelby Oaks, its scope, and its impact. I've yet to hear much response to his feature film debut that isn't couched in some kind of condescending tone that heavily references his years-long passion project and its troubled history or that hinges on something to the effect of "well, once Mike Flanagan joined the creative team and Neon picked it up, then it became a real movie." And I think that's a shameful approach to film criticism. Historicizing can be cool, and it can provide insight, but as soon as you use it to limit and control what the art does and what it means, that context ceases to be useful or believable. After all, a film made by a lifelong fan and critic is going to reference other movies. Most movies do, anyway, regardless of their maker. At least this one makes those references not only obvious and fun, but also crucial to the story being told.

Starting with a faux-documentary a la Lake Mungo or Noroi, Shelby Oaks details the rise of the Paranormal Paranoids, four young YouTubers investigating haunted places, who suddenly go missing in the titular ghost town. Bodies of three are found, along with some of their footage, but Riley Brennan and the second camera are nowhere to be found. As with The Blair Witch Project and its subsequent franchise, this story follows someone eager to find the missing person and learn what happened to the Paranoids. Riley's older sister Mia (Camille Sullivan) is convinced Riley is still alive somewhere, even now, twelve years after her disappearance. This seems wildly unlikely to me, but since that's the only serious jump I had to make to suspend my disbelief, I leapt and was better for it. Once we're in the film proper, Stuckmann has a hell of a story to spin, so you'd better get on board.

There is another version of this film that doesn't feel so dated and that engages in an earnest conversation about how found footage can operate in the twenty-first century and how we, as mindful viewers, should engage with videos of questionable authenticity. Media literacy is in crisis, and a film like this could bravely showcase a side of things we don't normally see while forcing us to grapple with social media algorithms, ever-listening phones, and the specter of artificial intelligence. That's very much not Stuckmann's project here, but I wonder what follow-ups might do in that regard, as the film seems to be breaching between the boundaries of urban legends and ghost towns and our dwindling post-millennial obsession with paranormal web series. Actually, it's not wholly unlike some of Flanagan's early work in that regard of suggestively reaching into a wider conceit without fully engaging, like in Absentia or Oculus.

I won't spoil any plot points here at all, because this film is a bona fide mystery, eager to suck you in and reveal itself in sinister turns. Needless to say, we will find out what happened to Riley -- and why -- and it's probably not what you're expecting. Stuckmann's premise, apart from the Blair Witch of it all, is quite original and hybridizes some key points that feel disparate until later. As Mia investigates, she eventually goes to a prison and an abandoned amusement park, both of which also refer to other iconic horror stories. There has obviously been a killer, and there may be a kidnapper, but beyond that, Stuckmann allows us to think there are ghosts, demons, monsters, and all manner of horrors before film's end, and some of those prove to be true. All predicated on a primary plot distinctly reminiscent of Prisoners or Barbarian, these things begin to take on fantastic lives of their own, so that just like Mia, we are searching through limited available evidence to establish a rational way out of this mystery.

To be fair, rationality may not be the key element of this film, and Stuckmann does sacrifice rich character development (or even realism) in favor of some rural Gothic adventuring. I don't mind that, generally, and Mia's nighttime escapades make the movie pretty amazing. It's just not reasonable for Mia to be this obsessed with her missing sister for over a decade; we're even told it has ruined her marriage and might have something to do with her inability to become pregnant (which she fervently wants or, perhaps, wanted). It's also not reasonable for her, after being scared out of her mind by the inciting incident of a crazed man delivering her the missing tape before fatally shooting himself on her porch, to not call for backup or even leave a note before launching into a nocturnal investigation at abandoned places that would be dangerous even in broad daylight, without demonic dogs hounding her steps.

And while Sullivan delivers what she needs, I couldn't help but wonder why the screenplay didn't let her do more. Or perhaps why she felt so one-note. She's just kind of always there, shuddering and grimacing and looking, rarely speaking or acting proactively. It's a stoic performance of a kind we almost never see leading a horror film, and it freezes us in place when it should mobilize us into reacting to the frisson. Indeed, I found myself reacting to Stuckmann's well-crafted and effectively employed scares more vocally and physically than Sullivan does. She just keeps her head swivel going, like an owl on an old clock, and it's up to us to search the shadowy surroundings for what might have made the alarming noise.

It might have been going for, simply, too much. The whole subplot of the prison is fascinating, and Keith David's bit part is really effective. But the film pivots again after this, and its final act is a frenetic experience in its own right, tonally led by a terrifying Robin Bartlett, veering close to what Ann Dowd provided in Hereditary. For a plot to take place in a single, hellish night, I'm glad this didn't become a shitty web miniseries; its episodic narrative needs dramatic unity to make sense, and in a single film, it does. It took me some time to get into the story, but by the climax and finale, I was locked in and on the edge of my seat. Stuckmann's technique as a filmmaker might be half-baked as of yet (I'm not sure this is fair of me, but it is a sometimes wonky film; that said, his visuals are stunning and occasionally beautiful, like Mia's foray into the prison block, which looks like something out of Bergman or Fulci, atmospheric and Gothic, as if the ruins itself breathes contagion), but his instincts as a storyteller are fabulous, carrying this material through to the glorious cinematic release it always needed. Seeing this on a big screen in the dark with surround sound is the only way to appreciate what he's done here, and it deserves to be appreciated.

Weapons (2025)

Score: 5 / 5

I wasn't ready for Weapons. And neither are you.

Suggesting more than it shows, letting its audience connect its dots, and enjoying its own peripatetic dynamism perhaps too much, Weapons respects itself and its audience and encourages associative cognition. Zach Cregger, perhaps the latest auteur (though we might be using that word a bit liberally these days) in our new wave of horror, has established himself as a writer/director who capitalizes on a thrilling premise and then runs hog-wild with it. With this much larger, in scope, title, Cregger establishes himself as a committed storyteller, one whose final product is considerably more than the sum of its parts.

If you're at all interested in seeing this film and haven't yet, please do yourself a favor and watch it without reading anything about it. To discuss Weapons is to reveal its manifold secrets. You've been warned.

Its central conceit, widely publicized in the film's marketing campaign to the point of being obnoxiously written out on its posters, is that, in a small Pennsylvania town one night, seventeen children from the same third-grade class vanished. The upsetting premise feels all the more poignant as school shootings continue to occur with increased frequency and deadliness; the parallels are pretty clear here, though it's only directly referenced once in a dream that hits it quite bizarrely on the nose. But there's more to this than simple allegory. The film's lackadaisical, almost whimsical tone is struck early, as we watch the children running out their front doors at 2:17am, arms spread as if they're pretending to be airplanes, seemingly blissfully in step with a '70s soft rock song (George Harrison's "Beware of Darkness," the internet tells me). Wistful, even sentimental, this opening sequence feels comfortably chilling, perhaps the very definition of uncanny.

This sweet, slow, subtly sickly aspect of the film -- which lasts for most of its runtime -- draws from a deep well of rural and suburban legends. Evoking the likes of The Virgin Suicides, Magnolia, Picnic at Hanging Rock, and even perhaps We Need to Talk About Kevin, we shift from perspective to perspective of various townsfolk in the wake of their shared tragedy as they attempt to ask (or avoid) questions, point fingers, and make sense of the unthinkable. Films made these days in such rigid episodic structures and nonlinear patterns do raise the question, for me, of whether they were written to be a miniseries, but in this case, I'm glad it was reduced to its two-hour runtime for the sake of cohesion and coherency. The chapters unfold in emotional chunks, sometimes overlapping narratively with an even we've already seen from a different angle; these particular overlaps are often of extremely frightening and violent moments, which serve as jarring ends-of-chapter jolts that, in my screening, had more people saying "wait, what?" than gasping, screaming, or laughing. And that seemed intentional.

To that point, I would like to add that each chapter is presented from the perspective of a particular character, and so Weapons works as an ensemble piece. Arguably the most important character to each part is Justine Gandy, the teacher of the missing students, who becomes a primary suspect of the inciting incident. Julia Garner plays her with profound depth, attempting to navigate her own grief through a gauntlet of weaponized hatred from her neighbors. But Gandy is a distinctly opaque character, one about as far from a Mary Sue as you can get while still being, if not wholly likable, at least sympathetic. She doesn't explain herself, and often holds others to an unspoken standard of judgment they invariably receive. She has a drinking problem, one she's clearly grown with before the inciting incident, and she has a weird vibe with her ex, local cop Paul (Alden Ehrenreich, doing his usual excellent work here with a character who could easily have been really gross). So it makes sense that she becomes the subject of a literal witch-hunt in her town: she's a single young professional who sins, makes no apologies, and doesn't bend over backwards to play nice with anyone but her students.

It's not long into the film that its tone shifts from the vibe of the films I've already mentioned; Cregger clearly knows and loves his cinema with all the references and nods he proudly waves while guiding us through his nightmares. Visually, the film looks like early Denis Villeneuve (Enemy, Prisoners) in its cold, clammy color palette and its vaguely gritty and damp set dressing; this is the decay of small town Americana, the film seems to be saying, and it's only going to get worse. The competing narratives and air of paranoia that pervade the film might be best described as a cold pressure-cooker, getting ready to freeze your marrow as people's frigid cruelties steadily mount. Secrets hidden behind white picket fence facades will out, and so will the lurking evil, older and more sinister than you would have imagined.

I had no idea where this film was going, though in retrospect, what I thought were red herrings were actually pretty solid hints as to the ultimate reveal. There is indeed a witch in town, but it's not Miss Gandy. Alex, the lone boy remaining in her class, has been helping a witch masquerading as his elderly Aunt Gladys. Gladys (played by an astonishingly delicious Amy Madigan) has tricked her way into Alex's house, bewitching and torturing his parents to convince the boy to help her abduct the town children. So the film, for all its thematic suggestiveness, is really just a sophisticated monster movie, featuring what may be the most maligned and inconsistently deployed monster in the genre, the witch. Presumably, she consumes their life force to sustain herself, much like the Sanderson sisters in Hocus Pocus, and please don't think me sacrilegious for the reference, but it is pretty squarely part of both the conversation and the convention at this point. And, while and I don't love the ageism and misogyny in his elaboration and grotesque exaggeration of this choice (especially after Barbarian featured a singularly monstrous "Mother" character, one has to wonder why Cregger is so hell-bent on vicious, violent older women as his vehicles of horror), there is something wickedly satisfying about the rhetoric of witch-hunts and public paranoia leading to increased socioreligious conservatism and inaction and violence being so literalized here. Weaponized, even.

Much as the townspeople fear, things will indeed pop out and scare them, probably even hurt them, in their vulnerable state. And so we, the audience, are similarly targeted by the film's firm grip on our anxieties. What could jump out of that shadowy door in the dark haunted house? Well, if your deepest fear said "your bloodied, wild-eyed neighbor/principal/officer/parent," you'd be right. I've always said that, in horror, what bothers me the most isn't what I can't see or touch, nor is it those supernatural things I won't encounter in this lifetime, but rather the person, known or not, lying in wait with the crazed sole intention of harming me and without regard for consequences. That's fucking terrifying. And that's what this movie delivers. By the end of its climactic sequence, I was shaking and weeping with sensations I haven't felt in a cinema in years, not the least of which was a bleak sense of relief that it was done.

That won't be everyone's level of engagement or appreciation, and it doesn't have to be. But Weapons is one I'll be eager to revisit soon. Come for the great ensemble cast -- I haven't even mentioned! Josh Brolin, Austin Abrams, and Benedict Wong all get POV chapters --  or come for the batshit crazy scary moments peppered in (there are shots that felt like Romero's The Crazies and others like Carpenter's Halloween) or come for the richly complex mystery linking it all, and stay for the sheer pleasure of original storytelling by a capable and inspired artist.

Final Destination Bloodlines (2025)

Score: 4 / 5

It's been a very long time since I last watched a Final Destination movie, and I'm not sure I've seen all of them. But Bloodlines has me thinkin' it's time to revisit this series.

A quick brush-up on IMDb tells me the previous entry in the franchise, the fifth, was released all the way back in 2011. In our era of reboots and legacy sequels, we should always be prepared for a familiar title like this, but few manage to handle it as compellingly or with as much artistic integrity as Bloodlines, and that's what I want to chitty chat about today. Because anyone familiar with any of these films -- or even the ideas they present, which have pervaded our culture -- knows that they hinge on an understanding of Death as a sort of disembodied god who, like a trickster, utilizes Rube Goldbergian setups to slaughter people who try to thwart or flee their demise. As such, these films provide excessively, gloriously slapstick violence that always please gorehounds and more physically-minded horror fans. 

Yet the series also provides horror and terror of unusual depth for anyone interested in more existential and philosophic concerns. These may not always be manifest in the sometimes rote screenplays and obnoxious dialogue, but the ideas are inescapable, much like Death himself, and these movies are great fodder for post-screening conversations about fate, agency, nihilism, free will, and the purpose of both life and the ending thereof. More importantly, these films have an uncanny knack for preying on and exacerbating our anxieties about fairly common occurrences: trucks with lumber, tanning beds, and LASIK surgery stick out as prime examples (and if you know, you know).

As a standalone story, Bloodlines handles itself with aplomb, framing its concept with the effect of death (read: trauma, family curses, etc.) as it stretches through generations. Opening with the much-publicized sequence in which a 1960s young couple goes to a newly opened restaurant tower that rather resembles the Space Needle in Seattle, the screenplay keeps going back to this massive disaster as a touchpoint. We eventually learn that the disaster was averted due to a well-timed premonition, and that, ever since, Death has claimed all survivors of that day. They were never supposed to continue living, you see, and so their offspring and families and careers have been, from Death's perspective, ill-gotten. We learn about all this through our present-day protagonist, the granddaughter of the premonitory woman who is now a paranoid recluse, and Tony Todd as William Bludworth.

The latter is a poignant and charming addition to this revitalization of the franchise, as Bludworth has appeared in some previous entries, and Todd's considerable gravitas and humor as a performer has made the role iconic. Todd's inclusion here -- significant due to his passing last November -- and the film's dedication to him wrung moisture from my eyes, and his single scene ends with an affirming farewell (that he reportedly improvised) that will haunt you. More pointedly, his role underscores the legacy element of this legacyquel, as he was also a survivor that day in 1969, a revelation that provides more nuance and purpose to his role in the series.

The main plot, in the present day, offers no less thematic concern, as it centers around an extended family who are apparently the last intended to be claimed by Death. As the grandmother eventually shares, all others who were supposed to have died in the tower disaster have, by now, died in extreme and weird circumstances. Her descendants band together, despite their longtime estrangement, to pore over her notes and concoct a plan to escape their respective dooms. It's a riveting, fun ride, and all the more so when it's littered with bizarre, funny, grisly, shocking deaths. 

Directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein (who directed Freaks in 2018 but nothing else I've seen) pull no punches in their highly stylized approach to this material, and it's clear they have both a deep understanding of this franchise and what fans want from it as well as a rich sense of humor and joy in bringing the sometimes unwieldy material to life. And that's no diss on the writers, including Lori Evans Taylor, Guy Busick (who often works with Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett), and Jon Watts (Clown, Wolfs, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, and the MCU's Spider-Man trilogy). This writing committee here crafted an admittedly detailed and weighty story that, in the wrong hands, could have lost a lot by way of tone, style, and metaphysics. There's a joie de vivre on display here that frankly we don't see a ton of in contemporary horror; stylistically, it feels not unlike some of Sam Raimi's work, a la Evil Dead. And the soundtrack is... well, it's a delight, and I won't spoil it.

You can always tell when a death is coming because the astonishing editing (Sabrina Pitre) and cinematography (Christian Sebaldt) draw relentless attention to potentially dangerous items or events in the immediate vicinity of the characters in a given scene. A tree trimmer leaning against a trunk, a man blowing leaves nearby, kids kicking a soccer ball, and a trash truck rumbling up the street: you've got yourself a new disaster in the making, and the film is begging you to fantasize about the order of operations for yourself. Which of these Chekhovian guns are going to "go off" first? Extreme closeups and amplified sound effects feed into our expectation of fulfillment: like the reverse of a murder mystery, we know someone will die, we just don't know how yet. Instead of too many suspects, as in a whodunnit, here we have too many potential killers, and they're almost all mundane objects and simple mechanical processes. Just remember that a penny is never lucky in a film like this, and a train isn't just a vehicle to get you from place to place.

I won't spoil anything else, but I don't pick pennies and trains obliquely. These feature in repeated motifs in this film, and I think those are pointed at cultural critique of common conveniences. Make a cloud of associations with pennies, for example, and you'll note "pennies from heaven" and luck along with pennies killing people when dropped from the Empire State Building or the pennies placed on the eyes of the dead before they are ferried to eternal rest. Am I digging too much into this film? I think not, and with all these ideas in mind -- and with, frankly, the metafictional yet also very literal affirmation from Tony Todd -- I don't think it's a stretch to say that this is the best film in the franchise, and a damn good film in its own right. I never expected to genuinely enjoy all of a Final Destination film, yet this one handles both comedy and existential horror with a mastery and sense of artistic vigor we rarely see. It's a consummate meditation on life's purpose and how we can go so terribly awry in the face of metaphysical dread.

Another Simple Favor (2025)

Score: 3 / 5

There's something to be said for the kind of sequel that takes the best-loved parts of an original story, usually key characters (or actors) and glamorous or silly or sexy plot points, and ships them to exotic international places. Think of murder mysteries with Poirot or Jessica Fletcher; think of family adventures like Herbie or spy thrillers with Ethan Hunt; heck, think of road pictures with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby or Abbott and Costello. Rian Johnson is doing it with Benoit Blanc and Steven Rowley is doing it with Guncle Patrick. I certainly didn't expect it from any follow-up to Paul Feig's sleazy, cutesy romp through thick suburban psychology in A Simple Favor, but if that's what he wants to give us, I'm willing to buckle up and enjoy the ride.

Five years after the events of the first film, Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) is still touring with her book, but it's clear sales are dropping and her fans want a follow-up. As if on cue, Emily (Blake Lively) returns in her signature stylish fashion, released on appeal from prison and freshly engaged, asking and coercing Stephanie to be her maid of honor. The lucky man, it turns out, is Dante Versano (Michele Morrone), a wealthy Italian man whose family has close ties to organized crime. Eager to renew interest in her vlog and book -- and to gather new material for a real-time sequel -- Stephanie agrees, and the cast sets off to Capri for a sun-drenched romp in the Mediterranean. Feig knows what we want in a sequel, so the costumes and scenery are intensified almost to distraction, and the plot becomes too convoluted for any simple description. In other words, things get very pretty and very messy.

The energy of Another Simple Favor is wildly different from the first; I'd compare its tonal shift to that between seasons of the series The Flight Attendant, with the first being more psychological and the second being more spectacular. Comedic elements here are both more contrived and more forced, but it's never unwelcome; the screenwriters perhaps watched too many classic-Hollywood ensemble comedies during their writing sessions, as zany antics threaten to overtake the plot at every turn. Too, a thematic concern here: the first film took an incisive look at motherhood in a digital age and interrogated what it means for a woman to be successful and a mother and, maybe both, whereas this sequel attempts to question the relationship between identity, loyalty, and criminality, with distinctly diminishing payoff. I'm still rather confused by what, if anything, this film is actually saying, because I was so enamored with its visuals to care much about its theming.

The soapy drama never disappoints, though, and the ensemble clearly enjoys bringing it to life. Henry Golding returns as Sean with some delicious drunken one-liners aimed at both his exes. Emily's mother Margaret is recast from Jean Smart to Elizabeth Perkins, though she isn't given much to do here, and Allison Janney joins the company as Emily's Aunt Linda with a welcome vibe that feels not unlike your own aunt wandering in and causing some ruckus while having a hell of a good time. Unfortunately, none of the new characters are given much to do, so they mostly drift in and out of frame unceremoniously. The camera worships only Kendrick and Lively, as do we, and I confess some frustration at the teased and sorely lacking sapphic subtext from the original; at least they look good and are doing the most to keep attention on themselves. Instead of pining for Emily, now Stephanie is worried about being murdered by her best frenemy. When they split into their own misadventures, the film lags, but their explosive energy together makes it worth the watch.

My personal bias against organized crime flicks -- I just don't care about mafia mania or the dynamics of a looming mob war -- means that I felt at least a third of this film was totally disposable. So many scenes, especially with Dante's family matriarch Portia (Elena Sofia Ricci), could and should have been excised in favor of more tete-a-tetes with the characters we know and care more about, disrupting tea time and bachelorette parties and the marriage of (SPOILER ALERT) convenience. Instead, we're given a story so bizarre and impossible and laughable that it loses itself in the mire it's created; the film's so escapist it forgets that we should also care about these characters as people more than just eye candy. Not that Lively's outfits aren't gobsmacking and Oscar-worthy, I would have just enjoyed more of her torrid family drama and Gone Girl-esque escapades than we got here.

Black Bag (2025)

Score: 4.5 / 5

With each new project, I'm increasingly grateful that Soderbergh didn't retire after all. His latest release, a spy thriller like few others, reminds us of his highly entertaining ability to cover familiar ground in a wildly unfamiliar way. Black Bag manages to turn a high-stakes story about international security, satellite surveillance, and eavesdropping with AI, and turn it into a tense dinner table drama about camaraderie and companionship. David Koepp's riveting screenplay takes special focus on a conspiracy to leak a top-secret software called Severus, which could apparently cause a nuclear meltdown and claim thousands of lives.

MI6 officer George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) is given one week to locate and stop the leak; he narrows his list to five suspects and invites them over for dinner. Perhaps I should say, rather, that he invites four over for dinner; the fifth suspect is his wife, Kathryn (Cate Blanchett), his personal and professional match in every way. The others include two couples, all British Intelligence agents of various temperaments and dispositions, and their dinner is a bit awkward; at least, it's a bit stilted and guarded between these folks with their stiff upper lips. But George has lightly drugged their meal to lower their inhibitions with the intention of getting someone loose enough to reveal their secret. One couple is fiery Freddie (Tom Burke), angry about not getting promoted, and satellite image specialist Clarissa (Marisa Abela), who is his subordinate. The other is Colonel James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page) and the agency psychiatrist Dr. Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris). Despite the revelation that Freddie has been cheating on Clarissa, causing her to stab his hand with her cutlery, and some fractures in their relationships generally, George learns nothing of value.

With less than a week to go, and with his own supervisor found mysteriously dead, George refocuses attention on his wife, resorting to secretive surveillance of Kathryn on one of her missions. Kathryn suspects their boss (Pierce Brosnan) of attempting to destabilize Russia at any cost, and leaks the Russian operatives' location to a CIA contact, resulting in their annihilation from a drone strike. Meanwhile, George issues polygraph tests to his suspects; based on their respective intel, George and Kathryn conclude that they are being set up and decide to host another little dinner party.

If you know me, you know I love a dramatized dinner party gone wrong. You don't often see these in espionage thrillers, but in this Koepp/Soderbergh project, we get two! As bookends of what is otherwise an engaging but somewhat rote spy story, these sequences frame the whole affair as one of intimate, psychological proportions. We get to know these characters as perfection-oriented, ambitious professionals and as socially icy Brits in what could be an awkward domestic setting. That drastically changes our opinions of them once the game is afoot. As we follow George, primarily, we see his calculated method of putting pressure on each suspect to try and elicit their secrets; Fassbender's typically masterful, subtle performance is key here in ensuring that we trust him without his having to say much.

As his second release this year already, Soderbergh is showing no sign of slowing down or of being predictable in his choices of cinematic topics. This film, understated as it can feel, nevertheless features speedy edits and cool camera tricks such as shifting focus mid-shot and dousing everything in soft lighting to create a unique visual appeal to the proceedings. This helps the dinner scenes best, making things feel natural and nice even as we wait for the traitor to erupt. It also helps us trust -- and then not trust, and then trust again -- George's relationship with Kathryn, as their sexual chemistry and cerebral gameplay are showcased only briefly but highly effectively. And despite her role as a sort of secondary character, Blanchett matches Fassbender point for point, performing Kathryn with a glamorous, ballsy delivery that makes the character have an edge you don't usually see in films like these. He lays a careful trap and waits for his prey; she will unapologetically push people to see which one takes the bait. The middle act of the film works because of Blanchett's choices: she is clearly the only character in the film who could actually be outsmarting George.

Koepp's fraught dialogue and Soderbergh's uncanny knack for unique genre twists combine here in a heady test of smarts that is over almost too quickly. I could have lived in this world a little longer. Brosnan is having fun as a former James Bond who is a bit insecure professionally, and Harris is particularly delicious to watch in her equally cerebral and emotionally complex position as the group's therapist. While the final reveal could delight or upset genre fans, it strikes a memorable balance of tonal uplift and satisfying closure that we don't often see in such films.

The Beast Within (2024)

Score: 1.5 / 5

I love werewolf movies. My favorite monster can take most any form, and I'll dig it. But The Beast Within, the sophomore feature from Alexander J. Farrell (I've not seen his other work), comes as close as I've ever been to actively disliking a werewolf movie. Its aims, arguably admirable, are to seduce viewers into a horror film that focuses on an isolated rural family -- father, mother, daughter -- and their strange rituals. The daughter, apparently kept out of the nighttime events, becomes curious and learns that their family is subject to a curse whereby dear old daddy must repress a raging beast within his body and spirit. It's contemporary rural Gothic, bleak and gritty, and I was excited to dive in.

Unfortunately, that's where its good ideas dwindle. The actors are all mediocre at best, though the daughter, Willow (Caoilinn Springall), is worth watching. Of course, she's also handicapped by her illness, which requires her to lug around an oxygen tank, which just feels too obvious a trope to be taken seriously these days. And of course it becomes her weapon and tool of liberation eventually, which almost made me turn off the film. Kit Harrington as the titular father/beast Noah often looks bored or confused while attempting to be menacing, and his character is somewhat sexualized, which is simply uncomfortable. He's the one with the disease threatening to rend their family ties, not she. Ashleigh Cummings plays the mother, Imogen, without much inspiration or impression.

Dreamlike editing and cinematography often mobilize a werewolf film, but the quality of this particular picture is so visually dark as to be often inscrutable. Worse, the half-world fantasy elements do not add to the theming or atmosphere (as in something like Pan's Labyrinth or even Antlers, which would be a closer comparison point) but rather obfuscate the plot itself. We're never quite sure what's real, what's a dream, and what a little girl might be interpreting from reality into her cinematic memory. It turns out (SPOILER ALERT, in case you are interested in watching this mess) that daddy Noah is not, in fact, a werewolf, but is merely an abusive alcoholic. His binges and violent outbursts are translated in the film -- facilitated as it is by Willow's perspective -- as his monstrosity (think The Shining). We see her reading Jack London's White Fang, suggesting her choice of literature is shaping her ability to make sense of her own abuse. Worse, there's an outing Imogen and Willow take about halfway through the film that overtly reveals that, metaphoric monstrosity or not, they are both victims of domestic abuse. 

The subjective haze around this otherwise potentially compelling narrative nugget makes it difficult to understand how a screenplay so half-baked could ever get green-lit, and why nobody involved suggested any additional workshops or revisions. An hour in, it's still trying to articulate the filial dynamics that were established in the first ten minutes; by the denouement, it's just beating us over the head with what was an obvious and simplistic resolution. The production design and characterizations make no sense; their rustic life is meant to be modern somehow, and yet for gifts they wrap things in plain brown paper and Willow is thrilled to receive match sticks, while their house boasts and enormous family portrait and a thronelike chair for its patriarch. These disparate elements actively confuse and distract our awareness as the film develops incrementally between nightmare fake-outs. Apart from a few almost-scary moments -- mostly shot in blink-and-you'll-miss-it bursts of shadowy images -- the film adds nothing to the subgenre, and is in fact very pointedly not a creature feature, merely muddying the waters with wasted opportunities and disappointingly trite messaging.

Do yourself a favor and skip this one. If you're hankering for a recent werewolf movie, spend time with The Wolf of Snow Hollow, The Cursed, or this year's brand new Wolf Man, all of which are better viewing experiences in every way.

Conclave (2024)

Score: 4 / 5

Suffice to say, we're in awards season. Perhaps the most surprising title for me was Conclave, which arrived in cinemas without much fanfare, promising a Catholic talkie thriller somewhere between a Robert Langdon religiopolitical caper and a Socratic dialogue in dramatic form a la The Two Popes. In fact, that's about what it delivers! Based on the 2016 novel by Robert Harris, the story concerns a pope's death and the subsequent papal conclave tasked with electing the next Holy Father. A chamber piece of densely layered writing and ferocious performances, Conclave may not win any converts to the faith, but for those with any ounce of religious identity (or religious trauma), it offers insightful, incisive boons designed to provoke serious reflection on the power of institutionalized faith and the dangers of dogmatic adherence.

Cardinal-Dean Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) leads the College of Cardinals into seclusion shortly after the pope dies of a sudden heart attack. It is to be his duty to shepherd the cardinals during this time of debate and transition, and he seems all to aware of the threat of inevitable skullduggery. Having been one of the first to the dying pope's bedside, Lawrence is meant to be our guide as well through the story, seemingly an intelligent and kind man who truly wants what's best for the global church. He gathers the cardinals into sequestered dormitories in Rome for the duration of the conclave, ushering them to and from the Sistine Chapel for periodic silent votes for one of the four main candidates. But Lawrence quietly reveals early on that he doubts his role and the outcome so much that he planned to step down from this position. He claims to not want to know gossip or slander about the viable candidates, yet his ever-observant gaze catches more than one unseemly slight, and when this happens, he pursues it often farther than he probably should to understand more fully the problems of these pious men. 

A film like this could easily slip into exploitation territory, but the profound humanness on display, especially from Lawrence, keep things grounded. The sensitive screenplay by Peter Straughan allows the candidates their moments of problem without painting any as wholly virtuous or villainous: past sins surface, gross schemes to garner votes are unveiled, and theocratic debates erupt about what kinds of policies and practices should be embraced by the church. Lawrence himself acknowledges the church's historical (and recent) failings several times, and seems intent on safeguarding and cultivating the church's good reputation. His ideological high-wire act, then, is what makes the film such a compelling mystery-thriller, far more than plot points.

Thankfully, director Edward Berger and cinematographer Stephanie Fontaine work together with their editor to keep us focused on the major players in this game of thrones (specifically, the throne of Saint Peter). And they've got some of the best players around, including John Lithgow, Sergio Castellitto, Isabella Rossellini, and an outstanding if underused Stanley Tucci. Each has an agenda, and what they say does not always match what they do, though perhaps that in itself is a writerly choice by the filmmakers to carefully critique identity politics at work in the logic of the film's characterizations. Labels are not helpful here: actions and intended actions are a far better proof of faith than mere words, though words can so often be damaging, especially to a church notorious for weaponizing them.

While performances and dialogue riveted this viewer to his seat, the ambiance and visuals of red-robed men in rows of pews or pacing through the architectural paradise of Vatican City are more than enough to guarantee a pleasant experience in watching Conclave. Breaking apart binaries is the name of the game, here, and while it might be easy to discuss doubt and faith or progress and tradition, by the final twist -- and indeed there is one, though its efficacy might be a tad on-the-nose -- the clearest target of anti-binarism in the film is that of us and them. Who are "we" and what are "we" doing to or for "them," but of course our access to the cardinals reveals that they aren't much more than average men, bickering and squabbling for piety, power, or something in between. Placed in a veritable puzzle box of policy and politics, no one will escape unchanged.

Anatomy of a Fall (2023)

Score: 1.5 / 5

Courtroom dramas should be some of the best kind, if only in terms of screenplay, because it is the dialogue and only the dialogue that matters in reconstructing the plot that came before, organizing our impressions of characters and motivation, and dealing out justice or injustice for us to then rationalize. Anatomy of a Fall dramatizes the case of Sandra, a famous writer living in a remote house in mountainous France with her husband, son, and dog, who is suddenly suspected of murder when her husband mysteriously dies. As the title indicates, he falls from an upper level window but his body bears marks of aggravated assault; did he fall, was he pushed, was he injured or attacked before he fell? We don't know, but it's usually the spouse in situations like this, no? Especially when she has no alibi and their marriage was -- as we learn over the next two hours -- fraught with conflict.

Indeed, the titular fall also refers to the fall from grace of Sandra and her husband Samuel, and when not in the courtroom, we're treated to countless vignettes meant to examine their relationship from every conceivable angle. We see them through the eyes, so to speak, of their visually impaired son Daniel and through the brief interactions they share with the court-appointed guardian for Daniel. We become aware of infidelities, of previous queer relationships and dalliances, of latent hostilities due to the way Sandra as a writer pirated and repurposed some of her late husband's material. Resentments and betrayals pile up quickly, it seems, and the prosecution would have the court believe they finally boiled over into murder. SPOILER ALERT: while we never learn what exactly happened to Samuel, the court acquits her and we're made to believe that Daniel at least is sure she is innocent and that Samuel's death was likely suicidal.

The procedural elements of this film -- one-half of its format -- left a lot to be desired for me. Despite cinematic attempts (most technical, from cinematography and editing) to make the courtroom as cinéma vérité as possible, the aesthetic buckles under its own pretensions repeatedly. In what should be riveting moments of revelation and shock, the camera will shake or shift in an awkward handheld way, then zoom dramatically on someone's face. Frankly, it felt like something you'd see in The Office. More than once, this elicited snickering and even one resounding laugh in my screening, and at moments when that should absolutely not be our reaction. Similarly, the screenplay allows brief moments of insight into the forensic specifics of the case before inexplicably cutting to a point later in the same testimony or, sometimes, another testimony entirely, jarring us out of moments that could (and should) have been mined for more information and insight. A few times I found myself grinding my teeth simply because, due to the editing (and possibly the screenplay, who knows?), some courtroom scenes don't even follow from start to finish, disorienting us and making it frustrating to appreciate new information as we reel from the latest pronouncement.

The dramatic elements of this film -- the other half -- will be up to the viewer to appreciate or not. Sandra Huller gives a masterful performance of the character who also bears her name, and her greatest achievement is a feeling of sudden hollowness as she recognizes the truth that we can never fully understand another person, even a spouse or child. Her chilly delivery will feel relatable to some and deeply off-putting to others, so when it cracks and she desperately tries to hold the pieces of her life together, it will affect everyone watching in some way. It helps that while her private life is scrutinized by everyone around her -- including Samuel's therapist and Sandra's interviewer from the day of his death -- we're often made to stare at Sandra's face, reacting (or trying not to react) to everyone else's outside opinions.

But, and this is where the film falters for me, we've seen it all before, and better. Sandra's personality seems on trial far more than her actions, and that's a tale almost as old as cinema itself. Icily cold filmmaking in legal thrillers is nothing new, nor is the combination of family melodrama with courtroom procedurals. Director Justine Triet presents us with a juicy, compelling puzzle to solve, then does almost all the work solving it herself, sacrificing intrigue in a twisty mystery for soapy bilge between characters who are all horribly unlikable. At least Marriage Story, which I dislike for some similar reasons, gave the characters some realism and positive traits. But from the outset, Sandra and Samuel have to compromise on their shared language while Daniel's limited eyesight render them all fairly isolated from each other, and instead of these becoming areas of sensitivity, they become points of conflict and danger. In a movie far too long for its own good (an almost unendurable two and a half hours that I constantly wished I could escape), the crimes in the case of Anatomy of a Fall should render a hefty penalty.

A Haunting in Venice (2023)

Score: 4 / 5

If you had told me I'd ever be grateful for Kenneth Branagh's Poirot series, I'd have called you unkind names. His characterization of the iconic detective is, to say the least, not my favorite version -- nor is it my favorite of his performances in general -- and it leaves a lot to be desired for longtime fans. His directorial efforts, too, tend toward the superficially spectacular, imbuing what should be "locked room" whodunnits with endless CGI effects, dizzying camerawork, thin dialogue, tepid attempts at social commentary, and inane action sequences. While these observations are all, in my opinion, manifest evidence in his (so far) three titles -- Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile being the first two, the former I cringe to recall but the latter I thoroughly praise -- they also do not account for the sense of escapism, exotic splendor, and raw beauty he brings to the table while hopefully introducing new generations to Agatha Christie's important and significant body of work.

Now comes A Haunting in Venice -- familiar to fans as Hallowe'en Party -- a title (and setting) change from the source material I fully support, if only for aesthetic reasons. The original, published in 1969 and set in England, is not one I've read before, but I'm aware that this film adaptation -- the only one I know of, apart from the BBC Poirot series starring David Suchet -- takes place over twenty years prior to that, in a postwar Venice with a bunch of British expats making up its cast of characters. It's set, fittingly, in a crumbling palazzo, far too large for its inhabitants but suitably spooky for their Halloween party, filled with orphaned children celebrating (wartime orphans, both from the violence and the occupation). Once the children leave, though (at least, the living ones), the adults remain for a séance requested by the palazzo owner, former opera star Rowena Drake (a magnificent Kelly Reilly). Drake is in mourning over the apparent suicide of her daughter Alicia -- it's suggested she threw herself into the canal after her fiancé chef Maxime Gerard (Kyle Allen) ended their engagement -- who has seemingly been haunting the palazzo since.

The suitably Gothic setting, complete with spectacular thunderstorm and ghostly children running about, perfectly frames a truly scary story. Perhaps it's so chilling because it's one of Christie's less-familiar ones, so the element of unfamiliarity pervades each scene. But there's even some surprising violence (thankfully less "action," as Poirot would never!) that makes its PG-13 rating a bit hairy. The story isn't really anything new, just a reliable whodunnit murder mystery that ramps up as more bodies fall. Branagh and screenwriter Michael Green still work very well to modernize and pare down Christie's detailed and sometimes sprawling cases into more concise, direct, and thrilling escapades on screen, and I admire that they're bringing big budgets and A-list casts into a type of classic old film we just don't see anymore. Moreover, they yet again elicit a surprising theme from one of Christie's mysteries, this time about the futility of the violence of war: Branagh starts this story in early retirement, tired of death both personally and in terms of the second world war, dealing with broken psyches and weighing what had been won with its cost. The sinking city on the brink of rot is a perfect setting for this thematic conceit.

Enter celebrity medium Joyce Reynolds (a brilliant and chilling Michelle Yeoh), who plans to communicate with Alicia and maybe help her spirit rest. Poirot has been invited by Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey as an Agatha Christie stand-in crime novelist) whose sales aren't great and who desperately needs a big hit. Oliver is hoping to either discredit Reynolds or otherwise learn some secrets that will make for a profitable story. It helps that the assembled guests make for suspicious and eccentric characters: the Drake family's housekeeper Olga (Camille Cottin) who sees everything; PTSD-riddled war surgeon Leslie Ferrier (Jamie Dornan) and his charmingly precocious son Leopold (Jude Hill, Belfast) who seems able to see ghosts while caring for his father; the medium's assistants Desdemona and Nicholas Holland (Emma Laird and Ali Khan), war refugees and half-siblings; and of course and angry and mourning Maxime, just to make things spicy.

I'm curious now to read the book, because, much like Branagh's previous two films, I suspect much has been invented for this one, beyond the setting. Green, after all, is very good at writing inventive new stories based on beloved material to popular success (he wrote the previous two Branagh Poirot films, of course, but also Blade Runner 2049, Logan, Alien: Covenant, Jungle Cruise, and the series American Gods). Green imbues Poirot with a nihilistic sensibility I found perfectly suited to Branagh's interpretation and presentation of the character as he atheistically mocks the idea of consulting the dead while musing on the increasing cruelty and violence in humankind, perspectives not dissimilar from Christie's own near the end of her life. He's surrounded here by characters desperate for money and purpose, shell shocked from war and away from their homes without the means to either stake a new claim or return to the life they once had.

A final note, and one I'm admittedly unprepared to fully explore: Branagh's grandiose style has always been a bit "too much," and not just in this franchise. But this is one of the first times I really understand why he's been compared so often to Orson Welles -- apart from his Shakespeare adaptations -- and the influence here is palpable. His attitude toward Venice mirrors Welles's Othello, and he works with master cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos again to create a sumptuous world nevertheless in the expressionistic visual style of everything from Citizen Kane to The Third Man, including lots of Dutch angles, fisheye lenses, extreme high and low angles, extreme closeups, and excessive use of framing to isolate and block the frame. These shots are often edited to shocking and even humorous effect, making the whole experience a bit of a trippy "should I laugh or shudder" haunted house experience. Which, given the reworking of the source material, is exactly what we all hoped for and wanted. Bravo!

Scream VI (2023)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Where do you go after Scream 5, the surprising and wonderful reboot of the series last year that functions as commentary -- and terrifying addition to the canon -- on "requels" or legacy sequels? Culturally and artistically, we haven't really bypassed that stage of horror evolution. This is the question posed for Scream VI, the latest in the series, which might also be the most viscerally scary of the series. It seems that, in accordance with Halloween Kills -- not to mention the divisive Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Star Wars: The Last Jedi -- this sequel to a requel just hammers home what the fans want. Less exposition, more action, and some smart fan service. It also cleverly includes several nods to Scream 2, much like the previous installment did with Scream (1996). 

It's Halloween again, one year after the most recent Woodsboro murders, and the young survivors have relocated to New York City, attending Blackmore University. While it might be a bit weird that the so-called "core four" crossed the country to attend school together, it's also kind of sweet and showcases their seemingly effortless friendship, along with perhaps some co-dependency. Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) and her sister Tara (Jenna Ortega) live together, while Chad and Mindy Meeks-Martin are nearby (Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown, respectively). The attractive cast is complemented out by the Carpenters' roommate Quinn (Liana Liberato of The Beach House, Novitiate, Haunt, and Trespass), Chad's roommate Ethan (Jack Champion of Avatar: The Way of Water), and Mindy's girlfriend Anika (Devyn Nekoda). These kids have been trying to move on with their lives, but Sam has been ostracized since a viral online post suggested she was the mastermind behind the Woodsboro massacre. Tara, meanwhile, is trying to live life to the fullest by being a bit reckless.

You can't talk about a Scream movie without attending to its opening sequence, and this one was perfect. Okay, they all are, but this one was somewhat unique because the kills were all real (rather than in the world of the Stab movies), involved total strangers to us, and referenced -- at least to my mind -- the real-life murderers Leopold and Loeb in Chicago. The featured bit parts are played by Samara Weaving (Ready or Not) and Tony Revolori (from The Grand Budapest Hotel and the MCU Spider-Man series), which makes it that much more fun. While we're comparing this film to others in the franchise, let's be sure to tie it to Scream 2: it takes place -- more or less -- in a college setting, its climax is in a theater auditorium, one character dies from a bone-crunching fall, and at least one killer is related by blood to a previous killer.

It's that opening sequence that brings Ghostface back, still voiced by Roger L. Jackson, and that gets the plot going, as Sam is of course brought in for questioning by Detective Wayne Bailey (the excellent Dermot Mulroney), who is also Quinn's father and concerned about his daughter's safety in proximity to the Carpenter girls. Meanwhile, Sam has been carrying on a secret relationship with their brooding but hunky neighbor Danny (Josh Segarra from Arrow and AJ and the Queen) while getting some dubious counseling from her therapist (Henry Czerny). It doesn't take long for Gale Weathers (the flawless Courteney Cox) to show up, and then we get the delicious and warmly welcome surprise appearance of Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere) for the first time since the 2011 Woodsboro murders (in Scream 4). Okay, now I think we've covered all the cast. There are many of them, so it's only a matter of time before more bodies start to fall.

And that's about all I can say without risking more important spoilers. I'll try to avoid many more, but otherwise you may want to stop reading.

Sadly, we do not get the glory of Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) in this installment, a disappointing result of some pay dispute. Gale mentions early on that Sidney and her family have gone into hiding, so one certainly hopes that she and Mark Kincaid (Patrick Dempsey) are still together and that both might return in another sequel. Her absence is distinctly felt, but it also lets some of the other characters have more time to breathe, notably Gale herself, who finally gets the chance to talk with Ghostface on the phone herself while being targeted for an imminent attack.

The set pieces are stunning, and I found myself constantly on the edge of my seat. Most engaging was a vertigo-inducing climb across a ladder between two apartments; another was of course the much-publicized crowded train ride on Halloween night. And the attacks are particularly vicious; these might be the goriest and most brutal attacks of the series. What's interesting, though -- especially with Mindy's expected but lackluster "rules" for this franchise extension (if that's what we're calling requel sequels) -- is that the body count is shockingly low in this film. Shockingly, and annoyingly, as my friend and I discussed as we left the cinema. For all Mindy's remarks that at this point in the franchise, anybody is so much dead meat, this movie features a disappointing number of deaths. On the other hand, the attacks are so unbelievably violent that it starts to strain credulity that any of the main characters survived at all. In earlier films, a single stab or two would incapacitate a victim; here, they get repeatedly shot, sliced, stabbed, and broken, and they keep on fighting.

Maybe realism isn't key here, but it starts to feel like we're being toyed with as fans. Let's just hope they have some bloody good plans for these characters in future installments. As it is, even without the body count and our favorite final girl, Scream VI is an excellent addition to and evolution of the series.

Missing (2023)

Score: 3 / 5

Who knew that 2018's Searching would spawn a franchise? That might be a bit ambitious to say, as Missing isn't really a sequel so much as a sister film or continuation of similar ideas. It's another "screenlife" film, as the relatively new terminology allows us, an evolution of found footage films that really kicked off in the early-to-mid 2010s. For reference, Paranormal Activity 4 and The Den were probably (arguably) the first forays into depicting most of their action on computer screens, and they were released in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Timur Bekmambetov coined "screenlife" and has directed or produced the most work in the burgeoning subgenre. Other than Searching, notable titles include Profile, Unfriended, and Host. The format isn't for everyone -- though it thankfully doesn't induce as much motion sickness as found footage films usually do -- and I personally find the constant clicking and multiple windows and tabs and speedy (read: reckless) web searches to be more anxiety-inducing than others might.

Yet, as Bekmambetov and Aneesh Chaganty have demonstrated time and again, it is a fabulous medium for mystery-thrillers with an edge for real-life horrors. I imagine it's also an editing nightmare, but it's telling that the directors of Missing previously edited Searching. The film begins with a barrage of images that includes references to the previous film, revealing that they are in the same shared universe of mystery, false identities, digital crimes, and deadly real-world consequences. This time, our protagonist is a young woman named June (played by the always surprising Storm Reid) who, after a wild week of partying while her mother (Nia Long) is on vacation in Colombia, is forced to start looking for her mother, who she declares missing. She does so almost entirely on her laptop, using social media, search engines, her linked cell phone and email, and even surveillance footage. She communicates this way with her mother's best friend, her own friends, a hired hand in Colombia, and an FBI agent assigned to her case. It may stretch credulity, but it also functions to stretch our conception of how to use these technologies; at least, it does for me, though I expect Gen Z viewers might relate a bit better.

Too many details will spoil this film, as it works best to be taken at face value. The mystery itself is breathless, presented in frenetic style by the worried teenager on her computer as she navigates Snapchat and Venmo and FaceTime and TikTok and Ring and Taskrabbit and online dating profiles and hacking into her mother's boyfriend's (Ken Leung) e-mails. She's resourceful in intimidating ways -- a call to her mother's hotel with its Spanish-speaking clerk works because of June's quick-witted use of Google Translate -- and finds local help on the ground in the form of Javi (played by a heartwarming Joaquim de Almeida, who has a surprisingly emotional role to play). But the screenplay is also hopelessly convoluted, as far too many red herrings make the central mystery sometimes forgettable. That's always the problem with mysteries, right? They're either too simple or far too complex. Here, at least, it seems appropriate, because the internet makes everything far too complex.

But that also makes Missing a hell of a lot of fun. And, in some ways, an interesting look at the ways technology both helps and hurts us these days.

The Pale Blue Eye (2023)

Score: 4 / 5

The year is 1830, and the dying of the year is settling on the Hudson River Valley. Chilly weather precedes a chilling crime as a West Point Military Academy cadet is found hanged; soon after, his body is discovered to be desecrated and his heart forcibly removed. Terrified of scandal at the fledgling institution, the captains and superintendents hire a nearby semi-retired detective to investigate. While looking into possible -- and evidently likely -- occult activities on campus, he realizes he needs to penetrate the cadre of cadets to learns what's going on internally: enter a young Edgar Allan Poe, a real-life cadet at the time, whose poetic personality leads him to assist in the investigation.

The Pale Blue Eye is a recent Netflix film that adapts a magnificent novel by Louis Bayard. It's a difficult project, to be sure, as one of the primary charms of the book is the occasional shift in narrative voice from the detective to Poe; fans of the latter find the passages written in Poe's voice beautifully rendered from the historical man and artistic visionary. It seems appropriate that the so-called father of the American detective story would get his taste for the aesthetic from a formative experience early in his life, and so the whole concept is brilliant. And, while the novel almost ceaselessly twists its way through red herrings and minor mysteries to be solved, the film manages to faithfully adapt the major moments for its primary story. It just can never quite capture the joyful voice of Poe himself.

Which is by no means a fault of the cast or director/screenwriter. Scott Cooper helms this in those latter two capacities, and it's about as bleak as anything else he's done (Antlers, Hostiles, Black Mass, Out of the Furnace). Cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi views the whole thing -- surely inspired by the title -- in pale gray hues, so much so that the whole thing could have been quite effective in black and white, except for streaks of blue in the river valley and the cadet uniforms. And the cast is great across the board, from underutilized but effective heads of West Point including Simon McBurney and Timothy Spall, to the primary family of suspicion including Toby Jones, Gillian Anderson, and Lucy Boynton.

The detective himself, Augustus Landor, is played by frequent Cooper collaborator Christian Bale. Landor, semi-retired no doubt due to isolation, alcoholism, and depression -- he's a widower whose adolescent daughter left him a couple years ago -- is still sharp as a knife and quick-witted. Prone as he is to the bottle and to melancholy sexual encounters with a local barmaid (Charlotte Gainsbourg), he seems dedicated to cut through the bureaucratic crap of the academy and solve the crimes. One might wonder why an actor of Bale's uncommon skills wants to play a bedraggled, world-weary man so comparatively early in his career, but if you're familiar with the book, he's not as detached from the proceedings as he first appears.

And then there's Harry Melling, playing Poe, whose performances lately have proved him a frighteningly intense and versatile actor coming into his own. He reminds me a bit of a young Gary Oldman in that way, and I'm eager to see how he continues. Here, though, he straddles a fine line between the agony of an artist unable to fully commit to his craft, the urgency of solving a crime for which he will inevitably also be targeted (either as a potential victim or suspect, or both), and his eager romanticism that will lead him into trouble with the family of the primary suspect. There are a few key scenes in this respect that shine, as he courts the sister of a particularly brutal cadet, though these were far more numerous and emotionally impactful in the novel. It's a side plot that better serves our understanding of Poe's character -- he uses her name to inspire some poetry of his own under the similar name "Lenore" -- that would make the already bloated film much longer.

But for a bleak, literary, and haunting mystery in the chilly midwinter, The Pale Blue Eye is exactly what the poet ordered.

Glass Onion (2022)

Score: 5 / 5

Thank goodness they're back at it. Rian Johnson returns with Daniel Craig for another quick-witted, topical whodunnit to follow up Knives Out. And, befitting a sequel, this one is glossier, flashier, and bigger. The Gothic tendencies of the first are still present, but now in chic modern trappings. The self-aware political dialogue of the first is somehow more trenchant and expansive now. Think of this as like Branagh's new Poirot films: the first was more isolated and spooky, the second was more glamorous and brutal. It helps that Glass Onion takes place on a picturesque private Greek island topped with an enormous glass globe, because murder in paradise is always more fun.

It's the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and a group of old friends gathers for their annual vacation together at the island paradise home of Miles Bron, a billionaire techie and patented idiot played to perfection by Edward Norton, who plays against type to hilarious effect. One wonders if his idiocy has led to paranoia, because the group of friends he amasses are surely close-knit but they each hide devious secrets that only each other knows. They affectionately refer to themselves as "The Disruptors," which reveals their collective narcissism and smug self-righteousness, and their various pursuits smack of shady dealings and ill-gotten gains. Guarding each other's secrets as they do, they might best be described as frenemies.

Much as with the first installment, Johnson both honors and inverts typical whodunnit tropes. Yes, everyone in the large ensemble cast is a suspect, but they're also all deeply conflicted and ambiguous characters. The pool of suspects Johnson treats as a microcosm of social ills: the first film's insular family felt a bit Trumpian in its hyper-fixation on money and entitlement as well as their performative tolerance, and this film's fraternity of friends is more than a little echo chamber-y in its treatment of social media and its condemnation of greedily inspired tech advancements. Johnson also structures his delightfully twisty plot with knowing loops on itself, making it deucedly difficult to predict, much like the first film. Adding in metafictional flair -- such as his numerous gobsmacking cameos from people like Ethan Hawke and the late great duo Stephen Sondheim and Angela Lansbury -- only adds to the festive wackiness and off-the-wall ingenuity.

Daniel Craig leads again as Benoit Blanc (now confirmed to be gay and partnered to Hugh Grant) as the Cajun detective with a mind like a steel trap, although this time he plays more of a character than before. His attention was piqued when he receives an invitation to the Disruptors' vacation: each invitation takes the form of a deviously complex puzzle box Blanc declares to be silly and simple. However, Blanc was more or less recruited by a character played by Janelle Monáe. SPOILER ALERT: it is Monáe who really owns this movie in a dual role of twin sisters determined to bring down Miles for his criminality and dangerous new alternative fuel. And so, Blanc himself is a bit more relaxed and even goofy during the film's first act, which is a memorably blissful change in style for him.

The rest of the cast is uniformly great (including Kate Hudson's model and influencer with a penchant for racist tweets, Dave Bautista men's rights YouTuber, and a surprisingly nuanced Madelyn Cline as his sexed-up girlfriend Whiskey), although I personally felt that Leslie Odom Jr.'s tortured scientist and Kathryn Hahn's shady governor up for a senate election were underused despite being arguably the most dynamic actors of the ensemble. It's nice to see the actors play into or against type intentionally, and I wondered more than once how much of that was intentional to this movie in particular, to tie in with the symbolic ambiguity of its titular structure.

The plot, characters, performances, and themes are all pretty clear, but the layers get more interesting and intricate as they are peeled back. That's the brilliance of Johnson's creation in this series; it's like what Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson did with the Scream franchise in honoring the genre traditions while flipping them on their heads in intelligent and daring ways. Other recent satires like The Menu aren't dissimilar in targeting hot topics with complex, half-joking wit. And Glass Onion takes everything we loved about Knives Out and gives us more of it all, which makes it one of the best movies of the year and a joyous addition to what we can all hope will be a thriving new Netflix series.