Category Archives: Thriller

10.21.26
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Clayface

After actor Matt Hagen is disfigured by a notorious mob boss, he volunteers for a new experiment to restore his face in an attempt to save his reputation, only to realize the procedure is much more than he bargained for.

Clayface finds its footing early with a storyline that offers a unique hook within the superhero genre (a problematic, disgraced Hollywood actor), though it eventually slips into the familiar science jargon typical of movies about ordinary guys accidentally transforming into superpowered beings. What ultimately saves the film is its immense, uninhibited gore, which delivers plenty of fun as it evolves from a standard DC villain origin into extreme body horror. While Tom Rhys Harries is well-cast in the titular role, it’s Naomi Ackie and Max Minghella who provide the most compelling work in the cast, with Minghella particularly standing out as a Gotham City police officer.

The writing occasionally stumbles into weak dialogue traps and could have used tighter execution, and certain scenes feel aesthetically underwhelming. Even so, the over-the-top action and body horror offer plenty of entertainment, even if you can see every predictable step of where the film is headed. Whether or not you’ll enjoy Clayface is fully dependent on how much you’re able to embrace its innate ridiculousness, and if you’ve got a stomach for mutilations; though if you’ve seen The Substance, you’ve already been through much of this film’s story beats.

10.10.26
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Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother

One of the best films ever made about a hitman, this spiritual, familial take on a life of violence is more than meets the eye, thanks to Bassam Tariq’s excellent direction. Mahershala Ali gives one of his deepest performances and commits to the character, feeling like a father first, from a decisional and instinctual perspective.

The violence is limited but visceral, and Son Lux’s score stands out powerfully. John Cho plays an astounding antagonist who feels like he could’ve emerged from today’s deepest, darkest corners of the internet, and Giancarlo Esposito continues to provide gravitas to every role he embodies. If anything is jarring, it’s the final twist that may take a moment to unpack but works well with the film’s tonal and thematic threads.

08.14.26
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The End of Oak Street

Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor star as an ordinary family in the early 1980s, who suddenly find their neighborhood mysteriously transported into the prehistoric age and must fight for survival against insurmountable odds… and terrifying dinosaurs roaming their street, literally.

What this sci-fi thriller excels in is slowly revealing to you the abnormal and taking its time to show you the cosmic circumstances in their full scope. Anne Hathaway is amazing here, and the VFX team did an outstanding job bringing the creatures to life and making them feel like they’re in the frame with our actors. It’s truly refreshing to see such polished and immersive CGI in a film like this. Though it takes until the inciting incident to really get invested in the main family, their arc ends up working, particularly their push and pull between helping others and preserving themselves. All the action is thrilling, and every single character reaction feels fitting and realistic to how people would act in such situations, without feeling exaggerated. It’s nice that a film finally cracked how to utilize dinosaurs creatively in the world of the uber-famous Jurassic Park franchise, with a dark helplessness and lots of brutal suspense, and Michael Giacchino’s score is up there with his strongest in recent years, along with The Batman, Society of the Snow, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

05.31.26
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Obsession

Bear wishes for his crush Nikki to love him more than anyone else in the world, but when the wish unexpectedly comes true, things slowly but surely start to get out of hand.

Though we’ve seen many films about “being careful what you wish for”, none have transcended the concept quite like this one into a terrifying and bone-chilling experience that’s destined to become a modern horror classic. The film examines romance, gender roles, and even the tired and true concept of possession in a way that’s far more twisted and demented than any other movie in recent memory.

At is irresistible center is Inde Navaratte, giving one of the best performances the horror genre has ever seen as Nikki. When we first meet Nikki, Navarette allows us to discover a full and layered person and a part of her own story, far greater than the image Bear sees her as, and when the wish begins to take control and basically puppeteer her body, Navarette is chilling in every moment. Her physical commitment is unpredictable as the actor embodies an inhuman entity in a human body, including the physical toll it takes on her. All that also gets so under our skin by reminding us pretty often that this was all our main character’s doing.

The film thrives in ambiguity, including the rules behind its supernatural elements (and the way it presents them through sound in a particularly horrifying scene), and the difference between love and entitlement. When the film starts holding less and less back, we’re not captivated because of the “wish gone wrong” but because this story is ultimately about chivalry and cowardice, and how self-image breaks into a gruesome possessiveness that is too weak to face actual responsibility. Bear may have a sympathetic start, but his willingness to fall into a control while avoiding responsibility for the sickly harm he’s imposed makes us unsettled to be spending such long shots with him so close to us in the frame. Obsession is what begins when love’s uncertainty is removed, and when fantasy becomes a corrupt currency of power. The film’s most horror-like moments are so visionary that they’ll stick with you long after the credits roll. It’s one you’ll need to shake off days later and will likely come to define the 2020s in horror.

05.27.26
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Backrooms

Psychologist Mary Kline must enter a mysterious dimension beyond our own in search of Clark, a furniture store owner and troubled patient of hers.

Backrooms never satisfies with easy answers and clear meaning, and that’s what resonates the most about it. It evolves throughout its runtime, from a perspective, scope, and thematic lens. Expanding on its titular concept with mystery and curiosity as it continues, the movie is always fully aware of its roots within its characters and human nature. It blends claustrophobic and sweeping spaces very well along with found footage moments that are used wisely. The threats aren’t often in frame, but when they are, one in particular reveals itself as one of the most terrifying horror villains in recent memory.

Renate Reinsve is particularly excellent, and the film thrives most when we’re experiencing its events from her character’s eyes. The production design is incredibly impressive and the weird, almost random nature of the titular dimension keeps building more and more intrigue. Setting it during the 90s was also a clever way to address its satire on capitalism and consumerism, and their isolating nature that eats away at the individual’s ambition with the facade of excess and glamour. Beyond that, there’s some dark backstories to our main characters that informs the unusual choices they make, and some images will haunt you long after the credits roll. While the first half is engaging, the second half becomes seriously captivating and subverts all expectations. It never lets you decrypt anything too easily, avoiding straightforward messages and classic three-act structure, but that’s exactly what the unknown of the backrooms are all about, too.

04.07.26
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The Bride!

A fascinating concept that immediately becomes nonsense in execution, it’s almost impossible to believe that Maggie Gyllenhaal wrote The Bride!, as its the opposite of the subtlety and patience of The Lost Daughter. It attempts to be a more feminist take on the Bride of Frankenstein, while acknowledging other cinematic renditions of the story, including James Whale’s Frankenstein and even Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, but it throws too much at the wall and none of it sticks at all. Not a single scene, story thread, character arc, or creative swing feels earned or even sensical in the final product. Even Oscar winners Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale, who are throwing themselves into these silly and unhinged performances, don’t get close to saving any of it.

The film aims for many themes that it fails to explore with any sort of substance, like female liberation or having one’s identity forced upon you. The detective characters played by Peter Sarsgaard and Penelope Cruz feel completely unnatural, and the dialogue is the film’s most glaring weakness; unsubtle, and completely groan-worthy at times. In another film, this level of cinematography (done by Oscar-nominated Lawrence Sher who was acclaimed for his neo-noir approach to Joker), makeup, and production design would have stunned, but here it just feels even more like a shame that the material at the center of the story for such a nice-looking production is so pointless and frustrating. This feels like it was only made because of a lot of good will for a known filmmaker, and at some point, you stop even trying to figure out who this movie was made for and what the point of it all is.

04.05.26
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Ready or Not 2: Here I Come

Moments after surviving an attempted Satanic ritualistic sacrificial game of Hide and Seek by her in-laws, Grace is pulled into a greater, global stakes world of survival by a game she hadn’t realized she’d triggered, only this time, her sister is in danger too.

Though not as funny, shockingly original, and nail-biting as the first, this is a worthy sequel that boasts the same level of insane violence thanks to Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s direction. Samara Weaving gave one of the most iconic horror “final girl” performances in the original film and continues here to solidify herself as one of the generation’s most outstanding scream queens. Her commitment to the role and the sheer terror Grace is unrivaled, though she’s been toughened by her prior experience with this madness.

What this film leaves to be desired that the first film nailed is the hilarious ensemble cast of antagonists, while here, only Shawn Hatosy and Sarah Michelle Gellar really stand out as the central villains, twin siblings whose dynamic twists and turns as the runtime progresses. Hatosy’s performance in particular is impressive and interesting to watch in every scene he’s in, while Kathryn Newton is great as Grace’s sister Faith, though the backstory between them is a bit haphazard and thrown in just for the sake of having some sort of conflict between them that needs to be resolved. Still, it’s thanks to the energy that the directors and writers provide to offers more than enough entertainment and satisfying irreverence and macabre, with an expansion and execution that makes this one of the more inherently earned sequels of the last few years.

02.25.26
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Scream 7

In the words of Christopher Nolan’s great superhero epic The Dark Knight, all great franchises can either go out a hero, or live long enough to see themselves become the villain. Too many great franchises that haven’t concluded on their own terms find themselves in the latter trap, running out of steam because they went on too long for the simple reason of trying to make more money. A project that may have been doomed from the start after the departure of franchise leads Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega, Scream 7 feels almost like an apology for the freshness of Scream VI, trading everything that made that film exciting for more of the same that we’ve seen done several times, over and over again.

We’ve seen the series return to Sidney Prescott years later in Scream 4 and the fifth Scream, which also finally allowed the big three of Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, and David Aqruette to give up center stage to new leads. At this point, not only does Sidney’s return feel stale, but Campbell and Cox’s leading performances feel rather boring and fail to carry the film. Meanwhile, Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding’s characters are by far the most fun and not given much to do. The film does up the gore from past installments, but the small town set pieces aren’t that engaging and the ensemble cast doesn’t hook you in much either, providing for a far less exciting guessing game about who might be behind the Ghostface mask than before, and it’s never a good sign when I was able to guess the killer less than halfway into the runtime.

Nostalgia in Scream (2022) and Scream VI was cleverly used as a tool to flip expectations and actually satirize and deconstruct the idea of nostalgia itself. Now, Scream 7 feels too afraid to critique or even surprise its audiences any longer. The commentary on other horror film and franchise tropes that has become a staple of the Scream films feels groan-worthy and half-baked here, especially because the movie is just reusing the same old tropes like a checklist, resulting in an installment that feels like a whole lot of nothing and especially underwhelming compared to the great fifth and sixth films. It’s time Paramount learned that if you don’t have anything new to say, it’s best not to say anything at all.

02.04.26
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Send Help

Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien are employee and conceited millionaire boss who are forced to survive together after a plane crash leaves them stranded on an island. Sam Raimi embraces his horror/thriller roots with humor more clever than his past entries, and an exciting structure that pulls out another surprise every time you think the concept is about to wear out.

McAdams is always such a delight in any role she graces, but this may be one of her best performances — a woman whose lack of validation from others in her life turns into the ability to make horrific decisions. O’Brien is delightfully awful yet there’s a pity to the way he is unable to carry himself like a mature, generous human being. The CGI has a few distractingly bad moments, but that also contributes to the film’s silliness that it finds within the dark situations it finds, and then escalates. It’s a survival thriller that’s not a full on comedy, or a full on horror film, but has a bit of it all. The more the runtime goes by, the more intrigued you are to see what bloody chaos will play out between the two, with a true sense of unpredictability to it.

01.17.26
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28 Years Later: The Bone Temple


28 Days Later is not only a fascinating zombie film, but has spawned a unique and exciting franchise since. Releasing two films within the span of seven months isn’t something most film series can truly earn, but 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple continues to embrace the violent setting and genre while flipping the themes and styles of its predecessor on their axes. Nia DaCosta’s direction is far more patient and just as dark, but there also seem to finally be some cracks of optimism in the world that’s gone to hell, with people fighting against a terrifying virus, and some humans even killing one another. That hope comes in the form of Dr. Ian Kelson. Ralph Fiennes’ intelligence, compassion, and gravitas serve as a light in the film and to the circumstances that have turned the world into a landscape of fear and carnage. Equally captivating on the other end of things is Jack O’Connell as a vicious cult leader. O’Connell brings to life a character whose ruthlessness takes up so much space on the screen, led by his conviction that his duty is to spread Satan’s work and better the world by preying on the weak and selecting only the strongest to serve him as his acolytes.

Alfie Williams is a strong breakout star as the lead of this new trilogy within the franchise. Spike is a kid who’s lost so much but always determined to stay noble and do good to himself and others, even as he’s forced into a murderous cult. DaCosta brilliantly utilizes some soundtrack choices, and creates some stunning set pieces. Thematically, these films have thrived on the idea that as humanity is being threatened by the apocalypse, it’s actually doomed to tear itself apart, but here, the script proposes that maybe there’s something after those ideas of cruelty and nihilism, which is that goodness and integrity may still prevail. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple doesn’t answer all these questions, but it’s certainly one of the most unnerving and inventive horror films of the decade and the best one in the franchise yet.