February 7, 2026 “Dance With The Devil” (* out of four) was an ungainly, ugly urban melodrama about three female hoods (Tiffany Trill Scott, Davida Reed, Martina Motley) who target an elderly man (Roosevelt Johnson) living in their neighborhood but don’t realize he’s the devil incarnate who is setting a trap for them. Similar in many aspects to “Don’t Breathe” except that movie was made with some conviction and intelligence. Mean-spirited and tacky, when it isn’t boring. Continue reading →
February 7, 2026 “Grizzly Night” (*1/2 out of four) was a grizzly bore about a ferocious grizzly bear on the loose and various townsfolk (Charles Esten, Oded Fehr, Brec Bassinger, and others) who have to steer clear of its path. They should have steered clear of the movie instead. Plodding and lumbering, like the bear itself, and even the attack scenes are pretty tame and turgid. Yet another movie seemingly inspired by the success of “Cocaine Bear” but the movie it actually rips off the most is “Silver Bullet.” Continue reading →
February 7, 2026 “I’m Chevy Chase And You’re Not” (** out of four) was a one-note documentary on the legendary prickly comedian showing his start on SNL to feature films and celebrity success and his spectacular fall in the 90’s with his disastrous talk show and then his spiral into depression and alcoholism and life-threatening health issues. Not all that revelatory, even though it features interviews with a lot of Chase’s famous friends and co-stars such as Dan Aykroyd, Goldie Hawn, and others. Chase himself often comes off as a self-righteous jerk but maybe that’s the point here. Only the final scenes which show them at a live interaction screening of “Christmas Vacation” have any emotional resonance. Continue reading →
February 7, 2026 “Road Kill” (* out of four) was a hazardous action psychodrama about a man (Nicholas Carr) trying to help plan his sister’s (Laia Amor) wedding and goes out on the road and winds up in a detour in which he realizes he is being stalked to the death and he has to try to get back on the road and back to safety. A catastrophe of continuity and storytelling coherence and slapdashedly put together. Even at a little more than an hour, all this mess does is “kill” your time. Continue reading →
February 7, 2026 “Murder, Lies, And Marriage” (** out of four) was a stale, synthetic suspense melodrama about a woman (Kelly Sullivan) wrongfully imprisoned for murder who is released and tries to reconnect with her daughter (Mia Romay) but then begins to suspect that her daughter’s father (Alex Trumble) and his new lover (Nadia Adelay) may have been the ones who framed and had her railroaded in the past. Just another prefabricated pretext for another connect-the-dots psychodrama. Glamorously shot by Patrice Lucien Crochet with exquisite lighting which provides film’s main highlight. Watch “Sex, Lies, And Videotape” again instead. Continue reading →
January 31, 2026 “Untitled Home Invasion Project” (** out of four) was a strained comedy about an actor (Jason Biggs) who- in desperation to save his faltering marriage to his wife (Meaghan Rath)- stages a home invasion from various fellow actors but naturally things don’t go as planned. Lively and buoyant comedy is crammed with offbeat humor but not enough to sustain a feature-length film and starts to wear out after a while. Pleasant enough directorial debut from Biggs and certainly is influenced by his “American Pie” series. Continue reading →
January 31, 2026 “Silent Night, Deadly Night” (*1/2 out of four) was a needless remake of the 1984 unwatchable mess that is somehow now regarded as a cult classic; once again a troubled young man (Rohan Campbell) witnesses his parents getting murdered by a killer in a Santa Claus outfit and it scars him for life and makes him grow up to be a psychopath on the loose. Incredibly- this is actually the second (!) remake after 2012’s far more stylish “Silent Night.” Loaded with terrible dialogue and unbearable attempts at black humor and irony. Continue reading →
January 31, 2026 “Speed Faster” (** out of four) was a muddled “Fast And The Furious” wannabe about a street-car racer (Jason Park) and his crew (Christopher Deon, Luka Dingess, and others) who are forced into a high-stakes mission of underground espionage when they are threatened by a shadowy underworld operation. Lots of flashy cars and car chases but little coherence or character and story cohesion although it remains watchable if you’re not too demanding. Park also wrote, directed, co-produced, edited, and did the cinematography and gets an A for effort so hopefully he’ll be “faster” moving onto bigger-and-better things. Continue reading →
January 31, 2026 “He’s Watching You” (*1/2 out of four) was a pretty awful horror hodgepodge hardly worth watching about a teenager (Gianna Decenzo) investigating a series of murders in his hometown who discovers some VHS tapes that could lead to the identity of the killer but finds that some of his friends (Elizabeth Yu, Kaya Rosenthal. and others) may be linked or involved. Ho-hum story plays like re-heated Wes Craven except he made fun of movies like this nearly 30 years ago in “Scream.” Even still, this won some acclaim and awards at the Nevermore Horror Festival in Durham, NC and the Telluride Festival in Colorado. Continue reading →
January 31, 2026 “The Beldham” (*1/2 out of four) was a boring horror thriller about a struggling new mother (Katie Parker) who learns there is a sinister and malevolent presence in her home with her parents (Corbin Bernsen and Patricia Heaton) and this soon threatens all of their safety and sanity. Yet another amalgam of story elements from “The Amityville Horror”, “The Shining”, and far too many others but without hardly any energy or conviction. Even the usually dynamic Bernsen can’t breathe much life into this one. Continue reading →
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