“Crime 101” (** out of four) was a jumbled crime melodrama about the intersection of several different lives in crime-ridden Los Angeles; a world-weary jewel thief (Chris Helmsworth), a new woman (Monica Barbaro) he meets and falls in love with, a disillusioned middle-aged insurance agent (Halle Berry), a psychotic biker (Barry Keoghan), and a determined detective (Mark Ruffalo) on their hard-boiled trail. Good cast helps keep this watchable but it’s tepid at best and feels like re-heated Michael Mann material (“Heat” and “Thief” in particular). Jennifer Jason Leigh and Nick Nolte are wasted in minor supporting roles.

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“Out Of Hand” (** out of four) was a wan suspense melodrama about a psychology professor and writer (Louise Linton) and her lover (Pierson Fode) who become the prime suspects in the murder of one of her students while her attorney (William Baldwin) and friend (William McNamara) try to intercede and sort everything out. Collection of lost 90’s stars (Baldwin, McNamara, etc.) hold your interest for a little while but it’s mostly a tame fizzle. Baldwin himself starred in 1996’s “Curdled” which told similar story and characters.

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“The Bride” (*1/2 out of four) was a lackluster horror melodrama based on “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” set in 1930’s Chicago in which Frankenstein (Christian Bale under mounds of makeup) asks a helpful scientist (Annette Bening who has never looked more like Diane Keaton) to create a female companion (Jessie Buckley) which leads to a firestorm of romance, police action, and social radical change. Director Maggie Gyllenhaal dresses this up with macabre touches and flair but it’s glossy paint on a dry wall since the script and story are so utterly dull. After this and Guillermo del Toro’s brutal remake last year, perhaps it’s best to let Frankenstein rot in peace for a while.

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“The Strangers: Chapter Three” (**1/2 out of four) was a sufficiently creepy sequel about the continuing misadventures of Maya (Madelaine Petch) who comes face-to-face with the masked killers and finds that the only way to truly escape them is to become one of them. Director Renny Harlin tells his story with a lushly gloomy sense of doom but after a while its plodding pace starts to wear you down. Worth watching for series completists and makes eerie use of Moody Blues’ “Knights In One Satin” in one key scene.

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“Pretty Girls Kill” (*1/2 out of four) was a pretty dumb grindhouse B-movie melodrama about a woman (Isabel Ann) who witnesses her friend’s murder and then 20 years later she has to confront the killers (Brooke Aura, Crystal Beharry, and others) who have returned in demonic form. Gorgeous cast help keep this watchable for at least a little while but it gradually devolves into monotonous sleaze and sludge. For anyone who stays with it, film just stops without ending but you won’t be complaining.

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“Wrong Number” (*1/2 out of four) was an aptly titled timewaster about a woman (Shamere Reid) struggling with bipolar disorder who receives a wrong number phone call which sets off a series of suspicions in her mind that her lover (Samuel Alston) is cheating on her and plunges all of them into a whirlpool of jealousy and deception leading them all to question reality. Ill-conceived mix of suspense melodrama and mental health drama is more exploitative than explorative. Reid does what she can in the lead role but “Wrong Choice” would be a better title for this one.

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“Amityville Chupacabra” (* out of four) was an unendurable horror show about a team of “cryptozoologists” (Julie Anne Prescott, Will Collazo Jr., Michael Ochotorena) who capture the title creature in a remote facility but (naturally) it soon escapes causing all Hell to break loose. Latest film to cash in on the “Amityville” name but actually the film it rips off most is “Dawn Of The Dead” and it bears little (if any) resemblance to the 1979 original “The Amityville Horror.” Collazo, Jr. also wrote co-wrote and directed and bears most of the blame for this amateurish mess.

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“Sharks In Da Hood” (* out of four) was an absolutely dreadful horror comedy about a flooding in Compton that unleashes a ravenous group of bloodthirsty sharks and many of the locals (Dustin Ferguson, Omar Gooding, Jennifer Moriarty, and others) unite to try and flush them out. With a title like that, you obviously know not to expect Oscar fare but film isn’t even fun on a tacky level. Packed with terrible acting and shoddy special effects that really need to be seen to be believed. Film makes the awful “Jaws IV” look like “Citizen Kane” by comparison.

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“Curious” (** out of four) was a lurid melodrama about a husband-and-wife (Anthony Applewhite and Terri Arcelia) who meet a new woman (Lindsay Diann) and they all enter into a dangerous sexual triangle together that challenges all of their sense of sexual security and sanctuary and eventually leads them all into danger. In 2011- David Cronenberg told virtually this same story far more skillfully and vividly in “A Dangerous Method”; film is attractively shot and made but carries little in the way of traction or lasting charge.

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