Carolina Caroline opens on a familiar kind of place, a hotel room that feels lived in before anyone even speaks. Loretta Lynn’s “Honky Tonk Girl” plays, and just like that, the tone is set. This is not going to be polished. This is going to be human.
Read MoreChum: All Teeth, No Tension
There’s something almost admirable about how Chum announces exactly what you’re in for from the moment it begins. The opening credits crawl along under a flat, uninterested voiceover that sounds like it would rather be anywhere else. It sets the tone for a shark movie that never finds urgency, never builds tension, and rarely feels like it wants to exist beyond fulfilling its premise.
Read MoreMetal, Mayhem, and 4K Madness: Revisiting The Devil’s Candy
I remember when The Devil’s Candy first dropped back in 2017. I liked it. Solid 3-star territory at the time. But revisiting it now, especially in this stacked new Second Sight limited edition, it hits harder. This thing probably deserved more love from me the first go-around.
Read MoreA Jazzy Heist With a Human Pulse: Reviewing Tuner
Tuner opens with jazzy swagger, Herbie Hancock drifting through the background as quirky conversations overlap against sweeping New York Cityscapes. It feels alive right out of the gate, like the film is tuning itself in real time and daring you to keep up. What follows is technically a heist story, but it never feels boxed in by the genre.
Read MorePitfall: Great Kills, Questionable Choices
Pitfall doesn’t waste time pretending it’s anything other than a gnarly survival slasher. It throws you straight into the chaos, opens with some impressively nasty gore, and makes it very clear early on that this is a film that wants to make you squirm. For a while, it works.
Read MoreMermaid Is a Sunburnt Fairy Tale That Never Quite Comes Alive
Mermaid opens with Tom Arnold rambling his way into the movie like he just wandered on set and they decided to keep the camera rolling. It immediately sets the tone. Loose. Slightly improvised. Familiar faces everywhere.
Read MoreThe Inverts: Screenlife Paranoia With Its Eye Wide Open
The Inverts is a zero-budget screenlife short that punches way above its weight, using paranoia, texture, and surgical editorial control to get under your skin in just six minutes. Written, directed, edited, and starring Evan Jordan, the film presents itself as a personal archive. An abductee assembles video evidence, testimonies, and found footage that suggest a hidden truth about the world and about himself.
Read MoreRenny Harlin Makes Plane Crashes Scary Again in Deep Water
Renny Harlin is back, and not quietly. Deep Water feels like the kind of movie Hollywood stopped making somewhere between post 9/11 seriousness and the rise of sanitized CG spectacle. It is big, pulpy, unapologetically intense, and more vicious than it has any right to be.
Read MoreMore Murder, Same Cozy Charm: Harry Wild Series 4
Somewhere between a warm cup of tea and a perfectly untaxing whodunit sits Harry Wild, a show that feels designed to be shared. I know this because after covering earlier seasons, I casually mentioned it to my mom and discovered she was already a fan. That pretty much seals the deal.
Read MoreRobots With Attitude and a Body Count: Maid Robot 2
Maid Robot 2 doubles down on its weirdness, and that is both its biggest asset and its biggest problem. This sequel is louder, messier, and far more unhinged than the first film, leaning hard into dark comedy, sci-fi paranoia, and soap opera-level melodrama. If you liked the original for its rough edges and oddball tone, this one gives you more of everything.
Read MoreSilicon and Side Eye: Maid Robot
What happens when artificial intelligence learns more than it was programmed to? Apparently, it starts developing opinions, dreaming about rivers of blood, and casually questioning the ethics of capitalism over a cup of lukewarm coffee. Maid Robot is a low-budget sci-fi dark comedy that knows exactly what it is and, more importantly, what it is not.
Read MoreLove Is a Curse: Disolution
Disolution is the kind of film that creeps up on you, sinks its teeth in early, and refuses to let go. What starts as a dark romance quickly mutates into something far more vicious and morally tangled. At its core, this is a revenge story fueled by love, desperation, and the terrifying idea that fate can be tampered with if you are willing to pay the price.
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