Late Fame: Kent Jones Finds Beauty in New York's Lost Dreamers

August 3, 2026

What begins as something resembling Dead Poets Society quickly reveals itself to be something altogether more contemporary: a sharply observed examination of rich kid faux intellectualism, artistic posturing, and the people who confuse proximity to art with the act of creating it. Kent Jones' Late Fame is sweet, smart, funny, and occasionally scathing. Adapted by Samy Burch from Arthur Schnitzler's novella, the film follows Ed Saxberger, a forgotten New York poet whose long-neglected work is suddenly rediscovered by a collective of young creatives calling themselves The Enthusiasm Society.

The Last Picture Shows Captures the Beauty and Fragility of the American Cinema

July 30, 2026

For some people, going to the movies is entertainment. For others, it is something closer to a ritual. No matter what is playing, stepping into a theater offers a temporary escape from the chaos of everyday life.

I Want Your Sex Is a Neon-Drenched Celebration of Desire and Bad Decisions

July 30, 2026

After more than a decade away from features, Gregg Araki returns with I Want Your Sex, a neon-soaked psychosexual comedy-thriller that feels like a filmmaker completely uninterested in playing it safe. Following Elliot, a drifting twenty-something who lands a job working for provocative artist Erika Tracy, the film dives headfirst into questions of desire, power, self-discovery, and the increasingly complicated ways young people relate to intimacy in the digital age. The result is a big, wonderful, horny cartoon.

Home, Memory, and Machine-Made Myth: Odyssey: Returning Home

July 30, 2026

At just nine minutes long, Odyssey: Returning Home falls well outside the type of project we would normally cover at CineDump. It's a fully AI-generated short, and that fact brings all the usual caveats with it. Still, its brief runtime makes for an easy commitment, and credit where it's due: presented in 4K, it often looks about as good as AI-generated filmmaking currently can.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day Swings High, Sticks the Landing Sometimes

July 28, 2026

Spider-Man: Brand New Day wants to be a reset, and for the most part it succeeds. For the first time since Sam Raimi's 2002 Spider-Man, New York actually feels like a character again. The movie opens with a stylish montage set to TV on the Radio while iconic comic-book covers come to life onscreen, immediately establishing a sense of history and momentum.

Unholy Night Delivers a Bloody Christmas Worth Celebrating

July 25, 2026

One of my favorite things about holiday horror is how easily the genre exposes the uncomfortable truths hiding beneath festive traditions. Nobody understands that better than writer-director Michael Gabriele, whose Unholy Night takes the stress, resentment, expectations, and chaos of a family Christmas Eve and cranks everything up to undead proportions. The result is a funny, atmospheric, and surprisingly heartfelt zombie Christmas movie that feels destined to become a seasonal favorite for horror fans.

A Haunted House Built on Generational Wounds: Ancestral Beasts

July 22, 2026

Tim Riedel's Ancestral Beasts isn't interested in cheap scares or easy answers. This psychological horror debut digs into mental illness, family dysfunction, and intergenerational trauma, wrapping them inside a haunted house story that becomes increasingly unsettling the deeper it goes. While the film occasionally struggles with tonal inconsistency, it ultimately delivers a memorable and genuinely creepy horror experience anchored by a strong central performance from Morgan Holmstrom.

Attack on Paradise May Be Fantasia's Ultimate Crowd-Pleaser

July 22, 2026

There was a certain kind of action movie that seemed larger than life when you were a kid. You'd walk through the living room for thirty seconds while your dad, your uncles, or their friends were watching some late-night action classic, catch a glimpse of a gunfight or a fistfight, and spend years imagining the rest of the movie in your head. It was probably louder, bloodier, and more dangerous in your imagination than anything that was actually on screen.

Valley of the Horntak: Beautiful Woods, Bumpy Journey

July 22, 2026

I'm not usually a folk horror guy, but Valley of the Horntak had a couple things working in its favor before the lights even went down. First, the premise of a missing child, a strange cult, and fungus-fueled nightmares sounded intriguing enough. Second, Vernon Wells is in it.

Dead Media Celebrates Physical Media While Summoning Its Ghosts

July 22, 2026

There was a time when movie night meant more than endlessly scrolling through streaming menus. It meant debating what to watch with friends, digging through shelves, hunting for hidden DVD Easter eggs, and getting lost in bonus features that sometimes felt more interesting than the movie itself. Joseph Scrimshaw's Dead Media understands that feeling completely.

Paranormal Investigations Is a Loving Tribute to Ghost Hunting TV

July 22, 2026

Found footage horror and paranormal reality television have always shared the same DNA. Both ask audiences to suspend disbelief and buy into the idea that the camera captured something it was never supposed to see. Raymond Wallace's Paranormal Investigations understands that connection immediately, framing itself as the recovered final episode of a long-running ghost hunting series whose cast and crew disappeared while investigating a notorious Southern "Hell House."

Pinocchio Unstrung: The Twisted Childhood Universe Finally Finds Its Heart

July 21, 2026

I'll admit it: Disney's original Pinocchio scared me as a kid. Maybe that's why I was so excited for Pinocchio Unstrung. As someone who caught Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey and Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare in theaters, I was curious to see where Rhys Frake-Waterfield's twisted childhood universe would go next.

Review

The Legend of Van Dorn A Civil War Drama That Finds the Man Behind the Myth

Historical dramas often succeed or fail based on whether they can make familiar events feel fresh. The Legend of Van Dorn, directed by Shane Stanley, takes a different route by focusing on a fascinating Civil War figure who remains largely unknown outside history circles. The result is an engaging period drama that blends military strategy, romance, ambition, and tragedy into a story that feels both intimate and consequential.

The Benefactress: The Dirtiest Mirror in the Room

I'll be honest: The Benefactress is not the kind of film I would normally gravitate toward. Had director Guerrilla Metropolitana not personally reached out and asked for an honest, open-minded opinion, it's likely this would have remained outside my radar. After watching it, however, I found myself unable to dismiss it.

Pure Scum Is a Relentless Descent Into Privilege, Panic, and Self-Destruction

From the moment Pure Scum begins, it wraps you in a cloud of dread. There is an immediate sense of discomfort and uncertainty hanging over every scene, as though something terrible is always waiting just around the corner. That feeling never really lets up. Instead, writer-director Gideon Aroni's debut feature keeps tightening the screws, building constant rising action that leaves you wondering not if things will get worse, but how much worse they possibly can.

Lockjaw Is the Most Awkward Hangout Movie You’ll See This Year

There's a version of reality where Lockjaw becomes one of those beloved cult indies everyone swears they discovered first. The kind of movie that would have had its trailer playing before every Miramax release in the late '90s until it slowly wormed its way into the consciousness of a certain type of film fan. Watching Sabrina Greco's debut feature, it's hard not to imagine it existing in that timeline.

High Body Count, Low Ambition: The Boy from Below

Horror fans of a certain age will immediately understand what The Boy from Below is trying to do. Set largely on Halloween night in 1997, the film follows video store clerk Quinn Curtis as a masked killer begins turning slasher movies into reality. Director Tory Jones has described the project as a tribute to the video store era and the classic slashers that shaped his love of filmmaking, and that passion is evident from the opening frame.

Big Baby: Spider One and Krsy Fox Continue Their Horror Evolution

There are interviews you look forward to, and then there are interviews that feel surreal. Sitting down with Spider One and Krsy Fox to discuss Big Baby was firmly in the latter category for me. Long before Spider One was building horror films through OneFox Productions, he was fronting Powerman 5000.

Malcolm Kelner Is the Face of Obsession, Whether the Rest of the Cast Likes It or Not

Every great film has that one performance audiences can't stop talking about. For Obsession, the viral thriller from director Curry Barker, that performance belongs, unquestionably, to Malcolm Kelner's bartender. What began as a brief appearance in the film's opening moments has somehow evolved into one of the internet's favorite running jokes, spawning memes, fan theories, social media discourse, and a level of celebrity that Kelner has embraced with remarkable confidence.

Chasing More Than Storms: Ken Cole and Reed Timmer Find the Heart Behind Never Stop Chasing

There are few people more synonymous with storm chasing than Reed Timmer. For decades, audiences have watched him barrel toward some of nature's most violent phenomena in pursuit of science, understanding, and, admittedly, a little adrenaline. But Never Stop Chasing isn't simply another film about tornadoes.

Nat Boltt Brings Heart, Humor, and Humanity to Holy Days

There are filmmakers who make movies because they love storytelling, and then there are filmmakers who seem genuinely in love with the medium itself. After speaking with Nat Boltt about her feature directorial debut, Holy Days, it quickly became clear that she falls into the latter category. Known to many audiences as the unforgettable Penelope Blossom from Riverdale and for her work in films like District 9, Boltt has spent decades in front of the camera.

Aging Legend, Wild Stories: James Faulkner Looks Back on Zulu Dawn

Sometimes you go into an interview with a plan. You’ve got your notes, your bullet points, your angles about the new 4K restoration of Zulu Dawn. And then sometimes you get James Faulkner on the line and you just… let him go. That’s exactly what happened here.

Soulbound: A 53-Minute Animated Odyssey Through the Afterlife That’s Already Winning Awards

Independent animation is often defined by passion, perseverance, and the willingness to tell stories that larger studios might never attempt. Soulbound, the original animated web series created by writer, director, and storyboard artist Jeff Stirling, embodies all three. With the completion of its first story arc, Soulbound now stands as a roughly 53-minute animated feature experience released across four episodes, blending fantasy, comedy, psychological drama, and existential mystery into a uniquely memorable journey.