Category: Violence
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Top Five Worst Films of 2025
These lists are bullshit. Movies, film, art, blockbusters…they are designed to entertain us in exchange for money. It’s a system and that’s okay, as it’s what we got and it works for now. The good ones make us feel; feel excited, annoyed, joy, and away from our lives for a short while as we experience…
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Monster: The Ed Gein Story Review: A mamma’s boy in the making
MONSTER: THE ED GEIN STORY (2025) Multiple things can be true at once. Just ask Ed Gein. He’s been dead since 1984, so that’s not possible, nonetheless his perspective is the subject of the third installment of the Monster anthology series, following Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022) and Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez…
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Caught Stealing Review: Snatch-ing a Guy’s guy
CAUGHT STEALING (2025) Way way back in the 90s, I saw the little psychological thriller Pi (1998) written and directed by up-and-comer Darren Aronofsky. It was different; a stylized black and white arthouse mystery about a mathematician searching for a number that would unlock nature’s secrets and universal patterns. Roughly a year later I saw…
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Predator: Killer of Killers Review: We will survive
PREDATOR: KILLER OF KILLERS (2025) A few years ago, Dan Trachtenberg gave us Predator (1987-) franchise fans a refreshing entry with Prey (2022). Like Assassins Creed (the game), the franchise delved into another era and explored how human warriors of old might fare against the Yautja. The call came cirqua 1719, to the Comanche warrior…
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Havoc Review: Yup, lots of Havoc (and nothing but)
HAVOC (2025) Director Gareth Evans – The Raid: Redemption (2011), The Raid 2 (2014) – brings his signature style of post John Woo, Gun-fu for the direct-to-streaming Netflix universe. We have bigger names – Tom Hardy, Timothy Olyphant, Forest Whitaker – a bigger budget and a teeny plot. But let’s be honest. There’s little need…
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Fear Street: Prom Queen Review – No fear and loathing the hair
FEAR STREET: PROM QUEEN (2025) Thus far, I’ve enjoyed Netflix’s Fear Street (2021-) series. The makers are having fun with the horror, throwback, wink wink, not-so-scary, slew of successive and creatively gross murders genre. And I am here for it. What’s more, Fear Street: Prom Queen is the 80s instalment, the very decade I started…
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Novocaine Review: Nepocaine
NOVOCAINE (2025) Novocaine is no Citizen Kane (1941). But who says all films have to be poignant masterpieces that shatter us with their thrillingly tragic slap in the face recognitions of lost innocence? En lieu of a Rosebud, we have a spiked metal ball and carnage akin to the brand heaped upon Wile E. Coyote;…
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Locked Review: It’d be better for me if you don’t understand
LOCKED (2025) The day after I watched this film, I mindlessly walked through a parking lot towards my car, opened the driver’s side door only to see a much plusher interior than my own. I promptly closed the door as a chill ran down my spine. You’ll understand if you watch Locked, the claustrophobic survival…
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Mickey 17 Review: Messy Mickey
MICKEY 17 (2025) Director/writer Bong Joon Ho – The Host (2006), Snowpiercer (2013), Parasite (2019) – has released his first film post-Oscar Best Picture win; and while class conflict and wealth disparity were front and centre for Parasite, new offering Mickey 17 adds a story of space colonization and printable/disposable humans to his provocative repertoire. First…
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Riff Raff Review: Less riffing more raff
RIFF RAFF (2025) Truth be told, I didn’t have high hopes for director Dito Montiel’s – A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006), Man Down (2015) – latest offering Riff Raff, but the cast was intriguing. I mean, Bill Murray as a shady underworld crime boss accompanied by the preternaturally creepy/depressive Pete Davidson has a…
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Cleaner Review: Clean Hard
CLEANER (2025) Storytellers have been recycling the same old troupes for forever it seems. I imagine that even cave dwellers got a little sick of the same old tales being told by the same old travellers year after year. Still, the Die Hard set-up is a trusty one. From Skyscraper (1996) and Skyscraper (2018) to…
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Borderline Review: B for effort
BORDELINE (2025) After penning the tight and hilarious Cocaine Bear (2023), Jimmy Warden makes his directorial debut with Borderline, starring his very watchable wife Samara Weaving – Azreal (2024), Ready or Not (2019) The Babysitter (2017) – as a fictionalized ’90s Madonna, basically enduring an extremely exaggerated version of an actual event. On April 7th…
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Fight or Flight Review: Bullet Plane
FIGHT OR FLIGHT (2025) Fight or Flight is a straight ahead action comedy, or for those of you who (like me) indulge in these types of films whenever I can, it’s basically John Wick (2014) on a Bullet Train (2022), save for the fact that its lead Josh Hartnett brings extra charisma, all the while…
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Companion Review: She’s a doll
COMPANION (2025) If you’ve seen the poster and considered the title, you can surmise the genre and baseline plot of this movie. You guessed it, our main character is a sexbot, played with lovely, “bring her home to mom” sensibilities by Sophie Thatcher, who is making some excellent choices, e.g. Heritic (2024), MaXXine (2024) and…
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Five Killer Medieval Movies
The Dark Ages. What a glorious time to explore…from this safe distance. A swift decline in culture and science, and a rapid rise in the plague, are archaic fodder for some tremendous films. Here are five that do the brutality of this time period justice. VALHALLA RISING (2010) In between The Pusher Trilogy (1996 –…