You can visibly see in every pulled punch and dialogue flub that “VFW” could have been better if only it took time to sand down rough edges.

“My Bloody Valentine” feels like a spiritual successor to the teen-targeted mainstream slashers that were hot up through the early aughts, minus the CW/WB soundtrack.

Too bad this setup kicked enough cans that an average response from audiences suggests we’ll probably never know how high or how hard these women could have kicked.

Not what you saw coming, huh? Unpredictability keeps “Come to Daddy’s” frights and funniness fascinating. Its weirdness grows like a subtly spreading moss.

“My Bloody Valentine” is the midnight movie you get when you combine the whodunit mystery of “Friday the 13th,” the cyclical holiday horror of “Halloween,” and the Canadian cop caper of “Black Christmas.”

Pennywise’s receded presence hinders the fear factor, yet “It Chapter Two” really resonates when human drama eclipses monster madness anyway.

I can think of few more flattering accolades than to affirm this may be the best definition of what burrow-into-your-brain unsettling means.

“Zombieland: Double Tap” doesn’t work as well as its predecessor because it doesn’t follow the rules that let the first film’s funniness flow fluidly.

You’d be correct to suspect we’re dealing with a film used to its fair share of tearing, molding, throwing, and shaping like an overworked piece of dirty kindergarten Play-Doh.

If someone insisted on pushing through the movie at 2x speed, I’d be hard pressed to concoct a good reason why that would be wrong.

Where else can you see a dinosaur interrupt backyard party sex as well as Denise Richards doing a lingerie striptease for Paul Walker’s disembodied brain?

You can expect an altered experience with “Doctor Sleep’s” Director’s Cut, though not necessarily a radically different one.

The movie might look roughshod if not for the fact that professional talents presumably knew what they were doing, even if the audience does not.

Best interests will often be rewarded by challenging comfort zones and taking more chances on movies that reside outside your usual wheelhouse.

“Terminator: Dark Fate’s” lateral move mostly maintains mediocrity, which qualifies as “good enough” for a property whose best days appear cemented in the last century.

With its comedic carnival of kooky clips, “VHYes” runs a full sprint marathon through a perfectly parodied time tunnel of 1980s nostalgia.

The garbage can is too charitable of a place to put “The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson.” It ought to be fired straight into the sun and disintegrated.

Although “The Sonata” doesn’t charge authoritatively like an earth-shaking juggernaut, it nevertheless gets the job done as a competently casual creeper.

If you’re an Eddie Marsan fan at all, you’ll be thoroughly riveted by the performance he puts up here. If you’re not already a Marsan fan, “Feedback” might make you one.

“In the Tall Grass” isn’t in the top third of Stephen King stories, so it tracks that the film wouldn’t land in the highest tiers of King adaptations either.