If you’re fine with Naomi Watts jogging and talking in front trees, trees, and more trees, “The Desperate Hour” has more footage of her looking worried than limited patience can handle.
NO EXIT (2022)
It’s always a plus to spend time with Dennis Haysbert and Dale Dickey, and since it doesn’t demand full engagement, you also get to play on your phone without pressing Pause.
THE CURSED (2021)
If “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is the boisterous bad kid barking from the back of the classroom, then “The Cursed” is a boarding school preppy who plays first chair violin.
INCARNATION (2022)
I’ll probably start by forgetting everything about “Incarnation,” which shouldn’t take long since it has nothing worth remembering in the first place.
TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2022)
What more can anyone ask from a flagging film series that hasn’t been on firm footing in forever than to celebrate the savage spirit it’s most known for?
THEY LIVE IN THE GREY (2022)
The movie’s maudlin characters do indeed live in the grey. And that grey they live in is a shade so dark, it might as well be pitch black.
COSMIC DAWN (2022)
Your mind will have to make do with a mildly moody little spooker with vaguely psychedelic vibes and a dreamy texture that’s deeply entrenched in an indie aesthetic.
THE FOREST OF THE LOST SOULS (2017 - Portuguese)
“The Forest of the Lost Souls” intrigues as an artfully experimental thriller, although its accompanying message doesn’t come across so clearly.
THE LONG NIGHT (2022)
Overlong, uneventful, and with not much more than static-filled phone calls standing in for scares, it’s about as skippable as low-budget horror fare gets.
ALONE WITH YOU (2021)
Individual mileage will absolutely vary as the subdued psych-thriller tone and DTV texture will either hit your slow burn sweet spot or lull you into a yawn.
THE REQUIN (2022)
After battling boredom like Alicia Silverstone battles the shark, I’m going to guess “The Requin” means “NyQuil in film form” since it tastes awful and will put you to sleep.
DRACULA: THE ORIGINAL LIVING VAMPIRE (2022)
Forgetting it’s a motion picture that can show as well as tell, “Dracula” becomes burdened with enough empty-calorie chitchat to rival a full week’s worth of “The View.”
THE FOREVER PURGE (2021)
Now it just feels less like enjoying a popcorn B-movie in a theater and more like watching the nightly news on a panic room monitor.
WARHUNT (2022)
No normal person looks at cover art featuring Mickey Rourke in an eyepatch and thinks, “This ought to be an epic war movie on par with ‘Saving Private Ryan’.”
A QUIET PLACE PART II (2020)
Even when the movie follows expected conventions, it does so creatively, and always with an eye for maximum cinematic suspense.
RESIDENT EVIL: WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY (2021)
It’s all a whole lot of basic blah blah blah, unsurprisingly resulting in a movie that’s just as blah as everything in it.
AMITYVILLE UPRISING (2022)
“Amityville Uprising” plays like ‘A Day in the Life’ of an average neighborhood police station, with all of the dull drama that entails.
SEE FOR ME (2021)
When it comes to a blind person battling a trio of thieves trying to rob an isolated house, “See for Me” leaps high above “Don’t Breathe.”
AMITYVILLE IN THE HOOD (2021)
The more of these DIY Amityville junkers I sit through, the more they violently rub sandpaper all over my lifelong love of horror.
SPIRAL: FROM THE BOOK OF SAW (2021)
“Spiral” appears to instead come “From the Book of Dick Wolf,” as it plays like a pedestrian police procedural infrequently peppered with gobs of gore.
“Dead Mail” shows what indie filmmaking is supposed to look like when it’s done with passion as well as precision.