‘Hell of a Summer’ is a Low-Key Doodle of a Slasher

April 3, 2025

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What the hell (of a summer)?! (CREDIT: NEON)

Starring: Fred Hechinger, Abby Quinn, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Billy Bryk, Finn Wolfhard, Pardis Saremi, Krista Nazaire, Matthew Finlan, Julia LaLonde, Daniel Gravelle, Julia Doyle, Rosebud Baker, Adam Pally

Directors: Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk

Running Time: 88 Minutes

Rating: R for Bloody Shenanigans and a Conversation About Getting Busy During a Movie

Release Date: April 4, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Veteran Pineway Camp counselor Jason (Fred Hechinger) had an embarrassingly tearful goodbye at the end of last summer, which he thought was going to be his last at Pineway. And it probably should have been. He is aging out of the gig, after all, and it doesn’t exactly pay like a full-time job. But the owners needed the extra help this year, or at least that’s what he keeps saying. But he really should’ve reconsidered, considering that … there’s a serial killer on the loose! Will Jason turn hero and save all his fellow counselors, or will everyone just die sad, unremarkably gruesome deaths?

What Made an Impression?: Two-for-One Deal: Hell of a Summer is written and directed by a pair of youngsters (Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk, who both also star), but despite their youth, they’ve assembled a throwback to the slashers of yore, particularly two that loom menacingly large over the rest of the genre. You’ve got the camp setting and ugly relentlessness of Friday the 13th, but with a little bit more personality than Jason Voorhees’ adventures. That’s crossed with the Scream-style setup of friends playing detective against each other, except that in this case most of them are a little dopier and a lot more superficial than Woodsboro’s residents. They’re not so infuriating that you’re begging for them to get sliced up, but you might just want them to go through some terrible trauma so that they’ll actually grow up.
Where is Everyone?: There’s one big unanswered question throughout Hell of a Summer: where are all the kids?! Or is this just an “Oops All Counselors” type of amp? Now, of course, the most likely answer is that the young attendees are scheduled to arrive at least one day after all the counselors, so they’re not supposed to be there at this point anyway. But the counselors never seem to behave as if anyone else is on the way! To be fair, that isn’t exactly unbelievable behavior from teenagers and young twentysomethings, but I nevertheless couldn’t help but be deeply affected by the lack of explanatory context.

Hell of a Summer is Recommended If You: Wish that Wet Hot American Summer had fewer laughs and more blood

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Decapitations

‘Screamboat’ Review, or: Whistle While You Kill

April 1, 2025

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Typical ferry ride? (CREDIT: Iconic Events Releasing)

Starring: David Howard Thornton, Allison Pittel, Amy Schumacher, Jesse Posey, Rumi C. Jean-Louis, Kailey Hyman, Jesse Kove, Jarlath Conroy, Charles Edwin Powell

Director: Steven LaMorte

Running Time: 102 Minutes

Rating: Unrated, But There is SO Much Blood and Guts

Release Date: April 2, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: It’s time for an evening ride on the Staten Island Ferry! The passengers include a mother and son just trying to get home, a recent Midwestern transplant doing her best to make it in the Big Apple, a crew member trying to prove himself, a wise and reliable EMT, and an outrageously ditzy drunk birthday girlfriend crew. Oh, and also … A MOUSE WITH AN INSATIABLE THIRST FOR BLOOD! You might know Steamboat Willie as the adorably booty-shaking original version of Mickey Mouse, but now that nearly hundred years have passed and Willie is in the public domain, shamelessly over-the-top parodies like Screamboat are legal. So you might want to reconsider that trip across the Hudson. Sure, it’s free, but chances are high that you’ll get hacked to bits by a knife-wielding rodent.

What Made an Impression?: An Imp for All Times: Turning beloved children’s characters into slasher villains once they enter the public domain might be a decent premise for a short sketch, but an entire movie? It didn’t exactly work out for Winnie the Pooh, that’s for sure. But Screamboat justifies itself by actually putting in a commendable amount of effort. It helps more than anything else that Willie is played by David Howard Thornton, aka Art the Clown from the Terrifier series. His Willie hits all the same notes as Art, which is to say: an adorably expressive mime who learns about the world by discovering how much he loves to kill everyone in it. The Staten Island Ferry may be a cruel hellhole, but you can share in Willie’s unbound glee by reminding yourself that all the actors who played his victims are still alive.
As Bloody Disgusting As They Want to Be: The m.o. of Screamboat is essentially, “We’ve got all these gallons of fake blood and prosthetic body parts lying around, we might as well use them for something!” The plot is profoundly silly, the endless violence is tiresome, and the vast majority of the characters are infuriating stereotypes. In conclusion, I was impressed by the thorough commitment to the bit. If movies like Screamboat are allowed to exist in their most fully realized forms, then that must mean that Earth is doing at least a little bit okay.

Screamboat is Recommended If You: Are a Proud Degenerate

Grade: 3 out of 5 Sailor Caps

‘The Woman in the Yard’ Offers a Grave Message

March 28, 2025

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Wait a minute, I’m counting TWO women in the yard (CREDIT: Daniel Delgado Jr./Universal Pictures)

Starring: Danielle Deadwyler, Okwui Okpokwasili, Peyton Jackson, Estella Kahiha, Russell Hornsby

Director: Jaume Collet-Serra

Running Time: 87 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for General Unease and Implications of Self-Harm

Release Date: March 28, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: A woman named Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler) has been living a suffocatingly isolated life on her Georgia farmhouse along with her teenage son Taylor (Peyton Jackson) and young daughter Annie (Estella Kahiha) ever since her husband David (Russell Hornsby) died in a car accident. She’s been getting on crutches since the crash, which also seems to have sapped her will to live. On top of that, the power has been cut off in the house, and they have no idea when it will be coming back on, nor are there any neighbors anywhere nearby who could conceivably help. But then suddenly someone (Okwui Okpokwasili) does appear, although she seems to be more omen than person. Clad head to toe in a midnight black veil, she sits calmly and patiently in the backyard, offering Ramona vague explanations for her presence like “You called and I came” and “Today’s the day.”

What Made an Impression?: Mental States Are Open to Interpretation: The Woman in the Yard opts for a slow burn approach sure to inspire speculation, though its ultimate revelations aren’t exactly surprising. Considering the setup, the costume design, and the MPA rating explanation, it’s clear that the Woman is something like the Angel of Death and Ramona has thought about ending her own life. Is this all then leading up to an inevitable tragedy? Without giving too much away, I’ll note that what you see will depend on what kind of viewer you are. When modern technology is replaced with hallucinations and a touch of the supernatural, it’s only fair to question what’s real and what’s not.
A Peek Inside: If you appreciated the Oscar-winning The Father‘s inside-out approach to dementia and have been hoping for more movies to pull off something similar with other complicated mental states, The Woman in the Yard has you covered. We’re caught in Ramona’s depressed mind: fractured, untethered from reality, unable to explain why she’s making harmful decisions. This isn’t a relentless horror thrill ride, but rather an invitation to be still like its titular harbinger. I can already feel it burrowing deep for permanent residency within my subconscious. Could this be a formula for spreading understanding to help someone in crisis? We can certainly hope so.

The Woman in the Yard is Recommended If You Like: Family therapy, Telling your kids ghost stories, Penmanship

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Veils

What to Do When ‘Ash’ Happens to You?

March 28, 2025

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Her name’s not Ash, but things are looking pretty Ash-y (CREDIT: RLJE Films & Shudder)

Starring: Eiza González, Aaron Paul, Iko Uwais, Beulah Koale, Kate Elliott, Flying Lotus

Director: Flying Lotus

Running Time: 95 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: March 21, 2025 (Theaters)

I can’t say I’d ever like to find myself in an Ash Situation. Here’s how it goes down: an astronaut named Riya (Eiza González) wakes up to fellow crew members all dead before they can terraform a distant planet, and she has no idea what happened. She gradually starts to discover that their demises were most likely at the hands (or tentacles) of a parasitic alien. But even though this doesn’t exactly sound like a vacation to aspire to, maybe it was still a good idea to see this movie so that I can be prepared in case this ever does happen to me. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Give me a trippy sci-fi outer space warning over a true crime doc any day!

Grade: 2 Parasites out of 5 Lotuses (You Want Fewer Parasites)

‘Opus’ Doesn’t Quite Match the Loftiness of Its Title, But It’s Still Something-Something

March 27, 2025

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Two of the cast members from the movie Opus are in this photographic image (CREDIT: Anna Kooris/A24)

Starring: Ayo Edebiri, John Malkovich, Murray Bartlett, Juliette Lewis, Amber Midthunder, Stephanie Suganami, Young Manzino, Tatanka Means, Tony Hale

Director: Mark Anthony Green

Running Time: 104 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: March 14, 2025 (Theaters)

I don’t want to be a member of the cult at the heart of Opus, but I sure wish I could have been in the studio during those recording sessions! (John Malkovich has never sounded more impeccable.) The problem is twofold: I am opposed to cults in general, and also this particular cult’s goals are a little half-baked. It seems like they’re trying to achieve world domination by way of reawakening humanity’s artistic inspiration… good luck with all that.

Anyway, it was pretty fun while it lasted, minus all the killing. Make sure you listen to The Moretti EP!

Grade: NILE RODGERS AND THE-DREAM WROTE THE MUSIC!

Jason Statham is ‘A Working Man,’ and I Bet You Can Guess What That Means

March 26, 2025

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I guess that’s what he is (Credit: Dan Smith/© 2025 Amazon Content Services LLC. All Rights Reserved.)

Starring: Jason Statham, Jason Flemyng, Arianna Rivas, Michael Peña, David Harbour, Noemi Gonzalez, Emmett J. Scanlan, Eve Mauro, Maximilian Osinski, Max Croes, Kristina Poli, Andrej Kaminsky, Isla Gie, Alana Boden

Director: David Ayer

Running Time: 116 Minutes

Rating: R for Big Guns, Small Guns, and Even a Few Medium Guns

Release Date: March 28, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Levon Cade is just trying to live a peaceful life as a construction worker in Chicago. But when his boss Joe’s (Michael Peña) daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas) is kidnapped, he’s forced to revisit a side of himself he swore that he’d abandoned for good. There’s one actor who’s been specializing in characters like this more than anybody else the past 20 years or so, and once again Jason Statham is indeed in his sweet spot. (If you guessed Liam Neeson instead, I would argue that his ass-kicking characters are generally less ambivalent about getting violent than Statham’s.) Anyway, Jenny is now in the hands of human traffickers within the Russian mafia, who are certainly a formidable adversary. But to reiterate: Cade is a one-man wrecking crew played by Jason Statham.

What Made an Impression?: Destruction/Efficiency Dilemma: Lately, I find myself bemoaning the extreme measures of ultra-violent action flicks more and more, and I have to ask, “Did I change, or did the movies?” Then I remember that I never used to watch this genre all that much when I was younger. So the most likely answer is that neither of us changed, we just got to know each other. Anyway, I’m not trying to say that A Working Man and its ilk cause real-life violence, because I genuinely don’t believe that that’s the case (at least not in a direct one-to-one correlation). But after having my eyeballs treated to a series of gaping gunshot wounds, I can \ repeat to myself “It’s just a movie” only so often before it becomes too exhausting to handle. At least David Ayer and Sylvester Stallone’s script is a little quippier than the typical Statham actioner. It’s still a blunt force instrument, but it’s got enough self-awareness for me to appreciate it.
The Shakedown: Cade has a couple of vulnerabilities in the form of a tween daughter named Merry (Isla Gie) and a father-in-law who hates him because he blames him for the death of Merry’s mom. You might expect that the Russians would target Cade’s family to try to make him desperate, and they certainly do, but it thankfully doesn’t get as traumatic as it could. But anyway, I don’t really want to focus on all that right now. Instead, I want to mention how great a relationship Merry and her dad have, and how nice it is that he’s able to keep his PTSD in check whenever he’s around her, and also there’s an early scene where they go out for a lunch of burgers and milkshakes. We don’t see them actually downing any of that greasy grub, but it nonetheless looked delicious to the point that it had me eagerly anticipating my own first milkshake of 2025 once the weather gets warm enough. And I’m grateful for that! Most bloody action flicks don’t bother to include shots of delicious sweet treats, nor do they shoot them so lovingly as they are here. But A Working Man went above and beyond.

A Working Man is Recommended If You Like: All the other Jason Stathams. This one’s a lot like those.

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Shotgun Blasts

‘Death of a Unicorn’ Hooks Its Horn Into an Eat the Rich Adventure

March 25, 2025

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This is what looks like when a unicorn dies (CREDIT: Balazs Goldi/A24)

Starring: Jenna Ortega, Paul Rudd, Richard E. Grant, Will Poulter, Téa Leoni, Anthony Carrigan, Sunita Mani, Steve Park, Jessica Hynes

Director: Alex Scharfman

Running Time: 104 Minutes

Rating: R for Supernatural Creature Violence and Some Drug Use

Release Date: March 28, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Widower Elliot Kintner (Paul Rudd) and his daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) are on their way to sort out some legal business at the mansion of Elliot’s boss, Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant). The occasion is that Odell has terminal cancer, and he’s put Elliot in charge of sorting out his estate. But thanks to an unexpected visitor, they may not have to worry about that, as Elliot and Ridley crash into a one-horned mythical quadruped right before arriving. The unicorn looks like a goner, but before it perishes, its blood appears to magically cure Elliot’s eyesight and Ridley’s acne. And do those healing properties extend to cancer? Why yes, they seem to be limitless. The Leopolds quickly become greedy with the possibilities of curing every physical ailment everywhere, while Ridley tries to warn everyone that they might want to be careful about slaughtering these majestic creatures.

What Made an Impression?: Predictably Vicious: If you find yourself sympathizing with Ridley throughout Death of a Unicorn, then you are watching this movie in the way that the universe intended. If however you find her annoying, then you might be a rich a-hole. Or perhaps more generously*, you agree with her but you wish that there were more depth to these characters. (*-More generous to you, not to the movie.) Basically, everyone behaves exactly as you would expect them to considering this situation. Ridley is befuddled and indignant, Elliot is ineffectual, the Leopolds are outrageously arrogant, and the unicorns are magnificent and prideful. That predictability is more of a feature than a bug, as you’re supposed to be eternally frustrated at all the would-be modern-day Prometheuses.
Something Mystical: Here are a couple of things that happen in Death of a Unicorn that you might not be able to predict from the trailer: Ridley develops a psychic connection with the unicorns, and she remembers when she was on vacation with her parents and they saw tapestries at a museum depicting people being slaughtered by unicorns. That woo-woo and that alternate history certainly make sense when supernatural animals play a big part in the story. Although for the most part the action all remains grounded in the real world, at least as much as it can. Perhaps some viewers would prefer going further off the deep end. As for me, I was mostly satisfied with the pleasant mix of a fantastical flight of fancy, sarcastic humor, and bursts of grievous horror.

Death of a Unicorn is Recommended If You Like: Body horror crossed with Amblin wonderment

Grade: 3 out of 5 Horns

Catching Up on Movies I Happened to See in March 2025

March 22, 2025

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CREDIT: (Clockwise from Top Left): Marvel Entertainment; Ketchup Entertainment; Stan Alley/IFC Films; Cinetic

Oh wow, look at the time! I guess I’ve been pretty busy the last few weeks. (For a variety of reasons!) That means I’ve got more than one movie to catch up with my thoughts about. It’s quite a mix that we’ve got on the agenda: some blockbusters or would-be blockbusters, a heartbreaking award winner, and an indie from the depths of the muck.

First up, we checked back into the MCU, and I found myself in rare agreement with SNL‘s Drunk Uncle, which is to say: “Not my Captain America!” Nah, actually, Sam Wilson, you’re cool, dude. But Brave New World was neither brave, nor new, nor a world. Discuss.

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‘Misericordia’ Answers the Question: What if Hitchcock Were Queer and French?

March 20, 2025

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TFW you have Misericordia (CREDIT: Janus Films/Screenshot)

Starring: Félix Kysyl, Catherine Frot, Jean-Baptiste Durand, Jacques Develay, David Ayala, Sébastien Faglain, Tatiana Spivakova, Salomé Lopes

Director: Alain Guiradie

Running Time: 102 Minutes

Rating: Unrated, But Featuring Graphic Nudity and A Few Bursts of Violence

Release Date: March 21, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: It only takes one person to rock an entire community to its core. Especially when that community is a small enclave in rural France, and that person is the enigmatic Jérémie (Félix Kysyl). He’s back in his hometown to attend a funeral, and he ends up staying in an empty bedroom at the house of the widowed Martine (Catherine Frot), mother of his childhood friend, the hot-tempered Vincent (Jean-Baptiste Durand). Vincent suspects that Jérémie is trying to sleep with his mother, which he almost definitely isn’t, but Jérémie isn’t exactly the sort to just let a little offense roll off him easily. Eventually, the conflict boils over to the point that everything changes irrevocably.

What Made an Impression?: There Was Never Any Turning Back: Misericordia is one of those movies where something shocking happens about a third of the way through, so it would be fair to call that part of the premise. And indeed, it’s in the synopsis and the trailer, though it plays more like a twist that you don’t see coming. Considering this film’s powerful Hitchcockian vibes, I must say that this situation is like the conundrum of describing Psycho: is Norman Bates killing Marion Crane part of the premise, or a surprise dagger? (Spoiler alert.) If you were watching it in 1960, perhaps it was the former, but ever since then, it’s been the latter. And I imagine our conceptualization of Jérémie as a moviegoing society will turn out to be quite similar. If you’re fated to see Misericordia with no preconceived notions, you’ll be wondering how he could do such a thing. But eventually you’ll surely come to understand that that was the only way he ever was.
Identity Crises: And yet, despite that firm conclusion I just made about Jérémie, much of Misericordia is about his struggle to reconcile his own behavior with his sense of self. He can’t explain why he did what he did in that moment, but you get the sense that he would struggle to define himself even without a guilty conscience. He’s just a lost soul awkwardly wearing a human costume as he wanders along this unforgiving plane. Just about every other character wears their ostensible roles awkwardly as well. There’s the local priest (Jacques Develay), who’s more interested in seducing the mysterious protagonist while also offering a warped version of spiritual guidance that’s useful in some ways, morally dubious in others. A neighbor named Walter (David Ayala) becomes Jérémie’s loyal drinking buddy, while also becoming baffled by everything that’s going on around him. Meanwhile, Martine is too stuck in grief to act rationally, while the lead detective (Sébastien Faglain) has no idea how much of a fool he is. It’s a relentlessly topsy-turvy world when we bumble our way through moral dilemmas.

Misericordia is Recommended If You Like: Psycho, Match Point, Mushroom Foraging

Grade: 4 out of 5 Houseguests

Bill Skarsgård Ends Up ‘Locked’ in a Car by Anthony Hopkins, and That Goes About as Well as You’d Expect

March 19, 2025

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The Locked guy before he gets Locked (CREDIT: The Avenue)

Starring: Bill Skarsgård, Anthony Hopkins

Director: David Yarovesky

Running Time: 95 Minutes

Rating: R for Road Rage in a Parked Cars

Release Date: March 21, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Eddie Barrish (Bill Skarsgård) is desperate. Desperate, I say! And I’m pretty sure you’ll be inclined to agree with me if you go see Locked. He’s been trying to get his life back on track for the sake of his young daughter, but that’s a little hard to do when he doesn’t have the cash he needs to pay for his car repairs so that he can go pick her up from school. So he turns to carjacking for a quick score, which turns out so much worse than he ever could have possibly imagined. That’s because the vehicle he targets happens to be owned by a fellow named William (Anthony Hopkins), who’s been a victim of one of too many carjackings himself. So Eddie ends up trapped in the car, with William having rigged it up so that everything is controlled remotely. A simple apology is hardly enough to end this nightmare, and thus a deadly game of very targeted vigilantism commences.

What Made an Impression?: Sociopathic Overload: William is basically the answer to the question, “What if instead of bats, Bruce Wayne was inspired by felines, specifically the way that they mercilessly toy with mice before eating them?” The police were useless to him when he needed them, so now he’s enforcing his own brand of justice. But you get the sense that he’s just been looking for an excuse to behave this way for a very long time. Whenever Eddie pleads with him about how the deck is stacked against guys like him, William just automatically shuts him down and ups the torture. Hopkins is certainly talented enough to make William’s sociopathy entertaining, but it’s more than a little overwhelming when it’s this relentless.
Efficient Mileage: About 75% of Locked takes place in one location, and its cast consists almost entirely of just two guys, one of whom primarily phones in his performance. With a movie like this, you will likely end up with one of two reactions: either “Wow, this is cheap, and it shows,” or “Wow, this is cheap, but they worked around their limitations.” In this case, it’s mostly the latter. The subject matter may be torturous, and the villain may be overcooked, but director David Yarovesky keeps everything locked in gear. All the tightly contained torture may turn a lot of viewers claustrophobic, but it’s possible to appreciate the technical chops even while you’re wincing.

Locked is Recommended If You: Wish That One of the Saw Movies Had Taken Place in a Car

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Vigilantes

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