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Fright Club

Fright Club: Best Horror Movies, First Half of 2025

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It is not that time!

It is! It most definitely is time to celebrate how great the first half of 2025 has been for horror. Indeed, easily the best film of the year so far (and a tough contender for the balance of the year) is a vampire movie! Here are our favorite horror films of the first half of 2025.

10. Dead Mail

Filmmakers Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConaghy’s thriller Dead Mail builds on a wildly unrealistic concept: smalltown post offices with super-secure back rooms where pains are taken and spies may be accessed to solve mysteries behind lost mail. And yet, their analog approach to this period piece gives it a true crime feel you never fully shake.

The bulk of the film is carried on John Fleck’s shoulders. As Trent, the seemingly harmless organ enthusiast who has a man trapped in his basement, Fleck’s delivers magnificent work. There’s a beautiful loneliness in his performance that makes the villainous Trent irredeemably sympathetic.

Filmmaker and cast investment pays off. Dead Mail is clever, intriguing and wholly satisfying little thriller.

9. Final Destination: Bloodlines

Final Destination: Bloodlines is the best since James Wong’s clever 2000 original, if not the best in the whole franchise. And the presence of genre beloved Tony Todd in his final role seals the emotional deal.

The Rube Goldberg of Death franchise boasts many clever, nasty kills and the sixth episode does not let us down. Smart, nutty and goretastic with some of the most impressive comic-beat editing of the year, the bloody mayhem in this film is giddy with its power.

Plus we all get to spend a few more minutes with Tony Todd.

8. Hood Witch

Co-writer/director Saïd Belktibia examines the muddy difference between a religion’s acceptable magic and harmful witchcraft. However similar the practice, the differentiator seems to be based primarily on whether a woman benefits.

Though Hood Witch is far more a drama/thriller than an outright horror film, it does follow a longstanding genre tradition of using witchcraft to point out religions’ hypocrisy and misogyny. But the filmmaker goes further, complicating characters by implicating capitalism as being equally dangerous—particularly to the desperate and easily manipulated—as religion.

Hood Witch is a tough watch, as misogyny and apathy play out in the film the same way they play out every miserable day, infecting each generation like a poison.

7. Companion

It’s not to say that writer/director Drew Hancock is saying anything new, exactly. Most of the ideas are borrowed, and even the look of Companion feels cribbed from more insightfully stylized films. But the way he puts these ideas and images into play and keeps them playing guarantees a mischievously, wickedly good time.

Lars and the Real Girl meets Revenge meets AI meets maybe twenty other movies, but damn if Hancock and this sharp ensemble doesn’t make it work. Turns out it’s kind of fun to be on the side of AI for a change.

6. Freaky Tales

Look, I’m not saying I didn’t expect someone to make a Sleepy-Floyd-as-a-ninja-assassin horror comedy. I am saying I didn’t expect it to be Boden and Fleck.

Eric “Sleepy” Floyd played thirteen years in the NBA, making the All Star team in 1987 as a member of the Golden State Warriors. Freaky Tales makes him the heroic centerpiece of a wild anthology that loves the late 80s, Oakland, and Nazis dying some horrible deaths.

Let’s party!

Buried under all this blood and camp, the film displays a genuine love of time, place and genre that you cannot ignore. These Freaky Tales are truly off the leash, usually in the best possible way.

5. Bring Her Back

Filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou drew attention in 2022 for their wildly popular feature debut, Talk to Me. Before releasing the sequel, due out this August, the pair changes the game up with a different, but at least equally disturbing, look at grief.

It’s a slow burn, a movie that communicates dread brilliantly with its cinematography and pacing. But when Bring Her Back hits the gas, dude! Nastiness not for the squeamish! Especially if you have a thing about teeth, be warned. But the body horror always serves the narrative, deepening your sympathies even as it has you hiding your eyes.

Australia has a great habit of sending unsettling horror our way. The latest package from Down Under doesn’t disappoint.

4. The Monkey

Why is it that so many kids’ toys are creepy? Not that you should call The Monkey a toy. You should not, ever. Because this windup organ grinder monkey, with its red eyes and horrifyingly realistic teeth, is more of a furry, murder happy nightmare.

The film itself is a match made in horror heaven. Osgood Perkins (Longlegs, Gretel & Hansel, The Blackcoat’s Daughter) adapts and directs the short story by Stephen King about sibling rivalry and the unpredictability of death.

Perkins surrounds deliberately low energy leads with bizarre, colorful characters—even more colorful when they catch fire, explode, are disemboweled, etcetera. The film is laced with wonderful bursts of Final Destination-like bloodletting, as the Monkey’s executions are carried out via Rube Goldberg chain reactions that quickly become fun to anticipate.

Yes, fun. And funny.

3. Invader

Lean, mean and affecting, Mickey Keating’s take on the home invasion film wastes no time. In a wordless—though not soundless—opening, the filmmaker introduces an unhinged presence.

Immediately Keating sets our eyes and ears against us. His soundtrack frequently blares death metal, a tactic that emphasizes a chaotic, menacing mood the film never shakes. Using primarily handheld cameras from the unnerving opening throughout the entire film, the filmmaker maintains an anarchic energy, a sense of the characters’ frenzy and the endless possibility of violence.

Joe Swanberg, with limited screentime and even more limited dialog, crafts a terrifying image of havoc. His presence is perversely menacing, an explosion of rage and horror. Invader delivers a spare, nasty, memorable piece of horror in just over an hour. It will stick with you a while longer. 

2. The Ugly Stepsister

Writer/director Emilie Blichfeldt infuses her feature debut with an impossible-to-ignore blast of sharp wit, subdued rage, and grotesque bodily horrors.

The Ugly Stepsister (Den stygge stesøsteren) is the latest new angle to a classic tale, but don’t expect it follow the trend of humanizing misunderstood villains. Blichfeldt makes sure there are plenty of bad guys and girls throughout this Norwegian Cinderella story, punctuated by grisly violence surprisingly close to what’s in the 17th Century French version of the fairy tale penned by Charles Perrault.

It is fierce, funny, gross and subversively defiant. But is one feature film enough to immediately put Blichfeldt on the watch list of cinema’s feminist hell raisers?

Yes. The shoe fits.

1. Sinners

Ryan Coogler reteams with longtime creative partner Michael B. Jordan to sing a song of a 1932 Mississippi juke joint. The Smoke Stack twins (Jordan) are back from Chicago, a truckload of ill-gotten liquor and a satchel full of cash along with them. They intend to open a club “for us, by us” and can hardly believe their eyes when three hillbillies come calling.

Jack O’Connell (an amazing actor in everything he’s done since Eden Lake) has a brogue and a banjo. He and his two friends would love to come on in, sing, dance, and spend some money, if only Smoke would invite them.

It’s scary. It’s sexy. The action slaps. It’s funny when it needs to be, sad just as often. It looks and sounds incredible. And there’s a cameo from Buddy F. Guy, in case you needed a little authenticity. When Ryan Coogler writes and directs a vampire movie, he gives you reason to believe there is yet new life for the old monster.

Outtakes

The Mushy Middle

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The Old Guard 2

by George Wolf

Look, it’s just science. You get a glimpse of Uma Thurman and Charlize Theron in a sword fight, you get your hopes up. I did, hopeful that The Old Guard 2 on Netflix could match – or maybe even exceed the fun of the original.

But while it is a blast to see those two bad asses in a blade battle, it’s too little too late in a sequel that gets bogged down in speeches, heavy meaningful glances, and plans for the future of this group of immortals.

It also really helps to have seen part one, or at least be familiar with the graphic novels by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández. They’re both back as co-writers, with director Victoria Mahoney taking over for Gina Prince-Bythewood. They put the now-mortal Andy (Theron) and her crew (including Kiki Layne, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Matthias Schoenaerts) on a collision course with the long-lost Quynh (Veronica Neo) – who returned at the close of part one after centuries locked in an Iron Maiden.

Andy also has a new friend, Tuah (Henry Golding) who speaks a lot about legends, lore, and the power of Discord (Uma), the original immortal who rescued Quynh as part of a nefarious plan.

This veteran cast looks a bit lost amid the bright neon palettes, plodding dialog and awkwardly choreographed fight sequences. Mahoney never really lets the fun in, returning to tired blocking and exposition dialog every time you think we’re finally gonna get cooking.

And just when you’re wondering what the point of this sequel is…you find out.

Mild spoiler ahead.

This is a just a bridge to the next chapter. And when that works in a film series, it’s because the bridge also supports its own story arc, one that leaves you satisfied while still wanting to follow these characters into the future.

The Old Guard 2 just leaves you frustrated on all counts, with nothin’ mister but boring stories of the glory days.

Outtakes

Best Films, First Half of 2025

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If the heat doesn’t get under your skin, maybe this will: 2025 is half over! What? I guess we should get those Christmas decorations down. But it has been quite a year already in terms of movies. From Ryan Coogler’s masterpiece to a grown up spy movie, incredible indie horror to revelatory documentary, awkward buddy comedies to beautiful dramas, the year already has it all. So much, in fact, that we couldn’t stop at 10!

11. Eephus

It’s mid-October in a small New Hampshire town, and rec league teams are assembling to wrap up the season at Soldiers Field. Some bellies are a bit larger, some fastballs are a bit slower, but the cracks are as wise as ever and the love of the game has never wavered. And though what bleachers there are will be nearly empty, Franny (Cliff Blake) will be keeping the scorebook as usual, and there may even be fireworks after the final out.

Because next year, local development will bulldoze the field, and these players may have to accept a future without that diamond life.

Director/co-writer (and veteran cinematographer) Carson Lund finds the emotional pull that exists in the space between an enduring game and the souls forced to let it move on without them. The ensemble cast (including legendary MLB free spirt Bill “Spaceman” Lee on hand to perfectly illustrate the titular type of pitch) is authentic and eccentric in equal measure, and anyone who has ever spent time around the ballfield will recognize these people, and the simpler way of life that may also be slipping away.

10. My Dead Friend Zoe

Filmmaker Kyle Hausmann-Stokes impresses with his feature debut, My Dead Friend Zoe. Based on his 2022 short Merit x Zoe, the film follows Army veteran Merit (Sonequa Martin-Green, Star Trek: Discovery) as she tries to overcome some post-Afghanistan trauma.

While the title and premise may sound a tad flippant, My Dead Friend Zoe turns out to be a rewarding and earnest drama. Natalie Morales delivers a boldly funny and equally vulnerable turn, and love interest Alex (Utkarsh Ambudkar) injects the film with charming, self-deprecating humor. But the levity tends to enrich the film’s truly human quality rather than distract from its underlying tensions.

9. Mickey 17

People mainly familiar with filmmaker Bong Joon Ho’s Oscar-sweeping masterpiece Parasite may not know of his remarkable skill with a SciFi creature feature. Mickey 17, then, will be an excellent primer.

Robert Pattinson is the titular Mickey. Well, he’s a bunch of Mickeys, all 17 of them. He’s a hilarious, self-deprecating charmer, a man who believes he somehow deserves his fate. Fates. Through him the filmmaker employs absurd, sometimes even slapstick humor to satirize our own current fate. Beautifully (and characteristically), all of this is in favor of the reminder that our humanity requires us to be humane.

Weaving sensibilities and ideas present in Snowpiercer, Okja, The Host as well as any number of clone movies, Mickey 17 could feel borrowed. It doesn’t. Like the best science fiction, it feels close enough to reality to be a bit nightmarish.

8. Surviving Ohio State

A searing takedown of abuse, power and heartbreaking betrayal, HBO’s Surviving Ohio State deconstructs the decades of alleged abuse of athletes by Ohio State University physician Richard Strauss. Based on the reporting of Sports Illustrated writer Jon Wertheim and directed with a patient hand by Eva Orner, the film features first-person interviews with victims that reveal the timeline of a calculating predator and shatter a pervasive myth.

Amid a backdrop of social media posts that doubt how big, strong athletes could become easy prey, the men detail just how and why they felt powerless to stop the atrocities. The only thing more heartbreaking is how the coaches they looked up to (yes, including Congressman Jim Jordan) and the university they still love refused to support them once the whispers became screams and the accusations grew too big to ignore. 

The one or two occasions where the film tries to connect dots for us are the exceptions in a measured and precise exposé. Surviving Ohio State is no joy to watch, but it’s too important to ignore.

7. Sacramento

Michael Anganaro’s instincts are sharp in Sacramento, only his second feature as writer/director after decades of acting gigs. He co-stars wth Michael Cera as two men with differing challenges facing adult life who take a weird road trip down memory lane. It’s a witty combination of finely-drawn characters, consistently boasting a dry self-awareness that earns the LOLs.

Sacramento haș plenty of fun with arrested development – Cera’s desperate phone calls to one of his old buddies are awkwardly hilarious. But the film’s heart comes from those moments when boys (and girls, too) start accepting the responsibilities of adulthood. It’s far from a new story, but these characters make it one worth revisiting.

6. Friendship

Writer/director Andrew DeYoung harnesses the essence of Tim Robinson’s socially awkward comedic stylings, attached it to Paul Rudd’s impeccable comic delivery, and crafted the most profoundly uncomfortable and endlessly watchable bromance in film.

Friendship is a bizarro-world I Love You, Man, and it is so much more than what that tantalizing trailer promises. Unpredictable, absurd, cringy, perfectly cast and that coat! How priceless is that coat?!

It’s maybe the funniest film of 2025.

5. Invader

Lean, mean and affecting, Mickey Keating’s take on the home invasion film wastes no time. In a wordless—though not soundless—opening, the filmmaker introduces an unhinged presence.

Immediately Keating sets our eyes and ears against us. His soundtrack frequently blares death metal, a tactic that emphasizes a chaotic, menacing mood the film never shakes. Using primarily handheld cameras from the unnerving opening throughout the entire film, the filmmaker maintains an anarchic energy, a sense of the characters’ frenzy and the endless possibility of violence.

Joe Swanberg, with limited screentime and even more limited dialog, crafts a terrifying image of havoc. His presence is perversely menacing, an explosion of rage and horror. Invader delivers a spare, nasty, memorable piece of horror in just over an hour. It will stick with you a while longer. 

4. Black Bag

What is more diabolical: enacting a global plan for widespread destruction, or pursuing a selfish agenda in your relationship, ready to twist the knife precisely where it hurts your partner the most?

Black Bag has a satchel full of fun weighing the two options, as director Steven Soderbergh and a crackling ensemble contrast the power plays in both love connections and spy games.

Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett (already sounds good, right?) are downright delicious as Londoners George Woodhouse and Kathryn St. Jean, master spies and devoted spouses. He’s emotionless and tidy, an expert cook, and a dogged sleuth with a hatred of dishonesty. She’s cool, calculating and seductive, with a wry sense of humor, a prescription for anxiety meds and a sudden cloud of suspicion around her.

Throw in a fine meal beforehand, and you’ve got a damn fine date night that just might put you in a pretty friendly mood when you get home.

3. The Ugly Stepsister

Writer/director Emilie Blichfeldt infuses her feature debut with an impossible-to-ignore blast of sharp wit, subdued rage, and grotesque bodily horrors.

The Ugly Stepsister (Den stygge stesøsteren) is the latest new angle to a classic tale, but don’t expect it follow the trend of humanizing misunderstood villains. Blichfeldt makes sure there are plenty of bad guys and girls throughout this Norwegian Cinderella story, punctuated by grisly violence surprisingly close to what’s in the 17th Century French version of the fairy tale penned by Charles Perrault.

It is fierce, funny, gross and subversively defiant. But is one feature film enough to immediately put Blichfeldt on the watch list of cinema’s feminist hell raisers?

Yes. The shoe fits.

2. Pee-wee as Himself

If there’s one thing Matt Wolf’s 2-part documentary Pee-wee as Himself does, it reminds you what a cultural phenomenon Pee-wee Herman was in the 80s. Movies to TV to MTV to toys to talk shows, he was everywhere and he was beloved by children, college kids, and adults alike.

Charmingly acerbic but often candid, Paul Reubens is openly reluctant to hand over control of his image after so many years of calculating every detail of his public life. Part of what makes the film so electric is how early and often the two butt heads over which of them ought to be in control of the documentary. This conflict itself paints a portrait of the artist more authentic than any amount of historical data ever could.

1. Sinners

Ryan Coogler reteams with longtime creative partner Michael B. Jordan to sing a song of a 1932 Mississippi juke joint. The Smoke Stack twins (Jordan) are back from Chicago, a truckload of ill-gotten liquor and a satchel full of cash along with them. They intend to open a club “for us, by us” and can hardly believe their eyes when three hillbillies come calling.

Jack O’Connell (an amazing actor in everything he’s done since Eden Lake) has a brogue and a banjo. He and his two friends would love to come on in, sing, dance, and spend some money, if only Smoke would invite them.

It’s scary. It’s sexy. The action slaps. It’s funny when it needs to be, sad just as often. It looks and sounds incredible. And there’s a cameo from Buddy F. Guy, in case you needed a little authenticity. When Ryan Coogler writes and directs a vampire movie, he gives you reason to believe there is yet new life for the old monster.

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Formula Won

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F1: The Movie

by George Wolf

With Top Gun: Maverick, director Joseph Kosinski understood the assignment better than any director in recent years. Talent, swagger, airborne thrills and pinpoint vibe control made that film better than we could have imagined.

Now Kosinski brings a very similar blueprint to F1: The Movie, right down to that punctuation in the title.

Brad Pitt effortlessly assumes the role of a rogue mentor flying by his own rules, this time on the racetrack. Thirty years ago, Sonny Hayes (Pitt) had a promising career as a Grand Prix driver. A nasty crash derailed that, sending him to decades of minor league racing, professional gambling and even some cab driving.

But now, Sonny is the Hail Mary called by his old racing partner. Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) is a desperate team owner with a cocky young driver named Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) and a losing streak about to bring the whole thing down.

If Sonny’s “maverick” approach to driving can somehow get Ruben one win before the season ends, he can save the whole APX team.

Can Sonny be the Crash Davis to Joshua’s Nuke LaLoosh? Is he up for taking one more shot at glory and maybe some sexy time with APX tech director Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon)?

It doesn’t matter if you already know, just like it doesn’t matter that much of the dialog is cheesy, many reaction shots deliver sitcom-worthy mugging and the TV commentators narrate straight from “Racing for Dummies.”

Pitt, Bardem, Condon and Idris might as well be winking through it all. They’re clearly having a ball, and elevate material that – like Maverick -would have been insufferable in lesser hands. F1 may not have nostalgia in its cockpit, but the swagger and the vibe are too fun to resist, while Kosinski (also a co-writer this time) delivers the pinpoint control.

Filmed for IMAX, F1‘s racing sequences are as thrilling on the track as Top Gun is in the air. The camerawork and pacing, the editing and some rockin’ needle drops keep the adrenaline pumping, and even that two and a half hour run time doesn’t feel as bloated as it probably should.

F1: The Movie won’t keep you guessing. And it won’t challenge your brain. But that isn’t the mission of this race team. The goal here is (really) big screen entertainment, movie star glamour, plenty of speed-fueled visceral thrills and maybe even a fist pump or two.

Ground control to victory lane: get the champagne ready.

Fright Club

Fright Club: Horrific Families

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The family that slays together stays together, isn’t that what they say? That was certainly a lot of the fun in Ready or Not, You’re Next, Frightmare and more. But what are the best examples of horrific families working together in horror movies? Brandon Thomas joins George with the full list!

5. The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

Wes Craven’s original Hills – cheaply made and poorly acted – is a surprisingly memorable, and even more surprisingly alarming flick. Craven’s early career is marked by a contempt for both characters and audience, and his first two horror films ignored taboos, mistreating everyone on screen and in the theater. In the style of Deliverance meets Mad Max, Hills was an exercise in pushing the envelope, and it owes what lasting popularity it has to its shocking violence and Michael Berryman’s nightmarish mug.

The Hills Have Eyes is not for the squeamish. People are raped, burned alive, eaten alive, eaten dead, and generally ill-treated.

In fact, Craven’s greatest triumph is in creating tension via a plot device so unreasonably gruesome no audience would believe a film could go through with it. The freaks kidnap a baby with plans to eat her. But by systematically crushing taboo after taboo, the unthinkable becomes plausible, and the audience grows to fear that the baby will actually be eaten. It’s not the kind of accomplishment you’d want to share with your mom, but in terms of genre control, it is pretty good.

4. Frailty (2001)

Director Paxton stars as a widowed country dad awakened one night with an epiphany. He understands now that he and his sons have been called by God to kill demons.

Frailty manages to subvert every horror film expectation by playing right into them.

Brent Hanley’s sly screenplay evokes such nostalgic familiarity – down to a Dukes of Hazzard reference – and Paxton’s direction makes you feel entirely comfortable in these common surroundings. Then the two of them upend everything – repeatedly – until it’s as if they’ve challenged your expectations, biases, and your own childhood to boot.

Paxton crafts a morbidly compelling tale free from irony, sarcasm, or judgment and full of darkly sympathetic characters. It’s a surprisingly strong feature directorial debut from a guy who once played a giant talking turd.

3. Where the Devil Roams (2023)

There is macabre beauty in every frame of Where the Devil Roams, the latest offbeat horror from the Adams family. The film was co-directed and co-written by its three lead actors – Toby Poser, John Adams and Zelda Adams – who are also a family. ike their earlier efforts, Where the Devil Roams concerns itself with life on the fringes, rock music, and the family dynamic.

The ensemble convinces, particularly the sideshow performers, but the film’s most enduring charm is its vintage portrait look. It’s a gorgeous movie, the filmmakers creating the beautifully seedy atmosphere ideal to the era and setting.

Where the Devil Roams feels expansive and open, but like anything else in the sideshow, that’s all trickery. There’s more happening in this film than they let on, which is why the final act feels simultaneously “a ha!” and “WTF?!” You won’t see it coming, but in retrospect, it was there all along.

2. We Are What We Are (2010)

Give writer/director Jorge Michel Grau credit, he took a fresh approach to the cannibalism film. In a quiet opening sequence, a man dies in a mall. It happens that this is a family patriarch and his passing leaves the desperately poor family in shambles. While their particular quandary veers spectacularly from expectations, there is something primal and authentic about it.

It’s as if a simple relic from a hunter-gatherer population evolved separately but within the larger urban population, and now this little tribe is left without a leader. An internal power struggle begins to determine the member most suited to take over as the head of the household, and therefore, there is some conflict and competition – however reluctant – over who will handle the principal task of the patriarch: that of putting meat on the table.

The family dynamic is fascinating, every glance weighted and meaningful, every closed door significant. Grau draws eerie, powerful performances across the board, and forever veers in unexpected directions.

1. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

It is around the dinner table that a guest gets to see the true family dynamics. Sally Hardesty’s getting a good look. Like a really close up, veiny eyed look.

The family meal is the scene that grounds Tobe Hooper’s 1974 masterpiece. Suddenly it’s a family with a lived-in vibe and a backstory. And another person’s face. And a metal basin and a nearly mummified old man.

We’ve met the brothersk. Edwin Neal’s already had his chance to nab the spotlight in the van, and of course Gunnar Hansen’s the star of the show. But at the table, the cook, Jim Siedow, gets to dig in and create an unforgettable character.

Outtakes

Mommy Can You Hear Me?

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Echo Valley

by George Wolf

The barn roof at the Echo Valley horse ranch is bad. Like $9,000 bad. And when Kate (Julianne Moore) makes the trip to her ex-husband Richard’s (Kyle MacLachlan) office for some financial help, we get some nicely organic character development.

In those few important minutes, director Michael Pearce and writer Brad Ingelsby let us know Kate and Richard’s daughter Claire may have some serious issues, and that Kate may be enabling her.

From there, we can guess that Claire (Sydney Sweeney) will be showing up soon.

She does, and says she’s clean. She just needs for Mom to buy her another new phone while she breaks away from her boyfriend Ryan (Edmund Donovan). But of course Ryan shows up, followed by their dealer Jackie (Domhnall Gleeson – a nicely subtle brand of menacing), and it isn’t long before a frantic Claire comes home wearing someone else’s blood.

The somewhat pulpy, kinda noir-ish pieces aren’t exactly new, but Pearce (Beast) and the terrific ensemble always find frayed edges that keep you invested. We’re set up to pull for the put-upon Kate, then continually given reasons to doubt that very support.

Does Kate’s aversion to tough love make her an easy mark? Maybe, but maybe Kate’s smarter than anyone expects. Especially Jackie.

Pearce keeps the pace sufficiently taut and supplies some hypnotic shots of a countryside that comes to play an important part in the mystery – as does modern tech. Instead of copping out with a 90s timestamp, Echo Valley leans into the texts and tracking. True, the resolve might not be water tight digitally, but the timeliness gives the tension some relatable urgency.

It’s also refreshing to find a streaming release that doesn’t continually cater to lapsed attention spans. From that opening meeting in Richard’s office, Echo Valley assumes you’re settled in for the ride, all the way through a rewarding deconstruction of events and a final shot that cements what the film was getting at all along.

New In Theaters

Thanks for the Memories

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The Life of Chuck

by George Wolf

Near the end of The Life of Chuck, a character enters a room and is careful to test the floor as he steps in. Organic dialog earlier in the film has let us know why he’s doing this, so no voiceover narration explaining the action is necessary.

This moment stands out, because it’s one of the few where viewers are given space to think for themselves.

This is a film that is impressively crafted, with an immensely likable cast and a broad, generically inspiring message that many people will be quick to embrace. Writer/director Mike Flanagan adapts the Stephen King novella with such earnest polish that the film can leave you feeling guilty for not liking it – and I didn’t.

Flanagan, who has already done stellar King adaptations (Doctor Sleep, Gerald’s Game) and whose own great work (Midnight Mass, The Haunting of Hill House) can have a distinct King feel, keeps the story’s reverse chronology intact.

In chapter one, teacher Marty Anderson (Chiwtel Ejiofor) and his ex-wife Felicia (Karen Gillan) try to make sense of repeated ads thanking Charles Krantz for “39 great years!” as the world seems to be ending.

From there, we see how the buttoned-up accountant “Chuck” Krantz (Tom Hiddleston) learned to rediscover his love of dancing.

And finally, we go back to two different periods in the life of young Chuck (Benjamin Pajek and later, Jacob Tremblay), as he’s raised by his caring grandparents (Mark Hamill and Mia Sara) to find joy in dance and fear of the cupola upstairs.

It’s wonderful to see Sara back in a feature for the first time in 14 years, and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear Oscar talk for Hamill. The film is often warm hearted and lovely, but the familiarity of the cosmic profundities and the constant narration from Nick Offerman reduces its overall effect to that of a pop-up audiobook.

Causes, effects and motivations are provided at nearly turn, diluting potential magic down to mundane and undercutting the power of the film’s eventual sleight-of-hand reveal.

It’s a twist you may see coming, you may not. But you will understand the surface deep lesson being sold. The Life of Chuck leaves no room for nuance or interpretation, just take your dose of bland inspiration and move on.

So yeah, thanks Chuck. I guess.