FILM: Silent Night, Deadly Night (2025) (dir: Mike P. Nelson, 2025)

"This...I did not expect."

This unexpected remake of the lurid and at-the-time controversial 1984 slasher takes its core ideas and offers something that is a bit different and surprisingly interesting.  It follows the story of Billy (Rohan Campbell, Corey from the divisive Halloween Ends), traumatised by witnessing the murder of his parents as a child and as an adult donning the Santa suit to mete out deadly vengeance on any wrong-doers, guided by an inner voice Venom-style.  Director/writer Mike P. Nelson obviously wants to give the material a more serious tone than the basic formula slasher original, as he did with his 2021 reboot of Wrong Turn, and his fusion of 80s cinematic stylings and more contemporary psychological shading makes it interesting to follow - the infamous 'antlers' moment makes an appearance, the original's shock schlock value here grounded in something more well-embedded and justified.  Rohan Campbell clearly has the tortured/haunted characterisation pinned down, but here he gives a notably well-thought-out performance that elevates Billy beyond a one-note serial killer and makes his journey and inner justifications more engaging and even sympathetic as a result.  Also of note is Ruby Modine as Pam, dealing with her own significant issues and traumas as his (rather quick) love interest in a sparky and well-balanced turn.  In adding depth and complexity to the simple slasher concept, the film can feel a little overstuffed with its fleeting hits at exploitation in the fostering system and the extreme right alongside elements of child kidnapping and spousal murder, but these are all there to service the overarching theme of everybody having hidden secrets and what lies beneath the surface (of individuals and of the town).  The film inevitably has moments of violence, and the Terrifier-squelch factor increases significantly in the final act.  Whilst far from perfect or indeed significant, this 2025 take on its minor slasher source material has a surprising amount to offer, it is rather well made and it is a lot more interesting than would be expected.

VOD: Troll 2 (dir: Roar Uthaug, 2025)

"You don't know what criticism is until you've been roasted by 12-year-olds on TikTok!"

Now-reclusive palaeontologist Nora (Ine Marie Wilmann) and her team from the first film (with a couple of perfunctory new additions) are re-assembled in this 'go bigger, go dafter' sequel to the 2022 Norwegian Netflix surprisingly-fun fantasy/disaster-movie hit, as Nora inadvertently awakens a hibernating 'MegaTroll' discovered in a top-secret research facility, and when the UV safety system fails, the giant goes on the rampage to wreak vengeance for man's treatment of his kind many years ago.  Once again, there is real ambition evident on screen, the location work looks spectacular, sound design is impressive and detailed, and the serious approach taken gives the mythology some real-world weight (although this time the tongue-in-cheek humour is more evident).  The early ski-resort attack is terrific, but the trolls' face-offs feel rather brief.  It may be at its heart a slightly bigger re-tread of the original with a bit of Dan Brown thrown into the mix, but Troll 2 has just enough warmth, charm, whimsy and well-staged action (and a fun running gag from the first movie) to see it through as a rather messy but still entertaining ride.

VOD: The Roses (dir: Jay Roach, 2025)

"I love this fun banter you guys do!"

This re-imagined update of The War Of The Roses mines its unabashed dark comedy from the get-go with a laugh-out-loud marriage counselling session with chef Ivy (Olivia Colman) and architect Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch), before circling back to trace how their relationship/marriage changed and gradually fell apart, peaking with an excruciating dinner party with their awful friends.  With solid rapid-fire dialogue and two superb actors in the lead roles, Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch are both at their extraordinary dry comedic best and use their razor-sharp dramatic skills with aplomb.   There is a strong supporting cast, notably Andy Samberg and the fantastic Alison Janney, who almost steals the film in one impeccably-delivered scene.  The script is slick, efficient and unshowily honest, built to deliver consistently with wit, deft humour and a piercing dramatic undercurrent, making The Roses very good, mature fun to watch. 

 

VOD: Jingle Bell Heist (dir: Michael Fimognari, 2025)

"Have you ever been to a mass gathering of Shreks?"
 

In this restrained but sincere and warm-hearted British Christmas movie, downtrodden department store worker Sophia (Olivia Holt) and IT security guy Nick (Connor Swindells) cross paths and plan to steal half-a-million pounds from her despicable boss's office safe on Christmas Eve, using her practical magician/thievery skills and his hi-tech savvy.  This unashamed mix of reluctant rom-com, heist caper and (incidental?) Christmas movie is more drama than comedy with its low-key low-budget stylings, making its protagonists more grounded and easier to root for than most festive offerings, aided by the addition of Sophia's sickly mother and Nick's cute young daughter.  The two likeable leads spark off each other well, with Connor Swindells in particular giving a very sympathetic performance.  Jingle Bell Heist may have a sombre streak akin to the feel of Last Christmas, but with its 60s genre-inflected music, engaging leads and well-used festive London settings, this is a gentle but actually rather sweet film.

VOD: Clown In A Cornfield (dir: Eli Craig, 2025)

"We're all going to be headless teenagers...without heads!"

Starting off in 1991 in classic slasher-movie style with a party of somewhat old-looking youths drinking, smoking weed and having sex that ends in inevitable tragedy in the nowhere America small town of Kettle Springs, the action then jumps forward to present day as new-girl-in-town Quinn and her classmates (the usual mix of unashamed stereotypes) face local legend Frendo the clown as he comes to life and starts picking them off in grisly efficient Final Destination-style ways.  Performed and delivered with a confident energy (from the director of 2010's criminally underrated Tucker and Dale vs Evil), the film takes the well-worn slasher genre and offers a pure and very effective piece of entertainment for its fans.  The mid-point twist (signposted earlier in the film if you pay attention) offers a great reveal and changes the trajectory of the film to good effect.  Clown In A Cornfield is no meta-self-aware-almost-parody horror, as the filmmakers show they know their genre and their audience and simply deliver in a very entertaining manner.
 

VOD: In Your Dreams (dir: Alexander Woo, 2025)

"Maybe they're trying to tell me something...or maybe it's just a dream."

This Netflix children's animation finds young Stevie  trying to support her parents' fracturing marriage and her lively younger brother Elliot, who discovers a magical book at a local antiquities store about The Sandman and making dreams come true, which sets them off on a wild quest of discovery, adventure and imagination to find him in their (shared|) dreams and nightmares.  The film is a colourful, madcap, free-flowing series of ideas that flits between dreamworld and (occasionally) real world and plays like an e-numbers-fuelled fever fantasy.  The sheer weight of the number of visual ideas and their rapid-fire delivery becomes exhausting quickly, all confusingly juxtaposed with the very real trauma of childhood parental separation anxiety, and by the end it seems like an awful lot of bluster for its basic 'life isn't perfect' messaging.  A short mid-end-credits sequence sends up the whole premise in (literally) throwaway fashion.
 

VOD: OH. WHAT. FUN. (dir: Jay Roach, 2025)

"Come to think of it, where are the holiday films about moms?  I can name a dozen about men, easy."

With its agenda to focus on the female characters set out very clearly at the start, MGM/Amazon's big 2025 festive offering presents Michelle Pfeiffer as a 'holiday hero' suburban mum, Claire, doing everything she can to make Christmas special for her unappreciative family, but as they unknowingly leave her behind Home Alone-style when setting off to a Christmas Eve dance show (for which she had bought the tickets), Claire sets off on her own mini-adventure and inadvertently becomes a TV star of the moment.  Most of the story ideas feel played out by the mid-point, and Claire's solo adventure feels flimsy and underdeveloped at best, with her appearance on her TV heroine's lifestyle show contrived and somewhat desperate.  The supposed comedy set-ups offer very slim pickings, a highlight being son Sammy's awful emo-styled rendition of a well-known Christmas song, and the over-familiar domestic/family/Christmas dramas are played out through rather worn tick-box character types (although as Claire's grown-up children, Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz and Dominic Senna do turn in solid performances).  With its declared intention to focus on its female characters, the male characters are largely feckless, underwritten and barely register, and the film is resolutely white-upper-middle-class (with brief stereotypical appearances from a 'perfect' neighbouring Asian family and a sassy young black delivery driver whose appearance in the story serves unclear purpose).  It is a rather one-note movie that grinds along to demonstrate its unsurprising central message, saved by Pfeiffer's professional and always-watchable performance, but it is rather low-powered and offers little festive cheer.

VOD: Continental Split (dir: Nick Lyon, 2025)

"I'm a geologist!  That's why I'm here!"

The Asylum's latest mockbuster disaster movie follows a very familiar template of big stakes on a micro-budget, questionable performances, and lots of angsty dialogue interspersed with a small number of boldly-attempted FX shots.   It wastes no time getting down to business as an unclear mix of global warming/fracking causes earthquakes, sink holes and fault lines that impact on a very small number of barely-introduced characters in a curiously under-populated scenario.  The infrequent effects work is ambitious but variable in quality, but there is some attempt to create a sense of cinematic size, and there is an obvious mis-match between the sheer scale of the implied events and the tiny number of people involved on screen.  All the technobabble dialogue is spat out at one monotonous level in order to create a sense of urgency but offers little engagement.  At a couple of points, even the characters her acknowledge that their interpersonal relationships/drama are out of place in the situations presented.  Continental Split promises much but fails to deliver sufficiently.

 

VOD: Death Of A Unicorn (dir: Alex Scharfman, 2025)

"I don't think I should be in swim shorts for this moment!"

Disconnected widowed father Elliot and daughter Ridley (Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega) are en route to the rural retreat of his billionaire dying boss (with gauche wife and feckless son) with a view to a big job promotion, when they accidentally run into and seemingly kill a unicorn (as one does), but the magically regenerative creature offers a possible medical solution for the sickly magnate (and his company) but with unexpectedly deadly consequences.  The bottle situation is very firmly established and used purposefully as the players find themselves under siege, and the tone straddles comedy and fantasy horror/thriller, never quite achieving either and wandering waywardly between the two genres, in a manner reminiscent of 2015's Krampus.  Rudd and Ortega commit well to the ridiculous scenario, although neither of their characters offers the actors much of a stretch from their familiar personae, with a strong and quirky supporting cast (Richard E. Grant, Tea Leoni, Jessica Hynes and the surprisingly-comedically-gifted Will Poulter) clearly enjoying the ride.  The first act shows promise but drags a little, but then by taking its daft premise seriously the film is allowed to revel entertainingly in its silliness which - whilst not entirely successful - offers slight fun.
 

VOD: Train Dreams (dir: Clint Bentley, 2025)

"This world is intricately stitched together, boys.  Every thread we pull, we know not how it affects the design of things."

The American frontier in the early years of the twentieth century provides the setting for this earthy and contemplative historical drama/meditation, as it tells the life story of an ordinary logger and railroad worker, Grainier, as he works hard to build and maintain his family and to survive the harsh conditions of the era.  The opening shots set the scene of the powerful, still beauty of nature juxtaposed with man's incursion, with the men working hard and a reflection on life in its immediate and universal scopes, all of which runs through this quiet, thoughtful and powerful film.  The gentle narration offers poignant humour and preceptive observations of people and the environment, with the film capturing the importance and beautiful simplicity of the simple, the mundane and an awareness of the natural world around us, with Grainier's idyllic self-built lakeshore home and his wife and child at the centre of everything in his life and a mid-point disaster testing the man to his limits.  Joel Edgerton gives a wonderfully grizzled and understated strength throughout in his powerful performance, with Felicity Jones as his wife showing genuine warmth and stoicism.  Timeless themes of permanence and loss, regeneration and the power of love are woven through this captivating tale, with beautiful camerawork, composition, editing and music, making Train Dreams a steady, gorgeous and profoundly moving piece of work.

 

VOD: I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) (dir: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, 2025)

"Now it feels like 1997 all over again. Isn't that nostalgic?"
"Nostalgia's over-rated."

This glossy but hollow legacy revisit to 1997's hit thriller cleaves more towards a thousand modern-day teen streaming shows than the more overtly horror-inflected original, with another oilskinned and behooked killer out for vengeance on a group of well-heeled friends one year after they inadvertently cause a fatal cliff road accident that is remarkably similar to the tragedy that happened twenty-five years previously.  Hitting many familiar beats and visual set-ups from the original, this film perhaps lacks the frisson of 1997's red-hot pop zeitgeist cast with its lesser and more workmanlike pretty-but-low-impact gang (with perhaps Tyriq Withers giving the standout spirited performance as spiralling alcoholic Teddy) and the eye-rolling contemporary introduction of a podcaster to tie the events to the wave of killings nearly three decades previously, written and made by a generation brought up on the Scream movies.  Very-well-preserved legacy cast survivors turn up to kick off act two and are integrated well into the remaining storyline.  It has some well-executed kills, and the film looks good but generally lacks spark and energy, although it is clearly a notch above Amazon's weak 2021 TV series.   Wait for the mid-end-credits scene for a bonus legacy surprise and optimistic further-sequel-baiting.

 

VOD: Hedda (dir: Nia DaCosta, 2025)

"If I've unwittingly resigned myself to a life of poverty, I might as well go down in style."

MGM/Amazon presents director/writer Nia DaCosta's re-imagining of Ibsen's classic play Hedda Gabler, which relocates the tale of a frustrated woman's desires and aspirations to a 1950s country pile, taking place over over one fateful night (and its aftermath) at a lavish party designed to secure Hedda's husband's academic promotion over a more lively rival.  Tessa Thompson shines in the lead role with a disdainfully manipulative and coolly-controlled performance, with excellent and quietly-nuanced support from Tom Bateman as her husband George, Imogen Poots as her awkward lovelorn friend Thea, and Nina Hoss giving a swaggeringly imperious turn as George's rival Eileen.  At times, its mix of theatrical, cinematic and naturalistic stylings is jerkily obvious, and Ibsen's destructively chilly bleakness is replaced more by a feeling of shallow ennui, but on its own terms Hedda is an interesting but not entirely successful take on the familiar source material.
 

VOD: Playdate (dir: Luke Greenfield, 2025)

"...and he said there's a tree in his backyard that looks just like Mark Ruffalo!"

MGM/Amazon presents this big daft action comedy in which two binary opposite dads (think Daddy's Home) - put-upon Brian (Kevin James) and powerhouse Jeff (Alan Ritchson) - are thrown together through their son's fast friendship and find themselves on the run from just about everyone including a shady organisation from Jeff's past.  The collision of the action-thriller genre with suburbia  proves fruitful, and the occasional subversion of genre tropes is fun.  It feels episodic with some good set-ups, including a nicely-delivered sequence in which the boys get pumped up on energy drinks and terrorise passers-by.  Kevin James downplays his usual schtick to good comedic and sympathetic effect, but the main saving grace of this whole enterprise is Reacher's Alan Ritchson, who demonstrates a laid-back comedic ease and excellent comedic timing that is consistently very funny, especially in his dour delivery of unexpected comeback lines.  Whilst loosely pondering the themes of fatherhood and family, the film wears a little thin by the halfway mark, but if you are in the mood for weapons-grade silliness, Playdate will prove to be chucklesome fun, otherwise it will come across as disposable nonsense.
 

VOD: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie (dir: Jessica Yu, 2025)

"We are three extremely exhausted dads in our thirties.  How epic could this be?"

Disney+ kicks off their 2025 festive season with this very strange movie that is clearly designed as a gift for the Jonas Brothers' young and devoted fans.  It starts at the end of a long tour at their gig in London (and a cameo from Will Ferrell as an uber-fan) and finds the brothers tired and their differences surfacing, until a magical intervention by 'Santa'  leaves them stranded when their private plane explodes, and trying to get home for the holidays sets them on an improbable trip that takes in Amsterdam and Germany in an attempt to heal the brothers' relationship.  The film trades on the brothers' clearly tight and professional bonhomie and their slickly pleasant throwaway pop stylings, following a familiar semi-musical-film format with a few largely-forgettable songs music-video-style linking some very weird scenarios,  Trapped awkwardly between an examination of the pop/entertainment industry machine, their sibling relationship and a deconstruction of the Christmas movie genre whilst simultaneously trying to deliver a feel-good festive offering (and even KJ Apa pops in to take off his shirt and crash an aeroplane) all makes for a very bizarre and inconsistent mix that makes it hard to comprehend what you have just been watching for a brief eighty minutes.
 

VOD: Frankenstein (2025) (dir: Guillermo del Toro, 2025)

"With a simple step, I entered a different world."

Another of Guillermo del Toro's long-gestating projects finally reaches the screen, and this ambitious take on Mary Shelley's classic novel is both striking and very satisfying.  After a lively and very engaging Prelude, Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) then recounts the events that led to the final tragedy, followed by The Creature's story.  This take on The Creature (Jacob Elordi) shows him as agile and fearsomely strong, with Frankenstein driven but maniacally haunted by what he ultimately has created, the product of privilege and a cruel father (which plays into the Frankenstein/Creature relationship to very good effect).  As a del Toro film, it is of course visually creative and stunningly beautiful right from the start, with a gorgeously elegant Alexandre Desplat score that creates a rich and sumptuous experience both as a period piece and as a sci-fi/horror epic.  The language of del Toro's script is absorbing, Oscar Isaac is great as Frankenstein, Christoph Waltz is strong as his patron, Mia Goth makes Frankenstein's sister-in-law aloofly interesting, and Jacob Elordi fuses the contemporary and classic to strong effect as |The Creature, navigating its brutality and sensitivity very well indeed.  It all leads to a different and unexpected ending that is fitting and devastatingly beautiful.  This is a fine film, and it shows that now is perhaps the time for Netflix to let del Toro have the resources to realise his cherished H.P. Lovecraft project.

 

VOD: Ballad Of A Small Player (dir: Edward Berger, 2025)

"All I need is one big win, Kai, and they'll be throwing limousines at me!"

Colin Farrell takes centre stage as Lord Doyle, a compulsive gambler in Macau with real money problems, a three-day deadline to pay his considerable hotel debts and being pursued by a curious P.I. (Tilda Swinton) to fulfil his UK debts.  Macau is presented as a gorgeously-shot vision of bright and sharp neon juxtaposed with the ancient and tradition in a fascinating fusion, an intoxicating place of anonymity and reinvention.  Farrell is utterly compelling in this bravura character performance, guiding the viewer through his madcap life of mayhem, compulsion and even deeper secrets and a possible shot at redemption, from the relentless brutal close-ups to the already-infamous gluttony scene.  With strong supporting character work from Tilda Swinton and Alex Jennings, Ballad Of A Small Player is an intriguing, exquisite and beautiful film to experience.
 

VOD: A Merry Little Ex-Mas (dir: Steve Carr, 2025)

"Seriously, it's like he grew up in a Yankee Candle!"

Netflix's opening salvo for the 2025 festive family film season follows two divorcing parents (the reliable Alicia Silverstone and Oliver Hudson) as they try to deliver one last family Christmas in snowy Vermont with their grown-up children and new partners.  The film boasts proper picture-postcard snowy small-town scenery, with every setting drenched in as many Christmas lights and decoration as possible.  The film takes a knowing swipe at so-called friendly uncouplings but is also somewhat twee, yet it offers plenty of idiosyncratic characters and comedy of awkward embarrassment.  Silverstone strides through the film with her usual sheer professional force, with the rest of the cast chipping in valiantly.  With a reasonable number of good jokes and set-ups amongst the general seasonal nonsense, A Merry Little Ex-Mas is mildly entertaining seasonal fare.

 

VOD: M3GAN 2.0 (dir: Gerard Johnstone, 2025)

"We don't know how ugly these things are until it is too late."

This messy sequel to the disposable but fun 2023 hit finds aunt Gemma as an AI regulation crusader, sassy young Cady still haunted by the events of the first film and a new rogue killer military robot A.M.E.L.I.A. on the loose, necessitating the rebuilding of a vengeful and upgraded M3GAN to take it down.  In deliberately trying to broaden audience appeal owing to the zeitgeist popularity of the titular character, the violence is largely muted and tepid, disposable characters feel underdeveloped and there is plenty of self-important padding in some unnecessarily long scene.  The first act is largely an odd attempt at being a talky cyber-thriller, the second act is a convoluted introduction of a hidden and even bigger threat alongside the rebuilding of M3GAN, before the film finally evolves into a couple of sub-Mission: Impossible infiltration exercises with surprisingly little interaction between the two starring robots.  With a lacklustre script and lacking the simplicity and knowing cheesiness of the original film, M3GAN 2.0 fails to deliver on both fun and thrills and is largely disappointingly dull.
 

VOD: The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (dir: Michelle Garza Cervera, 2025)

"You think if you try hard enough, you can stop bad things from happening, but you can't.  Nobody can."

This dreary 2025 're-imagining' of a crowd-favourite 90s schlocker seems to be aiming for a more glossy and sophisticated take on the material and falls short of the mark, as it re-tells the story of a young woman (Polly, played by Maika Monroe) who inveigles her way into the home of under-pressure career woman Caitlin (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) as an indispensable home-help/babysitter and manipulates them to her own destructive ends.  Here, the film wastes no time in laying out Polly's deep-rooted problems and malicious intentions from the outset with a complete lack of subtlety.  It feels very one-note, not helped by a constantly whining soundtrack/soundscape that irritates quickly.  Maika Monroe and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are both very strong actresses, but here their range feels mostly (and disappointingly) blunted.  A couple of quite gory deaths seem jarring fail to lift the generally dour approach taken this time.
 

VOD: A House Of Dynamite (dir: Kathryn Bigelow, 2025)

"Give me a shoutout if the world's gonna end!"

The high-concept premise of Kathryn Bigelow's excellent directorial return with Netflix's A House Of Dynamite finds America targeted by an ICBM of unknown origin and follows the responses of the different levels of command, replaying the same tense time frame via differing perspectives from the Alaskan tracking station that first picks up the incoming threat right up to The White House in more-or-less real time.  The high-powered and very capable ensemble cast is a treat to watch in action, notably the magnificent Rebecca Ferguson, Idris Elba (as POTUS) and Jared Harris, and the range of character reactions to the rapidly-developing scenario (ranging from the efficient to emotional to hard-bitten) makes for absorbing viewing and enables the viewer to find their own point of identification.  Bigelow's signature style of naturalistic dialogue delivery and kinetic camerawork are major strengths of the movie, giving it an immediacy and alarming credibility that that is very engaging indeed, with a relentless sense of at-times unbearable tension that is amplified by the seeming real-world plausibility that plays well against the current backdrop of global security uncertainty.   

The notorious ending of the movie may be divisive but it is deliberately challenging and thought-provoking, and in many ways this film fits comfortably amongst other flashy Netflix contemporary political thrillers, but A House Of Dynamite has great writing, a powerhouse cast that delivers, and it is superbly executed with real impact.

 

VOD: The Ballad Of Wallis Island (dir: James Griffiths, 2025)

"You don't love me.  You love the past."

A reclusive and socially-awkward lotter winner hires his favourite folk-music duo to perform on his remote island, but reuniting the former couple reveals insecurities and old wounds re-open in this delightfully sharp, very warm-hearted, joyous and genuinely funny movie.  Its gentle whimsy plays beautifully alongside its heartfelt humanity, with a consistently snappy, well-written and entertaining script, which mines the fine detail of the characters and their relationship(s) extremely well.  Carey Mulligan is fragile and charming, and Tim Key delights as the well-meaning and frequently inappropriate host who is the perfect foil for the talented Tom Basden as the bewildered and committed musician dropped into this bizarre situation, their odd-couple relationship being great fun to watch, as is the difficult and sometimes abrasive relationship between the former singing partners.   The acoustic performances by Basden and Mulligan are rather lovely and authentic, and as a testament to love, creativity and savouring the good times, The Ballad Of Wallis Island is simply an utter joy to watch.
 

VOD: Sinners (dir: Ryan Coogler, 2025)

"You keep dancing with The Devil, one day he's gonna follow you home."

Ryan Coogler reunites with Michael B. Jordan in this period piece set in the fiercely-religious Bible Belt, where griots - African musicians who can bridge the human and spirit worlds - can conjure up spirits past and present and attract both good and evil in this stylish and interesting mystery-thriller that was unexpectedly big at the box-office.  Taking in a heady mix of culture, race, magic, religion, sex and good vs evil, it is a powerful concoction of ideas that challenges and plays with the audience.  It is shot beautifully and luxuriates in its period recreations (notably settings and music), but the shooting style and occasional clever fusion of old/new times infuse the film with a fresh, modern feel.  The formidably talented Michael B. Jordan naturally excels in the dual lead roles of twins Smoke and Stack, who battle against the odds and open an ill-fated blues club, with a very strong supporting cast of richly-drwan characters and strong performers, including a very neat character performance by a near-unrecognisable Jack O'Connell.  Sinners is an impressive  and very entertaining film to experience, even if it plays somwhat like an elevated-horror version of From Dusk Till Dawn.  Note the mid-credits and end-of-credits scenes.

 

VOD: V/H/S/Halloween (dirs: Bryan M. Ferguson, Casper Kelly, R.H.Norman, Alex Ross Perry, Micheline Pitt, Paco Plaza and Anna Zlokovic, 2025)

"Happy Halloween, kids!"

The V/H/S/ franchise, under the aegis of streamer Shudder, gets cranked up once again for another motley anthology of lo-fi tales, this time finally getting round to a collection based around the theme of Halloween.  Cue trick-or-treating going horribly wrong, deadly new soft-drink trials, a police procedural investigation of a murderous Halloween party seance, a very unusual bowl of  candy, a town suffering a spate of child murders and a neighbourhood House Of Horrors that turns all too real.  As is often the case with these packages, the short films vary from the silly/cheesy to the rather unpleasant, the relentless use of shaky-cam and The Blair Witch Project tropes are patience-testing and there is a lot of running around dark corridors screaming, but this is one of the more coherent, consistent and reasonably watchable collections in the V/H/S/ series.
 

VOD: Screamboat (dir: Steven LaMorte, 2025)

"Everything gets recycled, over and over again...to save money!"

New York's Staten Island Ferry provides the backdrop for this limp comedy-horror - part of the trend of scarifying newly-out-of-copyright children's  characters in cheap-as-chips horrors - in which a 'large killer mouse' takes the place of the standard masked killer and picks off crew and random night-travellers, including a group of obnoxious princesses celebrating a birthday night out amongst other broadly-drawn stereotypes.  Apart from some nice shots of the city at night, the film follows well-worn 1980s slasher conventions quite slavishly in a lethargic manner, right down to its simple gloopy physical effects and synth-orchestral soundtrack.  Indeed, the kills are basic, relying on copious blood-spatter for effect, although one bravura scene dispenses with most of the supporting cast in one fell swoop, and the attempts at comedy mostly fail to land.  Even with David Howard Thornton - Art The Clown himself - playing Screamboat Willie, the character/physical work is much less effective here than in his signature Terrifier role.  Whilst Screamboat is nowhere near as weak as Winnie-The-Pooh - Blood And Honey, it is still rather weak overall.
 

FILM: Tron Ares (dir: Joachim Roenning, 2025)

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"Maybe there is something wrong with me..."

"...or maybe there is something eight with you."

Some critics have decided to give this third cinematic entry in the Tron franchise a good kicking, but how you respond to the film will basically be determined by whether or not you are fan of the series and of sci-fi in general, as for fans there is much to enjoy.  Dispensing with the first two films with an opening breakneck-speed montage that also introduces two battling tech giants, Encom (working for humanitarian good) and Dillinger (militarising The Grid's supersoldiers, led by new Master Control security program Ares), with both seeking Flynn's Permanence Code that will enable anything brought from computer world into real world to last beyond twenty-nine minutes.  The film does have three basic issues: the script/dialogue is clunky; Jared Leto (as Ares) has little presence, with Greta Lee (as Head of Encom) faring little better; and the whole film feels emotionally flat and unengaging.  However, Evan Peters (as the determinedly ruthless Head of Dillinger) and Gillian Anderson (as his icy matriarch) are great, the Nine Inch Nails soundtrack is absolutely glorious, there is lots and lots of world-of-Tron-styled digital eye-candy (with even a cheeky recreation of a famous Akira motorbike shot), and there are many pleasing fan-service moments and big lively set pieces (notably the whole of the third act).  The film is a fairly relentless assault on the senses, which non-fans will dismiss as noisy sci-fi nonsense, but Tron fans will have a very entertaining couple of hours,  (Note the brief scene that appears shortly into the end credits; let us hope that it does not take another fifteen years for the next sequel to appear).

 

VOD: Elio (dirs: Madelaine Sharafian and Domee Shi, 2025)

"It's happening!  It's really happening!"

Pixar brings this heartwarming and perhaps familiar tale of orphaned Elio, a small boy who dreams big about space travel  and unexpectedly has his wish come true when a quirky collection of aliens intercept the Voyager probe and - believing Elio is Earth's leader - take Elio on a grand adventure to the Communiverse (a child's-entry metaphor for the United Nations) - as his perky clone take his place back on Earth.  The film is an appealing mix of wry knockabout humour, melancholy, joy and wonder that encapsulates the titular young character wonderfully.  Inevitably this junior coming-of-age tale takes in a thematic tour of grief and acceptance, friendship and realisation of self-worth, as it breezes along and Elio takes on a 'big bad' (with a rather sudden ending), and whilst Elio may be fairly standard Pixar/junior animated-sci-fi fodder,  it is also busy, colourful and fun to watch.
 

VOD: Steve (dir: Tim Mielants, 2025)

"Full speed into the abyss..."

Set in 1996 - and all the more devastating for being still very relevant today - and following a "clusterf**k" twenty-fours, Steve (Cillian Murphy) is the beleaguered headteacher of crumbling Stanton Wood Manor, a last-chance residential intervention centre for a handful of troubled teenage boys, including the emotionally-intelligent but lost seventeen-year-old Shy (Jay Lycurgo).  Flitting between a largely kinetic fly-on-the-wall documentary style and an actual TV news crew filming an end-piece with interviews and a more detached viewpoint, the film pulls no punches in presenting its confrontational emotional raw honesty and the ever-present simmering and explosive tension.   It is bleak and crushingly sad but not without its moments of genuine humour, and the well-placed use of a Chekhov's Gun leads to a heartbreaking moment of realisation on the part of the viewer of an event that is about to happen at one point.  Cillian Murphy gives yet another of his incredibly immersive and impactful performances as the leader trying to carry everyone's demons as well as his own, ably backed up by Jay Lycurgo's control and range as Shy and Tracey Ullman 's poised counterpoint as Steve's deputy.  Steve is not an easy watch, but it is very rewarding and impressive indeed.
 

VOD: The Penguin Lessons (dir: Peter Cattaneo, 2025)

"Life changes you."

Inspired by a true story, this gentle and charming comedy-drama sees Steve Coogan play a disaffected English teacher arriving to tach at a private school in 1976 Argentina who, on a break to Uruguay, adopts - or is adopted by - a penguin which he rescues from an oil slick. The early lighter part of the film that follows Coogan reluctantly and hesitantly bonding with his new charge gives way to the real historical background of the military coup that provides the film with an increasingly sombre edge, but the film balances both strands very nicely in the second half as the penguin changes not only the teacher's life but those around him as well.  Steve Coogan's understated and sardonic is utterly delightful and at the centre of the film's success.  On paper it is the bizarre love-child of Dead Poets Society and Mr Popper's Penguins, but in actuality the script is warm and wry, the location work is attractive and both the chucklesome situations and the heartfelt dramatic thread work very well.  Also, it goes without saying: the penguin is the cutest creature imaginable! 

 

VOD: Marching Powder (dir: Nick Love, 2025)

"Why do I feel completely f**king irrelevant?"
"'Cos you are!"

Set in the 'world' of The Football Factory and very much reliant on the magnetic presence of Danny Dyer, Marching Powder focuses on hard-nut football fan Jack, approaching middle age (like T2: Trainspotting) and finding himself increasingly on the fringes of the culture and facing family pressures, with six weeks to prove to the court that he can turn his life around and avoid prison.  The film's self-awareness and fourth-wall-breaking moments give it more substance than the generically liberal use of fighting, swearing (notably the frequent c-bombs) and ever-present booze and drugs, with Danny Dyer mining his notable experience and skills to deliver both the dramatic and comedic elements to good effect (similar to his BAFTA-winning presence in TV's Mr. Bigstuff), and Stephanie Leonidas as his long-suffering wife provides an interestingly calm centre to the film, providing the rather touching love story at the unexpected heart of it all.  As much about the inability to change and to face up to reality as it is about toxic masculinity and violence culture, Marching Powder is a far more interesting film than its limitingly generic trailer suggests.
 

VOD: Lilo & Stitch (2025) (dir: Dean Fleischer Camp, 2025)

HAPPY 16th BIRTHDAY TO MY BLOG!

"Will you please stay still?"

Always a bit of an oddity in the Disney canon, this warped take on E.T. is Disney's latest live-action re-mounting of one of its popular animated movies.  It is a remarkably faithful recycling of the 2002 hit, re-telling the story of a young Hawaiian girl who 'adopts' a lively furry alien from the dog pound which - being designated a dangerous genetic experiment on its homeworld - is being pursued by its creator and a self-styled 'earth-expert' comic-relief duo in human form.  The film offers a sunny surfing/island vibe along with a cheerful modern-Disney-style singalong soundtrack and a few Elvis numbers for good measure.  With both the feisty young outsider Lilo and the mischievous Stitch providing identification points for the very-young target audience, the film offers a deft combination of gentle drama and rambunctious silliness that will appeal to the youngsters.  The CG elements and sequences blend effortlessly with the live action, with a nicely-judged performance from Sydney Agudong as Lilo's older sister trying to hold the family together in an expanded role here, and the film has a fun streak of daftness perhaps a little lacking in most recent Disney offerings.  The mayhem may get a little wearing over its unnecessarily-longer run-time, but the film has enough heart and chuckles to win through.
 

VOD: Presence (dir: Steven Soderbergh, 2025)

"I mean, it's life."
"Actually, it's death."

Written by David Koepp and directed by Steven Soderbergh, this intriguing and uniquely unsettling mood piece sees an ordinary but fracturing family move into an ordinary suburban home, the USP here being that the whole story is shown through the fluidly floating POV of a trapped occupying spirit.  Th well-maintained central conceit creates an almost dream-like feel and allows for an intimate, almost intrusive exploration of the family's private life and in particular the teenage daughter's grief, being aware of the spirit's presence and believing it could be the spirit of her deceased best friend.  With its fan-bating elements of Poltergeist and Paranormal Activity, subdued lighting, realistic in-situ presentation of sound and the occasional appearance of the mournfully elegiac soundtrack, the collision of the disparate family dynamics and largely unsympathetic characters makes for interesting viewing, and its portrayal of nihilistic sadness is bleak.  It is hardly ground-breaking, but the different approach and style makes Presence an intriguing viewing experience, leading to a really well-executed ending.

 

VOD: Henry Danger The Movie (dir: Joe Menendez, 2025)

"Dude, watch your language - there's kids around!"

In this expansion of the popular stalwart Nickolodeon children's TV favourite, a young girl Kid Danger superfan steals a portal-opening dimension-hopping device that pulls a now more grown-up Henry into her various fan-fiction worlds, including an animated world, a future survivalist settlement and a lame nightclub/musical interlude, as our hero tries to get back home.  The film quickly reunites the now-notably-older main characters, led by the dashingly bland Jace Norman, with the dimension-hopping paving the way for a variety of alter-egos, bad wigs and silly costumes.  With production values clearly improved from the TV show in an effort to look more filmic, the sit-com stylings are largely dropped, leaving the movie somewhere between Power Rangers and Goosebumps in its attempt to be a little darker, but it is still rather slow, tame and low-key even for its very young target audience.  It fleetingly touches on child-friendly themes such as growing up, responsibility, independence and friendship, and the mini-episodic approach perhaps gives the film a little more narrative substance than most children's fare.  Nevertheless, the show's young fans will lap it up, and a last-gasp inevitable cameo suggests this might not be the last we see of Henry and his gang. 

 

VOD: The Thursday Murder Club (dir: Chris Columbus, 2025)

"I feel like we're in one those Sunday night dramas, about two bright-eyed, feisty old lady detectives..."

This Netflix adaptation of Richard Osman's first hit novel finds four sparky seniors who live at a residential home trying to solve a cold (murder) case from 1973, battling potential redevelopment of their home and being embroiled in a very current whodunnit as murders close to home start to mount up.  A smooth and polished adaptation, the film is delivered by a veteran top-notch acting cast (led by Dame Helen Mirren, Pierece Brosnan, Sir Ben Kingsley and particularly Celia Imrie here) and the experience of director Chris Columbus, and it is perhaps because of this that the grittiness of the story feels at odds with the rather glossy and cinematic-styled presentation.  The film is comfortable, unchallenging and pretty to look at, playing heavily into plenty of upper-middle-class/Middle-England/elderly stereotyping, and the mystery's clues are presented in such a way that they might as well have giant neon arrows pointing at them along the way.  The second half of the film is far more interesting and relatively pacy, and it all comes together satisfyingly at the end, making The Thursday Murder Club a safe, cosy and undemanding watch.

 

VOD: The Map That Leads To You (dir: Lasse Hallstrom, 2025)

"Does anyone really know where they're going?"

Veteran Lasse Hallstrom directs this nonsensical but attractive romantic-fantasy drama that is as generic as its title.   The film follows Heather (well played by Madelyn Cline) and her two mates travelling around Europe on a last summer of freedom, where she encounters free-spirited Jack (a much-older-looking KJ Apa) and fun, shenanigans, tourist traps and whirlwind romance follow, all leading to the inevitable heartbreaking third-act tragedy and bitter-sweet ending.  The locations are gorgeously picturesque, both the young Mamma-Mia!-esque trio of friends and the Heather/Jack romance are easy to watch, and the gorgeous summery soundtrack is gently winsome and well curated.  It all gives the impression that the actors had a lovely time on their working holiday, but the film does have an interestingly persistent melancholy undercurrent of an ever-present awareness of the ephemeral nature of even the best of times and experiences in life.   In spite of some heavy-handed hints about where the story is heading and clunky/preachy 'embrace life, but safely' messaging, The Map That Leads To You is very pleasant and undemanding to watch, with the delightful soundtrack and settings outweighing the unlikely love story.

VOD: Babygirl (dir: Halina Reijn, 2024)

"We have to pay more attention to the avalanche that is gonna cover us all very soon."

In this romantic adult drama set over a holiday season, Nicole Kidman plays  powerful married CEO Romy, who falls into a passionate affair with handsome new young intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson), putting both her career and family life at risk as the power dynamics shift between them.  Indeed, the power-play between these two controlling and manipulative personalities is portrayed in an interesting way, as Samuel increasingly inveigles his way into Romy's work and personal life and Romy wavers between dominance and submission.  The film is of course carried by its two fantastic lead actors, with Kidman giving yet another of her compelling and precise character performances that has marked her later career, and Dickinson again proves himself to be a nuanced and committed screen actor, and there is a nicely-judged supporting turn from Antonio Banderas as Romy's oblivious devoted husband.  At its heart this may be pulpy female romantic fantasy, at times playing like an oddly elevated and classy 50 Shades story, and the may be some confusing gender messaging in the third act, but for the most part this is a mature, quiet and carefully-controlled drama that positively luxuriates in the skills of its two lead actors. 
 

VOD: The Monkey (dir: Osgood Perkins, 2025)

"No, it's not, uh...a toy...it's a...it's a...I don't exactly know what it is!"

Based on a Stephen King story, The Monkey very quickly sets itself up as a daft, pulpy and squelchy comedy-horror romp, when young twin brothers discover a wind-up toy monkey in their deceased father's souvenirs closet and its evil influence spreads causing random mayhem and Final Destination-style deaths, which follows them into the later-estranged brothers' very different adult lives and ultimately pits them against each other.  Playing both of the adult twins, Theo James differentiates the characters well and balances the comedic and dramatic elements of his performances to  purposeful effect, reminiscent of Bruce Campbell.  It may be rather thin material, but the film is filled with arch and cheesy dialogue, a silly knowing devil-may-care attitude and effective deployment of horror mechanics, making The Monkey a fun and well-made piece that succeeds in its aim to deliver a lightweight entertainment experience for genre fans.

 

VOD: Eenie Meanie (dir: Shawn Simmons, 2025)

"What crazy s**t are you about to do?"
 

Here Samara Weaving plays Edie, a struggling student/bankworker, who finds herself dragged back into her former world as a getaway driver when her feckless hustler boyfriend incurs the wrath of a druglord, who is also a former boss of Edie.  Perhaps darker and less action-packed than the trailer suggested, this is little more than a couple of well-executed bookending flash-cut car chases stitched together with a very basic heist story, but it takes its time to flesh out the character of Edie and her self-destructive relationship to good effect, and the snappy dialogue flows easily and is occasionally very funny, as if Tarantino were making a very low-budget Fast & Furious movie.  Samara Weaving seems to have the ability to make any character credible and engaging with another feisty and focussed performance here (and giving the final scenes a knockout emotional punch), matched by a nicely-judged performance from Karl Glusman as her partner John.  The mid-section may drag considerably, but the core relationship (and its two central players) makes Eenie Meanie interesting to watch.

VOD: Weekend In Taipei (dir: George Huang, 2024)

"You don't get to judge my choices."

This Korean-set glossy action-thriller stars Luke Evans and Lun Mei-Gwei as former DEA/undercover agents and lovers who are reunited as a shady drug-dealing billionaire under investigation goes to trial and the events of fifteen years previously catch up with the long-estranged duo and have very real consequences that out them on the run.  The ever-reliable Luke Evans makes for a worthy Jason Statham stand-in here, and expected mismatched cops/fish-out-of-water elements rear their heads.  There is plenty of supportive backstory in play, and the actual dramatic elements are sincere if occasionally somewhat undercooked or overmelodramatic.  There is a playful throwback sense of glee and energy in the over-the-top action sequences that lift the film and sit effectively next to effective thriller sequences that are played absolutely straight.  Overall, Weekend In Taipei is a mid-ranker of the genre that aims to please and generally makes a good effort to do so.
 

VOD: Alien Country (dir: Boston McConnaughey, 2024)

"Well, that's different."
 

In this lightweight sci-fi action-comedy, set in remote small-town redneck America, home of motorbikes, dive-bar brawls and demolition derbies, hapless loser/dreamer Jimmy and his accidentally-pregnant long-suffering girlfriend Everly inadvertently open a portal that allows some malevolent alien creatures to get through and wreak havoc in their home town of Blue River. With a big, brash noisy music score and the barely-glimpsed creatures/action mostly happening off-screen, this low-budget affair has ambition and presents itself with lively energy , snappy banter and one-liners, a nicely-played fractious relationship between the two leads in particular, limited FX work that is well-realised and there is some dramatic desert-location shooting that looks good on-screen.  Uncomplicated, competently-made and with a whiff of the tone of Tremors, some aspects feel a little underdeveloped but overall Alien Country is straightforward and effectively entertaining.

VOD: Fixed (dir: Genddy Tartakovsky, 2025)

"This is a goddam s**t-show!"
"Excuse me, its pronounced shih-tzu!"

This adult-themed animation is a less-subversive canine equivalent of Fritz The Cat that follows the antics of Bull, a sex-crazed family dog who discovers that he is about to be neutered and escapes for one last night of partying and debauchery in the big city with his mates.  It has a couple of recognisable voices, such as Idris Elba (whose voicework stands out there) and Kathryn Hahn, but like Sausage Party the film is very basic, relentlessly and childishly crude, unapologetic, drives its jokes into the ground and grinds along in a largely flat and uninteresting manner.

 

FILM: Weapons (dir: Zach Cregger, 2025)

"What the f**k...?"

Following up on the promise shown in Barbarian, writer/director Zach Cregger presents what is for the most part an old-school mystery-thriller with impactful moments of gleeful gory horror (think Sam Raimi and Eli Roth), as seventeen students from the same school class leave their homes and disappear at 2.17am, with the town's anger and frustrations pointing very firmly at the young class teacher Justine Gandy.  Telling the story of a month after the appalling event, the film takes the form of chapters, telling the events through different interconnecting characters' lives and allowing the viewer to piece together the solution to the mystery.  The film is meticulously crafted in storytelling, sound  and on-screen presentation, with Cregger in complete control of his narrative and audience, largely through use of camera and editing; the film held the cinema audience in the palm of its hand for two hours, including the moments of shock and of humour release (especially in the all-out finale).   It is stacked with a quirky cast of strong character actors, notably Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, Alden Ehrenreich and Benedict Wong.  It is also fun to try to work out how some of the striking moments from the trailer will fit in along the way.  To say any more would spoil the mystery, but Weapons is a very accomplished and engaging commercial movie. 
 

VOD: My Oxford Year (dir: Iain Morris, 2025)

"So, would you care to come up for some...tea and crumpet?"

Almost two films for the price of one, what starts off as a standard Netflix rom-com sees bookish, focused American MA student Anna take a year to study Victorian Poetry at 'The University Of Oxford' and her privileged, handsome British substitute-lecturer initially clashing as obvious binary opposites, but ultimately they start to find common ground and much more, leading to a revelation that takes the second half of the film in a very different direction.  The early scenes are so culture-clashingly genre-predictable that even Anna has a tick-list of touristy and sterotypically US-view things to do and see as she goes to the pub, eats fish and chips, etc. all set to the always-photogenic sights of Oxford, which looks great on screen.  With the locations and occasional poetry lending a sprinkling of elevation to the first half's routine rom-com shenanigans, it is down to the two leads (Sofia Carson and Corey Mylechreest) to carry the dramatic weight of the second half, which they do as a couple very effectively, and a strength of this generally pleasant-but-not-earth-shattering movie is that it offers a credibly strong female protagonist for the most part.   The on-screen conceit used to deliver the ending is powerfully delivered through effective construction, and listen out for a gloriously-delivered line of salty dialogue in the dinner-table scene.
 

VOD: Mickey 17 (dir: Bong Joon Ho, 2025)

"Nice knowing you.  Have a good death!  See you tomorrow."

Bong Joon Ho's English-language follow-up to the critically-acclaimed Parasite is certainly a curious sci-fi headscratcher, with Robert Pattinson playing an Expendable, a lowly employee on a deep-space mission to find a habitable plant who undertakes lethal tasks and is simply replaced ('reprinted') with memories intact every time he dies.  The film is full of visual/conceptual and serious/wacky ideas that keeps the film consistently interesting over its indulgent running time.  It is part strange love story, part hard sci-fi, part political/colonisation satire and part goofball comedy, which is a somewhat peculiar mix that makes it hard to define its audience.  The first act is the most successful, a self-contained circular narrative that tells the story of Mickeys 1-17, but when 17 goes missing presumed dead on a hostile planet, his unexpected return and encounter with the newly-printed Mickey 18 leads to all manner of complications, and the movie becomes more melodramatic and wayward.  Pattinson makes the oddball protagonist (the focal 17th iteration) surprisingly engaging and likeable, and he handles the multiple versions - at times sharing the same screen - very effectively, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo go full panto mode as the morally-corrupt expedition leaders, Naomi Ackie gives sterling support throughout, and the director brings a familiar gentle classiness to the proceedings (regardless of the actual style of a particular scene).  This is basically a meditation on life, death, power and identity which is at its heart quite simplistic and blunt, wrapped up in large-scale sci-fi trappings, and whilst its ambition is evident, the different strands and themes get somewhat lost or underdeveloped amidst the tonal unevenness in this undoubtedly interesting but not wholly satisfying movie.

 

VOD: War Of The Worlds (2025) (dir: Rich Lee, 2025)

"You hacked my fridge?"

Having sat on the shelf for five years, Ice Cube's name above the title may give a level of expectation for this contemporary tech-savvy update on the classic tale, and to some extent the film sets itself up for the remarkable public and critical kicking it has received on release.  Ice Cube plays an American cyber-surveillance officer fighting online conspiracy-theorists/hackers/freedom-fighters and ultimately the global threat from data-hungry invaders from space as they disable the entire world's systems ready to take over (apart from - oddly - CNN, Amazon and a few select communications networks in order to enable the plot to progress!).  Told mostly through screens and devices and a variety of media sources (phone and computer screens, webcams, CCTV, news broadcasts, etc.), this film does try to balance the recognisable iconic core elements of the original story with new tech, and it occasionally raises questions about personal freedom versus state intervention (and indeed the actions of this obsessively protective father).  Ice Cube has always proved to be a reliable performer, but the constraints of a computer screen give him little room for range in his main role as story-enabler, backed up by a small but largely solid cast.   To its credit, the 'screens' conceit is delivered with a brisk and snappy energy (particularly the aliens' arrival) and keeps the story moving along, but it all comes undone when it turns into a narratively-unconvincing and blatant Amazon advert leading to a really rather desperate third act.  Whether or not the story needed re-telling yet again, the zippy immediacy of the presentation style keeps attention even if the unconvincing narrative choices undermine it.
 

VOD: Happy Gilmore 2 (dir: Kyle Newacheck, 2025)

"We're not done with golf, Happy, and golf's not done with us..."

Happy Gilmore is probably best remembered as one of the less-awful Adam Sandler movies, here getting a very belated sequel that starts with a useful recap and a morose accident that brings the story up to date, with a dissolute Happy abandoning golf, working in a supermarket and bringing up his four rambunctious sons and aspiring dancer daughter.  Naturally, the desire to pay for his daughter's Parisian ballet training spurs Happy into recovery and on the comeback trail - cue 80s-style progress montage - with the veteran Tour Champions pitted against the modern Maxi Golf League and his old nemesis Shooter McGavin on the loose.  With some apt references to ageing and how modern sport has changed since Happy's heyday, this sequel is laden with flashbacks/callbacks and real golf pros aplenty making it feel comfortably familiar, all trundling along flatly and harmlessly with its humour determinedly simple, basic and childish (just like Happy's quartet of knuckleheaded sons).  Typically, Sandler nails the smaller, quieter and more dramatic moments, even if they are few and far between, and there is a nicely-tuned performance from Benito Antonio Martinez as Happy's clueless caddy, but overall Happy Gilmore 2 is a mid-level Sandler movie that offers little and leaves little impression.
 

VOD: Rebirth - Home Sweet Home a.k.a. Home Sweet Home - Rebirth (dirs: Alexander Kiesl and Steffen Hacker, 2025)

"This is so friggin' weird!"

This entry in the wild Asian supernatural/demon/monster genre finds American police sergeant Jake (an almost-unrecognisable William Moseley, giving a quite unique performance here) holidaying  in Thailand with his wife and young daughter, when he unexpectedly gets caught up in a mass murderer's ritual at a mall and  inadvertently opening the Gates of Hell, plunging the city into chaos and leaving him to save his family and indeed the whole world from evil.  Throwing a scenery-chewing Michele Morone (365 Days) into the mix as the mass killer, the film offers a combination of effectively-executed action sequences with messily-constructed fight scenes, yet any (brief) appearance by the CG demon-creatures of various sizes is worth a look, especially as the human cast gives generally lacklustre performances.  With lots of talk of destiny and prophecy, body-inhabiting and a mid-point twist that you will probably have already guessed at that point, this lively but muddled nonsense is delivered with utter seriousness but feels like Sam Raimi on a bad day.