Destroy All Neighbors (2024)

Now Streaming Exclusively on Shudder.

A lot of Josh Forbes’ horror comedy is about how much it can remind you of Frank Henenlotter. So much of “Destroy All Neighbors” is Henenlotter from a man going insane, to splatter and gore, to the boldly colored close up shots of the various characters. “Destroy All Monsters” is a movie that I respect for its willingness to be about as random as weird as possible while not having much of a narrative. It’s all paper thin in terms of characterization and basic plot, and mainly is a pitch for an audience that is in the market for just outright insanity, and nihilism. “Destroy All Neighbors” brings it in spades.

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The Beekeeper (2024)

Jason Statham once upon a time was a guy who seemed like he was going to carry the torch and deliver a brand of unique action film roles. And then somewhere around 2010, he kind of backtracked and just reverted to playing the same variation of Jason Statham that we’ve seen well in to fifteen years now. “The Beekeper” is the latest in a line of what the internet are now labeling “Dad movies” where your everyday Joe becomes a bonafide angel of vengeance. This time directed by David Ayer and written by Kurt Wimmer, the pair team to deliver, so far, one of the stupidest action movies of the year.

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Night Swim (2024)

It’s always good to see an indie success story and Bryce McGuire’s is the latest. After delivering the pretty creepy short “Night Swim” in 2014, McGuire was able to develop it in to a feature film and, ironically, mid-way through it I found myself thinking “This would work better as a short.” I wasn’t trying for sarcasm, it’s just that “Night Swim” presents only a seed of a potentially scary horror film that never actually feels fully fleshed out or extensively realized. Its penchant for ambiguity is its big downfall as it’s a victim to so many of the typical haunted house tropes, banal fake outs, and clumsy ghost scares, without ever trying to re-invent the wheel.

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Suitable Flesh (2023)

Now Streaming for Rent.

“Suitable Flesh” feels like a movie displaced from the nineties. It feels like a film that would have originally starred Linda Blair and Julie Strain in the duel roles we see in Joe Lynch’s newest horror film. In many ways that’s both a pro and a con as “Suitable Flesh” is completely out of what director Joe Lynch typically delivers. While “Suitable Flesh” pegs itself more as Lovecraftian body horror, the movie leans very heavily more on erotic camp revolving around a lot of body switching and hyper sexual violence. While the movie will definitely have its fans, at the end of the day “Suitable Flesh” and I just didn’t click with it.

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Dress Code (2022)

I had a lot of respect for Joseph Pupello’s desire to deliver a gangster picture that’s less about gangsters and more about our personal lives. It’s rough around the edges, and the screenplay by Peter Panagos isn’t entirely cohesive, but they do manage to concoct an interesting storyline for a central character who is being pulled in all kinds of obligations. The one big goal in his a life involving mobsters, and assassinations, and a pregnant wife is to live as the person he really wants to be, and that makes his struggle pretty turbulent.

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Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023): The Night Shift Edition [Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital]

This is why I never gamble.

I was almost certain that the movie for “Five Nights at Freddy’s” was too little, too late, especially now that a lot of the original fanbase had grown in to young adults by now. But surprisingly I was wrong as the long awaited adaptation of the classic video game managed to hit all the right chords. It’s one of the bigger video game movies of the last year, one of the biggest horror movie hits of the year, and garnered some great fan buzz. While I am not the original audience for “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” Emma Tammi taps back in to the rabid fan base by delivering what is primarily a faithful version of the video game.

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