FOLLOWING FILMS

The Last Horror Film is one of those curious artifacts from the early 1980s that lives in the borderland between exploitation and meta-commentary. Directed by David Winters and starring Joe Spinell alongside Caroline Munro, the movie is often overlooked in the broader horror conversation, but it has qualities that make it worth discussing. Part slasher, part satire, and part psychological portrait, it occupies a strange, messy but fascinating place in horror history. The story follows Vinny Durand, a New York cab driver with big dreams of making movies. His life, however, revolves almost entirely around his obsession with horror actress Jana Bates. When Jana travels to the Cannes Film Festival, Vinny follows her, carrying a camera and his delusions. He is convinced that if he can just get close enough, he will convince her to star in his film. Once he arrives at Cannes, however, events spiral. Jana finds herself surrounded by threatening phone calls, unexplained disappearances, and vio...

Rebel Wilson has built her career on broad comedy, but in Bride Hard she takes a swing at mixing slapstick with action heroics. The premise is playful enough: a secret agent agrees to be maid of honor at her best friend’s wedding, only for the big day to be hijacked by mercenaries. What follows is a mash-up of spy antics and bridal chaos. It’s the kind of idea that almost feels like a parody sketch stretched into a feature, but the film leans into the silliness with enough enthusiasm to keep it moving. The story centers on Sam, Wilson’s character, who is torn between professional instincts and personal loyalty. She wants to support her best friend Betsy, played by Anna Camp, on her big day, but when heavily armed villains crash the ceremony, duty calls. The structure borrows from the classic one-hero-against-many template, but instead of an office tower or airplane, the battlefield is a lavish wedding venue covered in flowers and lace. That contrast between danger and décor creates som...

Al Pacino’s 2025 film The Ritual is a striking entry in the long tradition of supernatural horror, one that fuses chilling atmosphere with a story grounded in faith, doubt, and redemption. Directed by David Midell, the film dramatizes the infamous 1928 exorcism of Emma Schmidt, often described as one of the most intense and documented cases of possession in American history. Pacino steps into the role of Father Theophilus Riesinger, a veteran priest whose age and disillusionment weigh heavily upon him, while Dan Stevens portrays Father Joseph Steiger, a younger clergyman confronted with the same terrifying forces but from the vantage point of skepticism. The result is a work that not only delivers moments of genuine horror but also offers a meditation on belief and mortality. The story begins in a quiet corner of 1920s rural America, where Emma Schmidt, played by Abigail Cowen, becomes the center of a terrifying spiritual battle. Her condition is framed not simply as hysteria or illnes...

When Tsuburaya Productions announced Ultraman Decker in 2022, it was clear the series would be more than just another entry in the ever-expanding Ultra franchise. Marketed as a spiritual successor to Ultraman Dyna—just as Ultraman Trigger had honored Ultraman Tiga—the show set out to bridge nostalgia with a modern sensibility. Now, with the full series collected and capped off by the feature-length Finale: Journey to Beyond, fans can see the story in its entirety, and it proves to be one of the franchise’s most balanced blends of heroics, humanity, and high-stakes spectacle. The story begins in a not-so-distant future where Earth has enjoyed relative peace since the events of Trigger. But as is tradition in the Ultra Series, that calm is disrupted when a new wave of kaiju threats emerges. Humanity once again forms an elite defense team, GUTS-Select, updated with sleeker uniforms, new technology, and fresh recruits. At the heart of this is Kanata Asumi, portrayed by Hiroki Matsumoto. Ka...

Friendship (2025) is a bold, often uncomfortable exploration of adult male connection that blends dark humor with moments of genuine emotional insight. Directed and written by Andrew DeYoung, the film stars Tim Robinson as Craig Waterman, a suburban father whose quiet, uneventful life is disrupted by the arrival of his charismatic neighbor, Austin Carmichael, played by Paul Rudd. What begins as casual neighborly interaction quickly evolves into a tense and often awkward exploration of obsession, loneliness, and the fragile nature of human bonds. Robinson’s performance is both remarkable and polarizing. He captures Craig’s social anxiety, desperation, and awkward charm in a way that makes the audience both cringe and empathize with him. There is a rawness to his portrayal, an unfiltered honesty that turns ordinary moments—awkward small talk, failed attempts at humor, and invasive curiosity—into powerful storytelling. Rudd, by contrast, brings a grounded charm that makes Austin feel real...

The second and final season of 1923 arrived this February with enormous expectations. After a first season that balanced sweeping landscapes with brutal intimacy, the continuation had the task of deepening character arcs while also drawing this chapter of the Dutton family story to a close. Set against a merciless Montana winter, the season leans into themes of survival, sacrifice, and the inevitable march of progress, offering a narrative that is both visually stunning and emotionally devastating. Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren anchor the season with commanding performances. As Jacob and Cara Dutton, they embody the resilience of a family pushed to its limits, their chemistry as believable in its tenderness as in its simmering tension. Ford’s quiet gravitas and Mirren’s steel-edged resolve lend the story an authenticity that grounds even its most heightened moments. Brandon Sklenar’s Spencer, still struggling to return home after years abroad, provides the season with much of its emot...

Danny and Michael Philippou’s Bring Her Back is a bleak and harrowing exploration of grief, trauma, and the terrifying consequences of trying to undo loss. If their 2022 debut Talk to Me carved out a space for the twins as new masters of supernatural horror, their follow-up shifts gears into something heavier, more suffocating, and far less forgiving. This time, the horror does not come from playful party tricks with the dead, but from the crushing weight of sorrow and the violent, desperate ways it manifests. The film opens with a gut punch: Andy, played with raw vulnerability by Billy Barratt, comes home to find his father dead in the shower. Suddenly, Andy and his blind sister Piper (Sora Wong) are orphaned, forced to navigate a system that threatens to separate them. They are taken in by Laura, a former social worker whose own child drowned years earlier. Laura, embodied with unnerving intensity by Sally Hawkins, initially appears compassionate, even maternal, but there’s something...

See, the Apple TV+ original series created by Steven Knight, is a bold and imaginative dive into a post-apocalyptic world unlike any other on television. Set centuries after a virus has wiped out most of humanity and rendered the surviving population blind, the show constructs an elaborate civilization that has evolved without the sense of sight. When two children are born with the ability to see, their existence threatens to upend generations of belief and tradition. This premise is not only original but handled with an impressive level of world-building and commitment to authenticity, creating a society that feels fully lived-in and thoughtfully crafted. One of the series’ greatest strengths lies in its immersive visual storytelling. Despite being about a world without sight, See is a stunningly beautiful show to watch. The landscapes—dense forests, snow-covered mountains, and ancient ruins—are presented with a cinematic flair rarely seen in television. Director Francis Lawrence, kno...

  Few television antiheroes have carved their niche into pop culture quite like Dexter Morgan. With his soft-spoken menace, rigid moral code, and disarmingly clinical charm, he became an icon of the Golden Age of Television. Dexter: Original Sin, the new prequel series on Paramount+ and Showtime, dives into the origin story of Miami’s favorite forensic analyst-slash-serial killer. It’s a bold, bloody resurrection—one that largely works, especially for longtime fans eager to see how the Dark Passenger was born. Set in 1991, the series begins with young Dexter (Patrick Gibson) navigating his final days as a pre-med student and wrestling with something far darker than career anxiety: the awakening of his homicidal urges. The central premise is clear from the first episode—Dexter isn’t just tempted to kill; he needs to. Under the guidance of his adoptive father Harry (Christian Slater), a world-weary Miami Metro homicide detective, Dexter begins to harness this urge through “The Code”—...

In The Friend, Scott McGehee and David Siegel deliver a tender, bittersweet meditation on grief, creativity, and unexpected companionship. Adapted from Sigrid Nunez’s award-winning novel, this quietly powerful film captures the complexities of loss and the strange, sometimes redemptive places where solace can be found. Led by a soulful performance from Naomi Watts and the remarkable on-screen presence of a Great Dane named Bing, The Friend is a deeply felt character study wrapped in the gentle absurdity of real life. Watts stars as Iris, a seasoned New York writer whose seemingly stable life is disrupted by the suicide of her longtime mentor and closest confidant, Walter (Bill Murray). As a final, bewildering gesture of their bond, Walter bequeaths his enormous and emotionally wounded dog, Apollo, to Iris—a self-described cat person living in a tiny apartment with a strict no-pets lease. What begins as an inconvenience quickly becomes something far more profound. Apollo, the grief-stri...

Andrew Ahn’s 2025 reimagining of The Wedding Banquet breathes vibrant, contemporary life into Ang Lee’s 1993 classic, proving that some stories—when handled with heart, humor, and vision—grow deeper with time. While the original film offered a poignant reflection on gay identity and familial obligation in a pre-marriage equality era, Ahn’s version builds upon that foundation, crafting a richer, more complex tapestry of queer experience, immigrant culture, and chosen family in a world where acceptance still carries weighty caveats. At its core, The Wedding Banquet (2025) is a screwball comedy of errors built on a foundation of very real, very modern anxieties: reproductive healthcare, green card limbo, generational trauma, and the fear of never being enough for the people we love. But what distinguishes Ahn’s version from so many modern remakes is that it doesn’t chase nostalgia. Instead, it revisits the soul of the original—its humanity, messiness, and quiet subversion—and expands it w...

Directed by Po-Chih Leong and released in 1984, Hong Kong 1941 is a historical drama set during the harrowing months leading up to the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong during World War II. Starring Chow Yun-Fat, Alex Man, and Cecilia Yip, the film blends personal drama with political upheaval, offering a bittersweet meditation on love, friendship, and the human cost of war. While not as internationally known as some of Chow Yun-Fat’s later films, Hong Kong 1941 remains a powerful piece of Hong Kong cinema, notable for its emotional depth and social commentary. The film begins in the months leading up to December 1941, just before the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong. The city is on edge—tension lingers in the air, and rumors of war swirl. Amid this backdrop, the film introduces three central characters: Nam (Cecilia Yip), a wealthy young woman confined by family expectations; Fei (Chow Yun-Fat), a charismatic and ambitious aspiring actor from the mainland; and Keung (Alex Man), Nam’s loy...

In a world full of superhero flicks and post-apocalyptic thrillers, The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie arrives like a breath of fresh (and very animated) air. This feature-length debut from Warner Bros. Animation marks a bold and hilarious new direction for the classic Looney Tunes characters—especially Daffy Duck and Porky Pig—who have rarely been so funny, so lovable, or so ready to save the world from imminent doom. Directed by Pete Browngardt, the film is an affectionate throwback to classic alien-invasion cinema while injecting every frame with the chaos, wit, and anarchy that made Looney Tunes legendary. From the moment the first frame hits the screen, it’s clear: this isn’t just a nostalgic revival. It’s a reinvention. The film opens with Daffy and Porky unexpectedly inheriting a rickety old farmhouse from a mysterious relative. Broke and in desperate need of income, they take jobs at a gum factory on the outskirts of town—only to discover that the chewable treats a...

Luca Guadagnino’s Queer is a daring, dreamlike exploration of unrequited desire, dislocation, and descent—part period drama, part psychedelic fever dream. Adapted from William S. Burroughs’ semi-autobiographical novella, the film is both an homage to its author’s troubled psyche and a contemporary reflection on queer longing, filtered through Guadagnino’s lush, maximalist style. It’s one of the strangest and most transfixing films of 2024—and perhaps the most vulnerable performance Daniel Craig has ever delivered. Set in the smoky bars and humid streets of 1950s Mexico City, Queer centers on William Lee, an aging American expat living in exile and chasing the ghosts of intimacy through drugs and fleeting encounters. Craig plays Lee with a quiet desperation, a man whose intellectual bravado masks deep insecurity and emotional decay. When he meets Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), a younger and inscrutable fellow American, something inside Lee ignites—an obsession that spirals slowly into ...