Thankfully, It Does

If only the new horror movie It Ends was a great as that poster is! Thing is I think that poster is an unofficial one made by somebody online -- the film's official poster is fine not special (like the movie). But the poster above? Killer. Anyway we've got a big case of the second watch blues with It Ends -- I originally saw this movie last year at 2025's "Scary Movies" series here in NYC and it would've been better for the movie had I reviewed it out of there since I remembered liking it. But then I re-watched it for this past weekend's actual release to theaters and... I did not like it nearly so much. Click here to read my review at Pajiba if you care to. I haven't had my opinion on a movie switch this much between a first and second viewing since Cronenberg's Cosmopolis. And that was in the opposite direction -- I went from hating it to loving Cosmopolis. Although I can't say I "hate" It Ends -- I look forward to seeing what writer-director Alex Ullom does for a second film. This one just very much suffers from First-Film-itis. 

Call It Jurassic Suburbs

I don't understand why there aren't more dinoasaur movies without the word "Jurassic" in the title -- I guess they try every so often, like that one with Adam Driver that I have completely forgotten and will not be spending the time to look up, and that semi-hostile indifference to even trying to remember that turd probably answers my question as to why there aren't more dinosaur movies without "Jurassic" in the title! It's not like these movies can be made for peanuts -- even in the age of accessibility for most to passable movie-making equipment dinosaurs still represent a challenge. (How long until we see some A.I. slop dinosaur nonsense making the rounds? I suppose it already exists and I've just been wily enough to avoid it.) 

Anyway out this weekend is another one of Hollywood's sporadic stabs at making a dinosaur movie without "Jurassic" in the title -- and hey, this one is better than that last one. Sorta! The End of Oak Street stars Ewan McGregor and Anne Hathaway as Greg and Denise, a married couple on the rocks in the mid-1980s who have a daughter Audrey (Maisy Stella) and a son Brian (Christian Convery), and who find themselves and their entire neighborhood sucked through a wormhole to predator-stuffed Prehistory. Thankfully nobody spends much time bothering to explain the inexplicable science of this -- Audrey's a fan of Carl Sagan and gives it a brief go but it's blessedly as hand-wavy as, "Welp well that happened," and then everybody moves on to the chomp-chomp of it all.

What they move on to probably should have been a better movie -- if you're prone to bees in your bonnet over characters behaving stupidly then this movie will feel like that rightly beloved meme of Oprah Winfrey releasing the bees sprung to life beneath your headwear. Beyond waving away the nonsensical science of the family's exceptional situation, writer-director David Robert Mitchell (yes the same man who made the incredible horror movie It Follows; I know) also hand-waves away any legitimate reasons to keep this family out of their boarded-up house. They are constantly, moronically wandering the streets even as they're watching their neighbors get gnawed and torn to shreds. 

That's one of the film's more delicious bits, though -- it sure ain't afraid to be vicious. Although most of it's seen from a good distance people do die horribly in this movie, including one genuine shock moment that legit left my jaw hanging. But the movie's meanness in that respect teeters precipitously against its Choose Your Own Family Adventure set-up -- it's not a wholly comfortable fit, and the movie really strains against itself. There is something admirable in its willingness to wind its own tonal path I suppose (it certainly isn't playing safe) but it veers too close to the nastiness of that scene in the first Jurassic World movie where that young woman was tossed around and torn apart by Pteranodons. Gratuitous and grim.

The main issue though, besides how dumb these people keep behaving for no discernable reason, is a phrase I've been using a lot lately -- The End of Oak Street definitely suffers ftom "the conservative creep" that's been affecting so much Hollywood product over the past few years. Wedged-in conversations about religious faith keep popping up, and the film's ultimate goal -- which I promise you isn't a spoiler since it's obvious it's what this movie's about all of five minutes in -- is to make Mom stop being so darn angry and to appreciate her darn family again. While words like "Amblin-esque" will surely be tossed at this flick for all of its 80s nostalgia, a more appropriate one would surely be "Reagan-esque." Shudder, indeed.

It's a Miasma-piece

Hey weirdos, my beloved weirdos, have I got a movie for you -- well a movie review actually. I reviewed Jane Schoenbrun's Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma this past Friday and you can read it right here. We're playing catch-up, you see, in more ways than one -- I saw this the first time at NewFest and the third time at Fantasia Fest (with a press screening sandwiched in between there) but only just got around to writing about it as it hit theaters this past Friday. But only a few theaters -- NY and LA I believe? It spreads out this week and further after that (you can keep track of that at this link) so I imagine most of you haven't yet had the chance. Anyway I bust out the "m" word in my review -- "masterpiece" that is, which if you know me you know I don't break that word out lightly when a movie is this new. Having seen it three times now though, with it only getting funnier and weirder with every watch, I feel pretty compelled toward that word. It is most definitely one of the year's highlights and not to be missed. 

 

Flesh, Fantasy, and Michael Vlamis

Did you know there was a reboot of the Y2K classic series Roswell that ran for fifty-two episodes beginning in 2019? I had no freaking idea. Looking up actor Michael Vlamis here was the first I'd ever heard of it. Why was I looking up actor Michael Vlamis, you might ask? (If you're asking that you probably didn't look at these pictures though as I am but a simple man.) I was looking up Mikey boy because he's in a queer horror movie I just reviewed out of Fantasia Fest -- it's called Corpus and you can read my review right here. And here's another picture of Michael Vlamis for your trouble:

it's a good movie! But of course Michael plays the straight guy in what is otherwise a very queer movie -- I say "of course" because that just about fits my pattern. Makes sense! I mean I have no idea what he does in his private life, but in the movie he is obnoxiously heterosexual and extremely hot while doing that. (Just wait for the gifs!)  I even posted about him on Bluesky like right after watching the movie a few weeks back lol:

Watched a movie co-starring this guy named Michael Vlamis over the weekend and I don't think any of you should be surprised if I start posting about him a lot in the future is all I am saying

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) June 29, 2026 at 11:46 AM

Bad Boys Bad Boys

I was not at all surprised to learn upon my first googling of actor Egor Venned, the leading man in the brand new queer folk-horror film No Rest For the Wicked, that he's also a model -- half of the movie just hangs on the cut of his cheekbones. The camera is completely in love with him. So it's not so surprising when the character played by Game of Thrones actor Pilou Asbæk (himself a dish) rolls into town that he's immediately drawn beauty-ward... anyway I saw this movie at Fantasia and it's the second review that dropped while I was out of town, so click on over to Pajiba to read my thoughts. I also shared the film's first trailer there (it's down at the bottom of the review) so you can see in motion how ridiculously pretty Venned is. Which isn't the only reason to see the movie -- it's a beautiful and haunting little thing -- but the palpable heat between Venned & Asbæk (seen below being his gorgeous self) is in itself on its own worth the price of admission. (Also the sweaters. The sweaters! Oh my god I love a sweater movie.)

Putting the Heat into Evil Dead Burn

I saw somebody describe the hotness of Evil Dead Burn's French director Sébastien Vanicek as "Travis Kelce but hot" and I thought that was so funny and spot-on it's how I shall describe him as well. (I was going to say "forever" but honestly I kind of hope that ten years from now I'll have forgotten the name "Travis Kelce.") Anyway my review of Evil Dead Burn dropped at Pajiba last Friday but if you missed it read it here. Mixed thoughts! Extremely mixed thoughts on this one. Still I think Vanicek is talented -- I thought that after I finally set aside my spider-willies long enough to watch his 2023 horror flick Infested, which is a creepy-crawly great time. And even more importantly he's hot! So we'll continue keeping track of his career. We're easy like that. 

A Mann For All Beattys

It's just me doing my "me thing" using a picture of actor Nate Mann to go along with this post sharing my review of the Tribeca movie Act One -- Mr. Mann's role in the film isn't huge but he is very sexy in it so... it's me doing the "me thing" basically. The real stars of the movie are Ella Beatty (yes the daughter of Warren & Annette aww all growed up) and our beloved Ari Graynor, who play an acting student and teacher whose relationship is toxic as fuck. Nate Mann (previously seen in the Masters of the Air  miniseries and apparently he was in Licorice Pizza?) plays another student in the class who plays a crucial, sexy role in said toxicity. Anyway besides all of that the movie is a real return to form for Always Shine writer-director Sophia Takal, who went and made the real bad Black Christmas remake in between the phenomonal Always Shine and this -- read my Tribeca review right here at Pajiba. Love Always Shine! Really liked this movie. Best to forget that Black Christmas happened, though. 

The Poodle Breeder Horror Movie

Another Tribeca review from yours truly for y'all to consume this afternoon -- this time we're talking Breeder, the horror movie about a... poodle breeder? Yes, a poodle breeder. It sells itself really. That said I did overall like this movie while also having some issues with it that I get into -- read my review right here. I know I'm beginning to sound like a semi-hysteric on this front but there seems to be a lot of straight white men making horror movies right now where they think are dissecting this moment's straight-white-manhood when they are really just falling into tropes of othering people who are not straight white men. And I don't so much like this aspect of horror right now! Call me crazy but that bit's not so cool! Anyway IFC and Shudder snatched this movie as it premiered at Tribeca because "The Poodle Breeder Horror Movie" is the easiest fucking sell in the world, so you'll all get to see this movie this fall. Then you can decide if I am indeed a hysteric. (I am sure most of you already decided "yes" on that but whatever.)

Gay Sex & Murder Ships, Oh My

Every gay story shouldn't be sad of course but y'all know I can't resist the ones that are -- my masochism, well-earned, runs deep. And with that I send you over to my Pajiba review of Labrador: Autopsy of Silence, a wonderful and yes sad and yes gay and yes Canadian movie that just premiered at Tribeca last week. It's a beautiful little heartbreaker of a thing, and its leading man Christopher Angatookalook gives one of the best newcomer performances I've seen in quite awhile. And for once it's not just me saying this -- he won an award at the fest for his work! The movie also won best International Feature (as well as Best Cinematography) and I think it was more than justified doing so -- it's a really special movie. I do recommend! Oh and since we're talking here at MNPP right now I will add, in a slutty whisper, that there is a crazy hot gay sex scene included as well. Bonus! Tuck that info away for future reference. 

HOT GAY COUPLE IN A MOVIE ALERT: Christopher Angatookalook and Alexandre Landry in LABRADOR: AUTOPSY OF SILENCE at Tribeca are absolute SCORCHERS tribecafilm.com/films/labrad...

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) June 6, 2026 at 11:57 PM

Couple Quick Capsules

As I've said about thirty three thousand times this week I've been busy writing reviews of films I saw at the Tribeca Film Festival, which ended on Sunday, and that's why it's been a wee bit quiet in here. A couple of those will be dropping this afternoon (I think) but I do want to take a moment anyway to jot down some very fast off-the-cuff thoughts about a pair of new-ish horror movies that I watched on my own (i.e. not for the fest) in the past couple of days. Because they both ruled and I should say so!

Mārama (dir. Taratoa Stappard) -- It's not often you see an entire new sub-genre of horror film present itself these days, but if we could get about one hundred more "Gothic Maori" horror movies in the coming years I wouldn't side-eye askance at that. I'd be in heaven after this here unexpected meeting of flavors burst in my mouth in the most incredible of ways.  Ariana Osborne (who often seems a dead ringer for Lily-Rose Depp in Nosferatu) plays "Mary", a Maori girl who finds herself shipped off to not-so-jolly-ol Victorian England by a colonialist dickhead (Toby Stephens) whose got a fetish for her people (enslaving them, mostly) and wants to have Mary teach his own daughter about their ways. What Mary is faced with in quick succession is a bunch of upper-crust British assholes play-acting racist tropes -- thankfully she's got some will of her own and is no wilting Bronte gal, but damn this movie slaps. Visually and thematically a feast. Stappard is clearly one to watch.

Is God Is (dir.  Aleshea Harris) -- A tale of blistering revenge that will probably, and purposefully, make you think of Quentin Tarantino (tcasting Vivica A. Fox as the mother being avenged will do that), but writer-director Aleshea Harris along with her two incredible lead performers Mallori Johnson and Kara Young (as twin sisters Anaia and Racine) hand in something all their own here. A lot of Southern Gothic, dripping with moss and heat, with a real fire burning in its belly -- its heroines, who sink into the moral morass of their parentage no matter how hard they fight against it, are to my eye immediate movie icons, like nobody you've ever seen on-screen before and completely impossible to look away from. Oh and Sterling K. Brown should only play villains from now on. Anyway this is completely spellbinding stuff -- I absolutely cannot wait to see what Harris drops next. 

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Oh and as an aside I just realized that both of these incredible movies are debut features and holy shit does that make me optimistic for our movie future. Hey, websites and entertainment magazines, how about some cover-stories that talk about the British-Maori man and the black woman who just dropped two of this year's truly great horror films, instead of just slobbering obvious praise all over the two straight white YouTube dudes who made the most financially successful yet nevertheless mediocre ones? Just a thought! Puttin' it out there!

Beam Me Up, Joshie

How nice to watch in real time a truly talented and handsome young man like Josh O'Connor go from bum-fucking in the mud to starring in an outer space alien epic by the one and only Steven Spielberg. It's been a true pleasure. I know some people knew who he was before God's Own Country but there's when I hopped on the Joshie train, and it's been nothing but choo-choo-choosing him ever since. I'm not a betting man but I do see the appeal of choo-choo-choosing a winner dammit. Anyway I have gone and reviewed said "space alien epic" Disclosure Day today, so click on over to Pajiba to read that -- it's a very weird movie, not really a "space alien epic" at all. But I found it thoughtful and surprisingly moving, especially in the ways it's having a conversation not just with Spielberg's stamp on cinema but with our current lived reality. I mean it's got lots of action scenes too, and nobody does 'em like Spielberg, but it's really... well I'll let you discover for yourself. Just give it a chance, says me. It's a surprise in a lot of ways. 

Had a Man Smoke Ya Pole

I don't think there's a right or a wrong answer on whether William Friedkin's 1980 film Cruising was ultimately a "good" or "bad" thing for the gay community -- I think the people on the scene at the time were right to protest it and I think the younger people like myself who are extremely grateful to have this window into the pre-AIDS leather world of NYC are right as well. It's complicated! And thankfully Jeffrey Schwartz's new documentary Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders, which just premiered at Tribeca, treats it as such -- click here to read my review. At an extremely tight 84 minutes my only complaint is the movie could've been longer, but I think it does a great job introducing the dozens of perspectives that surround the film, from then and now. Good stuff, perfect for Pride Month! (Although no I do not yet have any idea when it will be out in theaters so don't ask me!)

A Grand Buffet of Weirdness

I know a lot of people found Jack Dylan Grazer's character (and performance of said character) in Luca Guadagnino's We Are Who We Are series off-putting -- as I said at the time I personally found the both of those things very funny and very honest, like the anti-idealized Elio from Call Me By Your Name. Just a really properly annoying teen boy that I felt very seen by. (Weirdly Charles Melton brought up that series in that GQ magazine profile I linked to this very morning -- perhaps we can finally go back and reevaluate the show for the brilliance it was now?) Anyway Grazer plays a similar but slightly tamped-down version of that same role in the terrific Tribeca movie Ponderosa which I just reviewed out of the festival -- click here to read that. Grazer and the always fantastic and underappreciated Bill Camp make for quite the pair. I liked this movie a lot. One of the best of the fest, says me! We'll surely keep an eye out for its eventual release and will try to keep you informed.

The Love That Dare Not...

Well here's one that I've been promising for ages and ages now -- I first saw Australian director Adrian Chiarella’s queer horror film Leviticus a few months ago when it screened at the "New Directors New Films" festival here in NYC and I shared a moving message from its director at that time, promising a review shortly. Although I also admitted I'd been having a hard go of it, writing-wise... cut to June! The movie played a second time here in New York at NewFest last week, and I'm glad I waited -- I'm glad I saw it a second time and I am glad I let my brain sort itself out ever, ever, ever so slightly, so I could get out of the film's way and try to do it some justice in my review. Because I found the film tremendously moving -- as a gay man almost fully ostracized from his religious family now of course I did. It was made for me. Literally for once. It's nice to be seen. Anyway my review went up today is my point, so click on over to Pajiba to read my thoughts. The film is out in theaters very soon -- June 19th! So you don't have long to wait. As much trauma as the film deals in I do think it finds hope and love by its end, and makes for a great Pride Month release. You should all go see it. I'm not sharing the trailer because I'm sure it gives away too much. Just trust me for once, dammit. 

Thing On The Other Side Other The On Thing

To paraphraseth the wise sage Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon,  I'm too old for this stuff -- not the movie version of Backrooms specifically, but the whole "creepypasta" phenom that birthed it. (Honestly I think that's the first time I have ever typed the word "creepypasta" in my entire life.) Not that I'm not deeply and profoundly online, as this website you're on right now is a twenty-five-plus year testament to. But I'd never even heard of the "backrooms" thing until A24 announced this movie version of it -- I just haven't gotten around to spending weeks of my life falling down Slenderman rabbit-holes on YouTube. And to be clear -- I see this as a weakness on my part! I'm aware there is this entire section of the horror-sphrere that I'm wholly ignorant of, and I don't love that -- I'm just too old to be chasing waterfalls and windmills, so I will pick up the threads when they wind their way to out my ancient decrepit person eyes and ears at this point. (I will say I read this explainer of the origin of "backrooms" this week and it was extremely helpful.)

So anyway after I heard about the idea of the "backrooms" I did go and watch a few of director Kane Parsons shorts -- only a couple though, because I wanted to have some idea of the phenomenon without going so far as to spoil the film for myself. And I found them very creepy! And Parsons does manage to translate that creepiness to big portions of Backrooms, this here Major Motion Picture out in many a theater this weekend. There are profoundly unsettling moments in here -- the section with the rope down the chute springs to mind and sends a reverberating shudder. And Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve, both Oscar nominated and with good reason actors, do excellent work filling out sketchy emotional throughlines for their characters, which really comes to matter in the last act. I felt for both of them in exactly the ways the movie wanted me to, and I personally think the film's final shot lands with a shockwave of uncanniness that's still turning my stomach over here now thinking about it a couple weeks later. A fine and unnerving landing.

The issue (and yes, I have issues) is that -- despite all of my general ignorance on the subject of the internet's deep well of Liminal Horror that's defined The Young People Making The Horror Movies Now -- I have actually seen and adored Kyle Edward Ball's 2022 film Skinamarink. (Here is my review, which I'm contractually obligated to mention every time it comes up was quoted on Skinamarink's poster.) Ball also started out with YouTube shorts -- Skinamarink is basically a longer version of his 2020 film "Heck" -- but Ball managed to keep in place the extreme sense of alienation that these shorts wallow expertly in. And he kept it going for a full feature-length film in a way I prefer to Parsons' more mainstream (and certainly to be more successful financially) kind of take. 

Skinamarink is admittedly experimental -- I'm fully aware that most people who watch Skinamarink can't stand it. I just was never one of those people, and I fucking love the experience of losing myself into its static nightmare space for one hundred excrutiating minutes. When its scares do come, peeking their horrible eyes out from the blackness, they have wormed their ways deep into my subconsious, my being, in ways that, I gotta say, nothing in Backrooms manages. (Save that final shot. I really loved that final shot, which in an instant telegraphs an entire compendium upon the horrors of A.I. that I was not at all prepared for. A sneak attack!) 

The two films are two very different takes on the Liminal phenom, and it's not really fair to compare them -- I just think that the entire idea of Liminal Horror depends on a realization of stillness, of losing yourself into a netherworld that you're being presented with, and I personally find the tack that Backrooms takes to be somewhat less effective. Introducing us to characters, with back-stories and motivations and relationships -- you know, all the stuff that makes Backrooms a "movie" -- it's just inherently distancing. Parsons' short films didn't have to indulge that stuff -- they were, thanks to their brevity and form, able to just drop us in the scary place without distraction. And yeah -- "characters" and "stories" are probably a necesarry concession to making a twenty million dollar studio film. I don't hold it against Parsons', who made a solid and respectable and oft unnerving film. I'm just ultimately a Skinamarink girlie, I guess. Toss me off the deep end with no discernable markers whatsoever and I'm in heaven, inside that hell. Now one of you young people direct me to all the YouTube shorts I should be watching, please!

Time To Get Obsessed With Michael Johnston

I thought I might spend 2026 feeling more in line with my fellow critics on the horror movies than I did in 2025 -- when I wasn't jiving with movies lik Weapons and Good Boy that my peers were loving -- but my reaction to Obsession, writer-director Curry Barker's extremely well recieved new horror flick out in theaters now, has me second-guessing that instinct. Ciuz I didn't like it! Okay that's a bit harsh -- there are things I do like about it and I do mention them in my review which just dropped over at Pajiba, read it. But generally I think it's not nearly as daring as it believes itself to be -- although one thing I didn't mention there that I will mention here is that the film's leading man is played by that handsome fellow seen above; his name is Michael Johnston and I guess he was on the Teen Wolf series? 

I thought we'd run out of hot guys from that show by now who would force me to once again point out I never watched that show, but here we are. Anyway Johnston is good as the lead and he is very cute and, most importantly, he is also apparently openly gay! We love that for him! And for us! And our imaginations later. (He shows off his bum in the movie and it's one helluva bum y'all.) Anyway I bring up this fact not (just) so I could talk about his bum, but because the fact that casting a gay dude in this role is itself an extra-textual point in the movie's plus column. The movie is working very hard to obliterate the sad boy mindsets of incel straight dudes, and casting a gay guy to play that part is finely subversive stuff. I still think the movie doesn't really succeed with what it's trying to do for reasons I explain in the above-linked review, but it's got stuff going for it! My thoughts are really more mid than they are hateful. And hey that's something. Also something -- Google is telling me Mr. Johnston is partnered with a filmmaker named Anthony Sellitti who you can see below and umm... my goodness.

Hokum Sweet Hokum

I hope some of you went to see Damian McCarthy's new horror movie Hokum over the weekend! Starring Adam Scott as a writer who finds himself trapped inside a haunted hotel -- yes yes The Shining, The Shining, although honestly it made me think of Ti West's The Innkeepers more -- it's the third movie from the Caveat and Oddity director, and his best, says me in my review of the movie right here. Which is saying something because I loved the hell out of Oddity. McCarthy has cemented his place in the "director you should be very excited about" category now anyway -- we'll await every fresh announcement from him with bated breath. Oh and not to brag (that's a lie, I am one thousand percent bragging) but I managed to score one of the limited run of Hokum dolls that Neon dropped last week -- I've got a new cherished nerd collectible y'all!

They had TWENTY of these Hokum dolls on sale on Neon's webstore this morning AND I GOT THE LAST ONEEEEEEEE

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) May 1, 2026 at 11:11 AM

Taron Egerton Sling Time

Has Taron captured your attention? Good, that was my intention. Because I have a review for you to read! Click on over to Pajiba and you can read my thoughts on Apex, the Aussie wilderness thriller that stars Charlize Theron and Taron that just landed on Netflix today. It's good! I liked it! (Also Taron is naked in it! Even better!)

I Want My Mummy!

It's totally inexplicable how much not a Mummy movie this Mummy movie is. Lee Cronin's The Mummy (and I do think that's the official title in full, which... well that probably would've been a better choice had you been sure you'd made a great Mummy movie first, Mr. Cronin) is in fact, besides a couple of scenes set in Egypt and a sarcophogus, an Evil Dead movie. It's basically a remake of Lee Cronin's Evil Dead Rise (his last directorial effort) in fact, when it comes down to it. It's Evil Dead Rise with a bunch of CG sand flying around over everything every so often -- basically when Cronin remembers this is supposed to be a Mummy movie he makes some sand show up. Otherwise this is about a family who gets possessed one by one by a blasphemous demon, making little kids do the darndest things (or dare I even day, the damndest thing, gasp!), while ancient indecipherable artifacts get translated via obselete technology, and everything's extremely gross and obscene. 

The last bit is the best bit -- it's what I liked about Evil Dead Rise, too. Cronin is definitely not afraid to be extremely gross and extremely obscene. But as with EDR (which brought the Deadites to the city only to then keep them entirely contained to one building for the entire run-time, making it feel like a retread of everything we'd seen before in the franchise) the plot and the characterizations in this movie make so little sense from scene to scene; it's really just "gross and obscene" strung together by the thinnest of (admittedly sticky) threads. I didn't really hate my time watching this movie, but it's in no way "good" nor should anyone be applauded for how lazy it all is. Cronin made a terrific Irish Folk Horror movie in 2019 with The Hole in the Ground, but he's just been coasting on puke and pus and kids saying fuck ever since. Bad Mummy!

The Real Snuff

For some reason when my cousin and I were scouring the horror aisle at the video-store in my teen years we never bothered to rent the original Faces of Death -- probably because it clearly didn't have any sexy naked people, which is why we kept watching the same Slashers over and over again after all. But I was legitimately afraid of its VHS box too, and even though I now know it was all a bunch of hooey, that legacy of the forbidden remains attached to its title. And director Daniel Goldhaber and writer Isa Mazzei (of the fantastic Cam) have done a solid job embracing and expanding that with their... it's not a remake. Reboot, I suppose. Set in a world like ours where the Faces of Death video haunted a generation, Faces of Death (2026 Edition) introduces a serial killer (Stranger Things' Dacre Montgomery) who's viciously reenacting the original's seedy tableaus to gain viral social-media fame. And it's up to a content moderator named Margot (Barbie Ferreira) to track him down and press permanant pause on his reign of cyber-terror! 

Anyway the very real gig where a person watches "content" all day long to flag the worst offenders has been sitting around for several years now outright begging for this treatment -- this movie would make a perfect double-feature with Prano Bailey-Bond's killer 2021 film Censor, which did the 1980s "Video Nasties" version of the same thing (and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the original Faces of Death got name-checked in that). And the team of Goldhaber & Mazzei do make some murderous magic of it, tapping into the very real social-media sickness that's saturated our culture, anesthetizing us to real horror. The film's at its best when its staring into the dead eyes of the normies who don't give a shit about violence for whatever reason, be they benefitting from its monetization or simply part of the parade of empathy husks now found on every corner. 

The actual stuff with Montgomery though, who goes way over the top, is a little less successful -- okay we get it Dacre, you watched Manhunter, you watched Dahmer; maybe dial it down a notch or two. This movie has stellar vibes that all his shrieking keeps swallowing up. As for Ferreira she makes for a likeable presence that we're rooting for. Even if the movie vacillates wildly between her character having superpowered MacGyver-like skills when it needs her to (the way she manages to break out of the killer's cage after being there for all of five seconds while the people who've been locked up for weeks look on -- if I'd been one of them I would've told her to fuck right off) while then having her acting dumb as a box of rocks when the movie needs that. In that same vein this whole new Faces of Death endeavor is both sloppier than necessary while also being smarter than it had any right for. You should be pleasantly surprised, even if your groans sometimes get the better of you. (Although a few points knocked off for Yet Another Dead Gay in a year of too many of those. I would just prefer not, y'all.)