Bad Times at the El Royale is a thrilling, character-driven neo-noir homage that will keep you guessing from beginning to end. Don't let the flashy trailers, catchy title, or A-list stars fool you. Bad Times at the El Royale is not your typical popcorn thriller. Written and directed by Drew Goddard, who had a lot to live up…
Widows is successfully a thrilling heist movie, emotional character study, and dissection of our current social climate. Widows is based on the 1983 British television show of the same name, but you wouldn't know that watching Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen's adaptation from a screenplay written by Gone Girl scribe Gillian Flynn. The film, which changes the location from London to…
The Shallows follows a young med student as she becomes harpooned on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean surrounded by a Great White Shark One sentence review: The Shallows makes the most of its familiar premise to deliver a thrilling and tense tale of survival grounded by a great lead performance by Blake Lively. One…
The Changeover is a well-made fantasy YA movie that features a terrifying villainous turn by Timothy Spall. The Changeover — based on Margaret Mahy’s 1984 novel of the same — is refreshingly a young adult adaptation that doesn’t have aspirations for a franchise. In the vein of Twilight, the movie tells the story of Laura (Erana James),…
Glass is a wildly ambitious conclusion to M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable trilogy that succeeds and fails in many ways. Glass — the finale of M. Night Shyamalan’s surprise Unbreakable trilogy — is ambitious and wild. It works completely in some aspects and fails in others. But I’m glad that it exists. Shyamalan took the initiative and self-financed the film,…
Beyond the Night is an engrossing thriller filled with strong characters and an intruging central mystery that keeps you guessing. Beyond the Night is a dark slow-burning supernatural thriller set in a small coal-mining town in rural Pennsylvania. It’s the perfect setting for the movie’s mystery to be set against. The gray, frozen landscape adds to…
The Guilty is a somewhat predictable, but taut single-location thriller of a kidnapping case unfolding in real time. The Guilty, Denmark's entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars, is a taut thriller that plays out like an episode of Law & Order: SVU. Told in real time, the film follows Asger (Jakob Cedergren), a police officer…
Get Out is easily one of the most original horror movies — or just movie for that matter — in years by one of the most exciting filmmakers of our generation. Take the setup Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, the world of Stepford Wives, and the exploration of the black experience in I Am Not Your Negro and you have…
Thoroughbreds is a twisted and darkly funny coming-of-age debut film about what it means to be evil Thoroughbreds is about evil. What makes someone evil? However, it begs that question in two ways. What makes someone evil—meaning what action or actions that a person takes that makes them considered evil—and what makes someone evil—in that what…
Calibre is a lean and oppressively dark thriller set in the Scottish Highlands that announces Matt Palmer as an exciting new filmmaker and Jack Lowden as a star Calibre at the beginning is interspersed with sweeping, silent shots of the Scottish Highlands. The shots are beautiful but foreboding and isolating. Slowly the film closes in. The shots…
