In Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, the myth roars back to life in this mostly successful adaptation.  Jacob Elordi’s performance is a standout, while Oscar Isaac is miscast.  Filled with beautiful and grotesque imagery, the film struggles for greatness and occasionally reaches it.  Recommended. Continue reading Frankenstein (2025, Netflix)

When The Black Phone did well at the box office in 2021, it was a foregone conclusion that a sequel would be coming.  This posed a challenge to writer-director Scott Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cartill: how to continue the story with a dead villain?  For Black Phone 2, the solution was to delve into the origins of the Grabber (Ethan Hawke).  While there’s no evidence of an unhappy childhood, we do see how he honed his skills before taking up residence in a Colorado suburb.  Practice makes perfect, right?

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The role of the dog in a horror movie is a thankless one.  They appear early on, growl at something unseen and vanish into the night chasing after it.  The dog is found dead soon afterwards, a bad omen that the human characters never take seriously.  Good Boy turns that cliche on its head by telling the entire story from the dog’s point of view, an inspired choice that makes a run-of-the-mill ghost story harrowing and unpredictable.  In addition to its solid horror movie trappings, the movie is also a sobering meditation on what it means to be “man’s best friend”.

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Horror movies have always given sound advice of where not to go on your vacation.  For example, you really shouldn’t stay at that ominous-looking hotel up on the hill (Psycho), or your friend’s cabin in the middle of the woods (Evil Dead), or that hostel in Slovakia (Hostel).  Dangerous Animals suggests that despite the obvious reasons for visiting Brisbane’s Gold Coast in Australia, you probably don’t want to go there either.  Because even an exciting tourist activity like swimming with the sharks may very well end up being unexpectedly life-altering.  But if you really can’t resist, definitely let your loved ones know what your plans are before you climb aboard that boat.  That way, they’ll know where to start searching for your body parts when you go missing.

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So this is what’s been on writer-director Ryan Coogler’s mind while he’s been making films based on existing IP.  Although he left his imprint upon Creed and the Black Panther movies, they weren’t entirely his creation.  For example, you could tell which parts of his Marvel movies came from his mind and which were mandated in order to fit into the larger MCU.  Sinners, Coogler’s first original film since Fruitvale Station twelve years ago, reflects the freedom he likely felt at no longer needing to tell a story using other people’s characters and storylines.  His  latest is a rare intimate blockbuster, one that is brazenly adult-oriented, filled with big ideas and told with indelible images that demand our attention.  It’s a full-throated cinematic experience that swings for the fences and connects more often than not.

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Everyone has met someone so full of themselves that you wish you could be there for their comeuppance and subsequent humbling.  Since this rarely happens in real life, movies like The Rule of Jenny Pen oblige us in this type of wish fulfillment.  In it, Judge Stefan Mortensen (Geoffrey Rush)  is exactly the kind of arrogant bastard who we can’t wait to see laid low by fate.  But, as the saying goes, even the wicked get worse than they deserve.

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