Director:  Brad Anderson
Writer: Joshua Rollins
Stars: Billie Boullet, Luke Evans, Milla Jovovich

Synopsis: A father hides his daughter on an island to keep her safe while he equips her for survival and the battles ahead.

There are movies that attempt big concepts like cataclysms and society crumpling in a macrocosm, but there is something genuinely gripping when that catastrophe is brought into the focus of a small group. It’s how we relate to the characters and are able to emotionally connect to the situation. Often films with smaller budgets are able to pull off this emotional connection much better than their mega budget counterparts because the smaller films can’t hide behind CGI. They have to arrest us with characters that can sell us on the world they live in. In some ways Worldbreaker is able to pull off this emotional feat.

The film, written by Joshua Rollins, has just enough heady sci-fi themes to keep us interested in the survival of Willa (Billie Boullet) and Dad (Luke Evans). The world is broken, literally, by creatures that lived under the earth and now want to live on top of it without pesky humans around. It’s a solid basis and when new details emerge the reason for Dad’s superstition or cagey behavior becomes clearer. Where the screenplay and the story falter is in how much exposition is given. At one point in the beginning of the narrative, there are two different narrator streams that are, thankfully, abandoned, but still don’t give us everything we really need.

Much of the downfall of Worldbreaker is that it needs more. Not more monsters, not more people, not more battle scenes, but it needs more to it. It’s a very straightforward narrative. It would work much better had Rollins chosen a more interesting thread to follow. Mom (Milla Jovovich) is a far more compelling character than Dad. It’s obvious why Dad is chosen to safeguard Willa as is established in the worldbuilding he’s more dangerous if he stays and fights, but there are just not enough details of interest about him and he becomes an archetype and not a real character. The questions that are unanswered by the lack of information in Rollins’ script aren’t completely important, but they could have added more emotional heft and more desire on our part to fully appreciate the solid basis for the story.

What works in Worldbreaker‘s favor is its effects. The CGI creatures are limited, which is a very good thing as they aren’t particularly interesting. They feel and sound like creatures in dozens of these types of films. Yet, the sound of the humans that the creatures infect is where the film sets itself apart and has something really scary. The sound from these human creatures, called hybrids, is like a guttural, mirthless laugh. It announces their proximity like a hunting call. It’s a pattern of sounds and then silence. Sound designer Matt Severin has created something otherworldly and truly terrifying.

What never makes sense is that this is a story about a world fought for, protected, and kept safe by women, but the most central figure of that world is sidelined. Milla Jovovich eats up every scene she’s in, but those scenes are sadly few. Her hero moment at the beginning of the film is never lived up to. Director Brad Anderson and cinematographer Daniel Aranyo have a tracking shot behind Jovovich as she carries a lit torch and surveys her troops who alternately call her mother and commander. It’s a great scene followed by a tense, and a, tragically, cut short charge into battle, but she’s never given much more than that. Worldbreaker is Willa’s story, of course, but there was room for more than that.

Worldbreaker follows a familiar pattern. It’s a post-apocalyptic epic that has an intriguing world and not much more. It’s short enough and tense enough that it will keep your attention. There are good scenes and some lush scenery when Willa and Dad are on the island. Yet, it’s never trying to be more than it is. It really could have been, but something holds it back. It’s not a bad watch, but it’s a bit of junk food and not a full meal.

Grade: C

Director: Hlynur Pálmason
Writer: Hlynur Pálmason
Stars: Saga Garðarsdóttir, Sverrir Guðnason, Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir, Grímur Hlynsson

Synopsis: Captures a year in the life of a family as the parents navigate their separation. Through intimate vignettes and strange occurrences, the film explores the complexities of family, love, and the impact of shared memories.

Icelandic filmmaker Hlynur Pálmason is no stranger to making wholly singular pieces of work, and his latest, The Love That Remains (Ástin sem eftir er), is no exception. I can’t recall the last time I felt so absorbed watching a film, even though I found the structure to be often at odds with the poignant message at the heart of the picture. The story is relatively simple, but Pálmason’s formal approach is anything but. Instead of chronologically recounting a year in the life of a family whose parents (played by Saga Garðarsdóttir and Sverrir Guðnason) are going through a separation, the Godland director portrays this twelve-month journey through fragmented memories. 

Some are, of course, positive and loving; others are not as uplifting. Then there are the mundane, but funny slice-of-life sequences that recall the work of Yasujiro Ozu (Good Morning, in particular) and the esoteric, otherworldly bits that come out of nowhere and shock your soul into complete bewilderment. It’s a totally singular artistic object, and one that demands your attention even if Pálmason’s structure is more alienating than commercially crowd-pleasing. Many may not appreciate the way he frames his story, but anyone who consistently has memories flashed back in front of their very eyes in jumbled, often imprecise succession (so, essentially, everyone), it’s not hard to like what’s shown on screen. 

Life is, after all, a collection of fleeting memories. We go through a day, and what’s in the past cannot be fixed. They’re only stored in our minds until our ultimate voyage. The way Pálmason captures these memories is the same way we think about our past in relation to the future. Our recollections rarely linger, and if they do, it’s always the worst – and most embarrassing – parts of our past we don’t want to relive. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll also remember some of our darkest actions that will haunt us in our worst nightmares and make us feel the brunt of our gestures. In that case, Pálmason stages a sequence that feels plucked straight out of Jean-Claude Lauzon’s Léolo (or my worst nightmares, you decide!), but to say anything about it would rob you of the pleasures of discovering this unique object for yourself. 

What’s most impressive here, though, is how Pálmason’s visual language informs the viewer of the fractures that caused the family to eventually separate without them uttering many words. As (purposefully) disjointed as the movie could get, even its juxtapositions gave many of its jaw-dropping images (shot by Pálmason himself) intense meaning. The performances are also excellent, with Garðarsdóttir being a major highlight, conveying a litany of repressed emotions through only her eyes. The two children, played by Þorgils Hlynsson and Grímur Hlynsson, are nice comedic counterpoints to a story that isn’t necessarily purely comedic, but represents a year in the life of an ordinary family grappling with an uncertain future, none of whom are sure how it will be shaped. 

It’s just a shame that, at the end of the day, the emotional attachment between the audience and the protagonists feels rather limited in scope because of the fragmented nature of the project. However, there’s no denying Pálmason’s imprint within world cinema, as an artist who continues to break the very foundations of the medium for the better, one project at a time, and forces all of us to think differently about how film – as a work of art – should operate and showcase what are the most profoundly human aspects in our lives. In a world that feels less human by the day, films like The Love That Remains are worth cherishing.

Grade: B+

Director: Sam Raimi
Writers: Damian Shannon, Mark Swift
Stars: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O’Brien, Bruce Campbell

Synopsis: Two colleagues become stranded on a deserted island, the only survivors of a plane crash. On the island, they must overcome past grievances and work together to survive, but ultimately, it’s a battle of wills and wits to make it out alive.

With Send Help, Sam Raimi demonstrates what he does best, expertly toeing the line between horror and comedy. The horror master returns with his first feature since the wildly overrated Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, delivering his strongest film since Drag Me to Hell. 

This is Raimi’s reentry into the genre that made him a household name is an exhilarating horror-thriller, featuring a terrific performance from Rachel McAdams. Yes, with Send Help, Sam Raimi reminds us why he’s a horror master – suspenseful, vicious, and wickedly funny. 

The film follows Linda Liddle (Academy Award-nominee McAdams), an employee in the planning and strategy division of a Fortune 500 company. Her work is so highly regarded that her boss is preparing to promote her to Vice President. However, things take a downturn when he dies and his yuppie, silver-spoon-fed son, Bradley (Twinless’s Dylan O’Brien), is handed the CEO position.

Of course, Bradley promptly surrounds himself with his frat-boy buddies, proving the boys’ club is alive and well. Among them are Chase (Seagrass’s Chris Pang) and Donovan (Blonde’s Xavier Samuel), the latter of whom steals Linda’s work and is handed the promotion meant for her, simply because she doesn’t present herself as the kind of corporate shark who wheels and deals as a power broker on the golf course.

Bradley wants to show Linda the door, but the COO (Far from Heaven’s Dennis Haysbert, underutilized here) insists on keeping her on board, warning that the Bangkok merger could fall apart without her. Linda is forced to join the boys on a private jet, where, while she’s hard at work, they discover an old online audition video of her trying to land a spot on the latest season of Survivor. 

The joke, however, is on them when the plane crashes in a sequence so steeped in dark comedy it might as well be Vantablack, killing everyone on board except Linda, who washes ashore on a deserted island. While searching her new home for food and supplies, she stumbles upon an injured Bradley and nurses him back to health, leaving the two of them to fight for survival.

Raimi’s Send Help is a viscerally felt horror flick with a savage original script from Damian Shannon and Mark Swift. The experience begins to work on many levels, like watching the love child of Cast Away, Swimming with the Sharks, and Misery. A survivalist desperation character study that doubles as a razor-sharp corporate satire. No, there are no boardrooms to swing an ax of corporate cruelty, or to make deals with handshakes on the golf course. 

Here, a smarmy O’Brien is psychologically dismantled by McAdams’ Linda, who proves that her kindness is not a weakness. The result is a tropical oasis-style chess match that’s deeply unnerving. Raimi builds tension into a power struggle that becomes a wild, darkly funny ride. Here, power is valued over empathy, with kindness seen as a strategy rather than a virtue.

By refusing to let either character be fully trusted, the script creates a diabolically entertaining viewing experience in which every interaction feels like a psychological ploy, and the outcome is never predictable. Just as compelling is the way both characters evolve, crossing each other like passing ships, one sliding from good to bad, the other discovering a measure of their own humanity.

Send Help is worth watching because it does what the very best horror-thrillers do: it elevates a psychological two-hander in which so much is revealed that you’re never quite sure who to root for. Raimi’s precise control of the camera, paired with sharp thriller mechanics and impeccable comedic timing, is just as effective as the film’s bitter, razor-edged back-and-forth dialogue. 

While the ending may feel a touch too clean, the larger themes of knowledge, competence, and emotional control come vividly alive through Rachel McAdams’ thrilling performance. Raimi understands that their fate isn’t a prison, it’s an opportunity. Survival is no longer the temptation.

Power is.

You can watch Send Help only in theaters starting January 30th!

Grade: B+

Director: Timur Bekmambetov
Writer: Marco van Belle
Stars: Chris Pratt, Rebecca Ferguson, Kali Reis

Synopsis: In the near future, a detective stands on trial accused of murdering his wife. He has 90 minutes to prove his innocence to the advanced A.I. Judge he once championed, before it determines his fate.

It pains me to give a thumbs down to Mercy, a film from Timur Bekmambetov, the man behind the misunderstood historical-fiction “classic” (I’m putting the word in quotes so my editor won’t cut off my access to the InSession Film Slack account), Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. A pioneer of the “screenlife” genre, Bekmambetov helped usher in films like Searching, Missing, Unfriended, and, yes, the infamous 2025 Ice Cube entry, War of the Worlds.

So yes, Bekmambetov’s career has taken a downturn since that pre-Civil War horror epic. Unfortunately, while he has continued to excel as a producer, his directorial efforts feel less inspired, like a young Lincoln wildly swinging an axe, missing the mark, and somehow still managing to give cinema a bad name. 

Those are the thoughts I had with Mercy, a perfectly serviceable film because it is a watered down rip off of Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report, until it begins to turn a corner that feel like plot points were dropped (or ignored) as if Bekmambetov was treating the medium of cinema as an exercise in logistics, losing nuance, emotional beats, and rushing transitions that make the story too clean, too predictable, and too conventional.

The story begins with Detective Christopher “Chris” Raven (Chris Pratt), an officer in the LAPD, who wakes up on trial for the murder of his wife, Nicole (Annabelle Wallis). Chris is not in a normal courtroom. He is awakened by Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson), who is an artificial intelligence adjudicator of the Mercy program, a piece of software that Chris helped create, to cut all the red tape and lawyer tricks in the name of justice. 

The gist of the trial is simple: he has 90 minutes to prove his innocence, or he will be convicted of murder, with Maddox serving as judge, jury, and executioner. As a screenlife film, Maddox allows Detective Raven to comb through the private digital accounts of his wife, his daughter, and the suspects. Along the way, we learn that Chris has had a rough stretch in recent years, including a struggle with alcohol following the on-the-job death of his former partner (Kenneth Choi).

To piece things together, he must rely on his inner circle, a group of people who may suspect that Chris did it, or may be suspects themselves. This includes his new partner, Jaq (True Detective: Night Country’s Kali Reis), whom Raven asks to track down leads. Also among the last people to see his estranged wife alive is Rob (This Is Us’s Chris Sullivan), his AA sponsor, who has become part of the family. There is also his daughter, Britt (Beau Is Afraid’s Kylie Rogers), whose unresolved grief leads her to question her father’s innocence.

Mercy starts serviceable, like a digital puzzle-box screenlife thriller with an intriguing setup, dropping the viewer into an unfamiliar world. However, Pratt’s performance ultimately falls short, failing to generate the sustained, believable anxiety essential to a film like this, especially one that functions as a tricked-up, single-location exercise. Frankly, watching Pratt trying to cry and look scared is like watching a narcissist with crocodile tears. 

Then there’s the bigger issue: Bekmambetov’s plotting, which is among the most convoluted I’ve seen in a thriller in recent memory. That shouldn’t be a surprise coming from an accomplished producer, screenlife films are built to save on costs, often delivering the most basic, paint-by-numbers version of the genre while dutifully following the plot-point playbook step by step. Here, the film piles on red herrings that exist only to distract.

There is no payoff or logic, gleefully teasing that the wife is involved in something shady or that the “real” villain abducts someone for reasons the story never earns or even explains. This is the kind of movie where you can narrow the outcome down to one or two endings and twists within the first 15 minutes. Compounding the problem is a script with all the backbone of a perimysium, suggesting that Ferguson’s AI Judge can suddenly make rational judgments and display human emotion simply because Pratt’s character orders her to do so.

Yup, if that wasn’t proof the software was created by a man as a flight of cinematic fancy, nothing will. 

Mercy is simply not worth watching, in the theater or on demand. The experience quickly collapses into a convoluted, paint-by-numbers screenlife picture, packed with bad performances, yawn-inducing plot points, and a few empty red herrings. So, instead of paying over fifty-dollars for tickets and snacks, stay home, pay just under four bucks (or watch for free on HBO), Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, and thank me later. 

You can watch Mercy only in theaters starting January 23rd!

Grade: D+

Director: Adam Bhala Lough
Stars: Adam Bhala Lough, Heidy Khlaaf, Divtendra Singh Jadoun

Synopsis: A filmmaker’s humorous journey into artificial intelligence leads to unexpected questions about humanity’s future and our relationship with emerging technology.

In Deepfaking Sam Altman, filmmaker Adam Bhala Lough turns a roadblock into a revelation. What begins as a straightforward attempt to interview one of the most influential figures in artificial intelligence becomes something far stranger, funnier, and ultimately more revealing. Unable to gain access to Sam Altman himself, Lough builds an AI stand-in from Altman’s public words, interviews, and appearances. The result is a documentary that feels less like a profile and more like a conversation with the cultural moment we’re currently trying to understand and navigate.

Premiering at SXSW 2025 and winning Best Documentary at the Chelsea Film Festival, Deepfaking Sam Altman positions itself at the intersection of verité filmmaking and speculative play. Produced in collaboration with Hartbeat and Vox Media Studios and inspired in part by reporting from New York Magazine, the film combines investigative curiosity with a distinctly self-aware sense of absurdity.

If you’re new to AI, Sam Altman is the face of it. Altman is the head of OpenAI, the company behind your online best friend, ChatGPT. Lough, previously known for HBO’s Telemarketers, brings his familiar blend of persistence and vulnerability to the project. His initial goal to understand the rapidly evolving AI landscape by speaking directly to one of its central architects is logical and in line with audiences wanting to learn more about AI and the people behind it. Every access attempt is rebuffed and becomes part of the film’s thesis: power in the AI age is often opaque, carefully managed, and frustratingly out of reach. Rather than stall, Lough reframes the question. If the human source won’t speak, what happens when the machine does? As well as trying to address all our natural fears around AI, especially when it comes to our careers. 

Enter Sam Bot. Constructed from Altman’s public-facing digital footprint, the AI version is glitchy, oddly charming, and, at times, disconcertingly articulate. Through these exchanges, Deepfaking Sam Altman explores not just what AI can say, but what we are willing to hear from it. It verges on parody and a dystopian warning; it’s clever in allowing audiences to come to that conclusion themselves. 

The tone is sharp and often very funny, but never flippant. The music is over-the-top, there’s plenty of footage from interviews, the news, protests, and online conversations to keep you invested and provoke conversation around your experiences and opinions of AI. 

What I did enjoy was that throughout this investigation into OpenAI, they’re constantly using AI tools that have been available for years. Such as asking Siri when his last call was (he could easily look himself) and using a maps service in the car (we have road signs and physical maps available), showcasing how maybe our fears are a little irrational since we’re already using so many. Or, it’s highlighting how quickly AI tools become part of your everyday life. 

What gives Deepfaking Sam Altman its emotional resonance is its focus on connection. Lough’s conversations with Sam Bot gradually shift from information-seeking to something more personal, even philosophical. The film begins to interrogate why we crave answers from singular figures in the first place, and what it means when those figures are replaced by simulations. In a world where public personas are increasingly curated and inaccessible, the artificial stand-in becomes, paradoxically, more available than the real thing. The SamBot showing a will to live was very unnerving as a viewer and heightened fears of what AI can grow into.

There is a nice balance between AI and seeing Lough’s personal life, from his children’s hamster being unwell to visiting his family in India. The contrast is showing why human connection is incredibly important and how our desires and natural ability to make connections are why we feel connected to AI. 

Rather than offering definitive conclusions about the ethics or future of artificial intelligence, Deepfaking Sam Altman embraces uncertainty. It acknowledges the chaos of the current moment, where innovation outpaces understanding and authority often speaks through abstraction. In the end, Deepfaking Sam Altman is less about Sam Altman than it is about us; our desire for guidance, our comfort with proxies, and our willingness to engage with synthetic voices when human ones fall silent. It is a film that thinks in real time, asking not just where AI is taking us, but who we’re talking to along the way. Through a jokey, comfortable tone and real footage, this documentary makes for a very interesting and fun watch. Definitely for fans of documentaries, AI, and ethical dilemmas.

Grade: B+

Director: François Ozon
Writer: François Ozon
Stars: Benjamin Voisin, Rebecca Marder, Swann Arlaud

Synopsis: In 1930s Algeria, the daily life of an indifferent Frenchman is shaken by the death of his mother and a fateful encounter on a beach.

This year (in Québec, at least), we will have the privilege of seeing two adaptations of literary masterpieces that not only continue to be taught in schools worldwide but also stand the test of time within contemporary society. You can always discover something new while re-reading Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (which looks to be desecrated by Emerald Fennell in her upcoming 50 Shades of Grey-esque adaptation, though none can fully judge the work without having seen it), and the same can be said with Albert Camus’ The Stranger (L’étranger). 

This might be a controversial opinion, but since Wuthering Heights has been adapted to film time and again (to middling results), transposing The Stranger to the screen seems like a more daunting task, especially because the few that dared (Luchino Visconti, most notably) failed miserably. Camus’ book asks its readers to put themselves in the shoes of a man with little to no emotions, feeling indifferent (or bored) about his mother’s death, and the eventual killing he will commit under the sun. 

The first-person narrative, which creates a discordant connection between the protagonist and the book’s readers, is the most essential element of Camus’ masterpiece, but does it seem fully suited to filmic proportions? This is the question François Ozon asks himself as he transposes the novel to the screen, and while many creative liberties are taken to deepen the sociopolitical context of Meursault’s (Benjamin Voisin) killing and change the perspectives of the story, the end result still ends up being nothing short of masterful, which feels like a miracle given how someone who, like me, had a profound epiphany while reading Camus’ book in school, doesn’t feel one ounce of anger towards the changes made in his version of the text. 

In fact, many of Ozon’s permutations broaden our conception of the character, without employing a first-person device to put us in Meursault’s shoes. The political context – in particular, French-occupied Algiers – imbues the atmosphere with a disquieting tension that never really leaves the audience or the protagonist, who wanders through an environment he feels a stranger in. Meursault has never really “fit in” with the places he has lived, but feels more uncomfortable being in a country that isn’t his, which is occupied by colonizers from his birth country. Camus never really deepened this context in the book, nor does he give the Arab Meursault killed during The Stranger’s midpoint a name, while the context is the text of Ozon’s film. 

The first hour or so of Ozon’s 122-minute psychological drama puts us in the middle of Algiers’ disquieting atmosphere. It’s often a silent introductory half, as the protagonist barely speaks. When he does, it’s usually to say variations of the sentence, “I don’t know.” Manu Dacosse’s (one of the best cinematographers working today) visual language completely absorbs us in the internal and external tension that lies within Meursault’s very being, rendered in a stark, almost classical black-and-white. 

We sit with Meursault as he contemplates not only what his mother’s death means for him, but what it means to live in an occupied state as an occupier. He’s a stranger in a land that doesn’t belong to him, and, in fact, doesn’t even know if returning to Paris would ease him of the internal suffering he clearly feels (without showing an ounce of exterior emotion), attempting to fabricate a life in Algiers with his girlfriend, Marie Cardona (Rebecca Marder), without fully having a connection with her, or anyone around him. 

It’s a miserable existence, sadly worsened when he kills an Arab who pointed a knife at him and his friend Raymond Sintès (Pierre Lottin), and is condemned to a trial not on what he did, but on who he is. This is also the second part of the novel, but it is far more psychologically active in Ozon’s hands than when Camus wrote it in the first person. The French filmmaker attempts to excavate the very nature (more aptly, Camus’ conception) of Meursault within the confines of a thrilling courtroom drama that rarely questions his actions (when it should be the heart of the trial), but examines his lack of human emotions as the heart driving the murder he committed. 

Of course, like in Camus’ book, we don’t have an answer that lies at the heart of his quiet nature, but Meursault seemingly feels more three-dimensional in the hands of Ozon and Voisin, whose second collaboration with the director is an even bigger winner than Summer of ‘85. In fact, The Stranger might be Ozon’s most artistically and thematically compelling work, whose modifications he makes to the source material enhance our understanding of who the character might be (since Camus leaves much to interpretation), much further than how he was written (the millisecond of homoeroticism, for example, seems insignificant, but it may provide a broader key to Meursault’s complex inner feelings). 

The black-and-white looks utterly spectacular on the biggest possible screen, and the atmospheric sounds envelop the bleak environment that has been stripped of its color ever since France colonized it, creating a landscape that feels somehow more textured than how Camus described the Algiers Meursault lived in. Then comes the final scene, which sees the protagonist reckon his (lack of) spiritual beliefs with a priest, played by Anatomy of a Fall’s Swann Arlaud. It might run a little too long, but the way in which Ozon wrestles with theology and the great mystery – and certainty – at the heart of being human (death) could be the best thing he’s ever written. When one knows they are going to die, the most profound spiritual experiences usually occur, even in people who consistently want to reject them. 

Meursault is faced with a push-pull that says more about his character than anything Camus wrote in The Stranger, transcending it from mere literature to a text that allows us to understand what lies at the very heart of being human. Not only does Ozon do the work justice with his adaptation ofThe Stranger, but he may even surpass it by cogently interpreting what was initially written as the smaller part of a big sociopolitical problem. And by giving the person Meursault killed a name at the tail end of the film, the context (and the protagonist’s place within it) becomes the most important element of the character study at the heart of the source material. 

The Stranger is currently playing in several Québec cinemas, but should Ozon’s film ever be released in other parts of the world, it’s one that demands your attention.

Grade: A-

Director: Ryan Prows
Writers: Tim Cairo, Jake Gibson, Shaye Ogbonna, Ryan Prows
Stars: Dermot Mulroney, Justin Long, CM Punk

Synopsis: An L.A. cop discovers a local task force is hiding a secret that puts the residents of his childhood neighborhood in danger.

It’s no secret that my favorite genre of movies is Horror. I love most of the subgenres that came from it, the stories that are being told and being on the edge of my seat with what goes on onscreen. It’s a new year and that means there are going to be a lot of ways for filmmakers to challenge us as audiences and see how far they can go with their stories. Unfortunately, I wasn’t challenged by this new horror/action/fantasy film Night Patrol. You know when people say, “January movie releases are trash” and you want to ignore them because a specific movie looks really cool? Going in with only seeing the teaser trailer took away a little bit of the pain of not really enjoying it that much. 

The movie begins with Wazi (RJ Cyler) in an interrogation room. He’s badly wounded on his stomach. The captain enters the room and he gives Wazi documents to sign. The documents are basically telling them that he was responsible for something that recently happened. The movie takes a time jump to just a few days ago. Wazi goes to meet up with his girl, Primo (Zuri Reed). They converse in her car until the red and blue lights begin to shine in their rear view. For no reason whatsoever, they ask Primo to step out of the car. We’re introduced to Officer Hawkins (Justin Long). He walks up to said car and shoots Primo, execution style. Wazi flees the scene and evades the cops. Soon after, he’s approached by one of the cops that they were stopped by. A ring on Wazi’s finger starts to glow green, the cop’s bewildered by what he’s seen and he runs away. The beginning of this movie really showed promise and I was anticipating what the rest of the movie was going to be like.

In a lot of movies today, we’re given the privilege to have them broken into different chapters. Our three groups of characters are the Zulu Crips, the Piru Bloods, and, of course, the LAPD. Not too long after our intro we’re taken on a ride along with officer Hawkins and officer Carr (Jermaine Fowler). Carr used to be a member of the Crips as a youth but he decided to really make a difference in his community and join the force. The trope of a former hood nut turned authority figure isn’t given any new elements from the writers. They try to give the audience an End of Watch kind of vibe but the two actors are let down because of the underdeveloped script. They’re supposed to have been partners for a while but it feels like they were just put together a week ago. We get drops of details about the officers that include info about their dead fathers, life in the service, etc.

We’re introduced to some members of the Bloods such as Bornelius (Freddie Gibbs), Tripp (YG), and Three Deuce (Flying Lotus). We only see them for about 25 minutes of the movie because they’re only there to press Wazi for information about Bornelius’ sister, joining the Crips in a battle against the members of the Night Patrol, and trying to make sense of the absurd things that are going on. Carr has issues with his mother, Ayanda (Nicki Micheaux), over how his father died. Ayanda is the head of the Crips and the neighborhood wacko to everyone in the neighborhood. She’s also the only person that knows anything about their Zulu roots, the vampires, and she’s given the honor of being head in charge of exposition as well. Hawkins tries to destroy the Night Patrol from the inside but he’s welcomed by his father who’s supposed to be dead. He’s revealed to be the actual head of the vampires and that he needs his son to join them in battle. He gives Hawkins his blood and he begins his transformation into a vampire. 

Director Ryan Prows takes us on a journey that is underdeveloped and doesn’t live up to its premise. It was good to see this cast of Black actors, but I wish it was in a better movie. At times, the action was so cartoonish that I had to shake my head. In the pre battle montage, the Zulu Crips put up their crosses and artifacts around their housing complex. There was no reason for them to do that when the vampires burst in there with no hesitation. I had so many questions such as, “What have the vampires been up to before the battle with the Crips and Bloods began?” and “Why don’t the vampires have regular fangs instead of corny grills in their mouths?” Topics like police brutality, gang culture, and why cops act the way they are are touched on but are never fully explored. It’s like the writers said, “This is the way things are in this movie. Come to your own conclusions.” It’s very ambitious but the four writers couldn’t really make sense of it all. I enjoyed some of the camera techniques and the story between the Zulu Crips and the vampires. At the end we’re left with decent performances from the actors, ok effects, cartoonishly funny action, and an underdeveloped script. Not too bad for a Shudder January release, don’t you think?

Grade: C