Director: Adam Meeks
Writer: Adam Meeks
Stars: Will Poulter, Kevin P. Braig, Annette Deao

Synopsis: Assigned to a county-mandated drug court program, Cody Parsons embarks on the tenuous journey toward recovery amidst the opioid epidemic in rural Ohio.

Movies about addiction and recovery aren’t exactly a new premise, but Union County highlights just how vital they still are by raising much needed awareness and questioning whether the current systems in place truly do enough to support those most affected. To the film’s credit, it doesn’t shy away from depicting the many hurdles and setbacks individuals face, while also showcasing the opportunities available to them in their moments of need. It achieves this by following a real-life program with real participants in Ohio, offering an immensely poignant and effective look at the path to recovery.

Union County follows Cody Parsons (Will Poulter) as he begins his long road ahead after entering a court-mandated recovery program that requires him to attend regular meetings, track his sobriety, and slowly reintegrate back into society under intense supervision. His brother, Jack (Noah Centineo), is also enrolled in the same program, but on the surface his chirpy demeanor and healthier appearance suggest he is further along in his rehabilitation, as compared to Cody.

The journey starts right at the beginning with Cody having no viable place to live, beyond his car, with his only possessions essentially being the clothes on his back. With help from Jack, he is able to secure a job in order to somewhat get himself back on his feet. There’s a palpable sense of monotony as he tries to avoid temptation while stuck in the cycle of work, court, sleep, repeat. Don’t mess around, don’t make mistakes, and everything will be ok. Of course, that’s not how it plays out. Both brothers frustratingly fall foul of breaking the rules with deadly serious consequences on the horizon if no change is made.

Amongst the many sobering moments Union County has on display, it does feel like there is a definitive turning point in the brother’s separate journeys that is particularly pertinent. It’s a moment that every addict, whether it be drugs, gambling, or alcohol, can pinpoint where the tides in their lives began to turn. It’s something that’s captured brilliantly here through these characters, hitting particularly close to home for myself, as someone who overcame a crippling gambling addiction.

Via the real life program, it’s clear from the outset just how beneficial some of the services that they offer are to those enrolled. The way they are captured here is remarkably similar to that of Sing Sing,  which is a nice touch. It also captures how the workers are willing to move heaven and earth for their clients, but ultimately their hands are tied by the limitations of the system. Simultaneously, it raises the question of whether the government could be doing more to support initiatives like this.

Of course, while individuals must take responsibility for their own actions and can only be helped if they actively want it, Union County utilizes Cody as a vehicle to show how difficult it is to traverse the crisis of addiction. There’s some incredibly difficult to watch scenes as the system deems it acceptable to cast Cody aside to live in his car as shelters are full, rather than actually provide the support that is desperately needed for success. The feeling of frustration grows further with the inclusion of real-life individuals who have been enrolled into the very program the film depicts.

Narratively, not everything in Union County works. The inclusion of a romantic subplot can feel a little forced at times. Rather than developing more naturally as a part of Cody’s story, it often comes across as just a narrative accelerator. The presence of romance is understandable though, given that many people have credited their partners as a catalyst for them to turn their life around successfully.

That said, writer and director Adam Meeks handles the subject matter with a great deal of care. The messaging is timely with drug and opioid abuse in America reaching record levels. It is delivered in a deeply effective way that is bound to resonate with anyone that has experienced a journey like this, or has known someone that has. This is especially evident during a meeting where Will Poulter delivers a phenomenal speech that reinforces addiction is a constant battle that is never truly over, with each day a small victory in itself which is made all the more meaningful as it’s delivered in front of real life victims who still struggle day in day out.

Speaking of Poulter, his performance is impeccable. Having already received a Primetime Emmy nomination for his role in Dopesick, another project that tackles the opioid epidemic, it should come as no surprise that he approaches the material with the respect and maturity it demands. It will undoubtedly go down as another highlight in his already impressive resume, as he further stakes his claim to being one of the best British actors working today.

Centineo, in the main supporting role, makes the most of his more limited screentime. Despite projecting an air of confident bravado, he also brings a quiet vulnerability that allows the audience to feel every rise and fall of his character’s arc. It’s a performance that likely won’t be seen by nearly as many people as it deserves, as it is one I’m sure many who have struggled with similar addictions will be able to thoroughly relate to. 

As Union County draws to a close, it becomes abundantly clear that it has no intention of having a glossy Hollywood ending. Instead, it stays true to its core, presenting a hard hitting, honest depiction of the uncomfortable reality that anyone can be affected by what is shown on screen. While it isn’t a film that offers anything we haven’t seen before, it provides a profound look at one of the biggest tragedies plaguing modern society, offering a solemn glimpse into the suffering a growing number of people have to face.

Grade: B

Director: Jane Schoenbrun
Writer: Jane Schoenbrun
Stars: Hannah Einbinder, Gillian Anderson, Jack Haven

Synopsis: A director making a slasher sequel becomes obsessed with casting the original film’s ‘final girl,’ leading both women into psychological and sexual chaos.

I don’t think I was prepared for how much Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma would get under my skin. Jane Schoenbrun’s latest film is a strange, intimate, deeply personal horror movie about identity, fandom, sexuality, nostalgia, and the fictional worlds we create when reality becomes too difficult to understand. It is also one of those rare films where nearly every element feels connected to the same emotional idea. Schoenbrun understands that sometimes the stories we fall in love with when we are young become inseparable from the people we eventually grow into, even when we don’t fully understand why they matter to us at the time.

At the center is Kris (Hannah Einbinder), a filmmaker tasked with rebooting the fictional Camp Miasma horror franchise, a series built around Little Death, a gender-fluid killer whose original story was shaped through a transphobic lens. What initially seems like another cynical exercise in franchise filmmaking gradually becomes something much more personal. Kris’s relationship with the series is complicated. She loves it, feels embarrassed by that love, and cannot quite explain why this piece of horror history has remained so important to her.

That contradiction gives Camp Miasma its emotional foundation. Schoenbrun understands that the media we love as children can become tangled up with our understanding of ourselves. Sometimes the things that frighten us are also the things that help us recognize something about who we are. Sometimes a character or fictional world can express something we don’t yet have the words to articulate. And sometimes we don’t understand the significance of those attachments until years later, when we look back and realize they were telling us something all along.

Little Death is the clearest expression of that idea.

The character was created as something to fear, but Schoenbrun gradually strips away that framing. Little Death isn’t frightening simply because he is different. The horror comes from a society that decided difference itself was monstrous. He embodies so much of what we are taught to fear when we don’t fit neatly into the world around us: the strange, the unfamiliar, the impossible to categorize.

But Little Death isn’t the monster.

The monster is the idea that being different makes you something that needs to be feared, corrected, or hidden. The real horror is being taught to hate yourself because you don’t fit into the world you’ve been given.

That is what makes Little Death feel so meaningful. Schoenbrun takes a character who was once constructed through fear and asks what happens when the person who sees themselves in that monster finally stops accepting the story they were given about what the monster is supposed to mean. There is something deeply moving about that reclamation. Little Death can be frightening, grotesque, sexual, strange, and unknowable without any of those things making them inherently wrong. They can simply exist.

And for anyone who has spent years believing there was something fundamentally wrong with them because they couldn’t fit comfortably into the categories the world had prepared for them, that idea can hit with extraordinary force. Sometimes the most frightening thing isn’t discovering that you are different. It’s realizing how long you spent believing that difference made you unworthy of love.

That is a particularly powerful idea in a film so interested in gender and identity. Little Death exists in the uncomfortable space between how a person sees themselves and how the world decides to see them. Schoenbrun isn’t interested in pretending that the original transphobia surrounding the character doesn’t exist. Instead, the film asks what it means to take something that was created through fear and reinterpret it on your own terms.

It is a familiar idea in Schoenbrun’s work, but Camp Miasma approaches it from a different direction than I Saw the TV Glow. Where that film was consumed by the terrifying realization that something inside you needs to be acknowledged, Camp Miasma is more interested in what happens afterward. What do you do once you begin to understand yourself? How do you live with the things you once feared? How do you reclaim the stories, images, and fantasies that helped shape you?

That distinction makes the film feel like a natural progression from Schoenbrun’s earlier work. I Saw the TV Glow was about the terror of recognizing yourself. Camp Miasma is more interested in the complicated process of actually living with that recognition.

Hannah Einbinder gives one of the year’s strongest performances as Kris. She brings an awkward, nervous energy to the character that makes her feel immediately recognizable. Kris is funny, defensive, frustrated, horny, insecure, and vulnerable, sometimes all at once, and Einbinder never reduces her to a single emotional register. Much of the performance exists in the spaces between what Kris says and what she actually feels.

There is an impressive restraint to Einbinder’s work. She doesn’t need to explain Kris’s emotions for us. A hesitation, a look, or a slight change in her voice can communicate what the character is struggling to articulate. It makes Kris’s obsession with Camp Miasma feel less like simple fandom and more like an attempt to understand a piece of herself she has spent years avoiding.

Kris is fascinating because her relationship with the franchise is never treated as merely intellectual. She doesn’t just want to make a better Camp Miasma movie. She is trying to figure out why this particular story has such a hold on her. Her fascination with Little Death feels less like the obsession of a filmmaker and more like an attempt to revisit something from her past and finally understand what it meant.

Gillian Anderson is equally fantastic as Billy Preston, bringing an entirely different energy to the film. Anderson gives Billy an effortless magnetism while still allowing vulnerability to exist beneath the larger-than-life persona. She feels simultaneously like an icon and a person, which makes it easy to understand why Kris becomes so fascinated by her.

There is something so beautiful about the way Anderson’s Billy represents that first spark of recognition you can find in a performer or fictional character before you even understand why you are so drawn to them. Sometimes you encounter someone on a screen when you’re young and feel an immediate, almost inexplicable connection to them. You don’t necessarily have the language to understand what that feeling means yet. You just know that you want to watch them again, that something about them feels familiar, or that you can’t stop thinking about them. Anderson captures that feeling beautifully. Billy becomes more than simply someone Kris admires; she represents the strange, formative power of seeing something in another person that you haven’t yet learned how to see in yourself.

That makes Anderson’s performance especially moving because she understands the difference between being an object of fascination and being a source of recognition. There is something almost mythic about Billy through Kris’s eyes, but Anderson never lets her become merely an icon. She gives her warmth, humor, confidence, and vulnerability, allowing us to understand why someone could look at her and feel that little spark of something before they have any idea what that something is. I loved her so much.

These are performances that deserve to be part of the conversation for some of the year’s best. The entire ensemble understands the strange tonal balancing act Schoenbrun is attempting. The actors can move from comedy to horror to sexuality to genuine emotional pain without making the film feel like it is constantly changing identities. There is always something human underneath the heightened material.

The film’s visual language is just as assured. Eric Yue’s cinematography gives Camp Miasma the feeling of a half-remembered dream. The images are often unstable, tactile, and slightly unreal, creating the sensation that we are moving through someone’s memories rather than simply watching a conventional narrative unfold.

There is something especially effective about the way the film treats memory as an unstable place. Nothing feels entirely fixed. The past, fantasy, desire, and reality constantly bleed into one another, as though Kris is trying to reconstruct something she remembers emotionally rather than literally. The result is a film that often feels less like a conventional horror story and more like stepping inside someone’s subconscious.

Graham Mason’s editing complements that approach beautifully. Memories, fantasy, and reality bleed into one another without always announcing where one ends and another begins. The result feels intentionally disorienting without becoming visually or emotionally incoherent.

The production design is equally important. The fictional Camp Miasma franchise has the grimy, palpable quality of an old horror tape discovered too young, while the present-day world feels more intimate and enclosed. Matt Hyland and Brandon Tonner-Connolly’s work makes the film’s fictional universe feel lived-in, cluttered, and strangely familiar. There is something about its textures, horror-movie detritus, and little visual details that captures the feeling of discovering a world as a kid and wanting to disappear inside it.

Schoenbrun understands the strange comfort of horror fandom: the monsters may be terrifying, but at least they have names. The rules might be ridiculous, but they are still easier to understand than the rules of real life.

That is one of the film’s smartest ideas. Horror fandom can become a kind of emotional shelter. The monsters are frightening, but they are also predictable. They have mythology, rules, histories, and explanations. Real life rarely offers the same comfort. Sometimes the fictional worlds we become obsessed with aren’t simply escapes from reality; they are ways of processing it.

The film’s sexuality is similarly interested in the relationship between fear and pleasure. Sex isn’t simply there to shock or provoke. Schoenbrun treats desire as another way of understanding the self, particularly when the body has long been associated with shame, insecurity, or discomfort. Pleasure becomes less about spectacle and more about recognition.

That makes the film’s horniness feel surprisingly sincere. Camp Miasma isn’t embarrassed by desire, but it isn’t treating sex as some easy path to liberation either. Desire can be funny, awkward, confusing, exciting, and vulnerable all at once. Schoenbrun understands that sexuality is often inseparable from the way people understand their own bodies and identities.

That same idea carries into the film’s use of music. Alex G’s score constantly shifts between menace and tenderness, while the soundtrack gives the film a strong sense of emotional memory. Even its strange musical choices work because Schoenbrun understands that nostalgia is rarely as neat or dignified as we pretend it is. A song can be embarrassing, funny, heartbreaking, and comforting all at once.

And that is perhaps what makes Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma work so well. It refuses to separate its contradictions. Horror exists alongside comedy. Sexuality exists alongside fear. Nostalgia exists alongside pain. The grotesque can be beautiful. Something that once hurt you can still have been meaningful.

Schoenbrun has made a film about the complicated process of reclaiming the things that helped shape us. It is about recognizing that growing into yourself doesn’t necessarily mean rejecting everything that came before. Sometimes it means looking back at those pieces of your past and deciding what they mean to you now.

That idea extends beyond gender. Camp Miasma is ultimately interested in our complicated relationships with the stories, characters, fantasies, and worlds we once needed. We can outgrow something without dismissing it. We can recognize its flaws without pretending it meant nothing. We can take something that once frightened or embarrassed us and discover that there was something beautiful buried underneath it.

That is what gives the film its emotional weight. Schoenbrun isn’t simply asking us to accept ourselves. They are asking us to reconsider the stories we used to understand ourselves in the first place.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is bloody, funny, strange, horny, melancholic, and visually intoxicating. Most importantly, it feels completely alive. Schoenbrun continues to make films about identity that refuse easy answers, and this one may be their most emotionally expansive yet.

It is a horror movie about monsters, but its real interest lies in the parts of ourselves we were taught to fear—and what happens when we finally stop believing that story.

Grade: A+

Director: Rustin Thompson

Synopsis: A journey into the American West on a search for traces of what was once a center of small-town life: the movie theater.

Five years ago, as the COVID-19 pandemic dawned, a documentary called Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets premiered in the Sundance Film Festival’s documentary competition. Directed by brothers Bill and Turner Ross, the film is about a Las Vegas bar named Roaring ‘20s (great name) and, more specifically, the regulars within who gather on the day  following the first election of then-and-now-President Donald Trump. Fittingly, these watering hole patrons spend the ensuing 98 minutes of screentime getting supremely hammered. In their eyes, there was a better reason to raise their glasses, not to the end of the world as we know it, but to the end of something else: Roaring ‘20s would be closing at the end of the night, for good. 

Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets is a beautiful film. (It is currently available to stream on the Criterion Channel; watch it if you haven’t.) But the most fascinating thing about it is that it’s not a documentary. Though Brothers Ross did turn their cameras on a gaggle of barflies and let the reel roll, capturing their authentic antics in real time over the course of an evening, their subjects were “people the filmmakers had met at other bars, people who had relationships with alcohol,” the Los Angeles Times’ Amy Kaufman wrote from the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, where the picture premiered. These people weren’t actors, but they were brought to a set of sorts, Roaring ‘20s, which is actually a still-open bar in New Orleans, not Las Vegas. Renting the joint cost the Ross’ most of their $10,000 budget, so the task for the “performers” was to be themselves, or a version of themselves who would be losing their beloved watering hole at closing time. 

I knew none of this when I saw the film in 2020 and wholeheartedly believed I was watching a documentary, an unforgettable experience that was not tainted, but rather bolstered, by the knowledge that I had pulled the wool over my own eyes, even unintentionally. I had not thought about Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets in a while, not until I watched Rustin Thompson’s new documentary, The Last Picture Shows, when I could feel a large part of me wishing that it was made under a similar conceit. That the 123 small town movie theaters of the American West he trekked 10 states and 10,825 miles to document, those abandoned and those still hanging on, were just sets designed to depict an alternate reality that mimics many of the qualities of our own, yet thrives without opposition in reality. I suppose that wouldn’t be much of a movie, though. What’s the hook there? “Movie theaters are thriving; what might this ultra-specific portion of the United States look like if they weren’t?” doesn’t have the same grab factor as Thompson’s actual quest in his very real film. 

Shot between 2023 and 2024 – a timeframe that may or may not quell the jumpscares brought on by glimpses of Shazam! Fury of the Gods and Deadpool & Wolverine posters – The Last Picture Shows unfolds like a road trip, one that passes through sparsely populated towns where the stoplights sit miles apart from one another, but a constant can be found on every street: The local movie theater. Large “AMC” and “Regal” logos won’t be found here. Instead, over 78 eloquently-paced minutes, Thompson shoots tattered marquees and empty lobbies like old relics that fight to stay in the game despite the world’s signs that it’s time to hang it up. As the movie industry shifts its weight behind chains for theatrical exhibition and streaming for ease of distribution, Thompson’s interviewees represent a dying breed, though they couldn’t seem more alive. Take Melvin “Tiny” Pedersen, for instance: The owner of the Desert Historic Theater in Burns, Oregon wears suspenders and a smile, and note that while there may be only 19 people in the theater that evening, such occupancy is considered strong for a Friday night. Roughly 2,700 people live in Burns; small wins are still wins.

Thanks to the tone of The Last Picture Shows, – which borrows its name (with added plurality) from Peter Bogdanovich’s 1971 masterpiece and is intercut with footage from that classic and a few others –these little victories feel just as valuable as the money these moviehouses bring in. Were it not for the bittersweet reality that most of these cinemas don’t survive, regardless of the tireless efforts of their owners and the dedication of their loyal customers, that notion could be taken as gospel in the film’s context. 

It’s not that Thompson and his subjects – including not just theater proprietors and employees, but the professor and historian Ross Melnick – don’t go into extensive detail about the behind-the-scenes process that comes with being granted the “opportunity” to show traditional multiplex fare at a discounted rate. It’s that those the director encounters are nothing if not committed to the practice of cultural exhibition. Sure, that might require them to showcase a superhero-sized disaster of a sequel starring Zachary Levi every time one of those comes out, but what Thompson prefers to focus on is the fact that many of these businesses can afford to keep the lights on. He doesn’t shy away from those that have gone dark, but they are honored and appropriately mourned rather than forgotten.

Not much separates the filmmaking here from a visual version of a feature one might find in a magazine, though it’s a more pleasant experience thanks to its director’s outlook, one that allowed his vision of The Last Picture Shows to evolve from that of a gloomy time capsule with a killer title into “a story of hope and resilience.” In his statement in the film’s press notes, Thompson noted, “The people I talked to are there to stay.” If nothing else, this simple slice of the cinematic experience reinforces the idea that movie theaters are a place for community, and a place that can only exist with and because of community. I suppose it’s a good thing The Last Picture Shows is nothing like Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets. The truth hurts, but silence kills. May the subjects of Thompson’s film fend off the latter threat for as long as they can, even if it means Shazam! 3 has to make the noise. 

The Last Picture Show opens in New York on August 7th and in Los Angeles on August 21 in conjunction with a national theatrical roadshow.

Grade: B+

Director: Louis Leterrier
Writer: Matthew Robinson
Stars: Wagner Moura, Greta Lee

Synopsis: A family of four is suddenly sealed inside their house with no way out and must work together to survive against both their dwindling resources and the mysterious, looming threat that is keeping them trapped.

Netflix’s latest streaming film, The Last House, is the brainchild of someone who seemingly thought, “Let’s combine Stephen King’s Under the Dome with Swiss Family Robinson and add a monster that looks like the spawn of one of James Cameron’s Aliens.” On paper, that may sound like a bona fide hit. The execution, however, is something else entirely.

That does not make The Last House bad, far from it. However, its lack of originality, an increasingly familiar Netflix trademark in genre films, makes it feel like a collection of recycled parts that never fully come together. By the end, a handful of cheap red herrings severely undercut the experience, allowing the film’s above-average tension to wash away.

And far too easily, as everyone we care about escapes unscathed and without consequence, making the stakes of The Last House minimal at best. This is the type of pandemic streaming cinematic experience that cinephiles with a critical eye might have given a pass, knowing the restrictions involved. 

Which begs the question: Why limit yourself to a bottleneck film with a significant special-effects budget, only to deliver such a toothless experience?

The story follows the Delgado family. When we meet Jason (Civil War’s Wagner Moura), the son of a fisherman, he is trying to catch dinner for his family from the pier. He manages to catch only a fingerling, barely old enough to survive on its own. Jason throws it back, noting that it is the first thing he has caught in days. The man looks worn down by the responsibilities of life. 

Jason is married to Riley (Greta Lee of Past Lives fame), and they have two children: their teenage son, Graham (May December’s Gabriel Barbosa), and their precocious young daughter, Ruth (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes’s Riley Chung). Jason and Riley are struggling to make ends meet, while their home is also in desperate need of repairs.

However, later that night, in the middle of a frightening rainstorm, the Delgado family discovers that they are unable to escape their home. The doors will not open, the windows appear to have been painted shut, and even when Jason tries to smash one with a crowbar, the rain magically repairs the cracks almost immediately. The Delgaldos are sealed inside their home, with no escape.

The Last House is a science-fiction thriller from Louis Leterrier (Fast X), whose career can be summed up as rarely making you feel like you are watching great cinema, even as you recognize the craft involved. For instance, not showing the monsters for the first two acts is a smart choice, with the first thirty minutes or so that can be arresting, at the very least, intriguing. 

The first act’s simplicity from Matthew Robinson’s (Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die) script works in the experience’s favor. While that works, the film begins and ends by being heavy-handed, cloaking itself with a pre-pandemic-era environmental subtext. Then, in the middle are too many musical tonal breathers, where the family works together. 

This is an exercise in trying to add family-film levity, a mix of genres that doesn’t quite work. However, what the film really needed was an honest look at marriage and family dynamics, where moments of crisis reveal who we really are. The type of contained crisis that uses marriage, self-preservation, and fear as a dramatic engine to drive the story. 

There is one moment like this, but it is quickly abandoned, just as you can feel Lee and Moura about to sink their teeth into something heightened but real, considering the circumstances. Instead, we get jokes about vinyl records and endlessly quoting Harrison Ford in Air Force One, which just made me want to search for Wolfgang Peterson’s action spectacular in my queue. 

Yes, Moura and Lee are quite good here, but since this is a tale of survival, the film doesn’t have the guts to make a bold move, rarely creating enough tension or suspense to make us question the characters’ fates. The result is a thriller that has the makings of above-average entertainment, but by playing the game too safe, you cannot help but wish the filmmakers had aspired to more than box themselves in. 

You can stream The Last House exclusively on Netflix starting August 7th!

Grade: C

Director: Matt Johnson
Writer: Todd Bartels, Lou Howe, Matt Johnson
Stars: Dominic Sessa, Antonio Banderas, Emilia Jones

Synopsis: A 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain travels to Provincetown and stumbles into the chaotic world of a restaurant kitchen, setting off a summer that will shape the course of his life.

Watching Tony, the new biopic about the early life of the great chef, writer, and television personality Anthony Bourdain, one thing is clear: this is not Bradley Cooper’s Kitchen Confidential. That failed Fox sitcom was so loosely based on Bourdain’s life that it resembled a thin gravy that desperately needed more time to thicken. Tony, on the other hand, embraces imperfections that many considered attractive forty years ago. This adaptation of the novel leans into Bourdain’s ego, ambition, and swagger, qualities that some will find irresistible and others insufferable, but almost no one will find uninteresting. That credit goes to the star Dominic Sessa, who is so magnetic in the role that you cannot take your eyes off of him.

Now, that is not exactly novel, as many nineteen-year-old men lean into self-confidence to mask their insecurities and push them deep inside. However, films nowadays often shy away from depicting that kind of ego and cockiness, treating those qualities as flaws. Yet those same qualities have helped build great monuments, shape groundbreaking theories, and inspire grand inventions.

A24’s Tony proves that great empires often begin with the first timers, especially in the kitchen.

The story follows Bourdain (Now You See Me: Now You Don’t’s Sessa) as he spends his final summer as a teenager working in a Cape Cod kitchen. After reluctantly taking a low-end kitchen job at The Flagship, Tony is taken under the wing of its proprietor, Ciro (Antonio Banderas, fantastic here), known as “Chef,” who channels his drive into focused ambition.

Sessa could have easily succumbed to a low-rent imitation of the figure, the same way Al Pacino sometimes seems to shape a character simply by wearing a funny hat. Instead, with his unkempt hair, surly attitude, and insatiable curiosity, Sessa draws the viewer in. His eyes glint and his mouth curls into a crooked smirk whenever he is about to deliver a seasoning of caustic wry humor.

Like FX’s American masterpiece The Bear, Tony immerses the viewer almost immediately in a world few know or have experienced. Writer-director Matt Johnson (Blackberry) finally does the source material justice, evoking a hard-boiled, egomaniacal comedy filled with bustling claustrophobia and overwhelming anxiety, where perfection is the baseline, not the goal.

Johnson, who co-wrote the script with Matt Miller, Todd Bartels, and Lou Howe, shapes a biography that captures Bourdain’s climb toward grace rather than the figure’s fall. However, there are still shades of Bourdain’s self-destructive impulses, fear of rejection, and loneliness, all foreshadowing issues he would face later in life that the film avoids, considering the narrow timeline.

However, the performance that rivals Sessa’s, and some may argue surpasses it, comes from Tuner’s Leo Woodall as Bourdain’s coworker, Sal. I would argue that Sal serves as Anthony’s darker alter ego. A composite character who most closely resembles “Bobby” from the source material, Sal feels like an artistic reflection of Bourdain’s future self, embodying the wildest, untapped impulses. 

Yet Tony truly has something for everyone. You could argue that its basic structure is not exactly novel, since this is a coming-of-age story without a conventional coming-of-age transformation. Still, familiarity alone is not a flaw. With a cliché or trope becomes a problem only when it is poorly executed. Here, the structure accomplishes its purpose.

There is also the requisite love interest, played by CODA’s Emilia Jones. Still, it would be far less believable if a teenager did not possess a voracious appetite for love. Just as he does for food and knowledge, Bourdain approaches life with an insatiable appetite that he displayed throughout his public life. 

Tony equates ambition and intellectual curiosity with the desire to taste, experience, and understand everything life has to offer. Sessa’s raw and authentic turn and the lens Johnson uses to view Anthony Bourdain’s life focus on the baby steps that formed the foundation, which is wildly entertaining and a thoughtful Chef’s kiss to the genre. 

You can watch Tony exclusively in theaters on August 21st!

Grade: B+

Director: Nat Boltt
Writer: Nat Boltt
Stars: Judy Davis, Jacki Weaver, Miriam Margolyes

Synopsis: A lost boy in search of heaven, three odd nuns on a mission, a car powered by God (and stolen money). This is a road trip like no other. A comedic near-tragedy that just keeps going South.

The road trip comedy is a staple of the genre because the road itself has so many potential problems. Gas, food, and lodging of course, but what happens when another driver wants to block you from passing, a herd of animals cross the road, or a bodily need forces you onto the shoulder. Anything can happen on the road and anyone can be on it for any reason. For the nuns and their young companion in Holy Days, that reason is to save their home.

It’s a bit ironic that our heroes are Catholic nuns and our villains… are the Catholic Church. It’s not something you often think about, but the Catholic Church is in some ways a capitalist endeavor. They have a bottom line to maintain and when one of their outposts is not producing like it should, talks begin to figure out what to do with it. So, what happens to the “employees?” Well, they are forced to move on. They’re transferred to another outpost or tucked away until nature takes its course. It’s strange to see those that want to remain in the employ of the man, sticking it to the man. It makes for joyous comedy, though.

Holy Days isn’t breaking new comedy ground with its premise, but it does a great job of feeling fresh in humor and perspective. The nuns of the film aren’t the kind of strict disciplinarians or moralists that often populate films like this. They understand, adhere to, and have faith in the tenets of their religion, but they also understand humanity. When Brian Collins (Elijah Tamati) comes around to do chores in penance for a transgression, he is treated to a task that needs doing, but it’s done with a lesson in fun as well. These are nuns that see their service to the community not as an obligation to proselytize, but to be an open arm and a caring heart. It’s a wonderful change of pace not to have a stick in the mud nun, but ones who know and cherish the people in their community.

It’s the actors who really sell this, though. Judy Davis plays Sister Agnes with grit and determination. Though, she also captures the undercurrent of immense doubt Sister Agnes carries with her, not about her faith, but in her own abilities as the person to see this mission through. Jacki Weaver plays Sister Mary Claire with the kindness and caring of a woman who saw too much, too young. She has her moments of great levity, but the complex feelings are beautifully woven in. Miriam Margolyes as Sister Luke is the comedy’s comic relief as Sister Luke is obviously in and out of lucidity. Yet, Margolyes finds strength, sadness, and joy in a person who doesn’t always know what’s going on, but knows who she loves and that they need her to fight for them.

The film and the story lags a little in its coming-of-age component. It’s not that Elijah Tamati is a bad actor or that the script by writer and director Nat Boltt lacks something. It’s just that the story feels like it’s pulling us too far away from the more interesting story of the nuns. While Brian’s story weaves and often reveals the main conflicts, it feels clunkier than everything else. It’s obvious why it’s there as these nuns have spent the majority of their lives in service to children like Brian who need guidance during life’s big moments. Yet, the stories are at odds, especially during the harrowing and, ultimately, affecting sequence in the snow storm. This detour feels like we lose the momentum of the main plot.

Holy Days is a joy to watch. Some of the jokes are so-so, but the majority of it is  tremendous fun. It’s the kind of comedy that is down to earth, but understands that whimsy is just as important. It’s a comedy that makes you laugh out loud as it also makes you cry. There’s magic in a good story told well and Holy Days has that magic to spare.

Grade: B

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Writer: Nicolas Winding Refn
Stars: Sophie Thatcher, Charles Melton, Havana Rose Liu

Synopsis: When a mysterious mist engulfs a futuristic metropolis, unleashing a deadly and elusive entity, a troubled young woman searches for her father. Her quest collides with an American GI on a harrowing odyssey to rescue his daughter from Hell.

The last thing you ever want to happen to a new theatrical release is for it to get leaked online, but in the case of Her Private Hell, it may have been for the best. Somehow, a savvy Twitter user (read: the worst person you’ve never met) got their hands on a high-definition digital copy of Nicolas Winding Refn’s first feature film in a decade, uploaded it to a site called gofile.io (where, apparently, these pirate’s efforts often end up), and let the world check out the Danish auteur’s latest neon-coated trip for free. The film had only been out in limited theatrical release for, say, 24 hours when the link went live; it has since been deleted, but it’s made the rounds.

Aside from the fact that this is exactly what no one should be asking for when it comes to a fever dream of an independent film being shown on just 675 screens, it did get people talking about Refn’s sci-fi melodrama. Perhaps partial credit is owed to its cast being made up of a handful of chronically online favorites like Sophie Thatcher (surging), Havana Rose Liu (ditto), Charles Melton (red hot), and Diego Calva (the people have been aching for more since Babylon, and On Swift Horses didn’t scratch the itch in full) – basically a handful of young stars who have fan-run social media accounts dedicated to chronicling their every move. But the people are talking! Sure, it may be in a mocking tone and in response to a scene in which a moody actress named Elle (Thatcher) and her best friend-turned-stepmom Dominique (Liu) communicate like dogs, barking, panting, and playfully whining at one another while their wannabe companion Hunter (Kristine Froseth) wonders what in God’s name is happening. But they’re talking!

The characters, in this particular sequence, are using a “secret language” that they devised as children. Totally normal stuff. The online discussion surrounding a “by NWR” production better characterized as a mood piece than a true genre offering, however, could be seen as both a bellwether and a cause for concern. For one, Her Private Hell lost over 100 of its theaters in its second weekend and earned just $358 per. That safely confirms that only a fraction of the true cinephile community even bothered to go out and see it; having seen it twice, I can confirm that it’s a bit easier to complain about its failings on the web than it is to write about what it even is in review form. If there’s a specific reason I’ve yet to dive into its positives, negatives, and non-issues (wrap it up), it’s because Refn’s giallo-lite is a beautiful mess that isn’t so much indecipherable as it is not asking to be deciphered. It exists, in all its glory, whether you like it or not – and whether you think any of it is glorious or not. 

Most films and the teams that made them may shudder at such a notion, but Refn exists outside the majority of everything. His attitude has seemingly rubbed off on his choice for top billing, the aforementioned Thatcher, whose starlet heroine kinda-sorta spends the film searching for her father, Johnny Thunder (Dougray Scott), though she spends more time snarling at her scene partners than she does seeking daddy out in the way you might think. That’s fine by Refn and co.: “I don’t want it to be exclusive, but it does feel like it is kind of for an audience that if you know these ‘70s films, and you know some of the references it’s pulling from, it feels so satisfying and gratifying,” Thatcher told Variety in July. “I like that it’s polarizing because that means it’s affecting people. I don’t want to be safe or boring. This movie, I understand why people won’t like it. I totally get it. It’s about keeping an open mind — and being down, mainly.” 

“Being down” really is the only way for Her Private Hell to be experienced; even then, it’s sure to ruffle feathers. Yet you can’t help but credit Refn for staying true to a vision with no holds barred, something we often ask filmmakers to do, only to balk when it doesn’t fit the exact specifications of what we had in mind. Her Private Hell never sets out to satisfy anyone’s itches, rather it tickles in order to make new ones and then, potentially, scratch those. Or, it may leave you hanging, the nagging tingle out of your reach, just the way it meant to. If you’re looking for general observations, one could call Refn’s work here an homage to multiple eras of cinematic expression, from the gialli of yore (Italian murder mysteries made by Dario Argento and others, less successfully) to horror, works of sexploitation, and the like. There is an enigma to squint at here, one that sees a young father, Melton’s Private K, tracking the whereabouts of his missing daughter while simultaneously searching for a notorious serial killer known as The Leather Man. There’s a drama to be found, a “will they/won’t they” of sorts that doesn’t wonder whether or not Elle and Dominique will make out, but stop sniping at one another long enough to kiss and make up. The latter’s marriage to her best friend’s father, at least 30 years their senior, fractured the duo’s friendship to a point where they now merely tolerate one another’s presences because they are bound together by a massive diamond ring. 

There is also the persistent question of how these chess pieces all fit on the same board. What are Hunter’s true intentions? Froseth gives her the sensibility of a malicious virgin with her performance, a doe-eyed, smiley giggle of a turn that always feels like it’s hiding something. Does Dominique actually want to repair her bond with her true soulmate of the not-entirely-romantic ilk, or is she hiding something, too? Liu’s nonchalance is transfixing in the part; she’s a wonderful actor, and while there’s little range to be explored here, she laps up every scene like it’s a plate begging to be cleaned. And, hey, what’s the deal with the tall, sweaty, sulky drink of water who seems to have come here only to smoke cigarettes and kick ass, and he’s all out of cigarettes? It’s a part that Melton was practically born to play, and not just because it lets him roam around in a leather jacket with no undershirt for a spell. He, too, is a tremendous performer, one whose wings have spread so aggressively since his early days that they clipped Riverdale during takeoff, threatening to send it careening towards ancient history on his CV. It’s fun to watch him play. 

Her Private Hell is Thatcher’s film, however, insofar that it can belong to anyone other than the artisan looming outside of the frame. She is the possessor of the private hell in question, though it seems an awful lot more like a playground for the actor. In an ensemble that is nothing if not committed as a whole, it feels as if Thatcher has co-authored the vibe, as it were, so entrenched in its rich pink and blue visuals (shot by the Danish cinematographer Magnus Nordenhof Jønck) and in strut with Pino Donaggio’s instantly iconic score that she might as well have crafted Refn’s chosen elements herself. If it had come in a more coherent, accessible package, Her Private Hell might have gone down as a career-defining performance for Thatcher. In time, that could still be. 

The short time the film has had to breathe, however, has not been the kindest, not to Refn, and not to his long-awaited return to moviemaking. I’m not sure how kind I’m really being, either, so it should be noted here: I liked Her Private Hell, even if I’m still sorting out exactly how much. Appreciating art for art’s sake and not setting out to find things right or wrong with a film is how I’ve been approaching criticism lately, primarily because there’s plenty of worthwhile writing out there for those in search of a “yes” or “no” reaction to consider. If anything, this is a soft yes, but heed Thatcher’s words, those of which I’ll adopt: It’s about being down. You could do a lot worse.

Grade: B-

Director: Nathaniel Lezra

Synopsis: The lives of a human smuggler transporting refugees to the Darién Gap, an asylum seeker in New York City, and frontline humanitarian volunteers interweave in a harrowing examination of the global migration crisis.

With Roads of Fire, director Nathaniel Lezra steps firmly into the ranks of contemporary documentarians who blend cinematic beauty with journalistic urgency. After acclaimed festival runs in Mill Valley, Santa Barbara, and Brooklyn, the film lives up to its reputation. This is not a dry policy lecture or a voyeuristic travelogue about global migration. Instead, Roads of Fire is a searing, intimate portrait of movement; forced, hopeful, and profoundly human.

Lezra, whose previous work, Don’t Leave Me Behind: Stories of Young Ukrainian Survival, demonstrated his sensitivity to people caught in geopolitical upheaval, brings that same empathy and craft to this project. Here, he tells interwoven stories that span continents but share a single emotional current: the relentless search for safety and dignity. The film is an ambitious and often deeply affecting two-hour journey that connects three strands of the migration experience: a human smuggler navigating the treacherous Darién Gap, an asylum seeker attempting to rebuild her life in New York City, and the humanitarian workers and volunteers trying to provide support amid an increasingly overwhelmed system. Moving between these worlds, the film makes a persuasive case that migration is not simply a political issue to be debated from a distance, but a human reality experienced through fear, hope, exhaustion and resilience.

From the start, we’re thrown into the struggle and reality. There’s no gloss, no AI, no propaganda, just raw realism. We see migrant camps, border checkpoints, overcrowded shelters, moments of exhaustion, along with laughter, music, and small flashes of normalcy that feel almost radical. The film, gently and in-depth, explains the immigration process in America, and just how difficult and traumatizing it can be. Lezra’s off-camera presence is minimal, with his interviews spare and unobtrusive, really allowing the time and space for these stories to unfold.

At the emotional center is Maria, an asylum seeker rebuilding her life in New York with her two sons. Her story brings the crisis down to a deeply personal level, illustrating the disorientating reality of arriving somewhere that is supposed to offer safety only to encounter another set of obstacles. The contrast between the vast dangers of the Darién Gap and the quieter struggles of life in a major American city is particularly effective. The landscapes change, but the uncertainty remains.

Lezra’s connection to the subject gives Roads of Fire a personal dimension. In his director’s statement, he describes discovering the story of his grandfather, a Spanish Arab refugee who escaped one of Franco’s concentration camps in North Africa and rebuilt his life in Tangier. That family history clearly informs the film’s interest in displacement and belonging, while his previous documentary work on young Ukrainian survivors of war appears to have further shaped his approach to conflict and humanitarian storytelling.

Visually, the documentary is stunning; from the orange glow of sunsets, the metallic blues of a refugee boat at dawn, to the flicker of a campfire that gives the film its title. The “roads” here are both literal and metaphorical, pathways of fire that consume and illuminate. There are small sections that include voice-over and written statistics and explanations of meanings, to help educate its viewers and enhance the sections. For example, how the current President, Donald Trump, speaks about immigrants.

Roads of Fire is political, yes, but only because it’s profoundly personal. The film never tells viewers what to think; instead, it invites them to feel and build their own opinions and views. If there’s a flaw, the film’s structure occasionally feels too even-handed, which gives it a long runtime of almost two hours. Each story is given roughly equal screen time, which lends balance but sometimes mutes the emotional crescendo. Still, that restraint fits Lezra’s journalistic ethos: this isn’t about spectacle, it’s about truth.

Roads of Fire has done what great documentaries should: it opens our eyes and refuses to let us look away. We know the immigration system is broken, and at a time when frustrations are high and people are blaming one another, this documentary film helps audiences find their humanity and empathy. You might finish the documentary feeling helpless and powerless, with no end to these many struggles. Roads of Fire is harrowing, humane, and unexpectedly hopeful. This documentary film is for audiences interested in the lived human experience, politics, and policies.

Grade: B+

Director: Will Gluck
Writer: Travis Braun
Stars: Callum Turner, Monica Barbaro, Ben Marshall

Synopsis: Two New Yorkers search for love on the one night of the year when sex is legal.

We all know the saying, “they don’t make ‘ em like they used to,” but in the case of films like One Night Only, the problem is less that this type of film isn’t made and more that this type of film has devolved into a new form of consumption. The token popcorn fluff romcom used to be the bedrock of every studio system as a key cog in the most plain of entertainment, but it has mostly been relegated to the doldrums of streaming in today’s cinematic climate. For every You, Me and Tuscany that gets a wide theatrical release, there’s a Voicemails from Isabelle or People We Meet On Vacation increasing its shelf life for Netflix. Amongst the romcom spectrum, One Night Only sits within rather unsurprising mechanics despite the wild stir its “sex purge” premise has caused amongst online spaces. You’ll get as many surprising chuckles as you do hard eye rolls, an adequate amount of chemistry from two very attractive leads making the best of what’s on the page, but the film falters more than not since it can’t quite provide consistent laughs or chemistry throughout, much less provide much thought to its needlessly insane synopsis. One Night Only is far from the absolute worst a romcom can be, but it lacks the proper punch to make escalating comedic scenarios funny and runs its few charms quite thin as it plods along.

The film starts with text over New York City stating that three years ago, premarital sex was officially outlawed by the United States. The reasons for this law are mainly kept unexplained by the film itself, but the most important thing to know is that one night per year, single people are legally allowed to have sex again for 12 hours, and for most singles it’s all about getting a dopamine rush of lovemaking before they have to repress for yet another year. Throughout the film, we follow the characters on seemingly parallel paths. Owen (Callum Turner), a pizzeria owner who is having relationship struggles with his girlfriend Malika (Maya Hawke) hours before the mandate breaks, and Allie (Monica Barbaro), who works as a singer singing renditions of “A Thousand Miles” for medicine commercials, searching for a true connection on the fateful night. The two get into constant predicaments, rushing against the clock to find who they can have sex with before the night is done, but despite their insistence on not being for each other, Owen and Allie can’t stop crossing paths on their escapades to finally get laid, leading to the two of them slowly wondering if a spark does truly lie between them. 

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the ramifications of One Night Only’s central concept are never fully explored, but it only makes the few times where the film delves into the “rules” quite bizarre. There’s the occasional gag making fun of the political reasoning of why the mandate exists via a news broadcast on TV and a whole convoluted enforcement process via bio-censor symbols on your wrist that are supposed to track who is and isn’t married by them being either red or green. It’s funny how much the film ever so slightly builds out its The Purge with sex world since it leads to more ridiculous questions than answers. This, however, wouldn’t matter much as long as the film was funny enough and its romance was sexy enough since the intentions of the premise revolve around silly gags and oneself freeing themselves from the ever-mounting pressures of life sexually. Unfortunately, the film gets about halfway there in both the rom and com. 

Granted, there is a decent amount of actual mileage to be gotten from the comedic set pieces in this concept, and director Will Gluck, for better and worse, knows the right strings to pull to provide the most basic amusement in one of them. There’s a stretch on both Owen and Allie’s paths where they’re in search to find a condom (since the mandate requires protection) where the situational comedy is at its sharpest and slapstick and the “will they won’t they” pull is at its funniest. 

It’s inherently funny to see situations like having to dig through sewers and pay $200 for seemingly the last condom in the city and testing the situational confines of this concept is where the film is at its funniest, but for every clever visual gag there’s plenty of other groan worthy ones, like Wakanda forever jokes that are years too late and swaths of celebrity cameo moments where the cameo itself is the joke and absolutely nothing else. As the film goes on, it becomes clear that instances of our characters finding themselves naked out in the open after a potential hookup gone wrong or mistaking making things even sillier as an escalation of comedy are about the only ideas for jokes that the film has. It always feels like every other joke needs a bit more raunchiness to it, which the movie is seemingly incapable of providing. 

As for the romance, at least unlike a clear weak link in chemistry in Gluck’s Anyone But You, both Turner and Barbaro are charming enough here, and both roll with the constant absurdity on display and having to sell lines implying that their physical features are anything but ethereal. The issue here is that the two actors are having to deliver what is a pretty thoughtless screenplay in nearly every aspect. In all fairness, they do a fairly good job of elevating the film to watchable enough plights within their chemistry but once we reach the common beats of the romcom formula, the film’s energy is already completely spent.

One Night Only is ultimately average enough to be inoffensive even within the ridiculousness of its concept, but it never rises above fairly plain romcom fare since it can’t quite decide whether to dip its toes fully into the numerous implications of its premise or go fully wacky into step pieces of two single people trying to get laid, leading to it growing thin in its exploration of both. There is a place for the forgettable but enjoyable enough romcom in film, and I’d much rather have more movies like One Night Only in theaters than not, but the best way to describe the film’s fate is as an inevitable staple of your airplane cinema to watch on a long flight, which isn’t entirely a bad thing, but it’s not particularly compelling either.

Grade: C

Director: Eli Roth
Writer: Eli Roth, Noah Belson
Stars: Ari Millen, Charlie Zeltzer, Shiloh O’Reilly

Synopsis: An idyllic summer town descends into madness when an ice cream man serves kids sweet delights with horrifying results.

When Thanksgiving released, I foolishly thought we finally saw an evolution in Eli Roth’s filmmaking. Known for mostly controversial and explicitly violent pictures, the American director finally made something of substance, where its horrors were vividly expressed and cogently transformed our mindless “don’t ask questions just consume product and get excited for next product” population into Romerian zombies. The Black Friday scene remains the best thing he’s ever done, and it genuinely made me excited to see what he would do next in the world of genre cinema, words I never uttered when describing the corpus of films Roth brought to life. 

Then came Borderlands. Seeing it in a theater gave me COVID. The less said about that one, the better. 

While Thanksgiving 2 has been announced, development on the picture has seemingly stalled and, in the meantime, Roth has gone full steam ahead in creating The Horror Section, a media company focused solely on distributing horror content across multiple formats. His first directorial effort from this creation, Ice Cream Man, finally arrives in theatres this weekend. It is not a remake of Norman Apstein’s 1995 direct-to-video slasher picture, although one can’t really fault anyone for thinking this way, as Roth’s “inspirations” are mostly just carbon copies of other, better, horror movies, in the hopes that the audience doesn’t notice. 

There’s one scene in the film that’s a direct ripoff of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, where crows slowly make their way to the school’s playground while Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) is smoking a cigarette. Instead of crows, we have a horde of possessed kids who, after eating ice cream from the titular Ice Cream Man (Ari Millen), become mind-controlled killers who wreak havoc on a seemingly innocuous town. Some filmmakers will wear the influences that have clearly inspired them on their sleeves, but Roth has no discernible style of his own. He thus reverts to the “horror classics,” because that’s all he can do. 

The conceit itself is not “bad” – who doesn’t find Ice Cream Men who stalk around suburban neighborhoods creepy? However, the execution more than lacks any form of wit or energy. Roth’s images are flatly composed and lazily edited. The film’s senseless violence of children decapitating their parents, shoving a dental tool in their ears, or chopping their fingers in a vegetable grinder is always played for “shock” and thus has little to no emotional or cathartic impact. Compared to the violence in Thanksgiving, which was also senseless, yet had something to say about the mindless generation we’re in, Ice Cream Man is a complete nothingburger.

Ice Cream Man seems to draw a parallel between consumerist society’s obsession with screens and junk food, but never in a way that feels genuinely meaningful. We’re instead stuck in a cyclical rut of explicit violence that quickly numbs us, as we soon realize the movie is heading nowhere interesting, despite a twist that aims to take this story into darker territory than it already is. Without spoiling anything, that “twist” is possibly the most audience-insulting thing I’ve seen all year, something you can see coming a mile away but still pisses you off when it is laid bare on screen. 

The bulk of the movie essentially follows three child characters, lactose-intolerant Jared (Charlie Zeltzer), bulimic Mia (Kiori Mirza Waldman), and rebel Tommy (Shiloh O’Reilly), who don’t conform to the masses that are immediately tantalized by the prospect of ice cream. Wait, scratch that – Mia ate the ice cream, but threw it up, with one of the most offensive lines I’ve ever heard in a horror movie that justifies portraying a harrowing eating disorder like bulimia this way. When asked if she ate the ice cream that turns you into a mind-controlled zombie, Mia responds: “I’m a twelve-year-old girl, I know how to make myself throw up!” Do I even need to explain why this line is highly problematic, let alone terribly insensitive? God!

As the film progresses, Roth attempts to expand upon the mythology of the Ice Cream Man through a Catholic figure, played by Benjamin Byron Davis. He explains the character’s origins through a flashback that almost definitely features AI-generated imagery. I do not want to fully state one way or the other, as a recent interview with Roth explained that AI was not used for the animated jingle sequences for the Ice Cream Man, but none discussed the flashback scenes, where visual effects look as chintzy as the AI slop featured in Radu Jude’s Dracula. With the AI-driven VFX company Dark Half mentioned in the end credits, one can sense that generative artificial intelligence was undoubtedly used to create images featured in the flashback – and it looks terrible. 

If AI was indeed used, anyone who has been dubbing Roth a “talentless hack” for years will be the most vindicated people in the universe. If no AI was used at all, it doesn’t matter. The movie is still a cheaply made, dull, and inept slasher that wants to provoke but has no thought of its own, just the same boring kills for 86 interminable minutes. The jokes are unfunny (Roth’s idea of humor involves name-dropping “Tony Robbins” and “Mitt Romney”), the performances are unconvincing, and the gore doesn’t possess the same genuine thrills as Sébastien Vaniček’s Evil Dead Burn. 

Only composer Brandon Roberts’ jingles provide Ice Cream Man with its signs of life, but when the music is the only (slightly) redeeming thing about your movie, there’s a massive problem. While Eli Roth has always championed outsider art and underground movies, with The Horror Section sounding like a good idea to expose audiences to filmmakers they might not have heard of, this experiment has so far proven itself futile. However, it might be a good idea for Roth to keep making such listless junk like this, so anyone who might have been interested in his filmography, like me, will no longer pay attention to what he’s doing. I was fooled that Thanksgiving would mark an evolution in his filmography, but I am fooled no longer.

Grade: F