The screenplay and shot breakdown/storyboards took two and a half years to complete. This is hardly surprising, considering the film features 302 characters. It more than earned back its budget, becoming the first animated film to gross over $1 billion worldwide.
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Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)
A doctor at a mental facility gets obsessed with a mute woman with psychic abilities.
As experimental, retro, and colourful as only Panos Cosmatos knows how to make.
Before anything else, a warning: this is not for everyone. You have to love experimental cinema. You have to appreciate slow-burn storytelling. Most importantly, you have to be willing to surrender conventional narrative expectations and simply absorb the experience.
Writer/director Panos Cosmatos, a few years before giving us Mandy (2018): https://kaygazpro.com/mandy-2018-action-horror-thriller/ – another colourful and insanely trippy film, patiently unfolds a story that begins with a seemingly noble scientific pursuit: happiness. Yet as the narrative progresses, happiness becomes increasingly absent from the screen. What remains are loneliness, control, loss of identity, and the collapse of morality.
The doctor of this strange world is every bit as eccentric as the retro-futuristic facility he inhabits. Opposite him stands the patient, the victim, the individual who desperately seeks the happiness the institution promises but can never truly provide. Think about it, why is she there?
Visually, the film is mesmerising. Synth-heavy music, excessive colours, practical effects, elaborate costumes, and dreamlike imagery create a hypnotic atmosphere that feels suspended somewhere between science fiction and a hallucination. The influences are impossible to ignore. There are shades of Alphaville (1965), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and Solaris (1972), while the eerie surrealism often ventures into unmistakably Lynchian territory and into Cronenberg-esque body-horror madness (the Canadian film school never fails).
Yet despite all those influences, the film remains uniquely Cosmatos. Watching it feels less like following a story and more like wandering through someone’s subconscious. Mainstream audiences will likely spend much of the runtime asking, “What on earth is going on?” And that reaction is understandable.
One sequence that particularly stood out to me is the shaft sequence, which carries a strange charisma and visual power [John Carpenter – Dark Star (1974) tribute]. Part of me wished the film spent even more time exploring that environment. There is something about its verticality and isolation that reminded me, in spirit at least, of the ideas later explored in The Platform (2019): https://kaygazpro.com/the-platform-2019-horror-sci-fi-thriller/ and The Platform 2 (2024): https://kaygazpro.com/the-platform-2-2024/.
As much as I enjoyed Beyond the Black Rainbow, it remains a niche experience.
If you are looking for a more accessible, action-oriented version of similar themes, Carrie (1976) or Firestarter (1984) may be better starting points. For everyone else, prepare for a bizarre, surreal, and unforgettable trip.
P.S. Ask yourselves this: What is the relationship between the 80s and sci-fi?
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Galileo: Fighting in the Dawn of Modern Science (2013)
Officially, the first Greek docudrama about the Scientific Revolution and also the first to be accompanied by an e-book based on the same story.
In the Grey (2026)
A team of operatives with uncanny abilities are hired by a multi-billion dollar corporation to retrieve money from a mob boss.
A stylised action flick with a Guy Ritchie signature all over it.
The problem is that a signature alone does not guarantee success. I have always admired Guy Ritchie. He understands action, humour, rhythm, and cinematic style better than most contemporary filmmakers. Whether it is Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), Snatch (2000), RocknRolla (2008), or even some of his more commercial ventures, there is usually a distinctive energy behind his work. Unfortunately, In the Grey never quite lands.
On paper, everything seems to be in place. The film looks slick, moves quickly, and features an attractive cast led by Henry Cavill, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Eiza González. Yet the further the narrative progresses, the more artificial it becomes. The biggest issue is how explanatory everything feels. Almost every development is either narrated, predicted, or immediately clarified. Apart from one notable incident, events unfold almost exactly according to plan. Suspense evaporates because there is rarely any uncertainty. We are simply informed of what is happening and then watch it happen.
The characters themselves do not help matters. Nobody knows why they possess the extraordinary abilities they do. There is virtually no background, no meaningful context, and no effort to establish how these people became so remarkably competent. We are simply expected to accept it. And accept a lot we must. No one’s hair is ever out of place. Makeup remains immaculate. Every gadget, weapon, vehicle, contact, and resource required for the mission is readily available exactly when needed. They never truly struggle. They never genuinely adapt. The script simply provides.
The filmmaking follows a similar pattern. The film contains more montage sequences than continuity sequences. Montage is a powerful cinematic tool when used purposefully. Here, it often feels like a substitute for storytelling itself, accompanied by voice-over that explains exactly what the audience is already seeing.
Ironically, the only person who appears genuinely human is Fisher Stevens (Horowitz). He sweats, struggles, and looks like someone actually exerting effort.
Ritchie remains a talented filmmaker. This one, however, feels like style without substance. And the audience seemed to agree as it bombed irreparably.
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Tim Burton
“[The studio] finally understood that black and white is not just an artistic choice, it’s an emotional one as well. The emotion is stronger in black and white.”
Rabbit Trap vs. Undertone: When Horror Listens Back
Some films don’t show you fear… they make you hear it. From The Conversation (1974) to The Zone of Interest (2023), and now Rabbit Trap (2025) and Undertone (2025), sound becomes the story. But both of them affect you differently.
Image References: IMDb
Is God Is (2026)
Two sisters set off to find their father and seek revenge for their mother and for scarring them for life.
A surrealistic road trip drenched in revenge.
Writer/director Aleshea Harris makes her feature-film directorial and screenwriting debut with Is God Is, adapting her Off-Broadway play into a cinematic experience that feels deliberately detached from reality. Whether something was lost in translation from stage to screen or whether this strange, heightened world is exactly what Harris envisioned is ultimately up to the viewer to decide.
What is undeniable is that the film has a personality. From the very effective first flashback, Harris establishes a narrative driven by pain, trauma, and retribution. Yet this is not revenge in the conventional sense. The story unfolds like a fever dream, taking the audience on a bizarre road trip where logic frequently takes a back seat to symbolism, style, and atmosphere.
The Tarantino-esque influences are impossible to miss. The stylised violence, the heightened dialogue, the eccentric characters, and the deliberate theatricality all point in that direction. However, Is God Is is far less interested in imitation than it is in creating its own mythological space.
That is where many viewers may struggle. The dialogue often feels unnatural, but I would argue that it is supposed to. Heroes, anti-heroes, and villains are not written as people who belong in the real world because almost nothing else in this film does either. Their exaggerated speech matches the exaggerated reality they inhabit. Once that becomes clear, many of the film’s peculiar choices begin to make sense.
That said, there are issues. The rhythm occasionally loses balance between the major revenge set-pieces. Certain stretches feel caught between reflection and progression, preventing the momentum from fully carrying through.
Fortunately, the production values remain consistently strong. The cinematography is striking, the editing complements the surrealism, and the performances by Kara Young, Mallori Johnson, Vivica A. Fox, Sterling K. Brown, Janelle Monáe and the rest of the cast embrace the material’s over-the-top nature.
Ultimately, Is God Is succeeds or fails depending on whether you connect with its script and the world it creates. The stereotypes it invokes, subverts, and reimagines are central to understanding what Harris is attempting to say.
Confusing? You can say that. Memorable? Without question.
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Pulse (2001)
Two separate groups of people discover that spirits are using the internet to enter our world and eliminate us.
A social commentary with strengths and weaknesses.
I deliberately chose the translated title over its original, Kairo, as I vividly remember giving a rather unforgiving review to its American adaptation, Pulse (2006): https://kaygazpro.com/pulse-2006-horror-sci-fi-thriller/, a film I would rather not comment on any further.
So, about this one… Dark. That is the first word that comes to mind. Twenty-four years after first watching it in 2002, I decided to revisit writer/director Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s eerie meditation on technology, loneliness, and human disconnection. Unsurprisingly, my perception of the world has evolved. Yet somehow, the nostalgia of this film remains intact.
Watching Pulse today is a fascinating experience. Modern audiences may smile – or even laugh – at some of its warnings regarding the Internet. After all, we now live in a world of smartphones, social media, streaming services, and constant connectivity. But it is important to remember that this film emerged during the early Internet era, when the online world still felt mysterious, foreign, and, for some, genuinely frightening.
Kurosawa cleverly exploited those fears. Horror had already given us haunted houses, cursed objects, and possessed places. Here, he transformed the Internet itself into a haunted space. At the time, that idea felt revolutionary.
The result is an atmosphere that remains remarkably effective. The eerie music, haunting reflections, shadowy frames, frightened reactions, and endless sense of dread create a world that feels as though it is slowly fading away. Even now, certain moments retain their power. The hanged man. The woman who throws herself to her death. Images that stood the test of time.
What fascinates me most, however, is how prophetic the film feels. The Internet was supposed to connect the world. Instead, it often isolates us while creating the illusion of connection. Look at how many platforms we have to communicate on, yet approaching someone at the bar to say “hi” feels more intrusive than online.
As one character observes: “Wanted to connect with other people?… People don’t really connect, you know… We all live totally separately.”
That is the film’s true horror. Not the ghosts. Not the website. Not the shadows in empty rooms. But the possibility that despite being more connected than ever before, we remain profoundly alone.
Highly recommended, whether you are discovering it for the first time or revisiting it decades later – for more than one reason.
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Fanny and Alexander (1982)
The film had a $6 million budget, making it the most expensive Swedish production of its time. It featured at least 60 actors and over 1,200 extras.
Backrooms (2026)
A man discovers an entrance to a place full of rooms that seem never-ending and sinister.
A mind-bending thriller that will be discussed in length.
There is so much one can say about Backrooms, but not much without spoiling it. So, I will keep this relatively generic and to the point – for now anyway, because there is a TikTok episode right with its name on it.
The first thing that must be addressed is the casting. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve are brilliant choices and fully understand the psychological weight of the material – an audiovisual experience that constantly threatens to dissolve into existential abstraction. And then there is Mark Duplass, whose brief presence somehow adds even more unease to an already unsettling experience.
But the real star of the film is unquestionably the production designer Danny Vermette, who is the production designer in Osgood Perkins’ films, who is a producer in this film. He’s the one who’ll make you say “I like what you’ve done with the place”, which is partially why audiences paid – and will continue paying – the ticket price. The architecture itself becomes the horror. Pay attention to the perfect imperfections: asymmetrical hallways, endless office-like spaces, unnatural room transitions, misplaced and half-sunk furniture, dimensions that feel awfully wrong. Everything appears familiar yet fundamentally alien. The mono-yellow photography, the fluorescent lighting, the constant buzzing ambience, and the oppressive emptiness combine into something nightmarish.
And then come the people inhabiting these spaces. The makeup effects are exceptional, creating figures that become “memorable” in more ways than one. Keep the quotation marks in mind.
Naturally, the film’s greatest hook remains the mystery itself: What is this place? How can it exist? How does one escape it? Is escape even possible? Writers Will Soodik and Kane Parsons refuse to provide simplistic answers, and thankfully so. From beginning to end, the film commits to uncertainty and existential dread rather than exposition-heavy convenience. Not without certain issues in pace and rhythm, and not without concerns in dialogue, especially after the second half. The impact of the film, though, will make you think about things more thoroughly afterwards.
The reported “30,000 square feet of actual backrooms” built for the production was absolutely worth it – even crew members allegedly got lost inside it. And you feel that immersion onscreen. No surprise the film became A24’s biggest opening success – grossing over $50 million domestically and over $100 million worldwide in its opening weekend. There is a chance that it will join the pantheon of mind-bending films, such as Triangle (2009), Coherence (2013), and Predestination (2014), but I wouldn’t place it there*. Personally, it did not evoke those feelings or not on that level, anyway. That does not mean, by the way, it is far off.
The film, as noted, is largely mind-bending but leaves crumbs behind. I’ll leave you with some of these crumbs should you be interested in some direction.
*”Indie, Low Budget, and Utterly Mind-Bending”: https://kaygazpro.com/indie-low-budget-and-utterly-mind-bending/
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Mild spoilers:
- “The Window Within” (book).
- Furniture in a lifeless store.
- The infinite loneliness.
- The idea that consciousness itself evolves through memory.
- “It’s every place there’s ever been”
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
The film’s dominant languages are German and French, with only 30% in English – and some Italian here and there. Very rare for a Hollywood production…
Shonda Rhimes
“Truly creative things happen when one thinks differently, yet nobody wants to think differently.”
She Rides Shotgun (2025)
A man just released from prison flees with his daughter to save her from a dangerous gang.
Well made, but lacks originality.
She Rides Shotgun is a pseudorealistic action/drama that achieves its goals primarily through performance. Director Nick Rowland has not done a bad job whatsoever. The film is very well paced and emotionally balanced, allowing its narrative to unfold naturally without overcomplicating itself. It belongs to that category of American independent cinema that knows exactly what it promises its audience and delivers exactly that.
What truly elevates the film, however, are the performances. Taron Egerton once again proves his versatility, balancing vulnerability, desperation, and intensity, but the real revelation here is Ana Sophia Heger. She will absolutely knock your socks off. There is a rawness and emotional intelligence to her performance, making the relationship believable and deeply human.
Odessa A’zion is also excellent and very much human. Unlike Until Dawn (2025): https://kaygazpro.com/until-dawn-2025/, where the screenplay does her zero favours by reducing her character – and all of the surrounding characters – to somewhat one-dimensional cardboard cutout figures. Hopefully, we will see her in even richer roles moving forward. She’s actually amazing.
Narratively, the film treads familiar ground. Cinema has revisited this emotional structure countless times across decades and genres: a damaged adult forced to protect a child while navigating a hostile world and desperately trying to reach safety before external forces close in. From Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and The Road (2009) to Leave No Trace (2018), Light of My Life (2019), The Creator (2023), and Sovereign (2025), audiences know this journey well. And that is the film’s biggest weakness.
The script offers little that feels genuinely new. The emotional beats, dangers, and developments often unfold exactly as expected. Yet despite that familiarity, the film still works because its intentions remain sincere. The emotional connection between the leads feels authentic enough to overcome the predictability.
While I personally found the ending somewhat anticlimactic, it’s still worth your time.
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The Cost of Trying
Not everyone who tries will succeed. And that’s the part no one likes to talk about. From The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) to Magazine Dreams (2023) and Baby Reindeer (2024), cinema has shown us something deeper than success stories… It has shown us the cost.
Image References: IMDb
Hard Boiled (1992)
The tequila hallway scene with explosions was filmed twice. The first time, the explosions were too far from actor Yun-Fat Chow. The second time, they were too close, but the actor, ever polite, asked the director how it went. When told it was good, he turned to leave and muttered, “That motherf*cker…”
Akira Kurosawa
“For me, filmmaking combines everything. That’s the reason I’ve made cinema my life’s work. In films, painting and literature, theatre and music come together. But a film is still a film.”
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
The shot where The Bride slices a baseball in half with a samurai sword was real. Credit goes to Zoë Bell, Uma Thurman’s stunt double.
Obsession (2025)
A man purchases a novelty toy that grants wishes, wishes for a girl to love him, and turns their relationship into pure sinistry.
Careful what you wish for… on steroids.
Sensitivity, communication, love, emotional distance, isolation – every relationship is built and broken through these elements. And writer/director Cury Barker weaponises all of them in Obsession, crafting a horror film that projects something esoteric about human connection: we often do not truly know what we want from others because we barely understand what is missing within ourselves.
The film takes the classic “genie in a bottle”, or, in this case, a genie in a stick and twists it into something sinister. The fantasy sounds simple enough: someone appears capable of making another person behave exactly the way we wish. But relationships do not function like commands, and neither do emotions. Even if our desires were magically fulfilled, would they actually satisfy us? Or would they expose deeper voids we never understood in the first place?
That contradiction lies in Obsession. Bear, played brilliantly by Michael Johnston, gets his wish fulfilled in the worst possible way. What follows is not merely horror, but a psychological spiral exploring how fear, loneliness, insecurity, anxiety, and emotional repression distort both desire and identity. Barker turns internal chaos into cinematic terror, creating sequences that crawl under your skin rather than simply jump at you – although yes, there are moments that will absolutely make audiences jump out of their seats. That scene in particular, where… OK, no spoilers.
What makes the horror especially effective is how recognisable its emotional foundations are. Shyness, modesty, fear of rejection, and difficulty expressing emotions – qualities often romanticised in life – can become prisons for men, women, and non-binary people when communication collapses. Horror thrives in those emotional gaps, exploiting what happens when longing mutates into fixation and when silence allows fantasy to replace reality.
And then comes Inde Navarrette… Like Johnston, Cooper Tomlinson (Ian) and Megan Lawless (Sarah) are amazing. Hands down. Navarrette, though, is tasked with the heaviest burden. She is absolutely terrifying. Every moment she appears – foreground or background – you instinctively panic. Her performance radiates unpredictability in the same way Mia Goth dominated X (2022): https://kaygazpro.com/x-2022-horror/ and Pearl (2022): https://kaygazpro.com/pearl-2022-horror/. Chaotic, magnetic, creepy.
Alongside Undertone (2025): https://kaygazpro.com/undertone-2025/, Obsession stands as one of the most impactful horror films of 2026 so far. And, finally, after so long, a positive surprise from Blumhouse.
And if this is where horror cinema is heading this year? I genuinely cannot wait for Backrooms (2026).
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It Was Just An Accident (2025)
A man kidnaps a person whom he thinks is a jailhouse torturer and gathers a group of ex-prisoners to verify his identity.
Pure tension!
From the film being secretly made in Iran, to cast and crew members reportedly being arrested, to the footage being sent to France for editing and protection from the Iranian authorities, It Was Just An Accident carries tension not only in front of the camera, but behind it as well. And you feel that tension in every frame.
Co-writer/director Jafar Panahi transforms his own bitter experiences with the Islamic Republic into a hauntingly realistic thriller/drama that constantly forces the audience into moral quicksand. Using mostly non-professional actors and actresses – with Ebrahim Azizi standing out as the alleged torturer – Panahi blurs the line between fiction and lived reality so effectively that the film often feels less like cinema and more like dangerous testimony.
From the opening moments, the film establishes its moral dilemma. A prolonged shot introduces the alleged antagonist: family man, ordinary man. Another equally patient “oner” introduces the protagonist: lonely man, ordinary man. And once the latter commits the act that sets the narrative in motion, the audience immediately begins questioning everything. Is he truly guilty? Even more disturbingly, does he deserve what is planned for him?
What follows is a gradual accumulation of trauma. Panahi introduces more victims, more stories, more atrocities – each one detailed with such realism that disbelief slowly turns into emotional exhaustion (for both them and the audience). The film repeatedly confronts viewers with impossible questions. Is revenge justified? Is it morally acceptable to become violent against violence? And if they punish him, do they become reflections of the very system they despise? Worse still… what if they are wrong?
The brilliance lies in the film’s patience. The long takes (even up to 13 minutes!) allow you to absorb not only information, but emotional weight: the silence, the fear, the rage, the emptiness carried by people whose “crime” was often nothing more than holding personal beliefs. There is no melodrama here. No manipulative soundtrack forcing emotions upon you. Just raw human pain unfolding in what feels like real time.
In today’s troubled world, It Was Just An Accident feels less like optional viewing and more like essential cinema. A gripping thriller, devastating drama, and moral confrontation all at once. It was France’s official submission for the Best International Feature Film category of the 98th Academy Awards in 2026. Combine it with Tunisia’s official submission, The Voice of Hind Rajab (2025): https://kaygazpro.com/the-voice-of-hind-rajab-2025/, and you have a worldwide cinema that makes meaningful statements about the world we live in and the regimes that control it.
Cinema has been, is, and always will be powerful! And that gives hope in a world that desperately needs it.
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Normal (2026)
A sheriff gets a temporary job in a small and quiet town in Minnesota, but when a bank robbery happens, its dark secret comes to the surface.
Great fun for… most of the family.
If you have watched the trailer, you already know roughly what you are getting into: shootings, explosions, absurd violence, escalating chaos, and all of it unfolding in the least likely town imaginable. The real question is not what happens… It is why.
And that mystery becomes the film’s strongest hook. Director Ben Wheatley, the man behind the explosive Free Fire (2016), the fascinatingly strange In the Earth (2021): https://kaygazpro.com/in-the-earth-2021-horror-sci-fi-thriller/, and one of my favourite British horrors, Kill List (2011) – yes, we are politely leaving Meg 2: The Trench (2023) out of this conversation – fully controls cinematic momentum. From the opening moments, Normal advances the narrative with confidence, balancing action, mystery, and comedy with ease.
The pacing is one of the film’s greatest strengths. The editing knows exactly when to accelerate and when to breathe, preventing the narrative from ever feeling stagnant. There is always another reveal, another confrontation, another explosion waiting around the corner. And then, it is Bob Odenkirk, who once again proves that his ability to combine exhaustion, sarcasm, vulnerability, and absolute chaos remains endlessly entertaining.
Now to the “why.” Written by Derek Kolstad, the man behind the John Wick universe, Nobody (2021): https://kaygazpro.com/nobody-2021-action-crime-drama/, and Nobody 2 (2025): https://kaygazpro.com/nobody-2-2025/ (review made last night), the film cleverly blends Eastern and Western influences into a story full of eccentric characters, escalating suspense, and charming unpredictability. Kolstad and Odenkirk co-write a script that prioritises entertainment above all else. Are there believability issues? Absolutely. But the film is so enjoyable that you willingly forgive whatever logic gets blown up alongside the buildings.
And that is precisely the point. There are no heavy-handed morals here. No deeper parables demanding interpretation. Wheatley, Kolstad, and Odenkirk simply want audiences to have fun for ninety minutes and momentarily forget the madness outside the cinema walls. This is the third action-packed film of Odenkirk, backed by Kolstad, and who knows if they are going to do it again.
Regardless, the result feels almost like an American cousin of Hot Fuzz (2007), infused with more bullets and deaths. Lena Headey, Ryan Allen, Billy MacLellan, Reena Jolly, Henry Winkler, and the rest of the cast do an amazing job of supporting the escalating chaos.
And from your seats, so should you.
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Nobody 2 (2025)
An assassin decides to take a break and go on vacation, but trouble doesn’t take long to find him.
If you loved the first one… then chances are you will have a good time with this one.
So, here’s how it goes. Director Ilya Naishuller could not return for the sequel after doing a fantastic job with Nobody (2021): https://kaygazpro.com/nobody-2021-action-crime-drama/. This time, the directing duties fall to Timo Tjahjanto, the man behind Headshot (2016): https://kaygazpro.com/headshot-2016-action-drama-thriller/ and The Night Comes for Us (2018): https://kaygazpro.com/the-night-comes-for-us-2018-action-thriller/, amongst others, making his American debut with a film that fully embraces excess, chaos, and over-the-top action.
And it works… well… mostly… The recipe remains very similar to the first film. The script follows a fairly predictable structure, the levels of implausibility are sky-high, and many of the narrative beats feel like things Hollywood action cinema has recycled countless times before. You will often know exactly where the story is heading long before it gets there.
But here is the thing: writer Derek Kolstad’s script is still ridiculously entertaining. And that is largely thanks to Bob Odenkirk. Odenkirk once again proves why he was such an unconventional yet brilliant choice for this franchise. The amount of physical preparation he put into the role is obvious, and the fact that he performed many of his own stunts adds an extra layer of authenticity to the madness unfolding onscreen. He brings exhaustion, sarcasm, frustration, and brutality together in a way that keeps the character “real” even when the action becomes completely absurd.
Alongside him, Connie Nielsen continues to light up the screen every time she appears, while Christopher Lloyd, John Ortiz, RZA, Colin Hanks, and the one and only Sharon Stone fully embrace the insanity and clearly enjoy every second of it.
Will it necessarily lead to a third film? Probably not. But for an hour and a half, it does exactly what it sets out to do: entertain you with relentless action, dark humour, and stylish chaos. And if you haven’t already – enjoy, and on to the next Odenkirk kick-ass film [Normal (2026)].
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Orson Welles
“Having made one film, I decided that it was the best and most beautiful form that I knew and one that I wanted to continue with. I was in love with it, as you say, really tremendously so.”
Dracula, Love, and the Monsters Amongst Us
For more than a century, cinema has tried to kill Dracula – yet he always returns. Why does every generation reinvent the vampire? From plague and aristocratic power to tragic love and modern allegory, Dracula may be more than a monster.
Image References: IMDb
Sirat (2025)
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The Voice of Hind Rajab (2025)
Red Crescent volunteers put in a superhuman effort to save a 6-year-old girl who was trapped in a car under IDF fire in Gaza.
Painful to watch and listen to.
And it should be! Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab is one of those films that traps you emotionally from the very beginning and refuses to let go. Not through spectacle. Not through manipulation. But through unbearable humanity.
The entire film feels like a suspension of disbelief because the reality it portrays is too horrifying to fully process. You sit there watching, listening, hoping that somehow what unfolds cannot possibly be true. Yet it is, and is one of the countless real-life atrocities that continue to stain modern history.
Saja Kilani (Rana), Motaz Malhees (Omar), Amer Hlehel (Mahdi), and Clara Khoury (Nisreen) deliver devastating performances that do not feel performed at all. They pin you down emotionally. Their fear, desperation, helplessness, and exhaustion become inescapable. It feels closer to witnessing suffering unfold in real time.
And that is where the film’s true horror lies. This is, in essence, a race-against-time horror film grounded not in fantasy, monsters, or supernatural evil, but in human cruelty and indifference. One side is hellbent to take life, the other to save it. The tension becomes unbearable because the audience knows what is at stake, yet remains as powerless as the people onscreen. The film pulls you in, ties you up emotionally, and forces you to look directly at what so many choose to ignore (damn, some even support).
It becomes less a viewing experience and more a confrontation. The involvement of numerous Hollywood producers undoubtedly helped amplify the project’s visibility. Amongst numerous others: Alfonso Cuarón, Spike Lee, Rooney Mara, Michael Moore, Joaquin Phoenix, and Brad Pitt (huge controversy behind him). Yet, it still remains Ben Hania’s uncompromising vision: to bear witness.
And by the end, you are left emotionally shattered. This is one of the most heartbreaking films you may ever watch. One that leaves you staring at the screen long after it ends, wondering how humanity repeatedly allows such suffering to exist.
And if there is a God watching all this, one can only hope mercy reaches the victims – and judgment reaches those responsible.
P.S. Tunisia’s official submission for the Best International Feature Film category of the 98th Academy Awards in 2026.
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Mortal Kombat II (2026)
The best fighters from Earthrealm and Outworld compete against one another for their very existence.
Exciting and fun!
Let’s cut straight to the chase, shall we? Mortal Kombat II delivers exactly what it promises. An action-packed spectacle with a tremendously entertaining cast, outrageous martial arts sequences, buckets of gore, and enough nostalgia to transport many of us straight back to childhood. That is exactly what this franchise should be.
Writers Jeremy Slater, Ed Boon, and John Tobias, alongside director Simon McQuoid, understand this task. Rather than reinventing the mythology beyond recognition, they embrace the spirit of the homonymous game and amplify it with cinematic flair. The result is a film that, surprisingly (by Hollywood standards), balances humour, brutal combat, fantasy, and fan service. And yes, it is gloriously violent.
The fight choreography is relentless, the fatalities are satisfyingly excessive, and the pacing rarely gives the audience a moment to breathe. It feels like a two-hour adrenaline rush designed specifically for fans who grew up memorising moves, arguing over favourite characters, and hearing “Finish Him!” and “Get Over Here!” echo through living rooms.
The cast also deserves tremendous credit. Karl Urban, Adeline Rudolph, Martyn Ford, Tati Gabrielle, Jessica McNamee, Mehcad Brooks, Ludi Lin, Josh Lawson, Tadanobu Asano, Chin Han, Joe Taslim, and especially Hiroyuki Sanada bring charisma, personality, and genuine presence to characters fans have loved for decades.
And most refreshing of all: the film focuses on entertainment first. No forced messaging. No heavy-handed ideological distractions. Just a diverse group of talented performers fully committing to the harmless madness and having fun with it.
Are there creative liberties? Of course. Certain character developments may divide audiences. But when the directing, editing, visual effects, sound design, and performances all work together this effectively, those issues become easy to forgive.
This is the Hollywood extravaganza Mortal Kombat fans were waiting for. Highly recommended.
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Ridley Scott
“I don’t get attached to anything. I’m like a good antique dealer. I’m prepared to sell my most valuable table.”
They Will Kill You (2026)
In an attempt to find her sister, a woman gets a job at a building where everyone tries to kill her.
Absolutely bonkers!
Writer/producer Alex Litvak and writer/producer/director Kirill Sokolov decide very early on that reality, physics, and logic are optional concepts – and then proceed to throw all three out of the nearest Manhattan window of the titular building. What follows is an audiovisual explosion of action, gore, absurdity, and self-aware madness. They Will Kill You is not interested in realism. It is interested in spectacle. In excess. In entertaining you to the bone. And… Mission accomplished!
“Believing” gets completely defenestrated here. Instead, exaggerated, self-conscious insanity takes centre stage. Every sequence escalates the chaos further, turning the film into a hyperviolent fantasy filled with symbolic undertones, allegories about power, and a world operating entirely on cinematic adrenaline. If you are searching for grounded storytelling or airtight logic, you are in the wrong building entirely. But if you want the polar opposite – pure audiovisual carnage – look no further.
Zazie Beetz and Patricia Arquette throw themselves at each other with glorious intensity, while Myha’la, Paterson Joseph, Tom Felton, Heather Graham and the rest of the cast fully embrace the film’s insanity rather than trying to resist it.
And yes, the Quentin Tarantino influences are impossible to miss. The Kill Bill (2003/2004) DNA is splattered all over the screen – from the stylised violence to the rhythm of the editing and the almost comic-book choreography. But there is no parthenogenesis in art. Cinema constantly borrows, reshapes, and reinvents. What matters is whether filmmakers inject enough personality into those influences to make them their own. Here, they do.
In my last review, I teased a comparison, so here it is. What makes They Will Kill You particularly interesting is its thematic overlap with Ready or Not: Here I Come (2026): https://kaygazpro.com/ready-or-not-here-i-come-2026/, released only a week apart. Both films channel a similar fury toward the elite – the untouchable class operating by different rules while everyone else rows the boat they command. It reflects a growing cultural frustration. As Solon once suggested, democracy can resemble a spider web: the small insect gets trapped, while the powerful tear straight through it. Cinema reflects that anger because cinema reflects us.
We live in a world where the rich get far richer and the poor far poorer. For more than one reason, it doesn’t feel like home anymore. And that reflects on cinema, which, as I have said many times, lost count by now, is a cultural mirror. It reflects our views and projects our fears, insecurities, weaknesses, worries, but also strengths, passions, dreams, desires, and achievements.
Therefore, it couldn’t be more cathartic to see two female protagonists take down the people or institutions running this show from the shadows. So, why the hell not enjoy it and cheer for these amazing women?
P.S. Pretty Lethal (2026): https://kaygazpro.com/pretty-lethal-2026/ was also released between these films and also gave us the pleasure of seeing young women tear down a local empire. Pattern, anyone?
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Ready or Not: Here I Come (2026)
Having survived a deadly game planned on her wedding night by a powerful family, a woman now needs to confront the families that fight for the throne.
Ridiculously entertaining!
We were never entirely sure there would be a second one. But boy, am I glad there is. Ready or Not (2019): https://kaygazpro.com/ready-or-not-2019-comedy-horror-mystery/ was bold, violent, hilarious, suspenseful, and unapologetically entertaining – a bloody comedy/horror that understood exactly what it wanted to be and fully committed to it. The balance between chaos, satire, gore, and tension worked brilliantly. So naturally, the question surrounding the sequel was simple: could lightning strike twice? It could, and it did!
The original creative team returns, with writers Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy alongside directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett picking up exactly where the previous film left off. More importantly, they understand that the audience needs answers – and more. The sequel expands the mythology in a straightforward way, explaining what is happening and why without overcomplicating matters. Does it work? Aye! Instead of weakening the mystery, it broadens the concept and makes the madness feel even bigger. And the audience gathered once more for chaos.
The film delivers from the opening scene to the end. The “oner” introducing Grace immediately reminds you why Samara Weaving became such a horror icon in the first place and gets your undivided attention. From there, hell breaks loose almost instantly. Blood sprays across walls, bodies pile up, foul language flies around like ammunition, and the film transforms into an absurdly entertaining feast of gore, dark comedy, and relentless carnage. It knows exactly how ridiculous it is – and weaponises that awareness beautifully. Alongside Weaving, Kathryn Newton, Elijah Wood, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Shawn Hatosy, and the rest of the diverse cast elevate the fun to the extreme – You will even see David Cronenberg in there!
Yet beneath the madness, there is a layer of a more symbolic darkness. The elite here are portrayed symbolically: childish, privileged, detached from consequence, worshipping power itself under the guise of satanic ritual. They operate by different rules, protected from the realities ordinary people suffer. Whether intentional social commentary or simply a reflection of collective frustrations, it becomes very easy for audiences to replace these fictional elites with real-world faces. Anyone comes to mind?
And, you see, that is part of why the film works so well. Because underneath the bloodbath and satire lies anger. And Grace, by being covered in blood, swearing through chaos, and refusing to die, stands like a beacon; the ultimate anti-elite nightmare.
Let me say it again: Samara Weaving absolutely rocks!
P.S. I’m so glad that Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett left after Scream VI (2023): https://kaygazpro.com/scream-vi-2023-horror-mystery-thriller/ and didn’t carry on with the horrible franchise.
P.P.S. With the next review, there is an interesting comparison coming!
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Wasteman (2025)
Days before his release from prison, a man’s new cellmate threatens to ruin everything.
One of the best UK prison films in years.
Gritty, claustrophobic, and emotionally raw, Wasteman throws you straight into the suffocating reality of prison life and refuses to let go. Using real ex-inmates alongside a pseudo-realistic found-footage aesthetic, the film achieves something many prison dramas desperately chase but rarely attain: authenticity. Not performative realism. Not exaggerated brutality. Authenticity.
Based on Hunter Andrews and Eoin Doran’s script, director/producer Cal McMau mounts the camera on his shoulder and drags us through narrow corridors, overcrowded cells, and volatile confrontations with an immediacy that feels invasive. The movement is restless, tense, constantly searching – as though the film itself is trapped within the prison walls alongside its characters. There is no glamour. No romanticism. Just concrete, steel, sweat, drugs, turf, bullying, and perseverance.
What strengthens the immersion even further is the language. The slang, the regional vernacular, the rhythm of the conversations – it all feels lived-in rather than written. The dialogue never sounds like people pretending to be prisoners; it sounds like survival communication within a closed ecosystem governed by its own rules, hierarchies, and codes. An ecosystem that spans from survival to domination.
David Jonsson (also a producer), Tom Blyth, Alex Hassell, and the rest of the cast are brilliant in their roles, and, as I like to say, if the performances are not convincing, everything else collapses, no matter how well it is made.
Wasteman is about a man standing at the edge of change – finally presented with the opportunity of a lifetime – only to find himself with one leg in the fire and the other in the frying pan. Freedom, loyalty, fear, and survival begin pulling him in opposing directions until every decision feels fatal in one way or another.
Andrews and Doran develop and escalate both the narrative and the characters, guiding them to a climax that ultimately pays off. The tension builds naturally rather than artificially, keeping you constantly on edge because the stakes feel human and immediate. What makes Wasteman so effective is that it understands prison is not merely a setting. It is a physical and psychological torment. I remember feeling that way after watching Scum (1979): https://kaygazpro.com/scum-1979-crime-drama/ for the first time. And by the end, you do not simply feel like you watched it. You feel like you survived it.
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Jane Campion
“The world has been full of sheep. You want to be a sheep, okay, this is a democracy. But if you want to find your own way, this is the time to do it. It’s not harder to be yourself, it’s just more obvious that it’s hard. Really hard. It’s always been hard. It was hard for Keats.”
No Other Choice (2025)
When a man loses his job, he makes it his life’s goal to eliminate competition in an attempt to get it back.
Engaging, funny, and gripping.
There is a very particular cinematic language that South Korean cinema has mastered over the years: the seamless blending of dark comedy, drama, and thriller into one cohesive emotional experience. Few film schools can shift from laughter to dread to heartbreak within the same sequence without losing balance. The Korean film school, through filmmakers such as Park Chan-wook, Bong Joon-ho, and Lee Chang-dong, has transformed that balance into an art form, understanding that darkness and humour are often reflections of the very same human condition – remember that comedy was born from drama. No Other Choice embodies that philosophy.
Based on “The Ax” by Donald E. Westlake – previously adapted by Costa-Gavras as The Axe (2005) – this reinterpretation feels entirely its own. And appropriately so, the film is dedicated to Costa-Gavras, while simultaneously distancing itself from his approach through a distinctly Korean socio-cultural lens.
Technically, the film is immaculate. The audiovisual composition operates like a Swiss watch. The close-ups are meticulously calculated, the music subtly manipulative in all the right ways, and the editing – particularly the cuts from action to reactions – creates anticipation, sometimes focusing more on the action but other times prioritising the reactions when it’s more necessary for you to see how the heroes and antiheroes feel about the action. Then come the performances. Lee Byung-hun delivers yet another commanding performance, balancing desperation, absurdity, and menace, while Son Ye-jin and her mesmerising presence bring an understated emotional complexity that anchors the chaos around her.
But beneath the thriller mechanics lies a subplot that supports that kind of intricate plot. The obsession with the paper industry is not arbitrary. It has to be that industry. There is… no other choice. Paper represents bureaucracy, documentation, status, productivity – systems that define value through output and replaceability. As the narrative unfolds, every character appears trapped within structures larger than themselves. The competition behaves the way it does because survival demands it. The wife adapts because stability demands it. Everyone becomes a product of pressure. So, if everyone is pressured, who instigates it? Who sits at the top?
And suddenly, the title transforms from narrative convenience into social commentary. Much like Parasite (2019): https://kaygazpro.com/parasite-2019-comedy-drama-thriller/ and Squid Game (2021-2025): https://kaygazpro.com/squid-game-bloodsport-debt-and-the-death-of-innocence/ (analysis), the film dissects modern Korean anxieties: economic pressure, social hierarchy, identity tied to labour, and the fear of becoming disposable. Pay attention to the final shots and think about what they possibly represent and how they relate to what you have seen until then.
It may be impossible for Park Chan-wook to surpass Oldboy (2003). But No Other Choice does not need to. It stands in a class entirely its own.
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Lee Cronin’s The Mummy (2026)
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The Rise and Fall of the Modern Biopic
Studios keep producing big, prestigious biopics – and most of them financially fail. From Napoleon to Ferrari, from Maria to A Complete Unknown, audiences seem uninterested. Then Oppenheimer arrives – a three-hour film about a physicist – and nearly makes a billion dollars. Why is that? Let’s find out…
Hokum (2026)
Seeking closure, an American writer visits his parents’ honeymoon hotel in Ireland, only to experience the horrors it hides.
Atmospheric, claustrophobic, and intense… with a “but”…
Hokum‘s impact, tone, and darkness are evident from the opening sequence. Writer/director Damian McCarthy once again proves that he can build tension. Following the success of Oddity (2024) and, for me, still unmatched by his own Caveat (2019): https://kaygazpro.com/caveat-2020/, he crafts a story that is tightly written, sharply directed, and very well performed. Adam Scott becomes Ohm Bauman and surfaces the trauma that hides inside him. Because beneath that horrifying surface, there is a deep, devastating drama unfolding – one that almost feels like it belongs to a different film, yet ultimately fuels everything we see.
And then there is the folklore. Irish horror, more often than not, draws from it. It is part of its DNA. There is a certain panache to how Ireland approaches the supernatural – seen in films like The Hole in the Ground (2019): https://kaygazpro.com/the-hole-in-the-ground-2019-drama-horror-mystery/ or Sea Fever (2019): https://kaygazpro.com/sea-fever-2019-horror-sci-fi/ – where darkness is not imposed but inherited. It resonates. It seeps. It does not need to announce itself. It simply exists, and in most cases, predates humans and our belief systems.
Which brings us to something I’ve been circling around lately: the fine balance between what the paranormal is, how we perceive it, how filmmakers think we understand it, and how it is ultimately delivered. Sometimes, that balance merges – almost seamlessly – with psychological horror. Look at recent films like Undertone (2025): https://kaygazpro.com/undertone-2025/ or Rabbit Trap (2025): https://kaygazpro.com/rabbit-trap-2025/. Which one is truly supernatural? Which one is psychological? The answer is rarely clear – and that’s the beauty of it.
Neon’s Hokum plays within that space. But it also leans – perhaps too heavily – on jump scares. And here is where my reservations begin. Because while they work (and they do, especially for certain audiences), they often overshadow the film’s more powerful and haunting moments. The kind of moments where suspense builds through absence, through silence, through what is not shown. Irish horror, at its best, does not rely on sudden jolts – it breathes through atmosphere. And every horror should. Jump scares have become, for some time now, the way to scare audiences because nothing else works. But all the aforementioned films prove otherwise. Because the play between on-screen and off-screen performs miracles. Jump scares are just a tool – not a replacement.
That said, Hokum remains an engaging experience. McCarthy’s vision is clear, his control over pace and rhythm evident, and his ability to turn intimate drama into horror is commendable.
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Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Legendary zombie director George A. Romero was so impressed by actor Simon Pegg and director Edgar Wright that he invited them to cameo in his next film, Land of the Dead (2005).
The Girl Next Door (2007)
In the summer of 1958, in a suburban town, two orphan girls are being abused and tortured by the very people who were meant to look after them.
Unbearable to watch!
With horror still thriving – equal parts triumphs and misfires – I found myself returning to a film that once left me staring at the world a little differently. Darker. Heavier. And yes, that film is The Girl Next Door.
Because what it depicts is not supernatural terror, nor stylised brutality. It is something far worse: unfathomable, soul-shattering human depravity. Think of it as a psychopathic version of Stand by Me (1986). And I do not say that lightly. Director Gregory Wilson, adapting Jack Ketchum’s novel through the screenplay by Daniel Farrands and Philip Nutman, constructs something deceptively simple. The film begins innocently, with a coming-of-age tone. There is no overt stylistic flourish, no cinematic excess. If anything, it is sequential, almost plain. As in, nothing to talk about cinematically.
And that is its most disturbing achievement – intentional or unintentional, not sure. Halfway through, something shifts. Not abruptly, but gradually. A creeping unease settles in. You begin to sense that something is wrong – terribly wrong. Yet the environment feels too ordinary, too populated, too… safe. You will find telling yourself, “Whatever happens, it won’t be that bad.”
But it is. And then it gets worse. And worse. And worse. The horror escalates with the same flatness in rhythm, the same emotional limitation. There is no dramatic cue telling you when to react. No catharsis. Just an unbearable progression that forces a scream inside you: “Why doesn’t someone do something?!” And when the answer comes, you deny that this has ever happened. That people actually did what they did.
This is one of the rare films that truly deceives its audience. It lures you in under the guise of familiarity and then confronts you with something you cannot process. The same lens that captures children enjoying ice cream and summer also captures the monstrous depths of human cruelty. No spectacle – only substance.
At this point, I should take my hat off to the actors and actresses who were there throughout and made the film possible with their performances. And above all, Blythe Auffarth, who was at the centre of it all and made us all feel like apologising to her for not being able to do anything to stop this. Yeah, that bad!
Few films achieve this level of existential disturbance and have made me feel in ways I never thought I could feel while watching a film. Earthlings (2005): https://kaygazpro.com/earthlings-2005/ and Martyrs (2008): https://kaygazpro.com/martyrs-2008-horror/ come to mind – films that make you question not just actions, but humanity itself. Whether we are, in fact, deserving of the name.
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Sentimental Value (2025)
Years of suppressed feelings surface when a father asks his daughter to be in his last film.
Captivating and engaging!
Family affairs: what we say and what we don’t. More importantly, how we express what we don’t say. The pauses, the silences, the glances that carry entire conversations within them. And then it goes deeper – how we express what we feel when we don’t even acknowledge those feelings ourselves. Estrangement… not only from the family, but from who we are when left alone with our thoughts.
And then there is film – the art of expression. Of translating what we can or cannot articulate. Of confronting what we can or cannot handle. Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, also written by Eskil Vogt, exists in that fragile, dark, internal space. It is a film about human nature – its strengths and its unavoidable fractures. About the emotions we suppress, store away, and eventually release at the worst possible time. Trier approaches this not with melodrama, but with emotional control. He trusts the audience’s potentially relatable experience, to sit in the discomfort, to read between the lines, to feel what is not explicitly shown.
The performances elevate everything. Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, and Elle Fanning, all nominated for Oscars, as well as the rest of the cast, deliver performances that are never excessive or underplayed and anchor the film’s exploration of identity and disconnection. They are all equally committed, each performance adding another layer to the film’s emotional architecture.
It is no surprise, then, that the film has been recognised across the world – BAFTA, Golden Globes, Oscars, and beyond. Becoming the first Norwegian film to win the Academy Award for Best International Feature is an inevitable achievement. It earns every accolade and arguably deserves even more.
Trier and Vogt, who also gave us the haunting Thelma (2017): https://kaygazpro.com/thelma-2017-drama-fantasy-horror/, one of my earliest reviews that helped shape my own critical voice, return with a deeply introspective work. You can sense a filmmaker who understands not just cinema, but people. Actually, Vogt has written and directed one of my favourite Norwegian horrors, The Innocents (2021): https://kaygazpro.com/the-innocents-2021-drama-horror-mystery/– highly recommended!
In a last note, Sentimental Value does not shout, it does not demand, but most certainly provides an archipelago of food for thought.
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Mira Nair
“Making films is about having absolute and foolish confidence; the challenge for all of us is to have the heart of a poet and the skin of an elephant.”
Honey Bunch (2025)
A couple is drawn into a reclusive, mysterious, retro-styled experiment where reality, memory, and identity begin to blur.
Intriguing concept, but lacks emotion.
Shudder and XYZ Films… what can go wrong, right? On paper, not much. And to be fair, Honey Bunch carries a lot going for it. From the outset, it leans heavily into a nostalgic 1970s aesthetic – grainy textures, muted palettes, and a deliberate, steady pacing that feels almost hypnotic. There is a clear commitment to atmosphere, and visually, the film knows exactly what it wants to be.
Conceptually, too, it intrigues. There is an idea that invites curiosity, even unease. But here lies the catch: while intriguing, it is not particularly new. We’ve seen variations of this premise before, explored through sharper scripts or more emotionally engaging narratives – no spoilers. Producers/writers/directors Dusty Mancinelli and Madeleine Sims-Fewer’s Honey Bunch doesn’t necessarily add to that conversation – it simply revisits it.
And then comes the execution… For a film that positions itself somewhere between horror, sci-fi, and thriller, it ultimately settles – somewhat uncertainly – into sci-fi, with faint traces of thriller and almost no horror to speak of. The tension never quite materialises. The fear never lands. Even the dramatic beats, clearly designed to resonate, feel muted like the palettes. It is not that the film lacks intent – it is that it struggles to translate that intent into emotional impact.
Which makes the rare moments that do work stand out even more. Oscar Isaac, as expected, delivers that emotion the film lacks. There is a particular scene involving the also-amazing India Brown that briefly shortens the film’s emotional distance – an exchange that corroborates what the film could have been had it leaned more into its human aspect. Lead actors Grace Glowicki and Ben Petrie are great in their roles, but their characters don’t allow them to express the raw emotions that should have been expressed if anyone found themselves in a situation like theirs.
It would be easy to dismiss Honey Bunch, but that wouldn’t be entirely fair. It is a decent film – thoughtful, atmospheric, and clearly intentional thriller. It simply didn’t connect, at least not consistently. That said, there is undoubtedly an audience for this kind of slow-burn, aesthetically driven storytelling. I just wasn’t fully part of it.
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Cairo Station (1958)
Egypt’s official submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the 31st Academy Awards in 1959. It holds a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and was banned in Egypt for 20 years – only to be brought back due to public demand.
Dolly (2025)
A gigantic figure with a doll mask abducts a young woman to raise her as their baby.
It is the script that does the damage.
This is one of those films where you cut straight to the chase – Dolly does it. Writer/director Rod Blackhurst adapts his own short Babygirl (2022), with IFC Films and Shudder fully backing his vision. Shot on 16mm, the film has a raw, textured aesthetic that immediately signals intent. It is well-acted and shot, indications that Blackhurst understands the tone he is aiming for and how to achieve it technically.
The problem is not how it looks or sounds. The problem is what it is trying to say – or rather, how it says it. Tight off the bat, the narrative feels overly familiar. Isolation in the mountains. A deranged antagonist. Captivity and torture. These are not inherently flawed elements – far from it – but Dolly struggles to elevate them beyond their well-worn foundations. Even when it attempts to differentiate itself, particularly through its… unconventional approach to torture, it veers into territory that feels less disturbing in a meaningful way and more uneasy for the sake of it – like a perverse fetish. The result feels like: What am I watching?
There is a sense that the film is reaching toward the legacy of genre staples like Wrong Turn (2003), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), The House of Wax (2005), and The Hills Have Eyes (2006), yet it could never earn its place among them. The clichés accumulate, and instead of tension building, a kind of detachment sets in. And that drags the editing down, where editor Justin Oakey has to edit it in a way that actually makes sense. But despite his efforts, he can’t, and the pace and rhythm are all over the place.
Adding to this is the decision to give its physically imposing antagonist an almost superhuman edge – a narrative gimmick that, rather than heightening the stakes, encourages passive acceptance. You stop questioning. You stop engaging. You simply wait for the end.
What ultimately keeps Dolly afloat is Fabianne Therese. Her close-ups, in particular, carry an impactful, raw emotional weight that the script often lacks. She makes the difference between caring for the hero/ine and not caring at all, as seen in Until Dawn (2025): https://kaygazpro.com/until-dawn-2025/ – yet another one that tried to make it to the pantheon. Seann William Scott and Ethan Suplee are always great in their roles, but please remember that Scott was once one of the people who could make you laugh the most.
IFC and Shudder continue to experiment – sometimes striking gold, sometimes missing the mark. This one leans toward the latter.
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Martin Scorsese
“Sometimes when you’re heavy into the shooting or editing of a picture, you get to the point where you don’t know if you could ever do it again. Then suddenly you get excited by seeing somebody else’s work.”
Bruce Wayne is not Batman
Bruce Wayne didn’t simply become Batman. Batman is what remained after that night in Crime Alley. This episode explores the Dark Knight through the lens of trauma, identity, and radical altruism – a man who pushes himself to peak human limits not for glory, but to ensure no one else has to endure what he did. But in becoming Batman… what did Bruce Wayne have to sacrifice? Is Batman the mask, or is Bruce Wayne the disguise?
Image References IMDb
The Bride (2026)
In the 1930s, Frankenstein’s creation approaches a doctor to create a bride for him, but no one was prepared for the consequences.
An overly ambitious project that understandably found no audience.
There is something compelling in The Bride. A film that openly pays tribute to Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Young Frankenstein (1974), and Bonnie and Clyde (1967) – amongst others, it arrives with ambition, confidence, and a clear desire to reinterpret legacy through a modern, distinctly female gaze. And, on a purely technical level, it succeeds.
The dialogue is like sharp, deliberate poetry, the performances by the A-list cast – Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Annette Bening, Penélope Cruz, Peter Sarsgaard, Jake Gyllenhaal and the rest of the cast – are committed, and the film itself is beautifully constructed – well shot, well edited, with a beautiful production design. There is a quality to its imagery, a kind of visual rhythm that elevates it beyond conventional genre filmmaking. Warner Bros’ reported $80 million budget feels justified; every frame suggests care, craft, and intention. All the ingredients are there for something refreshing – a neo-noir reimagining of a familiar myth under a new lens.
Which begs the inevitable question: what went wrong? Unfortunately, quite a lot did. The issue seems embedded in poetic license taken a step too far. In attempting to reshape the narrative, the film becomes disjointed, at times bordering on nonsensical. The thematic ambition is clear, but its execution feels forced, particularly in its more overt ideological framing. There is an imbalance that the film never quite resolves.
The “monster,” for instance, is rendered surprisingly insignificant – underpowered both narratively and emotionally – while The Bride takes centre stage without sufficient build-up to justify her dominance. Her arc feels rushed, almost granted rather than earned. Meanwhile, the portrayal of men leans heavily toward the monstrous or spineless, seemingly in service of a broader statement that, instead of strengthening the film’s message, simplifies it. There is a difference between perspective and reduction, and here the line blurs. Two wrongs, as the saying goes, rarely make a right.
Even setting that aside, the film struggles under the weight of its own genre blending. Is it a musical? A horror? A thriller? A romance? A dark comedy? It attempts to be all of them, and in doing so, dilutes its identity. The result is not richness, but fragmentation – something that critics struggled with and audiences, judging by its reception, largely avoided.
And yet, amidst all this, one constant remains: writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal. Exceptional behind the camera, she brings a level of commitment and artistry that almost holds the film together. Almost. Because The Bride is not a failure of talent – but a failure of cohesion. Regardless, she is an amazing artist, and I, for one, can’t wait for her next film, either as an actress or director.
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Peter Bogdanovich
“You see so many movies… the younger people who are coming from MTV or who are coming from commercials and there’s no sense of film grammar. There’s no real sense of how to tell a story visually. It’s just cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, you know, which is pretty easy.”