Feb 7 2025

Heart Eyes

Years running the Heart Eyes killer has been wreaking havoc on Valentine’s Day, stalking and killing unsuspecting loving couples. Now, the reign of terror has come to Seattle, but, that streak may end if two unsuspecting (and not romantically intertwined) targets (Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding) are wise to the game. Written by Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon, Michael Kennedy and Directed by Josh Ruben this horror romp embraces the slasher sub-genre with love, affection, meta jokes and easter eggs making for a bloody good time, if that’s your thing. But wait, isn’t this a Romantic Comedy too? Well yes, as a matter of fact it is, but, following the rules of slasher engagement, creative methods of disembodiment are met with strong practical effects, sound design, and clever scoring. Meanwhile, written with tongue in cheek the laughs come along with winces and blood, so much blood. And, speaking of winces, a keen eye to the film might notice multiple palm trees in this version of “Seattle.” Apparently finding evergreen trees in New Zealand, where this film was actually shot, was too tall an order, pretty sure Peter Jackson didn’t burn them all up in the Lord of The Rings films, but whatever, the film boldly wears its B grade camp factor badge loud and proud, so be it. Looking for your unconventional Valentine’s counter programming, this might just be it, Running a brisk ninety seven minutes, Heart Eyes is rated R, for obvious reasons.


Jan 24 2025

Flight Risk

A fugitive and key witness, Winston (Topher Grace), hiding in Alaska runs out of luck when U.S. Marshal, Madolyn (Michelle Dockery), finally catches up to him. Now returning to the lower 48, and flown by pilot Daryl (Mark Wahlberg), all passengers on board face their biggest challenge yet; one of them has ulterior motives. As altitude’s rise, so do the tensions, making it to Anchorage might be a foregone conclusion. Written by Jared Rosenberg and Directed by Mel Gibson this paint by numbers action thriller contains all the necessary beats with all the cliche tropes to make for a ho-hum experience in theatres this weekend; new ground is not broken while re-tread after re-tread of old themes and cinematic rules play out in predictable order. Meanwhile, a dumbed down performance from Grace, over-anxious and bumbling, mixed with an underutilized Wahlberg, never paying off his backstory and motives leaves the audience hamstrung in who to root for. Bummer. It’s an impossibly thickheaded story that never really gets off the ground and in need of more development across the board. Perhaps consider this as background entertainment while you fold laundry, the brisk 91 minutes of runtime won’t overtax your attention, but, maybe your patience. Flight Risk is rated R.


Jan 17 2025

Wolf Man

Upon receiving the title to his estranged father’s estate in the remote mountains of Oregon, Blake (Christopher Abbott) brings his wife and daughter (Julia Garner and Matilda Firth) out to the family farm to pack up things up and shut the place down. But, upon their arrival and the sun setting, the creatures of the forest take note, it isn’t long before the family finds themselves hunted by something that can’t completely be identified. Now seeking shelter in the farmhouse it would appear Blake may in fact be transitioning into something part man and part wolf, if that’s so, how will the rest of the family fare? Written by Leigh Whannell and Corbett Tuck, and Directed by Whannell this creature feature throwback to the monster of the week era makes an attempt to add new perspective to this age old werewolf tale, but, faces tonality challenges out of the gate making it hard for the audience to empathize or care about the leads; as chaos ensues there’s little investment in their well being, an unfortunate miss. Meanwhile, credits to the creature design of the Wolf Man conceptually, sadly, it would appear budgeting for the practical makeup effects was a bit thin and thus plastic-y in its overall look, visually this miss deters from the creature’s overall impact and terror level. Fully on the positive, sound design and score work effectively in tandem to keep the creep factor alive, while the rest of the film wains in it’s overall impact. Maybe a rental later for fans of the genre, just keep expectations low. Running an hour and forty three minutes, Wolf Man is rated R.