“The Beast Within” aligns itself much closer to a thematic drama focused on troubled family ties than a midnight movie bursting with beasts and bloodshed.

They didn’t do anything with the “Steamboat Willie” concept except slap a Mickey Mouse mask on some guy and call it a day.

It works as a captivating creeper, I’m just not sure what “MaXXXine” really has to say once its B-movie bloodshed is all said and done.

What begins as an introspective arc of an emotionally devastated person rediscovering her will to live becomes a broader story about connecting with others.

Affecting for its thoughtful context and entertaining for its gripping thrills, “Godzilla Minus One” is just about as good as Godzilla gets.

“The Primevals” is the closest a monster kid will come to experiencing a “new” Full Moon film that feels like the imaginative oddities from the company’s heyday.

With a free-rolling camera and provocative score full of unholy operatic shrieks, the film snatches its haunting style right out of the 1970s.

Perhaps the only thing capable of eliciting a louder “uh oh” is discovering Netflix passed on a project already in their pipeline, which is what happened here.

The movie is less about a haunted film set and more of a character study exploring a shattered psyche trying to be pieced back together.

“In a Violent Nature” features quite a lot of Johnny just walking around. When I say, “a lot,” I mean a lot. No seriously, it’s a lot.

Anyone willing to lay down a back-breaking bag of disbelief may find the mood and the mystery captivating enough to hold an audience’s attention.

The real mystery of “Blackwater Lane” is how it ended up independently produced when it fulfills all the common criteria for a filler film Netflix likes to overpay for.

Jane Badler plays Mona like a weird mix of Queen Elizabeth and Elizabeth Taylor draped in an absurdly comical number of costume pearl strings.

“The Strangers: Chapter 1” can’t stand on its own two feet since at least one more movie is necessary to make any sense out of this film’s first act.

Good luck to the guy who sued the movie for plagiarism. It should be a class-action lawsuit since any number of copycat clunkers can claim they were ripped off.

Other pieces combine for a sci-fi spectacle that is halfway decent as a live-action comic book, or as a VFX demo reel if you want to be cynical about it.

“Tarot” makes one wonder, what’s the real difference between a soulless film created by AI and a soulless film created by actual people?

“Breathe” illustrates what the end of the world might look like if the apocalypse had a budget that couldn’t afford more than three items on a fast-food value menu.