Abigail by Hope Madden Back in 2019, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett had a blast locking a group of evildoers and one innocent inside a luxurious mansion for about 90 minutes of head exploding, weapon wielding, visceral mayhem. The fun they had with Ready or Not was contagious. So catchy that you can certainly feel its influence in the filmmakers’ latest, the ballerina vampire tale Abigail. The first big difference is that in this mansion, no one is innocent. A team has been assembled for a kidnapping: grab a wealthy guy’s kid and hole up in some out-of-the-way safe house unt ..read more

Villains, Inc. by Rachel Willis When their super villain leader dies, three henchmen are left adrift in director Jeremy Warner’s comedy Villains, Inc. It’s an interesting concept told with the kind of mundanity that speaks to real life. Though most of these villains have superpowers and special abilities, they need jobs – just like the rest of us. They also have dreams of the future, just like us. Not perhaps of a summer house in the country, but of world domination.  After the leader dies, Beatrix (Mallory Everton) becomes the group’s de facto number one. The other two (Colin Mochrie and ..read more

The People’s Joker by Hope Madden When Vera Drew’s The People’s Joker premiered at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, Warner Bros. and their lawyers promptly shut it down. How in keeping with the spirit of the film, an autobiographical glimpse into the filmmaker’s transition that skewers homogenized corporate-controlled art. A multimedia collage of sorts, the film sutures live action with animation to tell of a young person, fed up with their narcissistic mother and absent father, numbed by the conveniently prescribed “Smylex” that’s helped keep reality at bay lo these many years. T ..read more

Sasquatch Sunset by George Wolf After the completely enchanting Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter in 2014 and the whimsical Western Damsel four years later, you might not expect writer/director David Zellner to next film a year in the life of a Sasquatch family. And Yeti did. Sorry, but that joke is just silly enough to fit in with Sasquatch Sunset, if only the movie had any dialog at all. It doesn’t, instead letting the ‘Squatches’ grunts, screams, moans and various other bodily noises speak volumes. Jesse Eisenberg, Riley Keough, Christophe Zajac-Denek and co-director Nathan Zellner portray the fu ..read more

Once upon a time, there was nothing cooler than a mall. There was no place you would rather be. It was an oasis, a microcosm, and an excellent location for horror. In honor of the 45th anniversary of George Romero’s pinnacle of consumerist horror, we decided to pull together a list of the five most effective shopping mall horrors. 5. Chopping Mall (1986) In 1984, Kelli Maroney found mall side horror in Night of the Comet. Like Halley’s Comet, shopping center disaster returned to Maroney just two years later. She and some pals are planning a wild party inside Park Plaza Mall after closing. But ..read more

Civil War, Sting, Arcadian, La Chimera, Invader, LaRoy Texas The post Screening Room: Civil War, Sting, Arcadian, The Chimera, Invader, LaRoy Texas appeared first on Maddwolf ..read more

LaRoy, Texas by Christie Robb When small-town pushover Ray (John Magaro, Past Lives) finds himself caught up in a blackmail/murder-for-hire scheme, he teams up with high school-acquaintance/bumbling private investigator Skip (Steve Zahn) to get to the bottom of things. This neo-noir crime-comedy is writer/director Shane Atkinson’s first feature (he wrote the screenplay for the 2019 Diane Keaton vehicle Poms). It feels like a streamlined take on the Big Lebowski—mistaken identity gets loser in over his head in a world full of morally ambiguous/dangerous characters. An overly-invested partner in ..read more

Acadian by George Wolf Nicolas Cage has become such a mythic figure in film culture that each new outing tends to bring questions. Is this the unhinged “rage in the Cage?” Arthouse Cage? Mass appeal or self effacing Cage? You can file Arcadian under “understated Cage leading a YA leaning creature feature.” He stars as Paul, who’s living in a remote farmhouse with his twin teenage sons in a dystopian future. By day, the men follow a careful routine of security and sustenance. Because at night, there are visitors that really want to come in. The exact details of the invasion are a little sketchy ..read more

Civil War by George Wolf Writer/director Alex Garland gets to the point quickly in Civil War, via battle-weary photographer Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst). “Every time I’ve survived a war zone, I thought I was sending a warning home: don’t do this.” “But here we are.” Smith and her colleague Joel (Wagner Moura) are preparing for the 857-mile drive from New York to D.C. during a very active civil war in near-future America. Their press credentials may bring sympathy from some they encounter, and deadly aggression from others. The danger only intensifies when they agree to bring along elderly reporte ..read more

Food Inc. 2 by Rachel Willis I’ll admit I didn’t watch 2008’s Food, Inc., but the first film is not a prerequisite for watching Food, Inc. 2—an updated, critical look at the system that feeds us. What director Robert Kenner addressed in the first film is, in part, revisited—this time with co-director Melissa Robledo. Has much changed since Food, Inc. was released 15 years ago? What role did the COVID-19 pandemic play in exposing the weaknesses in our food system? And what is ultra-processed food doing to our health? Producers Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser once again join Kenner in tackling ..read more