Cheap Thrills review: in debasement
The movie equivalent of a mean girls’ game whose only goal is humiliation. Also: a failed parable of the twistedness of the 1 percent.
horror
Locker 13 review: no fresh hell
Nothing here is terribly haunting, but at least someone is trying to make something like a horror movie these days that isn’t about gore and torture.
The Borderlands review: Sunday worst
Finds absolutely nothing new in the supposedly spooky found-footage subgenre, unless all the typical haunted-house frights occurring in a church counts.
Odd Thomas review: tonight, on a very special episode…
It feels smaller and more rushed — and less plausible — than it should, but Anton Yelchin is charming, and the snappy comic tone sometimes works.
The Missing Picture review: giving cinematic life to unillustrated memories
A blend of documentary and memoir that’s like a dream and a nightmare, though it’s more commendable than actually engaging.
The Returned review: zombies in remission
Cuttingly sharp and incisive SF horror; a chillingly polite film about the fascism that rises quickly up in a moment of fearful crisis.
RoboCop review: I will notify a cinema crisis center
No black humor. No satire. No point. But hey, check out the 1987 catchphrases dropped in at random!
I, Frankenstein review: beware, for it is pointless
It’s alive! In a technical sense: images flicker on the screen, etc. But it is a soulless, unholy monstrosity. Behold: the movie without a protagonist!
Devil’s Due review: she’s having Satan’s baby
This bunch of found footage should have stayed lost.
Her movie review: manic pixel dream girl
It’s the rise of the machines as romantic dramedy, and the Singularity as romantic tragedy. It’s the nicest, gentlest sci-fi horror film ever.
