A conundrum: I’ve already watched Fear Street 1994 and Fear Street 1978, so I feel obligated to finish the series*. I also am battling the urge to say that this feels like the tween version of The Witch — THE VVITCH! — and that I hate every slasher made after 1981, but I also realize that I need to grow and experience new things. The first two installments actually hit me pretty well, so I tried watching this one and barely made it through the first hour that goes back in time, shutting it off and watching a Philippines-made Vietnam movie, because obviously quality is not an issue.

I went back and watched it again. And I can admit it. I was wrong and once the film goes back to 1994, it works.

After reuniting the severed hand of Sarah Fier with the rest of her body, our heroine Deena goes back to 1666 and experiences the events through the eyes of Fier herself. While this whole part of the movie feels an excuse to try out accents and on period costumes, it serves a purpose**. We learn that the Goode family is responsible for the Shadyside curse, as the firstborn of each generation must repeat the ritual begun by their ancestor Solomon to keep the town of Sunnyvale in prosperity.

This brings us to 1994: Part 2, a sequel within a trilogy, which is a neat trick. Our heroes realize that in order to end the curse, they have to murder Sheriff Nick Goode. This feels like the kind of conclusion that’s against all reason, but everyone has come this far and seen enough bodies come back from the dead to know that there’s no other way this can go.

And, as with all slashers, there’s no way that this is the end.

At the end — of this one at least — I didn’t feel like I wasted my time. The story moves quickly, the killers are incredibly visually interesting, the gore is pretty prevalent and everything wraps up quite nicely. I could do without the needle drops, the need to make the 90s so neon-centric and the mall locale that feels Stranger Things***, but all things considered, this is a good hang, as they say.

Sure, I could have rewatched any number of slashers — may I recommend checking out our five hundred plus list of the genre at Letterboxd? — but there’s only so many times that you can watch The Prowler.

Actually, that’s a lie. You can watch that movie hundreds of times.

*2021 is the year of obligation. I feel like I have to watch some movies, like Spiral and F9 because I did marathons of every film in their past, so all that work would be wasted if I didn’t watch one more. Then there’s stuff like Black Widow and Halloween Kills that I have to watch because I’ve been a fan of those universes. I mean, I hate every Halloween that comes after the original 2 in growing levels of scorn — I don’t count the third film as an actual film in the series and do like that one — yet I’ve seen every one of them in the double digits. It’s a weird feeling to feel the need to have to watch a movie not because you really want to see it. To wit, it’s like the Mandalorian, a show people keep telling me I have to see and every time I hear it that fact pushes me away from watching it. I’m trying not to be that guy who says nothing is good after The Empire Strikes Back and if I want to watch an Italian Western, I’ll just watch an Italian Western, but yes, I am that guy.

**I felt the same way about the ninth episode of Them, which had a journey back to where everything got started that felt pretty gimmicky while the rest of the series worked so well.

***Sadly, all mall scenes might feel that way for a while. Except Commando and Chopping Mall, of course. And oh yeah, Night of the Comet. Maybe read that as “All mall scenes that try to show the past made after 2016 will feel like Stranger Things.

Directed by Everardo Gout and written by series creator James DeMonaco, this is yet another example of “the last Purge” before they announce another sequel. That said, this series has gone from middling to decent to actual pretty good to middling all over again, so I was happy that this pushes the Purge in a new direction: once the killing starts, it won’t stop. Sure, the series has gotten pretty heavy handed, but if the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that the Purge is closer than ever before.

These films always get laughed at for the way they handle social issues and then they make over $52.8 million worldwide over its $18 million budget.

Eight years after Charlene Roan’s presidential election — The Purge: Election Year — the New Founding Fathers of America have regained control of the U.S. government and have re-instituted the Purge. Racism has gotten out of control and this years Purge seems like it will cause more damage than anyone can imagine.

I mean, you can totally see how they tore this from the headlines. That’s kind of why I have a soft spot for these movies, which feel like the last gasp of the exploitation movies that we love that would stare a cynical eye on what was really happening and figure out how to make some money off   of it.

Despite all of the film’s main characters surviving the Purge, the next day the killing continues thanks to a faction called the Forever Purgers, who have decided to turn the tables on the rich and show them what it feels like to be undervalued.

It’s easy to be snide and think these films are a waste of time, but for some reason, I’ve found something to enjoy in every film after the first one. I’m really looking forward to Frank Grillo’s character Leo Barnes coming back in the next film, as his journey between The Purge: Anarchy and The Purge: Election Year made for a great story.

Last year, I watched every Saw film in a day or two and it’s not an experience that I would wish on anyone. Well, seeing as how this had the lofty title of Spiral: From the Book of Saw and was directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, who also was behind Saw II, Saw III and Saw IV,  I was for sure that I was going to hate every single moment of this.

Guess what? I didn’t!

I mean, it’s the best Saw movie I’ve seen and I still didn’t love it, but it didn’t make me continually look at how much time is left in the movie, which is a major improvement on past episodes in the franchise.

Honestly, this movie could have been its own film and had nothing to do with Jigsaw or any of the past films and it would have been just fine on its own.

This film got its start when Chris Rock met Lionsgate vice chairman Michael Burns at a wedding and decided that doing a horror film would be a new direction for him. He’s right, but it’s kind of like the entire film is Rock testing out his “I’m divorced now” material on the audience, which isn’t all that bad, because I laughed at a lot of it, but I’m also not certain that the film should have been about Rock’s “big divorce energy.*”

Rock plays Det. Marv Bozwick, a man whose father — Samuel Jackson! — was a cop and when he finally became a cop himself, it turns out that everyone was dirty. Well, just from the opening, it seems like maybe Marv is on his way. Or maybe he’s having too much fun playing a criminal. And hey, that scene is never brought back or discussed again.

The idea that a copycat killer is cleaning up the police department is a good one, yet we’re forced to feel sympathy for the kind of cops that have given the justice system the bad name that it currently lives under. There are about five minutes of actually trying to turn this into something interesting before people start getting hung up by their tongues, which is pretty much what this franchise is all about.

The end of this was one of the weirdest edited mishmashes I’ve seen, more given to scattered imagery and flashes than showing what was really happening. It was like they realized they only had a few more feet of film — it’s digital, guys — and just went with what they had. Or maybe this was shot during quarantine and they did the best they could.

That said — the buddy cop aspects of this and where they go were interesting. And I’d much rather see where the Spiral and Mr. Snuggles the cop puppet turn up next than go back to the same story that the other films have mined more times than I thought was even necessary.

Spiral is available in so many formats for your viewing pleasure: a 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack (plus Blu-ray and Digital), a blu-ray Combo Pack (plus DVD and Digital), DVD and Digital On Demand. You can get any of them wherever you choose to buy movies from Lionsgate. The physical media sets also include two commentary tracks: one with director Darren Lynn Bousman, co-screenwriter Josh Stolberg and composer Charlie Clouser and another with producers Oren Koules and Mark Burg.

*© G.G. Graham for that line.

Movies about making movies are sometimes the best movies of all. This movie gets into the mindset of writing movies — specifically, the brains of Guy (Noel David Taylor, who also wrote and directed the film). who tells everyone that he’s writing a movie.

When he meets  Jill Custard and Ben he gets to work on several projects that he has no ownership of, which pushes him to work with Gerald to create what just could be the worst movie –or at least the stupidest — ever made.

You think wearing a face covering has been bad the last year? The Los Angeles of this movie requires a gas mask just to deal with the green air.

“This isn’t a movie, it’s just random scenes about some guy,” says someone at some point, but that could be this whole movie. You can take it as a metatextual commentary on the nature of making movies, if you want to go deep, or you just might not like it at all.

I don’t know how you make a movie about making a movie that gets weird after Adaptation, but hey, these guys were brave enough to try. And that has to mean something.

Cryptid documentarian Seth Breedlove and paranormal researcher Shannon LeGro continue their search for the truth behind the enigma of unidentified flying objects in the latest Small Town Monsters release On the Trail of UFOs: Dark Sky.

Going through decades of reports of mysterious objects, creatures and enigmatic beings seemingly not of this earth, this film is based in West Virginia and goes back through several cases that have been seen in past Small Town Monsters productions.

This one has everything from the men in black to energy sources that are connected to UFOs and a being called Cold. Trust me — I’ve spent some late evenings driving through West Virginia and you see some pretty strange things.

The On the Trail of films are pretty well made and this episode is no different. If you have any interest in the paranormal, seek out their movies.

On the Trail of UFOs: Dark Sky is available on demand.

The movie stars where the last one ended — with Deena and Josh Johnson restraining Deena’s possessed girlfriend Sam and traveling to meet C. Berman (Gillian Jacobs), the lone survivor of the Camp Nightwing massacre. Her entire house is surrounded by clocks to keep her on schedule and potentially from going mental. She wants our heroes to leave until they convince her to tell the tale of what happened in 1978.

The camp was divided between the Shadyside and Sunnyvale kids, even then. Ziggy Berman of Shadyside (Sadie Sink, Stranger Things) has been accused of stealing by several of the Sunnyvale campers who tie her to a tree and nearly burn her. She’s saved by several camp counselors just as her sister Cindy (Emily Rudd) and her boyfriend Tommy Slater (McCabe Slye) are attacked by the camp’s nurse, who is the mother of Shadyside killer Ruby Lane. She claims that Tommy will die before the end of the night.

It’s at this point that everyone should just figure out a way to go home. Nothing hammers that home more than when they explore the nurse’s house and find a diary which explains how Sarah Fier made a deal with the devil by cutting her hand on Satan’s stone, as well as a series of empty graves and a wall that lists who will die that night.

Of course, all hell breaks loose, with Tommy becoming possessed and the girls, joined by their friend Alice (Ryan Simpkins), struggling to find a way to return Sarah’s hand to her grave before the curse claims them all. That’s the same worry that our heroes in the last film faced and things work out just about as well before back in the original timeline, the hand being placed in the grave triggers a flashback that sends Denna back to 1666 and into the body of Sarah Fier.

I remain impressed by the script by Zak Olkewicz and Leigh Janiak as well as Janiak’s direction. This one may not have moved me as much as the first installment, but it’s nice to have a slasher getting seen by a big audience. The final scene between the two sisters did impact me more than nearly any ending I’ve seen in some time, so there’s some major emotional heft to this story.

This was filmed at both Camp Rutledge — the location for Little Darlings — and Camp Daniel Morgan — where Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives was made.

As he escapes from a time loop, Captain Apollo (Shahin Sean Solimon, who wrote, directed and produced this movie) has discovered that he’s in a pandemic-destroyed wasteland teaming with zombies. And oh yeah — Earth has new overlords. So what’s next?

We watched Shahin Sean Solimon’s Sinbad: The Fifth Voyage last year, a movie that was his attempt at making a Ray Harryhausen film. I think this is his attempt at making a movie that tries to be a stoner metal album cover come to life, which I certainly am all in on. However, the end product leaves a bit to be desired.

Somehow, Solimon got Patrick Stewart back for another movie, which has to mean that either Stewart is an incredibly nice man or there is some level of blackmail. This is less of a movie than a series of effects with incredibly difficult-to-decipher dialogue.

In the middle of watching this, I slipped into a loop of my own, as the feedback static of the voices washed over me and I drifted like an astronaut into a coma-like trance. I did all this with none of the usual hallucinogens that I pair with Sleep albums, so I have to give this movie some level of credits.

I’ve compared Zack Snyder movies to watching someone play a video game while you watch. I would then say that this is very similar, except they are playing something on one of those 100-in-1 Nintendo bootleg game carts.

That said — it takes drive and ambition to make a movie and Solimon has made at least two that I’ve seen now. They’re out there on Amazon Prime, so we should definitely admire his dedication.

When Meg and her mother Beth visit a yard sale, the little girl finds a stuffed bear that just may help with her separation anxiety. Soon, she’s dragging the bear everywhere she goes and will only talk to  — and through — the stuffed animal while hoarding supplies for it. What if — and I’m just spitballing here — that bear has a parasitic bug creature inside it? Well, welcome to The Nest, which is one of the weirdest and goofiest — in a good way — films I’ve seen this year.

Beth and Jack have been having some dark days, what with her drug addiction and the financial damage it has done to their marriage. Now living in the home of a recently deceased family member, they try and start all over but are only growing further apart. Now, not only is Meg overly attracted to her bear, but their family friend Marisa (Dee Wallace!) and Jack are overly attached to Meg, creating this strange circle of weirdness, all while the painkillers Beth needs to get past a brutal fall down the steps give her nightmarish visions of parasitic creatures that are using her family for sustenance.

So yeah — if you watch one movie about an otherwordly bug that lives inside a teddy bear named Ricky that possesses a young girl and makes her drug-addicted mother doubt reality — actually there’s no other movie like that. The last scene of this made me laugh at its utter audacity and I consider that a triumph.

The Nest will be available exclusively at Redbox from July 6-20 before it comes out on demand from 4DigitalMedia. You can learn more at the official site.

After struggling to have a child, Eric and Makayla have hired a witch doctor named Ola to help. She moves into their home and concocts a series of magical rituals and ceremonies to bring a child into their lives. If you truly want something so badly, are you willing to take it, even if it brings something not quite human into your life? That’s the question behind Blood Born.

Writer and director Reed Shusterman was inspired by the upcoming birth of his child: “I started development on Blood Born right when my wife and I had just decided to start having a baby. And, in a very literal interpretation of “write what you know,” I wrote about that.

On one level this movie is about the general fears of pregnancy and parenthood, like what happens to you/your partner’s body and the physical space the baby will take up. But what really scared me into making this movie was how much a baby would change me. I’d no longer be the most important person in my wife’s life. Hell, I wouldn’t be the most important person in my own life. In a certain way, I’d be giving up myself, my being.”

Look, when a magic user comes into your home and tells you that she’s helped people with hysterectomies have babies and promises that you’ll have a child in a month, maybe things aren’t going to go well. Then again, I come from a mindset where I’m always looking for the neighbors offering tannis root.

How badly do Eric and Makayla want children? Enough to sacrifice animals? And what will they do when the child needs blood more than milk? I’m asking way more questions than the film’s protagonists, obviously.

Blood Born is available on demand from Terror Films.

Written, produced and directed by Johnny Sweet, Last Call: The Shutdown of NYC Bars takes you within the many neighborhoods of New York City and the local establishments that define them, places that suddenly found themselves closed in the wake of the COVID-19 epidemic.

As bars and restaurants are ordered to close during the pandemic, thousands of hospitality workers are left without work yet have an uncertain future. This film explores how they adapt to their new world, find a place in the new normal and attempt to fill their days with the things they missed during the busier times.

Concentrating on the Sparrow Tavern — and bartender Jena Ellenwood — you get the real idea of what the pandemic has cost us: the ability to connect and share in person with one another. There’s just something about the conversation and moments within a bar that we can’t when we’re drinking alone.

https://vimeo.com/533150856

Last Call: The Shutdown of NYC Bars is available in virtual theaters on July 16 — you can find it at Laemmle virtual theaters — and on demand August 13.