Mal Cooper (Theo Rossi, Emily the Criminal, Sons of Anarchy) is a bounty hunter whose only life is the so-called bull**** of tracking down people who have violated their parole. He was once a cop, but he knocked out a senator’s son when he got away with rape and lost his job, his marriage and pretty much everything else other than getting drunk and watching revenge-a-matic movies in the house he used to live in while his ex-wife is on her honeymoon.

His latest job from his boss Alexander Rogan (Kim Coates, Sons of Anarchy) is tracking down Jake Gordon (Shane Paul McGhie), the only witness for a crime lord — Alonzo Beaumont, Anthony “Treach” Criss from Naughty By Nature — in a case that involves mercenaries, crooked cops and no small amount of twists and turns. He also has to deal with his old partners in the police department, like his old boss Chief Joe Milazzo (Dermot Mulroney) and his informant Trina (Tameka Bob).

Directed by Jared Cohn (Lord of the Streets) and written by Chad Law and Gary Charles, this movie doesn’t break any new ground for its story, but the execution is solid and it succeeds because of the charisma of Rossi, who remains tough and capable while also showing vulnerability and even kindness in the midst of nonstop attempts on his life and the man he’s been hired to bring back.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Cahya (Intan Kieflie, an Indonesian Australian actress who actually was pregnant while filming this movie) isn’t living her best life. She’s just lost her husband, she’s running out of money and she’s not far away from delivering her child. Yet she needs work, which brings her to an isolated mansion to be a maid. And that’s exactly the worst place for her to be.

Directed and written by Stuart Simpson (who directed “M is for Mutant” In The ABCs of Death 2.5), Sleeping Beauties brings Cathya into the world of Alfred (Jeffery Richards) and Francesca McCay (Mandie Combe), a brother and sister. They’re rich, so you expect them to be eccentric. But perhaps not this strange.

When she arrives, the McClays argue over her, as they didn’t expect her to be with child. Yet Francesca takes pity on her and allows her to stay. The outgoing maid, Nia (Candice Leask), shows her to her room and tells her that she’s been there for a year and can’t wait to leave. That’s when Cathya notices another maid staring at a wall a floor above her room.

The strange thing of this film is so much of it feels like it’s the 1920s, as the house feels nearly trapped in time, while Cathya always has a mobile phone on her. I like how her texts become part of the picture and are treated well visually. It also seems that the outdoor footage looks way better than the interiors, as the outside nearly feels like it was shot on film — I realize it wasn’t — and natural while the interiors nearly feel like the color is way too forced. Actually, some scenes look way better lit and filmed than others, but I always feel like I’m inordinately attuned to this.

The McClays demand that everything is done the old fashioned way, even if that means cooking rabbit stew in a pot over the stove. It’s also filled with tons of taxidermy, which is never normal, no matter what anyone tells you. And what’s going on with the strange driver (Mark Adams)?

Oh yeah. A psychic who claims to be an owl once told Cathya that she’s different and can manifest spirits around her, those that are gone, and listen to them. Her boyfriend is stuck between worlds and she will eventually be able to say goodbye to him.

For all I’ve said about the look of the film, I have to say that the flashbacks — when Cathya finally sees and touches the ghosts — looks great with really startling images threatening to tear their way into the frame, feeling like oversaturated grindhouse moments.

Of course, Cathya’s employers have killed all of the past maids. That’s who she keeps seeing walking the halls. And they want her to die next. The McClay’s are very Crimson Peak but go a step further by having the skeletons of their parents on an altar, all part of a ritual to become find their way to Heaven by creating a grand guignol nativity scene with Cathya’s baby soon to be the focal point.

While the final effects don’t delight as much as they could — they’re a mix of CGI and puppetry, it appears, and I always err on the site of practical gore — this film does have enough strangeness and attempts at being more than just a simple ghost story. I’d have loved to have seen this with a richer budget, but for what they had, this is quite effective.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Directed by Sudeshna Sen, who co-wrote the script with Anjali Banerjee — based on the book Looking for Bapu by Anjali Banerjee — this movie is about the bond between Anu (Diya Modi) and her grandfather Bapu (Abhijeet Rane).

Her parents are too busy to see much of her, but he provides her with not just food and companionship, but spiritual and emotional support. When he dies while they watch birds together, she refuses to let him go, seeing his ghost and deciding that she will become a Buddhist holy person, shaving her head and attempting to bring Bapu back.

This is impossible, but the journey will bring together mother, father and daughter. The deepest connection remains between her and Bapu, as when she sees a photo of him at a young age, they look like they could be the same person. This brings her tears of joy.

At once a story of the immigrant experience and growing up to accept grief, Anu is an interesting film that has growing talent behind and in front of the camera.

Five former best girlfriends — Sam (Laura Welsh), Alana (Jax Kellington), Barbara (Chynna Rae Shurts), Miles (Allegra Sweeney) and Mikki (Nicolette Pullen) — get back together two years after a school dance prank gone wrong. A joke that turned deadly when their former friend Ashley (Savannah Raye Jones) comes back with a gun. 

Now, she’s in an institution and they’re dealing with the guilt. Could a weekend together be the exact thing they need to move on? Or is a slasher going to kill every one of them? Well, it’s not called Pillow Party Massacre for its health.

Director and writer Calvin Morie McCarthy (Amityville Poltergeist) really loves slashers and that comes through in this. It has a great score by Feeding Fingers, awesome practical effects by Chad Buffett and Maddie Goodwin (Vengeance, a Friday the 13th fan film that’s way better than that sounds, as well as Conjuring: The Beyond) and has enough kills and scenes that pay tribute without feeling like a rip off.

Chris Alexander has been making movies for Full Moon for a bit and I dug Necropolis: Legion — yes, it can never live up to the insanity of Necropolis, but it sure tries — as well as his Scream of the Blind Dead. He also made two other vampire movies, Space Vampire and Queen of Blood, which looks and feels like Jean Rollin and I have no complaints about that.

Arrielle Edwards plays the lead, a redhead pale vision that wanders the hallways of a hotel room and the tourist traps of Niagra Falls looking for victims. The first film I’ve seen from Full Moon’s Delirium Films label, this is the kind of movie that people are going to find on Tubi and get enraged about because nothing happens. It’s also the kind of movie that lunatics — like, you guessed it, me — are going to fall in love with, because not only does it feel like Rollin, but it feels like the last ten movies of Jess Franco, films that he shot in a meeting room in a hotel, with gorgeous women rolling around to music. Except this has sounds that seem like they come from not just underwater but somewhere in the dimension a few thousand doors away. Also: please know that me invoking the name of Franco is no slight; it’s the kind of honor I would not bestow upon many. Some people use the feel of Jess and brag about it. It takes a certain bravery to completely live in the nothing happens but everything goes down madness.

Alexander referred to it as the “next feminine, fevered, fluid-filled dream-state existential exploitation” that he’s making. It also has ties to past films, as Thea Munster is Lady Death from Girl With a Straight Razor. And Kate Gabriele and Ali Chappell are also strong in the cast. It’s like Alexander is assembling a company of players willing to go all the way into the darkness — and neon light — for his films. I also applaud this.

A dreamy movie filled with snow, carnivals and long nails that slice into milky white necks, all while distorted sounds and fuzzed out tones play. And just 42 minutes? Was this made just for me?

You can watch this on Tubi.

Jade Wilson (Selina Kaye) and her boyfriend Devin Jackson (Tremayne Norris) have a scam going where she hooks up with rich men and he breaks in to steal from them. Sure, he’s an abusive loser, but they’re making money. Except that their latest target fights back and gets killed, which sends Jade on the run.

FBI agent Rachel Davies (Catherine Healy) is trying to find Jade, who has changed her last name to Slay and is working — and living above — a dry cleaners in Los Angeles, thanks to the kindly manager Olivia (Liz Fenning). Devin’s trying to get back in her life, calling constantly and even killing her friend Ashley (Lanett Tachel, who also was one of the writers) to get information on where she is.

So anyways, this is Los Angeles, and that means tons of rich and famous people come through the dry cleaners every day, bringing back black tie gala outfits in to be cleaned. One night, when Lacey (Andria B Langston) takes her out clubbing, Jade ends up meeting Francisco (Danny Pardo), a famous photographer who offers to take photos of her late at night. For being a rough girl from the wrong side of the tracks, Jade is actually rather naive — or stupid — because she has no idea this old white dude wants to put it on her. She flips out, they scuffle, he accidentally falls down the steps and she tries to cover it up.

She gets another lucky break when a restaurant owner ends up taking her out to an opening and introducing her to Frank (Christian Torres Villalobos), the hottest producer in town. He’s smitten but has no idea — she doesn’t either — that he’s just met his father’s killer.

Remember Devin? Well, he’s in town and getting closer, plus there’s  Tawni (Brittney Ayona Clemons), the cattiest — and perhaps most attractive — woman at the dry cleaners. She tries to get ahead by blackmailing Jade and ends up dead in a steam room. Then, Frank wants answers as to who killed his dad, as he hacks his father’s security system and sees what happened. And oh yeah — here comes Devin.

Directed by Corey Grant, who co-wrote the script with Amy Irons and Tachel, Twisted Date puts a girl who isn’t really all that innocent into a town that is filled with every more twisted people, stirs it up and sees who makes it out alive. Just sit back, relax your brain and watch the fireworks.

Urban exploring YouTube content creator Marcus (Quinn Nehr) loves going into abandoned buildings and sharing the history of each lost place before looking around and sharing it with his users. The problem is, he’s losing his views because there are a ton of people who do the exact same videos as him. He’s sunk all his money into making videos, so he’s starting to grow disenchanted. Then, his girlfriend Jessie (Bryn Beveridge) comes up with a big idea: they should explore the Rockland Heights Prison, a frightening spot that’s haunted by not one, but two serial killers.

Before you can say, “I bet one of the YouTube guys gets shocked in the electric chair,” you know that Marcus’ disbelief in the unknown is going to get tested by cannibalistic criminal phantom Martin Clay (Anthony Pape) and the spook who was once Eddie Richards (Gary Soumar), a killing machine who delighted in painting the walls red with the blood of his victims.

The film that emerges is slow going at first, as a variety of YouTube want-to-be superstars converge, whether they’re explorers or ghost hunters, and find themselves as prey. But the end, where the gore starts to spray the screen? Why couldn’t we have gotten to that particular firework factory sooner?

James Patrick Tomasek directed, wrote and produced this. With a bigger budget and ideas, I think he could really make something. As for this, he got great use out of his locations and seems to find his footing by the end.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Julie (Eliza Taylor) is mourning the loss of her sister when her tech geek husband Marcus (Bob Morley) goes away for a weekend, leaving her within their gadget-filled high security home. Seeing as how this is a thriller, well, you can imagine that things go wrong.

Julie’s been dealing with guilt ever since she sent her sister Rebecca (Hannah Fierman) to feed her cat and gets her killed by someone hiding inside her place. Months later, her husband and her therapist Dr. Tate (Bryan Batt) have come up with a plan, by moving her out of that place of trauma, and into that aforementioned AI protected house. That said, the security system that Marcus created, Hera, didn’t protect Rebecca all that well.

Yes, it’s everything you expect: a woman being potentially gaslit — Did you take your pills? You know what your doctor said! — while dealing with guilt and a bad marriage. And when someone gets in the house — the same house whose last owner went mysteriously missing — well, you know exactly where this movie is going.

The couple at the heart of this, Taylor and Morely, are an actual married couple and appeared on the show The 100 together. He’s barely in this, watching from afar, but man, I hope their real marriage is better than the one in this movie. I also kind of hope that their marriage is better than this movie.

Director Erik Benard and writers Elisa Manzini and Sara Sometti Michaels don’t really add anything new to gaslit wife genre — is it a genre? — but if you’re looking for a movie where a robot vacuum cleaner hobbles a heroine who may be going hysterical, this is here for you. It looks nice, sounds great and sadly doesn’t seem to go anywhere new until the end of the movie throws in some twists.

Look, my mom has Alexa running her house and it just keeps repeating and answering questions wrong, as well as always turning on the incorrect lights. I’ll stick with light switches. Or maybe candles, I’m becoming a luddite, other than all the time I spend updating this site.

I’ll Be Watching is available now from Uncork’d Entertainment .

So…this is either Killerbots or Murderbot and the original name is better, because it’s close to Killbots, which is of course Chopping Mall, which was made by the same director, Jim Wynorski. This doesn’t feel like the sequel/reboot — he’s supposedly working on that with Dustin Ferguson now — but instead is 46 minutes of female Terminator in the desert wiping out teens, including one who has a trumpet that can play the only sound that slows down that walking machine of menace (Melissa Brasselle).

This has everything you expect from a Wynorski movie: a nubile cast, including Becky LeBeau (in the hot tub with Rodney in Back to School), Dare Taylor, Groundling Emma Keifer, August Kyss, Lisa London (yes, Rocky from Savage Beach!), Sarah Noelle and Lauren Parkinson (Avengers Grimm: Time Wars); scientist women in glass and lab coats that belong in a VCA movie; ridiculous effects and a killer that everyone wants to have sex with.

Written with Kent Roudebush, this moves quickly and looks good. Shot at the Diamond V Movie Ranch in Santa Clarita instead of the Ohio base of so many recent Full Moon movies, this knows what it is and gets in and out without much fuss.

Also: This is a Christmas movie.

You can watch this on Tubi.

I’m predisposed toward liking this movie.

Let me tell you why.

1. James Gunn did things the video store way, starting his career at Troma, where he made Tromeo and Juliet. He moved on to writing the Scooby Doo movies and the Dawn of the Dead remake before making Slither. But he’s always had comic book aspirations from early films like The Specials and Super. The adaptions he’s made so far have been smaller affairs, starting with Guardians of the Galaxy.
2. The Guardians are the kind of characters that not that many people were aware of before the movies. The characters come from the kind of books you once found in quarter bins. Starlord was first in Marvel Preview #4 in January 1976 with Rocket Racoon appearing three issues later before not being used again until May 1982’s The Incredible Hulk #271. In the first thirty years of their existence, Starlord rarely appeared and Rocket only was in ten comic books.The Guardians were the same way, first showing up all the way back in the January 1969 Marvel Super-Heroes #16. Roy Thomas said, “Guardians of the Galaxy started out as an idea of mine: about super-guerrillas fighting against Russians and Red Chinese who had taken over and divided the USA. I got a sort of general approval from Stan Lee and gave the idea to Arnold Drake, since I had not time to write and research it. Arnold went in for a conference with Stan, and Stan (maybe Arnold, too) decided to change it to an interplanetary situation. All the characters and situations in Guardians were created by Arnold and/or Stan.”

   They appeared every once every few years but didn’t really take hold until June 1990. That’s when Jim Valentino created the Guardians that I’ve always loved. Few of them are in these movies — Martinex shows up in a cameo, Yondu is a lot different — but that series was one of the true joys of the grim and gritty early 1990s.

   Then, in 2008, following the Annihilation: Conquest series, we got the Guardians team that led to the film series, which wow, was a gamble.

3. The Guardian movies changed the idea of what the Marvel Cinematic Universe was all about. Instead of do gooders, the Guardians were space pirates, the children of world killing final bosses and scarred survivors of worlds destroyed, the last of their kind. And yet, the films had a comedic tone that inspired the Thor movies and gave the Avengers films some comedic lift.

So here we are with Gunn’s last movie before leaving to lead another attempt at DC movies. And throughout the ads for this movie, the hype and even the film itself, it has the feel of Lando in Return of the Jedi, constantly feeling like someone is going to die and you’re going to lose that character forever.

The fact that this movie has those stakes and you have those feelings points to its strength.

I’ve also been thinking about how no one wants to be challenged by art any longer. Now, go with me on this, even if you don’t believe that comic book movies are cinema. I believe they are and that comics are no different than mythology or any heroic myth.

Tonight during The Last Drive-In, the Twitter audience was complaining that one of the two selections, Tigers Are Not Afraid, was too dark and they couldn’t make jokes and fun of the movie. Playing Mystery Science Theater 3000 is not why I watch movies. Nor is needing a support group and being there for one another during troubling movies. Movies should push your emotions.

A lot of criticism directed against Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 lies in its tone. There are children enslaved by the High Evolutionary, who also figures into the origin of Rocket, tearing him apart and rebuilding him into the cybernetic cynical creature that he has become.

And let me tell you, there are moments in that origin that are harrowing and in no way for kids. But the fact that they can push our emotions and make us notice those narratives shifts, well…isn’t that what great movies should do?

This is the kind of movie that can have a spaceship that has been made out of the severed head of a dead space god; a talking Russian cosmodog with mental powers; that has a world called Counter-Earth filled with animal people and all the problems of our world; and also one that finds each of the Guardians with very real issues: Starlord (Chris Pratt) has fallen into a drunken stupor after the double loss — once in death, another as she was reborn as a being that does not remember him — of Gamora (Zoe Saldana ); Nebula (Karen Gillan) making the grand journey from unstoppable amoral killing machine into the person responsible for the lives of the misfits that live inside Knowhere; Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista, as always, growing as an actor) also making growth from killer to father, the role he was always meant for; Mantis (Pom Klementieff) dreaming of a better life; Groot (Vin Diesel) communicating with just three words; even Kraglin (Sean Gunn) trying to assume the mantle of leadership that Yondu left to him.

The movie gets going when Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), the creation of first movie villain Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki), blasts into Knowhere and nearly kills Rocket, whose body is made of machine code that doesn’t allow him to be healed. To save their friend, the Guardians make a deal with the devil — Gamora — and track down who created Rocket, even if it means they have to fly into what looks for all intents and purposes to be a space butthole.

Despite being fired — that social story about Gunn was always wrong — Gunn would come back for this last story, telling The Hollywood Reporter, “”In the end, my love for Rocket, Groot, Gamora, Star-Lord, Yondu, Mantis, Drax, and Nebula — and some of the other forthcoming heroes — goes deeper than you guys can possibly imagine, and I feel they have more adventures to go on and things to learn about themselves and the wonderful and sometimes terrifying universe we all inhabit.”

And that’s why I loved this movie.

Yes, it’s dark. Yes, the tone shifts a lot. Yes, it’s overstuffed with ideas.

But why is that a bad thing?

Maybe we need to be challenged.

A few other random things I enjoyed:

The music: I usually make fun of needledrop moments in movies, but that’s often because they’re so obvious. Instead, this movie features some songs I genuinely love in moments that they truly fit: Faith No More’s “We Care a Lot,” Spacehog’s “In the Meantime,” The Replacements’ “I Will Dare,” Alice Cooper’s cover of the vaudeville song “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” are all absolutely the right songs at the right time, topped by the Adrian Belew mention in the credits scenes.

The end: I don’t want to give anything away, but after an entire movie of those Lando moments, the feeling as “Dogs Days Are Over” plays are so uplifting that it makes the entire film cathartic. You go through the darkness to find the light.

The deep Marvel characters: Beyond Sylvester Stallone returning as Starhawk, there’s also Martinex (Michael Rosenbaum), Mainframe (Tara Strong instead of Miley Cyrus), Howard the Duck (Seth Green), The Broker (Christopher Fairbank) from the first movie, Bzermikitokolok (Rhett Miller from The Old 97s), Phylla (the daughter of Captain Mar-Vell in the Marvel comics; she’s the young girl fighting alongside the new Guardians in the end credits) and Lem sorcerer Krugarr.

Finally, a bad guy you can hate: Gunn and Chukwudi Iwuji worked to make the High Evolutionary a character with nothing redeeming or sad about him. Instead, he’s near pure evil, a scientist who sees every creation as expendable, but shocked that Rocket, a throwaway creation, was somehow smarter than him.

Also: this has the first f-bomb in MCU history, a “The Legendary Star-Lord will return” credit that reminded me of when they did that at the end of every James Bond movie and a gunfight sequence with Groot and Starlord that felt like John Woo within the MCU.

And finally: When Rocket realizes what the High Evolutionary has done, as he screams in utter despair, only to finally see the sky moments later, wow. Just wow. That’s why I go to the movies.