Editor’s note: Cinematic Void will be playing this movie on January 24 at 7:00 PM at The Sie Film Center in Denver. You can get tickets here. For more information, visit Cinematic Void.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joseph Perry writes for the film websites Gruesome Magazine, The Scariest Things, Horror Fuel, The Good, the Bad and the Verdict and Diabolique Magazine; for the film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope and Drive-In Asylum; and for the pop culture websites When It Was Cool and Uphill Both Ways. He is also one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast and can occasionally be heard as a cohost on Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast.

Official synopsis: Anything That Moves follows nubile sex worker Liam who bikes with his girlfriend — his partner in both business and pleasure — through the city delivering snacks and divine satisfaction to his love-hungry clients. Meanwhile, a serial killer’s gory murders are piling up and all the evidence seems to point back to the lovers’ bed. 

If you have been wondering what Ginger Lynn and Nina Hartley are up to these days, writer/director  Alex Phillips has you covered with his latest feature Anything That Moves. The two actresses add adult-film authenticity to this tale of bicycling sex workers Liam (Hal Baum) and his girlfriend Thea (Jiana Nicole), who get caught up in the case of a serial killer who targets Liam’s clients.

The film’s aesthetic combines 1970s era porn vibes with that decade’s sleazy, gory grindhouse horror gruesomeness. There’s more here than mere pastiche, but social issue elements and sincerity tend to get muddled amongst all of the calculated weirdness and exploitation activity.

There’s no denying the fine 16mm cinematography work by Hunter Zimny, who marvelously captures the oppressiveness of both the Chicago summer and the powers that be that try to hold down the sex workers, along with the sex scenes that vary from tender to violent as well as the decidedly graphic horror mayhem. The performances are all committed in their own ways, from the more sincere to the over the top, the latter including Frank V. Ross and Jack Dunphy as two police officers accusing Liam and Thea of being prime suspects.

Anything That Moves is a unique vision. If you’re in the mood for what Fantasia’s official synopsis describes as “a psychosexual dark comedy thriller” that bounces around but never seems to quite settle on a main thematic focus, it’s certainly worth a view. 

A decade after they were in middle school together, Rowan (Ryan de Villiers) takes on Mag (Jane de Wet) as his roommate, and her obsession with him grows. She may claim she’s a hag — and the film has characters remind her that this is outdated terminology — but she’s really just an old-fashioned, obsessed with him.

Directed and written by Sam Wineman (Queer for Fear: The History of Queer Horror), this begins with Rowan struggling to get over the death of his fiancée and struggling to work every day in a coffee shop in the lobby of an office building. He and his boss, Opal (Adore Delano), try to get noticed by the music executives who come in and out for a drink, but they barely get noticed. Or even worse, when Rowan does get seen by one of them, it’s just for a casting couch down low situation.

Before Rowan came out, he dated women. One of them was Mag, and she feels like that was the only time that she was loved. Now, she is back in his life, in what she compares to Will & Grace. Soon, she’s worked her way in, butting heads with his best friend K.C. (Anja Taljaard) and alienating everyone else in his life.

I actually loved this. Sure, it’s kinda sorta Single White Female, except that Mag writes insane songs about love being a shell, gets into a MMF threesome with Rowan and his personal trainer when they’re drunk, and oh yeah, puts his electric toothbrush into her lady business and jills off with it, knowing he’s going to be scrubbing his bicuspids with it that night. This has a go for it sexual energy that’s great; it’s not afraid to go there. And go further.

Also: Never eat apples if you’re staying with your best gay friend and his stalker ex-straight hag.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Directed and written by Jezar Riches, Fan of Mine inverts what you expect: diva singer Yari Iris (Angeleah Speights) is getting her life back together after a tragedy and going on tour. She decides to meet one of her fans, Mackenzie Sunday (Sylena Rai), and they end up having a real connection. Except that, well, this is a Tubi movie, so Yari quickly becomes friends with the fan and her family.

This even sets up a sequel, just like so many Tubi movies. Yari has her mother trapped in the house and a dead husband. Instead of getting herself together and recording her new music, she decides to get as close as she can to Mackenzie’s family, eventually inviting herself in and even taking care of everything, such as stopping a school bully. When she decides to get with Mackenzie’s husband, even he comes around to the fact that she’s lost it. But when a star is used to getting anything they want, there’s no way that she’s going to take no from anyone, even a family.

I love it when people post horrible reviews of Tubi movies. It’s like drinking Malort and thinking you’re getting champagne. No, you’re getting Malort. It’ll get you drunk, real drunk, but you’d better be ready for everything that entails, like having your mouth taste like eating from an ashtray would improve the taste. Similarly, making light of Tubi movies for their bad scripts, ridiculous moments, and poor acting is an indictment of you, not the films you watched.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Remember Married to a Balla? Skye (Dominique Madison) tried to get away from her abusive pro-athlete husband, Sandino Washington (Emanuel Alexander), and protect her sons, Justice (Darian J. Barnes), Kareem (Alonte Williams) and Jordan (Mario Golden). At the end, Skye shot him and then played football with her sons. 

So how do we have a sequel?

Sandino lived.

Directed by Emily Skye and written by Jacqueline Davis, Jamal Hill, and Tressa Azarel Smallwood, this movie reunites Skye and has her fall in love with a man from her past, Dr. Brett Langston (Jataun Gilbert). She left him all the way back in high school for Sandino, and he’s been in love with her ever since. Maybe she gets over her half-dead man quickly, but one of her sons is more interested in getting into the drug game than having a new dad. As for her oldest, he’s in college and is like when a sitcom character goes away due to a contract issue. He’s in this, but not for long.

Does Sandino get what he wants and trap Skye again? Can she have a career and love? Do we find out what a balla is? Will we get a third Balla movie? All these questions and more will be answered.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Simon West directed Con Air, The General’s Daughter, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, The Mechanic and The Expendables 2, so he’s the perfect person to make an action movie. 

You may not expect Rebel Wilson to be in one of those movies.

Here, she plays Sam, a secret agent trying to fix her relationship — and her status as maid of honor — with her friend Betsy (Anna Camp), who has replaced her with her sister Virginia (Anna Chlumsky). Despite her anger, her handler, Nadine (Sherry Cola), tells her to attend the wedding at Betsy’s fiancé, Ryan Caldwell’s (Sam Huntington), family’s lush estate.

Between Sam flirting with best man Chris (Justin Hartley) to the point that it angers Virginia, and an armed attack by criminals led by Kurt (Stephen Dorff) — and helped by Chris — the wedding day is a mess. But it allows Sam to use her special set of skills to, well, kill every one of the bad guys.

Coleen Camp shows up (she also produced) and Wilson has the kind of energy you need for one of these films. Anna Chlumsky, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Gigi Zumbado are the rest of the wedding party who quickly learn from Sam how to be an action star. I’m a sucker for silly action comedies, I guess.

Tulsa Terrors is all about the direct-to-video horror boom of the mid-1980s, which was sparked in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and led by United Entertainment (now VCI Entertainment, which released this) and its founder, Bill Blair.

Starting with Blood Cult, Blair’s idea to produce films exclusively for home video revolutionized the industry, leading to a wave of low-budget genre films that bypassed theatrical release. You know, SOV. And yes, I know that Boardinghouse was SOV first, but it was made for theaters, not video. Same as Sledgehammer, which was created for video, but not advertised as such, like Blood Cult.

This film features interviews with everyone who was there and covers many of the movies you know and love. You’ll learn how Blair approached Christopher and Linda Lewis with The Sorority House Murders and the idea to film on video, just like a soap opera. After all, he had two Betacams and Sony editing equipment. And you’ll get to see moments from the films, like The Ripper, Revenge, Toe Tags, Branded and The Stitcher.

If you have any love for SOV, consider this an essential watch.

You can get this from MVD.

The eighth movie in the series and the sequel to Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, this film begins two months later, as the rogue AI known as The Entity has begun hacking its way into nuclear arsenals, aided by a doomsday cult that worships the code. Only Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team can stop it. Luther (Ving Rhames) has already been working on a virus to destroy it, which leads The Entity to tell Ethan directly that it plans to kill his best friend.

Joined by former enemies Theo Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis) and Paris (Pom Klementieff), they must go to the wreckage of the sub from the first movie, transmit a Poison Pill into the AI and somehow stop Gabriel (Esai Morales) from aiding the AI in dropping nuclear bombs on the planet.

This brings back just about every character in the series, either in new footage or flashbacks, even revealing that one of the CIA agents is the son of disgraced IMF commander Jim Phelps.

At three hours, the first third drags a bit. But hang with it, as the end is filled with massive stunts and set pieces. I rarely seek out big Hollywood movies, but if you’re going to do that, this is the one to watch. It’s dizzying in its array of situations it puts Ethan into, and there are actual emotional stakes throughout.

John Waters picked this as his top film of 2025, telling Vulture that “My favorite movie of the year is a disagreeable but highly entertaining tale as exhausting as today’s politics with characters nobody could possibly root for. Yet it’s so terrifyingly funny, so confusingly chaste and kinky that you’ll feel coo-coo crazy and oh-so-cultural after watching. If you don’t like this film, I hate you.”

I don’t want John Waters to hate me.

Luckily, this is the second Ari Aster movie in a row that I’ve been challenged by and liked, after Beau Is Afraid, and I think both of those films may not be as popular as Hereditary or Midsommar, but they’re definitely better films.

Mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) is enacting a mask law in the wake of COVID-19. Yes, this film takes us five years — and another world — back to 2020. Meanwhile, Sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) refuses to believe in the virus, as he’s been living in a steady stream of conspiracy theory talk thanks to his wife, Louise (Emma Stone), and her mother, Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell).

After they battle over the mask rules, Joe decides to run for mayor, which upsets his wife. But are there any good guys here? Sure, Joe is a jerk, but Ted wants to bring a data center to town. Then again, isn’t it a conflict of interest that Joe gets young cops Guy (Luke Grimes) and Michael (Michael Cooke) to be his campaign aids? And what’s with his patrol car being covered with misspelled conspiracy campaign ads? Is that the result of his wife’s guru, would-be cult messiah Vernon Jefferson Peak (Austin Butler)?

In the middle of all of this, even the young folks get in over their heads, trying to navigate Black Lives Matter. Ted’s son Eric (Matt Gomez Hidaka), his friend Brian (Cameron Mann), and social justice influencer Sarah (Amélie Hoeferle) want to get Michael on their side, as they’re all white yet wish to belong.

During a televised campaign stop — how big is Eddington? — Joe remarks that Ted sexually assaulted his wife, who has blamed her father, but then again, Vernon’s cult is based around repressed memories that could be false. She leaves him; Joe goes into a noise complaint at Ted’s house and gets slapped.

This causes Joe to flip out. He starts his rampage with the killing of a homeless man, then works his way to Ted’s house, where he shoots him and his son with a sniper rifle, set up to look like Antifa — remember when they were going to attack the suburbs? — before a private jet of heavily armed Antifa actually does arrive in town.

At the same time, Native American Officer Butterfly Jimenez (William Belleau) learns that the shots that killed Ted and Eric came from his tribe’s land. He figures that the sheriff did it, just as Joe is framing Michael. The point of all of this is moot, as Antifa — who are really terrorists posing as Antifa — attack the town, killing nearly every cop until Brian saves the sheriff, who had been stabbed in the head while randomly blasting a giant machine gun, even hitting Butterfly with a round, before a terrorist kills him. Brian shows up and faces off with the last gunman, killing him and saving Joe. 

But did he save Joe? 

Joe gets everything he wanted. He’s now the mayor, but he’s a vegetable. He can’t speak or even take care of himself, and every action he takes is dictated by his wife’s mother, who uses his power to push her conspiracy agenda while still allowing the data center to open in town. After a long day — and urinating on himself and needing to be cleaned by a nurse who slaps him — she shows Joe her daughter, now pregnant with the cult leader’s baby. At night, she and the male nurse get into bed with one another — and Joe — and he has everything he wants but has no idea it’s happening. Well, maybe he didn’t want his mother-in-law next to him in bed.

Nobody in this is a hero, like how Brian was only into Sarah, not her politics. And yet he becomes a hero for using a gun to save Joe, whose actions have set the town on fire. He becomes a right-wing hero when all he wanted was to sleep with a liberal girl who thought that his politics were performative because, well, they were. 

Aster told Variety that this movie is about “a conflict between a small-town sheriff and mayor, is partially inspired by a similar stand-off that took place in New Mexico during the COVID-19 era.” That sheriff, David E. Frazee, visited the set, and he and the mayor of Estancia, Nathan Dial, are both thanked in the credits. And while Aster had this film in mind before he made Hereditary, he said the main idea was “How can I make a film about the incoherent miasma we’re living in without the film becoming a message?” 

So many questions: Who sponsored the terrorists, with their logo of a hand squeezing the life out of our planet? Was Vernon really abused? Who abused Lou, Ted or her father? What is the significance of the name Solidgoldmagikarp, the AI data center company?

Actually, I learned what it means from this great article on Jacobin: “It turns out “solidgoldmagikarp” is a reference to an actual AI phenomenon. A couple years ago, ChatGPT users discovered that if they asked the AI to repeat the phrase “solidgoldmagikarp,” it caused the chatbot to fritz out, unable to make sense of the command. Why? Because for years, a Reddit user named “solidgoldmagikarp” would log on to the subreddit r/Counting and simply post ascending numbers. So every instance of that phrase was linked to a string of numbers in order. Because these stupid chatbots can’t reason, the machine just spits out something unintelligible. The error has since become a meme. And by becoming a meme, the chatbot can now only make sense of it. Digital hallucinations, which are not real in any sense, become real by virtue of people talking about them enough.”

A lot of people didn’t like this, saying that Aster was trying to make them relive the horror of 2020 with no moral center.  Aster replied, “I think that’s a pretty bad-faith read of the film. I’ve heard people say you let the left have it worse than the right. Which, to me, feels like an insane thing to say. Given that the people who represent the left in the film are, at worst, annoying and frustrating, and the people on the right are, at worst, murdering and ruining lives.”

This is a film about division, and I love it for that. It’s also a director using whatever goodwill he has left from two hits to do whatever he wants to, which is how the best movies arrive.

You can get this on Blu-ray from A24.

From the creators of Christmas Lights, Screamityville is an 84-minute tour of some of the creepiest and most creative Halloween decorations. They claim that “It recreates the experience of driving around on a late October evening in search of your favorite decorated homes in your neighborhood.”

With music that gets you in the mood and well-shot footage, this makes the perfect Halloween movie to have running during a party. It’s a fun way to build excitement and create a festive atmosphere. And as we get further from the holiday, I turn to this to rekindle the Halloween spirit and lift my mood. There’s no narration to get in the way. Just gorgeous vistas of terrifying homes, all lit up to scare the neighbors.

If you love driving around and looking at Halloween decorations, this lets you do it anytime. It’s a convenient way to enjoy spooky sights whenever you want, making it perfect for year-round viewing.

You can get this on Blu-ray or DVD from MVD. You can learn more at the official site.