‘READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME’ Says “I Don’t”

March 17, 2026 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged David Cronenberg, Elijah Wood, Guy Busick, Katherine Newton, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, R. Christopher Murphy, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, Samara Weaving, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Shawn Hatosy, Tyler Gillett 1 Comment

Grace (Samara Weaving) has not been having a banner week of post-wedding bliss. After barely surviving her Satan-worshipping in-laws’ attempt to slaughter her during a “family initiation” involving a deadly game of hide and seek, she now finds herself targeted by a broader apparatus of satanic power brokers, each eager to take their own swipe at her in hopes of elevating their status on the high council. The film itself is an escalation in scope, if not in imagination. Though Ready or Not 2: Here I Come wastes no time throwing us into one bloody battle after another, it fails to conjure the same intrigue as its predecessor, instead delivering a fairly generic and ultimately forgettable sequel that just kind of batters its way to its inevitable conclusion. The ensemble cast, led by Weaving – who remains fully committed to the trembling but ferocious final girl – does what it can, but this is the kind of sequel that doesn’t so much build on the original as it simply prolongs it like a marriage already headed for divorce. Read More

‘HOPPERS’ Sees Pixar Return to the Top of the Food Chain

March 2, 2026 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Bobby Moynihan, Daniel Chong, Dave Franco, Hoppers, Jon Hamm, Mark Mothersbaugh, Piper Curda, Pixar 2 Comments

Nature is sacred. As the world moves deeper into digital spaces and kids are no longer left to their own devices to simply go outside and play, there is a real risk that sacredness gets lost on the next generation. In Hoppers, one of Pixar’s best this decade, a direct plea is made to audiences young and old about the importance of conservation and the understanding that all living creatures are part of something larger. The film dresses its meaningful themes in inventive plotting and a steady cadence of genuinely funny laugh lines to make Hoppers a movie the whole family can wholeheartedly enjoy and actually talk about afterward.

‘HOW TO MAKE A KILLING’ Is Slick Nihilism That Never Quite Gels

February 18, 2026 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged A24, Bill Camp, Ed Harris, Glen Powell, How to Make a Killing, John Patton Ford, Margaret Qualley, Topher Grace, Zach Woods 1 Comment

After being cast out from his billionaire family for the sin of being born from a working class father, average joe Beckett Redfellow (Glen Powell) decides the only logical solution is to murder his entire clan and reclaim the inheritance denied to him. Writer-director John Patton Ford, following up his auspicious Aubrey Plaza starring debut Emily the Criminal, fails to recapture that film’s scrappy, pedestrian angst. While his first film understood the slow moral erosion of someone trying to survive in a culture that worships status and money above all else, How to Make a Killing is a slick, nihilistic crime caper that is easy enough to watch but has almost nothing going on beneath its lacquered surface. It feels less like a director building on his foundation and more like one spinning his wheels in expensive tires. Read More

‘GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, DON’T DIE’ Attempts to Save The Future in Bombastic A.I. Apocalypse Comedy

February 13, 2026 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Gore Verbinski, Haley Lu Richardson, Juno Temple, Matthew Robinson, Michael Pena, Sam Rockwell, Zazie Beetz 2 Comments

At exactly 10:10 PM at Norm’s Diner in Los Angeles, a bedraggled man in a hot-wired slicker claims he’s from the future. His message is simple: the end is nigh. In the coming days, A.I. slop will enslave humanity. Tonight is the last night to stop it. The diners must put down their pie slices and burgers and join him to save the future, lest they obliviously frog-march toward their demise. Operating off an absolutely bonkers script from Matthew Robinson, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die marks the return of veteran director Gore Verbinski, who hasn’t helmed a feature since 2016’s underrated gothic horror A Cure for Wellness. The result is something completely zany, culturally prescient, and often rather funny. Read More

Love Is Warfare in Steamy Brontë Adaptation, ‘WUTHERING HEIGHTS’

February 10, 2026 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Alison Oliver, Charli XCX, Emerald Fennell, Hong Chau, Jacob Elordi, Jacqueline Durran, Linus Sandgren, Martin Clunes, Robbie, Shazad Latif, Susie Davis, Wuthering Heights 3 Comments

I’ll admit it right off the bat: I’ve never read Emily Brontë, nor seen any other film adaptation of Wuthering Heights. I came to Emerald Fennell’s take on Brontë’s seminal novel knowing its cultural footprint, but none of the story. Based on her previous work, particularly the alluring psychosexual class-warfare drama Saltburn, I wasn’t expecting a Joe Wright-style adaptation – all handsomely mounted restraint, shapely bodices, and tight corsets. What I got instead was a classical romance stripped of manners and pitched to an eleven; a brash, unrestrained, deeply horny fever dream slathered in excess and sincerity in equal measure. Read More

‘SEND HELP’ Is a Desert Island Movie With Loads of Bad Blood

January 26, 2026 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Damien Shannon, Dylan O’Brien, Mark Swift, Rachel McAdams, Sam Raimi, Send Help Leave a comment

Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) may be ultra-competent in her strategic planning role at work—and a fastidious survivalist to boot—but she lacks the social skills required to climb the corporate ladder. This is drawn into sharp focus when she’s passed over for a promised VP role after company heir Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien) steps into the CEO role and kills her chances of a promotion. Insult compounds injury when she spies the entire C-suite laughing at her Survivor audition tape. But it seems Linda may have the last laugh when their chartered private jet to Thailand crash-lands on a deserted island and only her extensive survival know-how can save the day. Read More

‘28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE’ A Funky Continuation of the Infection

January 13, 2026 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Alex Garland, Alfie Williams, Chi Lewis-Parry, Danny Boyle, Jack O'Connell, Nia DaCosta, Ralph Fiennes 2 Comments

After escaping a tumultuous coming‑of‑age under his father’s forceful hand and delivering his ailing mother to her final resting place, Spike (Alfie Williams) has now taken up with a band of satanists. In 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Nia DaCosta’s sequel to last year’s reinvention of the franchise, a movie that picks up right where the last one left off and carries on its meditative yet unabashedly goofy vibe, Spike finds himself in a new kind of “kill or be killed” situation. Under his eye, Spike is forced to duel a member of Lord Jimmy Crystal’s (Jack O’Connell) death cult that has just taken him in, where survival means becoming part of the tribe. Or, as they put it, one of the fist’s many fingers. As Spike soon discovers, though, being a member of a death cult isn’t much better than just being dead. After all, what’s worse: dying, or losing a piece of your soul in order to survive? Read More

Brutal Rabid Ape Slasher ‘PRIMATE’ Totally Shreds

January 8, 2026 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Gia Hunter, Jess Alexander, Johannes Roberts, Johnny Sequoyah, Primate, Troy Kotsur, Victoria Wyant 7 Comments

What a deranged way to kick off 2026. Primate, Johannes Roberts’ feverish little rabid chimpanzee slasher, is a gloriously squirmy exercise in pure genre efficiency. Sustaining a bone-deep sense of dread across its tight 90-minute runtime—punctuated by the occasional obligatory laugh to let off steam—Primate is a feral scream of a January horror film that doesn’t waste time papering over its shortcomings. It knows exactly where its strengths lie: in Roberts’ unsavory tendencies, the suffocating tension, and some of the most creatively horrifying gore to hit the screen in recent memory.

Violently Sexy ‘THE HOUSEMAID’ Cleans House

December 16, 2025 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar, Paul Feig, Sydney Sweeney, The Housemaid 2 Comments

A pulpy erotic thriller that channels the airport-read energy of Gone Girl with a dash of The Stepford Wives’ satirical zip, The Housemaid is an effortlessly entertaining throwback to a mostly bygone era of glossy, high-concept potboilers. Led by the competent, sudsy trio of Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, and Brandon Sklenar, Paul Feig’s adaptation of Freida McFadden’s 2022 bestseller does carry some of the expected baggage: over-reliance on clunky overdubbed narration, and a few character choices that feel more convenient than coherent. But the film is so self-aware, so happily leaning into its own soapy excess, that the silliness becomes part of the charm. Read More

‘AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH’ Is a Punishing Retread With Nothing New to Add

December 16, 2025 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Avatar, Avatar: Fire and Ash, Britain Dalton, Jack Champion, James Cameron, Oona Chaplin, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Zoe Saldana 3 Comments

James Cameron is too good of a director to spend the rest of his career trapped in Pandora. Avatar: Fire and Ash, the third of five planned installments, may be the most unequivocal waste of time and talent in any major motion picture this century. At three hours and 17 minutes, this second sequel is the neglected middle child of the franchise—adrift, unsure of its purpose, and mostly forgotten even as it plays out in real time. Despite its nearly endless runtime, so little actually happens that the movie ends in almost the exact same place it began. It’s a truly depressing chapter in a franchise that began with a box-office-destroying splash in 2009 and (shockingly) managed to carry the flame with The Way of Water, a disappointing but still absurdly profitable sequel. Read More