By Any Means (2026)

Based on actual events, a black FBI agent teams up with a mafia hitman to take on racism in 1960s Mississippi. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Wonder Man) plays it by the book, while Marky Wahlberg plays a stock Grand Theft Auto character, using force to achieve results by any means necessary. Hey, that's the title!

2½ burning crosses out of 5

Buffet Infinity (2025)

Presented as a series of public access infomercials and local TV ads, this analog horror-comedy is akin to watching Adult Swim's 4am programming block. After awhile, you begin to notice a narrative emerge throughout the disparate 30-second spots. Can it sustain this energy and creativity for 90 minutes? Hell no. But commercials can be creepy and unnerving, especially when they go on for too long or it feels like something sinister lies beneath the surface. It's a movie I can admire for its original vision and experimental style, yet can't outright recommend because of how abstract it is at its core.

2½ secret sauces out of 5

Buddy (2026)

Everybody knows what time it is. That's right, it's BUDDY time! YAAAYYYYYY!

Everyone loves that Barney-looking fuck! Even though he's a magical unicorn who's friends to all children. Unless they get out of line, of course. From the twisted mind who brought us Too Many Cooks, Final Deployment 4 and Adult Swim Yule Log. There's no other film I enjoyed this year more than this one.

4 Worry Wells out of 5

The Banana Splits Movie (2019)

A family attends a live taping of The Banana Splits, a popular children's series centered around four animatronic characters. However, when it's revealed that the show will be canned, the robots go rogue and fight for their survival.

What's incredible about this gory horror comedy it that it was legally allowed to be adapted around the existing Hanna-Barbara property of the same name.

3 software updates out of 5

Booger (2023)

A woman spirals out of control after losing her best friend and her cat Booger in the same week, undergoing a transformation when she's bitten by the latter. It's a metaphor for grief wrapped in gross-out body horror, but it's effective.

2½ hairballs out of 5

The Babysitter: Killer Queen (2020)

Cole Johnson is older and wiser and gets involved with a whole new group of friends when he's invited to a wild boat party on the lake. This one is dumber and much more improbable than the first one, but stick with it, it gets better.

2½ minutes in heaven out of 5

The Babysitter (2017)

A kid has the hots for his sexy new babysitter and stays up late to see what she gets up to after dark. Aaaand...that's about all I can say without spoiling anything. It's a fun horror comedy that reminded me a bit of Better Watch Out.

3 games of spin the bottle out of 5

Borderline (2025)

A psychotic fan breaks out of prison in order to propose to his celebrity crush.

I knew this black "comedy" was pure garbage 10 minutes in, but I still tortured myself for the remaining 85 minutes thinking maybe it'd redeem itself. Spoiler: It did not. And what do I have to show for it? A nut. I must have a screw loose.

0 pop duets out of 5

Brain Dead (1990)

"By the perception of illusion, we experience reality."

Brains freak me out. Just one little poke or minor alteration can change your identity forever. It's such a fragile process. You can't trust your own mind.

This movie is really hard to sum up. It's about a neurosurgeon who performs an experimental procedure on another man's brain. Lines begin to blur. You don't know who is what anymore. This stuff terrifies me to no end. It reminds me of a bad dream you can't wake from. I kind of love it because it wrinkles my brain.

4 stimulations out of 5

Note: This was the only film that starred both Bill Pullman and Bill Paxton, and it forever mixed me up.

Peninsula (2020)

AKA: 반도 (Bando)

A sequel to Train to Busan, taking place four years later when refugees are tasked with returning to the ruins of South Korea to retrieve a truck full of riches, where the quarantined survivors and hordes of undead remain. Like most modern zombie media, it focuses more on humans fighting each other rather than the actual apocalypse. It's not a bad film, but it's sprawling and unfocused, and contains one too many fast and furious vehicle sequences.

2½ underground arenas out of 5

Train to Busan (2016)

AKA: 부산행 (Busanhaeng)

En route a high-speed rail heading to Busan, passengers begin experiencing extreme distress and bodily changes after an infectious person gets onboard.

This modern classic Korean zombie flick is in an unrelenting, intense, brutal and at times heart-wrenching journey in line with Dawn of the Dead (2004) and World War Z, that plays out a bit like 28 Days Later meets Snowpiercer.

4 baggage compartments out of 5

Bottoms (2023)

A satirical "comedy" about two queer high school girls who start a feminist self-defense club in order to attract other girls. A lousy film that tries so hard to be edgy and cool like a female Fight Club, but winds up being obnoxious and largely forgettable. Obviously this movie wasn't intended for me, but it doesn't have to try so hard to be repugnant and appallingly bad for "shock" value. It's a shame because I've loved all the other raucous comedies that came out in the summer of 2023, but this one just landed with a thud for me.

1 bomb out of 5

Better Off Dead (1985)

After being dumped by his girlfriend, Lane Myer is depressed and suicidal, as his efforts to either kill himself or win her back both fail miserably. Despite the dark subject matter, this is a very fun and whimsical comedy with creative flights of fancy and surrealism that was destined to become a cult classic.

3½ persistent paperboys out of 5

Brats (2024)

Being a child of the '80s, I found myself really invested in this documentary. It's a fly on the wall journey, following actor Andrew McCarthy attempting to reunite with his old colleagues after thirty-some years. It opens up about their uncomfortable relationship with the term "brat pack" (coined in 1985 as a play on "rat pack") which stigmatized many of their careers (although Rob Lowe and Demi Moore escaped relatively unscathed). As an outsider who missed that phenomenon by a few years, I never looked down on the brat pack label. In fact, I purposely sought out all of those films. And after having watched this, I want to go back and see them all again. The 1980s are like comfort food to me. I kind of wish it had been a reunion for all of them, rather than just Andrew's story, but there is some catharsis in following that personal journey. Sad that Molly Ringwald declined and Judd Nelson didn't end up being a part of it, since he seemed to be the one who was most affected by it in older interviews.

3 scathing articles out of 5

Billie Eilish - Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D) (2026)

Over the past two decades, James Cameron has directed three movies about tall blue alien dudes...and this, a concert film/documentary featuring 24-year-old, 10-time Grammy winner Billie Eilish during the final leg of her 2025 tour. It's a dynamic performance full of spectacle and boundless energy, as the pop singer-songwriter bounds up and down the 360° stage with a swollen ankle. No matter what you think of her music, you have to respect the gumption and raw talent it takes to command a stage like that, while we observe glimpses of her working hard behind the scenes. It's the very definition of a vanity piece, but it's made with the fans in mind, so you know you're going to get a lot of footage of teen girls crying in the rafters. It's the closest approximation to a live concert experience I've probably ever had sitting in a movie theater.

Regardless of whether you're a fan or not, this is what true power looks like.

3½ bad guys out of 5 (duh)

The Breadwinner (2026)

I'm not sure where the hell Nate Bargatze came from, but the world really likes telling us he's all of a sudden somehow the highest grossing stand-up comedian in America. Marketed as a clean comic to broaden his fanbase, he comes across as a likeable everyman, in a milquetoast kind of way. This is a very old fashioned kind of family comedy (à la Mr. Mom) where the father has to step up and take on the role of house husband after his wife is offered a huge business opportunity. It's completely generic, inoffensive and full of product placement to remind you he's being sponsored by all the big brands.

1½ bubbles of consent out of 5

Backrooms (2026)

Kane Parsons was only 16 years old when he created his found footage web series The Backrooms, based on the popular creepypasta. Now at 20, he adapts his own material for his first feature film, which retains its grassroots design.

It's interesting how internet-based folklore (such as Slender Man) has steadily creeped its way into our collective subconscious, but it tends to keep building on itself. Taking its origins in the 1990s and early 2000s, the idea of glitching through reality into a space "in between" that stretches out infinitely is pure nightmare fuel. It has that uneasy feeling of being lost in the outer boundaries of a video game, and the ensuing claustrophobia and panic that sets in when you realize there's no escape. This is spooky stuff that hits at a primal level. This type of labyrinthine fever dream was also recently explored in Exit 8.

This movie is quite the experience. It's almost as if someone mainlined Twin Peaks season 3 directly into their veins. A lot of bizarre, nonsensical stuff that can't be explained and held together by dream logic, haunting imagery and loose strands of plot. It is truly eerie and unpredictable. I can't get enough of this shit. It leaves so much to the imagination. A simple, back to basics horror concept that can be explored ad nauseam, yet it merely scratches the surface. Just don't wander in too deep or you might get trapped in some rabbit holes.

4 l̶̛̛͖̮̞͉̽͋̈́̀͊͛̐̅͂͘̚͝i̸̡͖̗͉̽̇͒̏̈́̒̐ͅm̶̛̩̖̗͇̺͕̹͙̜̜̺̳̎͑̌̀͛͂̀̈́̇ͅi̶̛̙̳̙̘̭̭͇̻̲͎̒̀̊͑̎̿̿͒̋̑̄n̵̯̳̺̲̔̋͂̈̊̆̇̍͗̿ą̶̨̰̹͚̖̈́̑̐̉̀̂̄͑͗̕͠ͅͅl̵̡͙͇̯̤͇͔̮͍̪̦͒͌̔̈́͗̾ ̵͚̭̈́̌̏̓̿̽͊͌̾͑̓̚͝s̸͔̳̱̖̖̜̓͒̂͊̉͜͝͝͝ͅp̵̨̨̡̜̟̹͔͆͋̅̅̽̾͗̇̽̈́̋̚͘a̷̯̟̩̹̦̥̥̯̍̈́̄̒͛̈́̓͌̑͗̂̒͝c̷̨̧͕̝͓̬̠̫͎̟̖̼̪̐ͅę̶̨͔͉̯̰̬̲̹̰͍̫̦̆͒s̴̢̨͇͇̙͓̞͇͖̞͖̰͍͝ out of 5

Busboys (2026)

This movie is D-U-M dumb. But also funny as hell, in that blatantly politically incorrect way that most comedies don't have the brass to be anymore. David Spade specializes in these white trash Joe Dirt knock-off roles, while Theo Von (more or less playing himself) goes along for the ride as two busboys who travel to Mexico in the hopes of being promoted to waiters. Yeah, it's retarded.

2½ hot plates out of 5

Balls Up (2026)

A couple of marketers develop the Balls Up, a condom designed to cover up the balls as well, and pitch it as the official condom of Brazil in the World Cup, before inciting an international incident that has them on the run. I'm sad that this came from one half of the Farrelly Brothers because it's a poor attempt at recreating the raunchy R-rated comedies of its heyday and it lacks any heart.

Buddy comedies usually build on the chemistry of its actors, but Paul Walter Hauser does most of the heavy lifting here. There's so much talent involved in front of and behind the camera, it's appalling how disastrous this turned out.

1½ minnows swimming upstream out of 5

The Bride! (2026)

A feminist, post-modernist reading on The Bride of Frankenstein, starring Jessie Buckley as the title character and Christian Bale as the monster. Hot off the heels of Jacob Elordi as Frankenstein, I can't stand this recent trend to "beautify" the monster, although I suppose Edward Scissorhands already cornered that market years ago. This feels more like a monster gangster movie like Bonnie & Clyde. It's a bizarre characterization, touched by madness, and Buckley once again demonstrates that she's one of the most dynamic young actresses of her generation. Stylistically, there's much to love in its 1930s aesthetic, but it's a mess of disparate parts, much like its characters.

Maggie Gyllenhaal is the mad scientist behind this experimental creation.

3 short legs out of 5