Multiplex Madness
Exit 8
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Horror
Director: Genki Kawamura
Starring: Kazunari Ninomiya, Yamato Kochi, Naru Asanuma, Kotone Hanase, Nana Komatsu
Just in case people are telling you comic book movies are flooding the market, we're now halfway through April and we've got our fifth video game adaptation of the year. And while we're in the middle of Mario Mania, we haven't even gotten to the Mortal Kombats and the Street Fighters that 2026 has in store for us. Most of these movies have so far have been based on brief narrative focused indie horror games, which is the origin of Exit 8. This Japanese adaptation sees a man lost in a hallway at a subway station which keeps repeating in an infinite loop. The only way out is to keep a sharp eye out for anomalies, some more subtle than others, and follow the walkway based upon them. The film is sort of a puzzle, looking for oddities and knowing when the right time to move forward and backward is. The film is also partially psychological, though its characterization is lighter than I would hope for a film with that ambition. It's an interesting ride that sometimes threatens with monotony but still hits when it needs to. That's enough to make it the best video game movie of the year so far, but when the competition is Iron Lung, that wasn't hard.
Faces of Death
⭐️⭐️1/2
Genre: Horror
Director: Daniel Goldhaber
Starring: Barbie Ferreira, Dacre Montgomery, Josie Totah, Aaron Holliday, Jermaine Fowler, Charli XCX
I haven't seen the original Faces of Death. I'm not sure I understood what it was back in the day because it was always described as just a series of death scenes that its audience would debate the reality of and I didn't really see the point. I figured if I had trouble getting into the Final Destination movies, which were a series of death scenes strung together by a really stupid plot, I probably wasn't going to like a series of death scenes strung together by no plot.
The new Faces of Death is a meta reboot that actually has a storyline, this one featuring a deranged man, played by former Power Ranger Dacre Montgomery, who remakes scenes from Faces of Death by actually murdering people on camera and posting it to social media. There are plenty of thematic elements that keep the movie interesting, from the psychological effect of social media to the desensitization and sensationalism of violence. The film doesn't always have forward momentum in evolving its themes, but it's cool that it thought this hard about them. The movie has a tendency to faff about to beef itself up, because it has more of a concept of an idea than a full-legth story, so it pads itself out with nonsense to try and make it a feature. Charli XCX, for example, is in this for some reason, playing a pointless role of a bitchy coworker, which turns out to be allegorical to the movie wasting its own time. Its commentary isn't as grand as its ambition, but it has a heart. And it wants to expose it. Look at that beating heart on the floor.
Hunting Matthew Nichols
⭐️⭐️
Genre: Horror, Mockumentary
Director: Markian Tarasiuk
Starring: Markian Tarasiuk, Miranda McDougall
Stop me if you've heard this one: a goup of people making a documentary get lost in the woods where spooky shit happens and they eventually find a house where spookier shit happens. Hunting Matthew Nichols acknowledges it's ambition of being an homage to The Blair Witch Project by referencing it at several points, which is more than I can say for the similar Blair Witch knockoff House on Eden from last year. The film also feels like it's in tune with what Chris Stuckman was trying to accomplish with Shelby Oaks but never realized. That's not to say that Hunting Matthew Nichols is much better than either of those films, it just has some better focused elements in what it's trying to accomplish. The movie is still a mid knockoff, but it's a watchable one. The subject of this mockumentary is the sister who is seeking out her missing brother, uncovering questionable facts that lead her to where he disappeared. I'd say the fatal flaw in this horror movie lies in pacing, because its a very basic faux documentary that teases a horrific mystery but only delves into actual horror in the last ten minutes. If the fact that the movie is derivative bothers you, the film could lose your attention long before anything actually happens. The one pro is that its cast is really good, finding a group of unknown talents who can sell clunky melodrama reasonably well. Miranda McDougall shines in this movie, keeping attention on her with a performance that is full of conviction. She's lost in a story we've seen done better that also feels like it's not going anywhere, but she's selling herself through the movie's dullness, which is almost an impressive feat. Hunting Matthew Nichols isn't really worth watching but I'm glad that the talents on display at least tried to have a vehicle to work their magic. They're succeeding in a production that's failing them.
You, Me & Tuscany
⭐️⭐️
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Director: Kat Coiro
Starring: Halle Bailey, Regé-Jean Page, Marco Calvani, Aziza Scott
Halle Bailey has an almost-one-night-stand who encourages her to visit his home town of Tuscany, Italy, where she breaks into his villa after being unable to find a hotel. When she is caught by his family, she poses as his fiancée to avoid getting arrested, though the situation complicates when she falls for his cousin. A movie like this hinges on two things: naturally crafting the ruse and finding reason in continuing the ruse. If you're intentionally ignoring common sense to make both of them work, you're failing. The set-up is pretty crap, just wanting to get the ball rolling on a comedic farce and not caring how it achieves it. In continuing it, Bailey goes through a series of almost intentional moments of idiocy leading to misfortune that would probably make Lucille Ball think that she's gone too far in her comedic string of circumstances. And as a comedy, the movie is just stiff and lifeless, cutting from various cutesy moments for a gag that appears to have been filmed in a vacuum on a completely different day in an entirely different location that is supposedly just to the side of the main story. The movie seems really proud of these moments, even highlighting a few of them in closing credit outtakes, but they just make the entire ordeal feel artificial and silly. I guess the real question is whether or not it's a solid date movie, but I'd consider it more of an inoffensive one as opposed to a good one. Personally, it's difficult for me to consider a movie this stupid as being romantic or having sex appeal, but it's also a better Italian based romcom than Solo Mio, so it has that going for it.
New To Digital
The Bride! ⭐️⭐️1/2
New To Physical
I Was a Stranger ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Mercy ⭐️1/2
V/H/S/Halloween ⭐️⭐️
Coming Soon!
