MST3K, RiffTrax, and Beyond: Cinema Playground Journal 2026: Week 4 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

Clika

⭐️

Genre: Drama

Director: Michael Greene

Starring: Jay Dee, Laura Lopez, Peter Greene, Eric Roberts

Clika is a movie that seems to be made by music producers trying to sell a new artist named Jay Dee. I don't know why they think they'll sell music with a cliche amateur drama but at least this movie is more coherent than Hurry Up Tomorrow, so Jay Dee can say he did at least one thing better than The Weeknd. Jay Dee stars as a peach farmer who becomes a parttime drug runner to make money fast so he can work on his music or something. To be frank, this movie comes off as a fake soap opera that would be playing on TV in other movies. Jay Dee doesn't sell it, as he is a flat actor with no charisma who is just floating around from place to place. The film looks and feels like a dailies reel of random scenes the director collected because they needed to shoot something because they'd otherwise get fired, tied together with a rambling narration in hopes to convince the audience that there is a narrative. There is nothing of value in this movie, especially since its primary purpose is to sell Jay Dee albums and it doesn't even show off his music that well. I don't know what they expected me to get out of this movie. The moral of this movie seems to be you can get rich by either selling drugs or becoming instantly famous, so do one or both. And with that money you can buy a Playstation 5. Thanks for the advice.

H Is for Hawk

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre: Drama

Director: Philippa Lowthorpe

Starring: Claire Foy, Brendan Gleeson, Denise Gough, Sam Spruell, Lindsay Duncan

Based on the autobiography of the same name, Claire Foy stars as writer Helen Macdonald, who is grieving the death of their father and during this period, they train a Goshawk as a companion. This is a movie made for people who like watching movies breathe, as the film progresses with a soft casualness. It almost produces a feeling of lost daze, replicating the uncertainty of its main character, sparking to life during the hawk training scenes because those are the points where they feel alive. It's a quality drama, though its grief themes are similar to many movies of its type, which makes the film a bit small potatoes in the wider picture. Whether one appreciates it will likely depend on if one resonates with the journey, and there is enough humanity here to make it worth a look.

Mercy

⭐️1/2

Genre: Science Fiction, Mystery

Director: Timur Bekmambetov

Starring: Chris Pratt, Rebecca Ferguson, Kali Reis, Annabelle Wallis, Chris Sullivan, Kylie Rogers

Look, all I'm saying is that if I had only ninety minutes to live, I'd want to spend it staring at Rebecca Ferguson too. That's the starting idea behind Mercy, where Ferguson plays an AI judge who is tells Chris Pratt that he has an hour-and-a-half to prove that he's innocent of a crime that he is accused of. The entire idea is weird, if only because ninety minutes is a bullshit amount of time to do an actual investigation, let alone put together a defense strategy. But it's kind of a high concept idea that you need to roll with because, if done well, a movie like this could underline how important due process is. That's something the movie seems aware of, though opening with lines of dialogue like "guilty until proven innocent" are probably way too on-the-nose. Still, I was willing to enjoy the ride, even if the movie had little to offer than to be a dumber variation on movies like Minority Report and Source Code, with a dash of Searching for good measure. For a good hour, the movie had base entertainment value, telling a real time investigative mystery that also had satirical commentary on the differences between the ways a human intelligence acts and an artificial intelligence acts. These are all good qualities no matter how redundant a movie is. When its third act begins, the movie starts to get loopy. The investigation begins piling on too many twists that start to become absurd and it starts getting flummoxed, seemingly unsure of how it's supposed to end. The movie's mistakes are summed up when it empathizes Ferguson's AI character. She becomes so humanized that it feels like the movie has completely forgotten it's entire point. When a movie undercuts itself that thoroughly in the home stretch, it's hard to really maintain enthusiasm for it.

Return to Silent Hill

⭐️

Genre: Horror

Director: Christophe Gans

Starring: Jeremy Irvine, Hannah Emily Anderson

Silent Hill is a video game series that I have very limited exposure to. I know that they exist, are very foggy, and apparently get much, much worse as they go. That's it. I saw the original film adaptation when it hit DVD in 2006 and remember next to nothing about it except that I found it very dumb and boring. That movie has accumulated a decent cult fanbase over the years, mostly of Silent Hill video game players who say it's a faithful recreation of the series. I don't know if this means the games are also dumb and boring but that's what I've assumed. There was a sequel that I never watched, but everyone hated it so I probably didn't miss out. Now there is a brand new "true" sequel directly based on the original Silent Hill 2 that was made by the original creatives of the first movie, and that game is hailed as one of the greatest video games ever made. Everyone hates this one too.

I feel like I just can't win here.

For what it's worth, Return to Silent Hill features few references to the previous films, so I there was little reason to be lost from that perspective. But don't worry because the movie will totally confuse you of its own accord. The story is mostly just surrealism without a plot, but what little that is here has to do with some guy who journeys into the foggy spot of oddities to find his missing girlfriend. It's very clear that his girlfriend is likely dead and he knows it, but shush, let the man have his mental breakdown in peace. Once we get to Silent Hill, we find that the town is littered with monsters, glossy backdrops, and populated by randos that either have bad hair or bad wigs. As to why it's like this, there is no explanation present in this particular movie. There might have been one in the first one or the video games, but Silent Hill in this movie is mostly an excuse for a surrealist grief and PTSD metaphor than anything to be taken literally. I can get behind that but I also need the movie to put in the work. Surrealism is something that can get out of hand quite easily, and if you don't check yourself, you're going to find that it can turn into nonsense pretty easily. Return to Silent Hill turns into a barrage of baffling bullshit almost as swiftly as it begins and doesn't even have the buffer of being well-made to sugarcoat it. The movie looks like ass, is poorly acted, and it isn't even fun to try and decipher because it's both obvious in its themes and perplexing in its execution. I just can't with this movie.

I feel like when I put up with a movie this nonsensical, the only way to address it is in a nonsensical way. Ergo, if you were to ask me my thoughts on this movie, my response has to be that the CGI spider had a nice ass.

Send Help

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre: Comedy, Thriller

Director: Sam Raimi

Starring: Rachel McAdams, Dylan O'Brien

An early access screening for the new Sam Raimi movie? I am so there! And he's back doing what he does best, as Rachel McAdams survives a plane crash with her asshole boss Dylan O'Brien. Between this and Red Eye, McAdams should really start avoiding planes altogether. But as the sole survivors on an island, McAdams suddenly finds herself in a position of power as she clearly has better survival skills than her boss does. The film is clearly about the nature of power dynamics and what skills are treasured in civilization as opposed to nature. That's clear just from the advertisements. What the advertisements don't show is just how funny the movie is, to the point that its comedy outweighs it's thriller elements. The first act is pure cringe comedy, as McAdams stumbles through work in her socially awkward way. The second sees her flip the power arrangement on its head and show that she's now in her element. The third act is pure Sam Raimi chaos, offering up unpredictable turns and absolute splatstick comedy, making this the purest Raimi film since Drag Me to Hell. Send Help also parallels that film in thematic ways, being about "weak" people proving strength through cruelty. It's his patented "revenge of the meek" story, probably in its purest form because this film relies heavily on a power struggle between the abrasive and the soft-spoken. Who wins? Whoever bleeds less. Those who know what a Raimi film looks like will get exactly what that promises. Those who don't should be warned that the movie is much wackier (and bloodier) than you'd assume but is absolutely worth the ride.

The Testament of Ann Lee

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre: Drama, Musical

Director: Mona Fastvold

Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Thomasin McKenzie, Lewis Pullman, Stacy Martin, Tim Blake Nelson, Christopher Abbott

Oh, good. It's a movie about religious zealots. My favorite thing ever.

The Testament of Ann Lee is a semi-musical biography of the the titular founder of the "Shaker" sect of Christianity, notable for practicing celibacy and pacifism. This group is much smaller today. Who would have thought that not having sex would have led to a lack of population? But the movie treats it's subject with respect, choosing to focus on the Ann Lee's life with a lens of fascination. And it is a pretty interesting life, and her story allows the filmmakers to explore a variety of topics including the religious fanaticism, influence of personal experience on spirituality, oppression of sexuality, spreading gospel, and martyrdom. What the movie chooses to really lean into is the way the church-goers pray, with a very seismic-like body movements, which the movie uses as an excuse to portray through elaborate dance choreography. This is also the thing that makes me not want to think about this movie ever again. I appreciate how exceptionally passionate and well-made the movie is, but the amount of chanting, lunging, flailing, and wailing in the movie's setpieces makes the experience of watching it almost like being trapped with Florence Pugh in Midsommar. I'll be honest, this movie gave me a headache. Technically, this movie is great and I should be singing it's praises but I also need to point out that it's an excruciating experience. I hesitate in saying it's for the right reasons because I'm not convinced the movie knows how shrill it can get when it's fully locked in on what it's doing. Because of that, I can recommend the movie but only just barely, because I never want to watch it again.

Oscar's Trash Can

KPop Demon Hunters

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Oscars Nominated: Best Animated Feature Film, Best Music (Original Song) - "Golden"

Genre: Musical, Action, Comedy, Horror

Director: Maggie Kang, Chris Appelhans

Starring: Arden Cho, Ahn Hyo-seop, May Hong, Yunjin Kim, Daniel Dae Kim, Ken Jeong, Lee Byung-hun

Full disclosure, I didn't know KPop Demon Hunters was a thing until well past when it dropped. I'm pretty sure I heard the title at some point but I think I got it confused with Demon Slayer and thought it was a movie spin-off of an anime show that I didn't watch. At some point in the aftermath, it became clear that not only was this movie a thing, it was the thing. It was the one movie of 2025 that was rivaling Sinners as the defining cultural touchstone film of the year. I probably would have watched it earlier but never found the time and I knew I was going to likely watch it for the Oscar roundup anyway, so here I am. I know nothing about KPop except what I learned from Joy Ride, but I'm going to give this everything I've got. Let's do this.

I'm going to tell my children that these were the KPop Demon Hunters.

The titular KPop Demon Hunters are a trio known as Huntrix, who entertain the world with their music by day and fight demons by night. The demons then eventually fight back by creating their own KPop boy band to steal the fans that give them power. I think there is more to it but the lore of the film is so fast and loose that it's hard to grasp at times. Huntrix seems convinced that by winning some award they'll be able to seal off the demon world. I might have missed something, or it's the power of fan love or whatever, but I'm not exactly clear on why that would be a thing. The movie is very vague and a little scatterbrained, often feeling like it was getting distracted from its own plotline for the sake of digressive humor. The good news is that a lot of the humor is very funny, but it just seems nothing is getting accomplished at times.

The aspect that resonates most is that it's pure visual stimulus. The movie itself is the visualized vibrations of an actual pop concert, Korean or otherwise. And in premise, the movie is the most Buffy the Vampire Slayer-coded thing I've seen since Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I grew up with a lot of things like KPop Demon Hunters, so it's easy to see why it's so beloved. I think it was too busy massaging my eyeballs to tell when it was losing me mentally. That being said, I'd watch it again because it's a little bit of a blast.

Train Dreams

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Oscars Nominated: Best Picture, Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay), Best Cinematography, Best Music (Original Song) - "Train Dreams"

Genre: Drama

Director: Clint Bentley

Starring: Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, Nathaniel Arcond, Clifton Collins Jr., John Diehl, Paul Schneider, Kerry Condon, William H. Macy

Netflix's third big Oscar contender probably has less of a shot at taking home a trophy than Frankenstein or KPop Demon Hunters but it's worth checking out what is probably the least talked about Best Picture nominee on the list. The movie centers on a logger in early 20th century who lives a quiet life away from civilization. The film celebrates the undervalued and unwritten people who lived their lives and left this Earth, not leaving a legacy other than being here. The film starts out about a simple life but becomes about just continuing past the point where your concieved purpose might have long past. Contemplative, melancholy, and sometimes just downright sad, the movie is a rather enveloping work that sucks you in with its quiet study of the "unimportant." It might frustrate some with its lack of a traditional plot structure, and is often lacking closure on a lot of elements, but all of this is with purpose as it tells the story of someone who might have walked into someone else's life but kept his own to himself.

Oscar Nominations

The Alabama Solution (N/A)

All the Empty Rooms (N/A)

Arco (N/A)

Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud (N/A)

Avatar: Fire and Ash ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Blue Moon ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Bugonia ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Butcher's Stain (N/A)

Cardboard (N/A)

Children No More: "We and Are Gone" (N/A)

Come See Me in the Good Light (N/A)