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I laughed exactly once during SCARY MOVIE. That creates an awkward situation when reviewing a comedy, because at some point I have to wonder whether the movie is just that unfunny or I’m either too mature or too immature (can that be a thing?) for this particular brand of nonsense now. Maybe it’s all three. Twenty-six years after the original SCARY MOVIE helped turn over-the-top parody into a box-office monster, the Wayans returned to the franchise alongside Anna Faris and Regina Hall, and there’s something so appealing about seeing so many familiar faces together again. That goodwill lasted longer than most of the jokes did for me, which becomes a problem when jokes are practically the only reason this thing exists.

Movies about making movies and television usually gravitate toward the people everybody recognizes. Directors bark instructions, actors struggle with performances, producers panic about money, and writers stare miserably at blank pages. THE SCOUT spends its time with somebody whose work is necessary but usually finished long before any of those people arrive. Sofia drives around New York photographing apartments, businesses, streets, and whatever else might eventually become somebody else's fictional world, and Paula González-Nasser finds something quietly fascinating in how much real life has to be invaded to manufacture one.

There’s an advantage to putting a horror movie inside a real haunted attraction: the production doesn’t have to spend much time convincing us that the place has personality. HELLBILLY HOLLOW was filmed at the actual Alabama attraction that gives the movie its name, and that setting is easily one of its best assets. The barns, backwoods paths, carnival contraptions, and deliberately grimy spaces already feel like places where something awful could happen. Director Kevin Wayne understands that and gets plenty out of simply turning the attraction’s machinery against the people wandering through it.

I don’t normally include trigger warnings at the beginning of my reviews, but CUTE deals directly with sexual attraction toward a child, sexualized age-regression, and other uncomfortable material involving minors. I want to make clear that the film itself does not place any children in harm’s way, but the subjects it explores could still be extremely difficult or upsetting for some viewers, so I think it’s important to say that upfront. The title CUTE is ultimately less a description and more an accusation. We traditionally associate the word with harmless things. Children, stuffed animals, oversized eyes, soft colors, tiny things, and anything designed to provoke affection before we've had time to think about why. Director/co-writer Marlene Emilie Lyngstad takes that and turns it inside out, building a story around adults whose relationships with childhood, innocence, protection, and desire have become tangled in deeply uncomfortable ways.

Martial arts movies have never automatically been my thing, which makes the ones that completely abandon common sense a lot easier to appreciate. NINJA WARS apparently reached the same conclusion. Kosei Saito's 1982 fantasy takes ninjas, feudal politics, romance, prophecy, sorcery, grotesque villains, bodily transformation, copious blood, and a young Hiroyuki Sanada, throws everything into the same pot, and never worries too much about whether any sane person would have combined these ingredients.

The strangest thing about CRUEL TALES OF THE BOHACHI isn’t how much blood, nudity, cruelty, or general depravity Eureka Entertainment has managed to squeeze into two discs. It’s how little fifty-plus years have done to make either of these movies feel tame. BOHACHI BUSHIDO: CODE OF THE FORGOTTEN EIGHT and its spiritual successor, BOHACHI BUSHIDO: THE VILLAIN, come from a period of Japanese genre filmmaking when apparently somebody could ask, “Is this too much?” and the answer was repeatedly, enthusiastically, “Not even close.”

For a while, THE HERETIKS feels like the most dangerous Disney Channel Halloween special that never existed. There are witches, kids sneaking around, fun Halloween costumes, old folklore, forbidden magic, and enough edgy teenage angst that something like HOCUS POCUS doesn’t feel like a ridiculous comparison. Then director Gregg Bishop flips a switch, the violence starts flowing, and the movie makes it very clear that nobody promised these kids a family-friendly adventure. That turn is where THE HERETIKS really won me over.

A thirteen-year-old can understand that the adults around him are angry long before he understands why. He can see people choosing sides, hear how families talk about one another change, and recognize when someone he cares about suddenly becomes someone he’s apparently supposed to avoid. WILL YOU STILL BE MY FRIEND builds itself around that uncomfortable space, where childhood feelings are still relatively uncomplicated, but the world surrounding them absolutely isn’t.

Andrea Artusi cheats on his wife and almost immediately discovers that adultery itself bothers him considerably less than the possibility that she might be capable of doing the same thing. That hypocrisy gives THE MAGNIFICENT CUCKOLD its funniest material, but Antonio Pietrangeli isn't satisfied with simply watching a guilty husband get a taste of his own medicine. Andrea's affair doesn't destroy his marriage. His imagination nearly does that for him.

Kaze's greatest talent isn't keeping a wife and nine mistresses. It's somehow managing to act genuinely confused that any of them might eventually become angry about the arrangement. Eiji Funakoshi plays that bewilderment so well in TEN WOMEN IN BLACK that some of the movie's funniest moments come from watching a man encounter the completely predictable consequences of his own behavior and react as though everyone else has suddenly become unreasonable.

You can almost feel the temperature rising before anybody has done anything particularly dangerous. THE HOT SPOT looks sweaty, dusty, and uncomfortable from practically the moment Harry Madox enters town, and Dennis Hopper understands that the heat shouldn't simply be part of the setting. It needs to affect everything.

Caro returns to Venezuela after her father dies; the family property needs to be sold, and she’s traveled from Italy to deal with it. She discovers that Sonia, a former employee, is living in the house with her young son, Maiko, and has allowed other people to live throughout the estate.

Back in the day, there was a time when TV didn't need to convince you that every comedy was redefining the format. Sometimes funny people were enough, and PERFECT STRANGERS understood the assignment. Eight seasons and 150 episodes later, the moving pieces behind the show become incredibly easy to recognize. Bronson Pinchot and Mark Linn-Baker remain funny enough together that recognizing why doesn't necessarily stop it from working.

Director Colette Ghunim knew the basic facts about where her parents came from, but TRACES OF HOME asks deeper, more complicated questions. How well can you really know your parents when the most painful parts of their lives were rarely discussed? Ghunim grew up in suburban Illinois with a Palestinian father and Mexican mother who worked to give their children a stable American childhood. Yet, something remained absent from the family story.

MUTANT GENESIS has that type of premise that feels like it should come with a checklist. Artificial intelligence turns against humanity, machines take control of the planet, survivors form a resistance, cities collapse, heavily armed robots hunt the remaining humans, and our heroes prepare for one final attempt to fight back. Qilin Li’s science-fiction action movie spends so much time reminding us of better movies that it never develops much of a personality of its own.