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I would've loved to experience the ridiculous promotional gimmicks that accompanied horror movies in the 1950s. THE SCREAMING SKULL opens by informing audiences that its frightening contents could potentially kill them, then generously promises to cover their burial expenses should they die from shock. They even display a coffin to sell it. It's a wonderful example of the theatrical nonsense filmmakers once used to convince people their latest low-budget horror picture was something they absolutely had to see. Alex Nicol's 1958 film makes an enormous promise before the story even begins. While I doubt anyone genuinely feared for their life, I can appreciate the enthusiasm behind such an outrageous sales pitch.

Taking LSD with someone you've just met sounds like a formula for either an amazing or horrible first date. It’s definitely one way to see how well two people handle the unexpected. Most of us would settle for a few drinks, some awkward conversation, and the occasional silence as we try to decide whether there's any chemistry. The women in THE FIRST DATE have something less ordinary in mind. Writers/directors Will Crouse and Ashley Crowe's fifteen-minute romantic comedy follows an encounter at a bar and the decision to spend the first evening together experimenting with psychedelics. It's an unusual starting point for a romance, especially when getting to know someone becomes considerably more complicated once reality starts acting off...

Where were you when you heard President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated? Were you even alive? I wasn’t, but for generations of Americans, that question has remained so easy to answer, even as people dissected and debated the details of November 22, 1963, for more than sixty years. Most people weren't in Dallas that afternoon, and they didn't witness the shooting or the chaos that followed. They learned what happened while going about their ordinary lives, only to discover that the day would stay with them forever. David Arrow's twelve-minute short THE DRIVE approaches the assassination through one of those personal experiences, focusing on how an event hundreds of miles away could suddenly change everything for someone going about their day. While I wasn’t alive for this specific footnote in history, I can compare it to hearing about when Diana, Princess of Wales, passed away, or seeing that second plane hit the Twin Towers on 9/11. These are moments that stay with you for life.

He-Man was never supposed to make a lot of sense, and I don't think anyone fell in love with MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE because of its commitment to realism. We're talking about a roided-up guy who raises a sword above his head, screams about his power, and fights villains that look like they were designed with no restraint, probably on something. That's exactly why the franchise endured. The ridiculous characters, weapons, talking animals, and world of Eternia are what make it entertaining. Travis Knight's 2026 adaptation occasionally embraces that absurdity, but at times it seems too concerned with grounding everything (in some ways).

I understand collecting things that other people might consider worthless (trust me, I had used STAR WARS pizza boxes as part of my collection in the past). I've spent enough money on movies to know how ridiculous a hobby can look from the outside, but even I struggle to wrap my head around someone paying thousands of dollars for an old pair of jeans. That obsession drives Eugene Kotlyarenko's VINTAGE VIOLENCE, which follows a livestreamer who discovers that the right vintage denim could make him a fortune. Unfortunately for him, he's hardly the only person interested in getting rich, and what starts as an opportunity for easy money quickly becomes a much more dangerous adventure.

The worst part of suspecting someone you love isn't who they claim to be might be watching everyone else carry on as though nothing's wrong. That's the situation Sonny (Sam Nivola) faces in PHONY, as his growing suspicion that his mother has been replaced leaves him questioning what he knows about her and whether he can trust his own judgment. The more he searches for answers, the harder it becomes to tell whether he's uncovering something genuinely terrifying or creating a nightmare for himself.

Yosemite National Park draws millions of visitors yearly to admire its waterfalls, towering cliffs, and spectacular landscapes. Kyle Turner spends his time dealing with the things those visitors would rather never think about. He knows how quickly someone can get into trouble in the wilderness, how hard it can be to find a missing person, and how little the surroundings matter when something goes wrong. UNTAMED takes a place most people associate with vacations and turns it into the setting for a murder investigation where the landscape presents almost as many obstacles as the people involved.

Jason Segel is why I gave SHRINKING a chance. I'd missed watching him in HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, and the idea of him playing a therapist who could barely manage his own problems sounded like a natural fit. Somewhere along the way, though, my reasons for watching changed. I became invested in the people surrounding Jimmy Laird, each dealing with their own complicated lives, questionable decisions, and occasional breakthroughs. I still enjoy Jimmy, but after spending this much time with everyone else, I can't imagine the series without them.

I knew going into KATSEYE: WILD HEARTS that objectivity was going to be a little harder than usual because I’ve become a pretty big KATSEYE fan. Putting Sophia, Daniela, Lara, Megan, Yoonchae and Manon on screen together for 80 minutes already gives this documentary an enormous head start with me.

There's a point where sincerity has to stop doing the screenplay's work for it. ELIJAH PEEL comes frustratingly close to crossing that line because Kevin D. Sepe's story clearly means something deeply personal to him, and that emotional investment is visible throughout the film. Its ideas about addiction, second chances, and faith aren't cynical pieces of inspirational filmmaking assembled around a message. The problem is that the movie believes so strongly in Elijah's transformation that it sometimes skips the difficult steps required to make us believe it as much.

The smartest thing FUTUREWORLD does is refuse to make WESTWORLD again, simply. The original had such a clean premise that repeating it would've been easy. Reopen Delos, something goes wrong with the robots, and let another unstoppable machine start hunting people. Richard T. Heffron's sequel instead asks a more unsettling question. What if the technology is working exactly the way somebody wants it to?

Five seasons is usually where a sitcom starts revealing exactly how much gas is left in the tank. Familiar character combinations get paired up again, old conflicts return in slightly different clothes, and the same locations start to feel more like sets than places where these people actually live and work. ABBOTT ELEMENTARY shows a few signs of reaching that stage during its fifth season, but what's impressive is how quickly Quinta Brunson and her writers seem to recognize the danger and start messing with their own formula. They literally move the school into a mall.

The most effective thing YOU CAN'T LEAVE does is contained right there in its title. Once James and his friends enter the woods looking for answers about his missing sister, the question isn't simply what's hiding out there with them. It's whether the place itself has already decided they're not going anywhere.

THE LAST BOY SCOUT wastes almost no time explaining what kind of movie it wants to be. A professional football game turns into a rain-soaked nightmare involving drugs, a gun, and one of the most ridiculous acts ever committed in an end zone, and somehow that opening still feels perfectly suited to everything that follows. Tony Scott isn't interested in easing us into this world. He throws us into the gutter and assumes we'll figure out how to keep up.

Watching LOOKY-LOO and LOOKY-LOO: PART II back-to-back for my first experience with Jason Zink's strange little nightmare made the difference between them immediately clear. The first movie almost dares you to lose patience, locking the audience behind the eyes of a voyeur whose camera gradually becomes less of a hobby and more of a weapon. PART II doesn't abandon that uncomfortable simplicity, but it finally gives the idea somewhere bigger to go.