McLean‘s Hometown News Site

WHAT WE DREAMED OF THEN is the kind of film that quietly sneaks up on you. It builds through small moments, quiet conversations, and the uncomfortable reality of a life slowly unraveling. Empathy, heartbreak, desperation, and longing drive Taylor Olson’s drama, which focuses on realities that rarely receive this level of attention, blending family dynamics with those of someone experiencing homelessness. Through a deeply personal narrative, the film explores how easily someone can fall through the cracks while still trying to maintain a sense of normalcy for the people they love.

SURRENDER TO IT sees a group of old friends reunite for a weekend retreat in the Welsh countryside, hoping to reconnect after years of distance and personal growth. But beneath that setup lies a far darker story about grief, regret, and the emotional baggage people carry long after life has moved forward. Tim Bryn Smith’s thriller uses the isolation of the British countryside to create a tense atmosphere in which unresolved trauma slowly creeps to the surface.

PIZZA MOVIE never pretends to be smarter than it is, and that ends up being the best thing about it. Built on a premise so ridiculous it almost sounds like a parody of college comedies, the film sets out on a basic mission. It spins into a chaotic night of hallucinations, misunderstandings, and absurd encounters. What could have easily collapsed under the weight of its own nonsense instead turns into a surprisingly effective comedy that understands exactly how far it can push its premise without losing the audience.

JIMMY & THE DEMONS doesn’t try to mythologize the kind of devotion of spending your life following your passion, and that restraint becomes one of its greatest strengths. Instead of building James Grashow into an untouchable artistic figure, the film sits with him, listens to him, and lets the reality of his process speak for itself. What comes through isn’t just admiration, but exhaustion, doubt, and an understanding that creating something meaningful often comes at a cost that never goes away.

DRAGN is a stripped-down survival thriller built around a concept that tells you what it is, then spends the rest of its runtime examining and exploring that idea further than it naturally wants to go. A group of coworkers, a remote forest, a rogue AI drone hunting them one by one. It’s direct and, honestly, pretty effective for about the first half, when the film leans into the tension rather than trying to be something bigger. An interesting experience that leaves you with a lot to think about.

Samurai films have long occupied a vital place in Japanese cinema, often celebrating the ideals of loyalty, sacrifice, and honor that define the legendary code of bushido. Yet CRUEL TALE OF BUSHIDO, directed by Tadashi Imai, takes a dramatically different approach. Rather than glorifying the traditions of the samurai class, the film dismantles them piece by piece, presenting bushido not as a noble philosophy but as a rigid and often destructive system that demanded unquestioning obedience.

Jess Franco’s VAMPYROS LESBOS stands as one of the strangest, most mesmerizing entries in the long lineage of vampire cinema. Released in 1971 during a period when European genre filmmaking was pushing boundaries in both sexuality and style, the film represents a collision between gothic horror, art film, and exploitation cinema. The result is a movie that often feels less like a traditional story and more like a dream that slowly explodes in fragments.

Few directors in cult cinema (or really cinema in general) inspire reactions as polarized as Jesús “Jess” Franco. His filmography spans hundreds of projects, many of them rushed, low-budget productions, yet every so often, Franco delivered something that captured lightning in a bottle. SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY lands in that fascinating middle space where his chaotic style, hypnotic visuals, and provocative storytelling actually come together to form a strangely compelling experience.

The American labor movement has always been filled with moments that feel historic, but rarely do audiences get to witness them unfold from the inside. WHO MOVES AMERICA offers a rare perspective, placing viewers directly in the middle of a massive labor mobilization that could have disrupted one of the largest logistics operations in the world. Rather than presenting the story as some political commentary, director Yael Bridge approaches the subject from the ground level, focusing on the workers whose decisions could bring an entire economic machine to a standstill.

Few filmmakers have sparked as much debate about erotic cinema as Tinto Brass. His films often provoke strong reactions because they refuse to hide behind metaphor or suggestion when examining sexuality. THE KEY was released at a fascinating point in the director’s career, balancing elements of arthouse with the curiosity that would define much of his later work. While the film is remembered primarily for its explicit content, reducing it to that alone misses the more complicated psychological story unfolding beneath the surface.

A life built around sound doesn’t just disappear, and SŪNNA (LISTEN) understands that loss in a way that feels closer, more personal, and uncomfortably real. This isn’t a film interested in sentiment or quick emotional shortcuts. Instead, it plants itself in the disorientation that comes with losing something so foundational, then begins rebuilding from that absence. At just over thirteen minutes, it moves with a sense of purpose that never feels rushed, allowing each moment to carry weight without overstaying its welcome.

Some horror films linger not because they overwhelm the viewer with pure terror, but because it quietly infects the world they inhabit. SALEM'S LOT remains one of the clearest examples of that approach. When the two-part television event first aired in 1979, it proved that network TV could deliver imagery just as unsettling as anything appearing in theaters. Decades later, the story still holds that power, because it understands that fear spreads most effectively when it begins somewhere familiar.

Fantasy cinema in the mid-80s was still riding the wave created by Conan the Barbarian. Studios were eager to replicate that mixture of mythology, physical heroism, and operatic scale. RED SONJA arrived as one of the more intriguing entries in that cycle, positioned as both a continuation of the sword-and-sorcery craze and a bold attempt to center a female warrior in a genre that rarely allowed women to lead the charge. What the film delivers is an experience that often feels torn between ambition and limitation. It wants to stand beside the Conan films, yet it rarely finds the strength to match that reputation.

Samurai cinema has spent decades building up the myth and legends that make it work. The noble warrior draws his blade to protect the innocent; honor is sacred, and loyalty to the ruling class is rarely questioned. EIICHI KUDO’S SAMURAI REVOLUTION TRILOGY exists almost entirely to dismantle that idea. Across three films released between 1963 and 1967, Kudo subverts the romanticized icon of the samurai, forcing it into the harsher, more political reality of the Tokugawa shogunate. The result is a trio of films that treat feudal Japan less like a stage for heroics and more like a system built on fear, corruption, and loyalty.

THE BIRTHDAY is the kind of movie that feels like it slipped through a crack in film history. It premiered in the mid-2000s, baffled audiences who saw it, and then spent years drifting through the depths of cult cinema as mentions of it slowly built its reputation. Watching it now, especially in Arrow Video’s new 4K restoration, it becomes clear why the film developed that strange afterlife. Eugenio Mira’s film isn’t trying to be any traditional genre movie. It’s a collision of tones and ideas that almost feels designed to make viewers unsure how they’re supposed to react.

Certain movies feel inseparable from the era that gave them life. HIGHWAY TO HELL belongs to the world of regional American filmmaking that thrived during the VHS boom of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Long before digital cameras made independent production more accessible, filmmakers working outside the Hollywood system relied on determination, borrowed resources, and sheer stubbornness to bring their stories to life. Bret McCormick was one of those filmmakers. Operating out of Texas with limited budgets but plenty of ambition, he carved out a niche in the underground genre scene with projects that embraced the rough edges rather than hiding them.

Takashi Miike has built a career on unpredictability. One film offers viewers a twisted exploration through horror, while the next takes them into a surreal comedy or extreme violence that pushes the limits of comfort. Because of that reputation, a film like AGITATOR can initially feel surprising. Instead of leaning into the chaos that made ICHI THE KILLER and VISITOR Q infamous, this film gives us a slower, more deliberate rhythm. What Miike delivers here is less about exhibition and more about the machinery of organized crime itself. The result is a dense, methodical gangster drama that prioritizes character and power dynamics over shock value.

There’s a certain kind of underground horror movie that doesn’t care if people think it's popular or if it fits any norm. It knows exactly who it’s for, knows exactly how it wants to look, and knows that any idea of perfection is far less important than conviction. COVEN OF THE BLACK CUBE has that kind of confidence. Directed by Brewce Longo and co-written with Zoe Angeli and Josh Schafer, this is the sort of handmade, shot-on-video genre picture that feels like it was willed into existence by people who love scrappiness, love tape-era horror, love queer subculture, and love the idea that cinema can still feel dangerous, horny, funny, and deeply personal all at once.

Some movies are meant to be carefully analyzed, frame by frame, critiqued for every possible piece of craft put into the production, and then others are meant to be experienced somewhere between disbelief and laughter at two in the morning while your brain tries to process what it just witnessed. BUSTED BABIES clearly belongs in the second category. Kasper Meltedhair’s directorial debut doesn’t simply bend the rules of traditional storytelling; it shatters them with a sledgehammer, assembling a chaotic collage of underground horror, surrealist humor, and low-budget DIY madness that feels less like a conventional film and more like an audiovisual fever dream.

Contained thrillers live and die by tension. Strip away the elaborate locations, car chases, and sprawling ensembles, and what remains has to be strong enough to carry the entire experience. WHERE SILENCE LIES embraces that challenge, focusing on building its story almost entirely around conversation, suspicion, and the psychological space between what someone says and what they might be hiding.

Demonic possession films occupy one of the most crowded corners of modern horror. Audiences have seen the rituals, the contorted bodies, the priests losing their faith, and the families pushed to the edge of desperation so many times that any new entry into the subgenre carries a heavy burden. THE CONTAINMENT steps directly into the path of that oncoming train, presenting a story about grief, faith, and supernatural terror that tries to balance familiar genre mechanics with the fallout of family trauma.

LET DAN GO focuses on something many stories about grief overlook, examining the conversations that happen years after a loss, when the initial shock has faded, but the questions remain. Directed by Arielle Carroll and written by Timothy J. Cox, the film focuses on the aftermath of loss rather than the event itself, creating a reflective drama about two people trying to understand what it means to move forward.

There’s a very specific kind of vibe that comes from a film made by people who genuinely love what they’re doing. Passion projects can overcome so much in filmmaking. If you love what you’re doing, it shows. Jared Campbell and Spring Lane Studios continue to prove that passion and creativity can take you a long way, and LADY PARTS is another strong entry in a growing catalog that thrives on doing more with less. If you’ve followed their work, you already know what they bring to the table, and this film leans into that while continuing to push things forward.

HOLY DAYS is built around the idea of putting a grieving boy and three rebellious nuns in a car and sending them on a road trip across New Zealand. Weird, from pretty much every angle, but from there, the story grows into a one about grief, belief, aging, and the ways people find one another when life stops making sense.

Romantic comedies often rely on fantasy. The characters meet at the perfect moment, fall for each other through a series of charming misunderstandings, and ultimately discover that love solves everything. FANTASY LIFE starts with part of that idea intact, then slowly strips away the illusion.