nERDbOX_Dave

Let's get this out of the way, my first mistake was forgetting what happened the last time Ari Aster and Joaquin Phoenix teamed up (Beau Is Afraid), and my second was thinking this would be a good movie to see on a date.

Eddington is a film that should work. The trailer promises a stylish neo-Western satire set against the surreal and emotionally charged backdrop of 2020's pandemic-era America. You've got a stacked cast, a topical setup, and the unique flavor of Ari Aster's direction. On paper, this thing had all the ingredients to be one of the year's best. But what we actually get is a film so self-indulgent, bloated, and exhausting, that by the time the movie gets to anything resembling what you saw in the trailer, two hours have passed-and it feels like you've aged an entire year.

The story is solid, buried somewhere under the relentless mountain of symbolism, surrealist detours, and exhausting monologues. Joaquin Phoenix, as always, acts his ass off. Pedro Pascal and Emma Stone deliver committed performances, and there are moments... brief moments... of biting satire and darkly funny commentary. But they're drowned under an avalanche of who gives a damn, just get to the damn point.

The pacing is brutal. Every time the film seems like it's found a natural stopping point-every time you brace yourself for the sweet release of credits-it starts again. And again. And again.

Eddington wants to be everything: a Western, a dark comedy, a political satire, a COVID-era meditation, a psychological thriller. The result is a disjointed, genre-hopping mess. By the end, the film doesn't leave you stunned or speechless-it leaves you drained, begging for it to just end already.

Eddington might work for die-hard Aster fans and film school debaters, but for the rest of us, it's a test of endurance-not entertainment, and after this, I'll be cutting my grass with scissors before I sit through another Ari Aster film.

Hollywood's obsession with requels continues, and I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) is the latest franchise revival trying to strike a balance between nostalgia and modern horror trends. Directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson and co-written with Sam Lansky from a story by Leah McKendrick and Robinson, this fourth entry skips over the 2006 third film (I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer) entirely and honestly, that's probably for the best. Unfortunately, while this new installment has some bright spots, it ultimately lands as an okay slasher with a lot of missed opportunities.

The best part of this film is its clever explanation for why the murders are happening again. Without diving into spoilers, the logic is sound, and the setup works in the context of the franchise. It's one of the few moments where the story really locks in and delivers something that feels worthy of its legacy. But if you came for heightened gore or a deeper exploration of Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt), the heart of the original films, you're going to walk away disappointed.

Despite being billed as a true sequel to I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998), Julie gets about 10 minutes of screen time, and her absence is felt. Her character arc and especially her complicated history with Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr.) is barely acknowledged. Instead, we spend most of our time with a new group of characters, some of whom are compelling, but many of whom lead us down paths that go nowhere. Scenes often start with strong setups, hinting at twists or emotional beats, only to drop the thread mid-scene or abandon it completely.

The supporting cast gives it a solid go. Madelyn Cline and Chase Sui Wonders are standouts, doing the best they can with material that sometimes feels underbaked. The slasher elements are serviceable there are a few well crafted chase sequences and one or two kills that lean into the original's suspenseful tone-but for a film trying to update a beloved horror franchise, the tension never quite clicks the way it should.

And then... the last five minutes. The film's closing scenes, including a bizarre mid-credits moment, are jarring in the worst way. The tone completely shifts, the dialogue feels clunky and disconnected from the rest of the film, and it reeks of a late-stage reshoot. Not only does it undo some of the narrative groundwork laid earlier, but it ends the film on a sour, head-scratching note that leaves you wondering what the filmmakers were trying to say if anything.

This new I Know What You Did Last Summer isn't a total misfire, but it never rises above mediocrity. It gets points for some clever plotting and a few tense sequences, but it falls short where it counts, especially in sidelining Julie James, the very soul of the franchise. For die-hard fans, it's worth a one-time watch.

Skill House arrives as yet another indie horror project clawing its way into a limited theatrical release via Fathom Events, hoping to join the growing list of low-budget gems tapping into our digital age paranoia. But while films like Spree, Stream, and Dark Game found ways to blend horror and online culture with raw energy, Skill House stumbles over its own premise with frustrating execution and a lack of, well... anything to root for.

The film centers on 10 top-tier influencers who wake up in a hellish streaming nightmare, kidnapped, trapped, and forced to participate in a brutal, live streamed social media survival game. It's the kind of setup that screams modern slasher gold: commentary on fame obsession, influencer culture, and viral notoriety, with blood and body count to match. Unfortunately, the execution is more cringe than clever.

Right from the start, the movie kneecaps itself.

Before the first frame even rolls, a well-meaning intro by director Josh Stolberg and one of the stars essentially spoils the ending. In a genre built on tension, misdirection, and surprise, this was a huge misstep-especially for a theatrical experience where the unknown is half the thrill. It's a head-scratcher of a move and sadly, the movie never quite recovers from it.

The characters? Disposable and annoying-by design. You're not really supposed to like anyone in Skill House, and that's part of the point. These are influencers engineered for maximum social media toxicity. But unlike the Netflix reboot of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, where hating the cast made their deaths gleeful crowd pleasers, here it just results in apathy. There's no rooting interest, no investment, no memorable personalities just a series of TikTok shaped placeholders wandering from trap to trap.

A good slasher lives and dies on three pillars: the killer's look, the quality of the kill bait, and the kills themselves. Skill House fumbles two out of three. The killer's mask a clumsy, derivative riff on the Brandon James mask from Scream: The TV Series, feels like an afterthought. The kills? Outside of one genuinely creative and brutal moment (which I won't spoil), they're largely forgettable. I had to genuinely think back to recall any of them, which is never a good sign for a film promising carnage.

The dialogue is intentionally obnoxious, playing up influencer stereotypes and Gen-Z speak, but it wears thin fast. The script introduces some interesting ideas a global audience watching the bloodshed, other streamers reacting in real time, the commodification of violence but none of these threads are explored with any real depth. You can feel the influence of better films like Stream and Dark Game, but Skill House doesn't carve out its own identity. It's less a love letter to horror and more a mashup of viral culture buzzwords with blood spatter.

Skill House is not offensively bad, just frustratingly forgettable-a missed opportunity in a time when horror needs bold voices with something to say.