Category Archives: Doc’s Movie Reviews

Undertone

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I have seen some poor horror movies to kick off 2026. I was not a fan of Iron Lung. I did not like the new Dracula film. Scream 7 was a real disappointment. The Bride was a big swing that did not work, and Psycho Killer is currently the worst film of the year.

So I went into the new horror film, Undertone, which was the big screen debut of director Ian Tuason. I had found the trailer intriguing and knowing it is a new A24 film, I went into the film with hopes that this would break the rotten horror streak.

According to IMDB, “The host of a popular paranormal podcast becomes haunted by terrifying recordings mysteriously sent her way.“

Lead actress Nina Kiri carries the heft of this film on her shoulders as she does a tremendous job in the role as this podcaster who is the skeptic on her podcast about the supernatural topics they cover. Her co-host, who we never see on screen, is voiced by Adam DiMarco, and he has a really strong voice over performance.

The film is a perfect example of the use of sound in the horror genre. Called Audio Horror, the sound design is so tense and anxious that it really affects the audience. The use of the sounds, the silence, the way the sounds change when Nina Kiri puts on her headphones… all of it is sensational and creates a theater experience unlike many.

The camera work in the film is also strong. There are some shots that are specifically designed to make the audience expect that a scare is coming, but many times, the idea that there is something in the dark is only suggested, allowing the audience to provide their own scares. The film does have some jump scares, but they are kept to a minimum and are effective when they appear.

I am not sure that I found the ending overly satisfying, but it was certainly intense and worked as a way to end a film that matched that intensity level.

This is definitely a film that broke that run of terrible horror movies. It is a slow burn, but it moves fairly quickly over the run time of the film. It was a suspenseful theater experience and I would recommend people see this. Not only because it is a good movie, but for the fact that the budget on this film was only like $500,000, which is ridiculously low and there should be more films succeed that take a chance at keeping the budget down.

4 stars

The Bride!

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This one is like Bonnie & Clyde was made in the Universal Monsters franchise while being set in Gotham City.

The Bride! is the new film directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal that take a new look at the classic story of The Bride of Frankenstein.

This film is one that left me unsure of how I felt. There were certainly good things that I really liked about The Bride! but there were many other things that just did not work for me at all.

According to IMDB, “In 1930s Chicago, Frankenstein asks Dr. Euphronius to help create a companion. They give life to a murdered woman as the Bride, sparking romance, police interest, and radical social change.”

The standout aspect of this film is 100% the acting from our two lead performers. Jessie Buckley, who is up for an Academy Award in just about a week and a half for her role in Hamnet, is absolutely amazing as the Bride. Buckley’s performance jumps off the screen with her facial features and her confusion. Buckley also played Mary Shelley, who was a framing device for the story, and it seemed as if Mary Shelley was possessing the Bride (also called Ida or Penny). Buckley would switch from her normal voice to the British accent of Shelley. It was confusing at times.

Christian Bale was also great as Frankenstein. He would go by the name Frank and he played this character lonely and desperate. Bale and Buckley have an amazing chemistry and they are the reason to see this movie. I loved the performance of Annette Bening as Dr. Euphronius.

However, there are so many weird things going on in this movie that pulled me out. The tone of this film was all over the place. At times, it felt like I should be laughing, but others I felt horrified. It was not a smooth transition between tones. It was truly messy.

For example, there was a dance number in the film. I loved it and hated it at the same time. I loved the homage the dance routine was to, but it felt totally out of place in this film.

The film had several secondary storylines that could have (should have) been edited out completely. All the scenes with Penelope Cruz and Peter Sarsgaard, who played a couple of detectives chasing the Monsters, felt so unnecessary. Had those scenes been completely dropped, there would have been nothing really that would have to be changed.

The Bride! is a messy, wild and crazy film that has some great performances and some big swings. Some of this worked well for me while much of the rest of it did not work. Great performances in a film that is all over the place. There are some cool things in the film, but not enough to dismiss the weak points.

2.8 stars

Hoppers

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Pixar is back with their latest animated feature film, Hoppers. Yes, the concept is very much like Avatar, which they make a joke of in the film, but this film is a lot of fun (more than Avatar, for me) and actually had some surprisingly darker moments.

According to IMDB, “A 19-year-old animal lover uses technology that places her consciousness into a robotic beaver to uncover mysteries within the animal world beyond her imagination.”

I did enjoy much of this movie, although I do not consider this in the upper echelon of Pixar movies. It is a solid, entertaining film that gave me some mouth drop moments.

Piper Curda led the voice cast as Mabel, the 19-year old animal lover. There is a lot of great voices in the cast including Bobby Moynihan, Jon Hamm, Kathy Najimy, Dave Franco, Sam Richardson, Steve Purcell, and Meryl Streep.

As always, the animation is top notch and the finale of the film was absolutely gorgeous on the screen. The animals have great designs and look tremendous.

There is an adult feel to the story that will resonate with the parents, while the film gives the kids something to be entertained by. The best animated movies are those that both parents and kids can find something in it to engage with and Hoppers definitely have that.

A solid Pixar movie that flows nicely and has a really great story and a good message.

4 stars

Scream 7

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So I have been under the weather over the last few weeks, and I chose to stay at home this past Saturday. I had intended on going to the new Scream 7 film that came out, but I wanted to take the time to try and get better. Today, I was able to go to the film I missed last weekend.

I am going to say that I had heard a lot of negatives directed toward Scream 7 and so my expectations going into the theater today were rather low. I do think that it helped having such low expectations, because I did not hate watching this. Don’t get me wrong, it is a dumb movie and I would not recommend it. I just didn’t find it to be a horrible watch. It was certainly better than the Psycho Killer film from a few weeks ago. That is not saying much, though.

We are back with Sydney Prescott, now with the last name of Evans, and the film took every opportunity to comment on Scream 6 being the film (or the Ghostface killings) where Sydney did not get involved. The meta aspect of this fits in a Scream franchise, but it feels odd that the implication was that the last movie sucked because Sydney wasn’t there.

A new Ghostface finds his/her way to the town where Sydney was living and began killing off easily replaceable characters who have little to no characterization. For example, Asa Germann, who played Sam on Gen V, was only ever referred to as the “weird one.” There is no reason or explanation. That was his sole character trait. McKenna Grace was here too, but all I know about her character was that she was the blonde friend who was in the school play. There were actually some good actors in this film, but they were not given anything worthy to do.

We knew from casting news that Matthew Lillard was returning to the film as Stu Macher, who had been killed in the first Scream film. There was a lot of speculation about whether he was returning as the same character, but that is one of the most obvious bit in the film. No spoilers, but you’ll get it.

Then speaking of no spoilers, the ending reveal is perhaps the dumbest part of the entire movie. There are some cameos in this movie that are just terrible and make zero sense.

It felt like this movie played only on nostalgia without having any original thoughts of its own.

As I said, I didn’t hate this, but I am only a guy who has liked the Scream franchise. I think that if you are a big fan of Scream and its sequels, you are going to hate this. If you just want a dumb time at the movies, set your expectations low and you may not hate yourself for watching it.

2 stars

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die

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This movie is like Everything, Everywhere All At Once on a combo of speed and LSD.

That is in the good way.

Sam Rockwell leads this intriguing ensemble in a wild, time travel, sci-fi mash up with stuff that you would never expect to see on the big screen. It is a dark comedy, with some extremely dark moments of humor.

Sam Rockwell is great as always. He throwed himself into this project as he does in everything that he ever appears in. He is such a top notch performer that you know you are getting his best in every role.

According to IMDB, “A ‘Man From the Future’ arrives at a diner in Los Angeles where he must recruit the precise combination of disgruntled patrons to join him on a one-night quest to save the world from the terminal threat of a rogue artificial intelligence.“

This film does not hide its themes about AI. It is anything but subtle that it sets AI as the villain of this film and that it sees AI as being a major problem to the world. While it also blends the idea of technology into the theme, AI is absolutely the leading concept.

This movie is utterly batshit crazy. It has some of the most wild, crazy situations I have ever seen. I compared it earlier to Everything, Everywhere All at Once, and that is a fair comparison, but this takes it to another level. If you were someone who did not like the absurdity of some of EEAAO, then this will not be your cup of tea. If you came out of EEAAO with the wish that the writers would have taken the gloves off and really gone to town with the weirdness, then Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is for you.

I was thoroughly entertained by the film, even if my jaw was agape several times.

Gore Verbinski, who directed the Pirates of the Caribbean films, returned to helm this satire and he brought a vision that just was engaging and hilarious, while still bringing an important message to the screen.

One of my favorite movies so far in 2026.

4.8 stars

Psycho Killer

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So I went to a movie today.

Psycho Killer is a new serial killer film from director Gavin Polone, featuring Georgina Campbell. It was written by Andrew Kevin Walker (who also wrote Se7en). I saw the original poster for this movie when I was doing the banner for February 2026, and it looked good. I saw it at Cinemark today and I realized that Psycho Killer was anything but good.

In fact, it was the worst film I have seen so far in 2026. Yes, the year is only in its second month, but this was certainly bad and it was outside of January.

What was good about this movie?

Hm

Wait a minute….

Um… it is better than last year’s War of the Worlds.

To be fair, I believe this film had a premise that could have been cool and could have worked, but anything that was cool about the movie was discarded and was ignored as the film moved on. It was such a mess, writing wise that one wondered how this could have been written by the guy who wrote Se7en.

There are no characteristics about any of the characters. They are all just one-dimensional cardboard cutouts. The psycho killer is not a character at all. The Psycho Killer is nothing more than a deep (silly) voice.

I have to say as well that the end of this movie is one of the worst endings that I have seen in such a long time. It totally did not make any sense and even the lacking character that this psycho killer had made no sense as to why this was done. It was just DUMB. I thought that I missed something along the way before this ending, but I did not. There was nothing that led to this story arc.

This felt like a lazy film without any real characters or real stakes for anyone I gave a crap about. It has one of the worst ending sequences of the last several years and just is not worth an hour and a half of anyone’s time.

0.8 stars

GOAT

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A new animated movie came out this weekend that was a mixture of Space Jam and Zootopia. Sony put out this remarkably colorful and fun looking film.

According to IMDB, “A small goat with big dreams gets a once-in-a-lifetime shot to join the pros and play roarball, a high-intensity, co-ed, full-contact sport dominated by the fastest, fiercest animals in the world.“

This film had its ups and downs for me. It looked great for sure. The amazing color stood out well. The story was very predictable. The beginning of the movie was not as strong for me, but the ending was better and more engaging than I thought it would be. I was feeling like I was going to really dislike this, but the ending was able to pull it up for me.

Caleb McLaughlin voiced Will Harris, the goat at the center of the story. Gabrielle Union played Jett Fillmore, the superstar roarball playing cat. Other voices in the cast included Stephen Curry, Aaron Pierce, David Harbour, Nick Kroll, Patton Oswalt, Jennifer Lewis, Nicola Coughlan, Jelly Roll, Jennifer Hudson, Wayne Knight, and Sherry COla.

I think the target audience is not for me. This feels like a film that is targeted to a younger child and I feel as if it would be fairly successful in that manner. However, I did find myself bored through a good chunk of the film as I expected what was coming. I do think they did a decent job of sticking the landing so I did not hate the experience of watching GOAT.

It really is borderline for me. If you have a group of young kids, you could probably find worse movies to take them to, but there are better movies too.

2.9 stars

Crime 101

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We have a brand new crime thriller out this weekend featuring a bunch of actors who we have seen in various super hero flicks over the years. Director Bart Layton, who had directed American Animals and one of my all-time favorite documentaries in The Imposter, does a great job bringing this crime/heist film together.

According to IMDB, “An elusive thief, eyeing his final score, encounters a disillusioned insurance broker at her own crossroads. As their paths intertwine, a relentless detective trails them hoping to thwart the multi-million dollar heist they are planning.”

The film featured Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Halle Berry, and Barry Keoghan in major roles. Each of these performers did a great job in bringing a new face to their roles, and that is a difficult thing to do since they all have major roles that they are known for. Mark Ruffalo specifically does a great job as he is a compelling and original character that never once made me think of Bruce Banner.

Nick Nolte also showed up in this film, giving his best Nick Nolte performance.

I enjoyed this fairly well, even if it felt a little too long. At two hours and twenty minutes, this did feel its length. Strong performances with a pretty good story. I did find this to be an enjoyable film with a bunch of people that I really like.

3.5 stars

Dracula (2026)

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I dozed off during Iron Lung today, but I sure as heck wished I had dozed off during this new version of Bram Stoker’s classic Dracula. It would have made the film seem better than it was.

According to IMDB, “When a 15th-century prince denounces God after the loss of his wife he inherits an eternal curse: he becomes Dracula. Condemned to wander the centuries, he defies fate and death, guided by a single hope – to be reunited with his lost love.“

I found that there were a bunch of things about this version of Dracula that I did not like at all. Directed by Luc Besson, who I loved as the director of The Fifth Element, Dracula was just a waste of my time.

First of all, what is the exact tone of this thing? It bounced around between a horror movie and a comedy, almost slapstick-like. There were scenes where I was laughing at that I am not sure were intended to be funny. Or maybe it was and the scenes were more successful in the end. There was a scene with Matilda De Angelis’s Maria that seemed like it should have been in one of those horror movie parody films. It was easily the worst scene of the movie.

Then, Dracula had a bunch of stone gargoyle friends, like this was a Disney movie. The gargoyles did not speak like they did in Hunchback of Notre Dame, but they looked ridiculous and did not fit with the concept of this movie.

The look of the movie was terrible too. There were so many scenes where the CGI looked bad and that you could tell where the green screen was and there is no excuse in 2026 for your CGI to be this bad.

The whole love story at the center of the film was not believable to me either. Zoë Bleu felt like she was overacting in nearly every scene and I did not feel any chemistry between Zoë Bleu’s character and Dracula, who was played by Caleb Landry Jones. Jones was fine as Dracula, but that is about it. I do not think his performance will be remembered in the echelon of Dracula performances.

I found the ending to be really stupid too. How can you have a star like Christoph Waltz in your film but let him flounder as he did during this version of Dracula.

I just did not like this film much as I struggled to find much positive to say about it. There are a half dozen Dracula movies better than this one, at least, and I am not sure why anyone would choose this version of the film over some of those.

1.4 stars

Iron Lung

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I had no idea what this movie was last week when it debuted as the number two movie at the box office. I heard some talk about it this past week after its massive success. That certainly put it on my radar.

The film was written and directed by YouTuber Markiplier and is based on a video game from 2022 by David Szymanski. Markiplier said the the film would be self-financed and that he would star in the film. With a small budget of $3 million dollars, Iron Lung made a whopping $30 million + worldwide.

With the huge story of the self-made man overcoming the Hollywood order to make a hit movie, the question was, “Was Iron Lung any good?” Sadly, I did not enjoy the film as much as I had hoped that I would.

According to IMDB, “In a post-apocalyptic future after ‘The Quiet Rapture’ event, a convict explores a blood ocean on a desolate moon using a submarine called the ‘Iron Lung’ to search for missing stars/planets.“

The convict was played by Markiplier, aka Mark Fischbach, and the setting was definitely an effectively claustrophobic thriller with an air of uncertainty. I would even go as far as to say that the best part of the film was the setting as it created the desired effect of the audience.

Unfortunately, I found that the story did not grab me and that I found it dull. If I am being honest, I dozed off a couple of times during the movie, so it might not be fair to judge it, but I can say that the story failed to maintain my attention.

I am very happy for Mark Fischbach and I am impressed with his success with this movie. Maybe I should give it a rewatch some day, maybe when it arrives on streaming. As for now, I would recommend people go see it to support someone who is not letting the challenges stop him from reaching for his dream. I just was not much of a fan of the part of the movie that I saw.

2.5 stars

(I reserve the right to raise or lower this score in a future viewing)

Send Help

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Sam Raimi has a new movie in the theater this weekend that has all kinds of Sam Raimi-isms in it. As a director, you can see those moments where Sam Raimi shined through.

The movie featured Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien as our two stranded survivors.

According to IMDB, “An employee and her insufferable boss become stranded on a deserted island, the only survivors of a plane crash. Here, they must overcome past grievances and work together to survive, will they make it out alive?“

Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien are fantastic playing their characters. They give these characters some real depth and characterization in this over the top story. It starts out with these two characters seeming to be one-dimensional, but they both improve a ton over the course of the movie.

I have a problem with this movie, but, sadly, I can not explain those problems because they deal with major spoilers for the film. This stuff really makes me question what I felt about the movie, but I am unable to talk about it without spoiling it. I don’t want to do it, but I will just say that there is something that happened that was less than satisfactory for me.

The film looked great and the cinematography on the island was special. The film is shot wonderfully and all the technical aspects were good. There was a scene with a boar that was really awesome.

Without being able to go into specifics on the spoilers, I liked much of this movie, but by the end of the film, I had a lesser feel for the movie than I did in the middle.

3.5 stars

MASH (1970)

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January 31

So another Genre-ary comes to an ending with today’s movie, MASH, the original film from 1970 starring Donald Sutherland, Elliot Gould and Tom Skerritt, wrapping up the Comedy Genre-ary 2026.

I love MASH the TV show (it was my #8 in the Top 100) and that probably hurt this film, which I have seen a few clips from, but never sat down and watched the entire thing.

They were saying character names that I loved, but who did not seem like the characters that I loved. Outside of Radar O’Reilly (who was played by Gary Burghoff in the film and the TV series, the only cast member that returned), we saw Hawkeye Pierce, Trapper John, Henry Blake, Hot Lips, Frank Burns, Father Mulcahy, and Spearchucker.

My biggest problem with this film is that it is not the TV show. The doctors of the 4077 MASH felt so much meaner than what I was used to. I did not like some of the things that they did because they felt cruel instead of funny. They were cruder, obnoxious and not as empathic as I expected.

The plot was nearly non-existent. The film was just a series of scenes that were only connected together because they came at the 4077 MASH. That is… until the show turned into a football film. There were several episodes of the TV show where they competed against other units, but seeing them all in full football pads and helmets was weird.

The actors were strong with Donald Sutherland, Elliot Gould, Tom Skerritt, Gary Burghoff, Rene Auberjonois, Robert Duvall, Sally Kellerman, Jo Ann Pflug, Fred Williamson, David Arkin, Roger Bowen, Michael Murphy, and Timothy Brown.

I am sure that I would have liked this more than I did, if I did not have the TV series so firmly placed in my head.

And with that… the 2026 Genre-ary is closed.

My Blue Heaven (1990)

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January 30

On the penultimate day of the Genre-ary, I watch yet another Steve Martin movie. M y Blue Heaven is actually the fourth Steve Martin movie (along with The Jerk, Cheaper by the Dozen, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) in this year’s comedy Genre-ary.

I rented My Blue Heaven on Fandango at Home to fall into the Genre-ary.

According to IMDB, “An all too uptight FBI agent must protect a larger than life mobster with a heart of gold, currently under witness protection in the suburbs.”

Steve Martin and Rick Moranis are great together. They are a wonderful pair with amazing chemistry, dating back to Little Shop of Horrors. The two lead actors are the reason why this movie holds together because there are some shaky moments in the story.

The story itself is kind of hard to buy because there are so many things that happen that are not realistic. But everything is held together because of Martin and Moranis.

There is a great cast around Martin and Moranis. They included Joan Cusack, Carol Kane, William Hickey, Daniel Stern, Deborah Rush, Bill Irwin, Jess Bradford, Seth Jaffe, Robert Miranda, Melanie Mayron, Ed Lauter, and Raymond O’Connor.

There are some awesome dance routines in the film. It was really entertaining.

My Blue Heaven was fun and funny with some great actors that overcame some of the wonkier marts of the script. A solid Steve Martin movie.

Spaghettiman (2016)

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January 29

I found this low budget superhero flick on Amazon Prime and it seemed like a good fit for comedy Genre-ary.

Boy is it stupid. But, I have to say, it is stupid in the right way.

According to IMDB, “Clark doesn’t care about you. He doesn’t care about the world. He barely cares about himself. But after an incident with an old bowl of spaghetti and a malfunctioning microwave, he becomes a superhero that can fight crime with the power of spaghetti. However, you have to pay him.“

Clark is really a jerk. He gets these weird spaghetti powers and he starts charging people. He is not your typical superhero.

The paper bag mask reminded me of when Spidey had to wear a paper bag mask and an old FF costume to get home. Lots of fun there. Or, I picture the Unknown Comic from The Gong Show. Either way, this is one more example of the paper bag mask.

There is clearly some Spider-Man love here as the spaghetti makes a Thwip sound when Spaghettiman shoots spaghetti from his hands.

None of it makes any sense, but it is funny. This film understands that it is stupid and it embraces that stupidity with both hands, with spaghetti shooting out of them.

It was a fun time watching this extremely low budget film that couldn’t be more indie if it tried.

The Audition (2015)

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January 28

Time is short tonight, so I went searching for a comedy short to watch, and did I find one!

The Audition was directed by Martin Scorsese and featured Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro competing against one another for a lead role in the next Scorsese film.

Scorsese also stars, along with Brad Pitt. The four icons had come together to make this short as an advertisement for Studio City in Macau and City of Dreams in Manila.

This was a lot of fun with these superstars playing against their own reps in a very meta short. These talented actors are able to deliver the comedy as well as their typical dramatic roles.

Reportedly, the short/ad cost an estimated $70 million dollars.