Category Archives: 2026 Movie Reviews

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)

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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

Mercy

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A new “Screen Life” film is out this weekend featuring Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson, directed by Timur Bekmambetov, who was a producer on last year’s classic War of the Worlds. That should have been the first hint.

However, to be fair, this is better than War of the Worlds because, of course, it had to be, right?

I actually liked the premise of this film. It was a lesser version of Minority Report (much lesser), but there were some ideas here that were going to work.

Chris Pratt was fine as the lead actor, playing Chris Raven, the police officer who was on trial for his wife’s murder. All of the videos and internet stuff made him look real guilty.

Thing is.. the near future world this movie was set in had done something new. It placed AI in charge of the justice system, setting the AI up as judge, jury and executioner. It gave the accused 90 minutes in which to prove his/her innocence or else they would be executed. So the whole trial was on a counting clock, which created some tension in the tale.

The AI judge was Judge Maddox, played by Rebecca Ferguson, and I feel like I missed out on something here. Was she supposed to be all AI or was she meant to be somehow human, because the AI judge kept being influenced by Raven and gave some seemingly emotional responses, which seemed to go against the whole set up. This was one of my biggest problems with the movie as I just did not understand what the AI judge was meant to be.

I also picked out the killer immediately. I do not think it was a huge pull for me as it was painfully apparent and predictable.

I thought the beginning of the film wasn’t bad, but the last act or so was aggressively dumber than it should have been. Things happened that made zero sense and played against what the film had spent time setting up.

There was a drone scene too, but at least they did not have to go to Amazon Prime to order it before they use it.

2.6 stars

The Rip

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I have been meaning to watch The Rip, a new movie on Netflix starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, this entire weekend, but something else would seem to take precedent. Finally, Monday night I was able to get the movie watched.

I loved this movie.

Wow, this was great. It was exciting, thrilling, and the uncertainty of the story really amped up the tension.

According to IMDB, “A group of Miami cops discovers a stash of millions in cash, leading to distrust as outsiders learn about the huge seizure, making them question who to rely on.”

A rip is taking seized cash or drugs during a raid and this movie is supposedly based on real events in the Miami area. That might be a bit of a stretch, but it was a great story.

I love the way the story developed and how this solid cast approached each scene. Along with Affleck and Damon, the film featured Steven Yeun, Teyana Taylor (who will most likely receive an Oscar nom later this week for One Battle After Another), Kyle Chandler, Sasha Calle, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Scott Adkins, Nestor Carbonell, Lina Esco and Sal Lopez.

This was a smart film, which I always appreciate. Many films of this type would turn into nothing more than a firefight or an action spectacular, and, while there were action scenes in The Rip, it was not the focus of the movie. The action was well done but it all had a purpose.

The story kept you off balance, but every specific detail is paid off in the end, nicely blending together in a weave.

I liked this way more than the typical Netflix action movie and, along with the awesome Knives Out film from 2025, it gives me hope that the streamer will continue to put forth movies that were worthy of wacthing.

4.5 stars

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

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I liked this movie. I want to start off with that statement. However, my star rating may not be as high as it might have been.

I went to the XD theater at Cinemark to see the film today and, when I got there, I saw that the heat was not working in that theater. They had a sign posted that anyone who wanted a refund could get it, but I decided to give it a try. After about ten minutes, I was regretting my decision. It was really cold. I looked to see if there were any other possible showing of the movie and there wasn’t any until later in the afternoon, so I was fairly stuck.

By the end of the movie, I felt as if my body was so cold, it wasn’t working properly. That was an exaggeration, but I was shivering and shaking. The environment of a movie can affect the enjoyment of a film, and this is probably a lesser review than I would give The Bone Temple than one where I was comfortable.

I do believe that I enjoyed this more than I did the last 28 Years Later from last year. This movie featured more with Dr. Ian Kelson, played brilliantly by Ralph Fiennes. We also followed the exploits of Spike, who would wind up being called Jimmy through most of the movie, played by Alfie Williams. Williams, who was born in 2011 making him 15 this year, does a fantastic job with this role, having to provide a lot of emotional moments and he had a lot of the story arc on his back.

Spike was picked up by a group of Satanists led by Sir Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell), who inducted Spike into the group he was leading. Jack O’Connell was sensational in Sinners last year and he brings the same energy to this movie.

The film, though, was dominated by Ralph Fiennes, giving a tour de force performance, not only when the Jimmies crossed his path, but also working in an attempt to save the life of the gigantic alpha he named Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry). Without spoilers, the scene with Iron Maiden’s song was absolutely breathtaking.

The tension and suspense was ratcheted up throughout the film with some confrontations being expertly filmed. Directed by Nia DaCosta, 28 Years Later is a solid installment of this franchise.

3.9 stars

Greenland 2: Migration

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I remember being unbelievably shocked with how much I enjoyed Greenland back in 2020. I think it even won the Year in Review Award for the Best Surprise (That is called the Gomer). I had not expectations that a Gerard Butler end-of-the-world film would be good at all, and I loved it.

Which meant that I had more expectations for the sequel, Greenland 2: Migration. While it was not a bad movie, the sequel was considerably lesser than the original and has several problems.

John Garrity (Gerard Butler) had gotten his family, wife Allison (Morena Baccarin) and son Nathan (Roman Griffin Davis), to the bunker in Greenland just before the comets struck the earth. This movie started by letting us know that the comets wiped out 75% of the human race and destroyed much of the planet. However, the bunker that they had been living in for the last five years was beginning to crumble and the survivors had to scatter to try an escape the dangers of the environment.

They had heard rumors that the impact crater of the original comet was a location where life had sprung forth and that it was where people could restart their lives. John and Allison decided to attempt to find their way to the crater, which was in France.

This was a much more common post-apocalyptic film than the original one was. As the family worked their way toward France, the surrounding were the typical backdrop you would see in The Walking Dead (without zombies) or The Last of us (without any creepy critters). The idea that humans would be the worst things about a post-apocalyptic world is once again at the center of the themes of Greenland 2.

I kept feeling bad during the film for Nathan as it seemed like there would be no young girls his age for him, but the film nicely took care of that.

There were some good moments in the film, though many of them felt too coincidental or forced. Everything kept happening to this family on their trip. Still, it could have been much worse. It is nowhere near as good as Greenland, but I did not hate watching it.

3 stars

Primate

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Killer chimp. What more do you need?

Primate is a new horror film out in January where a family, who had a pet chimp, gets mauled by it after the chimp, named Ben, gets rabies.

That was about all the story of the film.

There are so many slasher movie tropes in this movie. A group of young people are trapped in an isolated house with their crazed chimp, and the chimp murdered many of them, in very gruesome and gory ways.

We had so many slasher movie tropes here including: cell phones not charged, stupid choices when faced with any decision, car issues with keys, a killer that can make its way around the house easily, the isolated house, and a group of characters that the audience would like to see killed off.

All this was in play in Primate.

The chimp looked pretty good. It was basically a practical effect and the kills were very gory that made sense. There was one involving an obnoxious boy in a bed that was specifically brutal.

Slasher movies always are tough for me because how stupid the characters always seem to be. That bothers me, but if you can get past that, the film was okay. It is certainly a simple film, but that is not a bad thing. It succeeds in what it sets out to be, without being anything deeper than that.

It does have a lot of tension in the execution of the chimp stalking and attacking its victims. There are a lot of white knuckle moments in the film which provides a great mood for the audience.

If you go to see Primate, go in expecting a tense film without anything resembling a plot or deep character depth. It has some fun, gory kills and a good looking chimp.

3 stars

We Bury the Dead

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It is January and I am going to a horror movie. Typically, that is a bad sign.

However, We Bury the Dead was not your typical January movie. This was watchable.

Daisy Ridley starred as Ava, who is in search for her husband who was lost after a catastrophic military disaster. They discover that the dead was not just dying, but they would rise and hunt.

The zombies were kept at a minimum in the movie and I think that made them more effective. They were scary in appearance, though nothing specific that we haven’t seen before. They did make a creepy clicking noise that was disturbing.

Honestly, the drama among the humans were the creepiest of the movie. Much like the drama of the Walking Dead and other movies, you tend to find out that the human race is as much, if not more, of the monster than the zombie.

The beginning of the film started a little slow and the end turned into too much of a zombie fest.

I think Daisy Ridley was great as Ava and the film had enough feels and surprises to make it engaging. Overall, not a bad start for 2026.

3.4 stars