If you're just coming here for the first time, uh... you're late. The site is no longer updated daily (see HERE for the story). But it's still kicking a few times a month, and it's better late than never! Most reviews nowadays are labeled "FTP:" and you should read THIS PRIMER to understand why. Also, while they're marked nowadays, many of the site's older reviews (i.e. 2010 or older) do contain unannounced spoilers, so tread carefully! Thanks for coming by and be sure to leave comments, play nice, and as always, watch Cathy's Curse.
PLEASE, GO ON...
Scream 7 Spoilers!
MARCH 5, 2026
GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: MY OWN THOUGHTS!
As I did for the last one, I thought I would write a second "review" of sorts for Scream 7 where I go in detail about my issues with the film's third act, since (also like S6) I think the film is really good until the reveals start coming in, at which point the movie nosedives. I don't think it's AS crippling as the last one, because the reveal there was not only weak but also once again revealed the characters to be idiots (as I mentioned in my traditional review: the fact that it was Richie's entire family means that Sam, Kirby, AND Gale all managed to somehow remain ignorant of their existence, despite dating, investigating, and writing about him, respectively), and this one is merely just weak. But considering this was Kevin Williamson's grand return to the series, I can't help but feel more disappointed that the screenwriter's big unmasking was the least surprising in this entire franchise.
Spoilers begin... NOW!
OK, so if you're still here you either know or simply don't care that the mastermind was Jessica (Anna Camp), with Marco (Ethan Embry) as her muscle/right-hand man. They also had another guy helping them earlier whose name I already forgot, but seeing a Ghostface killed 40 minutes in was a great surprise (as was the reveal of who was driving the van that hit him) and his anonymity was part of the point, so there's nothing to complain about there. But in Camp and Embry's case, I can't imagine there's a person alive who would be surprised to see their faces under the masks, given that they are both recognizable actors who were playing absolute nothing roles. Especially Embry, whose sole purpose (and *only* scene prior) is to show up and try to convince Sid (read: the audience) that Stu is still alive, a concept I never believed for a second.
Camp at least has a little more to do, as Sid's neighbor/BFF who Williamson and Guy Busick thankfully bothered to give I think three scenes sprinkled into the narrative. But they make the same dumb mistake that they did in 6, which is to have Camp shoehorn in some backstory about their past that is too extraneous to buy as traditional character development, and merely points a big arrow at their head reading "KILLER!" As soon as she says something about having an abusive ex (just as Quinn randomly dropped the fact that she had a dead brother), we know that's going to be crucial information, and it's a shame to recall that Williamson used to be so much better at this. When Billy mentioned his mother leaving in the original, it never once came off as a clue - it played exactly as it was meant to; a clunky attempt at sympathizing with Sid re: her own mother's death, with few being being tipped off that there was any more to it.
And really, they could have fixed it easily by simply having Jessica say that she first "met" Sid when the latter was posing as Laura for her crisis hotline stint in Scream 3. Even if it wasn't the same guy, we (sadly) know how many women tend to leave one abusive partner only to end up with another (the one she refers to here is also the father of her teen son, so unless she stuck with him for a decade or so, the time wouldn't work), so it still could have played as a "how they met" thing without raising any alarms. Bonus: it would have made Jessica's grand plan a little tragic on top of everything else. She's apparently upset that Sid gave up being a Final Girl (by sitting out of New York, a recurring theme in the movie) and wants Tatum (Sid's daughter) to take over as America's premiere survivor, which is kind of silly even for these things, but at least could have been a bit sad if Jessica had spent the past 25 years worshiping Sid for helping her with her own struggles only to be crushed by the latter's decision to live a normal life instead of continuing to fight Ghostfaces.
All that said, I can forgive the "why" if the "who" is at least satisfying. As stupid as the whole "Stu survived!" thing was to me, it would honestly be better to do a repeat killer than have two people we've barely met take off the masks, with their recognizable faces ("It's the Pitch Perfect girl!") doing the majority of the work for whoever in the audience might not have figured it out long before that. I didn't exactly take a stopwatch to the screening, but I'd bet $63.6m that no previous Ghostface has had less screentime than either of the main culprits here (again, the other guy was anonymous by design so I don't care about him). It just baffles me that no one involved thought to say "Hey, fans love going back and figuring out which killer performed which kill, and that can't happen here because neither killer had enough involvement with the story for their whereabouts to be determined at any given time." Again, Embry is in ONE SCENE! Who could possibly be satisfied with that reveal?
As for Stu, as I mentioned in my main review, Matthew Lillard is clearly having a good time reprising his role, and he hasn't lost any of that manic energy (if you've followed his later work, he's actually a solid and fairly subtle dramatic actor, so it's fun to see him go big again). It's a shame that pre-release casting news spoiled most of the other cameos from now-dead cast members (there was one they didn't, and it was a great little "Whoa!" moment for me), because it basically answered the movie's central mystery of "Is Stu really alive or is this AI?" right from the start. We know without a doubt that Dewey, Roman, etc. are dead (Stu is, I think, the only GF with the slightest chance of having survived) but thanks to pre-release publicity we also know they're going to be in it, and this isn't a supernatural series. So therefore, AI/deep-fake nonsense will be coming into play, and in turn Stu is clearly among the killer's pixelated creations. Without their casting known (David Arquette even has his name on the poster!), if Stu was the only returning "dead" person, the mystery could have actually worked to some degree. For a series that started as a commentary on horror films and their fans, it's weird that Scream 7 would actually work best if you watched it in a total vaccuum and (re: the two killers) without having seen any other movies besides the previous Screams, so that Embry and Camp wouldn't be any more recognizable to you than the handful of newcomer actors playing Tatum's friends.
Speaking of them, I will give the movie this much of a win over S6: at least the deaths are all of named characters. Yes, Ghostface is once again incapable of killing anyone we really like (Joel McHale, welcome to the "Somehow survived several brutal stabbings" club!), but I was surprised that literally ALL of Tatum's friends get killed off. The body count is a little lower than the last one, but I'll always take 5-6 named characters over a dozen randos. It's a little weird how they're spaced out though; after the surprisingly early death of Hannah (McKenna Grace's character) - which was far and away the best designed one, very Argento-y - no one dies for a bit and then he wipes out the rest of her friends in a matter of minutes right as the third act kicks into gear. Paying homage to The Burning, maybe? (On the subject of the body count: once we get the motive, we then realize the opening kill is pointless. Why would Sid care about that?)
Like I said in the main review, the movie mainly won me over thanks to the Sid and Gale stuff, but the more I think about the whole Ghostface plot, the sloppier it feels, so it might end up slipping back under 6 over time. I was happy to see a scarier and more stalker-y version of the guy again, but when it's all in service of such a weak killer plot, with absolutely ZERO tension to the mystery of who was behind it, I suspect that stuff won't be as fun on repeat viewings, especially when (again) there's no possible way to determine which one was responsible for this or that kill. The monster opening weekend practically guarantees another one, so I hope when that day comes that they really take their time to come up with a solid mystery again. Give us the red herrings! Give us a scene where one killer is trying to convince Sid (or whoever) that the other person is the killer! GIVE US A REASON TO REWATCH THE DAMN THING!!!
What say you?
PLEASE, GO ON...Scream 7 (2026)
FEBRUARY 25, 2026
GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)
As I am back to pretty much full time in the office as opposed to working from home, I no longer have the time to rewatch a franchise before a new entry. And let's face it, with a movie like Scream 7, I hardly NEEDED to refresh my mind - I've been there on opening weekend for every single entry, and watched them all multiple times since (even the ones I don't care for as much!). But I do at least usually rewatch the previous entry and, if time allows, one other random one just for the hell of it. So I sighed my way through VI again (that third act gets worse with every viewing, folks) and then, for my random one, I opted for Scream 3.
That may surprise those who know me, as I've never exactly been enamored by that one, but over the years I've come to like it a little more than I used to (in fact, Scream 4 now takes my bottom slot). However, the real reason I picked that one is because Kevin Williamson was returning to the series in full force for the first time since Scream 2, as his contributions to 3 and 4's screenplays were largely overwritten by Ehren Kruger and his presence on 5 and 6 were kind of ceremonial at best. So I had a feeling that, for him, this would be a sort of "true" Scream 3 - not that he'd be erasing the entries in between or anything, but sort of taking it back to basics and doing something along the lines of what he would have done had he been able to work on the original Scream 3 as much as he did with the first two. (The return of Matthew Lillard as Stu, which has been publicized to the point that his name is on the poster, also suggested this, since Williamson's original idea had a surviving Stu be the mastermind behind that film's plot. More on Lillard later.)
But even if I was way off, I'd still be grateful for my random selection, because there's a moment in Scream 3 I love that really kind of sets up what I enjoyed most about this entry, and I'm glad it was fresh in my mind. It's about halfway through the movie, when Sid finally arrives in Los Angeles and sees Dewey. After their big hug and hello, Sid takes a pause and says "...is she OK?", meaning Gale. It's a perfectly played moment; Sid and Gale are not exactly besties, and there's some deserved animosity toward the latter, but they had been through this crap together *twice* by that point, and at the end of the day, Gale did save her life, so she can't help but care about the woman even if she's probably hoping for another excuse to smack her in the face. This "frenemy" status is confirmed a scene later, when they meet and share an awkward hug. But since then, we hadn't gotten much of this dynamic; they don't interact much in 4, and in 5 their pairing is motivated more by their shared love of Dewey than any real affection for each other, and then of course in 6 Sid doesn't appear at all.
That unlikely bonding they now have drives a lot of their scenes together here, and while obviously people are coming for a fresh round of Ghostface attacks, for my old ass-who has watched these two characters grow along with me for three decades-I absolutely adored how their relationship is handled here. Gale doesn't enter the story until about 45 minutes in (and does so in absolutely spectacular, crowd-pleasing fashion), and doesn't have much to do in the climax, but she spends nearly every one of her scenes with Sid, and their long, strained history is at the forefront of nearly every one of those encounters. Gale, suffering extreme nerve damage from her near-fatal attack in 6, assumes that since this new Ghostface is after Sid and her daughter specifically that Sid will be proactive and joining her old pal for another crime solving adventure, and is dismayed that Sid just wants to run and keep her daughter safe. I won't run through every one of their conversations, but there's one that genuinely made me tear up, as it offered what may be the first time in this series that Sid actually felt sorry for Gale, and also realizing that despite her fame-seeking demeanor, the woman has done a hell of a lot more for her over the years than she has in return. It's lovely!
But then Ghostface calls again and ruins the whole thing.
OK that's being a bit harsh. But while I enjoyed the movie overall (more than the last one, at least after this one viewing), I can't help but feel that they have officially run out of ideas for the mystery plots. I thought 6's reveal was clunky and plot-hole ridden (still trying to understand how neither Sam, Gale, OR Kirby were totally in the dark about Richie's family), but at least the usual "I'm out for revenge for killing my kid!" thing makes sense. Here, not only is the identity of the killer almost laughably easy to pin (thankful that Dermot Mulroney had the decency to not even bother with an unmasking scene, since it was so obvious - when the killer takes their mask off here, it's as anticlimactic as any such moment has been in this entire franchise), but their motive is utter nonsense, to the extent that I turned to my friend and said "Wait, what?" I mean, to be fair, these people are lunatics, so I guess it kind of tracks that their motive will be equally insane, but it sure doesn't make for a very exciting reveal (also, once we know what their motive was... what exactly was the point of the opening scene?). And as I've noted more than once: nailing the final reel is absolutely crucial to these things, because that's what we're gonna leave on. It doesn't matter how good the first 90 minutes are (and they are, for the most part, quite good here), if it's all building to a wet fart, it's gonna be hard to justify further viewings. Think about the first time you rewatched the OG Scream and noticed that winking nod from Billy to Stu when the former showed up at the party (after killing Tatum) and how fun that was - there's nothing like that here. You'll know who it is as soon as they appear, leaving only the "Why?" to your imagination, and I'm guessing whatever you come up with will probably be more satisfying than what these writers did.
That said, I was charmed by the fact that (minor spoiler, maybe?) Sid's book plays a part in the big "Why I am doing this" speech. Again, Williamson hasn't exactly been a driving force behind the storytelling since the 2nd film, and I wouldn't have been surprised if he flat out ignored 3-6. But no, every single sequel has some kind of connection here, without any kind of retconning or erasing (for those who were fretting about how Sidney clearly had more than one child in 5 - it's explained: the younger girls are off at their paternal grandparents for the week, and we can just assume that the 17ish Tatum, who would have been 12 or 13 in 5's events, was just at school or something). But apart from Chad and Mindy's appearance (which is brief and largely pointless, though I maintain that Mason Gooding is so effortlessly charming that I will forgive the clunkiness just to spend a few minutes with him again), you could honestly pick up from 3, maybe even 2, and not really feel like you're missing out on anything, character-wise.
And actually, if you go from 2, you'll be spared the rest of the fans' agony that Sidney's cop husband Mark is not the same cop named Mark that was clearly set up as a love interest in 3. Scheduling/salary stuff prevented Patrick Dempsey from returning as planned, but since 5 and 6 both went out of their way to establish that Sid was married to "Mark" (as an easter egg for fans), they had to keep the name here. Why he had to still be a cop, I have no idea (Sid has a type?), but Joel McHale makes the most of it, especially in his flirty bedroom scene with Sid, which is basically the first/last time we see her smile in the entire movie. No reference to Dempsey's Mark is made, though given the numerous rather catty jokes about Sid not being in New York (a story decision also dictated by salary squabbles) I wouldn't be surprised if there was a petty line about ol' Detective Kincaid in the script at one point.
Mark 2.0 is also written out as a suspect extremely early, which is weird. Yes, we can expect more than one killer (only Scream 3 tried a solo venture, and given its generally low popularity among fans, I can't imagine them ever trying it again), but GF attacks him at around the 30 minute mark with no other witnesses, so if it was an intentional way to throw us off, it would be a big cheat (in 4, whenever Jill was "attacked," she was with Sid or Kirby at the time), only failing to get the kill due to his trademark clumsiness. Again, the mystery is totally bungled here, with a shocking lack of red herrings, most of whom are canceled out within moments of their introduction for one reason or another, but they could have at least let McHale be a reasonable suspect for a little while, and a few edits could have allowed it to be so.
Especially when the main suspect is... (big spoiler here for those who haven't paid attention to any casting news) Stu Macher. Again, Williamson toyed with the idea of making him the mastermind in 3, and ever since, fans have clung to the idea that he never actually died. They even bring this up in 6, and when Lillard was actually announced as returning in this one, my heart sank a little, because I found it to be an incredibly stupid idea. I know this series can be sloppy in retrospect as each new sequel tries to rewrite some old history (i.e. Gale writing books about people but apparently never looking at a family photo), but even by their standards, I cannot for one second believe that in the FIVE times that a new Ghostface has popped up in these peoples' lives since Stu got a TV dropped on him, no one ever said "Could it be Stu?" if he somehow survived and was merely locked up somewhere. And if he was in hiding all this time, what the hell was he waiting for, for 30 years? You'd think he'd want to at least help out his successors and make sure he got the death blow himself. I won't spoil the particulars of his appearance, but I will say it was actually rather fun to see him again (especially since we've gotten two revivals of Billy) and Lillard seemed to be having fun with his part, despite his brilliant quote about how he appreciates what it did for him but ultimately doesn't care about the character (he likened it to a plumber still caring about a toilet he fixed decades ago). I saw somewhere that people were upset that the series was going the supernatural route, but that's not the case. That said, even a straight up Jason-style undead zombie Stu would be better than what they came up with instead.
Luckily the chases/kills themselves are largely fantastic, and as a result this is certainly the scariest entry since 2. 6 has some good setpieces (the ladder, the convenience store) but they're held back by the film's obvious inability to bring themselves to kill any returning characters. They get around that here by leaving our four returning friends largely out of harm's way (Gale never directly interacts with Ghostface once, and he flat out tells Sid that he's not going to hurt her because he wants her to suffer from seeing her daughter die) and having him focus on the daughter (named Tatum) and her friends. There's a terrific, Argento-y kind of kill involving a harness, and a moment with a beer tap that would make Mr. Voorhees proud. He also stalks more than he has in recent entries, at one point even doing a Michael Myers-style "fading in and out of the light in the background" move, which delighted me. And as bungled as the mystery might be, at least I can say "Yeah, I can see that person doing the Ghostface stuff we saw earlier", which hasn't been the case for five of the last seven murderers (I like 5 a lot, but I don't know if anything in this franchise is as silly as specifically making it clear that it's tiny Mikey Madison lifting Dewey off the ground to kill him). Alas, the flipside is that when you go back and rewatch, there can never be much of a "OK, THIS kill had to be _____, because [other killer] was accounted for" type of puzzling it out, because the culprits were so peripheral to the story anyway it could conceivably be both of them for every single kill. Now, is this better or worse than scenes like the convenience store in 6, where all THREE killers were accounted for elsewhere? You tell me.
And yet all those issues just kept getting shrugged off, because I was getting the first real full on Sid movie since 2 (she was kind of jammed into 3 as much as possible due to having scheduling issues with her show, in 4 she splits her time with the new cast, in 5 she doesn't really enter the story until the third act, and she's not in 6 at all). Neve Campbell came back firing on all cylinders; someone noted that thanks to H20 this is the 2nd time Williamson has brought back the lead for a part 7, but unlike that movie, where Jamie Lee was just playing herself instead of Laurie Strode, Campbell really does feel like the older, wiser version of that normal girl we met 30 years ago. And in a nice contrast from the OTHER return of Jamie Lee (for the DGG Halloweens), she hasn't turned her daughter into a survival expert - in fact it's the opposite, and she's sheltered her so much that the girl doesn't have much of a fight in her at all. Tatum doesn't really know much about her mom's history (at first I thought she was living under a fake name or something and the girl had no idea; she actually does know a bit, but wants to hear it from her mother, not the Stab movies and Gale's books, and Sid just brushes off such prying attempts). Sid has yet another career (now she runs a coffee shop!), but she does mention she used to act, with a note of sadness that she gave it up after her time at Windsor - another nice example of how much of her life has been affected by this stuff, and it's made clear that she's not hiding or running from it, but merely wants to stop having so much of her life being dictated by it as well, which is exactly what running would do. That she eventually finally takes a second to acknowledge how much all this misery has taken a toll on Gale is just icing on the cake - it's a legitimately great arc to play out for the actress, and while Williamson's script (with Guy Busick) may be spotty when it comes to the Ghostface stuff, it certainly doesn't let Sid down even for a second, which more than makes up for her absence last time around.
Of course, as we all know, this was not even the original plan. Whether she would have even been in it at all, I don't know, but the 7th Scream film was going to focus once again on Sam and Tara Carpenter, played by Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega, but the former was fired from the film after tweeting in support of Palestine and the latter either quit over scheduling, salary, or in solidarity with her on-screen sister, depending on who you ask. This also led to the departure of Christopher Landon (who received death threats for Barrera's firing, even though he didn't do that himself or even agree with it), forcing Paramount and Spyglass to presumably back up an armored truck to Neve Campbell's house and let Williamson direct himself, something he's only done one other time (Teaching Mrs. Tingle, all the way back in 1999). Both of these moves can only be seen as "Let's make sure fans have something to be excited about to make up for our shitty business practices," and I have to wonder if, as one final punishment to the performers, Williamson was forbidden to even MENTION their two characters. So it's a cynically made movie, and I don't blame those who are boycotting or letting that cynicism (which isn't evident on-screen; if you don't read behind the scenes stuff you'd never know anything was amiss) inform their opinion on the film itself. But luckily, at least for me, while Campbell may have been enticed more by the big paycheck than a burning desire to play this character for a sixth time, it never once shows in the finished product. And Courteney Cox, who seemed a bit bored last time around in her limited role, seems to have some of her old spark again as a result of playing off her old pal instead of a bunch of kids she has no real connection to. A silver lining to a very dark, unfortunate, and frankly icky cloud.
So ultimately, it's another mixed bag like 6, though as of this writing I will give it the edge for the strong character work, the surprisingly graphic kills (holy shit, this film's obligatory "you gotta shoot them in the head" moment), and keeping it grounded after all the worry. Yes, it's a little weird that Sam and Tara aren't mentioned (another reason why Chad and Mindy's appearance felt so forced - the "core four" split up, I guess?) and the film occasionally feels like the very sort of slasher that the first film would have name checked (in fact, outside of the cold open, no horror movies - or the Stabs - are mentioned at all unless you count a marquee showing Texas Chainsaw Massacre). But the shift back to being suspenseful while downplaying attempts to be clever/meta was a relief for me, as I just wanted to get my slasher fix in a familiar setting. That it gave my girl Sid several layers to play AND some true bonding moments with Gale that we've been denied for quite some time now? Icing.
What say you?
P.S. Since it seems relevant for these things: 1 2 5 7 6 3 4.
PLEASE, GO ON...Send Help (2026)
FEBRUARY 1, 2026
GENRE: THRILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)
HMAD has been here for almost 20 years now, and in that entire time there's only been two Sam Raimi movies that qualified for review here. The first was Drag Me To Hell, which I loved so much I hosted a "repertory" screening of it not even five years later, and the second is Send Help (which I'd love to host someday!). In between we got a godawful Oz movie that I don't even want to remember, and his Doctor Strange sequel (which had some solid scary stuff in it too, for the record, but it was first and foremost a Marvel movie that was following up a TV show and also a Spider-Man movie, while also setting up more multiverse stuff, so it's not fully HIS). Basically it's nice to have him back, but it'd be nicer if he didn't leave at all, you know?
The plot set up is simple but genius: "What if Cast Away but also Misery?" Rachel McAdams (she will only make a genre movie if a plane is involved, I guess) plays Linda, a frumpy, awkward woman who is also the most competent employee of a finance company. The president of the company has promised her a big promotion, but unfortunately he dies (all we see of him is a painted portrait, which you should definitely pay attention to) before it goes into effect. And now his son Bradley (Dylan O'Brien) has taken over and given the promotion to his frat buddy. This part of the setup isn't all that unique, and could have been a routine office thriller where she gets her revenge, but instead, the one employee there who sees her worth insists she join O'Brien and his bros on a private flight to Bangkok to oversee a merger. During the flight the engine explodes and the plane crashes into the water just offshore of a deserted island. Only Linda and Bradley survive, and the latter only thanks to the efforts of the former, who-as we learn via her homelife and as well as Bradley's ridicule-is also a survival expert hooked on Survivor.
So the tables turn; he's an alpha male in the office but can barely tie two sticks together on his own, whereas she only needs a day to have a fire, shelter, food, and water for them (it took Tom Hanks like a week!). At first he's still berating her and dismissing her, but ultimately he realizes he has to depend on her... just as she starts realizing that she is happier here and doesn't want to leave. To say more would be spoiler-y, but I will say that part of the fun of the movie is that we are constantly shifting our sympathies. No one in their right mind would be on Bradley's side for the first 45 minutes or so (maybe longer;? the office section feels a bit longer than necessary, but this might just be some "We know it's an island movie so GET TO THE ISLAND!" type impatience on my part), but once Linda does something that almost certainly delays their chances of being rescued, and Bradley admits he was abused by BOTH of his parents as a child, we get into more of a gray area. Right down to the end of the movie, I wasn't quite sure who would be the victor, as they were both villains in a way.
Naturally, their increasing antagonism is what gives us the Raimi splatter we hoped for once it was announced that the film would have an R rating. To be fair it's mostly for the language - honestly, the PG-13 Drag Me To Hell had far more violence, but the handful of moments that unleash his goo-happy tendencies are top notch, and it was great to see such things on the big screen again. I mean, it's not really a spoiler to say that these people who are on a deserted island eventually have to hunt an animal for food, but while we've seen this sort of thing in any number of island-set movies/shows, only Raimi would do it THIS way, which had me cackling and - yes! - even jumping a bit from a well-executed scare.
But it mostly plays out as a psychological thriller, meaning it's closer in tone to his movies like The Gift and Simple Plan, dipping into "Sam Raimi, the director of Evil Dead" territory at key moments almost as a diversion. Not saying this is a bad thing, to be clear, but I think the fans of those aforementioned grounded films will be more satisfied than those going in expecting Rachel McAdams to be the new Ash Williams. There are even a few moments of bodily damage that are played off-screen, something that would be unthinkable in an Evil Dead.
Honestly though, I didn't even think much of these omissions. The real draw was seeing McAdams and O'Brien having a blast playing against their type and playing mind games with the other. It was also interesting to have a dynamic where the female was older than the male; again, the "unappreciated female goes after her asshole male boss" scenario has been done a lot, so flipping the sexes but retaining the usual age gap made for an interesting pairing. I've been a fan of McAdams for decades now, but after Saturday Night I started really appreciating O'Brien's talents (say what you will about the movie itself, but he was SPOT ON as Dan Aykroyd) and he continues that streak here, finding humanity in what could have been a generic "bro" role. And both of them go for broke when it comes to the splattery stuff, particularly a scene where... well, again, no spoilers. But it comes after a raft breaks, that's all I'll give away.
Apparently this is in DBox, and converted to 3D as well... I'm sure it's fun for a few key moments, but I had a blast at a normal 2D screening, and rarely felt I was missing out on anything (the plane crash probably would have been fun in that capacity). I have yet to be convinced that 3D conversions can look as good as the real thing, so I never bother unless I have to (most recent attempt was another island movie in fact: Jurassic World Rebirth, and I forgot it was even in 3D half the time, if that gives you any impression), but Raimi seems tailor-made for the silliness that a good DBox presentation provides, so if you're not as picky about 3D as I am then by all means add to your enjoyment. But I just want to be clear: this movie would have worked even without the moments that were clearly designed for/by its director. The most anonymous filmmaker alive could have made a good movie out of watching Rachel McAdams go psycho on a desert island - Raimi just added some very sweet gravy to it, and the world is the better for it.
What say you?
PLEASE, GO ON...28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026)
JANUARY 16, 2026
GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)
Despite not loving 28 Years Later, I worked my morning schedule around making sure I could see its sequel, simply titled The Bone Temple on screen, on opening day. It's a busy month for the genre, with a new wide release every week, and since I can only get to one movie a weekend (at most!), this one would get lost in the shuffle if I wasn't proactive. Plus the word of mouth was strong, with many even naming it their favorite of the franchise, so I was quite curious to see how it played for me, someone whose favorite entry is the one most people don't even remember at all, let alone laud.
Anyway, Bone Temple is an improvement on its predecessor, thanks to a more focused narrative and better use of the key assets of the previous film, namely Ralph Fiennes' doctor Ian Kelson and his excellent taste in music. In a move that would make "Dr Frankenstein" proud, Kelson figures out a way to communicate with one of the zombies (and yes, the Z-word is used again) and perhaps even reverse the infection, which allows him to bond with Samson, the oft-naked "Alpha" we met in the last movie. Their scenes are the best in the film, and honestly I could happily just watch the two of them form their strange, wonderful friendship over the course of these two (and maybe three) films.
But we spend the other half of the runtime with the "Jimmies", a group of thugs led by Sir Jimmy Crystal, played by Jack O'Connell. We met them at the end of Years, and now Spike (the young protagonist of the previous film) is, through happenstance, part of their gang, though he certainly isn't fond of the predicament. These scenes, alas, grew tiresome for me - there's never any sense that Spike is being corrupted by Sir Jimmy or even in any serious danger from the other "Jimmies", and as with the last movie, it feels like this stuff would play best to someone who hadn't seen a single zombie movie since the original 28 Days in 2002. I mean, if seeing yet another evil human use the ongoing zombie threat as an excuse to invade someone's home before killing them for their supplies is still somehow novel to you, enjoy! But I've seen this sort of thing too many times, and considering how engaging the Kelson material was to me, every time it cut back to this group I found myself losing interest.
As with the last one, the last reel or so is where the movie really shines, because that's when Spike's two would-be father figures finally come face to face (his actual dad, played by Aaron Taylor Johnson, isn't seen this time around). It's a bit unfortunate that Kelson doesn't realize Spike is among their number until the very last moments of their encounter, but it's more than made up for with how Kelson introduces himself to the group. I won't spoil the particulars (though social media posts with a song attached have almost certainly clued you in to one aspect), but it's an electrifying sequence on par with the musical interlude in Sinners (which also co-starred Jack O'Connell, incidentally).
Oh, it reprises John Murphy's iconic "In The House" during the credits, so that made me happy as it was absent from Years.
It's also a better LOOKING movie, so that was a relief. I couldn't stand the iPhone photography (I cannot use the word "CINEMAtography" in that context without feeling some of my soul die) in Years, but this was thankfully shot with normal (digital) cameras, allowing the striking production design of its titular setting to shine through. And yes, this means you get better looks at the dongs on display - it's not just Samson that bares all for the audience this time around! (I know Samson's is a prosthetic, but semantics aside: what was the last major studio movie to offer lengthy shots of TWO male penises? In a movie with no female nudity of any sort, to boot? Like some alt-Bechdel test up in here.) There isn't a lot of action, but at least when there is, it's easier to follow thanks to the improved imagery it offers.
I also liked that it was hopeful. This genre, more than any other in horror, is often used as a subtle (or not subtle) commentary on what's going on in the world, and given the state of things now, it'd be easy to make something truly nihilistic and grim. But no; Kelson keeps hope alive for the good in the world (thanks in part to his music collection; the man has good taste) and the final line is worth cheering for, not just because it's a good character moment for the person saying it, but also because it's an attitude we need more of in the real world, where innocent people are being murdered by a fake police force for merely trying to stand up for their neighbors.
Basically, it's a really good movie that is burdened mainly by being a direct followup to one that I felt was uneven (and ugly!), leaving me less enticed about returning to its world. Even the ho-hum Jimmy stuff isn't BAD, per se - it just lacks the compelling and less common nature of the scenes with Samson and Ian, because even a casual fan could probably tell you how it will end up. Perhaps if Spike was able to convince his fellow "Jimmies" to rise up against their tyrannical (and full of crap) leader, there would be more gravy to these scenes, but Spike mostly just silently follows them around for most of his scenes, only becoming (slightly) proactive near the very end. O'Connell is great, but there's only so much that good acting can do with such an overused character archetype in this sort of thing.
As for the promised third part of this trilogy, I am curious what it will be like. Without spoiling things, it seems that the next entry will be a bit of an outlier for a trilogy closer, as a few of the plot threads from these two are pretty much tied up at the end of this one, and the setup for the next movie seems like it will be more tied into the very first film than these two. And then Bone Temple didn't open all that well, so with stiff genre competition over the next few weeks (Silent Hill, Send Help, The Bride!, etc.) there's no guarantee it'll be made anyway. If Sony decides not to pursue it any further, at least the setup isn't exactly a major cliffhanger; we've certainly been left hanging in worse situations (the Divergent series, perhaps even the last Fast & Furious, not to mention all the go-nowhere plot threads of the Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Texas Chain Saw franchises). But it'd be a shame for them not to see it through. Even though neither of them were exactly my favorite films of the year (well, I HOPE this doesn't end up being one of them for 2026), there's certainly enough good in both to warrant seeing how it all turns out.
What say you?
PLEASE, GO ON...
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