Dan Says its Alright

After revitalising the Predator franchise with 2022's Prey, director Dan Trachtenberg brings us a very different take on the extraterrestrial big game hunter. In Predator: Badlands , the titular monster is the main character. Considering how terrible that premise could have been, we actually end up with a decent action adventure movie. Our protagonist is Dek, a Yautja (the species name of the Predators) who is considered something of a runt. Such a runt in fact, that his dad wants to kill him for being a pitiful disgrace to the clan. After his brother saves him, he makes his way to "the Death Planet" Genna to hunt a supposedly unkillable monster in order to show his father who is boss and force the rest of the clan to put some respect on his name. When he gets there he discovers that, not only is all the wildlife deadly, but Weyland-Yutani ( yes, the evil corporation from Alien) have sent a bunch of synths there to collect and weaponise his prospective trophy. He forms an...

  Die My Love opens with a fixed camera observing a couple exploring their new house. This voyeuristic introduction sets up the isolated home as a character in its own right and gives the impression you are about to watch a horror film. In a way, you are. The couple are new mum Grace, played by Jennifer Lawrence, and her partner Jackson (Robert Pattinson), who inherited the house from his late uncle. Although they are playful with each other while checking out their new home, once they move in it becomes clear they have some major problems. Grace stalks through the grass on all fours, hiding from Jackson and a star gazing session foreshadows a fundamental difference in the way they feel about life and their situation. The cosmos makes her feel insignificant while he is thrilled at the thought of being part of something larger. As time goes on, Grace feels more and more isolated, while Jackson is either physically or emotionally absent, and her behaviour becomes increasingly erratic...

The Running Man is a remake of the 1987's Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle. Except it isn't really. It's actually a different, far more faithful, interpretation of the Stephen King story. That said, it's exactly what you would expect from a modern adaptation of an '80s cult classic; slicker, with more emphasis on the message, but much less personality and therefore destined to be forgotten far quicker. Written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, King's 1982 novel is set in a dystopian 2025 where "The Network" is not just in charge of TV, but essentially run the United States and have turned the country into an authoritarian surveillance state where a small percentage of people are uber-wealthy, and everyone else struggles to afford even basic medicine. The film does away with the year, since the idea of people living like that in 2025 is so ridiculous.  Enter Glenn Powell as family man Ben Richards. He may live in a hellscape but old Ben doesn't do ...

  Bugonia is the fourth (fifth if you count 2022 short film Bleat) collaboration between director Yorgos Lanthimos and star Emma Stone. It's unlikely to trouble the Oscars in the way The Favourite or Poor Things did, but we still have an entertainingly unhinged fable on our hands. Stone plays Michelle Fuller, CEO of pharmaceutical company Auxolith. Shortly after the title card, we see her continually fluff a video she is recording on corporate inclusivity, bristling at the continued use of the word "diversity". She then instructs her assistant to draft an e-mail telling employees they are no longer required to remain in the office beyond 5.30. Unless they have work to do. Unbelievably, this pesticide-spreading, corporate lip-service-paying, business shark will soon cut a sympathetic figure. That's because she is about to be abducted and held captive by conspiracy nut Teddy Katz (Jessie Plemons) and his intellectually disabled cousin Don (Aidan Delbis). We have alread...

Roofman is the media given name of real-life army veteran and serial McDonald's robber, Jeffrey Manchester, played here by Channing Tatum. Using his special talent for noticing patterns and routine, he burgled over 40 of the fast food chain's restaurants while gaining a reputation for being a polite thief. In an early scene we see him give a store manager his coat as he apologetically forces the staff into a freezer. Gentleman criminal or not, he stole a lot of corporate money, so when the police finally finger him for a single job he is sent down for forty-five years on trumped up kidnapping charges. In prison, his skills kick into gear again and he escapes on a delivery truck. Needing to lie low until his buddy can sort him out with a fake passport, he takes up residence in a Toys "R" Us for six months. Despite warnings he can't help but get involved in the lives of the people he watches on CCTV, particularly good-hearted single mum Leigh (Kirsten Dunst). To be...

 Shelby Oaks is the result of the most successful ever horror movie Kickstarter campaign. Helmed by popular YouTube critic Chris Stuckmann, it is positioned as a fright flick "for fans, by fans".  While it isn't the obnoxious disaster such a mission statement could have led to, and actually shows a fair amount of promise, it does end up feeling like an homage to better films. The film opens as a mockumentary detailing the disappearance of a group of ghost hunting YouTubers called the Paranormal Paranoids. It then appears we are dealing with a found footage movie when, twelve years on from the disappearance, Mia (Camille Sullivan) watches creepy footage of her sister Riley (Sarah Durn) who was the Paranoids' on camera psychic. Turns out the film is neither of these things but more of an occult mystery as Mia follows the clues to find her missing sister whom she is sure is still alive. As you can imagine, a film that begins with two fake out beginnings is a little mudd...

Despite his enduring fame, Bruce Springsteen is not an obvious choice for a biopic subject. A lack of any outward demons means the usual life story treatment might have been a bit of Sunday morning stroll. The solution Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere comes up with is to focus in a particular point in his life in 1981, when, on the verge of mega stardom, he has to reckon with creative and mental health struggles. It's fitting that we focus on a point in his life when Bruce is trying to find who he wants to be, as the film itself is pretty indecisive.  Coming off a successful tour, Bruce (Jeremy Allen White) struggles to adjust to the downtime. When neither a return to his humble hometown nor the purchase of a fancy new car making him feel any better, he gets back to making music, using a four-track recorder to turn his bedroom into a makeshift studio. The music he makes eventually becomes the album "Nebraska", a tonal shift he is determined to pursue, even as his man...