My Review of It Ends (2025)

 

Written And Directed by Alexander Ullom

Tyler (to everyone): "How long do you think we can keep doing this? Sitting here, driving."

Catching up with some recent horror and I was determined to make sure that my first post in October was also something horror related. Last night, I happened to watch this particular film.

You've got four friends - Tyler (Mitchell Cole), James (Phinehas Yoon), Day (Akira Jackson) and Fisher (Noah Toth). They're recent graduates, except for Tyler who enlisted during their year apart from one another.

In the car, the four spent time prying each other apart as they fill in each other on their lives and other relationships. James in particular mused on a future that would be unsatisfying for him and came across as the most antagonist of the group. James however was the least of the group's problems.

It turned out that the road they were on was actually was either to purgatory or Hell. Yup, our four main characters actually died and they're not the only ones on that road. For the rest of the movie, it's a case of each of these character making some kind of realisation until only one of them was left.

When the movie started, I actually thought that Tyler or Day were going to be the ones to actually survive but the former was written out halfway in the film. Both Day and Fisher have their moments of clarity.

Ultimate, it was James who was the last of the group. He's doomed to keep driving the car on an endless road but it seemed like he got a new friend during the very last scene. I'm not sure that's a positive, given the situation here.

- Tyler broke up with a girlfriend over not wanting to go to a pumpkin patch. Fisher had the opposite story and Day had tried to kill herself.

- James wanted to be put on ice. Funny how he got a worse version of that in this film.

- Standout music: Nile Osiris's Intro.

- Chronology: Time really lost meaning but it's split into character focus and miles clocked. Ended with over 1,100,000 miles.

It Ends (2025) turned out to be a thoughtful debut. I was expecting a more traditional slasher with this one but that wasn't the case. The main four are reasonably fleshed out. It loses points because I did find it lagging at times.

Rating: 6 out of 10 

DCU Blog - September 2026 Edition: Clayface Approaches, Lanterns Lights Up HBO And More

A slightly quiet month but an interesting one as certain productions move along for the DCU.

The final bit of promotion of Clayface (October 23rd) has kicked off. The film will be an hour and forty eight minutes long.

Matthew Lillard's character in Man Of Tomorrow (July 9th 2027) will have a biracial family. Speculation is that he's either Barry Allen or Ted Kord. Viola Davis may reprise her role of Amanda Waller.

The Bane And Deathstroke movie will be looking for a twenty something actor for Bane.

Robert Pattinson has explained it might be tough for his Batman to crossover into the DCU.

Mason Thames will voice Dick Grayson for Dynamic Duo (September 22nd 2028). Logan Kim will be Jason Todd while Lee Pace and Steve Buschemi will play Red Hood One and Two respectively.

Filming for The Batman Part II (February 18th 2028) has hinted at the Court of Owls factoring into events.

A Wonder Woman movie may be in pre-production. Meanwhile Adria Arjona is still being tight lipped about her DCU role.

Filming for The People Vs. Gorilla Grodd continues. Sara Gilbert has been cast in an undisclosed role. Maxwell Lord, Mister Terrific, Metamorpho and Hawkgirl will appear in the series as will Golden Glider and Murmur.

Sinqua Walls role in Man Of Tomorrow is rumoured to be a very physical one.

Supergirl might have tanked in theatres but it's managed to have found an audience on HBO Max.

Lanterns has proven to be a massive hit for HBO, clocking in over ten million and breaking into the Nielson Top 10. The finale airs October 4th.

Xolo Mariduena has talked about feeling humbled in regards to getting to reprise Blue Beetle for Man Of Tomorrow.

Superman (2025) is now streaming on Netflix.

And that's your lot for this month.

My Review of Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma (2026)

 

Written And Directed by Jane Schoenbrun

Kris: "I feel like there's about to be a jump scare."

A couple of months ago, I caught up with I Saw The TV Glow and found it's commentary on cheesy 90s cult TV shows to be a rather interesting backdrop to a coming of age story.

This time around, it was the turn of 80s camp related slashers to be put under the microscope. If you're a fan of Friday The 13th, The Burning and Sleepaway Camp, this movie had a lot to say about those movies. Specifically the latter and it's transphobia. 

Our protagonist was the generally likable queer filmmaker, Kris Williams (Hannah Einbinder). She grew up being a fan of the Camp Miasma horror franchise, in spite of its problematic elements. She was being given the opportunity to resurrect the franchise with a reboot. She was gonna it's transphobia problem.

On top of that, she was also determined to get the star of the original film - Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson) involved in the production. Kris wanted to basically give Billy the Jamie Lee Curtis treatment, though her bosses were less enthusiastic about the idea. 

The movie spent most of its time building towards the attraction between Kris and Billy. It moved at a pleasant pace with both women opening up to one another. Then the lines between the real world and the world of Camp Miasma began to blur into each other.

The use of that franchise's sympathetic antagonist Little Death (Jack Haven) while both Kris and Billy underwent their own sexual awakening actually worked pretty well. By the end of this film, Kris had a new movie to add to her favourite horror franchise and got to achieve a fan dream in other aspects too.

- There's some decent supporting roles from Patrick Fischer, Dylan Baker, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Quintessa Swindell, Arthur Conti, Eva Victor and Zach Cherry to name a few.

- There's a very clever use of both VHS and DVDs throughout the movie. A post credit scene has characters discussing a sequel.

- Standout music: Counting Crows A Long December and Sade's No Ordinary Love.

- Chronology: The cabin from the original movie that Billy lived was in the Pacific Northwest.

Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma isn't the most flashiest or even slashiest of horror films but it's an insightful enough deep dive into a specific type of horror. Both Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson make for a compelling double act here.

Rating: 8 out of 10 

My Review of Run Sweetheart Run (2020)

 

Written by Shana Feste And Keith Josef Adkins And Kellee Terrell

Directed by Shana Feste

Ethan (to Cherie): "I'm gonna hunt you but if you make it through the night, I'll let you live."

The other night and out of boredom, I stuck on a random movie. A movie I knew nothing about and had no level of expectations going into. Sometimes doing such a thing can be a pleasant surprise. This was one of those times.

Ella Balinska was the lead here, in the role of Cherie. Cherie's a single mother and a lawyer. She's also set up on a blind date with the rather affluent Ethan (Pilou Asbæk). It's a date that was mostly going well, although with some early red flags.

Anyways the date took a violent turn off screen when Ethan attacked Cherie and with that, a motion of crazy were set into place. Cherie was forced into a game of survival or Ethan would go after her daughter.

At first this seemed like a regular run of the mill thriller but the supernatural side of things were hinted early on. Ethan's able to smell blood. This was something that Judy (Betsy Brandt) was able to tell Cherie about Ethan. Judy was also the very scared wife of Cherie's boss, James R. Fuller (Clark Gregg). In the least surprising moment, it turned out that James set Cherie up for failure.

Cherie did get some temporary help from her former partner, Trey (Dayo Okeniyi) and his new girlfriend and their friends. I really liked their characters and then they all got horribly killed when Ethan was revealed to be a vampire. That scene was played out pretty well.

The rest of the movie naturally built towards Cherie finding herself in order to give Ethan his just desserts. There's the inclusion of the First Lady (Shohreh Aghdashloo). She's a cool character, though added a little late into the mix. Either way, the final few minutes are really good and Cherie's moment of victory felt earned.

- This film premiered in 2020 at Sundance. It took Amazon Prime until 2022 to release it.

- Ethan breaks the fourth wall twice in the film. He also really hated dogs. Cherie ended up with a dog.

- Standout music: The Angels I Adore Him.

- Chronology: It's over the course of a night in Los Angeles.

Run Sweetheart Run made a surprisingly strong streaming movie. The themes aren't original but they're executed well and there's good performances from Ella Balinska, Pilou Asbæk and Shohreh Aghdashloo respectively.

Rating: 7 out of 10 

My Review of Lanterns: "The Jordan Boys Legacy"

 

Written by Damon Lindelof And Tom King

Directed by Alik Sakharov 

Halogram: "What the fuck was Hal Jordan doing here?"

John: "I guess that's his boat over there. Let's find out."

Earlier in the season, we got the bsckstory of John Stewart. As we head into the finale, it was time to give one to Hal and it's not quite one from the comics.

As a kid, Hal had issues with letting things go. This included a baseball, which resulted in his team having to forfeit and Hal getting beaten up as a result. It also gave audiences the chance to meet his father, Martin (Jake B. Miller).

There's a tragic ending to Martin as a person that certainly informed a lot about Hal in the present day. Except for him being dead and his Halogram being not that dissimilar to a recording. A younger one though. Oh, Kyle Chandler had fun with this episode I bet.

Even as a dead man, Hal quickly was able to see through both John and Kerry. He even considered them as potential suspects in his death. He eventually ruled out John. Kerry not so much, which did concern me a tad. 

More importantly, Halogram eventually agreed to let John access the Vault where the two of them ended up on a dead planet. There was a boat journey that deliberately evoked the Underworld and saw John working through some of his family's bullshit. 

Then there was the return of Sinestro himself. Am I shocked that Hal broke him out of Oa? Would anyone be? Nope. I did like that both John and Sinestro did finally get to meet each other. It only took seven episodes.

- What the Hell was up with Noah's speech at his graduation? Did no one clock how off he sounded?

- Billy apparently makes a great dip. Even Kerry couldn't deny that. I hated that he assumed Kerry had moved on to John.

- Kerry called Hal "Tex", which Halogram seemed amused by.

- The episode stemmed from a small key that Martin gave Hal to keep the family legacy alive.

- Standout: Queen's Father To Son was used appropriately.

- Chronology: 2026 Rushville and the dead planet that had Manhunter skeletons. Hal's flashbacks were in 1975.

The Jordan Boys Legacy gave a sobering backstory to one Hal Jordan and Kyle Chandler certainly delivered one of his best performances in the show. It's a nice, albeit quiet lead into the finale.

Rating: 8 out of 10 

My Review of Moana (2026)

 

Written by Jared Bush And Dana Ledoux Miller

Directed by Thomas Kail

Maui: "You're welcome."

It was a summer of mixed hits in terms of blockbusters and Disney seem to be almost half and half these days. With their live action remakes, they're either hits or misfires. This probably fell into the latter side of things.

Maybe it was the fact that it was less than two years ago, Moana 2 surprised everyone by being a decent sequel and hitting a billion. Perhaps it was too soon to do a live action version of the first movie.

The beats are essentially the same as what we got back in 2016. Catherine Laga'aia took on the title role of Moana and she's pretty likable as character in live action. Her story of course was the same beats, aided by her endearingly dumb chicken Heihei in order to retrieve a heart and magical hook.

This meant teaming up with shape shifting demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson). Johnson reprising the role for live action mostly works. His scenes with Moana and Heihei are the strongest as even a demigod can go on an important journey of discovery.

The visuals in this film are something of a mixed bag. Some are excellently brought to life while others clearly needed a bit more time in the editing room. It's not quite as bad it could've been a bit better too.

There's some good supporting roles for John Tui, Frankie Adams and Rena Owen as Moana's parents and Gramma Tala. Jermaine Clements reprised his villainous crab Tamatoa and he's generally good here. 

- A third animated movie is in the works, so this side of Disney will definitely have more exploration.

- Auli'i Cravalho has an executive producer role for this film.

- Standout music: Same from the animated movie, plus new song Along The Way.

- Chronology: The Polynesian island of Motunui. Te Fiti was also a living island while Te Kā was a volcanic demon.

Live action Moana isn't actually that bad. It's perfectly fine to watch and Catherine Laga'aia was very good as the title character. Even Dwayne Johnson isn't too bad here. I think I liked this more than expected.

Rating: 7 out of 10 

My Review of Suspiria (2018)

 

Written by David Kajganich

Directed by Luca Guadagnino

Susie: "Why is everyone so ready to think the worst is over?"

About two years ago, I watched the 1977 version of this particular movie and I've been meaning to catch up with this remake. Watching the latest season of a certain show motivated me into seeking this out.

Luca Guadagnino as a director was coming off the success of Call Me By Your Name and this was an interesting follow up choice to make. The original movie is a highly regarded horror classic. Could Guadagnino at least compliment that with his own interpretation? He certainly gave it a good try.

The focus was on American dance student, Susanna "Susie" Bannion (Dakota Johnson). She had headed over to Berlin to join a dance academy where her dance moves had quite the effect on fellow classmate, Olga (Elena Fokina). Let's just say that things don't go very well for Olga following that particular moment.

In fact, things at that academy seemed to be quite sinister and it led to both Susie and Sara (Mia Goth) to investigating things. There's also another student in Patricia (Chloe Grace Moretz) who's given some needed focus and then there's Tilda Swinton herself.

She's been a long time collaborator of Luca Guadagnino and with this movie he awarded her three roles. Tilda got to play Madame Blanc, Mother Helena Markos and Dr. Josef Klemperer respectively. She certainly played all three roles with aplomb and did a brilliant job in making each of them stand out as well.

Of course, the most dynamic performance throughout the film turned out to be Dakota Johnson herself. Mostly when this film got to the Mother Suspiriorum part of things and her final scene with Klemperer. By far the best moments in this whole affair.

- There's a lot of the film dedicated to a Nazi Germany but it's relevant enough for certain characters.

- Jessica Harper, who was the protagonist of the original made a cameo appearance in this one.

- Standout music: Chloe Grace Moretz's Fairest Of The Season.

- Chronology: 1977 Berlin.

Suspiria (1977) doesn't quite hit the same craziness as it's 1977 counterpart but it's a damn great attempt nonetheless. There's some truly brilliant central performance from both Dakota Johnson and Tilda Swinton alike.

Rating: 7 out of 10 

My Review of American Horror Story: 13 - Rauhnacht

 

Written by Ned Martel And Charlie Carver 

Directed by Crystle Roberson Dorsey 

Winter (to Kai, re Constance): "She's really hitting that thirteen extra hard, right?"

If there was any confusion that this season wasn't all about the number 13 and everything significant about it, how about a snarky line from Winter to further drive the point home for good measure? Yes, Constance is pushing the number thirteen hard.

In particular with the unfortunate Black Dahlia aka Miss Elizabeth Short. This was a great episode for Mena Suvari. She gave the standout performance here. I mean, the sense of dread surrounding the poor woman was palpable. I knew it wasn't going to end well for her.

Constance, Tate, Kai, Adelaide and Winter were like vipers with the way they kept sizing up Elizabeth. The poor woman could barely remember her death and seemingly cannot remember her rebirth. Have all these returning faces been reborn? I'm presuming by Mr. Nas but at what cost?

When Elizabeth wasn't having pieces of her history referenced to her by others, she got led all the way down to the lower floor of the Apollyon. Winter talked about Club Hell and then Ms. Venable (Sarah Paulson) popped up at the very moment as a jump scare. Oh, Elizabeth, you should've declined that invitation to the Apollyon. It's not going to end well for her next week.

Then there's Ben. Our sweet heroic leading man made for a distressed dude when Constance decided to drug him and mess with his memories. Tate wanted to dispose of Ben but as predicted, he's needed alive for reasons that hopefully will be made clear within next week's triple bills. Never accept beverages from Constance. That's a lesson for Ben to learn when he gets his memories back.

As for the rest of the episode, a part of my heart has warmed with the new found closeness that Constance now has with Tate and Adelaide. I'm also enjoying the Tate/Adelaide vs. Kai/Winter rivalry as well. That elevator scene with those four and an unsuspecting Elizabeth needed to be longer because it was the best scene in this episode.

- There was some flashbacks to the events of Murder House to fill in bits of Elizabeth's story.

- The shortest episode in the series, clocking in 22 minutes. Oddly the strongest one too.

- Joe the Doorman (Berto Colon) seemed a bit too enthusiastic in setting those dogs on Ben. Constance really went in with some racial stereotyping when Ben rightfully called out her smoking.

- Winter didn't appreciate Adelaide's Christmas puns but didn't mind Constance's summary of her name. There's still issues between her and Kai.

- Standout music: Midnight Masquerade played in the background during Elizabeth's scenes.

- Chronology: Rauhnacht is a German pagan ritual that focuses on 13 wishes. They're on the thirteenth night, so we're into January in New York.

Rauhnacht made for a short but strong episode. A further tragic story for the Black Dahlia with Constance, Tate, Kai, Adelaide and Winter leading Elizabeth to her doom. The Ben scenes were more subdued (as was he) and I did like that Venable appearance at the end.

Rating: 7 out of 10

My Review of American Horror Story: 13 - 1:13 am

 

Written by Ned Martel And Charlie Carver

Directed by Crystle Roberson Dorsey

Constance (to Ben): "I said to myself, 'Constance, don't mire in the mud like a pig. Get out there and give back.'"

Two episodes in and I can't decide if Ben DeSoto is more like a lamb to the slaughter or a deer caught in the headlights. He's so out of his depth and in a job that a smart person would've likely quit by now. At least he's pretty, right?

He notices things about Mr. Nas that are understandably unusual but almost allowed himself to be fobbed off by Constance's clear bullshit and lies. I should give him some credit for trying to find out the meaning of sunflowers and their connection to 13 while talking to his boss about Mr. Nas. That's more assertive than Anna Victoria Alcott ever was.

Ben and Constance, I'm not gonna lie. I find her interactions with him incredibly creepy and especially when she was filling him in on her husband's adultery and how she dealt with a certain maid at the time. Ben should be more terrified of her than he actually is. Constance's motherly act won't spare him if he's too much of a nuisance for her.

Speaking of motherly act - we actually got to see the return of both Adelaide (Jamie Brewer) and Tate (Evan Peters), with the latter decked out as Rubber Man. Why are both of them back? I think it's obvious that Constance sought a higher power for their return. She might have even traded something for it, so to speak.

Anyways, it wasn't just just Constance's children back. Evan Peters got to act alongside himself as Kai Anderson was also back. Kai being such a dick to both Tate and Adelaide was a delight to watch. I can't believe I missed him but this rivalry between Kai/Tate is something I want to see a lot of this season. Oh and Winter (Billie Lourd) returned too with the Black Dahlia (Mena Suvari) in tow. That led to a nicer cliffhanger ending compared to the more abrupt ending of the first episode.

Last but not least, Twisty the Clown (John Carroll Lynch) rocked up to kill a clown college ran by the unfortunate Ricochet (Tig Notaro). Twisty also reminded everyone that clowns weren't funny. Why was Twisty back? No idea, but his actions got Ben's attention, so I'm hoping those two share a scene together later in the season.

- Mr. Phibes has a snake on his person and why are him and Constance trying to get Mr. Nas to 90?

- Ben's birthday was acknowledged when he watched a video with him and Kira. He also won on a scratch card but he didn't collect his winnings due to a cat scratching him.

- Adelaide talked about the wolf moon and doesn't seem to remember she died. Kai called Tate a basement dweller, showing a lack of awareness on his part.

- Ben seems to rely on AI a lot, doesn't he? Is the show trying to allude to him as Judas? Constance gave him German biscuits and Sencha.

- While more cast members appeared here, certain ones also didn't and likely won't until the second half of the season.

- Chronology: Shortly from where the first episode left off. Ben was dreaming at 1:13am and Twisty killed that clown school in Los Angeles at 10:13pm.

1:13am did make for a somewhat better episode than the first one did. Ben's thirteen story was interesting enough but the slew of returning characters certainly livened things up considerably more. Ben, you in danger, boy.

Rating: 7 out of 10