Psycho Killer (2026) * * *

 

Directed by:  Gavin Polone

Starring:  Georgina Campbell, James Preston Rogers, Malcolm McDowell, Logan Miller, Grace Dove

The reviews are in!  Psycho Killer is reported to have a 0% Rotten Tomatoes score, meaning every critic who has reviewed it detested it.  I don't know.  Written by Seven and 8MM screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker, Psycho Killer is a creepily effective thriller that sticks with you.  The Satanic Slasher (Rogers) is pure evil, and we root for his demise as Kansas State police officer Jane Archer (Campbell), whose trooper husband was killed by the slasher during a traffic stop, hunts him down.  The FBI is involved, sort of, but tries to warn Jane off the case.  We sense it may not just be jurisdictional. 

Jane, who is also pregnant, will not be deterred as she attempts to track and kill the slasher.  Who is he?  We hear his voice, which is very low-pitched and eerie, but we never see his face.  He wears an old-fashioned gas mask when committing his heinous crimes.  He calls himself Richard Reeves, a mass murderer who killed numerous churchgoers and attempted to blow up the church decades ago and was reported to have been killed in prison.  Is he imitating Reeves?  Idolizing him?  Paying tribute to him?  We don't know the full extent of Reeves' plan but it's awfully diabolical, as you would expect.  

Reeves is a pitiless hulk who consumes painkillers and psychotropic meds as he continues his spree.  He worships Satan and encounters like-minded Satan worshippers led by Malcolm McDowell, who uses his love of Satan to throw orgies, which offends Reeves and you know what happens when Reeves is offended.   Walker specializes in writing movies showing the dark, twisted underbelly of society.  Seven and 8MM were terrific movies partially because of the atmosphere they evoked.  Psycho Killer's atmosphere is decidedly dark and creepy, as you would expect in a movie where the Satanic Slasher is hacking victims from coast-to-coast.  I can't imagine what the critics saw.  Sure, the story is grotesquely gory in spots, but it's compelling and its effects linger.  

 

Cold Storage (2026) * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Jonny Campbell

Starring:  Joe Keery, Georgina Campbell, Liam Neeson, Lesley Manville, Sosie Bacon, Vanessa Redgrave

Cold Storage is a version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, with the snatcher being a nasty green fungus which can penetrate just about anything to attach itself to its host.  As Cold Storage opens, a scientist (Bacon) and two military operatives (Neeson and Manville) travel to Australia to find this mysterious fungus which has killed numerous people and animals.  The fungus manages to invade the hazmat suit of the doctor and soon it takes over her body, causing her to explode.  The operatives escape with the sample of the fungus, which is kept in a government lab in the middle of nowhere.

The lab is abandoned sometime later, with the fungus still stored in a vault long forgotten and a storage facility built on top of it.  One night, two employees Travis (Keery) and Naomi (Campbell) encounter strange happenings, such as a deer entering the facility, attacking them, and soon exploding.  Naomi's boyfriend also shows up to confront her about Naomi dumping him and he soon begins acting weird.  Travis and Naomi's boss also comes by with his biker friends and you know the drill by now.

Neeson also reappears after being called into duty to destroy the goo and keep it contained.  Neeson has fun with the role with the other actors understanding that Cold Storage isn't meant to be taken too seriously.  The movie itself is occasionally amusing, with lots of green goo everywhere and all of the villains getting their comeuppance, but it doesn't reach past a certain level of inspiration.  It's ninety minutes that come and go, sometimes slowly, but for those who love this type of movie, you'll get what you came for.  

His & Hers (2026) * *

 

Starring:  Jon Bernthal, Tessa Thompson, Sunita Mani, Chris Bauer, Marin Ireland, Pablo Schreiber, Poppy Liu, Rebecca Rittenhouse, Crystal R. Fox

His & Hers meanders its way through its whodunit plot with sidebars on less interesting topics, such as the relationship between estranged spouses Detective Jack Harper (Bernthal) and Anna (Thompson), a TV news reporter covering a small-town murder of a woman both knew very well.  Jack was having sex with her on the night she was murdered, and Anna knew her from their private school days, although not in the biblical sense.  Jack, of course, would become a prime suspect if it were discovered that he knew the victim intimately.  Anna has demons of her own to deal with, including the death of hers and Jack's infant daughter which causes Anna to disappear from her husband's life for a year.  

There isn't much chemistry between Anna and Jack.  Anna's rival is Lexy (Rittenhouse), the young blonde who is a fast-rising star at Anna's Atlanta news program.  Anna is also sleeping with Lexy's cameraman husband Richard (Schreiber).  Anna also deals with her ailing mother who appears to be in the early stages of dementia, while Jack lives with his alcoholic sister and his niece.  The sister also has school ties to the victim, who of course wasn't an angel.  There is a plethora of characters and subplots which overstuffs the basic murder plot premise. 

Bernthal is normally among the most magnetic of actors, and here he tries a bit too hard to give us down-home folksiness and tends to end his sentences with "yeah?" often enough for it to be noticeable.  Tessa Thompson was never an actress who did it for me.  There is something bland about her which doesn't allow us inside.  I would say maybe it's just this character, but I've noticed that about many of her performances.  

The whodunit itself contains a twist I saw coming and another I didn't.  I suppose I cared just enough to watch for the outcome, but even with six episodes, it takes a long time to get to there.  Or it just feels that way. 

EPIC: Elvis Presley in Concert * * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Baz Luhrmann

No, EPIC isn't a sequel to Baz Luhrmann's Elvis (2022), but instead of mixture of archive documentary and concert footage Luhrmann discovered during his research of Elvis.  The result reveals Elvis' love of performing and his approachability despite being the biggest musical star of his time (along with The Beatles).  Elvis wouldn't be one of those performers whose show starts at 8pm and he decides to wait until 11pm to stroll on stage.  He took performing seriously, and it showed with the energy he expended.  He wanted to show the audience something new every time.

EPIC's concert footage relies heavily on the Las Vegas shows that were the subject of the 1970 documentary: Elvis: That's the Way It Is.   We also see Elvis rehearsing the songs, giving us an intimate view of his performances.  He, his band, and backing vocalists have undeniable chemistry and they play off each other.  The epilogue tells us that Elvis performed 1,100 shows between 1969 and 1977, sometimes at three shows per day.  He missed live performances which he resumed soon after he was finished with his movie contract.  He didn't much like making movies, as we hear in archive voice footage.  They weren't the best use of his talent.  

EPIC works in the same fashion That's the Way It Is did.  It shows Elvis has an approachable, humble performer.  Did he have his moments where he was a prick?  I'm sure.  Who doesn't?  The drug abuse later took over and caused his untimely 1977 death at age 42, leaving behind a legacy that stands today as a performer who is inimitable, even though of course he has thousands of impersonators.  But there is only one true Elvis Presley.  EPIC gives us one more reason why this is correct and seeing him never gets old.  

Extract (2009) * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Mike Judge

Starring:  Jason Bateman, Ben Affleck, Kristen Wiig, Clifton Collins, Jr. Mila Kunis, Dustin Milligan, David Koechner, Gene Simmons

Mike Judge, creator of Beavis and Butthead and terrific movie satires like Office Space, gives us an uneven and sometimes funny comedy about people who go out of their way to make things hard on themselves.  Our protagonist is the sexually frustrated owner of a bottling plant who finds himself in lust with new employee Cindy(Kunis) who is secretly involved with one of Joel's employees who was involved in a most-gruesome work-related injury.  Joel is married to Suzie (Wiig), and their marriage has devolved into routine dullness and not much sex.  

Joel's bartender friend Dean (Affleck) poses a solution to Joel's moral dilemma:  Joel doesn't want to outright cheat on Suzie, but if Suzie is seduced by a "gigolo" hired by Joel, then Joel will be free to pursue Cindy because Suzie already cheated.  It's Mike Judge-universe morality and logic writ large, with erratic results.  Joel is being wooed to sell his company, but the workers comp case may hinder that, especially with the employee's ambulance chaser attorney (Simmons) who suggests a bizarre way to have the case dropped.  It involves a door and Joel's testicles.  

Meanwhile, the gigolo posing as a pool boy indeed succeeds in seducing Suzie.  It would've been funnier if the gigolo only thinks he seduced Suzie but maybe seduced the neighbor.  Joel tries to call off the gigolo, who thinks he and Suzie are falling in love.  There are many moving parts in Extract, and the actors are up to the challenge, but the fault lies at the plot or screenplay level.  It's not as funny or stinging as it needs to be, but hey it's better than the overrated Idiocracy.  

The Strangers: Chapter 3 (2026) *

 

Directed by:  Renny Harlin

Starring:  Madelaine Petsch, Richard Brake, Gabriel Basso, Ema Horvath

The Strangers saga comes to a merciful end (hopefully) with Chapter 3.  The opening scenes provided a challenge for me in that I tried in vain to recall anything about Chapter 2.  Chapter 1 wasn't any great shakes, but I do recall it had at least a little suspense to it.  I gave it two stars.  The ensuing sequels don't provide much in the way of suspense.  There are a lot of killings and an attempt to display that our protagonist (Petsch) is somehow transformed into a killer herself thanks to the violence she's endured. We've seen that before too, and it isn't exactly revelatory.

Renny Harlin is a skilled director who is better than this material.  I know, I've seen examples of this.  The movie isn't shoddily made, just pointless and disengaging.  There are ample jump scares for those who go to horror movies to experience those and a lot of blood for those who to go watch that.  Those audience members will get what they came for.  

As for the rest of us, The Strangers, Chapter 3 runs only about ninety minutes and still feels like a slog.  I did admire, for what it's worth, some of creepy performances and I wished they were in the service of a better movie and series.  

Crime 101 (2026) * * *

 

Directed by:  Bart Layton

Starring:  Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Halle Berry, Monica Barbaro, Tate Donovan, Barry Keoghan, Nick Nolte

Crime 101 lends itself to comparisons to Heat and it wouldn't have it any other way.  We have a thief named Mike (Hemsworth) who does jobs with efficiency and without hurting anyone.  He is in command, knows how to perform the heist with maximum speed and effectiveness, and then disappears onto the 101 freeway.  Grizzled detective Lou Lubesnick (Ruffalo) detects a pattern and tries to convince his bosses that this thief only strikes near the 101 because of its easy access to and from the crime scenes.  

Mike works alone, except for when he retrieves his latest assignments by underworld boss Money (Nolte), and he also lives alone and we sense his need to connect to someone.  After his last attempted jewel heist goes awry, Mike wants out, and a young woman named Maya who meets Mike after rear-ending him in a traffic accident provides the catalyst to come out of his shell.  However, explaining what he does for a living is understandably not part of this change.  His apartment is sleek and stylish, but doesn't feel lived in.  There are no photos of his family.  Maybe he doesn't have one.

Lubesnick is the opposite of Mike.  He smokes, drives an old car, looks like he slept in his clothes, doesn't shave, and his wife is leaving him.  But he's smart and determined.  His superiors just want him to close cases and show little interest in his theory on the "101 robber".  They just want the cases solved.  Even the LAPD has metrics it needs to hit.   However, Mike knows he needs one more big score to retire forever, maybe even with Maya. 

I won't give away further details, but Crime 101 is Heat with a happier ending for its characters.  There is a psychotic criminal (Keoghan) who wants to take over Mike's territory because Money thinks Mike is losing his nerve, but Keoghan's character is unstable in more ways than one.  Crime 101 doesn't strike as deep a nerve as Heat, in which its characters realize they need each other in complex ways.  There were no easy payoffs and most of the people were killed or left behind.  Crime 101 does run a tad too long at 140 minutes, but we wind up caring and that's more than half the battle.