A Monster Calls (2016)

A Monster Calls (2016)

[7] A twelve-year-old boy (Lewis MacDougall) is visited by a towering tree monster (voiced by Liam Neeson) who helps him deal with school bullies and his mother's terminal cancer. A Monster Calls is a beautifully crafted film directed by J.A. Bayona (The…
Prisoners (2013)

Prisoners (2013)

[8] Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal co-star in this gripping crime drama centered around the abduction of two young girls. Jackman plays one of the girl's father and Gyllenhaal is the police detective assigned to the case. Gyllenhaal uncovers several unsettling clues,…
Heart of the Beast (2026)

Heart of the Beast (2026)

[6] In this old-fashioned survival story, a man and his dog try to survive the elements after their plane crashes in the Alaskan wilderness. Directed by David Ayer (Fury) and starring Brad Pitt, I had high hopes for an exciting and emotional…
Pillion (2025)

Pillion (2025)

[7] An aimless young Brit (Harry Potter's Harry Melling) enters into a fetishistic dominant/submissive relationship with a mysterious, handsome biker (Alexander Skarsgard). Melling cooks all Skarsgard's meals, does whatever he's told (and I mean whatever), and sleeps on a rug at the…
The Skin Game (1931)

The Skin Game (1931)

[5] In this middling, early Alfred Hitchcock film, the aristocratic Hillcrist family battles with the industrialist Hornblower family over a plot of land in a small English village. The Hornblowers want to build a factory and erect unsightly smoke stacks, while the…
Cash on Demand (1961)

Cash on Demand (1961)

[6] Peter Cushing and Andre Morell, paired a few years earlier in The Hound of the Baskervilles, re-team for Hammer Films in Cash on Demand. Based on a stage play, this is largely a two-man show with Morell playing a charming but…
The Vikings (1958)

The Vikings (1958)

[7] Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas co-star in this lavish, somewhat compromised adventure-drama set in medieval England and Norway. Douglas plays an aggressive Viking prince and Curtis plays his English slave, neither of them realizing they share the same Viking father (Ernest…
Masters of the Universe (1987)

Masters of the Universe (1987)

[7] If you had to make a movie based on the ham-fisted He-Man toy line and you had no choice but to cast Dolph Lundgren (Rocky IV) in the lead, you could do far worse than first-time director Gary Goddard did with…
Lake Placid (1999)

Lake Placid (1999)

[7] Bridget Fonda and Bill Pullman star in this good old fashioned creature feature about a 30-foot crocodile that begins weeding out the population of a lakeside Maine community. The script is from TV titan David E. Kelly (Boston Legal, Ally McBeal,…
The Bad Seed (1956)

The Bad Seed (1956)

[7] After a child drowns during a school picnic, a mother (Nancy Kelly) begins to realize her psychopathic, pig-tailed daughter (Patty McCormack) is the culprit. The Bad Seed, based on a novel by William March and a play by Maxwell Anderson, is…