Tag: movie-review

Over Your Dead Body (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A married couple go to a remote cabin, both with plans to kill each other.

I like Samara Weaving. She’s developed a real reputation as a scream queen, but a very versatile one: being able to be both a villain and a final girl. It makes sense for her to be in this film. Jason Segel? Not so much. Best known for comedies such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Muppets, and HIMYM. The closest he’s got to something like this would be his bit part in Dead Man On Campus. He’s not someone you’d think about if you were casting this. That’s why it works. You expect him to play his usual role of “sad dog turned into sad human, with occasional bursts of excitement”, so when we see that he’s planned this holiday to kill his wife, it’s a genuine shock (unless you’ve read the synopsis or seen a trailer). The two have weirdly good chemistry. They make sense as a couple with the way they interact with each other, albeit a strained couple; both waiting for the other one to be the first one to instigate intimacy. It helps that they both take this film seriously; they’re not looking for laughs, mugging for the camera, and that’s what makes it funny.

As for the film itself. I’m slightly disappointed by it, but only because Jorma Taccone also directed MacGruber and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, and I love both of those movies. This is tonally different, and not quite as entertaining. That doesn’t mean it’s not good. It’s absolutely hilarious at times, not just the dialogue, but also the violence. The violence never feels cruel or gratuitous. The gore could be slightly better, looking slightly cheap and fake at times, but it kind of works. Over Your Dead Body (OYDB, pronounced Oi Deb!) knows that it is ridiculous. It doesn’t try to turn the relationship into some deeply serious examination of a marriage falling apart. Instead, it takes the petty frustrations and resentments between the two characters and pushes them to their most extreme conclusion. Every argument, awkward interaction and moment of suspicion has the potential to become a matter of life and death. The plot is pure farce, but OYDB is careful not to make it silly to the point of parody. The characters take the situation very seriously, so the threat feels real. So when the characters do slightly humorous things, it’s funnier because we buy into them as people.

The villains are probably where the film’s balancing act works best. They’re not just generic obstacles for Dan and Lisa to overcome; they all have their own personalities and quirks, which makes them feel like actual people rather than characters who exist solely to move the plot along. I’m not too familiar with Keith Jardine, but he’s a lot of fun here, bringing exactly the sort of physical presence you’d expect from someone with a history of getting paid for punching people in the face, while also showing a surprising amount of vulnerability. He’s basically a more vocal Lurch from Hot Fuzz (the “yar” guy). Timothy Olyphant continues to be Hollywood’s secret weapon, seemingly incapable of being anything other than entertaining even when he’s playing a relatively straight role. And it’s nice to see Juliette Lewis transition from hostage in From Dusk Till Dawn to hostage taker here.

I think that’s ultimately why I enjoyed OYDB more than I expected to, despite the slight disappointment. It isn’t as relentlessly funny as MacGruber or Popstar, and I don’t think it’s going to replace either of those in my list of favourite Jorma Taccone films. But it doesn’t need to. It’s doing something different, and for the most part it does it well. The mixture of relationship comedy, thriller and violence works surprisingly well. That premise has been done before in films like Keeping Up With The Joneses, Mr & Mrs Smith, and others that surely exist but I can’t be bothered to look up. Of course, there’s a more obvious comparison than either of those: this is a remake of the Norwegian film The Trip. I haven’t seen the original, so I can’t really comment on how the two compare, which is probably something I should have thought about before writing a review of a remake. But I suppose at least this way it means I’m judging OYDB on its own merits rather than making comparisons like, “In the original the person wore a blue t-shirt, in this they wear a red one. Film ruined!” The characters in Keeping Up With The Joneses and Mr & Mrs Smith were professional assassins. These characters aren’t. They’re an actress and a filmmaker who are both unsatisfied in their careers. It kind of reminded me of Game Night (damn, that was a fun movie).

That Game Night comparison is probably the best way of describing the action. There’s a similar satisfaction in watching relatively normal people get caught up in something completely ridiculous and having to improvise their way through it. Dan and Lisa aren’t Jason Bourne; they don’t have a special set of skills that makes them particularly well equipped for what they’re doing. They’re just two people who have decided that murder is the solution to their problems, much like how I deal with poor customer service in restaurants (my editor has told me to let you know that’s a joke; I don’t leave the house to go to restaurants). That amateurism makes the fights much more entertaining. There isn’t the slickness you’d get from a traditional action movie, but it would be weird if these untrained fighters suddenly became action heroes; this isn’t Shang-Chi. They’re grabbing whatever happens to be nearby, throwing themselves at each other and generally doing whatever they can to survive. It gives the violence a scrappy, unpredictable quality, and it also creates some of the film’s funniest moments. You can believe that these people are actually fighting for their lives rather than watching two stunt performers execute perfectly choreographed moves.

It also helps that the film never forgets that they’re an unhappily married couple. Even when they’re fighting for their lives against hostage-takers, they still argue and bicker, desperate to win points against the other. It’s childish, silly, and believable. When they start getting on with each other again, it’s weirdly sweet, much more than a film like this should be.

Not that OYDB is without its problems. It’s a solid 7/10, but it feels like it could be a 9 with some changes. But I’m not sure what. I can’t quite identify why I only really liked this rather than loved it. It’s not the reliance on flashbacks, which really bothered me in This Is Not A Test; I liked the way OYDB utilised flashbacks, as it provided us with setups to jokes where all we knew was the punchline. Maybe it’s just because it seems to lack visual ambition. Nothing really stands out as incredible or memorable. That’s fine with silly films like MacGruber or Popstar, but OYDB is slightly more serious, so standards are higher for it. If something looks cheap or fake in MacGruber, then you can get away with that being part of the joke. You can’t do that in OYDB; it needs to have a certain level of spectacle.

That’s not to sound too discouraging; OYDB is still definitely worth a watch. Prime hasn’t exactly been overflowing with great films this year, and this is definitely among the best they’ve done so far. And if nothing else, I now want to see Samara Weaving in more films where somebody spends two hours trying to kill her. She really does take a beating remarkably well. To make a wrestling comparison: she’s 90’s HBK, or 2010’s Dolph Ziggler, only she occasionally wins.

Outcome (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A beloved Hollywood star embarks on a desperate redemption tour after a blackmail threat forces him to confront the mistakes that could destroy both his career and his sense of self.

I’m going to start this review off in a manner which I can almost guarantee no review of this movie has done, by talking about OJ Simpson. The murder of his wife (and the accusations of his involvement in her murder) haunted him to the point he felt compelled to write a book entitled “If I Did It”, which was essentially him insisting he was innocent while describing how he would have committed the crime if he had been guilty. It’s generally regarded as a really stupid and crass idea. Similarly, in 2018, in the midst of a sexual abuse scandal that would end up with him being imprisoned for 31 years, R.Kelly released a song called “I Admit”, where he “confessed” to things such as not going to church enough, with the only mention of his crimes being a denial. Which makes sense, the only evidence the world had that he was a paedophile was a rape tape he made with a minor in 2002 (which the world knew about, by the way, so fuck EVERY musician who worked with him after that date). Now, art is art, and I’m not saying musicians, writers and filmmakers should be arrested or punished for doing this. But it is in bad taste. Certain people should not make art and attempt to make money from certain subjects. That’s my big issue with Outcome. Jonah Hill should not have been involved. It feels like this may have been his way of dealing with the accusations of emotional abuse levelled at him, when he told his partner who was a surf instructor, not to surf with men, post pictures online of her in a swimsuit, or spend time with friends he didn’t approve of. I’m fully on board with people using pain and trauma for art, but it feels like he’s using other people’s trauma that involved him, rather than his own trauma. That fact overshadows everything else about the film, especially when it discusses how “the best thing to be is a victim.” If he wasn’t involved, you could look at those moments as the film mocking them, but with his involvement, it’s not difficult to view it somewhat cynically.

So, outside of that, how is Outcome? Honestly, it’s fine. It’s not horrendously bad, but it’s nothing special. Its streaming release feels appropriate. It’s the sort of film that’s worth watching on a quiet evening, but not one compelling enough to justify a trip to the cinema. It’s an interesting idea, but all it is is an idea, nothing more. The conversations between Reef and the people he may have wronged are genuinely compelling; emotive, introspective, and full of sharp characterisation. But everything connecting those scenes is surprisingly bland.

The casting of Reeves, generally known as one of the nicest people in the world, is perfect. The rest of the cast? They’re okay. You wouldn’t have guessed by watching this that Cameron Diaz was once one of the world’s biggest stars; she no longer has the effortless screen presence that once made it impossible to look away. I don’t know if it’s the performer or the character, but Reef’s assistant Sammy doesn’t suit the style, feeling like a deliberately kooky Deschanel-type, all quirks and forced performative behaviour. Martin Scorsese gives a surprisingly good performance. Everybody is aware of his talent behind the camera, but his work as a performer in this is to be admired, giving a lot of depth to what could be a pathetic character. His almost-monologue is full of pathos, emotion, and regret. You could build entire stories around that.

Ultimately, the film never quite figures out what it wants to be. Is it attempting to be a character study about someone realising he’s kind of a dick? Is it a satire about how fame is based more around PR than actual behaviour? Is it about how our expectation that celebrities should be perfect is a doomed endeavour? Or is it about how cancel culture ruins the lives of famous people? It feels like it is aiming to be all of them, so never fully commits to anything. All of those ideas are good ideas worth studying, but they never fully mesh in Outcome. Every time it looks like it’s getting deep into something, it pulls out (sex reference unintentional but I’m keeping it).

Visually, it’s fine. There are no shots which are ugly or distracting, but nothing that will make you appreciate it. When I was younger, I used to think the director’s job was very easy; you just point a camera at what’s happening and press record. That’s the approach it seems was taken to Outcome. The camera isn’t assisting the story or themes in any way. There’s very little sense that the camera is being used to tell the story, rather than simply record it. It’s just watching from nearby. This restrained approach to directing means that the weaker stretches have nothing to lean on. When the conversation dries up, there’s nothing carrying you to the next scene.

Under different circumstances, I think I’d have come away describing Outcome as an above-average streaming drama with some genuinely compelling scenes surrounded by a lot of filler. But art doesn’t exist in a vacuum, especially when it’s so easy to draw parallels between the story being told and the person telling it. Whether that’s fair or not, it’s impossible for me to separate the two, and the film never gives me enough to overcome that discomfort. It asks you to empathise with a flawed man trying to navigate the consequences of his actions, but because of who’s making that argument, it never feels like simple fiction. It feels like self-defence.

Outcome isn’t a disaster. There are moments of genuine insight, some excellent performances, particularly from Martin Scorsese, and conversations that linger long after the credits roll. But the film never develops beyond its central premise, and Jonah Hill’s involvement hangs over every scene like an elephant in the room. Maybe that’s unavoidable. Maybe that’s the point. Either way, it’s a film whose most interesting discussion happens outside the film itself.

The Odyssey (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Odysseus, the Greek king of Ithaca, undergoes a long and perilous journey home after the Trojan War and encounters mythical beings as he attempts to reunite with his wife Penelope

I don’t think I need to see another Nolan film ever again. My problems with Nolan are well documented: his scripts often lack emotion, while his dialogue somehow manages to both overexplain everything and leave you wondering what anyone actually means (as perfectly encapsulated in this video). Of course, actually hearing that dialogue has always been another challenge thanks to Nolan’s sound mixing (a problem that’s cropped up throughout his career, but reached its peak with Tenet). The result has always been films I admire more than I actually connect with.

None of that is why I don’t want to see another Nolan film. I just wanted to lull you into a false sense of security. I don’t want to see another Nolan film because The Odyssey feels like what his career has been building towards. The fragmented timelines in Dunkirk, the sense of foreboding that hangs over Oppenheimer, the manipulation of geography in Inception, his exploration of mythic heroes from Batman. Everything has been building towards this moment. Seen in retrospect, the rest of his filmography feels like practice for The Odyssey. Homer’s epic demands a filmmaker obsessed with time, perspective, spectacle and impossible journeys, qualities Nolan has spent twenty-five years refining

The internet has spent an impressive amount of time arguing about the historical accuracy of a film based on a myth. Some of it has simply been misinformation, claims that Elliot Page is playing Achilles, despite actually playing Sinos. Some of it has been uglier, with people claiming Lupita Nyong’o is “too black” to play Helen of Troy (despite being one of the most strikingly beautiful actors working today, which feels rather relevant when casting Helen). Then there’s the debate over accents, with complaints that everyone speaks in historically inaccurate American accents, rather than the obviously much more historically accurate British ones. I didn’t invent that last argument, by the way. James Hibberd of The Hollywood Reporter was so annoyed by the accents that he wrote an entire article about it, arguing that the modern British accent is “traditionally considered universally pleasing and ‘just foreign enough'” to create a timeless quality. Apparently, the ancient Greeks were just waiting for actors to discover Received Pronunciation.

However, there is one criticism that does deserve to be taken seriously: Emily Wilson’s. Especially because her 2017 translation of The Odyssey formed the basis of Nolan’s adaptation. She argues that the film simplifies Odysseus, stripping away much of the complexity of the character and leaving little to say about the major themes of Homer’s work.

From the perspective of someone who has spent years studying the text, it’s a difficult criticism to dismiss. However, there is also a difference between experiencing The Odyssey as a scholar and experiencing it as a general audience member. Wilson has pored over every word of the original, examining it through historical context and the work of other translators and academics. A filmgoer is approaching the story very differently. They are not necessarily looking for every character, or comparing every choice against centuries of interpretation; they are experiencing the story Nolan has chosen to tell.

Let’s be honest, most audience members won’t leave the cinema wondering where Queen Arete is or which elements of the poem have been omitted. As historian Tom Holland (not the actor who appears in this film) has pointed out, there is no historically accurate version of Odysseus to recreate. He is a mythical figure. An “impressionist” interpretation of ancient history is arguably more valuable than a painstaking attempt to recreate every historical detail, because such accuracy is impossible. So with that in mind, how is the film itself? As you can guess from my second paragraph, I loved it. It’s long, you can’t deny that, but every scene feels like it earns its place. There is so much mythology packed into this story that removing anything risks making the journey feel incomplete. Some stuff you’ll be familiar with (the Trojan horse, the sirens, Circe), some you won’t (I can’t say because I don’t know what you’re familiar with). The impressive thing isn’t that Nolan includes these famous moments; it’s the way he reinterprets them. The Trojan horse isn’t simply a giant wooden structure waiting to be wheeled into Troy. The song of the sirens is not a beautiful melody, but a haunting lament for everything you’ve left behind. Circe’s transformation of men into pigs is one of the most disturbing versions of that event you could hope for, helped enormously by another excellent performance from Samantha Morton. Surely an Academy Award for one of her performances is only a matter of time?

The cast is one of the film’s biggest strengths. There are no real weak links. Robert Pattinson gives a deliciously sleazy performance that will make your skin crawl, somehow making every appearance both entertaining and deeply uncomfortable. Matt Damon is perfectly cast, and not just because this is another film where he spends the story desperately trying to get home. Somehow, that has become his very specific niche. As said earlier, Samantha Morton is excellent as Circe, bringing a genuinely unsettling quality to a character who could easily have become just another stop on Odysseus’ journey. The only criticism you can really make of Tom Holland is that his babyface means he doesn’t quite look like a 30-year-old, but that is hardly a fault with his performance.

Visually, this might be Nolan at his most impressive. Polyphemus the cyclops looks genuinely monstrous; the way he kills Odysseus’ soldiers brings to mind Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son, not simply because of the violence, but because of the sense of something ancient and unstoppable consuming something helpless. The Laestrygonians are similarly nightmarish, not only because of their size, but because of the way they manipulate the landscape itself to trap and kill their victims.

This makes it the perfect opportunity to talk about one of Nolan’s greatest strengths: his understanding of scale. A low angle alone does not make something feel enormous; the audience needs something familiar beside it for comparison. This is partly why I think Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire did not work as well as it could have. The monsters were huge, but the films rarely gave us a true sense of that size. Nolan understands that difference. Here, everything that is supposed to feel massive actually does, from the mythological creatures to the buildings, landscapes, and entire worlds they inhabit.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about The Odyssey is not what Nolan builds, but what he allows us to see. The film takes us across coastlines, mountains and islands that feel almost untouched by time, and Nolan is confident enough to simply let them exist. The scenery becomes almost another character, shaping the journey as much as the people within it. Each location represents another stage of Odysseus’ journey, not just geographically but emotionally, giving the entire film a sense of scale and reality that artificial environments often struggle to replicate.

These are not historical places recreated for the camera. They are places that existed before the film and will continue to exist afterwards. Every mountain, coastline and cave has texture and history, making the journey feel less like a series of movie sets and more like an actual voyage across an ancient world.

For all Nolan’s strengths, emotion remains his greatest weakness. There is emotion here, but it comes mainly from the performances rather than the writing. The actors create feelings that the script itself rarely manages to reach. There are moments that should be devastating, but they are presented with such clinical precision that you end up more impressed than affected by what you are seeing. You understand what the characters are feeling, but you remain outside the experience rather than being pulled into it. There is an emotional distance between the audience and both the characters and the story.

The closest the film gets is near the end, when the fall of Troy is presented not as the glorious conclusion of an epic, but as what it actually was: the destruction of a city and a war crime. Even then, however, it does not have quite the impact it should. It is brutal, but in a film where soldiers are killed by living trees, transformed into pigs, or have their heads bitten off by monsters, the human horrors of war somehow feel strangely tame in comparison. You cannot present something as the tragedy that reshaped a civilisation if the audience does not feel its weight more than the fantastical violence surrounding it.

I meant what I said at the beginning: I don’t need to see another Nolan film. Not because I have lost interest, but because I genuinely cannot see how he could top this. The Odyssey feels like the culmination of everything he has spent his career working towards. Every other film now feels like a filmmaker refining the tools he would eventually need for this. Every obsession, every stylistic quirk, and every technical innovation finds the perfect material to justify itself.

I cannot imagine another Nolan film topping this because I cannot imagine another story that suits him quite this perfectly. But I hope I’m wrong. Because if Nolan somehow manages to surpass this, then we will have another one of my favourite films to add to the list.

Little Brother (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Rudd Landry (played by John Cena) has a thriving real estate career, a wife/kids, a killer physique, and a chance to be on a reality TV show. But he has two problems: Josh (Christopher Meloni), his actual brother, who overshadows him. And Marcus (Eric Andre), his “little brother”, someone he mentored as part of a Big Brother program in college.

I’ll start with performances. I will always love seeing Sherry Cola and John Cena in films. Cena, in particular, has quietly become a really dependable comedic lead. For someone who was known in his wrestling career for showing his work (often shouting instructions so loudly that people in the back row could hear) and for being unable to take things seriously, it’s weird that his film comedy style is based mainly on being the straight man. He’d be great in an action movie parody in the style of Naked Gun. Christina Catechis gives a fun performance, reminds me of Grace Parra. No idea who the woman who is territorial about her window is, but I love her. Eric André can be brilliant, but he can also be exhausting.

That’s definitely the case here. He’s the central part of the emotional story arc, yet his personality makes that emotional arc far less effective than it should be. The audience doesn’t buy into him as someone worth the emotion. He’s not misunderstood, or troubled, or someone who’s a bit rough around the edges but is generally a lovely person. He’s kind of a selfish dick with no idea of societal expectations. Not in a “With multiple options for cutlery, move from the outside in as you go through the meal” way, this is “don’t piss out of a car window, dent someone’s car, or swear at strangers”. This isn’t Jack Black in most films; this is Jack Black in School of Rock. Someone you’re supposed to support, but is too immature and self-destructive to really care about.

That’s ultimately the film’s biggest problem. We’re supposed to care about Marcus, but it never does the work to make him someone you’d actually want to spend time with. Chaotic energy isn’t a substitute for likeability, no matter what the parents of toddlers tell you. You absolutely can build a comedy around an abrasive protagonist, but the audience needs to understand where that abrasiveness comes from. Otherwise, he’s just a dick. I never felt sorry for Marcus. I felt sorry for everyone who had to deal with him.

Rudd’s older brother Josh is a more believable character, but arguably an even less likeable one. He seems completely oblivious to Rudd’s admiration and feelings of inadequacy, yet there are moments where he almost appears to go out of his way to antagonise him. And the voice box gag at the end is simply too stupid for words.

Thankfully, Cena’s Rudd keeps everything grounded. He could easily have become the sort of bland straight man who exists purely to react while everyone else gets the jokes. Instead, the writing gives him enough warmth and frustration that he feels like a real person. The emotional core only works because Rudd behaves like a human being rather than a plot device. He gets annoyed, he occasionally snaps, but he keeps trying. Cena has become surprisingly adept at playing characters whose defining trait is patience rather than charisma, and that’s a much harder job in comedy than simply being the loudest person in the room.

The important question, though, is whether it’s funny.

Yes. It is.

There are plenty of genuine laughs throughout. Nothing groundbreaking or unforgettable, but enough to keep the film entertaining. Although it leans heavily on Eric André’s trademark chaos, it also has the good sense to avoid some of the more obvious, low-hanging dialogue jokes.

The ending, though, is bizarre. I’m used to films continuing the story during the credits, showing where the characters end up. I’m also used to films filling the credits with bloopers and outtakes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film try to do both simultaneously. Not one after the other, either. Instead, it constantly cuts between story epilogues and behind-the-scenes outtakes, forcing your brain to keep recalibrating whether what you’re watching is part of the narrative or just the cast messing around. It feels oddly amateurish and neatly sums up my biggest issue with the film: the comedy keeps getting in its own way.

That’s a strange criticism to level at a comedy. I’m not saying it shouldn’t have jokes. I’m saying it’s so desperate to remind you it’s a comedy that it often sabotages itself. Whenever the film starts building a genuinely engaging scene, it feels compelled to interrupt it with another improvised tangent or burst of randomness. Sometimes that works. Just as often, it kills the momentum and undercuts whatever emotional weight the scene was beginning to build.

That’s a shame, because there’s a better film buried underneath. The central relationship is strong enough to carry the story without constantly winking at the audience. None of that makes it a bad watch. It’s breezy, consistently entertaining, and never feels like it’s wasting your time. It just never quite figures out when to stop chasing the next laugh and let the ones it’s already earned breathe. Ironically, by trying so hard to be funny, it sometimes undercuts the humour that’s already there.

It’s an enjoyable comedy rather than a memorable one. You’ll laugh, you’ll probably forget most of it by next week, but for nearly one hundred or so minutes it does enough to justify its existence. Plus, it contains more Hoobastank than any other film released this year.

Apex (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Mourning the death of her partner, Sasha travels around the Outback, finding herself being hunted by Ben, a cannibalistic serial killer.

Four years ago, I reviewed Beast, another film by Baltasar Kormákur that was about someone being hunted in a landscape. In that review, I specifically mentioned how great it looked, and how great a cinema experience it was. So I was sceptical that this was released straight to Netflix, doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence. I mean, it still looks pretty. But that might be due to the landscape doing half the work for him.

I need to open this review by talking about Australian actors. I mean, they must exist otherwise Home and Away wouldn’t have lasted as long as it did, so why cast a Welsh actor to play Ben? To be fair, they do touch on it, making it clear he wasn’t born there. But he tries an accent for most of it, so he’s supposed to be, at the very least, naturalised. It almost feels like the “You’re not from here, are you?” line was added after someone noticed the accent slipping. The only way it works is if it’s his gimmick, that he’s overexaggerating his Australian nature as part of his “public persona” for some reason, I dunno, because it’s “crazy” and wacky? That would suit the rest of his character. He is definitely supposed to be crazy. But it doesn’t work. It’s like the character isn’t sure if he’s supposed to be Heath Ledgers Joker, or the villain from a 90’s Saturday morning kids cartoon, and not even a good one. Every scene has him narratively screaming, “Look at how crazy I am!” rather than simply letting him be frightening. It’s annoying and kind of distracting, feeling like the character itself is going overboard, rather than the actor. The best screen killers don’t need to constantly advertise their insanity. Michael Myers barely emotes. Anton Chigurh speaks almost conversationally. Even Mick Taylor (watching the Kill Count video for Wolf Creek as I write this), another Australian outback killer, is terrifying because he feels like someone who could actually exist. The villain in Apex feels like someone doing an impression of what a movie psychopath is supposed to look like.

That’s not the only thing harming him as a character. For a serial killer, he doesn’t do much killing. Two people (I think) died in this movie; both died in the exact same way, killed by the protagonist. The antagonist apparently has a history of murdering people, but the audience barely gets to see him do it. We’re told he’s dangerous, but storytelling generally works better when you show these things. By the end, gravity has claimed more victims than the serial killer.

That’s a problem.

It’s like making a Friday The 13th movie where everyone dies in a bus crash. Eventually you stop worrying about the villain and start keeping an eye on the terrain. There’s an obvious rewrite staring the film in the face. Make him an Outback tour guide. It’s perfect. Tourists trust him. He knows the landscape better than anyone else. He can separate people from the group without raising suspicion. Better still, we get to see him operating before the protagonist becomes his target. We understand why he’s dangerous because we’ve watched him be dangerous. So, when he meets someone who refuses to become another victim, we’ve already bought into him as a threat.

Instead, the film spends most of its running time trapped in a hostage scenario rather than delivering the hunt it advertises. The premise promises a predator tracking prey across the Australian wilderness. What we actually get is people being stuck somewhere while the plot periodically remembers there’s supposed to be danger involved.

This is a shame, because buried under the clichés is a genuinely interesting premise. Imagine spending your life preying on easy victims, only to discover this one keeps surviving everything you throw at them. The hunter slowly becomes frustrated. The prey grows more confident. Suddenly the balance of power shifts. That’s a film. Instead, Apex never really commits to that dynamic. Scenes happen, and large stretches of the film simply wash over you. Rather than a tense game of cat and mouse, it often feels like everyone is just waiting for the next location. Also, because the cast is so small, narrative convention tells you neither character is going anywhere until the climax.

The result is a thriller that never quite finds its pulse. It’s never aggressively bad. It’s too well-shot for that, and the scenery genuinely is spectacular. But almost every interesting idea feels like it’s sitting in the draft immediately underneath the one that got filmed.

You can see the better version peeking through the cracks. But I don’t want to spend my time peering at cracks, I risk getting put on a list for that.

Evil Dead Burn (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: After the loss of her husband, a grieving widow seeks solace with her in-laws in their remote family home, only to find them possessed one by one by Deadites, forcing her into a blood-soaked fight for survival against demonic evil.

I’ve not watched an Evil Dead film since Army Of Darkness. I like to watch series in order, and I didn’t see the original until Halloween 2024. So I’m two movies and a three-season television show behind. There’s quite a fair bit of lore in this franchise, so there was a chance I’d be lost.I was, briefly. At the start, I found myself wondering who certain people were, but truthfully, it didn’t actually matter. I didn’t need to know who it was; the important thing was WHAT they were: deadites.

The franchise is weirdly regarded as comedic, despite that comedy only really coming to the forefront in Army Of Darkness; the rest have had moments of comedy, but first and foremost, they have always been horror (unless you find the idea of a tree sexually assaulting a young woman funny, in which case, ew). In that sense, EDB (EBD, pronounced Ee-deeb) is a huge success. It’s incredibly disturbing. I worried it would mistake cruelty for horror in the same way some horror films have (hello Thanksgiving, and the work of Rob Zombie), but thankfully it doesn’t. For one thing, you never get the sense that you’re supposed to cheer or revel in the violence. It fills you with fear, which is what a horror film should do.

EDB isn’t just violence; it also brings tension to the table, specifically the dinner table, where one of the year’s most tense scenes takes place. I’ve not exactly been quiet in my love of dinner scenes in movies, and EDB has a great one. The tension builds beautifully. You know something will happen. There are too many shots of heavy and/or sharp objects for something not to happen. But what it will do is it will get close, then draw back. So you’re relieved; the nightmare is over. But then it starts again, getting more tense this time, then quiets down. It repeats this until your nerves are at their breaking point. By the time the inevitable explosion of violence arrives, the film has earned every second of it.

It’s helped by having believable characters. These aren’t characters; they feel like real people. You could easily imagine them existing outside of a horror movie. They clearly have a history together. This is great as it means there’s an emotional resonance to the actions. You’re not just watching people die and be physically harmed. You’re watching family relationships get broken, trust be shattered, moments where the emotional pain cuts almost as deep as the physical. When Alice (played brilliantly by Souheilia Yacoub) is being hunted at the end, you’re not bored; you’re nervous. You want her to stop suffering, you want her to survive, not just because she’s the protagonist and that’s what’s supposed to happen, but because you’ve grown so attached to her that she feels like a friend. That’s the case for everybody in this film. Even if you don’t like them (and some are truly despicable), you understand their motivations. They’re all played by good actors too. There’s not a single weak link; everybody is on top form. EDB benefits from an unusually small central cast. Yes, technically the cast list is much larger, but most of those characters only appear in the opening and closing scenes. The overwhelming majority of the film unfolds with just six people trapped inside a single house, giving it an intimate, claustrophobic quality that suits the story perfectly.

In fact, I think you could have set almost the entire film within the grounds of the house. You’d need a few flashbacks and some narrative adjustments to cover what happens around the funeral, but it would work. It would also strengthen the parallels with the original, replacing the isolated cabin with the isolated lakehouse.

Not everything works, though. Susan’s capitulation to Edgar doesn’t quite feel real. By that point, she’s already seen what he’s become, so she has every reason not to open the door. I understand what the film is trying to achieve dramatically, but it makes her seem inexplicably foolish. Narratively, she threw a bag full of knives out a window and expects us to believe she’s shocked that those knives stabbed someone.

That’s not my only criticism. I mentioned earlier how the dinner party kept pulling back the tension only to build it up further. It tries that again near the end of the film, but pushes it a bit too far. There are multiple times where we’re given the film language of “this will end soon”, only to have another scene start. The ending is not bad, but it does definitely feel like the end of a rollercoaster where the thrills are over, and you can feel the brakes being put on.

I was also less enthusiastic about some of the visual choices. None of them looks bad (in fact, the film is consistently gorgeous), but there are moments where it feels as though individual shots were designed to look striking in a trailer rather than serve the story as effectively as they could.

The score is similarly effective without ever becoming particularly memorable. The sound design, however, is exceptional. It works hand in hand with the visuals to make every injury feel revoltingly tangible. Weapons don’t pass silently through flesh; you hear skin tearing, bones cracking and bodies breaking. It’s deeply unpleasant in exactly the way the film intends.

Those are minor quibbles. It’s otherwise a damn solid horror movie. It’s not quite as good as Backrooms, which remains my horror film of the year, but it’s comfortably one of the best genre offerings I’ve seen in 2026. More importantly, it understands what horror is actually supposed to do. Too many modern horror films mistake cruelty for fear, or assume gallons of blood automatically make something intense. EDB knows that gore without context is just noise. Every gruesome moment works because it’s rooted in believable characters and emotionally grounded situations, however supernatural they become. The violence isn’t there to earn applause; it’s there to make you flinch.

Overall, I love it. Even coming into the film without all the intervening lore, EDB reminded me why Evil Dead has endured for over forty years: beneath all the blood and possession is an understanding that horror only works when you care who’s suffering. I’m already excited for the next one (and to catch up on the ones I’ve missed).

Minions And Monsters (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Those annoying little yellow shits that you may know from memes your relatives post on Facebook decide to make a movie.

As I sometimes do with sequels, I’m going to post a segment from my review of the previous movie, this time, 2022’s Minions: The Rise Of Gru:

I was ready to slate this; I was ready to come down on this harder than the next UK Prime Minister comes down on an unemployed person not applying for jobs in their sleep. I was going to use every insult that exists, and a few that I made up just to express my anger at this film.

But then it ruined my plans by having the audacity, the sheer gall, to actually be okay. How very dare you! I mean, it’s not going to end up on my “best of 2021” list, mainly because it’s 2022, but also because the best it ever gets is “okay”. I’ll admit, I’m not a huge fan of the franchise; I think it’s because it’s basically old Buster Keaton skits, but in animation so there’s no sense of danger or risk. There’s also always the sneaking suspicion that it’s a merchandise-driven series rather than a creative one. It’s strange as it’s when this film links to the others in the franchise that it’s at its weakest. The timeline doesn’t line up AT ALL with the first Minions film, and when it makes references to the other films it falls flat, and like every prequel ever made has moments where the audience reacts with “what a useful skill/gadget, that would have been useful in [scene in a film made earlier but chronologically takes place later]”.

I try to keep politics out of reviews unnecessarily, but I have to commend Minions and Monsters (MAM) for allowing me to use less energy by recycling my own review. Hashtag, we only have one planet. Really, the only thing I would change from that review to make it applicable to this is remove the year 2022. Everything else is still accurate. It’s still a franchise that feels like it was conceived as a series of Happy Meal toys rather than a movie, with all the continuity of a drunk person explaining the Halloween franchise. In my review of Black Phone 2, I said: “As a stand-alone film, it’s pretty good, as a sequel, it’s a mess”. MAM is similar; the weakest parts are when it remembers it’s a Minions movie.

One sentence from that earlier review rings a lot more true this time: the Buster Keaton comparisons. Parts of MAM don’t just resemble a Keaton short; there are a few parts where it grabs you by the shoulders and tries to sell you a box set of his greatest hits, so much so that it feels like he should appear in the credits under “special thanks”. I watch a lot of films that people would describe as pretentious, and I can’t remember the last time I saw any film (let alone a mainstream animated film featuring yellow kidney beans) craft such a heartfelt love letter to silent movies. I’m used to animated films putting in references for adults, but even the parents would be too young for a lot of these references. Is there a crossover between “people who watch Minions” and “People who would recognise a reference to the 1902 Georges Méliès A Trip To The Moon”? That fills me with hope. Because it means that there’s a chance a kid will watch those scenes and then catch a glimpse of one of the original works, and be inspired to look into it, and find themselves falling in love with silent cinema.

Don’t worry, though. It doesn’t stay classy for too long.

Much like the introduction of talkies killed silent cinema, the introduction of them into the plot of MAM also kills any sense of originality, and it quickly becomes more of the same. Goomi, the tiny Cthulhu from the trailer, is introduced more than halfway through the movie. So he’s the villain? Nope, after more shtick than you shake a stick at, he gets them to free two sea monsters who are intent on taking over the world and destroying everything. So they’re the big villain? Nope. After more narrative faffing around, the three monsters summon Irene, a large orange blob monster with more eyes than a narcissist’s diary (that joke only works when you say it out loud, but I’m sticking with it). She appears, has one moment of chaos, then is destroyed by an alien who’s flanked by minions in a spacecraft. There are throwaway jokes longer than the villain’s appearance in this movie.

It’s like watching a relay race where every runner immediately hands the baton to someone else because none of them actually want the responsibility of being the antagonist. Every time the film introduces what you think is going to be the threat, it immediately goes, “Actually, no, THIS is the threat.” By the end, it’s burned through more villains than an arsonist superhero; you half expect the closing credits to reveal there was another one waiting in the car park.

I will say this: Minions is very rarely boring. Something is always happening, even if that something doesn’t advance the plot at all and is just the narrative equivalent of jingling keys around. It never builds towards anything; there’s no natural progression, it’s just a series of stuff happening. The closing section is not just bad; it’s disappointing. Worse than that, it’s generic. None of it is unique or memorable.

Which is why the silent cinema sections stand out even more. They feel like they belong to a different film entirely, one made by people passionately paying tribute to the history of cinema rather than fulfilling a contractual obligation to set up the next line of plush toys. If the entire film had committed to that style, this could have been one of Illumination’s most interesting projects. Instead, it eventually remembers it’s supposed to be a Minions movie, panics, and throws every monster, spaceship and glowing MacGuffin it can find at the screen until the credits arrive.

Now onto the closing scene and the credits. The closing scene reveals that the entire movie (including the framing device) is actually a film-within-a-film, directed by James and Henry, two of the minions from this movie. Oh yeah, the minions in this are different from the ones in the previous movies. Same species, different characters, that all happen to look exactly the same, have similar mannerisms, and wear similar clothes. So, none of the events of this movie happened? Fine, I’ll go along with that. But then the closing credits reveal that the magic book is real. It’s less “twist”, and more “different writers took a scene each and didn’t collaborate to make sure their visions lined up”. So did the events happen or not? The film seems to want to have it both ways: if you point out that at no point in this franchise has anybody realised that Gru’s minions look like a similar species that appeared in multiple films from the 20’s, then “it didn’t happen, it’s just a movie”, but for the sake of some mid-credits jokes, it definitely happened.

There’s another small problem I have, not just with this movie, but the franchise as a whole. It doesn’t really feel like they want to help villains. They say they do; they act as if their main motivation is to help evil and enslave humanity. But most of the time their actions don’t align with that. For one thing, they stop the runaway train from running people over. If they were truly evil, wouldn’t they have welcomed it? The franchise never treats them as the villains it tells us they are; they are only ever heroic.

Ultimately, Pierre Coffin’s biggest mistake with this Minions movie was making it a Minions movie. If it belonged to an original franchise, then it wouldn’t have needed to fall apart in the final third to live up to expectations, and it wouldn’t have needed to tie itself in knots to stay in continuity.

I suppose that’s enough about the writing. How about the technical aspects? They’re more difficult to judge. The lighting, colours and character animation are perfectly competent, but there’s never a shot that makes you stop and admire it. There’s nothing visually exciting about it. Also, the music doesn’t stand out at all. It’s not that the visuals or the score are bad, but they both feel as if they had no love put into them. There’s no flair, no style, and no substance. Ironically, the only sections with any visual personality are the ones borrowing techniques from filmmakers working over a century ago. That’s a shame, because the film leaves so much on the table. If it had committed to the silent movie motif, the score could have become one of its strongest assets. There’s a moment where a shark attacks the minions; imagine how much more memorable that sequence would have been with an old-fashioned reimagining of the Jaws theme.

Fans of the franchise will enjoy it, and the section set in old Hollywood is something worth not just admiring, but studying. But it doesn’t matter how delicious a steak meal is if the dessert is a literal steaming pile of shit.

The Invite (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A struggling married couple’s dinner with their free-spirited neighbours spirals into a provocative night of awkward revelations that forces them to confront the cracks in their relationship.

I love dinner parties in movies. They’re so fun to watch because they naturally allow group conversation, and there are certain unspoken etiquette rules that are always entertaining to watch get broken. If you want to expose your characters’ conflicts, put them around a dinner table and let what happens happen. The Invite takes that idea and makes it the entire concept.

It’s an English-language adaptation of the 2020 Spanish film The People Upstairs. It’s fairly obvious this is a remake of a non-American film. There’s something about it that feels slightly unconventional. It’s not just that it’s a summer movie driven by characters and dialogue rather than big action setpieces. It kind of feels like the cinematic equivalent of ordering food in a foreign country by speaking English with an accent. Familiar enough to understand, but just different enough to feel a little strange.

That sense of oddness is backed up by Olivia Wilde’s directing style. It’s incredibly static, with some weird blocking choices. Sometimes it feels like a play that we’re watching from the audience, sometimes it feels like someone just plonked a camera down randomly with no thought or care, and other times there’s a voyeuristic quality, as if we’ve wandered into a private argument we shouldn’t be witnessing. With that in mind, it’s difficult to criticise the film too harshly on a technical level because it’s clearly not trying to impress with flashy filmmaking. It’s aiming for a naturalistic style that occasionally feels awkward, but intentionally so.

What will chiefly inform your opinion on The Invite is the characters and the dialogue. The audience I saw it with loved it, and it’s easy to see why: it’s incredibly funny at times, with some truly incredible dialogue, and a cast who clearly enjoy bouncing off one another. The conversations have an energy that keeps scenes engaging even when very little is happening. That’s the issue, though: very little does happen. There’s almost no narrative progression for most of the runtime. Rather than pushing the characters into new emotional territory, the film spends much of its time having them elaborate on feelings they’ve already expressed. To be honest, it spends most of it catching up with the trailer. I’ve seen the trailer; I know this film involves the neighbours proposing group sex. I assumed that would be the inciting incident and it would lead to things. Instead, it’s the destination, and it’s a destination the film takes far too long getting to.

That lack of progression also affects the central relationship. Joe and Angela don’t feel like real people so much as vehicles for clever dialogue. Every conversation is packed with witty observations, but it rarely feels spontaneous or lived-in. Also, there was no warmth to the relationship between the two main characters. I understand that the point is they’re trapped in a loveless marriage fuelled by resentment, too afraid to admit it’s over. That doesn’t mean spending nearly two hours with them becomes any easier. I kept waiting for just one moment of genuine warmth, some glimpse of why these two people fell in love in the first place. There’s a brief moment where it seems they might unite against the bickering of the other couple, but it disappears almost as quickly as it arrives.

That lack of warmth really hampers the ending. Joe finally returns to the piano, Angela joins him, and they seem to reconcile. It’s a sweet scene in isolation, but after nearly two hours of anger, bitterness and emotional distance, it feels too small to justify such a dramatic shift. It’s like trying to fix a leg amputation with a piece of sellotape.

For all my issues, there is still a lot to enjoy about The Invite. Beneath all the bitterness is an impactful look at people and keeping the spark alive in long-term relationships. For a film that’s so bitter, it just may save the relationship of someone watching. They may see it and be inspired to try more, to treat their partner with love, to keep wooing them and trying to impress them instead of confusing stability for fulfilment. The ensemble also works well as a true four-hander, with every actor getting plenty to do. Although, interestingly, despite having a female director and co-writer, the film subtly privileges Joe’s perspective. He’s the only character we spend meaningful time with alone, and the only one we follow outside the apartment. It’s a small imbalance, but one that makes the supposedly shared story feel slightly weighted towards him.

I won’t begrudge anybody enjoying this. Mainly because being annoyed at someone for their film opinions would be weird. Maybe a younger, more cynical me would have loved this. It will find its audience, of that I’m certain. But I’m not part of that audience. I appreciate what it’s trying to do, but it never quite invited me in.

Saipan (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A recreation of the Saipan incident involving the Republic Of Ireland national team during the 2002 World Cup. If those words mean nothing to you, this film isn’t for you.

The last football movie I watched was Balls Up. That movie was fucking terrible. All Saipan had to do was be better than that. Obviously it managed that; if it hadn’t, you wouldn’t be reading this; you’d be reading a news headline saying “Makers of film attacked by a crazed/idiot reviewer”.

That’s not to say it’s a fantastic watch. For all its faults (of which there were many), at least Balls Up was memorable (except for the title, because I’m still not 100% on whether it’s called Balls Up or Balls Out). Saipan isn’t. It won’t move you, teach you, or linger in the memory. It’s just there. It’s the film equivalent of the 90’s song Save Tonight, by Eagle Eye Cherry. In the moment, you’ll enjoy it, and it’s hard to find many faults. But it won’t take long for memories and warm feelings to fade. That’s both a positive and a negative. Saipan never embarrasses itself. You never sit there bored, or annoyed. But it also never threatens to become anything more than “just okay”.

On the face of it, it rivals Seinfeld for being a piece of media about nothing. I mean, really. “A footballer shouts at his boss and quits mid-tournament” doesn’t sound like the sort of event that legends are built around. Nobody was physically harmed. Nothing was damaged. Ireland came second in their group (eventual finalists Germany topped the group), and ended up going out of the tournament on penalties to a Spain side that were on the cusp of being one of the greatest international teams of all time. There’s no Sliding Doors “but what would have happened if he stayed?” alternate history. All that would have changed is how they played, the final result wouldn’t change.

But that’s missing the point somewhat. It’s not just about that incident. It’s about professionalism, national identity, and personal pride. The reason the incident dominated headlines wasn’t because of what happened; it was because of what people thought it meant. There’s no clear-cut right-and-wrong side. To some people, Roy Keane was a selfish egotist who had no idea how to be part of a team. But to others, he was a perfectionist who refused to lower his standards and was extremely disappointed when it seemed like everybody else wasn’t taking the tournament seriously. To some, Mick McCarthy was a realist, attempting to deal with an egotist (Keane) who was being encouraged by his club manager to treat the international team. Whereas to others, he was woefully out of his depth, weak, and should have never got hired in the first place.

Saipan understands this. It doesn’t portray either side as wrong. They’re both right, but they’re having different arguments. I genuinely have no idea where the writers or directors stand on the issue. The script is impressively neutral. Perhaps that’s because all the principal figures are still alive and theoretically capable of hiring lawyers, but whatever the reason, it works. The film trusts the audience to make up their own minds.

There are a few issues. The main one is that Eanna Hardwicke looks nothing like Roy Keane. That, in of itself, isn’t an issue. Michael Sheen has shown time and time again that it’s more important to capture personality than accuracy. And it wouldn’t be an issue here if it wasn’t for one thing: the film opens with a montage featuring the real Roy Keane multiple times, repeatedly reminding the audience what he actually looks like before cutting to an actor who bears very little resemblance to him. It’s an odd decision. Why not keep Keane at arm’s length at first? Show him from behind, in silhouette, or at a distance. Build up the myth before revealing the actor. Instead, the film practically invites the comparison, and it’s an invitation that you can’t receive well.

The other issue is that it doesn’t do enough to explain why any of this mattered.

The film assumes a certain level of prior knowledge and doesn’t spend much time bringing newcomers up to speed. Non-football fans will still understand the basic facts. They’ll grasp the what and the when. But I’m not convinced they’ll fully understand the why. Which is a shame, as the why is the most important part.

Ultimately, it feels like a TV drama, albeit a very good one. It’s consistently engaging, well-acted, and intelligently written. It’s also surprisingly difficult to feel strongly about. The real incident sparked years of anger, debate, and discussion. I don’t think it’s particularly cruel to suggest that the film probably won’t. That sounds harsher than I intend it to. I’d still recommend it. It’s a solid, thoughtful piece of filmmaking that treats its subject with far more nuance than I expected. I’d say you should watch it, but watch it with someone who remembers the actual event. You might find their talks as every bit as interesting as the film itself.

Passenger (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A travelling couple are haunted by what’s essentially a hitchhiking demon.

The last André Øvredal film I reviewed was Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark back in 2019. I thoroughly enjoyed that, although I was surprised by it because I assumed it would be more kid-friendly/my first horror. I’ve also heard very good things about The Autopsy Of Jane Doe, The Last Voyage Of The Demeter, and Trollhunter, with all three of them being on my list to watch. I didn’t love Passenger, but it didn’t dampen my enthusiasm for his work. The most interesting things about Passenger are the things he brings to it. It’s far more visually interesting than similar films; at times, it’s close to art. Disappointingly, it does dip into the “random face jumps at the camera” scares, which are cliché to the point of boredom. Weirdly, there are times when I think it does a bit too much. Some scares are heavily signposted, and maybe it would have been better if they were a bit more subtle. The perfect example of this is a scene where Maddie (played by Lou Llobell) is trying to get to the van. She hears a noise and turns to look at the source, then turns back, and the van is further away. There are dramatic scare chords accompanying this happening. Personally, I would have liked it to be a bit more subtle, so the audience had to pay attention, putting them in the same place as the character: wondering if it is actually further away, or if her mind is playing tricks on her.

I didn’t know that much about Passenger. I saw the trailer months ago, but for some reason, the trailer wasn’t available online at the time, so I haven’t watched it again. I mainly remember it focusing on someone driving and seeing the same figure again and again by the side of the road. That kind of intrigued me, but I was curious as to how that could extend to a feature-length film. I mean, how can you get 90 minutes of someone driving and NOT picking up a hitchhiker? So I was doubtful it would have enough meat on its narrative bones. Good news, that’s not what the film is about. Bad news, it still doesn’t have enough meat. The main characters are cursed because they decide to stop their car (which kind of seems like this film is saying that stopping to help people is a bad thing and should be avoided, but what do I know?). So it’s somewhat ironic that the film itself keeps stopping. Weirdly, those are the parts of the film I think worked best. There’s an incredible scene where the two are watching Roman Holiday on a projector in the woods. It’s very sweet, the scares are subtle enough that they gradually build, and there’s actual tension. But then they get back into the van, and it turns into visual noise.

In contrast, the dumbest part is when they’re in the van and time suddenly skips forward to night. The set-up for this is that the entity is powerful at night and weakened during the day, so the characters think they’re safe in the day, but that safety is disrupted by the time skip. I would argue that manipulating time in such a manner requires immense supernatural power, much more than it would take to, say, loosen a wheel and cause a car crash. Or did he just make them fall asleep for that long? If that’s the case, why not kill or hurt them then? Also, why wake them up? They’re heading to the church of Saint Christopher, patron saint of travellers and the only place where someone would stand a chance of killing the entity. The characters don’t know where it is, so they have to look out for symbols and clues to try and find it. The characters appear to have travelled in the missing time. Here’s my issue: the demon wakes them up BEFORE they get a sign with a symbol on that tells them where the church is. If he can only timeskip a certain number of hours, why not wait until they’ve travelled a few more hours, THEN jump ahead so that they unknowingly drive past the only clue that’s visible from the roadside? They might have even taken the wrong exit and ended up avoiding it entirely. If anything, he got them closer towards it. He’s a video game boss who just happens to have the only weapon that defeats him in the hallway outside his dungeon.

On the upside, the lore is fantastic. It FEELS like a genuine urban legend. Specifically, an American one. It appears to be based on a few different ones rather than a single one. But when you watch it, it feels real, like the kind of thing travellers will tell each other. I’d have loved to have seen this as part of another movie, where we see new urban legends get told. But as a full movie? There’s just not enough to it to justify it. It says a lot that the best scares and most memorable scenes were all ones that could have come from any movie, not many that are unique to a road trip horror.