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THE CAST –  N/A

THE TEAM – Adrian McCarthy (Director) & Brenda Morrissey (Co-Director)

THE RUNNING TIME – 105 Minutes

There are plenty of documentaries about tragedies, many of which have the primary purpose of either bringing greater awareness to an underdiscussed event or illuminating aspects of well-known happenings. “Whiddy,” the new documentary by Adrian McCarthy and co-director Brenda Morrissey sits somewhere in the middle. Recounting everything that led up to the 1979 Whiddy Island disaster, it tells a story that’s infamous to those who were – and continue to be – directly affected by it, but has been overshadowed internationally by continually and increasingly irresponsible acts by oil companies. But what makes “Whiddy” so effective is the directors’ approach, which frames and depicts the true life story as something of a cautionary nightmare. Thanks to the power of editing and wisely curated archival material, “Whiddy” puts viewers in the overwhelming headspace of the locals of Bantry Bay, making the audience feel just as consumed by the catastrophe and irreversible damage that affects the area to this day.

Whiddy Island sits within Bantry Bay, off the southwest coast of Ireland. As the film’s opening montage shows, the tiny island was once home to a small but industrious collection of fishers and farmers. But as is quickly explained, that changed starting in the late 1960s with the arrival of Gulf Oil, which, trying to find a way to distribute oil to Europe despite the then-closed Suez Canal (history really does repeat itself), aimed to construct a large oil terminal there. This would serve as a stopping point for supertankers departing the Middle East, which would then deposit their product to be disseminated on the European mainland. The filmmakers sow seeds of anxiety immediately, with early quotes from locals and their descendants that foreshadow the disaster that will be discussed later in the film (one interviewee offers the chilling preview, “I’d never seen melted steel before”).

At first, the arrival of Gulf was seen as a blessing – an economic shot in the arm that would potentially bring both prosperity and attention to the area. But even during the well-chosen newsreel footage of smiling, celebratory residents, the filmmakers keep a foreboding tension simmering underneath. This is thanks in large part to the excellent, unsettling score by Paul Hartnoll. Making heavy use of synths, the music gives the entire film a feeling of impending doom and adds a level of tragic irony to any instances of optimism about Gulf’s invasion of the bay. In the edit, the directors also frequently invert their footage to its negative – a simple but effective trick that immediately flips the tone of whatever’s being shown into the ominous or emphasizes the horror of upsetting footage (although at times, the use of this visual flourish feels excessive).

But despite the obvious foreknowledge that comes with telling a story nearly half a century after it occurred, McCarthy and Morrissey (the latter also serves as the film’s editor) smartly unspool the tale of Gulf on Whiddy in chronological order, while still allowing modern day commentary to give context to the impressive collection of historic visual material. Although the 1979 disaster shook the country, as the film shows, it was hardly the first time that something calamitous occurred there. The documentary highlights two major oil spills that happened in the bay, which should’ve served as warning signs as to the danger and negligence that are all too common in the oil industry.

The recounting of the specifics of the most famous disaster to occur at Whiddy is done with reverence for the loss suffered and derisive scorn for all that led to it. In January of 1979, the French oil tanker named Betelgeuse exploded in the bay, near Whiddy Island’s jetty. The ship cracked in half, a massive fire was started, and ultimately, the lives of 50 people were claimed. The film’s directors keep the damage in horrifying perspective, highlighting not only the immediate victims but the ripple effects of the event. Most notably, the human toll of the disaster extended beyond the 50 lives lost, as it led to dozens more broken families and orphans. McCarthy and Morrissey emphasize the complete wastefulness of the incident with the cynical tone that they infuse into the documentary. As they highlight, preventive measures were avoided in favor of cost-saving, ignorant decisions, such as the idea to make the island only accessible by a singular, small boat – although there was once a bridge to the island, it was only used to facilitate the construction of the jetty and was promptly torn down once the build was completed. The film is full of shocking details like this, showing just how dangerous the emphasis on profit over safety and sense truly is. As one interviewee puts it, the island was made “hostage to fortune.”

McCarthy and Morrissey’s camera takes viewers to Whiddy Island in the present day, where the only remains of its once booming oil business are the giant storage drums that sit on the island like ominous, ghostly craters, along with a now-ironic statue donated to the residents by Gulf upon the company’s arrival. It’s truly amazing what just a few years passing can do, putting the oil company’s unfulfilled promise into perspective, as all that the area ultimately gained was a ravaged island, a haunting legacy, and a solemn concrete memorial for their troubles. Thanks to Adrian McCarthy and Brenda Morrissey’s powerfully empathetic filmmaking, “Whiddy” allows viewers to feel a fraction of the pain and sorrow of those affected by the negative impact of unfettered capitalistic practices, which continue to be all-too-common in our profit-driven world.

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THE CAST – Ioannis Kokiasmenos, Maria Diakopanagioti & Argyris Pantazaras

THE TEAM – György Pálfi (Director/Writer) & Ruttkay Zsófi (Writer)

THE RUNNING TIME – 98 Minutes

Modern-day cinema has been plagued by the use of CGI animals in place of real critters. There are plenty of obvious reasons, from reducing the headachey logistics of working with a non-human actor to eliminating any concern for animals’ safety. But even with those valid arguments, nothing beats a real animal performer used effectively. A well-trained dog or camera-loving cat is a special effect in its own right. With “Hen,” György Pálfi sets out to do something even more impressive than having a typical household pet as a supporting player. His film centers entirely around a black-feathered hen, letting the audience see the world through her avian perspective, and for his leading lady, he cast eight identical, real-life hens to carry the film. A wonder of filmmaking ingenuity, “Hen” uses its supposedly simple-minded protagonist as a window to the world. Pálfi lets audiences watch the human conflicts and tragedies around the titular bird with a remove that allows for something like a philosophical reckoning on why we humans love to do things that seem to go against the simple balancing laws of nature.

From the start, Pálfi spotlights this clash. The very first image we see is an extreme close-up of an egg being laid. And immediately following this most biological and natural of functions, the eggs and, eventually, the chicks that hatch from them are tossed into the literal machinery of humanity’s attempted dominance of nature. The chicks slip and slide through funnels and on conveyor belts as they’re sorted, then efficiently packed and shipped off to farms. In that way, “Hen” establishes itself as a story of man vs. nature, but from nature’s point of view. This quiet conflict runs throughout the film in both small ways, like the Hen trying to enter a store through an automatic sliding door, and big ones, such as later in the film when the inconvenient spot where the Hen lays an egg has unexpectedly disastrous results. Pálfi never overemphasizes his thematic point, instead letting the Hen’s unfeeling – but not emotionless – reactions to everything around her serve as a reminder to the audience that we high and mighty humans are, in the grand scheme of things, still subservient to the uncaring whims of the natural world.

Even though she doesn’t speak, the Hen communicates her instinct-driven reactions to the audience. Thanks to Pálfi’s smart approach and Réka Lemhényi’s editing, the film maintains consistent clarity about what the Hen is thinking. For example, in an early scene in which she escapes from the truck of a man who intends to let his wife make the Hen into a soup, our feathered protagonist looks to the truck as it pulls away and we hear her make a clucking sound that can easily be read as something like sadness or worry. Throughout the film, it’s truly amazing what Pálfi is able to convey to the audience about the Hen’s headspace. The filmmaker gets incredible mileage out of simply shooting her unblinking eyes and slightly open beak. That expression can be read in so many ways, and Pálfi expertly uses classic film craft to guide the audience’s interpretation from scene to scene.

Cannes famously has the Palm Dog Award, given to the canine who made the greatest impact on festival attendees. If a similar award existed for bird performers (The Golden Gobble?), the eight hens who play the singular lead of “Hen” would easily strut up to the stage to collect their trophy. Of course, as with any animal actor, the director and his team of craftspeople must be credited with shaping the actions of the creature into something resembling a typical, emotion-driven performance. But looked at frame-by-frame, the things that these hens do and how they do them are simply extraordinary. Not only are they clearly comfortable in front of the camera, but they consistently hit their marks in surprisingly complicated takes. And the Hen’s comedic timing – with assistance from the editing – is spectacular; because of the situations she finds herself in and the clownish manner in which she moves through them, she’s basically Charlie Chaplin with feathers. If for no other reason, film lovers should check out “Hen” to see how it expands the very idea of what a central character can be and how the camera can capture them.

Giorgos Karvelas’s cinematography is handsome throughout. Of course, the filming of the live chicken is a feat on its own, but the natural landscapes of the Greek countryside are photographed with as much loving attention as is given to our main Hen. And although it would be easy to keep the camera ground-level and close to the Hen, Karvelas places and moves the camera in unexpected spots and ways, finding variety in his shots and switching up his shooting styles.

For nearly the entire first half of the film, the narrative is fairly light as we follow the Hen on her aimless journey of everyday survival. Eventually, she gets adopted into a family who – as is organically revealed – is working within a criminal enterprise. Of course, our Hen doesn’t judge them for doing so, although introducing these characters swiftly shifts the film’s tone from comic and charming to something much more troubling as the details of their practices come to light. This shift in the film’s energy momentarily destabilizes it, though it could be argued that it reflects how quickly Hen must shift from simply existing to fighting to survive in response to a sudden change in her situation.

“Hen” is a milestone in filmmaking, stretching the possibilities of storytelling with its unique perspective. In an age when so many would-be marvels in movies can be dismissed as merely a creation of CGI or – horror of horrors – AI, György Pálfi’s film manages to find new ways to surprise, shock, and bewilder its audience (so much so that I kept an eye out for the “no animals were harmed” message in the film’s credits, and yes, it’s there). Simple in concept but rich in meaning, it’s a magic trick of a film that powerfully allows viewers to walk a mile in its main character’s talons.

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THE CAST – Bill Hader, Matt Berry, Quinta Brunson, Xochitl Gomez, Giancarlo Esposito & America Ferrera

THE TEAM – Erica Rivinoja & Alessandro Carloni (Directors/Writers)

THE RUNNING TIME – 107 Minutes

In 1957, the book that would become Dr. Seuss’s defining work was published. Fast forward nearly 70 years to 2026, and the latest big-screen adaptation of the story is opening in theaters. Like the source material, it’s clearly intended for the youngest possible audience members who can sit relatively still in public, besides the expected wiggling and giggling. It’s bewildering, then, that the film takes a 61-page picture book with minimal text and stretches it into a staggering one-hour-and-45-minute runtime. Thankfully, those 107 minutes are packed with decent jokes and colorful animation, but knowing the inherent simplicity of the story it’s based on, “The Cat in the Hat,” it’s bursting at the seams with far too much plot.

This behatted cat is voiced by Bill Hader, giving a performance that vacillates between a loose, goofy energy and shocking sleepiness. At times, it sounds like he recorded his lines lying down, especially in the opening sequence, which is supposed to establish his excessively fun-loving character. Here, we learn that the Cat is an employee of the I.I.I.I. – the Institute for the Institution of Imagination and Inspiration, LLC – which sends its anthropomorphized animal workforce into the homes of children who need their spirits lifted. (Anyone else reminded of “Monsters, Inc.?”) Back at the office, their performances are graded on two scales: how much fun the kids had and how much mess they left behind. The Cat excels in the former department, but the Mess-O-Meters that assess the latter are typically maxed out whenever he returns from a gig. Tired of dealing with his destructive joviality, the Cat’s boss, Mr. Hoogeboom (gamely voiced by Hollywood’s go-to bad guy, Giancarlo Esposito), allows him one last mission to prove that he can work within the confines of the job’s requirements. But Hoogeboom won’t make it easy, setting up several traps for the Cat, including assigning him a kid who falls into the most dire, seemingly helpless category of unknowing customers.

This child is Gabby (Xochitl Gomez), a preteen girl even gloomier than most kids her age because her mom (the always-warmly-charismatic America Ferrera) has moved her and her younger brother Sebastian (Tiago Martinez) from their beloved home into an apartment building. Distressed and destabilized, Gabby isn’t acting like herself, even going so far as to throw out her beloved trumpet rather than wanting to join her new school’s marching band. In other words, she’s severely in need of cheering up. After Mom goes off to her first day at her new job, leaving her two kids behind, the Cat shows up and sets out to show Gabby that there’s still fun to be had in her new home, and that her life may not be as tragic as she thinks.

If that feels like a lot of exposition, it feels even more overwhelming to watch it (there are several other supporting characters and subplots introduced that I didn’t even mention). It takes about 30 minutes before the Cat and the kids finally set off on the otherworldly adventure that makes up the rest of the film. And the next hour-plus includes a MacGuffin fetch-quest, backstories-upon-backstories that are so busy they require flashback recaps, multiple lessons learned by the main heroine, numerous bits drawn out for way too long, three different villains, and dozens of Things (the film greatly expands the number of little blue-haired guys beyond the typical two, in a blatant attempt from the studio to make their own Minions). Obviously adapting a picture book to a feature film requires expansion and additions, but damn! Even the cursed Michael Myers-starring live-action adaptation was a mere 82 minutes long, or a full 25 minutes shorter than this animated version. Much like the destruction caused by the titular feline, the overstuffed story is formidable.

Thankfully, the movie stays buoyantly entertaining throughout, with jokes and set pieces that occasionally earn a laugh from the adults in the audience. One sequence involving a fish’s circus act is practically daring in how it subverts expectations of comedic timing, and it’s genuinely hilarious. But like nearly everything else about the film, some bits run on far too long, like the slapstick-heavy scenes centered around the Things.

While it doesn’t try to replicate the look of the book’s original illustrations, the movie has a defined artistic style that shifts with its environments. Whenever we’re in the real world that Gabby calls home, the designs and animation vocabulary are decidedly more grounded and staid. But in the Cat’s realm of imagination, the entire film takes on a more cartoonish approach, both in the designs and the actual style of how the characters move and interact. It’s a smart choice that cues the audience into how they should feel and serves as handy visual shorthand to help center them. Lorne Balfe’s jazzy, brassy musical score soars in these sequences, adding an additional element of wonder to the film.

While Hader’s central voice performance is as variable in quality as a feline’s moods, every other actor who stepped into the film’s recording studio has turned in excellent work. In particular, Xochitl Gomez and Tiago Martinez are both excellent as the main brother and sister. Gomez’s Gabby is appropriately moody, and Martinez’s Sebastian has all the energy one expects of a young boy, but neither is exhausting or one-note in their characterizations. Matt Berry is also hilariously dry (although his character is not) as Waffles, the suddenly able-to-speak family fish.

But while the animators and voice actors deliver, it can’t be emphasized enough just how overcrowded the story is. It feels wrong that anyone bringing their kids to see a film adaptation of a picture book should expect to be in the theater for over two hours, including trailers. And it’s not just the length that’s too much; the story is just too dense. There’s fun to be found in “The Cat in the Hat,” but for a similarly good experience in a fraction of the time, stick to the book.

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THE CAST – Daniel Doheny, Dot-Marie Jones, Maddie Phillips, Tanaya Beatty & Paige McGarvin

THE TEAM – Alex Goyette (Director/Writer)

THE RUNNING TIME – 97 Minutes

I’ve always envied horror movie actors. It feels like the ideal genre to truly play and try new things as a performer, in ways that might not work in other genres. Horror allows for outsized emotionality and bold choices that wouldn’t fit in a tender drama. Just think of how many huge, grandiose, legendary performances have come from the horror genre: Kathy Bates in “Misery,” Piper Laurie in “Carrie,” Toni Collette in “Hereditary,” and the latest addition to this canon, Dot-Marie Jones in “Breeder.”

In this gnarly, uncanny, bizarrely funny, and twisted little tale, Jones is given the chance to lean into every nutso impulse she has in the role of Patti, a champion poodle breeder. She shows up in our main character Russell’s (Daniel Doheny) life in a totally unexpected fashion. After reading a Mensa newsletter about Russell’s attempts to raise funds for a bee sustainability project he’s been working on, Patti reaches out to offer to fund his research. Despite skepticism from his fiancée (Tanaya Beatty), the flat-broke Russell sees little downside to at least hearing Patti’s pitch (after seeing her picture, he remarks, “She seems harmless, look at that fanny pack!”) and travels to her remote farm. There, he meets her hyper-obedient daughters, including Ainsley (Maddie Phillips), who seems especially interested in his scientific pursuits. Patti gives Russell a blank check, contingent on him doing something for her that she desperately needs, something troubling and truly shocking.

Writer-director Alex Goyette does an excellent job setting up Russell’s financial predicament: he’s in over his head with student loan debt, and his fiancée is anxious to start a family, which makes Patti’s extremely unusual, frankly disturbing deal seem strangely appealing. What she’s asking of him wouldn’t take much effort on his part, and it would be over quickly, but ethically, it’s a nightmare. But any viewer who glances at their watch once this deal is laid out will note that about an hour of film remains, meaning Russell’s situation is bound to get stranger and more unsettling.

“Breeder” is one of those movies that presents a predicament that many viewers will simply find unrealistic in a “Well, I would just leave” kind of way. (I certainly felt that way, especially given the specifics of what he would need to do.) But Russell’s dire financial situation is laid out realistically, and his personality is one of extreme amiability; clearly, he was raised to put his needs second to others’ in the name of good manners. Doheny’s performance emphasizes this, as Russell constantly sputters white lies and shows a twitchy, nervous physicality that reveals how far he’ll go to shrink his true thoughts and desires to please others and avoid conflict. “Breeder” is a cautionary tale about the dangers of favoring cordiality over sense, as we see Russell apologize and nervously laugh his way into a hellish scenario.

Doheny pairs well with Jones, especially when Patti’s borderline-uncivilized bluntness collides with Russell’s nervousness. Jones is excellent as a woman whose moral convictions have dug so deep over the years that she’s tunneled past sense and compassion. She personifies cold Objectivism, with her purebred ideologies, which started with her beloved poodles, seeping out beyond canines and becoming her uncompromising worldview. As such, Patti has no time for niceties or time-wasting courtesy, expressing her needs, thoughts, and opinions without hesitation or polite mitigation. Often, this leads to bizarre comedic moments, usually when she runs up against Russell’s aghast reactions to her expressions. But just as much, Jones is terrifying. Far from one-note, her Patti is emotionally unpredictable, often switching demeanor mid-scene, which Jones plays well without leaning into caricaturistic extremes. Her smile is just as unnerving as her glare. And as with Russell and Patti’s many daughters, Jones trains the audience to instinctively crave her gentleness and fear her hostility. She talks to the humans in her life as if they’re her prize show dogs, barking orders, gesturing without making eye contact, and, most disturbingly, using a sing-songy, high-pitched voice as a disarming tactic. Thanks to Jones’s incredible, intimidating, and commanding performance, it’s easy to see why Patti very nearly has every other character eating out of her hand.

“Breeder” is the kind of horror movie that doesn’t aim to frighten its audience through jump scares or gore. Instead, it’s more interested in eliciting a “WTF” reaction that’s sure to get viewers talking. Undoubtedly, its twists, turns, and disturbing developments make the film feel destined to upset the normies that are subjected to it (I can already picture such viewers panic-poking the pause button on their airplane back-of-headrest screens) and delight the horror fans who derive sick pleasure from discovering the ever-expanding limits of the imagination of sickos. It’s startling, shocking, and unapologetically explicit, while still earning unsettled laughter in its dark comedy-of-manners moments. If for no other reason, Dot-Marie Jones’s fantastic performance makes “Breeder” a must-see for anyone who loves seeing an actor truly and uncompromisingly go for it.

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THE CAST – Milly Shapiro, Shannyn Sossamon, A. J. Bowen & Ajani Russell

THE TEAM – Ben Sottak (Director/Writer)

THE RUNNING TIME – 80 Minutes

More than almost any other film genre, horror is a great way for actors to be immortalized. Fan conventions are filled with performers who had supporting or even cameo roles in iconic horror films from decades ago, easily amassing queues of eager autograph seekers. Milly Shapiro is a name that devotees of spooky cinema will certainly recognize thanks to her supremely memorable, head-turning work in the modern classic “Hereditary,” giving a performance that’s undeniably forever imprinted on the minds of all who have watched it. Now, she’s back in another H-titled horror movie and, amazingly, it’s only her second film ever. And with “Hallowarrior,” she’s the central star, spending a significant portion of the film entirely by herself onscreen until her carefully-curated post-apocalyptic existence is punctured by the arrival of strangers. As the titular Hallowarrior – a portmanteau that’s both clunky and clever in the way that only a child could devise – Shapiro makes for a compelling icon of survival, and the film is undeniably at its best when she’s the solitary figure carrying the story.

Referred to only as “Pumpkin,” Shapiro’s character is shown to have survived some sort of infectious blight that took down the world’s crops and livestock, leading to a true apocalypse. Four years into this plague, she lives her life all alone at her family’s large farmhouse. As usual with these types of films, she’s put out a hopeless repeating emergency signal, but having never received an answer, she assumes she’s the last girl on Earth. But things aren’t all bad in her ultra-lonely existence. When we meet her, it’s the beginning of her favorite day of the year: Halloween. Despite her life being decidedly more tricks than treats, she still celebrates the holiday by decorating the absolute hell out of her house with vintage-style decorations that’ll make any Halloween-lover jealous. 

Watching Pumpkin navigate her world in the film’s first act – making the best of an actually-scary existence by leaning into the fun-scary energy of Halloween – is by far the most enjoyable, fascinating part of “Hallowarrior.” Shapiro’s desperate narration and determined, trying-to-make-herself-happy energy are riveting. Plus, Pumpkin’s cozy Halloween sweater and gas mask decorated like a jack-o’-lantern make for an instantly-iconic character design that could and should lead to some excellent real world costumes. 

Director Ben Sottak’s camera captures her world with a stunningly autumnal eye for beauty. Simply put, the movie looks gorgeous, showing a shockingly colorful landscape, thanks to both the seasonal tones of the setting and some truly spectacular magic hour cinematography. Sottak also focuses on unusual light sources to illuminate Pumpkin’s world, like an emphasis on the flickering candles inside carved pumpkins and the beams of her flashlight. The isolated environment she moves through is constructed in a claustrophobic way that makes viewers feel as if they’re also living in her lonesome, paranoid, sad head.

But we can’t follow Pumpkin by herself for an entire movie. About halfway through the film’s breezy 80-minute runtime, a band of intruders shows up, with both Pumpkin and this trio of survivors surprised by each other’s existence. Husband and wife Royce (AJ Bowen) and Thalia (Shannyn Sossamon) stumble into Pumpkin’s life, along with the moody, young Wendy (Ajani Russell). They seem to be decent enough, approaching Pumpkin at first with a trusting energy rather than competitive, end-of-the-world hostility. But of course, this congeniality doesn’t last forever. Bowen and Sossamon make for a realistically devilish pair, with Royce’s cynicism and Thalia’s unexpected patience making for a strange, unsettling combination of energies. Wendy is decidedly sour, always saying what’s on their mind, but Russell’s committed performance keeps the character from feeling one-note.

From here, the movie tips into something a bit more typical in the realm of survival horror, using the connection that the audience has forged with Pumpkin in the film’s opening chapter to (along with Shapiro’s winning performance) make viewers strongly root for the young girl’s triumph. Once violence enters the film, it loses a bit of its inviting, spooky season energy, and the dialogue gets decidedly more cheesy, but there are still grimly delightful moments to be found. (A nasty moment involving an eyeball is sure to evoke squeamish squeals.)

As Pumpkin puts it in the film’s opening moments, “Hallowarrior” depicts a reality where “the whole world is a haunted house.” The kind of viewer who’s likely to fire up this film on Shudder will undoubtedly feel strangely comforted by the apocalyptic October setting, especially with Milly Shapiro’s highly-relatable Halloween-obsessed creation of a character at its center. With its short length, it ultimately feels a bit more disposable than might be intended, but “Hallowarrior” is an excellent Halloweentime watch that fits in nicely with other annual seasonal viewings.

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THE CAST – N/A

THE TEAM – Rustin Thompson (Director/Writer)

THE RUNNING TIME – 78 Minutes

Chances are, if you’re reading this review on this specific website, you already appreciate the experience of leaving the house and going to a movie theater. And for those of us lucky to live near an old-fashioned, independent theater, there’s no comparison to the labor of love that is their continued existence. This is thanks in large part to the owners, many of whom are keeping the lights on simply out of passion for the movies and fondness for their audiences. In a time when more and more third spaces are disappearing (and given the rise in work-from-home models, many of us don’t even have a second space) and the once-exclusively communal act of moviegoing becomes more and more individualized thanks to streaming, these movie houses are not only a great way to experience popular art, but they also serve as something closer to community centers. And as even the hyper-corporate multiplexes struggle to retain customers, such bastions of independence are more precious than ever. Rustin Thompson clearly knows this, as his documentary “The Last Picture Shows” is absolutely bursting with unfathomable love in every frame. That unreserved affection comes from both from the filmmaker in the way he captures the endangered species that is the small-town indie theater and from the theater owners, who are doing it for the love of the art form. 

As one of the opening texts explains, Thompson traveled “10 states” and “10,825 miles” to visit “123 theaters” across the expanse of the American West. Far from any bustling metropolis, he made it a mission to document theaters in towns across Montana, Oregon, Utah, and other states with total populations that are less than some major cities. In his odyssey, he set out to photograph indie theaters both still in operation and closed – some of which have been converted to other businesses, and some of which sit abandoned, with their graffiti-covered fronts and outdated marquees standing as visual representations of changing times.

But, perhaps surprisingly, despite the bizarrely inviting appeal of a once-busy movie palace left to rot, Thompson is far more concerned with exploring the continued operation of theaters that are still open. There, he encounters several common patterns and talking points: nearly all of the owners have anxiety about the future of their theaters, nearly all of them have poured years of passion (and in many cases, their own money) into the business, and hilariously, many of them were visited by Thompson when they were playing the flop superhero sequel “Shazam! Fury of the Gods.” One shared grievance amongst the theater owners, regardless of where they are or how popular their theaters are, is that the major film studios have an outdated business distribution model. As they explain, the studios often require that their films be run for three to four weeks as part of their rental agreement, which forces the theaters into a Catch-22: they feel obliged to play the big budget, tentpole films in order to attract as broad of an audience as possible, but with many of the theaters only having one screen, that almost guarantees that the screenings later in a film’s run will be practically empty, having quickly burned through their potential audience in these small towns. It’s a frustrating occurrence, and there’s shared agreement amongst the various managers that they wish that the studios would allow for different stipulations based on market size. The ill-fated “Shazam!” sequel thus serves as something of an unintentional repeating symbol, with Zachary Levi feeling like a silent recurring villain popping up to terrorize the well-meaning small business owners.

But it’s not all bad news. Ultimately, “The Last Picture Shows” is a hopeful film. Just as indie bookstores, physical media, and other supposed aspects of a time past have experienced something of a renaissance in recent years, this documentary shows that, based on featured interviews, not only are audiences hungry for a curated film experience that can’t be found in a multiplex (much less on a streaming platform), but in some areas, brand new theaters have found a steady customer base. Not only that, but theaters are coming up with additional sources of revenue and putting new business practices into place, just as theaters evolved in the past to adapt to the Great Depression, the rise of television, and the collapse of the studio system in the late 60s. In the era of calculated algorithms and artificially generated eyesores, people clearly crave the more personalized artistic experience that these indie theaters provide. 

“The Last Picture Shows” features more than just interviews. Thompson’s camera captures the architectural wonder of movie houses built in the first half of the 20th century with an eye for beauty that was once reserved for close-ups of movie stars. As one of the interview subjects puts it, in a time long gone when most businesses would close for the evening, the glowing neon marquees of the movie houses would serve as a literal beacon to folks walking their downtown neighborhoods. Thompson shoots these theaters in a way that conjures the special feeling that film lovers will recognize of being pulled to the theater by the building itself. He also often pairs these structures with gorgeous, evocative shots of the expansive natural landscapes that surround the towns. The many clips from Peter Bogdanovich’s masterpiece “The Last Picture Show” make for an appropriate point of comparison – just as that film’s black and white photography immediately evokes a nostalgic feeling, even for viewers who weren’t alive in the time of the film’s setting, so too does Thompson’s film from the way his camera captures the many beloved theaters.

“The Last Picture Shows” is a bittersweet dream of a movie, perfectly made for cinephiles. It’s filled with small Easter eggs and notable details that film fans will love; there’s a strange, sad joy felt whenever a shuttered theater’s marquee is shown and its closure date can be estimated based on the film title on the marquee or posters left on display. Thompson’s gorgeous documentary shines a spotlight on people who spend most of their time in the dark, alone in the projection booth, or typically only lit by the glow of the popcorn machine. And while it obviously has a melancholy energy, the irrepressible affection that Thompson highlights serves as evidence that, despite changing trends and tastes, movie theaters will never go away.

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THE CAST – Josh Willis, Christopher Romero Sosa, Barbara Crampton, Erin Griff, Zach Jobe, Julie Clergerie, Elie Kaempfen, Jihad Brent, Alex Hsu, Jaki Lauper, Neela Jolene & Understanding Diggs

THE TEAM – Ernest Dickerson, David Moreau & RZA (Directors/Writers), Flying Lotus, Tobias Forge & Renee Zhan (Directors), Zoe Cooper & Matt Landsman (Writers)

THE RUNNING TIME – 98 Minutes

It’s a storied tradition for one horror franchise to be present every Halloween, releasing a new, quickly assembled film each October. From 2004 to 2010, Jigsaw ruled the spookiest month of the year, inviting audiences to his annual game night with seven successive “Saw” movies, prompting a favorite grammatical headache of a tagline, “If it’s Halloween, it must be Saw.” For a few years in the 2010s, “Paranormal Activity” took over, ushering in the found footage boom that led directly to the “V/H/S” franchise. The first three entries in the anthology series were released from 2012 to 2014, but after the release of the truly terrible third entry, “V/H/S/Viral,” the fun seemed to be over. But then, in 2021, Shudder resurrected the series with the retro-themed “V/H/S/94,” and ever since, the horror streaming service has unleashed a new entry every October, with each anthology’s short films centered on a specific theme. This year’s edition is all about music, but unfortunately, “V/H/S/Mixtape” is unlikely to top the charts, as it’s the franchise’s most disappointing entry yet in the Shudder era.

Anthology horror films have always been a great way for up-and-coming filmmakers to make a name for themselves, and for more established directors to try something different in the relatively lower-stakes world of short-form film. Without the pressure of a big studio budget and the obligation to fill a 90-minute-plus runtime, the better shorts in the “V/H/S” series represent some of the most exciting examples of quick, efficient visual storytelling in recent memory. Unfortunately, that’s not the case with “V/H/S/Mixtape,” which, with one notable exception, is made up of shorts that are decidedly neither scary nor particularly compelling as fun-sized stories. 

Most “V/H/S” films feature five or six short films, almost always situated within a framing device that gives thematic context. “V/H/S/Mixtape” features only four shorts, possibly because the framing device is so long, both in the introduction and in the interstitial sequences between shorts. Or maybe they just feel long, because they certainly are interminable. They’re led by members of the heavy metal band Gwar, most famous for their over-the-top costumes and gnarly stage hijinks. Their brand of dark humor is undoubtedly aimed at a very specific audience, built on extremely juvenile energy and cartoonish gore that screams, “Can you believe we did that?” In other words, they’re supremely obnoxious and, judging by the tone of their antics, they’d probably relish that label. Admittedly, the tone of their infamous, irreverent stage shows fits right in with the “V/H/S” franchise, but every time they pop back up in “Mixtape,” it feels like spending time with an immature younger cousin at Thanksgiving while waiting for the next course. Further adding to the time spent between shorts are music videos directed by Flying Lotus and Tobias Forge, which do a better job of setting a spooky tone than the Gwar segments.

Not that there’s much meat on the proverbial bone in “Mixtape.” The first of the four shorts, “Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance,” from director Renee Zhan, begins with footage from a retro children’s TV show featuring singing puppets. Not dissimilar from Casper Kelly’s new film “Buddy,” despite the accurate recreations of ’90s edutainment programming, a sinister tone vibrates underneath it all. We then jump to the present day, where a group representing a television network hoping to revive the show (led by the always-fierce horror icon Barbara Crampton) visits the workshop of the man who now owns the puppets. But the hoped-for retrieval of the felt hand props doesn’t go as planned. 

The puppets sing a central song throughout this short: a cleverly written ditty about the inevitability of death, with darkly comic lyrics such as, “As mold comes for a sandwich, the darkness comes for you.” The puppetry and practical effects are both designed and executed with admirable care. It’s a simplistic concept and, as the “V/H/S” shorts so often do, it ends with a big display of carnage. But unlike the majority of the shorts in “Mixtape,” the gore feels earned.

“Heartbeat,” the second short directed by David Moreau, is far and away the highlight of “Mixtape.” It follows a couple with an online video channel that seems devoted to exploring remote and abandoned locations. Here, they trek through the woods near the border of Bulgaria to find a Cold War-era Soviet military base. After cracking into the facility, they discover a bizarre, soundproof chamber, and what begins as a curious exploration becomes a true nightmare.

“Heartbeat” succeeds because it leans into the limitations of short-form storytelling; its concept is simple, it’s almost entirely set in one (extremely well-constructed and eerie) location, and it features only two characters. And it’s scarier for doing so. Undoubtedly, this is the most realistic segment of “Mixtape,” and boldly, it centers less on music or sound than on the lack of either, which becomes the short’s unexpected source of terror thanks to excellent sound design. Julie Clergerie delivers a fantastic, giddily-terrified performance, ferociously portraying a woman pushed to the edge of sanity and beyond. “Heartbeat” is a simple little morsel of horror, standing alongside the best shorts that the “V/H/S” series has offered.

But unfortunately, it’s followed by two more shorts that are decidedly disappointing, both sharing similar shortcomings. The first comes from experienced horror director Ernest Dickerson, entitled “The Music of Mr. Sze.” It follows a young college student named Philip (Jihad Brent) as he begins shooting a documentary about his own life. He’s recently moved into a ridiculously spooky boarding house, filled with strange, anti-social tenants. At night, he hears a mysterious, hypnotic violin melody from his upstairs neighbor, Mr. Sze (Alex Hsu), and, against the advice of those around him, Philip investigates the music.

The final short “Death Tone” is directed by the legendary RZA of Wu-Tang Clan. It centers on Lydia (Neela Jolene), a young musician who finds a tape from her late father that advises her on how to construct the ideal song. After taking bizarre substances she finds among his possessions, Lydia becomes obsessively determined to use her father’s wisdom to create an entirely new type of music, one that requires spilled blood.

Although different in concept and story, these two shorts have nearly identical problems that prevent them from feeling fully satisfying as horror shorts. Poor writing plagues both, with characters speaking in obvious, hack statements and strange turns of phrase throughout. In “Death Tone,” one of Lydia’s dates reacts to her telling him about her passion for music by saying, “You look too sweet to be making heavy beats,” to which she bizarrely responds, “A lot of people say that until they get to know me.” A lot of people really say that? Both shorts also break their own form with filmmaking techniques that completely disrupt the ruse that these films are found footage. In “Mr. Sze,” the movie takes a turn at the end when one character enters a vision constructed entirely by overly cinematic CGI, yanking the audience out of the small-scale world Dickerson built up to that point. And in “Death Tone,” the film is pieced together with admittedly slick editing, but the kinetic cutting and showy assemblage of footage totally move away from the found-footage format. And both shorts ultimately end with an explosion of blood, guts, and dismemberment, as many “V/H/S” shorts so often do. It’s no longer shocking; it’s expected.

“V/H/S/Mixtape” represents a low point for the soft reboot of the franchise that’s been a Halloween mainstay for the past five autumns. But don’t worry, just like the year’s best holiday, next October will inevitably bring the latest film in the found-footage horror anthology series. 

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