Financially, the “Insidious” franchise rebounded with 2023’s “Insidious: The Red Door,” which became the highest grossing entry in a series that began all the way back in 2011. Something about connecting the sequel to the original pushed people into theaters, but creatively, the chapter was a limp study of horror, out to be more of a family drama with little suspense to save it. The Lambert Family saga appears to have come to an end, positioning “Insidious: Out of the Further” as a new direction for demon troublemaking, and there’s a different director as well, with Jacob Chase (“Come Play”) taking control of the premise, also claiming a screenplay credit. And he does an admirable job finding terror again, working with a lively story of “further” combat while managing several effective sequences of fright. “Out of the Further” is the best “Insidious” since the first picture, with Chase showing imagination and a love of creepiness as he fights to keep the brand name going. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/directors Jon Lucas and Scott Moore scored a big hit with 2016’s “Bad Moms,” enjoying audience interest in crude R-rated comedies at the time, charming the masses with exaggerated shenanigans. The duo returned with 2017’s “A Bad Moms Christmas,” and less people were interested in strained silliness. After bombing with 2019’s “Jexi,” Lucas and Moore are back on familiar ground with the very “Bad Moms”-esque “Spa Weekend,” which once again puts the helmers in command of wackiness aimed at a specific audience demographic. There should be fun in a tale of four women trying to understand inner peace and go a little crazy during a birthday weekend trip to a beach resort, but Moore and Lucas bungle the effort, relying on stale humor and painful antics meant to pass as outrageousness in this dreary endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2023, director Jean-Francois Richet scored an unexpected box office success with “Plane,” starring Gerard Butler and Micke Colter. The picture offered excitement and a pleasing directness with its mid-budget thrills, helping it to stand out in a subgenre that’s filled with plodding duds. While a sequel was attempted, it didn’t come together, with Richet turning his attention to “Mutiny,” which hopes to carry the same atmosphere as “Plane,” once again following a resourceful character as he tries to save lives during a tense situation involving persistent villains. Instead of Butler, there’s Jason Statham, who rarely says no to a script and doesn’t have interest in varying his characterization, once again going growly and steely with this “Die Hard”-on-a-ship offering, which is reasonably gripping with action elements, but sorely lacking personality. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Alex Ullom makes his filmmaking debut with “It Ends,” and he tries to create something mysterious and thought-provoking on a very tiny budget. It’s a story about four characters dealing with the insanity of purgatory while driving along a rural road to nowhere, and the writing rarely lets the gang out of their car during the run time. There’s pain and punishment in the material, and while Ullom teases a horror-esque approach to the story, he ultimately pulls away from frights to generate a type of mystery and character study concerning young people trying to make sense of their past, present, and future. “It Ends” will be catnip to some due its interpretive ways, but the puzzle isn’t always compelling. Ullom doesn’t construct a swell of suspense to really support the viewing experience, but he scores with ideas and various points of pressure on the foursome as they battle against the melting of their minds. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Dylan Meyer made a nice impression with her co-writing credit on 2021’s “Moxie,” creating a fulfilling book adaptation that also celebrated the ways of feminism and adolescent spirit with care. Meyer now upgrades to a directorial career, making her debut with “The Wrong Girls,” which tries to become a Cheech & Chong comedy for a new generation. The helmer (who also scripts) attempts to make a very silly picture, filling the effort with wacky encounters and a sustained use of marijuana to help lubricate goofballery. There’s a lot of bigness in the offering, but almost nothing translates into actual laughs, and even the film’s finest moments merely extract a faint smile. “The Wrong Girls” should be a riot, but Meyer has the wrong Cheech & Chong in Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat, who fail to conjure chemistry and deliver silliness as they fumble through this extremely tired endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After scoring a minor hit with the 2015 horror film, “It Follows,” writer/director David Robert Mitchell attempted to land a funkier follow-up with 2018’s “Under the Silver Lake,” which failed to attract much box office attention or critical love, evolving into a cult title for some. The pictures were smaller in scale and budget, and now Mitchell hopes to play in the Hollywood big leagues with “The End of Oak Street,” launching a blockbuster offering that features plenty of visual effects and heated moments of endurance. It’s a big summer movie from co-producer J.J. Abrams, but Mitchell isn’t interested in taking it easy on viewers. The helmer gives “The End of Oak Street” an inviting level of danger to go with its Spielbergian ways, and he’s mindful of emotional needs as the characters face personal problems while trying to remain one step ahead of a dinosaur invasion. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

When Metallica made a movie, they elected to create a city riot to accentuate the thunderous ways of their music. When Foo Fighters had their chance to create a film, the group decided to act in their very own horror picture, bringing their screwball sense of humor to genre entertainment. Now Green Day is giving cinematic representation a chance, and while they certainly have the financial means to generate an epic of some shape, the band elects to stay true to their origins and deal with the feistiness of the adolescent experience. “Nimrods” remains with teenage interests, putting writer/director Lee Kirk to work generating a road trip scenario for a three young men trying to change their frustrating lives through music. The helmer doesn’t have anything profound to share about boyhood urges, but “Nimrods” is entertaining enough, getting far on restless energy while Green Day and other artists keep the soundtrack shaking along with hits. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Andrew Patterson impressed some with his 2020 debut, “The Vast of Night.” It was an unusual viewing experience, and apparently not a fluke for the helmer, who returns with “The Rivals of Amziah King,” which is also an extremely odd movie. For his latest, Patterson examines the rough and tumble ways of the honey business, assessing the fight for market dominance as crime and punishment enters what’s initially believed to be a peaceful industry. Patterson has a mood he wants for the feature, and that involves numerous musical performances, adding a distinctly folksy twang to the production between hits of criminal activity and revenge plotting. “The Rivals of Amziah King” is a very idiosyncratic endeavor, and Patterson asks a lot of his audience with a 130-minute-long run time, but he maintains a strange flavor to his filmmaking, and acting can’t be beat, helping to realize cultural touches and atypical emotions spinning around this offering. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie” is the third big screen endeavor for the animated franchise, with the other two pictures (released in 2021 and 2023) managing to slightly impress with scale and interest in generating an action-packed good time for younger viewers and their multiplex guardians. The recipe mostly remains the same for the new film, keeping up with the main characters and their sworn duty to rescue those in need. “The Dino Movie” makes a knowing creative choice to add big creatures to the mix, looking to tempt kids with this combination of brightly colored adventure sequences and dinosaur activity, including plenty of cuteness. As with the other installments, there’s no significant effort to generate a meaningful viewing experience, but it does deliver enough screen activity to pass, along with adding a few new characters to keep things reasonably interesting. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Co-writer/director Miguel Angel Hernandez adapts a 2007 novel by Panos Karnezis, with “The Birthday Party” exploring a particularly tense day in the life of a shipping magnate trying to retain control over his empire during a time of celebration. It’s a tale loosely inspired by the ways of Aristotle Onassis, but Hernandez doesn’t fixate on the business side of control. He’s more interested in familial troubles coming for a man typically in command of his destiny. The picture gives star Willem Dafoe plenty of room to feel around edges of his character, capturing a special level of paranoia for a very slow-burn endeavor. “The Birthday Party” doesn’t develop into a riveting study of relationships, but the helmer finds a few unions worth examining, adding unusual eroticism and levels of suspicion as the story takes in life-changing turns for people attending an opulent celebration of youth. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

During its opening act, “Hellcat” sets up an intriguing mystery and arranges a small space of investigation for the main character, who’s stuck inside a trailer as it blazes down a rural road, unable to understand where she is or why she’s been taken. There’s a lot to explore in this situation, and writer/director Brock Bodell is striving to make something more than a thriller, playing with genre touches and emotional wounds to best connect with viewers. There’s an initial rush to the production that’s compelling, coming close to promising a nail-biter to come, but Bodell doesn’t keep his foot on the gas with this endeavor. “Hellcat” eventually loses its momentum, and the trade-off into sensitivities and customary antagonism doesn’t work. However, there’s enough here to hold attention, and Bodell has a semi-decent puzzle to solve with the central crisis, getting reasonably far with the clues in the writing. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

2024’s “I Saw the TV Glow” represented a major step forward in the career of writer/director Jane Schoenbrun. The picture didn’t attract a major audience, but it found viewers capable of connecting to its enigmatic and perhaps deeply personal ways. Schoenbrun set out to make a brain bleeder, and one that wasn’t easily decoded, relying on tried and true Lynchian ways to fog meaning with artistry, generating a puzzle some viewers were delighted to solve. Schoenbrun returns to their filmmaking fetishes with “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,” which carries marketing efforts selling the feature as a sort of riff on the influence and problematic ways of slasher cinema from the 1980s. Of course, the offering isn’t really about satire or even criticism, instead focusing on sexual experiences and personal connections while trauma and pleasure are set up for analysis. “Teenage Sex and Death” keeps Schoenbrun in their comfort zone, but viewers are left with a picture that doesn’t fulfill on a dramatic level, as the endeavor is more interested in hitting a cosmic G-spot instead, which has its cinematic limitations. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com