Ridley Scott’s interest in creating 2024’s “Gladiator II” made sense. It was a sequel to one of his most successful movies, and the helmer, who’s been struggling with box office success in recent years, was looking for a sizable hit with material audiences already understood. His interest in “The Dog Stars” is more puzzling, taking on an adaptation of a 2012 book by Peter Heller with help from screenwriter Mark L. Smith (“The Revenant,” “The Boys in the Boat”), launching something approaching a meditative study of the human experience that’s eventually interrupted by dystopian violence. Scott doesn’t push himself with this one, putting in a limited effort with the material, which is really a few stories rolled into one glacial viewing experience, and not an offering that’s saved by flavorful performances or exploratory highlights. “The Dog Stars” is quite dull when it isn’t absurd, and the director doesn’t show much interest in finding more meaning or pace with the endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

2025’s “The Rule of Jenny Pen” was a tremendous achievement for director James Ashcroft. He generated an incredible atmosphere of unease, using style and sinister business to fully immerse viewers in mental illness and devious behavior, creating one of the best movies of the year in the process. He’s back with “The Whisper Man,” graduating to more expensive professional opportunities, this time helming an adaptation of an Alex North 2019 book, which examines the desperation of a father trying to find his missing son while a serial killer of children prepares to take another life. It’s another trip into bleakness for Ashcroft, and he doesn’t maintain his creative momentum with the scuzzy material (scripted by Ben Jacoby and Chase Palmer), but “The Whisper Man” does maintain strong performances, with many in the cast understanding exactly what type of film they’re in, giving the offering a nice level of exaggeration at times to help hold attention. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Much has been written about the road to release for “Coyote vs. Acme,” with the feature (which was filmed four years ago) once set for deletion by Warner Bros. Discovery to cash in on a tax write-off. Now Ketchup Entertainment has stepped in the bring the picture to the masses, much like they did with the previous Looney Tunes movie, “The Day the Earth Blew Up.” There’s a sense of victory for the endeavor, which managed to survive bean counter condemnation that erased the existence of a few other productions, but it’s not so easy to believe that “Coyote vs. Acme” was worth the wait. It’s an enjoyable enough effort, with director Dave Green (“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows”) clearly displaying his love for the Looney Tunes universe and all the cartoon mayhem it contains. However, bigger laughs, or any laughs, aren’t readily available in the screenplay by Samy Burch, keeping this legal adventure somewhat muted as it only occasionally tries to get wild. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

If you have any questions about the making of 1977’s “Exorcist II: The Heretic,” they’re sure to be answered in the documentary “Boorman and the Devil.” Director David Kittredge endeavors to understand the creation and execution of a sequel that was once so highly anticipated, only to be soundly rejected by critics and audiences after its release, launching an investigation in the formation of the project. And who better to explain the process than the picture’s director, John Boorman. The esteemed helmer sits down to share his memories and feelings about the project, recalling an era of filmmaking freedom that allowed him access to a large budget and full studio support, tasked with making a follow-up to one of the biggest movies of all time. Kitteridge nails the assignment, delivering a fresh, funny, and detailed understanding of how “Exorcist II” came to be after nearly fifty years of media rejection. It’s an outstanding document of ambition and fallibility. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Sun Never Sets” is writer/director Joe Swanberg’s first feature since 2017’s “Win It All.” He visited the world of television for a few years, but Swanberg finally returns to cinematic exploration with the picture, taking viewers into the treacherous terrain of relationships and all the incredible complications they encounter. However, this isn’t a love story, but more of a possession tale without the horror influences, offering viewers a look at the extraordinary messiness of three characters struggling to find their way through a maze of jealousy, attraction, and power as they handle one another’s issues while battling their own insecurities. As with other Swanberg endeavors, the effort gets intimate and conversational with improvisational ways, but it maintains an enjoyably unusual atmosphere with particularly itchy personalities trapped in a troubling situation of their own making. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Casper Kelly is in the business of making weird stuff. He developed his interests in the odd and irreverent with basic cable programming such as “Too Many Cooks” and “Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell,” also providing seasonal nightmares with 2022’s “Adult Swim Yule Log” and its 2024 sequel. Kelly recently contributed a segment (arguably one of the best ones) to last year’s “V/H/S/Halloween” as well. This time around, Kelly looks to do something strange with the worlds of “Barney” and “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” teaming up with co-writer Jamie King for “Buddy,” which delivers a thorough freak-out while playing with the conventions and construction of children’s television shows. Kelly makes perhaps his most accessible endeavor with “Buddy,” but the feature remains quite bizarre, asking viewers to manage the lightness of satire with the viciousness of horror in a creative, if a tad overlong, offering of dark comedy. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Last year, “The Toxic Avenger” remake finally found release, sending writer/director Macon Blair’s love of Troma Entertainment out into a world that wasn’t exactly prepared for it. He returns with “Idiots,” which continues his interest in Troma-style cinematic extremity, this time exploring mishaps and madness as two transport service employees make a big mess out of a simple driving job, finding themselves constantly dealing with trouble. “Idiots” tries to live up to its title, with Blair organizing displays of dumb guy humor and comedic setbacks for the characters, occasionally reaching into grossness to make his intent with the feature understood. It’s not a rolling display of transgressive cinema, but Blair has decent command of absurdity, while stars Dave Franco and O’Shea Jackson Jr. clearly enjoy the opportunity to play troubled morons handed responsibility they can’t possibly handle. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Penny Lane is Dead” is an Australian production, and a particularly vicious one. Making her feature-length debut as a writer/director is Mia-kate Russell, and she’s in an aggressive mood, paying tribute to the harshness of exploitation cinema from the 1970s with the picture, recalling days of drive-in cinema horrors where characters went feral and violence was potent. Russell isn’t completely committed to bleakness with the offering, but she gets close enough, asking viewers to sit through a revenge story that’s big on awful characters doing horrible things. “Penny Lane is Dead” is pitiless work, and not an endeavor that’s easily digested, but for genre fans who enjoy harder edges to their presentations of pain, Russell is certainly interested in delivering a hostile effort that doesn’t allow for much hope. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Actress Rebel Wilson makes her directorial debut with “The Deb,” in charge of guiding a 2022 Australian musical to the screen. A thespian of debatable appeal, Wilson takes more responsibility this time around, overseeing the exaggerated energy of the material, which is a riff on “Mean Girls,” which also enjoyed a musical adaptation. The Aussie setting is appealing, helping to bring a different atmosphere to the endeavor, but the writing is as routine as it gets, with Hannah Reilly adapting her own book, challenged to transform characters built for the stage into cinematic personalities. “The Deb” is enthusiastically performed at times, but Wilson has difficulty managing surges of obnoxiousness and predictability. The music video construction of musical numbers is also a dispiriting, limiting the natural joy of performance the production is counting on to help reach viewers. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

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