It’s difficult to tell what kind of mood screenwriter Sean Farley is going for in “Neighborhood Watch.” The story concerns two mentally ill people teaming up to follow clues leading to a potential kidnapping, facing a world that doesn’t have the time or patience to keep up with their troubled ways. There are elements of black comedy in the picture, but also a sense of solemnity as the reality of life for these men is repeatedly returned to. Director Duncan Skiles (“The Clovehitch Killer”) also maintains a weird tonality for the feature, and he elects to go slow-burn with its mysteries and discoveries. “Neighborhood Watch” isn’t a consistent viewing experience, but there’s clearly potential in the premise, giving the offering a few sequences of suspense the rest of the movie doesn’t know what to do with. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director David F. Sandberg began his career in horror. He made his debut with 2016’s “Lights Out,” and continued his career ascent in 2017’s “Annabelle: Creation.” And then there was a move to superhero cinema, eking out a hit in 2019’s “Shazam,” only to stumble mightily with a widely ignored 2023 sequel. Sandberg returns to low-budget genre filmmaking with “Until Dawn,” which is an adaptation of a 2015 video game that was known for its unique interactivity. Such inviting gameplay is obviously missing from the big screen version, which hopes to celebrate the world of fright films without the very thing that made the release special. It’s a strange choice to transform “Until Dawn” into a movie, and the endeavor isn’t exactly out for thrills as screenwriters Blair Butler and Gary Dauberman are largely unwilling to crank up the excitement and chills for the mostly lethargic picture. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Gareth Evans hasn’t released a film since 2018’s “Apostle,” and there’s a good reason for that. The director of “The Raid” and its sequel has been busy making “Havoc,” which began production in 2021 and was only recently completed, hitting the usual roadblocks in reshoot and strike scheduling. The movie is finally finished…well, sort of. One doesn’t sit down with the endeavor to enjoy a richly scripted (Evans also collects a writing credit) study of personal and professional corruption in the big city, examining all the trouble coming for a corrupt cop who’s suddenly trapped in the middle of a major crime world mess. The offering is more interested in becoming an adrenaline shot of action cinema, transforming into Evans’s tribute to Hong Kong bloodbaths of the 1990s. Expectations for an engrossing understanding of character are not met, but the feature is certainly crazy when serving up ferocious fights and gunplay, which may be enough for some viewers. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Accountant” was released in 2016. The film did so-so business, failing to stir up much interest from critics and audiences. Clearly, someone, somewhere made a little money, inspiring the creation of “The Accountant 2,” which arrives in theaters a whopping nine years after the release of the first movie. Writer Bill Dubuque returns to continue the journey for lead character Christian Wolff, tasked with making him softer for the follow-up, which explores family ties and concern for children as the baddies are involved in a human trafficking ring. Director Gavin O’Connor also signs up for a continuation (he’s only made one other feature, “The Way Back,” since 2016), and while “The Accountant 2” is meant to be a big screen inspection of askew heroism and investigation, the helmer only really crafts an episode of television with the picture. With very little action and routine emotionality, a revisit to “Accountant” country doesn’t have much excitement or drama to offer. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I’m not sure it’s commonly known that the grand 1994 actioner “Speed” is actually something of a remake, taking its concept and sense of urgency from 1975’s “The Bullet Train,” which first presented the idea of a bomb threat on a moving vehicle that can’t slow down. And now there’s “Bullet Train Explosion,” another reworking of “The Bullet Train,” reviving the central crisis while also striving to be a sequel to the original offering. Director Shinji Higuchi moves from giant threats in “Shin Godzilla” and “Shin Ultraman” to a speedier level of danger, overseeing the disaster movie elements of “Bullet Train Explosion,” which endeavors to become an epic study of survival and shame. It’s a long journey (137 minutes), and the picture doesn’t earn that run time, but Higuchi has some clarity when it comes to near-misses and assorted beats of suspense. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Puppetry appears the be a lost artform when it comes to film productions these days, but writer/director Isaiah Saxton is looking to reclaim a little magic in “The Legend of Ochi,” which features the work of puppeteers striving to bring a collection of creatures to life. It’s Jim Henson-esque in execution, but the picture isn’t anywhere close to the tone of such classics as “Labyrinth” and “The Dark Crystal.” Saxton’s endeavor mostly resembles a Wes Anderson-directed remake of “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” remaining insanely artful but distant with the creature feature. “The Legend of Ochi” is eye candy, with a delightful appreciation of fantasy and adventure, but the helmer’s restraint when it comes to emotional content isn’t always welcome, as a tale of family ties and connection tries to break out, only to be shut down by Saxton’s insistence on remaining at arm’s length from anything potentially heartwarming. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“On Swift Horses” is an adaptation of a 2019 novel by author Shannon Pufahl, and it doesn’t seem like an easy book to bring to the big screen. There’s a tangle of characters to follow, with most in possession of dual lives, aching to achieve a bit of clarity in impossibly clouded living situations. There’s addiction and danger, along with plenty of forbidden attraction, putting screenwriter Bryce Kass to work managing a lot of complicated feelings and detours. Director Daniel Minahan (a television vet) attempts to make some cinematic poetry out of the tale, and while the feature is carefully crafted, it’s not particularly gripping, even with so much going on. “On Swift Horses” slowly goes about its business, picking up on feelings and desires, but it also remains frustratingly flat, as the helmer can’t tap into passions that drive these personalities, forgoing intensity to make something contemplative, but there’s just not all that much to consider. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Alto Knights” was released just last month, and attempted to offer viewers immersion into mob life. Instead of precise writing, rich characters, and fine performances, the feature provided a mess of events and dialogue exchanges, almost reaching a point of parody. And now here’s “Mob Cops,” which makes a similar attempt to generate a world of tough guys and their problems, once again throwing everything at the audience without any care for dramatic connection and scene tension. Screenwriter Kosta Kondilopoulos traces over the “Goodfellas” template for the picture, which follows the lives of crooked cops, good cops, and the mafia goons they interact with. There’s nothing in “Mob Cops” that hasn’t been done in other, better movies, and director/star Danny A. Abeckaser doesn’t offer any sense of style or much clarity to the cluster of names and faces presented here, which makes for a miserable viewing experience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A summer camp setting and horror. It’s a combination that’s created a lot of memorable genre entertainment over the last 45 years, inspiring filmmakers to keep returning to the blend of innocence and aggression to support their low-budget endeavors. Co-writers/co-directors Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk try their luck with slasher cinema in “Hell of a Summer,” bringing a new generation into the woods for a survival challenge, only this round is a bit more comedic than I’m sure many viewers will expect. In fact, cheekiness tends to dominate the offering, as Wolfhard and Bryk maintain a weird distance from frights in their scary movie, which is loosely scripted, not terribly interested in being anything more than a mild goof. “Hell of a Summer” (shot three years ago) has the ingredients for at least a passable slaughterama, but there’s no dominating nightmare to follow in the picture, which is inspired by serious horror features. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Emilie Blichfeldt makes her feature-length filmmaking debut with “The Ugly Stepsister,” and she proves to be a formidable talent. It’s one thing to utilize the tale of “Cinderella” to inspire a new take on a very old story, but Blichfeldt delivers an original vision for the effort, going the body horror route during this examination of mental illness and fairy tale fixation. The picture is incredibly graphic, but also beguiling as the helmer pieces together the beauty of moviemaking while inspecting a slow unraveling of the eponymous character. “The Ugly Stepsister” is an exceptional presentation of disturbing behavior, and it does something wild with the known tale of romantic rescue, offering exhilarating darkness and prime behavioral displays. It’s extremity done superbly by the production, playing with magic and horror as it endeavors to take “Cinderella” in many surprising directions. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After making his directorial debut with the low-budget drama “Fruitvale Station,” Ryan Coogler went into franchise mode, taking on the Hollywood machine. He refreshed the relevancy of the “Rocky” franchise in 2015’s “Creed,” and brought deep cultural textures to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2018’s “Black Panther” and its 2022 sequel, “Wakanda Forever.” Coogler isn’t ready to give his big budgets up, but he keeps away from comic books and sequels in “Sinners,” also claiming a screenplay credit on a highly unusual genre picture that’s almost uninterested in delivering the trashy goods this kind of entertainment is known for. It’s a riff on “From Dusk Till Dawn,” but sold through the helmer’s attention to musical and character detail, saving vampire action for short moments in the endeavor’s final act. “Sinners” remains assured work, emerging with a vision and a rhythm that’s thrilling at times, while the cast is sensational for the most part, creating layered people coming to the realization they’re involved in a monstrous nightmare. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2022, writer/director David Cronenberg returned from a lengthy professional break with “Crimes of the Future.” The feature played to his strengths as a creepy, crawling study of bodily mysteries and intense psychological issues. It wasn’t a rousing sit, but it did the trick, putting Cronenberg back on display with another original vision. The helmer quickly rebounds with “The Shrouds,” remaining true to his cinematic fixations with a picture that’s about obsession, this time examining the reverberations of death and the quest of some to hold on to people and ideas for as long as possible, potentially to a point of madness. Cronenberg delivers something familiar for his fans, and there are a lot of intriguing ideas in the material, which oversees the complexity of relationships for a character receiving a clearer view of his own world. “The Shrouds” doesn’t win with pace, as the offering could use a sharper edit, but the strangeness of the material is mostly inviting, embarking on a bizarre mystery that keeps up with Cronenberg-ian moods. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Wedding Banquet” was originally a film from 1993. While the picture was a minor art-house hit, it’s mostly known today as a breakout release for director Ang Lee, who used such success to help build an unusual and occasionally successful helming career. A remake arrives from co-writer/director Andrew Ahn, who achieved some notice for 2022’s streaming comedy, “Fire Island,” and continues his interest in comedic situations and deeply personal feelings. Ahn teams up with original co-writer James Schamus for the reworking, aiming for a more updating take on challenges to life and love. However, heart remains a top priority for the production, and while touches of melodrama aren’t entirely avoided, Ahn handles character concerns with grace, and he’s overseeing an excellent cast who skillfully work with the material’s blend of bigness and intimacy. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Chad Archibald has been chipping away in horror entertainment for quite some time, with credits such as “I’ll Take Your Dead,” “Ejecta,” and “The Drownsman.” He’s clearly a genre fan, remaining focused on fright films for most of his career, and he returns to dark storytelling in “It Feeds,” which is arguably his best offering. The story of a clairvoyant woman and her war against the spread of a mysterious entity in her community, “It Feeds” isn’t a stunningly original take on an exhausting battle with multiple forms of evil, but Archibald has a few clear ideas for tension in the effort, which lands moments of decent suspense. And the helmer has a surprisingly effective cast to support his vision, finding acting unusually accomplished, adding to the pressurized viewing experience as emotional bonds are tested alongside supernatural ones. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“G20” is tasked with turning Viola Davis into an action star. She’s already one of the best actresses working today, but she’s often cast in tough dramas that make the most of her special thespian skills, including the summoning of steely emotions. Now she’s in a “Die Hard” riff, portraying the President of the United States, who’s forced to battle terrorists in South Africa during an intergovernmental political and economic forum. It’s a fun concept credited to four screenwriters and handed to director Patricia Riggen, who doesn’t have much experience in the ways of creating screen mayhem (previous work includes “Miracles from Heaven” and “The 33”). However, the helmer has Davis, who brings a wonderful sense of authority to the endeavor, capably selling the physical and emotional elements of the writing to help elevate a bruiser that isn’t always inspired or knows when to quit. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Drop” is a film that doesn’t want its audience to think about the details when watching the central crisis of the plot unfold. It’s not a picture that stands up to scrutiny, playing fast and loose with technological manipulation and basic human response to troubling situations. It’s the latest from director Christopher Landon, who’s made a career out of goofy horror movies (“Happy Death Day,” “Freaky,” “We Have a Ghost”), and he’s back with another heightened tale of torment, this time working within the small confines of a fine-dining restaurant as the main character does battle against a phone-based aggressor. Written by Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach, “Drop” intends to offer some thrills and chills, but it takes a lot to buy into the whole endeavor, which is filled with questionable logic (before that’s fully eliminated in the finale) and bits of bad taste. It’s also not that effective in the suspense department, as the central idea runs out of gas in the first act. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After dealing with the divide of the United States in 2024’s “Civil War,” director Alex Garland returns to the battle zone in “Warfare.” Garland joins co-helmer Ray Mendoza for a full immersion into the ways of military service, but the duo make it a point to avoid the lure of jingoism, preferring a raw take on the horrors of combat as the tale concerns a platoon of Navy SEALs stuck in a dire situation of survival in Iraq nearly 20 years ago. Mendoza brings his experiences in service to the picture, sharing screenplay duties with Garland, who provides his filmmaking concentration on technical precision and blunt violence. “Warfare” isn’t for the faint of heart, as it explores the destruction of bodies and spirits in a real-time battle for life, giving viewers a you-are-there viewing experience that’s profoundly challenging at times. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Amateur” began life as a 1981 novel by Robert Littell, who endeavored to give a tale of revenge a cold war spin to fit the mood of the era. His work has been brought to the screen by writers Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli, who try to make the material relevant in a much more technologically advanced age. At the core of the story lies a one-man-army tale, and juicy one at that, putting a mousy C.I.A. employee on a hunt to take down the terrorists responsible for killing his wife. While “The Amateur” is pointed in the direction of cheap thrills, the script doesn’t follow through on the potential of the picture. A decent first half is replaced by a surprisingly snoozy second half, and while the cast does their part to add layers to their characters and maintain some level of presence, director James Hawes (“One Life”) seems allergic to excitement, offering audiences a mess of motivations and supporting players competing for attention in a slowly deflating movie. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“A Goofy Movie” opened in 1995, and while it showed brief box office life, there just wasn’t as large of a family audience turnout as the Walt Disney Corporation was used to for their animated releases. Goofy’s big debut as a leading man didn’t draw significant crowds at the multiplex, but something amazing happen when the film hit home video and cable. The feature managed to attract a loyal audience, generating an intense love for the picture as a fanbase developed, keeping the offering alive for decades. Now 30 years later, “Not Just a Goof” is a documentary exploring the creation of “A Goofy Movie,” identifying how a low-budget effort from a “B team” of Disney employees managed to capture something special and heartfelt involving a character primarily known for pure slapstick. “Not Just a Goof” is enlightening and charming, as directors Eric Kimelton and Christopher Ninness find their way into the production story, armed with wonderful footage of the creative process and access to cast and crew, making for an engrossing sit. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Sacramento” is the second directorial effort from actor Michael Angarano, who made his debut with a little-seen indie, “Avenues,” which explored a story about life carrying on after an unexpected death. Angarano returns to the subject in his latest (scripted with Christopher Nicolas Smith), examining the unusual ways characters process their burning emotions and handle life changes, taking a co-starring role with Michael Cera. “Sacramento” is a very small movie, avoiding major dramatic movements and arcs of enlightenment, but it retains a lot of charm due to the strange personalities on display. It’s a nicely acted endeavor that investigates troubles within, especially with thirtysomething men attempting to process extreme challenges to their sense of responsibility, unable to handle changes happening to them. It’s an amusing look at coping skills, and Angarano manages to keep the film reasonably tight and somewhat surprising. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com