WHALEFALL (2026) – Underwater Adventure Too Steeped in Sadness to Really Thrill

Wow, that’s a whale of a problem!

Imagine getting stuck inside a 60-ton sperm whale! How does one get out of that predicament?

Honestly, when I heard of this plot point in WHALEFALL (2026), I couldn’t help but think, you can’t be serious? Is this a comedy or something? Wouldn’t someone swallowed up by a whale just be dead? How would they survive?

But WHALEFALL is anything but a comedy. I wish I could say it’s an intense edge-of-your-seat thriller, but sadly, it’s not, and “sadly” is the operative word here, because if there’s one thing WHALEFALL is throughout its one hour and 46 minutes running time, is sad and depressing. So much so, that I was distracted throughout and never really got on board with the story this one was telling.

WHALEFALL wastes no time playing its sadness card, as in the very first scene we witness a sickly on-his-deathbed Mitt Gardiner (Josh Brolin) on his boat with his best buddy, and it’s clear that Mitt has little time left. He peeks at letters he has left his family, and then he dives off the boat to his death.

We then meet his family, his wife, adult daughters, and his college-aged, estranged son, Jay (Austin Abrams), who unfortunately had a very tumultuous relationship with his dad. In fact, he moved from California to Iowa to go to college mostly because he wanted to get away from his father. Yet, he always wanted to please his dad, and so he goes off on a dive on his own to locate his father’s body, and it’s here he gets in the middle of a battle between a sperm whale and a giant squid, and along with the squid, he gets swallowed up by the whale. And while inside the whale, he hears the voice of his dad, who guides him to survival.

So, there’s your story.

Honestly, I was really intrigued to see this movie, because I was really curious as to how someone could survive inside a whale, and I expected a pretty intense movie. Unfortunately, WHALEFALL offers no insights into how a human could sruvive inside a whale or any background information on whales at all, other than Josh Brolin’s Mitt character- who we see and hear from quite a bit in flashbacks- going on and on about his own philosophical thoughts on whales and the creatures’ place in nature. I really thought the screenplay dropped the ball here.

It also dropped the ball with the emotions, as this one is so steeped in sadness and depression it just lost me. I get the point. Jay and his dad struggled to get along. They both wanted to get along. And in spite of how badly his dad treated him, Jay still loved his dad, dives into the ocean to find his dad, and once inside the whale, relies on hearing the voice of his dad to survive, and the two have a reconciliation after Mitt is dead. I get all this.

The problem is in those flashback scenes, we see Mitt treat Jay so horribly, it’s to the point where I’m asking, why are we even seeing a story built around this guy? Sure, he was aware that he was being too harsh on his son, but so what? It didn’t change the way he treated him. We witness Jay enduring such emotional angst at the hands of his dad, it’s pretty much abusive. So, this whole storyline just lost me. I didn’t care about Mitt at all, and I couldn’t help but think Jay would be better off without him.

The screenplay is also completely devoid of humor, which comes as a surprise, because director Brian Duffield wrote the screenplay, based on a book by Daniel Kraus, and Duffield previously wrote the screenplay for the lively horror movie THE BABYSITTER (2017), a film that was full of humor and was quite funny.

Actors Austin Abrams and Josh Brolin are reunited following their pairing in Zach Cregger’s WEAPONS (2025). Speaking of Cregger, we just saw Austin Abrams in the lead role in Cregger’s RESIDENT EVIL (2026), a horror movie that was incredibly funny. Humor goes a long way, and it is sorely missing from the proceedings here in WHALEFALL. It even affects the performances.

Austin Abrams was so much fun to watch in RESIDENT EVIL, but he’s sad beyond belief here in WHALEFALL. Likewise, Josh Brolin’s performance makes Mitt a guy I just wouldn’t want to know.

Even with a decent supporting cast, which includes Elisabeth Shue and John Ortiz, the acting, like the rest of the movie, is a downer.

I also wasn’t impressed by Brian Duffield’s directorial effort. The scenes inside the whale should have been exceedingly intense and exciting, but they’re not. There are a couple of decent sequences, like when Jay is tangling with the squid which like Jay is still alive inside the whale, but so much of the camerawork takes place up close, you don’t really get a feel for what Jay is going through. I get it, as it is supposed to capture a claustrophobic feeling, and it does do this up to a point, but the camera never pulls back enough to give the audience a feel for what it is like inside that whale. Most of the shots are all close ups of Jay’s face.

The CGI effects are also nothing to write home about. Obviously, the filmmakers here didn’t shoot “on location” inside a whale’s body, and pretty much everything we see in this interior setting, as well as shots of the whale itself, never reach the level of no doubt believability.

It also doesn’t help that every time things do get a tad intense, Duffield “treats’ us to another flashback, where we have to suffer through another scene where Mitt torments his son. Even the “dad knew what he was talking about” reveals late in the movie, where Jay remembers things his dad said to him, and uses them to survive, fall flat, because as I said, Mitt is such an abhorrent character.

Yet, I was mildly intrigued throughout this one, mostly because it’s not every day you see a story about a guy trying to survive while inside a whale. That being said, “mildly” intrigued is a disappointment, because there’s nothing “mild” about a human being trying to survive after being swallowed up by a whale.

This one should have been much better.

I give it two stars.

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RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

IN THE SPOOKLIGHT: THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD (1957)

This Halloween season, I have giant monsters on the mind, specifically from the golden age of giant monster movies, the 1950s.

The decade of the 1950s was the gold standard for giant monster movies. It’s the decade which first saw Godzilla emerge from the ocean depths in the original GODZILLA (1954) and also featured for my money the best giant monster movie ever made, the giant ant thriller THEM! (1954). 1954 was certainly a good year for giant monster movies.

But one giant monster movie that doesn’t get as much love as many of the others from the decade, films like THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS (1953) and TARANTULA (1955), is one that I think is among the better made giant creature films from the 1950s, and that movie is THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD (1957).

Part of the problem, I think, with THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD, is it features as its monster a giant mollusk. Yeah, a giant clam is about as frightening as a giant moth. (Sorry, Mothra!)

The good news is the creature in this movie doesn’t really look like a giant clam, but more like a giant larva of an aquatic beetle, which is certainly more frightening looking than an oversized clam!

Speaking of frightening, that has always been my favorite part of THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD, which is, at times, it’s pretty darn scary! The monsters are pretty frightening looking, and director Arnold Laven films this one like a full-fledged horror movie, complete with jump scares here and there, the best being a scene where a man is looking about silently after hearing a noise, and when you least expect it, bam! The monster attacks!

Laven does a nice job at the helm, and while THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD was his only horror movie credit, he did direct several episodes of the PLANET OF THE APES TV show in 1974.

The movie also benefits from having its story take place in an intriguing setting, a town situated around the canal system of California’s Imperial Valley. The canal system setting adds to a lot of the suspense in this one, as the creatures make their home there.

In THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD— actually a better title would have been THE MONSTERS THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD, since there are lots of these giant critters here— these oversized mollusks start killing people, and it’s up to the personnel at the military base there to solve the mystery, led by commanding officer Twill (Tim Holt) and Dr. Jess Rogers (Hans Conried). During the investigation, Twill gets to know Gail Mackenzie (Audrey Dalton), a secretary at the base, and her young daughter, and Twill and Gail begin to see each other in a relationship that resonates better than the traditional wooden romances in 1950s horror movies.

Twill and Rogers eventually solve the mystery and put a plan in place to destroy the creatures, but not before lives are lost and in the movie’s climax, one of the creatures emerges from dormancy in the lab and attacks Gail and her daughter. Will Twill arrive in time to save them? It’s a 1950s giant monster movie, what do you think?

The cast is solid.

Tim Holt makes Twill a three-dimensional character. At first, he’s a strict by-the-book military officer, but his relationship with Gail reveals a softer side. Holt enjoyed a long movie career, mostly in westerns, and THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD was his only genre credit.

As I said, Audrey Dalton as Gail generated some nice chemistry with Tim Holt as the movie’s lead couple.

Hans Conried brings authenticity to his role as Dr. Jess Rogers. Conried had a gazillion credits, even showing up on an episode of KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER (1974). Conried is probably most famous for providing the voice of Captain Hook in the Disney animated classic PETER PAN (1953).

The screenplay by David Duncan and Pat Fielder is a good one. It has a compelling story to tell, has better dialogue than most of the 1950s giant monster movies, and creates three dimensional and interesting characters. In fact, the screenplay is one of this movie’s strengths, which comes as no surprise as both these guys had a ton of writing credits. Duncan wrote several other horror movie screenplays, including THE BLACK SCORPION (1957). MONSTER ON THE CAMPUS (1958), and THE THING THAT COULDN’T DIE (1958), as well as the English language version of Toho’s RODAN (1956). He also wrote the screenplay for George Pal’s version of H.G. Wells’ THE TIME MACHINE (1960).

While Pat Fielder wrote mostly for television, he also penned the screenplay for one of my favorite Dracula movies not made by Universal or Hammer, THE RETURN OF DRACULA (1958).

And the look of the monsters here are cool and frightening. No, they’re not super huge like Godzilla or Tarantula. They’re more the size of the giant ants found in THEM! The other cool thing about these monsters, besides the fact that they look scary, is that they’re unusual. It’s not every day you get to see a creature billed as a giant mollusk which more accurately resembles a giant sea beetle!

THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD scores high on the scare meter, especially those of the jump scare variety, something that was rather unusual for giant monster movies in the 1950s. It may not be in the top three of these 1950s creature features, but for a movie we don’t often here about much anymore, it’s certainly in the upper echelon of this subgenre.

And we’ll close with yet another reason why these creatures are scary. While Twill and his military personnel are struggling to contain the giant mollusk threat, Dr. Rogers utters a chilling reminder as to why these creatures are difficult to pin down when he says, “We must remember that these creatures can travel over land too.”

Yikes! Double threat!

So, watch out. While you may set your eyes on the water, don’t forget to keep an eye looking over your shoulder, because these babies move on land as well. They just might sneak up on you, and by then, as some folks in this movie discover, it’s way too late!

Happy clam digging!

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ANGEL AND THE BADMAN (2026) – Tepid Western Substitutes Christian Values for Story Conflict and Characterizations

ANGEL AND THE BADMAN (2026) is a remake of a classic John Wayne movie of the same name from 1947.

It’s also produced by Angel Studios, and that, really, is all you need to know about this one and how it plays out.

Angel Studios is not officially a Christian based company, but it does focus on faith-based stories and on what it calls, “values-based entertainment.” It also avoids profanity, nudity, sexual content, and graphic violence, as if these things are in and of themselves evil. They are not. And that’s the problem I have with faith-based values-based stories. They dumb down attitudes towards controversy, and label things that sometimes are necessary to tell stories based on truth, because after all, the truth is often messy, as “bad,” and so you have a story being told with the emotional maturity of a child, with good and bad, and no gray. In the hands of a company like Angel Studios, a work like TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, for example, would play out like a Disney movie.

That being said, if you are a fan of Hallmark movies, you’ll no doubt enjoy ANGEL AND THE BADMAN. It’s a safe wholesome family romantic western. But if you’re a fan of cinematic movie westerns, you’ll most likely be bored.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against wholesome stories, and I know there are plenty of people in the world today who want to see this kind of movie. I have no problem with that. But this is a story about an outlaw and a murderous gang chasing him. So, for this story the vanilla style of movie making just doesn’t cut it.

In a nutshell, the plot is about a “bad man,” Quirt Evans (Zachary Levi) who is an outlaw and on the run, who is wounded and then nursed back to health by a family on a farm, which includes the lovely adult daughter, Penny (Meg Fraser), her mother, Irene (Jean Louisa Kelly), her feisty grandmother, Harriet (Melissa Chambers), and precocious little brother Johnny (Barrett Ellis Luca) who conveniently strolls around talking like he’s living in 2026. It’s no surprise, of course, that in this movie Quirt and Penny fall in love, and so when the outlaws who are pursuing him, since he stole their gold, show up, of course it’s up to Quirt to protect them, because, in this movie, they are helpless females. Well, not really. They do fight back. But there’s no way this one isn’t ending with Quirt riding in on his horse to save the day, and that’s exactly what happens. Ho hum.

Quirt and the outlaws are also pursued by the law here, led by a very old and grizzled Marshall, played by a very old and grizzled Tommy Lee Lones. Jones is 80 years-old, and he looks it. He also displays about as much energy as an ailing 80 year-old. That being said, it still was a lot of fun seeing Jones back on the big screen again. In fact, I can safely say that Jones, even at 80 and rather slow, was the best part of this movie.

Zachary Levi is okay as Quirt, but he looks like he’s just dying to start blabbering comical commentary a la Shazam, the role he played in the recent SHAZAM superhero movies.

Director Julio Quintana films Meg Fraser as Penny with her bright blue eyes with a Disney princess aura throughout. So yes, she is beautiful and wholesome to look at, but the movie doesn’t once dare to generate any sexual chemistry between Fraser and Levi. If these two were to get married, you could be sure that they’d be sleeping in separate beds, a la 1950s American television shows.

Jean Louisa Kelly who years ago shined as the troubled teen in the John Candy classic comedy UNCLE BUCK (1989), is respectable here as Irene the matriarch of the family, but every other word she utters is about how to live a good Christian life.

Neal McDonough shows up as main baddie Laredo, the latest in a series of ineffective villains played by McDonough. It’s reached the point where when you see McDonough show up to play a villain, you know he’s going to fail.

The screenplay by Kevin M. Townsend, Christopher Tuffin, and Jaime Hernandez is too busy spouting on about Christian values and prayer to pay any attention to character development and story structure and conflict.

The ending to this one is never in doubt. Like a Hallmark movie, you know the bad guys will lose, the main couple will not only prevail, but they’ll get together and live happily ever after.

Even the shoot outs in this one lack luster. There is no suspense, no excitement, and no payoff at the end because it’s all so predictable.

It’s no surprise that I saw this one in an empty theater. That’s right. I had my own private showing since no one else bothered to pay money to see this movie.

The other problem I have with “faith-based” stories is that they get the faith part all wrong. There’s a reason it’s called faith. That reason is in the real world, God/Jesus/whomever doesn’t show up in the flesh and take charge. You’ve got to believe without proof because nine times out of ten, it seems like prayers are not answered.

But in a movie like ANGEL AND THE BADMAN, the characters are all praying for things like changes of heart amongst the villains, and in some cases, this happens. The characters believe that going to church and praying means that things will work out in the end. There’s nothing wrong with believing this. But stories like this only speak in terms of fantasy, because here, prayers do work 100 % and the characters do get everything they want. It’s exactly this kind of storytelling that turns people away from faith, because they feel alienated. Why don’t I have a seat at the table? Why aren’t my prayers answered? Why is God ignoring me?

A smarter faith-based story would show prayers not working out the way a character expects, and then that character’s faith would be tested. If that character keeps their faith, then that’s a story about faith.

I was largely bored watching ANGEL AND THE BADMAN because while the characters here are all amiable, in terms of a western about an outlaw getting a second chance at life, it was pretty dull because it was clear from the outset that this second chance for redemption was pretty much a no brainer.

If you like wholesome Hallmark-type movies, you’ll enjoy ANGEL AND THE BADMAN. But if you’re a fan of movie westerns like me, you’ll no doubt be bored with it all.

I give it one and a half stars.

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RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

OTHER MOMMY (2026) – Horror Movie Awful from Start to Finish

Excuse me, where’s the monster with all the bandages?

Ohhh, this isn’t OTHER MUMMY? It’s OTHER MOMMY. I see.

You know, there are some movie titles that just don’t do the movie any favors. I’m sorry, but OTHER MOMMY? It has ridiculousness written all over it. I crack up every time I see it. It sounds like a bad sitcom.

Anyway, the title is the least of this one’s problems.

OTHER MOMMY (2026) is a new horror movie by director Rob Savage, the man who brought us THE BOOGEYMAN (2023) a few years back, a rather lame horror movie that didn’t work all that well for me. OTHER MOMMY is worse, unfortunately.

There’s a good story in there somewhere, and that’s because the screenplay by Nathan Elston is based on the novel Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman, and so once again here we have an example of superior source material done in my a muddled screenplay.

In a nutshell, OTHER MOMMY is the story of an 8 year-old girl named Bela (Arabella Olivia Clark) whose imaginary friend takes on the image of her mother, and it isn’t just an imaginary friend, but an evil entity which wants to enter Bela’s heart in order to switch places with her. It wants to become human, and it wants to send Bela into the demon world. And it wants this because words superimposed on the screen before the opening credits inform the audience that human life is coveted by demons who desperately want to become human because being human is so precious. It is? Humans are awesome? I guess demons don’t watch the nightly news.

Anyway, once Bela’s parents, Mommy (Jessica Chastain) and Daddo (Jay Duplass) discover what’s going on and that their daughter is in danger, it’s up to them to protect her, something which in this movie they’re not very good at.

The movie even has a decent subtext, where the demon entices Bela that if she allows it to switch places with her, she’ll be safe and pain free, because in the real world, her heart is about to be broken by her parents, who are clearly having issues, and Bela sees this. And so, the demon’s offer begins to look better and better as the movie goes along, as Bela sees her parents approaching divorce mode.

This storyline is the best part of OTHER MOMMY. Unfortunately, the way director Rob Savage decides to tell this story, is the worst part.

Let’s start with how this one begins. We immediately meet the three central family members, and in a sequence given away in the movie’s trailers, we watch Bela have an uncomfortable encounter with her “other mommy” before Daddo (who comes up with these names?) rushes in when there’s a fire on top of the stove. As Daddo comforts Bela, he sees the Other Mommy with her body bizarrely contorted and as he screams aloud in fright, the title sequence blares out OTHER MOMMY in a way that can only be described as over the top and comical. For a moment, I thought I was watching a parody.

The fact that the parents learn about Other Mommy immediately was somewhat refreshing. However, how they handle everything afterwards is ludicrous and unbelievable. They clearly win The Worst Movie Parents of the Year Award as they fail in everything they attempt to do to protect Bela.

This movie lost me from the moment those bizarre opening titles blasted onto the screen, and things only got worse.

The performances don’t help.

Jessica Chastain, a fine actress who has delivered many notable performances, plays the most annoying mother in a movie I’ve seen in a while. She’s cold and distant at first, clearly not happy in her marriage, clearly not happy being a mother, and then of course, late in the game, has a complete change of heart, a transition that is so unbelievable it makes one think the title of this one should have been FAKE MOMMY. Chastain has also starred in her share of genre movies, from IT: CHAPTER TWO (2019) to CRIMSON PEAK (2015). This is probably the first time I have ever not enjoyed a performance by Jessica Chastain.

Jay Duplass is even worse as Daddo. Most of the time the guy is excessively syrupy sweet- no wonder Mommy is no longer in love with him. He is supposed to be funny, but his humor misfires throughout. The screenplay doesn’t help. When things are at their bleakest, late in the game, he’s cracking jokes and throwing a party to “lighten the mood.” WTF? The biggest surprise in this one is why little Bela doesn’t say yes to the demon’s offer immediately! I can’t imagine being stuck in this family as a kid.

Scary? Nope. It seems director Rob Savage wouldn’t know a scary sequence if it bit him in the ass.

Chastain does do double duty here as she plays Other Mommy as well, but what constitutes as frightening for her are long cringy smiles and repeatedly asking, “Can I go into your heart?” before she gives way to ridiculous special effects. The only reaction the scare/gore effects in this one got from the audience I saw it with was laughter.

Karen Allen, famous for playing Marion in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981), plays Bela’s grandmother, but sadly, it’s yet another performance in this movie that doesn’t go anywhere.

The only positive about this movie is a nice performance by little Arabella Olivia Clark as Bela. She’s good, and that’s about the only thing that’s good about this one.

The ending, where it’s actually little Bela who takes charges, is also a letdown.

The entire movie is a letdown, mostly because there is so much potential here with a story about tempting a little girl to say yes to a demon because her parents are dysfunctional, but this movie can’t even get this right.

OTHER MOMMY is a snooze from start to finish.

As I sat there stuck in the theater suffering through this one, I couldn’t help but wish I was watching an OTHER MOVIE instead.

I give it one star.

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RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

PICTURE OF THE DAY: HORROR OF DRACULA (1958)

With all the hype recently of the upcoming 4K release of HORROR OF DRACULA (1958) on Blu-ray and at select theaters on October 27, my favorite Dracula movie of all time has been on my mind. I’m not sure how limited the theatrical release will be, but I would absolutely love to see this one on the big screen.

So, today’s Picture of The Day comes from this Hammer masterpiece.

One of my favorite parts of HORROR OF DRACULA is Terence Fisher’s direction and the overall cinematography. Everything in this movie looks amazing, and the horror scenes are played out to full effect.

Take the image above, for example. This is the scene where Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) and Arthur Holmwood (Michael Gough) are standing guard outside the house, awaiting the arrival of Dracula, in an effort to protect Mina, but what they don’t know, is that Dracula is already inside the house. And so, while they’re standing around outside, Mina exits her bedroom, and with a jolt of powerful James Bernard music, there is Dracula (Christopher Lee) standing at the base of the stairs, about to make his way to Mina’s bedroom. It is shot beautifully by Terence Fisher, as so much of this movie is, and because there is so much to like about HORROR OF DRACULA, the way Fisher filmed this one is rarely talked about.

This scene is a classic, thanks to Fisher’s direction. From the moment we see Dracula waiting at the base of the stairs, which is a shock because the audience, like Van Helsing and Holmwood, believe he’s on his way to the house and not inside, to his dominant predator style walk up those stairs, to the way he slams the door shut behind him, which then cuts to the interior of the bedroom, for the very sensual and horrific vampire bite he gives Mina (Melissa Stribling), to the way the scene ends, with a cutaway to a screeching owl, which again surprises the audience because they expect a scream from Mina.

The shot here is framed perfectly, with the detailed set of the Holmwood home interior in the background, the vertical beams from the staircase in the foreground, and Dracula in the center. So much detail was given to the sets in this movie, from the props to the floors. Look closely at this photo, and there is just so much to see. And don’t even get me started on the way Terence Fisher used color schemes in this movie as well as in the many other movies he directed for Hammer. Here we see green, black, and gold, and it’s all beautifully balanced.

The other item of note in this picture is Dracula’s cape. HORROR OF DRACULA is the only Hammer Christopher Lee Dracula movie where the interior of his cape is black. Starting with DRACULA: PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1966), Hammer switched to a Dracula cape with a red interior, most likely for the obvious reason that red calls to mind, blood. It’s a decent look, but I’ve always preferred the all black version seen here in HORROR OF DRACULA.

There’s just something about the all black Dracula cape/costume in HORROR OF DRACULA that, like the rest of the movie, resonates so well. Sometimes the red cape plays out too over the top, like a caricature almost, but the all black is deadly, menacing, and even a bit sexy, just like Christopher Lee. This costume matches his Dracula perfectly.

It also contrasts wonderfully with Dracula’s white coffin in this movie, another stroke of brilliance by Terence Fisher.

HORROR OF DRACULA is coming to Blu-ray and even some movie theaters on October 27, 2026, in 4K and uncut, supposedly the definitive version, which was found recently in a Warner Brothers vault in Los Angeles, and is supposedly more comprehensive than the version discovered in Japan several years ago.

While we wait, enjoy the image above, and savor the cinematography of one of the greatest Dracula and horror movies ever made.

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STRANGLEHOLD (2026) – Quirky Comedy Crime Thriller Surprisingly Smart

There is no “they.”

That’s one of the best lines in STRANGLEHOLD (2026), and it’s said by Ron Perlman’s mobster character, in a movie that is billed as an action-comedy crime thriller. And while there are plenty of laughs throughout, and a crime, and plenty of gun toting action, the movie also has a surprisingly effective subtext about the state of life in the United States these days and just who is to blame.

Bailey (Ashley Benson) works as a stripper in a small town in Arkansas, barely getting by, as she lives in a mobile home with her drunk husband Tim (Jake Lacy) and their one-year-old daughter. Tim drinks nonstop, and he can’t even hold a job working as a greeter at the local department store. Tim is also a gun enthusiast, a self-proclaimed former military vet who takes his military training seriously, even though he’s reminded by Bailey that he only served in the National Guard and struggled to do even that. But Tim believes that the government is out to get them, from ordering people to get vaccines to giving money to foreign countries rather than helping Americans at home. His points, in spite of his being a loser of a character, reasonate and hit home, which is what I liked most about this movie, that its screenplay by Chandler Duke, Billington Garrett, and director Clark Duke tackles some real life issues and in spite of its dumb Southern boy humor is smart enough to know that the answers are gray and not black and white.

Bailey just wants to buy her little daughter presents for Christmas, and so she asks her jerk of a boss Junior (Justin Long) to either give her extra shifts or perhaps an advance before Christmas. He says no to both. In fact, he even deducts from her most recent paycheck because she’s been arriving to work late recently. Besides, he tells her, she makes most of her money in tips, and when Bailey protests, Junior tells her she’d get more tips if she stopped thinking of herself as a dancer and started acting like a stripper by adding more sex moves to her dances, saying she’d get bigger tips that way. As it stands, the only way to earn more money from Junior is to engage in sex acts with him. Yup, he’s a sleazebag.

When Bailey learns of private party at the strip club with high paying clients, most of them mobsters, she asks to work at the party, but again, Junior tells her no. Completely frustrated, she gives in and gets drunk with her husband Tim, and at this point comes up with the idea that they can rob the strip club the night of the party, which will give Tim the opportunity to put his military training skills to good use, an opportunity Tim jumps at.

And so Bailey and Tim become an unlikely pair of robbers. With assault rifles in hand, they invade the club and hold everyone hostage, including the number one mobster in Arkansas, Junior’s father, Roger (Ron Perlman) as they plan to steal the huge stash of money inside the club’s safe. But somebody presses the silent alarm, and the club’s security staff, a hodgepodge of gun toting local idiots, arrive in their pickup trucks wielding their guns, and they surround the club, erroneously believing it has been taken over by terrorists.

The first half of STRANGLEHOLD is quirky and funny. As it introduces its characters, the writing is sharp and on target. I laughed a lot early on. The humor, especially as we meet the oddball crew of rural idiots, calls to mind the work of the Farrelly brothers, and as the plot grows darker, the film channels another set of filmmaker brothers, the Coens. That’s because in the movie’s second half, as Bailey and Tim attempt to rob the club, things get a tad more serious. That being said, the movie never loses its comedic edge, and the script remains funny all the way through.

But with trigger happy Tim inside the club full of mobsters, and the hillbilly security team on the outside, the stage is set for quite the bloodbath. The body count is high in this one. Yet the script remains smart.

One of the best moments features Ron Perlman’s Roger, as he listens to Tim go on and on about how bad he has it, which is why they are robbing the club, because society has taken everything away from ordinary Americans and keeps taking away, in effect saying, “they don’t care about us anymore!’ To which Roger responds with the line, “There is no they!” Roger goes on to say that he knows poverty and grew up poor, but he didn’t let that stop him. He said he worked hard for everything he got, and he worked his way to the top, because, as he says in his big macho moment, “I’m a man!” Adding that he didn’t whine and complain like Tim.

Roger also has the keen observation saying the trouble with people nowadays is they may be poor, but they all have enough money for things like iPhones and Netflix. He then turns to Bailey and asks, “You have Netlfix?” She nods, and he quips, “Of course!” The implication being that Tim may know poverty, but with things like phones and movies, he’s not as miserable as he says he is.

This dialogue hearkens back to an earlier scene where Tim goes to the drugstore to buy a prescription med for his ailing young daughter and is shocked at its high price. The pharmacist explains that the generic brand is no longer available, and he has to pay this price for the name brand. He asks for a discount, and she tells him she understands his hardship, but she can’t. She then suggests that maybe he can put some of the things in his shopping basket back. The camera then shows us what’s in his basked, beer and video game accessories for him. He returns home with his beer and video game supplies, not the medicine, telling Bailey the price was too high to pay for. Which shows us not only the real-life frustrations of high prescription drug prices, but Tim’s decision to put himself first and his sick daughter last. Which speaks to Roger’s point later about weakness in character.

Ashley Benson is very good in the lead role as Bailey, and other than the drunken decision she makes to rob the strip club, she’s the one character in the movie with a head on her shoulders and a conscience, as she balks at their decision once the bullets start flying and her friends inside the club start dying, but of course by then it’s too late.

Jake Lacy is sufficiently annoying as paranoid hubby Tim. Lacy played a similarly annoying character on the TV show THE WHITE LOTUS (2021). He makes Tim an interesting character. He’s terribly selfish and a terrible father and husband, but his points about not being able to catch a break in this country in the here and now hit home, even though he doesn’t do anything to make his own breaks.

STRANGLEHOLD also has a strong supporting cast. Ron Perlman doesn’t show up until the second half of the movie, but he chews up the scenery as Roger, the powerful mobster. Justin Long, a terrific actor with a ton of credits who started years ago in movies like GALAXY QUEST (1999) and most recently appeared in the horror movies WEAPONS (2025) and BARBARIANS (2022), knocks it out of the park as the annoying jerk of a club owner, Junior.

David Arquette plays a goofy DJ at the club, and Chandler Duke, who co-wrote the screenplay, plays Leon, the half-wit employee who leads the security team surrounding the club. Duke nails the dumb and dumber side of the character but also captures a lot of sympathy as the beat upon character.

Director Clark Duke keeps this one energetic throughout. The humor is on point during the movie’s first half, and once the robbery begins, things get real dark real fast as people we got to know early on start dying, and there’s a sense of unpredictability which works really well here. I wasn’t really sure how this one was going to play out.

The movie also does a really good job mixing humor with horror. Tim’s truck won’t start unless he passes a breathalyzer inside the vehicle, and both he and Bailey are too drunk to make it work, so they use their baby daughter. The scene where they coax her to breathe into the device is a funny one, replaced immediately by horror as Tim says they must take their daughter with them to the robbery because they will need her to start the truck again when they get away, and once there, they leave her inside the truck, right in the middle of the fierce climactic gun battle.

And this final sequence is quite the bloodbath. The movie doesn’t skimp on the violence.

STRANGLEHOLD is a movie that isn’t on a lot of people’s radar, but this comedy crime thriller really worked for me. It’s got fine performances by a veteran cast, and best of all, it has a really smart screenplay that is full of sharp humor and some surprising social commentary that at first glance seems like a playbook for conservative unrest in the nation, but upon a closer look reveals a much wiser take on what’s wrong with the country these days, a mix of poor economic conditions and poor human choices that speaks clearly to the notion that what’s wrong with the nation isn’t “them” but “us,” as people need to take ownership of their lives in spite of the odds stacked against them.

Then again, as Junior says earlier and Bailey repeats later, sometimes you just get f*cked.

I give it three stars.

-END-

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

PRIMETIME (2026) – Stylish Story of TV Host Chris Hansen Struggles to Make Any Point

Here is yet another example of style over substance.

PRIMETIME (2026), a new drama based on the true story of NBC TV host Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson) and his quest to catch online child predators on national TV, is generally getting decent reviews, mostly for stylish direction by Lance Oppenheim, and a really good performance by Pattinson in the lead role.

But its story, specifically what it chooses to focus on, is a head scratcher, and for me, definitely gets in the way of the storytelling here. So, it’s no surprise that the screenplay was written by two first-timers, Ajon Singh and Luke Dittrich. As I’ve said many times before, I’m a story guy, so if the story doesn’t work, most of the time for me the movie doesn’t work either, and that’s the case here with PRIMETIME.

Pattinson plays Chris Hansen, who is intent on becoming a respected TV journalist, and so when he learns that his show is getting high ratings, and that the network is putting it up against the hit TV show LOST, he’s enthralled and goes all in at trying to make his show top in the ratings. So, while the nation believes he’s doing wonderful work catching online predators of children, the movie shows him in a rather negative light. He’s more interested in ratings than catching child molesters. He’s also having an extramarital affair, which doesn’t make him a complete hypocrite but does tarnish the upstanding moral citizen image he’s projecting on TV. He also doesn’t treat his co-workers well, including his faithful producer, Andie (Merritt Wever) who because of his ill treatment of her is considering jumping ship and joining a rival network.

So, Chris Hansen is a problematic guy, and Robert Pattinson plays him this way, but the movie doesn’t really make a strong case that he’s a hypocrite. And that’s the problem with the story in PRIMETIME. It doesn’t make a strong case about anything.

Then there’s the subplot about a young man who is working hard to become an actor, Dan Plum (Skyler Gisondo), and he catches his break when he is hired by Hansen’s show to play the teenage boy who lures the predators into the home to be caught on television. A lot of screen time is spent on Plum, which is another headscratcher since this story has much less to do with him than Hansen. Yet, the main story arc eventually follows Plum, and of all the characters, it’s Plum who the movie focuses on near the end and goes out of its way to makes sure we know his fate. So, now PRIMETIME is a story about a struggling actor?

The screenplay by Ajon Singh and Luke Dittrich meanders and never really hammers any of its points home. I never understood what this story was going for. Chris Hansen is a bad guy and cares more about TV ratings than catching criminals? I get that, but nobody in the movie seems to get this, and Hansen just continues on. The movie’s plot points just never resonate.

Lance Oppenheim’s direction is stylish, that much is true, and that’s probably the best part of the movie, the creative way it is filmed. And it does capture the superficiality of the TV show.

And Robert Pattinson does indeed deliver a potent performance as Chris Hansen, but it’s not enough to carry this movie, even with a solid supporting cast. And while Pattinson does make Hansen a lively character, one thing he doesn’t do is project what’s going on inside the guy’s head. I didn’t always know what he was thinking or what was driving him. It’s supposed to be the drive for top ratings and legitimacy, but Pattinson’s performance doesn’t always make this clear. At times Hansen just seems like a blank slate going through the motions.

I really enjoyed Merritt Wever as Hanson’s producer, Andie, and for my money, she gives the best performance in the movie. Her story arc is an interesting one, as she puts up with all kinds of disrespect from Hansen to the point where she questions her commitment to the show, even though Hansen’s annoyances aside, it’s a show she believes in.

Skyler Gisondo gets copious screentime as Dan Plum, the struggling actor whose break comes when he works on the show, but why the movie spends so much time on his story is a question mark for me, as it takes away from the more important stories of Chris Hansen’s motives and the capturing of the child predators. Gisondo is fine in the role, but unfortunately the character adds little to the story.

And that’s the biggest beef I have with this one. PRIMETIME has the potential to be a potent movie, a deep look at the role of TV and the exposing of these child predators. But the movie does not tackle these hard questions. It doesn’t really deal with, is Chris Hansen a good guy or a jerk only interested in ratings. We don’t really know. We don’t even know what the movie is saying about the role of TV in exposing these predators. Is it good work? Or just a circus? It doesn’t even dare put the audience in the uncomfortable position of feeling sympathy for these predators, people entrapped by an aggressive TV show. But worst of all, it has nothing to say about the victims of these predators or their plight.

At the end of the day, it may be stylish, but it’s also, sadly, superficial.

It’s a story that simply lacks clarity and focus. It seems to have no idea what it wants to say with its story, and as result, ends up saying next to nothing. As such, it struggles to make any point whatsoever.

I give it two stars.

=END-

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

HEART OF THE BEAST (2026) – Adventure of Man and Dog Trapped in Alaskan Wilderness Entertaining and Emotional

One week earlier…

This has become my least favorite gimmick in movies these days. It’s up there with it was just a dream. Ugh!

It occurs when after an opening sequence, the words one week earlier (or fill in some other time, three weeks, a month, whatever) appear on screen, and we are taken back to events which occurred before the sequence we just saw. This can be a clever way to tell a story, but more often than not, it spoils the majority of the movie because we already know what is going to happen. And movies these days use this storytelling gimmick a lot. Way too much for my liking.

It’s used here in HEART OF THE BEAST (2026), a movie I otherwise liked a lot, but its opening sequence does the movie no favors. It’s the story of a man James Belmont (Brad Pitt) and his faithful dog trying to survive in the Alaska wilderness after a plane crash, and the movie opens with a young woman driving a pick-up truck along an Alaskan road only to stop when she sees a dog standing alone in the middle of the road. She gets out of her vehicle and approaches the dog. Then: one week earlier.

So, we already know that the Brad Pitt character isn’t making it out of those woods! Pretty dumb storytelling, if you ask me.

The good news is, it’s about the only thing dumb about this movie, which is actually quite good. But it would have been even better without the needless spoiler in the opening sequence.

James is a former Special Forces veteran, recently retired, who is on a trip with his dog Odin, a specially trained combat dog, into the deep wilds of Alaska to enjoy some rest and relaxation. We learn their backstories when they meet up with a retired miner, Watkins (J.K. Simmons) who spends one night with them, time enough to share a beer and listen to their story. They saw deep horrors of war, and Odin was severely injured. He now has some titanium teeth, scars around his snout and eye, and a prosthetic leg. Odin also suffers from PTSD and experiences disturbing nightmares.

Later, after their twin engine plane crashes deep in the wilderness, James and Odin have to attempt to travel nearly 50 miles on foot through the rough terrain in order to get back to civilization. And that’s basically the plot of HEART OF THE BEAST. It’s man and man’s best friend bonding together and fighting for survival against the elements and predators, as they deal with violent thunderstorms, a harrowing trek over a raging river on an unstable fallen tree, a bear, and a persistent pack of wolves.

HEART OF THE BEAST is definitely a dog movie, a genre that has been with us forever but that has also seen a resurgence of late. What’s a dog movie? Simply put, a movie with a dog as a central character. In recent years, we’ve seen ARTHUR THE KING (2024) with Mark Wahlberg, MEGAN LEAVEY (2017) with Kate Mara, and the superb horror movie GOOD BOY (2025) about a dog that can see ghosts, to name just a few. I’m a dog person, so yes, I generally really enjoy movies about dogs. As such, it’s true I might be a tad biased towards HEART OF THE BEAST, but I think it’s a safe bet that even if you’re a cat lover, you’d still enjoy this movie.

Its story is a good one, and the adventure provides plenty of thrills and suspense throughout. But the best part of this movie is the bond which exists between the Brad Pitt’s character and the dog. They’ve been to war together, and so they are incredibly close. as James says, he has no other family, and his closest relationship is in fact with Odin. And as they have to fight to survive in the Alaskan wilderness, their bond strengthens, as they once again find themselves in life threatening situations. Their relationship is special, and anyone who has been close with a dog will know that this bond depicted in the movie is real, that humans and dogs can be this close, and it’s a relationship that will tug on your heartstrings. Have some tissues ready for this one.

While Brad Pitt is very good and believable in the lead role as James, honestly, this one belongs to its canine star, Odin. Four dogs are listed in the credits as playing Odin, but only one, Uber, played him as an adult. The other three are offspring of Uber and played him in the flashbacks when he was younger. Uber is a very expressive dog with remarkable expressions, and director David Ayer takes full advantage of them. Odin is the best character in the movie, and with apologies to Brad Pitt, Uber gives the best performance in the movie.

Director David Ayer has directed a bunch of movies, and for me his work has been a mixed bag. I enjoyed his World War II adventure FURY (2014), which also starred Brad Pitt, as well as the Jason Statham actioner THE BEEKEEPER (2024). On the other hand, his other Statham vehicle, A WORKING MAN (2025) did not work for me, nor did his DC action flick SUICIDE SQUAD (2016). HEART OF THE BEAST, a phrase which refers to the deadly Alaskan wilderness, is one of Ayer’s better and more satisfying movies.

He also makes full use of the awe-inspiring scenery. That being said, this one was not shot in Alaska, but in New Zealand!

The screenplay by Cameron Alexander tells a straightforward story of friendship and does a good job of putting the two characters in harm’s way. The only drawback was the “one week earlier” construct to open the film.

HEART OF THE BEAST is a highly entertaining adventure movie and features a movie-stealing performance by Uber the dog as Odin, as well as a brave performance by Brad Pitt who spends most of the movie beaten and battered and covered in muck. It also tells a worthwhile story about a special relationship between man and dog and demonstrates how important and close such a relationship can be. So much so that it will most likely make you cry.

I give it three stars.

-END-

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful

SHOCK SCENES: DRACULA’S DEMISE- A Look at the Hammer Dracula Endings – Part 4

This is a reprint from 2016, updated to include links to the actual endings to the Dracula movies.

—Michael

 

SHOCK SCENES:  DRACULA’S DEMISE- A Look at the Hammer Dracula Endings

Part 4

By

Michael Arruda

Welcome to Part 4 of our look at the endings to the Hammer DRACULA series, where we examine how Dracula met his demise in the various Hammer Dracula movies. Previously we looked at the endings to the first six Hammer Dracula pics.  Here in Part 4 we’ll look at the rest of the series.

And remember, if you haven’t seen these films, there are major spoilers here, so proceed with caution.

DRACULA A.D. 1972 (1972)

Dracula meets the 1970s!

After the success of the Dan Curtis film THE NIGHT STALKER (1972), the movie that introduced reporter Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) to the world and had Kolchak hunting a vampire in present day Las Vegas, Hammer decided that for its next Dracula movie they would take Dracula out of the 19th century and put him in the heart of present day London, which at the time happened to be 1972.

DRACULA A.D. 1972 also marked the return of Peter Cushing to the series, as he played Lorrimer Van Helsing, a descendant of the original Van Helsing.  On paper, it  sounded like a neat idea.  In reality- mostly because “modern day” at the time was the groovin-yeah-baby year of 1972, the film really doesn’t work- at least not the way Hammer intended.  THE NIGHT STALKER, it ain’t!

However, that being said, in spite of it being lambasted by critics and doing poorly at the box office, DRACULA A.D. 1972 is actually a pretty fun movie.  I’ve always really liked this one.  The dialogue is so over the top and overdone, it’s a hoot!  It’s like watching an episode of SCOOBY-DOO.

It’s also a lot of fun seeing Peter Cushing return to the series as Van Helsing, even if he is playing one of Van Helsing’s descendants.  As usual, Christopher Lee doesn’t have a lot to do as Dracula, but he makes the most of his few scenes.

Jessica Van Helsing (Stephanie Beacham) isn’t doing her grandfather any favors when she removes the knife from Dracula’s (Christopher Lee) heart during the finale of DRACULA A.D. 1972 (1972).

Unfortunately, the ending isn’t anything to brag about, even with Cushing’s Van Helsing battling Lee’s Dracula once again.  Compared to the ending of HORROR OF DRACULA, the ending to DRACULA A.D. 1972 is slow and tired.  There’s a brief chase, this time with Dracula chasing Van Helsing, a brief scuffle, and then an all too easy death scene where Dracula falls into a pit of wooden stakes, set up there earlier by Van Helsing, although how he would know Dracula would fall inside is beyond me!  This is followed by the obligatory and not very impressive Dracula-turns-to-dust scene.

Far out, man!

Not really.

 

THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA (1973)

Immediately after the release of DRACULA A.D. 1972, Hammer went into production with their next Dracula movie, THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA (1973) which again starred both Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, and once more took place in the 1970s.

The attempt was made to improve upon DRACULA A.D. 1972, and so in this film the hippies are gone, and instead Dracula acts likes he’s a villain in a James Bond movie as he tries to take over the world with the help of other devil worshiping dignitaries. When Scotland Yard investigates and learns about the satanic cult, they turn to their resident expert, Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing).

It’s a fairly interesting plot, but it’s all rather flat, and I’ve always enjoyed DRACULA A.D. 1972 more.  Because DRACULA A.D. 1972 performed so miserably at the box office, Hammer decided not to release SATANIC RITES in the U.S., until that is, five years later when it was released under the ridiculous title COUNT DRACULA AND HIS VAMPIRE BRIDE in 1978.  The only good thing about the delay was I was 14 at the time, and when it opened at my local theater, it provided me with my first opportunity to see a Hammer horror film on the big screen.  Cool!

The ending to SATANIC RITES is actually a bit better than the ending to DRACULA A.D. 1972.  The confrontation between Dracula and Van Helsing is a bit longer this time.  It starts in a fiery house and then continues outside, as Van Helsing leads Dracula into the woods where he is able to get Dracula caught in a thorn bush.  See, in this movie, thorns are representative of Christ’s crown of thorns and as a result are fatal to vampires.  At least Hammer always remained creative!  Of course, what would a Dracula movie be without a good staking, and so Van Helsing drives a stake through Drac’s heart for good measure, which leads to the undead king’s umpteenth disintegration scene.

Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) prepares to do battle with Dracula in THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA (1973).

The best part about this ending is that after Dracula disintegrates, all that is left of Dracula is his ring, which hearkens back to the ending of the first film in the series, HORROR OF DRACULA (1958) where Dracula’s ring also remains after his disintegration.  In HORROR OF DRACULA, Van Helsing does not take the ring, and when Dracula is resurrected in DRACULA-PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1966) he wears it again.  This time around, at the end of SATANIC RITES, Van Helsing does take the ring, symbolizing that this time Dracula is truly done for, which is appropriate, since this was the final Christopher Lee film of the series.

I say final “Christopher Lee” film in the series because even though Lee said his days as Dracula were over, Hammer wasn’t finished, and they would bring back Dracula for one more movie, without Lee.

 

THE LEGEND OF THE SEVEN GOLDEN VAMPIRES (1974)

This is one weird movie.  After the commercial failure of their previous two Dracula movies, Hammer decided that Dracula in the 1970s was not a good idea, and so their next vampire tale would once more be a period piece. THE LEGEND OF THE SEVEN GOLDEN VAMPIRES was originally not going to be a Dracula film at all, but simply a vampire movie, but this horror-martial arts combo was co-produced with The Shaw Brothers Company who insisted that since their Asian audiences loved Dracula, that Dracula had to be incorporated into the movie.

And so an introduction was filmed with John Forbes-Robertson hamming it up in thick Joker-like make-up as Dracula, where we see his spirit enter into that of an Asian warrior who had visited Dracula’s castle.  Dracula wants to seek out new blood in the Far East, and now inside a new body, he is able to assemble an army of Kung-fu vampires— the seven golden vampires— without people knowing who he is, except that old nemesis Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) is also in the Far East and hot on his trail!

 

One of the seven golden vampires in THE LEGEND OF THE SEVEN GOLDEN VAMPIRES (1974), Hammer’s final Dracula movie.

There are martial arts fights galore in this very unique film that somehow actually works.  It also has a fantastic music score by James Bernard.

Unfortunately, the ending is rather lame.  After all that choreographed martial arts fighting, Dracula returns to his old body where he is promptly done in— in very undramatic fashion- by Van Helsing.  It’s a very weak way to end the series.

 

Aside from the ending,  THE LEGEND OF THE SEVEN GOLDEN VAMPIRES is actually a pretty enjoyable movie.  And even though he’s not really involved in the fight sequences, Peter Cushing still enjoys lots of screen time as Van Helsing, and as always, he’s excellent.

Look also for the inferior yet worth checking out re-edited version entitled THE SEVEN BROTHERS MEET DRACULA (1974).  This version was originally released in the U.S. as an exploitation flick.  It’s fun to compare the two.  THE LEGEND OF THE SEVEN GOLDEN VAMPIRES plays out like an elegant atmospheric A-List Hammer vampire movie, whereas THE SEVEN BROTHERS MEETS DRACULA plays like a choppy incoherent blood fest shown at the Drive-In after midnight.  Same movie, different editing.  It’s fascinating to watch these two versions back to back.

So, that about wraps things up.  Thanks for joining me on this four part look at the various Dracula demises in the Hammer Dracula movies.

Join me next time for another SHOCK SCENES when I’ll we’ll look at other memorable scenes in horror movie history.

—END—

THE WEIGHT (2026) – Depression Era Adventure Speaks to Our Times

Perfection is a rare thing in the movies.

Coming close to perfection is just as rare.

THE WEIGHT (2026), a new period piece adventure starring Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe comes close to perfection.

The story takes place in Oregon in 1933, amidst The Great Depression, and single dad Samuel Murphy (Ethan Hawke) is struggling to get by with his young daughter Penny (Avy Berry). In fact, they get evicted from their apartment and find themselves homeless. While searching for a new apartment, Sam and Murphy are accosted by a group of aggressive men who don’t take kindly to the father and daughter being in a back alley, even though Sam explains they’re trying to contact someone inside the building as they are looking for an apartment to rent, and when one of the men gets too close to Penny, Sam reacts and engages the men in a fight. It turns out, these guys are cops, and suddenly Sam is arrested and thrown in jail.

He finds himself months later working a prison chain gang, building roads, led by a demanding officer, J.J. Clancy (Russell Crowe). Clancy takes note of Sam’s intelligence and ingenuity, and he offers Sam a chance to get out of prison early in order to get back to his daughter before she is adopted by a foster family. The job involves helping officers move gold through the Oregon wilderness. If Sam and his handpicked convicts complete the job, Clancy promises all of them will be released early.

So, Sam accepts the offer, chooses three fellow convicts who he has come to know, and they are off to carry gold on foot through the dense Oregon mountains and forest. Not only do they have to brave the elements, but they do not completely trust the guards who are accompanying them, as they fear these men will simply kill them once the job is done under the false pretense that they were trying to steal the gold. Plus, there are plenty of prospectors in the woods, and if they discovered what these men were carrying, they would definitely try to steal it.

There is no shortage of intense adventure and intrigue throughout this story, as a character says in this movie, gold does strange things to people. But Sam isn’t interested in the gold. He is laser focused on one thing, completing the job and staying alive so he can get an early release and get his daughter back. It’s what drives him in this story, and ultimately what drives the movie forward.

I really, really liked THE WEIGHT as it has a lot of things working in its favor. It’s got an air-tight compelling story, interesting characters, and topnotch acting, led by Ethan Hawke in one of his best performances.

It’s no surprise that the screenplay by Matthew Booi, Leo Scherman, and Matthew Chapman sets the story during the Great Depression. We have reached the stage in the here and now in the United States where it’s safe to say life is most uncertain, and day to day life for most people is becoming more and more desperate, and it’s a period that years hence may be looked back on as difficult and as dreadful as the Great Depression. So, just as movies from the 1950s like INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956) and plays like Arthur Miller’s THE CRUCIBLE resonated so well during that decade because in real life at the time people were living through the McCarthy hearings, today, a movie like THE WEIGHT resonates so well because life in present times is gradually reaching similar levels of desperation to that found in the 1930s.

Director Padraic McKinley takes full advantage of the scenery to give the movie a strong sense of place, and he also carves out some very tense sequences, from one in particular involving a rickey foot bridge high above a river, to some grueling and brutal fight sequences.

The acting is superb. Ethan Hawke, who I have enjoyed in such movies as THE BLACK PHONE (2021) and SINISTER (2012), gives one of his all-time best performances here as Sam. The character is laser focused on completing the job in order to get his daughter back, and he’s not above killing people to do it. Hawke makes this knowledgeable character, a guy who has engineer smarts and worldly common sense, believable. He’s also a World War I veteran who survived trench warfare. He’s a stand-up guy and an easy hero to root for.

He’s supported by an exceptional cast.

Julia Jones shines as Anna, a Native American woman who flees for her safety and freedom and ends up meeting and joining the men in the wilderness. She and Hawke enjoy a nice chemistry together, as Sam understands her plight, and she quickly understands that she can trust him, something she can’t say about the rest of the men.

Austin Amelio, who can play an untrustworthy weasel in his sleep, as he has done so memorably before, playing Dwight on the TV show THE WALKING DEAD (2015-2022) and a similar character in the movie HIT MAN (2023), is at it again here as the sketchiest of the convicts on the team, Rankin. In fact, one of the other men refers to him as the most annoying man he’s ever met. But in this movie, characterizations run deep, and Amelio’s Rankin is more than just a weasel. And Amelio delivers a really good performance in this complicated role.

Avi Nash and Lucas Lynggaard Tonnesen round out the convicts, and Sam Hazeldine, George Burgess, and Alec Newman play the untrustworthy officers they work for.

Russell Crowe, as he always does, delivers the goods in a supporting role as J.J. Clancy, the man who sets the gold-moving plan in motion. His scenes with Ethan Hawke are some of the best in the movie. Unfortunately, Crowe isn’t in this one a lot, as he’s offscreen during the movie’s main action sequences in the Oregon wilderness.

If I had any qualms about THE WEIGHT it would be that in spite of the gripping adventure, things tend to work out neat and tidy. This one, especially with what was at stake for the characters, should have been a tad messier and darker.

But all in all, THE WEIGHT is an exceptional movie, cinematic, exciting, and moving, and as such, its Great Depression setting speaks to our current uncertain and increasingly traumatic times.

I give it four stars.

-END-

RATING SYSTEM

Four stars – Perfect, Top of the line

Three and a half stars- Excellent

Three stars – Very Good

Two and a half stars – Good

Two Stars – Fair

One and a half stars – Pretty Weak

One star- Poor

Zero stars – Awful