The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, in Cinema Daily US

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM is a rousing anime fantasy adventure. Although also based on Tolkien's appendices, it shows a keen understanding of and respect for the author's themes and motifs, to tell a tale that will greatly resonate with fans: the early history of Helm's Deep. CINEMA DAILY US review up here.

What Lurks Beneath

The Americans and Brits aboard this nuclear submarine must confront two enemies. One is a very real and very present danger. The other is fantastical. The mermaid that enters through a torpedo tube might have strange siren-like powers, but in the real-world, Russia is absolutely willing and capable of inflicting catastrophic damage on civilian populations—just look at the carnage of Mariupol. Give director Jamie Bailey and screenwriter Marcus Raul credit for calling out Russia by name, instead of making up a fictional nation. (Yet, this film still has a Russia language poster on imdb.) The crew might yet save the remnants of the free world, but their intruder represents an immediate pressing problem in Bailey’s What Lurks Beneath, which releases Friday on VOD.

The crew are American, but they also carry two British intelligence officers, who are the only people aboard who know of Russia’s devastating nuclear strike. Instead of leveling with Captain Banks, the British government orders them to trick the Americans into launching their payload. This seems like a dubious course of action, which understandably leads to complications. Unfortunately, the mermaid-like stowaway excels at exposing and exploiting such deception.

Nobody understands how she infiltrated the boat, but the naked woman is quite distracting for some of the sailors. She also seems to have a knack for literally getting inside men’s heads, through her eerie New Agey song. Again, the Brits, Brandon and Bradford, seem to understand who and what she is better than the Americans. At least Brandon feels somewhat guilty about all the secrets he keeps, since he has fallen for Ensign Nunnas, the medic. Nevertheless, he still needs those missiles to launch quickly, if he wants to save London from Putin.

Frankly, the techno-geopolitical aspects of Raul’s screenplay are a bit smarter than most genre films, but it is clear nobody associated with the film had any real-life experience with nuclear submarines. Still, Bailey manages to build quite a bit of suspense whether they can successfully launch in time.

Ironically, the mermaid, who expresses centuries old hostility to the male gender, acts as an unwitting ally to Putin, who has weaponized rape in the Ukraine and supported a rogues gallery of misogynistic Islamist thugs, such as Ramzan Kadyrov. Nunnas might have mentioned that fact when facing “Her,” but maybe that is asking for too much candor and global awareness in a film like this.

The Savage Hunt of King Stakh, on OVID.tv

Marsh Firs is sort of like a Belarusian Baskerville Manor. About 200 years ago, Nadzieja Janowska’s ancestor killed the so-called King Stakh, a powerful, but ironically reformist landowner. Ever since then, King Stakh has cursed the Janowska family line, somehow causing a steady stream of unnatural deaths and haunting the grounds with his spectral hunting party. A modern thinking folklorist like Bielarecki does not believe in ghosts, but he cannot deny something evil plagues the estate in Valeri Rubinchik’s restored The Savage Hunt of King Stakh, which premieres today on OVID.tv.

Marsh Firs has quite a history. In addition to King Stakh’s hunt, there is also the “Little Man,” whose appearance foretells death to those who see him, and the Woman in Blue, the ghost of a witch killed something like 800 years ago. Janowska believes in them all, but her estate manager Gacievic only gives credence to the wild hunt, but that is more than enough.

Janowska’s uncle and executor Dubotowk is less than thrilled she is hosting Bielarecki, after he took shelter there one proverbial dark and stormy night. Dubotowk’s ward Vardna is even less so. Perhaps not so coincidentally, they are also the ones who stand to inherit Marsh Firs should anything happen to her—and fatal misfortune has a habit of befalling the Janowskas.

Savage Hunt has been billed as folk horror, which is not unreasonable, since it revolves around a ghostly “wild hunt” motif. The look and atmosphere also harken back to the original Russian folky horror film, Viy. Yet, despite the dreamy tone, Rubinchik maintains a lot of ambiguity as to just how supernatural it really is. Regardless, he leans heavily into the gothic trappings.

Deus Irae, on Screambox

When you constantly submerge yourself in evil and corruption, it is bound to leave a mark. Father Javier is an exorcist. He is not merely damaged. He might be damned. So might his entire band of demon vanquishers, but they intend to scare the hell out of Hell in director-screenwriter Pedro Cristiani’s Deus Irae, which premieres today on Screambox.

Father Javier uses heroin to cope. He might have even killed an innocent possessed vessel just to out maneuver a demon. Frankly, it is a little hard to tell what happens in the opening scenes, due to Crisitani’s intentionally fractured style. Regardless, his mentor Ramon fears the once-good Father has lost his way, but that makes him perfect for the demon-busting trio led by Father Marcos.

Together with Sister Helena, they perform the exorcisms other priests just won’t do. If that results in a bit of collateral damage, so be it. In fact, Father Javier starts to figure that might be a good thing, because it shows the Hellspawn their willingness to go to extreme lengths.

Somehow, Deus Irae is extremely disturbing, even when you are not entirely sure what the heck is happening. It is also very gory and annoyingly dark and murky. This film is basically difficult to watch in every conceivable way, yet it is clearly the work of a provocative genre auteur. In fact, it is hard to think of another film that so directly challenges moral assumptions.

Solo Leveling: ReAwakening, in Cinema Daily US

The fight scenes are so fast, furious, and plentiful, our young "Hunter" hardly has any time to do anything else. Fortunately, he just received a mssive power boost and the animators are skilled at depicting action in the anime feature cut of SOLO LEVELING: REAWAKENING. CINEMA DAILY US  review up here.

Secret Level, on Prime Video

"Live, die, repeat” was the tagline and Macguffin of Edge of Tomorrow, but it is just how things work in video games. Some of these animated short films cleverly incorporate that aspect of gameplay. Each original constituent film is set within the world of a popular game (including massively multiplayer online RPGs), but maybe not too popular, since their rights were still available. As is usually the case for anthologies, the results vary considerably in creator Tim Miller’s 15-part Secret Level, which premieres tomorrow on Prime Video.

There is a lot of CGI, featuring human depictions that try and most often fail to traverse the uncanny valley. As a result, some of the less “realistic” looking films stand out more. The opener, “Dungeons & Dragons: The Queen’s Cradle” is a perfect example of the CGI look that will quickly grow repetitive. However, the story written by Brooke Bolander certainly delivers on its promise of dragons. It is also one of the more successful at character establishment. However, the cliffhanger-style ending feels like a bit of a cheat (which too, will be a recurring response throughout Secret Level).

The next two constituent films are also two of the best. “Sifu: It Takes a Life,” directed by Laszlo Ruska with a story credited to Rich Larson is a mystical martial arts beatdown, in which our hero takes on a brutal gang to avenge his grandfather, even if it kills him, repeatedly, just so long as he still has one of his lives signified by a string of gold coins left after the carnage.

“New World: The Once and Future King,” written by JT Petty & Philip (The Spine of Night) Gelatt, is by far the funniest, thanks to voiceover work of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who gamely satirizes his own action image while providing the voice of the hapless King Aelstrom. The entitled idiot intended to conquer the kingdom of Aeternum, but since the land there bestows eternal life, it creates a meritocracy among residents, leaving him ill-equipped maintain the status he expects by birthright.

“Unreal Tournament: Xan” looks very much like many other Secret Level mini-sodes. The hook here is that it openly invites viewers to root for the “rise of the machines” and against humanity when the evil Gamemaster (voiced by Elodie Yung) condemns a group of rebellious androids to a series of gladiatorial games against humans. Doesn’t that just sound like a really bad idea?

The lowest point probably comes in “Warhammer 40,000: And They Shall Know No Fear,” in which a group of space-faring marines are dispatched on a mission that is almost impossible to follow, because the animation is so confusing.

If you are expecting anything like the old Saturday morning cartoon from Victor (Nocturna) Maldonado & Alfredo Torres’ “PAC-MAN: Circle,” you will be shocked. In this case, it an extremely dark allegorical take on the classic arcade game. The ambition here is impressive, but your nostalgia will be dashed to smithereens, so temper your expectations.

Damian (Another Day of Life) Nenow’s “Crossfire: Good Conflict” is a refreshing change of pace, partly because it is the only short that does not incorporate any science fiction or fantastical elements. It also tells a fully self-contained and satisfying story, while maintaining a high degree of ambiguity regarding the why’s of everything. There is also a whole heck of a lot of shooting.

“Armored Core: Asset Management,” based on a Peter Watts story, also feels very similar to the “Unreal Tournament” and “Warhammer 40,000” episodes, but it is easier to follow and features stronger characters. It has the benefit of Keanu Reeves as a broken down mecha pilot who still thinks he has the right stuff. The mecha-action is very video game-like, but that hardly counts as a criticism for a series like this. Wisely, the animators also deliberately modeled the pilots features on Reeve’s, which should please his fans.

DC Showcase: Green Arrow

Technically, he is a superhero without superhuman powers. Yet, he has a whole “Verse” half-named for him. Regardless of powers, a princess in jeopardy will be grateful for his bow in Joaquim Dos Santos’s animated DC Showcase: Green Arrow, which is very much worth catching up with on his reported in-world birthday (12/9).

Oliver Queen (a.k.a. Green Arrow) promised to pick up his girlfriend, Dinah Laurel Lance, from the airport. If you do not already know her secret identity, you will at the end of the animated short. Unfortunately, traffic is brutal, because of young Princess Perdita, who is making her first official state visit on behalf of the troubled Eastern European kingdom of Vlatava—at least was the Princess. By the time she lands, Perdita is the Queen. Presumably, that is why assassins target her, including Green Arrow’s old nemesis, Merlyn, a.k.a. the Dark Archer.

Queen immediately springs into action defending the Queen, even though he knows he will have some explaining to do to Lance. Thus launches a very cool series of animated action set pieces, across the tarmac and through the baggage handling system. Frankly, this installment of DC Showcase could hang One More Shot, the Scott Adkins beatdown set entirely within an airport—and the two would pair up nicely.

Elton John: Never Too Late, on Disney+

Elton John also writes the songs he sings, but only the music. The lyrics were usually penned by his longtime collaborator, Bernie Taupin, but not always. He had some moderate sized hits with Tim Rice too, like “The Circle of Life” and “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.” That was the start of his association with Disney, which continues when R.J. Cutler & David Furnish’s documentary Elton John: Never Too Late premieres this Friday on Disney+.

Cutler, the director of Belushi, and Furnish, John’s manager and life-partner, follow him on his final Farwell Yellow Brick Road tour. For the record, John is not retiring from music—just the out-of-town concerts that take him away from Furnish and their two young sons (so give him credit for forgoing a lot of money, for the sake of his family life). In between each stop, the pop showman takes stock of his career. It turns out, the movie Rocketman was pretty accurate chronicling his life.

However, Cutler and Furnish are not trying to produce a strict biography. Since they have the man himself at their disposal, they largely follow him down the memory lane trips he feels like taking. For instance, he memorably makes a hero’s return the tiny Troubadour club, which launched him to fame in 1970. Fittingly, it all builds to the tour’s climax at Dodger Stadium, revisiting John’s celebrated 1975 concerts, bedecked in his sequined Dodger uniform.

Frankly, Never Too Late does a better job covering John’s musc, album by album, than Rocketman, which prioritized the sex and the drugs over the rock & roll. John also discusses his substance abuse with brutal honesty, readily admitting it hurt his music.

Weirdly, Never Too Late offers a counter-narrative to the documentary The Lost Weekend, which discussed John Lennon’s relationship with his former assistant May Pang. Understandably, John talks at length about his friendship with the former Beatle. While John takes satisfaction from facilitating Lennon’s reconnection with Yoko Ono at the Rocket Man’s concert, the Lost Weekend filmmakers present it as a tragic turning point in the ex-Beatle’s life (and also in the lives of Pang and Julian Lennon).

Year 10: The Apocalypse Takes a Toll

Coastal city folk love to mock preppers, but then every post-apocalyptic movie Hollywood releases completely vindicates their extreme foresight. Judging from this film, you will want to keep plenty of canned goods, medicine, and firearms on-hand. All are apparently scarce in this savage land reverting back to wilderness. Consequently, any medicine will be worth killing for, especially for Jake, who desperately needs antibiotics to treat his ailing partner’s infection in Ben Goodger’s Year 10, which is now available on VOD.

According to press materials, our protagonist’s name is Jake, but you wouldn’t know it from the film, because it is entirely free of dialogue. Evidently, ten years after the apocalypse (however it happened), there just isn’t anything left to say. Jake and his father are hunting traditional game, while the “Leader” and his people hunt human beings. Soon, they hunt Jake’s father, who sacrifices himself, to save Jake and his girlfriend-wife-whatever.

Unfortunately, while they evacuated their dugout, Jake dropped the meds his wounded partner desperately needs. To cure her, he must stalk the Leader’s pack of cannibal brutes. However, he must first replace the warm clothes they stole, so he must find some survivors who are even more vulnerable than he and his partner.

Year 10 is a relentlessly bleak and brutal film. Basically, it is like an entire movie consisting of the really disturbing parts of The Road. Believe it or not, the absence of dialogue never feels like a gimmick, particularly because the music composed by Mario Grigorov and Matt Hill so clearly communicates the underlying emotions of each scene.

However, it is hard to figure why all the survivors remain in such close proximity to each other. It is pretty clear the action had to stay within a pre-set production area. However, the crude sets and assorted clutter look realistically dreary and drearily real.

Regardless, Luke Massy’s fiercely malevolent portrayal of the Leader will define the film for most viewers. He never says a word, but it might be the scariest performance of the year. Frankly, Year 10 probably should be classified as a horror film, even though it is not really written as such, largely because of his work.

Paris Has Fallen, on Hulu

When you are a Secret Service Agent appearing in a string of action movies, like Gerard Butler in the Has Fallen franchise, chances are good you will have to take a bullet for the President, sooner or later. That is bad news for Vincent Taleb, the former protective services officer for the French president. Technically, he is no longer her bodyguard, but can’t quite break off their secret on-again-off-again love affair. As of episode one, he has been re-assigned to the defense minister, who becomes the first target of a massive terrorist conspiracy in creator Howard Overman’s 8-episode Paris Has Fallen, which premieres today on Hulu.

Minister Bardin is a bit sleazy, but Taleb could not be choosy after requesting a transfer from Pres. Levesque’s detail. Bardin will be lucky to have him when highly disgruntled former French Legionnaire Jacob Pearce takes the British embassy hostage. Bardin is his prime target, but Taleb is unusually resourceful. MI-6 agent Zara Taylor is another wildcard Pearce did not expect. Nevertheless, Paris Has Fallen is the sort of series where just when the good guys think they have won a victory, something goes boom.

Paris is the first of several planned international TV spin-offs from the film franchise, but they are mostly thematically related, rather than sharing characters and specific in-world history. Of course, protecting a head of state will most likely factor prominently in them all.

Frankly, Oveman and company never quite convincingly sell Taleb’s relationship with Levesque, but the French agent has solid personality-clashing chemistry with Taylor, who joins the response team as the official unofficial UK representative. Tewfik Jallab and Ritu Arya play off each other well, delivering banter with a sharp edge. They also both acquit themselves well in the many, many fight scenes.

Sean Harris seethes with conviction as Pearce. This is familiar terrain for him, having played super-villain Solomon Lane in the Mission Impossible franchise. Yet, his portrayal still feels fresh and unflaggingly intense. Jeremie Covillault projects rumpled integrity as Matis, the chief of French intelligence. However, Emmanuelle Bercot is so cold and charmless as Levesque, it is almost impossible to buy into her relationship with Taleb.

Y2K: The Singularity Horror That Wasn’t

New York City Council Speaker Peter Vallone Sr. took potential Y2K problems so seriously, he appointed a Republican to chair the council’s special Millenium Bug task force. Perhaps in this what-if horror comedy, Vallone appointed a hack from his own conference instead, resulting in widespread carnage. For whatever fictional reason, everything with a chip will rise like the Terminator’s Skynet in director-co-screenwriter Kyle Mooney’s Y2K, which opens today in theaters.

The only girls who talk to Eli and his best friend Danny are the members of the girls’ basketball team, for whom they work as equipment managers. However, even in 1999, they can find plenty of porn on the internet. It just takes a while, because of dial-up. Somehow, Danny convinces Eli to crash the popular kids party, because his longtime crush, Laura, just dumped her college boyfriend. However, at midnight, instead of a kiss, he gets a horror show of appliances and devices coming alive, killing people at the party.

Together with a few stoner outcasts, Eli and Laura take refuge in the abandoned factory, a completely digital-free zone, where Garrett, the local video store clerk likes to get stoned with his friends. Yet, technology still comes looking for them. Once Laura, the super-cool computer coder plugs-in, the kids realize humanity is truly facing the Singularity, with all the apocalyptic ramifications it entails, unless they fight back.

As a period horror-science fiction comedy, Y2K largely gets the look right. The sentient Transformer-like hive-monsters have an amusing DIY feel and texture, but they are not excessively campy. All the old AOL interfaces and other assorted vintage internet graphics also have the right era-appropriate look and vibe. Weirdly, this film brings back memories, especially the music, like Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping,’ which becomes the motley group’s unofficial theme song. However, the funniest use of music is actually a rendition of a 1980s hit, George Michael’s “Faith,” performed by Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst, playing himself.

In fact, every scene featuring Durst is pretty hilarious, representing the sort of unexpected swerve into lunacy that rejuvenates the film just when it starts to bog down. In some ways, Y2K is like a throwback to the 1980s mechanized horror of Chopping Mall, but the high school drama and dialogue written by Mooney and Evan Winter largely ring true.

The Primrose Railway Children, on BYUtv

In 1905, you could avoid gossip and scandal by moving to the outskirts of town. It is basically impossible today, but the best option Sarah Robinson can think of to shield her family from venomous tongues is a trip to a backward wireless dead-spot, like the Scottish Highlands. She needs to level with her kids, but the motivation for their sudden relocation is a difficult subject to broach in Julian Kemp’s The Primrose Railway Children, based on Jacqueline Wilson’s contemporary re-conception (or whatever term you might prefer) of Edith Nesbit’s classic children’s novel, The Railway Children, which premieres this Sunday on BYUtv.

Precocious young Phoebe Robinson always felt closer to her intermittently-employed animator father Rob than her annoyingly responsible and disciplining mother Sarah. As a result, she takes his sudden absence particularly hard. Initially, her mother tells her and her siblings—kind of popular but still highly self-conscious older sister Becks and bookish, slightly-on-the-spectrum brother Perry—their father is in Japan for a pitch meeting, but that story will not hold for long.

Indeed, their sudden “holiday” to the Highlands still seems suspiciously ill-timed. Even in this small town, Mo, the owner of their rental cottage, acts weirdly solicitous. Of course, Becks rebels against the new smart phone prohibition, so she enlists Phoebe help to find their dad’s number in their mother’s phone and scrounge up some change to call on a pay phone. Meanwhile, Perry is fascinated by the local “heritage railroad,” a retro rail tourist attraction that is more about serving tea than transit from point A to point B. Nevertheless, the steam engine so fascinates him, Barbara the engineer takes him under her wing—until Phoebe pulls her siblings into serious trouble.

At least in one respect, Wilson’s sprucing up Nesbit’s concept makes a fair amount of sense. In the 1905 novel, the missing father had been unjustly convicted of espionage. For the modern retelling, Rob Robinson only has himself to blame for his absence, which leads to a very frank discussion regarding how adults need to accept personal responsibility for their actions. Arguably, the messages for younger people might be more on-point in Primrose than previous Railway Children.

Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings, on Adult Swim

It wasn't just Sir Christopher Lee who appeared in both Star Wars and Lord of the Rings films. Anthony Daniels was also present in both Middle Earth and a galaxy far, far away—or at least his voice was. The man geeks love as C-3PO provided the voice of Legolas in Ralph Bakshi’s animated adaptation. While divisive at the time of release, many fans warmed to it over time (and it looks like a true masterpiece compared to the streaming series). With Middle Earth returning to animation (look for an upcoming Cinema Daily US review), viewers can revisit the 1978 film, since Bakshi’s The Lordo of the Rings is conveniently scheduled to air this Sunday on Adult Swim.

You know how this goes—there was one ring to rule them all—and somehow in ended up in the possession of Bilbo Baggins. Fortunately, his friend, Gandalf the wizard, convinced the hobbit of the ring’s danger, so he relinquished it to the care of his nephew Frodo. Unfortunately, the Dark Lord Sauron has been searching for the all-powerful accessory, so Frodo embarks on a quest to safely dispose of it, once and for all.

Of course, a modest hobbit like the younger Baggins will need help. In fact, he will need a fellowship, including Aragorn, a brave but down-on-his-luck ranger, who also happens to be of noble blood. It is august company, considering Legolas is also the son of the elf king and Boromir is the heir to the kingdom of Gondor. However, hobbit tag-alongs Sam Gamgee, Pippin Took, and Merry Brandybuck are arguably even less formidable than Baggins, but they mean well.

At the time, Bakshi’s film took a lot of flak, because it was conceived as the first installment of a duology, but not marketed accordingly—and unfortunately, the second part was never produced. However, Bakshi and co-screenwriters Chris Conkling and Peter S. Beagle did a nice job combining the first two books, fittingly culminating with the Battle of Helm’s Deep.

Indeed, it is clear Bakshi “got” Tolkien. He understood the huge archetypal significance of events like Gandalf’s return from presumed death and clearly appreciated the fantasy genre in general (having already helmed Wizards).

Bakshi’s extensive use of rotoscope animation techniques was innovative at the time. However, the photo-negative effect is more potent for shorter scenes fueled by dark magic than the extended battle sequences. Regardless, his scenes of the shadow riders stalking the hobbits have lost none of their intensity.

The Invisible Raptor

Roger Corman would have approved of this gimmick. Suckers People are always interested in dinosaurs, but if they are invisible, you can save a lot on special effects. Yet, rather surprisingly, it is Spielberg who gets regular hat-tips and shoutouts rather than the King of the B’s in this dino-mash-up. Even more shockingly, the results are consistently funny, but never cloyingly campy throughout Mike Hermosa’s The Invisible Raptor, which opens this Friday in theaters and on VOD.

Dr. Grant Walker was once a promising paleontologist, but now he hosts attractions at the Dinosaur Theme Park Museum. Unfortunately, some of the scents will attract the invisible velociraptor that escapes from Dr. Wille Walsh’s lab. If you are wondering how he created it, his assistant simply explains by asking “have you seen Jurassic Park?”

Screenwriters Mike Capes and Johnny Wickam frequently return to Spielbergian themes and motifs, obviously including Walker’s Indy-ish hat. (There is also a little boy named Elliott, and the list goes on.) However, Denny Denielson, the “Museum” security guard, and his “shortcomings,” are not very Spielbergian. However, Walker’s reconnection with his former college girlfriend Amber, during a time of crisis, has plenty of precedent, but she still has more attitude than you might expect. Yet, when it comes to attitude, Henrietta McCluckskey, the foul-mouthed owner of a chicken farm, notorious for her bizarre late-night commercials, is in a league by herself.

Somehow, the unlikely gang of four will take a stand against the marauding invisible raptor, but it is not easy for any of them to get their acts together. Of course, the cops would be useless even under normal circumstance, so good luck convincing them to look out for an invisible raptor.

Invisible Raptor is a bit uneven (shocker, I know), but it lands more often than not. There is little mugging (except maybe sometimes from David Shackelford as Denielson, the saddest trailer park redneck ever), because Capes and Wickam’s dialogue is usually sufficiently funny to deliver straight. Likewise, the third act climax is absolutely ridiculous, but it is also hilarious, because it makes twisted sense in the context of the film.

ADIFF ’24: Lanier

Lake Lanier in Georgia is [still] named after Sidney Lanier, who was best known as a poet, but also served in the Confederate army. As hawkish conservative, it never made much sense that we have so many landmarks named after Confederates. After all, we the United States of America, kicked their butts after they violated their oaths to the Constitution and betrayed their country. It should be called Lake Sherman, because nobody did more for Atlanta’s construction companies. Regardless, the directing-screenwriting tandem of William Eric Anderson & Cindy Estenfanie Kunz-Anderson do not even have time for him. They are more concerned with the supernatural desire to avenge racial injustices of the early 20^th Century in Lanier, which screens as part of the 2024 African Diaspora International Film Festival.

The lucky Stevenson family won a weekend getaway to partake in the “Lake Lanier Experience,” a cultural event curated by Mariah Wilson’s nonprofit. As a cop, James Stevenson has a keen awareness of the number of people who go missing around the lake-area each year. Yet, he [mistakenly] assumes Wilson’s lodge is safe.

However, he takes an instant dislike to her husband, Daniel, even though he works as a CSI investigator. If anything, he should trust his instincts more, because Wilson is haunted by his grandfather, who was one of the men lynched in Oscarville, the Reconstruction-era Black community that was eventually cleared and flooded during the construction of Lake Lanier. For years, Wilson lured victims to the lake, hoping to satisfy his grandfather’s lust for blood. It is clear the Stevensons will be next, even though their daughter Kayla immediately forged a close friendship with the Wilsons’ daughter Tasha.

Anderson and Kunz-Anderson try to use the real-life haunted lore surrounding Lake Lanier and the submerged town of Oscarville to tell a socially conscious horror story. Unfortunately, they invest more time and energy making their points than in developing suspense and tension. They capture several creepy images, but that is about all they can offer horror fans. Even with a modest 73-minute running time, their pacing feels sluggish.

Chateau: The No-Go Chateau

The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park is famous as one of the locations used for The Shining. Yet, it still regularly hosts weddings, so plans to turn the Chateau Haute Jaure into a wedding palace should hardly be hindered by its appearance in this small upstart horror movie, provided they do some serious work on the surrounding grounds. However, an influencer without influence has a hard time checking out when she tries to film a ghost-hunting video there in director-screenwriter Luke Genton’s Chateau, which releases Friday on VOD.

James has many reasons to hate her abusive mother, starting with her name. She has been working odd jobs to support her stay in Paris, leaving her sister to deal with their mother’s slow demise and funeral. She was hoping to find her fame and fortune on YouTube, but it has not happened yet. However, her roommate Dash has the brilliant idea to film inside the “No-Go Chateau,” which is notorious on the internet for alleged disappearances of those who visit.

Since the No-Go is still a private home, James must go undercover, as a temp maid sent by a cleaning service. It is a big property, so she will have a full day to dust and scrub, while the owner is in town. Since James is a skeptic, she invites Dash to join her, so he can “liven” things up, but viewers can tell from the shapes and shadows moving behind them that they are in for a long night.

Obviously, Chateau is like hundreds of previous ghost-chasing gone wrong found footage horror movies. However, Genton’s film has two things going for it that makes a world of difference. The first is the atmospheric Chateau Haute Jaure setting, which Genton fully capitalizes on. The second is his first-rate execution, which steadily builds tension and earns scares. Even though experienced horror viewers have been down this road numerous times before, they will still get caught up in the spookiness if it all.

DC Showcase: Adam Strange

For this Earthling, the Zeta Beam is a lot like Dr. Sam Beckett’s Quantum Leaps. They are unpredictable, but often come at the perversely worst possible time. It delivered the titular archaeologist to Planet Rann, where he met his beloved wife. Yet, it also takes him away when his family needs him the most in Butch Lukic’s DC Showcase: Adam Strange, which makes suitable viewing for his reported in-world birthday (12/3).

Rann is under attack and Strange’s wife and daughter are in serious peril. Suddenly, shazam (so to speak): a Zeta beam appears, transporting Strange across the galaxy to a mining colony, not unlike those seen in Outland and Alien: Romulus. Understandably, he yearns to return home, so spends months obsessively trying to calculate where the Zeta beam will next appear.

However, as the months turn into years, the increasingly bitter Strange turns into the colony drunk. Nevertheless, when freakish space spiders attack, they need a hero like Strange. Fortunately, he still has his retro-looking ray gun and jet-pack.

WWII: Operation Phoenix

Witold Pilecki heroically agreed to go undercover in the Auschwitz concentration camp to smuggle information back to the Polish Home Army. In recognition of his heroism, the Communist government executed him for espionage. Pilecki volunteered for his inconceivable mission. Major Murphy will order two recent Allied escapees to be re-captured, whether they like it or not, as part of a desperate plan to free a spy with critical intel. His team isn’t so “dirty,” but they have Dirty Dozen-like odds of survival in Wesley Mellott’s WWII: Operation Phoenix (a.k.a. Talons of the Phoenix), which releases tomorrow on VOD.

As a protégé of secretive Henry Tasquer Finn, former Continental socialite Katherine LaRue uncovered blockbuster information. The Gestapo burned through their entire network, but she temporarily escaped on a neutral freighter, the John Knight, until a U-boat caught up with her. The Allied brass needs her and her intel, which seems to involve nuclear secrets and shipments of heavy water, but their double-talk always keeps intentionally vague.

Regardless, Major Murphy must devise and execute an unlikely rescue operation, codenamed “Phoenix,” with the help of the all-woman Resistance field unit, who have sheltered the two escapees. To really complicate matters, Captain Rand has quickly fallen for one of his hosts, so he is less than thrilled to return to his former POW camp.

The limited resources really show throughout Phoenix, which is too bad, because it features some surprisingly colorful performances, especially among the Allies. Marcus Lawrence is oddly, but entertainingly flamboyant as Sgt. Major Colin Lackley. Screenwriter Darrin Archer hams it up as debauched Captain Jack Travis, their pilot, whose essentially chose the mission over the brig. Eric Supensky is also more than sufficiently hardnosed as Major Murphy.

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, on Max

As a teen comics reader, my loyalties were with Marvel, perhaps because I identified with the real-world challenges characters like Peter Parker faced (in addition to saving the world several times over). As an adult reconnecting with comics as reviewer of graphic novels, I am more drawn to DC, perhaps because I appreciate the truly iconic resonance of characters like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. I do not want to be Superman’s best friend, but I value his history standing for “truth, justice, and the American way”—and yes, it really annoys me that they changed his motto.

Of course, there is no character more iconic than Superman—and actor Christopher Reeve did the almost impossible, by further enhancing his mythic status. Nobody casts a greater shadow over his on-screen successors than Reeve does for subsequent Superman thesps. That made his tragic accident and campaign for greater paralysis treatments even more poignant. Ian Bonhote & Peter Ettedgui chronicle Reeve’s life and work, but they give special attention to his dramatic third act in Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, which premieres this coming Saturday on Max.

There is just no getting around the fact this will be a sad film. However, there are also positives to take from it, if viewers care to look for them. The film starts with audio recordings of Reeve looking back on the day of his accident, which are truly haunting to hear. It becomes clear Reeve nearly died. His mother wanted to pull the plug, but his late wife Dana Reeve encouraged him to keep living.

Then Bonhote and Ettedgui flashback to Reeve’s early career, which practically started with the original 1978 Superman. Casting the title Super-role was more difficult than the search for Scarlett O’Hara, so the producers decided to pick an unknown. In retrospect, that was a brilliant strategy. Nobody since has looked more like the comic book Superman than Reeve (although Superman & Lois’s Tyler Hoechlin is the most respectable second place we’ve yet seen).

Most of the discussion of Reeve’s career focuses on the Superman films, which makes sense. After all, it was co-produced by DC Entertainment and those are the films he will be most remembered for. However, it glosses over Somewhere in Time, which was not a hit at the time, but might be even more beloved today by a certain subset of viewers. It is also worth noting he appeared in the truly excellent Remains of the Day, which could have won best picture if had been released in a different year than Schindler’s List. Plus, Reeve performed one of the earliest same-sex kisses in Death Trap, which more importantly, happened to be a ripping good thriller.

Regardless, Bonhote and Ettedgui thoroughly cover the ups and downs of Reeve’s life post-paralysis, as well as his wife’s ultimately fatal cancer diagnosis less than a year after his death—but they handle the resulting family pain and anguish with great sensitivity. In fact, all three of Reeve’s adult children serve as the film’s primary voices. (It is worth noting his youngest son Will bears such a striking resemblance to his father, if he ever showed up at an event wearing a Superman costume, fans might lose their minds.)

Earth Abides, on MGM+

Considered the granddaddy of environmentally-themed end-of-the-world novels, George R. Stewart’s pandemic epic was also inducted into the libertarian Prometheus Hall of Fame. Yet, it was only previously adapted for the radio (starring John Dehner). Seventy-five years-plus after it was originally published, the doomsday disease scenario obviously lands differently. Regardless, life must go on for the few people still left alive, in creator Todd Komarnicki’s six-episode Earth Abides, which premieres tomorrow on MGM+.

Geologist Ish was on a rock-hunting expedition when he was bitten by a rattlesnake. He partially extracts the venom, but for days, he fitfully slips in and out of consciousness. When he finally comes to, he finds civilization has fallen, much like Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead, or Bill Masen in The Day of the Triffids. (By the way, Ish’s mother named him after Christopher Isherwood, not Ish Kabibble.)

Ish’s first encounter with survivors turns out to be quite depressing. Appropriately, it happens in Las Vegas, stirring up memories of The Stand, which Stephen King readily concedes was partly inspired by Stewart’s novel. Frankly, the scene is so bad, he figures he might as well head home, but on the way, he chances across Lucky, a very good dog, who will be his loyal companion for years.

Next, he comes across Emma, who is special. Like the woman he previously encountered, she also lost a child, but she is mentally stronger. She is also quite resourceful, especially when it comes to hunting and gardening. Since they sort of are the last man and woman in the world, they start building their new family and community in Ish’s San Lupo Drive neighborhood.

Despite Ish’s reservations, Emma leaves instructions for how other survivors might find them—and some do. The first few turn out well, but Charlie and his band of wanderers are a different matter. They charm most of the San Lupo residents, but Ish and the audience can tell Charlie is a vicious sociopath.

Clearly, Komarnicki has had a busy month, considering Earth Abides releases less than two weeks after the opening of Bonhoeffer, which both attest to his interesting taste in source material. Frankly, there are many competing takeaways viewers could glean from his adaptation of Stewart, beyond the environmental implications. Some might see Charlie’s invasion and exploitation of survivor communities as an analogy for either illegal immigration or colonization. However, one thing is undeniably in the world of San Lupo: gun ownership is absolutely necessary for survival.

Throughout the series, Komarnicki and directors Bronwen Hughes, Stephen S. Campanelli (Momentum, Grand Isle), and Rachel Leiterman maintain a good deal of tension, while showing the passage of years and even decades. Komarnicki and his writing team tinker with many of the details of Stewart’s original story, but they stay quite faithful to his original conception of Ish’s character.