All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006)
Oct 20, 2013Slasher Film
Quite why this received a theatrical release is a major scratch of the head. A slasher film that is slickly put together but beneath that a work of thorough ordinariness
Edwin Hodge
Red Dawn (2012)
Nov 21, 2012North Korean Invasion of the USA
The idea of remaking John Milus's ridiculous 1984 survivalist fantasy about a Communist invasion of the USA maybe counts as one of the most absurdly unnecessary of all remakes. The film laughably tries to deal with the absence of a Soviet Union by creating a boogeyman out of North Korea
The Purge (2013)
Jun 8, 2013Future That Permits One Night of Lawlessness
Film based around the improbable concept of a future where on one night of each year all crime including murder becomes permissible. While this promises a rich vein of satire, the film only emerges as a variant on Straw Dogs
As Above So Below (2014)
Aug 30, 2014Found Footage/Gateway to Hell
The Brothers Dowdle made the standout The Poughkeepsie Tapes but this is a sub-Da Vinci Code archaeological mystery that is little more than a Halloween haunted house attraction in the Paris catacombs
The Purge: Election Year (2016)
Jul 24, 2016Future That Permits One Night of Lawlessness
The Purge was a routine film that caught on with audiences but the premise lacks the legs to be a franchise – for one, it is based on a future scenario that has zero plausibility. This makes paper-thin stabs in terms of social issues but all interest evaporates when the guns start blazing
The Tomorrow War (2021)
Jul 16, 2021War Across Time
Chris Pratt is recruited to fight an alien invasion in a war across time in a big-budget film that flounders in its own ridiculousness
Injustice (2021)
Oct 24, 2021Animation/Comic-Book Superheroes
An alternate world take on DC Comics continuity where Superman snaps and creates a totalitarian police state and the other DC superheroes come together to stop him
Parallel (2024)
Oct 12, 2025Multiverse Film
A variation on the multiverse film where Danielle Deadwyler enters a forest portal and returns to realities where the details of her life vary in minute but increasingly alarming ways