Saw 5

I’m sure I’ve upset Saw fans by this point, but then again, so do most critics. These films have never exactly been critical darlings, and most of them struggle to stay above water. The fact that by the end of this franchise I’ll have handed out four Fresh scores feels generous enough. This won’t be one of them. I despise Hoffman. His version of Jigsaw feels like one of those misguided attempts to replace an iconic character with someone who completely misses the point. Jigsaw passing the torch to Amanda made sense because we actually watched her suffer, change, and … Continue reading Saw 5

Going In Blind: It’s Coming

Since joining Rotten Tomatoes, I’ve noticed that I get approached by a lot of smaller films looking for attention. I can’t always get to all of them, and honestly, I sometimes feel bad when a micro-budget filmmaker sends me something and I end up posting a rotten review, especially when the production didn’t have the resources to include audio description. So, I’ve tapped out on a few, because I look, and I’d either be the first or second review, and I’m not as convinced that audio description wouldn’t have changed my mind enough. Here, I found enough for that to … Continue reading Going In Blind: It’s Coming

The Strangers: Chapter 3

I never thought I’d be reviewing a film like The Strangers: Chapter 3, a film that exists only because a studio apparently had too much money and decided to fund an entire trilogy at the same time. They didn’t do it with the promise of a hot new horror filmmaker behind the camera either. They handed the keys to Renny Harlin. Now, has Harlin directed films I like? Absolutely. But not recently. The last film of his I genuinely enjoyed was Deep Blue Sea, and when you pair that with Cliffhanger and The Long Kiss Goodnight, you’ve got a small … Continue reading The Strangers: Chapter 3

Saw 4

As I continue working my way through the Saw franchise, we’ve officially arrived at what I like to call the Tales of Hoffman era. If there has ever been a less inspired replacement killer in horror history, I’m struggling to think of one. One thing the Saw sequels absolutely love doing is circling back to previous films and pretending there were major revelations hiding in plain sight the entire time. Every sequel seems determined to convince us that events from earlier movies were secretly much more important than we realized. Saw IV leans heavily into that approach, but it does … Continue reading Saw 4

Send Help

Sam Raimi certainly has a voice and a style, and even if he’s not fully embracing his gory Evil Dead beginnings these days, there’s still a campy charm to his films. He understands what his audience expects and what they want from a Sam Raimi movie. Too many people weren’t fans of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but I enjoyed it largely because Raimi brought so much of his own flavor to the film. It felt like Marvel was dabbling in horror, and that willingness to lean into the strange helped it stand out. Of course, it wasn’t … Continue reading Send Help

Saw 3

And now we’ve come to Saw III, which had so much promise to it, but also starts to show the cracks that would eventually split the Saw franchise wide open. Weirdly enough, this is the only one of the first seven films not done by Descriptive Video Works, so even the narrator changes. It’s strange how noticeable that is once you’ve settled into a rhythm with these movies. I’m not sure the writing itself suffered because of it, but the film definitely feels heavier. More cluttered. Like the franchise is starting to collapse under the weight of its own mythology. … Continue reading Saw 3

Shelter

Jason Statham is starting to become like a Street Fighter character brought to life, with Hollywood directors just smashing buttons to get the right combinations of punch, kick, shoot, repeat. Amazingly, he’s still regularly getting films into theaters, which is more than most actors can claim these days. Meanwhile, Mark Wahlberg, an Oscar nominee, seems trapped under the streaming curse, while Statham’s increasingly generic action movies almost always get theatrical releases. Thinking about two of his recent films, The Beekeeper and A Working Man, Shelter lands somewhere in the middle. It’s not nearly as fun or creative as The Beekeeper, … Continue reading Shelter

Wuthering Heights (2026)

Heading into Wuthering Heights, Emerald Fennell was one of the most promising young women I could think of behind the camera. Promising Young Woman and Saltburn were both top 10 films in their respective years for me, if memory serves me correctly. Yes, I was one of the few, the bold, who actually enjoyed the audacity of Saltburn. Fennell also has a terrific ear for music, and one of the best things about Wuthering Heights is the original soundtrack from Charli XCX. It’s the kind of thing that years ago would have been a bigger talking point, but no one … Continue reading Wuthering Heights (2026)

Saw 2

How do you make a sequel to something that wasn’t intended to have a sequel? Gaslight the hell out of your audience. That’s basically what the Saw franchise does. It makes it seem like the patchwork was always there, you just weren’t paying attention. The first Saw was indie glory, made for just 1.2 million, and obviously turning a profit.The sequel, coming from a studio, had more than double the budget. It also had a larger cast, instead of focusing on two men in a room, it had a bunch of strangers waking up together, learning they really need to … Continue reading Saw 2

Scream 7

Apologies in advance, but this is full of spoilers. I admit my faults all the time. I got into film criticism, primarily out of a love for film, and wanting to discuss and explore what I liked, what other people liked, and find those gems. I’m also deeply nostalgic, and I become attached to franchises. This can lead to me being entertained quite easily by anything regarding a franchise I enjoy. Even if I don’t actually think it’s a good film, or TV series, I get pulled into revisiting the worst more than I would a film of equal measure … Continue reading Scream 7

Saw

In case you were unaware, the origin of the crudely labeled torture pron genre now has its entire franchise on Netflix with audio description for the first time apparently ever. I was not really excited, but Alex Howard, of the Dark Room Podcast certainly was. He urged me to jump into the series. Prior to losing my sight, I did technically watch the first two films, but that was it. The original Saw was actually a low budget indie hit at Sundance, which was picked up, and distributed. its most. Marketable stars at the time were Danny Glover and Cary … Continue reading Saw

Ladies First

This is the rough part. If you had asked me at the beginning of the year if I’d be disliking a film with Sacha Baron Cohen, Rosamund Pike, Charles Dance, Richard E Grant, Emily Mortimer, and Fiona Shaw, I would have probably thought no way in hell. Worst case scenario, that gang tried to make an Oscar bait film that the pacing is a bit rough in, and moves at a glacial pace. But to see them in a comedy, a high concept comedy based on a French Netflix title, we are living in some weird reality. I don’t know … Continue reading Ladies First

Arco

I’m a little late to the game on reviewing Arco, a film I first screened for awards consideration back in November of 2025, but I waited until I finally had the chance to hear the audio description track before sitting down to write this. So, shoutout to Audio Eyes and Sean Boggs, the one man assembly line who wrote and narrated Arco. Sean proves, if nothing else, that it is indeed possible for Neon to commission audio description for a title they picked up at Cannes that originally existed in another language, while apparently keeping costs at whatever Sean earns. … Continue reading Arco

Going In Blind: A Mosquito In The Ear

A Mosquito In The Ear sounds like one of those indie titles where you think, that’s original, that’s memorable, whoever came up with that should get a raise. Considering how many films we have named after super basic things, like Memory, brand identity right off the bat is a win.. Yet within the context of the film itself, the meaning lands with surprising weight. Adapted from Andrea Ferraris’ graphic novel Una Zanzara nell’Orecchio and directed by Nicola Rinciari, the film finds surprising depth in a deceptively simple premise. A little Indian girl explains to a nun at her orphanage what … Continue reading Going In Blind: A Mosquito In The Ear

Going In Blind: Searching For Drug Peace

This one has its heart in the right place. Dana Larson is putting himself on the line in a battle to help those with drug addiction problems, and not in the abstinence market, but in harm reduction. He runs a hotly contested store in Canada, where their rules are slightly different, but as we learn through Searching For Drug Peace, Karen’s are not simply an American problem. The feeling deep inside for someone to get involved in things, indignantly, believing that they have an innate right to maintain morality as they see fit, has bled into Canada, and Dana has … Continue reading Going In Blind: Searching For Drug Peace