george.schmidt

SINNERS (2025) ***1/2 Michael B. Jordan, Miles Caton, Andrene Ward-Hammond, Jack O'Connell, Tanaj L. Jackson, Yao, Li Jun Li, Delroy Lindo, Jayme Lawson, Hailee Steinfeld, Omar Benson Miller, Emonie Ellison, Wunmi Mosaku, Peter Dreimanis, Lola Kirke. Ryan Coogler's Depression era DeepSouth set vampire film delivers the goods with a dual performance by Jordan as criminally inclined cousins whose opening night of their juke joint unleashes a night in Hell when demonic forces prey upon its clientele. Well-crafted and strongly delivered on all accounts from production to acting giving a horror staple a much-needed transfusion of originality thru conception.

DROP (2025) *** Meghann Fahy, Brandon Sklenar, Violette Beane, Jacob Robinson, Reed Diamond, Gabrielle Ryan, Sarah McCormack, Jeffrey Self, Ed Weeks, Travis Nelson. High concept Hitchcockian suspense film about a recovering therapist (Fahy delivering a well-constructed performance) from an abusive marriage deciding to plunge back into the dating world which unspools into a nightmarish evening of a cat-and-mouse mystery involving her cellphone's messages of impending death to her babysit son and her sister while trying to solve who is trying to destroy her emotionally and mentally. Directed with style by Christopher Landon and clever technical precision with fine acting by its leads.

THE SURFER (2025) *** Nicolas Cage, Finn Little, Julian McMahon. THE SWIMMER meets FALLING DOWN by way of POINT BREAK via THE GAME could've been the elevator pitch for this tailor-made vehicle for Cage as an ex-pat Australian returning to his native land to purchase his old homestead only to be stalemated by a clutch of surfer bullies of the beachhead it rests on. Cage manages to go thru every known emotion to man and still make a somewhat existential mediation on manhood and what it means to be a human being truly compelling with its linear downward spiral to a fascinating second act twist. Filmmaker Lorcan Finnegan wisely uses the picturesque environs and its natural wildwood as secondary characters to an intriguing character study anchored by Cage's uncanny work here.