In a small town in Argentina where nothing bad ever happens, young women go missing. Because this mystery drives the film The Dollmaker, certainly the title character can’t be involved, can he?

That craftsman of crude, creepy-faced, burlap-sack dolls would be Tomás (Rodrigo Noya, Valentin), an adult virgin in unforgiving cola-bottle spectacles. He assists at the community clinic and clerks at the only video store, peculiarly Boy Scouts of America-themed. He also lives with his invalid mother — well, sort of.

Director José María Cicala (2021’s Shadow of the Cat) and co-scripter Griselda Sanchez sure do stack Tomás’ deck with weirdo cards. As if you can’t read the vibes, his house’s mailbox is marked “FAMILIA LYNCH,” yet The Dollmaker recalls as much Picket Fences and Northern Exposure as it does Twin Peaks. With so many characters introduced, most notably Sanchez as a troubled single mom and Dum-Dum-sucking diner waitress who falls for Tomás, it takes a while — too long, I’d argue — to get a bead on your surroundings and who’s even integral to the plot. All the while, Cicala’s intent to wrong-foot viewers is fully transparent.

The decoupaged opening credits suggest something out of the ordinary. Instead, The Dollmaker is average overall, albeit with above-average competence hampered by a comedic streak wobbling uncomfortably between absurdist and sitcom. Wild and wildly uneven, the movie fails to end in a satisfying manner, feeling like it planted a dozen mines along the way, but forgot to trigger eight or nine of them. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

As I learned from the 2011 horror anthology Little Deaths, the French term translating to “little death” is synonymous for “orgasm.” No wonder the Jason Voorhees stand-in at the heart of Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is named Little Death. In fact, that connection is so intrinsic to the film, I wonder if unfamiliarity with the definition might lessen one’s enjoyment.

Oh, well — I’ll never know. Just as the character of Kris (Hannah Einbinder, HBO’s Hacks) may never be able to recapture that childhood feeling of watching the Camp Miasma movies on VHS. Now a Sundance-lauded queer filmmaker (as was Shoenbrun theirself), Kris has secured a studio gig to revive the Friday the 13th-esque franchise with an origin story of Little Death (Jack Haven, née Brigette Lundy-Paine of Bill & Ted Face the Music), its culturally iconic, seemingly immortal serial killer with spear in hand and A/C vent over its head.

Kris hopes to recruit the original Miasma’s camp counselor-cum-final girl, Billy, to reprise her role, but the the mystery-shrouded actress has long left the biz. Traveling to talk her out of retirement, Kris is stunned to discover Billy (Gillian Anderson, The X-Files) lives on the abandoned campgrounds where the movie was shot. And no wonder — the place looks magical, thanks to all-aces production design that extends to all corners.

They bond, as all the single ladies are wont, over KFC and weed. Then, conventions warp in ways Shoenbrun excels: with enormous potential to make half of America feel astronomically uncomfortable. (To be clear, the half whose sphincters tighten in fear of seeing a same-sex kiss.)

A huge leap up and forward for the writer/director, Teenage Sex and Death is a worthy companion to their last film, the tube-obsessed I Saw the TV Glow. Like that 2024 pic, we’re served a multigenre stew boiling in a base of nightmares, this time with the recipe tweaked to allow a full-blown comic sensibility as deliciously rich as the British-style KitKat bars (trust me, yum) strewn across Billy’s bed. Break me off a piece.

And yet, even with all the good humor, to visit Miasma is to patronize a bazaar of the bizarre, from entire set pieces to offhand moments, like a videotape entering and exiting a gooey, lipped wall slit that four out of five learned OB-GYNs might dub a “Cronengina.” The movie’s midpoint massacre, the hands-down highlight, will grant Counting Crows’ “A Long December” an instant Spotify boost and, speaking long-term, one more generation of cultural relevancy. 

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is destined to enjoy longer life among queer cineastes and horror enthusiasts alike (not that their Venn diagram circles are near-separates these days), in largest part for Anderson’s performance. She plays Billy as the type of vampy, Southern thang Jessica Lange built a career upon. Anderson does it so well, the role could emerge as the other most-beloved character of her brilliant career. —Rod Lott

Baylen Bay, the fictional setting of Ice Cream Man, looks to be the dictionary definition of “idyllic.” Since the movie is directed by Eli Roth (Thanksgiving), you know that’s pure facade. Like, one block over, perhaps a young Kyle MacLachlan is stumbling upon an ant-laden ear in the grass.

On Roth’s block, however, the suburb’s children are all abuzz over the new dispenser of frozen desserts (Ari Millen, TV’s Orphan Black), whose truck blasts a Silver Shamrock-esque earworm of a jingle. Once kids eat his treats, they’re susceptible to an act of Weapons-style witchery hearing that tune unlocks: mass parricide.

Thanks to his lactose intolerance, our preteen protagonist (Charlie Zeltzer, a real find) is spared. He spends the last two-thirds of the movie under siege in school — shades of 2014’s Cooties — as his classmates prey upon anyone not following the Pied Piper of Popsicles. (“Is this some kind of Zombie Pajama Day Challenge?” asks one confused faculty member.)

This is Ice Cream Man’s demarcation point, as Roth, unshackled from an MPA rating, goes whole-hog on the gore — so soupy, so chunky — that you’re either in or long gone. I’d be the latter, if not for Roth and co-writer Noah Belson stirring in an equal amount of gallows humor. Sight gags get increasingly ghoulish, like a stairwell sight of two kids playing a game of Operation using a teacher as the bulb-nosed board.

Despite sharing a title and a tagline, this scoop of goop isn’t a remake of the 1995 Clint Howard vehicle. Call this one Children of the Cones — or, if you’re hip to the Brits, Children of the Corneo. Bound to offend more people than it delights, Roth’s exercise in splatstick with sprinkles feels less fully formed than his usual work, perhaps as a self-imposed challenge or an idea he simply needed to knock out of his system. I’m glad he did if that’s the case, although he’s capable of more than this flavor allows. Still, if only all genre throwaways were canny enough to visually reference Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds and Lucio Fulci’s Zombie, with neither a stretch. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Instead of hitting the hay to rest for her grad-school audition, the irresponsible Maggie (Sammi-Jack Martincak, 2024’s Incoming) slums on the couch to watch a movie with her fellow Gen Z friends. I can relate to that desire. I also can relate to them having trouble deciding what to watch. In no way can I relate to Maggie spontaneously inviting her exasperating Uncle Heppy (Sam Landman, 2025’s Good Sport) to join, even over her girlfriend’s protests.

Heppy brings his rare DVD for Night of the Lurchers, an obscure 1999 B movie about zombie-like beings that suck the souls from people until they’re mere husks. The film is known for being cursed, with several crew members having died and the director disappeared, all under the usual mysterious circumstances. (The Venture Brothers’ James Urbaniak and Mystery Science Theater 3000 alum Bill Corbett provide film-in-film cameos.) And when Maggie clicks the proper buttons to unlock the disc menu’s rumored Easter egg, the world of the movie no longer restricts itself to staying on the backside of the screen.

As someone who lived — and purchased his way — through the peak DVD era and watched every disk’s special feature until the pile grew overwhelming, I should get a kick out of Dead Media. There’s no doubt writer/director Joseph Scrimshaw’s heart is in the film; it’s even in the right place. It just never catches a beat, as if biding time for someone to swoop in with the defibrillator paddles.

Like many first features, its rhythms are off. That shows up most in the cast’s overly exaggerated, performative approach, which was anathema to my enjoyment. Something of a calmer Rip Taylor, Uncle Heppy isn’t someone I’d want to be stuck next to in social settings (although he does have a killer Blue’s Clues insult), while Maggie is defined by her trauma — a current crutch of the horror genre. And her pals aren’t given much of a personality, other than that the woman (Jessica Fenton) likes to knit, while the guy (Antonio Teodoro) has a hair swoop that threatens to topple him and, for a split second, can be mistaken for Tig Notaro.

The premise to Dead Media has an analog ancestor in the VHS-oriented The Video Dead. As rinky-dinky as that 1987 rental is, its execution doesn’t annoy because the pic is campy by accident, whereas Dead Media tries too hard to be — until the conclusion, when it suddenly wants to get serious in a shift conducted without a clutch. —Rod Lott

Somewhere along the South American coast, likely just a grid square or two from Blood Island, lives milquetoast myth-buster J. Peter Wells. He’s played by Walter Reed, not to be confused with yellow fever pioneer Dr. Walter Reed. (The latter’s name adorns hospitals, schools and other renowned institutions; the former was in Superman and the Mole-Men and comes off like a sub-John Saxon struggling to stifle an oncoming IBS incident.)

Peter’s writing a book on voodoo. He couldn’t have picked a better spot, what with all the thick-of-night rituals involving voodoo dolls, snakes, dead goats, dancing in circles, drums aplenty and topless villagers for sacrifice.

This is the world of Macumba Love. According to Google my crack investigating skills, “macumba” refers to a type of Afro-Brazilian folk religion. And the “love”? Well, it could be the staid Peter making time with local hottie Venus de Viasa (Ziva Rodann, The Private Lives of Adam & Eve).

Or Peter’s honeymooning daughter (visibly buoyant June Wilkinson, The Bellboy and the Playgirls) showing up with hubby Warren (William Wellman Jr., Winter a-Go-Go), whom Peter greets with the cringe-inducing “My replacement!”

Or Venus flirting with Warren so aggressively and openly on the dance floor, she may as well be grinding her mons pubis against his leg.

But let’s go with my love — for this kind of crass, garish jungle picture. Horror-adventure travelogue trash is a lost art, and this one offers cut-rate thrills ’n’ chills wrapped in a quasi-whodunit.

While Peter and Venus frolic in the ocean, a corpse surfaces (hi, Bob!) in a well-done jump scare. Pulling a poisoned hatpin from the dead man’s tummy, Peter suspects the work of Mama Rata-loi (Ruth de Souza), the voodoo lady shakin’ that stick and drivin’ them crazy — a solid guess, seeing as how skulls surround her dockside shack’s doorframe. He pops by Mama Rata-loi’s unannounced and says he’s heard enough about “the serpent of revenge and the rest of your voodoo trappings.” Speak for yourself, Peter!

The only film directed by character actor Douglas Fowley, whose CV ranges from Singin’ in the Rain to Cat-Women of the Moon, Macumba Love benefits greatly from the scenery — both Wilkinson, then still a teenager, and outdoor Brazil. Without Mother Nature, production value might be as primitive as the natives participating in the rituals bookending the movie.

As with many B pictures of the day, the threadbare script is padded by several diegetic songs. Personally, I could do with less Calypso, but then, what would Wilkinson have to dance to? —Rod Lott