Manchurian Candidate sleeper agent Laurence Harvey directed and starred in Welcome to Arrow Beach. Then he died. Whether from embarrassment remains unknown. Es posible.

Wayward hitchhiking hippie girl Robbin (the Relentless Meg Foster in an early role) skinny-dips in the ocean, albeit trespassing on private property to do so. The landowner, middle-aged madman Jason Henry (Harvey), puts down his peeper binoculars long enough to introduce himself to Robbin and invite her to a steak dinner at his estate. He lives there with his pretty — and pretty protective — sister (Joanna Pettet, Double Exposure), who confesses to their naive guest, “Jason’s very fond of succotash.”

And for dessert? Possibly a rag soaked in chloroform. See, as an epigraph spills and spoils in the film’s opening frames, Jason’s not merely a Korean War veteran, but a full-fledged cannibal. Who can tell us why? Certainly not R&B/telethon legend Lou Rawls, crooner of Arrow Beach’s Sammy Cahn-penned theme song, “Who Can Tell Us Why.” 

Harvey’s movie isn’t so much ham-fisted as spit-roasted, with his own arm subbing for the stick. Perhaps sensing he wasn’t long for this world, and thus applying a “fuck it” attitude, he’s unafraid to get his hands dirty — figuratively or otherwise — as his silver spoon-fed character increasingly unhinges himself from the frame of reality. And Pettet, forever underrated, makes one helluva match as a sibling of questionable behaviors herself.

Rather amusingly, the pic feels a decade too late and a half-decade ahead of its time, straddling both sides of the border between Hollywoods old and new. On one hand, you’ve got grizzled ol’ Stuart Whitman (Cuba Crossing) as the law; on the other, ’70s star Jesse Vint (Macon County Line) as one of the lawless. No matter which side Welcome to Arrow Beach favors, it certainly marks the first time I’ve heard a physician pronounce “Quaalude” as “kwah-lude.” It’s hip to be square, but not that square. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

This Ever After is no Cinderella Story, like the 1998 Drew Barrymore hit. However, it does have a Prince Charming (Ghost Bastard’s Philippe Reinhardt), albeit one who roofies women and plays with rocks.

It also has a Little Red Riding Hood (Borderlands’ Riana Emma Balla) who quips, “Happy ever after, motherfucker!” before shotgunning someone, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

From Hungary, this storybook slasher smorgasbord concerns seven young women on a bachelorette trip to a rental house in a desolate forest. None of the ladies bears a character trait beyond “horny,” but that’s okay since Ever After is interested in entrails, not introspection.

As the bloodletting begins, the girls encounter:
• three pig-masked men whose instruments of death include a sledgehammer, flamethrower and massive bare belly
• a redneck huntsman (Michael Berryman, 1977’s The Hills Have Eyes)
• a big bad wolf (voiced by Kane Hodder, Jason X) clad in leather vest adorned with kitty cats and an “I’M SPECIAL” patch
• a frog king (voiced by Malcolm McDowell, 1982’s Cat People), complete with crown
• a witch (Bonnie Aarons, 2018’s The Nun)
• and a circus ringmaster (Mark Sheppard, TV’s Supernatural) who speaks in riddles and rhymes

Although I’m not against paychecks, I’ve come to despise the Expendables-of-horror casting approach in which Ever After and so many indie fright films indulge. Generally, because doing so suggests that’s all the movie has going for it. That’s not quite the case here. Director and co-writer Laszlo Illes (Haunting Trophies, get it?) lines his fucked-up fairy tale with dialogue that’s either spoken in jest or lost in translation: When a bear trap snaps around a woman’s ankle, her friend shouts, “Quick! The tweezers!” If the result of a language barrier, at least it kept me mildly interested.

Gorehounds won’t be satisfied, considering the acts of carnage occur off-camera — retractable-blade knifings notwithstanding. Illes clearly has ambition, but perhaps way too much. His greatest sin is overstuffing the story. Seriously, why is this more than two hours long? By comparison, Christopher Nolan’s epic The Odyssey runs nearly three, but that covers 20 years to Ever After’s, oh, 36 hours.

Slashers should leave you wanting more, not less — just not wanting everything more because it has zip to offer, à la the similar public-domain path-trodding Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey. Unlike that dump, this is bearable. —Rod Lott

In theaters Friday, Sept. 4. On demand, Tuesday, Oct. 27.

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

Get it at Amazon.

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.