Any resemblance Brute 1976 bears to Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes is purely, assuredly, unequivocally intentional. A closing-credits dedication to their memory confirms it, as if there were any question. Even horror irregulars will detect the influence in the prologue, well before a character asks, “Remember that movie with the chainsaw that came out a couple years ago?”

Sure do. Brute 1976 takes its van of half a dozen hippie-dippy protagonists to the middle of nowhere in Nevada for a magazine cover shoot. After snaps, they check out a nearby mining town forebodingly named Savage and now abandoned.

Okay, so it’s not completely abandoned. An unofficial family of felony-hungry fuck-ups call Savage home. They include a guy sporting a half-skull and antlers, another donning a mask of tightly wound beef jerky and, most fashionable, a bald man (Jed Rowen, The Ghastly Love of Johnny X) who admired a woman’s breasts so much, he wears her chest like an apron. Thus, when someone asks, “Is that a chainsaw?” the answer is always “yes.” (For the record, the question is posed twice.)

With Brute 1976, director Marcel Walz and writer Joe Knetter do for the grimy slashers of the disco decade what their 2022 collaboration That’s a Wrap did for the glossy slashers of the late ’90s: Embrace with a fervent love, up to and including the point of suffocation. Whether that tickles your sweet spot depends on your tolerance for an often explicit level of camp (a milder sample: “She’s grazin’ for a glazin'”). With the film turning pages of the calendar backward to America’s bicentennial year, Wrap’s ’90s-style sardonicism isn’t merely replaced by post-’Nam pessimism, but buried.

With that, Brute’s strength naturally rests in its depravity, none more memorable or un-unseeable than when a defecating crew member spots two fingers beckoning from a glory hole and can’t think of a reason not to utilize it. What happens next is as if the iconic shower scene from Porky’s accidentally — and graphically — were directed by the Property Brothers.

Taking advantage of the sunny expanse of the Nevada desert, Walz gets to use his outside voice while maximizing minimal resources. Part of that entails bringing along his rep players — reliably, Sarah French and Gigi Gustin — who know exactly how to modulate to his degree of kink-laden kitsch. Brute 1976 represents a step up for him, which bodes well for the sequel, Brute 1986. I’m in. —Rod Lott

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Zach Cregger’s Weapons taps into the same suburban fear that gave his 2022 surprise hit, Barbarian, staying power. What’s more, while Weapons includes a similarly rewarding and refreshing twist, the film doesn’t depend on it. Instead, it uses it to create a tonal anomaly of a flick that — at least for now — solidifies the former Whitest Kids U’ Know member as a must-watch horror director on the level of Jordan Peele and Ari Aster.

At 2:17 a.m. in the middle of a week, 17 third-grade classmates mysteriously vanish, save Alex (Cary Christopher). Their teacher, Justine (Julia Garner, The Fantastic Four: First Steps), shoulders the blame as the town demands a culprit. Archer (Josh Brolin, No Country for Old Men), the father of one of the missing kids, begins his own investigation of the disappearances while school principal Marcus (Benedict Wong, Doctor Strange) struggles to quell the town’s spiraling rage.

Like Barbarian, Cregger opts for a split narrative across six characters. While this helps Weapons comfortably outpace its two-hour runtime, it does feel somewhat needlessly inflated and could’ve benefited from a narrower focus. That said, it doesn’t significantly detract from the film; it just causes it to tread water for a decent chunk of the third act.

Minor criticisms aside, Weapons shines with exceptional cinematography, snappy dialogue and an expectation-subverting meld of heartwarming storytelling and unflinching brutality. Multiple tracking shots cleverly capture the self-destructive drinking and “eating” habits of three prominent characters. (This aspect of the film culminates with an especially wild scene that feels like it borrows from 2000’s Snow Day as much as it does 1980’s Cannibal Holocaust.)

While the film’s central figures feel a bit one-note, they’re leveraged by excellent performances from Garner, Brolin and a returning Amy Madigan (Uncle Buck). And while Austin Abrams’ (Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) character is ultimately overexposed, his future collaboration leading Cregger’s Resident Evil movie carries a lot of promise.

Ultimately, Weapons earns most of its resonance through its unexpected accessibility. No, this isn’t a kids’ movie. Yet it borrows enough elements from early 1990s films like The Witches and Ernest Scared Stupid that it feels comfortably nostalgic despite its originality. Declaring it an instant classic feels like an overstep, but its undeniable charm paired with its grotesque violence could give it the legs to be timeless. And maybe it will be.

In a year already stacked with heavy-hitting horror movies, Weapons rises to the top of the pack. While it might not be technically “better” than Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, it operates on a different, largely incomparable level. In the end, Weapons is a crowd-pleasing flick that reminds us we should spend less time placing films on hierarchies and more time celebrating them.

See Weapons in a theater, and be sure to order seven hotdogs and a couple cookies. It’ll be more immersive than any RealD Cinema ever could be. —Daniel Bokemper

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When her sister mysteriously disappears, Clover (Ella Rubin, Fear Street: Prom Queen) and four Gen Z pals retrace her last known steps to a quaint empty inn in a remote small town of Glore Valley. Seeing as how the inn is chockablock with flyers for missing people of all ages, races, colors and creeds, you know things don’t bode well for them. 

Sure enough, 27 minutes into the movie, all five are murdered. Then suddenly, they’re all alive again, finding themselves trapped in a Groundhog Day-style situation, but dispatched in different ways by different threats each go-round. Like Happy Death Day, the key to survival is figuring out how to break that loop. Bet the freaky hourglass clock on the wall stands as a Big Clue.

Based on a PlayStation game I’d not heard of, Until Dawn turns up with a nifty premise, allowing director David F. Sandberg (2016’s Lights Out) to tinker among several horror genres — slashers, witches, zombies, clowns, etc. — one night at a time. Still, even with each switcheroo presenting new situations (“Is anyone else growing new teeth?”), tiring repetition can’t help but set in. 

Ultimately, Until Dawn wastes its invention on underwritten, unlikable characters, as you’d expect people named Clover would be. (How are the others not named, like, Chakra, Journey, Justice and Inclusion?) That may explain my enthusiasm for something of its midpoint breather, in which — spoiler alert! — coughing leads to exploding. 

It’s not enough. Until Dawn is high-sheen corporate synergy studio horror as aimless as it is needless. —Rod Lott

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To avoid jail time, troubled young man Max (Pete Davidson) takes a Daddy-arranged temp gig as live-in janitor for Jump Scare Green Meadows retirement home.

“You mean like old people?” Max asks. Yes, exactly that.

On Day 1, Max is told not to breach the fourth floor. Yes, The Home is one of those “something is wrong with this place” movies. (That’s a direct quote, by the way.) Worse, it’s as elementary plotted as the generic title suggests. After a tragic event occurs in the first half, the doctor in charge (Bruce Altman, 2006’s Running Scared) consoles our protagonist with, “I’m sorry, Max. We just didn’t see this coming,” it’s hard not to think, “Seriously? Anyone watching this will.”

The Home may be routine in its telling, but The Purge creator James DeMonaco infuses it with memorable imagery throughout, like thin icicles hanging from the eyes of a statue. Or an anatomical mannequin coming to life. Or the elderly lady engaging in rowdy coitus while wearing a mask apparently borrowed from The Strangers.

Any questions regarding story are usurped by a more transparent concern: Why is Davidson, best known for his eight-season run on TV comedy institution Saturday Night Live, starring as the lead in a horror film? This isn’t a tongue-in-cheek exercise like Bodies Bodies Bodies. He’s just not a fit for The Home, because he’s never not just Pete Davidson. I like the guy, but his tabloid infamy overshadows any performance. It’s not like DeMonaco aims to separate the art from the artist, either; the first thing Davidson does onscreen is light a bong; later, he wears a Staten Island T-shirt; and his tattoos become an actual plot point.

The movie’s final third is the dregs, until Max goes Oldboy in the Green Meadows hallway. And all during a hurricane for no reason other than the storm ups the danger ante. Flying chunks of ceiling acting as Ginsu knives aren’t enough to make a visit to The Home any sweeter. —Rod Lott

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Carla has visions. Of a science-class skeleton rolling around in a wheelchair. Of a monk violently ax-whacking the head of a Buddha statue. Doctors have “a perfectly reasonable explanation: You’re a medium!”

It’s true! Played by Stefania Orsola Garello (2004’s King Arthur), Carla’s one of a few University of Rome geology students heading home after a lengthy stint of field work. One of them looks like God placed his ears on upside down. Landslides and bad weather conspire to close the highway, forcing them to hunker down in an out-of-season hotel — The House of Lost Souls, one might say.

Also staying at the hotel? Chainsaws, bear traps, tarantulas. And activities? Decapitation is definitely on the table. (And in the laundry dryer.) Amenities? Well, a kid says, “Wow, what a meal, kid,” and that’s the best part.

Director Umberto Lenzi (Ghosthouse) builds The House of Lost Souls atop a foundation of the expected gore, but it lacks pizazz. The film was made for Italian TV as one unit of a four-part series, another being Lenzi’s The House of Witchcraft. However, for my tastes, the most fun to be had reside within the other two, The House of Clocks and The Sweet House of Horrors, both constructed by Lucio Fulci, who knew more about being a bad, bad neighbor. —Rod Lott

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