Meet Pepe Lusara, criminal mastermind and master of disguise. He’s recruiting a few good men for an assignment on a need-to-know basis.

Despite a resemblance to Squiggy, Pepe (Aram Katcher, Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens) is also a ladies’ man, wooing the blonde Elizabeth (Lisa McDonald), despite her Phyllis Diller voice. Certainly Pepe isn’t interested in Elizabeth for her proximity to cash working in an arena box office, is he? Yes, actually, that’s completely it, not even taking into account her choice of nightstand reading: The Modern Sex Manual. 

Now it’s time for you to know Pepe’s plan: Rob the armored car when it rolls up to the arena to collect the kitty from the world heavyweight fight. Hope you don’t expect to see the heist or the fight; Right Hand of the Devil hasn’t the budget or permits or perhaps even the know-how to depict action. (But it does have a few precious seconds of basketball-breasted burlesque dancer doing her thang. That’s Georgia Holden, whose curvy caboose commands the poster.)

The only film Katcher ever wrote, directed, produced or edited — not to mention handled hair and makeup for — Right Hand is so clumsily made, it doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. Even at an hour and some change, the black-and-white non-wonder is virtually incomprehensible. And completely unmemorable, except for the scene where Pepe’s old girlfriend hurls her artificial leg his way: “Remember you always said my legs were pretty? Here!”  —Rod Lott

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Listen Carefully is one of those indier-than-indie productions in which the creator’s name appears 10 times in the end-credits crawl — not out of ego, but sheer necessity. The problem that poses is often twofold: That person spreads himself too thin or simply isn’t proficient enough to handle their own assignments. 

Ryan Barton-Grimley is neither. The multihyphenate proves dexterous on all sides of the camera, including front-and-center as Andy, a harried assistant bank manager at home with his infant daughter while his wife (Barton-Grimley’s real-life spouse, Simone) enjoys an evening out. When Andy awakes from a few accidental Zs, his baby has vanished from her crib. She’s been kidnapped, and the voice (Ari Schneider of his boss’ Hawk and Rev: Vampire Slayers) beaming through the baby monitor demands a cash ransom of $250,000 — from as many ATMs around Santa Clarita as it takes. 

Like the most memorable “one crazy night” movies, from After Hours to Miracle Mile, the movie thrives on an ability to relay tension straight to the viewer. Listen Carefully does just that, as Andy undergoes every parent’s worst nightmare. Although siring children is hardly a prerequisite to enjoy this thriller, I felt Andy’s frustration exacerbated with the peculiar insecurities of a first-time father.

Although I wish Listen Carefully provided a wider range of crazy characters for Andy’s encounters, Barton-Grimley isn’t interested in dark humor as much as he is elements of sleep-deprived horror. His protagonist’s Kafkaesque ordeal is wound tight enough to resemble a Gordian knot. In a way, it is one, since Barton-Grimley’s script takes an out versus delivers an end. Still, the steps to get there form a nerve-rattled journey alive with the energy and danger of the night. It’s a can’t-miss premise, so don’t! —Rod Lott

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Fret not, Pather Panchali! Your status as the icon of Indian cinema remains unabated and unchallenged by the screen’s introduction of Mustafa in Farhan M. Khan’s Spider. It’s 59 minutes of digital video garbage.

As played by Afzaal Nabi, a name you need not remember, Mustafa is a “chartered accountant” for a pharmaceutical company, a fact you need not remember because Mustafa keeps bringing it up. Professional though he may be, he’s dressed like either a cabbie or a Newsie.

Per the result of an abduction, he’s also stranded in a “forest” (actually a rural road with well-tread tire path) and stalked by a giant arachnid (actually a test-level animation of what looks like an ant with an extra pair of legs). Like Tom Hardy in Locke, Mustafa spends the bulk of Spider stuck in a car, albeit one that cannot move.

Also like Tom Hardy in Locke, much of this movie is yelling at people on the phone. Mustafa calls his country’s version of 911, the police, his boss, his wife, her friend and, finally, his mom, to whom he says, “You used to cook me sweet noodles!” (And to his son, via an awkward goodbye video: “I wanted you to grow up and wear my clothes and have a fight with me.” Huh?) 

Now, unlike Tom Hardy in Locke, Mustafa reads the vehicle owner’s manual, eats one page and takes a couple of naps — all riveting. Then it just kinda stops.

But what about the spiders? They’re largely incidental. Even if Khan got a buddy to do the effects for free, he overspent. —Rod Lott

News flash: Fraternities suck. 

Even the fictional ones like Kappa Nu Alpha at the fictional Sumpter College (as played by the University of Oklahoma, my alma mater). The KNA boys — for they are certainly not men — fall under the microscope of Ethan Berger’s The Line, a dramatic thriller with, unfortunately, as much real-world resonance today as the time of its setting a decade ago. Progress!

A freshman no more, Tom (Alex Wolff, A Quiet Place: Day One) relishes the start of the new school year — particularly the freedom of living in the frat house with his fellow coke-snorting, power-hungry, racist, misogynist, homophobic, immature, gun-fetishizing, elephant-walking, backwards cap-wearing motherfuckers. Their enthusiasm sours when Sumpter’s powers that be, fed up with the frat’s repeated code-of-conduct violations, outlaw hazing, period. 

Authority, however, means nothing to Tom’s spoiled-rotten, beefy bestie/roomie, Mitch (Bo Mitchell, TV’s Eastbound & Down), he of the lid reading “SHOW ME THAT BUTTHOLE.” Unlike the cash-strapped Tom, the easily detestable Mitch is used to getting anything he wants, thanks to the deep pockets of his rich asshole father (a slithering John Malkovich). 

But when Mitch doesn’t get automatic obsequiousness from a headstrong pledge (an excellent Austin Abrams, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark), Mitch vows to make the kid’s life hell. Things inevitably go so far, they go overboard, leading Tom to wonder if all the KNA talk of “brotherhood” is just a bunch of chest-pumping bullshit. Which, of course, it is.

Wolff admirably continues to bury every last remnant of his Nickelodeon kidcom/tween-idol upbringing. In fact, his performance as Tom is his best since his 2018 breakthrough in Hereditary. Tom begins this story as a complete phony (with even his hardscrabble mother, played by SNL vet Cheri Oteri in a serious role, calling out his “faux Forrest Gump accent”), and ends it so humbled, having found his place in the world — not his purpose, mind you, but his spot in the world’s pecking order.

Berger’s debut feature as writer or director earned my respect early — even well before scoring Tom’s frowned-upon hookup with a Black classmate (Halle Bailey, 2023’s The Little Mermaid) to a track from Stereolab’s Dots and Loops. The Line is intelligently written and staged with a quiet intensity until the powder-keg situation has no other choice but to explode. Berger manages to avoid preachiness until the infuriating final shot — infuriating not because it hammers home as message we’re already aware exists, but because the scene around it plays out exactly like it would — hell, like it does — in real life. —Rod Lott

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So I snore. Yes, I hog the covers. And I may have even accidentally slapped my wife while jolting awake from a fight-or-flight nightmare.

But at no time have I ever suddenly sat up in bed in the dead of night and ominously uttered, “Someone’s inside,” with no elaboration or explanation. That’s just mean.

That’s just the beginning of the Korean thriller Sleep. In the nights that follow, Hyun-su (Lee Sun-kyun, Parasite) debuts increasingly dangerous nocturnal habits, none of which he recalls once he wakes up. His suffering wife (Jung Yu-mi, Train to Busan), is perplexed. She’s also pregnant, so she needs the rest she’s not getting.

She certainly doesn’t need the stress and pressure brought by the situation, once their downstairs apartment neighbors complain of hearing screams of terror in the night.

Sleep marks the debut film as writer and director for Jason Yu, an assistant director for Bong Joon-hoo on Okja. That Yu’s former boss has endorsed this work as “the smartest debut” he’s seen in 10 years was all the convincing I needed to devote my time. While I wouldn’t necessarily second Bong’s superlative, Sleep is unmistakably sharp and cannily constructed, heralding Yu as a worthy protégé.

Twisty plotting notwithstanding, what makes Sleep work as well as it does is the easy rapport between Jung and Lee. (Sadly, Lee isn’t around to see his work, having committed suicide last year.) They feel real — completely believable as fresh spouses sharing a deep love and respect for one another. Without that caring bond to latch onto, the viewing public’s investment of concern into this more grounded Grudge would pale. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.