As the near-robotic, deplorable driver-for-hire Dawn of Dawn, Jackie Moore (Verotika) is all crazy-eyed and lead-footed, picking up rides and taking their lives as her fare. (Among her early victims is Eric Roberts, in one of 37 movies he’s made as I wrote this sentence.) Then she uploads the homicidal results to her dark-web channel, as one does.

Nearly all of Nicholas Ryan’s directorial debut follows the backseat travails of a newly engaged couple: salesman (Atlantic Rim: Resurrection’s Jared Cohn, redefining “simpering”) and a first-grade teacher (Sarah French, Death Count). Dawn menaces them with mind games — not to mention schools them on wealthy white privilege — before threatening bodily harm. Neither spouse-to-be (Cohn especially) is interesting enough to follow for a feature. Nor is Dawn.

“The audience loves tension and drama,” says Dawn, yet her namesake film, despite a slick look, is inert. Unless you’re Locke, constant talking in a moving car makes for sluggish, über-dull cinema. Halfway through, respite looks to arrive when Dawn pulls into a gas station, where a demented fan (Nicholas Brendon, Psycho Beach Party) asks for the honor of being stabbed to death, but it’s a nonsensical scene. Dawn fulfills his wish, but not ours. Later, she’s pulled over by a sheriff (Michael Paré, Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich). He’s the best part of the movie, so of course he’s swiftly dispatched.

For a raucous rideshare gone wrong that achieves everything Ryan aims for — thrills, dark humor, social commentary — see Spree. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

For Love Crime, Nicole D’Angelo blamelessly jumps aboard today’s true-crime gravy train with her telling of Jodi Arias’ 2008 murder of boyfriend Travis Alexander. Not only does D’Angelo (The Awakening of Emanuelle) direct, but brings her irresistibly wispy lisp and chameleon-like quality to portray Arias as well. Barely over an hour, the movie does more time-shifting than a full season of Quantum Leap.

Her Jodi is devout, virginal and clingier than flypaper soaked in Gorilla Glue. After a couple of dates with seminar-bro Travis (Amateur Porn Star Killer’s Shane Ryan-Reid), she’s convinced the Lord’s holy matchmaking has brought them together. Travis isn’t 100% sold on divine intervention. In response, she pulls down her shirt to show her cups floweth over; immediately, his tune changes to hallelujah, He is risen, pass the plate, where do I tithe and all that. I get it.

Life-affirming cleavage aside, no scene allows an understanding of what made their relationship tick, much less tock; overall, more attention is placed on her breakfast egg preferences, a bartender’s war scars and a waiter’s cheesecake recommendation than to the nuts and bolts of their ultimately fatal attraction. However, every scene is fragmented into a montage. Reflective of the hand of frequent collaborator Gregory Hatanaka (here, producer and cinematographer), D’Angelo is unable to resist cutting to another time and place — or times and places, plural — often slowed and involving dancing and/or smooching. Love Crime has to contain more kisses than actual minutes.

Utters a police detective played by H.O.T.S. vet Lisa London, “That darkness inside of her … it operates on its own logic.” I would suggest the same is true of the film, if not for the film proving it seconds later when London adds with no certain cynicism, “If truth is bitter, my coffee should be.”

Indeed it is: Love Crime is so scattershot and undercooked, it hasn’t got a prayer. But I recommend the cheesecake. —Rod Lott

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All at once, life for the otherwise successful Margaret (Rebecca Hall, The Night House) is unstable. She’s bedding a married co-worker. With her daughter set to leave for college, Margaret faces an empty nest. Worst of all, her past suddenly and literally has come back to haunt her.

It comes in the form of David (Tim Roth, The Hateful Eight), a former flame from more than 20 years prior. Margaret sees him pop up wherever she goes: work conference, department store, the park. Why he’s there and what he wants, I leave for viewers of Resurrection to discover on their own. That said, it’s clear their relationship was abusive and toxic, and his controlling nature — okay, brainwashing — picks right back up, essentially holding Margaret’s sanity hostage.

Hall does stress — and distress — very well. Over the course of the film, what begins as suspicion morphs into suffocation. That festers into such all-consuming panic, you’re watching each frame for signs of fracture for Margaret to crack. I don’t know why writer/director Andrew Semans (Nancy, Please) took a full decade before making this sophomore feature, but if it were a case of securing just the right actress, his wait was worth it. Her performance works hand in hand with Semans’ cold, clinical, antiseptic view of Albany, New York, purposefully disallowing viewers to feel comfortable at any point.

On the downside, he keeps Resurrection’s secrets tucked away for too long, sure to frustrate many. As a whole, the movie would be all the more potent shorn of half the second act. Then again, Resurrection was never intended for mainstream consumption, best evidenced by the whammy of a climax, as oblique as it is flabbergasting — an ending, perhaps, only a mother could love. —Rod Lott

From Crypt of Dark Secrets director Jack Weis, the New Orleans-set Death Brings Roses involves a feather-haired fugitive-cum-mob enforcer (one-timer Alfonso Landa) who picks up protection dough from every watering hole and strip joint in the French Quarter. When his palm isn’t greased right away, he’s not above slapping a “dancer” upside the head with a powder puff — the movie’s lone cinematic touch, however brutish.

A prostitute condemns his cruelty by aiming below the belt: “When you make love, it’s like going to the toilet: no feeling, no emotion, no nothing!” The same can be said of Death Brings Roses, a listless crime story without the points of action to unequivocally qualify it as a crime picture. In an extended cameo, Henny Youngman takes to the stage as himself — take my role, please! — while Broderick Crawford plays a bartender. Oh, the delicious irony! —Rod Lott

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A group of people step onto an elevator; no matter the floor buttons pushed, most won’t land on their desired destination. The M. Night Shyamalan-produced Devil, right? Well, yes, but also Elevator, two years later. Whereas supernatural forces were to blame in Devil, the indie Elevator boasts something even more evil: mankind.

Going up in a metal box to a corporate fundraising party are nine people, including:
• the CEO (John Getz, Blood Simple) and his “evil little bitch” granddaughter;
• a company mover-shaker (Christopher Backus, Rogue Hostage) and his newswoman fiancée (Tehmina Sunny, Children of Men);
• a less-successful employee (Devin Ratray, Home Alone), presumably because he’s obese;
• a gorgeous pregnant woman (Anita Briem, 2008’s Journey to the Center of the Earth);
• a claustrophobic comedian (Joey Slotnick, Twister), who’s the night’s last-minute hired entertainment;
• a security guard (Waleed Zuaiter, London Has Fallen);
• and a longtime investor (Shirley Knight, Grandma’s Boy).

Oh, and one of them is hiding a bomb that will kill anyone within a 5-meter range. (Is that bad? I don’t know metrics.)

I’m a sucker for small-scale, single-location movies, and Elevator succeeds more often than not. It builds a solid batch of suspense that while never boils over, sustains itself until Norwegian director Stig Svendsen loosens his grip to allow you to breathe.

The identity is the bomber is just one aspect of the suspense; defusing the device is another. While someone like Alfred Hitchcock would’ve had a field day with Marc Rosenberg’s script, Svendsen does a fine job with what looks to be very little money. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.