Horror

Uncle Sleazo’s Toxic and Terrifying TV Hour (2022) 

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In its seven-word title, Uncle Sleazo’s Toxic and Terrifying TV Hour promises a lot. It even overdelivers on that last word by running an extra 28 minutes. Still, it comes up short in the one word that counts most for a horror film: “terrifying.” It’s anything but that.

Now, what the title doesn’t signal is that portions of the pic are funny — better, even intentionally so. We’ll get there shortly.

Lucky Cerruti’s anthology comes positioned as a horror-hosted show à la Elvira. Armed with equally awful puns in “boils and ghouls” mold, the eponymous Uncle Sleazo (first-timer Jordan Hornstein, outfitted to be one foot too close to a schoolyard) intros three “movies.” These include a tiring werewolf tale in black and white, a one-note psychic romance and a sci-fi-tinged slice of body horror that, while slow, at least closes with a terrific gross-out visual.

All three segments share a core problem: They’re neither scary nor suspenseful; frankly, each exhibits weak plotting and dreadful pacing despite minimal running time. Serving as something of a saving grace, however, are the commercial breaks in between. This is where the jokes come in, from a cartoon about a Basket Case-esque vestigial twin to a musical with a talking, singing puke puppet.

Whether these inspired bits toss you a fake trailer for the movie Clown Cop or an ad for Dahmer’s Apartment Playset, the influence of Chris LaMartina’s WNUF Halloween Special on Cerruti (2020’s Freak) is apparent. I could go for a full feature of them. Now, whether these smatterings of humor belong sandwiched between stories we’re asked to accept at straight-face value depends on your tolerance for tonal whiplash.

To diminish their weaknesses, the three stories could stand to be more zippily paced, even if it brought Uncle Sleazo’s closer to that titular Hour. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Thriller

Locked (2025)

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Within 12 months’ time, Bill Skarsgård has marched into theaters as the lead of three films: Nosferatu, The Crow and Boy Kills World. Here’s a fourth if you want it.

In Locked, a seedy-looking Skarsgård plays Eddie, an irresponsible part-time father and full-time vapist. He’s angling for quick cash to get his van back. By minute 8, Eddie’s plunked his ass in a luxury SUV he finds unlocked in a parking lot. 

It’s a trap! A soundproof, bulletproof, signal-blocked, leather-upholstered trap with six built-in cameras and an untold number of torture methods, from tasered seats to yodel-based polka — all the remote doing of the car’s elderly owner who mocks Eddie through the stereo system (Anthony Hopkins, literally phoning it in).

“Fuck this car!” shouts Eddie, and I’m inclined to agree. All that roomy interior means squat when the script dilly-dallies its way through all the scenarios that come standard for being stuck in a small space. But this is not a single-setting tale, so that time spent cooped up feels like stalling. In the second half, when the car finally starts and moves for a self-driving joyride, so does the movie. Then Locked idles again until Hopkins shows his face for a scene, ultimately yielding to a too-simple resolution and equally hasty coda.

With thrillers, producer Sam Raimi usually exhibits a golden (or at least silver) touch, recently including Crawl, the Don’t Breathe duology and Netflix’s Don’t Move. He’s so known for it, the poster practically treats Raimi’s name as the third lead. With his involvement and Locked representing the third country to remake Argentina’s 4×4 from 2019, it’s not out of the realm for viewers to expect a killer concept. Brightburn’s David Yarovesky directs with high energy for the opening montage, yet the story of Locked arrives uncharacteristically monotonous.

More could be done with its warring perspectives of the haves, the have-nots and the had-it-up-to-heres. Recommended if you’ve longed to see Hopkins toke up or Skarsgård down pee. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Comedy

Rock ’n’ Roll High School Forever (1991)

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A movie like Rock ’n’ Roll High School — one of my favorites and with an awesome Ramones soundtrack — should have a riff-blowing sequel. Should have.

See, when I noticed Rock ’n’ Roll School High Forever at my video store in the early ’90s, I was quite ecstatic and, of course, I rented it. And watched it.

And became visibly sick.

My preconceived notions rubbed out like a GPC cigarette on the wet pavement, I took the tape from the VCR — being neither kind nor rewinding, natch — and dumped it back into the shop’s return box, thoroughly disgusted at what I’d seen.

Thirty-plus years later, the sequel is one of the bonus features on the original film’s 45th anniversary edition in 4K Ultra HD (my 10th time to buy the movie). I popped in the disc and, like a fetid stream of A/V puke, once again dropped out of Rock ’n’ Roll School High Forever.

It starts out somewhat promising, with the re-named Ronald Reagan High School and various teenagers plotting a PG-13 rock ’n’ roll insurrection. But as once-popular star Corey Feldman turns directly to the camera and sneers, “Are you ready to rock and roll?,” I guess we’re not ready at all.

Instead, in his standard and strange Michael Jackson mimicry, Corey overflows the school toilets and tears off the skirt of a comely student, all as the title theme by The Pursuit of Happiness (whoever they are) warbles on the soundtrack. Ha-ha?

The plot, as it stands, is about Corey and his “band,” The Eradicators, trying to play their substandard covers of Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti” and Fats Domino’s “I’m Walkin’” at the school dance. Meanwhile, the school gets a new vice principal in Miss Togar Dr. Vadar, reprised (?) by Mary Woronov. To be sure, she rules with an iron fist — and a robotic hand on her left.

With needless help from the apparent heir of illustrious scrounger Eaglebauer (no relation to Clint Howard) and the Spirit of Rock ’n’ Roll (Mojo Nixon in a low-budget fantasy sequence), Corey and bad company crash the prom. Utilizing dated sequences from the first movie, they take Togar Vadar down and burn down the school.

By the time the credits roll, it’s apparent that rock, finally, is dead.

With the combined failed efforts of director Deborah Brock (Slumber Party Massacre II), whichever distribution outfit Roger Corman had at the time and the sheer ugliness straight-to-video movies at the time were going for, Forever remains was an unmitigated disasterpiece. With Feldman on the soundtrack, the deceased Ramones are defiantly spinning in their graves. Gabba gabba nay. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

Horror

Devils Stay (2024)

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If Devils Stay has the nerve to call itself a possession picture, why does the title lack a possessive apostrophe? Ba-dum-tss!

That joke is to prove to my English teachers I paid attention. Devils Stay, however? No laughing matter.

Schoolgirl So-mi (Lee Re, Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula) dies of cardiac arrest shortly after a heart transplant. Her father (Park Shin-yang, The Big Swindle) takes the tragedy hardest of all, because he’s also the surgeon responsible for her procedure.

Looking back, Dr. Cha notes his beloved daughter did act strangely after getting her ticker swapped out. What’s more, he believes his little girl is still alive. Say, you don’t think that secondhand heart could have something to do with it, do you?

Of course! We’ve all seen Body Parts.

A young priest (Lee Min-ki, 2009’s Tidal Wave) explains it all: So-mi is possessed by a demon who will rise again in three days, using her fresh corpse as a vessel. As Dr. Cha and his family grieve, So-mi’s “guest” kills some people and an oversized moth crawls from the girl’s cakehole. This is either the first feature for TV director Hyun Moon-seop (Nightmare Teacher) or the weirdest episode of ER ever.

Soused in South Korean customs and universal superstition, Devils Stay earns points for finding a new angle into the exorcism subgenre. The movie may not exist without The Exorcist, but minus one short scene, it’s not ripping off The Exorcist. One could argue the strangest element is its front-and-center embrace of Catholicism since Asian films usually default to Buddhism.

On one hand, Hyun cues up rote scares, accompanied by suddenly loud music stings as if he distrusts his own abilities. And he has abilities, because on that other hand, Devils Stay displays some arresting, imaginative visuals — none more potent than So-mi’s body hovering outside in mid-air. Still, with a drawn-out denouement, Hyun’s theatrical lacks the trickery to ascend to next-level special where recent Korean spookers Sleep and Exhuma reside. Maybe next time? —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Mickey 17 (2025)

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Let’s get the biggest letdown out of the way: Unfortunately, Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17 doesn’t feature the 1981 pop hit “Mickey” by Toni Basil. The flick does, however, have Toni Collette (Hereditary) obsessing over various sauces. I guess that’s a decent enough consolation.

Beyond the sauce, Mickey 17 is a compelling, yet quite a bit weaker satire from South Korea’s best-known director. While it certainly won’t receive the same critical celebration as 2018’s Parasite, it still holds a comfortable place among a stellar filmography. That said, if you’d sooner watch Mother or Memories of Murder over Okja or Snowpiercer, this one might not be the Joon Ho joint you’d hope for.

Mickey 17 is a fairly close adaptation of Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel, Mickey7 (minus the 10 extra Mickeys, of course). On the run from a powerful mobster with a chainsaw fetish, Mickey (Robert Pattinson, The Batman) and his “friend” Timo (Steven Yeun, Nope) get jobs with a commercial space cruiser bound to colonize a mysterious ice planet. While Timo negotiates for a position as a pilot, Mickey becomes the ship’s only “expendable.” Possibly the worst gig imaginable, Mickey is employed to die and get reprinted so he can effectively gauge the dangers of space travel and colonization.

More so than Joon Ho’s other sci-fi satires, Mickey 17 excels in its casting. Pattinson channels his inner John C. Reilly to deliver a hilarious and endearing performance. His attention to physical comedy also excels, appropriately matching the energy of his character’s existential (and interplanetary) nightmare. Plus, Mark Ruffalo (Poor Things) and Collette carry the antagonism as the colony ship’s insufferable, corporate power couple.

That said, the film’s attempt at satire also works against it. Kenneth Marshall (Ruffalo) obviously pulls from Donald Trump and Elon Musk, but unfortunately, Joon Ho doesn’t say anything interesting about that. Sure, Marshall is a bumbling idiot who has more power than he should have ever been granted, but the film fails to actualize the consequences of that in a meaningful way. As entertainment, the character operates fine. As something genuinely interesting and resonating, on the other hand, he fails miserably.

While that miss eclipses most of Mickey 17’s commentary that lands, it doesn’t completely ruin it. The film’s critique on automating and replicating human capability to extinction works. And though the monstrous centipede-buffalo stand-in for Indigenous societies feels a bit gross, at least where the film’s heart lands doesn’t. In other words, it flounders as a modern, pointed satire, but saves itself as a dystopian black comedy.

Certain sequences thankfully save the film when awkward flashbacks and hallucinations cause it to stumble. It isn’t that those achronological scenes should’ve been removed outright. Rather, their presentation makes the film noticeably stumble toward its crescendo. Which feels bizarre, given the montages and dialogue push the movie forward so well.

To be clear, Mickey 17 is an entertaining, worthwhile ride. It just winds up among Joon Ho’s weaker works, fighting for a knife in the slush with Snowpiercer. Ultimately, that’s still pretty high praise. —Daniel Bokemper

Get it at Amazon.

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