Pearl is a gift.

Prince-Bythewood remembers to ground events in a distinctly human quality, putting character first and making sure each member of her cast has multiple moments to make their characters come alive.

Barbarian is a leap of faith. It lets the viewer in slowly, before trapping them in a damp and dingy bunker of exploitive fright that’s almost impossible to escape.

Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. is a chronicle of a woman at a crossroads analyzing life, love, and God in excruciating detail, and not necessarily in that order.

As gruesomely hysterical as much of Glorious may be, the foundation of toxic masculinity it’s built upon is anything but silly, McKendry giving it the brutally grisly evisceration it deserves.

The worst thing I can think to say about any killer shark movie is that it has no personality, but that’s the situation here, Maneater a flesh-eating nightmare of aquatic monotony.

Three Thousand Years of Longing is the story of life, and as frustrating and maddening as that can be, it’s also quite beautiful: the continual hope for a better tomorrow is a wish worth making, no matter what the risks.

The basics are simple and straightforward, making Beast something of an “animals attack” throwback that goes right for the jugular, with enthusiastic ruthlessness.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Orphan: First Kill, a prequel to 2009’s Orphan, actually exists.