Review Category: Movie

A gritty action thriller set entirely inside one man’s prison cell, Jailbroken follows hardened criminal and inmate Joe (Bryan Larkin) as he attempts to negotiate the release of his family from a gang of murderous kidnappers. With only a contraband mobile phone (jailbroken, geddit) to work with, Joe’s gruff telephone is pushed to the limit, and he finds himself immensely compromised as his family’s captors make their terrible demands. It’s like Taken, if the phone call had been the whole movie.

Front and centre for the whole time, Larkin gives a captivating performance as Joe. The whole thing rides on his broad shoulders, and he capably takes it all. He’s ably supported by Armin Karima as shifty cellmate Naz, who gives Larkin someone to bounce off of that’s not just a voice on the phone. Veteran actor David Nayman (Bull) also pops up as an even shiftier prison guard, injecting a sense of grubby authenticity that the actor’s particularly gifted at. If it all starts to feel a bit alpha male-heavy, then The Descent star Shauna Macdonald serves as some relief, albeit as a voice over the phone.

Director Vasily Chiprina, directing from a screenplay by Raymond Friel, doesn’t let up. The film utilises Joe’s cell to drive home his sense of desperation and isolation, the walls seeming to close in as his plight worsens. It’s claustrophobic and tense, and the most successful film based around one phone call since Tom Hardy’s Locke. The Tom Hardy comparisons don’t end there either – there’s a prison cell brawl that’s reminiscent of the actor’s Bronson.

Given its single-location setting and ultra-low budget, Jailbroken has its limitations, but it uses them to its advantage.

JAILBROKEN premiered at FrightFest Glasgow on March 5, 2026.

When David Koepp’s novel Cold Storage was published back in 2019, we took the view, quite prophetically, that it was “a rampantly pulpy old-school horror/sci-fi hybrid unashamedly written with one eye on the multiplex.” Sure enough, seven years later (these things take time), the feature film version, directed by Jonny Campbell, arrives in cinemas on what appears to be a fairly limited release.

It’s a shame the film won’t find a broader audience and make a bigger splash at the box office, because it’s a big, brash, occasionally silly movie that absolutely captures the style and tone of its source material. But then again, Koepp has written the script, so it’s hardly surprising that he’s largely translated his story to the screen with the same brio and sense of outrageous fun he brought to his novel.

In 2007, biochemist Hero Martins (Sosie Bacon) travels to a remote one-horse town in Western Australia with “bioterror operatives” Robert Quinn (Liam Neeson) and Trini Romano (Lesley Manville). Here they find that a heavily mutated and virulent fungus has escaped from a fragment of the disintegrated Skylab space station salvaged by a local farmer decades earlier. It has devastated the town and exploded out of its population, and before the town is incinerated to stop any further spread, one of the group is infected. A sample of the virus is collected and stored in an underground facility in Kansas.

Fast-forward to the present day; the government has sealed off the underground vault, and the buildings above have been turned into a commercial venture known as Atchison Storage. Low-level night security guards Teacake (Joe Keery) and Naomi (Georgina Campbell) hear a stray beeping alarm, and their investigation into the lower levels reveal that the fungal virus has leaked from the vault and has already started to make its way outside.  It’s left to the hapless pair, along with Quinn and Romano, dragged out of retirement, to try to contain the fungus before it wreaks havoc across the world.

Cold Storage is great tongue-in-cheek fun that never takes itself too seriously, even as it delivers moments of gross-out gore – exploding animals spraying out green ooze, infected humans falling apart and being reduced to slithering goo – and some remarkably well-developed characters for a film that’s done and dusted in under 100 minutes.

From a casting perspective, it punches well above its weight, with Manville clearly having fun in an entirely uncharacteristic role and acting royalty Vanessa Redgrave in a quite touching cameo as an old woman who has come to the facility to commit suicide amongst the collected mementoes of her past. The balance between horror and comedy is pitch perfect and nicely judged; in one scene, a group who have come to loot the facility are confronted by one of the infected, bloated, drooling and suppurating and covered in fungus. “He’s got Covid!” cries one of them.

Cold Storage deserves the appreciation of a proper audience – especially with the currently hot Joe Keery and Georgina Campbell driving the narrative – and absolutely shouldn’t be given the cold shoulder. It’s really fun, guys.

COLD STORAGE is in UK cinemas now – but not for long.

Luke (Dustin Milligan) is selling up to move to Ottawa for his dream job, but his plans are derailed when his wayward older brother, Danny (Simon Rex), shows up. Danny has been living off-grid, entrenched in conspiracy theories, and claims to have stolen an object of great importance to the future of mankind. In disbelief but loyal to his sibling, Luke sets off on a (mis)adventure that opens his eyes to what’s really going on in the world.

Taking the premise of outlandish conspiracies (something that’s as familiar as ever in these crazy times), the debut for writer-director Michael Kvamme (aka Mikey K) is a riotous absurdist comedy that rarely stops for breath. The likeable pairing of Milligan and Rex guides us through the increasingly bizarre situations. There are also characters such as Tony Cavalero’s weapons supplier Klyle – yes, with the extra ‘L’ – and ‘badger’ Allison (Brenda Song) to aid Danny along the way, but there’s genuine danger as they are pursued by members of a secret organisation led by celebrities and founded by aliens. The only neutral place is the diner chain ‘Taco Gary’s’.

Mikey K has a deft sense of ridiculousness; there are running gags, a brilliant chase sequence incorporating some eye-wateringly painful ankle twists, and a ludicrous amount of ketamine and cocaine. Add Jason Biggs playing himself, and Doug Jones as an ethereal alien with two appendages, and you have a constantly unpredictable ride. Zoran Popovic’s frantic cinematography adds plenty of anxiety to the various hairy situations.

While Operation Taco Gary’s revels in its zaniness, its heart’s in the right place. There are real consequences, however, making for some poignant scenes later on. Although it’s likely to go under the radar of the mainstream, it’s the sort of movie we definitely recommend seeking out.

OPERATION TACO GARY’S is out now in US cinemas.

After sitting out the sixth film in the series, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) returns to headline the latest entry in the long-running slasher franchise. Coming 30 years after Drew Barrymore first took a stabbing in the series’ most iconic kill, and with original screenwriter Kevin Williamson directing, it should have been a full-circle moment. Stomping all over that sentiment is the sudden departure of Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega from the Scream films, creating a void that’s impossible to ignore.

Spyglass Media Group’s despicable treatment of Barrera bleeds through into the picture, which feels like a step backwards after what transpired in Scream VI. This clearly wasn’t the plan, and Sidney’s much-publicised return feels like a clumsy attempt to throw a curtain over the elephant in the room. Now Sidney Evans, she’s living in a small town with new husband Mark (Joel McHale) and teenage daughter Tatum (Isabel May). Her idyllic new life is thrown into chaos with the sudden return of (a) Ghostface, making their presence felt after a brutal murder at Stu Macher’s house.

Someone’s clearly out to get Sid, but who? Could a face from her distant past have returned to haunt her and her new family? Or is it another pretender, following in the footsteps of so many Ghostface killers before?

Campbell picks up where she left off without missing a beat, although Williamson’s screenplay (written with Guy Busick and James Vanderbilt) spends most of its time making her apologise for missing out on Scream’s New York adventure. Reducing the Core Four to a terrible twosome, siblings Chad and Mindy (Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown) are back, although neither they nor the script deign to explain where the Carpenter sisters are. And there’s Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) too, taking something of a back seat after being put through the wringer in Scream VI.

It’s not just the returning members of the cast who feel like they’re going through the motions; Scream 7 brings little to the table that we haven’t seen before. Recent developments in AI and deepfake technology are a recurring theme, but ultimately go nowhere – aside from a real-life marketing campaign with Meta. Indeed, it doesn’t have much to say about anything at all, lazily coasting on references to its own past. Some of the kill sequences are effective (there’s one involving a beer tap that might be the nastiest we’ve ever seen), but without anyone to care about, they’re a wasted opportunity.

Scream 7 could be the worst film in the franchise. At least we could see what was going on in Scream 3, which is more than we can say for the ugly, miserable cinematography here. It’s the first one to feel like a Stab film rather than Scream proper – a phoned-in, heartless and panicked sequel, made easier to ignore for all that’s gone on behind the scenes.

SCREAM 7 is out in UK cinemas now.

There is a great deal of gloomy foreboding contained within Natasha Kermani’s Gothic horror The Dreadful. With her husband away at war, Anne (Sophie Turner) and her overbearing mother-in-law, Morwen (Marcia Gay Harden), eke out a poverty-stricken existence on the fringes of the local village; times are hard, and, despite her piety, Morwen must indulge in a little petty thievery to supplement the scant morsels of food they are able to grow.

Their lives are a daily grind of desperate prayer and under-cooked vegetables, with Anne forlornly awaiting news of her husband. Then, when childhood friend Jago (Kit Harington) turns up cheerily humming a tune and full of amorous intent, the film moves off in a different direction entirely.

Before you know it, Morwen has transitioned from petty thief to premeditated murderer, Jago and Anne have embarked upon an ill-advised affair, and a mysterious dark knight has begun roaming the woods lopping off people’s heads. There’s a lot going on.

And that’s the real issue. None of the threads ever really tie together. There is talk of a curse, but it’s unclear what that relates to, while Morwen’s actions carry no weight or apparent consequence. Ambiguity is all well and good, but here nothing is explained, and you’re left wondering what it was all for.

There is a great deal of promise at the outset, and the medieval world Kermani has created is so rich with texture that the mud virtually oozes from the screen. Sadly, however, it’s a little superficial, and the film withers away to a dull and unsatisfactory ending.

 

THE DREADFUL is released in US cinemas, on demand, and on digital on February 20th. 

From Return to Silent Hill through to Resident Evil, Exit 8, and The Convenience Store, several beloved horror games are getting the big screen treatment in 2026. Among them is DarkstoneDigital’s The Mortuary Assistant, an eerie and claustrophobic nightmare that captivated gamers back in 2022. The premise of the macabre game was simple – you play as Rebecca Owens, an assistant at a mortuary working alongside your boss, Raymond Delver. As you engage in the more mundane aspects of the embalming process, you must then discover which corpses are possessed, which demon possesses them, and which exorcism to perform to survive as the haunted mortuary becomes increasingly volatile.

The Mortuary Assistant became an instant hit, receiving overwhelmingly positive reviews from fans and critics alike. A film adaptation was announced shortly after, with Slapface’s Jeremiah Kipp at the helm, starring Willa Holland and Paul Sparks. The plot of the film is largely the same as the game, with Holland starring as newly certified mortician Rebecca, who joins the night shift at a mortuary run by Raymond (Sparks). Her mentor reveals to her the dark, demonic rituals and secrets that reside within the mortuary, forcing her to confront her own traumas to survive the night lest she becomes possessed.

Video game adaptations have long been cursed to pale in comparison to the source text – take the scathing reviews every Silent Hill film has received as just one example. And while The Mortuary Assistant is a largely faithful retelling of the game, it lacks the same atmosphere and terror that had us gripped to our computer screens four years ago. There’s plenty of Easter Eggs for fans to enjoy, but the extra plotlines woven throughout mostly amount to nothing, leaving a muddled narrative to decipher, just like the puzzles we’ve become accustomed to in The Mortuary Assistant.

It has fleeting moments of creeping terror, with Holland’s portrayal of Rebecca and the gnarly special effects giving horror fans the bone-cracking, oozing gore they will crave. But its breakneck pace and multiple narrative threads detract from the film’s truly chilling aspects. The slow-burning of the game and patience in revealing its demons is what makes The Mortuary Assistant as scary as it is, and by showing its cards too early, the film cannot build to a satisfying conclusion, instead falling into an underwhelming heap by its third act.

The Mortuary Assistant is at its best when it focuses on the small, unnerving things that happen to Rebecca during her shifts that build to outright supernatural terror, and, unfortunately, this is largely pushed aside. While the bare bones of The Mortuary Assistant are apparent, this movie adaptation of the game is largely left cold on the slab, never getting the chance to rise from the dead and reach the same horrifying heights its source material did.

THE MORTUARY ASSISTANT is in US cinemas now. 

Sam Raimi returns with his first proper Sam Raimi Picture since 2009’s Drag Me to Hell. The Evil Dead director kept his hand in with an episode of Ash vs Evil Dead, and even brought a touch of horror to the MCU with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but that’s not nearly enough. The Raimi faithful among us have had to wait over ten years to wash the taste of Oz the Great and Powerful out of our collective mouths. Needless to say, that mouthwash tastes of corn syrup and red food dye.

In an unexpected riff on Triangle of Sadness and other trend-adjacent works, Raimi’s latest work is a solid entry in the ‘Good for Her’ / ‘Peon vs Corporate Overlord’ subgenre. When her boss suddenly passes away and nepo baby Bradley (Dylan O’Brien) takes over, Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) is left out in the cold. He plans to shuffle the socially awkward strategist out of sight once their company trip to Thailand is done, and Linda’s hard work has saved the day.

Fate has other ideas though, and the pair find themselves stranded on a remote desert island when their plane takes a sudden nosedive. The tables turned, Bradley soon comes to realise that there’s far more to Linda Liddle than meets the eye.

Raimi may have been sidetracked by his quite prolific producing duties and bigger blockbuster films, but it’s clear he hasn’t lost his touch. Directing from a screenplay by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, it’s every bit as funny, cruel and bloody as his previous works. It’s essentially Misery on a desert island, and Raimi doles out the abuse equally, giving McAdams and O’Brien their fair share of trauma (and bodily fluid) as the tug-of-war continues.

Some slightly squiffy VFX aside, Send Help looks great, and the action is typically frenetic (Raimi’s version of a plane crash is every bit as horrific as you’d expect). McAdams is a powerhouse as Liddle, giving one of the best performances of her career in a role she’s clearly having a ball with. As for O’Brien, he’s left to soak up the humiliation, in classic Raimi leading man style. Bruce Campbell would be proud.

It’s not without its flaws (including one massively telegraphed ‘twist’ and a too-convenient party pooper later on), but Send Help is a terrific version of the survival thriller.

To call it a return to form would suggest that Raimi ever lost it, but Send Help is the director at his most fierce.

SEND HELP is out in UK cinemas now.

Troubled new girl in school Chrys (short for Chrysanthemum, played fantastically by Dafne Keen) has been assigned her locker. Unfortunately for her – and her soon-to-be-friends – its former owner was Mason, a basketball prodigy who spontaneously combusted in the showers after a game. It also contains one of his old possessions – a stolen ancient Aztec whistle.

Intrigued but scared by the item, she shows it to her new buddies, Emma (Sophie Nélisse), Dean (Jhaleil Swaby), and Grace (Ali Skovbye). Grace dares to blow the creepy artefact, and the hideous sound seals their fates – it unleashes an evil spirit that knows how they will eventually die and brings forward their fate.

Director Corin Hardy presents his latest film as an unholy marriage of The Breakfast Club and Final Destination, giving us a sense of familiarity from the start. The eighties setting strips away the mod cons, giving us the typical Hollywood version of an American high school. The premise of an ancient object that holds a deadly curse is simple, but the execution is excellent. A sequence set in a maze during a Halloween celebration is particularly effective. There are enough grisly deaths to please the horror hounds, with Hardy using plenty of practical effects as much as possible. He also peppers the movie with plenty of Easter eggs for keen-eyed fans.

The script, by Owen Egerton (Blood Fest), ticks all the boxes for a teen-based horror, and Björn Charpentier’s cinematography is impressively atmospheric and evocative. The story embraces the genre’s clichés and Hardy has plenty of fun with the concept along the way.

WHISTLE is in cinemas from February 13th.