To revisit the final image of Ready or Not , Samara Weaving, blood-soaked, dazed, and smoking in the wreckage of a burning mansion, is to be reminded of how rare it is for a horror-comedy to land on something that feels instantly iconic. It’s a closing note that doesn’t ask for expansion. It lingers. It resonates. It ends. Ready or Not2: Here I Come  makes the fatal mistake of picking that image back up and asking, “But what if… more?” And more is exactly what this sequel is,

The Phoenix Film Festival returns for its 26th annual event Thursday, April 9 – Sunday, April 19   at   Harkins Scottsdale 101, bringing filmmakers and movie lovers together for another year of standout storytelling, special events, and community celebration.   Originally founded in 2001 by local filmmakers, the Phoenix Film Festival has grown into an 11-day celebration featuring 250+ films ,  plus filmmaking seminars, parties, and student workshops for more than 20,000 atten

Undertone , the microbudget Canadian chiller that rode Fantasia buzz all the way to an A24 release and a Sundance Midnight berth, wants to do for podcasts what Paranormal Activity  did for found footage. It plants its camera in a single house, hands its protagonist a laptop and a pair of headphones, and asks a simple question: what if the scariest thing in the room is something you can only hear? Evy (Nina Kiri) is the skeptic half of an occult-themed podcast she co-hosts wit

For the handful of breathless, electrified minutes Elsa Lanchester occupies the screen in James Whale’s 1935 Bride of Frankenstein , she hisses, recoils, and refuses. She does not speak. She does not need to. The tragedy and the joke is perfectly formed. Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride!  (yes, the exclamation point is doing real labor here) arrives some ninety years later determined to answer the question: what was she thinking? It’s a bold provocation. It’s also one that prove

More than half a century after The Beatles’ breakup, the band remains less a closed chapter than an ongoing excavation. Every few years, another corner of the mosaic gets dusted off and reframed. With Paul McCartney: Man on the Run, director Morgan Neville doesn’t attempt to solve the whole 10,000-piece puzzle. Instead, he zeroes in on one crucial, often misunderstood stretch: the years immediately following the split, when McCartney was forced to answer a question no one had

On paper, How to Make a Killing  sounds like a sure thing. A remake of the deliciously cruel Kind Hearts and Coronets . Glen Powell on death row, narrating his ascent up (and through) a gilded family tree. Ed Harris glowering as the patriarchal final boss. A24’s stamp of approval. A jaunty, eat-the-rich premise that promises gallows humor with a side of social commentary. Execution, however, is everything. And John Patton Ford’s film, so meticulous in recreating the bones of