Mini-reviews for Queens of the Dead, V/H/S/Halloween, Jay Kelly, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, and Bring Her Back

Queens of the Dead

Director Tina Romero is the daughter of legendary zombie craftsman George A. Romero, but this movie feels just as much her film as it does a homage to her father’s work. Set on the night of a large warehouse party in Brooklyn, with Drag shows and popping music, zombies are walking the streets and causing mayhem, and a group of Drag performers and partygoers have to team up to escape the hordes of the dead. I love the cast (I’ll watch anything with Katy O’Brien), a lot of the humor hits, and yet the zombies are taken seriously within the comedy. There’s a bit of Shaun of the Dead to this one, and while it does have a few pacing issues, scenes with characters waiting around for the next thing to happen, there are less than you’d think given the budgetary limitations. Overall, I had a good time with Queens of the Dead, and I’d like to join up with these characters in the future (think Dawn of the Drag), and I think viewers bored with the zombie subgenre will still have a lot to like here.

Queens of the Dead: 3.5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

V/H/S/Halloween

The V/H/S franchise, now 8 films deep, is a bit of a mixed bag. The first two installments are terrific, but since then, each installment of this found-footage has had the standard anthology problem in which some of the stories are great and some less so. V/H/S/Halloween covers several stories set during the titular holiday, and the high highs make this one worth watching. The stories are as such:
–Diet Phantasma: The framing narrative in which a company tests out a new soda product to disastrous results, is sporadic fun but doesn’t work as a framing narrative for the complete film.
–Coochie Coochie Coo: apart from some frustrating and disappoint A.I. use, this short is incredible, as two teens take on their last Halloween before college and come across a house that definitely isn’t a holiday haunt. I really enjoyed the two leads as they discover the mistake they’ve made in thinking this creepy house is a fun attraction.
–Ut Supra Sic Infra: Following a bizarre mass murder, the only survivor is questioned as we see footage of the Halloween party he attended and a reconstruction of the crime. It’s fine, predictable, but has a nice and shocking enough ending.
–Fun Size: Four friends leave a Halloween party and go trick-or-treating before eventually meeting trouble with a mysterious haunted candy bowl. Fun Size is perhaps a bit too lengthy for its premise, but there’s a lot of fun to be had in this one. Casper Kelly, who directed Adult Swim’s insanely disturbing and absurd Too Many Cooks, plays on expectations and tropes here, and I never knew where it would go.
–Kidprint: apart from nostalgia, this story of a serial killer descending upon a town’s young during the Halloween season is a bit more by-the-book than I’d have hoped. Seeing the Kidprint background was a nice reminder of this oddly normalized piece of culture, but the story around is just too easy.
–Home Haunt: When a father tries to win back his son’s love for the yearly Halloween Haunt they put on, he uses a mysterious record which brings the attraction to life. A wonderfully fun finale to the film, this one is endlessly entertaining and deserves a feature film spinoff to expand on.

V/H/S/Halloween: 3/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

Jay Kelly

A famous movie actor finds himself on a journey of self-rediscovery alongside his manager who is dealing with a crisis of self as well.
Noah Baumbach’s recent film is very technically well-made, and it has characters that are well-cast, and those actors work well within the framework of the film. The problem is that the finished product is rather dull. There are strong moments that stayed with me, like the reconnecting between George Clooney’s Jay with Billy Crudup’s Timothy, a former actor who struggles to understand how he floundered when Jay soared. It’s a nice scene and Crudup is excellent, but it’s one scene in an otherwise unremarkable movie. Clooney is solid, but he’s played this archetype before, and his melancholic nature doesn’t inspire, and it was nice to see Adam Sandler getting to work outside his comfort zone, but the character written for him doesn’t have enough to work with.
Jay Kelly isn’t a bad movie, but I felt little for this introspective tale that felt more like a passion project for Clooney and a notable bit of Oscar bait than anything worthy of remembrance. I do hope we get more Sandler in dramas, though, as I believe he has the capability and range to do more than he’s done.

Jay Kelly: 2.5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

Linda is struggling to maintain her composure with her husband away for work, dealing with a combative child’s mystery illness, and a home that’s quite literally falling apart.
There will always be a push and pull between technical capabilities and the finished product’s artistic merit. In the case of If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, I can see all the talent onscreen before me and still find the finished product absolutely insufferable, and with this film especially, that may be the point. My counterargument is that I walked away from this film, both times I’ve seen it, thinking how little impact it really had on me other than the fact that I felt numb. Perhaps as numb as Rose Byrne’s Linda. Byrne gives a great performance and I quite enjoyed seeing the delightful Conan O’Brien in a completely straight-laced (and quite strong) performance as Linda’s therapist, but I couldn’t help but wonder what the point of it all was. 2025 was a big year of film’s attempting to convince the viewer not to have kids, and I feel that other films translated the difficulties in parenting and navigating one’s mental health in a much stronger and more impactful way.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You: 2.5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

Bring Her Back

Following the unexpected death of their father, Andy and his sister are sent to live with the unusual and testy Laura and her foster child Oliver, and Andy quickly begins to see that Laura is harboring a terrifying secret and the children are not safe
Credit has to be given to the Philippou brothers who did not hesitate to test their skills with this follow-up to Talk to Me. This film couldn’t be further from the fun and tense thrillride of their first feature. Bring Her Back is a dour and twisted story of loss and obsession that slowly peels back layers and has more than a few unforgettably disturbing visuals.
Bring Her Back does many things well, but how it uses extremely bleak storytelling combined with the Philippou’s embrace of unusually strange and unique character makes for a movie that is far too exciting to just watch once. It also contains one of the year’s best performances from Sally Hawkins as a woman broken by grief and understandably desperate, even if her methods are disturbing and unpredictable.

Bring Her Back: 4/5
-Kyle A. Goethe