Apparently, the best way to work through your trauma is fighting giant spiders in Mizzou. Who knew? 

A year after a tragic fire on an amusement park dark ride kills her husband and child, a depressed woman (Lyndsy Fonseca, Kick-Ass 2) finds herself doing just that. Not intentionally, of course, but that’s what happens when the bus driver for your church camping trip takes you to the wrong canyon: one where bodies get yanked with enormous force — and not the fun kind inside, ahem, pitched tents. 

I’ve seen better spider movies in the past year than Don’t Move; I’ve seen worse, too. The notable difference here is its source material: the 2020 novel by Impractical Jokers’ James S. Murray, who co-writes, co-produces and appears in the film. His production company’s tagline is “Scary. Funny,” but the movie lacks a firm hold in both departments.

And to address the second adjective first, the jokes don’t land, despite committed, amusing delivery by Rob Riggle (Strays) and Tom Cavanaugh (TV’s Ed) as, respectively, the driver and pastor. Tonally, that tends to take the venom out of the pic’s overall bite, but I did find one scene to be particularly, even diabolically creepy. It finds Fonseca and friends attempting to navigate their way through a web at night without triggering a strand; naturally, they fail and freeze as an oversized arachnid ever so slowly descends into frame, mere inches from her face. Don’t Move needed more of that flavor of menace to merit a reservations-free recommended spin . —Rod Lott

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After a fisherman accidentally unleashes a 100-year-old skeleton from a floating coffin — and is strangled to death as thanks — a “world-famous” atomic energy scientist is brought in, because that’s just what you do in these situations.

As the skeleton claims more victims, it transforms into a bird-faced alien thing. We never get a full, clear look because The Horror from Beyond is shot in such stark black-and-white, you might as well call it ShadowVision. The creature’s power is creating a mighty wind by lifting its arms, not a leg.

This tall, hulking monstrosity crashes an outdoor costume party before heading to the local power station. But where will it strike from there? Lady scientist Maryann sure wants to know; in real time, we watch her painstakingly think things out on paper — letter by letter, line by line:

LAB
PARTY
POWER STA.
↓
?

Gripping! Resolution comes swiftly, once authorities man up and take a flamethrower to the place like it were Mikey Madison in a swimming pool on Cielo Drive.

A moody chiller from future Bloodsport helmer Newt Arnold, The Horror from Beyond wears its Filipino origins well, imaging what a crossover of the Blood Island and Aztec Mummy franchises might look (and sound and smell) like. In a cameo, Frankenstein’s monster has his pants fall to his ankles — something Guillermo del Toro didn’t have the balls to consider. —Rod Lott

Following the mysterious death of her sister, mushroom-haired journalist Keegan (Jo Ann Harris, Rape Squad) comes back to town to find answers. More questions arise, because a ski-masked murderer is on the loose, and he makes his decisions based on a literal roll of the dice for a monster-themed board game clearly colored by highlighters. Deadly Games, get it?

Upon meeting Keegan, the cop on the case (Sam Groom, Hanging by a Thread) investigates only how to crack open that reporter’s notebook, if you catch my drift. The cop is war buddies with the town loner (Steve Railsback, Turkey Shoot), who smokes cigarettes of Virginia Slims length despite severe asthma. So goes putting the pieces into place for this semi-slasher, kind of a Peyton Place take on masked-killer material. It doesn’t entirely work, but is interesting for toying with what was already a trite formula.

One of the game’s spaces reads, “Find harlot in pub.” I didn’t see one marked, “Drown Colleen Camp by tying her ankle to the swimming pool drain with a wire,” yet that happens. Keegan practically flirts with death by doing incredibly stupid things, like staying in her sister’s house alone overnight without bothering to repair the floor-to-ceiling window an intruder crashed through. At the very least, I’d Scotch-tape some cardboard or seams-ripped garbage bags before even so much thinking about taking a shower.

That may be the least annoying thing Keegan does. Harris’ performance screams “theater kid.” She’s constantly cracking jokes, talking to herself, muttering under her breath or basically never not flapping her gums. Combine Keegan’s inability to shut up with her high degree of self-absorption — her sister’s death seems to bother her so little, she doesn’t check in on her mother (June Lockhart, 1986’s Troll) until a day after rolling into town — and it’s utterly exhausting to watch.

When your Final Girl acts more unhinged than Railsback of all typecast people, that’s a problem! How much of Keegan’s oxygen-sucking, attention-whoring nonsense is Harris’ take or the work of neophyte writer/director Scott Mansfield, I know not. But Harris is so into it, I’m inclined to blame her.

What I can attribute to Mansfield (Imps*) are two truly impressive shots, both involving the eye, both worthy of a giallo, even if one is limited by effects available at the time and budget. Another memorable shot is Deadly Games’ final, for entirely other, perfectly bonkers reasons. —Rod Lott

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Jojo Anwar’s Ghost in the Cell trafficks in all the tropes of the male prison pic: a tyrannical warden, solitary confinement, drug gangs, slop as food, the threat of shower rape and so on. Its market differentiator, however, is a malevolent spirit that tears, twists and turns its murder victims into grotesque death tableaux à la TV’s Hannibal.

Enlisting several of his Satan’s Slaves actors, Anwar focuses on fresh meat Dimas (Endy Arfian), a meek journalist wrongly convicted for the killing of his abusive boss. The actual culprit is the wraith, which follows Dimas behind bars and takes the corporeal form of its targets during slaughter (thereby distinguishing itself from Renny Harlin’s Prison). It’s like seeing double, except only one is covered in trypophobic skin. As the ghost makes its way from prisoner to prisoner, they shout themselves hoarse over this supernatural force.

Predictably, Ghost in the Cell excels in these sequences, from the initial skirmish to the reveal of the resulting macabre centerpiece, borrowing pieces of Riki-Oh’s operatic insanity in between. As the minutes tick by, the level of humor increases, and unfortunately, that’s where the Indonesian film misses.

Perhaps chalked up to a clash of cultures, the comedy is broader and even slapstickier than what this country’s accustomed to — a pube-laden bar of soap for a sight gag, sure; a full-on dance scene choreographed by an effeminate inmate, you can keep it. And when the dancing extends to a joyous cast-and-crew montage during the closing credits, you’ve effectively neutered all the bite that came before. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.