Slotherhouse (2023) | Is Slotherhouse a good movie? Not really. Did I have fun watching a sloth murder sorority girls? Absolutely! #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 5.2/10. I had the trailer for Slotherhouse sitting on my previous website for a while because, well...it looked completely ridiculous. Eventually, I figured it was time to stop teasing myself with the trailer and actually watch the damn thing.

And you know what? I had fun with it.

Was Slotherhouse insanely stupid? Absolutely. Was I questioning some of the decisions being made while watching it? Constantly. Did I care? Not really. Sometimes you just have to embrace the stupid and let a murderous sloth do its thing.

Directed by Matthew Goodhue, Slotherhouse is a horror comedy about Emily Young (Lisa Ambalavanar), a college senior campaigning to become president of her sorority. Naturally, the best way to improve her chances is to adopt an adorable sloth. Because apparently that's how sorority politics works.

Things take a bit of a turn when the cute little bastard starts leaving a trail of dead bodies behind him.

Right from the opening scene, Slotherhouse makes it pretty damn clear what sort of movie we're watching. This isn't a horror movie that wants to scare the shit out of you. It's a silly monster flick that knows its plot is ridiculous but enjoys its own madness.

The star of the show is obviously the sloth. And here's where I have to give the movie some credit. At times, it's a hand puppet.

Yes. I am not joking. A hand puppet.

Instead of throwing some questionable CGI sloth at us, they opted to use a real puppet. IMO, they have done the right thing because the stupid motions just made everything more comical, especially when the cute, little psychopath was busy slaughtering people. There is just something about seeing a sloth in action that makes everything so amusing.

It's campy as hell, but that's also where a lot of the entertainment comes from.

However, it is not always that amusing. There are many jokes and scenes that definitely could have been a lot funnier than they were. Tiff Stevenson, who has had experience in stand-up comedy, is playing the role of the sorority’s den mother, but her character doesn't deliver the laughs I expected.

That's probably the biggest problem with Slotherhouse. The premise is funnier than the actual comedy.

A murderous sloth is a fantastic stupid idea. You can do a lot with that. Unfortunately, the movie doesn't always take advantage of just how ridiculous its own premise is. Still, I can't pretend I didn't enjoy watching it.

The plot is ridiculous. The characters aren't going to be winning any awards. And there are plenty of moments where you simply have to shrug and accept that you're watching a movie about a homicidal sloth running around a sorority house.

But that's also the point.

Slotherhouse is not an attempt to create the next horror movie masterpiece, nor is it likely to end up as one. It's a fun horror film where you have to abandon any expectation of sense whatsoever, and just enjoy the insanity.

Slotherhouse (2023)

I wouldn't exactly call it a good movie. Far from it. But I also wouldn't call the 93 minutes a waste of time. Sometimes you just need a movie where a cute sloth kills people.

https://jackmeat.com/slotherhouse-2023/

The Runner (2026) | The Runner is basically Speed without the bus, Run Lola Run without the excitement, and Gal Gadot in running pants. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 4.4/10. I'll give The Runner credit for letting us know that communication is important. Radio broadcasts, phone calls, messages and various other forms of people talking at each other all fight for attention during the opening minutes, apparently in preparation for the moment when the movie will eventually stop explaining things and just make Gal Gadot run.

And run she does.

After the opening barrage of audio clutter finally settles down, we meet successful London attorney Sarah (Gal Gadot) and her diabetic son Noah (Rory Wilmot) getting ready for the day. Then she gets a call from coworker Ted, and suddenly she's off and running through London to the dulcet sounds of Blondie's Heart of Glass. The title finally appears, presumably because the movie has decided, “Yep, this is the one. We're making Gal Gadot run now.”

Which raises an important question. Was this entire movie just an excuse to put Gal Gadot in skin-tight running pants?

Because if so, mission accomplished. Unfortunately, there's also supposed to be a thriller happening.

Noah is abducted, and a mysterious Caller (Damian Lewis) starts issuing Sarah a series of cryptic commands. She has to race across the city to save her son, navigating secrets, threats and whatever other obstacles the screenplay can throw in her path.

The problem is that I never really understood why she needed to be running everywhere in the first place. The bad guy has a specific objective, and that objective is apparently time-sensitive. So why not simply tell Sarah where she needs to go and let her get there by whatever means necessary? Why is running specifically the solution?

It's not like she's being chased by a bus.

The movie does have some things going for it. There are some genuinely cool shots, the editing has energy, and there are flashy sequences that demonstrate some filmmaking talent from Kevin Macdonald. Unfortunately, all that technical polish is being used to prop up an idea that probably sounded considerably better on paper.

And then there's the ending.

You have to give The Runner a lot of leeway when it comes to plausibility. I can't say I was surprised by where things ended up, because the ending was pretty much exactly what I expected. It isn't necessarily terrible. It just feels like the movie has been sprinting toward a finish line that was never far away.

All I could think about was how great Run Lola Run was. That movie understood how to turn running into an actual cinematic engine. The Runner mostly turns it into cardio.

The Runner (2026)

It's Speed without the bus, without the excitement, and with considerably more Gal Gadot running. At least she looks great doing it.

https://jackmeat.com/the-runner-2026/

Deathwoods (2026) | You know you’re watching a slasher flick when the smartest survival strategy is inviting more people into the woods. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 4.9/10. I spot the Bloody-Disgusting logo. Then comes a drive-in-style commercial for corn dogs, complete with static, popping, and a reminder to turn off your engine. Yep, they’re going for that grindhouse feel. I can respect the commitment. What would a horror movie be without a group of people getting drunk and telling horror stories around a campfire? Throw in a couple of boobs and some practical kills, and congratulations, we’re officially off into the Deathwoods.

Twenty years ago, the Wallace family lived deep in the woods surrounding the small town of Old Hickory, Tennessee. After a terrible murder/suicide destroyed the family, rumors began circulating around town, eventually evolving into ghost stories about a grotesque, mutated kid who supposedly haunts those very woods.

Fast-forward to present day, and Scott’s friends Kyle (Kellan Jackson) and Jessica (MacKenzie Lee) have the brilliant idea of taking him camping for the weekend. Their mission? Get Scott over his post-breakup depression by setting him up with Jessica’s friend Michelle (KateLynn E. Newberry).

Because nothing says “let’s help our emotionally fragile friend” quite like dragging him into the woods where a supposedly murderous mutant ghost child lives.

Naturally, their matchmaking plans quickly turn into a body-counting exercise when the legend decides to make an appearance. And because apparently five potential victims aren’t enough, they conveniently meet up with more friends along the way. Excellent. More people to kill means more practical blood-spewing goodness, and Deathwoods is certainly not shy about letting the red stuff fly.

The final-girl alarm went off fairly early for me. No surprise there. On another note, her time here is brief, but it’s always welcome to see Felissa Rose, who plays Ethel Wallace and ties into the family behind the campfire stories.

Writers Scott Conner and Jake Kopronica give us a pretty formulaic slasher script, but there’s enough entertainment value to keep things moving. As slasher movies love to do, they toss in a little whodunit twist, and once again, my guess was right. At this point, I’m beginning to wonder if I should be credited as a consultant. The formula is just that easy to spot when you’ve watched as many of these as I have.

There’s also a fun little ending that could very easily be interpreted as sequel bait. Because apparently the woods aren’t finished with us yet. Deathwoods is a nice 80s slasher homage, complete with some good, heavy music and plenty of practical effects. It’s not going to become a new horror classic, but if you’re a fan of the slasher subgenre, it’s worth a one-time trip into the woods.

Deathwoods (2026)

And with Halloween: The Game just released September 8, 2026, maybe the slasher genre is starting to heat up again. If so, I suppose we’d better pack the beer, fire up the campfire, and start pretending none of us knows exactly who’s getting killed first.

https://jackmeat.com/deathwoods-2026/

Just Play Dead (2026) | I’m sure Just Play Dead sounded brilliant in the pitch meeting. Then they forgot to make the movie as good as the pitch. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 4.4/10. Just Play Dead opens with some upbeat music sweeping over gorgeous ocean views of Gran Canaria before settling in on Sam “Motherfarking” Jackson having a chat with a mob-type gentleman. We are apparently supposed to believe this is the Caribbean, despite Spain being written all over the place. Including flags and license plates that seem rather committed to ruining the illusion. But hey, maybe the Caribbean has just been outsourcing its police force.

As you might expect from a meeting involving Samuel L. Jackson and a criminal mastermind, things go poorly for one of the participants. Specifically, he discovers that he is allergic to death.

From there, we meet Eva Green’s Nora, who is having a flirtatious conversation with surfer dude Chad (Jason Fernández). Once the various murder-and-insurance-fraud schemes start taking shape, the movie jumps back five weeks to fill in the blanks. This is where we meet Dani (Eoin Macken), one of Nora’s bed partners and a New York cop.

The setup is actually pretty decent. Wealthy criminal Jack Wolfe wants to fake his own death, collect a $30 million insurance payout, and frame Chad for killing him. Nora, meanwhile, is tired of being controlled by Jack and decides she would rather kill him for real, frame Chad, and keep the money herself. Jack, naturally, is already several chessboards ahead.

There’s a genuinely funny montage where both sides explain their respective plans for killing the other lover to the dimwitted Chad, who then physically acts out each scenario. It’s one of those moments where the movie briefly remembers that all this murder plotting is supposed to be fun.

Unfortunately, Just Play Dead spends considerably more time being convoluted than creative. Every twist requires another twist, followed by a double-cross, followed by someone explaining the twist out loud because apparently the audience might have wandered off to make a sandwich. I wouldn't blame you. At one point, you can practically hear the screenplay saying, “OK, everyone caught up? Good, because here’s another thing.”

There are also some distracting editing choices and noticeable sound fluctuations that really shouldn't be happening in a feature film starring the highest-grossing actor of all time. The movie looks and sounds more like it occasionally lost a fight with its own post-production department.

And if you're expecting anything resembling the action-comedy energy of the recent Hitman’s Bodyguard movies, just play dead yourself. There’s an explosive yacht showdown, sure, but this isn't Jackson cutting loose and annihilating people with one-liners and bullets.

I'm sure the script sounded pretty damn good when it was pitched. On screen, however, Just Play Dead is mostly a letdown. Eva Green and Sam Jackson are both capable of much more, but neither can quite rescue this mess. They feel like they're performing the minimum number of required facial expressions to satisfy their contracts.

Remove them from the cast, and this movie would be considerably worse. Which is about the nicest thing I can say about it.

Just Play Dead (2026)

https://jackmeat.com/just-play-dead-2026/

The Last Assassins (2026) | I love a snowy apocalypse, but this spends so much time in the fog I wondered if the budget was hiding in there. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 3.6/10. The Last Assassins jumps right into the exposition, explaining the mysterious event that turned the future into an icy, fog-covered wasteland. Technology once ruled the world, something happened, and now everyone gets to enjoy the apocalypse with the added bonus of never seeing more than 30 feet in front of them. Eventually, we meet a young girl whose father is killed by some mysterious group. Before dying, he tells her to hide, which she does until the people trying to kill him inevitably find him anyway. Fortunately, some dude shows up to rescue her, and off they go.

Nobel (Josh Bainbridge) is tasked with getting the girl to an aunt she has never met. He has sworn to protect what remains of her family, which sounds like a noble mission until you realize this involves dragging a child through a frozen dystopia while everybody else apparently wants them dead.

The world has entered a permanent winter, a deadly fog has swallowed civilization, technology has been wiped out, and apparently the best time to attempt a sword fight is when nobody has bothered to rehearse one.

There are moments where The Last Assassins desperately wants to be an epic science-fiction adventure. The music swells. Characters stare dramatically into the distance. Vast snowy landscapes appear on screen. The camera embraces the fog like it has just discovered a fog machine and been told to get its money's worth.

And I will admit, I am a sucker for snow. So whenever the movie gets out into those outdoor landscapes, there are glimpses of something bigger and more impressive hiding. Unfortunately, the effects frequently remind you that this is not quite Dune. The fog helps obscure some of the rougher work, but eventually even the fog starts feeling like it's working overtime.

Athena E. Park's character didn't help matters. I don't even remember if the girl is ever properly named, but I certainly remember her getting on my nerves. Part of that is the writing, part is the performance, and together they create a character who makes an already awkward journey much harder to enjoy.

Still, calling this a total disaster would be unfair. For a school project, The Last Assassins might actually be pretty damn impressive. For a feature film released into the wild, however, it's simply not ready for Prime time. Director James Anthony Usas has an art department background, and that experience does show. There are genuine visual instincts here, and occasional shots suggest he could have something worthwhile behind the camera with the right material and, presumably, considerably more money.

That's ultimately what makes this such a strange movie. It doesn't always look cheap, but it sure feels cheap. And by the end, I suspect the budget finally decided to stop pretending. The bigger problem is that the journey never really becomes a journey. It's a collection of scenes and events loosely stapled together, with occasional bursts of excitement that are, at best, marginally exciting.

The Last Assassins (2026)

There is potential here. Unfortunately, The Last Assassins feels less like the finished product and more like the promising first draft. Or maybe an AI-created experiment. I'm really not sure.

https://jackmeat.com/the-last-assassins-2026/

Penny Lane Is Dead (2026) | A beach house, some cupcakes, and a pissed-off cousin are all you need for 90 minutes of bloody 80s chaos. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 5.9/10. SHUDDER WARNING: This flick contains a frankly unreasonable (and welcome) amount of blood, bad decisions, and relatives who should not be invited to any friendly functions. I mean, there are get-together celebrations, and then there’s Penny Lane Is Dead where your resentful cousin arrives uninvited, brings drugged cupcakes, and eventually turns your beach holiday into a full-scale hostage situation. So, yeah, maybe stick with Christmas lunch at Grandma’s.

In the hot summer of 1986 in Australia, the film doesn’t take long to make us aware that it’s going to be an extremely terrible holiday. Penny (Bailey Spalding) arrives at a remote beach house with her best friends Toni (Tahlee Fereday) and Amy (Alexandra Jensen) to celebrate getting accepted to university. The sun, the sand, the alcohol, and the friendship. What could go wrong? This is when their cousin Kat, who has enough bitterness to light a whole city, appears along with her cupcakes

Once Kat (Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn) drugs Penny and is forced to leave, you might think the worst is over. Adorable. She returns with her boyfriend Angus and his merry band of psychopaths, and suddenly the beach house has been converted into a violent little kingdom. Toni and Amy are isolated, outnumbered, and left to figure out how to survive while the body count starts behaving like it has somewhere to be.

The biggest selling point is just how committed the movie is to being an 80s horror movie. It feels like one, looks like one, and apparently has no interest whatsoever in being subtle about it. The practical gore is gloriously nasty, the violence is mean-spirited, and the whole thing operates at a pretty satisfying level of “oh, wow, they actually did that.”

It’s also, underneath all the carnage, essentially a very dark love story. That sounds considerably more sophisticated than the movie actually is, but there’s something interesting buried beneath the blood splatter. Relationships, resentment, obsession, and the lengths people will go when affection curdles into something considerably less healthy.

At around 90 minutes, Penny Lane Is Dead understands its assignment. There’s no need to pad this thing out with an hour of characters staring meaningfully into the middle distance before someone gets their head rearranged. It’s shocks, thrills, blood and escalating insanity, delivered with a full-tilt commitment to its own crazy tone.

It isn’t particularly deep, and some of the character decisions and plot mechanics wobble more than they should. But the performances, practical effects, violence and sheer bloody-mindedness make those flaws surprisingly easy to forgive.

Penny Lane Is Dead (2026)

Penny Lane Is Dead isn’t going to change your life. It might, however, make you reconsider accepting cupcakes from your cousins. And what a weird eating ritual they have, LOL.

https://jackmeat.com/penny-lane-is-dead-2026/

Motor City (2026) | Motor City is basically a dialogue-free revenge movie where the music does the talking and Alan Ritchson does the punching. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 6.3/10. We start out jamming to Cat People by David Bowie, and are shown that it is 1977, Detroit, and a bloodied Alan Ritchson tossing a body off a roof onto a speeding car, conveniently interrupting a car chase. And that is just the beginning of Motor City.

We hit the title shortly after a single shotgun blast loaded with an engagement ring. An engagement ring? I have a feeling we're going to be doing some backtracking to figure out exactly how we got here.

Instead of wasting our time with some sappy love story, Motor City gives us a montage of John Miller (Ritchson) and Sophia (Shailene Woodley) meeting, courting, and generally being disgustingly happy together, right up until the police come along and ruin everyone's afternoon. Miller has fallen for a local gangster's girl, which, as you might imagine, is not a relationship the gangster is going to put on the Christmas card.

In retaliation, the gangster frames Miller and sends the innocent man to prison. Life ruined, girl stolen, beard growing, and rage accumulating, Miller eventually plots his revenge against the man who took everything from him. Silently, more on that later.

And this is where Motor City gets...interesting.

They absolutely nail the look and sound of the 1970s. The music, cars, clothing, grimy Detroit atmosphere. Everything looks like it was dragged straight out of the decade and told to stop complaining about the gas prices.

The acting job is also made considerably easier for Ben Foster as Reynolds. Just tell him not to say anything. LOL.

Because that's the gimmick here. Motor City tells its entire story without dialogue. We're treated to music-driven montages of Reynolds and Sophia dancing and enjoying their new life, periodically cutting back to John getting increasingly scraggly in prison and having increasingly violent fantasies about the people who screwed him over. Apparently, words were deemed unnecessary.

I still have no idea what Sophia's little tantrum was supposed to accomplish, but hey, she had feelings and presumably wanted us to know about them.

The lack of dialogue is certainly a choice, and whether you think it's brilliant or a gimmick will probably determine how much you enjoy this movie. Personally, I spent a decent chunk of it wondering when someone was finally going to say literally anything.

But when the violence kicks in, the movie gets considerably more interesting. The fight scenes are well done, and the elevator brawl is easily the best of 'em. John even manages to get a "leg up" during the proceedings. Literally. LOL.

It's a dialogue-free revenge ride where action, music, and 1970s grit are doing all the talking. It doesn't always work, but when Motor City cuts loose, it's bloody, vicious, and genuinely entertaining. A strange little experiment that won't be for everyone, but at least it has the good sense to toss someone off a roof.

Motor City (2026)

https://jackmeat.com/motor-city-2026/