Leprechaun: The Beginning (2025) | Leprechaun: The Beginning isn’t the beginning of anything. It is so bad that even Lucky Charms filed a restraining order. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 1.5/10. I am just guessing here, but I think writer Alessandro Di Giuseppe had just watched the original Leprechaun trilogy from the '90s and told director Rahul Gandhi, "Yeah, let's do NONE of that." And that is how we were graced with Leprechaun: The Beginning.

The story, if you can call it that, follows a family who “discovers” a treasure box of gold in their dead dad’s house. And by discovers, I mean they find it sitting there like an oversized lunchbox. Cue family greed, yelling, and some of the most wooden acting since the Home Depot lumber aisle. Seriously, every “daughter” looks like she’s 28, and somehow they’re supposed to be children like the Brady Bunch. Watching this cast try to play “family” is like watching a group of strangers pretend to bond in an airport layover.

And then there’s our star—the Leprechaun. Once upon a time, Warwick Davis gave us a pint-sized camp icon dripping in mischievous menace. Now? We get… whatever this is. He’s the same height as everyone else, sometimes looks like a hipster who fell asleep in a Halloween clearance aisle, and in half the scenes, his makeup looks unfinished, like the FX guy went on strike mid-shoot. His hands are flesh-toned, his face looks vaguely like a lizard, and in at least one baffling moment, he’s apparently a vampire. Yes, a vampire. Because nothing screams “leprechaun” like bloodless heart-ripping.

Oh, and about that—this has to be the first movie in horror history where someone gets their heart yanked out and not a single drop of blood is spilled. What did they do, dry clean it first? The practical effects here are a crime. Plastic toy knives wobble like they’re auditioning for a Dollar Tree commercial. The makeup is so static, I half expected it to peel off if the actors sneezed.

The pacing? Exquisite. If by “exquisite” you mean 87 minutes of dead air filled with slow-motion stair descents, wooden line deliveries, and tension-free stalking scenes where the biggest fear is someone tripping over a tripod. And then comes the ending, a laughably anticlimactic fizzle that made me genuinely angry that I had devoted an hour and a half of my life to this train wreck.

I’ll admit, nostalgia had me half-excited. I just ran across the 1992 original remastered with pre-Friends Jennifer Aniston, and sure, it was silly and campy, but it owned its ridiculousness. I will have to rewatch that one soon, just to remind myself how bad this one is. This new “beginning” is just… painful. Painful in that way where you want to fast-forward this #turkey but don’t, because you need proof of how bad it actually gets.

Final verdict: Leprechaun: The Beginning isn’t the beginning of anything. It’s the middle of a franchise burial, the end of your patience, and a cinematic Irish curse that leaves you wishing for those 87 minutes back. All-around bad shit, all I can say. This only rounds up to a "2" because I have seen THAT many garbage movies in my day. That is not a compliment.

Leprechaun: The Beginning (2025)

Amazon is one of a few streaming options. If you need the torture, I suggest the free one, Tubi LOL.

https://jackmeat.com/leprechaun-the-beginning-2025/

How to Train Your Dragon (2025) | How to Train Your Dragon (2025) soars as a stunning, heartfelt retelling filled with breathtaking visuals and an excellent cast. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 7.5/10. On the windswept isle of Berk, dragons and Vikings have been sworn enemies for generations, locked in a cycle of fear and fire. Enter Hiccup (Mason Thames), a wiry misfit with a knack for defying tradition, who turns everything upside down when he befriends Toothless, the Night Fury every Viking has been taught to fear. This live-action retelling of the DreamWorks classic How to Train Your Dragon doesn’t just revive the tale, it reimagines it with a scope that feels both familiar and refreshingly new.

The movie opens with a sweeping introduction to Berk and its dragon-ravaged world, pulling us straight into the clash of steel and flame. The CGI work is absolutely stunning, particularly the dragons, which balance realism with just enough fantasy to capture the magic. The early dragon fights, especially the battle with the monstrous queen dragon, are exhilarating, reminding me a lot of the scale and chaos of my recent VR sessions in Skydance’s Behemoth. Except here, instead of hacking beasts apart, the story is about understanding and bonding with them, which admittedly makes for a much warmer payoff.

Casting is spot-on. Mason Thames captures Hiccup’s awkwardness and ingenuity without leaning into caricature, while Nico Parker steps in as Astrid with grit and a sharp edge that perfectly balances her role as friend, rival, and eventual ally. Seeing her break away from The Last of Us into a different fantasy setting was a treat. Gerard Butler returns to Viking form, absolutely owning the role of Stoick, Hiccup’s overbearing father. His commanding presence adds both strength and humor, making the father-son conflict feel authentic and emotional rather than tropey.

Director Dean DeBlois, returning to helm this adaptation, clearly understands the heartbeat of the story. What makes the film soar (literally) is the way it handles its iconic moments. The flight training sequences, the romantic mid-air escape, and of course the unforgettable first flight scene between Hiccup and Toothless, are breathtakingly choreographed and backed by John Powell’s soaring score. The music isn’t just background; it’s a narrative voice all its own, carrying the emotional weight of discovery, loss, and triumph.

Visually, the film is jaw-dropping. Berk feels lived-in, weathered, and authentic, while the dragons blend seamlessly into the rugged Viking landscapes. Thanks to Bill Pope, the fire-lit night battles against the Alpha dragon showcase the perfect marriage of practical set design and CGI wizardry.

I went in with mild expectations—this is, after all, a live-action remake of a beloved “kids movie.” But by the time the credits rolled, I was surprised at how much it worked on me. The relationships feel genuine, the themes of empathy and understanding ring loudly, and the spectacle is pure cinematic joy. If I had one complaint, it’s only that my darker instincts wished the dragons went full scorched-earth on the Vikings at least once—graphic carnage isn’t exactly in the kids’ menu, though.

How to Train Your Dragon (2025)

In short: How to Train Your Dragon is a faithful yet invigorated retelling that doesn’t just ride nostalgia—it earns its wings with heart, spectacle, and craft. Even for skeptics, this one is worth the flight.

This one is on Amazon, along with these streamers for theater pricing.

https://jackmeat.com/how-to-train-your-dragon-2025/

Conjuring Tapes (2025) | The creepiest part of Conjuring Tapes isn’t the demon or the cult, it’s realizing the movie has the exact ending that you predicted. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 3.5/10. Conjuring Tapes kicks off with the kind of premise horror fans can sniff out a mile away: two women (Brenda Yanez and Samantha Laurenti) sorting through their late friend’s belongings stumble onto a pile of mysterious VHS tapes. You already know the rules: if you find unmarked horror tapes in a box, you put them back, torch the house, and move. But no, our leads do the polite horror movie thing and press play, thereby punching their ticket for a slow train to doom.

The first tape serves as a nostalgic PSA reminding us that the gateway to the afterlife can, in fact, be purchased at any game store near you courtesy of Hasbro. For the budget, the scares are decently pulled off—cheap, yes, but competent enough. Not a bad start, though the story has all the edge of a butter knife.

Next, we meet a “professional” paranormal investigator. We know he’s professional because he actually says, “You have seen my videos.” (Yes, the ultimate resumé line.) His portion mostly features bad acting, cheap jump scares, and an abandoned office where a possessed woman chases him around like it’s a low-rent Scooby-Doo gag. Still, it’s the segment that introduces the connecting thread: the women watching these tapes keep seeing themselves in the footage, even though they weren’t there. Cue the ominous “dun dun, duuuuun” noise.

The third tape? Therapy session gone wrong. Hypnosis summons an entity named Mr. Magpie (who sounds more like a rejected Saturday morning cartoon villain than pure evil). The concept isn’t terrible, but the acting doesn’t sell it. Think less “psychological terror,” more “community theater warm-up exercise.”

Then things take a left turn into cult territory. We get a PSA for the SRO, followed by a podcast dissecting their nonsense, which makes the film feel less like a horror anthology and more like a Vice documentary on weird groups meeting in barns. And honestly? That part almost works. The sermon, delivered by Lori Richardson, is the one moment that feels grounded and creepy enough to be believable. Unfortunately, the whole cult angle gets shoved aside for—you guessed it—a crappy found footage chase through dark tunnels.

Finally, we arrive at the wraparound story, which ties everything up with a bow so obvious that if they’d chosen any other ending, I would’ve applauded out of pure shock. But no, we get the predictable finale that the script has been telegraphing from minute one.

Conjuring Tapes (2025)

Conjuring Tapes isn’t the worst anthology I’ve seen; it has a couple of fun ideas and a cult sermon that feels disturbingly real, but between limp acting, predictable structure, and found footage clichés, it’s nothing I’d recommend. If you’re hunting for hidden gems in the bargain bin, you could do worse. But you could also just rewatch V/H/S and save yourself the déjà vu.

You can rent it on Amazon or check it out for free with ads on Tubi.

https://jackmeat.com/conjuring-tapes-2025/

Diamond Dogs (2025) | Diamond Dogs delivers old-school heist vibes with eccentric crooks, hit-or-miss humor, and just enough charm to mask its recycled tropes and convenient twists. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 5.3/10. Every heist flick these days seems to think audiences love déjà vu. Diamond Dogs kicks off with a tense “later in the movie” scene, only to slam us with the dreaded “four months earlier” title card. This framing device has become the genre’s comfort food, predictable but serviceable. Director Kris Smith clearly figured if it worked for every other heist movie in the last decade, why not toss it in again? (Now that this trope has bled into horror flix, I am growing tired of it)

From there, we meet Paul Canterbury (Nick Elliott), a jewel thief who’s equal parts strategist and eccentric uncle. He starts recruiting the usual suspects: Rick (Andy Blithe), his ride-or-die buddy; Byte Size (Steve Knight), the hacker with more ego than bandwidth; Troy (Leonardo Martin), the muscle with all the personality of a protein shake; and Colin Bell (Mark Wells), who’s… an Uber driver. Yes, the guy who probably has a 4.8 rating and a trunk full of stale air fresheners is somehow critical to this diamond heist. Rounding out the crew is Adriana (Anja Kick), the daughter of a deceased mate who initially rejects the offer but practically has “I’ll be back in Act 2” tattooed on her forehead.

The middle act is a buffet of montages set to upbeat music—clearly Kris Smith’s cinematic love language. The planning stretches on, sometimes too long, and while the film’s two-hour runtime allows for plenty of banter, a tighter cut would have made the build-up snappier. Somewhere in the mix, the film flirts with Going in Style vibes, except instead of sweet old-timers robbing a bank for pension money, these guys just want a single social influencer's safety deposit box. Lofty goals, gang.

When the heist finally arrives, about thirty minutes of runtime are left. The execution is fun but peppered with narrative shortcuts that feel more like the script saying, “Eh, close enough.” Naturally, no heist movie is complete without betrayal, backstabbing, or at least one “I didn’t see that coming!” moment—though here, you probably did.

Tonally, the film wobbles between cheeky humor and earnest crime drama. Some jokes land fine, others feel like they were written exclusively for a UK pub crowd, and a few are so dry you’ll need a drink just to swallow them. Still, the cast has chemistry, and their banter at least keeps things lively. Technically speaking, the film is solid: no shaky-cam disasters, no bargain-bin sound editing. The only hiccup is the mystery man on video whose accent is so thick you’d think he was auditioning for a submarine role.

In the end, Diamond Dogs isn’t trying to be Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve, or whatever number we’re up to now. This film and Smith know it can’t compete on that scale. It’s a scrappy little heist flick with some fun characters, a couple of laughs, and just enough style to make it work on its own modest terms. And yes, it leaves the door cracked for a sequel, because apparently we can’t have just one diamond job anymore.

Diamond Dogs (2025)

Thanks to Kris Smith for sending this one over for an early look. Best of luck with the release—you’ve got a fun, old school heist flick on your hands.

This will be released on September 1st so I'll leave this JustWatch link here for future use.

https://jackmeat.com/diamond-dogs-2025/

Bait (2025) | Bait is a B-budget basement creature feature that’s about as scary as a damp sponge. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 3.1/10. If you’ve ever wanted to see what happens when a monster movie, a family drama, and a bad driver's ed simulation collide, Bait is here to answer the question nobody asked. The Herring family (yes, that’s their actual name… subtlety died in pre-production) sets off for a family get-together, only to get into a car accident so bizarrely staged it looks like the director borrowed someone’s GoPro and filmed it in their driveway. Instead of airbags, the wreck delivers them straight into a basement of doom, complete with a caged monster and its very committed human zookeeper.

From here, you’d expect tension, panic, maybe a little screaming, but the Herrings react to the flesh-eating abomination like it’s just another awkward family dinner guest. “Oh, that’s Gary, the cannibal monster in the corner. Don’t make eye contact, kids.” Watching them sit stone-faced as the creature chews through its victim is almost as unsettling as the creature itself. Almost.

To the film’s credit, the monster’s design isn’t half bad—its face has that good old-fashioned “nightmare fuel” quality. The practical effects mostly work, too, though the CGI blood splatters scream, “We only had $49 left in the budget.” The story, meanwhile, didn't exactly keep me on edge. It’s more of a “background noise while folding laundry” experience. The family inside debates how to escape; the family outside searches for their missing sister; and somehow, neither storyline manages to generate much suspense.

And then there’s the mysterious overseer, who treats the monster like a pet. Feeding time is his big scene, but don’t expect answers like what the monster is, where it came from, or why anyone thought this script needed a sequel setup. Yeah, yeah, I know what they were alluding to about the creature, but there is never anything to put these pieces together. The only real mystery is why everyone involved seemed so calm about it.

Ultimately, Bait is exactly what the poster promises: a B-budget basement creature feature that’s about as scary as a damp sponge. Forgettable, a little goofy, and nowhere near terrifying. But hey, if you’ve ever wanted to watch a family quietly vibe with a hungry monster, here’s your chance.

Bait (2025)

Do I recommend it? Only if you need something to make you appreciate the acting skills in Sharknado.

There are only a few streamers to pick from, one of which is Amazon.

https://jackmeat.com/bait-2025/

Sweeney Todd: Slice & Dice (2025) | A bleak, stage-like take on the Sweeney Todd tale that makes the most of its budget, but adds little new to the legend. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 3.9/10. Sweeney Todd: Slice & Dice isn’t trying to reinvent the razor, just polish it up a bit with limited funds and an admirable sense of purpose. Set in 1846 London, this latest adaptation of the vengeful barber tale stays close to the mythos, centering on Sweeney Todd (Terry Bird), who teams up with pie-making partner-in-crime Mrs. Lovett (Jo Dyson) to carve out their own brand of justice against a corrupt judge.

Right off the bat, you can tell the filmmakers stretched their modest budget as far as it would go, and surprisingly, it mostly works. The sets aren’t lavish, but they’re just atmospheric enough to sell the bleakness of lower-class Victorian London. It feels a bit like watching a stage production, and that theatrical vibe permeates everything from the lighting to the blocking. Whether that’s a stylistic choice or just a limitation, it ends up being one of the film’s better features.

Jo Dyson gives a fairly strong turn as Mrs. Lovett, clearly leaning into the twisted humor of the character, and while Terry Bird has his moments as Todd, his performance can be uneven. Certain line deliveries and emotional reactions feel off, either underplayed or oddly timed. That said, in the context of this near-play-like presentation, it doesn’t derail the experience, just tempers it.

The story itself is faithful, if a bit tired. If you’ve seen any version of Sweeney Todd, you know what’s coming. This take doesn’t do much to expand or innovate on the source material. What it does do is use flashbacks effectively to build Todd’s seething rage, adding a bit of narrative weight behind the bloodletting.

Speaking of which, the gore is present but toned down, more red syrup than shocking splatter. You won’t be wincing at the effects, but you also won’t be laughing at them, which, in a film with this budget, is a small victory. The severed limbs and meat pie ingredients are clearly Halloween store props, but they get the job done without pulling too much focus.

Director Steven M. Smith deserves credit for paying attention to detail. It’s clear he wanted to evoke something dark and atmospheric without veering into parody or cheap-looking schlock. He mostly succeeds, especially in creating a mood that carries the viewer through a familiar tale. That said, the film doesn’t add anything fresh to the legend of Sweeney Todd—it simply revisits it with a stripped-down approach.

Sweeney Todd: Slice & Dice (2025)

In the end, Slice & Dice is a grim, modest retelling that feels more like a solid community theater production than a groundbreaking film. It’s better than expected, but still nothing new.

JustWatch finally has some options for you, including Amazon.

https://jackmeat.com/sweeney-todd-slice-dice-2025/

Abraham's Boys (2025) | If you’re streaming this at home, don’t get too comfortable since you’ll be asleep long before anyone so much as flashes a wooden stake. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 3.6/10. Abraham’s Boys is proof that you can take a legendary vampire hunter, give him a change of scenery, a couple of moody sons, and still somehow produce a film with the pulse of a fainting goat.

We open with Abraham Van Helsing (Titus Welliver) fleeing Europe after the events of Dracula and relocating to rural California circa 1915. At least, that’s what the wardrobe department says. The costume design nails the early 1900s vibe, but I’m not entirely sold on the idea that this dusty stretch of countryside had the electrical infrastructure of downtown Manhattan. Sure, maybe it’s possible, but so is the existence of vampires, and one of those felt more believable here.

From the get-go, the Shudder logo pops up, a warning sign for anyone who knows it’s a coin flip between “hidden gem” and “nap time.” Unfortunately, this one lands solidly in “nap time,” with fade-outs so abrupt they feel like someone edited out the commercials from a Hallmark rerun.

The setting is intimate — and by “intimate,” I mean the entire movie takes place at the Van Helsing home. Sounds cozy? It’s not. This isn’t the action-packed, monster-bashing Van Helsing you know; it’s more of a “watch some people talk about things that might happen eventually” kind of vibe. In an 89-minute film, nothing noteworthy happens for over an hour, which is a pacing ratio only appreciated by sloths and insomniacs desperate for a cure.

Now, credit where it’s due: the cinematography is gorgeous. If there was an Oscar for “Best Camera Work in a Movie Where Nothing Happens,” this would be a frontrunner. Sadly, stunning visuals can only do so much when the script is thinner than Dracula’s reflection. The story skips right over any buildup of tension between father and sons and leaps straight into “Dad’s nuts.” No subtlety. No wavering loyalties. Just… well, wham, bam, Van Helsing’s a crazy man.

Aurora Perrineau appears briefly as a settler but might as well have been a piece of set dressing for all the impact her character has. The standout, and I use that term generously, is Brady Hepner as Max, the older brother. He at least seemed awake while delivering his lines, which is more than I can say for Titus Welliver’s very American take on a man who’s supposed to be from London.

Abraham's Boys: A Dracula Story (2025)

Bottom line: if you’re streaming this at home, don’t get too comfortable since you’ll be asleep long before anyone so much as flashes a wooden stake.

There are several streamers to choose from, including Amazon.

https://jackmeat.com/abrahams-boys-2025/