Run (1991) | I remembered liking Run, and thankfully 2026 me agrees that this silly little ’90s action flick still knows how to have fun. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 6.0/10. I’ll admit it. I remember plopping Run (1991) on at West Coast Video on workdays when I couldn’t think of anything else. I also remember liking it quite a bit. So, naturally, it’s time to find out whether 1991 me had terrible taste or whether 2026 Jackmeat can still recognize a good time.

Boston law student and part-time mechanic Charlie Farrow (Patrick Dempsey) gets asked by his boss to deliver a new Porsche from Boston to Atlantic City. Because apparently “law student and mechanic” is the perfect resume for driving an expensive car across state lines. Naturally, the Porsche breaks down just outside Atlantic City.

While Charlie waits for repairs, a cab driver mistakes him for a high roller and drops him at a casino where he can grab some food. Charlie then proceeds to beat local tough guy Denny Halloran (A.C. Peterson) at poker, which is generally not the ideal way to introduce yourself to a town where Denny’s father owns the casino, the police force, and seemingly every other building.

Things get worse when Denny starts a fight, trips, smacks his head on the sharp corner of the counter and dies. Charlie, who has apparently never heard the phrase “No one cares if you're innocent,” becomes the prime suspect. Suddenly he’s running from both the cops and Matt Halloran’s henchmen, while the body count starts climbing.

And yep, this is bringing it all back.

There’s something wonderfully 1990s about Run. The music, the overhead city shots that were apparently filmed by a helicopter because drones didn’t exist, and Patrick Dempsey jogging around before casually taking all his buddies’ money in poker. Then comes the offer to deliver a car to Atlantic City and, for a brief moment, it looks like we’re getting a nice little highway-cruising movie.

Nope. Car breaks down. Welcome to hell.

Kelly Preston plays Karen, the one person in town who knows Charlie is innocent and reluctantly helps him out. She’s good in the role, especially considering Karen repeatedly finds herself helping a guy whose survival strategy seems to be making increasingly terrible decisions. That name didn't have a double meaning back then.

And that’s really Run in a nutshell. Bad decisions. And luck.

Charlie is not some unstoppable action hero. He’s basically a wimpy outsider who has stumbled into a town run by a crime boss and has to spend the rest of the movie running for his life. Instead of the usual “shady guy owns a town and the outsider beats the shit out of everyone” setup, Run asks a more realistic question. What if the outsider is just some dude who really, really does not want to die?

There’s also a memorable dog-racing subplot that I had completely forgotten about until it showed up, at which point my brain went, "OH CRAP, I remember this." That might be the most uttered phrase in my head all movie long.

Is Run (1991) great? Absolutely not. It’s silly, ridiculous, and the plot requires Charlie to make enough questionable decisions to keep the movie going. But it has that particular early-’90s action-thriller charm that’s becoming increasingly difficult to fake. It’s energetic, dumb in mostly entertaining ways, and has exactly the sort of ridiculous premise that used to make grabbing a random VHS from West Coast Video a perfectly acceptable way to spend an evening.

Run (1991)

Turns out 1991 Jackmeat wasn’t completely full of shit. (A few years later in 1994, that nickname is born and used everywhere online.)

Still silly fun.

https://jackmeat.com/run-1991/

Soulm8te (2026) | Soulm8te is what happens when a lonely guy gets a naked robot girlfriend and immediately starts editing her code. Where's the problem? #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 6.1/10. Soulm8te starts with some soothing music before sliding into a sex scene that is clearly being monitored. It eventually ends with some unwanted autoerotic asphyxiation, then cuts to an ad for a tech company working on home automation. So yeah, you can probably figure out the woman doing the choking was a robot. Subtle stuff.

After a ruthless tech giant acquires a small robotics company, grieving engineer David (David Rysdahl, who clearly won't be missing those production cues) gets tasked with testing their new AI companion. When he decides to reprogram her to become a truly sentient soulmate, she develops needs of her own and eventually unleashes a precision-engineered spree of mayhem.

I quickly recognized our android Sara/Lydia as Lily Sullivan, who played Beth in Evil Dead Rise. There has been a suspicious amount of Evil Dead crossover in my recent viewing. I am apparently living in an Evil Dead cinematic universe. And I like it.

At first, the soulmate is just a cloud-based AI companion. Then the full-size, naked robot arrives. Good news, she comes with a schoolgirl outfit, because apparently the filmmakers wanted to make absolutely certain nobody misunderstood what this companion was designed for. LOL.

Those pulsating eyes when Sara goes into power-saving mode are creepy. David, meanwhile, takes approximately twelve seconds to plug himself into Sara's system and start removing safeguards so she can act more "human." Has anyone informed David that humans can often suck? He also doesn't take long to start plugging something else into her, while simultaneously editing her computer code left and right and generally tinkering with the expensive murder robot.

Pretty dumb move for a supposedly smart guy.

Of course, the pretty android eventually gets attacked by a sleazy asshole so she can kick the shit out of him. It's already an obligatory scene in this particular flavor of killer-robot movie. Another familiar trope arrives in the form of David's real-life friend Aubrey (Claudia Doumit), who naturally becomes a threat to the robot love affair.

And there is a kill in this one that you won't soon forget. LOL. Director Kate Dolan works in a couple of good kills, and that's where the movie starts having some fun with itself.

Soulm8te reminded me a lot of Companion, just not quite as well made. Sullivan does a good job with the robotic expressions and movements, giving Sara that slightly-off quality that makes these android characters work. People seem to be comparing this one more to M3GAN, which makes sense because both movies are connected through that Elsie home assistant. So apparently they exist in the same killer-robot universe.

The internet, naturally, has decided this movie is better than everything else in the genre because that's apparently the sheep move you're supposed to make now. I would put it somewhere around M3GAN 2.0. For comparison, Companion is better than all three.

This was shot before Obsession and then dumped onto streaming after M3GAN 2.0 flopped at the box office, which probably explains why it feels like something that was sitting around waiting for its turn.

It's cheesy, it's fun, and it's worth a one-off view. Just don't expect the next great killer-robot movie.

Soulm8te (2026)

Side note: Please pay attention to the English language. The movie should be titled "Soulm8", NOT "SoulmEIGHTte" as this title implies. You're welcome.

https://jackmeat.com/soulm8te-2026/

Corporate Retreat (2026) | Not the worst Saw knockoff I've seen, but definitely one where “team bonding” takes a very literal and extremely bloody turn. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 4.3/10. At least Corporate Retreat didn't waste time establishing that this team-building exercise is going to be a little more aggressive than trust falls and a tug-of-war. The movie opens with sweeping shots of a gorgeous estate, followed by some dead bodies, because apparently the HR department at Immaculate Ponds has a very different definition of “company culture.”

Then we meet the employees: Cliff (Elias Kacavas), Ginger (Odeya Rush), Carl (Ashton Sanders), Devin, Billie, Omar, Deborah (Rosanna Arquette), Aubrey, and enough other people to make me wonder whether the film was going to remember all of them. Or more importantly, am I supposed to? It helpfully flashes their names and job titles on screen, so at least someone in the production knew I was going to need a cheat sheet.

They're all heading to a corporate retreat, although Cliff has told Ginger they're going on a romantic getaway. That lie probably works better when the destination isn't a mansion where the welcome package includes hanging corpses.

It doesn't take long before someone discovers the bodies and gets grabbed, kicking off a series of Saw-lite trials that deliver plenty of practical gore and some nasty kills. Unfortunately, the movie occasionally lets the CGI blood ruin the fun. One early beheading has blood that doesn't even splatter onto the ground, which is a pretty significant problem when your movie is trying to convince me someone just lost their head. The practical effects fare much better, and when Corporate Retreat gets messy, it can get properly messy.

The corporate satire is there, too, although the script doesn't squeeze nearly enough blood from that particular stone. There are plenty of opportunities to turn workplace politics, ambition, and soulless corporate culture into something truly vicious, but the movie settles for being more of a survival horror with corporate wallpaper. I still identified with plenty of the corporate nonsense enough to enjoy the jabs Aaron Fisher did take.

Rosanna Arquette is also criminally underused. Why bring in Arquette and then barely let her have fun? That's basically a corporate crime in itself. The disgruntled ex-owner Arthur, played by Alan Ruck was a fun nostalgic touch.

Odeya Rush, meanwhile, surprised me. She does a good job carrying the material, especially considering this is very much the sort of horror movie where someone's primary job requirement eventually becomes “try not to get horribly murdered.” The film also knows exactly the audience it's targeting, including one particularly overdrawn eyeball-gouging scene that will absolutely test the limits of anyone who doesn't enjoy watching eyeballs being introduced to blunt objects.

The biggest problem is the script. There's a decent horror-comedy buried in here, and the practical gore, dark humor, and occasional twists show flashes of what this could have been with a little more polish. Instead, it feels like a Saw knockoff that occasionally remembers it has a corporate comedy hiding somewhere inside it.

Corporate Retreat (2026)

Still, it's not the worst Saw ripoff I've seen. There's enough blood, ridiculousness, and black humor to keep it moving, and the ending got an actual laugh out of me. Because naturally, after all that corporate carnage and eyeball-spooning, the movie ends with “Can't Take My Eyes Off You.” That's probably the most appropriate performance review the movie could give itself.

https://jackmeat.com/corporate-retreat-2026/

The Death of Robin Hood (2026) | Hugh Jackman makes a convincing Robin Hood, although this version spends considerably less time stealing from the rich and more time regretting it. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 6.2/10. My quick rating - 6.2/10. It starts with some pretty bitter weather, a woman picking berries off a half-dead bit of shrubbery in Anno Domini 1247. Or 1247 AD, if you didn't know what the letters stood for. She eventually collapses on the freezing ground, at which point a random dude finds her and sets up a fire. The old man turns out to be Hugh Jackman, who informs her that no one looks out for the meek and that she should make haste if she ever meets this Robin Hood. Sets the tone for The Death of Robin Hood.

Shortly after, she attempts to sneak up on him and discovers that this was excellent advice.

This is not the Robin Hood story where everyone has suspiciously perfect teeth, immaculate medieval clothing and enough energy to perform a sword fight after riding a horse for six hours. The Death of Robin Hood goes for something considerably darker and more grounded. Mostly grounded in mud, misery and what appears to be a complete lack of central heating.

There are some beautiful landscapes as Robin and his pal Edward, played by Bill Skarsgård, wander through the medieval countryside. The setting creates a world that feels immersive and authentic, although authenticity in this case seems to mean everyone is cold, exhausted, dirty and about three minutes away from a horrible death.

And when the violence does arrive, it is brutal. This isn't the glorious Robin Hood of old, firing arrows while dramatically standing on horseback and stealing from rich people who deserve it for being rich. This Robin Hood has spent a lifetime committing crimes and killing people, and the film is much more interested in what that does to a man.

Gravely injured after a battle he believes will be his last, Robin ends up in the hands of a mysterious woman who offers him a chance at salvation. From there, the movie settles into its real purpose. Getting Robin to confront the consequences of his life and the considerable weight of his past.

And it takes its bloody time doing it.

This is very slow. Not "put the kettle on during a quiet scene" slow. More "the kettle has boiled, you've made the tea, finished the tea, washed the mug and Robin is still contemplating his life choices" slow.

But the slower approach does give the film room for some good dialogue and genuine reflection. Jackman is also a strong Robin Hood, even if he's playing a version of the character who is less interested in swinging from ropes and more interested in wondering where it all went wrong.

It is a sincere movie, and I appreciate that. There is clearly an attempt to do something different with a character we've seen reinvented about as many times as Hollywood can find reasons to visit Sherwood Forest.

It may not be an instant classic, and the pacing will probably test your patience if you are expecting a traditional Robin Hood adventure. But it's a solid, well-made and surprisingly thoughtful take on the character. Just don't expect much swashbuckling. This is Robin Hood after the fun years, when the bills are due and the consequences have finally arrived.

The Death of Robin Hood (2026)

https://jackmeat.com/the-death-of-robin-hood-2026/

Thingy (2026) | Thingy starts with a hookup gone wrong and eventually becomes a gooey supernatural house party nobody should have RSVP’d to. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 3.9/10. Thingy opens with the usual drunken partygoers being caught on camera before settling into an overhead shot of a town. A lone woman waits on a corner for her online date. And by “date,” I mean the sort of date that skips dinner, conversation, and any pretense of getting to know each other and heads straight to a motel room.

After their quick session, the guy heads into the bathroom looking like he has contracted something significantly worse than regret. He emerges, chokes her, and leaves her unconscious with a nice little saliva bonus in her mouth. So what are we dealing with here? A warning about the dangers of online hookups? A PSA about condoms? A statement that humanity is inherently evil? Thingy isn't particularly interested in clearing that up.

Instead, we follow Frankie (Dora Hewitt), who reluctantly heads to a remote house party to avoid her ex. Along the way, she and her friend drive past the motel and notice the emergency response. Naturally, this information does absolutely nothing to stop everyone from proceeding with their evening.

The party introduces us to the usual collection of young adults through a suspicious amount of selfie-camera footage. I am sure that is meant to make us care about them. Doesn't really work. In Silas's case, it mostly establishes how annoying he is, particularly when he's doing his wannabe rapper routine. Frankie eventually hooks up with Jason (Zach Schnitzer), and before long everyone starts playing Hot Seat, a game that should really be called We Will All Be Trying to Kill Each Other in Approximately One Minute.

Thingy moves at a pretty leisurely pace, using young-adult drama, drinking games, relationship angst, and general party stupidity to keep things moving. If you've ever been to one of those house parties where half the people are drinking, some are doing drugs, others are disappearing for sex, and nobody actually knows what anyone else is doing, that's the uncomfortable and familiar feeling I remember.

The supernatural force spreads through physical contact, producing some impressively gooey clear slime that Thingy clearly wants you to find disgusting. The practical blood effects work well enough, although the kills themselves are mostly mundane repeated bashings. The synth soundtrack kicks in whenever something is happening, just in case you weren't sure that something was happening.

There's also one questionable decision that pissed me off. Frankie finds Wendy passed out after taking all her pills and then puts her behind the wheel to drive home. Because apparently surviving the supernatural outbreak isn't enough. Somebody has to add vehicular manslaughter to the evening's itinerary.

Writer/director Jae Matthews never really explains what this thing is. I am sure that is on purpose. It's basically an STD on steroids crossed with zombies, with a generous helping of saliva. There are also dangling subplots involving schizophrenia and pregnancy that never amount to much. And after all the face-sucking, apparently the infection needs one final mouth-to-mouth slime transfer for maximum gross-out effect.

Thingy (2026)

The concept has been done before, and better. Thingy isn't terrible, but there's not much story here. The kills are ordinary, the characters range from tolerable to irritating, and the ending barely qualifies as an ending. Imagine being invited to a party, discovering everyone is annoying, and then realizing nobody actually planned how to get home. That's what you get if you hit play.

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

Bayi Ajaib (2023) | Indonesia has been cranking out some great horror flix and this one is scary enough to recommend even if a step down from others #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 5.4/10. In case you didn’t know, Indonesia does some scary-ass horror movies. So, when one manages to fall into my circle, I am always eager to watch it. Bayi Ajaib is a remake of an Indonesian horror movie of 1982 called Bayi Ajaib. Having never seen the original, I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to pretend that I can judge the remake based on that. So I won't.

The story follows Kosim (Vino G. Bastian), a man who unexpectedly strikes gold in the village of Hirupbagja. Suddenly flush with cash, he marries Sumi (Sara Fajira), and life appears to be heading in a considerably better direction. Naturally, because this is a horror movie, that's about where the good news ends.

Their child becomes the vessel for a malevolent supernatural force, and what initially looks like a blessing quickly turns into a very serious case of your baby is possessed by something evil and everybody should probably start running.

Director Rako Prijanto clearly knows his horror history. Bayi Ajaib wears its influences pretty openly, particularly The Exorcist and Evil Dead. Some of the imagery and supernatural mayhem feel like they're tipping their hat directly at those classics, but Prijanto generally handles the material well, particularly as the movie heads toward its finale.

Where the movie really gets interesting for me is the Indonesian folklore and culture woven through the horror. The village setting, local beliefs, traditions, and superstitions give the movie an identity beyond simply throwing another possessed child at us and hoping everyone screams. There is something genuinely appealing about watching horror rooted in a culture and mythology that isn't the same collection of familiar Western demons we've seen a thousand times.

The performances also work. Bastian and Fajira pull off the fear and desperation quite convincingly, so I never found myself shaking my head. I saw the film with subtitles, and I would have to give some credit to whoever was behind them, as I never found myself wondering whether I was watching a horror film or some accidental comedy. Bad subtitles can certainly ruin a foreign language film. Luckily, not this time.

Sadly, however, Bayi Ajaib isn't really frightening enough. While there is a certain degree of creepiness in the film and a good sense of atmosphere, the scares aren't often enough. In addition to this, the plot does take some time getting on its feet, and some viewers may get bored by it.

The finale brings some of that energy back, although even then I found myself wishing the movie had gone all in. After all that buildup, you would think that the payoff would blow down the doors and throw some furniture at you. Instead, it was quite timid.

However, there’s a lot of good stuff here as well. The Indonesian folklore adds some much-needed character to Bayi Ajaib, the acting is solid, and the horror scenes are effective thanks to the grotesque visuals they employ at times. It simply fails to scare enough to make it worth a re-watch.

But if your baby starts talking in a voice that definitely isn't a baby's, maybe don't stick around to see what happens next. That's usually a pretty reliable horror-movie warning sign.

Miracle Baby (2023)

https://jackmeat.com/bayi-ajaib-2023/

Evil Dead Burn (2026) | I love Evil Dead, so watching Burn unleash this much gore while everyone makes stupid decisions made for a bloody good night #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating -  7.1/10. Evil Dead has been my favorite horror franchise ever since my uncle brought home the original 1981 classic on VHS. I loved every gory second of it and watched that tape so many times I wore the damn thing out. So yeah, I had some expectations going into Evil Dead Burn.

Thankfully, director Sébastien Vanicek understands the assignment.

The movie opens with someone researching the Necronomicon while listening to creepy reel-to-reel recordings. The voice warns him about what will happen. He pulls out the package containing the thing he's been warned about, and...of course opens it. Welcome to horror movies. Apparently "leave the evil book alone" remains a difficult concept after 45 years.

It doesn't take long to go from warning to carnage. A couple of people fishing are among the first to meet their brutal demise, eventually ending with one of the undead getting introduced to a speeding car. Then we cut from the lake to a club, where our next collection of future corpses gets introduced. A lovers' spat ends with a drunk driver speeding away, and while it initially looks like another example of spectacularly poor decision-making, the sequence eventually connects back to the opening.

That's a solid 15 minutes of fun before we even get the title screen.

After losing her husband, Alice (Souheila Yacoub) seeks solace with her in-laws at their secluded family home. Naturally, this turns into a family reunion from hell when the Deadites start taking over one by one. You think your family dinners are intense? Try one where Grandma might eat your face.

The performances work well, particularly Yacoub as Alice, along with the first possessed girl, the grandmother, and the cowardly brother. The humor is also nicely placed, giving us brief moments to breathe without ever destroying the tension.

Vanicek is clearly a student of the Raimi school. He uses focused shots on ordinary objects while isolating the sounds they make, turning everyday household items into ominous little promises of future violence. Having enjoyed his previous movie Infested, I was looking forward to seeing what he would do with Evil Dead, and he brings some excellent visual instincts to it.

The movie also does a nice job teasing what weapon will get used next. You see an object sitting there and immediately think, "Oh, that's going to hurt somebody." The fun is waiting to see exactly how badly and if that is the weapon they chose.

And this movie has a mean streak.

As a sensory assault, which is exactly what Vanicek wanted to create, Burn succeeds. The cinematography is excellent, the sound design gives everything a physical quality, and the gore factor is high. The CGI effects have also been used sparingly throughout most of the film.

Then we get the ending.

Without spoiling it, let's just say somebody apparently watched Terminator 2 and thought, "You know what this Evil Dead movie needs?" It isn't enough to ruin the movie, but the creative decision definitely pulled me out of the violent fun.

Is it another masterpiece? No. But when you're competing with the original, you're basically walking into a chainsaw fight carrying a butter knife. I'll happily take Evil Dead Burn for what it is. A bloody, intense and relentlessly nasty 110-minute horror flick. It understands the mythology, delivers the gore, keeps the humor where it belongs, and gives the franchise another worthwhile entry.

Evil Dead Burn (2026)

And then there's that little Evil Dead Wrath tease, followed by a gruesome after-credits scene featuring Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) from Evil Dead Rise. Because apparently the Deadites weren't finished ruining everyone's evening. Neither was I. I always stay until the very end.

After all these years, apparently I'm just another idiot who hears, "Whatever you do, don't watch that," and immediately reaches for the remote.

https://jackmeat.com/evil-dead-burn-2026/