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/

Demons at Dawn (2022) | I spent so long waiting for Demons at Dawn to become a horror movie that I nearly forgot I was watching one. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 3.3/10. I don't think I've ever seen a backhand slap knock someone completely unconscious before. LOL. Apparently these Demons At Dawn have been training their victims in professional wrestling.

This is one of those movies where I could see what they were trying to do, but unfortunately, what they were trying to do and what ended up on the screen are wildly different things. The biggest problem is that the movie takes itself far too seriously, especially considering how little it actually has going for it.

The premise isn't bad. A retired hitman gets dragged back into the game and ends up taking on a Satanic cult, which sounds like it should have at least some potential for bloody, supernatural fun. Instead, the movie takes an absolute age to get anywhere near the horror or supernatural elements. By the time things finally start happening, I had already spent a good chunk of the movie wondering when the actual Demons At Dawn part was going to show up.

Under the direction of Randy Kent, the movie seems like it is trying its hardest to become a dark and mature crime/horror movie, but it falls flat. The dialogue, directing, special effects, make-up, and presentation took me out of the movie too many times to count. While there are some good concepts hiding in there, they are overshadowed by the ridiculousness of the rest of it.

I don't even think the budget is the biggest problem.

Yes, this is clearly a low-budget film, but there are some films out there with next to no budget that actually entertain because they know what they can do. It appears that Demons At Dawn feels that it should just treat everything at face value despite the fact that it should know better. Films like these don’t require any extra funding. It needs more ideas.

The special effects and makeup are probably where I had the biggest problem. Some of the effects look like they came straight out of a collection of software plugins, and the makeup occasionally has the unfortunate effect of making what should be disturbing look unintentionally hilarious. When I'm supposed to be thinking “Holy shit, that's terrifying,” and instead I'm thinking “Well... that's certainly some makeup.” Something has gone wrong.

I will give the cast and crew credit, though. There is clearly some passion behind this movie. Nobody involved seems like they didn't care. It is obvious that they wanted to do something unique and have poured their effort into its creation. The problem with passion is that it can take a movie so far if the screenplay, special effects, and directing cannot follow suit.

There are a few defenders of this one, and hey, more power to them. Movies are subjective. But for me, this is a 3.3/10, and that might even be generous. That makes it an easy skip. This is barely passable as entertainment and spends far too much time flirting with stupidity without ever quite figuring out how to have fun with it.

Demons at Dawn (2022)

https://jackmeat.com/demons-at-dawn-2022/

The Whisper Man (2026) | The Whisper Man has a great cast, decent camerawork, and plenty of creepy potential, but somehow I ended up only mildly entertained. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating -  5.9/10. The cast caught my attention for The Whisper Man. Adam Scott, Robert De Niro, Michelle Monaghan, and Michael Keaton? That is a pretty impressive collection of people to assemble for a movie about a missing kid and a creepy serial killer. Surely these people know what they’re doing.

The movie opens with an overhead shot of a suspiciously quiet little town, where a police search party is combing through the woods. Michelle Monaghan appears to be leading the operation as they uncover a body. Unfortunately, it isn't the eight-year-old boy, Neil Spencer, they’re looking for. So, you know, things are going great.

When his son is abducted, widowed crime writer Tom (Scott) turns to his estranged father, retired police detective Peter Willis (De Niro), for help. Their investigation eventually connects the disappearance to a decades-old case involving convicted serial killer Frank Carter, aka “The Whisper Man,” played by Michael Keaton. And what a great choice Keaton is for that role. Also, not a spoiler. He is already in prison. The movie tells you this pretty much immediately, so we're not exactly blowing the lid off the mystery here.

There is some nice camerawork throughout. The movie has a habit of putting important things just out of focus or partially obscured in the frame, allowing you to catch little details without someone standing there yelling, “HEY, LOOK AT THIS IMPORTANT THING!” I caught and immediately appreciated it.

Unfortunately, the story itself is pretty straightforward. There aren't many twists trying to outsmart you, and that's perfectly fine. Not every mystery needs to perform gymnastics just to make the audience feel stupid. The problem is that some of the things the movie does introduce aren't given enough attention.

The whole storyline involving the girl in the blue sweater was particularly frustrating. It's introduced, barely utilized, and never adequately explained. Thanks, movie. Very helpful.

Then there are the connections between the characters, the house, the murders, and the eventual final confrontation. Getting all those pieces to fit together requires a generous suspension of disbelief. Maybe Alex North's novel explains some of this better, because the movie certainly doesn't seem interested in stopping to fill in the gaps.

I don't like second-guessing characters in situations I've obviously never experienced, but there were moments where the pieces were sitting right there for a much smoother conclusion, only for the movie to basically shrug and walk past them.

That would be a brick. That is all I’m saying. It'll make sense when you watch it.

The Whisper Man (2026)

Ultimately, The Whisper Man is a quality production with solid acting and some good visual work. But with this cast, I expected to be wowed. Instead, I was mildly entertained, somewhat intrigued, and repeatedly wondering why he didn't use the very obvious thing sitting right in front of him. Duh.

https://jackmeat.com/the-whisper-man-2026/

Pinocchio: Unstrung (2026) | The public-domain Twisted Childhood universe continues, and this time Pinocchio is butchering people because being a real boy wasn't enough. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 5.8/10. I guess the strategy of patiently waiting until the copyrights on beloved childhood characters expire, then turning those peaceful, wholesome figures into homicidal maniacs, is officially paying dividends. Winnie the Pooh has already gone off the rails, and now it’s Pinocchio: Unstrung's turn to make lying, friendship, and brutally murdering people part of the same wholesome package.

We follow James (Cameron Bell), whose grandfather Geppetto (Richard Brake, which is pretty much perfect casting for this particular version of Geppetto) introduces him to a seemingly magical wooden doll that is supposed to become his new best friend. After some narrated exposition about James' tragic backstory, his parents dying, and him going to live with his grandfather, we get the story of Geppetto creating Pinocchio specifically for him.

And seriously, I'd be a little concerned about the giant hole in the basement wall.

There are also some wonderfully creepy noises coming from the wooden little bastard, although Pinocchio himself actually looks pretty damn cool. Once James starts introducing him to the world, however, Pinocchio decides to take it upon himself to eliminate everything he considers "bad." And by "eliminate," I mean murder the absolute shit out of people.

The practical gore is impressively brutal, and there is enough blood flying around to make you forget that pretty much none of what Pinocchio does makes logical sense. Apparently the little wooden detective can locate the homes of random kids without knowing their names, faces, addresses, or seemingly anything else about them. No brain, yet somehow possessing the investigative skills of Sherlock Holmes.

I also loved the random appearance of a kid watching Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey on his phone. Nothing says Twisted Childhood universe like casually watching another murderous public-domain childhood icon before being hunted down by this one.

And then there's Cricket. No, you aren't dreaming, Cricket. Voiced by the infamous Robert Englund, he isn't exactly here to teach Pinocchio about morality. In fact, he's about as homicidal as his wooden friend, which is probably not the life lesson Geppetto had in mind.

There's also a neat sequence from Pinocchio's point of view, complete with his wooden eye sockets, which is a surprisingly cool touch.

Pinocchio: Unstrung isn't particularly interested in making sense, and that's probably for the best. The pacing is quick, the makeup effects are nicely extreme, and the gratuitous blood and violence arrive frequently enough that you don't have much time to stop and question the increasingly ridiculous plot.

Rhys Frake-Waterfield seems to be getting the hang of these movies, too. They're progressively becoming more entertaining, and Pinocchio: Unstrung delivers enough practical gore, stupidity, and murderous puppet mayhem for about an hour and a half of pure, brain-off fun.

Pinocchio Unstrung (2026)

And stick around through the credits for some of the puppetry magic. Turns out Pinocchio isn't the only one doing some impressive string work.

https://jackmeat.com/pinocchio-unstrung-2026/

Batman Knightfall Part 1 (2026) | Arkham blows up, everyone gets loose, Batman gets his ass kicked, and now I have to wait for the rest of the damn story. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 7.3/10. Batman Knightfall Part 1 wastes little time getting things moving. It opens with some of Gotham's animated scumbags trafficking a truckload of women and children. Then Azrael (Pablo Schreiber) arrives to dispense his own extremely violent version of justice. Batman isn't far behind, naturally, and before long the two are throwing down while the credits roll. It's a pretty effective way to say, “Yeah, we're not screwing around this time.”

Arkham Asylum has been destroyed, because apparently, Gotham's worst criminals weren't already causing Batman enough headaches. Now every inmate is loose in the city, and Bruce Wayne (Anson Mount) has the unenviable task of rounding them all up while simultaneously dealing with a brand-new problem named Bane. Because when your life already consists of being punched by supervillains every night, what you really need is a gigantic man who looks like he was assembled from nothing but protein powder and sewer snacks.

It is safe to say that I entered into this movie with absolutely no knowledge of the Knightfall story. While I have not been a big DC comics guy, I usually have some idea about the main stories to be able to recognize the names and key events. This made it rather fun to enter into the film with this lack of knowledge.

And, so far, I'm interested.

The animation is very good, and the voice cast does solid work across the board. While there are lots of action sequences, the film manages to develop the bigger picture of the story and doesn't just turn Gotham into a two-hour punching bag. My one real complaint is Azrael. It's obvious that there is much more to his character, yet at this stage it seems like they give us enough information to realize that he is important, but not enough to fully understand him. I have no idea how much of that was explained in the comics, so comic fans, yell away.

And yes, I'm sure one complaint is going to be echoed across the internet. WE NEED ALL THE PARTS.

This thing ends with me wanting the next chapter, which is exactly what a first installment should accomplish. But it also means we're now stuck waiting around for the rest of the story. Just like Gotham civilians waiting for Batman to finish brooding on a gargoyle.

It's also nice seeing DC animation firing on all cylinders again. For years, DC had Marvel decisively beaten in the animated-movie department. Then X-Men '97 showed up and reminded everyone Marvel hadn't completely forgotten how cartoons work.

Knightfall – Part 1 isn't reinventing Batman, but it's a damn entertaining start to a story I somehow missed the first time around. The animation is sharp, the action delivers, the voice work is strong, and there's enough here to make me genuinely interested in where this goes.

Batman: Knightfall Part 1: Knightfall (2026)

Now give me the other parts before I forget what happened. And if you are wondering about the full title, some sites are going with Batman: Knightfall - Part 1: Knightfall. Repetitive much?

https://jackmeat.com/batman-knightfall-part-1-2026/