Movie & Television Reviews

“Send Help” (20th Century) is a bitterly cynical horror movie that charts a race to the ethical bottom between its two main characters. In fact, as scripted by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, director Sam Raimi’s deliberately outrageous film suggests that worldly success can be achieved by resorting to unbridled viciousness.

With apologies to pulp fiction crime writer Mickey Spillane, the dystopian thriller “Mercy” (Amazon MGM) might more aptly be called AI the Jury. That’s because, in the film’s near-future setting, artificial intelligence is empowered to fight crime by generating a rough sort of justice.

“Hamnet” (Focus) is a lyrical but emotionally wrenching drama, a film that is both too intense and too complicated for kids. Those of their elders equipped to take on this challenging riff on real-life events, however, will also be able to bring their religious formation to bear on the movie’s more problematic elements.

David Henrie is crediting beauty for his return to the Catholic faith after creating a new docuseries with EWTN Studios called “Seeking Beauty.”

“28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” (Sony) is the fourth installment in a splatter-stained franchise centered on zombies that reaches back to 2002. Not only does the film maintain its predecessors’ tradition of bloodletting, it also features a devil worshipping theme and abundant instances of gratuitous nudity.