CAPSULE MOVIE REVIEWS: 12-12-25
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My Film Critic pants are quite fetching; they are on, pressed, and ironed. I'm ready to review four new movies in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, December 12th, 2025.
It has been fifteen years since James L. Brooks made a film, and that is far too long to wait for one of the greatest writers and directors this country has ever had. I’m not exaggerating when I say that James L. Brooks has shaped American entertainment in ways almost no one else has.
This is the guy who changed television forever with The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda, Taxi, and, of course, The Simpsons.
And then he crossed over to film and made some of the greatest American movies ever made: Terms of Endearment, the brilliant Broadcast News (a damn near perfect movie), As Good As It Gets, which features two of the best performances I have ever seen from Helen Hunt and Jack Nicholson.
The wildly underrated Spanglish, which contains one of Adam Sandler’s best dramatic turns, is quite good. Even I’ll Do Anything, which was supposed to be a full-blown musical before all the musical numbers were cut, is still a terrific, fascinating film.
Brooks has only directed seven movies in his entire career, and every single one of them is worth watching. So when a new James L. Brooks film shows up, it should be treated like a major event, even if the studio shamefully dumps it with barely any promotion.
Now, Ella McCay is not on the level of Broadcast News or Terms of Endearment (very few movies are), but it is absolutely worth seeing. It is flawed, it is a little scattered, it stumbles here and there, but even a flawed James L. Brooks film is better than half the so-called prestige stuff in theaters right now.
Brooks at 85 is still smarter, sharper, funnier, and more emotionally generous than most filmmakers half his age. And this may be his last film, so it deserves attention and respect.
The story centers on Ella McCay, played beautifully by Emma Mackey. She is a 34-year-old lieutenant governor suddenly thrust into the governor’s job in 2008, right as the country is heading into the financial crisis, and her own mentor, the long-term governor, takes a job in the incoming Obama administration.
Ella is idealistic, morally driven, scatterbrained in a very human way, and immediately swamped by the political chaos of the job. And while all the political maneuvering and speechwriting and crisis management are happening, she is also juggling an unbelievably complicated set of family dynamics, because, being Brooks, the politics of family are just as important as the politics of government.
Ella’s father, played by Woody Harrelson, is a deeply flawed guy; he's a philanderer, a bad husband, a selfish man who has been essentially estranged from his daughter for years.
When we see him through flashbacks, and when he reenters Ella’s life in the present day with a new woman on his arm whom he wants the family to accept, the emotional baggage is overwhelming.
Rebecca Hall plays Ella’s late mother, and even in brief scenes, she brings a beautiful, heartbreaking energy. Ella’s younger brother, Casey, struggling with depression and his own sense of place in the world, adds yet another layer of personal crisis to Ella’s overloaded life.
And then there is the husband, Ryan, played by Jack Lowden, who begins the film as the sweet high school sweetheart we see in flashbacks, and slowly morphs into something manipulative and opportunistic once Ella becomes governor.
There is a subplot involving his mother pushing him toward a kind of power grab that feels undercooked, but you can see the seeds of a much more layered storyline buried in the edit.
The anchor, emotionally and comedically, is Jamie Lee Curtis as Aunt Helen, who becomes a surrogate mother after Ella’s mom dies. Curtis is warm, funny, blunt, occasionally volcanic, and absolutely crucial to the film’s heart.
She is the one person who will tell Ella the truth, hold her accountable, or just let her cry when she’s overwhelmed.
And then there is Albert Brooks, who shows up as the outgoing governor, and I swear to God, every single moment he appears onscreen is gold. This is the funniest performance in the movie, hands down.
Albert Brooks is a national treasure, and he steals the film every time he walks in the room. His scenes with Jamie Lee Curtis, especially one far too short moment between the two of them, are pure joy. Watching him spar with Emma Mackey is a reminder of how essential he has been to James L. Brooks’s universe. If anything, the movie could have used even more of him.
But the central reason the film works is Emma Mackey. She carries the entire thing on her shoulders with a balance of intelligence, vulnerability, frustration, idealism, and emotional chaos that feels utterly true.
She has to play a woman whose life is spinning out of control on multiple fronts (marriage, politics, family, self-confidence), and she does it without ever looking like she’s acting. It’s a terrific performance.
Now, the flaws are unmistakably James L. Brooks' flaws. He writes while shooting, he shoots a ton of footage, and he tinkers endlessly. His movies famously go through many restructures in the editing room, and sometimes you can feel it.
Ella McCay has that slightly choppy, overstuffed, scene-grabber quality that comes from a director who falls in love with too many moments. Some subplots feel undernourished, like there was a much longer version of the film where everything had room to breathe.
The film runs under two hours, but it feels like a movie that desperately wants to be two hours and forty minutes. And honestly, I would absolutely watch the three-and-a-half-hour director’s cut that surely exists on a hard drive somewhere.
But even when the scenes feel randomly shuffled or the structure feels loose, the emotional truth always lands because that’s what James L. Brooks does best.
He understands the way people talk to each other, the way love and frustration collide, the way work and home bleed together, and the way family can be both the thing that saves you and the thing that drives you completely insane.
He has always known how to mix humor and heartbreak in a way that feels completely natural. Ella McCay continues that tradition.
So yes, the movie is uneven. Yes, it is messy. Yes, it could have used more time and a tighter shape. But at the same time, every scene has something good in it: a great performance, a strong emotional beat, a sharp joke, a genuine human moment.
That’s what Ella McCay is. It is a film about surviving the people you love. It is about the politics of the heart more than the politics of government. It is about being overwhelmed and still getting up and doing your job anyway.
I’m recommending it. If you love James L. Brooks, go see it. It has been fifteen years since his last film. This may be his last one, and even if it isn’t, it is something to savor.
Flawed, funny, moving, smart, and unmistakably the work of one of the greatest creative minds we’ve ever had, Ella McCay, is a must-see. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
As a lifelong horror geek, there is something deeply, stupidly comforting about the Silent Night, Deadly Night series. These movies are dumb. Let’s just say it. The original five films are absolutely ridiculous in the most sincere, lovable 1980s way.
And yet, we horror fans watch them every year like they’re It’s a Wonderful Life. They’ve become holiday staples, and I mean that genuinely: the first Silent Night, Deadly Night is mandatory December viewing at my place. The damn thing is terrible… but also iconic.
I vividly remember seeing the original in 1984, going with my friend Scott, walking past the picket line outside the theater. People were actually protesting. PROTESTING. Over a slasher movie where a guy in a Santa suit kills people.
They were acting like society was collapsing because Santa was murdering teenagers on screen. As if Santa hadn’t already been a homicidal maniac in the 1972 Tales from the Crypt movie, where an escaped lunatic in a Santa suit stalks Joan Collins. We’d seen evil Santas before!
But for whatever reason, the country collectively lost its mind over Silent Night, Deadly Night in ’84, and the outrage made it a hit. And because it was a hit, they made sequels. And oh my lord… the sequels.
Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 is one of the most ridiculous sequels ever made. Half the movie is literally footage from the first one. It is required viewing for the “Garbage Day!” scene alone.
Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out! (and I swear I’m not making this up) features a guy walking around with a glass dome on his head so you can see his exposed brain. Robert Culp is in it, and at one point pulls over to pee and says, “Time to relieve the reptile.” One of my favorite stupid movie lines of all time.
Silent Night, Deadly Night 5 has MICKEY ROONEY playing a deranged toy maker. Mickey Rooney! Completely insane at that point in his career, doing anything for a dollar. I actually have behind-the-scenes stories about this maniac on stage and on sets… but that’s for another day.
Then we got the loose remake, Silent Night, in 2012. And now, after all that insanity, here we are with a brand-new reimagining in 2025. And let me tell you something I never thought I’d say: this remake is WAY better than it has any right to be.
Mike P. Nelson (who did the Wrong Turn remake) directs this one, and he brings actual craft and atmosphere to the thing. The opening alone sets the tone: young Billy visits his dying grandfather, dread dripping off the screen, and then, a silent, brutal Santa attack that kills his parents. It’s creepy. It’s moody. It’s surprisingly well-staged. It’s not going for the dumb shock value of the ’84 version; it’s going for tension. And it works.
We jump ahead years later and meet Billy as an adult, played by Rohan Campbell, and here’s where this movie becomes something real. The trauma has hollowed him out. He hides out in motels. He has this deep sadness baked into his bones.
And here’s the big new twist: he hears a voice, which is this dark, jolly, “ho ho ho” internal Santa demon talking to him. It’s very Venom, very Tom Hardy-ish at times (sometimes distractingly so), but it gives the movie this weird psychological layer.
This Billy is less of a random psycho and more of a curse-ridden, haunted soul doomed to become Santa Claus From Hell.
And then there’s Ruby Modine as Pam, a True Crime nerd who is a little unhinged herself. She gets into bar fights at hockey rinks, swears like she’s auditioning for Deadwood, and ends up becoming Billy’s partner-in-mania. That’s new. That’s fun.
The idea of TWO crazies (one in a Santa suit) roaming around together is a twist this franchise absolutely needed.
AND there are Nazis. He kills Nazis. You can never go wrong with that choice in a slasher movie.
But the real reason this movie works (the reason it rises above the expected holiday trashiness) is Rohan Campbell. I cannot praise this guy enough. He is fantastic. I’ve been a fan since he was in The Hardy Boys reboot, and since then, he’s built himself a legitimate horror resume.
He was phenomenal in Halloween Ends as Corey (best part of that movie by a mile), he was the only good thing in The Monkey, he will be starring in a new movie called Violence, and now he’s taken on the role of Billy Chapman (one of the most notorious killers in ’80s slashers) and made it his own.
Campbell brings humor, sadness, confusion, and charisma to the role. You actually feel bad for him while also cheering when he picks up an axe. That’s not easy to do.
And having met him at Flashback Weekend (he’s a great guy and loves the horror fandom), I can tell you he gets it. He gets what makes these movies fun and what makes characters like this interesting. His performance is legitimately layered and magnetic.
As for the rest? The kills are great. The gore is solid. It’s funny in the right sick ways. It moves fast. It’s exactly 90 minutes... as all slashers should be. And the whole thing has that “I know you’re here for ridiculous holiday violence, so let’s give it to you in style” energy that the series lost decades ago.
Is it for everyone? Absolutely not. If you’re not a slasher fan, if the words “killer Santa” don’t make you smile, this will not convert you. But if you’re a fan of the original (or the sequels), or you simply want a goofy-but-well-made Christmas bloodbath, you are in good hands.
This is Silent Night, Deadly Night done right. It’s dumb in the best ways, smart where it counts, and anchored by yet another terrific performance from Rohan Campbell, who is quickly becoming horror’s MVP.
If you want Santa with an axe, you’re getting Santa with an axe... and for fans like me, that’s exactly what Christmas is all about. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Bryan Fuller finally made a movie. And honestly, that sentence alone is exciting enough for anybody who’s followed this guy’s career across some of the most imaginative, beautifully designed, emotionally complex, and flat-out weird television ever made.
This is the man who gave us Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls (one of my all-time favorite shows) which was criminally canceled after 13 episodes, the visually stunning Pushing Daisies, and Hannibal, which is by far the best screen adaptation of the Thomas Harris universe, yes, it's better than the overpraised Silence of the Lambs, better than any of the sequels or prequels, period.
Fuller has always been that rare TV genius whose imagination seems to burst out of the frame. His stuff is visually lush, structurally bold, with a twisted, fairy-tale darkness underneath it all. So when he makes his feature debut? Yeah, I’m there.
Dust Bunny is exactly what you’d expect from him: a twisted little horror-fantasy hybrid filled with rich color, dark humor, emotional heft, eccentric details, and characters who feel like they’ve stepped out of some bizarre bedtime story for very damaged adults.
Dust Bunny is a fairy tale soaked in blood. Eight-year-old Aurora (Sophie Sloan) is convinced the monster under her bed (a “dust bunny,” she calls it) has murdered her family. Because Fuller is Fuller, the movie doesn’t treat that idea like a cute metaphor or a child’s fantasy. No, the opening scenes suggest that something horrible really has happened in Aurora’s apartment.
Enter her next-door neighbor in the building: Resident 5B, played by Mads Mikkelsen, who just screams “hitman with secrets” the second he steps on screen. Aurora sees him killing a guy during a Chinatown parade and, assuming he slayed a literal dragon, hires him (using stolen church money!) to kill her monster.
5B, a dead-eyed, world-weary assassin with a handler (Sigourney Weaver, oh yes), thinks she’s delusional… until he realizes the “monster” might not be a creature, but the consequences of his own violent past. Maybe Aurora’s family was killed by hitmen trying to find him. Maybe the monster is guilt, trauma, or collateral damage.
Or maybe (because this is Bryan Fuller) the monster is real too. Or half-real. Or metaphorically real-but-physically-sorta-real. The movie plays in that gorgeous gray zone between childhood fear and adult violence: Gremlins meets Léon: The Professional meets Pushing Daisies on bad mushrooms.
Fuller’s TV shows always look like dioramas dipped in candy and then stabbed repeatedly with knives. Dust Bunny has that same vibe.
The world is heightened, colorful, whimsical, almost Wes Anderson–like in its symmetry and precision (only much more interesting than Anderson)... and then someone’s head gets blown off or eaten.
The tone walks a tightrope: whimsical kids’ story; pitch-black comedy; assassin thriller; creature feature; emotional trauma study. Sometimes it works beautifully, but sometimes it feels derivative.
There are big, obvious influences here: Joe Dante (Gremlins), Jeunet + Caro (Delicatessen, City of Lost Children), Jim Henson creature weirdness, a splash of Guillermo del Toro fairy tale creepiness, and plenty of Pushing Daisies color and Hannibal-style production design.
Fuller apes these styles a bit more literally than he usually does.
His originality comes through, but not as boldly as in his television work, where he had room to build worlds over time. As a film, this feels like Fuller playing in other people’s sandboxes as much as his own.
Most disappointing are the monster effects (the puppets, the CGI), which are wildly uneven.
Sometimes they’re charming. Sometimes they look cheap, and when CGI in a fantasy-horror movie looks cheap, you get pulled out of the magic. Fuller’s worlds rely on immersion, and every time the visual effects wobble, the spell breaks a little.
Also, the movie plays things a bit safe for Fuller. It’s twisted, yes, but compared to Hannibal? Compared to Wonderfalls? Compared to the inventiveness of Pushing Daisies?
This is Fuller on half-power. Still imaginative. Still unique. But not quite the full fever dream we know he’s capable of.
But, the cast.... this is where Dust Bunny shines brightest.
Sophie Sloan is phenomenal. One of the best child performances of the year. She’s funny, unsettling, oddly wise, rebellious, wounded, and very, very real. You root for her instantly. She carries the movie.
Mads Mikkelsen could stand in a room doing nothing, and I’d still be terrified and captivated. He’s basically playing a variation on his Hannibal persona minus the culinary artistry. Brooding, physical, dangerous, quietly emotional. He can do this in his sleep, but that doesn’t make it less fun to watch.
David Dastmalchian is always reliable. Always weird. Always memorable. He’s hilarious here as a mustached henchman who reacts to the absurd horror around him with genuine fear and deadpan charm. One of the best character actors working today.
Sheila Atim & Rebecca Henderson: Both excellent, adding texture and grounding to the bizarre world Fuller creates.
And then there’s Sigourney Weaver.
Oh. My. God.
Sigourney is electric here: funny, sexy, sinister, unpredictable. One of the best performances she’s given in years. And after watching her wasted in the terrible CGI sludge of Avatar: Fire and Ash, seeing her actually act again is glorious.
She has this jaw exercise routine (stretching her mouth, loosening her face), and the physical comedy of it is laugh-out-loud funny. Her scenes with Mikkelsen absolutely crackle.
Dust Bunny is not Bryan Fuller at his most original or most daring... that crown still belongs to his TV work. But as a feature debut? It’s strong. It’s stylish. It’s twisted. It’s funny. It’s emotional, and it’s unlike anything else released this year. Derivative in spots? Yes. CGI a little rough? Definitely. Fuller playing it slightly safe? Sure.
But the performances are outstanding, the world is beautifully crafted, the tone is unique, and the storytelling has that signature Fuller blend of whimsy and darkness. A very cool, imaginative, creepy little fantasy-horror film, and a promising start to Fuller’s big-screen career.
I enjoyed Dust Bunny quite a bit, flaws and all, and I can’t wait to see what wild, gorgeous, demented thing Bryan Fuller does next. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️
One of the things I absolutely love (and it doesn’t happen often) is when a horror sequel doesn’t just repeat the original but expands it. It goes wider, deeper, stranger, sharper. It takes the core idea and pushes it into new territory. And that’s exactly what Influencers does.
Kurtis David Harder already made a terrific little sleeper with Influencer in 2022. It was a clever, cold, dark thriller about a chameleonic killer slipping through the cracks of online culture.
But with Influencers, he does what all great horror sequels should do: he opens the universe up, pulls the camera back, makes the satire sting harder, and somehow makes everything feel even more relevant.
This is a terrific follow-up; it's bloody, funny, suspenseful, beautifully crafted, and wildly timely.
We pick things up with CW (Cassandra Naud, once again knocking it out of the park), who has moved on from the events of the first film and is now in southern France with her new girlfriend, Diane (Lisa Delamar).
They’re celebrating their first anniversary at a gorgeous rural hotel (the kind of place Instagram influencers dream about) when their room is suddenly snatched away from them by a popular British influencer named Charlotte (Georgina Campbell).
Charlotte befriends Diane immediately (and aggressively), which puts CW in a cold, simmering rage that anyone who saw the first movie knows is not going to end well for anyone.
CW smiles her way through the irritation, but you can practically feel the knife sharpening behind her back. And Harder wastes no time reminding us that CW’s charm, friendliness, and flirtatiousness are masks. They are masks that hide an absolutely ruthless ability to take over someone’s life, identity, and eventually their existence.
We also follow Madison (Emily Tennant), the survivor from the first film, as she tries to rebuild her life, only to be hounded by conspiracy theorists, podcasters, and an online mob that insists she’s guilty. Her arc intersects with CW’s again, dragging the story across France, Bali, and North America as secrets get unearthed, alliances shift, and bodies begin to drop.
And drop they do... spectacularly.
One of the biggest surprises with Influencers is just how funny it is. Not goofy funny, not parody funny, but dark, biting, timely social satire. Harder understands perfectly that the world of influencers, YouTube gurus, Instagram couples, manosphere podcasters, and online branding narcissists is already 80% horror. He just pushes it the rest of the way.
There’s a misogynist self-help bro, a conservative content machine spouting nonsense about “gender ideology,” a crypto-lifestyle douche who pretends he’s living the Andrew Tate dream, and a wave of people obsessed with their online reflection.
It’s not subtle. But it’s very, very sharp.
Harder weaponizes the vapidness of influencer culture and the curated artificiality of online personas to create a world that is both ridiculous and terrifying. It's a perfect playground for CW, who understands better than anyone that identity is just a costume you put on, and murder is just an inconvenient unfollow.
Shudder knows how to pick ’em. And this is one of the best horror acquisitions they’ve made in a while.
The violence in Influencers is mean. It’s nasty. It’s gory. And it’s earned. Harder stages his kills with suspense, style, and a willingness to let the audience squirm.
There’s a sense of dread throughout the movie, even in the sunniest scenes in France or Bali. You’re always waiting for the next mask to drop, the next reveal, the next moment when CW slips out of her persona and into her true form: a smiling, calculating, shockingly capable predator.
Cassandra Naud is phenomenal. In the first film, she was already the best thing in it; she was enigmatic, unsettling, and weirdly magnetic. Here, Harder gives her even more layers to play, and she delivers one of the sharpest, funniest, darkest horror performances of the year.
She’s seductive, terrifying, oddly sympathetic, and always dangerous. And when she’s with Diane, Naud gives CW this fleeting lightness (a hint of the person she could have been), which only makes her darker impulses feel even more chilling.
This movie is beautiful. Like weirdly beautiful for how bloody it gets. The cinematography by David Schuurman is stunning, with sunlit villas, sparkling Mediterranean water, moody night sequences, and neon-soaked Bali nightlife.
Harder knows exactly how to juxtapose paradise with horror, which makes the kills and the revelations even more shocking.
The editing is tight and confident. The score by Avery Kentis fits perfectly; it's eerie, propulsive, and stylish. And the production design manages to capture everything from rustic French charm to influencer mega-villa obnoxiousness.
Harder leans into the world we live in now, where everyone’s performing, curating, and selling themselves. Where everyone’s a brand.
This movie is a satire of the very idea of an “influencer," how the desperate need for relevance, likes, clout, and online perception can twist people into something monstrous.
But then there’s CW, who takes all of that and uses it like a weapon. She doesn’t want followers, she wants control. She wants illusion. She wants the power to rewrite reality. And she’ll do it while smiling in a sunlit Instagram reel.
Influencers is one of the best horror sequels in years and a shockingly strong follow-up to the original. Kurtis David Harder proves that he’s one of the most exciting horror directors working today, capable of blending genre thrills with relevant commentary and killer entertainment value.
A fantastic year-end surprise, and easily one of the best Shudder originals in a long time. Highly recommended for horror fans, fans of the original Influencer, and anyone who’s sick of influencers in general... which, let’s be honest, is most of us. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
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