Category: Movie Reviews

When The Summoning (of Baby Blue) Brings Out Maternal Nightmares….

The Summoning offers a few eerie ideas about motherhood, loss, and urban legends, but its anthology structure feels too scattered. Some shorts bloom, while others leave the larger mythology buried in the soil.

The SummoningBlack Mandala

The Summoning (of Baby Blue) is an anthology of shorts designed to get under your skin. Whether it succeeds depends entirely on your tolerance for fragmented storytelling. It opens with a driver travelling through farm country who encounters a masked scarecrow on a foggy road. The imagery hints at something larger, and the emphasis on agriculture feels deliberate. But once he’s slain, the segment ends, and the film never looks back. It’s a solid hook, and I’m a sucker for a good cornfield tale, but the abrupt shift left me scratching my head.

Directed by a collective that includes Sergio Gonzalez and Felipe Vargas, the anthology eventually settles into a more familiar framework. When Laura (Valeria San Martin) finds herself alone, a small nod to Scream helps set the tone for what follows. Her friends arrive and convince her to test the “Baby Blue, Blue Baby” urban legend. It feels like an evolution of the Bloody Mary myth, shifting the fear away from mirrors and into something tactile. Once the chant begins, the participant feels an invisible burden growing heavier in their arms, and surviving the encounter becomes the challenge.

Continue reading “When The Summoning (of Baby Blue) Brings Out Maternal Nightmares….”

It’s Not Just Love and War in The Legend of Hei II, It Waxes Philosophical

The Legend of Hei II expands Xiaohei’s world with a denser story focused on politics, philosophy, and the growing divide between humans and spirits. While the material may have benefited from a serialized format, the action and emotional stakes make this sequel a rewarding continuation.

The Legend of Hei II Bluray
Available to purchase on Amazon USA

GKIDS

After viewing The Legend of Hei II (罗小黑战记2) on home video, a few more watches and catching the web series to spot the shift in narrative direction feels like a must. The bonus material helps fill in a few gaps, but that wasn’t enough. The chronological order is easy enough to figure out, but making sense of everything requires paying close attention to every detail and reveal. What’s presented could easily have stretched into a new web series, or even a regular television show, and for Xiaohei (Shan Xin) to stretch his legs and explore the world makes sense.

His shifu, Wuxian (Liu Mingyue), is under house arrest after being framed for an attack at a hall where several humans possessing supernatural abilities are assassinated. Someone claims to have seen him there, and although he has no alibi to truly exonerate him, he’s willing to be placed under watch.

Continue reading “It’s Not Just Love and War in The Legend of Hei II, It Waxes Philosophical”

Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter 25th Anniversary Review, A Holy Cult Classic Returns

Twenty-five years later, Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter returns with a restored 2K scan and renewed midnight movie energy. This Canadian cult classic remains as delightfully absurd as ever.

Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter Poster
Special Screening, June 11, 2026 at Mayfair Theatre (1074 Bank St) in Ottawa.

Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter is celebrating a milestone. After twenty-five years of being very, very quiet, Lee Demarbre’s cult classic is being honoured with a fresh revival. Library and Archives Canada provided a new 2K scan of the original 16mm negative for restoration, and a new DCP has been created to bring out the colours. It’s ready to sing! During the first week of June, the film had a party with Demarbre and superstar Phil Caracas attending special screenings. And this movie will keep preaching cross-country in the coming weeks, if not months, so the herald can be heard. This is the type of midnight madness cinema even Rocky Horror fans should attend!

This very beloved work was made on a shoestring budget, and it has enough romp to make a B-movie director blush. Its hilarity often feels right at home with a Troma production. But there’s more! There’s music, grindhouse attitude, and kaiju involved. Okay, not kaiju, but had it included some, I’d be beside myself. I was more impressed with the sentai influence. It’s not full-on Power Rangers style, but that flavour is clearly there. We even get some 70s-style Bruce Lee foolery when it matters.

Continue reading “Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter 25th Anniversary Review, A Holy Cult Classic Returns”

By the Power of Grayskull… Does Masters of the Universe (2026) Have Enough?

Masters of the Universe returns as pure popcorn fantasy, mixing 80s toy-box nostalgia, pulp adventure, cosmic mythmaking, and big IMAX-scale battles into one loud, colourful ride.

Masters of the Universe 2026 Movie PosterSo what does it mean to be one of the Masters of the Universe? That’s the question raised in the first few minutes of the movie. We are introduced to the fantasy world of Eternia and a creation myth: before time immemorial, the power of the cosmos ran unchecked and was named Greyskull.

A castle sits at the heart of that power, and still does, as part of a greater whole, a cosmos that appears bound inside a gravity well. Eternia, the planet Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) comes from, may well exist within that anomaly, and whoever wields the singularity can reshape destiny. The visual clues are there in the opening frame: When we see a cosmic being hammer an entire black hole, accretion disc included, into the Sword of Power. Whether intentional or not, it evokes the idea that the blade contains a singularity, giving new meaning to the phrase “I have the power.”

When the Filmation series touched upon similar ideas in “Visitors from Earth,” it suggested that such a possibility already existed within the mythology. If the struggle centres on claiming a cosmic weapon capable of shaping reality itself, then the reason the franchise is what it is makes a great deal more sense.

Continue reading “By the Power of Grayskull… Does Masters of the Universe (2026) Have Enough?”

Sherman Alexie Heads to Victoria for 3rd Annual F1RST Celebration of Indigenous Film

herman Alexie headlines the third edition of F1RST Celebration of Indigenous Film at The Vic Theatre in Victoria, July 17–19. The festival brings a newly restored print of The Business of Fancydancing alongside a full slate of Indigenous cinema.

F1RST: A Celebration of Indigenous FilmIf you grew up reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian or caught Smoke Signals (or its spin-off, made years later, Hey Viktor! featuring Cody Lightning; review link), let’s just say this year’s F1RST Celebration of Indigenous Film is worth checking out, locals and tourists to Victoria, BC alike.

Now in its third year, this event is bringing Sherman Alexie to The Vic Theatre. The writer behind some of the most recognized Indigenous storytelling in contemporary literature and film is headlining this edition, and the centerpiece is a newly restored print of The Business of Fancydancing, the film he wrote and directed, followed by a post-screening Q&A. He’ll also sit down with actor and physician Evan Adams (Smoke Signals, Bones of Crows) for a featured conversation on acting, writing, and directing.

From the Press Release:

Continue reading “Sherman Alexie Heads to Victoria for 3rd Annual F1RST Celebration of Indigenous Film”

Netflix’s Swapped Shows Who Is More of A Strange Animal

Rather than saying, “You’re a Strange Animal,” maybe the creators of Swapped were humming along to Gowan’s song when world-building a mystical realm where safety must come first rather than mixed breeding through magic.

Swapped Movie PosterNow streaming on Netflix

Netflix’s Swapped feels familiar. While it differs from Pixar’s Hoppers, where a human can masquerade as a beaver through technology and must walk a mile in another’s shoes, what’s presented here concerns a secret valley that is far more mystical than grounded in reality. This tale follows Ollie (Michael B. Jordan), a Pookoo, a groundhog-like creature, who meets Ivy (Juno Temple), a strangely Big Bird-like animal. The pair must work together if they are to thwart a looming threat.

There’s an angry Firewolf (Tracy Morgan) who has grown jealous of the peace bestowed upon the valley by enormous elephantine trees known as the Dzo. From that point on, I could swear I was watching a film that leaned heavily on the imagination of Jim Henson back when he conceived The Dark Crystal. While Swapped is brighter and more naturalistic, favouring cheerful colours and innocent charm, the similarities do not end there.

Continue reading “Netflix’s Swapped Shows Who Is More of A Strange Animal”