Under the Silver Lake

Sam (Andrew Garfield) is an directionless slacker with voyeuristic tendencies.

Watching his neighbour, who likes to go around topless, from his balcony he notices a new neighbour (Riley Keough) who has a small white dog. Later he starts up a conversation with her, gets invited into her apartment and the two start to flirt. When her roommates reappear suddenly she ushers him out and says he can see her tomorrow.

The following morning she and most of the contents of the apartment are gone. Sam decides to investigate.

No good will come of this.

CW: nudity and lots of male gaze/objectification of women

Mickey 17

Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) and his best friend Timo (Steven Yeun) sign up for a space colonisation mission out of desperation when their macaron business fails and they owe an obscene amount of money to a sadistic loan-shark whose only pleasure in life is cutting people up.

The mission is fronted by failed Trumpian politician Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) and his repellent culinary snob wife Ylfa (Toni Collette).

The hapless Mickey, not one to look at contracts, signs up to be an 'expendale' who will die over and over only to be resurrected by a 3D printer.

One day Mickey survives unexpectedly and staggers back to the room he shares with his girlfriend Nasha (Naomi Ackie).

No good will come of this.

CW: gross out weirdness

No other choice

Yoo Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) "has everything": a smart pragmatic wife Lee Mi-ri (Son Ye-jin), two well behaved kids one of who's a cello prodigy, a good job, an expansive quirky home that was built by his father in good times and a pair of fat contended labradors.

When the job that supports all this disappears and he struggles through a series of embarrassing failed job interviews he becomes quite untethered. Eventually as it looks like the house is going to be repossessed Man-su comes up with a solution: eliminate the competition.

Pre-emptively, and permanently.

CW: some violence, DIY dentistry

Rental Family

Phillip Vanderploeg (Brendan Fraser) is an American actor working in Japan but struggling to find roles outside cheesy token characters and commercials.

One day he rushes to a very confusing booking where he's playing a funeral guest and the "deceased" is very much alive.

It turns out he's been subcontracted by a "Rental family" company that hires out actors to play parts in a range of situations that exist on a kind of continuity through LARP to therapy, social work, fetish and in some cases victimless deception.

The company owner Shinji (Takehiro Hira) offers Phillip more work and after some initial hesitancy he begins to take on longer term roles.

CW: anybody who's ever done any kind of safeguarding training will want to scream at the screen about how unethical and risky this all is under the cover of "Japan being quirky"

Skinamarink

Siblings Kevin and Kaylee wake in the night and find themselves alone in the house. They look for their father but can't find him.

It's dark and unsettling so they go downstairs, build a pillow/blanket fort and watch old Merry Melodies cartoons on VHS.

Things are not right. Fundamental things like doors and then the toilet simply disappear. There are whispers in the dark.

CW: children in peril, constant flickering lights

Deathstalker (2025)

Battlefield scavenger Deathstalker (Daniel Bernhardt) travels a land ravaged by war between the kingdom of Asterian and the Dreadites controlled by the evil sorcerer Necronemnon (Nicholas Rice).

Unknowingly he takes an ancient amulet of power from a dying Prince and is bound to it and the ongoing battle.

Trying to rid himself of this burden he picks up, literally, the goblin wizard Doodad (Laurie Field/Patton Oswalt) and thief Brisbayne (Christina Orjalo) on the way but can't shake his destiny.

CW: so much cheese it could kill the lactose intolerant

Dead of Winter

Barb (Emma Thompson) closes up her bait and tackle shop and gets in her pickup to head to Lake Hilda in remote Northern Minnesota to go ice fishing. It's an ill advised journey: the radio weatherman is advising people not to travel.

Following the hand drawn map she has, Barb struggles to find her way and stops at a remote cabin to ask for directions. The guy there is defensive but points her in the right direction.

Later while Barb fishes she witnesses something terrible happening and recognises the guy from the cabin as the perpetrator. With no mobile phone signal and now properly snowed in Barb decides to do something about it.

CW: violence and dark melancholic themes

War Machine

US Army Ranger candidate 81 (Alan Ritchson) has given up everything to complete his Ranger training and fulfil the promise he made to his brother in doing so.

As he and the other Ranger candidates face their final training scenario, which is to destroy a downed experimental weapon, they find an immensely impressive prop slightly away from the expected location.

Placing their demolition charges they think they've had an unexpectedly easy ride. The only problem is: this isn't their objective.

CW: injury detail, so much jingoistic macho hoora I think I made myself dumber just by watching it