No good will come of this: 2025

28 Years Later

Spike (Alfie Williams) lives on a defended island settlement just off the coast of England with his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and mother Isla (Jodie Comer), who is mostly bedridden and suffers from delusions.

The causeway offers the islanders protection from the Infected who have roamed the mainland the 28 years since the release of the rage virus and they live a tough if relatively safe pastoral life. European navies maintain strict quarantine: nobody is coming to help them so they must make do with what they have.

The island is small though and regular trips are made to the mainland for firewood and other supplies. Now Jamie has decided it's time for Spike's first trip down the causeway and his first kill.

No good will come of this.

CW: bloody violence

Indy (Indy, a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever) is taken to his owner Todd's (Shane Jensen) grandfather's remote house after Todd becomes seriously ill and moves out of the city.

Immediately Indy knows something is wrong: the house is haunted by a dark entity that Indy can see but Todd can't.

CW: jump scares

Harry (Anthony Edwards) meets Julie (Mare Winningham) by chance at the La Brea Tar pits and the unashamedly nerdy couple start dating. He's due to meet her after her late shift at a diner but his own carelessness causes a power cut at his hotel and he oversleeps by hours.

He rushes there but she's long gone so calls her from the payphone outside. Unable to get any answer he's stressed and when the phone rings he grabs it assuming it's Julie calling back.

Instead it's a terrified young soldier who's dialled a wrong number trying to speak to his father. He claims that in 50 minutes World War III will start and just wants to speak to his father one last time before everyone dies.

Unsure if it's real or a prank Harry tells the diner patrons about this and resolves to collect Julie and flee Los Angeles.

No good will come of this.

Rumi (Arden Cho/Ajae), Mira (May Hong/Audrey Nuna) and Zoey (Ji-young Yoo/Rei Ami) make up Huntrix: the biggest K-pop band in the world. When they're not wowing audiences they have much more important work to do: maintaing the Honmoon, a magical barrier that deters demons from entering this world and slaying the few that do make it through in battle.

Their huge fan base means the Honmoon is on the verge of becoming 'golden' and forever sealing the demons away.

However the demon Jinu has a plan: a demon Boy Band to fight Huntrix for that fan base.

When it seems PotUS is about to be implicated in a sex scandal a mere 11 days before election day a group of aides including Winifred Ames (Anne Heche) bring in spin doctor Conrad Breane (Robert De Niro).

Breane decides nothing short of a war can keep this out of the news and he knows just the person to stage that war: Hollywood producer Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman).

Human remains are found on a disused US Army rifle range near the border town of Frontera, Texas by a couple of friends hunting for old shell cases to turn into art pieces. When a Sheriff's badge and masonic ring are found nearby Sheriff Sam Deeds (Chris Cooper) concludes they belong to former Sheriff Charlie Wade (Kris Kristofferson).

Sheriff Wade was famously corrupt, violent and racist, disappearing one night in the late 1950s at the same time as $10k of town funds went missing.

The general assumption at the time was Sam's own recently deceased father and then Sheriff's deputy, Buddy Deeds (Matthew McConaughey) ran Wade out of town. Buddy took up the role and ushered in an era of relative probity and is considered a local hero, but not by Sam.

CW: racist language

Tornado (Kōki) and an unnamed boy flee the vengeful pack of bandits led by Sugarman (Tim Roth) across the windswept wilds of 18th century Scotland. After she seeks temporary sanctuary in a once grand house we find out the bandits are disunited and why they came to be pursuing her.

Joe Turner (Robert Redford) is a researcher at a CIA office in New York which analyses published material for odd patterns or interesting ideas. It's specialised work and for its time highly automated with computers whirring away.

When Joe heads out to collect the office lunch order he uses the back door and thus narrowly avoids death when a group of assassins con their way inside and slaughter his colleagues.

He calls it in but gets into a panicked state waiting for a safe pickup and things go downhill from there.

Four different Freaky Tales overlap in an alternative 1980s Oakland where a basketball star promotes mind expanding mysticism on TV, a washed up enforcer has nothing left to lose, a rap duo dream of making it big and punks fight skinhead Nazis.

CW: crude language and occasional bloody violence

Senior executive Tom Gruneman disappears unexpectedly and after six months the Police turn up nothing.

Unsatisfied with this, Tom's colleague Peter Cable (Charles Cioffi) pays their mutual friend and detective John Klute (Donald Sutherland) to investigate.

The only lead is some obscene letters written to a New York call girl Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda) that seem out of character. She gave little to the Police so Klute travels to NY and begins to follow her and record her phone calls to get leverage on her.

Karen Silkwood (Meryl Streep) is a worker at a nuclear enrichment plant in 1970s Oklahoma. She shares a run down remote house with her boyfriend Drew (Kurt Russell) and friend Dolly (Cher). The plant is the major local employer and wages are low so the trio live a pretty basic life even though they are constantly expected to do overtime.

When a co-worker gets contaminated she is irritated by how poorly treated they are with the incident being played down.

Later after her own contamination scare she gets involved with the local union branch and begins to note down all the lax safety practices.

No good will come of this.

A ragtag group of thieves get wind of a huge staged gladiatorial fight run by one of their old foes. While casing the location they encounter a terrible monster that is being used to guard the loot in an underground cell.

What they need to kill it and steal the prize money is a Witcher.

Without any meaningful buildup the US missile early warning systems, ever expanding and adapting since the early days of the cold war, suddenly detect a single incoming ICBM over the Pacific.

We see people of all levels of that war machine, from those in the radar stations to bomber pilots, White House and Pentagon staff and eventually the POTUS react and deliberate over a response.

CW: suicide

This biopic of televangelist Tammy Faye Baker (Jessica Chastain) covers her life from childhood induction into evangelical church despite disapproval from her stern faced mother through courtship with her eventually infamous husband Jim (Andrew Garfield) and the pair's fall from grace.

Dr. Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who specialises in removing frozen specimens (mammoths etc) from permafrost is recruited by Dr. Sander Halvorson (Ulrich Thomsen) to travel urgently to the Antarctic. The Norwegian team there have something delicate they want to extract from the ice. There is an air of secrecy about the whole project.

No good will come of this.

CW: squishy body horror (quelle surprise)

The horror anthology is back with an obvious theme. Sadly it's got the usual problems lots of them suffer from. Most of the films are just too long and substitute the characters, who are usually gratingly irritating, running around shrieking for material. It's almost like they had a minimum running time brief and couldn't otherwise fill it.

The linking piece, "Diet Phantasma", is fun but a lot of the time I found myself looking at my phone in a "are we there yet" way. The surreal candy based piece "Fun Size" is the only one that's inventive. Partying twentysomethings breaking into the the wrong spooky location in "Ut Supra Sic Infra" is played most serious of the lot, to its benefit, and "Home Haunt" makes the most of the theme but "Coochie Coochie Coo" and "Kidprint" are tiresome as fuck and kind of offensive.

Is not the worst of the V/H/S anthologies but it's close to it 4/10.

Eenie Meanie

Edie (Samara Weaving) spent her teenage years in criminal circles acting as a driver in a series of heists until something went very wrong.

She's trying to get by now as a more responsible adult but struggling and when she gets some unexpected news goes to visit her feckless on/off boyfriend John (Karl Glusman) .

No good will come of this.

CW: sudden violence and plenty of swears

Many years after going on the run for an early computer crime incident, Marty (Robert Redford) has established what would now be called a pentesting company. Staffed by various misfits and a disgraced former CIA operative it's effective but not hugely financially successful.

When the NSA ask him to take a job targeting a US research institute, something outside their jurisdiction, he rejects it despite a big dangled paycheck . Marty still has the anti-authoritarian leanings from his youth and this has a whiff of spying on the public. When the NSA agents casually drop his real name he knows he has no choice.

No good will come of this.

Elwood (Ethan Herisse) is a studious teen in Florida during the early years of the Civil Rights Movement. He's tangentially involved in some protest but really longs to study science and his teacher gets him a scholarship at Technical College.

Travelling there he accepts a lift from the wrong person and is convicted as accomplice in the theft of the car they are riding in.

Sent to the Nickel Academy reform school he befriends Turner (Brandon Wilson) and they and every other child face regular bullying and abuse. Elwood begins to document this hoping one day to pass it to someone who cares.

No good will come of this.

CW: Implied physical abuse

Twin brothers Hal and Bill Shelburn (Christian Convery as the kids / Theo James as the adults) find a wind up toy monkey in their long missing father's possessions. Seemingly broken, turning the key does nothing.

Later that night as suddenly The Monkey whirrs into life their babysitter dies in a freak hibachi accident. Hal connects this directly with the death and comes to live in fear of the Monkey, which seems to change location when you're not paying attention. One day he tries to cut it up, only to find it back again.

After relentless bullying both by brother Bill and his classmates Hal turns the key again hoping it will kill his brother.

No good will come of this.

CW: violent bloody deaths of the squishy comedic variety

In a lush verdant world seemingly abandoned by humans but with signs of their presence everywhere a small cat lives in a house in the forest, perhaps waiting for its owner to return.

When a great flood comes, clearly not for the first time, the cat flees and as the water rises inexorably just manages to take sanctuary on a rickety sailboat.

It is not alone.

CW: nothing

One night, every child but one in the primary school class taught by Miss Gandy (Julia Garner) disappears. All of them ran spontaneously out of their homes in the night at 02:17, seemingly willingly and alone.

Now thirty days later with no sign of them angry parents, including Archer Graff (Josh Brolin), want to know just exactly what the now pariah Miss Gandy was teaching in that class.

Both Gandy and the sole remaining student, Alex have been questioned at length and no explanation, motive or connection has come to light.

Miss Gandy decides to try and investigate herself despite the warnings against this from affable Principal Marcus (Benedict Wong)

CW: bloody violence but very sparingly used

The Lady (Willa Fitzgerald) hooks up with The Demon (Kyle Gallner) for casual motel sex. As they drink a few beers in his pickup truck beforehand she asks him a very serious question...

"Are you a serial killer?"

No good will come of this.

CW: torture, mutilation, injury detail

Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) reluctantly moves to an Alpine resort with her father, stepmother and half sister Alma. It's a perfect setup for youthful rebellion: she's dragged far from everything she loves with people she barely tolerates.

The resort is run by the creepy Herr König (Dan Stevens), who offers her a job at the reception which she jumps at thinking she can get some money together and run away.

Some of the resort guests behave oddly and she has a frightening experience with a woman who seems to chase her in the dark, so when a glamorous stranger offers her a ride to Paris she grabs money from the till and leaves.

No good will come of this.

Journalist Jim Kemp (Nicholas Hoult) finds himself called up for jury duty just as his heavily pregnant wife Allison (Zoey Deutch) is due. He tries to use this as a reason to be passed over but ends up assigned to a high profile murder case.

Local politically ambitious ADA Killebrew (Toni Collette) is urging for a speedy conviction of a known ne'er-do-well, partly to promote her "tough on crime" election credentials, and most of the other jurors are of like mind.

Kemp on the other hand quickly becomes convinced the accused is innocent.

Over the centuries, Predators come to Earth and fight iconic adversaries until there is a final battle to crown the "Killer of Killers".

Two young Mormon Missionaries Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) have a Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant) as their last visit of the day.

He has expressly registered an interest in their faith and when he invites them in out of the rain, against protocol and their own misgivings they agree.

No good will come of this.

CW: some gore

Late WWII in a remote area of Finland, lone prospector Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila) strikes lucky and finds a huge deposit of gold.

While travelling to bank this he crosses paths with a group of retreating Waffen SS. Initially they ignore him but some stragglers decide to shake him down for whatever they can.

No good will come of this.

CW: riotously bloody grindhouse violence, rape

Riya (Eiza González) awakes in her quarters injured and unable to recall anything much. People she vaguely remembers as colleagues have been brutally murdered and the installation is malfunctioning. As she tries to get things working again she begins to get flashes of what happened: it might be that she is responsible.

Soon, Brion (Aaron Paul) arrives from the orbital station to find out why they've gone offline.

No good will come of this.

CW: gore, body horror

Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) is a pop princess on the promotional round for her comeback tour. It's a year since she was in a serious car accident that killed her high profile actor boyfriend and left her scarred and in pain.

The people around her are decent and supportive but with her history of drug use she is under the microscope and nobody will prescribe her the strong painkillers she thinks she needs even though she's made real progress on staying clean.

In desperation she goes to an old school friend who's her occasional drug dealer to get something to tide her over.

No good will come of this.

CW: suicide, mutilation, gore, loss of agency

Running on a platform of "Together", the notoriously hawkish General Thaddeus 'Thunderbolt' Ross (Harrison Ford) defies expectations and becomes POTUS.

It seems his intentions are genuine: he's trying to agree an international treaty on access to the new wonder material Adamantium found on Celestial Island and reaches out to Captain America (Anthony Mackie), who he once imprisoned, to reform the Avengers.

However following an assassination attempt Ross reverts to paranoid form leaving Cap to find out what's really going on.

Hirayama (Kōji Yakusho) lives a sparse life of striking uniformity.

Early every morning he buys coffee out of a vending machine and travels from his tiny home to clean toilets in Tokyo's public parks. He goes about this with great diligence.

At lunchtime Hirayama photographs the light through the trees. He mostly eats from the same few places. Aside from this he reads and listens to music, mostly 60s and 70s Western rock, on cassette. At night he dreams in black and white.

That's it.

Valerie Nguyen (Kelly Marie Tran) is a motivational self-help speaker with several successful books under her belt and about to embark on a speaking tour in Asia-pacific. This could catapult "the Queen of good habits" career to the next level.

Val has an affluent lifestyle and loving husband Robbie (Miles Robbins) and the pair are trying for a baby. Things couldn't be better: a world away from her working class Vietnamese immigrant childhood.

She just needs to get her birth certificate for the visa, something her estranged father may still have in a box somewhere. It's approaching the anniversary of Val's mother's death and she'd rather avoid speaking to him. Also she's developed an irritating persistent itch on the back of her head. Robbie says to visit the doctor but she's simply got no time for that.

No good will come of this.

CW: body horror, mutilation, bugs

In an alternative world where 1950s style helpful somewhat 'kawai' robots became ubiquitous eventually there is a robot uprising and war. Humanity prevails through the use of remotely piloted drones and the remaining robots are exiled to a huge country-sized enclave in the desert.

Now decades later that drone/VR technology has evolved so that people can become couch potatoes indulging in VR fantasies while using a fraction of their mind to do everyday labour, taking the place of the robots.

One day, orphan Michelle (Millie Bobby Brown) finds a fugitive robot in her backyard. It is in the form of Cosmo: a cartoon robot beloved by her younger brother who died around the time of the uprising. Through its rudimentary vocabulary of cartoon phrases it manages to persuade her that somehow it is him and that it needs her help.

Divine G (Colman Domingo) and Mike Mike (Sean San José) are on the "steering group" of inmates at the notorious maximum security prison Sing Sing that get to pick out people to be part of the "Rehabilitation Through the Arts" programme. Every six months RTA does a stage production for an audience of inmates.

Divine G suggests they bring in Clarence "Divine Eye" Maclin (himself) but the troubled drug dealer is sullen and disruptive claiming all their material is too serious and that they should do a comedy.

Unsure where to go with this the men throw in an absurd hotchpotch of ideas: cowboys, Egypt, pirates, time travel, Freddie Kruger and Hamlet but their external Director unexpectedly throws all this this into a script over a weekend.

Now all they've got to do is actually deliver it.

Sam (Lupita Nyong'o) is a terminal cancer patient currently residing in a hospice just outside New York with her cat Frodo.

She has become bitter and cynical, unwilling to take part in group activities, but is persuaded to head into the city for a theatre performance by the promise of pizza afterwards.

No good will come of this.

CW: violent mayhem

Diligence on the part of a security guard foils a break-in at the Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate building late one evening.

The five would-be burglars have unusual profiles and when Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) attends their hearing he finds that they are better represented than expected and one admits to being a former CIA agent.

Smelling something off he begins to collaborate with fellow reporter Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) on the story.

Elite US Army Sniper Levi (Miles Teller) is retired and unwilling to take on any assignments but is persuaded by a shadowy Intelligence Operative (Sigourney Weaver) that the one she has for him is of suitable import.

He is shipped to "The Gorge" a giant mist-filled crevasse. He must crew the western watchtower and maintain the significant automated defensive perimeter, alone for a whole year. He's not there to keep people out but to keep what's inside from getting out.

His opposite number in the east watchtower, Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy), is there to do the same on the behalf of Russia: this is some post-WWII Great Powers joint project that has survived the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union.

Communication across The Gorge is forbidden but as the months roll by boredom takes its toll and the pair start a weird long distance, drawn out flirtation.

No good will come of this.

CW: some body horror imagery

Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is in Arkham prison awaiting trial for the crimes committed in "Joker". His defence attorney Maryanne Stewart (Catherine Keener) is angling heavily for an insanity defence stating "Joker" is a separate personality. Fleck himself seems rudderless and is going along unconvincingly with this.

Contrary to stereotype the Arkham guards are occasionally humane and one (Brendan Gleeson) gets Arthur, who's been a compliant inmate, into a music therapy group. There he meets pyromaniac Lee (Lady Gaga), the two spark and suddenly Arthur has something to live for.

No good will come of this.

CW: some violence

Joe (Luke Wilson) is an astonishingly mediocre guy working in an archive department in the US military. He's trying very hard to avoid involvement in anything until he can muster out and cash in his pension but gets assigned to a secret military project.

When he arrives he finds that along with a prostitute Rita (Maya Rudolph) he has been chosen to test an experimental hibernation device that will revive the pair in one year's time.

No good will come of this.

CW: packed with slurs, generally offensive language, stereotypes and attitudes, which are all a key point of this pitch black satire

When large armoured bugs suddenly emerge from beneath the surface of the Earth they kill almost 95% of our population largely by surprise but also by virtue of being spectacularly hard to kill. Society mostly collapses but it's soon worked out they don't go higher than 8000ft above sea level. Mountain top communities form but things are precarious: little could be saved in the chaos.

Now three years later the medical supplies that keep his son alive are exhausted so Will (Anthony Mackie) decides he has to go down into the nearest city to search for more. He is accompanied by hunter Katie (Maddie Hasson) and antisocial scientist Nina (Morena Baccarin) who has been working on something that might kill the "Reapers". She just needs to get to her old lab...

No good will come of this.

FBI agent Husk (Jude Law) moves to Idaho to staff the previously vacant local office. Not expecting a heavy caseload he begins looking into outstanding low priority files.

When he notices a lot of White Supremacist flyers in town he pulls out the one relating to the large compound nearby where the 'Aryan Nation' live. Speaking to the local Sheriff's office they reckon they keep themselves to themselves and aren't a problem. Later a Deputy Bowen (Tye Sheridan) takes him aside and says he thinks they're quietly up to a great deal of illegal activity including counterfeiting. The Deputy has been making a dossier of seemingly unrelated crime that he thinks fits a pattern.

No good will come of this.

CW: white supremacy, antisemitism, Nazi symbols, salutes and language; the whole gamut of this stuff

A group of friends are staying in a cabin in the mountainous wooded wilderness. While out on a hike they find a derelict collapsed fire lookout tower where hanging from a beam is a shiny gold locket which one of them pockets.

No good will come of this.

CW: vicious bloody dismemberment

Paul Matthews (Nicolas Cage) is a tenured Professor of evolutionary biology at a mediocre University.

He feels he has failed academically and is bitter at onetime colleagues who have been more successful. He's not a bad man and his family love him but his wife Janet (Julianne Nicholson) does admit he has asshole tendencies.

When people all over the world start to experience him being present in their dreams he "goes viral".

No good will come of this.

CW: some flashing images

Rob (Nicolas Cage) lives an austere reclusive life in a cabin in the woods and hunts truffles for the fine dining market, relying on his truffle-hunting pig to find them.

He swaps the truffles for supplies with flash gastro-bro Amir (Alex Wolff) in a very one-sided arrangement but doesn't seem to mind being exploited.

One night people break into his cabin, knock him out and steal his pig. The following day Rob contacts Amir and demands to be driven into the city to get his pig back.

No good will come of this.

Section 31, the "off the books" Black Ops offshoot of Starfleet is in the process of trying to intercept a black market arms sale of a rumoured superweapon. The deal is taking place in the domain of former Terran Emperor and all-round born-to-be-bad-girl Phillipa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) and when it's clear they can't outplay her they instead attempt to recruit her.

No good will come of this.

CW: offensive accents of the most vile kind

Owen (Justice Smith/Ian Foreman) is an awkward child struggling with a tense situation at home: his mother is ill and father overbearing. Having seen and been intrigued by the trailer for a Buffy-like supernatural monster of the week TV show "The Pink Opaque" he's not allowed to watch it as it's on past his bedtime.

When he sees an older student Maddy (Jack Haven) reading an episode guide to "The Pink Opaque" he strikes up a conversation and she sneakily facilitates his interest by variously providing him with VHS tapes and occasionally letting him visit and watch it when he has lied about visiting a friend his own age.

Over the years the pair share their love of the show but don't otherwise socialise much. One day Maddy announces she is leaving and asks Owen to join her but in a moment of understandable youthful cowardice he doesn't.

No good will come of this.

CW: flickering lights

Five young people sign up to be part of a competition where they must stay in remote house for six months in order to share a million dollar prize. The house is stuffed with surveillance and they are being live streamed 24x7 on the Internet.

As the end approaches after very little drama beyond some relationship tensions suddenly things start to go wrong yet they convince themselves this is just an effort to make them forgo the prize.

No good will come of this.

1973: A botanist (Mary Woodvine) is stationed on an uninhabited island taking observations of a cluster of rare flowers. It is a stark place, home only to heather, lichen and birds. Once there was a mining community here but now all lies in ruins save the partially modernised cottage she is using.

She relies on supply drops of fuel and food with a shortwave radio her only contact with the outside world.

CW mild body horror and self-harm

Rose (Sosie Bacon) works as a Resident Therapist at a Psychiatric Hospital. Trauma from her childhood has lead her to become a workaholic: pulling enormous shifts perhaps to try and 'fix the world'.

Going out of the door after one of these she turns around to pick up one last call: a young woman admitted as an emergency who is screaming about being stalked by some kind of entity that is going to kill her.

No good will come of this.

CW: suicide, self-harm, mutilation, jump scares