Category Archives: Leave it

Movies I wish I had skipped. This could be for any number of reasons: the film was made sloppily, the narrative didn’t engage me, or I simply could not connect with the film in any way for whatever reason.

All Movie Reviews, Drama, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Suzuki=Bakudan — Fantasia Festival 2026 Movie Review

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Suzuki=Bakudan is screening as part of the 2026 Fantasia International Film Festival.

A man named Tagosaku Suzuki (Jiro Sato) is arrested for acting disorderly while intoxicated. While in police custody, he hints at the possibility of a large-scale bomb attack on the city—a bomb that then goes off. The drunk man (who doesn’t seem to be all that drunk) claims to have psychic knowledge of a series of bombs that will go off that night, leaving the police force with no choice but to listen to everything the man has to say in an attempt to prevent further harm.

Suzuki=Bakudan is essentially a showcase for actor Jiro Sato, whose self-declared psychic character is the center of the plot. The entire police department is wrapped around his finger, as he seems to have all the information regarding Continue reading Suzuki=Bakudan — Fantasia Festival 2026 Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Drama, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Insectasy — Fantasia Festival 2026 Movie Review

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Insectasy is screening as part of the 2026 Fantasia International Film Festival.

In Angus Silver’s Insectasy, we have Sadie (Tirion Healy). Sadie is a receptionist at a doctor’s office, where she daydreams listlessly. In the evening, she meets up with a group of friends, where she is the only single person. She zones out, not interested in their conversations. The only thing that animates her, seemingly, are erotic audiotapes which she listens to while being intimate, alone in her bedroom. Alone, save for some creepy crawlies whose movements on her skin stimulate her. In short, she has an insect fetish.

Aside from its central premise being less provocative than the film might think it is, Insectasy operates on a peculiar energy that is inviting even as its characters are off-putting. Sadie’s friend group are so absorbed in their romantic lives that they barely pay attention to her; nor her them, as their relationships are pitifully banal. The cute guy that Sadie eyes at work (Emmett Roiko) turns out to be Continue reading Insectasy — Fantasia Festival 2026 Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Drama, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Backstage Madness — Fantasia Festival 2026 Movie Review

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Backstage Madness is screening as part of the 2026 Fantasia International Film Festival

Backstage Madness, a film from Kyrgyzstan from director Amanbek Azhymat, opens with a frenetic, violent sequence fueled by its central character’s inner rage. The character in question, an unnamed screenwriter (Bolot Tileberdiev) typing away at his office typewriter, first appears to be writing a script commissioned by an overtly creepy young man looking to live out his fantasies of non-consensual sex on-screen. The screenwriter loses his cool with the festering creep when the young man starts describing his real-life sex crimes. The scene shifts in tone at least three times as the humor sours into a disgust which begets on-screen violence (which, frankly, evoked some confusion in this dear viewer). It is evident that this all takes place in the imagination of the writer, who culminates the sequence gunning down a crowd of angry people (in his mind, of course).

There is perhaps a meta-textual commentary to this opening sequence, given that the plot immediately turns to focus on Continue reading Backstage Madness — Fantasia Festival 2026 Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Horror, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Review: Sugar Rot — Fantasia Festival 2025

Sugar Rot had its Quebec premiere on Aug 1 as part of the Fantasia International Film Festival.

Sugar Rot is billed as a feminist, punk rock, body horror film. It does involve the horrific transformation of a body, that of the protagonist fittingly named Candy (Chloe Macleod). One location in the film presents a few punk rock bands performing. And the John Waters-esque story world produced by director Becca Kozak is obsessed with female body standards and the normalization of the exploitation of women’s bodies. So, check, check, and check on the billing. At face value, at least.

There is a cruel contradiction at the sugary core of Sugar Rot. As Candy’s body becomes candy (literally), every character wants to Continue reading Review: Sugar Rot — Fantasia Festival 2025 →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Drama, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Review: $POSITIONS — Fantasia Festival 2025

$POSITIONS had its Quebec premiere on July 30 as part of the Fantasia International Film Festival.

It is hard to shake the resemblance between Brandon Daley’s $POSITIONS and Benny and Josh Safdie’s Good Time. The two brothers at the center, the economically motivated premise, the ill-conceived choices, the propulsive synth score. The two films are so similar, in fact, that by the time this review goes live, every other person on the Internet will likely have already made the comparison.

The biggest difference between the two films is in the tone, where $POSITIONS is more overtly comedic. More specifically, it is a comedy of errors meets grossout comedy sort of cringe comedy. And its gags get so Continue reading Review: $POSITIONS — Fantasia Festival 2025 →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Horror, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Review: Hold the Fort — Fantasia Festival 2025

Hold the Fort had its world premiere on July 16 as part of the Fantasia International Film Festival.

Herbert Gruber (Mark Ashworth) sets down a box of “Shoot ‘Em Dead” shotgun shells and hands his wife Mable (Devney Nixon) a wooden stake. Herb insists that nothing could convince him to sell his family’s land. Over his dead body, and all that. “Nothing’s takin’ my land,” Herb says. Then, he arms himself for a night full of a cryptid sort of self-defense.

William Bagley’s Hold the Fort is a broad horror comedy centering on the new tenants of Gruber Hills. Following Herb apparently not making it through the night, the suburb has a new home for sale. Lucas (Chris Mayers) and Jenny (Haley Leary) arrive to the warm welcome of the HOA representative (Julian Smith), who informs them of the portal that annually sends through a bevy of Continue reading Review: Hold the Fort — Fantasia Festival 2025 →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Drama, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025) Movie Review

After nearly 30 years, the Mission: Impossible film franchise is finally (maybe) coming to an end. As a time capsule, it has tracked Hollywood’s A-list golden boy Tom Cruise through multiple eras of Hollywood blockbuster. In 1996, the town was dominated by movies led by actors who could “open.” That list of talent who can sell a movie on their star power alone has long since shrunk into (arguably) a single digit number.

Cruise has fought to remain on this dwindling list, largely hanging his hat on the franchise that allows him to tout death-defying stunts and globe-trotting exploits. The franchise has grown with his outsized ambition, bloating into epics of grandiose international espionage with ludicrous plots and lengthy (and often exquisitely choreographed) set pieces.

For those that enjoy the fare, the ballooning insanity of the franchise’s stunts (and runtimes) is not only accepted but encouraged. It is only expected, then, that Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie would fully embrace the Continue reading Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

The Final Destination (2009) Movie Review

Our retrospective of the Final Destination series has reached its most confusingly-titled entry, The Final Destination. This is the fourth installment in the franchise. This was an odd era in Hollywood where studios occasionally got scared of sequels with numbers attached to them, so they simply dropped the number. Fast & Furious (the fourth one) came out the same year as The Final Destination (the fourth one), same with Terminator: Salvation (the fourth one). There’s also Rambo in 2008 (the fourth one). Some real tetraphobia going on here. See also: Rocky Balboa in 2006 (the sixth one), Saw 3D in 2010 (the seventh one).

It reminds me of the 2020s trend of studios splitting long blockbusters into two parts, numbering each part, then getting skittish and frantically renaming them. I think the Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part One thing directly impacted the film’s box office performance.

Immediately, The Final Destination sets itself apart from previous entries by (1) piping in some certified dad rock with Shinedown’s “Devour,” and (2) abandoning all sense of Continue reading The Final Destination (2009) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Captain America: Brave New World (2025) Movie Review

I’d be lying if I told you that I was a Marvel fan. I’d be lying if I told you that I have held even an iota of anticipation for the last phase of Marvel films (I didn’t even watch The Marvels). That said, I can’t clearly see how a Marvel fan would get much of satisfaction out of the MCU’s latest outing, Captain America: Brave New World. Unless you are a die-hard stan for fictional metals from the Marvel universe, even the easter eggs in this are going to come off as sub-par.

Marvel appears to be hoping that the back-half of their 2025 slate – made up of Thunderbolts* and Fantastic Four: First Steps – will drum up some sort of resurgence for the MCU. These films also serve as the bridge between Marvel’s fifth and sixth phases, meaning that Continue reading Captain America: Brave New World (2025) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Horror, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Psychotronic

F CinemaScore Double Features: mother! (2017) and Moonchild (1972)

This is a new series centering on films which have received “F” scores from CinemaScore. CinemaScore polls theater-goers during a film’s opening weekend, gauging the average consumer’s thoughts on new releases. An F CinemaScore is potentially a PR nightmare for a film, as it indicates that, on the main, the people most excited to see a film on its opening weekend hated it.

We’ve covered F CinemaScore films on this site before, including Andrew Dominik’s Killing Them Softly (which I think is fairly great) and the subject of this article, mother! With this series, we pair an ill-fated F CinemaScore movie with a second, thematically similar film and make a double feature out of it. Today’s double feature pairs Darren Aronofsky’s mother! with Alan Gadney’s New Age, surreal spiritual journey film Moonchild.

This is Part 1 of an ongoing series. However, future installments will be published on a new Substack newsletter called Bleeding Eye Cinema. Part 2 of the CinemaScore Double Feature series is already live at that site. On Bleeding Eye Cinema, we take a look at weird, WTF, underseen, cult, psychotronic, B- and Z-grade, and all other manner of headache-inducing movies. Come join us and let the CRT electron beams melt the jelly off your eyeballs!

Moonchild (Alan Gadney, 1972)

Moonchild begins with a quote from clairvoyant Edgar Cayce, an influential figure in what would come to be known as the New Age movement: “You may not even have to come back at all if you become perfectly developed in this life…”

One of Cayce’s trance-induced contributions to culture were his proclamations to the existence of fictional locations like Atlantis. Cayce may be the most fitting place to enter into Continue reading F CinemaScore Double Features: mother! (2017) and Moonchild (1972) →