Well Go USA Entertainment is bringing “Frontier Crucible” to home video. Directed by Travis Mills, this gritty frontier Western captures much of what has made the genre so beloved while adding its own distinct flavor. Anchored by compelling character work, stunning cinematography, slow-simmering suspense, and bursts of unflinching violence, this is a modern day Western that excels as both an intriguing character study and full-blown genre entertainment. Read my full review of the film [HERE].
This edition of “Frontier Crucible” will be available on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD this Tuesday, February 17th. See below for a full synopsis of the film as well as release information including a list of special features.
About the Film:
Year: 2025
Runtime: 124 Minutes
Director: Travis Mills
Screenwriters: S. Craig Zahler
Cast: Myles Clohessy, Thomas Jane, Mary Stickley, Ryan Masson, Armie Hammer, Eli Brown, Zane Holtz, Eddie Spears, William H. Macy
Rating: R for strong/bloody violence and grisly images.
From the producer of Bone Tomahawk. A desperately needed wagon full of medical supplies falls victim to an Apache attack. The only man who can guide it through to its destination is Merrick Beckford, but in order to get there he’ll need to enlist the help of a trio of dangerous outlaws hell-bent on survival. When they accidentally kill an Apache scout, all bets are off and survival is the name of the game in director Travis Mills’s western thriller.
Director Daniel J. Phillips takes us into the unsettling world of religious horror with “Diabolic”. It’s a well-traveled subgenre that has been approached from nearly every angle imaginable. Yet when done right, filmmakers have shown that there are still some good frights to be found, even if we’re in well-travelled territory. Sadly, that isn’t the case with the underwhelming “Diabolic”.
“Diabolic” is a slow-moving supernatural chiller that hits many of the same thematic and subgenre beats that we’ve seen in numerous other movies of its kind. That said, it still would have worked if the film could have added just a little more of its own original flavor. Yet none of its efforts at doing so are all that compelling.
To their credit, the screenwriters (Phillips, Mike Harding, and Tricia Madsen) attempt to build a foundation that we’re told is inspired by true events. But the perfunctory buildup quickly leads to a glaringly ill-advised trip that soon devolves into another story about weird, rigid religious people and one malevolent evil spirit. And from the movie’s perspective, one is just as bad as the other.
Elizabeth Cullen plays Elise, a young artist suffering from debilitating blackouts. As her episodes become more frequent, they grow longer and more violent. Desperate for help, Elise’s psychiatrist offers her one more option before admitting her to the hospital. He believes her blackouts are the result of buried trauma from growing up in the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints – a fringe offshoot of the Mormon Church. He suggests exposure therapy. More specifically, that she travels to the church and seeks help from their healers. Yikes.
So Elise, her supportive husband or boyfriend Adam (John Kim), and her self-invited best friend Gwen (Mia Challis) load up and travel deep into the forest, well away from civilization to the off-the-grid fundamentalist compound. There they meet the homely Hyrum (Robin Goldsworthy) and his stern mother, Alma (Genevieve Mooy). Together they all engage in a warped, hallucinogenic drug-induced ritual at the site of her worst trauma. What could go wrong?
As the baffling character choices mount up, the story branches out in a couple of directions. One involves a series of clunky flashbacks as Elise begins recalling her relationship with a fellow church member, Clara (Luca Sardelis). The other introduces the vengeful spirit of a cursed witch (Seraphine Harley) that is inadvertently released during the healing ritual. Neither leave much of an impression. The Clara bit is an angle we’ve seen countless times before. And the witch isn’t established enough to be as threatening as she needs to be.
In terms of horror, “Diabolic” puts most of its effort into creating a creepy atmosphere. And that’s possibly the movie’s biggest strength. It also does some pretty cool things in the practical effects department. But outside of one lone gloriously gruesome slaying, none of the few kills we get stand out at all. That, along with a story that often seems at odds with itself, leaves us with a movie that has the right setting and develops the right tone, but that lacks the narrative freshness or genre punch to stand out from the crowd.
When a highly contagious, mutating microorganism with world-ending capabilities threatens to escape a decommissioned military facility, the unlikely trio of Joe Keery, Georgina Campbell, and Liam Neeson are the only thing standing between our planet and total annihilation. If that sounds crazy to you, then you get the vibe of “Cold Storage”, a comedy horror film that is utterly bonkers in the best ways imaginable.
You would never know it, but “Cold Storage” is only the second feature film from director Jonny Campbell and his first since 2006’s “Alien Autopsy”. Here he gets some terrific material to work with from screenwriter David Koepp, who is adapting his own 2019 novel of the same name. Just as good is the all-in cast who fully embraces the film’s horror and comedy elements. Keery, Campbell, and Neeson take center stage. But they’re surrounded by great pieces including Leslie Manville, Vanessa Redgrave, and Sosie Bacon.
Some opening script tells us the government once stored top-secret scientific experiments on the Skylab space station. When it fell out of orbit in 1979, some of its debris crashed to earth. Most fell in the Indian Ocean, but other parts hit land, including an oxygen tank near the small village of Kiwirrkurra in Western Australia. When all contact with the village is lost, bioterror agent Major Robert Quinn (Neeson) and his partner Trini (Manville) accompany Dr. Hero Martins (Bacon) to investigate. The trio discovers a rapidly mutating parasitic fungus that is highly contagious and lethal to its carrier.
Jump ahead eighteen years to the remote Atchison Mines in Missouri River Bluffs, Kansas. It was once the home to a high security top-secret facility ran by the U. S. Department of Defense. But years passed and the DOD decommissioned the facility. After remaining abandoned for years, it was finally purchased and turned into a 24-hour self-storage business.
Enter the chatty and slightly neurotic Teacake (Keery) and his new co-worker Naomi (Campbell). They work the night shift at the storage company which usually consists of long boring evenings where nothing happens. But that quickly changes after the overly curious pair track a mysterious beep to an old console behind the walls. It leads to the duo discovering the once sealed military base and more specifically its lower sublevel where the parasitic fungus had been isolated for decades.
As you can probably guess, the deadly fungus spreads and wrecks havoc throughout the complex. Meanwhile, alarms secretly go out to the Department of Defense who immediately contact the retired Major Quinn. He’s sent to the Kansas location to contain the fungus before it escapes the facility. But he’ll need some specialized equipment, and maybe a little help from some old and new friends if he’s going to head off a potential apocalypse.
“Cold Storage” manages to surprise in so many different ways. First is the effortlessly playful chemistry between Keery and Campbell. Together they mine as many laughs as scares from Koepp’s gleefully outrageous script. Then there’s the lights-out supporting characters. In addition to Neeson and Manville’s special agents, we get Teacake and Naomi’s slimeball boss (Gavin Spokes), Naomi’s obsessive ex (Aaron Heffernan), a stubborn DOD Colonel (Robert Brake), Quinn’s inside ally (Ellora Torchia), and the elderly Mrs. Rooney (Redgrave) who comes to check her storage unit at the worst possible time.
Just as fun are the film’s visuals which feature a healthy helping of practical effects with some well incorporated digital enhancement. I don’t know if decaying flesh or bursting bodies ever looked so good. So as you can tell, “Cold Storage” has a little something for everyone. It doesn’t lean too far one way or another – striking that pitch-perfect balance between straight comedy and gory horror. And as a proud genre film lover, it delivered on its potential in ways that I ever expected.
Jason Statham’s latest first quarter action thriller is “Shelter”, and it’s a nice escape from heavier awards season stock. You would be hard-pressed to say “Shelter” breaks new ground. But it does fit snugly within Statham’s wheelhouse. And for fans of the 58-year-old’s specific brand of action, it has all the ingredients while hitting the familiar marks they’ve come to expect.
Stunt performer turned director Ric Roman Waugh follows up several solid collaborations with Gerard Butler (minus 2019’s “Angel Has Fallen”) with a Statham vehicle that’s built upon an easy to recognize foundation. A man with a secret past lives a quiet, discreet life until he’s pushed back into the life he had tried to put behind him. That’s literally the basic premise of Statham’s last two movies. And we get it again in “Shelter”, but with a small yet meaningful twist.
Image Courtesy of Black Bear Pictures
Statham plays Michael Mason, a former government assassin within MI6’s top-secret Black Kite program. Years earlier, Mason went rogue during a critical mission which made him a target of his own agency. As a result, Mason went off the grid, quietly living in an old lighthouse on a tiny island in the Scottish Isles. Once a week he’s left a crate of supplies by a young girl named Jessie (Bodhi Rae Breathnach) who comes to the island on her uncle’s boat. Otherwise he keeps to himself, living in seclusion and out of MI6’s eye.
After dropping off supplies, Jessie and her uncle get caught in a storm. Mason manages to save the injured girl, but her uncle drowns when their boat sinks. Realizing he needs medicine to treat Jessie’s injury, Mason risks exposing himself by going into the closest town. There his image is captured and funneled through MI6’s fancy new surveillance system where his old handler and MI6 dark agent Manafort (Bill Nighy) dispatches a kill squad to track down and eliminate his old asset and any witnesses.
Mason wastes no time offing Manafort’s team before taking Jessie on the run, using back channels and old connections to keep her safe. But Manafort intensifies his pursuit, revealing his own devious motives in the process. Meanwhile a driven and upright young agent named Roberta (Naomi Ackie) begins filling in the blanks to Mason’s backstory while discovering the real reason behind Manafort’s efforts to kill the best of his former assassins.
Image Courtesy of Black Bear Pictures
Most of “Shelter” follows Mason’s attempt to stay one step ahead of Manafort’s killers, from his island lighthouse to the rural countryside to downtown London. It’s laced with a variety of solid action scenes that includes car chases, shoot-outs, and (of course) some bone-cracking fight sequences. But the difference maker is Mason’s emerging relationship with Jessie. The father-daughter dynamic that forms adds heart. And both Statham and Breathnach breathe a surprising amount of life into it.
Yet outside of that, there’s not a lot here that we haven’t seen before. It’s a nagging issue that stayed in the back of my mind throughout. But Statham fans (a group I consider myself to be a part of) will find themselves at home with the action star’s latest. The film has its share of thrills, and the evolving relationship at its core gives “Shelter” a welcomed emotional kick that serves the movie well.
Defining the Strangers movie franchise is no easy task. The original 2008 film, “The Strangers” was truly chilling, and over time it became a cult classic. Its clunker 2018 sequel, “Prey at Night” didn’t fare near as well. But the real confusion came in 2024 with the release of “The Strangers – Chapter 1”, the first film in a new trilogy from director Renny Harlin. “Chapter 2” followed in 2025, and now here we are in early 2026 with “Chapter 3”.
It takes some research to figure out what the trilogy is meant to be. It’s not a prequel trilogy as many of us first thought, but it’s not necessarily a reboot or a rematch either. Instead its creators consider it a “relaunch” and have said that it exists within the same universe as the original two films. That may explain it in words, but finding a concrete connection between the older movies and the newer ones is easier said than done.
Image Courtesy of Lionsgate
Regardless, the trilogy has been quite the rollercoaster ride. “Chapter 1” played like 30 minutes worth of content stretched into a 90-minute movie. But “Chapter 2” was a surprising step up despite a few problems of its own. As with its predecessors, “Chapter 3″ has its own set of issues. Yet it manages to do a serviceable job tying the trilogy together and bringing it to decent conclusion.
“Chapter 3” begins exactly where the previous film left off. After spending the last movie fleeing from the three masked psychopathic strangers, Maya (Madelaine Petsch) managed to kill the one called Pin-Up Girl just before the credits rolled. Now the remaining two, Scarecrow and Dollface, mourn her in their own twisted way before continuing their pursuit of Maya in and around the rural timber town of Venus, Oregon.
Elsewhere the prowling Sheriff Rotter (played by the wonderfully unsettling Richard Brake) patrols the forest-lined country roads with motivations that could be called sketchy at best. Meanwhile Maya’s sister, Debbie (Rachel Shenton) and her husband Howard (George Young) arrive in Venus with a hired bodyguard (Miles Yekinni) after learning Maya was never picked up by the ambulance sent to bring her back home to Portland. Their investigation intersects with the good sheriff while Maya tries to get a leg up on her maniacal pursuers.
Harlin breaks up the current day mayhem with several flashbacks that not only reveal the identities of the deranged serial-killing trio, but how they came together and how they’ve managed to continue murdering for years. These scenes add some disturbing context to the strangers, as well as the townsfolk of Venus. We end up learning more through them than any other part of the movie.
Image Courtesy of Lionsgate
As for our protagonist, much of “Chapter 3” emphasizes the evolution of Maya whose trauma makes her increasingly cold and calloused. It’s a tricky task for the committed Petsch whose performances throughout the trilogy have come in three phases. Each film asks her to do something different, yet all three performances are distinctly connected. So it’s impossible to fairly judge what she’s doing in “Chapter 3” without factoring in the previous movies. When you do, it’s easy to appreciate what she accomplishes.
The Strangers trilogy has become a cheap critical punching bag for many, but it’s far from the cataclysmic disaster it’s made out to be. It’s hard to justify spreading the story out into three feature length films and their strict dependency on seeing the other movies are somewhat of a handicap. As for “Chapter 3”, it may succeed in wrapping things up, but it’s not without its lapses in logic. Still, it manages to do what it needs to do as a final chapter. And judging by its box office performance, it could very well be the FINAL chapter.
Horror fans can rejoice! For the first time in seventeen years Sam Raimi returns to the genre he cut his teeth on. Well, sort of. His latest film, “Send Help” could easily be categorized as a survival thriller. But it’s Sam Raimi, the director of the original three Evil Dead movies. So to no surprise, “Send Help” has its share of grisly horror and pitch-black comedy. And I kinda loved every moment.
“Send Help” goes down like a cocktail of ”Horrible Bosses”, “Castaway”, and “Misery” but seasoned with Raimi’s own special sauce. Written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, the story gives a deliciously meaty role to Rachel McAdams who relishes every twisted second she’s given. Dylan O’Brien is wonderfully detestable as a smarmy privileged slimeball. Together they breathe fire into this bonkers mashup that goes in some delirious directions.
Image Courtesy of 20th Century Studios
McAdams plays Linda Liddle, a homely and awkward accountant working for a prominent consulting firm. Linda is a numbers guru who is hardworking and a valuable behind-the-scenes asset to the company. So much so that the CEO had promised to promote her to the vice president position. But after he unexpectedly dies, his entitled son Bradley (O’Brien) takes the reins and immediately promotes his college buddy Donovan (Xavier Samuel) to VP.
As for Linda (who Bradley is repulsed by), he secretly plans to have her transferred to an obscure go-nowhere position. But before he does, Bradley agrees to take Linda along on an overseas business trip to finalize a major merger. But as their private jet passes through a severe storm, its engines fail which sends the plane crashing into the ocean. Linda miraculously survives, washing ashore on a remote island somewhere in the Gulf of Thailand.
As Linda gets her bearings, she discovers an injured and unconscious Bradley on the beach. Lucky for him, Linda is a survival enthusiast with a load of skills she learned as an avid watcher of the television show “Survivor” (one of my favorite early gags). When Bradley finally comes to, he wastes no time belittling Linda’s efforts and asserting himself as her boss. But he quickly learns this isn’t the same “Linda from accounting” and they aren’t in the office any more. Madcap blood-soaked hijinks ensue.
Image Courtesy of 20th Century Studios
Raimi has a blast playing around with the multi-faceted dynamic between Linda and Bradley. He uses aspects from their professional and personal lives to define our hero and our villain. But one of the great joys of “Send Help” is its unpredictability. And we get good taste of it once Raimi starts blurring the lines between who’s good and who’s bad. We can’t help but root for Linda as she turns the tables on her douche of a boss. But “Send Help” has more up its sleeve than just that. And the moral ambiguity that arises from the primal chaos adds to the entertainment.
As some biting social commentary percolates amid the psychological mind games and physical savagery, Raimi never loses sight of the premise’s B-movie appeal. He giddily unloads some crazy action, gobs of gore, and warped humor with a nasty edge. Its biggest weakness is an ending that’s a tad too tidy. But the overall film is so insanely fun that it’s hard getting hung up on minor quibbles. Instead you’ll be amped to see it again. And you’ll once again be wondering why Rachel McAdams isn’t a bigger star.
Keith & the Movies 