May 2026 [6-17]
We Bury the Dead, Lord of the Flies, Hallow Road, Strange Harvest, Missing
- We Bury the Dead [2025] - 62
Another film by These Final Hours director, Zak Hilditch, We Bury the Dead uses another familiar end of the world setting to tell a slightly less familiar story. Instead of a meteoric apocalypse, this time we have a weapons-test-turned-zombies. A little tried, the undead themselves are beautifully rendered with some truly spectacular practical effects, and the story is pocked by moments of insightful ingenuity, but the whole package fails to wrap itself into either a pretty enough bow or rugged enough emotional package to be wholly worth the runtime. Shared events between characters don’t get talked about, they over-talk about other things entirely for the benefit of the audience, and the ultimate conclusion of the tale just falls a little flat due to some inappropriate comedy and a few flimsily constructed narrative piers that falter under the weight this movie wanted to bear. Certainly not a “failing” by Hilditch here, but also not as strong as his aforementioned inaugural work either. Still, he’s doing interesting things with worn out genres, and I’ll definitely be watching his future projects because of it.
- Lord of the Flies [2026] - 72
Of all the things that 2026 has brought us, a 4-hour adaptation of William Golding’s 1954 classic is certainly one of them. This is a difficult piece to rate and talk about because I don’t remember the book in any meaningful way, so it’s hard to know if my qualms are with the original text, or the adaptation. That said, the strong pieces of this are incredibly strong and continue to showcase Jack Thorne’s immense talents [creator of my #6 of 2025, Adolescence]. Shots are evocative and motivated, the performances he squeezes out of these young actors are absolutely immense, and the whole thing has an air of polish and ambition that I think is truly worthy of praise. That said, it’s also just… way too long. This is one of those instances of a story either needing more time to truly flesh out all of its characters and struggles, or considerably less; Seriously cutting them down to get to the point and send everyone home with a nice giftbag of feelings and lessons. The show’s ending is powerful and still incredibly relevant, but I ultimately enjoyed my time with this a little more out of obligation than pure entertainment merit.
- Hallow Road [2025] - 67
From Under the Shadow’s, Babak Anvari, and writer, William Gillies [who’s work I do not know], comes Irish folklore-thriller, Hallow Road. Now, the most important thing to know about this film is that it is not Steven Knight’s Locke [my #22 of 2023], and you need to nip any comparisons in the bud before they even get going. That out of the way, Hallow Road is a mostly effective single-ish location thriller that takes some weathered concepts and employs them in ways that are both interesting and fresh, making for a good [if slightly annoying] time. This is definitely a movie that’s going to be hit-or-miss with people [as evidenced by its Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 88/48… A combination of things I now find weird seeing that my rating is almost exactly the average of the two], because they’re either going to enjoy both the journey and the twist, or they’re going to hate both things in their entirety. There’s things I liked about this, but it’s not one that I’ll necessarily be recommending any time soon.
- Strange Harvest [2024] - 59
Speaking of movies that tried new things with already boiled topics… Strange Harvest is a movie that could have been great, but needed both a second and third pass to really hone in its style. The whole thing is presented as a “true crime” documentary with interviews and case logs and crime scene photos, but there’s a level of pageantry to its execution that’s simply too false while also being overly graphic and silly at times; Foibles that make the whole approach distracting instead of engaging. Things I can forgive first and even second or third attempts for, Strange Harvest is Stuart Ortiz’ 6th film, and I feel like there’s lessons that should have been learned by this point. That said, the story itself is interesting in a Lovecraftian way, and I hope this is a style he sticks to and files into perfection, because it could be something very very impressive and dark to watch. Fictional stories presented entirely as fact are moving and surreal and frightening, and the quality of the effects in this movie speak to what I think Ortiz and his team can do, but there’s some awkward edges that need serious trimming if this is going to be a thing that works out.
- Missing [2023] - 60
The stylistic-sequel to 2018’s Searching, Will Merrick, Nicholas D. Johnson, and Sev Ohanian are back with their “told entirely through webcams and newsreels” mystery series in the form of, Missing… This time with less stellar results. While still boasting much of the incredibly impressive presentation of their previous film, Missing is… well, missing the part where the mystery is just as gripping as the way the film itself is actually made. Where Searching was enthralling and anxiety inducing, Missing invigors less a frantic call to the police, and more a mild forward lean from your chair while it quickly launders any authenticity it has into pure popcorn-munching, murder-podcast shenanigans as the film goes on. It’s only 9-minutes longer than its cousin, but it feels like 20. While I think some of this is due to the first film being about a missing teen and the second about a missing adult, the story, stepping stones, and ultimate twist in Searching are just so good, that the same processes in Missing come across as bland and, ultimately kind of silly. I’ll still watch whatever this team puts out next, but this one is massively overshadowed by the brilliant work that came before it.
