Scary Movie (2026) – Movie Review

TL;DR – It is a perfectly okay entry into the series, where some of the jokes still land, but it struggles to find its voice

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There are mid-credit scenes.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

Ghostface drinking tea.

Scary Movie Review Introduction

Now, before we jump in, I do have something to confess, and on the off chance one of my parents is reading this, maybe skip to the next paragraph. I kind of have a soft spot for Scary Movie as it was the first MA15+ film I saw in cinemas. In that rebellious phase where you realised you didn’t need parental approval to get into the cinemas. As far as parodies go, it was and still is streets ahead of many of its contemporaries and most of the followers that were spawned in the years after its success. But as time went on, the series had diminishing returns as it devolved into a funhouse mirror clip-show of pop culture. However, not only is this latest instalment coming at a time when Horror films are in ascendance, I mean Obsession and Backrooms just killed a Star Wars at the box office. But also, the original creators are back, and I am interested to see if they can bring the same intensity to the franchise twenty-six years later.

So, to set the scene, it has been many years since Ghostface struck, and many think he is a fable, or just a bad horror movie holdover, that is, until he turns up at Tuesday’s (Savannah Lee Nassif) house, brandishing his knife. Tuesday’s stabbing causes her sister Sara (Olivia Rose Keegan) and her not-at-all-suspicious boyfriend Jack (Cameron Scott Roberts) to return home and visit Sara’s mother, Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris), who has been preparing for this day for years. There is a killer on the loose, so it is time to bring the gang back together, including Brenda Meeks (Regina Hall), Ray Wilkins (Shawn Wayans), and Shorty Meeks (Marlon Wayans), before Ghostface kills them off one by one in elaborate referential deaths.       

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Shrinking: Season 2 – TV Review

TL;DR – It is rare when a series can both genuinely make me laugh down to my core yet also deliver one of the most potent emotional slaps to the face that I have ever gotten.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the AppleTV+ service that viewed this series.

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

Shrinking. Image Credit: AppleTV+.

In today’s binge-streaming culture, it is almost expected that you will sit down and plough through a series in one or two sessions. Television that is almost just on in the background while you are doing other things. Well, today, we look at a series that respects you as a viewer in a way that you can’t watch all of it in one sitting because you need to savour every moment of it.

So, to set the scene, throughout Season One, Jimmy Laird (Jason Segel) was trying to find his place in the world as he was still reeling from the tragic death of his wife Tia (Lilan Bowden) in a car crash years earlier. It was in this space that he decided to try a more hands-on type of therapy with his clients called ‘Jimmying’. There were success stories and failures, but it was working right up until one of Jimmy’s patients, Grace (Heidi Gardner), decided to take some advice a touch too literally and pushed her abusive boyfriend off a cliff. Meanwhile, Gaby (Jessica Williams) is dealing with always having to be the support mechanism for her family while starting a new role as professor, Sean (Luke Tennie) is working through having his dad back in his life, Alice (Lukita Maxwell) is still processing her own grief, and Paul’s (Harrison Ford) Parkinson’s is getting worse. Now, from here, we will be looking at the series as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.  

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Shrinking: Season 1 – TV Review

TL;DR – This is a delightfully sad, yet also uplifting, series of broken people doing broken things, yet finding the strength to be better in each other.  

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the AppleTV+ service that viewed this series.

Paul on a couch reflecting on his life.

Shrinking Review

Recently, there has been a running theme of there being a lot of good shows on AppleTV+ that absolutely no one is watching because the channel cannot seem to advertise anything that is not Ted Lasso. Now, while I have jammed with a lot of the sci-fi that they have, like Silo and Foundation, I think this would be an excellent time to see what else the service has to offer. The first stop in this exploration is a show that has been heavily recommended to me, and with that cast, I can understand why.  

So, to set the scene, it is late one night, like 3 a.m., and Liz (Christa Miller) and her husband Derek (Ted McGinley) are trying to work out who is going to go down and tell their neighbour Jimmy (Jason Segel) to turn off their music and stop making noise in the pool. Jimmy clearly looks to be an emotional mess who is trying to self-medicate via illicit substances and people you hire late at night for their professional services. That looks even worse in the morning when you see that disaster unfold with his daughter Alice (Lukita Maxwell) ghosting him, there being no petrol in his car, and a bike that does not quite fit. The good thing is that it looks like Jimmy is going to therapy until you realise that he is the therapist.   

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Movie Review – Life of the Party

 TL;DR – A fun uplifting comedy that I found myself smiling all the way through.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no Post-Credit Scene

Life of the Party

Review

To be perfectly honest I was not actually planning to go see Life of the Party, because of a couple of reasons. It came out during a particularly big work week for me, and also from the trailers, it looked like many, many other comedies I have sat through over the last couple of years. But I had some free time today and it was on so I thought what the hell, and I am actually really glad that I did.

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