A decent amount of releases this week and I’ll start with one of the most underrated movies of 2025, Roofman. Based on a true story, Channing Tatum gives one of his best performances in a bizarre yet charming story. He plays a veteran who turns to robbing fast food chains to make ends meet and to take care of his family. After getting caught because he was nice, he breaks out of prison and finds himself living in a Toys R Us and trying to create a new life while being on the run. The cover art makes it seem like a comedy, but it’s more a drama with comedic elements. The comedic parts get big laughs, but Tatum’s actions especially with his family and Kirsten Dunst’s family are more dramatic than comedic. I like when Tatum does these “everyman” roles and it’s probably my favorite performance of his after Logan Lucky. He’s charming and despite being a criminal, he’s easy to root for and you hope he gets away with everything. If you missed it in 2025, I highly recommend it even though it goes on a bit longer than it should.
Second we have Fackham Hall. Despite a cast including Thomasin McKenzie, Katherine Waterston, Jimmy Carr, Tom Felton, and Damian Lewis, I had no idea this film existed. A parody of British period pieces like Downton Abbey, it pokes fun at the aristocracy of the time period and gets some pretty solid laughs. McKenzie is an underrated actress who plays the free spirited daughter of Waterston and Lewis. Her sister is to wed their cousin (Felton), but leaves him at the altar because she loves another man. It’s up to McKenzie to now marry or the family would lose Fackham Hall by not having a surviving male heir. A messenger boy ends up working there and falling for McKenzie’s character, but will love conquer tradition? It’s a pretty solid parody that I found entertaining. Waterston might be the surprise because I don’t know if I’ve ever seen her do comedy before. Jimmy Carr gets huge laughs as the vicar at the wedding ceremonies. You’ll guess the surprise twist, but the movie is entertaining enough I won’t complain about that.
Sticking with Tom Felton, he also has out Altered, a sci-fi film co-starring Richard Brake and shot in Kazakhstan. In a post-dystopian setting, you are either a genetically altered human enhanced with evolutionary technology or a nobody living poorly and barely surviving. Felton plays a man in a wheelchair trying to help the down & out, but learns the government isn’t playing fairly and is soon being hunted by them. Along with a young girl, he gets a pop star to help in their fight to overthrow the corruption. You can clearly tell this was made overseas because other than Felton and Brake, you won’t recognize anyone else. The acting isn’t great and neither is its production value. No one will be getting this confused with Upgrade. With better talent it might have worked and it attempts to have a surprise twist, but by the time that rolls around will the audience even care?
Infinite Summer is another alternate timeline film that I got nothing out of. It’s about some girls on their summer break and weird technology they use to enhance their emotions and mind. I have no idea what on Earth I was supposed to take away from it. I guess it’s some sort of coming of age story with weird tech, but it’s also clearly a foreign film with no one I recognize either. The lead actress isn’t bad, but the ending made no sense and it did absolutely nothing for me. The director seems to have a following, but I’m not familiar with them. It has a good Rotten Tomatoes score, but I clearly missed the point of it.
Two films make their Tromatic Special Edition
Blu-ray debuts this week as well. First is Frightmare. If you ever watched Weekend at Bernie’s and wondered what it would be like if it was a horror movie starring Vincent Price or Bela Lugosi this is the movie for you! It’s about an aging horror icon who dies at an event. Fans in a film class break into his mausoleum and take his body to party with it. But soon they learn he has one last performance in him as he comes back from the dead to get revenge on the students. Jeffrey Combs of Re-Animator fame plays one of the college kids. It has a cool aesthetic and I know I’ve heard of it, I’m just not sure if I had ever seen it before. It has an introduction by Lloyd Kaufman of course and it comes with commentary, interviews and more.
The other Troma release is Luther The Geek. A young boy sees a circus freak show where a geek bites the heads off chickens and drinks their blood. He accidentally gets his teeth knocked out and grows up to be a killer who is released from jail. He immediately kills a woman outside a grocery store and escapes in the backseat of a car. He tries to hide out in a home with the woman from the car, but her daughter and daughter’s boyfriend show up. The pair try to free the mother and escape from Luther, but his metal teeth make it hard to escape. I definitely hadn’t seen this before and it has Troma Cult Flick written all over it. Lloyd Kaufman does the intro as well and it comes with commentary, interviews and more.
Last we have one of the kings of cult classics, Snakes on a Plane. It gets the Arrow Video 4K treatment this week. The film was one of the first movies to really get early buzz on the internet because of its name and concept. It’s far from a good movie, but it’s just ridiculous enough to be entertaining. A man witnesses a gangster murder a lawyer and Samuel L. Jackson is tasked at bringing him from Hawaii to Los Angeles on a plane. The FBI claims all of First Class for Jackson, the witness and another FBI agent, but the gangster loaded the plane with poisonous snakes that will kill everybody on board! I hadn’t seen it in years and forgot that it was Taylor Kitsch who plays the guy having sex in the bathroom who is one of the first kills in the movie. Other cast members include Julianna Margulies, Bobby Cannavale, Kenan Thompson, Elsa Pataky, David Koechner and Lin Shaye. Before sharks dominated ridiculous animal movies, Snakes on a Plane was the king. It’s just campy enough to be watchable because no one takes the film seriously. If they tried to make it dramatic it wouldn’t have worked at all. I mean Kenan Thompson lands the plane with only video game experience. The new 4K sounds and looks great and comes with new commentary, an older commentary with director David R. Ellis, actor Samuel L. Jackson and others, Easter eggs, gag reel and more. If you are a fan of the film this is a really solid release.
The Nerds Templar 