While there's nary a viral video to be found in CHEAP THRILLS, the film is imbued with the culture of now (maybe always) and the fact that despite pleas for peace, we as humans enjoy seeing each other embarrassed  devalued and crushed. It's inherent in reality television and 30 second fail videos, transcends friendships and class, and extends right to the 1% who have so much that the only true entertainment left is the indignities of others.

THE LAST EXORCISM PART II is the second contradictorily titled sequel to come out in as many months, after THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT II: GHOSTS OF GEORGIA. I’m not the first to ask whether this means the original now has to be called THE SECOND-TO-LAST EXORCISM, and I probably won’t be the last to say the first should have remained the only.

One could argue that the goal for any horror or thriller filmmaker is to keep the audience, at the very least, figuring out the story’s twists and turns alongside the protagonist. As wonderful as it is for genre films to stay one step ahead of the audience, ensuring that any surprises along the way are surprising at all, the mechanisms by which suspenseful films run—tension between characters, atmosphere and gradual revelation of story—can still work well when viewers encounter the dread and shock at the same pace as the hero they have invested in.

As news stories about sociopaths whose actions seem unfathomable continue to permeate the media, perhaps it’s inevitable that thrillers concerned more with examining the devolution of their antiheroes’ minds than with the violence of their deeds should become a minitrend. This week’s example, RUBBERNECK, particularly foregrounds character over action, and cerebral thrills over the visceral kind.

The title of and ad campaign for DARK SKIES, not to mention an opening quotation from science-fiction legend Arthur C. Clarke, almost feel like miscalculations. The movie develops a decently teasing sense of mystery in its first half that can only be diluted by foreknowledge of what’s going on.

The 2011 found footage survivor flick GRAVE ENCOUNTERS was certainly a worthy entry in the shaky cam subgenre. Despite having some less than stellar CGI, the film felt real and put the characters in a fairly plausible situation, with suspenseful pacing, fun, campy performances and a solid directing debut from Collin Minihan and Stuart Ortiz, collectively known as The Vicious Brothers. That said, the follow-up picture, GRAVE ENCOUNTERS 2  (currently enjoying a limited theatrical run in Canada), is more than a bit of a disappointment.

“It's all a blur.” What really happened at the costumed party of a big Polish book publisher? Your guess is as good as mine, even áfter watching the mystery-thriller IXJANA at the Rotterdam International Film Festival.