leebutler Drama, Horror, Review, Romance, Sci-Fi

The Bride! (2026) – Marital Bliss

Released: 6th March
Seen: 10th August

Mary Shelley was, essentially, the inventor of modern science fiction with her 1818 novel Frankenstein: Or, the Modern Prometheus. This single 280-page book about a mad scientist deciding to dig up a bunch of corpses and sew them together to create the perfect man was an absolute revolution and would eventually go on to be the basis for another important work of art, that being the 1931 feature film Frankenstein. That film was, and still is, an absolute benchmark of horror cinema that everyone has referenced at some point and was one of the top earning films of the year when it came out, making 12 million at the box office (adjusted for inflation, that’s about 263 million today). It was big enough that director James Whale was basically begged to make a sequel which brought us The Bride of Frankenstein which is iconic in a very different way from the film that went before it (It’s campier and so much gayer, because why not?). That would inevitably lead to a string of sequels, remakes, reimaginings, recontextualisations and eventually would lead to Maggie Gyllenhaal taking a swing at the idea and giving us The Bride!, a striking modern take on the eternal classic.

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leebutler Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Undertone (2026) – Underdone

Released: 25th July
Seen: 9th August

In 1927, the film The Jazz Singer came out and changed the world. While it was possibly the first film to use sound (depending on how we want to define it there are several candidates for the first sound picture), it was certainly the first to be popular and to allow the use of audible dialogue, and so, with the simple line “You ain’t heard nothing yet”, that film entered the history of cinema as an important benchmark (even though that benchmark comes with a notable history of racism… but so does most early cinema, let’s be honest). Since then, sound has been an essential element of the cinematic experience; it can make or break a film. There are countless stories of films that were deemed to be bad because they didn’t have the soundtrack completed yet, a bad sound mix can make a serious scene into an accidental comedy, there’s an absolutely hilarious version of the trailer for The Mummy that muted the wrong audio track which became the only interesting thing about that movie. Sound is important and so when a horror film sells itself on its sound by saying it’s the scariest movie you’ll ever hear you hope that it can deliver on that… in the cast of Undertone, it sounds good but I’ve heard scarier.

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leebutler Action, Adventure, Review, Sci-Fi

Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026) – Incredible

Released: 30th July
Seen: 1st August

It’s been 5 years since we last saw Spider-Man in the cinema and boy, it set a high bar. Spider-Man: No Way Home was an undeniable highlight of the post-Endgame MCU era, not only for its ability to weave nostalgia for previous iterations into a truly compelling narrative, but also for being a gut-punch of a film that shifted the course of the franchise. It absolutely changed how Spider-Man was dealt with in this universe due to the world-changing final moments where Dr Strange made everyone forget who Peter Parker was in order to save the world. Personally, I put the film in my top 10 list of that year and I still think Willem Dafoe’s return to the Green Goblin role should’ve gotten him an Oscar nomination (Just saying, he would’ve been a far better nomination than JK Simmons for Being the Ricardos). Any follow up film that Spider-Man had was going to have a lot to live up on not only a narrative level but an emotional one. Fortunately, Spider-Man: Brand New Day manages to meet the standard set by the previous movie in a truly fascinating and compelling way.

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leebutler Adventure, Comedy, Review, Sci-Fi

Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie (2026) – The Review

Released: 20th February
Seen: 29th July

From 2007 to 2009, Nirvana The Band The Show was uploaded to the internet (No relation to the band that gave us Smells Like Teen Spirit; that’s kinda the joke). There were 11 episodes spanning between 10 and 20 minutes, and it must’ve been popular because a decade later Nirvanna The Band The Show (Spelled with two ‘n’s from here on out, another one of their more subtle jokes) would turn into a full-on sitcom lasting for 2 seasons. The whole thing is a bit of a cult hit and I will admit I’d never even heard of it before this film came into my life so if you’re looking for information on if this is a good adaptation of the TV series then you’re not going to get that information here. I can’t compare and can’t even find a legally available copy to watch (because copyright law is totally well thought out and shouldn’t be changed at all /s). Fortunately, I don’t think you really need to have watched the TV series to appreciate Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie because it’s good enough to stand on its own.

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leebutler Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Review, Sci-Fi

Mortal Kombat II (2026) – Round 2, FIGHT!

Released: 8th May
Seen: 28th July

In 2021, a new adaptation of the video game Mortal Kombat came out. While its release was mildly hampered due to the pandemic (it was delayed and then released simultaneously in cinemas and on HBO Max because of that plague we all lived through and seem to want to pretend didn’t happen), the film did well enough and got moderately good reviews. I enjoyed it well enough but found it to be a little bit of a lore dump overstuffed with exposition that no one actually gives a fuck about because, while the lore of Mortal Kombat is surely fascinating, it’s not the thing that anyone really remembers about that franchise. The big thing was that we didn’t get to enjoy the tournament-style fights that the game franchise was known for and that felt like a big mistake… Well, Mortal Kombat II clearly heard everyone saying how much they wanted the tournament and decided to give us exactly that, and it’s a better movie because of it.

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leebutler Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Review, Sci-Fi

Masters Of The Universe (2026) – IT HAS THE POWER!!

Released: 10th July
Seen: 26th July

The history of He-Man begins in 1982 with the release of the first toy line which was a massive hit. The toys came out with a mini comic attached that gave some backstory that would then explode with the release of the He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe cartoon series which was basically just a glorified toy advertisement but a toy advertisement that was insanely popular and would become a touchstone of 80s kids entertainment. It was the kind of series that was so undeniably huge that it had to be turned into a film at some point, which it was in 1987. That film was something of an infamous bomb, though like a lot of weird 80s movies that were attached to nostalgic properties it became a bit of a cult hit. After that movie it seemed like the Masters of the Universe were relegated to being occasionally rebooted in animated form but wouldn’t get another crack at being a movie until 2026 when Masters of the Universe came out and also bombed… which sucks because it’s actually amazing.

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leebutler Comedy, Horror, Review, Sci-Fi

Cold Storage (2026) – Chill

Released: 12th March
Seen: 12th July

In 1985, Return of the Living Dead was released. Created by John Russo, the co-creator of Night Of The Living Dead, the film was a comedic follow-up to the deeply disturbing original that became a cult hit on its own and was the origin of the idea that Zombies specifically hunger for brains above all else. It spawned a bunch of sequels of varying quality but is still an important element of horror’s history… and Cold Storage is the knockoff brand version of that franchise, and hey considering it’s been 20 years since we got a Return of the Living Dead movie then someone might as well come up with an alternative for us to enjoy.

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leebutler Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Review, Sci-Fi

Project Hail Mary (2026) – Rocks

Released: 19th March
Seen: 1st July

One of the most beloved stories that cinema keeps going back to is “Man interacts with aliens”. It’s a time-tested story that allows for so many variations, from the whimsical wonder of ET to the nightmarish horror of The Thing, cinema has run the gamut of ways to show a human having to deal with a creature from another planet, figure out how to communicate with said creature and either save or destroy it. It’s been done so many times that we’re almost out of new alien designs that we can use before repeating ourselves. So one would think that another film about a human going to space and spending the entire time interacting with an alien would feel at least a little rote, a little repetitive… somehow, Project Hail Mary manages to feel fresh while also being charming as all hell.

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leebutler Action, Adventure, Drama, Review, Sci-Fi

Supergirl (2026) – Averagegirl

Released: 25th June
Seen: 25th June

Roughly one year ago, Superman returned to us. After the absolute disaster that was the DCU, we were given a Superman who cares and there was much rejoicing. It was a genuinely charming movie with one of the best Superman actors we’ve had since the Christopher Reeve-era and I do not say that lightly. I named that film the second best film of 2025 and the performance of Superman was my third favourite performance in that same year. It was a genuinely great work of art that showed that there was space in the modern era for a kinder sweeter Superman. The ending of that film had a brief moment for Supergirl (Milly Alcock) who came to collect her dog Krypto and showed that this universe’s Supergirl was a bit of a drunken disaster who we would eventually get to spend an entire movie following. It was exciting, it seemed like it should be fun and now that film has come out and… it’s OK, it’s a genuinely OK movie but it should be so much better than OK.

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leebutler Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Family, Review, Sci-Fi

Hoppers (2026) – Golden Beaver

Released: 26th March
Seen: 20th June

One of the big problems that people have with the modern film landscape is that it feels like most movies that make it to cinemas have to either be based on a pre-existing IP (book, TV show, Reddit story that inexplicably gets popular) or a sequel to a film that was a previous hit. This seems to be reflected in the box office, if you look at this year’s top 10 highest grossing films you’ll see sequels, movies based on books and even a film that heavily utilises the IP of one of the biggest popstars of all time. There are only 2 films in the top 10 highest-grossing films of 2026 (at the time of writing this review) that are not based on some already existing property. The first is the megahit Obsession which exploded due to great word of mouth and the other is the subject of this review, Pixar’s first big film of this year, Hoppers.

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