leebutler Comedy, Review

Oh, Hi (2025) – Nice To Watch You

Released: 25th July
Seen: 2nd November

One of my personal favourite film performances in cinema history is by Glenn Close in the movie Fatal Attraction. The story of a woman who has a one-night stand with a married man who then goes absolutely insane and basically tears his life apart because she refuses to be ignored is captivating and that performance has stuck with me since the moment I first saw it. Indeed the entire genre of a scorned lover seeking revenge on their partner is so wickedly fascinating that any time you have a couple breaking up and one of them deciding to make sure the other knows how much it hurts, I am there with a beaming excited grin so you can imagine my joy reading the plot of Oh, Hi and expecting a modern take on the idea. Well, if this is the modern take… ok, it’s fine, I guess I don’t need to see any boiled bunnies, but something of that level would be nice.

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leebutler Horror, Review, Romance

Together (2025) – So Happy

Released: 31st July
Seen: 2nd November

Last year, the biggest surprise in cinema was the reaction to a little film called The Substance. Positive critiques by pretty much anyone who saw it, a massive box office hit and perhaps most surprisingly of all, it received nominations in major categories at the Oscars (and, in my view, should’ve at least won Best Actress). All this for a weird body horror film about how Hollywood treats women past a certain age, that kind of film normally would be relegated to the horror superfans circuit because Body Horror in particular is one of the more difficult sub-genres of horror for people to really get into. Maybe, if we’re lucky, The Substance opened up a floodgate to let mainstream Hollywood actors take a crack at weird body horror films, and if Together is any indication, that feels like a real possibility.

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leebutler Comedy, Drama, Review, Romance

A Nice Indian Boy (2025) – Lovely

Released: 4th April
Seen: 2nd November

It seems so long ago now, but it was only 7 years ago back in 2018 when a little film called Love, Simon came out. A film that took the standard story of the teenage romcom and did a gay twist on the formula, which made it feel special. It feels like that let people in the industry know that they could actually make gay films with some mainstream appeal, which has led to a few really nice, simple and enjoyable films that have been accessible to more than just a queer audience. It’s a sad truth that films featuring queer people in general tend to just be relegated to underground films, if we even get to be part of them (Do not give me the whole “Oh gays are in everything” crap, I literally have a spreadsheet that will prove you wrong). So it’s really nice to see that we get to have a gay version of the “Person invites their new partner to meet their family” genre, especially one that’s as downright heartwarming and charming as A Nice Indian Boy.

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leebutler Action, Adventure, Review, Sci-Fi

Tron: Ares (2025) – …loading

Released: 9th October
Seen: 18th October

In 1982, Disney released the movie Tron and to say it was a revelation is an understatement. Tron is the kind of film where they had to invent technology to figure out how to make it, keep in mind this was before CGI animation was even possible in any real capacity. The computers used to make Tron didn’t even have one-tenth of the power of the phone you are probably reading this on. It was revolutionary, a display of what a computer could bring to the world of cinema and even though it still made back its money ($50 million on a $17 million budget) it has been considered mostly a cult film and thus wasn’t really given a sequel treatment. Well, a combination of that and the fact that the animation department would’ve murdered someone if they had to go through that process again. A sequel would have to wait until the computers could handle the job, which is how we got Tron: Legacy in 2010. It was a fine movie, visually spectacular (besides the de-aging that they did to Jeff Daniels) and made a ton of money… and for some reason it took 15 years for them to try again with Tron: Ares.

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leebutler Action, Review, Sci-Fi, Thriller

M3GAN 2.0 (2025) – She’ll Be Back

Released: 26th July
Seen: 8th October

In 2023, the world was introduced to a dancing robot who killed people and her name was M3GAN. It’s kind of wild how much of a global phenomenon this little doll became, but she was everywhere. She pretty much instantly gained icon status and became a camp superstar; people dressed like her for Halloween, and everyone was excited for more adventures with this murderbot. All this is especially surprising when you consider that M3GAN was released in January, which is notorious for being a dumping ground for movies, particularly those in the horror genre. It was such a great film that I put it at number 7 on my Best list that year, and I’m not the only one who put it up on that pedestal. M3GAN was pretty much guaranteed a sequel the second opening weekend finished, and now 2 years later, M3GAN 2.0 has graced us with its presence, and while I’m not going to pretend it’s bad, it’s certainly nothing like I expected.

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leebutler Horror, Review

V/H/S/Halloween (2025) – Anything Can Happen On Halloween

Released: 3rd October
Seen: 5th October

The V/H/S franchise now sits as an astonishing 8-film series of anthology films. Those films have consisted of over 40 shorts made by nearly a dozen directors, some of whom have gone on to make some of the most important Horror films of the last 15 years. It’s an undeniable powerhouse in the horror genre that’s had its highs and lows, but the general rule is as long as the majority of the shorts are good, then that’s all that matters. So this year’s entry, V/H/S/Halloween takes the central concept of films shot with VHS cameras and makes every one of the shorts revolve around Halloween, which is a nice, simple way to link everything up. Do they work? Well, as I do every time, we’re going to go short by short.

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leebutler Drama, Horror, Review

Until Dawn (2025) – Glitchy

Released: 25th April
Seen: 3rd October

In 2015, the video game Until Dawn was released on PlayStation. It was a major hit almost instantly, the game being mostly story based, where the player would have to essentially keep a cabin full of teenagers alive for a single night while assorted creatures tried to kill them. The central gimmick of the game was a system that allowed the players choices to make a difference in the ending (AKA you pick up a certain book and it might lead to a specific character living that would die in any other playthrough), It was enough of a hit that it spawned a few spin offs and even recently got a full remake for the newest console. It’s the kind of game that was pretty much destined to get a film adaptation at some point and now it has one, it just doesn’t work like you would hope.

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leebutler Horror, Mystery, Review, Thriller

Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare (2025) – You Can Fly

Released: 27th Feburary
Seen: 1st October

The Twisted Childhood Universe is the name given to the movie franchise that’s slowly being created which takes public domain fairy tale characters and turns them into horror movies. It’s a universe brought to you by the Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey people and when they first announced that this was a thing they were doing, the internet collectively groaned because the idea sounded painful and we had all suffered through the first movie which was a steaming heap of garbage. Then they released Blood and Honey 2, a marked improvement on the original that proved the actual potential of this stupid concept. Of course those were still early test films, they were banking off the Winnie the Pooh as a killer idea and we didn’t have much information about how the full Poohniverse (The other nickname given to this universe) would fare… Well, now the first film that isn’t about the bear of very little brain has come out and folks, this might actually turn out OK.

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leebutler Horror, Review

I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) – Know Nothing

Released: 18th July
Seen: 29th September

In 1997, I Know What You Did Last Summer was released to a public who had just had their appetite for slasher films reawakened by the monster hit Scream. I Know What You Did Last Summer was basically the confirmation that Scream wasn’t a fluke, it was the beginning of a revival of the slasher genre that had been floundering since roughly the end of the 80s. It basically cemented that a late 90s slasher would include glossy visuals, quippy dialogue and a cast made up of a lot of well known TV actors trying to make the transition from TV to film. It was a pretty big hit, making just over $125 million at the box office which was enough to get it a direct sequel with the surviving cast, a direct to video sequel that sucks and no one likes, a TV series that no one talks about and now a legacy sequel… because apparently the legacy of I Know What You Did Last Summer was so great it warranted another sequel, such a pity the latest sequel it got was this one.

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leebutler Horror, Review, Sci-Fi, Thriller

War Of The Worlds (2025) – War Is Hell!

Released: 30th July
Seen: 30th September

In recent years, a new genre called “Screenlife” has grown in popularity, resulting in films like Missing, Searching and Host where all the action takes place on a computer screen. When done right, it can be a truly fascinating way to tell a story, allowing the viewer to jump from video calls to emails, and even see messages being typed and deleted, giving a glimpse into a character’s mind. It’s simple, effective and genuinely a versatile way of making a film… however, when done badly, you get something like War of the Worlds, a contender for every “Worst of 2025” list that you’ll see in a few months.

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