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 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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leebutler Horror, Review

Night Of The Reaper (2025) – Don’t Fear The Reaper

Released: 19th September
Seen: 28th September

It’s pretty undeniable that the peak of the Slasher genre was back in the 80s; that’s certainly when all the major classics of the genre came into existence. There are many theories about why this is, but I’d suggest it’s a combination of “Horror was an infamously cheap genre to make movies in during the 80s” and people like Tom Savini showing what extremes that practical effects could achieve. That combo created a gold rush that defined the genre for the longest time (until Scream came along and made it meta) and that period of history being so closely associated with the slasher might also explain why a lot of throwback horror films set themselves up in the 80s to play with the nostalgia of the genre. Night of the Reaper is a prime example of a film doing whatever it can to remind us of films from the 80s but also has something special of its own that makes it worth watching.

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leebutler Horror, Mystery, Review

Bring Her Back (2025) – Unnerving

Released: 29th May
Seen: 18th September

2022 was an absolutely incredible year for Horror films, one of the best that we’ve ever had. It was so good that when the time came to make my best of the year list I had no choice but to fill 5 of the top 10 slots with 6 movies (For those wondering how that works out, 2 films tied for one spot… it was a good year, what can I say!), and still had to put two more in Honourable Mentions. One of the horror films I didn’t put on the list that year was a little film called Talk To Me but let me be clear, that film was also one of the best films that was released that year. Talk To Me was an absolutely stunning original horror film that instantly put the Philippou brothers on the map as a pair of young directors to keep an eye on. While they’d had some positive response to their work on YouTube, their debut feature film really opened the floodgates to get them noticed. Of course, doing one great horror film is fine and all, but the real trick comes with the follow-up: Can you pull off the same magic again? Yes, yes they fucking can, in fact, they can go even more insane than they did before.

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leebutler Comedy, Horror, Review, Thriller

Anything That Moves (2025) – Is It Sexual? Yeah!

Released: 14th September
Seen: 14th September

The final film I saw this year at the Sydney Underground Film Festival was chosen pretty much at random. I ran into that situation that I’m sure a lot of people have run into when it comes to film festivals. I bought a set of 5 tickets and used 4 of them for films I was interested in, so the last one was going to be chosen pretty much at random. I want to note that I entered this movie without any prior knowledge or preconceptions about what it would be like. It’s one of those films where the basic description in the booklet made the final choice for me… probably should’ve picked something else, I’m not going to lie.

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leebutler Documentary, Review

Occupy Cannes (2025) – Tromatic

Released: 31st July
Seen: 13th September

Ever since 1974, Troma has been one of the best-known independent movie companies on the planet. The company responsible for bringing us such treasured films as The Toxic Avenger, Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. and Class of Nuke ‘Em High have managed to somehow keep their doors open for 5 decades and counting, through a combination of making quality cheap underground films and just raw determination. They’ve also just been relentless in trying to sell their films, pimping their product like a desperate Girl Scout trying to make quota. One of the many tactics that they’ve used over the years to get their films distributed is to attend the Cannes Film Festival and use guerrilla marketing stunts to get attention, and in the documentary Occupy Cannes, we get to see just how that goes for them.

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leebutler Comedy, Crime, Review

The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man (2025) – Crap

Released: 12th September
Seen: 12th September

This year, I managed to make it to my favourite film festival in the world, the Sydney Underground Film Festival. It’s the kind of film festival that pushes the boundaries of good taste and often surprises me with what it presents. Last year, I didn’t have the time to actually review what I’d seen because of my full-time job, so it’s really nice that this year I can return to reviewing what I went to see this year. This is the third film that I saw there, and when I looked at the schedule of what was on offer, I saw that on the same day there was a perfect pair of films. The first was the documentary on the Butthole Surfers, which I absolutely adored. Within an hour of that film finishing, I would then be able to see a film called The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man… Well, you can imagine my delight at the comedic value of following Butthole Surfing with Pee Pee Poo Poo, that’s too perfect a pair to pass up and with a title like The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man, surely it’ll be some dumb fun to numb the brain with, right? Well… it was dumb, I can definitely call it dumb.

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