Road House, Immaculate, Late Night With The Devil | See It or Skip It

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (ABC4) — Whether it’s action-packed or horror-filled, there is a lot to watch this weekend. ABC4 Film Critic Patrick Beatty lets us know what to see and what to skip.

Road House

Where to Watch: Prime Video

Directed By: 

Doug Liman

Written By: 

Anthony Bagarozzi, Chuck Mondry, R. Lance Hill

Starring:

Jake Gyllenhaal, Daniela Melchior, Conor McGregor

Genre:

Action, Thriller

Rated R

All media courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Dalton, a retired MMA boxer, who’s tasked by Jessica Williams to help mitigate disasters in her roadside bar called ‘Road House’. His presence is calm, cool, and collected, but when trouble arrives, the very last thing you’ll want to do is make him angry.

This is a very loose adaptation of the original Road House starring Patrick Swayze, and while there is something here that makes the new Road House work, I can’t call this anything other than its own story — one that is both simple and overcomplicated.

Jake Gyllenhaal makes the film work with his charisma and full immersion into the story. The fighting is filmed with creativity and steadiness, making you feel every punch and keeping you engaged throughout the film. Conor McGregor is the main villain, yet only appears in the 2nd half of the film. While he doesn’t have the acting chops his costars do, he makes up for it in his fighting chemistry with Gyllenhaal.

This is a film you can skip 20 minutes of and still be able to follow along with what’s happening. Whether that makes you excited to see it is up to you, but it just barely crosses that threshold for me.

See it or Skip it? See It

Immaculate

Where to Watch: Theaters

Directed By: 

Michael Mohan

Written By: 

Andrew Lobel

Starring:

Sydney Sweeney, Álvaro Morte, Simona Tabasco

Genre:

Horror

Rated R

All media courtesy of NEON Pictures

Immaculate stars Sydney Sweeny as a decently converted Nun who is arriving at an Italian countryside coven. While everyone seems incredibly kind and loving, this coven’s dark secrets come to life when she’s given a ‘miracle’ that upends her faith and puts her in imminent danger.

This is a film meant to offend and question religion. If you are devout and don’t wish to see something endorsing that, then this is definitely not for you. There are lots of bloody, brutal, and squeamish scenes that work very well for this subgenre of horror and is developed well with good suspense-building.

We’ve seen a lot of this type of film within horror, whether it’s The Exorcist, The Pope’s Exorcist, or The Nun, there isn’t a lot in Immaculate that is done differently to set itself apart other than shock value. Sydney Sweeney does a great job, but I wish there were more built around her with a stronger supporting cast and more depth of characters. If you like horror, check this out, otherwise I would avoid it.

See it or Skip it? See It

Late Night With The Devil

Where to Watch: Theaters

Directed By: 

Cameron Cairnes, Colin Cairnes

Written By: 

Cameron Cairnes, Colin Cairnes

Starring:

David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, Ian Bliss

Genre:

Horror

Rated R

All media courtesy of IFC Films

David Dastmalchian is a late-night talk show host desperate to compete with Johnny Carson. His ratings continue to drop, and now in sweeps week, he’s ready to throw a hail mary in order to boost viewership and save his show. How does he do that? By bringing in a possessed girl to perform a live, on-air exorcism and reveal a demon to the world. As the show progresses, everything is upended into horror as reality is questioned, in this small-budget horror film that is both entertaining and scary.

I loved the choice to have the movie essentially be through the audience’s perspective. The runtime is shorter, but you feel completely immersed and the film takes on a realistic viewpoint. I appreciated the humor alongside the scares, and that the film wasn’t afraid to be cheesy when it needed to be. The ending packs a wallop of a scary punch and will leave you haunted, and perhaps afraid to see another late-night show again.

See it or Skip it? See It

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