<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[Dark of the Matinee]]></title><description><![CDATA[Reviewing movies in Phoenix since 2015.]]></description><link>https://www.darkofthematinee.com/blank</link><generator>RSS for Node</generator><lastBuildDate>Wed, 20 May 2026 01:17:40 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://www.darkofthematinee.com/blog-feed.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><item><title><![CDATA[Review: Is God Is]]></title><description><![CDATA[Aleshea Harris’ Is God Is opens like a revenge movie and slowly reveals itself to be something thornier, sadder, stranger, and ultimately far more profound. On paper, the film sounds almost gleefully pulp: twin sisters set out across America to murder the father who burned their family alive years earlier. But Harris’ astonishing debut feature is not interested in the clean catharsis of revenge cinema so much as the rot that necessitates it in the first place. What begins as a...]]></description><link>https://www.darkofthematinee.com/post/review-is-god-is</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a035a90e889759477a737b0</guid><pubDate>Tue, 12 May 2026 17:20:29 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8e7cf8_8b53d5b9404c4f8897c0bf8843a29f2a~mv2.webp/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Matthew G. Robinson</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Review: Mortal Kombat 2]]></title><description><![CDATA[For a franchise built on spinal extractions, acid vomit, and the phrase “Finish Him,” the most surprising thing about Mortal Kombat II is how desperately it wants to entertain you. Not impress you. Not elevate itself above its origins. Not apologize for being based on a game where a four-armed monster punches ninjas into skeletons. Simon McQuoid’s sequel understands that the appeal of Mortal Kombat has always lived somewhere between adolescent power fantasy and grindhouse absurdity, and for...]]></description><link>https://www.darkofthematinee.com/post/review-mortal-kombat-2</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69fb87ce3587ab080fb8520f</guid><pubDate>Wed, 06 May 2026 18:38:30 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8e7cf8_bb50e4f493164bf1baca4e432c9320b7~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_563,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Matthew G. Robinson</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Review: Hokum]]></title><description><![CDATA[There’s something inherently promising about a filmmaker who understands that a setting can do as much storytelling as any line of dialogue. Damian McCarthy, coming off the slow-burn unease of Caveat and Oddity, clearly gets that. With Hokum, he trades in those tighter, more controlled chambers of dread for something a bit grander, a creaky, half-forgotten Irish hotel that feels less like a location and more like a living accusation. For long stretches, it’s enough to carry the film on...]]></description><link>https://www.darkofthematinee.com/post/review-hokum</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69f61c787b1c42fb24f5a254</guid><pubDate>Sat, 02 May 2026 15:53:22 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8e7cf8_486fb5d5b3514e9bab8a291475d2ffb3~mv2.webp/v1/fit/w_1000,h_832,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Matthew G. Robinson</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Review: Over Your Dead Body]]></title><description><![CDATA[There’s a version of Over Your Dead Body  that exists entirely in its first 30 minutes; a nasty, tightly coiled two-hander about a marriage so thoroughly rotted that murder feels less like escalation and more like administrative cleanup. It’s a film that understands, with uncomfortable precision, how resentment calcifies over time, how love curdles into something performative, transactional, and quietly venomous. In those early stretches, Jorma Taccone’s film isn’t just funny it’s specific....]]></description><link>https://www.darkofthematinee.com/post/review-over-your-dead-body</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69e6a14b930722cfe917bb80</guid><pubDate>Tue, 21 Apr 2026 15:41:16 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8e7cf8_5517a97854aa49c1a3cec19458ac7a54~mv2.webp/v1/fit/w_1000,h_460,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Matthew G. Robinson</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Review: I Swear]]></title><description><![CDATA[There’s a version of I Swear  that plays like a crowd-pleasing triumph, a handsomely mounted, deeply felt biopic about adversity, empathy, and the slow churn of social understanding. And for long stretches, that’s exactly the film Kirk Jones delivers. But what lingers isn’t just the uplift, it’s the abrasion underneath it. It's the sense that every small victory has been hard-won against a world that doesn’t merely misunderstand John Davidson, but actively resists accommodating him. Based on...]]></description><link>https://www.darkofthematinee.com/post/review-i-swear</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69e66d0f247930afa804862d</guid><pubDate>Mon, 20 Apr 2026 18:19:45 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8e7cf8_453182fdbdaa45ea985817e2775c949f~mv2.webp/v1/fit/w_1000,h_699,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Matthew G. Robinson</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[A KILLER LINEUP: FIVE MUST-SEE FEATURES AT THEINTERNATIONAL HORROR AND SCI-FI FILM FESTIVAL ]]></title><description><![CDATA[The International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival, held in conjunction with the Phoenix Film Festival, will once again deliver a thrilling lineup of bold, unforgettable genre storytelling. This year’s program features a dynamic mix of action, suspense, psychological terror, social satire, and body horror from exciting filmmakers around the world. Among the standout selections this year are:  THE FURIOUS  (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate Premiere Releasing)  Screening: Thursday, April 16 at 6:45pm...]]></description><link>https://www.darkofthematinee.com/post/a-killer-lineup-five-must-see-features-at-theinternational-horror-and-sci-fi-film-festival</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69c2fd0b4979352460194d40</guid><pubDate>Tue, 24 Mar 2026 21:11:51 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8e7cf8_3a7d030503104796947459a711d7d764~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Matthew G. Robinson</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[THE INTERNATIONAL HORROR &#38; SCI-FI FILM FESTIVAL KICKS OFF OPENING NIGHT WITH HORROR HIT OBSESSION]]></title><description><![CDATA[The International Horror &#38; Sci-Fi Film Festival has announced the Focus Features' TIFF and SXSW hit OBSESSION to kick off its opening night on Friday, April 10th. Already being called “the most disturbing indie film of the year”, OBSESSION arrives with serious buzz, and a warning...be careful who  you wish for. The unsettling new feature film from director Curry Barker , stars Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, and Andy Richter. In OBSESSION, after breaking...]]></description><link>https://www.darkofthematinee.com/post/the-international-horror-sci-fi-film-festival-kicks-off-opening-night-with-horror-hit-obsession</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69bc6725bec251fc0ba907ed</guid><pubDate>Thu, 19 Mar 2026 21:14:33 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Matthew G. Robinson</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Review: Project Hail Mary]]></title><description><![CDATA[There’s a moment early in Project Hail Mary  where Ryan Gosling’s Ryland Grace, bearded, disoriented, and floating somewhere far beyond the comforting pull of Earth, scrawls a question across a dry-erase board: Who am I?  It’s the kind of on-the-nose thematic gesture that would sink a lesser film, the sort of thing that feels reverse-engineered for a trailer. But Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s long-awaited return to live-action filmmaking doesn’t just get away with it, it builds an entire,...]]></description><link>https://www.darkofthematinee.com/post/review-project-hail-mary</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69bc335a4cb69c631847c362</guid><pubDate>Thu, 19 Mar 2026 17:39:00 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8e7cf8_41bd425bc32a461c96013bfba76f34dd~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Matthew G. Robinson</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Ready or Not 2: Here I Come]]></title><description><![CDATA[To revisit the final image of Ready or Not , Samara Weaving, blood-soaked, dazed, and smoking in the wreckage of a burning mansion, is to be reminded of how rare it is for a horror-comedy to land on something that feels instantly iconic. It’s a closing note that doesn’t ask for expansion. It lingers. It resonates. It ends. Ready or Not2: Here I Come  makes the fatal mistake of picking that image back up and asking, “But what if… more?” And more is exactly what this sequel is, more characters,...]]></description><link>https://www.darkofthematinee.com/post/ready-or-not-2-here-i-come</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69bad32223f9a3655ef07e34</guid><pubDate>Wed, 18 Mar 2026 16:35:58 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8e7cf8_f52b022ecf864849b7efcafb639bc1e6~mv2.avif/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Matthew G. Robinson</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[26TH ANNUAL PHOENIX FILM FESTIVAL RETURNS APRIL 9-19!]]></title><description><![CDATA[The Phoenix Film Festival returns for its 26th annual event Thursday, April 9 – Sunday, April 19   at   Harkins Scottsdale 101, bringing filmmakers and movie lovers together for another year of standout storytelling, special events, and community celebration.   Originally founded in 2001 by local filmmakers, the Phoenix Film Festival has grown into an 11-day celebration featuring 250+ films ,  plus filmmaking seminars, parties, and student workshops for more than 20,000 attendees.   Festival...]]></description><link>https://www.darkofthematinee.com/post/26th-annual-phoenix-film-festival-returns-april-9-19</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69b9823abfcde1247c0da3a3</guid><pubDate>Tue, 17 Mar 2026 16:34:05 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8e7cf8_40199d15713f4909b6b73e39fd87055b~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_409,h_300,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Matthew G. Robinson</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Review: undertone]]></title><description><![CDATA[Undertone , the microbudget Canadian chiller that rode Fantasia buzz all the way to an A24 release and a Sundance Midnight berth, wants to do for podcasts what Paranormal Activity  did for found footage. It plants its camera in a single house, hands its protagonist a laptop and a pair of headphones, and asks a simple question: what if the scariest thing in the room is something you can only hear? Evy (Nina Kiri) is the skeptic half of an occult-themed podcast she co-hosts with unseen believer...]]></description><link>https://www.darkofthematinee.com/post/review-undertone</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69b0411c4b8043385bd3226c</guid><pubDate>Tue, 10 Mar 2026 16:15:56 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8e7cf8_5375b6c40a5e4ffca753c6369f08bb6d~mv2.webp/v1/fit/w_1000,h_667,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Matthew G. Robinson</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Review: The Bride!]]></title><description><![CDATA[For the handful of breathless, electrified minutes Elsa Lanchester occupies the screen in James Whale’s 1935 Bride of Frankenstein , she hisses, recoils, and refuses. She does not speak. She does not need to. The tragedy and the joke is perfectly formed. Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride!  (yes, the exclamation point is doing real labor here) arrives some ninety years later determined to answer the question: what was she thinking? It’s a bold provocation. It’s also one that proves far less...]]></description><link>https://www.darkofthematinee.com/post/review-the-bride</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69a8b858ffff75773ebac220</guid><pubDate>Wed, 04 Mar 2026 23:03:07 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8e7cf8_9f87073277154881a4b3671e61368d32~mv2.jpeg/v1/fit/w_980,h_654,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Matthew G. Robinson</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Paul McCartney: Man on the Run]]></title><description><![CDATA[More than half a century after The Beatles’ breakup, the band remains less a closed chapter than an ongoing excavation. Every few years, another corner of the mosaic gets dusted off and reframed. With Paul McCartney: Man on the Run, director Morgan Neville doesn’t attempt to solve the whole 10,000-piece puzzle. Instead, he zeroes in on one crucial, often misunderstood stretch: the years immediately following the split, when McCartney was forced to answer a question no one had ever asked him...]]></description><link>https://www.darkofthematinee.com/post/paul-mccartney-man-on-the-run</link><guid isPermaLink="false">699de76e91604ab56c323098</guid><pubDate>Tue, 24 Feb 2026 18:07:17 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8e7cf8_831991ed9e934830bc4d7eb31be904a0~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_876,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Matthew G. Robinson</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Review: How To Make A Killing]]></title><description><![CDATA[On paper, How to Make a Killing  sounds like a sure thing. A remake of the deliciously cruel Kind Hearts and Coronets . Glen Powell on death row, narrating his ascent up (and through) a gilded family tree. Ed Harris glowering as the patriarchal final boss. A24’s stamp of approval. A jaunty, eat-the-rich premise that promises gallows humor with a side of social commentary. Execution, however, is everything. And John Patton Ford’s film, so meticulous in recreating the bones of its 1949...]]></description><link>https://www.darkofthematinee.com/post/review-how-to-make-a-killing</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6995e5a17b02767d86619e21</guid><pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 16:18:57 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8e7cf8_8ab8bb1715bc47a4b97c0347318611cf~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_623,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Matthew G. Robinson</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Review: "Wuthering Heights"]]></title><description><![CDATA[Emerald Fennell’s "Wuthering Heights" arrives trailing quotation marks, caveats, and an almost aggressive insistence that this is not Wuthering Heights  so much as “ Wuthering Heights. ”  From the moment it was announced, the project promised provocation: Charli XCX on the soundtrack, latex textures in the production design, and a filmmaker whose reputation was built on weaponized aesthetics and bad behavior. What it ultimately delivers is something far stranger and more disappointing, a...]]></description><link>https://www.darkofthematinee.com/post/review-wuthering-heights</link><guid isPermaLink="false">698b5d88d471d728ee6c1b2e</guid><pubDate>Tue, 10 Feb 2026 16:39:06 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8e7cf8_a0d5e319f72c4e8e8c0bdc69a500d780~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_617,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Matthew G. Robinson</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Review: Send Help]]></title><description><![CDATA[Sam Raimi’s Send Help  strands two people on a deserted island and then does the cruelest thing imaginable: it refuses to tell you, with any certainty, who deserves to be saved. What begins as a high-concept survival thriller quickly curdles into something sharper and stranger; a labor satire, a power-play psychodrama, and a gross-out morality tale that keeps slipping the moral high ground out from under your feet. It’s the most alive Raimi has felt in years, not because he’s louder or...]]></description><link>https://www.darkofthematinee.com/post/review-send-help</link><guid isPermaLink="false">697b8512619dd458eae458d6</guid><pubDate>Thu, 29 Jan 2026 16:11:13 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8e7cf8_59075cdb98574a86b1e92aee24e814b9~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_570,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Matthew G. Robinson</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Review: Shelter]]></title><description><![CDATA[Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Jason Statham plays a man with a violent past who has chosen exile over absolution, only for circumstance to drag him back into the life he’s trying to escape. Shelter knows exactly how familiar that premise sounds, and to its credit, it doesn’t pretend otherwise. Instead, director Ric Roman Waugh leans into the well-worn grooves of the Statham action thriller and tries, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, to sand them down into something a little...]]></description><link>https://www.darkofthematinee.com/post/review-shelter</link><guid isPermaLink="false">697a45a1d8141148d401f241</guid><pubDate>Wed, 28 Jan 2026 17:25:02 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8e7cf8_98362e8db28a41e9ae46db78006c6df1~mv2.avif/v1/fit/w_1000,h_675,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Matthew G. Robinson</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Review: Mercy]]></title><description><![CDATA[Mercy begins with a question it seems very proud of asking: what if ChatGPT could kill you? Not metaphorically ruin your afternoon or confidently hallucinate your demise, but literally execute you, right there in a courtroom, after skimming your browser history and deciding you’d had enough chances. It’s an enticing hook, one that promises a paranoid techno-thriller about surveillance, justice, and the quiet terror of living under an algorithm that knows you better than you know yourself....]]></description><link>https://www.darkofthematinee.com/post/review-mercy</link><guid isPermaLink="false">697110a761068570a94c0e2e</guid><pubDate>Wed, 21 Jan 2026 17:48:14 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8e7cf8_4cad82b2233145629f52fb71c050dd3e~mv2.webp/v1/fit/w_1000,h_580,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Matthew G. Robinson</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[28 Years Later: The Bone Temple]]></title><description><![CDATA[From a distance, the Bone Temple still looks like a warning, a pagan structure erected to repel the curious and the hopeful alike. But “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” isn’t interested in keeping us out. Nia DaCosta’s ferocious sequel drags us straight inside, insisting that whatever future humanity has left will be decided not by the infected, but by the rituals we invent to live with them. Where Danny Boyle’s “28 Years Later” treated the Bone Temple as a symbolic endpoint, a place of...]]></description><link>https://www.darkofthematinee.com/post/28-years-later-the-bone-temple</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6967dadfdbd74c3ebf9ab6a4</guid><pubDate>Wed, 14 Jan 2026 18:11:04 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8e7cf8_0cfafeadfc3c4a5b845b14b1f2ddc70e~mv2.avif/v1/fit/w_1000,h_675,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Matthew G. Robinson</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Review: Dead Man's Wire]]></title><description><![CDATA[What does it mean to faithfully dramatize recent history when the facts themselves are already stranger, messier, and more revealing than fiction? That tension sits at the center of Dead Man’s Wire , Gus Van Sant’s return to true-crime filmmaking and a movie that’s at its most compelling when it sticks close to the ugly particulars of one man’s grievance, and most frustrating when it reshapes them into something smoother, safer, and less specific. The real Tony Kiritsis was a local...]]></description><link>https://www.darkofthematinee.com/post/review-dead-man-s-wire</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69656a0cf5c800c96656babc</guid><pubDate>Mon, 12 Jan 2026 21:47:06 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8e7cf8_eb8b4942618f42ba93e2e871548f8de7~mv2.webp/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Matthew G. Robinson</dc:creator></item></channel></rss>