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Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) occupies a fascinating and sometimes underappreciated place in the slasher canon. Arriving just one year after Sean S. Cunningham’s surprise hit Friday the 13th, the sequel had the unenviable task of continuing a story that seemed, on the surface, neatly wrapped up. Instead of merely repeating the original’s formula, Part 2 subtly reorients the franchise, laying down many of the elements that would come to define Friday the 13th as a long-running series rather than a one-off success. While it may lack the novelty and shock value of its predecessor, it compensates with atmosphere, character, and, most importantly, the first fully realized incarnation of Jason Voorhees as the franchise’s central menace. One of the most striking aspects of Friday the 13th Part 2 is how it reframes the mythology of Crystal Lake. The opening recap reframes the ending of the first film, reasserting Jason’s drowning as the primal trauma of the series while quickly moving past Pam...

Michael Crichton’s Westworld (1973) is a deceptively simple science-fiction thriller that has grown more significant with time. On its surface, the film is a high-concept adventure about a futuristic theme park where wealthy guests can live out fantasies without consequences. Beneath that surface, however, lies an unnervingly clear-eyed warning about technological arrogance, corporate hubris, and humanity’s blind faith in systems it barely understands. Though modest in scale and restrained in style, Westworld remains influential precisely because of its clarity and restraint. The premise is immediately compelling. Delos, a high-end amusement resort, offers three immersive worlds, Westworld, Medieval World, and Roman World, populated by lifelike androids programmed to serve human desires. Guests can drink, fight, seduce, and kill without fear of retaliation. The androids, known simply as robots, are designed to malfunction safely: if something goes wrong, they shut down. Or so the desig...

Suspect from 1987 is a legal thriller that blends courtroom drama with political intrigue and romance. Directed by Peter Yates and starring Cher, Dennis Quaid, and Liam Neeson, the film occupies a distinctive place in late nineteen eighties cinema. It is not a fast-paced or sensational thriller, but rather a measured and character-driven story that focuses on power, corruption, and moral responsibility within the American justice system. While it did not become a defining classic of the genre, Suspect remains a thoughtful and engaging film anchored by strong performances and a serious tone. The story follows Kathleen Riley, a public defender played by Cher, who is assigned to represent Carl Wayne Anderson, a deaf homeless man accused of murdering a government employee. Anderson is portrayed by Liam Neeson in a largely silent role that relies heavily on physical presence and emotional restraint. As Kathleen begins to investigate the case, she uncovers inconsistencies in the evidence and...

Pulse from 1988 is a quietly unsettling science fiction horror film that reflects a very specific cultural anxiety of its time. Directed by Paul Golding and starring Cliff DeYoung, the film takes a familiar suburban setting and turns it hostile through an unseen electrical force. While it never achieved mainstream success, Pulse has endured as a minor cult film, remembered less for spectacle and more for its atmosphere and unsettling ideas about technology, family, and trust. The story centers on David Rockland, a young boy who spends the summer with his father, Bill, following his parents’ divorce. Bill, played by Cliff DeYoung, lives with his new wife, Ellen, in a seemingly ordinary Los Angeles neighborhood. Almost immediately, David begins to notice strange and threatening behavior from the house itself. Lights flicker, appliances malfunction, and the electrical system seems to act with malicious intent. As the danger escalates, David finds himself struggling to convince the adults ...

  Today on the Following Films Podcast, we’re joined by Zainab Azizi, producer at Sam Raimi’s Raimi Productions and one of the key creative forces behind the upcoming film Send Help. We talk about working inside Raimi’s production company, developing elevated genre films, and what it’s really like collaborating with one of the most iconic voices in modern horror. From behind-the-scenes process to navigating the studio system, this is a conversation about making bold films and surviving the chaos that comes with them. Send Help will be in theatres on January 30th.

Fackham Hall arrives as something of a minor miracle. At a time when theatrical comedies are increasingly rare and full-blooded parody films rarer still, it feels almost anachronistic to sit in a cinema and watch a movie whose primary goal is simply to make the audience laugh. Not chuckle politely or exhale through the nose, but laugh openly and often. That alone makes Fackham Hall worthy of attention, but the film justifies its existence far beyond novelty. I went into the film having only seen a handful of the properties it is parodying. I am certain there are references and genre specific jokes that passed me by entirely, aimed at viewers deeply familiar with a certain tradition of stately homes, hushed scandal, and rigid class structures. Yet the film never makes that a problem. It understands something essential about parody that many lesser examples forget. Recognition can enhance a joke, but it should never be the joke itself. Like the classic spoof films that inspired it, Fackh...

Roofman is one of those rare films that takes an unbelievable true story and transforms it into something quietly meaningful. Directed by Derek Cianfrance, the 2025 film resists easy categorization. It is not a traditional crime thriller, nor is it a straightforward comedy or romance. Instead, it is a thoughtful and surprisingly warm character study that finds humanity in an unlikely place. By focusing less on spectacle and more on emotional truth, Roofman becomes a film that lingers long after it ends. The story follows Jeffrey Manchester, portrayed by Channing Tatum, a former Army reservist who earns the nickname “Roofman” by robbing fast food restaurants through their roofs. After being imprisoned, Manchester escapes and secretly lives inside a closed Toys “R” Us, constructing a strange but functional life while remaining hidden from the world. On paper, this premise sounds absurd. In execution, it becomes poignant. The film treats Manchester’s situation not as a gimmick, but as a r...

  February 2026 is shaping up to be a packed and eclectic month for home video collectors, blending prestige restorations, cult horror favorites, studio comedies, family-friendly blockbusters, and buzzy new television. From grim British crime dramas and slasher sequels upgraded to 4K UHD, to nostalgic animation collections and steelbook reprints designed for shelf appeal, the month offers something for nearly every type of viewer. Below is a complete breakdown of February’s major home video releases, organized by street date, with brief synopses to help you decide what deserves a spot in your collection.

Tess & The Details’ Standing on the Edge is a sharp examination of emotional contradiction, a song and video pairing that thrives on imbalance rather than resolution. At first glance or first listen, it lands like a sugar rush of pop punk joy. The song is immediate and infectious, designed to stick around after a single listen, and it barrels forward with an intoxicating sense of momentum. Everything about its surface suggests release, movement, and confidence. But that forward motion is a carefully constructed misdirection. Beneath the polish and speed, the song is quietly unraveling. The track leans heavily into its catchiness without ever letting it drift into emptiness. Instead, that brightness acts as camouflage for lyrics that are far darker and more internal than the sound implies. Standing on the Edge explores emotional precarity, the feeling of hovering at a breaking point without ever fully tipping over. There is a constant sense of emotional vertigo, an awareness that so...

Icefall is a stark and tense survival thriller released in 2025 that places human desperation against the overwhelming power of nature. Directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky, the film attempts to combine crime drama, wilderness survival, and character-driven tension into a single frozen narrative. While it does not fully escape familiar genre patterns, Icefall succeeds in creating a cold atmospheric experience that is often gripping and occasionally haunting even when its storytelling falters. The story centers on Harlan, a Native American game warden played by Joel Kinnaman, who arrests a notorious poacher during a routine patrol in a remote frozen region. What initially appears to be a simple law enforcement encounter quickly spirals into something much more dangerous when Harlan learns that the poacher knows the location of a sunken plane filled with millions of dollars beneath the ice of a frozen lake. This revelation draws criminal interests into the area and forces uneasy alliances to fo...

Shelby Oaks is an ambitious and deeply personal horror film that wears its influences openly while still striving to carve out its own unsettling identity. Directed by Chris Stuckmann, the film arrives with a unique weight behind it, not only because of its genre aspirations but because it represents a critic turned filmmaker stepping directly into the medium he has analyzed for years. The result is a movie that feels both reverent toward horror history and intensely concerned with the emotional fallout of obsession, guilt, and belief. A particularly notable comparison is Roger Ebert, whose transition from criticism to filmmaking resulted in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, written with Russ Meyer. While the film is wildly different in tone and intent from Shelby Oaks, it stands as a reminder that critics have occasionally made bold, unconventional leaps into creation. Ebert’s script was unapologetically excessive, satirical, and deeply aware of the cinematic landscape it was commenting...

Paramount Pictures’ Roofman, arriving on 4K UHD and DVD January 20, 2026, brings to the screen one of the strangest true crime stories in recent memory. Directed by Derek Cianfrance, the film stars Channing Tatum as Jeffrey Manchester, an Army veteran and struggling father whose desperate choices lead him to rob McDonald’s restaurants by cutting through their roofs. His crimes earn him the nickname “Roofman,” but it’s his audacious post-escape hideout—living undetected inside a Toys “R” Us for six months—that cements his legend. When Manchester falls for Leigh (Kirsten Dunst), a divorced mom drawn to his charm, his carefully hidden double life begins to collapse. The home release is packed with bonus features that dig deeper into both the real-life case and the filmmaking behind it. Based on Actual Events and Terrible Decisions takes viewers behind the scenes as the cast and crew unpack the unbelievable story of Manchester, while Chasing the Ghosts: The Director’s Method offers an in-d...

Frightmare from 1981, directed by Norman Thaddeus Vane, is a raw, abrasive slice of American regional horror that thrives on excess anger and outsider energy. Where many early eighties slashers leaned into formula and body count,s this film feels more like a scream of frustration blasted straight onto celluloid. It is messy mean spirited and frequently uncomfortable, but those qualities are exactly what give it its cult power. Frightmare is not interested in polish or restraint. It wants to disturb, provoke, and overwhelm. The story centers on Conrad Radzoff, a former mental patient recently released from an institution after years of confinement for violent crimes. He moves in with his sister and her husband and quickly begins to unravel under the pressures of normal life. His grip on reality is tenuous at best, and his violent urges are barely contained. As Conrad drifts from job to job and situation to situation, his resentment toward society builds, eventually exploding into a seri...

Luther the Geek is the kind of regional horror oddity that seems engineered to be discovered on a battered VHS tape in a dusty video store rather than streamed in high definition. Released in the late nineteen eighties and shot on a shoestring budget, the film sits squarely in the tradition of American backyard horror where enthusiasm outweighs polish and sincerity battles incompetence in every frame. What makes Luther the Geek memorable is not that it is good in a conventional sense but that it is relentlessly committed to its own strange identity. It is a movie that knows exactly what it wants to be even if it does not always know how to get there. The premise is deceptively simple. Luther is an escaped mental patient who roams rural farmland and attacks anyone unlucky enough to cross his path. His defining trait is his appetite for human tongues, which he collects with disturbing enthusiasm. The film wastes little time explaining the psychology behind this fixation, and that is part...

Welcome back to The Following Films Podcast, where we dive into the stories behind the films that move us, challenge us, and stay with us long after the credits roll. Today’s episode brings us a powerful new drama that explores trauma, resilience, and the complicated journey home after war. Sheepdog, written and directed by Steven Grayhm, arrives in theaters January 16, 2026, and it’s a deeply human story about what it really takes to heal. The film centers on Calvin Cole, a decorated U.S. Army combat veteran who is court-ordered into treatment under the care of a VA trauma therapist in training. Just as he begins confronting his past, his estranged father-in-lawm a retired Vietnam veteran recently released from prison, arrives at his doorstep, forcing Calvin to face everything he’s been trying to outrun. Through community, tough love, and compassion, Sheepdog becomes a story about putting yourself back together again, for your family, and for yourself. The film features an extraordina...

Alex Proyas’s Dark City (1998) is one of the most distinctive science fiction films of the 1990s, a noir infused puzzle about a man accused of murder in a city where time never reaches daylight. It blends German Expressionist visuals, detective fiction, and philosophical science fiction to ask a quietly disturbing question: if your memories can be rewritten, what does “you” even mean? Beneath its shadowed rooftops and shifting buildings, Dark City is ultimately about identity, control, and the human urge to define ourselves in a world that will not stay still. The story follows John Murdoch, played by Rufus Sewell, who wakes in a bathtub in a strange hotel room with no memory of who he is. A dead woman lies nearby. A phone rings and a voice warns him that he is in danger. Soon he learns he is being hunted both by the police, led by Inspector Bumstead, and by pale, otherworldly beings called the Strangers. As John runs through the perpetual night of the city, he encounters his supposed ...