Maitland McDonagh

Tomatometer-approved critic

Biography:

Maitland McDonagh is TV Guide Online's Senior Movie Editor, and has been writing about movies for more than 15 years. She is the author of three books on film: Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento, Filmmaking on the Fringe: The Good, the Bad and the Deviant Directors and The 50 Most Erotic Films of All Time, and has written for publications ranging from The New York Times to Paper and Time Out New York.

Publications: Boxoffice Magazine, Film Comment Magazine, Film Journal International, Hollywood Reporter, Time Out, Miss FlickChick, AMCtv.com, Horror Hacker, TV Guide

Critics' Group: New York Film Critics Online, Online Film Critics Society

Location: New York, USA

Official Websites: tvguide.com/movies

Movie Reviews Only

Movies

	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Review
2/5	40%	Equilibrium (2002)	It's hard not to feel you've just watched a feature-length video game with some really heavy back story. - TV Guide EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 17, 2019
3/5	No Score Yet	The Nest (2002)	Though THE NEST eventually bogs down in ever-escalating firefights, for most of its running time it's a lean, intense, white-knuckle thriller distinguished by above average performances. - TV Guide EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 11, 2019
1.5/5	21%	Practical Magic (1998)	Mind-boggling miscalculations strangle this adaptation of Alice Hoffman's popular novel before it can find its feet. - TV Guide EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 30, 2019
	14%	Welcome Home (2018)	Features surprisingly strong performances from Ratajkowski, Scamarcio and Paul. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 15, 2018
	40%	The Super (2018)	How surprising the story's twist ending turns out to be depends on how thoroughly steeped in horror moves the viewer is, but it's well executed down to small details. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 9, 2018
	81%	Overlord (2018)	American soldiers take on zombie Nazis in this gory horror picture that also features a solid story and characters you can actually care about. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 8, 2018
	No Score Yet	Speed Kills (2018)	Speed Kills feels startlingly like a 1990s direct-to-video action movie with an inexplicably inflated budget. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 7, 2018
	83%	Daughters of the Sexual Revolution: The Untold Story of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (2018)	A truly engrossing film, one that balances the big picture and the small one. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 2, 2018
	39%	Don't Go (2018)	In this handsomely made psychological thriller, a troubled couple tries to move on after the loss of their young daughter, but find themselves mired in the past. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 26, 2018
	No Score Yet	London Fields (2018)	London Fields simply does not work on any level. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 26, 2018
	66%	Suspiria (2018)	A smart reimagining, but not a particularly compelling one, which is the problem overall. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 23, 2018
2.5/5	59%	Face (2002)	New Jersey-born, Taiwan-raised director/cowriter Bay-Sa Pan gives the conflict a culturally particular spin and elicits strong performances from her appealing cast. - TV Guide EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 19, 2018
2/4	59%	Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer (2007)	[A] cheerfully gross, deliberately retro horror picture. - TV Guide EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 17, 2018
	17%	Look Away (2018)	Not especially distinctive. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 12, 2018
	80%	A Crooked Somebody (2018)	Features excellent performances and a plot firmly rooted in relationships rather than stunts. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 4, 2018
	80%	Chasing the Blues (2018)	The film's pleasures are small ones, but they're perfectly pitched. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 4, 2018
	No Score Yet	Maximum Impact (2018)	Neither particularly funny nor conspicuously thrilling. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 27, 2018
	13%	Peppermint (2018)	Fundamentally forgettable, the kind of movie whose details begin to disappear the moment the credits roll. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 6, 2018
	63%	Blood Fest (2018)	Though never particularly scary, 'Blood Fest' is entertaining and gives genre fans the opportunity to feel clever as they spot the references to a wide range of horror films. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 30, 2018
	82%	What Keeps You Alive (2018)	Features excellent performances by leads Brittany Allen and Hannah Emily Anderson and some tidy plot twists. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 23, 2018
	67%	Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich (2018)	Funny little Nazis require rather more finesse than The Littlest Reich possesses. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 16, 2018
	5%	211 (2018)	Adhering to a formula is one thing, but this cliché overload pushes 211 over the line that divides undistinguished movies from bad ones. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 14, 2018
	50%	Elizabeth Harvest (2018)	Both great genre fun and genuinely horrifying. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 9, 2018
	22%	14 Cameras (2018)	The sequel to the 2015 high-tech peeping Tom thriller '13 Cameras' takes the premise up a notch with genuinely creepy results. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 27, 2018
	100%	King Cohen: The Wild World of Filmmaker Larry Cohen (2018)	This briskly entertaining documentary about low-budget filmmaker Larry Cohen gives the writer plenty of time to tell his own story of making smart movies on the cheap. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 24, 2018
	No Score Yet	Black Water (2018)	A thoroughly forgettable formulaic action movie. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 29, 2018
2/5	45%	Deep Impact (1998)	A three-hankie weeper in disaster-movie drag, and its tear-jerking bull's-eyes are separated by long stretches of tedium. - TV Guide EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 25, 2018
	13%	China Salesman (2018)	If it were half an hour shorter, China Salesman might be a candidate for "so bad it's good (or at least kind of fun)" status. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 15, 2018
	49%	Superfly (2018)	Slick but not cool and has nothing much to say. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 13, 2018
	78%	Discreet (2018)	A disturbed loner begins to unravel in this contemplative thriller that's less interested in conventional thrills than in drawing viewers into the protagonist's off-kilter world view. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted May 31, 2018
	44%	In Darkness (2018)	Fans of the genre will appreciate the clever script and strong performances. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted May 24, 2018
	46%	How to Talk to Girls at Parties (2018)	[A] sweetly daffy picture about coming of age in punk-era England. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted May 24, 2018
	No Score Yet	Dark Crimes (2018)	[S]tumbles at every turn. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted May 17, 2018
	27%	Breaking In (2018)	Breaking In keeps the pace up, the pressure on and the action fairly plausible. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted May 10, 2018
	54%	Bad Samaritan (2018)	In this tightly constructed thriller, a stone-cold sociopath is pitted against a small-time grifter who rediscovers his long-neglected moral compass. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted May 2, 2018
	83%	Ghost Stories (2018)	This modern-day portmanteau horror film cleverly ties together three stories of the supernatural through one character's search to debunk the apparently undebunkable. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 20, 2018
	27%	Traffik (2018)	1970s exploitation lives in this lean, mean tale of vacationing city folk who accidentally run afoul of rural human traffickers. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 20, 2018
2/4	69%	The Leading Man (1998)	While buff, blandly handsome and a pleasant enough screen presence, Jon Bon Jovi can't suggest the bottomless reserves of guile, intelligence and resolve his role demands. - TV Guide EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 17, 2018
	73%	Mercury (2018)	Contains several genuinely suspenseful sequences reminiscent of Fede Alvarez's acclaimed 2016 Don't Breathe and of '70s gialli in general. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 12, 2018
	45%	Allure (2018)	Bad love comes in several varieties in this thriller about a woman whose relationship with a teenager has dire consequences. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 15, 2018
	100%	Keep the Change (2018)	Surprisingly sweet rom-com featuring two people with autism benefits from affecting performances by leads Samantha Elisofon and Brandon Polansky. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 15, 2018
	18%	Death Wish (2018)	[I]n the end it's just another macho fantasy about "good guys" with guns. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 2, 2018
	No Score Yet	Pickings (2018)	Pickings may not be a genre-changer, but it's handsomely stylish and a cut above the average neo-noir pastiche. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 1, 2018
	47%	Curvature (2018)	Once it sets up its "What if?" premise [...] it doesn't do a whole lot with it...at least, not a whole lot that's especially interesting. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 23, 2018
	7%	7 Guardians of the Tomb (2018)	Incredibly dumb and tedious. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 22, 2018
	17%	Looking Glass (2018)	Cage tones down the theatrics that sometime derail films in which he appears. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 16, 2018
	75%	Bomb City (2018)	Teenage rivalries escalate into searing violence in this powerful, fact-based drama about class, money and identity run amok in 1990s Amarillo, Texas. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 8, 2018
	75%	Braven (2018)	This sharply directed, back-against-the-wall thriller features strong performances and stunning winter location photography. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 1, 2018
	72%	Like Me (2018)	The film's pulse comes from its rapid-fire montages of familiar images. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 25, 2018
	74%	Mom and Dad (2018)	Billed as a horror comedy, Mom & Dad is neither funny nor scary. - Film Journal International EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 18, 2018

Best Reviewed Movies

4/4 Tim Burton's Corpse Bride 4/4 Pride and Prejudice 10/10 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 4/4 The Matrix 10/10 Three Kings

Worst Reviewed Movies

— Bonnie and Clyde vs. Dracula — The Tenant — God's Land — Desperate Endeavors — Raaz 3: The Third Dimension 3D

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