Katie Rife
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Evil Dead Rise (2023) |
Once it gets out of its own way and gives the audience what they came to see, “Evil Dead Rise” is an absolute blast. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Mar 17, 2023
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Unicorn Wars (2022) |
While “Unicorn Wars” undoubtedly indulges [its] impulses—think cartoon genitalia and bears hanging themselves in despair—it thankfully also has more going on. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Mar 10, 2023
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Palm Trees and Power Lines (2022) |
Beyond simple documentation, the movie’s intentions are fuzzy. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Mar 03, 2023
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Children of the Corn (2023) |
There’s a lot of screaming and blood, and kids giggling while clutching rusty farm equipment, but none of it leads to anything. - Polygon
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| Posted Mar 03, 2023
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My Happy Ending (2023) |
“My Happy Ending” can’t even do a tearjerker right. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Feb 24, 2023
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Huesera: The Bone Woman (2022) |
[Huesera] accomplishes a lofty goal for genre cinema: Taking a familiar formula and turning it into a personal statement. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Feb 10, 2023
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Magic Mike's Last Dance (2023) |
Allowing both love and money to complicate the primal enjoyment of watching muscular men in sweatpants gyrate ends up diluting the film’s once-simple pleasures. Maybe you can’t have it all. - Polygon
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| Posted Feb 07, 2023
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Cat Person (2023) |
Cat Person gets it wrong so consistently, makes its points so inelegantly, and pads out the short story in such an ill-conceived way that it ends up invalidating the same concerns on which it’s built. - Polygon
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| Posted Jan 27, 2023
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Mami Wata (2023) |
The extra time spent developing the film pays off on screen: From its opening title design to the last notes of Tunde Jegede’s score, Mami Wata is a work of art. - indieWire
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| Posted Jan 25, 2023
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Infinity Pool (2023) |
Infinity Pool is the best horror satire about Americans abroad since Hostel. - Polygon
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| Posted Jan 25, 2023
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Kids vs. Aliens (2022) |
In keeping with our current "poptimistic" age, Kids Vs. Aliens keeps the aggressive neon splatter, but loses the cynicism—a choice that, for all the F-bombs and fake blood, makes it a surprisingly pure film. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Jan 25, 2023
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Jethica (2022) |
This is a strange film all around, distractible and full of Olympic-level tonal gambits. Viewers’ mileage will vary. Wildly. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Jan 13, 2023
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M3GAN (2022) |
Like Malignant, M3gan knows it's ridiculous. It fills a kiddie pool with ridiculousness and splashes around in it. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Jan 06, 2023
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Wildcat (2022) |
While the points where Wildcat goes beyond simply being a feel-good nature documentary and delves into Harry’s mental health struggles are honest, they raise more questions than they answer. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Dec 22, 2022
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Emily the Criminal (2022) |
As a crime thriller, Emily the Criminal is well-written and absorbingly paced, but it’s Plaza’s fearless work that makes it memorable. - Polygon
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| Posted Dec 12, 2022
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Spoiler Alert (2022) |
This is a nice film. A sweet film. A film you can watch with your mother-in-law. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Dec 09, 2022
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A Wounded Fawn (2022) |
[A Wounded Fawn] is forged in fire and blood, taking [Stevens'] eye for striking visuals and elevating it to psychedelic new heights. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Dec 02, 2022
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Violent Night (2022) |
The film has fun lobbing snarky one-liners and outrageous bloodshed at the audience, but on the whole, Violent Night’s big red bag of self-aware tricks is overstuffed. - Polygon
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| Posted Dec 02, 2022
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Taurus (2022) |
Even in offering a cautionary tale, all it can deliver is shallow provocation and monotonous cliché. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Nov 18, 2022
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Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (2022) |
Bardo tries to do so much that in the end, it ends up saying nothing. - Polygon
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| Posted Nov 17, 2022
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The Wonder (2022) |
The Wonder crosses a line between eerie ambiguity and aimless floundering. - Polygon
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| Posted Nov 16, 2022
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Soft & Quiet (2022) |
Soft & Quiet is extremely effective as a piece of educational agitprop. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Nov 04, 2022
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My Policeman (2022) |
The film has nothing to add to the canon of depressing LGBTQ+ period dramas that’s profound enough to overcome the story’s dreary packaging. - Rolling Stone
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| Posted Oct 21, 2022
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Who Invited Them (2022) |
Birmingham does a good job teasing the audience with the possibility of violence, while coyly withholding the orgy of bloodshed that seems sure to explode at some point. - Dread Central
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| Posted Oct 18, 2022
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Hellraiser (2022) |
Hellraiser 2022 easily clears the admittedly low bar of being one of the best Hellraiser movies. - Polygon
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| Posted Oct 05, 2022
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Smile (2022) |
In padding out the concept from an 11-minute short into a nearly two-hour movie, Smile leans too heavily not only on formulaic mystery plotting, but also on horror themes and imagery lifted from popular hits like The Ring and It Follows. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Sep 23, 2022
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I Like Movies (2022) |
A film that is small but not slight, sweet but not cloying, and the kind of thing that can make even a cynical critic like movies again. - indieWire
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| Posted Sep 20, 2022
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Dalíland (2022) |
On paper, Dalíland has all the elements of a fascinating character study. In practice, it’s more of a rote exercise. - indieWire
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| Posted Sep 20, 2022
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All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) |
Just as polished but not quite as flashy as Sam Mendes’ “1917,” the film displays a similar level of commitment to historical detail, but presents its elaborately staged battlefield scenes in a relatively more plain spoken style. - indieWire
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| Posted Sep 14, 2022
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The Whale (2022) |
Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale is an act of hate disguised as tough love. - Polygon
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| Posted Sep 14, 2022
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The Woman King (2022) |
This film has a fire in its belly. But more importantly, it also has a heart full of love: love of life, love of freedom, love of Black people and culture, and love for its ferocious, complicated, brave women. - Polygon
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| Posted Sep 14, 2022
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A Jazzman's Blues (2022) |
It’s apparent that Perry worked in theater when he wrote this script. At its core, “A Jazzman’s Blues” is a soap opera full of shocking secrets, emotional confrontations, and one exceedingly satisfying slap. - indieWire
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| Posted Sep 13, 2022
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Girl Picture (2022) |
Its embrace of the exquisite, painful, confusing breadth of emotions that make up the human experience is what makes Girl Picture so worthwhile. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Aug 12, 2022
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Easter Sunday (2022) |
It’s clear that Jo Koy loves his relatives, and wants the world to know it. It’s just that his style would be better served within the more earnest confines of a traditional multi-cam sitcom. - Rolling Stone
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| Posted Aug 05, 2022
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Mija (2022) |
Mija weaves a more nuanced emotional tapestry than is typically seen in immigration stories like this one. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Aug 05, 2022
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Resurrection (2022) |
This is an audacious film that asks viewers to take its hand and come along to some particularly dark, surreal, and grotesque places. - Polygon
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| Posted Jul 29, 2022
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Medusa (2021) |
Da Silviera’s vision of bubblegum fascism is compelling, and Medusa sucks viewers in right away. Unfortunately, however, the film expends far more effort on aesthetics and world-building than it does on narrative. - indieWire
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| Posted Jul 29, 2022
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The Black Phone (2021) |
The Black Phone manages to preserve everything that made Hill’s short story so creepy and undermine it at the same time. - Polygon
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| Posted Jun 24, 2022
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Spiderhead (2022) |
In spite of the dystopian premise, Kosinski brings a light touch to Spiderhead. Colorful cinematography and spirited editing contrast with the characters’ tragic backstories. - Polygon
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| Posted Jun 13, 2022
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After Blue (2021) |
After Blue might be better off as an art installation than as a narrative film, given that it’s more fun to describe than it is to actually watch. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Jun 03, 2022
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Torn Hearts (2022) |
If Torn Hearts had pushed itself a little harder, it could have ascended into camp heaven, and maybe become a cult classic. As it stands, it’s an unapologetically high-femme distraction that’s better than your average Lifetime thriller. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted May 20, 2022
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Firestarter (2022) |
Pretty okay when no one is talking. - Polygon
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| Posted May 13, 2022
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Pleasure (2021) |
Thyberg keeps her cards close throughout Pleasure, using the film’s verité framing to obscure the extent of her involvement as a director. The film feels even-handed, in the sense that its fly-on-the-wall style lets situations speak for themselves. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted May 13, 2022
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Shepherd (2021) |
For Shepherd to truly transcend its rickety bits and its story clichés, it would need to come up with more resonant and creative images than Owen is able to produce here. - Polygon
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| Posted May 06, 2022
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Escape The Field (2022) |
Escape the Field gets a marginal pass, for two reasons: First, it’s short, clocking in at a brisk 88 minutes. Second, it’s an original-ish concept, with no explicit ties to existing IP. - Polygon
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| Posted May 06, 2022
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365 Days: This Day (2022) |
365 Days: This Day is barely a movie. Its the emotionally bankrupt id of late capitalism, a braindead miasma of choreographed sex. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Apr 29, 2022
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Marvelous and the Black Hole (2020) |
Marvelous and the Black Hole has enough warmth to overcome its practical limitations. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Apr 22, 2022
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Petite Maman (2021) |
Petite Maman is the work of an unusually sensitive filmmaker, and it speaks to Sciamma’s skill as a director that she’s able to express the nuances of this complicated dynamic through such simple actions and words. - Polygon
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| Posted Apr 21, 2022
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The Northman (2022) |
Although the film ends up as a shallow rumination on revenge and single-minded dominance, it’s hard to beat as spectacle. In terms of making history exciting and engrossing, The Northman is about as titillating as gateway drugs get. - Polygon
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| Posted Apr 11, 2022
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Ambulance (2022) |
A thick, juicy, hilariously overwrought, gloriously stupid steak upon which the vulgar auteurists of the world can feast. - RogerEbert.com
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| Posted Apr 08, 2022
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