Scream 7 (4 Stars)

It's OK. That's probably the best way I can describe it. I enjoyed watching it, but when the final credits rolled I felt that something was missing.

For a start, there aren't enough teenagers. That might sound like a strange criticism, but this is supposed to be a teenage slasher movie. The teenagers have always been an important part of the formula, and there simply aren't enough of them here. There are too many adults and not enough of the young characters who made the earlier films so much fun.

On the positive side, Sidney Prescott and Gale Weathers are still a great combination. The chemistry between them works. It always has. Put Sidney and Gale together and there's an instant familiarity that reminds you why these characters have survived through so many films.

Unfortunately, I didn't feel the same way about Sidney's husband Mark. He irritated me almost from the moment he appeared. He has no charisma, adds very little to the story and, frankly, I wasn't sorry when Ghostface killed him.

In fact, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Then it was revealed that he'd survived.

"Oh no!" I thought. "That means he'll be back in the next film".

And then there's Ghostface. Or, more accurately, Ghostfaces.

Yes, there are three killers again. I don't actually have a problem with that. Scream has done multiple killers before and it can work very well. The problem here is the motivation.

Karl Gibbs is basically random. He's talked into becoming a killer by Marco Davis, who's the real brains behind the operation. And Marco, in turn, has been talked into it by Sidney's jealous neighbour, Jessica Bowden.

That's quite a chain of events just to get to a group of people wearing Ghostface masks.

The trouble is that none of their motivations are particularly convincing. When the killers are finally revealed, you're supposed to have that wonderful Scream moment when everything suddenly makes sense. Instead, I was thinking "Why?" And then, when the explanation came, I was still thinking "Why?"

That's disappointing, because the identity and motivation of Ghostface are such an important part of the fun. The best Scream reveals make you look back at the film and realise that the clues were there all along. Here, the explanation feels more like the writers needed three people to be Ghostface and then had to find a reason for each of them to be involved.

Having said all that, I didn't hate "Scream 7". Far from it. It's entertaining, there are some good kills, and Sidney and Gale are still fun to watch together. I just don't think it works as well as the best films in the series.

It's OK.

But when you're watching a Scream film, "OK" isn't good enough.

Success Rate:  + 2.8

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Five Nights at Freddy's (4 Stars)

• Mike Schmidt struggles to keep custody of his younger sister Abby.
• Mike is haunted by the kidnapping of his younger brother Garrett.
• Mike takes a night security job at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza.
• The restaurant's animatronics come alive and attack intruders.
• Abby befriends the supposedly murderous animatronics.
• The animatronics are possessed by murdered children.
• Mike dreams about Garrett and the murdered children.
• Mike discovers that the murdered children were killed at Freddy's.
• The policewoman Vanessa knows the truth about Freddy's and its history.
• The children were murdered by the serial killer William Afton.
• Afton is Vanessa's father and Garrett's kidnapper.
• Afton murdered the children while wearing the Spring Bonnie suit.
• Abby helps the murdered children realise that Afton betrayed them.
• The children turn against Afton and drag him away.
• Afton is trapped inside the Spring Bonnie suit.
• Vanessa is seriously injured and falls into a coma.
• Mike and Abby survive and remain together.

Success Rate:  + 12.9

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The Life of Chuck (5 Stars)

Every now and then a film is made that's truly original. Not often, but it happens. The best film of 2025 was doubtlessly "The Life of Chuck". Told backwards, the film shows the key incidents in the life of Charles Krantz, nicknamed Chuck. He lived, he danced, he died. That's something that could be written on my gravestone. It wasn't written on Chuck's gravestone, because when he died the world ended.

Other reviewers tackle the question of whether the world really ends in the film. Is the third part of the film just the imagination of a man lying in a hospital bed dying of a brain tumour? Personally, I don't think the question should be asked. Walt Whitman wrote, "I am large. I contain multitudes". He wrote it about himself, but it applies to everyone, and in the context of the film it applies to Chuck. When Chuck dies at the young age of 39, the universe dies with him.

The film wasn't very successful at the box office, which is sad. It should have been seen by more people. I don't think it was a problem that people didn't understand the film, they just didn't go to the cinema to see it. I've spoken to friends who I'm sure would have liked it, but they didn't go. They didn't know what the film was about. One friend thought it was a film about music. Another assumed it was a horror film, because it's based on a Stephen King story. It's not a horror film. It's a science fiction film and a deeply philosophical film.

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Scream 7 (4 Stars)

A new Scream film! I couldn't wait. I had to go see it on the first day.

The cinema was less than a quarter full. I expected more people. I'd read that based on advance ticket sales "Scream 7" will probably the most successful film in the series so far. Does it deserve such success? That's a difficult question to answer. It's a good film, but I wouldn't rate it as highly as the first three films.

I'll only give two spoilers:

1. There's no after-credits scene.

2. There's a mid-credits scene with bloopers.

Five Nights at Freddy's 2 (4½ Stars)

I wasn't sure whether the sequel to "Five Nights at Freddy's" would work out. I needn't have worried. The film is a success, both artistically and financially. Initial reports suggest that it might make more at the box office than the original.

I shan't give spoilers, except for one small detail: in the after-credits scene there are hints about what will happen in the next film. As long as the quality is kept up, this could become a major franchise.

Five Nights at Freddy's (4½ Stars)

I recently read an article in which "Five Nights at Freddy's" is called a family friendly horror movie. Weird. I'd never heard that expression before. So after watching the film this evening I did some online research. A family friendly horror movie is a film that can scare children without traumatising them. It's a film in which the viewer is detached from the horror, i.e. he doesn't feel like he's the one being threatened or killed. I still didn't understand that explanation, so I carried on reading. There's one point made that I could understand. The age limits jump from 0 to 6 to 12 to 16 to 18 without gaps in between. A film might be suitable for a 10-year-old. Apart from that, children have different maturity, so what's good for one 10-year-old could be bad for another 10-year-old.

One thing that's surprised me is that the film has been parodied many times on YouTube children's channels. Check out the videos on the Shiloh & Bros channel, which have been viewed millions of times. My grandson Oliver has watched them repeatedly. He knows the names of all the robots in the film. I don't.

There's another thing that's always confused me about horror films, specifically "Five Nights at Freddy's". One of the main characters is Abby Schmidt, played by the actress Piper Rubio. She was only seven years old when she made the movie. Does that mean she wasn't allowed to watch the film when it was finished? I expect the filming itself wasn't as scary as the finished product, because actors on the set don't see the magic of cinema. It's all too real to be scary.

"Five Nights at Freddy's" is a good film. Maybe confusing in parts. It's never explained how Abby is able to draw the robots before she first sees them. Let's hope there's a plausible explanation in the sequel.

Success Rate:  + 12.9

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Five Nights at Freddy's (4½ Stars)

I watched the trailer for "Five Nights at Freddy's" twenty-five times before I went to see the film. That's not an estimate. I watched it exactly twenty-five times. I know the exact number, because it was shown before every film at the Fantasy Film Festival last month. That's how many films I watched.

Having said that, the trailer gave me the wrong impression. It looked like a security guard taking his daughter with him to work at an abandoned fairground, where he was attacked by killer robots. But that's not what happens in the film. First, it isn't his daughter, it's his (much) younger sister. Second, it's not a fairground, it's a pizza parlour. Third, the robots aren't killers. Not all of them, anyway.

Mike Schmidt is a socially awkward young man. He's done a series of jobs, but he's always fired within a few weeks. After the death of his parents in an accident he's taking care of his younger sister Abby. Her age isn't stated, but the actress who played her was seven at the time of filming. Abby is distant, maybe due to the loss of her parents. She spends all her time drawing pictures or talking to an imaginary friend.

Mike is offered a job as a night watchman at a disused pizza parlour called Freddy Fazbear's. It needs protection against vandalism. The pizza parlour is full of still functional pinball machines, and there are also giant animal robots that play music. When it's least expected they come to life. Abby makes friends with the robots and plays with them every night.

So there's no danger? Of course there is, but I'm not going to give away everything. All I'll say is that Mike is haunted by dreams of his brother being abducted when they were small children. These dreams are somehow connected with Freddy's Pizza Parlour.

Based on what I've read, critics don't like the film, but it's been a commercial success with the public. The fans are right, the critics are wrong.