This week the 74th annual Cannes Film Festival began, the first after the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw numerous critics and press members come to France to see the international premieres of the most anticipated films of 2021. From Adam Driver in the musical by Leos Carax Annette to Mamoru Hosoda’s animated science fiction film Belle to Wes Andersons The French shipping and more, the first waves of pre-release hype are already starting to seep from the festival site.
For those of you who didn’t make it to one of the most prestigious and exclusive cinema events of the year, there are still tons of great films to stream and rent on video-on-demand. Black widow, the 24th MCU film and Scarlett Johansson’s eighth appearance as super-spy Natasha “Black Widow” Romanoff, premieres in theaters and on Disney Plus this weekend after a year-long delay. The second film in Leigh Janiak’s horror film trilogy, based on RL Stine’s Fear Street series, also premieres on Netflix this weekend, alongside VOD releases such as the French horror thriller meander and more.
So that you know what’s new and available, here are the movies to watch with one click this weekend.
Black widow
Where to see: Available for streaming Disney Plus Premier Access
Set between the events of 2015 Captain America: Civil War and 2018 Avengers: Infinity War, Black widow finds Natasha Romanoff alone and on the run after she sided with Steve Rogers under the Sokovia Accords. Persecuted by a mysterious assassin named Taskmaster, Natasha turns to old allies and faces her filthy history for answers and possible redress for the sins of her past. From our review:
Black widow mostly feels like an apology. It appears as the 24th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, two years (one of which is a pandemic mulligan) after the 22nd film. Avengers: EndgameIt showed an emotional scene that clearly led to death Black widow‘s main character, Natasha Romanoff. Black Widow has been consistently present in the MCU since 2010 Ironman 2, and she was one of the key connecting figures who actually helped all of these films feeling like a universe. She also appeared to be one of the few women of importance in the entire franchise. And after coming and going, she only gets her own independent film nowwhat does Black widow feel like an afterthought. It’s only the second MCU film to feature a female character, and that character isn’t even alive to take us to a new place.
Fear Street Part 2: 1978
Where can you see it: Available for streaming Netflix
Fear Street Part 2: 1978 picks up the thread of the previous part of the Fear Street trilogy and turns back the clocks to explore the story of “Ziggy” Berman (Strange things’ Sadie Sink) and her sister Cindy fight to survive the horrific Camp Nightwing massacre of 1978. From our review:
Like most middle chapters, Angststrasse 1978 struggles to stand on its own instead of primarily acting as a bridge between the first and last part of the trilogy. The movie’s final 15 minutes are arguably the strongest, jumping back to 1994 when Deena and Josh exhumed Sarah Fier’s hand on the tree she was hanged on, now the location of the Shadyside Mall, where Heather Watkins was murdered in the previous film . When Deena tries to calm Fier’s remains, she is struck by a vision not unlike Sam, one that seemingly takes her back to 1666, the year Sunnyvale and Shadyside were founded and the origin of the Witch’s Curse.
meander
Where can you see it: Available for $ 4.99 on Amazon Prime Video; $ 6.99 at Apple, Vudu
If you like sci-fi horror thrillers with intrepid female protagonists who wake up in claustrophobic situations, meander will be totally in your alley. Gaia Weiss plays Lisa, a mysterious woman who, after accepting a ride from an ominous stranger, wakes up in a strange metallic maze wearing nothing but a catsuit and a bulky bracelet with a countdown timer. Navigating a deadly series of puzzles, traps, and the murderous intentions of another prisoner trapped next to her, Lisa must use all of her wits to escape and see her daughter again. Sounds like Vincenzo Natali cube meets David Schmöller’s 1986 horror thriller Crawl space.
And that fell last Friday:
The war of tomorrow
Where can you see it: Available for streaming Amazon Prime Video
Chris McKayy’s sci-fi action drama The war of tomorrow Chris Pratt as Dan Forester, a former Green Beret who became a high school biology teacher who is drawn into a war with an alien species called White Spikes along with thousands of other civilians. Moved 30 years into the future, Dan works with his estranged father (JK Simmons) and a brilliant scientist (Yvonne Strahovski) to fend off this dire threat and secure a future for his daughter – and humanity. From our review:
Narrative padded and optically overflowing with CGI, The war of tomorrow plays out like Starship Troopers drained by Paul Verhoeven’s subversive satire, Edge of tomorrow without Doug Liman’s dry sense of killing Tom Cruise, Battle: Los Angeles without Aaron Eckhart’s credible courage, right? independence Day without Will Smith’s pleasant campiness.
Fear Street Part 1: 1984
Where can you see it: Available for streaming Netflix
RL Stine is known to a generation of readers for his bestselling series Goosebumps, the children’s horror novels that were published in the early to late 1990s and spawned dozen of spin-off series, a television series, and two live-action feature films starring Jack Black as Stine itself. In contrast, Stine’s teenage horror series Fear Street, which is getting goosebumps, never reached the same level of mainstream notoriety, despite selling more than 80 million copies as of 2010. That could change with Fear Street Part 1: 1994
A twist on the traditional slasher formula, the Fear Street: 1994 introduces and will likely serve as a connecting line between all three films is the element of the occult in the form of Sara Feir, the film’s antagonist. Hanged as a witch several hundred years before the events of the film, Feir left a legacy – and a mysterious intergenerational vendetta for one of the characters – that is possibly the cause of much of the misfortune and horror that plagues Shadyside. Feir has owned and twisted several otherwise innocent townspeople throughout history to commit gruesome acts of violence for an unknown purpose. The twists and turns that ensue from this reveal make for some entertaining and shocking scenes in the second half of the film, culminating in several shocking killings where the brutality contrasts with the otherwise chaste violence of the rest of the film.
Until death
Where can you see it: Available for $ 6.99 on Amazon Prime Video, Apple and Vudu
Transformer and Jennifer’s body Star Megan Fox is seeing something of a career boom lately. Take on her newest role in Until death, SK Dales horror action thriller with Fox as the unhappy wife Gerald’s game-like situation when she wakes up in bed on her wedding day in a remote lake house during her vacation and is handcuffed to her husband’s corpse. As if that wasn’t enough, two robbers broke into the house to rob the apartment and murder anyone who could get in their way.
Werewolves inside
Where can you see it: Available for $ 6.99 on Amazon Prime Video, Apple and Vudu
Calculated on the multiplayer VR game from 2016 based on the card game based on the classic social deduction game Mafia, Werewolves inside Stars Sam Richardson (I think you should go, The war of tomorrow) as Finn Wheeler, a forester assigned to the small town of Beaverfield. When an unusual blizzard locks the town’s residents at the local inn, Finn works with postal worker Cecily (Milana Vayntrub) to find out which of the townspeople could be the werewolf killing people one by one.
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