Cinema Psychos Movie Reviews

Happy 4th of July — we're doing it differently this year! Brian and John are joined by returning guest Henry O'Brien (Film Obsessive / Stuff I Watched Substack) to review Oliver Stone's BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY (1989) — and make the case that this is not just Tom Cruise's best performance, but one of the most underseen masterworks of American cinema. In this episode: • Why Stone's 5-act structur...

Masters of The Universe (1987) is the ultimate 80s movie debate. Is it a sci-fi epic, or is it a glorious, awesomely bad disaster? Let's find out. When Mattel teamed up with Cannon Films—a studio legendary for running on sheer sweat, blood, and wild choices—to bring He-Man to the big screen, the results were unforgettable. In this episode, the Cinema Psychos are joined by Justin from Epic Film Guy...

🚨 Subscribe to our newsletter!- https://the-cinema-psychos-show.kit.com/9e9a267e76 🎉 EPISODE 400 🎉 — and we're celebrating with the remake nobody asked for. For Father's Day, BrIan and John are joined by Old Man Brad (Tomb of Terrors podcast) to review THE STEPFATHER (2009) — a PG-13 slasher remake so soulless it makes you appreciate the original even more. In this episode: • Is Dylan Walsh doi...

🚨 Subscribe to our newsletter!- https://the-cinema-psychos-show.kit.com/9e9a267e76 Before Batman, before Beetlejuice — Michael Keaton was making people lose their minds in a gangster parody so dense with jokes it makes Airplane! look restrained. Brian is joined by special guest KT Baldassaro to dig into the 1984 cult classic Johnny Dangerously — a PG-13 movie that somehow snuck in an exploding-ba...

🚨 Subscribe to our newsletter!- https://the-cinema-psychos-show.kit.com/9e9a267e76 Seven years since a Star Wars film hit theaters. Disney's biggest star wars streaming property was given a $165 million budget — while every other Star Wars movie got $500-600 million which makes you wonder, did Disney short change this movie on purpose? Brian and John break down why The Mandalorian & Grogu felt le...

🚨 Subscribe to our newsletter!-   https://the-cinema-psychos-show.kit.com/9e9a267e76 Amy Adams' FIRST movie. Kirsten Dunst. Allison Janney. Brittany Murphy. Ellen Barkin. Kirstie Alley. All in one movie from 1999 — and nobody talks about it. This week on Cinema Psychos, Brian and John are joined by Amanda and Lucy of Wine & Crime — the true crime & comedy podcast — to dig into Drop Dead Gorgeous...

🚨 Subscribe to our newsletter!-   https://the-cinema-psychos-show.kit.c... Does Amy Heckerling's Clueless from 1995 still hold up after 31 years? This re-imagining of Jane Austen's Emma starring Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, Brittany Murphy, and the immortal Paul Rudd represents the pinnacle of mid 90's culture, fashion, and slang (as if!). In honor of 90's movie month, we are cracking open th...

🚨 Subscribe to our newsletter!-   https://the-cinema-psychos-show.kit.com/9e9a267e76 Is Reality Bites the ultimate 90s time capsule — or just a movie full of people you want to shake? We dig into Ben Stiller's 1994 Gen X classic and we're not holding back. Brian and co-host John are joined this week by Rachael and John of the YaJagoff Podcast, Pittsburgh's beloved local institution — for a full m...

What happens when two wealthy socialite heiresses end up in the pacific northwest at the height of The Great Depression. You get The Wilde Girls, a new indie film that I had the pleasure of viewing recently. So let's break down the good and bad in this movie filled with bears, button men, and heart. Synopsis: The year is 1932. Two clueless socialite heiresses with zero survival skills find themsel...

Subscribe to our newsletter so the algorithm can't stop you from finding us- https://the-cinema-psychos-show.kit.com/9e9a267e76 In 1996, Touchstone Pictures looked at Shaquille O'Neal, looked at their checkbook, and said: "Genie movie. Let's go." Nobody wrote a real script. Nobody asked questions. And somehow, nobody noticed the kid protagonist falls nine stories into an abandoned building in the...

Kevin Costner spent $200 million making a Mad Max ripoff on the open ocean — and the man has gills behind his ears. That's right. Waterworld's hero is a merman. A gill-having, web-toed, pee-drinking merman. And Cinema Psychos is here to ask the only question that matters: Really That Awful? Brian and John go full deep dive on Waterworld (1995), one of Hollywood's most notorious production disaster...

McDonald's killed Batman. Then Warner Brothers buried him in neon. After Batman Returns traumatized parents and Christian groups, McDonald's panicked and pulled their Happy Meal deal. Warner Brothers, terrified of losing fast food merchandising money, forced a course correction that gave us Batman Forever—a neon-soaked, toyetic mess that abandoned Tim Burton's gothic vision for Joel Schumacher's c...

Is Panic Room just Home Alone For Adults? David Fincher's 2002 home invasion thriller is sharper, darker, and weirder than you remember — and this week we're breaking down every inch of it. Brian, John, and returning guest Anastasia Elfman revisit one of the most underrated thrillers of the early 2000s. They cover Fincher's Hitchcockian direction, those impossibly fluid CGI camera moves, and the f...

Ready or Not 2 is in theaters — so we went back to where it all started. Brian, John, and filmmaker/critic KT Baldassaro (@MovieRuntime) dig into the 2019 original and make the case that it's one of the smartest, funniest, most satisfying horror comedies of the last decade. A bride. A devil-controlled game box. A mansion full of rich lunatics. Hide and seek to the death. What we cover: Why this is...

Sam Raimi is BACK — and he brought the blood, gore and laughs! This week on The Cinema Psychos Show, Brian and John are joined by returning fan favorite Anastasia Elfman to break down Send Help, the gloriously unhinged, darkly comedic horror film that proves Sam Raimi still has the sickest tricks up his sleeve. We're talking demonic camera moves, Rachel McAdams absolutely losing her mind, the most...

Is War of the Worlds (2025) the worst Film ever or is it simply a soulless film about our capitalist hellscape of an existence?  Ice Cube plays a surveillance psycho hacking his daughter's fridge while data-eating aliens invade Earth through Microsoft Teams. We watched War of the Worlds (2025) so you don't have to—this screenlife disaster is 90 minutes of PS2 CGI, shameless Amazon product placemen...

Is The Phantom (1996) a secretly GREAT bad superhero movie, or just purple-spandex pulp trash? In this episode, we dive deep into Billy Zane's cult classic, The Phantom, and ask if it actually holds up in 2026. ​ We break down the film's weird production history, its roots in classic pulp comics, and why Treat Williams' gloriously over-the-top Xander Drax performance might be one of the last great...

Five Nights at Freddy's 2 (2025) might be one of the most toothless horror sequels of the decade – and yes, this movie kinda sucks. In this episode of The Cinema Psycho Show, we dive into the messy lore dump, the bloodless PG‑13 kills, the bizarre FazFest setup, and why Toy Chica somehow ends up being the star of the show for all the wrong reasons. We also talk about: The opening Charlotte flashba...

Luc Besson finally made a Dracula movie in 2026… and somehow turned it into a boring, horny, perfume‑addled fever dream instead of a gothic horror classic. In this episode of The Cinema Psychos Show, Brian tears into  Dracula (2026)  and explains why this shiny new take on the Count feels more like a knockoff of better Dracula films than a bold reinvention. We break down everything that went wrong...

Author Brian Raftery joins us to explain how  Silence of the Lambs  didn't just give us a scary villain—it invented a whole new type. Before Hannibal Lecter, horror villains were mostly slashers in masks. Lecter changed the rules: he was clever, charming, and used his mind as a weapon. That's why this movie—and this character—still haunts us decades later. We break down what made Lecter different,...

We're joined by Becky D'Anna, co-host of Sony Pictures Official podcast, Director's Take, for a special jam packed year in review episode! Together, we each share our personal Top 10 Best Films and Top 10 Worst Films of 2025. It's less a debate and more a celebration (and respectful roast) of the year in cinema—comparing notes on horror standouts, unexpected gems, and the films that missed the mar...

Join us for a wild 2025 year-in-review! We unpack the biggest entertainment stories: the high-stakes Netflix, Paramount, and Warner Bros. acquisition war, the shocking Diddy trial, the rise of the AI actress Tilly Norwood, and Taylor Swift's continued pop culture takeover. We also break down the year in movies: DC vs. Marvel, streaming's threat to theaters, our top box office hits and bombs, and t...

'Tis the season to be slashing!  This week we are unwrapping our favorite Christmas slasher films—the perfect antidote to all that holiday cheer! After surviving the stressful holiday season, the guys dive deep into why we love merging festive joy with horror, discussing everything from killer Santas to homicidal snowmen. They explore the controversy that nearly buried Silent Night, Deadly Night,...

The legend is true. We watched the infamous 2003 bomb "Gigli" so you don't have to, and the reality is somehow worse than the reputation. Starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez at the peak of "Bennifer" mania, this Martin Brest-directed disaster is a baffling mix of mob thriller, offensive rom-com, and unintentional comedy. In this episode, we break down: The cringeworthy plot of a hitman trying...

Dive into our spoiler-filled breakdown of the 2025 adaptation of  The Running Man . We analyze Edgar Wright's fresh take, compare it to the Schwarzenegger classic and the original Stephen King story, and tackle the divisive The Running Man 2025 reviews. Was this movie unfairly maligned for being too real, or did it miss the mark? We explore its tone, social satire, and why it might be one of the m...