Three Films Make A Post: Blood, sweat and tutus.

Pretty Lethal (2026): A small troupe of perpetually quarrelling ballerinas – I’d be thankful if someone could explain the minor ballerina genre movie wave of the last twelve months or so to me – get on the bad side of some Hungarian gangsters and ex-ballerina Uma Thurman and thus have to apply their skills rather differently from their usual norm. Though, it turns out, ballet is a martial art.

For easy direct-to-streaming cinema, Vicky Jewson’s little film is a decent enough watch, pleasantly short and clearly sure of the kind of thing it wants to be. I’d rather have preferred it to have taken its own silly set-up a little more seriously instead of going the lazy route of being ironic about it, but of the three “ballerinas doing violence” movies I’ve seen in the last year or so, this is at least the most entertaining. Which doesn’t say too much, but hey, I take what I can get.

Afterburn (2025): A solar flare destroyed the Eastern hemisphere, leaving Europe a mess of minor warlords and grey ruins. Treasure hunter Jake (Dave Bautista) works for the perhaps not quite as terrible would-be king of Britain (Samuel L. Jackson), somewhat unwillingly, and is tasked to liberate the Mona Lisa from the continent. The plot will involve an evil Russian general (Kristofer Hivju) with fascist world (or what’s left of it) domination on his mind, as well as a beautiful freedom fighter (Olga Kurylenko). Also, a plot twist concerning the Mona Lisa nobody will ever have seen coming (ha).

I genuinely admire both Bautista and Kurylenko quite a bit, and always feel a bit sad when they waste their talents on something like this deeply uninspired action movie by J.J. Perry. Their presence, as well as Jackson’s willingness to put some effort into even the lamest nothing of a role, do their job of pulling this from being completely uninteresting into the realm of the vaguely watchable. Though for a guy coming from stunt and action work, Perry’s not terribly adept at directing stunts and action.

Raw File (2025): I found this piece of low budget POV horror about an investigator (Monica Oprisan) and her trusty cameraman (the voice of Alexander Bishop and the camerawork of director Aaron Dobson) having a very bad night in a large apartment complex while looking into a curious suicide to be a pleasant surprise. Once this gets going, the film shows some actual ambition: neat bits and pieces of lore and worldbuilding that cross ideas of the demonic with those of high strangeness are slowly revealed, some actual action is staged, and everything is presented without overstaying its welcome, leaving me pretty happy.