What’s Streaming This Week (9/27 – 10/4)

DEMON SLAYER – KIMETSU NO YAIBA – THE MOVIE: INFINITY CASTLE – Netflix, Hulu

Cast: Zach Aguilar, Abby Trott, Aleks Le, Bryce Papenbrook, Brianna Knickerbocker, Zeno Robinson, Johnny Yong Bosch, Ray Chase, Griffin Burns, Erika Harlacher, Kira Buckland, Erik Scott Kimerer, Kaiji Tang, Crispin Freeman, Stephen Fu, Lucien Dodge, Alejandro Saab, Rebecca Wang, Channing Tatum

Synopsis: With the head of the Demon Corps in danger, Tanjiro and the Hashira rush to the headquarters but are plunged into a deep descent to a mysterious space by the hands of Muzan Kibutsuji.The destination of where Tanjiro and Demon Slayer Corps have fallen is the demons’ stronghold – the Infinity Castle.

What we like:

• 2025’s most under-the-radar blockbuster finally comes to streaming. And more box-office success is coming: It is the first movie in a planned trilogy.
• The film earned roughly $793 million worldwide, making it one of the biggest anime movies ever released.
• It broke the North American anime opening-weekend record. With about $70.6 million in its opening weekend, it surpassed the previous record held by Pokémon: The First Movie.
• Not many familiar names as we scan the voice cast…but then there’s Channing Tatum! He voices the character Keizo in the English dub for the film.

What we don’t like:

• We’re all for celebrating a film’s box-office success, but there’s something bittersweet about this one becoming the highest-grossing international film in the U.S. The record was previously held by 2000’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which is a stone-cold classic. Will this one be remembered as fondly?

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COYOTE VS. ACME – $24.99 Sale / $19.99 Rental

Cast: Will Forte, Lana Condor, Tone Bell, and John Cena

Synopsis: After Acme products fail him one too many times in his dogged pursuit of the Roadrunner, Wile E. Coyote decides to hire a billboard lawyer to sue the Acme Corporation.

What we like:

• The live-action/animated hybrid was finished around 2022, but Warner Bros. shelved it in 2023. It was eventually rescued and released theatrically by Ketchup Entertainment. Still a terrible name for a distributor, but way-to-go Ketchup!
• The screenplay (by May December Oscar-nominee Samy Burch) was inspired by Ian Frazier’s 1990 New Yorker humor piece, which imagined Wile E. Coyote taking ACME to court.
• The film has been a success in theaters! It currently sits at $57M at the domestic box-office and $78M worldwide. That’s pretty good, and it should continue to clean up on PVOD and ancillary markets.

What (and who) we don’t like:

• David Zaslav. The Warner Bros CEO’s plan to bury this film as a tax write-off was disgusting, and we’re so grateful he was shamed in to selling the film so it could get a proper release.

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THE LAST ONE FOR THE ROAD – The Criterion Channel

Cast: Filippo Scotti, Sergio Romano, and Pierpaolo Capovilla

Synopsis: A couple of jovial life-long drunkards run into a shy architecture undergrad, whose way of seeing things will be transformed as the trio wanders from pub to pub in search of a buried treasure.

What we like:

• The film had its world premiere in the prestigious Un Certain Regard section of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, giving director Francesco Sossai his highest-profile international showcase to date.
• It won eight awards at the Italian David di Donatello Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Actor for Sergio Romano.
• The young protagonist Giulio is played by Filippo Scotti, who might be best know to US audiences for his lead role in Paolo Sorrentino’s 2021 Best International Feature nominee The Hand of God.

What we don’t like:

• Not many takers at the arthouse box-office for this Music Box Films release. It earned only $43K domestically.

SOULM8TE – Hulu

Cast: Lily Sullivan, David Rysdahl, Claudia Doumit, Arty Froushan, Elijah Cook, Emma Ramos, Mara Huf, Isabelle Bonfrer, Jon Tarcy, Ossian Perret

Synopsis: After a ruthless tech giant acquires his company, a grieving engineer is tasked with testing their new AI companion. But when he attempts to program her to be a truly sentient soulmate, she develops needs of her own—unleashing a relentless spree of precision-engineered mayhem.

What we like:

• Kate Dolan directs and co-writes the film. She previously made the acclaimed Irish horror film You Are Not My Mother. It is a spinoff of the M3GAN universe, and is designed to work as a standalone story rather than simply being another chapter about M3GAN herself.
• Dolan has cited films such as Basic Instinct and Fatal Attraction as influences, suggesting that the film is meant to be as much a relationship thriller as a robot-horror movie.
• James Wan and Jason Blum are among the producers, bringing together two major names in modern horror filmmaking through Atomic Monster and Blumhouse.

What we don’t like:

• Universal Pictures abruptly pulling the completed film from its scheduled January 9, 2026 theatrical release following the disappointing box-office performance of M3GAN 2.0. Industry reports tied the sudden cold feet directly to Universal hesitancy to spend additional marketing funds on a risky, adult-oriented companion piece.

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EVIL DEAD BURN – HBO Max

Cast: Souheila Yacoub, Tandi Wright, Hunter Doohan, Luciane Buchanan, Errol Shand, George Pullar, Maude Davey and Greta Van Den Brink

Synopsis: After the loss of her husband, a woman seeks solace with her in-laws in their secluded family home. As one by one they are transformed into Deadites—turning the gathering into a family reunion from hell—she comes to discover that the vows she took in life live on… even in death.

What we like:

• This film is the sixth feature in the long-running Evil Dead franchise and follows 2023’s Evil Dead Rise, while still telling a largely standalone story with a new cast of characters.
• French filmmaker Sébastien Vaniček, whose 2023 creepy spider chiller Infested earned critical acclaim, directed and co-wrote the film. Franchise creator Sam Raimi personally selected him after being impressed by his previous work.
• Critics have generally liked this installment. It currently sits at 70% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

What we don’t like:

• Some critics and audiences noted that unlike the franchise’s traditional gallows humor or slapstick energy, Evil Dead Burn opts for a relentlessly punishing and nasty atmosphere with little comedic relief. The narrative choices put spousal abuse and toxic family denial at the center of the emotional conflict, which some viewers felt overpowered the supernatural horror and made the human drama uncomfortably heavy rather than fun.

INFIRMARY – Shudder

Cast: Paul Syre Lee, Mark Anthony Williams, Danielle Kennedy

Synopsis: A rookie security guard named Edward works his first night shift at the crumbling, abandoned Wilshire psychiatric hospital and uncovers terrifying, unexplainable forces.

What we like:

• This found-footage horror film comes from first-time feature director Nicholas Pineda, who said he had been watching real-life incidents captured on police body cameras and became interested in applying that visual format to a horror story.
• Pineda and writer/producer Katy Krauland initially discussed an abandoned office as the setting, partly because so many office buildings were vacant during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Finding an abandoned hospital changed the direction of the project.
• Critics who have seen it are raving. No Rotten Tomatoes score yet, but the reviews listed are all very positive.

What we don’t like:

• The hospital location is a real abandoned facility in the Los Angeles area, but the filmmakers have deliberately not revealed the exact location, because the property has reportedly been subject to frequent break-ins and they don’t want the movie to encourage additional trespassing.

THE LAST FIRST: WINTER K2 – Apple TV

Synopsis: A historic race to become the first to summit K2 in winter unravels into tragedy, exposing how ambition, ego, and the pursuit of glory can be as dangerous as the mountain itself.

What we like:

• This documentary focuses on the 2021 expedition to become the first people to successfully summit K2 during winter. K2 is the world’s second-highest mountain, and its winter conditions are extraordinarily severe.
• Director Amir Bar-Lev uses the expedition to examine the changing culture of extreme mountaineering, including commercialization, social media, money, power and who gets recognition for climbing achievements.
• The film world premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival to great acclaim. It currently sits at 100% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

What we don’t like:

• With Tenzing and Everest: The Other Side coming in the weeks ahead, these harrowing climbing films are getting a bit jumbled together. And is streaming the best way to experience the visuals? All three are getting great reviews…but that’s a lot of time to spend watching people climb (and sometimes die on) these treacherous mountains.

TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA – MUBI

Cast: Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson, Amanda Fix, Arthur Conti, Eva Victor, Zach Cherry, Sarah Sherman, Patrick Fischler, Dylan Baker, Quintessa Swindell, Kevin McDonald, Jasmin Savoy Brown, and Jack Haven

Synopsis: After years of slapdash sequels and waning fandom, the Camp Miasma slasher franchise is handed over to an enthusiastic young director for resurrection. But when she visits the original movie’s star, a now-reclusive actress shrouded in mystery, the two women fall into a blood-soaked world of desire, fear, and delirium.

What we like:

• Jane Schoenbrun, whose previous films include We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and I Saw the TV Glow, handles both writing and directing on this surreal queer slasher comedy.
• Schoenbrun has described the movie as being deeply connected to their own experience of gender transition, using horror and sexuality as ways of exploring identity, transformation and the frightening and liberating experience of becoming oneself.
• The movie had its world premiere at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, where it reportedly received a nine-minute standing ovation.
• Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Armstrong are fantastic as the leads…it’s so great to see actors who’ve thrived on television also kill it on the big screen.

What we don’t like:

• Some critics argued that the heavy-handed meta-commentary on trauma and IP reboots threatens to alienate viewers, while supporters praise its unapologetic look at queer desire and self-actualization. Schoenbrun seems to be incapable of making an uninteresting film, so it’s well worth checking out.

UNION COUNTY – $19.99 Sale / TBD Rental

Cast: Will Poulter, Noah Centineo, Elise Kibler, Emily Meade, and Annette Deao

Synopsis: Assigned to a county-mandated drug court program, Cody Parsons embarks on the tenuous journey toward recovery amid the opioid epidemic in rural Ohio.

What we like:

• This Ohio-set drama is directed by Adam Meeks, and is an expansion of his 2020 short film of the same name. The feature takes that earlier story and develops it into a much broader portrait of recovery and community.
• One of the film’s most unusual production details is that much of the supporting cast consists of nonprofessional actors who had experience with the drug-court/recovery program depicted in the film. Their real experiences contributed to the movie’s documentary-like quality.
• Will Poulter received rave reviews for his performance in the film, and he also serves as one of the producers.

What we don’t like:

• It’s not surprising that this addition/recovery drama was not a blockbuster at the arthouse cinemas, but its $172k total domestic take is still a little depressing. Hopefully it’ll find more of an audience on streaming.

Also Streaming Friday:

LOCKBOX

TYLER PERRY’S DOING LIFE

Happy Streaming Everyone!

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