Joey Magidson
Welcome back to my Home Movies! Today, we have a pair of new releases well worth your time hitting shelves in Relay and The Toxic Avenger. We also have a pair of Criterion Collection re-releases this week, including Guillermo del Toro‘s Nightmare Alley (reviewed here). What else is coming out? Read on for the details…
Joey’s Top Pick
Relay
This deeply under-seen thriller comes damn close to being a great film. That it winds up falling a bit short shouldn’t be held against Relay, as what we have here from David Mackenzie is still quite good. In particular, Riz Ahmed is excellent in a nearly silent performance. My review from back at the Tribeca Film Festival here sets things up in the following manner:
For most of the running time of Relay, we’re watching a real throwback sort of film. The paranoid thriller of the 1970s was of a specific time period, one that fit it perfectly, but it also just makes for an incredibly engaging experience when done well. This movie is very much indebted to that, albeit with modern technology. Then, the third act takes things one twist too far. However, that’s just what makes the flick good instead of great. As one of the more polished works at the 2025 Tribeca Festival, it easily could make a mark in theaters later on this summer.
Relay has a twist or two too many, which is a shame, especially since you can see one coming a mile away. At the same time, all it does is take a strong work down a peg. What’s happening in that lesser third act is still very solid. It’s just slightly more rickety than what’s come before. In that regard, the film is still succeeding, even when it’s losing some of its ample goodwill.
Recommended Viewing
The Toxic Avenger
It would have been easy to mess up a new version of The Toxic Avenger. It took Macon Blair‘s specific filmmaking style to come up with a movie that honors the original while still doing something new enough to justify its existence. I spoke to Blair here about the flick, which is definitely worth a watch. My review here of the film began like so:
Toxie is back! The mere re-appearance of The Toxic Avenger is notable, given how Troma is such a small outfit, but to see this mutant hero done again is a lot of fun to witness. In particular, to see it done well, too, as the film is very solid. At times, it’s a real hoot. The movie feels very much like the next feature from Macon Blair, without question, but anyone who knows and loves Toxie will be pleased as well. So, for fans, it’s an unquestioned success, and that’s a huge compliment.
The Toxic Avenger is as gory as it is silly, which is to say, very. At the same time, it walks a fine line. If you don’t embrace the low budget origins of the story, it won’t feel like it’s a part of the franchise. That being said, if you make it too shoddy looking, what’s the point of actually doing a new one? So, managing to do this, seemingly with ease, is one of the major reasons why this works as well as it ends up working.
Also Available This Week
Americana
Arcane: Season Two (TV)
The Day of the Jackal: Season One (TV)
Death Wish 3 (4K)
Edward Scissorhands (4K)
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (4K)
Hush (4K)
In the Mouth of Madness (4K)
Rocketman (Blu-ray)
Saw II (4K)
Saw III (4K)
Saw IV (4K)
Shin Godzilla (4K)
Smurfs (4K)
St. Denis Medical: Season One (TV)
Criterion Corner
Deep Crimson
From The Criterion Collection: “One of the peaks of subversive Mexican director Arturo Ripstein’s cinema of outsiders, this deliriously perverse portrait of obsessive love dares audiences to see the humanity in the most sordid of antiheroes. A lonely hearts advertisement leads lusty nurse Coral (Regina Orozco) to Nicolás (Daniel Giménez Cacho), a con man with whom she forges an increasingly intense, twisted bond as they crisscross 1940s Mexico, robbing and murdering the women he seduces. Blending sweeping melodrama with macabre humor and eruptions of berserk violence, Ripstein transforms one of the most infamous true-crime stories of the twentieth century into a haunting vision of how love can give way to madness.”
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Nightmare Alley
From The Criterion Collection: “Noir fatalism has rarely been so alluring as in this vision of the world as a soul-sick carnival of corruption. Putting his own luxuriantly stylized spin on the classic hard-boiled novel by William Lindsay Gresham, master fabulist Guillermo del Toro conjures a sordid, seductive portrait of America on the cusp of World War II. The film follows Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), a roustabout in a traveling sideshow who uses charm and deception to become a phony mentalist preying on the rich and powerful—but at what cost? Brought to life by an all-star cast that includes Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, and Rooney Mara, and nominated for four Oscars (including Best Picture), Nightmare Alley is a haunting descent into the illusory abyss of the American dream.”
Stay tuned for more next week…
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