Everyone has at least one trashy B movie they love (usually Troll 2 or The Room, which is fine). I have several. But unlike the other dead-eyed, middle-aged ghouls who haunt my local video store’s “cult” section, I usually stick to the shallow end of the schlock pool. No Cannibal Holocaust or A Serbian Film for me. I want my celluloid trash served with a heavy pour of self-aware camp and as little fucked-up nightmare fuel as possible. Stuff like Stuart Gordon’s 1996 dollar-store sci-fi comedy Space Truckers, where a slumming Dennis Hopper and a smarmy Stephen Dorff team up with a scene-stealing Debi Mazar (who may or may not be playing a trafficking victim) to fight classist killer robots. Or Jason X, where Jason hacks his way through every genre-TV day player Toronto had to offer in the early 2000s (and David Cronenberg!) in space.

Last Friday, between a few hours of dissociating from my deep-seated, paralyzing childhood trauma and avoiding the work of maintaining relationships that could enrich my life in spectacular ways, I decided it was time to revisit one of the dumbest pieces of mainstream schlock the late ‘90s ever produced: Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight.

Demon Knight is the first theatrical feature spun off from HBO’s kitschy horror anthology series, Tales from the Crypt, and it’s exactly what it sounds like; cheap, lowbrow, formulaic, stuffed with gross gags, cardboard characters, a soundtrack that peaked in 1995, and, somehow, almost-A-list talent. I still can’t fully explain why it works as well as it does. Best guess: William Sadler plays the demon-slaying hero completely straight, while everything around him plays like a sleazy, blood-and-vomit-soaked cartoon directed by every ‘90s kids’ favorite innuendo-spouting puppet, the Crypt Keeper.

The Crypt Keeper didn’t actually direct this movie; he’s relegated to starring in the endearingly corny framing sequences. That job went to Ernest Dickerson, which baffled me at the time, since Dickerson was Spike Lee’s cinematographer, the guy who shot actual great movies like Do the Right Thing, Mo’ Better Blues, and Malcolm X. Demon Knight was his third feature as director after Juice (excellent) and Surviving the Game (never seen it, but my dad loved it, and my dad is an asshole who is probably drunk or dead right now; fingers crossed for dead).

It’s odd that Dickerson’s style feels restrained here; Demon Knight mostly trades his usual flashy cinematography for a more journeyman approach. The film looks cheap, there’s no arguing that, but it doesn’t look bad. Dickerson’s framing and direction here is simply competent, which is a bummer when you remember he’s the guy responsible for lensing Spike Lee’s first famous dolly shots. Still, Dickerson keeps the pacing swift and makes the most of his budget and set restraints.

Structurally Demon Knight is a straight siege movie: a hotel full of mismatched weirdos holding off a horde of hell demons trying to steal an amulet full of Jesus’s blood before the world ends. And I can’t believe I got this far without mentioning the entire cast, a troupe of beloved character actors doing wonderfully uneven work for what was clearly a sub-five-figure paycheck. You’ve got Sadler, who is predictably solid and sincere. He’s the unsung hero character actor capable of walking through anything unscathed (see also: the Grim Reaper in Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey and Agent Sloane in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine). Thomas Haden Church as Hunky But Toxic Male Most Likely to Mistreat a Sex Worker. C.C.H. Pounder, one-armed and toting a shotgun, is doing her reliable hard-ass bit. The incomparable Dick Miller, somehow drunker than his usual drunk-old-man character from Gremlins. Charles Fleischer as Dopey Incel Demon Bait. Gary Farmer, lovable as the bumbling country cop. Jada Pinkett, elevating a stock troubled-heroine role every chance she gets. And then there's Billy Zane, who takes whatever cocaine-and-dinner-theater-headliner charisma he's got and detonates it as the film's big bad.

Zane's maniacal performance is the reason anyone still talks about this movie, and deservedly so. He's in full lunatic mode: cycling through wacky accents, playing a demented game show host in one scene, a petty prankster in the next, a suave seducer in the one after that. It sounds like a terribly uneven performance, but it isn't. Zane is assured and in total control for the entire runtime. He knows exactly what he's doing, and to his credit, watching him swing for the fences for ninety minutes never gets exhausting. Picture this role going to Jim Carrey or Gilbert Gottfried instead (it was the '90s, it could have happened) and imagine how fast that schtick curdles. Not so with Zane. His unhinged, weirdly magnetic work here made me want to seek out more of his filmography, which unfortunately means wading through a landfill of straight-to-video B movies. I'm not the first to say it, but it bears repeating: Billy Zane deserved better. At least he got the Zoolander cameo. Watch him pull the ripcord in this scene without ever once getting sweaty:

One of the biggest pleasures of Demon Knight is watching the countless ridiculous dream/nightmare/wet dream/wet nightmare sequences in which Zane’s Demon Daddy (that’s not the character’s name, but it should be) tries to seduce the good guys, one by one, by promising, essentially, to fuck them or put them in a “sexy” situation in which, most likely, they will get fucked or get to fuck. And despite every character knowing full well that he’s a demon trying to destroy the world, most of them are either super tempted or just instantly receptive. “You want to melt the flesh off my loved ones’ faces and usher in hell on earth, Mr. Demon Man? Well, okay, as long as I can get my dick wet before the eschaton.”

I saw this on opening weekend in ‘95 and walked out unimpressed, deep in my wannabe-critic snob phase, too busy being disappointed to notice the film’s scrappy, ghoulish charm. Critics agreed with me then, and mostly still do. Zane aside, this isn’t a movie horror hounds get too sentimental about. But revisiting it now was so much damn fun, or at least more fun than my usual Friday night ritual of staring at my aging face in the mirror, wondering if dyeing my hair would read as youthful or just deeply sad. So, yeah, Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight. Highly recommended, especially if you’re in the mood for some schlocky ‘90s nostalgia starring a reliable cast of genre ringers covered in green demon goo.

Supergirl is not the death knell of James Gunn’s DC universe, and it’s nowhere near the disaster you’ve been told to expect. It’s something far less dramatic and a lot more enjoyable: a good time at the movies.

The latest DC Studios film is a fun, effervescent sci-fi adventure built around a magnetic Milly Alcock, and no, it isn’t as charming or inventive as Gunn’s Superman, which is hardly the worst thing you can say about a superhero movie in 2026. If you’re on the fence, get off it. I had a blast.

The setup is pure pulp: Alcock’s super-powered antihero hops across the galaxy to rescue her dog, Krypto, the scene-stealer from last year’s Superman. Along the way she trades punches with some the best alien creature designs I’ve seen on screen in years. The whole film is darker and grimier than Superman, and I loved that. It has a look of its own: muddy in spots, but gritty, textured, and spiked with neon. The grime suits the story, a reluctant young hero battling real trauma (and nasty space pirates) through the slums of the universe. It’s Guardians of the Galaxy-adjacent, sure, but not the knockoff you may have heard.

The film adapts large chunks from the DC comic Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. I haven’t read it, but everything I’ve seen of it is bright, eye-popping color, the exact opposite of the movie’s darker vibe. Part of me wishes the film had chased that comic-book spectacle. The rest of me thinks the film’s darker version of the cosmos serves the story just fine.

The flaws? The story is predictable, and for all the odd, charming details tucked into the corners of the frame, it’s missing the weird, personal spark that runs through Gunn’s own superhero work. Worth remembering: Gunn didn’t write or direct this. He produced it, as he will for the whole new DC slate. Supergirl is directed by Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya, Cruella, and the 2011 Fright Night remake I really liked) and written by actor-turned-writer Ana Nogueira. The two do a solid job. Solid, not stunning.

A few head-scratching turns drain some dramatic punch from the third act, but the movie never falls on its face. It also never comes close to the heights the genre is capable of, and that’s the real shame: with a lead as sharp and charismatic as Alcock, it’s frustrating to watch the drama settle for competent when it had the pieces for great. The structure is all there, but the plot underneath it is thin. What’s missing, again, is a true authorial voice, the thing that lifts a well-made adventure into something unforgettable. Supergirl plays like a good start instead of a great landing.

And yet: not a bad movie. I’d happily watch it again, almost entirely for Alcock, who plays Supergirl as a dry, brusque, self-destructive mess, a sort of Peter Venkman meets Juno. The film treats her origin seriously and actually digs into her trauma, while folding in its own compelling spin on Kryptonian history. The action helps: cleanly shot, easy to follow, easy to enjoy.

Oh, and Jason Momoa is surprisingly funny as Lobo, the hard-drinking intergalactic bounty hunter. I’m mixed on him though. I enjoyed the character, but the film never folds him into the story in any dramatically or emotionally satisfying way. He kind of just gets shoved in for fifteen minutes. Still, I’d love to see him pop up in this universe again.

So: Supergirl. Far from great, far from bad, and a lot more fun than its reputation. Go see it. Tell me what you thought.