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This week's new releases
- Annabelle Comes Home is a satisfying supernatural thriller for the whole family
- Adorable new fantasy Yesterday imagines only one man can remember the Beatles
- Isabelle is the horror movie you didn't really need
Don’t feel like leaving your couch? Barry Hertz has 10 recommendations that flew under the radar but make for great summer viewing.
Annabelle Comes Home
Dan McFadden/The Associated Press
- Directed by Gary Dauberman
- Written by Gary Dauberman and James Wan
- Starring Mckenna Grace, Madison Iseman, Katie Sarife, Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga
- Classification 14A
- 106 minutes
Today’s overprotective parents will recoil in horror at the seventies suburban frights of Annabelle Comes Home, a satisfying supernatural thriller about kids left alone, an evil doll gone wild and scary shag-and-linoleum interior design choices. The film is the third instalment in the Annabelle series and the seventh movie within the Conjuring Universe, loosely built on the real-life cases of ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren. (Opened June 26)
Yesterday
Jonathan Prime/The Associated Press
- Yesterday
- Directed by Danny Boyle
- Written by Richard Curtis
- Starring Himesh Patel, Lily James and Ed Sheeran
- Classification PG; 117 minutes
The adorable new fantasy Yesterday is based on the paranormal premise that just one man can remember the music of the Beatles. He’s Jack Malik, a struggling Suffolk singer-songwriter. His fellow townsfolk wouldn’t know him if they ran over him with a bus. Which is exactly what happens early in the film. And when Malik (played by Himesh Patel) wakes up after the accident, it is to a world in which the Liverpool hit makers never existed. A 12-second worldwide electrical blackout has rebooted pop culture. When he Googles John, Paul, George and Ringo, only a Pope’s name comes up. It’s as if Yesterday and every other Fab Four song never happened. (Opens June 28)
Isabelle
Out of the Blue
- Directed by Robert Heydon
- Written by Donald Martin
- Starring Amanda Crew, Adam Brody and Sheila McCarthy
- Classification NA; 81 minutes
What pushes someone to get into filmmaking? Is it a desire to entertain, to stretch the limits of the medium, to create art that transcends the human experience, to engage the cultural conversation, to impress their friends, to make money? I can’t imagine that the filmmakers behind the new horror film Isabelle were thinking about anything other than cold, hard cash while producing this utterly disposable work. (Opens June 28)
