Forbidden Fruits (2026)
Not every film can make a shopping mall feel both magical and menacing, but Forbidden Fruits challenges that.

With D-Day less than 72 hours off, top US intelligence officer Jefferson Pike (Corbin Bernsen), is captured by the enemy. Pike, one of handful of officers who know where the allies will strike, is a professional who the Nazis know will never succumb to torture. They hatch a diabolical plan to deceive him into thinking that the war is over and he's recuperating from memory loss in a US hospital in Germany. His doctor (John Glover) and nurse (Joanna Pacula) head an elite Nazi psychological team that attempt to convince Pike into revealing the top secret. But as time slips away, Pike's captors decide he must reach his BREAKING POINT... or die.
Not every film can make a shopping mall feel both magical and menacing, but Forbidden Fruits challenges that.
In The Novelist's Film, Hong explores the meaningful things people share and inspire by virtue of simply engaging with one another.
The height of subversive horror cinema is Jennifer’s Body. No, I will never budge on that. Yes, Cabin in The Woods is funny, Scream is very well made, and the Scary Movie franchise is …. there. But nothing is quite as satisfying as watching the teenage succubus that is Jennifer Check rip apart boys. In the post #metoo era where the industry is far from changed, watching revenge flicks like these is probably one of the most cathartic experiences due to the slow-moving progress being made.
As this critic continues to look back at some of this Summer's films I have taken in, I would be remiss if I didn't mention one of the most overall unsettling trends in Hollywood over the last several years.....sequels, reboots, and remakes. Look, I am all for seeing more than one film for certain originals that made a splash, ie: "Jurassic Park", "Pirates of the Caribbean", "Transformers", etc.
"65" (2023) is the latest Dino flick to try and answer "what else can we do with dinosaurs?"
While the director didn't set out to make a feminist film, "A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night" reads as a reclamation of female power in a patriarchal society.