Sara Stewart

Midsommar is no slouch on chills, but they creep up slowly, like a bad trip from one of the Swedes’ festive glasses of hallucinogenic tea, and are leavened with an occasional dash of humor.

The satire’s so meta that its whiny protagonists threaten to eclipse the joke.

Annabelle Comes Home is so low stakes it’s barely a movie — more like a very special “Brady Bunch” episode in hell.

Tremblay is charming as an eccentric kid marching to his own tune, but the film’s attention wanders like a goat separated from its herd.

The scrappy striver narrative may be an overly familiar one at this point, but director Tom Harper (the BBC’s “War & Peace”) gets a terrific performance from Buckley as Rose chases her dreams while living the kind of turbulent life that has always inspired the best of country songs.

Even with a title this generic, there’s less to Murder Mystery than meets the eye.

Plus One is the latest evidence (see also: “Always Be My Maybe”) that the romantic comedy is making a long-awaited comeback, with some overdue modern tweaks.

Even with a cast this lovable, The Dead Don’t Die falls short of the killer zom-com it could have been.

It has no real reason to exist, other than to be a passable option for parents whose children are too young to handle PG-13 fare and feels like it.

Domino, though, is the dregs: This thriller may be randomly set one year in the future, yet it’s hopelessly regressive — a parade of lame stereotypes that feels directed by an out-of-touch Old Hollywood old guy (De Palma is 78).

The Poison Rose doesn’t aspire to transcend any clichés, and judging from the flagging energy level of the actors, everyone involved knows it.

Q Ball is a moving and dynamically shot portrait of the Northern California prison’s basketball team, which is sponsored by the NBA champion Golden State Warriors.

Zoey Deutch is fine in a non-demanding role as the requisite starry-eyed female student, and Danny Huston (“Wonder Woman”) gives us a softer side as Richard’s weepy best friend. But this is, at its core, a one-man show, and given the uncertain future of Depp’s career (being axed from the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, for example), it might also have been titled “Johnny Says Goodbye.”

Hogg (“Exhibition”) sets The Souvenir in the 1980s but shoots her subjects with the long-armed reserve of a period piece; the ivory-complexioned Byrne bears a resemblance to 18th- and 19th-century European portraits glimpsed throughout.

In a time when climate news is near-uniformly depressing, this is a nature documentary that pays loving and hopeful tribute to the complex web of life — and it won’t scare your kids.

Poehler isn’t quite cynical enough to pull off a comedy in which, to paraphrase “Seinfeld,” there’s no hugging and learning, but Wine Country could have been improved by keeping its emotional scenes more in reserve — like a high-end cabernet.

Would it have been tacky to visually play up the connection between Tolkien’s harrowing experiences on the WWI battlefield and his depiction of Mordor in the books? Perhaps. Beyond the briefest of allusions, Karukoski tastefully leaves that to the imagination. But this — like much of the film — is a tastefulness that induces sleepiness. Tolkien’s estate was not supportive of this film, understandably: The legendary author’s work is memorial enough.

At stark odds with the director’s earlier work is the color palette of this one — that is to say, the film is nearly devoid of it, a haunting wash of multilayered grays. This is one Shadow that deserves to be in the spotlight.

It’s blessed with an ace comic foil in Theron, who out-snarks Rogen in scene after scene. The duo makes a terrifically fun on-screen couple, with the kind of zingy banter (thanks to Dan Sterling and Liz Hannah’s screenplay) found in black-and-white movies pre-dating the term “rom-com.”

At a certain point, the pattern of Knoop’s reticence, then acquiescence to Albert’s masquerade becomes slightly repetitive, but JT LeRoy still gives a compelling inside look at the head-scratching hoax that succeeded, in part, due to musty notions of what a hot shot writer ought to look like.

The movie’s one saving grace — so to speak — is Raymond Cruz (Tuco from “Better Call Saul”) as a priest turned shaman. He, at least, injects a little wry humor into a film that otherwise bored me to tears.

Elisabeth Moss is a primal, predatory force in Her Smell, a female-centric spin on the classic debauched rock star story.

Ultimately Unicorn Store shows little appeal beyond, perhaps, a young-adult audience with a very high tolerance for glitter.

As actor pairings go, you couldn’t hope for better than Oscar winner Sam Rockwell and nominee Taraji P. Henson. So why is The Best of Enemies such a slog?

The film manages to be both hopeful and devastating — and recommended viewing for anyone who subscribes to the facile notion that abused women should “just leave.”

Us is more expansive and messier, a Rorschach blot of a movie, riffing on primal fears and a raft of ’80s references. Is it a pointed cultural take or just a gleeful scare-fest? It depends on what you choose to take from it.

It’s Schoenaerts, one of this generation’s finest actors, who makes The Mustang a moving look at human potential for redemption and rehabilitation.

Salma Hayek, as their vengeful ex-boss Eva Torres, is fun to watch as she plots to outwit them time and again, but ultimately, there’s no one here to really care about.