This week we review and discuss The Housemaid, an erotic thriller movie directed by Paul Feig and starring Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar, which follows a young woman with a troubled past who becomes the live-in housekeeper for a wealthy family. Their seemingly perfect life unravels when she discovers their household hides dark secrets. We talk about whether the movie delivers on its promise of being a throwback to 90's thrillers and whether the near universally positive audience reaction is justified, whether the resolution to the central mystery makes sense and worked for us, whether the movie accurately depicts abuse and abusive relationships and what the ethics of that are for movies, how we would have changed the movie's ending, and much more. Check out our other reviews and clips on all major platforms here: https://linktr.ee/EyeOfTheStormMoviePodcast 0:00 Intro 0:17 Movie Recommendations (Star Wars rewatch, Knives Out 3: Wake Up Dead Man) 05:37 Synopsis & Overall Impressions 10:11 Spoiler Discussion 54:51 Conclusion & Ratings

For our second annual end of year review episode, we take a look back at the movies we reviewed this year and see what movies were successful and which bombed, and speculate what that might mean for what movies might look like in the years to come. After that we rank our top 3 best and worst movies of the year.

This week we review and discuss Avatar 3: Fire and Ash, an epic science fiction movie directed by James Cameron and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana and Sigourney Weaver, which follows the story of Jake Sully and his family as they try to live among the Na'vi while being pursued by Colonel Quaritch and the volcano-dwellng Mangkwan clan. We talk about our very different experiences with the Avatar franchise and how part 3 stacks up against the previous movies, what we thought of the emerging politics of various Na'vi groups, the various character journeys in particular the villains and whether their stories worked for us, the movie's treatment of war, peace and faith, we disagree about various story choices and their impact on pivotal moments in the story, and much more. Check out our other reviews and clips on all major platforms here: https://linktr.ee/EyeOfTheStormMoviePodcast 0:00 Intro 0:18 Movie Recommendations 06:16 Synopsis & Overall Impressions 12:04 Spoiler Discussion 52:42 Conclusion & Ratings

In "Have You Seen?" we discuss a movie that some of us know well and others have just now seen for the first time. This week we revisit Monty Python's Life of Brian, a 1979 biblical comedy movie directed by Terry jones and starring John Cleese, Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin, about a young Judaean man who is born on the same day as Jesus, and is subsequently mistaken for the Messiah. We talk about our reactions to seeing the movie widely seen as the best comedy ever made for the first time in 2025, look back at why this movie was so controversial and widely banned when it came out and speculate how it might be received if it came out today, what parts of the humor worked for us and which didn't, how the movie's criticism of activism has been overshadowed by the criticism of religion when it actually takes up more time and is more biting and why that might be, and much more. Check out our other reviews and clips on all major platforms here: https://linktr.ee/EyeOfTheStormMoviePodcast

This week we review and discuss Fackham Hall, a spoof comedy movie directed by Jim O'Hanlon and starring Thomasin McKenzie, Ben Radcliffe and Damian Lewis, which follows heiress Rose Davenport who is torn between marrying her cousin to save the family estate, and eloping with the man she loves despite class barriers. We talk about whether Fackham Hall's comedy worked for us, compare favourite jokes, ask whether Fackham Hall deserves to be in one category with timeless classics like Naked Gun and Airplane!, why the movie benefits from meticulous planning and a tight plot and how it compares to this year's Naked Gun, why a movie like this existing is a good sign for movies in general and comedies in particular, and much more. Check out our other reviews and clips on all major platforms here: https://linktr.ee/EyeOfTheStormMoviePodcast 0:00 Intro 0:18 Movie Recommendations (Silent Night Deadly Night, She Rides Shotgun, Stranger Things Season 5, Midway (2019)) 05:23 Synopsis & Overall Impressions 11:52 Spoiler Discussion 53:36 Conclusion & Ratings

This week we review and discuss Five Nights at Freddy's 2, a horror movie directed by Emma Tammi and starring Josh Hutcherson, Matthew Lillard and Elizabeth Lail, in which Abby Schmidt reconnects with her animatronic friends, leading to events that reveal the origins of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. We talk about whether the movie worked for us as somebody not part of the target audience that had never played the games and went into this without a shred of nostalgia, whether there is enough to the movie once you move part the creepy aesthetics of the Freddy Fazbear animatronics, whether the ending worked for us or if it needed to be developed more and expand more on the lore introduced in the first movie more, how FNAF2 stacks up against recent video game adaptations and why this movie signals a positive future for movies, and much more. Check out our other reviews and clips on all major platforms here: https://linktr.ee/EyeOfTheStormMoviePodcast 0:00 Intro 0:18 Movie Recommendations (Sean Combs: The Reckoning, Companion, Power Book 4: Force, Joy Ride (2001)) 05:23 Synopsis & Overall Impressions 11:52 Spoiler Discussion 53:36 Conclusion & Ratings

In "Have You Seen?" we discuss a movie that some of us know well and others have just now seen for the first time. This week we revisit Rapture-Palooza, a 2013 comedy movie directed by Paul Middleditch and starring Anna Kendrick, Ken Jeong and Craig Robinson, about two people trying to survive in the post-rapture apocalypse while trying to defeat The Beast. We talk about how this movie bombed in the box office and in reviews and why we think it deserves more credit than it has received, how the movie is not really about religion but rather finding meaning in mundane suburban life, how the humor compares to what we expect from movies today and how it has held up, how the movie actually has more solid fundamentals than a lot of movies and is a better movie and a better comedy for it, and much more. Check out our other reviews and clips on all major platforms here: https://linktr.ee/EyeOfTheStormMoviePodcast

This week we review and discuss Now You See Me: Now You Don't, a heist movie directed by Ruben Fleischer and starring Jesse Eisenberg, Morgan Freeman and Isla Fisher, about a new generation of magicians who team up with the original Horsemen to take down an evil diamond mining company using their knowledge of magic. We talk about what the movie improves from the previous installments of the franchise, whether the use of magic was satisfying to us, whether the movie is too crowded by having eight major characters that need to be balanced and whether the movie manages to strike the right balance between action, comedy and showcasing the magic, whether the twist reveal at the end worked for us, whether this movie strays too far from the classic heist movie formula for its own good, and much more. Check out our other action movie reviews here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0XWVeMdMKqzuuZCFQZQIdn 0:00 Intro 0:18 Movie Recommendations (Stranger Things Season 5, The Bad Influencer, Adult World) 11:30 Synopsis & Overall Impressions 19:04 Spoiler Discussion 59:00 Conclusion & Ratings

This week we review and discuss Wicked: For Good, a fantasy musical movie directed by Jon M. Chu and starring Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo and Jeff Goldblum, about the relationship between Elphaba and Glinda as they embrace their new identities as the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good. We talk about whether the movie brought the character arcs set up in the first part to a satisfying conclusion, how the lack of worldbuilding and detail in various character motivations we criticised in the first part drag the second part down in very predictable ways, whether Wicked does its themes of authoritarianism, terrorism and people being judged by their appearances justice, how Wicked fits in with The Wizard of Oz and how the movie on the one hand wants to rewrite the original story while also spending too much time on showing the origins of things viewers recognise from The Wizard of Oz, and much more. Check out the review of Wicked Part One here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1enKcwkYe9XIMhergXmtac Check out our other fantasy movie reviews here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5O7bUTf5FmPBrVRUFKRgJo

In our series "Catching Up On", we watch a classic movie that is new to us, and we discuss how we experienced the movie with fresh eyes and try to understand its historical context and cultural impact. This week we watch "The Wizard of Oz", a fantasy musical from 1939 directed by Victor Fleming and starring Judy Garland, Frank Morgan and Margaret Hamilton, about Dorothy who is transplanted by a tornado from Kansas to the magical land of Oz and has to find a way home while evading the schemes of the Wicked Witch. We talk about how we experienced the Wizard of Oz as someone who has no childhood nostalgia for it, go over the highlights of the nightmarish production of the movie that is terrifying even by early Hollywood standards, whether the movie works as a story on its own merits and where breaking the usual rules of storytelling works for the movie and where it doesn't, whether the Wicked Witch is a good villain, and whether we would show this movie to our hypothetical children, and much more.

This week we review and discuss The Running Man, a science fiction action movie directed by Edgar Wright and starring Glen Powell, William H. Macy and Emilia Jones, about a man who joins a deadly game show as the only way he can earn the money to afford life saving medicine for his child. We talk about the movie's handling of topics such as inequality, poverty and class warfare and why we were pleasantly surprised by that, in what ways the dystopia the movie predicts came true 20 years ago but isn't all that relevant anymore today, how the movie's world in which people volunteer to be oppressed by the media they consume relates to the realities of social media and AI that we live in today, why the ending felt underwhelming and what we thought it should have been, and much more. Check out our other science fiction movie reviews here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5EeVLUSNMTrp1spnkKtiQj

This week we review and discuss Predator: Badlands, a science fiction action movie directed by Dan Trachtenberg and starring Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi and Reuben de Jong about a young Yautja who embarks on an impossible hunt to earn his place in his clan, and encounters a synth on a similar mission. We talk about whether the movie succeeds at fleshing out the Predators and whether telling a story from their point of view worked for us, whether it deserves its nearly universal acclaim and if it made us want to see more of the Yautja and their honor culture in future movies, how the movie handles its themes of found family and succeeding in spite of your heritage or whether that topic is played out, we try to understand why this movie was the most polarising for us in a long time and whether it was the movie's fault, and much more. Check out our other science fiction movie reviews here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5EeVLUSNMTrp1spnkKtiQj

In our series "Have You Seen?" we discuss a movie that some of us know well and others have just now seen for the first time. Our conversation focuses on the experience of someone watching the movie for the first time today and their reaction. This week we revisit Good Bye Lenin!, a 2003 german comedy movie directed by Wolfgang Becker and starring Daniel Brühl, Katrin Sass and Maria Simon, about a son trying to hide the collapse of socialist East Germany from his mother as she is recovering from a heart attack. We talk about how the historical and political satire lands with people who are not already familiar with German history and culture, how the satire succeeds by not punching down but rather empathising with the people who lived through the events the movie depicts, the expert use of dry irony, and why this movie remains timely and relevant more than 20 years later, and much more.  Related playlists: Comedy movie reviews: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0UbLhXlobg6OWrwfsEQhkf 2000s movie reviews: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4OKfR0jJ3YbyEwv4SorfOo

This week we review and discuss Shelby Oaks, a supernatural horror movie directed by Chris Stuckmann and starring Camille Sullivan, Sarah Durn and Keith David, about a woman determined to find her sister, who went missing while investigating the mysterious abandoned town of Shelby Oaks. We talk about whether the movie's mixed found footage and conventional filming style worked for us, why the ending was the strongest part for us that is not supported by the largely unmotivated mystery that dominates the rest of the movie, why this movie gives Youtube critics becoming filmmakers a bad name, how much slack viewers should give first time filmmakers and what can be expected on a story level from people who have studied movies for decades when they make their own movie, and much more. Check out our other horror movie reviews here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5nEzAuLhmPeQVt6eJGStPn

This week we review and discuss The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, a thriller movie directed by Michelle Garza Cervera and starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Maika Monroe and Raul Castilla, about a family who hires a nanny only to discover she has a sinister motive and is scheming to break up their family. We talk about how this movie compares to the original and how the changes it makes impact the story, why the nanny's motivation was broken in the adaptation and not really replaced with something that fits the new focus of the story, why Maika Monroe should not play Batman, we discuss numerous plotholes that plague the plot, and why its ending is so puzzling, and much more. Check out our other thriller movie reviews here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ZMvBTTdz3apWAwvvcU6x5

In our series "Have You Seen?" we discuss a movie that some of us know well and others have just now seen for the first time. Our conversation focuses on the experience of someone watching the movie for the first time today and their reaction. This week we revisit Oculus, a 2013 psychological horror movie directed by Mike Flanagan and starring Karen Gillan, Katee Sackhoff and Brenton Thwaites, about a brother and sister who try to prove that a demonic mirror is responsible for the deaths of their parents 11 years earlier. We talk about how this movie follows in the tradition of The Exorcist in that is examines supernatural horror through a rational lens and is a more compelling story for it, how the movie benefits from making both sides of its conflict competent so that when one side triumphs it feels earned and satisfying, how this movie shows that the Hollywood ending is a crutch and more movies should have tragic endings, and much more. Related playlists: Horror movie reviews: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5nEzAuLhmPeQVt6eJGStPn 2010's movie reviews:https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4C1TKfAf3LCco2X4E57xny Halloween season reviews: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/58HVIHc2oHh93OrGsDRuuY

This week we review and discuss Black Phone 2, a horror movie directed by Scott Derrickson and starring Mason Thames, Ethan Hawke and Madeleine McGraw, about Finney and Gwen who investigate the history of the masked serial killer the Grabber, which leads them to discover a sinister past involving more victims of the masked killer. We talk about why this movie movie is a perfect example of an unnecessary sequel that lacks direction, why Gwen as the main character can't carry this movie and is set up to fail at this task by the script, why none of the expansions of the Grabber's lore managed to get us interested despite the movie itself not being actually bad and several moments being well done by themselves and why that wasn't enough for some of us, and much more. Check out our other horror movie reviews here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5nEzAuLhmPeQVt6eJGStPn

In our series "Have You Seen?" we discuss a movie that some of us know well and others have just now seen for the first time. Our conversation focuses on the experience of someone watching the movie for the first time today and their reaction. This week we revisit 30 Days of Night, a 2007 horror movie directed by David Slade and starring Josh Hartnett, Melissa George and Danny Huston, about a small town in Alaska that is invaded by a pack of vampires during their annual month without sunshine. We talk about how this movie went against the grain at the time by depicting its vampires as brutal monsters that act like pack predators, how the setting of a remote Alaskan town informs and enables the survival horror, whether the ending worked for us and when heroic sacrifices work in fiction, what defines vampires in the first place and why their powers and weaknesses are so varied compared to other horror monsters and how that impacts storytelling, and much more. Related playlists: Horror movie reviews: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5nEzAuLhmPeQVt6eJGStPn 2000's movie reviews: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4OKfR0jJ3YbyEwv4SorfOo Halloween season reviews: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/58HVIHc2oHh93OrGsDRuuY

In our series "Have You Seen?" we discuss a movie that some of us know well and others have just now seen for the first time. Our conversation focuses on the experience of someone watching the movie for the first time today and their reaction. This week we revisit Ring (リング, Ringu), a 1988 supernatural horror movie directed by Jideo Nakata and starring Nanako Matsushima and Hiroyuki Sanada, a journalist who investigates a series of deaths linked to a mysterious VHS tape. We talk about how this movie straddles the line of horror and mystery and why it wasn't like other horror or ghost movies we're used to, the numerous things this movie has in common with The Exorcist, whether the investigation that fills the bulk of the movie is as compelling as it could be or whether it relies a bit too much on convenience and coincidence, how the movie's use of technology and normalcy has aged and what a modern movie that does the same thing would look like, and much more.  Related playlists: Horror movie reviews: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5nEzAuLhmPeQVt6eJGStPn 90's movie reviews: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4bJzTdH4xq7jwuTgStjAMZ Halloween season reviews: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/58HVIHc2oHh93OrGsDRuuY

YouTube video by Eye of The Storm Movie Podcast

This week we review and discuss Tron: Ares, a science fiction action movie directed by Joachim Ronning and starring Jared Leto, Greta Lee and Jeff Bridges, about ENCOM and Dillinger Systems trying to find a piece of code that will allow their AI creations exist in the physical world, and an AI agent who goes rogue against his creator in search of this code. We talk about why this movie didn't work for us on a character and story level, why the unconvincing protagonists are a particular weakness of the movie, why we were bored by the spectacle that should have been the main attraction, why Tron: Ares is not a movie about AI and what a proper treatment of that topic might look like, and much more. Check out our other science fiction movie reviews here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5EeVLUSNMTrp1spnkKtiQj

YouTube video by Eye of The Storm Movie Podcast

YouTube video by Eye of The Storm Movie Podcast