Welcome to beentothemovies.com, your ultimate destination for all things cinema! Dive into the latest movie news, in-depth reviews, and exclusive trailers that keep you updated on the hottest releases and hidden gems. Whether you're a blockbuster enthusiast or an indie film aficionado, Beentothemovies.com offers insightful critiques, behind-the-scenes looks, and expert analysis to enhance your movie-watching experience. Stay informed, entertained, and connected within the world of movies.
Miracle Media and Shogun Films bring the doom and fear with Harbinger, a chilling supernatural British horror, where the malevolent past refuses to stay buried.
Harbinger is out now on UK/US digital from Miracle Media and is released on Blu-ray 7 September from 101 Films.
And to celebrate we have a copy to give away!
Synopsis:
Five years after surviving satanic serial killer Henry Decker (Woodward), Julia (Sothcott) is still haunted by the devastating horrors she endured. Plagued by PTSD and terrifying visions of her tormentor and living back with her mother (Ford), her whole life has been on hold, until now, with the maniacal murder dead maybe it’s time to move on…
But pure evil never dies and hidden within the house where Decker's killing spree ended and Julia narrowly escaped with her life lies the Harbinger, a sinister fortune-telling machine that holds all the cards.
When paranormal TV presenter Mike Craggs (Webster) invites Julia on his show to recount her harrowing ordeal with Decker, he makes her a life-changing offer she just cannot refuse, but things are about to take a shocking turn.
In the hope of finally confronting her past, Julia reluctantly joins the presenter, a team of ghost hunters, psychics, occult experts and television production crew, to record the show. But when they descend on the house of horrors, they accidently stumble on the Harbinger, the malevolent machine that that predicts the grisly deaths awaiting each member of the group.
As the body count rises and escape becomes impossible, Julia discovers the horrifying truth, that Decker’s soul has been transferred into the machine…
Trapped in limbo, the killer needs six souls to walk the earth again. Can Julia and the team stop him before the Harbinger claims them all?
3. When the competition ends as indicated on this page, any and all entries received after this point will not count and emails blacklisted due to not checking this page first.
4. Winners will be chosen randomly and will be informed via email.
5. Entries that come directly from other websites will not be accepted.
"Gal Gadot, in skin tight Lycra, running through London for 85 minutes, we'll call it The Runner"A
Amazon Boss:
"Genius, how much money do you need?"
True story, probably.
Review by Jon Donnis
The Runner wastes very little time getting started. Maia Marten is introduced as a successful London prosecutor and devoted mother, but her carefully controlled life is shattered when she receives a phone call telling her that her diabetic son Noah has been kidnapped. The instructions are brutally simple. Keep running, follow the orders and tell nobody. If she stops, her son dies.
From there, The Runner settles into an unusual rhythm. Rather than building towards a conventional series of action set pieces, director Kevin Macdonald places Gal Gadot's Maia in what is essentially a race against the clock, with the story playing out almost in real time. It is an intriguing approach, and at its best the film creates a genuine sense of urgency as Maia tears through London trying to save her son while simultaneously attempting to work out who is behind the entire ordeal.
Visually, The Runner is one of the film's strongest elements. Macdonald's direction gives Maia's journey a physicality that makes the audience feel as though they are being dragged through the streets alongside her. The camera keeps the action immediate, while the constantly changing locations help prevent the film from becoming visually monotonous. Maia moves through roads, public transport, underground tunnels, bridges and buildings, and the city becomes as much a part of the chase as the characters themselves.
The decision to make Maia spend so much of the film running is also surprisingly effective initially. There is something inherently stressful about watching a character desperately trying to reach a destination while knowing that every second could mean the difference between life and death. The ticking-clock element gives even the quieter moments a degree of tension.
The psychological side of the story is another positive. The Caller is not simply giving Maia physical obstacles to overcome. He knows intimate details about her life and uses them to psychologically dismantle her while she is already under enormous pressure. The revelations concerning Maia's family and the death of her father add another layer to what initially appears to be a straightforward kidnapping thriller.
Gal Gadot is also well cast in the central role. She gives Maia enough determination and vulnerability to make the character believable as a mother pushed into increasingly desperate circumstances. Gadot is convincing when Maia is frightened, exhausted and under pressure, while she also sells the physical demands of the role. There is no denying that she looks the part while sprinting through London.
Damian Lewis, meanwhile, gets an interesting role as the mysterious Caller. Much of his performance is delivered through his voice rather than physical presence, which gives the character an appropriately detached quality. His knowledge of Maia's life makes his phone calls increasingly uncomfortable, although the film could arguably have done more with the character. Leaving his face reveal to the end seems silly, when we all know it is Damian Lewis, he has a recognisable voice, and it didn't really make much of a difference.
The eventual resolution is satisfying. The film does not simply throw a last-minute twist at the audience and leave everything hanging. It also answers some of the questions raised throughout the film and gives the story a reasonably neat conclusion.
There is also a nice final touch when Maia receives another mysterious call in the car and simply throws her phone away rather than answering it. After everything she has endured, it is an appropriately cynical little moment.
Unfortunately, The Runner is also a film where the limitations of the premise become increasingly apparent.
The biggest problem is that there simply is not enough substance here to justify the feature-length treatment. The basic concept is strong. A mother is forced to run across London while a mysterious caller threatens to kill her son. That is a perfectly workable thriller premise. But once the initial novelty wears off, the film begins to feel as though it is stretching a relatively thin idea across its running time.
The film is around 80 minutes, which is certainly not excessive, and the brisk pace means it never becomes a complete slog. In fact, the short runtime probably helps it considerably. Even so, there were moments when I found myself thinking that The Runner might actually have been more effective at around an hour. Some sequences feel like they exist primarily to get Maia from one location to the next rather than because they are particularly important to the story.
That leads to another issue. For something sold as a pulse-pounding action thriller, there simply is not enough action. There is plenty of movement, but running is not the same thing as action. Gadot spends a considerable amount of the film sprinting from one place to another, and while she certainly looks impressive doing it, eventually you start wanting something more substantial to happen.
There are moments that attempt to break this up, including the car accident, the Underground chase and Maia's escape from the police, but I wanted more. Given Gadot's action background, The Runner feels like it is leaving a considerable amount of potential on the table. Maia could have been tougher, more resourceful and more physically capable. Instead, the film often makes her feel like an ordinary woman who happens to be exceptionally good at running.
The portrayal of London is another problem, and one that becomes difficult to ignore.
The film's version of London feels strangely disconnected from the real city. At one point Maia's phone is stolen on the train by two English White men, and this was probably the single least convincing moment in the entire film. More broadly, London appears remarkably white throughout the story, despite Maia travelling through parts of the capital where that simply would not reflect the city most people actually encounter.
This gives the film the feeling of a Hollywood interpretation of London rather than London itself. The locations may be recognisable, but the people and atmosphere surrounding them often do not feel authentic. Anyone familiar with the route Maia takes would likely notice the disconnect.
There is also an uncomfortable question hanging over the entire production. Watching Gal Gadot run around London for 80 minutes, it is difficult not to wonder whether the film was developed around having Gadot first and the story second. The premise is good enough to stand on its own, but there are moments when it feels as though the filmmakers have found an attractive action star and then built a relatively simple thriller around her.
That is not necessarily a criticism of Gadot herself. In fact, she is one of the reasons the film works as well as it does. She gives Maia enough emotional credibility to keep the audience invested, and her presence makes the film considerably more watchable. The problem is that the script does not always give her enough interesting material to work with.
Ultimately, The Runner is a difficult film to score.
I happily sat through the whole thing, and importantly, I was never tempted to constantly check my phone. That is worth something. The film held my attention, maintained a decent sense of urgency and delivered an ending that brought the various strands together.
But I cannot ignore the fact that it is relatively weak on substance. Some scenes feel like filler, the action is lighter than you might expect, and the central concept is stretched close to its limits. The London setting also feels artificial in places, which undermines what should have been one of the film's biggest advantages.
There is definitely a good thriller hiding inside The Runner. The real-time structure works, the visual presentation is strong, Gal Gadot delivers a solid and believable performance, and the conclusion is satisfying. I simply wanted more from it. More action, more depth, a tougher Maia and a story substantial enough to justify being a feature film.
The Runner is entertaining enough to keep you watching, but it never quite becomes the relentless, bruising thriller its premise promises.
I score The Runner a very generous 7 out of 10. Mainly because it kept my attention, which takes a lot these days, but maybe that was more to do with Gadot running in skin tight Lycra as opposed to a captivating story.
A new trailer and poster have arrived for Onwards and Sideways, an emotional new feature film that brings Rhys Ifans and Laura Linney together for a story about friendship, humour and finding hope in unexpected circumstances.
The film follows Tony, played by BAFTA winner Rhys Ifans, and Emma, portrayed by three-time Oscar nominee Laura Linney. Tony is a deputy headteacher at a primary school, while Emma is a musician and composer raising two daughters as a single mother. Although the pair have never met, their lives are suddenly connected when they are both confronted with the same unexpected diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease.
From that striking starting point, Onwards and Sideways explores the friendship that develops between them. Their circumstances might be difficult, but the film is not presented as an entirely sombre story. Instead, humour, music, adventure and human connection are central to Tony and Emma’s journey as they find ways to navigate a dramatically altered future.
The premise gives the film an opportunity to look beyond the diagnosis itself and towards the relationships and experiences that can continue to shape a person's life. Tony and Emma's friendship becomes an unexpected source of courage and companionship, while their shared experiences challenge assumptions about what life can look like after a life-changing diagnosis.
Alongside Ifans and Linney, the supporting cast features Monica Dolan and Rory Kinnear, adding further established talent to the film's ensemble.
Behind the camera, Onwards and Sideways brings together writer Paul Mayhew-Archer, whose credits include The Vicar of Dibley and Roald Dahl’s Esio Trot, and director John Madden, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker behind Shakespeare in Love, Operation Mincemeat and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
The film also continues Madden's long-running collaboration with multiple Oscar-nominated composer Thomas Newman, with music set to play an important role in a story where creativity and movement are closely intertwined.
Onwards and Sideways will have its World Premiere at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival on 13 September as part of a TIFF Gala Presentation. UK audiences will then be able to see the film in cinemas from 6 November, with its BBC iPlayer and BBC One debut following later in the year.
With its unusual premise and two highly regarded performers at its centre, Onwards and Sideways looks to balance the emotional weight of its subject matter with warmth, humour and an emphasis on the unexpected connections that can emerge when life takes an unforeseen turn.
Buddy is one of those horror films that sounds utterly ridiculous on paper, yet somehow manages to make its strange central idea work. Directed by Casper Kelly in his feature film directorial debut, this American supernatural slasher takes the innocent, brightly coloured world of a 1990s children's television programme and turns it into something deeply unsettling. The result is funny, violent, strange and frequently surreal, with the feeling that someone has discovered an old VHS tape of a children's show that should never have existed in the first place.
The film's greatest strength is how convincingly it recreates the look and feel of children's television from the 1990s. Everything about It's Buddy! feels deliberately familiar, from the colourful sets and costumes to the songs, characters and relentlessly cheerful presentation. The production design deserves particular credit because the film understands that the horror works best when the world itself initially looks harmless. Buddy is a giant, bright orange unicorn designed to spread happiness and teach children life lessons, but that forced positivity gradually becomes sinister as his cheerful exterior begins to crack.
That contrast provides the film with much of its humour and horror. Buddy's increasingly aggressive attempts to force children to participate in his supposedly joyful world are funny precisely because they are presented with the same exaggerated enthusiasm you might expect from an actual children's programme. The satire of toxic positivity is particularly effective, taking the familiar idea that children should always be happy and turning it into something threatening. The film has a lot of fun with the conventions of children's television, while the increasingly violent consequences provide a wonderfully twisted counterpoint.
The practical effects are another major positive. When Buddy finally reveals what is hiding beneath the cheerful façade, the film does not rely entirely on suggestion. There is plenty of blood, mutilation and physical violence, and the contrast between the brightly coloured children's world and the brutality taking place within it is often striking. It gives Buddy a tangible presence and helps the film retain the feel of a traditional practical-effects horror film rather than becoming entirely dependent on digital imagery.
The performances are strong across the board. Delaney Quinn is particularly effective as Freddy, giving the character enough vulnerability and determination to make her increasingly desperate attempts to survive compelling. Cristin Milioti also brings considerable emotional weight to the real-world storyline as Grace, while Keegan-Michael Key does an excellent job vocally as Buddy. His performance is crucial because Buddy needs to remain entertaining even when he becomes frightening, and the cheerful delivery of increasingly sinister material creates much of the character's appeal.
The original songs are another highlight. They capture the artificial cheerfulness of the fictional programme while becoming increasingly uncomfortable as the story develops. It is a clever way of maintaining the children's television concept throughout the film, rather than simply using the aesthetic as a one-off joke.
There is also considerably more world-building here than the basic premise might suggest. The discovery that other children's programmes and characters have been caught up in Buddy's strange existence opens up a much larger mythology. George and his foul-mouthed marionette Willie are especially entertaining, providing another bizarre detour into the history of the world while also reinforcing the idea that Buddy has been doing this for far longer than the central characters realise. The mystery surrounding the children's missing memories and Grace's discovery of the connection between Buddy and her family gives the film an emotional dimension that gradually becomes more important.
However, Buddy does have its limitations. The central premise is stretched rather thinly across feature length. The idea of a murderous children's television character escaping into the real world is strong enough to sustain a short film or an extended horror sketch, but the longer Buddy continues, the more obvious the limitations of the concept become. There are several excellent ideas here, but they do not always feel substantial enough to support the entire running time.
The film also does not completely capitalise on its premise. There are plenty of opportunities to push the contrast between children's television innocence and supernatural horror even further, but some of the later sections feel more interested in introducing another strange idea than developing the strongest elements already established. The George and Willie material is entertaining, for example, but it also contributes to the sense that the film is moving away from its most effective central concept.
The third act is where the film becomes noticeably less controlled. The mythology expands, some narrative elements become deliberately ambiguous, and the central mystery starts competing with the more straightforward horror story. That surreal quality is part of Buddy's identity, but it can also make the story feel less focused as it approaches its conclusion.
Some of the commentary on children's media could also have been developed further. The satire of enforced happiness and the pressure to behave correctly is clear, but there are moments where the film appears to be setting up broader observations about children's entertainment without fully exploring them. As a result, some of the social commentary feels secondary to the horror and comedy rather than being fully integrated into the story.
There is also a degree of repetition. Once Buddy's basic behaviour has been established, some of the later sequences revisit ideas the audience already understands. The film can consequently feel overextended, particularly when compared with how strong and immediately effective the central concept is.
It is worth noting that Buddy is not quite as disturbing as its premise might initially suggest. It certainly contains violence and unsettling imagery, but the film's comedic and deliberately absurd approach prevents it from becoming relentlessly frightening. That will work in its favour for viewers looking for a horror film that prioritises entertainment and weirdness over sustained terror, but those expecting something genuinely nightmarish may find it less intense than anticipated.
Despite those shortcomings, there is something undeniably likeable about Buddy. It is an original idea, executed with a clear visual identity and a genuine affection for the children's television aesthetic it is subverting. The best moments are those where the film allows its bizarre premise to collide with its meticulous recreation of 1990s children's programming. When that happens, Buddy becomes exactly what it promises to be, a cheerful children's show that has somehow become cursed.
The film's biggest achievement is that it remains genuinely entertaining despite how unusual the premise is. It has a distinctive world, memorable characters, strong performances, effective practical effects and enough strange ideas to make it stand out from more conventional slashers. It may have benefited from tighter pacing and a more controlled final act, but there is plenty here to enjoy.
What a strange but well-made horror film. For anyone who grew up watching children's television in the 1980s or 1990s, everything looks and feels so familiar, but then it all goes so horribly wrong. Buddy does not always know when to stop, but its combination of nostalgia, dark comedy, violence and surreal horror makes it difficult to dismiss.
I really enjoyed Buddy. It manages to feel original and nostalgic at the same time, and despite its flaws, it is an entertaining and memorable horror film.
I score Buddy a solid 8 out of 10
You can watch the horror-comedy movie Buddy (2026) following its UK premiere at FrightFest in London on August 28 and August 31, 2026
Soul Snatchers is a new supernatural thriller that takes a family back to a remote island where an unseen darkness has taken hold. Directed by Julio Roman, the chiller is set to make its UK digital debut on 31 August through Seven Tales.
Cameron Arnett stars as Emmanuel, a deeply religious man who returns to the island where he spent his childhood with his missionary family. His intention is to open a music school for orphaned children, but the island's picturesque surroundings conceal something far more sinister.
As Emmanuel gets to work, the family's unity begins to fracture. His older son becomes increasingly absorbed in his work and starts drifting away from his family, while his youngest is drawn towards the influence of a powerful cult-like leader whose beliefs directly challenge Emmanuel's own values.
What initially appears to be a series of personal and family problems soon reveals a much darker influence at work. With the evil embedded deeper into the island than Emmanuel could have imagined, the family must fight to stay together as their lives are placed in danger.
With its combination of supernatural horror, spiritual themes and a battle between opposing forces, Soul Snatchers looks set to offer a darker take on the familiar struggle between good and evil. Emmanuel's return to his childhood home could prove to be far more dangerous than he ever expected.
Soul Snatchers stars Cameron Arnett, known for Star Trek: The Next Generation and The Forge, and is directed by Julio Roman.
Soul Snatchers arrives on digital in the UK on 31 August from Seven Tales.
