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Posted By Justin D Williams Spanish indie studio Firenut Games and Digital Dreams today released a new gameplay trailer for their upcoming survival horror title, Baptiste, striking fear into the hearts of players this fall on consoles and Steam. The new trailer sets the stage for the reality-blurring journey that awaits in Baptiste, offering a glimpse of the game's cast of characters and the eerie, isolated mansion players will explore as they face off against supernatural f

By Justin D Williams DC has released plenty of animated Batman movies over the years, and while many of them have been entertaining, it has been a long time since one completely grabbed me the way Batman: Knightfall Part 1 did. This feels like DC animation rediscovering what made its best adaptations special in the first place. It respects the comics without simply recreating famous panels, understands the psychology behind the story, gives us an absolutely terrifying Bane, a

By Justin D Williams I have wanted to see what SIX The Musical was all about for a while, and watching the live pro shot on the big screen finally gave me that opportunity. After seeing it, I completely understand why this musical has developed such a passionate following. SIX The Musical Live! is energetic, funny, creative, and filled with incredible performances, but what impressed me most was how much personality and emotion the show manages to pack into such a simple conc

By Justin D Williams On paper, Ann Droid sounds like it could be another comedy built around one simple joke: an older woman gets stuck living with an incompetent robot carer, the robot misunderstands everything humans say, chaos follows. While the BBC series certainly gets plenty of laughs out of that premise, what surprised me is how much more there is underneath it. Ann Droid is funny, strange, warm and occasionally quite touching, with a story that uses artificial intelli

Posted by Ashley Williams Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures Entertainment will bring AKIRA to theatres in the United States and Canada on September 4, 2026 Director and Original Story by Katsuhiro Otomo Runtime: 124 mins Rating: PG-13 for some violence and suggestive material Language: English Dub & Japanese with English subtitles Genre: Action, Cyberpunk, Science Fiction Synopsis: Iconic and game-changing, AKIRA is the definitive anime masterpiece! Katsuhiro Otomo's landmar

By Justin D Williams My Girlfriend Turned Into a Worm is the kind of short film that immediately gets your attention just from the title alone. Written, directed, and edited by Alex Herz, the 14 minute HollyShorts selection takes an absurd premise and tries to turn it into a story about love, grief, and holding on. There is a lot I admired here, especially the performances, the miniature production design, and the cinematography, but the film ultimately left me a little unsur

By Justin D Williams Brenden Hubbard’s Hide is one of those HollyShorts selections that immediately made me wish there was more of it. The film takes a relatively simple premise and builds an entire sense of history and danger around it without overexplaining what is happening. It is tense when it needs to be, surprisingly emotional underneath the horror, and by the time the credits rolled I was already thinking about how easily this concept could expand into a full length mo

By Justin D Williams Space combat games occupy a strange place in modern gaming. We still get enormous science fiction adventures and detailed space simulators, but the simple pleasure of jumping into a starfighter and immediately getting into a dogfight feels much less common. Rogue Eclipse scratches that particular itch with fast movement, responsive controls, and plenty of large-scale battles. The problem is that the actual space combat is often more exciting than the rogu

By Justin D Williams Rae Cline’s Precious Ugly is a difficult novel to describe without giving away some of the discoveries that make it so effective. This is a dark, emotionally challenging story dealing with abuse, poverty, family dysfunction, religious manipulation, and the complicated ways people learn to survive environments that have become normal to them. Cline never treats those subjects lightly, but she also does not allow the novel to become defined entirely by suff

By Ashley Williams What surprised me most about Half Is More, Vol. 1 is how much ground Yoiko Fujimi manages to cover while still making the manga feel personal. This is a story about being mixed, but it is also about belonging, family, race, language, cultural expectations, friendship, and the exhausting experience of having other people decide what you are supposed to be before you ever get a chance to tell them yourself. Fujimi makes her intentions clear before the manga e

By Justin D Williams One of the things I have enjoyed about covering HollyShorts is never quite knowing what kind of film is going to come next, and Scissors was easily one of the more entertaining surprises. Directed by Hannah Alline, the short takes a familiar slasher setup, throws in a healthy amount of dark comedy, and then flips the traditional victim and killer dynamic completely on its head. I liked this one because it understands the genre it is playing with while sti

By Justin D Williams As part of my HollyShorts coverage, Cracked is one of those short films that proves you do not need much time to leave an impression. Directed by animator Jessica Rizk, the film runs for just under five minutes, yet it manages to create an unsettling portrait of isolation, self neglect, and a person gradually losing control of both herself and the world around her. The story centers on a woman living alone in an apartment that has fallen into severe disre

By Justin D Williams One of the things I enjoy about covering the HollyShorts Film Festival is discovering short films that can leave an emotional impact without needing a feature-length runtime. Alexandra Shipp’s For Niko is one of those films. Written and directed by Shipp, who also stars as Rose, the film takes an intimate look at single motherhood, autism, personal ambition, and what happens when one person is expected to carry more than they realistically can. Rose is ra

By Justin D Williams As part of the 2026 HollyShorts Film Festival, Sweetwater arrives with a premise that could easily get buried beneath the larger conversation surrounding artificial intelligence. Before getting into the film itself, though, there is an important distinction to make. Sweetwater was commissioned through Google’s AI on Screen initiative, but that does not mean the short was generated by AI. The program is centered on storytelling about artificial intelligenc

By Justin D Williams Security 51, an indie security simulator that mixes document checking, observation, science fiction, and horror inside one of the most secretive locations imaginable: Area 51. Your job may sound simple. Check credentials, inspect employees, follow security procedures, and decide who gets through. But when strange experiments, suspicious behavior, infections, and possible non-human threats enter the picture, every decision becomes a little more stressful.

By Justin D Williams Fantasy Network is the kind of indie game that immediately grabs your attention with its colorful presentation and unusual social media-inspired concept, but after spending time exploring Holua, I found that its greatest strength was not necessarily the story it tells. What kept me interested was everything happening around that story. Raven Travel Studios has created a world that rewards players who stop, explore, talk to people, and interact with its di

By Ashley Williams Megumu Seto’s You Might As Well Be the One immediately caught my attention because it starts with a familiar college romance setup, but it quickly becomes much messier and more emotionally complicated than I expected. Ichika Nakajo is confident, fashionable, and comfortable standing out, yet she still wants something simple when it comes to love. She wants a serious relationship with someone who genuinely sees her for who she is. At a matchmaking party, she

By Justin D Williams Star Wars: Visions Presents The Ninth Jedi takes one of the most memorable stories from the original Star Wars: Visions anthology and expands it into an eight-episode anime series. It continues Kara’s journey as she trains under Margrave Juro, searches for her missing father, and becomes involved in a growing conflict surrounding the future of the Jedi. After finishing the season, I came away impressed by the wonderful animation, exciting action, and Kara

By Justin D Williams The BritBox Original and ITV drama Gone takes what could have been a fairly standard missing person mystery and turns it into something much more psychological. Instead of relying on constant twists or dramatic reveals, the series focuses on behavior, trauma, control, and the assumptions we make when someone does not react to tragedy as we expect. I enjoyed the series overall. The mystery kept me interested, the performances were excellent, and I liked th