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Longlegs is a horror film directed by Osgood Perkins, which combines the horror of a crime scene with the surreality of a nightmare. The film begins with a classic home movie ending, but then introduces rookie FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe). Harker has a strong intuition that their suspect is hiding in a random house, and her boss, Agent Carter (Blair Underwood), assigns her to investigate a series of crimes. The evidence points to murder-suicide, but there is a letter written in code and signed "Longlegs" at each of the crime scenes.

Carter suspects that this "Longlegs" is influencing the killers from afar, and she brings Harker and her newly discovered abilities onto the case. Longlegs' messages are designed to resemble those of the Zodiac Killer, and the agents bring up Charles Manson when discussing his methods. Weaving these historical crimes into a work of occult fiction blurs the line between real and unreal, and is key to the film's uncanny power. Lee dives into the bloody mystery feet first, and the tension builds as she realizes that Longlegs knows her name and where she lives, and they met once, a long time ago. The film becomes Perkins' take on The Silence of the Lambs, with Monroe as the Clarice Starling of the piece. When we finally meet Longlegs (Nicolas Cage), he is Buffalo Bill's Satanic cousin, with the makeup and glam rock but without the problematic trans storyline. Maika Monroe is capable and brave in the role of Agent Lee Harker, particularly opposite Alicia Witt as Lee's fragile mom, Ruth. She can't quite maintain the center of gravity needed to keep Longlegs from spinning out as the conspiracy gets deeper and the murder methods more esoteric. However, her lean athleticism makes her believe she'll survive until the end, a quality that has seen her cast as a "final girl" in films like It Follows, The Guest, and Watcher.

Perkins also has a strong sense of identity as a filmmaker, with his overcast color palette and American Gothic farmhouse aesthetic carrying over from The Blackcoat's Daughter and I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House. There are moments when Longlegs feels like a movie you've seen before, but with an evil filter laid over it, which is both a weakness and a strength. Perkins' horror surrealism renders the familiar strange and the strange familiar, leaving viewers vulnerable, making it feel like something unholy is emanating from the movie itself.

James Gunn's new big-screen take on Superman explores the mythic status of the character and how it fits into a modern world. The film takes for granted that its audience will feel at home in a world where gods, monsters, and even Superdogs named Krypto are a fact of life. Gunn's approach sets Superman apart from its forebears by embracing its mythic status and leaning heavily into more colorful cosmic and pulpy elements than any big-screen Superman before. The film is the most vibrant superhero movie since Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and Gunn comes ready to solve the problem of world-building by dropping us directly into a world that's already built. Our earliest moments with Superman are spent in the aftermath of a battle he's already fought, Lex Luthor has already been studying the Kryptonian's strengths and weaknesses from afar for years, and Clark Kent's relationship with his hard-nosed partner in journalism, Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), is several months old. Even the nuances of privatized superheroism are quickly established in the middle of a kaiju fight as Supes and the corporate capes of the Justice Gang bicker over best practices. This leaves Superman feeling like both Gunn and Warner Bros. Reckoning with all the success they've seen (or in Gunn's case, furthered) on the part of Marvel Studios, and the smart bets they place on how much we'll accept as natural to this new continuity without the need to stop down and explain every little thing pay off. That hopefulness is anchored by a knockout performance from David Corenswet. He brings a ton of confident swagger to Superman, perfectly balanced with an old-fashioned tendency to let slip a "good gosh" or a "what the hey" in lieu of a curse word. His take on Superman lives in these idiosyncrasies, frequent reminders of Clark's humble upbringing that do wonders for keeping the question of humanity, and what that means in Clark's case, in the mix. For all the existential conflicts Superman navigates while he's chatting with his girlfriend in her living room or flying around trying to save the world, it's the brief, intimate interactions he shares with the citizens of Metropolis he's trying to protect that really shade Corenswet as a Superman of the people. He's quick to suggest a breathing exercise for someone freaking out after he's just had to fly them to a rooftop three blocks away, or to remember the name of a street vendor he'd saved at some indeterminate point in the past. These kinds of exchanges take just a few seconds to play out, but they go a long way to grounding the stakes. A longstanding critique of Superman stories is that with his basic invincibility and all, it's hard to establish those stakes: he has none of the angst of Batman or the "for everything I do right, two things go wrong" crises of Spider-Man. Gunn wisely takes every chance he can get to show Superman in agony, putting the hero through an absolute gauntlet of physical (and emotional) trauma that at times even seems to pull from the director's horror background. Speaking of storytelling shortcuts, it's the oldest trick in the book to make a character more sympathetic by giving them an adorable doggy sidekick, but consider me a fool for Krypto. It's funny to watch a bad dog trash a house and the mayhem this interstellar rescue brings to Clark's life is a constant source of joy in Superman. Gunn's laying some smart groundwork here too, connecting Krypto's raw but unfocused power to Clark's own struggle to juggle ability and responsibility. Ma and Pa Kent (Neva Howell and Pruitt Taylor Vince) also have a part to play there, making a couple of unshowy but impactful appearances to remind their son and us of his Middle-American roots.

The Sitter is a movie directed by Jonah Hill and starring Jonah Hill as Noah Griffith, a slacker who agrees to babysit his mom's best friend's kids. The kids are Slater, a teenager with anxiety issues, Blithe, a 9-year-old who wants to become a celebutante, and Rodrigo, a destructive force. Noah makes a bad decision when he agrees to score drugs for his selfish girlfriend Marisa, hoping she will finally have sex with him. He takes the kids with him to buy drugs from nutty dealer Karl and his sidekick Julio, leading to a series of misadventures as they try to get home alive. The Sitter is a "one crazy night" comedy in the vein of a 1980s flick, with similarities to Chris Columbus' Adventures in Babysitting and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Risky Business, and Weird Science. Director David Gordon Green and his writers aim to channel John Hughes, but the film ends up being somewhat of a mixed bag. The script is not the cast's fault, but rather the script's. Hill plays Noah as a man-child who doesn't care about anything or anyone other than himself. He has enough emotional maturity to understand why the kids are troubled and can't get out of his own way long enough to take responsibility for his life. The kids are motley and disorderly, with Slater being the most normal, sensitive, and accessible of the three. Bender and Hernandez get the biggest laughs, with the former having a disturbing yet funny department store scene with Hill and the latter's mayhem being the source of most of the trouble that befalls the group. Rockwell gives the drug dealer some personality, while Smoove plays another variation of his high-strung, profane sidekick schtick.

While The Sitter may not live up to its hilarious red band trailers, it's still worth a look for those seeking some vulgar laughs or an '80s throwback.