Carson Kelly Blogs

SOULM8TE is a nice watch, but it is also a surprisingly sad one. Set within the world of M3GAN , the new Blumhouse and Atomic Monster spinoff takes the franchise’s familiar ideas surrounding artificial intelligence and explores them through grief, loneliness, companionship, and the dangerous desire to manufacture a replacement for genuine human connection. Directed by Kate Dolan, the film follows a grieving engineer who is tasked with testing a new artificial-intelligence companion after a powerful technology company acquires his business. His efforts to transform the android into a truly sentient soulmate soon create consequences that neither of them can completely control. One of my biggest questions going into SOULM8TE was whether it could successfully stand on its own while still feeling like a meaningful part of the M3GAN universe. For me, it largely succeeds. The film does not need to place M3GAN herself at the center of everything. Instead, it uses the same universe to approa...

I want to start this review by being honest about something: my theater experience for Obsession was rough. Unfortunately, some people in my auditorium were being loud during scenes, talking over the movie, and outright spoiling moments for other people. That kind of thing really hurts a first viewing, especially for a horror movie that depends so much on tension, atmosphere, surprise, and discomfort. It was frustrating, because I had been looking forward to Obsession for a while. But I also try to separate the experience around a movie from the movie itself. And the movie itself? I thought Obsession was very good. This is a creepy, unsettling, emotionally twisted horror film that takes a familiar “be careful what you wish for” idea and pushes it into something deeply uncomfortable. The story follows a hopeless romantic who gets exactly what he thinks he wants, only to realize that desire, control, and obsession can turn into something terrifying. That is where the movie really work...

                          THE BLACK PHONE 2 (2025) Review By Carson Kelly Some stories return not with noise, but with a pulse, a quiet throb beneath the floorboards that tells you something is still alive down there, still moving, still waiting to be found. The Black Phone 2 is one of those stories. This sequel arrives years after the original, carrying the strange tension of expectation: could the world of The Black Phone sustain its mystique without diluting it? Could its ghosts speak twice and still carry the same power? Surprisingly and refreshingly, the answer is yes. The film steps forward with quiet assurance. It doesn’t repeat the first movie’s rhythms; it expands them. What emerges is a broader, darker landscape, one wired with new characters, new hauntings, and a mythology that reaches back farther than the audience expects. The tonal DNA remains unmistakable, yet the sequel refuses to stand in the shadow of...