Violent Night, Netflix’s JUNG_E, and every other movie you can stream this weekend

Polygon readers, season’s greetings This week, Night of violence, the “Santa Claus meets Die Hard” action comedy starring David Harbour (Stranger ThingsPeacock finally streams (as a less-jolly Saint Nick). This is seasonal drift. If watching the anthropomorphic embodiment of Christmas cheer murdering a group of mercenaries doesn’t quite sound like your idea of leisure viewing, not to worry— there’s tons more new movies to stream and rent on VOD this weekend.

JUNG_EFrom SciFiNow comes a new action-packed sci-fi thriller called Busan to Train Hellbound director Yeon Sang-ho, arriving this weekend on Netflix, Alex Garland’s freaky folk horror film MenShowtime is Horror-Thriller on Showtime Old Man starring Stephen Lang (Avatar, Don’t BreatheYou can also find the latest releases on VOD such as AMC Plus at http://www.amazonmediacomplus.com/ Aftersun, MenuAnd TillFor a lower price

Check out these new films that you can enjoy at home.

Netflix: New Features

JUNG_E

You should be watching:Netflix streaming available

Image courtesy of Netflix

Genre: Sci-fi/action
Run time: 1h 38m
Director:Yeon Sang-ho
Cast: Kim Hyun-joo, Kang Soo-yeon, Ryu Kyung-soo

The director of this sci-fi action thriller is set in the far future. Busan to Train HellboundFollow the story of a legend soldier, whose mind is saved by her daughter after she dies and brought back to life in an army cyborg drones. When the original mind yearns for freedom, she’ll have to battle herself and an unscrupulous military scientist in order to win her freedom and possibly humanity’s future.

From our review:

JUNG_E Discover more [an]An exciting scene of battle, followed by a larger, more powerful action sequence with cartoony, but still effective visual effects. Yet it’s not exactly an action movie. In the long stretch between instances of mayhem, it goes through a lot of world-building, contemplative drama, and some plot twists that intentionally undermine both the characters’ and the audience’s expectations about where the story might logically be headed.

Peacocks are now in stock

Violent Night

You should be watching:Peacock streaming available

Universal Pictures

Genre:Take Action
Run time: 1h 52m
Director: Tommy Wirkola
Cast: David Harbour, John Leguizamo, Beverly D’Angelo

David Harbour portrays Santa Claus in this action-packed movie by 87North Productions. The legendary Hollywood action studio brought to you John Wick, and other classic action films.

From our review:

Violent Night works best when it captures the warped sensibilities of early-’90s Chris Columbus movies, particularly All You Need is Home. It’s been pointed out so often that it barely needs to be said that the events of that film are actually horrifically traumatizing and violent, and that Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin McCallister is a pint-size sociopath. Little Trudy Lightstone has a sadistic streak in her, too, and the film’s most demented scenes are played with an outsized sense of cheer that effectively creates a sense of giggly discomfort. This film is different because these moments have been deliberately planned. Although the film is filled with snarky jokes and bloodshed, the movie overall works well. Violent Night’s big red bag of self-aware tricks is overstuffed.

Showtime has something new

Men

You should be watching:Showtime is available to stream

Kevin Baker/A24

Genre:Folk terror
Run time: 1h 40m
Director: Alex Garland
Cast: Jessie Buckley, Rory Kinnear, Paapa Essiedu

Alex Garland’s 2022 folk horror thriller stars Jessie Buckley (I’m Thinking of Ending Things() As a widowed woman, who goes to the English countryside in search of healing. Rory Kinnear portrayed the peculiarly masculine inhabitants of this little village. Black MirrorShe is about to be confronted with her most terrifying nightmares (fame)

From our review:

MenThere are some parallels to recent horror films. Particularly those focused on telling small stories about aggressions that can be more damaging than the larger society. It resembles Jordan Peele’s Move Out In some structural ways Move Out’s Black protagonist Chris clings to his phone contact with his Black friend Rod (Lil Rel Howery) as a lifeline when he’s out of his element in a white country enclave, Harper gets her only support via phone from her friend Riley (Gayle Rankin), the one other significant woman in the film. (Other notable similarities can’t be discussed without spoilers.) And the lush environs, gender tension, the focus on grief and ways to express it, the boiling anger below the surface, and the resultant primal screaming all recall Ari Aster’s Midsommar, A second film felt soaked in fear and inevitability.

AMC Plus – New

Old Man

You should be watching:AMC Plus is available to stream online

Image by RLJE Films

Genre: Horror/thriller
Run time: 1h 37m
Director: Lucky McKee
Cast: Stephen Lang, Marc Senter, Liana Wright-Mark

The 2022 horror thriller, not to be mistaken with the series featuring Jeff Bridges in 2022 drama-thrillers, follows Joe (Marc Senter), an aspiring lost traveler who finds himself at the isolated cabin of an older man living alone among the trees. Joe is not prepared for what he finds. The old man plans to do more evil than simply be a good samaritan.

VOD: New!

Aftersun (reduced Price)

You should be watching:Rentable for as low $5.99 at Amazon, Apple and Vudu

Image: A24

Genre: Drama
Run time: 1h 42m
Director: Charlotte Wells
Cast: Frankie Corio. Paul Mescal. Celia Rowlson Hall

Polygon’s No. You can now watch the 8 best movies of 2008, featuring a stunning feature debut from Charlotte Wells. I’ll let our blurb for Aftersun Let the words speak for themselves

The human memory is, famously, unreliable — faulty to the point of being thrown out even when it’s your sworn testimony. The best illustration of this is in childhood memories. A small memory, even one, can have a profound effect on adulthood. Adulthood must be viewed through all the filters of care and concern that come with it. It’s a tough concept to wrap your brain around at times. It is so. AftersunThis is an amazing feat of engineering, in that it not only captures the scope of the concept but also frames it with grace.

Young father Calum (Paul Mescal) and his 11-year-old daughter Sophie (Frankie Corio) are on a rare resort vacation, a fading moment captured by her on a clunky camcorder (at least partially; you know what it’s like to hand a kid a video camera). While that plot is simple in construction, the execution of it is far more profound, capturing the wistful vantage points of both Calum’s and Sophie’s experiences on holiday with equal, vivid clarity. You can read the entire article here Aftersun’s hands, memory is just as slippery as it’s always been. Conversations can sometimes wash over Sophie, and threaten to drown Calum. Growing up means seeing the whole picture. AftersunThis film is quietly powerful in its ability that it captures this. It’s a testament to the performances at the center of it (Mescal’s compassionate weariness most of all) that the film manages to suggest so much without overstating its point. After all, memory may be unreliable, but sometimes memory — echoed in a grainy camcorder or the recollection of a warm embrace — is all we have.

Blaze

You should be watching:Rentable for as low as $6.99 via Apple and Vudu

Image: Causeway Films/Bonsai Films

Genre: Crime/fantasy drama
Run time: 1h 41m
Director: Del Kathryn Barton
Cast: Julia Savage, Simon Baker, Yael Stone

Blaze, a 12-year-old imaginative girl played by Julia Savage, is the protagonist of this drama. She witnesses a victim being attacked in her local alleyway and becomes traumatized. Her father Simon Baker takes care of her as she struggles to cope with the trauma she experienced and the more severe cruelty in the world.

Aliens vs. Children

You should be watching:Rentable for as low as $6.99 at Amazon, Apple and Vudu

Image by RLJE Films/Shudder

Genre: Sci-fi/horror
Run time: 1h 15m
Director: Jason Eisener
Cast: Dominic Mariche, Phoebe Rex, Calem MacDonald

Looking for some more ’80s throwback sci-fi horror with a requisite synthwave score à la Stranger Things? Take a look at this new film from Hobo With a ShotgunDirector Jason Eisener tells the story of a group slumber parties that turns sour when bloodthirsty aliens invade their suburb to plot to overthrow Earth.

Menu

You should be watching:Rentable for as low as $5.99 via Amazon, Apple and Vudu. Also available on HBO Max.

Photo: Eric Zachanowich/Searchlight Pictures

Genre:Horror/dark comedy
Run time: 1h 47m
Director: Mark Mylod
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult

Anya Taylor-Joy (The NorthmanNicholas Hoult stars alongside?Mad Max Fury Road) as Margot, a young woman who is invited on a “date” with a wealthy food snob named Tyler (Hoult) to eat at Hawthorne, an exclusive restaurant owned by reclusive world-renowned chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes). It’s not long, though, before they realize that Slowik has something else in mind for them besides overpriced oysters and beef bourguignon.

Our review:

Menu Sometimes it reads as a sprawling version of a one-set play. A group of people who are forced together gradually gives in to pressure and discovers new things about them. A lot of what keeps it going isn’t that stagey energy, but the staging itself. production designer Ethan Tobman was inspired by everything from Luis Buñuel’s devastating 1962 film The Exterminating Angel (another film about smug elites who can’t escape each other) to German expressionist architecture. He and cinematographer Peter Deming give the film a harsh, punishing chilliness that emphasizes both the lack of comfort or warmth in haute cuisine and the state of Chef Slowik’s mind. It’s an appropriately sumptuous and sense-driven film, with something striking to look at in every frame.

Till

You should be watching:Rentable for as low $5.99 at Amazon, Apple and Vudu

Image by United Artists Releasing

Genre:Biographical drama
Run time: 2h 10m
Director: Chinonye Chukwu
Cast: Danielle Deadwyler, Jalyn Hall, Frankie Faison

Danielle Deadwyler stars in Chinonye Chukwu’s biopic drama of Mamie Till, the woman who campaigned for justice after the violent lynching of her son, Emmett Till, while visiting family in Mississippi.