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Sounds of flesh being ravenously devoured permeate an early scene in “Bones and All.” Sparing us most of the visual horror, director Luca Guadagnino instructs the audience to look away from the grisly feeding. By pointing the camera at photographs of the victim, an elderly woman, on vacation or with her loved ones, he preserves her humanity. Though her corpse now serves as a feast for two famished cannibals, her time alive mattered.

Photographic evidence of a person’s history becomes a strong motif in this beautiful, voracious coming-of-age romance. These printed pictures, sometimes found in a car or tucked away in a drawer, provide a reminder of the many facets—for better and worse—a single individual can contain: the perpetrators were once children, while their prey may in turn leave families behind. In every bite, there’s a disturbingly intimate communion.

Ingesting people across state lines in the 1980s, Maren ( Taylor Russell ) finds herself on her own after her father runs away when she turns 18, only leaving behind a tape recounting her earliest episodes of cannibalism and her birth certificate. Their father-daughter relationship seems akin to that in the Swedish vampire drama “ Let the Right One In .” The parent, aware of her urges, tried to prevent her from further acting on such hunger.

However, Maren, now out in the open world, learns that her desire for human meat is innate, an unexplainable trait she cannot change, only control. “Eaters,” as they refer to themselves, identify one another through their scent. But while some of these outsiders have rules that make eating others like them off-limits, others follow a less scrupulous path.

Working from screenwriter David Kajganich ’s adaptation of Camille DeAngelis ’ novel, Guadagnino infuses the most gruesome aspects of the journey with an earthy atmosphere where a love story can flourish and not seem jarring. Swoon-worthy landscapes under purple skies—the heartland of America in all its raw, vast, and sparsely populated glory—become the Terrence Malick-friendly playground of conflicted lovers. Through the dexterous lens of cinematographer Arseni Khachaturan , the countryside mesmerizes.

The heartthrob at hand is Lee ( Timothée Chalamet ), an orange-haired eater who kills without remorse. He comes across Maren while on his way to Kentucky, where the remnants of his previous life remain. As p artners in crime who slowly transition into lovers fueled by youthful impetus, the two disagree on how to go about satisfying their needs.

A formidable Russell, who previously stunned in “ Waves ,” molds a performance in which Maren moves through her newly discovered horizons with both innocence and guilt. The trepidation of falling in love for the first time intermingles with the moral conundrum of her condition. In turn, her consciousness of the acts Lee rationalizes as inevitable without much thought for the dead so the two can eat creates an ideological divide.

In contrast, an infallibly charming Chalamet doesn’t stretch his emotional range much. He puts forward a familiar rehashing of other cool, but secretly tortured young men who have become a staple in his still nascent collection of roles in prestigious fare.

Then there’s the third key player in this “ Nomadland ” meets “ Raw ” trip: Sully ( Mark Rylance ), an odd eater that shows Maren the ropes at the beginning of her self-discovery as a cannibal. What renders Rylance’s supporting turn exceptional is that one never doubts Sully is a person that truly exists. There’s a lived-in quality in his bizarre mannerisms, his heavily decorated clothing, and other eccentricities. Blood-soaked, he shares with Maren the organic memento he carries around to keep track of those he has consumed.

Guadagnino’s frequent collaborator Michael Stuhlbarg and director David Gordon Green , in a rare acting part, show up for chilling cameos. They help cement “Bones and All” as an amalgamation of the Italian filmmaker’s tales of amorous complications such as “ Call Me by Your Name ” or “A Bigger Splash” and his genre sensibilities put to the test in “ Suspiria .”

Back to the significance of the photos that Lee and Maren encounter as they traverse several states over one summer: while these images reveal information on the people in them, they also lack depth and are limited in what they can tell us. That “Bones and All” opens with shots of paintings depicting landscapes that exist outside of the walls of Maren’s high school illustrates how these renditions are mere interpretations of reality. Likewise, the photos only capture a brief glimpse of a person and not who they are in full beyond the confines of that frame, and of the time it immortalizes. People change.

“Bones and All” plays out as a can’t-look-away, riveting experience for most of its running time. It’s easy to get entranced by its modestly sumptuous imagery, the believable chemistry of the volatile couple, and even the rattling bluntness of the graphic sequences.

But once the pair reaches Maren’s original destination, Minnesota, and a confrontation with a family member ensues, the film loses steam that cannot be regained from the choppy flashbacks that saturate the final act of Guadagnino’s latest. Even the heart-to-heart confessional between the flesh-eating lovebirds, where they agree to try their hand at a peacefully mundane existence, overexplains what was knowingly unspoken.

The takeaway of its metaphor, that there’s always someone out there who can empathize with one’s plight, applies to any of the reasons we may feel ostracized, desperate to leave home, or profoundly alone. Based on those philosophical preoccupations, as well as more obvious wordplay reasons, “Bones and All” could have just as easily shared a title with another fall season release: “ All the Beauty and the Bloodshed .”

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Originally from Mexico City, Carlos Aguilar was chosen as one of 6 young film critics to partake in the first Roger Ebert Fellowship organized by RogerEbert.com, the Sundance Institute and Indiewire in 2014.

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Bones and All (2022)

Rated R for strong, bloody and disturbing violent content, language throughout, some sexual content and brief graphic nudity.

131 minutes

Taylor Russell as Maren Yearly

Timothée Chalamet as Lee

Mark Rylance as Sully

Michael Stuhlbarg as Jake

Chloë Sevigny as Janelle Yearly

André Holland as Francis Yearly

Francesca Scorsese

Jessica Harper as Barbara Kerns

David Gordon Green as Brad

Jake Horowitz as Booth Man

Luca Guadagnino

Writer (based on the novel by)

Camille DeAngelis
David Kajganich

Cinematographer

Arseni Khachaturan
Marco Costa
Trent Reznor
Atticus Ross

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‘Bones and All’ Review: You Eat What You Are

Luca Guadagnino’s latest stars Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell as young cannibals on the run.

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In a scene from the movie “Bones and All,” Maren and Lee sit on the lowered tailgate of a blue pickup truck parked among trees.

By A.O. Scott

Anyone who travels the roads of America must sooner or later confront the question of what to eat. Do you prefer the convenience of interstate fast food or the authenticity of a local greasy spoon? For the footloose young lovers in “Bones and All,” Luca Guadagnino’s gory, ridiculous and curiously touching new film, the decision is more a matter of “who” than “what.” Maren (Taylor Russell) and Lee (Timothée Chalamet) are foodies gripped by a specific and exotic appetite. They will order pancakes in a pinch, but what they really crave is human flesh.

These fine young cannibals — they prefer the term “eaters” — are part of a subculture that haunts the margins of mid-80s Middle America, recognizing one another by smell and subtle behavioral cues. Maren has grown up under the protection of her non-eater father (André Holland), who takes off when she is 18, leaving behind an audiocassette that helps her and the audience understand her condition, which first emerged when, as a toddler, she snacked on a babysitter.

Maren learns that her mother was also an eater and sets out to find her. The journey winds from Virginia to Minnesota and beyond, by way of picturesque spots in Maryland, Ohio, Kentucky and other states. (The cinematographer, Arseni Khachaturan, favors a moody autumnal palette.) Along the way, Maren meets a few others of her kind and learns something about their ways. A middle-aged drifter named Sully (a sad and spooky Mark Rylance) teaches her how to sniff out other eaters and shows her the rope he has braided from the hair of his prey. Later, she meets Lee at a convenience store, looking on as he deals with and ingests an obnoxious customer.

Grisly as it is, “Bones and All” is less a horror movie than an outlaw romance in the tradition of “Bonnie and Clyde” and “Badlands.” You’re more afraid of what might happen to Maren and Lee than of what they might do to anyone else. There is a sweetness to Chalamet and Russell that makes it hard to see them as monsters, and Guadagnino takes an empathetic, if not altogether approving, view of their tastes.

What does it mean to be an eater? The movie teases various analogies, some more palatable than others. What defines Maren, Lee, Sully and a few others (notably a gleeful predator played by Michael Stuhlbarg) is an affliction, a lifestyle and an identity. It’s something they’re born with, and something the squares (or should I say the meals) can never really understand.

Maren, openhearted and intellectually curious, wants to find an emotionally and ethically sustainable approach to cannibalism. If the compulsion to eat other people can’t be suppressed, could it somehow be managed? Individual eaters seem to make their own rules. Sully tries to seek out victims who are on the verge of death, while Lee persuades himself that his prey somehow had it coming. Maren, seeing how damaged Lee and Sully are (and uncovering the horror of her mother’s fate), dares to imagine something like happiness. Her belief in her own goodness is disarming, and Russell’s performance is fresh and unaffected. She plays Maren as the heroine of a young-adult novel.

Which she is. Guadagnino adapted “Bones and All” from Camille DeAngelis’s 2015 book of the same name, aimed at teenage readers. The movie, bloody enough for an R rating, isn’t exactly a cannibal “Twilight,” but its romanticism — its passionate commitment to its vulnerable, misunderstood misfits — is defiantly and uncondescendingly adolescent.

Guadagnino is an elusive, sometimes beguiling (and sometimes exasperating) filmmaker, by turns vulgar, philosophical and sensual. His own tastes range from vintage trash to deep-dish aestheticism, and at his best — in “A Bigger Splash,” “Call Me By Your Name” and the HBO series “We Are Who We Are” — he can combine melodramatic pop extravagance with art-house refinement.

“Bones and All” is a ragged hybrid of genres and styles, an elevated exploitation movie, a succession of moods — anxious, horny, dreamy, sad — in search of a metaphor. Or maybe the metaphor is obvious. Neither raw nor fully cooked, it might make you lose your appetite, but it’s more likely that you’ll still be hungry when it’s over.

Bones and All Rated R. Flesh and blood. Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes. In theaters.

A.O. Scott is a co-chief film critic. He joined The Times in 2000 and has written for the Book Review and The New York Times Magazine. He is also the author of “Better Living Through Criticism.” More about A.O. Scott

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Bones and All Reviews

There is a lot to chew on here, about people who feel disenfranchised, unloved and unwanted. The ending may disappoint, but it also ensures the film will have a life as an imperfect masterpiece, the best kind of cult film, after all.

Full Review | Sep 19, 2023

Guadagnino lights up every scene in the movie with breathtaking visuals that navigate the push and pull of the love story.

Full Review | Sep 8, 2023

Desire and danger are two sides of the same coin in Bones And All, a blood-soaked romance that juxtaposes the yearning for touch with the craving for flesh. It’s a cannibal love story that tugs at the heart, even as its characters go for the jugular.

Full Review | Aug 18, 2023

Bones and All is a compelling story that can be best enjoyed when consumed in its metaphorical state.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Aug 8, 2023

Bones and All comes tantalizingly close to being an effective arterial-spray gothic romance, but it too often feels like an empty exercise in style.

Full Review | Aug 1, 2023

A fable that intertwines tenderness with the horrifying.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jul 25, 2023

At times “Bones and All” is heartbreaking and seductive, but even if you know going in that it’s about cannibalism, the movie is still wildly disgusting.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

Bones and All is a deeply humanistic story of impossible love as two drifters search for their idea of home.

A near perfect slice of life romantic road trip film involving two cannibals. Beautiful, horrific, creepy, but all at the same time poignant.

Luca Guadagnino’s Bones And All is the story of two outsiders who are desperately trying to “be people” in a world that doesn’t seem to have room for them.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 25, 2023

A road movie with a believable romance, disgusting horror, gorgeous visuals and impeccable score, Bones and All, a movie that shouldn't work, becomes one of the best of the year.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 24, 2023

"Bones and All" uses the cannibal idea as a sign of inescapable difference, a metaphor for queerness in its most all-embracing form, and asks how we can lead fulfilling lives in a world that fears us

Full Review | Jun 6, 2023

doesn’t quite reach the twisted melodramatic heights to which Guadagnino clearly aspires, which makes Bones and All, like his Suspiria remake, more interesting as a concept than it is effective as a film.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 27, 2023

Guadagnino has crafted something unexpectedly tender, a deeply romantic and empathetic study of young love between outsiders.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 16, 2023

The answer to how you blend a story like this is that it does not taste well, cannibal or not.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Feb 14, 2023

The sort of moody melodrama that can be absorbed straight up or metaphorically.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 11, 2023

Mark Rylance lifts up the show with this creepy, older eater who tries to take Russell’s free spirit under his wing. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross put together a beautiful score and the film definitely walks to its own beat. Easier to admire than love.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Feb 8, 2023

Bones and All is a fantastic piece of work that manages to be a heartfelt romance, a compelling road trip, a grisly horror flick, and an elegiac piece of longing all at once.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 8, 2023

Bones and All is a rather odd little road film, and can be a little slow as its characters go on their journey, but thanks to its intriguing premise and a pair of captivating performances, this becomes a trip ultimately worth taking.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 30, 2023

Young love often appears in the cinema as tender, idealistic and bittersweet, but rarely terrifies and goes against the grain. In Bones and All, two young people brought together by their taste for human flesh hit all these notes in the best way possible.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 18, 2023

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‘bones and all’ review: taylor russell and timothée chalamet in luca guadagnino’s tender cannibal romance.

Mark Rylance, Michael Stuhlbarg, André Holland and Chloë Sevigny also appear in this road movie debuting in the Venice competition, about young outsiders finding a home in each other.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell in Bones and All.

Bones and All review – an elegant lovers-on-the-run road movie, with cannibals

Luca Guadagnino has surpassed himself with this poetic horror balancing threat, humour and emotional weight

S trip the flesh from the bones of the latest film by Luca Guadagnino and the skeletal story framework is a familiar one: it’s an outlaw lovers road movie, sharing DNA with dustbowl odysseys such as Badlands and Bonnie and Clyde . The backdrop for Bones and All is the 1980s, but it echoes the poor-eat-poor urgency of those other pictures, the poetic desperation of beautiful, rootless drifters taking what they need to survive. What sets this film apart, however, is the fact Maren (a magnetic Taylor Russell) and Lee (Timothée Chalamet) are “eaters”. Their survival depends on regular cannibalistic binges.

Guadagnino doesn’t shy away from the visceral shock of their unspeakable impulses: both Maren and Lee spend much of the time smeared in the congealing blood of their victims. And the act of feeding – tearing with teeth, face deep in the flesh of another human – is feral, animalistic and shameful. There’s a palpable threat, too, in the fellow “eaters” they encounter: Mark Rylance’s lip-smackingly grotesque performance as creepy loner Sully is particularly notable. But there’s also humour here – Maren’s realisation of her true nature comes at a disastrous slumber party – and crucially, there’s a real emotional weight.

In a way, the film is a distillation of themes from Guadagnino’s previous work. The intertwining of food and erotic appetites links back to I Am Love ; the achingly romantic yearnings of first love (and in Chalamet and Michael Stuhlbarg, two cast members) are shared with Call Me By Your Name ; the lurid genre impulses show the bloody fingerprints of Suspiria . But in the elegant balance of these seemingly incongruous elements, Guadagnino has outdone himself.

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Bones and All finds fresh new blood in an age-old young-love story

Taylor Russell and Timothée Chalamet star in Luca Guadagnino’s luscious horror-tinged romance

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This review was originally published in conjunction with Bones and All’s theatrical release. It has been updated and republished for the movie’s digital release.

The urge to equate young love with doom and mortality probably goes back way beyond Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet . It’s such a natural narrative pairing: First loves rarely last, and youth definitely doesn’t.

For most people, that burning intensity of young love — the “Everything is new and wonderful, and we’re the first people to ever experience sex” feeling of infatuation and discovery — is likely to fade quickly. And for adults looking back on that era of their lives, the sense of loss and nostalgia can feel similar to the emotions around navigating death. But the metaphor has rarely been as startlingly vivid as it is in Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All , a gory shocker that comes with plenty of familiar horror-movie elements, but plays far more like a classic road romance.

It’s a strange movie, seemingly designed to confuse both fans of Guadagnino’s previous horror-inflected feature, 2018’s messy giallo remake Suspiria , and fans of his 2017 sun-baked gay romance Call Me by Your Name. While Bones and All bridges those two movies so neatly that it feels calculated, it also raises the question of how much audience crossover there might be between the two films. Horror hounds may be disappointed by how much of the film is low-key relationship drama and coming-of-age story, low on breathless tension-building and jump scares. Romantic-drama fans are certainly going to see more bloody eviscerations than they’re used to getting in their movies. But for genre-agnostic cinephiles, the sheer daring and uniqueness of the story — an adaptation of Camille DeAngelis’ 2015 YA novel of the same name — will be a major part of the draw.

Lee (Timothée Chalamet), a young man with deep eye-bags and a mop of red-dyed curly hair, sips coffee and stares confrontationally into the camera in Bones and All

Bones and All reunites Guadagnino and Call Me by Your Name star Timothée Chalamet for a second love story. But it takes a while for Chalamet to enter the picture. Initially, the film centers on Maren ( Waves ’ Taylor Russell), a high schooler with a series of secrets. Maren lives alone with her father (André Holland) in a dilapidated, disintegrating home. A furtive sense of shame hangs over all the little details of their home and their interactions, but it takes a while for the film to reveal why that’s true, and what they’re both navigating. And when the reveals do come, they’re horrifying and exhilarating at the same time, in part because the details are so unexpected.

Beyond going in prepared for tremendous amounts of blood and some brief, intense violence, Bones and All is the kind of film that’s better experienced in the moment than in descriptions. Each new revelation about Maren’s past and present is unfolded carefully, in part because she doesn’t really understand her own nature, and has to learn about it alongside the audience. Screenwriter David Kajganich (a writer-producer-developer on the much-beloved horror series The Terror ) never feels like he’s in a hurry to get to any particular part of the story. He and Guadagnino make plenty of room for Maren learning through conversations, first with new acquaintance Sully ( Bridge of Spies ’ Mark Rylance, once again disappearing into an incredible performance), then with newer acquaintance Lee (Chalamet), a world-wise boy about her age.

Viewers who don’t already know the fundamental premise of the film, and want to experience it in the theater, should stop reading right here. The early trailer and festival summaries for Bones and All were coy about what makes Maren, Lee, and others different, but public descriptions of the film have widely shared the secret: Bones and All ’s wide-eyed central couple are both “Eaters,” effectively ghouls driven to devour human flesh. Their victims don’t have to be alive, but once they’ve started consuming human bodies, they have to continue, or die. Bones and All more or less follows in the footsteps of movies from Bonnie and Clyde to Terrence Malick’s Badlands in putting a pair of pretty people on the wrong side of the law and sending them on the run, but in this case, it’s questionable how human they are. And their crimes aren’t sexy and stylish, like Bonnie and Clyde’s bank robberies or the vampiric murders in The Hunger — Guadagnino makes the consumption rituals bloody, grotesque, and animalistic, an unpleasant matter of survival.

All of which gives him more room to play when it comes to romanticizing Lee and Maren’s connection. There’s a century-old tradition of sexualizing monsters and predatory behavior , and Bones and All leans into it hard, while still building the story around the old coming-of-age patterns of protagonists finding themselves (and finding their courage in the process). Maren has a lot to navigate — a family mystery, her first love, her first understanding that there are other Eaters and rules that bind them. But above all, she has to figure out who she is in Lee’s shadow, and outside of it. He knows much more than she does about the world, and Eater life, but she knows more about what she wants, and who she hopes to be, and she has to navigate how her desires meet his understanding of the world.

Lee (Timothée Chalamet) and Maren (Taylor Russell) stand in a wide green field under a broad, bright blue sky filled with fluffy white clouds in Bones and All

Like Call Me by Your Name , Bones and All is a sensual movie, particularly visually — Guadagnino luxuriates in the kind of big-sky-country vistas that made Andrea Arnold’s similarly summer-break-themed American Honey so memorable, and he lights his leads warmly in the day and with skulking fervor at night. But it’s more remarkable for the way he and Kajganich navigate the push and pull between the story’s romantic elements and horror themes. There’s a big metaphor at play here about how parents, families, and friends enable aberrant behavior until it feels normal, and how being protected from the world can make it hard to properly enter it. And it plays in radically different ways at the same time: both through the lens of two young kids on a romantic road trip, and as two growing monsters seducing and killing other people for food.

There’s an equally complex sense of attraction and repulsion at play in Maren and Lee’s relationship. They’re very different people who rarely seem suited for each other — but they also have that central unswerving similarity in common, and the fact that neither of them knows another Eater their age pulls them together, even when they’re infuriating each other with their conflicting goals and beliefs. The filmmakers keep the questions humming with a live-wire intensity throughout the movie — should these kids stick together or go their separate ways? Are they helping each other as much as they’re hurting each other? It’s a lot of complication for a young-love movie, and Guadagnino makes the limits of their relationship much more tense than any question about who might hunt them down or who they might hunt.

Bones and All is going to be a hard sell for many audiences, given the strange way it straddles genres and tones. There’s almost a camp element to the ways Guadagnino contrasts the appealing image of Lee and Maren silently holding each other in a private moment, and the repulsive image of them slicked down with dark, clotting arterial blood and drawing flies as they flee the corpse of their latest victim. But the craft throughout the film is impressive and compelling. The casting and performances are shockingly great, particularly when an all-but-unrecognizable Michael Stuhlbarg and director David Gordon Green drop in for a stunning single-sequence cameo. And the entire enterprise is deliciously weird, the kind of movie that leaves people walking away thinking “I’ve never seen anything like that before.” This movie is drawing on some old, old tropes and familiar ideas. But it does it in a way that makes them feel as new, fresh, and exhilarating as young love itself.

Bones and All is now available for rental on Amazon , Vudu , and other digital platforms.

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Bones and All review: A cannibal romance with teeth

Love means never having to say you're sorry (that you eat people) for Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell in 'Call Me By Your Name' director Luca Guadagnino's latest.

The girl can't help it. In the drab suburbs of mid-'80s America, a shy teenager named Maren ( Waves ' Taylor Russell), eager to fit in at a new school, is gamely doing her best to go along with slumber-party talk about boys and nail polish; instead, she grabs a new friend by the wrist and... chews one of those freshly-painted fingers right off. Maren has urges she can't control, which is why her dad ( André Holland ) deadbolts her door at night, and why they don't use their real names every time they have to move to another town. But even he throws up his hands — hey, at least he still has them — and walks out in one of Bones and All 's opening scenes.

Bones , which had its North American premiere last night at the Telluride Film Festival, is not the first movie about gorgeous cannibals this year, or even this festival season ( Fresh had a head start at Sundance). But it is directed by Luca Guadagnino, the Italian godhead behind arthouse swoons like I Am Love and Call Me by Your Name , and thus arrives with certain expectations: that it will be transgressive and romantic and probably inscrutably beautiful, or at least beautifully inscrutable. Once Maren connects with Lee ( Timothée Chalamet ), another "eater," in fact, Bones essentially becomes Cannibals: A Love Story . Beneath the visceral shock of its premise — and trust that there will be blood, along with torn skin and tendons and at least several organs á la carte — is less a straightforward horror exercise than a road-trip romance edged in darkness, in the vein of Badlands or Bonnie and Clyde or even Thelma & Louise . Take away the people-eating, and it could almost be a Springsteen song. Which often makes it feel, in a strange way, like Guadagnino's most traditional film to date — a born provocateur's faithful ode to a classic cinematic genre, only with human gristle between its teeth.

Fortunately, he also has a stable of actors who genuinely want to get weird, like Oscar winner Mark Rylance as Sully, a fellow eater Maren meets early on who speaks in a fluted rasp and dresses like some kind of carnie Indiana Jones. He's eager to teach her the life: tricks to sniff out a fellow traveler, how to minimize the risk and collateral damage of a kill — maybe too eager, with his keepsake bag of hair and tendency to refer to himself urgently and repeatedly in the third person (does anyone play malevolent kooks with more twinkly, slow-blinking glee than Rylance?). Chloe Sevigny and Guadagnino veteran Michael Stuhlbarg bring maximum strange to their standalone scenes, and of course there's Chalamet, Guadagnino's Call Me muse: His Lee is a wounded Tiger Beat pinup, a Kentucky boy in pan-gender thrift-store couture who lives with a desperate all-id intensity that often subsumes Russell's more tentative character. More than anyone, he leans into the ugly — even with those jutting, impossible cheekbones — and the vulnerability, too.

Maren's search for the mother she's never known, and the necessity of having to leave the scene of various crimes, drive the pair across the Midwest, in sequences that also recall recent films like Andrea Arnold's great reckless-youth elegy American Honey . Though they're mutually smitten, Maren remains far more conflicted than Lee about "the lifestyle," reluctant still to own what's always been inside of her. For both of them, feeding is an undeniable high, but they don't do it out of sadism or sociopathy; it's more like an unfortunate medical condition, or a recessive gene nobody asked for. One of the movie's most disturbing encounters, in fact, comes when the pair briefly meet a man ( David Gordon Green ) who isn't an eater so much as a super-fan; he doesn't have to, he just wants to.

Russell and Chalamet are both indisputably lovely to look at throughout, even in their insistent road-scuzz grubbiness. (Bathing on the lam is a privilege, not a right.) Guadagnino, working stateside for the first time, seems to revel in the dust and squalor of off-the-map '80s Americana, a place comprised of corn fields and carnivals and weed-choked parking lots. In all that there's some deeper metaphor, no doubt, about carrying the stain of otherness, and all the ways that love and shame can sublimate even a person's closest-held beliefs. Otherwise it's just two crazy kids with hope in their hearts and a femur bone, perhaps, in their throats, running as fast they can. Grade: B+

‘Bones and All’ Review: Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell Pair Up in Luca Guadagnino’s Meandering YA Cannibal Road Movie

It's a modified vampire film, a romance and a Chalamet fashion show. But mostly it's a dull ramble

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

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Taylor Russell, an expressively melancholy actor who was one of the stars of “Waves,” plays Maren, who is 18, and who we meet while she’s still living with her dad (André Holland) in a trailer home, trying to fit in as a recently transplanted high-school student. She sneaks out to attend a sleepover, the main event of which is trying on different colors of nail polish. That seems to go well until Maren grabs the finger of one of her classmates and proceeds to chomp right through it, leaving the digit barely dangling from its hand.

When she gets home, her father springs into damage-control mode, trying to hustle them away before the police come. But he has had enough. Maren soon finds herself abandoned, with a cassette tape from dad explaining who, exactly, she is and why he can no longer stick around trying to protect her from herself.

Out on her own, Maren encounters another cannibal, a gothic eccentric named Sully, played by Mark Rylance (in the film’s grabbiest performance), who wears a hat with a feather and a long braided ponytail and speaks in a delicate Deep South drawl. Sully tells Maren that he can smell her; that’s how he knows she’s part of the cannibal tribe. And he wastes no time leading her to feast, in a scene of upstairs mayhem that looks like it would get four stars from Charles Manson. After decades of reviewing over-the-top horror, I realize I’m suddenly sounding very moralistic about the gore in “Bones and All,” but it’s only because I kept asking myself, What’s the point? The movie isn’t out to scare us. And since the characters themselves don’t experience their cannibalism as gross (the title describes the ultimate level of cannibalism: eating it all, including the bones), the fact that we in the audience do doesn’t exactly invite us to identify with them. The problem with these scenes is that we’re on the outside looking in.

Maren is laying low in a supermarket when she draws the gaze of Lee (Timothée Chalamet), who turns out to be a chivalrous soul, not to mention the most hiply dressed cannibal in the history of civilization. Before this week, Maren had never met another cannibal; now, just like that, she has met two of them (with more to come). If that sounds a bit unlikely, the upshot is that the script of “Bones and All,” by David Kajganich (who co-wrote Gaudignino’s “Suspiria” and “A Bigger Splash”), isn’t big on logic or consistency. It’s a catch-as-catch-can screenplay that has resulted in a haphazard ramble of a movie.

Maren and Lee fall in love (sort of), but mostly she’s searching for her backstory. She wants to find her mother, and does, learning that she was a cannibal, too. But even with the formidable Chloë Sevigny playing the mom as a mental patient who ate her own hands, the encounter doesn’t come to much. Some other good actors turn up: Michael Stulhbarg, cast against type as a grinning hick in overalls, and Jessica Harper, tersely compelling as Maren’s adoptive grandmother. And then they’re gone. There’s also a strange encounter between Lee and the circus worker he arranges to meet near a cornfield. The victim thinks it’s a hookup — and, in fact, there’s an extended shot in which we see Lee pleasuring his victim before eating him. But since that’s the only sex scene in the film, we wonder: Why is he doing this? Does Maren consider it a betrayal? (Note to screenwriter: We could have used an actual line of dialogue there.)

Maren and Lee drift from state to state, and the way Guadagnino flashes each location onscreen in oversize letters — Virginia! Kentucky! — it’s as if he were advancing the plot by telling us where we are. But sorry, there is no plot. Did the artful filmmaker of “Call Me by Your Name” really think there was? In “Bones and All,” there is only the morose samey-sameness of cool doomed attitude.

Reviewed at Venice Film Festival, Sept. 2, 2022. MPA rating: R. Running time: 130 MIN.

Production: A Metro Goldwyn Mayer release of a Frenesy Film Company, Per Capita Productions production, in association with The Apartment Pictures, MeMo Films, 3MARYS Entertainment, Vision Distribution. Producers: Luca Guadagnino, David Kajganich, Franceso Melzi d’Eril, Marco Morabito, Gabriele Moratti, Peter Spears. Executive producers: Marco Colombo, Giovanni Corrado, Jonathan Montepare, Raffaella Viscardi, Moreno Zani.
Crew: Director: Luca Guadagnino. Screenplay: David Kajganich. Camera: Arseni Khachaturan. Editor: Marco Costa. Music: Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross.
With: Timothée Chalamet, Taylor Russell, Mark Rylance, Jessica Harper, Michael Stuhlbarg, Chloë Sevigny, David Gordon Green, André Holland.

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‘Bones and All’: Timothee Chalamet Is One Hot, Horny and Hungry Cannibal

By David Fear

It’s always fun and games until someone bites another person’s finger off.

To be fair, Maren — the young hero of Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All, one half of its red-hot killer couple, our tour guide of ’80s Rust-Belt America and the role that officially confirms actor Taylor Russell as a best-of-generation contender — has sampled human flesh before. Her tastes first manifested themselves when she was three years old, we’re told, and her father (Andre Holland) has been shepherding Maren around from city to city, state to state, ever since. Things had been stable in Virginia for a good long while, but then she sneaks out one night to go to a sleepover with some fellow high school students, and Duran Duran is playing on the stereo, and there’s an insane amount of sexual tension happening between Maren and the festivities’ host. I mean, the girl’s finger was right there by her mouth. Old habits die hard….

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But this is a really movie that rests on one set of shoulders. This tender, gory trip through the guts of a nation is blessed with one of those magical instances of casting the right actor in the right part, and it’s impossible to think of someone else who could do justice to this young woman the way that Taylor Russell does. There’s such a boldness and a sensitivity to how she lets Maren give in to her tendencies, the way she communicates liberation and shame over satiating herself. The wariness of those early scenes make you feel how lost this soul is, and how grateful she is to be not just seen but accepted by Chalamet’s wandering gourmet. By the time tragedy rears its pockmarked head — you can’t put a spurned suitor on the mantle in Act One without him drooling over “unfinished business” in Act Three — you can clearly clock how Russell has finally given this character a purpose, a spine, a beating heart as well as sharp incisors.

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Bones and all, common sense media reviewers.

Chalamet stars in edgy, intense, ultra-gory book adaptation.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

As downbeat and violent as this film is, there are

Lee and Maren are relatable and tragic characters.

One of the two main characters is a young woman of

Extremely bloody violence: on-screen murder by blu

Romance is central, with a young couple frequently

Uses of "f--k," "f--king," "s--t," and "a--hole,"

Multiple characters smoke cigarettes. In one scene

Positive Messages

As downbeat and violent as this film is, there are still messages to be found about how marginalized people find comfort together, and the pain experienced by those who hurt others.

Positive Role Models

Lee and Maren are relatable and tragic characters. They're caught in the grip of an irresistible impulse and only want to live their lives in peace. Even villains in this complicated movie have complex and understandable motivations.

Diverse Representations

One of the two main characters is a young woman of color; her race is never mentioned (she's played by Taylor Russell, who has a Black father and a White mother), but her youth and gender are referred to by others who think that makes her an easy target (it doesn't). The other main character and most side characters are White.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Extremely bloody violence: on-screen murder by bludgeoning and stabbing; scenes of people biting and eating bloody parts of a dead body (stringy goop comes out, along with pooling, dripping, and spouting blood and lumps of tissue). Cannibals enthusiastically eat dead bodies, resulting in bloody faces, tissue stuck between teeth, and horribly maimed bodies, both living and dead. A character masturbates another to the moment of orgasm and then slits his throat and kills him. A man menaces a much younger and smaller woman, holds her at knifepoint, then lies on her body and kisses her.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Romance is central, with a young couple frequently kissing and clinging to each other. Some of their passionate kisses come after they eat human flesh and have bloody hands and faces. In one scene, two characters kiss, and then we see one masturbating the other from behind with moans and suggestive hand movements before a throat is slit and blood spurts out (a clear symbolic stand-in for semen). Nudity includes a scene in which an elderly woman's dead body is naked on the floor while cannibals start eating her (viewers see her breasts at length), and one in which two people embrace while shirtless (a bare breast is seen from the side).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Uses of "f--k," "f--king," "s--t," and "a--hole," as well as a slur for gay men ("f--got") and a vulgar word for female genitalia that's also an insult ("c--t").

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Multiple characters smoke cigarettes. In one scene, characters share a case of beer until they're all buzzed/drunk.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Bones and All is an edgy romantic drama based on Camille DeAngelis' same-named 2015 novel about two young cannibals ( Taylor Russell and Timothée Chalamet ) on a road trip across America. The mood veers sharply from tender romance to extremely intense violence and horror and back again. There's also relatable interpersonal drama, which could give the violent scenes even more impact. Characters whom viewers get to know and sympathize with are suddenly and horribly murdered on-screen -- they're bludgeoned, stabbed, and bitten. Expect many close-ups of biting mouths and teeth and bloody, mangled flesh. In one scene, cannibals wait for an elderly woman to die (she's shown moaning and shaking in pain) before they start taking bites from her nude body (bare breasts shown). In another scene, one man masturbates another before slitting his throat at the moment of orgasm (suggestive hand movements, moaning). A man menaces a much younger and smaller woman, holds her at knifepoint, and then lies on her body and kisses her. Characters kiss and make references to sex, and multiple characters smoke cigarettes and drink beer. Language includes "f--k," "s--t," "a--hole," "f--got," "c--t," and more. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Community Reviews

Parents say (4)
Kids say (18)

Based on 4 parent reviews

What's the Story?

Directed by Luca Guadagnino ( Call Me by Your Name ) and based on the same-named book by Camille DeAngelis, BONES AND ALL introduces viewers to Maren ( Taylor Russell ), whose life is in tumult due to her irresistible impulse to eat human flesh. As she travels through the United States searching for her estranged mother ( Chloë Sevigny ), Maren meets up with Lee (Timothée Chalamet), a man who shares her taboo compulsion. Driven to kill and to cannibalize, can these two find a way to live with their urges and move forward into a less horrific future?

Is It Any Good?

By turns romantic, delicate, terrifying, and positively nauseating, this book-based horror romance is an unsettling yet strangely beautiful cinematic experience that lingers. Many viewers are likely to have seen "young murderers on the run" dramas ( Badlands, Bonnie and Clyde ) and romantic films with the undead in love ( Twilight , Warm Bodies ), but both of those subgenres generally tone down the violence in favor of longing gazes and tender kisses. But in Bones and All , the youthful main characters meet-cute directly after one of them has waited all night for a woman to die on the floor of her bedroom before bloodily chomping her nude torso.

It's hard to know how to take the contrasts, which seesaw back and forth throughout the film. Maren is on a search for her estranged mother (relatable), and every few days she enriches her diner-food diet with raw, recently dead human flesh (not so relatable). Lee, a lonely soul who's been cast out of his family and home without a friend (pitiable), murders passing strangers in the town he wanders through (yikes). The chemistry between Russell and Chalamet is palpable, and both are given strong, sympathetic roles that are literally meaty in every way. In some moments, you may find yourself wanting nothing more than for these two to cast off their bloody practices and continue drifting romantically from one beautiful empty American vista to another. At other moments, viewers will understandably recoil in horror and disgust. Those with weaker stomachs may even tap out. But those who can take it may find this curious artifact of a film uniquely beguiling, a carnal romance in every sense of that word.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the violence in Bones and All , which is quite intense, especially for a movie that also has themes of romance and self-actualization. Did the amount of violence surprise you? Did it turn you off the film completely?

The movie's tone varies more than most, which tend to stick to a single genre: horror, romance, comedy, etc. Which tones are found in Bones and All ? Do the comic and romantic moments make the horrifying ones more horrifying?

How do you think viewers are supposed to feel about Maren and Lee? Are we supposed to relate to them? Like them? Despise them? Pity them? A mixture of all of these emotions? How does the filmmaker evoke these feelings and signal characters' motivations and inner life?

If you've read the book the movie was based on, how do the two compare? Which do you prefer, and why?

Movie Details

In theaters : November 18, 2022
On DVD or streaming : December 13, 2022
Cast : Timothée Chalamet , Taylor Russell , Mark Rylance
Director : Luca Guadagnino
Inclusion Information : Gay directors, Middle Eastern/North African directors, Female actors, Black actors
Studios : United Artists Releasing , Warner Bros.
Genre : Romance
Topics : Book Characters
Run time : 130 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : strong, bloody and disturbing violent content, language throughout, some sexual content and brief graphic nudity
Last updated : October 30, 2023

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Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Bones And All Review

23 Nov 2022

Bones And All

Bones And All seems, at first glance, to be another entry in the ‘Sexy Vampires’ canon. Strictly speaking, the blood-sucking heroes of Luca Guadagnino ’s seventh film are a kind of cannibal-vampire hybrid, chowing down on flesh just as much as blood, with the ability to smell one another. But flesh-eating is really only half the story; as with the book by Camille DeAngelis on which it is based, this is a simmering, softly played story, told with both tenderness and violence.

An understated character study of burgeoning sexuality in the 1980s, it feels very much of a piece with Call Me By Your Name , Guadagnino’s masterful, Italy-set 2017 romantic drama. So when the first act of cannibalism arrives in the opening few minutes, with a finger suddenly bitten clean off, it hits like a hammer: this is not just another bite of the peach.

It’s played beautifully and believably by Taylor Russell as Maren, the finger-biter in question, carrying the film with an unguarded, raw energy. She’s playing much younger than her actual age, but shows the same captivating naivety and sense of sexual awakening that made Timothée Chalamet a star in Call Me By Your Name . Reuniting with Guadagnino here, Chalamet is almost an elder statesman, a slightly more experienced cannibal showing Maren the ropes, and together they forge a nomadic life on the road together, sharing a fiery, unpolished chemistry.

There are all sorts of outsider allegories you can read into the cannibalism. At the start of the film, Maren lives in a rundown, one-bedroom mobile home, and seems quietly jealous of her wealthy, white suburban friends, a racial and class anxiety that seems to bleed into her bloodlust; it’s impossible, too, not to find a queer reading here, even in heterosexual characters. Lines like, “I thought I was the only one,” could have been plucked straight out of a gay coming-of-age drama.

A contained character study about the most human of passions and desires, wrapped up in inhuman tastes.

But it’s a story that can just as easily be taken at face value. Unlike his last toe-dip into genre, the ambitious but misguided Suspiria , Guadagnino doesn’t force the audience’s hand with a message. This is a contained character study about the most human of passions and desires, wrapped up in inhuman tastes.

Guadagnino is interested, too, in different responses to abnormal urges. Everyone has their own form of ethics. Michael Stuhlbarg (in a horrifying Call Me By Your Name reunion with Chalamet) plays a hillbilly who espouses eating human bones, while Mark Rylance offers a typically precise performance as a lonely cannibal drifter who only eats the nearly dead — as shudderingly creepy as he is morbidly funny. (“I ate my own grandad,” he offers, matter-of-factly.)

For most of the film, the director finds extraordinary beauty in the grit of the Midwest, criss-crossing America to an evocative period soundtrack, so it’s almost a shame that the final act has to end in more formulaic genre fashion. But blips are rare here. This is a devastatingly romantic road movie, one that will make your heart ache as easily as your stomach churn.

Screen Rant

Bones & all review: taylor russell is a standout in haunting, lukewarm drama.

Often languid, and surprisingly haunting, Bones and All isn’t always strong, but it excels in its exploration of human connection.

Bones and All , directed by Luca Guadagnino from a screenplay by David Kajganich, is many things — a romance, a coming-of-age story, a film about loneliness, and, sometimes, a horror. The latter is the weakest aspect of the film, and Guadagnino dips his toe in the genre’s waters before pulling back. But while Bones and All is too restrained to be a proper horror film, there is depth to be found in its other aspects. Often languid, and surprisingly haunting, Bones and All isn’t always strong, but it’s bolstered by a great leading performance from Taylor Russell and excels in its exploration of human connection.

Adapted from the novel by Camille DeAngelis, Bones and All tells the story of Maren (Taylor Russell), a teenager who is unlike any other. She’s a loner, but the audience quickly learns why: Maren is a cannibal and has been since birth. Her father (André Holland) has always known, and they’ve had to move from place to place to keep themselves safe. After Maren turns 18, her father abandons her, leaving her to fend for herself. On her own for the first time, Maren first meets Sully (Mark Rylance), who teaches her the ropes — how and when to feed, as well as which victims to choose to not draw any attention to herself. Maren later meets Lee (Timothée Chalamet) , yet another reclusive cannibal with his own set of personal problems. The two take a road trip to find Maren’s mother, all while falling in love in the process.

Related: Bones & All Ending Explained

Bones and All is elevated by Taylor Russell’s performance, which is quiet and understated, but full of nuance and a depth that suggests plenty of contemplation. The film’s script is rather thin, but Russell mines a lot out of it. Mark Rylance as Sully is unsettling and magnetic despite the character’s intentions. The actor settles into Sully’s strangeness easily and turns his scenes into the most intense ones the film has to offer.

The film can feel rather aimless at times, especially in the middle when it begins to meander, but it finds itself in its exploration of human connection, and what loneliness — paired with a sense of entitlement and sexism — can do to someone who’s been by himself for a very long time. People aren’t meant to be alone, and though there is no deep sense of community among the cannibals, Maren finds solace and love with Lee, and their bond is strengthened because of who they are. In these moments, the story soars as it allows the two characters to learn about each other, grow, and perhaps realize that they can continue living on the outskirts of society so long as they have each other.

While the film isn’t a true horror, there are story elements and moments that can be quite haunting, lingering and clinging to the characters and affecting their emotional journeys. That said, Bones and All could have benefited from a more macabre setting, if only to make the film’s events more chilling in a bid to ramp up the tension, which is rather lackluster. Guadagnino, who previously directed Call Me By Your Name , doesn’t fully engage with the depth that floats to the surface and Chalamet’s character, along with his performance, doesn’t have enough sincerity to make everything work.

And yet, Bones and All remains watchable and engaging when its focus turns inward and toward the characters. Their personal journeys, particularly Maren’s, can be intoxicating and thoughtful, filled with sorrow and hope, beauty and anger. The film grows tedious after a bit before picking back up again and, as it unfolds its layers, it finds the humanity, love, and hope that is steeped into its story.

Next: Luca Guadagnino & Taylor Russell Interview: Bones & All

Bones and All released in nationwide theaters Wednesday, November 23. The film is 131 minutes long and is rated R for strong, bloody, and disturbing content, language throughout, some sexual content and brief graphic nudity.

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Watch a tense romantic triangle play out on the tennis court in 'Challengers'

Justin Chang

Art (Mike Faist), Tashi (Zendaya) and Patrick (Josh O'Connor) are embroiled in a love triangle in Challengers . Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures hide caption

Art (Mike Faist), Tashi (Zendaya) and Patrick (Josh O'Connor) are embroiled in a love triangle in Challengers .

As much as I liked his Suspiria remake and his cannibal thriller Bones and All , it's nice to see the Italian director Luca Guadagnino make a movie that doesn't end with buckets of blood. His new sports movie, Challengers , instead comes drenched in buckets of sweat, and it's the most purely entertaining thing he's made in years. It gives us a romantic triangle set in the world of tennis, and it stars three superb actors in roles that are as athletically demanding as they are emotionally rich.

It begins on a tennis court in New Rochelle, a town just north of New York City, the site of a prestigious second-tier competition known as a Challenger tournament. On one side of the net is Art Donaldson, played by Mike Faist. Art has won three of the four Grand Slam events but has now hit a bit of a slump. He's squaring off against his former best friend, Patrick Zweig, played by Josh O'Connor. Patrick hasn't had as illustrious a career as Art, but he may well be the more gifted player.

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Watching them anxiously from the stands is Art's wife and coach, Tashi Duncan, played by Zendaya. It's clear that these three characters have some complicated history, which Guadagnino and the screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes proceed to unravel through a dizzying array of flashbacks.

And so we jump back 13 years to when Art and Patrick are buddies and doubles partners. Around this time they meet Tashi, a terrific tennis player who's about to begin her first year at Stanford. The boys begin a friendly competition for Tashi's affections, which the more confident Patrick initially wins. But after various ups and downs, including a twist that derails Tashi's tennis career, she winds up marrying Art and becoming his coach. Now, years later, this fateful Challenger tournament has brought the estranged Art and Patrick face-to-face once more. It's here that Patrick privately confronts Tashi and makes a startling proposition, asking her to be his coach.

The Zendaya-led 'Challengers' is much more than a sexy tennis movie

Even when all the toggling between past and present gets a little repetitive, Challengers throws off an unstoppable energy. In the tennis scenes, the camera seems to be everywhere at once, and a hypnotic techno score, by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross , pulses and surges beneath the action. And like Guadagnino's Call Me by Your Name , Challengers has a forthright sensuality that reminds you how sexually timid most mainstream American movies are by comparison.

There isn't all that much sex in the film, but there's so much erotic tension and atmosphere that it doesn't matter. Guadagnino is a master of the tease — and so, it turns out, is Tashi. In one early, flirty scene with the three of them, Tashi not only maintains the upper hand, but also reveals that these two dudes might be more attracted to each other than they let on. As the years pass, though, their youthful desire for Tashi gives way to a deeper need.

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As Art, Faist shows as much live-wire physicality here as he did in the West Side Story remake, though his performance becomes more melancholy over time as Art faces his limitations. O'Connor, by contrast, is all swagger as Patrick, forever leading with his devilishly charming smile. And then there's Zendaya, who's so brilliant in her early tennis scenes that I wish Tashi hadn't been sidelined and forced into playing the role of mentor and muse to two men. But as in the recent Dune: Part Two , Zendaya keeps you watching with her mix of fierce intelligence and emotional uncertainty — over who will win the match, and what it might mean for her future.

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Will Tashi stick with Art, the safe, skillful player who may not have the gumption to be one of the all-time greats? Or will she return to Patrick, the superior but more volatile talent? The movie resolves this quandary in a grand finale that's at once thrilling and maddening in the way it pushes this triangle and this tennis match to the breaking point. But by then, you can't blame Guadagnino for loving his characters so passionately, or feeling so reluctant to let them go. If it were up to him, the game would never end.

Movie review: ‘Challengers’ takes the love right out of tennis

May 1, 2024
Samantha Harden

Mike Faist stars as Art and Zendaya as Tashi in director Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers.” Credit: Niko Tavernise/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. (via TNS)

Luca Guadagnino is nothing less than a fervent seducer, at least in the realm of filmmaking.

Typically, the director’s films are lavish escapades that follow captivating people and their extravagant sensibilities. Guadagnino’s idiosyncratic ability to make the most horrific of scenery materialize into something beautiful is entirely distinct. In fact, many of his works — like “Bones and All” (2022) and “Call Me by Your Name” (2017) — can be best described as car crashes viewers just can’t look away from.

“Challengers,” Guadagnino’s most recent directorial project, is a lurid, pulpy sports melodrama. The film follows Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), a famous-tennis-star-turned-coach who transforms her husband Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) from a mediocre player into a Grand Slam champion.

To thrust Art out of a losing streak, Tashi signs him up for a “Challenger event” — one of the lowest-level tournaments on the pro tour — where he finds himself face to face with his former best friend and Tashi’s former boyfriend, Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor). The film begins and ends at the New Rochelle Challenger, while its passionate backstory essentially tumbles out in all directions.

Mike Faist, left, and Josh O’Connor in “Challengers.” Credit: Niko Tavernise | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. (via TNS)

The movie’s first half — the portion during which it works best — is filled with lingering questions and palpable chemistry between the three leads.

At this time, tennis is simultaneously at the story’s forefront and background, especially in screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes’ witty dialogue. Deciphering whether Tashi’s words are simply about the game or serve as metaphors for her sexual intentions is a laborious task.

In one particular flashback, which shows Tashi and Patrick about to have sex in her Stanford dormitory, Tashi can’t help but compare Patrick’s and Art’s tennis skills while likewise alluding to their sexual capabilities. But when Patrick wants to know if Tashi is discussing tennis or something beyond it, she quickly replies that she is “always talking about tennis.”

Just as tennis forces its spectators to look back and forth for “answers,” so does “Challengers,” as Kuritzkes and Guadagnino bombard watchers with flashbacks and flashforwards across the film’s decade-long narrative span.

Flashbacks from game days at Stanford and matches in Atlanta, Georgia intertwine with a number of stops in New Rochelle to complete the story, though not always successfully.

Guadagnino’s racket-breaking cuts between time frames become repetitive as the film goes on yet, like any good opponent, he is successful at keeping audiences off-balanced.

After all, Guadagnino has always possessed an aptitude for leaving filmgoers with more unanswered questions — is Tashi envisioning herself as the ball Art and Patrick continue to rally over for 10 years? And if tennis is a metaphor for her over-crowded relationships, then will there inevitably be a winner and a loser? A victor and a victim?

Just as the film’s tennis-like structure helps construct a disorienting atmosphere, so does its music. Interestingly, jarring techno music underscores many scenes, even those that are intimate in nature. This stark, sensually striking choice only lends itself to the movie’s sense of bizarreness.

Despite the final match’s excitement, the last act loses its emotional weight, as one ball after another is served up in slow motion. It is a little too easy to lose interest in both the tennis contests and the lingering question of who Tashi will choose — a slow ending to an otherwise captivating story.

Rating: 4/5

Ohio State officials confirmed one person is dead after falling from the Bell Tower side of the Shoe Sunday around 12:20 p.m. Credit: Tommy Hudec | Lantern Reporter

One person dead after falling from the Bell Tower side of the Shoe Sunday

Men’s tennis: no. 1 buckeyes sweep cleveland state 4-0 in first round of ncaa tournament, advance to face oklahoma state saturday, open letter from 34 ohio state student organizations condemns university response to sb-83, demands response by friday.

Social entrepreneur and Ohio State alum Christopher Pan delivered the spring 2024 commencement speech Sunday. Credit: Sebastian Petrou Griffith

Commencement speaker Christopher Pan gives speech, emphasizes importance of diverse perspectives

Men’s basketball: buckeyes land duke transfer sean stewart, university restricts access to campus buildings thursday through sunday.

Christopher Pan and university leaders address graduates at spring 2024 commencement

Baseball: buckeyes total 18 runs on 16 hits to beat the akron zips, no arrests made as roughly 600 gathered on south oval for pro-palestinian protest.

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Review: ‘Challengers’ volleys between on and off-court tension

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Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino has mastered erotic subtext in his filmography; by means of cannibals in “Bones and All” and even peaches in “Call Me by Your Name,” his characters exist in a space beyond what’s on screen.

His new film, “Challengers,” is no different in its steamy, sensual portrayal of tennis. “It’s a relationship,” says tennis pro-turned-coach and central character Tashi Duncan (Zendaya). If tennis is a relationship, then the focal match in “Challengers” is a sexually repressed one, mirroring that of Arthur “Art” Donaldson (Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor), the players on both ends of the net.

Art and Patrick met in boarding school, once comprising an inseparable doubles pair known as “Fire and Ice,” though it’s never explicitly said who was which. At a 2006 Juniors Open match they ogle and fawn over the up-and-coming Tashi from the stands, eventually leading to a love triangle. During her heated game, they grip each other’s legs in anticipation and excitement, finding the sport to be ecstatic.

“Challengers” is straddled between their past and the present: A 2019 Challenger match in New Rochelle appears otherwise unimportant, if not for the fact that Art and Patrick find themselves at odds on the court after a falling-out years ago that can be traced back to their competing interest in Tashi.

At present, the two appear to be diametrically opposed: Art’s married to Tashi, who coaches him after her own career prematurely ended after an on-court injury in college, and Patrick is living out of his car, vulturing for places to stay out of his most recent Tinder matches. While Art’s a pro player ranked within the top 100, competing to hopefully end his losing streak, a win for Patrick means a shot at qualifying for the US Open, which would launch him into tennis stardom.

Tennis is established as a means to explore unresolved tension throughout “Challengers.” Deadlocked eye contact with the ball or player in front of the net transitions seamlessly into puppy-dog infatuation in the bedroom as Art and Patrick both shamelessly attempt to court the flirtatious Tashi, who insists she’s “not a homewrecker” after sizing up the pair’s palpable chemistry. Justin Kuritzkes’ screenplay reinforces this tension through heated locker room banter between Art and Patrick, boasting about sex while in practice and exclaiming a desire to be fucked by Tashi with a racket.

Tashi’s impact on the boys is symmetrical, even if their trajectories aren’t. She’s volleyed between the two, frustrating them sexually, which we see each time Patrick or Art lunge toward a tennis ball with animalistic grunts. Despite their commanding presence on the court, both Fire and Ice melt under Tashi’s touch. This is evident when she orchestrates a three-way makeout session, which ultimately devolves into a signature Guadagnino moment of undeniable homoeroticism.

Cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom depicts these moments in subtleties, such as close-ups with gradual gaze-hardening between Tashi and her boys, or in wide shots where the camera flies through the air like a tennis ball. The audience and the character hold their breath at each moment, anticipating the next stroke or affair — a feeling intensified by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ sweaty techno score. “Challengers” opens with the eyes, bobbed back and forth between players, but ends in larger, more sensual views of the entire body, lurched and lunged towards the ball because the sake of the game learns to depend on it — both on the court and in their personal lives.

Weather contributes to these moments of tension just as much as physicality, something commonly explored in Guadagnino’s films, especially in the frustrating summer of “Call Me by Your Name.” The throuple’s initial makeout session is underscored by sweltering heat as if to signify an overflow of sexual frustration, echoed at the film’s close by Art and Patrick perspiring profusely during the tie-breaker set of the Challenger, the closest they’ve been to each other in years. The volatility of Tashi’s affair with Patrick is experienced in a vortex of wind, papers and debris spinning around them as they reconnect after a nasty college breakup.

Tashi, Patrick and Art each crack under the environmental pressures that surround them, allowing ego and competition to dominate their relationships. Tashi’s fixation on her lost career manifests itself in her controlling each facet of Art’s life, not just in tennis, making it difficult to believe she’s in any of this for love, while Patrick’s stuck in the hedonistic mindset of his past, voracious for the satisfaction of beating out his competitors. Art, who is too lovestruck with Tashi, fails to explicate his growing disdain for the sport and is too jealous of Patrick’s relationship with her to reconcile their past.

Tennis is a relationship, sure, but the characters assert their belief that even relationships need to be won as they stumble through unresolved tension from past flings. But the winning play in “Challengers” isn’t a romantic gesture. It’s instead a moment of pure exhilaration and excitement that transcends the court and reminds the trio of how invigorating the sport — and interpersonal connection — can be.

You can watch “Challengers” at Village East by Angelika, Regal Union Square and AMC Village 7.

Contact Dani Biondi at [email protected] .

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All 11 Fight Scenes In Road House 2024, Ranked

Hard-hitting fight scenes with expert precision make the new 'Road House' a thrilling watch for action lovers.
Elwood Dalton's ruthless tactics and tragic past add an edge to the chaotic violence in the remake.
Director Doug Liman makes the fight scenes leap out from the screen.

Just like the original movie starring Patrick Swayze, the new remake of Road House features plenty of brilliant fight scenes. The 1989 version of Road House is the ultimately guilty pleasure movie, packed with scenes of lowlife scum getting summarily beaten down by a stoic bouncer. The remake recaptures this crowd-pleasing feel, but it also features fight scenes which are laced with incredible tension. There are plenty of differences between the two movies, not least Dalton's UFC past in the 2024 version, but the remake is just as chaotically violent.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Elwood Dalton, a former UFC champion who retired after killing an opponent in the ring. Rather than cobbling together an unsatisfying life scaring underground MMA fighters out of their winnings, Dalton takes a job as a bouncer at a rowdy bar in the Florida Keys. Road House has been receiving positive reviews , and its hard-hitting fight scenes are a big reason why. Director Doug Liman previously worked on the action thrillers The Bourne Identity and Edge of Tomorrow , and he makes Road House 's fight scenes leap out from the screen.

Road House is available to stream now on Amazon Prime Video.

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Dalton breaking jack's fingers, dalton can incapacitate people with surgical precision.

Dalton often shows signs of his incredible understanding of human anatomy, presumably learned from years as a professional fighter. He knows exactly how to inflict the most damage with the absolute minimum effort, and this is how he turns the table on Jack when he pulls a gun on him. Jack thinks that waving a gun at Dalton will be enough to force him into his car, but Dalton doesn't break a sweat. He tells Jack very calmly that all he needs to do is break his index finger and his middle finger, and he follows through.

Dalton's Throat-Punch Kill

Dalton stops holding back after brandt's men burn down the book store.

One other instance of Dalton using his knowledge of the human body is when he kills Vince with a single punch to the throat. He explains that he's probably broken his hyoid bone and collapsed his trachea, but either result will stop him being able to breathe. It's an uncharacteristically cold-blooded moment from Dalton, and it suggests that mentally he could be back on the path to the dark place that saw him kill one of his opponents in the ring. This moment could be a tribute to the original Road House , in which Dalton rips out a man's throat.

Dell Being Killed By The Crocodile

Dell thinks he has the upper hand on dalton, but he ends up being eaten.

Dell doesn't take his initial loss to Dalton lightly. As soon as he's out of the hospital, he tries to run Dalton down in his car. When that doesn't work, he ambushes Dalton on his boat, aptly named "the Boat," with a shotgun in his hand. Just as Jack finds out, having a gun doesn't necessarily give you the advantage over Dalton in a fight. Dalton quickly disarms Dell and knocks him overboard. He tries to rescue him before a crocodile snaps him up, but he's too late. As everyone in Glass Key knows, "crocs hide their food."

Dalton & Ellie Fighting Brandt On His Boat

The waves level the playing field.

As Brandt tries to escape from his burning yacht, he takes a smaller speedboat with Ellie alongside as a hostage. Dalton commandeers Knox's boat and tracks him down, and he teams up with Ellie to fight Brandt as the boat is tossed around by the ocean. The waves add some extra jeopardy to the fight, but Brandt is no real fighter. If it was a regular fight on flat ground, Dalton probably could have killed him in seconds. He loses control of the boat before too long and gets catapulted into the bar, setting up Road House 's ending .

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Billy breaking up a fight at the road house, dalton's apprentice learns how to take out the trash.

Rather than taking on every rowdy customer who comes to the bar, Dalton decides to train Billy and Reef as bouncers so that they can deal with the everyday troublemakers. They could hardly ask for a better teacher, as shown by how quickly their skills develop. Dalton is surprisingly hands-off in his approach. He tells Billy exactly what to do when a fight breaks out and one man has a concealed knife. Billy takes a big step back and pops him in the nose. Dalton can leave later knowing that the Road House is in safe hands.

Dalton's Career-Ending UFC Fight

Road house's ufc scenes use real-life fighters and pundits.

Director Doug Liman uses POV shots in Dalton's darkest moments, and his fight with Harris is the darkest of all.

Conor McGregor isn't the only UFC fighter in Road House . Jay Hieron plays Jax "Jetway" Harris, Dalton's opponent in his championship bout. Road House drip feeds the story of Dalton's fight throughout the movie. Eventually, it becomes clear why the event haunts Dalton's dreams. Dalton kills Harris in the ring by refusing to stop. Director Doug Liman uses POV shots in Dalton's darkest moments, and his fight with Harris is the darkest of all. The spectacle of the big occasion makes Dalton's trauma even worse. The cameras flash around him as he begins to understand what he has just done.

Post Malone's Bareknuckle Boxing Fight

The rapper is surprisingly convincing in his cameo.

Post Malone is one of the most surprising members of the Road House cast , along with Conor McGregor. He plays Carter, a bareknuckle fighter in the movie's first scene. Fittingly, the movie opens with a punch to the face, as Carter takes down a much larger opponent. The ring announcer claims that Carter has taken down six challengers in a row, but he backs down from fighting Dalton when he recognizes who he is. Road House starts with a bang , immediately signaling its intention to be just as action-packed as the 1989 original.

Knox Destroying The Bar With A Golf Club

Conor mcgregor's introduction shakes things up.

As soon as Conor McGregor is introduced as Knox, strutting boldly down the street in the nude, Road House kicks into another gear.

As soon as Conor McGregor is introduced as Knox, strutting boldly down the street in the nude, Road House kicks into another gear. He throws his weight around with Brandt's crew before strolling into the Road House like he owns it with a golf club in his hands. Knox brings a whirlwind of chaos with him, smashing glasses as he almost dances his way through the bar. He seems to enjoy violence and pain, and he picks fights with bystanders just to cause a nuisance. He even tears through the netting which protects the band.

Knox & Dalton's First Road House Fight

Dalton meets his match at last.

After Dalton decides that Knox's antics have gone too far, he steps in to confront him. Despite the chaos all around them as an all-out bar fight ensues, Knox and Dalton remain utterly focused on one another. Their fight is the first time that Dalton truly seems like he's in danger. Even being stabbed in the abdomen and hit by a train is less threatening than Knox tossing him behind the bar and slamming his fists through glass bottles as if they are made of tissue paper. Dalton walks away from the Road House, seemingly defeated.

Road House 2024 Soundtrack Guide: Every Song & When They Play

Dalton taking down dell's gang at the road house, dalton finally shows what he's capable of.

Dalton's legend precedes him everywhere he goes , and this builds him up to be a fearsome warrior before he ever even throws a punch. Carter quits his fight as soon as he sees Dalton in the ring, and Billy says he is a big fan as soon as he meets him. Dalton has a lot to live up to, and his first fight scene shows that he's worthy of the hype. He asks Dell if he has medical insurance first, and then he brutally dispatches him and his four friends. Dalton's bone-cracking, head-smashing skills are put on display for all to see, but he never breaks a sweat.

Dalton & Knox's Final Showdown

Road house's final fight is also its best.

Dalton and Knox's second fight is a beautifully choreographed mixture of MMA mastery and sheer power.

Road House saves the very best for last. Knox and Dalton's final fight is just as incredible as the first one, but Dalton no longer reins in his killer instincts. Their fight is a beautifully choreographed mixture of MMA mastery and sheer power. They tumble around the ruins of the bar, grappling on the floor for a while, before both tiring and going blow-for-blow with the power of two heavyweight boxers. When Dalton seems finished, he draws on something extra to fight back and brutally stabs Knox with two broken pieces of wood. Road House 's post-credits scene shows Knox alive, setting up a potential rematch for the pair.

All 11 Fight Scenes In Road House 2024, Ranked

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The Bone-Chilling Infested Is Spiders All the Way Down

This review originally published on September 9, 2023 out of the Venice Film Festival. We are recirculating it now that the film (originally called Vermin ; it has since been retitled Infested) is streaming on Shudder.

Screams are one thing. It’s another thing entirely to feel an audience squirm in their seats — legs twisting, arms tensing, bodies slowly contorting. The new French thriller Infested , showing at Venice as part of the Critics’ Week sidebar, is either irresistible or repulsive depending on your point of view, and maybe a bit of both. It’s a movie about huge, deadly spiders invading a French housing project. Some of the spiders, I gather, are played by real spiders, and some have been achieved via effects. Either way, they look like real spiders. They feel like real spiders. There’s personality in their movements; they don’t come across as monsters so much as just another species struggling to survive in a hostile and foreign place. It’s a nifty idea, but it works mainly because director Sébastien Vaniček, making his feature debut, understands how to shoot and cut suspense and terror. I’m not a big arachnophobe, but the first time an army of tiny spider-babies crawled up one character’s arm, my body immediately bent into a shape it has never taken before or since.

Infested isn’t a standard-issue horror film, though it starts like one. Somewhere in a desert, a group of Arab men travel to a desolate, rocky area and start lifting rocks, looking for the creatures. They finally find an enormous hole, and try to smoke the spiders out. One of them is immediately bitten on the neck and starts screaming and spiraling in pain; he’s soon put out of his misery by a swift machete blow. The incredibly venomous spider they capture is then sold under-the-counter in a shop in France to Kaleb (Théo Christine), an enterprising young hustler who makes money selling black market items (mainly sneakers) to the residents of his housing development. Kaleb has also been building a reptilarium in his apartment, much to his older sister’s chagrin. He’s gentle with his creatures, and talks to them; it’s been a dream of his since he was a child to have a small zoo filled with frogs and iguanas and snakes and other creepy crawly things.

Kaleb names his new spider Rihanna, then gives her a temporary home in a shoebox that happens to have a hole in it. As might be expected, Rihanna gets out. Rihanna lays eggs. Rihanna lays lots of eggs. By the time one of the neighbors squashes Rihanna, it’s too late. These eggs hatch and grow to unspeakable sizes in a matter of hours. Pretty soon the already-desperate residents are dropping dead, and massive cocoons and cobwebs are showing up all over the place. Kaleb, his sister, and their pals — among whom is Kaleb’s oldest, estranged friend Jordy (Finnegan Oldfield), who happens to also be a reptile and insect aficionado — have to make their way out of their dark, run-down building.

Infested wants to do more than just scare us out of our wits, even though it does that part quite well. The charged setting of the banlieu invites a political reading of what’s happening. This is a place where the power is often out, where lights aren’t fixed, where the elevator never works, and where mysterious goo on a stair or railing isn’t regarded as a particularly ominous sign. The film resists more ambitious themes or more specific symbolism, however. Vaniček has said that he sees the spiders as a metaphor for the residents of the housing project — unwanted, misunderstood, and feared. One of the programmers introducing the film at Venice Critics’ Week stated that the whole thing was about encroaching, all-consuming neo-capitalism.

I must admit that these connections feel tenuous to me, because the film itself gives very few hints at them; the spiders start biting people before they even have a chance to be misunderstood, and, aside from the fact that Rihanna arrives via a pair of fancy sneakers, there’s little here in the way of neo-capitalist allegory. Besides, for a picture that wants to be a metaphor for these downtrodden souls, it’s maybe a bit too cavalier about the kills at first, which in turn also makes a later death — one which sends the characters spinning into an extended montage of grief — feel a little asymmetric emotionally.

I’m not sure Infested works as quite the refined thesis its creators wish it to be, though perhaps this works to the movie’s advantage as a genre piece; it never really slows down to work a theme. What comes through are Vaniček’s expert orchestration of suspense, and the cast’s ability to make their characters’ fears feel genuine. Indeed, the immediacy of their desperation might be the most effective political aspect of Infested . A general sense of hopelessness gathers over the picture as the police begin to get involved. At first, the cops are neglectful and careless, then they’re violent. You do get a sense of how spiritually abandoned these places are, of the profound depth of institutional failure. It’s enough to make the characters wonder if maybe they were better off with the spiders.

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1. Taylor Russell, lil Timmy, and Rylance. This is a film with a surprisingly small cast for a road trip movie, but man, I loved ever performance here. Mark Rylance absolutely killed it as Sully, in a performance I consider equally hammy and super effective for what he was going for.
Bones and All
Bones and All. Metascore ... All Reviews; Positive Reviews; Mixed Reviews; Negative Reviews; Critic Reviews ... This was a great movie with strong performances all the way around. Read More Report. 6. TyyroneMugga Jan 22, 2023 Interest 7/10 Characters 6/10 Cinematography/Set 6.5/10 Story 6/10 Acting 5/10.
'Bones and All' review: The next great queer horror movie has arrived
Bones and All is now in theaters. UPDATE: Nov. 22, 2022, 5:17 p.m. EST Bones and All was originally reviewed out of the 60th New York Film Festival on October 17, 2022. This piece has been ...
'Bones and All' Review: Timothée Chalamet in a YA Cannibal Road Movie
'Bones and All' Review: Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell Pair Up in Luca Guadagnino's Meandering YA Cannibal Road Movie Reviewed at Venice Film Festival, Sept. 2, 2022. MPA rating: R ...
Movie Review: Timothée Chalamet Stars in 'Bones and All'
Movie Review: In Luca Guadagnino's road-movie romance Bones and All, Taylor Russell and Timothee Chalamet play two young cannibal drifters who find each other. Mark Rylance, Michael Stuhlbarg ...
'Bones and All': Timothee Chalamet's Fine Young Cannibal Romance
To be fair, Maren — the young hero of Luca Guadagnino's Bones and All, one half of its red-hot killer couple, our tour guide of '80s Rust-Belt America and the role that officially confirms ...
'Bones and All' review: Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell star in
"Bones and All" mashes up a lot of genres, coupled with the promise of a "Call Me By Your Name" mini-reunion of director Luca Guadagnino and Timothée Chalamet, until now the star less ...
Bones and All Movie Review
Parents need to know that Bones and All is an edgy romantic drama based on Camille DeAngelis' same-named 2015 novel about two young cannibals (Taylor Russell and Timothée Chalamet) on a road trip across America.The mood veers sharply from tender romance to extremely intense violence and horror and back again. There's also relatable interpersonal drama, which could give the violent scenes even ...
Bones And All
Bones And All Review. America, the 1980s. Teenager Maren (Russell) is abandoned by her father (Holland) after her cannibalistic urges become too much to bear. With the help of fellow cannibal Lee ...
Bones & All Review: Taylor Russell Is A Standout In Haunting, Lukewarm
Bones and All, directed by Luca Guadagnino from a screenplay by David Kajganich, is many things — a romance, a coming-of-age story, a film about loneliness, and, sometimes, a horror.The latter is the weakest aspect of the film, and Guadagnino dips his toe in the genre's waters before pulling back. But while Bones and All is too restrained to be a proper horror film, there is depth to be ...
Bones and All
Bones and All is a 2022 romantic horror film directed by Luca Guadagnino from a screenplay by David Kajganich, based on the 2015 novel Bones & All by Camille DeAngelis.Set in the late 1980s, the film stars Taylor Russell and Timothée Chalamet as a young pair who flee together on a road trip across the United States of America and develop feelings for each other.
'Challengers' review: A tense romantic triangle plays out on the tennis
As much as I liked his Suspiria remake and his cannibal thriller Bones and All, it's nice to see the Italian director Luca Guadagnino make a movie that doesn't end with buckets of blood.His new ...
Movie review: 'Challengers' takes the love right out of tennis
In fact, many of his works — like "Bones and All" (2022) and "Call Me by Your Name" (2017) — can be best described as car crashes viewers just can't look away from. ... Movie review ...
Review: 'Challengers' volleys between on and off-court tension
Celebrating 50 years of the Washington Square News. Review: 'Challengers' volleys between on and off-court tension. Fear not, athletically challenged viewers: Luca Guadagnino's new tennis drama centers on the sport, but the real heat is off the court. Dani Biondi, Staff Writer. April 30, 2024. "Challengers" released in theaters on ...
All 11 Fight Scenes In Road House 2024, Ranked
Road House's UFC scenes use real-life fighters and pundits. Director Doug Liman uses POV shots in Dalton's darkest moments, and his fight with Harris is the darkest of all. Conor McGregor isn't ...
"Run That Prank" My Bones Is Weak (Podcast Episode 2024)
IMDb is the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content. Find ratings and reviews for the newest movie and TV shows. Get personalized recommendations, and learn where to watch across hundreds of streaming providers.
'Infested' Review: Shudder Film Is Spiders All the Way Down
Infested. Is Spiders All the Way Down. By Bilge Ebiri, a film critic for New York and Vulture. The first time an army of tiny spider-babies appeared, my body bent into a shape it has never taken ...

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Bones and All review – an elegant lovers-on-the-run road movie, with cannibals

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