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Movie Review: HOKUM

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Sat, 02 May 2026 00:24:38 +0000

Rating: R
Stars: Adam Scott, Peter Coonan, David Wilmot, Florence Ordesh, Michael Patric, Will O’Connell, Brendan Conroy, Austin Amelio, Ezra Carlisle, Mallory Adams, Sioux Carroll
Writer: Damian McCarthy
Director: Damian McCarthy
Distributor: Neon
Release Date: May 1, 2026

American novelist Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) is at the Bilberry Woods Hotel in Ireland in order to scatter his parents’ ashes in the surrounding forest, per their wishes.

Despite being a famous author worldwide – even the staff at the out-of-the-way Bilberry have read his books – Bauman is bleak, depressed, and cynical. His opinion of local folklore is that it’s “hokum.” Of course, he does not believe for an instant that the hotel’s honeymoon suite has been locked for decades because the hotel’s owner (Brendan Conroy) claims he has trapped a witch inside it.

Bauman’s emotional state is more troubled than we may at first suppose. His stay in Ireland is prolonged due to his mental state.

Then Bauman learns that a friendly Bilberry Hotel staff member has gone missing. Despite his antisocial outlook, he attempts to investigate what’s happened. His efforts are not welcomed by all parties concerned, but he does get a surprising ally in his quest.

Wherever he goes and whomever he encounters, Bauman faces on all sides a strong belief in the supernatural, with mounting evidence that suggests maybe it’s not all “hokum.”

Writer/director Damian McCarthy has a rich sense of the kind of Irish craic, mythology and legends that make the country so renowned for its stories. With the look and camera perspectives, the filmmaker seems to effortlessly deposit us within a tale, at the same time he playfully lays out the possibility that people’s minds are playing tricks (among the forest’s products are psychedelic mushrooms).

We’re invited to come to our own conclusions as far as what’s really happening, albeit the atmosphere suggests the otherworldly, as does the hotel décor.

HOKUM also has specific type of menace intertwined with wry humor and gentle melancholy that all feels intrinsically Irish. There’s real sympathy for most of the characters, even those who are a bit dim.

Scott is expert at modulating Bauman’s exterior and interior states. At first, he comes off as a judgmental, condescending jerk, but the script and the actor collaborate in unveiling what’s going on with the character in surprising ways.

Other standouts in the cast include Peter Coonan, David Wilmot, Michael Patric, Will O’Connell and Fiona Ordesh. Conroy plays the hotel’s owner as the sort of local eccentric who would make most tourists happy (Bauman is an exception), avidly spinning his yarns of the uncanny in the lobby, with creepy figurines illustrating his points.

As with his previous film ODDITY, writer/director McCarthy blends together murder mystery and the unearthly to successfully scare, beguile and immerse us. We come out of HOKUM with the sensation that we’ve not just watched a movie but undergone an experience ourselves.

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Movie Review: ANIMAL FARM (2026)

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Sat, 02 May 2026 00:24:30 +0000

Rating: PG
Stars (voices): Seth Rogen, Gaten Matarazzo, Steve Buscemi, Glenn Close, Laverne Cox, Kieran Culkin, Woody Harrelson, Jim Parsons, Andy Serkis, Kathleen Turner, Iman Vellani
Writer: Nicholas Stoller, based on George Orwell’s ANIMAL FARM
Director: Andy Serkis
Distributor: Angel Studios
Release Date: May 1, 2026

George Orwell’s short 1945 novel ANIMAL FARM has often been adapted in animated versions for the big screen, but this new edition is probably the most family-friendly of them all.

Despite the title and talking barnyard characters, Orwell’s original is a dark political parable, full of betrayal, despair and death. Most of the movies have followed suit.

This time around, there’s still a lot of betrayal and a bit of death, but not so much overall despair. Directed by motion-capture actor extraordinaire Andy Serkis and scripted by Nicholas Stoller, ANIMAL FARM plays more toward what parents who don’t read (or at least haven’t read Orwell) think they’ll be getting for their children with 3D animation and talking pigs, sheep, horses, etc.

It is still darkish, a clear lesson about how absolute power can corrupt absolutely and why going along with the herd is not necessarily a good thing. Indeed, it makes for some decent openings for discussions with little kids on these topics. Still, it is also geared toward, say, the CHARLOTTE’S WEB target audience.

While our narrator is the farm’s work horse Boxer (voiced by Woody Harrelson), the primary protagonist is the piglet Lucky (voiced by Gaten Matarazzo), a new character created for this ANIMAL FARM. Lucky is the child stand-in figure for young viewers.

The farm is being repossessed by the bank from its alcoholic owner, a farmer who has sold all his livestock to a slaughterhouse. While the animals are being rounded up, educated pig Snowball (voiced by Laverne Cox), who can read and write, leads a rebellion. With their superior strength and numbers, the animals succeed in (literally) kicking the humans off the farm.

Snowball has the best interests of her fellow animals at heart, but she’s a bit of a know-it-all, bossy and ready to take shortcuts around the ignorance of others. In theory, the farm is now a democracy, with all animals being equal. There are seven guiding rules for the new community, which include no killing, and no imitating or trusting humans.

For a while, the animals do a great job of running the farm themselves, selling their crops to human neighbors for enough money to pay the mortgage on the farm. But the pig Napoleon (voiced by Seth Rogen) wants attention, denounces Snowball’s sensible ideas as “boring,” and leads the other animals into behavior that is long-term self-destructive.

Napoleon befriends some homeless Dobermans, who soon serve as his bodyguards. He gets Snowball ejected from the farm and begins rewriting the rules to suit himself. Soon Napoleon is in charge, pigs are a species “more equal than others,” and he is trafficking with a human mega-farmer (voiced by Glenn Close) so villainous that she drives a cybertruck.

So far, ANIMAL FARM is going by Orwell’s framework, including for what many readers is the most traumatic event in the book. But a whole new final act has been added to make this much more like a regular animated action/adventure, so that there’s a lot more going on physically and strategically, ending on a note of hope.

Napoleon is a leader who talks over others, has no helpful plans of his own, squanders anything good that comes the farm’s way for his own benefit, lies continuously, and could not care less about the welfare of other animals or even other pigs. This is true to Orwell’s creation of the character. However, despite the standard “no resemblance” disclaimer in the end credits, if anybody wants to read something or someone into Napoleon, this ANIMAL FARM isn’t going to argue.

Rogen smoothly takes Napoleon from blundering klutz to comedic bro to smooth operator to pure evil. Matarazzo is dependably plucky and personable as Lucky. Harrelson, while not sounding like himself for part of the film, puts heart into the confused but always dedicated Boxer. Cox makes Snowball a proper reasonable intellectual who just doesn’t know how to sell concepts to the masses, and Serkis shows up in a supporting role as the farm’s main rooster.

As director, Serkis demonstrates full comprehension of animated sight gags and chaos; he appears as adept in the 3D medium as he is in motion-capture. There’s an amusing montage of history re-imagined with pigs as the central figures under the closing credits.

This ANIMAL FARM is fine fare for children old enough to deal with its sobering aspects. Adults may feel some cognitive dissonance at the homogenization of material that’s against (among other things) homogenization in general. Even so, for those with children, this can be an illustrative starting point for Political Discourse 101. Likewise, it’s an intriguing example of how subject matter can be altered for specific purposes while maintaining its core principles.

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Movie Review: OVER YOUR DEAD BODY

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 19:51:55 +0000

Rating: R
Stars: Jason Segel, Samara Weaving, Paul Guilfoyle, Timothy Olyphant, Juliette Lewis, Keith Jardine, Jake Curran
Writers: Nick Kocher & Brian McElhaney, based on the 2021 Norwegian-language film I ONDE DAGER (THE TRIP) written by Tommy Wirkola & Nick Ball & John Niven
Director: Jorma Taccone
Distributor: IFC
Release Date: April 24, 2026

Directed by Jorma Taccone and scripted by Nick Kocher & Brian McElhaney, OVER YOUR DEAD BODY is based on the 2021 Norwegian-language film I ONDE DAGER (THE TRIP) written by Tommy Wirkola & Nick Ball & John Niven.

OVER YOUR DEAD BODY starts with unhappily married couple Don (Jason Segel) and Lisa (Samara Weaving) planning a weekend vacation at the isolated woodland cabin of Don’s father Michael (Paul Guilfoyle).

Even viewers who come in somehow not knowing any of the premise will be able to guess, from his extremely lame attempts to establish an alibi, that Don is planning to kill Lisa on the trip. The advertising clues us in on Lisa’s plans.

Then there are plot twists, which include characters played by Timothy Olyphant, Juliette Lewis, Keith Jardine and Jake Curran. There are some big surprises and inventive violence. Occasionally, there are laughs.

Allowing for the possibility that something has been lost in translation from the Norwegian original, OVER YOUR DEAD BODY suffers from the same problem that plagues a lot of English-language movies that have similar trajectories.

Stories where likable protagonists darken tend to be tragi-comedies. Stories about characters who are vile all the way through work when the characters, or what happens to them, or both, are fascinating.

Stories – sorry, bit of a spoiler here, but we can tell where we’re heading pretty early on – where characters start as malicious and not very bright and are then expected to win our sympathy as we proceed need to be exceptionally sharp and dexterous. It is a difficult feat, and OVER YOUR DEAD BODY doesn’t pull it off.

This is partly because director Taccone and stars Segel and Weaving are so very good at convincing us that Don and Lisa are shallow, short-sighted and outright cruel. People can grow apart into boredom and not listening to each other. This, however, is next-level viciousness (with bouts of idiocy) that is established hard and fast. Our inclination is to rebel when the film indicates we should set this assessment aside.

For those who have an aversion to such things, it should be mentioned that there is an extended attempted rape played for laughs. Once in a blue moon, such things work – see HAPPY! – but OVER YOUR DEAD BODY doesn’t have the absolute insanity to provide a suitable framework.

There are clever stretches in OVER YOUR DEAD BODY. Weaving fans who want to see more action from her after the READY OR NOT films will be gratified and there’s enough going on to keep us in suspense and hold our attention. The movie is just neither cynical nor ingratiating enough to fully succeed on either side of the tightrope it tries to walk.

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Movie Review: THE WOLF AND THE LAMB

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 19:51:47 +0000

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Cassandra Scerbo, Eric Nelsen, Zach McGowan, James Landry Hébert, Sammi Rotibi, Elias Kacavas, Clint Howard, Rob Nagle, Mike Manning, Kevin Keppy, Hanna Balicki, William Rothlein, Jaydon Clark, Q’orianka Kilcher, Adrianne Palicki, Angus Macfadyen
Writer: Michael Schilf, story by Michael Schilf and Miah Smith
Director: Michael Schilf
Distributor: Samuel Goldwyn Films
Release Date: April 24, 2026

Directed and scripted by Michael Schilf from a story he wrote with Miah Smith, THE WOLF AND THE LAMB takes an agreeably unconventional approach to how it weaves supernatural horror into its other plot elements.

Usually in horror movies, regardless of when they are set, eventually every other story thread gets dropped (or at least suspended) as the characters cope with the monstrous menace.

However, in THE WOLF AND THE LAMB, everything is woven more and more tightly right through the finale. This has the benefit of giving everyone lives that extend beyond the immediate emergency, as well as providing a change of pace from more customary narrative structures.

Per the titles, we’re in the little mining town of Hemlock Gulch in the Montana Territory in 1873. There’s a fragile truce between the townspeople and the indigenous tribe in the surrounding woods.

Local children have been disappearing, causing single mother Jo Beckett (Cassandra Scerbo) to fear for her young son Henry (Jaydon Clark). Jo is the tutor to the young daughter of wealthy George (Clint Howard) and Sara Derne (Hanna Balicki).

George is involved in some shady land dealings with the local Chief Justice (William Rothlein). Rival brother owners Liz (Adrianne Palicki) and Jean LaGrange (Rob Nagle) consider teaming up to stop this, if they can just figure out how.

Town doctor Roy Hawkins (Eric Nelsen) is loquacious but treats Liz and Jean’s sex workers with respect and compassion. He’s also courting Jo.

New town Reverend Elias Frémont (Angus Macfadyen) is dismayed by racist talk from Sheriff Frank Martin (Zach McGowan) and his deputy Jim Cooley (James Landry Hébert), while younger deputy Charlie Quinn (Elias Kacavas) wrestles with how best to keep the peace.

Black former soldier Solomon Ross (Sammi Rotibi) is worried for his indigenous wife Mary (Q’orianka Kilcher), who senses something wicked this way comes.

With all these moving parts, the filmmakers keep the pace lively while marshaling our sympathies in the proper direction. Also, because some of the rules are flipped here, it not only takes us a little while to determine what’s happening, but also to wonder alongside our protagonists what, if anything, can be done.

The cast is extremely good, conveying certainty from a variety of viewpoints. Scerbo is convincingly determined and distraught, Hensen, Rotibi and Kilcher all persuade us of their characters’ rectitude, McGowan is cool as the top lawman, and Howard has a venal gleam in his eye as the avaricious Derne. Young Clark impresses in a difficult role.

The period aspects of THE WOLF AND THE LAMB are handled well without being showy, with lots of wood and dirt reminding us of era and location. (The film was shot in Montana, adding to the verisimilitude of the environment.)

THE WOLF AND THE LAMB blends a number of traditional concepts together, resulting in a configuration that feels pleasingly new and unpredictable.

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Movie Review: BASIC PSYCH

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 19:16:21 +0000

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Michael Cerveris, David Conrad, Siena Goines, Cotter Smith, Grace Rao, Lucy Hine, Jayla Bashur, Amy B. Marsalis, Tome’ Cousin, Patrick Jordan, Carl Clemons
Writer: James Tucker
Director: Melissa Martin
Distributor: FilmHub
Release Date: April 21, 2026 (streaming)

BASIC PSYCH opens on Halloween night somewhere in suburban Pennsylvania. Good-natured psychiatrist Dr. Eugene Mallo (Tome’ Cousin) is distributing candy to trick-or-treaters on his front porch. When he steps back inside, he is confronted by a hoodie-wearing, gun-wielding intruder he calls “Dan.” Dr. Mallo insists he didn’t tell anyone and talks about Dan’s paranoia. Dan doesn’t believe him and shoots Mallo dead.

The next day, we are introduced to the Prince family. Dad Stuart (Michael Cerveris) is, like Mallo, a psychiatrist. Mom Sisi (Siena Goines) is a glassworks artist with a studio in their home. Daughter Reagan (Jayla Bashur) is a smart middle-schooler working on a journalism project and seeking professional advice from her father on how to make new friends at school.

When Stuart goes into work that day, a new patient calling himself Dan Riviello (David Conrad) arrives. He wants to pay for his sessions in cash and insists that Dr. Prince tear up the few notes he starts to make.

Dan starts out by saying he’s here because his wife kicked him out six months ago. This much of his story is true. Like Stuart, Dan is the loving father of a bright middle-school-age daughter, Carly (Lucy Hine), and joint custody is important to him.

However, Dan is really there to talk about something else – acts of violence he swears are in the past. He confesses, not to the murder of Dr. Mallo, but to the killings of two people in a nearby park. He swears it will never happen again and has come to Dr. Prince for help in being able to live as a peaceable man.

This puts Stuart in a conundrum. The laws regarding when a psychiatrist may break patient confidentiality and contact the police are very strict (this is reality, not just BASIC PSYCH’s interpretation). The patient has to pose a credible and imminent threat to a specific person or persons; it can’t just be that the patient has a history of violence and the doctor has a bad feeling. If the doctor calls the cops otherwise, they will likely lose their license, not to mention any hope of treating the patient. Furthermore, with no other proof, testimony that someone confessed to murder is not necessarily grounds for arrest, much less conviction.

Stuart has in fact successfully treated one killer (Carl Clemons) previously; the man is now a more or less upright citizen and bar owner. Can he do this again with Dan? Or should he put past crimes ahead of his present career?

It’s not long before it’s clear that Dan is lying about all sorts of things, including his name. He also starts to stalk people in Stuart’s orbit, leading Stuart to start his own clandestine investigation into Dan.

Cerveris and Conrad are both excellent in their multi-layered roles. It is meant as a compliment to the material and not a slam at either actor to note that, if only BASIC PSYCH had marquee-name stars, it would very likely have a fanfare-heralded theatrical release.

James Tucker’s screenplay has the kind of twists that make viewers sit bolt upright, as well as a consistent sense of tension, punctuated by father/daughter bonding moments with both Stuart and Reagan and Dan and Carly.

Director Melissa Martin gives impact to the (sometimes sudden) violence and handles the ambiguities with appropriately contained flair. The pace is propulsive throughout.

BASIC PSYCH is well-made, superbly performed and lets the audience play along to see if we can guess the outcome before it arrives. It’s a very satisfying example of its genre.

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Movie Review: SCREAMS FROM THE TOWER

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 19:16:12 +0000

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Richie Fusco, David Bloom, Jessica Joy, Roe Hartramph, Sara Sevigny, Snag Flynn, Sydney Lolita Cusic, Ryan Gold, TJ Lee, Amanda Bruton, Madison Tevlin, Justin Prince Moy, Melody Betts
Writer: Cory Wexler Grant
Director: Cory Wexler Grant
Distributor: TLA Releasing
Release Date: April 14, 2026 (VOD)

Set in the upper-middle-class suburb of New Forest, Illinois in the mid-1990s, SCREAMS FROM THE TOWER has a fair amount of verisimilitude. Writer/director Cory Wexler Grant almost effortlessly persuades us that this is what high school juniors (who become seniors over the course of the story) would do with the opportunity to have a radio show of their own.

WNFH, 88.4 FM is the radio station of the high school attended by lifelong best friends Julien Rosdahl (Richie Fusco) and Cary Geller (David Bloom). Of the two, Julien is the more passionate about getting a program on the high school radio station, though Cary is happy to join him.

After a few predictable snags, Julien and Cary get the coveted Tuesday morning slot of 6:30-8:30 AM, which means they and their team have to get up at zero-dark-thirty to arrive at to the school’s broadcast booths on time.

The program is called “Screams from the Tower,” a designation that gets some explanation further down the line. Among those joining the founding duo are quiet, brainy newscaster Robin Chung (TJ Lee), anxious fan Peter (Justin Prince Moy), and occasional guest Liz (Snag Flynn).

There is also lots of encouragement from fellow student Suzy (Madison Tevlin), who is a favorite of Mare (Sara Sevigny), the teacher in charge of WNFH. Suzy has Down’s Syndrome and a major crush on Julien, which he exploits to an extent that Cary notes it out loud. Julien is never cruel to Suzy and tries to honor his commitments to her as best he can.

The first hour of SCREAMS FROM THE TOWER is predominantly devoted to the production of the title block. We see that Julien comes from wealth and has super-supportive parents. We see that the “Scream” team are subjected to homophobic taunts by the hosts of another WNFH show, although it’s never clear if the other boys understand that Julien is gay or if this is just the kind of typical verbiage spouted by high school jerks everywhere.

The second hour has the situation devolving, as many of Julien’s cohorts leave “Scream,” some overwhelmed by their schedules, others by parental demands and, in one case, emotional ambivalence. Hurt, Julien develops a drag-style female alter ego to join him on the air.

Let us stipulate that most of what happens in SCREAMS FROM THE TOWER is plausible, albeit the adults are sometimes a bit cartoonish. “Screams” seems like something actual ’90s high school students would actually put together. Writer/director Cory Wexler Grant gets lively performances from his cast, including a striking turn from lead Fusco and very strong work from Tevlin. The dialogue all sounds like things teens would say then and now, without being either dated or overly contemporary. The independent and likely low-budget filmmaking is professional-grade.

However, the self-congratulatory tone becomes increasingly annoying and unwarranted as SCREAM unspools. Being a bit naughty – and already having Howard Stern as a model – is not the same as being groundbreaking and inclusive.

“Screams” is in fact somewhat racist. Having a desperate-to-be-liked Chinese-American student say that he doesn’t find the use of a gong sound after his name to be offensive doesn’t absolve Julien or the movie; it just demonstrates that Peter doesn’t want to upset the apple cart.

Also, while it is shown to be the character’s choice, having the one working-class Black woman interviewee (Melody Betts) decide that she wants to sing a spiritual song – and yes, she has an awesome voice – is somewhat stereotypical.

It’s not incumbent on Julien or SCREAMS FROM THE TOWER to have his radio program be exceptionally progressive or inclusive, except for the fact that the movie and its characters keep insisting that it is, at some length. The film itself is inclusive, especially when it comes to neurodivergent people, but “Screams” the radio show is not.

While one’s mileage may vary, this reviewer, having been a major high school outsider, did not find in what we hear from the “Screams from the Tower” radio show, at least until its concluding sequences, anything other than mainstream high school humor, amplified. It’s unclear what about it exactly is supposed to make outsiders (other than Julien himself, who’s making the thing) feel seen or included.

The appeal of a somewhat “naughty” high school radio show is obvious, so far as getting away with something, but saying it’s expanding the scope of community perceptions is an over-reach.

There is a small slice of coming-out drama, but it doesn’t seem to greatly affect either the plot or Julien’s trajectory, given that his ambition and OCD get a lot more attention.

SCREAMS FROM THE TOWER has authenticity in what it is doing. It just doesn’t do what its characters claim that it’s doing.

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Movie Review: FUZE

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 19:16:04 +0000

Rating: R
Stars: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Theo James, Saffron Hocking, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Elham Ehsas, Sam Worthington, Alexander Arnold
Writer: Ben Hopkins
Director: David Mackenzie
Distributor: Roadside Attractions/Saban Films
Release Date: April 24, 2026

FUZE is what might be termed a what’s-going-on-here thriller that is so intent on its own complexities that it obscures its throughlines.

Directed by David Mackenzie from Ben Hopkins’s script, FUZE begins at a construction site in London. All work abruptly stops when the construction crew realize they’ve partly unearthed an unexploded WWII-era bomb that is large enough to crater the whole neighborhood if it goes off.

The police and military are immediately notified. On the civilian side, Superintendent Zuzana Greenfield (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is in charge. Major Will Tranter (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) commands the British Army bomb defusal squad. The cops evacuate all residents and workers from the potential blast radius, while Tranter and his team do their best to keep the ordnance from detonating.

At the same time, a quintet of criminals, led by Karalis (Theo James) and X (Sam Worthington), use the opportunity to drill through the wall of an apartment. This is normally the home of refugee Rahim (Elham Elsas) and his worried elderly parents, but it’s empty during the emergency.

The immediate issue is whether Tranter and company will be able to prevent the bomb from blowing up a giant chunk of London. The question beyond that is how the robbers correctly anticipated that their target and its surroundings would be free of people at that specific time, which leads us to wonder (as intended) what the thieves have to do with the bomb.

We get answers over the course of FUZE, which toggles back and forth between the Army, the police and the heist.

Hopkins’s screenplay has tight, dense plotting. However, there is so much material to cram in there that most of the characters don’t get a chance to express much individuality. We can’t tell who is important or why we should care about what they’re doing, apart from not wanting a mass casualty explosion to occur.

As a result, we’re not especially invested as events grow more complex. An end sequence set ten years before the main action feels like it should have opened the movie. It would have shaved off some mystery but would also have made us better disposed toward the individuals who turn out to be the protagonists.

Instead, we wind up sympathizing primarily with dutiful young corporal Martin Hansen (Alexander Arnold, smart and emotive), who is uncommonly brave and observant. We also identify with Mbatha-Raw’s well-played if underwritten increasingly exasperated police official.

FUZE has decent brain-teasers and some good UXB tension. But because we see the characters at such a remove, we are never fully drawn into whether they live or die, much less whether they fail or succeed.

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NCIS: ORIGINS: Actress Tyla Abercrumbie on Season 2 of the CBS prequel series – Exclusive Interview

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 18:09:22 +0000

NCIS: ORIGINS, the prequel series to CBS’s twenty-three-and-counting-seasons hit NCIS, is now in its second season Tuesday nights on CBS, with episodes thereafter streaming on Paramount Plus. Renewed for a third season, NCIS: ORIGINS explores the early professional adventures of Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Austin Stovell on ORIGINS, Mark Harmon on the original NCIS) as an agent in the U.S. Navy Criminal Investigative Service, which is still the Naval Investigative Service in the early ‘90s, when NCIS: ORIGINS is set.

The only civilian in the Camp Pendleton NIS offices is Field Operation Support Officer Mary Jo Hayes, played by Tyla Abercrumbie.

Originally from Chicago, Illinois, Abercrumbie had spent six seasons in her hometown as a beleaguered mother on Showtime’s THE CHI just before being cast on NCIS: ORIGINS. Some of Abercrumbie’s other credits include the features WE GROWN NOW, DREAMING GRAND AVENUE, snd ANIMATOR, and the series SHRINK, UNEXPECTED, and THE CHICAGO CODE.

At a party thrown by CBS for the Television Critics Association (TCA), Abercrumbie sits down to talk about Mary Jo and NCIS: ORIGINS.

Unlike some other ORIGINS characters who we originally met as their later selves on NCIS, Abercrumbie explains, “Mary Jo Hayes did not exist in any of the previous shows, which is really exciting, because it allows not only for me to develop a character but for the audience to meet somebody brand-new. There are a few characters that they will know from the past and you’re seeing their younger selves. But someone like Mary Jo, you don’t know. So, that gives an element of surprise, I think, to where these stories are going to go.”

Even before NCIS: ORIGINS began airing in 2024, Abercrumbie encountered a lot of people who were excited about the show and to hear that she was a regular on it. “People who know me or are fans of some of my other work, or friends or family, they would ask me, ‘Oh, you’re out in L.A., what are you working on?’

“And I was surprised by how many people are like, ‘I love that show.’ Even if it’s at the nail salon, ‘Oh, I’m working with NCIS: ORIGINS, it’s a new show.’ And they’re like, ‘I love NCIS!’ So, learning how large their fan base is, or the fan base is, because I’m now a part of it, it was really like, ‘Wow.’ I’d watched some episodes, I’ve watched quite a bit more now that I’m involved.

Mary Jo describes herself as “Head Secretary in Charge.” How does Abercrumbie describe her?

“We look at Mary Jo as the glue that keeps the group together. She runs the office, she knows more details than everybody, because she’s been there the longest, and her and Franks [the officer in charge, played by Kyle Schmid] have a really good working relationship. She works directly under Franks primarily but works for all of the agents.

“What’s important is that she keeps it moving in there and she keeps everyone grounded. When there’s a person who’s involved who isn’t an agent, but still has a desire to contribute, that’s what Mary Jo does from where she sits, right? She does it being that administrator that can give them anything they need, when they need it. She knows what they want. That’s what [the writers are] creating, this fixture who is basically the mother bear of the group. She keeps an eye on all of them.”

What drives Mary Jo?

“I find that what I’m making her base is that ‘I am not going into the military,’ I would have said for the character, ‘I’m too old for the military now, but I still want to be involved in serving my country, I still want to be involved in making a difference. And once you start working in the environment, that’s my contribution. This is what I do.’

“When you want to make a difference in the world, you start from not trying to be somebody you’re not. You start from where you are, and what can you do that is that important to change? You have to look at that and appreciate that. You can’t look at it and go, ‘I want to be military,’ you have to say, ‘This is what I know how to do well, and this is going to be my service, and this is going to be my contribution.’”

In terms of research, Abercrumbie relates, the cast had “the good fortune of going to Camp Pendleton, which I thought was great, because you get to see with that what these agents have lived through. You see the military gentlemen and ladies walking around in their uniforms. And we visited NCIS offices, we could see what that was like, the forensic lab, the interrogation room. So, that was good for me, that’s good dramaturgy for me to have that history.”

Abercrumbie’s personal history has also been an asset. “What I think I bring to Mary Jo that no one can give me is, I am a Black African-American woman, and I am in a male-dominant industry, and I was an administrator. And so, I’ve played that role in real life as an executive secretary for an insurance company, for an advertising company, for several people. And so, I know what it’s like to be that person that everyone goes to and expect to know what they need before they need it. And so, I have that for me as research,” she laughs.

How did Abercrumbie make the transition from admin to acting?

“I have been an actress for a very long time. I think it was in my early twenties that I accepted that I wanted to be an actress. I knew that I wanted to be an actress in my teens and I had lessons, but the idea, when you come from my background – we were rich in mind, body, and spirit, but we were financially poor – you want to take on a career that’s going to pay. And acting, an artist just seems like, ‘Cut it out,’ you know what I mean?

“I worked full-time and did community theatre, and print modeling, and voiceover – I did it all, because it was always what I wanted to do, was be an artist, and make my living at only being an artist. So, I’ve always known it, and when the jobs started paying, it was like, ‘Now I’m no longer an amateur, I’m a professional!’

“I was getting paid a little money but still working full-time jobs. There just becomes a time when you’re like, I made the decision, ‘Am I going to do it, or am I going to keep hoping for the best?’ And so, I left working a regular job but I’d already been taking jobs that only paid stipends, and then jobs in theatre – now, you can get ‘sort of a living wage,’ I say in quotes, but it’s still not substantial. You almost need to have a second job. But I decided to pursue it, and I made steps for myself.

“There was a point at which I just said, ‘I’m going to do it full-time, and then I have to insist that I make this amount of money.’ There came a point where I had to say, ‘Okay, Tyla, you can’t take a job for less than your rent.’ I was doing work, I was getting paid, but I wasn’t making enough money. So, I had to say, ‘Okay, well, clearly, if you don’t make your rent, you can’t take these jobs.’

“And the universe is divine. I really believe when you open your spirit up to that, you’ll be amazed at what comes your way. But there was never a moment when I said, ‘Oh, now that I’m making enough money, I can quit and be a full-time actor.’ No. There was the moment of, ‘If you’re going to be a full-time actor, you need to be a full-time actor.’ And so, I was laid off from my job, and I just focused on this. I did community theatre, I did whatever I needed to do.

“So, no, it wasn’t because I started getting paid that I started doing it. I was always doing it, even when I wasn’t getting paid. But once I left the corporate world of being an executive assistant, I said I was going to it full-time. And this, being a series regular, has been a long road, and so I’m grateful to have it, but I’ve played on many shows, so this is the next level.”

Since NCIS: ORIGINS is set in the ‘90s, is there anything about the tech or styles of that decade that Abercrumbie had to learn about?

“Since I lived through the ‘90s, not really. I love history as just Tyla, the person, so it’s nice to revisit always, whether I’m in a play in the ‘40s or a series in the ‘90s, it’s very nice to revisit the time that you feel like you’ve moved so far away from.”

However, “It shocks me, I think, the idea that we didn’t have DNA [technology], the idea that there are no cellphones, and there’s no GPS at our fingertips. All of those things that we use so freely now that you didn’t have in the ‘90s makes me go, ‘How did we even survive?’” Abercrumbie laughs. “Because it’s such a necessity now. That part intrigues me.”

And what would Abercrumbie most like people to know about NCIS: ORIGINS?

“I know it’s sometimes really hard to get fans [of the original NCIS] to open up to see something different when they’ve been so engaged for so long, but I would love for them to, one, give us a chance, two, take the risk of knowing that you don’t ever want to miss the beginning of a story, right? You don’t want to miss the beginning of the movie. And NCIS: ORIGINS is the beginning of NCIS. So, just trust us and come see it.”

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Movie Review: HAPPY HALLOWEEN

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 16:04:26 +0000

Stars: Emma Reinagel, Aline O’Neill, Graham Weldin, Jack Cathcart, Cameron Mabie, Mickey Stone, Jennifer Buttell, Teri Austin, Seth Sims, Tom Baker, Nathan Shelton
Writer: Brittney Greer
Director: Brittney Greer
Distributor: Uncork’d Entertainment
Release Date: April 14, 2026 (digital)

In the spirit of celebrating everyone’s favorite horror holiday all year round – because, hey, why not? – HAPPY HALLOWEEN is being released on digital in April. The scrappy indie slasher ends with the onscreen statement, “We made a movie!” The enthusiasm encapsulated there is reflected throughout.

Directed and written by Brittney Greer, HAPPY HALLOWEEN has game performances, an impressive corn maze, a score full of ominous piano chords by Chris Porcelli that sounds just this side of copyright infringement of John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN music, and some lapses in logic.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN opens with a high school senior seeking his ex in the town’s Halloween corn maze. He ends up stabbed to death, tied to a cross, with a mask covering his face and the words “Happy Halloween” carved into his chest.

We then get some nice helicopter shots with mountain woodlands displaying their autumnal foliage, emphasizing the isolation of the little hamlet where the action takes place.

Mayor West (Tom Baker – another Tom Baker, not the actor from DOCTOR WHO) discusses his re-election campaign on Howlin’ Harry’s (Nathan Shelton) local radio talk show. High school senior Hadley Briggs (Emma Reinagel) and her mother (Teri Austin) return after a year away.

Vague references are made at first to exactly where Hadley was, but since everybody appears to know anyway, the secrecy has no effect. Hadley has been in the hospital after being stabbed by her boyfriend Curt (Seth Sims) the previous Halloween. Curt was committed to a mental hospital.

With Mom being extra-protective, Hadley feels a little hassled, but she’s soon back in the swim of things with old friends and classmates Payton (Aline O’Neill), whose mother (Jennifer Buttell) is the school principal, mayor’s son Kagan (Graham Weldin), Payton’s boyfriend Adam (Jack Cathcart) and prankster Dacey (Cameron Mabie).

When more teen bodies start to pile up, all stabbed, masked and posed, the town sheriff (Mickey Stone), Hadley’s uncle, wants to shut down the town’s annual Halloween dance and 300^th birthday celebration. He is opposed by the mayor, who doesn’t want the money already spent on the events to go to waste.

Meanwhile, Hadley is consumed with guilt by a lie she told.

Greer’s script is onto something as far as how hard it can be to distinguish actual psychosis from general callousness and crassness (the points aren’t necessarily original, but they’re evergreen).

However, HAPPY HALLOWEEN begs for bigger suspensions of disbelief than we may be inclined to allow. Nobody expects documentary realism from a slasher, but HAPPY HALLOWEEN isn’t a parody or even a self-aware SCREAM-type homage. The serious notion that a town this little and vulnerable would proceed with public festivities on the heels of multiple murders is a big stretch.

Further, there’s the issue of Hadley’s lie. When we see what actually happened in flashback, it doesn’t seem like the mildly self-protective fib could have swayed the outcome. This would matter less if Hadley, her friends, the sheriff and the movie didn’t make such a big deal out of it.

Finally, after offering a number of possibilities, the story settles on a fairly rote motive for the killer.

Otherwise, HAPPY HALLOWEEN works well enough as intended. It’s energetic, it’s agreeably creepy, and as the tagline says, the filmmakers not only got it completed but distributed.

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Movie Review: NORMAL

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 16:04:20 +0000

Rating: R
Stars: Bob Odenkirk, Henry Winkler, Lena Headey, Jess McLeod, Ryan Allen, Billy MacLellan, Reena Jolly, Brendan Fletcher, Peter Shinkoda, Brian Kawakami, Takahiro Inoue
Writer: Derek Kolstad, story by Derek Kolstad & Bob Odenkirk
Director: Ben Wheatley
Distributor: Magnolia
Release Date: April 17, 2026

NORMAL is set primarily in the (fictional) title Minnesota small town, although it opens in Osaka, Japan. The local Oyabun (the yakuza equivalent of a Mafia don, played by Takahiro Inoue) is very displeased with three of his underlings. The two (Peter Shinkoda and Brian Kawakami) who survive the meeting are told they can redeem themselves by taking care of a certain matter.

Three weeks later, we enter Normal with Ulysses Richardson (Bob Odenkirk). Since the previous sheriff died unexpectedly of a combination of heart attack and hypothermia, Ulysses has been hired for an eight-week stint as sheriff until a town election can be held to permanently fill the position.

Ulysses leaves long phone messages for his estranged wife Penny. (Ulysses, Penelope, we get it: he’s on an odyssey.) These serve as voiceovers for the audience and let us know that Ulysses used to be regular law enforcement. Now he’s taking these temporary nomadic gigs. He’s depressed, pining for Penny, but unsure if he can settle with her back home or settle at all anywhere after a tragic incident left him unmoored.

At first, NORMAL seems to mostly live up to its name. The residents are cheery but not overly so – they are closer to, well, normal than their counterparts in, say, FARGO – and most folks are welcoming.

Ulysses notes that some of the official buildings are more impressive than one might expect in a place like Normal but otherwise doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

And so, we wait for the other shoe to drop. It does, with a series of great big bloody bangs that involve massive amounts of guns, explosives and other anti-personnel equipment.

Director Ben Wheatley is known for quirky, black comedy action (and horror), and demonstrates his chops with choreographing mayhem, from one-on-one to almost battle sequences.

The screenplay by Derek Kolstad, from a story he crafted with actor Odenkirk, is adept at creating a toppling dominoes effect, where little ripples wind up causing huge eruptions.

There are some pleasing subplots, one involving the sheriff’s adult child (an affecting Jess McLeod) and another involving a pair of likable miscreants (Reena Jolly, Brendan Fletcher) who are new in town. Henry Winkler and Lena Headey have some strong moments as, respectively, the town mayor and a knowledgeable bartender.

Odenkirk provides the sense of a solid moral center and he’s an easy focal point all the way through.

However, Ulysses doesn’t have the background that Odenkirk’s Hutch Mansell had in the NOBODY movies (also written/co-written by Kolstad), where the character used to be a black ops guy. Ulysses really was a regular sheriff, so while we go with the flow in NORMAL, his skills seem somewhat abruptly acquired.

For that matter, a lot of action films start humorous and get darker as they get gorier. In NORMAL, the mood is slightly wistful at the beginning and then become progressively more outrageous. This results in a tone that is a little off-kilter, though not so much that it overpowers the entire enterprise.

Fans of the genre, Odenkirk, unlikely weapons, and/or NOBODY may have a few reservations, but should basically have a good time with NORMAL.

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Article: Movie Review: NORMAL