Bandersnatch is both a throwback to and is inspired by those classic ‘80s and ‘90s Choose Your Own Adventure games and books, and in a quiet nod to George Orwell, is set in the year 1984. You don’t merely watch Bandersnatch; you participate in it. You decide where you want to take the story. You play God, literally. Your subject is a young geek named Stefan (played by Dunkirk breakout Fionn Whitehead), who is consumed by a desire to design his own video game, encouraged by two game developers played by Asim Choudhry and Will Poulter. He bases the story on a popular (fictional) fantasy novel called Bandersnatch, which employs the same multiple choice gimmick as the show. It was written by a man named Jerome F Davies, who — as one character conveniently explains — was a ‘genius who went bonkers and cut his wife’s head off’. This is perhaps Brooker making some harsh (and rather unfair) admissions about himself, although Davies and Stefan’s personal tragedies are clearly meant to mirror each other.

Depending on what device you’re watching it on, you will be prompted to make certain decisions for Stefan. But deciding Stefan’s breakfast menu is the first (and least important) choice you’re asked to make. With his life in your hands, the story offers numerous possible permutations and combinations – about a trillion, according to a recent Variety piece – for how things could play out. As the plot progresses, so does the gravity of the choices you’re asked to make. Should Stefan confess his deepest, darkest secrets to his therapist? Should he jump off a terrace? You decide. Video games have always been a great source well in Brooker’s storytelling – he once called Twitter the greatest game of the 21st century, and dedicated virtually every episode of Black Mirror’s fourth season to aspects of gaming and gaming culture.

There are five possible endings to Bandersnatch, depending on where you send Stefan. ‘Playthroughs’ can last anywhere between 40 minutes to over two hours – mine ended at around 45-minute mark on the first run – with Slade reportedly shooting over five hours of usable footage. Of course, as Stefan says at one point, ‘free will is an illusion’. There are subliminal cues hidden in plain sight all over Bandersnatch. Certain options will be highlighted, suggesting that they’re probably the ‘correct’ ones, and if you fail to make a choice within 10 seconds, the story will progress regardless. As in video games, when Bandersnatch suspects you’re about to make a ‘wrong decision’, it’ll have a character double check with you if you’re sure. On other occasions, your choices will be validated when a character says, ‘I like your style.’ In the world of Black Mirror, we’re all pawns of Charlie Brooker, falsely made to believe that life has meaning and happiness (in case you haven’t yet noticed) is often an unattainable fantasy.

Bandersnatch is designed keeping in mind that the viewer is likely to explore all possible avenues, unless of course their first run-through fails to leave an impact. Again, like video games, the story has multiple ‘checkpoints’ that’ll you’ll be made to return to after making dumb decisions. All this does take away a sense of urgency from the story, which is, when compared to Black Mirror’s high standards, ironically straightforward. When you know in the back of your head that it is possible to reverse certain decisions, the stakes are immediately lowered. But this is part of the experience, I suppose.

‘Ocean’s 8’ drops all the men in favour of a scintillating cast of women. The new all-women setup puts a fresh perspective on this heist franchise. As you’d expect from an ‘Ocean’s’ movie, this film has some great set pieces on planning the robbery. Because the film’s central characters are all women, their conversations mix the usual hustle talk with fashion, shopping and style related subjects and that makes things interesting. While they do talk about men too, thankfully it doesn’t go over-the-top with the bashing or swooning. The girls stay focussed on their task at hand, to pull off the heist in the smartest of fashion. The film has the same busy and slick feel of Steven Soderbergh’s movies with George Clooney; it’s just as funny and engaging too. But it’s not as smart or detailed as those films. In an attempt to pull off the twists, the film takes a few cinematic liberties.

Sandra Bullock takes over the ‘Ocean’ mantle from George Clooney. She’s introduced as his sister and he’s pretty much dead. Nonetheless, she talks her way out of prison and the moment she steps out, she starts recruiting a crew to pull off a heist that would make her infamous brother proud. Cate Blanchett steps into the shoes of the best friend and fixer, a role that was Brad Pitt’s domain in the past. A lot of the previous film’s characters make surprise cameos in the movie too. But for all its references to the franchise, ‘Ocean’s 8’ also brings a lot of new things to the table. The new characters bring new quirks. Helena Bonham Carter plays a down-on-luck fashion designer Rose Weil, Rihanna is the hacker with the weird name Nine Ball, Mindy Kaling is the Indian girl who’s an expert on diamonds and jewellery, Sarah Paulson is Tammy who’s an expert on logistics and finally there’s Awkwafina, the Asian girl with the sleight of hand. There’s also Anne Hathaway, who plays a Hollywood actress and the ladies piggy back on her celebrity status into the Met Gala in New York.

‘Ocean’s 8’ is just as audacious as it is clever. The first half of the film especially sets up a strong story. The way Sandra Bullock’s Debbie swindles and shop lifts with confidence is fantastic. Blanchett’s character’s people skills and constant sense of sarcasm and cynicism is entertaining too. Once the other girls join in, the team shows some great chemistry and there’s a lot witty dialogue on offer. The second half loses a little steam, especially during the climactic portions when all the heist details are revealed. The script doesn’t quite incorporate the same detail and finesse in explaining the robbery as it does in setting things up. But a spectacular performance by Sandra Bullock overshadows the minor flaws in the plan. Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway are pitch-perfect with their comedic flair too. A brief appearance by James Corden right at the end shakes things up nicely too. Director Gary Ross, presents a well-cut heist movie. There’s a constant reference to Clooney’s Danny Ocean in the film which also keeps the spark alive. ‘Ocean’s 8’ may not be as sharp as the films that featured Clooney and his gang pull off world class thefts with élan, but this movie has a lot of style and substance to please even the hard core genre fans.

A good horror movie makes your heart leap out of your chest while simultaneously tugging at your heartstrings. And we’re happy to report that Annabelle: Creation, the fourth installment in The Conjuring franchise, is emotionally potent and downright scary. In pre-Barbie America, dollmaker Samuel Mullins (LaPaglia) lives on a ranch with wife Esther (Otto) and daughter Bee (Lee). The Mullins’s happiness is short-lived; they’re desolated by Bee’s sudden death. Twelve years pass, and Samuel decides to turn his empty home into an orphanage for six girls. Even before the girls can settle in and play house, the house starts throwing new horrors at them every night. Best friends Janice (Bateman) and Linda (Wilson) become the first victims of Samuel’s strange-looking locked-away doll, Annabelle.

The Conjuring movie universe grows inward and outward with prequels and sequels, each one delivering a terrifying new nightmare. The makers stick to old-school tactics of haunted houses, little-girl ghosts and jump-scares, but deliver coherent and effective movies. Director David F. Sandberg, a master of anticipatory horror (you must see Lights Out), builds a tense atmosphere even while working with a banal plot. The formula is so plain that you’d think you know the movie, but Sandberg infuses jumps and starts so creatively that it becomes a dangerous game of peek-a-boo. With a huge house and six girls in the forefront, there’s an unmissable The Conjuring vibe; a great reference to the previous (and undoubtedly inferior) Annabelle movie connects the universes perfectly.

There are several sub-plots worthy of a spin-off. The story of Janice could be especially interesting. Talitha Bateman is a scene-stealer; her cold stares and measured madness make you wary of Janice. As helpless parents, Otto and LaPaglia bring a tenderness to this terror-fest. Having watched the previous films will help, but the movie is a legitimate standalone chiller. If there were a Horror For Dummies guidebook, Annabelle: Creation would make for a good chapter in it.

In “Archive,” an isolated scientist methodically pursues an artificial-intelligence ideal, developing a sequence of human-android beings and recycling their various parts until the ultimate prototype is achieved. In his handsome debut feature, writer-director Gavin Rothery follows a similarly nifty process of assembly and reassembly, repurposing elements from assorted sci-fi successes — a bit of “Ex Machina” here, some stray “Black Mirror” pieces there — to form a fluent, functional one of his particular design. The sleek result, like the scientist’s hi-tech Frankenstein creation, impressively looks and sounds the part, without quite having a soul of its own. That’s enough to make “Archive” a compelling calling card for the British freshman, with the promise of more advanced models to come.

As we encounter him, certainly, robots whiz George Almore does not seem to be much of a people person. Sequestered away in a high-security tech lab in the snow-licked Japanese mountains — the film was shot on location in Hungary, but it’s a ravishingly severe backdrop either way — he’s nearing the end of a three-year research project to develop a progressively more advanced android, with the physique and mental capacity of an adult woman. His first two prototypes, J1 and J2, took a boxy, mechanical robot form, and mentally stalled at the levels of a human toddler and adolescent, respectively. The third, however, appears more womanly in every way, building a relationship with her creator more tender and emotionally charged than one might typically expect between a scientist and his experiment. As the film piles up fleeting flashbacks to George’s former, less secluded life, it won’t take viewers long to twig that each of George’s androids has been modelled on his late wife Jules (Martin), and that the goal of his research is the closest thing to resurrection that AI technology will permit. If this revelation is easily seen coming, the psychological fallout is more volatile and surprising. If plenty of films have pondered the question of whether robots can feel love, “Archive” is rather more intriguing when it mines subtler, distinctly human tensions between the sibling-like androids themselves: Plagued by insecurity and jealousy as she senses her creator’s attentions drifting to his latest model, J2 may well be the most complex character here, to say nothing of the most sympathetic.

Rothery’s terse, deliberate script opens up more avenues of inquiry than it fully pursues. In a manner that recalls the far more grandly scaled, notionally existential sci-fi romance “Passengers,” the troubling gender politics of George’s research, in its drive to create and control female bodies at a fundamental life-and-death level, are cautiously raised but never confronted — at least until a late-breaking narrative left turn that leaves further queries in its wake. This is richer, more involving terrain than a tedious, opaque subplot regarding George’s surveillance by his brisk, remote supervisor (Rhona Mitra), as well as various shadowy villains (including a scarcely used Toby Jones) attempting to intrude on his very private project: plot points designed to kick this otherwise contemplative, mood-driven puzzler into high-stakes thriller gear, though they slow things down more than they amp things up. When Rothery’s storytelling stalls, however, his filmmaking keeps things crisp and involving.

Set in 2038, “Archive” convincingly jumbles eras of futurism, as somewhat quaint old-school robotics give way to more uncannily sinuous forms. Cinematographer Laurie Rose, a regular Ben Wheatley collaborator, paints it all in serene, frozen silvers, shifting to garish electric neons as the outside world intrudes on George’s secluded techno-shrine. “Gravity” composer Steven Price’s score, meanwhile, blends sparse strings and glassy synths, reflecting the marriage of human touch and metallic industrial sheen in George’s mad-scientist meddlings.

When spring break starts, Markie Cameron (Violett Beane) cajoles her best friend Olivia Barron (Lucy Hale) into joining their gang in Mexico for a two-week vacation. On their last night, the already inebriated bunch of kids looks for more alcohol when a random stranger at the bar-Carter (Landon Liboiron) offers to take them to an abandoned missionary, in a secluded area, with the promise of providing them with unlimited booze. Once in, Carter suggests they play the game of truth or dare and that’s exactly when the paranormal and at times fatal incidents start taking place.

‘Truth or Dare’ is one of those horror-thriller flicks you wish weren’t made in the first place. The fright element in this Jeff Wadlow-helmed movie is laughable and so passé. Characters come in and out of demonic possession randomly and everything about the paranormal elements is far away from evoking terror—the ghostly sounds are a constant reminder of the ludicrous 90s horror films, the actors have acted badly, the writing is predictable and dragged beyond imagination. The background score only makes the movie feel even more juvenile and insipid. All in all, ‘Truth or Dare’ is recommended to those who love to have a good laugh while watching horror flicks. If you expect some nail-biting and scream-filled moments from your horror flick, then you will be mighty disappointed. This game of truth or dare is better left unplayed.