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Josh Bell

Josh Bell is a freelance writer and movie/TV critic based in Las Vegas. He's the former film editor of 'Las Vegas Weekly' and has written about movies and pop culture for Syfy Wire, Polygon, CBR, Film Racket, Uproxx and more. With comedian Jason Harris, he co-hosts the podcast Awesome Movie Year.

News archive

Review: <i>Castle in the Ground</i> — Josh Bell

Review: Castle in the Ground

May 14th, 2020

An artsier version of what might have been a network TV movie in the 1980s, writer-director Joey Klein’s addiction drama Castle in the Ground...

Review: The Wretched

Apr 30th, 2020

The Pierce Brothers’ The Wretched opens with a 1980s-set prologue that mimics the structure of a period-accurate slasher movie: a teenage...

VODepths: What to See (and Avoid) On Demand This Month

Apr 13th, 2020

Once again, we’re taking a look at some of the movies on the fringes of the packed VOD and streaming release schedule. This month’s offerings...

Review: <i>Corona Zombies </i> — Josh Bell

Review: Corona Zombies

Apr 10th, 2020

Everyone responds to trauma differently. For some, joking about terrible events is the only way to cope, even if those jokes are morbid. For others,...

VODepths: What to See (and Avoid) On Demand This Month

Mar 23rd, 2020

Every month, there are dozens of movies released to VOD and streaming that barely make a dent in the pop-culture consciousness, but represent an...

Review: <i>Escape from Pretoria</i> — Josh Bell

Review: Escape from Pretoria

Mar 4th, 2020

The inmates who break out of Pretoria Central Prison are imprisoned for their political activities, but the context is mostly irrelevant to Francis...

Review: <i>Carol of the Bells</i> — Josh Bell

Review: Carol of the Bells

Mar 3rd, 2020

Although he’s still best known for being John Travolta’s brother, for a while in the ’90s and ’00s Joey Travolta carved out a surprisingly...

Review: Swift

Feb 18th, 2020

There’s some sort of irony in Willem Dafoe providing the voice of a cartoon seagull just a few months after he so memorably appeared opposite a...

Review: <i>Camp Cold Brook</i> — Josh Bell

Review: Camp Cold Brook

Feb 11th, 2020

For a group of professional ghost hunters, the main characters in Camp Cold Brook are surprisingly unhappy to discover that the abandoned summer...

Review: <i>Come As You Are</i> — Josh Bell

Review: Come As You Are

Feb 11th, 2020

It would be easy for Come as You Are to turn into a cloying, condescending lecture about how the disabled are people, too, and there are times when...

Review: Cupid

Jan 29th, 2020

Christmas-themed horror movies have become a thriving subgenre in recent years, providing micro-budget horror filmmakers with easy subject matter...

Review: <i>The Rest of Us</i> — Josh Bell

Review: The Rest of Us

Jan 28th, 2020

If nothing else, the low-key Canadian drama The Rest of Us makes a surprisingly strong case for Heather Graham as a dramatic actor. Graham is...

Review: John Henry

Jan 21st, 2020

Despite his imposing physical presence, former football player Terry Crews has spent the majority of his acting career in comedic roles, where his...

Review: Get Gone

Jan 21st, 2020

Apparently starring in terrible VOD genre movies is becoming a family business, because both Nicolas Cage’s son and his nephew show up in Get...

Review: The Wave

Jan 14th, 2020

The opening scene of Gille Klabin’s The Wave promises an edgy head-trip of a movie, as main character Frank (Justin Long) describes a drug...

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