This week\u2019s minor VOD releases feature a documentary filmed inside a video game, a Kiwi comedy about psychic warfare, and the unfortunate return of Uwe Boll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First Shift<\/em><\/strong> (VOD and select theaters August 30):<\/strong> Notoriously inept provocateur Uwe Boll announced his retirement from filmmaking in 2016, but he returned with a movie in his native Germany in 2022, and now he\u2019s back with his first English-language movie in eight years. The good news is that anyone amused by Boll\u2019s bizarre inability to grasp the basics of storytelling will find plenty of entertainment in First Shift<\/em>, which plays like it was made by aliens studying the concept of the buddy-cop movie. Hardened veteran NYPD homicide detective Deo Russo (Gino Anthony Pesi) and his perky new partner Angela Dutton (Kristen Renton) engage in stilted, off-putting banter, interspersed with disjointed scenes depicting crimes that they\u2019re mostly unaware of. First Shift<\/em> is packed with useless filler \u2014 opening with an absurdly detailed sequence of every step in Deo\u2019s morning routine \u2014 to pad out its chaotic collection of subplots, only to end with literal coming attractions for the sequel. In other words, it\u2019s an Uwe Boll movie. Grade: D<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Continue<\/em><\/strong> (VOD and select theaters September 6):<\/strong> Maybe writing, directing and starring in a movie that explores her own suicidal ideation is part of Nadine Crocker\u2019s recovery, but that doesn\u2019t mean that audiences need to be subjected to this cinematic version of a solipsistic therapy session. Despite its pretensions to raw vulnerability, this is essentially an elaborate vanity project, with Crocker looking glamorous even in her darkest moments as aspiring singer-songwriter Dean, who begins the movie with a failed suicide attempt. Committed to a mental health facility, she makes friends with a fellow patient (Lio Tipton), rejects but then embraces help from her therapist (Emily Deschanel), and eventually finds love with a sensitive musician (Shiloh Fernandez) after she\u2019s released. Along the way, Crocker indulges in an entire self-help book\u2019s worth of inspirational platitudes, with wispy images of herself swooning romantically and\/or depressively. Like many actors misguidedly determined to play themselves, Crocker comes off as self-conscious and unconvincing, and the same goes for the movie itself. Grade: C<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Don\u2019t Turn Out the Lights<\/em><\/strong> (VOD September 6):<\/strong> The director of movies like The Game Plan<\/em> and Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2<\/em> doesn\u2019t seem like the obvious choice to helm a horror film (no matter how harrowing the experience of watching those comedies may be), but Andy Fickman shows clear affection for the genre, if not much aptitude for it. He strands a group of obnoxious college students in the middle of nowhere while on their way to a music festival, then has them yell at each other for nearly two hours. That\u2019s about all there is to Don\u2019t Turn Out the Lights<\/em>, which spends a lot of time on irrelevant exposition establishing its central relationships, but no time at all explaining or even depicting the mysterious danger lurking in the woods. Instead of a creepy, unknowable threat, it\u2019s just a bunch of random, disconnected events, with the characters\u2019 tedious, interminable theorizing punctuated by occasional jump scares. At least Fickman\u2019s terrible comedies get right to the point. Grade: C<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n