It’s a big week for horror at home as The Conjuring: Last Rites, which had the biggest opening weekend in horror movie history, lands on streaming for the first time on HBO Max. Good Boy, a haunted house story from the perspective of a dog, comes home to Shudder.
The DCEU is officially dead, but the family-friendly Jaime Reyes origin story Blue Beetle is getting a new life on Netflix. The Bad Guys 2 pays tribute to James Bond and Mission: Impossible with a highly stylish animated heist movie breaking into Peacock.
Here’s a rundown of the most notable new releases on streaming and VOD, including the biggest, best, and most popular new movies you can watch at home right now.
New on Netflix
Blue Beetle
- Genre: Superhero
- Run time: 2h 7m
- Director: Ángel Manuel Soto
- Cast: Xolo Maridueña, Adriana Barraza, Damián Alcázar
Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) is just looking for a job to help his family, but he winds up fusing with a sentient alien weapon. With his family’s help, Jaime has to keep the Scarab out of the hands of a tech CEO and learn to use its powers to embrace his destiny as part of the Blue Beetle lineage.
From our review:
Blue Beetle is a charming romp of a film, but it’s desperately trying to punch above its weight class, peppering its story with constant nods to the Latin American experience, while also delivering the action and comic book Easter eggs expected of superhero cinema. It nods at characters’ anti-imperialist roots without naming the imperials they rebelled against — likely the United States. Via news clips, the movie shows the environmental destruction that Latin America suffers to fuel Silicon Valley innovation. But these weighty topics are only mentioned in passing. Blue Beetle mostly labors to be inoffensive, fun, and digestible. The story’s Latinidad is on constant display, but it’s rendered safe for white consumption.
New on HBO Max
The Conjuring: Last Rites
- Genre: Supernatural horror
- Run time: 2h 15m
- Director: Michael Chaves
- Cast: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Mia Tomlinson
Supposedly the last film in the long-running franchise about occult investigators Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga), The Conjuring: Last Rites sees the couple solving one last case of demonic possession. It’s a wholesome and comforting film for a horror flick, centering on the loving Warren family trying to help another large family deal with a haunted mirror.
From our review:
Even in its sillier moments, The Conjuring: Last Rites is effective enough as a scare machine. But the most efficient scare machines don’t tend to run 135 minutes. The creative team also seems unfortunately convinced they’re making a portrait of a family and a marriage. For those purposes, Ed and Lorraine are awfully static as characters, in spite of Wilson and Farmiga’s conviction as performers, and the amount of room the Smurls’ nonexistent characterization leaves them.
New on Hulu
Osiris
- Genre: Science fiction action
- Run time: 1h 48m
- Director: William Kaufman
- Cast: Max Martini, Brianna Hildebrand, Linda Hamilton
A group of special forces commandos wake up on a spaceship with no memory of how they got there. They’ll have to fight their captors with the help of Terminator star Linda Hamilton, who claims to have spent 13 years battling hungry aliens who use humans as livestock. Why didn’t the extraterrestrials just choose less well-armed food?
New on Peacock
The Bad Guys 2
- Genre: Heist comedy
- Run time: 1h 44m
- Director: Pierre Perifel
- Cast: Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Awkwafina
The notorious criminal gang from The Bad Guys is trying to go straight after being released from prison, but they can’t find anyone to give them a chance. When another group of criminals kidnaps the Bad Guys to force them to join a heist to steal an experimental rocket from a parody of Elon Musk, the group plots to sabotage the scheme to prove that they’re actually good.
New on Shudder
Good Boy
- Genre: Supernatural horror
- Run time: 1h 13m
- Director: Ben Leonberg
- Cast: Shane Jensen, Arielle Friedman, Larry Fessenden
Viewers fear for the safety of dogs in movies so much that there’s an entire website devoted to checking if the pup makes it to the end. Ben Leonberg takes that dread to another level with a horror story told from the perspective of a pup, who senses a presence haunting the home where he’s moved with his chronically ill owner.
New to rent
Lesbian Space Princess
- Genre: Science fiction comedy
- Run time: 1h 26m
- Director: Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese
- Cast: Shabana Azeez, Bernie Van Tiel, Gemma Chua-Tran
When her ex-girlfriend Kiki (Bernie Van Tiel) is kidnapped by the Straight White Maliens, princess Saira (Shabana Azeez) goes on a rescue mission with the help of former pop idol Willow (Gemma Chua-Tran). As Saira falls for Willow, she has to decide between a new relationship and her feelings for Kiki in this zany, colorful animated film.
Reawakening
- Genre: Psychological thriller
- Run time: 1h 30m
- Director: Virginia Gilbert
- Cast: Erin Doherty, Jared Harris, Juliet Stevenson
Clare Reed was 14 when she ran away from home, and her parents John (Jared Harris of Foundation) and Mary (Juliet Stevenson) have spent 10 years looking for her. When Clare (Erin Doherty) reappears, Mary is elated, but John suspects the young woman might be lying about her identity.
Stitch Head
- Genre: Fantasy comedy
- Run time: 1h 29m
- Director: Steve Hudson
- Cast: Asa Butterfield, Joel Fry, Rob Brydon
An adaptation of Guy Bass’ 2011 graphic novel of the same name, Stitch Head is a family-friendly spin on Frankenstein where Stitch Head (Asa Butterfield) cares for other creations of a mad scientist until he decides to run away to join the circus. But when the circus leader seeks to capture the other monsters, Stitch Head leads the defense.
