Movies
[Review] Welcome to the Blumhouse’s ‘The Lie’ Is a Grim, Predictable Thriller
With Welcome to the Blumhouse, Blumhouse and Amazon have teamed up to create a collection of genre films that center around family, either as a redemptive or destructive force. The first half of their eight-film series released exclusively on Amazon Prime Video this month, with Black Box and The Lie arriving as the first double feature. The latter is an adaptation of German thriller Wir Monster, reuniting writer/director Veena Sud with some of her stars from AMC’s The Killing to spin a thriller that examines how far parents will go to protect their children.
Jay (Peter Sarsgaard) and Rebecca (Mireille Enos) are a divorced couple busy with their respective professional lives, struggling to raise teen daughter Kayla (Joey King) between them. Though the divorce was awhile ago, Kayla remains hopeful her broken family will mend. To say her parents’ split left emotional wounds would be an understatement. When Jay takes Kayla to a weekend dance retreat, they stop along the way to pick up Kayla’s friend Brittany (Devery Jacobs). A short restroom stop later results in Brittany’s disappearance and a tearful confession of responsibility by Kayla. In a panic over the implications of what Kayla has done, Jay and Rebecca join forces. It starts with a lie that snowballs into many.
As the harrowing stakes increase and irrevocable choices are made, the parents realize there may be no limit in how far they’ll go to protect Kayla.
Thanks to the gorgeous icy setting and cinematography by Peter Wunstorf, The Lie is a slickly produced thriller. With Sarsgaard and Enos as the leads, it’s also very well acted. They bring the emotional heft and complexity when there isn’t much on the page at all. We meet Rebecca’s new boyfriend at the beginning of the film, but he’s never seen or mentioned again. It’s just one of many examples of plot devices that come and go as convenient. Sud’s adaptation is a pretty barebones thriller rendered more complicated by the increasingly dire ramifications of the lies told and as more people get drawn in, including the police, the more collateral damage spreads. It’s Sarsgaard and Enos that sell the hell out of this little family. As the teen daughter that started it all, King struggles with a much more challenging task of making the whiny, tantrum-throwing Kayla likable. While it’s clear why she is the way she is, Kayla doesn’t endear herself well to the audience.
Based on the film’s first act, and unsubtle clues sprinkled throughout, very few will be unable to see the ending coming a mile away. Not only does it rob this thriller of some of its thrills, but it only exacerbates frustrations with specific actions and character beats. The Lie is meant to have a shocking conclusion, but it more fizzles with a groan. It effectively undermines much of what works well.
Sud keeps things moving at a brisk pace, offering a lean, mean little thriller that boasts a talented cast. It’s well constructed and well-acted, but it falls apart when it comes to its narrative. The film goes all-in on the family aspect that serves as the connective tissue in the Welcome to the Blumhouse series, but The Lie’s twisted little family is likely to leave a bitter aftertaste.
The Lie is now available on Amazon Prime Video.
Ghostface is back on the big screen this weekend… well, sort of… with the release of Scary Movie, which marks the Wayans brothers’ return to the horror spoof franchise for the first time since Scary Movie 2 back in the day. It’s likely to be the talk of the horror community for the weekend, but don’t overlook the other six genre movies that were freshly unleashed today.
Here’s all the new horror that released on Friday, June 5, 2026.
The horror spoof franchise is back with Scary Movie now playing in theaters!
Marlon Wayans (“Shorty”), Shawn Wayans (“Ray”), Anna Faris (“Cindy”), and Regina Hall (“Brenda”) reunite for the new Scary Movie, with the cast also including Dave Sheridan, Lochlyn Munro, Cheri Oteri, Chris Elliott, Jon Abrahams, Damon Wayans Jr., Gregg Wayans, Kim Wayans, Benny Zielke, Cameron Scott Roberts, Heidi Gardner, Olivia Rose Keegan, Ruby Snowber, Savannah Lee Nassif, Sydney Park, and Felissa Rose.
Twenty-six years after outrunning a suspiciously familiar masked killer (“Ghostface”), the Core Four are back in the killer’s crosshairs and no horror movie IP is safe…
Scary Movie will slash through reboots, remakes, requels, prequels, sequels, spin-offs, elevated horror, origin stories, anything with the word legacy in it, and every “final chapter” that absolutely isn’t. A whole lot has changed in the horror genre since the Wayans Brothers were in charge of the franchise; their involvement ended with Scary Movie 2 back in 2001!
Michael Tiddes (A Haunted House) directs Scary Movie 6 from a script written by Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, original Scary Movie director Keenen Ivory Wayans, Craig Wayans (Scary Movie 2), and Rick Alvarez (A Haunted House).
From IFC, shark attack movie Chum is now available on Digital.
Alice Eve (Haunting of Queen Mary) stars in shark attack movie alongside Eric Michael Cole, Jim Klock, Elle Haymond, Lisa Yaro, Johnny Gaffney, and Sarah Siadat.
This one sounds very similar to last year’s Dangerous Animals…
Here’s the plot: “A newlywed couple joins friends on a Mediterranean yacht excursion, only to find themselves caught between a predatory shark and a psychopathic killer in their midst-transforming a sun-drenched escape into a fight for survival.”
Jonathan Zuck directs Chum, from a script by Jonathan Zuck and Joe Leone.
Samara Weaving (Ready or Not 2: Here I Come) and Kyle Gallner (Strange Darling) come together in Carolina Caroline, a sexy crime thriller now playing in theaters.
It’s not a horror movie, mind you, but it’s worth a mention here all the same.
Kyra Sedgwick (Family Movie) and Jon Gries also star in the romantic crime thriller.
Director Adam Carter Rehmeier’s film stars Samara Weaving as Caroline Daniels, whose desire to leave her small Texas town brings her into the orbit of a charismatic con man (Kyle Gallner), and together they weave a path of crime and passion across the American Southeast.
Adam Rehmeier previously directed the films Dinner in America and Snack Shack.
Tom Dean wrote the screenplay for Carolina Caroline.
Similar to Steven Spielberg’s upcoming big screen blockbuster Disclosure Day, Signal One explores humankind’s enduring question: what if we aren’t alone in the universe?
The sci-fi thriller is now available on Digital.
Isabelle Fuhrman (Orphan), Josh Hutcherson (Five Nights at Freddy’s), David Thewlis (Harry Potter), Raoul Bhaneja (Possessor), Emma Ho (“The Expanse”), and Dennis Quaid (The Substance) star in Signal One from director Jonathan Sobol (The Art of the Steal).
When tech billionaire Sam Houston (Quaid) hires the brilliant computer scientist Annika (Fuhrman), she ventures to an isolated facility run by the brilliant, nihilistic creator of LITTLEMOUTH, a machine which can communicate with alien intelligence.
Annika soon learns some humanity-altering facts: that we are not alone in the universe, that alien intelligences are communicating around us at every moment, and that we are likely too primitive to even remotely understand what they are trying to tell us.
When the goal of the endeavor shifts from listening to talking back, the project rapidly devolves into chaos. With contact comes consequences, and soon Annika and the team must work to ensure the very survival of our species.
A schoolyard dare becomes an urban legend in the creepypasta-inspired horror anthology The Summoning. The indie film is now available on Digital from Brainstorm Media.
“A babysitting gig becomes a nightmare of urban legend when three teens summon Baby Blue. Survival depends on uncovering the past to escape a mother’s wrath from beyond the grave.”
Felipe Vargas (Rosario, Hive), Sergio Gonzalez, Brandon Piskorik, Corey Benson Powers, and Brian Sepanzyk direct the segments. Valeria San Martín, Justina Ceballos, Daniela Flombaum, Nannu Spannauss, Agustín Olcese, and Giovanni Onetti star.
The Summoning is written by Camilo Zaffora.
Happy Death Day actress Jessica Rothe stars as a mom struggling to keep her grip on her sanity and memory in the mind-bending Affection, now available on Digital at home.
In Affection, “Afflicted by a mysterious condition that resets her memory, Ellie becomes trapped in a cyclical nightmare with a man who claims to be her husband. She soon must uncover the horrifying truth of her existence—before she forgets it all again.“
Joseph Cross (“Big Little Lies”) and Julianna Layne (“Chicago P.D.”) also star in the sci-fi horror thriller. Affection marks the feature debut by writer/director BT Meza.
Daniel Kurland wrote in his review out of the film’s premiere, “Affection is steeped in existential questions and fears that plague modern society, while it embraces the ethos of the ’80s through bold body horror. Add to that Rothe’s revelatory performance, and Affection is a hidden gem that will connect with your mind, body, and soul.”
Lucile Hadžihalilović’s latest dark fairy tale, The Ice Tower, loosely reimagines Hans Christian Andersen’s fable “The Snow Queen,” and it’s now streaming on Shudder.
In the ’70s set film, “Jeanne, a 15-year-old orphan, witnesses the shoot of a film adaptation of the fairy tale The Snow Queen, and she becomes fascinated by its star Cristina (Marion Cotillard), an actress who is just as mysterious and alluring as the Queen she is playing.“
Clara Pacini stars as Jeanne. August Diehl and Marine Gesbert also star in The Ice Tower, and look for a cameo from director Gaspar Noé (Climax, Irréversible).
“For me, The Ice Tower solidified Lucile Hadžihalilović’s place amongst the most fascinating creators of fairy tales today,” said distributor Yellow Veil Pictures co-founder Joe Yanick.
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