Movies
‘Aggro Dr1ft’ TIFF Review – A Dazzling Visual Experiment With a Shallow Plot
Harmony Korine has always been a provocateur, so it’s hardly surprising that his latest film, Aggro Dr1ft, is unconventional.
The 80-minute feature is filmed entirely in infrared thermal imaging, which means the production is wall-to-wall vibrant reds, yellows, blues, and neon greens.
It’s a dazzling visual spectacle that radically alters the affect of the performances and the mise-en-scene. Certain details, like facial features, hair, skin, and wardrobe are less clear; the eye naturally shifts focus to take note of the changing hot spots or cold spots.
As a result, the film becomes more of an interactive experience: there’s a temptation to lean in or look more closely at the screen to decipher the shifting nature of the colours.
This is amplified by the use of 3D, AI, and VFX, which renders certain aspects of the production smoother, animated, and – yes – more artificial. This is most evident in the giant mythival devil creature that occasionally looms over protagonist Bo (Jordi Molla), as well as the horns that occasionally appear on characters’ masks or the flickering serpent’s tongue that protrudes from Zion (Travis Scott)’s mouth. At other (often random) points, characters bodies and the furniture is slowly covered in a crawling cybernetic metal, which lends the Miami-filmed and set production a retro futuristic noir vibe.
These are all fascinating visual details that occupy the audience’s attention…at least at the start of the film, when the unconventional nature of Aggro Dr1ft is still novel.
The biggest issue with Korine’s latest is not the unconventional visuals of the film; it is the incredibly rote, shallow narrative. The plot is bare bones: the film follows Bo, the world’s (self-proclaimed) greatest assassin, as he waxes philosophically about his job. He imparts life lessons to his second-in-command, Zion, and he spends time standing around strip clubs and on yachts rather go home to his clingy wife and loving children.
And occasionally, he shoots someone.
There’s a suggestion in their dialogues that Bo suspects Zion will betray him and there are recurring scenes of Bo’s boastful adversary, Tito, who he inevitably confronts at film’s end. Apart from that, however, the film is little more than a series of scenes set at the trailer park, on the yacht, at home, or in Bo’s convertible.
Then there’s the repetitive dialogue (much of it improvised), which serves to make the mundane, innocuous scenarios all the more exhausting. Hearing Bo’s wife endlessly repeat that she misses him and wants him to come home or how Tito wants the sex workers and/women he’s holding hostage in his mansion to dance only serves to make the film a more exhausting experience. (Admittedly Tito’s tendency to hump his machete is an unexpected source of unintentional laughter).
The result: what begins as a novel experiment quickly becomes a tired, boring experience because the film has nothing interesting to say or explore. Aggro Dr1ft is a visual feast that eventually becomes overwhelming, a fleeting mélange of morphing colours that fail to maintain interest. In short form this could have been a fascinating, but as a semi-narrative feature, the film feels interminable.
Removed from the way that audiences consume a conventional film, Aggro Dr1ft makes sense: Korine’s production company, EDGLRD, is purportedly working on interactive games. There’s even speculation that Aggro Dr1ft is the start of a larger multi-platform initiative.
Ultimately this is avant-garde, countercultural cinema that was never intended to appeal to the masses. As an artistic experiment, it’s certainly innovative. As a live-action film, however, Aggro Dr1ft is definitely struggle to find an audience; it’s simply too weird, too off-putting, and, yes, too boring to go mainstream.
Look for this one to find a small, but dedicated niche audience en route to becoming a cult film. For everyone else, there’s a curiosity factor, but that’s not enough to warrant a recommendation.
This week kicked off with the release of five brand new horror movies at home on Tuesday, and another five have now joined the fun as we head into the second weekend of July.
Here are the new horror movies that released on Friday, July 10, 2026!
Odeya Rush (Goosebumps) fights for survival in gory horror-comedy Corporate Retreat, which also stars Alan Ruck (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) and Rosanna Arquette (Pulp Fiction).
Corporate Retreat is now available on Digital at home.
Described as “a gory mix of The Menu and Saw,” Corporate Retreat centers around a group of young executives whose luxury team-building trip descends into a bloody fight for survival against a vengeful retreat leader.
Sasha Lane (Twisters), Elias Kacavas (“Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin”), Ashton Sanders (Moonlight), Zión Moreno (“Gossip Girl”), Benjamin Norris (“Never Have I Ever”), Tyler Alvarez (“American Vandal”), Kirby Johnson (The Possession of Hannah Grace), and Ellen Toland round out the ensemble.
Aaron Fisher (Inside the Rain) directs from a script he co-wrote with Kerri Lee Romeo. Uri Singer (White Noise, Experimenter) produces via Passage Pictures.
Gary J. Tunnicliffe (Scream 4, Candyman) handled the film’s special makeup effects.
Looking like an indie take on Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, the smaller scale science fiction thriller The Outer Threat is now available on VOD outlets at home.
In The Outer Threat, “After making a groundbreaking extraterrestrial discovery, astrophysicists Daniel and Michelle are forced to flee from home with their family — pursued through the countryside by a relentless and anonymous assailant. As their flight unfolds, the line between cosmic revelation and human paranoia blurs, leading to a tense and emotional confrontation that challenges the boundaries of understanding, science, and survival.“
The film comes from writer-director William Woods.
Constance Wu, Mark O’Brien, William Fichtner, Callista Crowe, Isaac Smelcer-Zhang, Oscar Hsu, and Murray Furrow star in The Outer Threat.
Independent Film Company’s psychosexual thriller Night Nurse is now in select theaters.
Cemre Paksoy and Bruce McKenzie star.
In the film, “At the start of her new job in a luxury retirement community, Eleni is drawn into a series of scam calls targeting the elderly residents, a pull she can’t quite name or resist. As the community’s strange rhythms close around her, she grows increasingly intimate with her elusive patient, until the line blurs between care and desire, devotion and delusion.”
Georgia Bernstein makes her feature debut as writer and director.
Mimi Rogers (Ginger Snaps) also stars in Night Nurse.
A witchy coming-of-age story from Dark Sky Films, Camp is now available on Digital.
Camp is from writer-director Avalon Fast (Honeycomb, The Serpent’s Skin).
“Emily is the root cause of two devastating tragedies very early in her life, and she feels the weight of these accidents as though cursed. At her father’s suggestion, she takes a position at a summer camp for troubled youth to ease her guilt. When Emily arrives, she is welcomed by the other counselors, who accept her as she is and surround her with peace and forgiveness.
“As Emily begins to believe in a new kind of life, she starts to hear a voice whispering from deep in the woods — one that urges her to go home, and one that may be impossible to ignore.”
The film stars Zola Grimmer in her screen debut alongside Alice Wordsworth, Cherry Moore, Lea Rose Sebastianis (Castration Movie Part 1 & 2, In A Violent Nature), Ella Reece, Austyn Van de Kamp (This Too Shall Pass), Sophie Bawks-Smith (Honeycomb), Izza Jarvis, and Aiden Laudersmith.
Sébastien Vaniček’s Evil Dead Burn is now playing in theaters nationwide.
Evil Dead Burn is said to “unleash the franchise’s most savage and terrifying ride to date, blazing onto big screens with an all-new chapter of carnage and demonic mayhem.”
After the loss of her husband, a woman seeks solace with her in-laws in their secluded family home. As one by one they are transformed into Deadites—turning the gathering into a family reunion from hell—she comes to discover that the vows she took in life… live on even in death.
Souheila Yacoub, Tandi Wright, and Hunter Doohan lead the cast of the brand new Evil Dead movie alongside Luciane Buchanan, Errol Shand and Maude Davey.
[Related] Hunter Doohan Teases How ‘Evil Dead Burn’ Ties the Whole Franchise Together
Sébastien Vaniček and Florent Bernard wrote the screenplay.
Rob Tapert and horror legend Sam Raimi produce. The executive producers are Bruce Campbell, Romel Adam, Sarah Spurway, Jose Cañas and Evil Dead Rise filmmaker Lee Cronin.
Sébastien Vaniček is joined behind the camera by director of photography Philip Lozano, production designer Nick Connor, editor Maxime Caro, makeup and effects designer Jane O’Kane and costume designer Sarah Voon. Evil Dead Burn features music by Double Danger.
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