As is the case every week, a slew of new titles have hit the VOD market, and business has been booming over the last few months, as movie fans desperately seek out the newest releases with the theatrical industry remaining in the doldrums.
Admittedly, there are less than half as many films as there was last week, when we saw everything from comic book dud The New Mutants to Russell Crowe putting on a fat suit to play a psychopath in Unhinged, while braver viewers also could have tackled the bizarre Chinese fantasy blockbuster Iron Mask that had action icons Arnold Schawarzenegger and Jackie Chan share the screen for the very first time.
This week’s marquee release is Fatman, the R-rated alternative Christmas thriller that sees Mel Gibson as a disgruntled and disillusioned Santa Claus, forced to fight for his life after a 12 year-old kid gets a lump of coal in his stocking and makes the logical decision to hire a hitman so that he can put Jolly Old Saint Nick’s head on a pike.
There’s also the raucous comedy Buddy Games, which marks the directorial debut of Josh Duhamel, who stars alongside Dax Shepard, Kevin Dillon, Olivia Munn and Neal McDonough, but a weak 13% score on Rotten Tomatoes is hardly an encouraging sign. Bella Thorne thriller Girl, meanwhile, is faring much better with critics, but the rest are the standard mix of low budget horrors and independent dramas, and you can check out the full list below.
- Princess of the Row
- Cordelia
- She is the Ocean
- Girl
- The Walrus and the Whistleblower
- Fatman
- Buddy Games
- Buoyancy
- Stardust
- Zappa
- Let Him Go
A pretty slow week for VOD in the grand scheme of things, then, but as we get closer to Christmas, you can guarantee that an avalanche of new festive films will be dropping on a weekly basis.