Brightburn (2019)

Tori and Kyle have long dreamt of being parents. But, try as they might, they’ve never been able to conceive. Then one night, a ship crash-lands in the woods behind their farm, and they discover a baby inside. Believing this to be a gift from above, the couple adopts the child and name him Brandon. All seems well, until Brandon hits puberty, and starts to exhibit superhuman abilities, including flight, strength, invulnerability, and heat vision. More disturbing than that, though, Brandon starts behaving violently, killing their chickens, breaking a classmates hand, and, eventually, just hurting anyone who displeases him. Tori and Kyle do their best to rein him in, but it might be too late, as Brandon now views himself as a predator and the whole world as his prey.

High Life (2019)

In the future, death-row inmates are given the choice of either rotting in jail, or going up into space and participating in an experiment. One prisoner (Robert Pattinson) chooses the latter and is put on board a ship with a psychopathic doctor (Juliette Binoche), who is obsessed with creating a child through artificial insemination. It’s never revealed why she wants to do this since it’s never explicitly stated that humans can’t have children the old-fashioned way, but whatever. Sexual contact between the passengers is prohibited, which, as one might expect, drives certain people crazy. So crazy that, eventually, they start killing each other. In the end, Pattinson and his daughter, who was created by Binoche through very questionable means, are left alone on the shuttle, drifting through space. And… yeah. That’s it.

Us (2019)

In 1986, Adelaide Thomas went into a funhouse in Santa Cruz and saw something horrifying. She’s never said what that thing was, but it’s clear that she’s done everything in her power to avoid going near that place. How unfortunate for her when her husband, Gabe, and two children, Zora and Jason, insist that they go to Santa Cruz to visit friends. And that misfortune only grows when the very thing Adelaide saw in that funhouse all those years ago, an evil doppelgänger, arrives with clones of the whole family, looking to kill them all. Will they survive? Watch the movie and find out.

Love, Death & Robots (Season 1, 2019)

What if the world were ruled by yogurt? What if a couple had a civilization in their fridge? What if the military recruited werewolves to hunt terrorists? These questions and more are asked and answered in Love, Death & Robots, a brand-new Netflix anthology series. Consisting of 18 animated shorts from different directors, the stories have no narrative connections, and all feature different tones and art styles. The only real thing linking them is the motif of science fiction, and even that’s tenuous, since several of the stories, like the aforementioned werewolf film, would more comfortably fit in the fantasy genre. Even so, the series is engaging enough, with plenty of unique ideas and slick visuals to keep you invested. According to the show’s producers, David Fincher, and Tim Miller, their only objective was to “make something cool.” And, in my opinion, they more than succeeded in that regard.

Overlord (2018)

It’s the eve of D-Day, and a group of paratroopers are being sent to destroy a German radio tower in France. Before they can get there, however, their plane is shot down, and only five men, Corporal Ford, and Privates Boyce, Tibbet, Chase, and Dawson are left alive. Shaken, but determined to complete their objective, the soldiers make their way to the village where the tower is located and discover some strange, horrifying things. What things, you ask? Well, it would appear that, in the hopes of ensuring their thousand-year Reich, the Nazis have been performing experiments on people to create “thousand-year soldiers.” Yikes. So now, in addition to having to blow up the radio tower, it would appear that the paratroopers have to contend with undead Nazis as well. Charming. Can they do it? Well, watch the film and find out for yourself.

Annihilation (2018)

Natalie Portman is a biologist, and former soldier. Exactly one year ago, her husband, played by Oscar Isaac, went into a mysterious, mutated area called “the shimmer” and disappeared. Everyone thinks he’s dead, until, one day, out of nowhere, he shows up on Portman’s door, deeply ill. She learns from a psychologist, Jennifer Jason-Leigh, that he was part of a reconnaissance mission sent into “the shimmer” to find out just what it is, and that, to date, he is the only person to return. Upon hearing that there will be a new team sent into the area, Portman volunteers, for some reason, and she and the group venture forth into “the shimmer” where they encounter all kinds of crazy shit, including mutated plants, mutated crocodiles, and even mutated bears.

The Host (2006)

When a huge amount of formaldehyde is dumped down the drain, strange things start happening in Seoul’s Han River. First, all the fish in the area mysteriously die off. Next, pedestrians start noticing something big, and creepy, skulking below the surface. Then, after four years of waiting, a giant monster bursts from the water, eager to eat, and kidnap, humans. One of those taken is Park Hyun-Seo, the daughter of a neglectful Snack Shop Owner, who, with the help of his aging father, alcoholic brother, and athlete sister, sets out to bring her home. But things get complicated when the American military, the group responsible for creating the monster, block off the river, and release a poison, Agent Yellow, into the air. Will the Parks save their daughter in time? Well, you’ll just have to watch the movie to find out.

Alien: Covenant (2017)

While en route to a new world, a group of interstellar colonists receive a transmission from a nearby planet. After analyzing the signal, they realize that its human in origin, and that the planet its coming from might have ideal living conditions. Deciding that this is too good an opportunity to pass up, the Captain sends down a small group to investigate. At first, everything goes just fine; the source of the transmission, a crashed space ship, is discovered without incident, and the world itself is rather hospitable. Things quickly devolve, however, when a member of the team is infected by a bizarre black fungus, which causes him to birth an aggressive alien monster. And if that’s not bad enough, the crew are found by a survivor of the crashed ship, who may, or may not, want to do them harm.

Tag (2015)

Mitsuko has a problem. Everywhere she goes, someone, or something, inevitably winds up trying to kill her. First it’s a gust of wind, which slices all her classmates in half. Then it’s one of her teachers, who inexplicably opens fire on her students. And if that’s not bad enough, every time Mitsuko escapes one ordeal, she finds herself transported to a different reality; she starts off as a school girl in class, then changes to a bride on her wedding day, and ends as a runner in a marathon. Things come to a head when Mitsuko realizes that everything, all her existences, are just a video game being played by someone in another dimension, and that, if she wants to save herself and her friends, she’s going to have to do something unthinkable. Will she do it? Well, you’ll have to watch the film to find out.

Ex Machina (2014)

The best way for me to describe Ex Machina is, what Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory would look like if Ridley Scott directed it. That might sound like a silly description, until you learn the film’s premise. A mysterious billionaire lives out where no one can get to him, he holds a lottery to give a person the chance to come visit his house, the person does so, and then crazy shit happens. Seriously, throw in some dancing orange dwarves and you’ve got the same film.