Adolescence creator swaps therapy for chains in new movie

From political satire to puerile stunts, here's what's in cinemas this month Fri 24 Jul 2026 at 4:30am Welcome to the ABC Arts July film wrap. This month sees the continuation of two very different franchises: the latest gorefest in The Evil Dead series and the potentially last edition of mind-blowingly stupid stunts from the Jackass crew. Plus, a ginkgo tree observes the ebbs and flows of life in Silent Friend, Adolescence's Stephen Graham approaches teen behavioural problems in a very different way in The Good Boy and propaganda gets put under the microscope in The Wizard of the Kremlin. Happy watching! - Evil Dead Burn - The Good Boy - Jackass: Best and Last - Penny Lane Is Dead - Silent Friend - The Wizard of The Kremlin Evil Dead Burn Say the words "evil dead" out loud, as if foolishly reading from the blood-stained Necronomicon, and images of horror director Sam Raimi and his chainsaw-wielding star, Bruce Campbell, will likely appear. But just like the demonic Deadites that possess the living and the dead alike, the diabolical franchise that first manifested in 1981 can assume many forms. Irish filmmaker Lee Cronin cast Aussie stars Lily Sullivan and Alyssa Sutherland in the 2023 reboot, Evil Dead Rise, which cleverly swapped the creepy cabin in the woods/medieval castle for a condemned apartment tower. French director Sébastien Vanicek ups the gore with his Aotearoa-shot, bone-breaking and skin-frying follow-up, Evil Dead Burn. Coming in hot off Infested — Attack the Block, but spiders — he brings his co-writer Florent Bernard along. Swiss star Souheila Yacoub plays Alice, who's feeling confused after the death, in a spookily manipulated car accident, of her violent husband, Will. He's played by Aussie George Pullar, with countrywoman Maude Davey as his dementia-afflicted gran, and Kiwi Tandi Wright as her daughter. The in-laws shoot icy glares Alice's way at the wake. That's the least of her troubles. Turns out the family has an arcane dagger in the attic that can slay the Deadites. Cue a gross-out assault on their crumbling home with evil dead even weaponising a dishwasher door. There are nervous chuckles to be had during the unrelentingly gruesome kills that follow. But the lack of time spent establishing care-factor may have you summoning the goofball wit of Campbell's sadly absent Ash Williams. - Stephen A Russell The Good Boy The Good Boy, not to be confused with Good Boy — the 2025 horror film that unfolds from the perspective of a dog — catapults us directly into the strobe-lit, alcohol-soaked, drug-coated reality of Tommy (Anson Boon). He's always raring for a fight, cruel and lecherous to friends and strangers alike, and completely impervious to the consequences of his action. That is, until he's abducted by Chris (an always excellent Stephen Graham), kept captive in a rural family manor and subjected to a rehabilitation program that involves being chained by the neck in a dungeon and indoctrinated with an endless stream of his own TikToks and motivational infomercials proselytising about the ills of substance abuse. It becomes increasingly clear, if Chris's kidnapping doesn't already make evident, that there's something uncanny transpiring in this household. Chris's wife Kathryn (a serpentine Andrea Riseborough) looks like a reanimated corpse and is almost catatonic with an unspoken grief, while their homeschooled son Jonathan (a suitably jittery Kit Rakusen) is too eager to please and perennially on the verge of tears. But Tommy isn't being abused, at least not in the traditional sense. He's fed well, provided reading materials and celebrated on his birthday. Through intricate levers of gradually loosened controls, he graduates through a series of hoops, attaining more freedom as he's judged to be more reformed. The film derives tension from the chasm between Tommy's possible transformation and inclusion in this new family unit and his desire to still enact harm, with Boon excellent as a man undergoing a metamorphosis that is neither desired nor always welcomed. Bolstered by its star power, The Good Boy interrogates the ethics of forced rehabilitation, the psychology of Stockholm Syndrome and the prison of the nuclear family. The film suffers from an ending that's too pat to truly do its outlandish premise, eerie suppositions and the questions it poses justice, but it's an intriguing watch nonetheless. - Sonia Nair Jackass: Best and Last There are two types of people in this world: those who enjoy seeing someone catapulted into the air inside a used portable toilet, and those who lack taste. Of course, pranks and extreme high-concept endurance tests are hardly in short supply online. But beyond exploiting the frailty of the human body for entertainment, the Jackass series — almost in Richard Linklater style — has evolved into a touching celebration of male friendship enduring through 25 years. This (allegedly) final film is largely comprised of the team's former stunts and pranks, opening with an infamous stunt so dangerous and easily replicated it was never allowed to air on TV. The pre-existing clips, particularly on the big screen, are still potent enough to induce hysterical laughter, dread and nausea; the new material doesn't exactly raise the bar, but still finds ways to take prostate exams and electrical shocks to spectacular new extremes. As a send-off to one of gen X's finest cultural achievements, Best and Last could've afforded to spend more time with its cast when they aren't engaged in shenanigans. Occasional behind-the-scenes insights help detail their commitment to the bit, like watching frontman Johnny Knoxville demand to be struck by a large bull for a second time after being dissatisfied with the first take. Across the Jackass movies, there's always been something very pure about watching a group of men explore each other's bodies with so much aplomb. Eternally childish as they may be, they embody a type of joyful, carefree masculinity that's been sorely missing. - Jamie Tram Penny Lane is Dead Kat isn't like other girls: she's worse. Much, MUCH worse. Blazing onto the screen with dyed red hair and a skimpy 80s goth wardrobe, Kat, played with glee by Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn (yes, THAT Mendelsohn), is baking some fatally spiked cupcakes to the tune of Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again by The Angels. The intended consumer of said cupcakes? Penny Lane, of course. Penny, after all, is the perfect girl: pretty, blonde, rich and smart. So, when Penny 'accidentally' invites her cousin Kat to her girls-only getaway at the family beach house, it's up to her closeted girlfriend Toni and wallflower BFF Amy to try to keep her out of trouble. As the title suggests, things go south pretty quickly, and the girls soon find themselves dealing with three party-crashing criminals who are cursed with oh-so-very itchy trigger fingers. It's a cracker of an opening sequence: a source of intrigue, an indicator of the black-as-tar comedic tone, and a bangin' needle drop. From titles to credits, Mia Kate Russell's throwback horror Penny Lane is Dead throttles along at breakneck pace, equally evoking Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof and the tricks and tropes of Ozploitation. The characters are intriguingly layered — particularly Kat — and each new nail-biting development tests them in ways that get at those layers adeptly. The soundtrack picks are fun, era-appropriate and always well earned by the stacking and release of tension. Penny Lane is Dead is an Aussie indie that really goes the distance. Check it out. - Silvi Vann-Wall Silent Friend Delicate and meditative, Silent Friend is a film about relationships — between people, and between people and the natural world. Set across three generations at a university in Germany, the silent friend of the title is an ancient ginkgo biloba tree that is a witness to the lives of the students and faculty. Tony Leung Chiu-wai is captivating in a largely silent role as Tony, a visiting neuroscientist in the near future who turns his attention to the tree when COVID leaves him isolated on campus. In the past, Luna Wedler plays Grete, the first female student to be permitted to study at the university: brilliant, driven, and unique. And in between them, in the era of counterculture, is Enzo Brumm as Hannes, a literature student with a crush on his neighbour and a growing enthusiasm for her geranium. Each develops a relationship with the natural world that calls into question how we see nature and how it in turn reacts to us. The cinematography, by Gergely Pálos, is stunning. Each timeline has its own distinct look, with different film stock and colour grading; and while the film moves between its stories without any narrative markers, the visual style of each scene makes it immediately clear which era the viewer is watching. And across those eras, outside the human politics and personal dramas, the tree, the only one of its kind on campus, grows and watches. That isolation is, perhaps, a reflection of the challenge each character faces, but this isn't a film that belabours such metaphors. The director and writer, Ildikó Enyedi, has done a masterful job of creating these worlds and of making them feel real. This is the stuff of life, told with patience and a deep humanity, and Enyedi trusts the audience to settle into the slow changes of time. Almost two and a half hours long, Silent Friend never feels its length. The movement between the stories and the rhythms of the world are peaceful, but never boring, and I would happily have spent just as long again with the great ginkgo and its human companions. - Sky Kirkham The Wizard of the Kremlin Sometimes, the best approach to a biopic is to simply abandon the truth. The titular wizard of this film, Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano), does not exist. Initially conjured out of thin air by author Giuliano da Empoli in his 2022 debut novel, also titled The Wizard of the Kremlin, Baranov is a composite of shadowy figures within Russian government: a theatre artist-turned-reality TV producer-turned-spin doctor for Vladimir Putin (Jude Law). The ethos of this political thriller is defined by real-life media oligarch Boris Berezovsky (Will Keen) as he mentors Baranov: "Stop making stories, start inventing reality." As director Olivier Assayas (Irma Vep) burrows into the political machinations underpinning modern-day Russia, the dialogue has a habit of condensing itself into these kinds of tired aphorisms, struggling to easily reconcile how our political landscape has been fundamentally destabilised by forces beyond our control. It's no Chernobyl, but it generally succeeds as a stylish drama that burns through juicy backroom dealings taking place inside the Kremlin, industrial bot farms and the glistening French Riviera. Baranov himself is a softly spoken enigma; it's almost impossible to detect any emotion on his pillowy face. (Somehow, Dano convincingly plays the same character across 40 years without extensive de-aging tech). And as tiring as it is to watch actors embody famous politicians, Law's terse evocation of Putin is a welcome example of how great imitation extends far beyond extensive prosthetics or even an accurate accent. The question still remains: if you're going to invent reality, why not make it more interesting than this? - Jamie Tram