It’s difficult to understand why co-writer/director Florian Gallenberger felt the need to bring the horror of Chile’s Colonia Dignidad to the screen. A place of unimaginable suffering, home to torture, rape, and murder during a time of national cruelty, dissection of the Colonia Dignidad requires a special filmmaking talent, skilled in the art of suggestion and sensitivity to the real-world nightmare the compound became. Gallenberger doesn’t possess such a respectful vision, going the grindhouse route with this thriller. “Colonia” mistakes identification for sympathy, pushing towards tastelessness as it lingers on brutality facing the characters, looking to build shock value instead of exposing the haunting reality of the Colonia Dignidad in a manner that’s respectful to victims and mindful of history. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Music is the spirit and theme of “One More Time,” yet the film has difficulty staying in tune. Writer/director Robert Edwards has a conversational vision for the feature, which dissects familial relationships and generational divide, keeping his characters loquacious as they manage their insecurities and troubled histories. This leads to interesting performances, but the movie also makes room for a musical mood, exploring the industry through the efforts of one aging singer trying to remain relevant. It should be a more emotionally engaging picture, but “One More Time” only reaches periodic clarity, struggling to find the borders of its vast psychological examination. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s nearly impossible to enjoy Melissa McCarthy on the big screen these days. After building back some goodwill with last summer’s “Spy,” the comedian returns to her comfort zone of grotesque characterization and feeble screenwriting with “The Boss,” which joins “Tammy” and “Identity Thief” to form a painful trilogy of unfunny business executed by an enormously talented actress. Unfortunately, McCarthy does it to herself, co-scripting the effort with husband Ben Falcone, who also directs. “The Boss” offers a promising premise that’s sure to make the most of McCarthy’s special brand of insanity, but what actually ends up on screen is shockingly pedestrian, barely inspiring a chuckle as the movie crawls to the finish line. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Hardcore Henry” isn’t groundbreaking cinema, but it’s one of the first films to fully acknowledge its video game inspiration, embracing the format’s chaos and visual flexibility. Director Ilya Naishuller (making his helming debut) pieces together a first-person actioner, explored from the perspective of a cyborg who enjoys killing, permitting the production ample opportunity to raise hell in a distinct way. “Hardcore Henry” lives up to its title, with Naishuller soaking the picture in violence, destroying bodies in every possible way. But 90 minutes of this POV chase? Weirdly, it’s not the visuals that end up souring the viewing experience, but the lack of story, terrible performances, and a tuneless soundtrack, making the titular brute’s periodic wargasms the highlight of the effort. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Jeff Nichols developed a following with “Take Shelter” and “Mud,” two meditative, psychological screenplays that invested completely in character, allowing audiences to understand dramatics emerging from three-dimensional personalities. “Midnight Special” continues the helmer’s journey into layered storytelling, but this time the potential for a gimmicky focal point tests Nichols and his patient filmmaking way. Exploring an alien encounter, “Midnight Special” reaches back to John Carpenter’s 1984 masterpiece, “Starman,” for inspiration, developing a similar sense of wonder and feeling while retaining Nichols’s customary distance, making viewers part of the journey as it slowly but satisfyingly unfolds. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Karyn Kusama made an industry splash with 2000’s “Girlfight,” a spirited indie that found some pop culture traction, establishing the helmer as one to watch. She followed up her initial success with a pair of duds, “Aeon Flux” and “Jennifer’s Body,” biting off more than she could chew with tonally muddled genre pictures. Returning to the essentials of volatile human emotions, Kusama issues “The Invitation,” a dark psychological thriller that takes its time to get going, but once it locks into its big reveals, it transforms into a grimly irresistible chiller. Successfully reestablishing interest in Kusama’s career, “The Invitation” is worth the wait. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

With “Wild” and “Dallas Buyers Club,” director Jean-Marc Vallee has showcased ability to communicate the inner thoughts of his characters, focusing on emotional issues and medical disruptions to find what people are truly made of. He’s effective with smaller, introspective moments, but “Demolition,” which continues this visual and thematic journey, doesn’t come together as easily as before. Screenwriter Bryan Sipe crafts a story that highlights the range of grief, reaction, and redemption, but the collaboration doesn’t provide a particularly illuminating viewing experience, finding “Demolition” powerful, but only in fragments, spending too much time on trivial matters while the rest of the feature slowly grows confused and, ultimately, pointless. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Grosse Pointe Blank” is one of the best films of the last twenty years, and it’s heartening to see that screenwriter Max Landis agrees with me. Instead of forging ahead with a remake, Landis take his adulation for the 1997 release and reworks it slightly to create his own variation on the central idea of a killer in love in “Mr. Right,” an action-comedy that’s big on fight scenes and casual interplay between stars Sam Rockwell and Anna Kendrick. Big on energy, for at least the opening hour, “Mr. Right” eventually runs out of steam in a major way, but for those itching for “Blank”-style thrills, the feature finds periodic inspiration as it goes from love to war. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2010, writer/director Deon Taylor created “Chain Letter,” an updated take on slasher formula that utilized cell phones as the harbinger of doom. It was an awful film, one of the worst of the year, but Taylor played it straight, working to whip up some sizable scares while the rest of the effort died a slow, painful death. Taylor returns to the genre with “Meet the Blacks,” but he’s no longer interested in frights, attempting to wring laughs out of murder with this painfully inept semi-parody of “The Purge.” Released too soon after Marlon Wayans dropped a box office bomb with January’s “50 Shades of Black,” “Meet the Blacks” covers basically the same ground, spending too much time on vulgarity and racial hostility, and not enough on wit. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The end of the world is transformed into a first-person shooter in “Pandemic,” the first of two movies this month that stage unspeakable acts of violence from a chaotic perspective (the other, “Hardcore Harry,” is due out next week). Combining ferocious visions of murder and self-preservation with tender missions of familial protection, the feature, directed by John Suits, strives to be a more meaningful horror story, working to establish humanity behind every irrational decision. Unless you happen to be a major fan of extended sequences set in dark hallways, there’s nothing overtly impressive about “Pandemic,” but its working parts are engaging, watching Suits build his own doomsday with a limited budget and an extended visual gimmick. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com