What's New on VOD for the Week Ending 7/24?

Three of the four VOD releases this week are movies that we've been anxious to see for some time, which leaves The Jokesters as the wild card of the bunch.

*Click the pics to check out the trailers or rent the movies.

Child 44: Based on the first of a trilogy by Tom Rob Smith and set in the Stalin era of the Soviet Union. The plot is about an idealistic pro-Stalin security officer who decides to investigate a series of child murders in a country where supposedly this sort of crime doesn't exist. The state would not hear of the existence of a child murderer let alone a serial killer. He gets demoted and exiled but decides, with just the help of his wife, to continue pursuing the case.

It was a nice surprise to see this one pop up on VOD so soon after watching Ghoul, as both movies deal with or are based on the murders of notorious cannibal.murderer, Andrei Chikatilo. With a cast that boasts such talent as Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Joel Kinnaman, Noomi Rapace, Paddy Consadine, and Jason Clarke, we're certainly expecting it to be the better of the two.

Dark Was the Night: Isolated and threatened, a mysterious force hidden within the trees outside the small town of Maiden Woods, strikes fear in the townspeople as Sheriff Paul Shields attempts to overcome the demons of his past while protecting those that he loves.

Now here's a movie that we've been waiting to see for what seems like forever. We love Kevin Durand, and the  trailer looks great, so we're hoping that Dark Was the Night ends up being one of those under-the-radar pleasant surprises that we love so much.

Felt: Amy is hanging on by a thread. Struggling to cope with past sexual trauma and the daily aggressions of a male-dominated society, she creates grotesquely costumed alter egos that re-appropriate the male form. While giving her the sense of power she craves, acting as these characters pushes her further into a world of her own making. When she begins a new relationship with a seemingly good guy, she opens herself up to him - but that vulnerability comes at a dangerous cost, and her alter egos threaten to lash out in explosive violence.

Felt has garnered a lot of critical buzz leading up to its release, and it's a movie that we've wanted to see for quite some time. The more we hear about it though, the more we become worried that it's going to be little more than some SJW platform to rage against the evils of Patriarchal Rape Culture, or some such bullshit.

We really hope that Felt ends up being a poignant story about a woman's struggles, and her decent into madness because of them, and not some "Men are evil! This is proof!" kind of thing.

The Jokesters: The Internet sensation, "Master Pranksters" decide to take it to the extreme for their season finale. When the leader of the group, Ethan, announces that he is getting married and leaving the gang and the pranks behind, the rest of the founding members decide to pull off one final stunt; a "Cabin in the Woods" nightmare on their friend's honeymoon. What follows is a spiral decent into terror when the prank goes too far and the members of the group actually start dying.

The Jokesters looks like it might be nothing more than some cheesy, enjoyable fluff, but we'll give it a shot anyway. There's always room for light & fun in our diets, right?