If you’re thinking about leaving the couch behind and seeing a movie the old-fashioned way—big screen, dark room, popcorn in hand—here are a few worth checking out this weekend, plus where they’re playing around southeastern Connecticut.
One week before the summer movie slate really kicks into gear, this weekend offers one or two sure things, depending on your taste. Personally, I’m heading toward the new psychological horror Obsession, along with Is God Is, a violent revenge story rooted in generational trauma, while steering clear of Jake Gyllenhaal and Henry Cavill, and debating whether I’m willing to brave a matinee packed with kids for an animated classic.
The thing is, there’s probably still something worth seeing if you’ve got that familiar itch to sink into a comfy theater seat, shut the world out for a while, and disappear into a bucket of popcorn for a couple of hours.
Horror with a 95% Rotten Tomatoes score
If you’ve ever watched someone spiral into a relationship they absolutely should not be in and thought, “Well, this is going to end with somebody dead,” Obsession might be your movie. The setup sounds almost harmless at first: awkward guy wishes his crush would love him more than anything else in the world. Congratulations, idiot. Now she does. A little too much. What starts as lonely fantasy fulfillment quickly mutates into sleep paralysis-level nightmare fuel as Nikki transforms from cute coworker into clingy supernatural terror with the emotional regulation of a possessed toddler and the energy of someone who absolutely will stab you for leaving her on read.
What makes Obsession hit harder than the average “cursed wish” horror movie is how painfully recognizable the emotional core feels underneath all the screaming, blood, and increasingly horrifying body language. Rated R.
Playing everywhere but my favorite place:
It’s been 25 years, Donkey
Twenty-five years later, Shrek is somehow still one of the funniest animated movies ever made, which probably explains why theaters are dragging millennials and Gen X parents back into swamp country for anniversary screenings this weekend. The story follows Shrek, a grumpy ogre whose peaceful swamp gets overrun by fairy tale exiles after the power-hungry Lord Farquaad starts cleaning up the kingdom like a medieval HOA president. To get his home back, Shrek teams up with an aggressively talkative Donkey to rescue Princess Fiona, only for the movie to spiral into a weirdly heartfelt fairy tale parody filled with jokes that somehow landed for kids and exhausted adults at the same time.
The original voice cast still holds up beautifully, with Mike Myers as Shrek, Eddie Murphy as Donkey, Cameron Diaz as Fiona, and John Lithgow chewing scenery as Lord Farquaad. Honestly, the only strange thing about this re-release is that many theaters are only running matinees, which feels like a missed opportunity considering an entire generation of adults would probably love a packed late-night nostalgia screening almost as much as the kids discovering it for the first time.
Playing at:
A violent road trip fueled by family trauma
Is God Is starts with one hell of a setup: twin sisters carrying horrific burn scars are suddenly summoned by the mother they believed died years earlier. Instead, they find her alive, bedridden, furious, and demanding one thing from them, revenge. Their mission sends them from the South to California hunting for the father responsible for the fire that destroyed their childhood and permanently marked their bodies.
What follows is less like a straightforward revenge thriller and more like a violent fever dream about inherited pain, family trauma, and how far people will go once rage becomes the only thing holding them together. Somewhere between road movie, psychological breakdown, and bloody revenge story, Is God Is seems perfectly built for anyone who likes their movies dark, strange, and just a little emotionally dangerous.
There are only two theaters within 40 miles of us showing it:
Peak Guy Ritchie chaos
If you’re already a Guy Ritchie fan, you probably know exactly what you’re getting with In The Grey before the first bullet casing hits the floor. Henry Cavill, Jake Gyllenhaal, morally questionable professionals, machine guns, expensive jackets, testosterone leaking through the walls, and enough smug banter to fill an underground London pub at 2 a.m. Personally, I like Ritchie movies, I’m just not in the mood for one right now. But if your ideal Friday night involves heavily armed men explaining “the plan” while everything inevitably explodes five minutes later, this might absolutely be your thing.
The setup follows an elite extraction crew led by Cavill, Gyllenhaal, and Eiza González after a tyrant steals a billion-dollar fortune and vanishes with it, sending the team into what basically amounts to a stylish suicide mission. Expect slick dialogue, double-crosses, contingency plans stacked on top of contingency plans, and action scenes that probably look like they were storyboarded on the back of a whiskey-stained napkin. In other words: peak Guy Ritchie energy.
Until Next Week
There you go. A few solid choices depending on your mood. Personally, I’m already looking ahead to next week when The Mandalorian & Grogu hits theaters. I never fully kept up with the series, but honestly, that doesn’t matter much to me. I mostly want to see what a modern Star Wars movie looks like on the big screen with the latest visual effects technology behind it. I have a feeling it’s going to be pretty spectacular.
Memorial Day weekend is getting dangerously close now. I can almost taste the popcorn.
Last modified: May 14, 2026
