From Scott Feinberg…

Set 21 years ago in Masshad, Iran, Ali Abassi’s Holy Spider is a disturbing (to put it mildly), fact-based drama about Saeed Hanaei (Mehdi Bajestani), a serial killer of prostitutes.

The murders are ghastly enough, but a double-down comes when, post-capture, Hanaei is bizarrely supported by fanatical zealots who believe he has done Allah’s bidding.

The first half is pretty much a straightforward crime drama. After graphically depicting two of Hanaei’s grisly killings, it follows an intrepid female reporter (Zar Amir-Ebrahimi) who risks life and limb to bring about his arrest.

I can’t call this section any more than decent — efficient and good enough, but not exactly brimming with style or suspense or cinematic flair.

The diseased social reaction among his fans in the second half is what grabs you. You’re left thinking “really?…a sizable contingent of Mashhad citizens cheered a serial killer because he was helping to rid the streets of streetcorner hookers? Who thinks like that? What kind of diseased culture?,” etc.

But then of course, this is Iran and the Masshad faithful were the country’s chief bumblefucks.

Cannes critics have lost their minds over Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun, a laid-back, edge-of-boredom, fly-on-the-wall father-daughter vacation flick, set in Turkey sometime in the late ‘90s. I didn’t mind it and it’s not a painful endurance test, but it’s certainly lethargic as fuck.

Where’s the pulse? Where’s the intrigue or story tension or the proverbial second-act pivot or any of that stuff? Sorry, Jose.

11 year old Sophie (Frankie Corio) and her young-looking, divorced dad (Paul Mescal) are staying (bonding) at a midrange coastal hotel. Swimming pool, video games, camcorder footage, puppy love, golden sunlight, distant hazy forests, dad grinning like an idiot. etc.

A dozen or so little things “happen” (including a curious weeping scene and a mystifying moment when Sophie succumbs to the romantic advances of an overweight gamer) or are more precisely observed. but the whole time you’re thinking “Guy Lodge and Carlos Aguilar did backwards somersaults over this?“