Good Boy: Blu Ray Review

Cast: Indy the dog, Shane Jensen
Director: Ben Leonberg

Pushing a concept as far as it can go works wonders for indie horror Good Boy.

But if you're averse to open-ended films that are reliant on your own interpretation, perhaps this won't be the film for you.

Told from a dog's-eye level (not a point of view or perspective), it follows a dog who accompanies his owner to a cabin in the woods after his owner's unspecified medical issues and an apparent rift in his owner's relationship.

However, once the pair arrives at the cabin, the pup begins to see and hear things, and fears his owner's life is in danger from something other than illness.

Good Boy is an incredible piece of film-making thanks to its lead performance of Indy. For a creature that can have no direct understanding that it's in a movie, the work done by the dog is just second to none, and utterly intuitive.

At its heart, the film appears to be an exploration of the impact of illness, dressed up in a supernatural elements story. As his owner is consumed by sickness, the house becomes more active and the supernatural jolts more pronounced. And while some will complain there are only so many times you can show a dog upset by a bump in the night, with a lean 72 minute run time, director Leonberg more than delivers.

Wtih themes of loyalty and friendship, and some genuinely terrifying moments thanks to a carefully constructed delve into fear (at one point, the dog wets itself), Good Boy has an interesting trajectory at heart - what if the person you care most about can't be saved?

It's perhaps pertinent that by setting the film at a dog level and also by hearing things that humans can't, the film gets more out of the haunted house premise than a simple fright-night flick may have done. Plus, making the hero a dog immediately brings audiences on side and emotionally invested.

However, director Ben Leonberg isn't interested in throwing that care and commitment away with just easy and cheap thrills. There's a real heart here that's given beating life by Indy's performance and a human story that cries out for exploration.

If you buy into the premise and the exploration of an animal's loyalty, plus the very real fear of losing that, Good Boy is an utterly compelling and original film that demands to be seen. It's a singular experience given life by its main actor - a very, very good boy.

Good Boy is now streaming on Shudder

Echoes of Aincrad new trailer 

With the launch of Echoes of Aincrad just around the corner on 10 July 2026, a new story trailer comes to shed some light on how the 10 000 players reacted to end of the “BETA test” in the virtual world of SWORD ART ONLINE. It also reveals familiar faces that fans of the series will recognise!

 

This trailer shows the characters facing the reality of their situation and coming to terms with the truth: everyone is now trapped inside the floating castle of Aincrad, and dying in the game means death in the real world. Amid confusion, despair and accusations, players of Echoes of Aincrad will take on the role of the hero uniting others, taking up the sword to survive, beat the game and set the others free.

While players will be living their own adventure of survival in Aincrad, they will be able to team up with partners leveling up by their side, some of them famous characters from the franchise like Asuna, Agil, Lisbeth and more, each with their Special Skill. It will be up to the player to choose what role they should assume in combat; thanks to the Switch System they can alternate between autonomous fighting and support behaviour, to cover them and split damage.

Echoes of Aincrad launches on 10 July 2026, and pre-orders are available now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam.

For more information about Echoes of Aincrad or other titles from Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe please visit https://www.bandainamcoent.eu, or follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok.  

Lee Cronin's The Mummy streams exclusively on HBO Max from Friday 3 July

Warner Bros. Pictures’ Lee Cronin's The Mummy will make its global streaming debut on Friday 3 July, only on HBO Max. 

Lee Cronin's The Mummy stars Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, May Calamawy, Natalie Grace, with Veronica Falcón.  

The young daughter of a journalist disappears into the desert without a trace—eight years later, the broken family is shocked when she is returned to them, as what should be a joyful reunion turns into a living nightmare.

The film is written and directed by Lee Cronin, and produced by James Wan, Jason Blum and John Keville. The executive producers are Michael Clear, Judson Scott, Macdara Kelleher and Lee Cronin.

Lee Cronin's The Mummy debuts Friday 3 July, only on HBO Max.

JBL Endurance Zone: Review

Open ear earbuds are not the most auspicious of pieces of kit in the wearables market.

Granted, there are plenty of options out there, but most users, if pressed would no doubt proclaim that they'd prefer to have options that sit in the ear and are subtle, rather than ones which are obtrusive, sit on the ear and stand out.

It's this kind of snobbery perhaps that JBL's decided to tackle with these Open Ear Design IP68 secure fit ear pieces. And it's a joy to report that they largely work better than you'd be expecting.

Comfort is perhaps the first thing you notice about these. Once you've adjusted to their design, they do fit securely over the ears, and while the IP68 waterproof and dustproof rating hints at them being durable, the idea of getting water into the ears and into the speakers feels like it sits at odds with how the best earbuds work.

In terms of fit, they can mould to your ear and sit snugly over the ear canal - but as with all fits, they're personal in terms of how it feels for each individual. So for an over-the-ear piece of kit, they offer an impressive volley against the stigma of something not fitting inside the ears.

They come with a charging case and while it's not most the light of cases and feels chunkier in comparison to most other models out there, it holds around 24 hours of charge for the buds, which is nothing to be sneezed out. (The Zone ear pieces last around 8 hours on a single charge).

And while the sounds inevitably not as custom-fitting as other earbuds offer, you'd have to be a prude to sniff at what they actually give out in terms of audio quality. Perhaps call quality is the biggest surprise with the buds not dropping out at all and providing a stability that impresses.

Perhaps the weakest part of this little bit of kit is the need to tap them to get responses and to adjust volumes and so on. Overly responsive and annoyingly fiddly, the tap controls remain the weakest part of this offering. 

With app customisation and the chance to retrofit these to your own personal tastes, it has to be said that the JBL Endurance Zones surprise and offer a stronger case for over-the-ear technology than perhaps you'd first expect. With minimal outside noise affecting the audio, all they need is an adjustment of attitude and you're away laughing.

Jackass: Best and Last: Movie Review

Cast: Johnny Knoxville
Director: Jeff Tremaine

Johnny Knoxville and his band of merry men return for one apparent last gasp as old age catches up to them.

This fifth outing for the Jackass team is supposedly the final one they'll do and blends a little new material with some of the old classics. So how you'll feel about Knoxville and his crew subjecting themselves to both a little indulgence and a lot of pain depends on how much love you've had for the franchise over the years.

2022's Jackass Forever was supposed to be the end of the line for the gang, but it seems the lure of the perennially dumb continues to endure.

What's on AMC+ in July

Here's everything that's new to AMC+ in July 2026.

The Walking Dead: Dead City – AMC Original Series

Season 3 Premieres Sunday, 26 July on AMC+ 

In season three, Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) finally put aside their differences to build the first thriving community in Manhattan since the apocalypse, but when chaos in the city begins to arise, they are forced to question: have they learned from their old wounds or will their dark past spell doom for the entire city?  Also starring Jimmi Simpson, Raúl Castillo, Aimee Garcia, Logan Kim and Michael Emery. 

The Vampire Lestat – AMC+ Exclusive Series

New Episodes Sundays on AMC+ Until the Season Finale 19 July  

In the new rock and roll centric season, the Vampire Lestat (Sam Reid) goes on an electric multi-city tour while being haunted by “muses” from his wild and rebellious past. As his band’s popularity and star power rises, so does Lestat’s influence over vampires and humans alike, leaving others to contend with Lestat’s power in the face of the Great Conversion, an unnatural surge in the vampire population. The series also stars Jacob Anderson, Assad Zaman, Eric Bogosian, Delainey Hayles and Jennifer Ehle. **The Vampire Lestat: After Dark Series – New episodes continue Sundays on AMC+ until the season finale 19 July 

Sex Box – AMC+ Exclusive Series

Series Premieres Friday 24 July on AMC+ 

Adapted from the UK series of the same name, Sex Box is an extreme therapy reality concept that allows couples discuss their relationship issues with a panel of experts before retiring to a camera-free, soundproof box on the show’s set to have sex. They emerge to immediately discuss their experiences in the box and most intimate personal issues with the experts, as the cameras roll before a studio audience.