The defence The Arthouse Gremlin
“Its refusal to behave is the point.”
The strange choices create the kind of friction that follows you out of the theatre and into the argument.
Back to trending 
The New Kids
Drama · Crime · Horror · 1985
A brother and his young sister come to a small town to find out a local gang terrorizes the population.
Movie details
The New Kids
“The kids learned three things about southern hospitality, blood, sweat and terror.”
1985 Drama · Crime · Horror 1h 30m
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
6.4 / 10
Community rating
A brother and his young sister come to a small town to find out a local gang terrorizes the population.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over The New Kids?
For the defence
The Arthouse Gremlin
“The stranger, the better.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Popcorn Loyalist
“Big screen, big feelings, no apologies.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
Fear Street: 1978
Horror · 2021
In 1978, two rival groups at Camp Nightwing must band together to solve a terrifying mystery when horrors from their towns' history come alive.
Fear Street: 1994
Horror · 2021
After a series of brutal slayings, a teen and her friends take on an evil force that's plagued their notorious town for centuries.
Day of the Woman
Horror · 1978
A young, beautiful career woman rents a backwoods cabin to write her first novel. Attacked by a group of local lowlifes and left for dead, she devises a horrific plan to inflict revenge.
Scream
Crime · 1996
A year after the murder of her mother, a teenage girl is terrorized by a masked killer who targets her and her friends by using scary movies as part of a deadly game.
The Last House on the Left
Crime · 2009
When athletic teen Mari Collingwood opts to hang out with her friend Paige in town rather than spend an evening in with her parents vacationing at the family's remote lake house, it marks the beginning of a night no one is going to forget.
The Surrender
Drama · 2025
A fraught mother-daughter relationship is put to a terrifying test when the family patriarch dies, and the grieving mother hires a mysterious stranger to bring her husband back from the dead.
Snowtown
Crime · 2011
Based on true events, 16 year-old Jamie falls in with his mother's new boyfriend and his crowd of self-appointed neighborhood watchmen, a relationship that leads to a spree of torture and murder.
Bully
Crime · 2001
A group of teenagers in South Florida enact a murder plot against their mutual bully, Bobby, who has emotionally, physically, and sexually abused them for years.
Frank and Penelope
Thriller · 2022
A tale of love and violence when a man on his emotional last legs finds a savior seductively dancing in a run-down strip club. And a life most certainly headed off a cliff suddenly becomes redirected - as everything is now worth dying for.
Boys Don't Cry
Crime · 1999
A young transgender man explores his gender identity and searches for love in rural Nebraska.
Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Sean S. Cunningham
Written by
Stephen Gyllenhaal · Brian Taggert
Lori Loughlin
Abby MacWilliams
Jean De Baer
Mary Beth MacWilliams
James Spader
Eddie Dutra
P
Paige Price
Karen Goodsell
John Philbin
Gideon Walters
Vince Grant
JoeBob
Margaret Welsh
Friend
Court is in session
Put The New Kids on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist
“Oddness is not depth.”
A film can break every rule and still leave nothing behind but the memory of how hard it tried to be singular.