A COVID-era Western, a slasher sequel and a 50-year-old classic to watch this week

Caption

Joaquin Phoenix plays the sheriff of a small New Mexico town in Eddington.

Several eras of madness are on display this weekend at the multiplex: A town (and its sheriff) come apart in a satirical COVID Western; a stalker returns from decades past to haunt survivors in a straight-up slasher flick; and the film that reset Hollywood's take on mental illness is back in a 50th anniversary re-release.

Eddington 

In theaters Friday 

This trailer includes an instance of vulgar language. 

Credit filmmaker Ari Aster with casting a wide net in this satirical COVID-era Western. Set in the fictional New Mexico town of the title, it's a story about trying to share a community when you live in separate realities. The film centers on a conflict between a smooth, liberal, tech-entrepreneur mayor (Pedro Pascal) who's pushing mask-wearing while promoting construction of a resource-gobbling "online server farm," and an asthmatic, conservative sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) who resists mask-wearing, and does not understand why Black Lives Matter protests are erupting in his almost entirely white town of 2,345. The sheriff's home life is roiled by a conspiracy-minded mother-in-law (Deirdre O'Connell) who's force-feeding his depressed wife (Emma Stone) videos by a right-wing messianic YouTuber (Austin Butler).

The mayor's home life is almost as complicated, what with a teenage son who's hooking up with a fervently guilt-ridden activist who was previously involved with one of the sheriff's deputies, and… well, there's lots more, but you get the idea: Everyone's at odds, and when the sheriff runs for mayor noting that "the people of Eddington like guns," anyone who's caught the filmmaker's horror films Hereditary and Midsommar will know things aren't likely to be resolved via town hall discussions. The director's provocations keep igniting like firecrackers in a crowded classroom as Phoenix becomes persuasively unhinged, which makes for a compelling enough watch, though what it all adds up to is anyone's guess. — Bob Mondello 

I Know What You Did Last Summer 

In theaters Friday 

The first I Know What You Did Last Summer brought together 1997's equivalent of the Brat Pack: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, and Freddie Prinze Jr. all hid a shameful secret involving a fateful car accident the prior summer. They were stalked — and, in some cases, slaughtered — by a killer clad in fisherman's garb and armed with a great big hook.

The original film was hugely profitable, but its sequels yielded mostly diminishing returns: one a year later, called I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, followed by a direct-to-video sequel and a TV series. But now a new I Know What You Did Last Summer is out with a new gaggle of young people, led by Ava, played by Chase Sui Wonders, and Danica, played by Madelyn Cline. You've got your car accident, your cover-up, your reunion a year later … all of it taking place in the same town of Southport, N.C., where the original murders took place.

Which means, of course, that we check in on the first film's key survivors: Julie James, played by Jennifer Love Hewitt, has moved away and tried to move on, while her ex-husband Ray Bronson, played by Freddie Prinze Jr., has stayed in town and opened a bar. Both of them are brought in to try to help — and to sprinkle in Easter eggs for fans of the original movies. — Stephen Thompson 

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 

Available to rent on-demand 

In a season of big movie re-releases — including Sunset Boulevard, Jaws, and the original Spider-Man trilogy, One Flew Over a Cuckoo's Nest returned to theaters this week with Fathom Entertainment in honor of its 50th anniversary. For those who missed it in theaters, the best picture-winning film, based on Ken Kesey's novel of the same name, is available to watch on-demand.

Best actor-winner Jack Nicholson starred as Randle McMurphy, a new patient at a state psychiatric hospital, where he shows up in order to get out of working at a prison farm after being locked up for raping a 15-year-old — a detail today's audiences may not be as sympathetic toward. McMurphy is a rascal who butts heads with the cold, tyrannical Nurse Ratched, played by Louise Fletcher, who earned the Oscar for best actress. He inspires a ragtag group of fellow patients to break free, before learning that he's practically the only one there involuntarily.

Spoiler alert: McMurphy ends up being held down for electroconvulsive therapy, and then, a lobotomy.

Psychiatrist Ken Duckworth, chief medical officer for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, says the film is brilliant, but it doesn't encourage people to seek help. Images from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest endure, even though treatment for mental illness has changed dramatically. These days, electroconvulsive therapy happens under anesthesia, lobotomies are almost never performed and patients are no longer being warehoused in large mental institutions. — Mandalit del Barco