Ethics & Review Policy
Last updated: July 3, 2026
Reviews only matter if you can trust them. This page explains exactly how we operate — where our movies come from, who pays us, and who doesn’t get a say in what we write.
The Short Version
Nobody buys a review here. Not with money, not with screeners, not with ad dollars, not with merch. Every review reflects our honest reaction to the film, and our scare ratings are real. If we ever have a relationship with someone connected to a film we’re covering, we tell you in that review.
Where Our Movies Come From
We review films from three sources:
- Movies we pay for ourselves — theater tickets, rentals, purchases, and our own streaming subscriptions. This is most of what we review.
- Screeners — advance or review copies provided free by studios, distributors, publicists, or filmmakers. This is standard practice in film criticism.
- Festival access — press access to film festivals, virtual or in person.
Our Screener Policy
Accepting a screener never guarantees a review, and it never guarantees a positive review. Specifically:
- We review the films we choose to review, on our own schedule.
- A free screener has zero influence on the score or the content of a review. If a film someone kindly sent us is a disaster, the review will say so.
- We honor embargo dates when we agree to them.
- When a review is based on a screener, we disclose that in the review.
- We do not accept payment, gifts beyond the screener itself, or any other compensation in exchange for coverage.
If a studio or publicist stops sending us screeners because they didn’t like a review, that’s a trade we’ll make every single time.
Advertising and Sponsorships
This site earns money through display advertising, affiliate links, and occasionally direct sponsorships. Here are the walls between that money and our editorial content:
- Advertisers never receive guaranteed coverage. Buying an ad on this site purchases space on the page — nothing more. No reviews, no mentions, no favorable treatment.
- Advertisers have no editorial input. They do not see reviews before publication, and they cannot influence what we cover or what we say.
- If we review a film from a company that advertises with us, we disclose that relationship in the review.
- Sponsored content, if we ever publish it, will be clearly labeled as sponsored — and it will never take the form of a review.
- Affiliate links never affect opinions. We earn the same small commission whether we loved the movie or hated it. See our Affiliate Disclosure for details.
Corrections
We get things wrong sometimes. When we do, we correct the article and note the correction. Factual errors are fixed as soon as we learn of them; if a correction is significant, we say what changed. Our opinions, however, are ours — we don’t revise a review because someone disagreed with it.
Spoilers
Reviews are written spoiler-free above a clearly marked line. Anything below a spoiler warning is fair game. We will never spoil a film in a headline, social post, or image.
Plagiarism and AI
We do not copy other critics’ work — every review here is original. We do use AI tools as part of how this site gets made: they may help us research, draft, edit, and polish. What AI never does is watch the movie or form the opinion. Every film we review was actually watched by a human, every score reflects that human’s genuine reaction, and a human reviews and approves everything before it’s published. The fear is real; the tools just help us describe it.
Independence
This site is independently owned. No studio, distributor, streaming service, or other film-industry company holds any ownership stake or has any financial relationship with us beyond the advertising and affiliate arrangements disclosed above.
Questions
If you think we’ve fallen short of anything on this page, contact us through the site — we take it seriously and we’ll respond.