Pretty Lethal (2026)
Directed by: Vicky Jewson
Premise: A troupe of American ballerinas travels to Hungary for a competition. While staying at a rural inn, they cross paths with murderous gangsters and must fight to survive.
What Works: Pretty Lethal reworks the Die Hard action movie formula by way of the Hostel horror series. A group of American ballerinas seek shelter at a hotel in eastern Europe, with implications that the locals have engineered their stranding. When the dancers witness a murder, gangsters plan to kill them and the ballerinas must fight their way out. Pretty Lethal is part of a trend of action infused horror films such as Ready or Not and its sequel and They Will Kill You and like those pictures, Pretty Lethal approaches its premise with a sense of humor. The violence is brutal but also absurd. The set pieces have a cartoonish quality. The dancers are dressed in tutus while fighting gangsters and they use their dance routines as a form of martial arts. A movie that recognizes its own ridiculousness tends to be charming and that’s the case in Pretty Lethal. The film is well cast and each of the ballerinas has a distinct character trait. In the opening scene they struggle to cooperate but the life-or-death situation forces them to bond and work as a team. Uma Thurman is cast as the proprietor of the inn and she understands the movie’s tone, chewing the scenery.
What Doesn’t: The ballerinas of Pretty Lethal make a lot of stupid decisions, especially early on in the movie. The filmmakers seem to be aware of that and there are moments in which the ballerinas acknowledge that they’ve made a mistake or forgotten something obvious. The self-awareness softens the storytelling missteps. However, some of the ballerina’s emotional reactions are not credible. They’ve just witnessed a murder but their emotional reactions don’t match the stakes. Pretty Lethal loses its way in the end. The ballerinas are trapped in a hotel and come together to fight their way out. The film reaches its climax about an hour into its eighty-eight-minute runtime and then the story goes off on a different tangent. The owner of the inn has a vendetta against the local kingpin but this has nothing to do with the ballerinas. Holding them hostage makes no sense at this point and the dancers are displaced from the center of the action for the final portion of the story.
Disc extras: Available on Amazon Prime Video.
Bottom Line: Pretty Lethal is goofy and entertaining. It’s not great filmmaking but it is the kind of movie that young people would have a blast watching at a sleepover.
Episode: #1109 (July 26, 2026)