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Moviegoers escaping April showers could do worse than taking refuge in movie theaters next month. Sure, the big screen has A Minecraft Movie and an Amateur to contend with, but Ryan Coogler’s Sinners and the latest from David Cronenberg finally bow. Our April film preview also covers the directorial debut from Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard and, oddly late for tax season, a sequel to The Accountant.

Hell Of A Summer (April 4)

After a decade of Stranger Things and a couple of Ghostbusters, Finn Wolfhard is jumping behind the camera (and in front of it), co-directing this loosey-goosey slasher parody with a hell of a title. Starring Wolfhard, Reservation Dogs‘ D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, and Fred Hechinger (the latter fulfilling an apparent court order to be in every movie), Summer takes the Friday The 13th set-up of camp counselors arriving a week early for some unsupervised debauchery, only to discover a stab-happy killer picking them off one by one. 

A Minecraft Movie (April 4)

How did they ever make a movie of Minecraft? For the last 15 years, this plotless, blocky digital Lego game has been preparing children for the mines. And with child labor back on the table, it’s the perfect time for Minecraft to graduate from classroom disruption to major motion picture starring Jack Black and Jason Momoa. It worked for Lego, and hopefully this movie will follow The Lego Movie‘s lead by examining what it’s like to actually play Minecraft. Maybe there’s more to A Minecraft Movie than meets the eye. Or maybe it’s as janky-looking as its source material.

The Luckiest Man In America (April 4)

It’s hard to turn down a movie where Walton Goggins plays a game show host—talk about the luckiest studio audience in America. Paul Walter Hauser stars as the titular luckiest man, an ice cream truck driver who became the 1980s’ winningest game show contestant by hacking Press Your Luck. Based on a true story, Luckiest Man In America is hardly pressing its luck with this cast, which includes Shamier Anderson, Patti Harrison, David Strathairn, Maisie Williams, and Johnny Knoxville.

Eric LaRue (April 4)

The directorial debut from Michael Shannon, Eric LaRue is something of a We Have To Talk About Eric. Based on the Brett Neveu play inspired by the Columbine massacre, Shannon’s film explores what it’s like to be the parent of a school shooter. Judy Greer, in an all-too-rare lead performance, plays the mother of Eric LaRue, a teen killer currently serving time in prison. Alexander Skarsgård co-stars as her husband, hoping to support her through his Christian faith as she retreats inward while meeting with the bereaved parents of her son’s victims.

Freaky Tales (April 4)

For their first movie since Captain Marvel, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck offer an anthology of four, uh, freaky tales set in Oakland, California, circa 1987. Led by Pedro Pascal, the movie plays off the era’s most popular genres, including horror and heist, with a distinct throwback look and atmosphere, drawing inspiration from the usual suspects: Carpenter, Cameron, Verhoeven, and Zemeckis. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a gamble—anthologies are tricky and ’80s pastiche isn’t exactly reinventing the wheel.

The Amateur (April 11)

Rami Malek gets back to co*puter hacking in The Amateur, playing a CIA cryptographer on a John Wick-ian vengeance quest against the bastard terrorists who killed his wife. The plot may sound cliched, but Amateur boasts a solid cast, including Julianne Nicholson, Jon Bernthal, Rachel Brosnahan, Laurence Fishburne, and Holt McCallany, the latter playing a stuffed shirt from the Agency. co*e for Malek’s convoluted Saw-esque traps, stay for McCallany in shirtsleeves telling Malek to “let this one go.”

Drop (April 11)

Happy Death Day 2U director Christopher Landon drops in with another high-concept horror movie, Drop. Violet (Meghann Fahy) is a single mother finally getting a night out to reenter the dating scene. Unfortunately, her first date with what looks like a really great guy is interrupted by a sadistic troll AirDropping her memes that are anything but dank, unsolicited dating advice, and videos of a masked figure breaking into her house. If she wants her kid and babysitter to survive the night, she’ll have to do everything the AirDropper says, such as murdering her date, who, again, looks like a really great guy.

Warfare (April 11)

Warfare reteams Civil War director Alex Garland and the film’s military supervisor Ray Mendoza, who co-directs a story about Mendoza’s time with the Navy SEALs in Iraq. Told in real time, Warfare has assembled a battalion of up-and-co*ing actors—including D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Kit Connor, Michael Gandolfini, Adain Bradley, Noah Centineo, Joseph Quinn, and Charles Melton—for a boots-on-the-ground co*panion piece to Civil War. Fred Hechinger’s team dropped the ball on this one.

Sacramento (April 11)

It’s been too long since Michael Cera has been in full-on frightened-of-life mode. Sacramento offers some respite via a buddy co*edy about a mentally unwell man, Rickey (director and co-writer Michael Angarano), bursting back into his estranged best friend Glenn’s (Cera) life, taking him on a road trip to self-discovery before Glenn’s first baby arrives. With a cast that includes Maya Erskine and Kristin Stewart, Sacramento looks like an even sweeter riff on A Real Pain.

Sinners (April 18)

Another unfortunate victim of Warner Bros.’ endless release date shuffling, Sinners finally reunites Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan after teasing filmgoers with a March date that never came to pass. Together, the pair leave Wakanda for a Jim Crow-era horror movie in which Jordan pulls double duty as twin brothers fighting a horde of possessed, blood-sucking villagers. The movie’s plot is still pretty under wraps beyond that premise, but it was filmed by Coogler’s Wakanda Forever cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw with IMAX cameras using 70mm. The trailers may be light on story, but Sinners looks gorgeous and terrifying.

The Ugly Stepsister (April 18)

One of the most discussed movies of the early festival season, Emile Blichfeldt’s The Ugly Stepsister boasts “severed extremities and anesthetic-free nosejobs,” according to Jacob Oller’s Sundance review. Blichfeldt’s Cinderella riff tells of Elvira (Lea Myren), a girl co*peting for Prince Charming’s hand with her much more attractive stepsister (Thea Sofie Loch Næss). To pull a phrase from another fairy tale, Elvira will be the fairest one of all—no matter the cost.

The Shrouds (April 25)

Nearly a year after its Cannes premiere, director David Cronenberg allows us to wear The Shrouds. The director’s latest stars Vincent Cassel as Karsh, the widower inventor of GraveTech, a camera system that gives mourners access to a video feed inside the deceased’s coffin. However, following the desecration of his wife’s grave, Karsh goes looking for the perpetrators, and that’s when things, as the trailer puts it, start to get weird.

The Accountant 2 (April 25)

He’s back for another audit. The Accountant 2 arrives nearly a decade after Gavin O’Connor’s original action thriller. Once again, Ben Affleck will adjust his glasses and pick up his semi-automatic sniper rifle as Christian Wolff, the assassin CPA with autism. No longer content with laundering money to deadly results, Wolff gets help from his loose-cannon brother Brax (Jon Bernthal) to figure out which assassins killed whoever J. K. Simmons played in the first movie.

Until Dawn (April 25)

Based on the 2015 PlayStation game, Until Dawn tweaks its source material’s choice-dependent gimmick into a time loop, helping it stand out in a wide field of horror movies. Though the trailer doesn’t do it much favors, Until Dawn has a fun conceit: Every time a character dies, they end up in the same spot with a new monster trying to kill them. With Shazam! Fury Of The Gods now behind him, director David F. Sandberg can hopefully get back to over-delivering on seemingly bad ideas, as was the case on the first Shazam! and the underrated prequel Anabelle: Creation.

More April premieres:

April 2

Screamboat

April 4

Gazer

April 10

G20

April 11

One To One: John & Yoko

Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can’t Sing

April 17

Neil Young: Coastal

April 25

The Legend Of Ochi

On Swift Horses