The Last Kiss is a bubblegum slasher with a ton of great performances
The Last Kiss is definitely what I would call a bubblegum horror movie. Think Happy Death Day, think Lisa Frankenstein, think Forbidden Fruits. There’s obviously a lot of traditional horror elements going on, but the approach is lighter and frothier — it’s more comedic, it’s more tongue in cheek, there’s more playfulness to everything. You’ve still got plenty of blood and ample stabbings, but the overall attitude is different. It’s brighter, it’s lusher, it’s more aesthetically pleasing — I mean, just because a movie is filled with death and destruction and decapitations doesn’t mean it can’t look pretty, too.
The Last Kiss is a movie that doesn’t exactly tread new territory. It’s a film about a young woman who goes through a traumatic episode — in this case, a bridge collapse — and realizes that through some sort of weird near-death magic, she can now envision other people’s deaths every time she locks lips with them. So basically, it’s The Dead Zone wearing a LOT of chapstick.
That little twist, though, does make The Last Kiss pretty interesting in a procedural sense. After all, it’s kind of hard to think of a valid reason for a character to swap spit with a perfect stranger, no matter their nobler intentions. This leads to some pretty amusing moments where our heroine has to get creative with her first base prophesies — including a scene where she makes out with virtually everybody at a party, like she was Catie from 90 Day Fiancé or something.
By the way, our heroine is played by McKenna Grace, who apparently made a deal to star in literally everything being made by Hollywood these days. She’s downright terrific in this film and I think a lot of its overall success can be attributed to her performance. She’s batty and committed and relatable and a little ditzy — and you can’t help but admire her resolve, even it means risking mononucleosis for the greater good. There’s one scene in particular where she has to play spin the bottle with a goth dude with Doritos breath; not only is it totally nauseating, it’s actually a little brilliant how everything is framed.
The Last Kiss comes to us from director Yoko Okumura, who previously helmed 2023’s Unseen. Obviously, The Last Kiss is a different kind of horror movie with a totally different vibe. But Yoko’s thumbprints are all over the film. She has a very distinct style and she’s able to take some fairly mundane slasher elements and make them feel fresh again. The cinematography work from Michael Fimognari also deserves mention for making The Last Kiss stand out from its contemporaries. It’s a lovely looking movie with a lot of pastels, but it never really loses that sense of visual dread and danger, either. The scene in the greenhouse — no spoilers, I promise — is a great example of how he can make a sequence feel warm and vibrant and spooky and imposing at the same time.
The supporting cast is pretty good, too. Akira Chantaratananond steals the movie as the true blue best pal Poppy and Ash Lee really chews the scenery as the prerequisite jerk-ass principal who just doesn’t understand today’s youth. For a modern day, big studio slasher it is a surprisingly solid ensemble cast here. Really, there are no weak links at all, which is pretty rare for a movie of its genre and ilk.
It’s an odd horror movie in the sense that some of the best parts of the film aren’t really horror-coded at all. McKenna’s detective work is probably the highlight of the movie for me; watching her scramble madly to literally pinpoint (and un-pinpoint) potential victims and the would-be psycho killer is just fabulous stuff, replete with a couple of excellent montages. Of course, for a movie like this to work you have to dump in a ton of red herrings, and yeah, the movie does have a tendency to drag during these moments. You kind of know whether or not a character is truly capable of being the future serial murderer as soon as you see them and there are a LOT of knotty plot points making it a strangely complicated story to follow. You see, McKenna is actually capable of changing people’s mortal trajectories after finding out their initial cause of death, so the culprits and dead meat actually fluctuate over the course of the movie. It makes a somewhat predictable slasher story a bit more thought-provoking, but at the expense of the film’s overall momentum. The Last Kiss is great when it’s a high school rom-com with some supernatural horror overtones, but it’s just kinda’ OK as a mystery thriller.
The Last Kiss isn’t without a few issues but the movie is generally pretty fun. It’s not exactly the most terrifying movie of 2026, but you can’t help but enjoy the ride all the same. Maybe it’s not destined to be an all-time classic, but it’s not a bad way to spend a weekday evening, either. Some viewers will like it more than others, but I have a hard time imagining any bona fide slasher fan outright hating this one.
GIVE IT A WATCH IF YOU LIKE: Freaky, Bodies Bodies Bodies, up close shots of people smooching a whole lot
DIRECTOR: Yoko Okumura
WRITER(s): Yoko Okumura, Krystal Houghton Ziv, Alon Ziv
STARRING: McKenna Grace, Arkira Chantaratanannond, Ash Lee, Jaden Michael
STUDIO: Blumhouse Productions/Man In A Tree
DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
RUNTIME: 97 minutes
LANGUAGE: English
RELEASE DATE: September 15, 2026 (VOD)
