New Releases: 'Side Effects,' 'Beautiful Creatures' and more

Universal, $29.98; Blu-ray, $34.98

Available on VOD beginning Tuesday

Director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns don't really try to reinvent the psychological thriller with their film. Structurally, it's a conventionally twisty mystery, with Jude Law playing a psychiatrist who goes into investigative mode when one of his patients (Rooney Mara) commits a heinous crime. But Soderbergh and Burns do strike an appealingly low-key tone here, not even tipping their hands that the movie is a genre piece until the second half. They're more interested in the culture of pills and palliatives that Law inhabits, and how it's convinced everyone doctors and patients and loved ones alike that the right combination of medicine and therapies can fix anything. It's a pointed film but no less entertaining for the dose of social commentary. The DVD and Blu-ray tack on a tongue-in-cheek three-minute featurette, and several fake pharmaceutical commercials.

Beautiful Creatures

Warner Bros., $28.98; Blu-ray, $35.99

Available on VOD beginning Tuesday

FULL COVERAGE: Summer sneaks

Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl's young-adult fantasy bestseller is about a small-town South Carolina teen who has a crush on the new girl in school, who turns out to be a practicing magician with an evil side. Writer-director Richard LaGravenese adapts the book the first of Garcia and Stohl's "Caster Chronicles" with Alice Englert as the young witch and Alden Ehrenreich as the boy who's more connected to her history than he initially realizes. LaGravenese is an old pro who knows how to put a movie together, but he can't keep "Beautiful Creatures" from feeling soft and slow. Like "Twilight," this comes across as gothic horror romance with training wheels. The DVD and Blu-ray add deleted scenes and featurettes.

The Last Stand

Lionsgate, $29.95; Blu-ray, $39.99

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New Releases: 'Side Effects,' 'Beautiful Creatures' and more