The Music Box Theatre in Chicago has announced that they’re partnering with the Japanese Arts Foundation to throw Godzilla a birthday party June 7-13, and you’re invited!

The Music Box Theatre previews, “Come celebrate 70 years of everyone’s favorite kaiju with film screenings, special guests, a 24-hour Showa-era marathon, and more!”

Events that have been announced so far include…

Friday, 6/7 – Opening Night!

SHIN GODZILLA and GODZILLA MINUS ONE Double Feature with a panel discussion, Godzilla, the Atomic Age Anti-hero, led by Saira Chambers, Japanese Culture Center/Japanese Arts Foundation, Dr Yuki Miyamoto, DePaul Humanities Center, and more experts in the field TBA.

Saturday, 6/8

A complete 24-hour marathon of all 15 Showa Era-Godzilla Movies with vendors, food, and more! Marathon pass must be purchased separately from Series pass.

Sunday, 6/9

A rare I.B. Technicolor 35mm print screening of GODZILLA (1998).

Other Events

Screenings of GODZILLA (1954) and THE RETURN OF GODZILLA (1984) with film historian David Kalat, author of A Critical History and Filmography of Toho’s Godzilla.

A screening of GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE with shorts by Cressa Maeve Áine.

Special preshows and more!

You can learn more and get programming updates on Music Box’s official website.

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The Bloody Disgusting Selects zombie period piece Exit Humanity has taken a bite out of SCREAMBOX.

Hailed as “not a movie, but a piece of cinema” by Fangoria, it features genre legends Dee Wallace (Cujo), Bill Moseley (The Devil’s Rejects), and Stephen McHattie (Watchmen, Pontypool).

The film portrays a young man’s struggle to survive in the aftermath of an undead outbreak during the American Civil War. Heavily inspired by classic films such as Jeremiah Johnson and The Outlaw Josey Wales, Exit Humanity is a poetic tale told through the journal entries of its protagonist Edward Young.

The Canadian feature blends live-action and animation to explore deeper themes of fear, hope, redemption, and evil.

Starring horror icons Bill Moseley (Devil’s Rejects, House of 1000 Corpses), Dee Wallace (E.T., Cujo), Stephen McHattie (Pontypool, The Watchmen, 300), and new horror hero Mark Gibson, Exit Humanity is a zombie saga that tells the tale of the ultimate battle of good vs. evil. Brian Cox provides narration.

Official Synopsis:  “How does a man deal with the loss of everything meaningful in his life, and the loss of mankind’s humanity amongst chaos and despair? Set in 1870’s Tennessee, Exit Humanity is the legend of Edward Young’s horrific and dramatic journey through an unexplainable outbreak of the walking dead to lay to rest the most important thing in his life, his son’s ashes. The bleak post-Civil War era backdrop highlights the severe divide that the United States was facing, and the true loss of hope that so many felt during this period in history.”

Start screaming now with SCREAMBOX on iOS, Android, Apple TV, Prime Video, Roku, YouTube TV, Samsung, Comcast, Cox, and Screambox.com.

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The classic horror franchise returns to the big screen in The First Omen, an upcoming prequel to the original horror classic that’s headed to theaters in less than one month.

Nell Tiger Free (“Servant”) stars in The First Omen, which 20th Century Studios will unleash on April 5. Check out a new poster below, courtesy of Creepy Duck Design.

In the film, “When a young American woman is sent to Rome to begin a life of service to the church, she encounters a darkness that causes her to question her own faith and uncovers a terrifying conspiracy that hopes to bring about the birth of evil incarnate.”

Tawfeek Barhom (“Mary Magdalene”), Sonia Braga (“Kiss of the Spider Woman”), Ralph Ineson (The Witch, Onyx the Fortuitous), and Bill Nighy (“Living”) also star.

The new movie is directed by Arkasha Stevenson, based on characters created by David Seltzer (“The Omen”), with a story by Ben Jacoby (“Bleed”) and a screenplay by Tim Smith & Arkasha Stevenson and Keith Thomas (Firestarter).

The producers are David S. Goyer (Hellraiser) and Keith Levine (The Night House) and the executive producers are Tim Smith, Whitney Brown (“Rosaline”), and Gracie Wheelan.

The original 1976 classic, which starred Gregory Peck, Lee Remick and Harvey Stephens, followed an American ambassador who believes his five-year-old son is the Antichrist.

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Many of us were excited about the prospect of The New Mutants a few years ago. The sales pitch of an “X-Men horror movie” sounded like a match made in heaven. As often happens, the film that was released was far more of a pillow fight than the cage match I’d hoped for.

But as we excitedly embrace the kid in us with the release of X-Men ’97 on Disney+, I couldn’t help but imagine a more adult side of that universe. What if the X-Men franchise embraced the opportunity to lean into the horror genre? I’m talking about the body horror of its mutants, the cruelness of its villains, and the potential for superhumanly violent finishers that would make Mortal Kombat blush. With all that in mind, I took a look through the original X-Men films on a horror scavenger hunt and found some pretty cool trinkets along the way.

The body horror of the X-Men films is the thing that stands out the most. We’ve watched Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) be impaled with multiple needles in his face and body, pumping him full of boiling adamantium. We saw a young Archangel (Ben Foster) hiding from his father in the bathroom while he dismembered himself, attempting to cut the wings off his own back while feathers and blood flew around him. Even the simpler moments like Wolverine explaining to Rogue (Anna Paquin) that it hurts “every time” his claws rip out of his skin will give you the willies if you think about it. The guy pulls out the claws like every twelve minutes. Imagine three huge knives ripping out of your skin every time someone talked in a theater or cut you off the interstate!

The best example of the type of body horror the X-Men horror universe could potentially provide comes along with Senator Kelly (Bruce Davison) in the first X-Men film in 2000. The ever-petty Magneto (Ian McKellen) decides that the best recourse for the Senator whose biggest fear is mutants is to turn him into one himself. He uses some kind of superhero Easy Bake Oven to turn the Senator into a mutant whose body turns into a gelatinous-type matter. This doesn’t seem all that bad as the Senator can goop his way through the jail bars and escape, but after he takes a tumble into a body of water and is forced to do the walk of shame out of the ocean, his body eventually flubbers into a state of shock and bursts into nothingness all over the X-Mansion floor. The scene is all at once shocking, cool, and gross. Like any good horror movie.

There are many more body horror examples such as Stryker (Brian Cox) sewing Deadpool’s mouth shut and giving him arm swords but for the sake of Ryan Reynolds and his feelings, we don’t have to talk about that. We watched Wolverine alone go through absolute Hell across multiple timelines. From being literally cooked by a nuclear bomb to ripping open his own chest and pulling a parasite out of his heart. He also had to deal with Cyclops. And we’re not even touching the Deadpool films and all the “Mother, are you there? It’s me Margaret” moments of body dismemberment. There are countless examples of body horror that the franchise has done so well already. Then there’s the kills…..

Again, Wolverine throughout the franchise and its spinoffs probably takes the lion’s share here with some amazing slicing and dicing. Specifically in Logan, where we get a taste of just how many different ways people can be mauled in the face berserker style. And it’s impossible to forget the brutal death that Wolverine suffered at the hands of X24, ultimately being impaled. This was a violent scene both physically and emotionally but we can’t get into that because the X-Men franchise is stuffed full of emotional horrors and we’d be here all day.

Some of the most creative kills come from the different iterations of Magneto. In X-Men: First Class, Magneto (Michael Fassbender) uses his powers to get revenge on Shaw (Kevin Bacon) by slowly and I mean SLOWLY forcing a large coin through his skull and through the back of his brain. That’s something we’ll never see Michael Myers or one of those Conjuring entities do. In X2, another Magneto uses the iron in a shitty security guard’s blood to levitate him off the ground and with the turn of his hand rip the blood from his chest. Also, in X-Men: First Class, the demonic-looking Azazel (Jason Flemyng) picks up his victims and flies them into the sky, smiling at them in the moonlight and dropping them to their deaths. In X-Men Apocalypse, Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) beheads three folks in an instant before pushing one inside of a literal wall. I’m not a physicist but…ouch.

There are some pretty freaky moments in the X-Men franchise as well. One particular moment that has always stood out in my mind is Professor Xavier’s (Patrick Stewart) death sequence in X-Men: The Last Stand. Magneto and Professor X make the mistake of visiting Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) while she’s in her goth phase and unable to control her powers. From the moment they walk in the door the items on the wall and furniture start shaking like we’re in the old-school Blumhouse intro. As she loses control her entire aura starts to darken in a pretty haunting way.

Knowing what’s about to come, Professor X turns to Logan (who is using his adamantium claws to hold on to the wall with all his might from the force of Jean’s powers) and slowly smiles the creepiest smile that ever smiled. Then he’s shockingly ripped apart and into the ether. Gone. Most wouldn’t consider this a pure horror scene. I understand. But there are elements in Jean’s appearance and the situation. Not only does having your skin ripped off by a telepath count as horror in my book but to have such an important and empathetic character die so suddenly and horrendously just felt mean in a way that’s usually reserved for horror. This moment was even more shocking and horrific for me than the peanut allergy kid from Hereditary!

While there are many more examples to choose from in the X-Men franchise (and again New Mutants was some type of horror ultra-light gateway something all in itself), these are the ones that most speak to me as tiny examples of the many horrors that exist in the X-Men universe. And we haven’t even mentioned the awful things the villains of the universe the great Stan Lee created can do. Forget the world beaters like Onslaught and Apocalypse. On a smaller horror scale, imagine Sabretooth in the hands of a gore enthusiast. Or how frightening Mr. Sinister would look in the right makeup, costume, and lighting. There’s even a villain from the comics called Shadow King who literally exists on the astral plane and takes control of peoples’ minds. The opportunities are endless! But for now, we’ll just have to settle for these and the many other horror examples from the X-Men film universe.

Who knows, maybe superhero fatigue will set in so deeply that Marvel will set its sights on horror in the future a little more than they have in the past. Sam Raimi’s take on Doctor Strange was great….but I’m talking about really leaning in. It could happen and I’m here for it!

The post Mutants, Monsters and Mayhem: Looking at the Body Horrors of the ‘X-Men’ Films appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Robert Englund steps into the director’s chair with ‘976-Evil,’ a dark dive into Satanism and demonology where a bullied outcast uses an occult hotline to bite back.

“Out of the darkness and into light, comes your horrorscope on this dark and stormy night.”

Robert Englund is a name who needs no introduction in the horror community. He’s played Freddy Krueger in eight A Nightmare on Elm Street movies and has brought life to one of the horror genre’s greatest icons. Englund’s incomparable work as Krueger would be enough to forever make him a celebrity, but he’s had a rich horror career that’s included multiple roles in Tobe Hooper films and, more recently, his standout performance as Victor Creel in the streaming phenomenon, Stranger Things. Englund will always be Freddy Krueger, but it’s curious to consider how his career would have been different if he instead transitioned into a horror director legend. 976-Evil was Englund’s attempt at such a shift and the campy cult classic turns 35 this week.

976-Evil is a gleefully retro tale of revenge that follows two cousins, Hoax (Stephen Geoffreys, who was also Evil Ed in Fright Night) and Spike (Patrick O’Bryan), who are stuck with their religious zealot caretaker who rules over them with an iron fist while they wait out their inheritance. Hoax thinks that he finds a shortcut to popularity and peace of mind when he discovers a malevolent premium pay hotline that begins as an amusing distraction, but turns out to be a literal connection to hell. It’s basically, “What if Freddy Krueger ran a premium paranormal hotline?” (not to be confused with the actual Freddy Krueger pay-per-call hotline that was in operation, mind you). It’s a simple enough premise that works and facilitates a fury of chaotic, creative kills.

976-Evil comfortably fits into the subgenre of horror films where low-status victims of bullying get revenge through supernatural circumstances and the murky moral territory that ensues. It’s very much cut from the same cloth as Evilspeak, Carrie, Slaughter High, Jennifer’s Body and more recent horror films like Friend Request and The Final. 976-Evil bears the closest resemblance to 1981’s Evilspeak and the two make a great ’80s double feature together. 976-Evil assembles commendable talent, but it’s far from this subgenre’s apex.

Robert Englund is a classically trained actor and his talents are best-suited in front of the camera, rather than behind. He still proves that he’s got some skills and creative juice here with his feature directorial debut. It’s curious that Englund never went on to direct one of the final Elm Street movies, for that matter. 976-Evil could have been an interesting prelude to such an experiment, which wouldn’t have necessarily been awful. Renny Harlin, Stephen Hopkins, and Rachel Talalay all bring some unique ideas to the table, but Englund demonstrates here that he wouldn’t have been a disaster behind the camera.

976-Evil is rich in dynamic lighting, striking color composition, and inventive cinematography that speaks to Englund’s eye for visuals, but also cinematographer Paul Elliott’s skills. Elliott was previously the director of photography on Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, and his skills are just as pronounced here. He’s often 976-Evil’s MVP. 976-Evil’s cinematography and lighting are genuinely great in many scenes, like when Hoax interrupts the poker game. It helps elevate a lot of moments that would otherwise be forgettable.

The following attack in the bathroom is also easily the movie’s most dynamic scene. It succeeds in creating real tension and there’s an artistry to the camera work that demonstrates a real voice that’s interested in more than just cheap kills. It’s even a kill that methodically cuts away from the violence and doesn’t actually show anything for budgetary reasons, yet it still stands out as the movie’s most effective scene.

Visuals aside, 976-Evil is co-written by Brian Helgeland, a truly legendary screenwriter who’s responsible for films like A Knight’s Tale, Mystic River, and L.A. Confidential, the latter of which won him an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. 976-Evil is Helgeland’s first professional screenplay and what introduced him to Englund, who would go on to recommend him as the writer for A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, his second professional writing credit. This is all a testament to Helgeland’s skills at the craft of heightened horror-fantasy storytelling. 976-Evil is definitely shaggy and trope-filled, but it still leaves its mark as a debut screenplay. It’s unfortunate that Helgeland didn’t stick with the Elm Street series and script the fifth and sixth entries. These sequels could have had a more unifying vision if they functioned as a pseudo trilogy of sorts that closed out the franchise.

It’s also worth pointing out that Helgeland’s co-writer on 976-Evil, Rhet Topham, was also a writer on Freddy’s Nightmares, including the series premiere that revolves around Freddy Krueger’s child murder trial and prominently features Englund. Topham also wrote “Cabin Fever,” one of the few episodes where Englund served as director. It’s interesting that Englund turned to and trusted two writers who had put their stamp on the Nightmare on Elm Street series to pen his directorial feature film debut.

976-Evil thrives when it comes to the blissful ’80s nostalgia that it conjures through the clothing, slang, and general behavior of its characters. All this makes the movie a deeply soothing rewatch 35 years later, even if it’s imperfect shlock. Set design is filled with graphic, sprawling, multi-colored graffiti that’s beautifully evocative of the “troubled youth” of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Perfunctory shots of a car are presented as evil and creepy. They totally channel Christine and reiterate the movie’s inescapable campy energy.

Even the whole 1-900 hotline premise is so inherently steeped in the ’80s and ’90s and gives the film a certain retro charm. It’s something that modern viewers may be completely lost on and it’s a movie that simply couldn’t be made today. It’s been replaced by Internet and app-driven techno-demon fare like Unfriended, Friend Request, or even teen Blumhouse fare like Wish Upon and Truth or Dare, the latter of which are by no means good, but cultivate the same aura. 976-Evil definitely feels like a retro progenitor to these modern supernatural revenge stories where disenfranchised underdogs find ways to fight back. For instance, the date between Hoax and Suzie (Lezlie Deane) where they’re telling jokes, eating pizza, and listening to the jukebox is genuinely sweet and quickly establishes a real relationship between them that treats them like real people. It’s just a shame that people are most likely watching this for scares, not swoons

Unfortunately, 976-Evil takes far too long to get to its central premise and kills. It’s more than half-way through the movie that Hoax turns to the titular horrorscope hotline and starts enacting vengeance in those who have wronged him. The film should start with a tease of this service, and an early death, to set the scene and showcase what lies ahead so there’s a greater sense of tension over the bullying and if Hoax will let his emotions get the better of him and turn to this fatal service. It’s a quick change that would go a long way and help audiences look past the slower pacing and lack of scares that fill up most of the film (Curiously, this is the approach that 976-Evil II: The Astral Factor takes, seemingly having learned from the original’s flaws).

The same is true for the FBI agent component where he begins to investigate these crimes, which happens nearly an hour into the movie. It’s definitely a perfunctory element of the genre, but it’s something that could definitely be dropped to little consequence, or enter the picture much earlier so there’s a greater threat that looms over the characters beyond generic bullies. What does work here is everyone’s suspicion of Spike over these crimes, rather than cluing into his meeker cousin Hoax’s complicity. 976-Evil could have even kept things a little more ambiguous so that the audience is torn over who’s to blame and Hoax’s reveal hits harder and comes as a surprise.

On that note, the film would benefit from a greater understanding of what’s actually going on with the 976-Evil service and what the risks are behind its employment. Do the individuals lose their souls? Become slaves to Satan?  Or some other macabre monkey’s paw-esque cruel twist of fate? Any of these angles would be effective. A prologue that seeds these elements through a random horrorscope user who succumbs to this darkness would once again clear these things up and strengthen the film’s storytelling. It’s not a great sign when Wishmaster does a better job at defining its rules, stakes, and underlying evil.

There’s a great concept at the core of this film, but for the majority of 976-Evil it seems like it’s ashamed to embrace it and go all out, which is exactly what this movie needs. Subtlety is not a friend to 976-Evil. Hoax basically becomes a Freddy Krueger clone by the end of the movie with his disfigured face, claw-like hand, and constant quippy one-liners. It doesn’t exactly feel inspired to see Englund cultivate such a generic Freddy copycat.

That being said, 976-Evil has some memorable death scenes, even if its tarantula kill is wildly undercooked and takes out the most interesting character too early. There’s an electrocution that is well-executed. Another victim gets eaten by cats, which is much better and more in line with the tone and timbre that the movie should be striving towards. Englund got the cats to be so compliant here by stuffing the corpse dummy with tuna salad, which is actually a clever and creative idea. Regardless of the above, there just aren’t enough deaths to go around in 976-Evil. The final act, which literally descends to hell, proves to be an effective way to conclude the messy movie.

976-Evil has its share of shortcomings. However, there’s an extended cut of the film, which was released to home video, that features an extra thirteen minutes of footage that was not in the theatrical release. These are mostly changes that provide greater character development and motivation, rather than gore and kills. It’s easy to see why these scenes were removed for pacing purposes. They’re not essential, nor do they really change the movie. It’s unlikely that someone who doesn’t like the theatrical cut of 976-Evil will suddenly be swayed by seeing this longer version. It’s not even necessarily a “better” movie, but it does have more fleshed out characters.

976-Evil wasn’t a smash hit and didn’t get anywhere near A Nightmare on Elm Street’s success. That being said, it still left enough of an impression on audiences to receive a direct-to-video sequel, albeit not with Robert Englund. 976-Evil II: The Astral Factor instead has Jim Wynorski in the director’s chair. Wynorski is a man who got into cinema “for the money and the chicks” and once famously claimed that “breasts are the cheapest special effect in the business.” Wynorski had a hand in over 100 movies, most of which are direct-to-video, with Chopping Mall, Sorceress, The Turn of the Swamp Thing, and Ghoulies IV being among his most notable efforts. He also worked on many Roger Corman efforts, children’s movies like Munchie and Munchie Strikes Back, as well as plenty of horror-centric adult movie parodies like Cleavagefield, The Bare Wench Project, and Para-Knockers Activity. In 976-Evil II, Spike returns, this time to battle a serial killer college professor who uses astral projection and the 976 horrorscope hotline to kill his students. Somehow, it’s not any worse than its predecessor.

976-Evil is a dated horror film that’s largely slipped through the cracks and failed to leave much of a footprint on the genre, yet this all makes it an even more fascinating ’80s relic. It’s better that Englund takes a big swing here, even if he doesn’t hit a grand slam. It’s a worthy experiment, albeit one that doesn’t fully tune out the dissonance of its dial tone. 976-Evil didn’t build an illustrious directorial career for Englund (and the less said about 2008’s Killer Pad, the better) and he would ultimately head back to the Elm Street series. There are far worse fates than forever being known as Freddy Krueger. 35 years later, 976-Evil remains a fascinating collect call that’s worth accepting the charges from.

The post 35 Years Later, Robert Englund’s ‘976-Evil’ Dials Back to a Bygone Era appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The casting behind Bad Robot’s mysterious new film, helmed by David Robert Mitchell (It Follows), continues. Cocaine Bear and “Sweet Tooth” star Christian Convery has joined the lead cast, per Variety.

The news comes hot on the heels of Maisy Stella joining previously announced cast members  Ewan McGregor (Doctor Sleep) and Anne Hathaway (Colossal).

Plot details remain tightly guarded since the project was announced, but the movie is categorized as a thriller. Considering Bad Robot is behind the Cloverfield films, Overlord, Super 8, and more, it feels safe to presume the untitled project will be a genre thriller of some sort.

The latest casting details brings news that Christian Convery and Maisy Stella will play the children of Ewan McGregor and Anne Hathaway. In other words, it’s clear that it’ll be a family affair.

David Robert Mitchell will direct from his original script and will produce alongside J.J. Abrams and Hannah Minghella for Bad Robot and Matt Jackson of Jackson Pictures. Jake Weiner and Chris Bender of Good Fear Content will serve as executive producers. Sheila Walcott and Zach Hamby will oversee for the Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group.

The untitled film will be shot in IMAX and is expected to head into production this year.

Add this Bad Robot production to the list of things to get excited about. David Robert Mitchell  is also returning to the world of It Follows with the upcoming They Follow, which will bring Maika Monroe back as Jay Height.

As for Christian Convery, we can expect to see him soon in the upcoming final season of “Sweet Tooth,” as well as Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein.

Stay tuned for more on about this untitled new film from Bad Robot and David Robert Mitchel as we learn it.

For even more horror news and releases, keep up with The Bloody Disgusting Podcast, a weekly horror movie discussion podcast that breaks down the current trending news in the genre, gives a rundown of recent new releases on streaming and VOD, and even offers a listener line where fans can weigh in on the weekly topics. All in a short 60-minute or less episode format, meaning you can get horror’s highlights delivered right to your ears without much time commitment. Think of it as your easily digestible weekly roundup of all things horror.

Catch new episodes every Wednesday on your favorite podcast apps.

The post Christian Convery Rounds Out Lead Cast for ‘It Follows’ Director’s Mysterious Bad Robot Thriller appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.