Viewers have unexpectedly turned this 2024 Melissa Barrera-headlined romantic horror-comedy oddity into a streaming success on Max.
January 2025
Josh Stewart (The Collector) plays a suicide hotline operator who receives a call from someone claiming to be him in Lifeline.
The thriller will be released in select theaters and on Digital on February 21 from Dark Sky Films.
Judah Lewis (The Babysitter) co-stars alongside Craig Stark (The Hateful Eight), Charlene Amoia (The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It), Luke Benward (Dumplin’), August Maturo (The Nun), and Brecken Merrill (“Yellowstone”).
A late-night suicide hotline operator receives a disturbing call from someone claiming to be him, knowing personal details only he would know. The caller threatens to end his life within the hour, forcing the operator into a tense, emotional race against time. As the clock ticks down, he must confront his deepest fears and uncover the truth before it’s too late to save “himself.”
Feras Alfuqaha makes his directorial debut from a script by Brady Morell and Brian Price. Leal Naim (The Endless) produces.
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Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man features yet another superhero origin story, but this show is also very aware that you already know Peter Parker’s story.
Today is Damien Leone‘s birthday, but the Terrifier creator is celebrating with a present for fans.
“The script for Terrifier 4 is under way and it is shaping up to be the most epic, horrifying, thrilling, emotional and satisfying conclusion to the Terrifier saga,” he writes on Instagram. “I’ve personally never been so excited to see one of my own scripts translate to the screen like this one.”
He adds, “I will finally reveal Art’s origin in this entry.”
David Howard Thornton and Lauren LaVera are expected to return as iconic villain Art the Clown and final girl Sienna Shaw, respectively.
Leone launched Terrifier in 2016, followed by Terrifier 2 in 2022. Terrifier 3 opened at #1 at the box office last October, becoming the highest grossing unrated film of all time.
The latest installment in the slasher saga now available on Digital and physical media. It will stream on SCREAMBOX on February 14.
Go behind the scenes with Leone in documentary Art Attack! The Dissection of Terrifier 3, coming to SCREAMBOX on March 14.
The post ‘Terrifier 4’ Will Reveal Art the Clown’s Origin in “Emotional and Satisfying Conclusion” to the Saga appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Many of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man’s seemingly inconspicuous supporting characters are based on Marvel heroes and villains. Let’s run through them.
Director Dylan Southern’s melancholic dark fantasy drama, The Thing with Feathers, doesn’t exactly set out to scare, but it is cut from the same cloth as The Babadook and similar grief metaphor horror movies. The adaptation of Max Porter’s acclaimed novel Grief is the Thing with Feathers stars Benedict Cumberbatch as a newly widowed father so lost in his overwhelming grief that it manifests in the form of a monstrous, talking Crow voiced by David Thewlis. Despite the effectiveness of Crow’s acerbic nature and creature design, this grief metaphor languishes too long in its suffocating sorrow.
The story introduces Cumberbatch’s grief-stricken cartoonist, credited simply as “Dad,” just after he’s buried his wife, who died suddenly and unexpectedly. Her absence leaves an unfillable hole in the family’s life and disrupts their routine to a catastrophic degree. Adjusting to single fatherdom, raising two interchangeably rambunctious young sons presents a slew of painful and frustrating struggles that only exacerbate Dad’s grief. When time refuses to heal any of Dad’s wounds, haunting visions of a crow suddenly become more imposing and sinister. Soon, Dad begins to pour himself into his work and disassociates as the menacing Crow plagues the home and threatens to destroy a family that’s barely hanging on by a thread.
There’s a strong visual element to The Thing with Feathers that threatens to inject life into an otherwise dour affair. Creature and Prosthetics Designer Conor O’Sullivan (Alien: Covenant, Prometheus) channels Tim Burton with his eight-foot-tall talking Crow, a pitch-black gnarled beast prone to hurling frank insults at the brooding father. The more Dad spirals out, fracturing his relationships in the process, the more Crow inserts himself in their lives in pervasive, discomforting ways. But Southern is more interested in Dad’s wallowing, favoring slow, quiet scenes of Dad drowning out the world to The Cure or lashing out at his children over parental woes.
Feathers stagnates so thoroughly in this exhausting, though emotionally authentic portrayal of profound grief that not even an eerie, imaginative third act turn straight into horror territory can liven things up. A sequence centered around a demon and a front door evokes chills but comes too little too late. It’s also around here where Crow’s role evolves, but not even Thewlis’s infectious snark can infuse this wonderfully rendered creature with much in the way of characterization. Crow isn’t the only one devoid of depth either; Dad’s two transposable sons are treated solely as empty vessels for Dad’s emotional journey.
Just as Feathers ramps up, it winds down with a tidy, optimistic conclusion that doesn’t quite feel earned compared to the flat, protracted depiction of loss and despair. Southern adapts Porter’s novel with poetic elegance, and Cumberbatch commits fully as a widower paralyzed by loss. But Feathers is too restrained emotionally for its stagnant and familiar depiction of a family tormented by grief turned into a literal horror show. It’s handsomely crafted and well-intentioned, but The Thing with Feathers gets crushed under the tedious weight of another empty grief monster metaphor.
The Thing with Feathers made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. Release info TBA.
The post ‘The Thing with Feathers’ Review – Benedict Cumberbatch Battles Familiar Grief Monster Metaphor [Sundance] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Stephen King has shed some light on why Steven Spielberg’s long-developing movie adaptation of his and Peter Straub’s epic book The Talisman never came to pass.
M. Night Shyamalan‘s next film is based on an original story he co-created with global-bestselling novelist Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook, A Walk to Remember).
Deadline reports that Jake Gyllenhaal is set to start in the supernatural romance thriller.
Plot details are being kept under wraps per usual, but Shyamalan and Sparks are independently writing a screenplay and a novel, respectively. Both projects are based on the same concept and set of characters but tailored to their respective mediums.
Shyamalan’s Blinding Edge Pictures will produce the film, which is in discussions with Warner Bros. for a theatrical release.
Shyamalan and Ashwin Rajan will produce for Blinding Edge alongside Sparks’ longtime producing partner Theresa Park and Marc Bienstock. Sparks serves as executive producer.
Shyamalan’s most recent directorial effort, Trap, grossed $71.5 million worldwide last year.
Gyllenhaal will next be seen in sister Maggie Gyllenhaal‘s The Bride!, due out on October 3.
Jake Gyllenhaal in ‘Nightcrawler’
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A group of mostly vain, narcissistic journalist types receiving a rare invite into the desert compound of an elusive pop legend presents a Willy Wonka-like scenario that’s fertile ground for twisty psychological horror. Writer/Director Mark Anthony Green draws from his background as a former GQ editor for his feature debut, Opus, to take aim at everything from celebrity culture to the state of journalism. Ayo Edebiri’s inherent charisma and John Malkovich’s infectiously high camp turn as pop star Moretti deftly carry the film on their shoulders, but it’s not enough to sustain the sluggish, thinly rendered, and fairly toothless satire that mostly forgets to bring the horror.
Ambitious and hardworking reporter Ariel Ecton (Edebiri) desperately wants to crack the next big story that will catapult her into the next stage of her career. It’s all she thinks about, even as her ego-centric boss, Stan (Murray Bartlett), accepts her ideas only to assign them to more tenured staff. Her big break comes in the form of a bizarre invitation from Alfred Moretti (Malkovich), a world-renowned pop star who vanished without a trace nearly 30 years ago.
Moretti has invited an eclectic group of prominent media types to be the first to listen to his new album, including Stan, popular TV show host Clara Armstrong (Juliette Lewis), infamous paparazzo Bianca Tyson (Melissa Chambers), Moretti’s enemy-turned-podcaster Bill Lotto (Mark Sivertsen), and influencer Emily Katz (Stephanie Suganami). As Moretti’s staff welcomes the guests, stripping all forms of communication before lavishing them with decadence, only Ariel harbors a healthy level of skepticism that things are insidiously amiss.
Opus, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
Like the guests, it’s easy to get sucked into the dazzling world Green has created. Opus is, if nothing else, sleek in style with intricate set pieces, a haunting score, and earworm original tunes by legendary producer Nile Rodgers and The-Dream. Then there’s Malkovich, turning in a commanding and occasionally restrained performance as the idiosyncratic pop legend presiding over the strange desert cult compound. The actor even sang three original songs for the film, including the obnoxiously catchy track “Dina Simone,” which captures the satirical tone. Green and Malkovich shroud Moretti with enough mystery to keep viewers on the hook, along with the effortlessly affable and smart Ariel as she desperately seeks to uncover what exactly is happening.
The initial character introductions indicate a raucous satire ahead, with Green taking aim at the vapidness of entertainment journalism. Yet the filmmaker gets too caught up in the details, drawing out Ariel’s investigation amidst increasingly bizarre encounters and reveals. It’s here where pacing becomes a glaring issue.
Outside of Ariel and Moretti, to a lesser extent, all of the characters are intentionally underwritten as archetypical caricatures, fodder for Moretti’s master plan. With a distinct lack of tension and very little in the way of menace or horror, Opus quickly becomes inert. It falls almost entirely on Edebiri to convey a sense of dread or danger at all. Not helping is that Opus also parallels more familiar cult horror tales like Midsommar or even last year’s Blink Twice.
By the time Opus finally kicks into high gear and delivers on the horror, it’s far too succinct and toothless to earn its methodical build-up. It’s the type of payoff that’ll leave most asking, “That’s it?” Instead of blending horror and satire, Opus toggles confusingly between the two. Green crafts a handsome feature with impressive details, set pieces, and Shirley Kurata’s stunning costuming. It’s also a feature that’ll leave you eager to buy the OST on vinyl. Ultimately, though, the social commentary is too shallow and underserved for a film that spends far too much time dedicated to it.
Opus is at its best when it’s a campy satire of pop culture, led by two powerhouse performances, but it utterly fails as a genre exercise.
Opus made its world premiere at Sundance and will release in theaters on March 14, 2025.
The post ‘Opus’ Review – Edebiri & Malkovich Dazzle in Celeb Satire That Forgets the Horror [Sundance] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Bombshell actress Jayne Mansfield was offered the role of Ginger Grant on Gilligan’s Island, but despite being perfect for the job, she turned it down.
