Millennials — particularly those of us who fall on the younger side of that generational bracket — have a grating tendency to exaggerate the divide that separates us from those who were born just a few years later.

Not only are we inclined to turn everything into a weird, one-sided pissing contest with Gen Z by, say, pitching our Saturday morning cartoons against theirs or banging on about how much better music was in the heyday of nu metal (for the record, it categorically was not), but we also insist that there can be no shared cultural understanding between someone who came of age in the early 2010s, versus someone who came of age towards the tail end of that very same decade.

Which is patently ridiculous, of course, unless we’re genuinely supposed to believe that a 25-year-old nowadays has no frame of reference for what the internet was like in 2013, nor any awareness of things like Marvel, Minecraft and Taylor Swift. It’s a pretty shallow fallacy and one that’s more than a little condescending. I’ve got Gen Z siblings, after all, and can personally attest that the generational gap between us isn’t some great, impassable ravine.

That being said, if a typical Gen Zer were to watch Matthew Vaughn’s superhero send-up, Kick-Ass, for the first time, I could easily envision them coming away from the experience with one burning question. That being: “What the fuck is Myspace?”

To be fair to them, it’s not something that they have reason to be familiar with, any more so than they should know about Betamax or the Sega Dreamcast. Like those other historical losers, it’s a platform that has fallen into total obscurity and has no real legacy to speak of. In fact, Myspace’s popularity was already dwindling when Kick-Ass hit the big screen in 2010 (for reference, development on the project began shortly after the premiere of Vaughn’s Stardust) and so referencing it as a dominant online forum today is about as archaic as identifying your search engine of choice to be Ask Jeeves.

Yet this notion that the film’s hero would adopt Myspace as a kind of 21st-century equivalent of the bat signal — using it to process incoming requests for help from civilians — is really the only thing that dates Kick-Ass. Because, other backing the wrong horse in the social media race, it turned out to be ahead of the curve in more ways than one.

Indeed, it was among the first movies to explicitly recognise that net notoriety was about to become a key driver in celebrity culture and was also snarkily deconstructing comic-book tropes long before the more corporate-feeling Deadpool series took all the credit (beating Reynolds and co. to the punch by a half-decade). Not to mention, it made heavy use of incongruous, upbeat needle drops (prior to that becoming an overused crutch of action-comedies), revelled in the opportunities afforded to it by an R-rating (at a time when genre flicks were especially neutered), and consciously exploited Nic Cage’s then-nascent status as a living, breathing meme (paving the way for things like The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent).

Smells Like Teen Spirit

For those who have neither seen the film nor read the Mark Millar graphic novel that it faithfully adapts — albeit while rounding off some unsavoury edges — it revolves around dorky-high-schooler-turned-DIY-crime-fighter Dave Lizewski (played by a fresh-faced Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Spurred on by a mixture of adolescent boredom and an earnest desire to make a difference, Dave one day decides to fashion himself a costume out of a modified wetsuit he ordered off eBay, grabs himself a couple of batons, does a few sit-ups in his bedroom, and then takes to the streets for some low-level vigilantism, under the appropriately juvenile alias of “Kick-Ass.”

At first, he struggles to find anyone willing to accept his assistance and must instead settle on rescuing missing pets, but when his impromptu intervention in a street brawl goes viral on YouTube, he becomes an overnight sensation and the requests for help come flooding in. Alas, fame turns out to be a double-edged sword for Dave. On the one hand, it gives him a newfound sense of purpose, along with the confidence to finally strike up a conversation with the girl of his dreams. On the other, it places him atop the kill-list of a local mafioso named Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong), who mistakenly assumes that Kick-Ass is responsible for a recent string of attacks against his empire.

In actual fact, any disruption of D’Amico’s operations should be attributed to a dynamic duo that’s operating elsewhere in the shadows. Substituting tea parties for firearms training and dollhouses for balisong knives, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and the notoriously potty-mouthed Hit-Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) are a father-daughter team who have been making life hell for the criminal underworld. Their idea of spending quality time together typically involves somebody getting shot, stabbed or mangled to death in a car crusher. But, you know, they’re only killing bad guys. So, it’s a wash.

Anyway, before long, the amateurish Dave finds himself embroiled in the war that these two seasoned pros are waging against organised crime in the city. Complicating matters even further is D’Amico’s son, Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), who fancies donning spandex as well, and uses his father’s wealth to create a masked alter ego of his very own.

What ensues is a supremely entertaining, tightly-paced adventure that boasts witty genre subversions, memorable dialogue, impossibly cool characters, a flagrant disregard for good taste, and some astonishingly bloody set-pieces. Suffice it to say, as someone who was the ideal age for the film when it released back in 2010, I thought it was the best thing I’d ever seen.

No Powers, No Problem

Part of Kick-Ass’s appeal is that its conceit is simple and yet no one had ever really done it before (granted, James Gunn’s Super would follow hot on its heels in 2011).

The ingenious premise of “average schmuck decides to stand up for his community by throwing on a naff costume and heading out to do his bit” is one of those that causes you to wonder why it took so long for the industry to get around to it. Because it’s so easy to get behind! Everyone loves a tryer, and the little guy is always far easier to root for than a billionaire with a legion of armoured suits or a literal alien god that’s impervious to harm.

On that note, Taylor-Johnson’s Dave is wonderfully unremarkable when we meet him. As he himself confesses in the opening narration, he’s not particularly academic, athletic or even funny and the closest thing he has to a metahuman ability is the fact that he’s cripplingly invisible to members of the opposite sex. If that all sounds reminiscent of Peter Parker’s bio, pre radioactive spider bite, it absolutely is! Although I don’t remember Tobey Maguire’s voiceover having quite so many references to compulsive masturbation.

Anyway, the key difference between Dave and the web head is that great power — and, with it, the proportional amount of responsibility — never comes knocking for him. Nor does a tragic loss motivate his quest, with his mother having died of an aneurysm in the kitchen as opposed to at the hands of a desperate mugger.

Despite this lack of traditional backstory or fighting prowess, however, he’s still determined to do the right thing. Which just makes him an eminently likeable protagonist. Sure, he eventually gets quasi-superpowers in the form of obliterated nerve endings (in his own words, bestowing him with a “slightly elevated capacity to take a kicking”), but even that’s effectively just a medical condition. For the most part, he remains thoroughly untrained, thoroughly uncoordinated and thoroughly undeterred, with his only recourse to villainy being that he can hit people with sticks. And you gotta love him for it.

The whiplash that occurs when Dave’s relatively mundane world collides with the heightened reality of Hit Girl & Big Daddy is, therefore, all the funnier because the film has committed to making him so relatable and pathetic. After all, the other two feel like they’re gatecrashing from a more respectable blockbuster. One where the laws of physics are only suggestions and where gatling-gun mounted jetpacks are but an “Add to Shopping Cart” button-click away. It’s a fun juxtaposition that serves as the basis for a lot of the script’s best humour. And, also, for its delirious ultra-violence.

Why So Serious?

Speaking of which, the carnage here is glorious. We’re not 20 minutes in before somebody’s already cooked to death in an industrial microwave — exploding Gremlins style — and the slaughter doesn’t let up from there. We’ve got the aforementioned car crusher scene, multiple dismemberments and too many brutal headshots to count; the vast majority of which are perpetrated by an 11-year-old girl.

If you’re a sicko like me it’s guaranteed to bring a smile to your face, especially since it’s all done in a very playful, tongue-in-cheek manner. I mean, how else are you supposed to react to a bunch of fully-grown gangsters cowering in fear from a Polly Pocket pre-teen other than laugh?

Don’t let the comical tone fool you, though, because the action sequences seriously impress when the time comes. Vaughn’s credentials in this area aren’t to be sniffed at (as anyone who has seen the Kingsman church massacre will attest), and it’s with Kick-Ass that he really honed his talents.

Every set-piece is punchy, energetic and comes with a distinctive visual flair. There’s Dave’s first chaotic scrap on the streets — frenetically intercut with bystanders’ cell phone footage — a Tarantino-esque bloodbath of severed limbs & brutal impalements — hilariously scored to The Dickies’ rendition of The Banana Splits theme — and a long tracking-shot raid on a warehouse in which Big Daddy is permitted to go full Punisher mode. Yet the indisputable highlight is a strobe-lit rescue mission that’s at once exhilarating and ethereal; delivering far more chills than you’d expect from a teen comedy.

Across the board, Kick-Ass goes a lot harder with the presentation side of things than it needs to, leaning into a bubble-gum aesthetic that makes it stand out from the stylistically unadventurous comic-book movies we’re treated to in the modern era. Indeed, the vibrant splashes of purple, red, orange and green give the whole thing a unique pop-art aesthetic that is way more arresting than those drab, muted hues that seem to dominate the MCU nowadays, while there’s also some creative editing choices and scene transitions sprinkled throughout. If only the film’s big-budget rivals cared half this much about how they look!

Blockbuster Thrills, Independent Spirit

Which brings us to another important consideration. Although it was made for an estimated $30 million, Kick-Ass was technically not a Hollywood production and was, in fact, independently financed.

Across the industry, studio heads had been turned off by its adult content — stipulating that it would need to be watered down to get a greenlight — and were particularly nervous about how Hit-Girl would be received by mainstream audiences. Suggestions for making her more palatable ranged from ageing her up to reigning in her swearing (oddly enough, they didn’t seem to be as fussed about all the killing) and even outright cutting her from the script altogether.

Confident that she was the movie’s ace-in-the-hole, however, and correctly predicting that she would go on to become its most enduring character, Vaughn opted to stick to his guns and raised the necessary funds himself. The end result is a wilfully anarchic, taboo-shattering piece of work that — similar to its protagonist — feels like a hungry underdog fighting to be noticed in a world dominated by heavy-hitters. It’s got a real punk rock energy, and you get the sense that it was never once put in front of hand-wringing market researchers, subjected to corporate interference, or left at the mercy of antsy focus groups. Whatever you may think of it, it’s Vaughn’s vision; pure and unfettered.

Speaking of Vaughn, he is obviously a contentious figure in this post-Argylle climate. As a director, he often takes audacious swings and, depending on the execution, this approach can go one of two ways. When he miscalculates, you get Elton John in a weird peacock outfit fending off android dogs, ala Kingsman: The Golden Circle, or Bryce Dallas Howard ice skating around on an oil rig to an A.I. composed Beatles track.

Yet when his offbeat ideas do work, and he has frequent co-writer Jane Goldman in his corner to help make sense of them, they can pay off big time. Kick-Ass is arguably the project that best demonstrates this, as it’s filled with all kinds of inspired choices, like how Nic Cage channels Adam West when in the Big Daddy getup, or how one flashback sequence is depicted entirely as a stunning animated comic brought to life.

The fact that Vaughn went with his gut means that he was also free to take some of those risks that the studios weren’t yet ready for. Again, Deadpool owes this movie a huge debt for proving that there was an appetite for R-rated, irreverent superhero satires years before they were in vogue.

We Need To Talk About Hit-Girl

Of course, when championing Kick-Ass as an exemplar of what can be accomplished if filmmakers dare to push the envelope and refuse to compromise, it all inevitably leads back to Hit-Girl. That lightning rod of controversy about whom much ink was split in the lead up to the movie’s release.

Quaint as it may seem now, there was certainly a lot of uproar about the character in the press at the time, with this moral panic largely revolving around her harsh vocabulary. Honestly, it feels a little overblown in retrospect. By our count, she cusses maybe five or six times in total (depending on whether references to female sanitary products qualify in your book) and the dreaded C-bomb is only busted at once. Some people are just funny about four-letter words, I guess.

As a Matthew Vaughn apologist, it’s often matters of taste, rather than craft, that I find myself having to defend. He can rub people up the wrong way, as he did with that bawdy anal sex gag in the first Kingsman, the Glastonbury scene that doubled down on that same gag in its sequel, or the Adolf Hitler tease in its WW1-era prequel (man, that’s a lot of discourse for one franchise). But, the thing is, I’ve never bought into this idea of him as some kind of wanton edgelord. In each of those instances, he seems to have been genuinely caught off guard by the outrage, and I don’t get the impression that he ever goes out of his way to offend. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have vetoed an objectionable twist that Mark Millar floated in the early development of Kick-Ass that would have revealed a much darker, abusive side to Big Daddy. Vaughn shot that one down because he knew it would have crossed a line and undermined the fun tone of his movie, so he clearly does possess something akin to good judgment.

Be that as it may, from the moment she announces herself with a jaw-dropping expletive, Hit-Girl was always going to ruffle some feathers. While little kids dispensing obscenities is nothing new in media (South Park is on the cusp of its 30th birthday after all), there is something about how pointedly and aggressively she does it that just feels different. If you’re of a sensitive disposition then it’s bound to upset you, but if you’re conversely in on the joke, then it emerges as a constant source of hilarity.

Hit-Girl is crucially more than just a vehicle for shock-humour as well, with Vaughn and Goldman knowing when to play her for laughs and when to take her more seriously. In fact, she is central to many of the film’s most dramatic and intense scenes and, despite how absurd that might sound on paper, it 100% works. Once the initial novelty wears off, you start to forget that you’re watching a pint-sized assassin driving around in a sports car and fighting the mob.

Which is a testament to both the quality of the script and to Chloë Grace Moretz’s astonishing breakout performance. She truly sells the character’s angst, bravado and bad-ass one-liners; navigating tricky material that even veteran actors might have struggled to get to grips with. Not to mention, she also capably holds her own in the company of more experienced screen partners, managing to steal scenes from right under Nic-fucking-Cage of all people. It’s a shame then that she hasn’t been given the opportunity to reprise the role since Jeff Wadlow’s divisive Kick-Ass 2, because she’s one of the most perfectly cast comic-book heroes I can think of.

That being said, I think the film in general is one of the most perfect comic-book adaptations ever to grace the silver screen and that it’s not given the kudos it deserves. I could go on gushing about it for another thousand words and still not cover everything I love. For instance, I’ve not even touched upon the energetic musical score, the savvy references or the triumphant ending that never fails to leave me with a massive smile on my face. More than anything, however, I just love how singular and unique Kick-Ass feels. Right down to that dated Myspace plug.

The post No Power, No Responsibility: Why We Still Love ‘Kick-Ass’ 15 Years Later appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

“House of the Dragon” and “Bates Motel” star Olivia Cooke has been set to star in Brides from director Chloe Okuno (V/H/S/94: Storm Drain, Watcher).

Cooke takes over the role vacated by Maika Monroe (Watcher, Longlegs), which Deadline reports is due to scheduling issues over Universal drama Reminders of Him.

Brides follows “Sally Bishop (Cooke) and her husband, who travel to a remote Italian villa whose owner, a mysterious count, takes a peculiar interest in Sally.”

Chloe Okuno’s Brides, for which she’ll write and direct, is said to be at least loosely inspired by Bram Stoker’s horror classic Dracula, and it’s set to “flip Bram Stoker’s narrative on its head, exploring the struggle between societal repression and carnal desire.” It’s also described as “gothic, glamorous, and gory.”

Longlegs distributor NEON will release the film theatrically, though no release date has been set as of now.

Dracula-inspired projects have been hot recently, with films including The Invitation (2022), The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Renfield, and Nosferatu all taking inspiration from the classic literary tale by Bram Stoker.

While this casting shakeup means that we won’t see a reunion between Maika Monroe and her Watcher director, the actor was recently announced to take over the lead role of Victorian Psycho from The Substance star Margaret Qualley. As for distributor NEON, expect to see another team-up with director Osgood Perkins when Keeper releases later this year.

Anthony Bregman and Stefanie Azpiazu will produce through Likely Story. Stay tuned for more on Brides as it arrives.

The post Olivia Cooke Replaces Maika Monroe in Chloe Okuno’s ‘Brides’ for NEON appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

June arrives this weekend, which means a new slate of library additions is set to arrive on your favorite streaming services. Hulu, HBO Max, Netflix, Peacock, Paramount+, Shudder, and Tubi have announced their June 2025 lineup, so we’re compiling them all into a handy horror guide for your watchlists.

Of note, Hulu is embracing the Aliens and Predator franchises in a big way, especially with the arrival of the animated anthology Predator: Killer of Killers. Peacock goes all in on the Jurassic World franchise just ahead of Jurassic World Rebirth, which will be released in theaters in July. The streamer also celebrates the 50th anniversary of Jaws with a film collection dedicated to the franchise.

Check out the June 2025 horror streaming lineup below.

Hulu

A scene still from 20th Century Studios’ PREDATOR: KILLER OF KILLERS, exclusively on Hulu. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

June 1
Alien (1979)
Alien 3
Alien Resurrection
Alien vs. Predator
Alien: Covenant
Aliens
Alien vs. Predator: Requiem
Mirrors
Predator (1987)
The Predator (2018)
Predator 2
Predators
28 Weeks Later

June 3
Presence (2025)

June 6
Predator: Killer of Killers

June 8
Scream (2022)

June 16
Black Christmas (2019)

June 19
The Quiet Ones

June 20
Out Come the Wolves

HBO Max

‘The Invitation’ (2022)

June 1
A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
A Perfect Getaway (2009)
Hellboy (2004)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
Split (2017)

June 24
The Invitation (2022)

June 27
The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie (2025)

Netflix

‘Barbarian’

June 1
Barbarian
The Birds
Frenzy
Rear Window
Us
Vertigo

June 16
The Last Witch Hunter

June 27
Squid Game: Season 3

Paramount+

‘Cloverfield’

June 1
Carriers
Cloverfield
Crawlspace
Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse
The Autopsy of Jane Doe*

* Title is available to Paramount+ with SHOWTIME subscribers.

Peacock

‘Jurassic Park’

June 1
Anna and The Apocalypse
Bride of Chucky
The ‘Burbs
The Chronicles of Riddick
Deep Rising
I am Legend
Jennifer’s Body
Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park III
Jurassic World
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Knock Knock
The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Pitch Black
Riddick
Scooby-Doo
Seed of Chucky
Shaun of The Dead
Van Helsing
The World’s End

June 4
The Blackening

Shudder

‘Dead Silence’

June 1
Curse of the Devil
Dark Windows
Dead Silence
Head Trauma
Homebound
Insidious
Ladyworld
The Loved Ones
The Ward
We Kill for Love

June 9
Alien Outpost
Fascination
Lips of Blood
Requiem for a Vampire
Shiver of the Vampires
Sputnik
The Grapes of Death
The Living Dead Girl
The Nude Vampire

June 13
Best Wishes to All

June 16
Rats!

June 17
Hell Motel

June 20
Ash

June 22
The Strain

Tubi

‘The Purge’

June 1
Cuckoo
Alone in the Dark
Big Trouble in Little China
Brahms: The Boy II
Deadstream
Friday the 13th (1980)
Get Out
Girl With All the Gifts
Gremlins
Gremlins 2: The New Batch
Hannibal Rising
Hereditary
House on Haunted Hill
Jaws
Joy Ride
Kong: Skull Island
La Llorona
Leatherface
Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
Love and Monsters
Mom and Dad
Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy
Personal Shopper
Piranha 3D
Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye
Texas Chainsaw 3D
The Djinn
The First Purge
The Lodge
The Purge
The Purge: Anarchy

June 10
Nightcrawler

The post All the Horror Heading to Hulu, Netflix, Tubi & Other Streaming Services in June 2025 appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The first theatrical release from Eli Roth’s new label The Horror Section is Jimmy and Stiggs, the latest blast of insanity from director Joe Begos (Bliss, Christmas Bloody Christmas).

Jimmy and Stiggs will be released Unrated in theaters on August 15, 2025.

Check out the trailer below, debuted by Collider this afternoon.

Roth tells the outlet, “I realized that now with our new label I can distribute these incredible films, wide, in theaters for fans to experience with a screaming crowd on the big screen, unrated. I also liked the idea of people who have never seen a low budget 16mm insane splatterfest just walking in thinking it’s some normal movie and having their minds melted.”

The indie horror film “follows a down-on-his-luck filmmaker (Begos) who claims he was abducted by aliens, vowing to bring them down alongside his friend (Matt Mercer).”

“Rarely does a film stop me in my tracks the way Jimmy and Stiggs did,” Eli Roth said in a recent statement. “I grew up on Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson’s low budget over the top splatter fests, and very few filmmakers have ever achieved that level of insanity. Horror fans have not had an experience like this in the theaters in a long time and the spirit, anarchy and fun of the movie represents everything I want to bring to the masses in theaters.”

The Horror Section is a just-launched independent studio from Eli Roth, with a focus on making theatrical horror movies without studio interference. Learn more about the venture here.

Roth will be directing two upcoming horror movies under the new umbrella, one the “terrifying” and “insane” Ice Cream Man and the other a Giallo-style movie titled Final Cut.

The post Unrated ‘Jimmy and Stiggs’ Trailer Promises 50,000 Feet of Blood Soaked 16mm Film appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.