Godzilla Minus One was a celebration of 70 years of Toho’s Godzilla‘s franchise, but it almost didn’t have a happy ending as one of its best characters was originally going to be killed off before the end. Godzilla Minus One was a groundbreaking entry for the Godzilla franchise. As the most critically and commercially successful Godzilla releases in Toho’s long history, Godzilla Minus One continues to dominate as fans are even going to get the chance to see the film in theaters again later this year as part of a limited screening event. But it almost had a much different, more depressing ending than what was seen in the film.

Godzilla Minus One writer and director Takashi Yamazaki spoke about the Academy Award winning feature film during a special panel as part of New York Comic Con 2024, and revealed some key details about its production. Because when asked about the ending that saw Koichi Shikishima (as performed by Ryunosuke Kamiki) reuniting with an injured Noriko Oishi (as performed by Minami Hamabe), Yamazaki revealed that the first draft of the film actually had Noriko dying. But he ultimately changed that in later drafts as he felt that Shikishima needed a win after everything he had been through.

Godzilla Minus One Almost Killed Off Noriko

In Godzilla Minus One, Noriko and Shikishima are caught in the crossfire of Godzilla’s then biggest attack in the film at that point. Noriko was presumed to be dead as Shikishima lost all hope, and then united with the others for a plan to take down the giant monster once and for all. It wasn’t until the film’s final moments that Shikishima sees that Noriko had survived the attack, and only got a few injuries from it despite the fact that it looked like she had been killed. It turns out she almost was.

As Yamazaki explained during the New York Comic Con 2024 panel, Noriko died in the first draft of the film. Yamazaki eventually changed it because he felt like Shikishima needed a win, “If he came home and she [wasn’t there], that would be tragic.” He even explained that when they filmed the scene where Noriko was caught in Godzilla’s attack, they made up Noriko actress Minami Hamabe in a way that could have CG placed over it if she had survived the attack. They did decide to keep her alive, and Yamazaki himself was satisfied with the choice.

What’s Next for Godzilla Minus One?

Godzilla Minus One might have ended with a tease for a potential future, but Toho has yet to announced their potential plans for the next Godzilla feature film. Yamazaki has noted his own interest in returning for another film, and even has some ideas about how to remake past films and use classic Kaiju such as Hedorah in a future project. But as of the time of this publication, Yamazaki also clarifies that he has yet to be contacted by Toho about potentially moving forward.

A direct sequel to Godzilla Minus One would make a lot of sense considering how well the film has done commercially and critically, and it’s won the Godzilla franchise notable awards such as its very first Academy Award. But with a franchise like this one, the next Godzilla film is also just as likely to try a brand new take from a new creative team at the helm. It likely won’t be releasing for a few more years at the earliest, and it could end up a much different kind of film that fans enjoyed with Godzilla Minus One. But that’s also what makes each new Godzilla exciting.

HT – Flixist

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Earlier this year, the Lambert family returned to the Insidious franchise with Insidious: The Red Door, but if there’s a future for the franchise, original writer Leigh Whannell is hoping that a fresh perspective can be brought to the project to reimagine it. The debut entry was released in 2010 and The Red Door marked the fifth entry into the series, with Insidious: Chapter 3 and Insidious: The Last Key serving somewhat as spinoffs from the exploits of the Lambert family, though still featured Lin Shaye’s Elise Rainier character. Given the compelling mythology of the otherworldly realm of “The Further,” there’s lots of untapped potential that could be mined in future films.

“I think those characters have run their course. I would like to see someone reinvent that series a little bit, do something new with it,” Whannell shared with ComicBook of what the future could hold for Insidious. “I don’t know what’s happening with it right now. We’re trying to do something with it, but you know how it goes with movies: Just when you think you’re starting with something, it’s over, and then it starts up again, and so you’ll probably know about it before I do.”

The original film introduced fans to the Lambert family, whose young son seemingly suffered a head injury that caused him to slip into a coma. Over the course of the film, however, viewers realized that the boy actually had his consciousness trapped by a nefarious entity in another realm, known as “The Further.” Father Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson) was alerted by Elise that this wasn’t a random occurrence, as Josh had the ability to venture into The Further on his own and had been able to since he was a young boy. Josh managed to rescue his son from the “Red-Faced Demon,” while also encountering a variety of other intimidating presences.

Despite The Red Door bringing back original stars Wilson, Rose Byrne, and Ty Simpkins, the film sits at only 39% positive reviews. Even with those disappointing reviews, it performed relatively well financially, and once it debuted on Netflix, it saw a surge in popularity. This year’s Halloween Horror Nights event at Universal Studios had a house honoring the franchise, confirming just how much interest there still is in the property.

While Whannell wrote the first four movies in the series, he also starred in those entries as one of Elise’s investigators, and he seemed to shoot down the idea of appear on screen in a future film.

Whannell spoke with ComicBook ahead of the debut of the Shop Blumhouse store. Now you can shop from a treasure trove of exclusive Blumhouse merchandise. From collectibles to killer apparel, there is something for everyone to take home a piece of cinematic terror.

Stay tuned for possible updates on the Insidious franchise.

What do you think of the filmmaker’s remarks? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

The post Insidious Writer Hoping the Franchise Will Be Reinvented After This Year’s Sequel appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Fresh off Monsters Season 2, Cooper Koch is taking advantage of his newfound fame by campaigning to be on the shortlist for Luca Guadagnino’s take on American Psycho. Ryan Murphy’s controversial series which has helped launch his career, focuses on the complicated case of brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez, convicted of brutally killing their parents in 1989.

Koch plays the younger of the two siblings, Erik which has garnered him loads of attention from social media in the month since its release. While many have praised him for his sensitivity and knowledge on the case while advocating for their release, others have slammed him for recent jokes made in reference to a graphic scene of his body in one of the earlier episodes.

Cooper Koch Wants to Play Patrick Bateman

“Luca’s doing American Psycho, so I think I can do Patrick Bateman,” Koch told The Hollywood Reporter when asked what role he’d like to take on next. “I haven’t played a serial killer yet so I think I could do it.”

Guadagnino’s adaption was announced over the weekend causing mixed reactions, but the fan casting has already begun. Many want to see Koch’s Monsters co-star Nicholas Chavez in the film. He is currently starring in FX’s Grotesquerie, a crime-thriller that takes notes from the earlier seasons of American Horror Story. Others believe that standout Jacob Elordi could be eyed for the role after he was spotted at lunch with the Challengers director.

Koch also teased that the things are moving full steam ahead, so it doesn’t seem like it’ll be long before his next project is revealed. “Things are coming in, things are moving, things are happening, taking meetings, and the needle is threading so we’ll see, nothing is locked in or happening yet.” Prior to Monsters, Koch starred alongside Kevin Bacon in Blumhouse’s They/Them as well as the independent body horror Swallowed.

Guadagnino’s American Psycho film is intended to be an adaption of the novel by Bret Easton Ellis and not a remake on the cult classic 2000s film starring Christian Bale as the bloodthirsty banker. Given Guadagnino’s sexy and gorgeous visuals but his ability to go balls-to-the-wall in projects like Bones for All, he ironically seems like the perfect person to helm the film.

The Italian film director has several other projects in development, including the Amazon MGM thriller After the Hunt with Chloë Sevigny, Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri and Andrew Garfield. He is also working on Separate Rooms which reportedly stars Josh O’Connor and Léa Seydoux in the Queer film. It is an adaption of late author Pier Vittorio Tondelli’s 1989 novel.

The post Cooper Koch Campaigns for American Psycho Role After Netflix’s Lyle and Erik Menendez Story appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Professional wrestling is once again taking over Hollywood — next January Shudder will release a horror-themed wrestling film, Dark Match, which they recently acquired rights for. Wrestling legend Chris Jericho, who is no stranger to Hollywood films, is set to star. Jericho most recently appeared in the Terrifier threequel which released earlier this month.

Dark Match, which was written and directed by Lowell Dean, follows a small wrestling company which accepts a well-paying gig in a rather sketchy town — the backwoods. Per the synopsis, they do this “only to learn, too late, that the community is run by a mysterious cult leader with devious plans for their match.”

The film follows on the heels of several major pop culture wrestling-adjacent projects, like STARZ’s Heels starring Stephen Amell and Alexander Ludwig, A24’s Iron Claw biopic which tells the story of iconic wrestling royalty the Von Erichs, and Netflix’s recent Vince McMahon documentary.

Alongside Jericho, the project stars Ayisha Issa (Transplant), Steven Ogg (The Walking Dead, Westworld), Sara Canning (The Vampire Diaries), Michael Eklund (The Call) and Jonathan Cherry (Goon).

The poster pictured below features a variation of what appears to be a pink Cross of Lorraine. Above Issa, who is sporting a wicked bloody lip and bruised eye while holding chains, is a masked gunman. The rest of the crew look ready for battle, surrounded by what looks to be blood splatters.

The film is produced by John K. MacDonald, Don Depoe, Michael Feehan, Rhonda Baker and Michael Peterson. Executive producers include Eleanor Wiebe and Jericho. Additionally, cinematography was done by Karim Hussain, CSC.

Wrestling has been dipping its toes into the horror realm for decades, featuring characters like The Undertaker, manager Paul Bearer, Kane, Mankind and vampy stable The Brood among many others. They all found great success in a landscape that was transitioning away from the ways of the colorful babyfaces that ruled the 1980s. It paved the way for modern characters like AEW’s Abadon and Danhausen to pick up a ton of steam with fans because of their uniqueness.

Jericho isn’t the only full-time wrestling figure following in the footsteps of The Rock, John Cena and Dave Bautista. Drew McIntyre starred in The Killer’s Game alongside “The Animal.” CM Punk has two projects lined up that will likely keep him out of commission in WWE for some time and AEW’s MJF is taking the acting world by storm starring alongside Adam Sandler in the Happy Gilmore sequel.

Dark Match heads to Shudder on January 31st, 2025. In the meantime, get your spooky fix by checking out our list of the best horror movies that are currently available on Shudder!

The post Shudder Releasing Wrestling Themed Horror Film Starring Chris Jericho appeared first on ComicBook.com.

An eighth V/H/S movie is coming next year, in keeping with a tradition that has seen one come out each of the last four years just in time for Halloween. In fact, of the seven V/H/S movies already available to stream, five of them (the first, then four in a row) came out in October, with only V/H/S 2 and V/H/S: Viral getting “off-season” releases (in July and November, respectively). A new V/H/S movie is hardly surprising, of course; the franchise has really come into its own, becoming a mainstay in the direct-to-consumer horror space and earning pretty great reviews for most of the recent installments.

Bloody Disgusting reported the news. There are no details yet on who might be working on the new movie, which will drop in 2025. Shudder just released V/H/S Beyond, which featured some big names, including Justin Long, Mike Flanagan, and Kate Siegel.

Flanagan already made news once today, with a report that he will team with Stephen King for an eight-episode, prestige miniseries based on King’s novel Carrie.

The first V/H/S was released in 2012, and the franchise can be viewed as two distinct “eras.” The first era got a release on-demand and a brief theatrical window, and the second went straight to streaming. While reviews were mediocre, there were some bright spots, including contributions to the anthology by filmmaker Adam Wingard and Radio Silence, the duo behind Ready Or Not and Scream 6. The V/H/S premise is that the stories in the anthology play out on haunted, abandoned videocassettes, which can then possess the viewer.

We got one V/H/S movie a year for another two years after that, but after V/H/S Viral, the franchise took a few years off. Since returning in 2021 with V/H/S 94, the franchise has lived on Shudder rather than getting modest theatrical releases. It has become a genre mainstay, giving some of the best creators in horror a place to make creative shorts. In addition to the six sequels already released, the world of V/H/S has spawned a pair of spinoffs: Siren and Kids vs. Aliens — as well the V/H/S: Video Horror Shorts miniseries on Snapchat’s Snap Originals platform.

The franchise seems like a perfect fit for Shudder, a streaming service dedicated exclusively to horror. Not only does it help them build relationships with beloved and up-and-coming horror names, but the V/H/S movies have been among some of the most-watched movies on the app. On a larger streamer, the movies might get lost in the shuffle, but on Shudder, they’re always a key release with plenty of attention when they drop.

The post Shudder Confirms New Sequel to Keep Halloween Tradition Alive appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Stephen King and Mike Flanagan are continuing their successful collaboration with a new rendition of Carrie. King’s popular 1974 novel has been adapted several times for the big screen, most notably in 1976 by director Brian De Palma. The horror story follows teenager Carrie White as she has to put up with abuse from her classmates as well as her mother, and starts to exhibit telekinetic powers. As you can imagine with a property as old as Carrie, there have been numerous attempts to reboot the franchise. However, Flanagan isn’t going to let that stop him from turning Carrie into a streaming series.

Deadline reports director Mike Flanagan and author Stephen King are working on a Carrie series for Prime Video. The report also states the Amazon streaming series would be eight-episodes long. This follows the news that Stephen King’s Fairy Tale, which was once planned as a feature film from Jason Bourne director Paul Greengrass, will now be developed as a 10-episode TV series instead. Greengrass will co-write the scripts with J.H. Wyman, who will serve as showrunner. The Fairy Tale movie was originally going to be from Universal, but A24 will now be developing it as a series.

Salem’s Lot, a film adaptation of Stephen King’s 1975 bestselling novel of the same name, also made its Max debut this month, just in time for Halloween.

Another recent collaboration between Mike Flanagan and Stephen King is The Life of Chuck, an adaptation of King’s novella starring Tom Hiddleston, Nick Offerman, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mark Hamill, and Karen Gillan. Flanagan has also put his spin on Doctor Sleep, and adaptation of King’s The Shining, and is working to develop The Dark Tower for a movie and TV show.

“That thing’s launching an oil tanker. But we’re working on,” Flanagan told The Hollywood Reporter in September. “It was stalled first by me moving from Netflix to Amazon and stalled again by the strikes. It’s progressing, and we’re further along than we’ve ever been on it. I do see feature components to some of the other stories, but the main storyline is ongoing series.”

If anyone can do Carrie justice as its own show, it would be Mike Flanagan. He’s one of the most prolific horror filmmakers of his generation and has already proved he has the skill make it happen, while also appeasing loyal fans.

The post Stephen King’s Carrie Getting TV Adaptation From Fan-Favorite Collaborator appeared first on ComicBook.com.

It’s possible that no one wants to see a Happy Death Day 3 more than director Christopher Landon, with the filmmaker recently confirming he has written a treatment for the project, though hasn’t committed to writing a full script as the project hasn’t yet been confirmed. Fans have been asking Landon about the third entry, which was teased with a post-credits scene in Happy Death Day 2U, ever since 2019, and another promising tease is that Landon doesn’t get sick of all the love fans show him and even encourages audiences to keep showing their support. Despite fan enthusiasm for the series, the last entry wasn’t a major financial earner, which has prevented momentum from developing on a trilogy closer.

“I could say that I wrote a treatment. I didn’t write the script, because I wouldn’t write a script unless it was a sure thing,” Landon confirmed to ComicBook at New York Comic Con when asked about the status of the third entry. “Here’s the cool thing: It is a bigger movie, and it is not set on the same day as the previous two films. That’s the biggest spoiler I’ve put out there.”

As far as whether fans should stop pestering Landon about it, the filmmaker teased, “I don’t hate it at all. I love it, I’m all for it. I want people to keep asking because I feel like if people keep asking, we all might actually get it.”

The original movie was released in 2017, which followed Tree (Jessica Rothe) as she is stalked and killed on her birthday, only to wake up that morning and re-live the day’s events. Tree uses this unexpected opportunity to try to track down clues that could reveal who killed her, as she pieces together the clues over the course of dozens of deaths. After identifying and thwarting the killer, Happy Death Day 2U opened up the world to explore how Tree got caught in this time loop in the first place, while also hinting that this was just the beginning of an even bigger world.

Back in 2023, Landon had similarly teased how the upcoming movie wouldn’t be set on the same day, which means there’s not as much pressure to move forward on it like there was with the first sequel.

“I have a whole movie! It’s not even an idea. I pitched the entire movie to [Universal] and they loved it,” Landon confirmed to IndieWire last year. “That was the funny part. They were like, ‘Oh, my God, that’s so unexpected and so cool.’ It’s not dependent, it’s not set in the same day as the previous films, so it could be made now, or in two years or three years. It would still work. But the trickier thing, too, and in fairness to them, it’s a bigger idea than the previous two films, so it would be a more expensive movie.”

Not only is Landon hoping that the sequel will move forward, but star Rothe is just as excited, as she shared earlier this year how passionate she is about reviving Tree.

“Well, I can say [writer/director] Chris Landon has the whole thing figured out,” Rothe confirmed to Screen Geek. “We just need to wait for Blumhouse and Universal to get their ducks in a row. But my fingers are so crossed. I think Tree [Gelbman] deserves her third and final chapter to bring that incredible character and franchise to a close or a new beginning.”

Landon spoke with ComicBook ahead of the debut of the Shop Blumhouse store. Now you can shop from a treasure trove of exclusive Blumhouse merchandise. From collectibles to killer apparel, there is something for everyone to take home a piece of cinematic terror.

Stay tuned for updates on Happy Death Day 3.

Would you like to get a third film in the series? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

The post Happy Death Day Director Has Huge Update for Third Film appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The Invisible Man (2020) may have gotten lost in the onslaught of the pandemic and the closing of movie theaters worldwide, but it continues to earn acclaim as a modern cult hit. Now conversation about the film is picking up again, thanks to writer/director Leigh Whannell promoting his next film in the rebooted Universal Monsters series, Wolf Man (2025). There are already hints that Wolf Man is set in the same universe as Invisible Man, so fans are eager to know if we could also see a sequel to the latter film.

When ComicBook recently caught up with Leigh Whannell, the question of an Invisible Man sequel was addressed. Unfortunately for fans, Whannell doesn’t seem to have any creative motivation to follow up the first film:

“With Invisible Man, I really felt good about where we ended, for me,” Whannell said during New York Comic-Con. The filmmaker did admit that “I don’t own the IP for Invisible Man so Universal can make a sequel if they want to – but for me, as a filmmaker, I really think that was a closed story. I can’t see that there’s any more story to tell.”

The 2020 Invisible Man played on the original story about a man turned invisible through scientific means, and the moral quandaries faced by being able to act undetected. The remake came on the heels of the “Me Too” Movement with a story about a talented architect named Cecilia (Elisabeth Moss) who is in a toxic and abusive relationship with a tech mogul named Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). When Cecilia leaves Adrian he fakes a suicide and uses his cutting-edge stealth suit to stalk and terrorize her. Whannell earned acclaim for the creative visual use of invisibility as a horror-thriller mechanism, while the cast earned praise for selling the underlying tension, drama, and real-life horror of domestic abuse.

Obviously, a lot of Invisible Man’s power and resonance as a film is directly connected to the specific story it tells. Any sequel would either turn the continuing story of those characters into something farcical (Adrian’s back from the dead! Cecilia is stalked by a new Invisible person – but who???); any sequel that jumps to new characters and only has the stealth suit as the connecting thread would be a hollow franchise studio cash-grab – as Whannell sort of indicates in his answer.

There’s also little reason for Whannell or Universal to be looking back. As stated, Wolf Man will kick off the 2025 movie year and is already building buzz for how it too is taking the story of a married couple and their child and making the wolf man monster serve as metaphors for domestic tensions, digital life vs. primal savagery, etc. Whannell and close collaborators like James Wan (Creature From the Black Lagoon) are rebuilding the entire Universal Monsters brand for modern times, with plenty of new projects to keep them busy before any sequels need to be made.

The Invisible Man is available on streaming. Wolf Man (2025) has a release date of January 17, 2025.

NOTE: Now you can shop from a treasure trove of exclusive Blumhouse merchandise. From collectibles to killer apparel, there is something for everyone to take home a piece of cinematic terror. Check out the shop HERE!

The post The Invisible Man Director Shoots Down Hopes of a Sequel Return appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Konami and Bloober Team have released a new Silent Hill 2 update — titled Update 1.04 — via PS5 and PC (Steam). Alongside releasing the update, Konami and Bloober Team have also released the patch notes for the new Silent Hill 2 Update 1.04, which in turn reveals and details everything the update does. And according to the lengthy patch notes of the update, it does a lot.

Unfortunately, while Konami and Bloober Team have released the patch notes for the new update, which can be seen below, they have not provided any information about what the file size of the download is.

That said, Silent Hill 2 owners who boot up the game, whether on PS5 or PC, should make sure the bottom right of the game top screen says v.1.1.242,185. If it doesn’t you are playing an outdated version of the horror game.

PS5 PATCH NOTES

• Fixed some rare crash in AI.
• Fixed some rare crash with texture binding.
• Fixed some rare crash in streaming.
• Fixed some rare crash in audio portal update.
• Fixed an issue with the option of switching In Game Motion Blur.
• Fixed an issue with translation for UI “High” preset not being translated and displayed correctly.
• Fixed an issue with Wooden Plank appearing during James’ death animation.
• Fixed streaming issue where staring at the walls inside the Grand Market caused problems with loading all of the environment around James.
• Fixed an issue where interacting with the wrong side of the peephole in Brookhaven Hospital teleported James to the other side.
• Fixed an issue where breaking windows near Neely’s Bar got James stuck in the window frame.
• Fixed an issue that allowed James to access the inaccessible balcony in Blue Creek Apartments.
• Fixed an issue with Abstract Daddy’s behavior during boss fight where the enemy was not hitting James properly.
• Fixed multiple issues with Abstract Daddy’s 3rd TV – it should now have the correct audio, and the wall won’t interfere with its position.
• Fixed an issue with a question mark from the Conference Room not disappearing after obtaining Cinderella figurine in Lakeview Hotel.
• Fixed an issue with collision detection with the Dayroom walls in Brookhaven Hospital.
• Fixed an issue where James was falling under the map when approaching Laura entering Brookhaven Hospital from the bushes on the left.
• Removed debug numbers displayed behind wallpapers in Blue Creek Apartments’ Clock Room.
• Resolved an issue with James not being able to leave the 3F corridor in the Lakeview Hotel.
• Fixed an issue with the lightbulb on the 3rd floor of Blue Creek Apartments constantly switching on and being impervious to destruction.
• Resolved an issue with the small coffee table blocking James in the corner of the room located in Woodside Apartments.
• Fixed an issue where after completing the Disgust Path in Labyrinth, the player was forced to do it all over again.
• Fixed an issue with Spider Mannequins getting stuck when attacking James while he is going through squeeze traversal.
• Fixed an issue with James getting stuck in the window frame while attacking Lying Figures located outside of the window.
• Added more natural movement for James when switching weapons while aiming.
• Fixed an issue with triggering Spider Mannequin event on Fear Path in the Labyrinth multiple times.
• Improved the ability to pick up items during the final boss fight.
• Fixed an issue with picture frames overlapping in the Moth Room.
• Improved the deformation of Nurses’ skirts.
• Fixed an issue occurring when displaying the information about unlocking NewGame+ which didn’t appear in the player’s chosen language.
• Fixed visible unloading of the door of an abandoned garage in the west side of South Vale.
• Fixed question mark on the map during Chute Puzzle in Woodside Apartments.

Steam Patch Notes

• Reduced visual glitches when using the latest version of NVIDIA DLSS.
• Added an option to enable DLSS frame generation in the menu when using DLSS for supersampling.
• NVIDIA Reflex is now active when DLSS frame generation is enabled.
• Added support for AMD FSR 3.1.1.
• Added an option to enable AMD Fluid Motion Frames in the menu when using FSR 3.1 for supersampling.
• Updated Intel Nanites to support upcoming driver updates.
• Improved performance and optimization for Steam Deck.
• Fixed stuttering issues related to sky map generation.
• Added an option to enable/disable HZB culling to fix stuttering on some AMD/Intel GPUs.
• All graphic settings should be saved locally.
• Fixed an issue with translation for UI “High” preset not being translated and displayed correctly.
• Fixed an issue with Wooden Plank appearing during James’ death animation.
• Fixed streaming issue where staring at the walls inside the Grand Market caused problems with loading all of the environment around James.
• Fixed an issue where interacting with the wrong side of the peephole in Brookhaven Hospital teleported James to the other side.
• Fixed an issue where breaking windows near Neely’s Bar got James stuck in the window frame.
• Fixed an issue that allowed James to access the inaccessible balcony in Blue Creek Apartments.
• Fixed an issue with Abstract Daddy’s behavior during boss fight where the enemy was not hitting James properly.
• Fixed multiple issues with Abstract Daddy’s 3rd TV – it should now have the correct audio, and the wall won’t interfere with its position.
• Fixed an issue with a question mark from the Conference Room not disappearing after obtaining Cinderella figurine in Lakeview Hotel.
• Fixed an issue with collision detection with the Dayroom walls in Brookhaven Hospital.
• Fixed an issue where James was falling under the map when approaching Laura entering Brookhaven Hospital from the bushes on the left.
• Removed debug numbers displayed behind wallpapers in Blue Creek Apartments’ Clock Room.
• Resolved an issue with James not being able to leave the 3F corridor in the Lakeview Hotel.
• Fixed an issue with the lightbulb on the 3rd floor of Blue Creek Apartments constantly switching on and being impervious to destruction.
• Resolved an issue with the small coffee table blocking James in the corner of the room located in Woodside Apartments.
• Fixed an issue where after completing the Disgust Path in Labyrinth, the player was forced to do it all over again.
• Fixed an issue with Spider Mannequins getting stuck when attacking James while he is going through squeeze traversal.
• Fixed an issue with James getting stuck in the window frame while attacking Lying Figures located outside of the window.
• Added more natural movement for James when switching weapons while aiming.
• Fixed an issue with triggering Spider Mannequin event on Fear Path in the Labyrinth multiple times.
• Improved the ability to pick up items during the final boss fight.
• Fixed an issue with picture frames overlapping in the Moth Room.
• Improved the deformation of Nurses’ skirts.
• Fixed an issue occurring when displaying the information about unlocking NewGame+ which didn’t appear in the player’s chosen language.
• Fixed visible unloading of the door of an abandoned garage in the west side of South Vale.
• Fixed question mark on the map during Chute Puzzle in Woodside Apartments.

The post Silent Hill 2 Update 1.04 Live, Here’s What It Does appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Hulu and Disney+ released the first look at Goosebumps: The Vanishing during their New York Comic Con panel on Sunday. Adapted from R.L. Stine’s iconic middle-grade series that generations of readers have come to love, Former Friends star David Schwimmer is set to helm the season as Anthony, a divorced father of two kids who spend the summer with him in his mysterious home.

“I want you to have a really fun and also safe summer out here. I only have one rule: stay out of the basement,” Schwimmer’s Anthony says in the trailer. As the children begin to innocently question why, a clip of Anthony and what appears to be a vine-like plant wrapping around his arms is shown.

Set to release in January 2025, Goosebumps: The Vanishing follows Anthony’s twin children Cece (Jayden Bartels) and Devin (Sam McCarthy) Brewer who visit him in Gravesend, Brooklyn. Per the synopsis, “a threat is stirring, and they quickly realize that dark secrets are among them, triggering a chain of events that unravel a profound mystery.

As they delve into the unknown, Cece, Devin and their friends — Alex (Francesca Noel), CJ (Elijah M. Cooper) and Frankie (Galilea La Salvia) — find themselves entangled in the chilling tale of four teenagers who mysteriously vanished in 1994.” Ana Ortiz and and Stony Blyden also star as Jen and Trey, respectively.

Season 1 of the anthology received relatively mixed reviews online when it was released last year but despite that, a second season was greenlit earlier this year during the Television Critics Association winter press tour which hosted a Disney Branded Television presentation. According to Disney, the premiere received 4.2 million total views globally in its first three days across Disney+ and Hulu.

It follows Justin Long who plays an English teacher at Port Lawrence High School who inherits the Biddle House as well as the possessed spirit of Harold Biddle, a teenager who tragically passed several decades prior. As a group of five local students find that things are shrouded in mystery in their town, they unearth dark secrets of their parents’ past.

Goosebumps: The Vanishing is produced by Sony Pictures Television, the Disney Branded Television series was developed by Nicholas Stoller and Rob Letterman, with Hilary Winston and Letterman showrunning. All three serve as executive producers alongside Neal H. Moritz, Iole Lucchese, Pavun Shetty, Conor Welch, Caitlin Friedman, Erin O’Malley, James Eagan, and Karl Frankenfield. Goosebumps: The Vanishing helms from Sony Pictures Television, Disney Branded Television, Original Film, Stoller Global Solutions, and Scholastic Entertainment.

Goosebumps: The Vanishing premieres all eight episodes on Friday, January 10th, 2025, across Disney+ and Hulu.

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Back in January 2020, FX renewed American Horror Story through Season 13 but the horror anthology series’ future may go much further. Speaking with The Wrap, series-co-creator Ryan Murphy revealed that he would like to “keep doing it for a long time” and that FX is on board as well. American Horror Story just completed its 12th season, Delicate, in April with Delicate being the first season of the popular series that Murphy did not showrun himself — Halley Feiffer took over duties for the season, which was based on Danielle Valentine’s novel Delicate Condition.

“John Landgraf is so cool about that,” Murphy said about continuing American Horror Story. “He always says, ‘Well, it’s really up to you. I’ll keep putting him on the air and making them.’ I have the luxury of my deal, and also it just aired. So, it’s not like it’s been gone forever.”

He continued, “I would keep doing it for a long time. Sarah Paulson and I talk about that too, like, shoot the finale at her funeral, so to speak. A lot of people who made that have stayed with us through the years … When we first started it, we were really like a troupe, and I didn’t have children then, so I was a completely different person. I was able to go, at Jessica Lange’s command, to New Orleans. I couldn’t do that now. Now I’m excited that Sarah is interested in it again. I’m excited that Evan — in the right part — would be interested. There’s a large group of people that I would like to return to that show, including Angela Bassett and on and on and on. It’s fun. But I have to have something to say, or somebody else, another showrunner, has to have something to say.”

While we don’t currently have any details about Season 13 of American Horror Story — as was noted, Delicate just aired earlier this year — the idea that some fan favorites could be returning for the future season (or seasons) is pretty exciting. Paulson herself recently said during an appearance on Good Morning America that there was a “big chance” she’d come back to the anthology and that it is something she’d like to do “more than anything.”

“I think there is a big chance that I will return to American Horror Story,” Paulson said. “I’ve got everything crossed. I would like to do it more than anything. It’s my home. It’s where I started.”

Murphy himself has also recently indicated that he’s spoken with both Paulson and Peters about returning, suggesting that it is something that could happen sooner than fans expect.

“You know, that’s an interesting question,” Murphy said. “I was talking to Sarah Paulson and Evan Peters about that the other day, so maybe sooner than you think.”

While the idea that FX is all in for more American Horror Story and that Murphy isn’t opposed to it is good news for fans, future seasons could see some changes — not unlike what we’ve already seen with Delicate. Murphy also said that whether he would showrun future seasons of the series would depend on the idea (and the cast, as he indicated that if Paulson and Evans returned, he would as well). But Murphy also noted that his workload in general has changed a great deal with his company and all of the shows he works on. While he did say that he was heavily involved with Delicate’s look and design, the series was a departure from the rest of American Horror Story. It didn’t necessarily work as well for some fans and critics — the series received mixed reviews overall — but opening up the long-running anthology series to new approaches (in this case, adaptations) and new perspectives (such as showrunners) could be the ticket to seeing American Horror Story go well beyond Season 13.

All 12 current seasons of American Horror Story are available to stream on Hulu.

The post American Horror Story Just Got a Very Promising Update appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Alien: Romulus is coming to VHS. Yes, you read that correctly. On Saturday, 20th Century Studios announced that the latest entry in the Alien sci-fi horror franchise will get a limited-edition VHS release on December 3 — just in time for the holidays. The special VHS is described as being “an ultimate movie collector’s dream” with the VHS being a fully functional tape created in celebration of the Alien franchise’s 45th anniversary. The box of the VHS features cover art by Matt Ferguson, who is also the artist behind posters for the film. The VHS release of Alien: Romulus is the first such release from a major studio since 2006.

Alien: Romulus’ VHS release coincides with other physical releases for the film, including the Blu-ray Steelbook, standard 4K Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and DVD options. Alien: Romulus is now available on digital with the digital and the upcoming Blu-ray and DVD releases containing exclusive bonus features, including featurettes with filmmakers Fede Alvarez and Ridley Scott as well as behind the scenes content, and alternate and extended scenes. The VHS release does not appear to have any bonus features. Specific details about the VHS release, including how many copies will be available and pricing, have not yet been shared by 20th Century Studios.

Set between Alien and Aliens, in Alien: Romulus, while scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young colonizers come face-to-face with the most relentless and deadly life form in the universe. The film stars Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, and Aileen Wu. The film is directed by Alvarez on a script by Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues. The film was a major hit at the summer box office, bringing in nearly $350 million worldwide.

Alien: Romulus‘ VHS Release Is A Huge Physical Media Win

Alien: Romulus getting a VHS release, even a limited one, is a major win for fans of physical media. In recent months, there has been a great bit of conversation surrounding the so-called death of physical media with the rise of digital and streaming with some retailers even having previously announced that they have or will be stopping sales of physical media. But with streaming platforms removing content for various reasons, there’s been a rise in appreciation for physical media which has, in turn, resulted in increased sales, particularly when it comes to limited edition items such as Steelbooks. As for VHS, that particular form of physical media has been enjoying a resurgence of interest lately as well, possibly because of nostalgia. Given that the Alien: Romulus VHS release is part of an overall celebration of the franchise for its 45th anniversary year, leaning into that nostalgia for feels pretty spot on — just remember to be kind (to yourself) and rewind if you manage to get your hands on one and choose to watch.

Alien: Romulus is now available on digital retailers — such as Amazon’s Prime Video, Fandango at Home (formerly Vudu), and Apple TV+. A streaming date for the film has not yet been released. The Alien: Romulus VHS, as well as Steelbook, Blu-ray, and DVD releases, will be available on December 3.

The post Alien: Romulus Is Getting a VHS Release (Yes, Really) appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Resident Evil games are as cheap as $5 right now, thanks to a few ongoing sales. Currently, the best, most plentiful, and cheapest of the deals come the way of the PlayStation Store. There are also some Resident Evil games heavily discounted on the Xbox Store and Nintendo eShop as well, but the discounts are not quite as meaty nor as plentiful. Why the deals vary platform to platform, we don’t know.

On the PlayStation Store, the Resident Evil deals are live up until Halloween, and a bit after. More specifically, they are set to expire on November 2. On the Xbox Store and Nintendo eShop though, the window of opportunity is a little smaller, as the deals are only live on these digital storefronts until October 31, aka Halloween.

PlayStation Store

• Resident Evil – $4.99
• Resident Evil 0 – $4.99
• Resident Evil 4 – $4.99
• Resident Evil 5 – $4.99
• Resident Evil 6 – $4.99
• Resident Evil Revelations 1 & 2 Bundle – $7.49
• Resident Evil 7 – $7.99
• Resident Evil 2 Remake – $9.99
• Resident Evil 3 Remake – $9.99
• Resident Evil Village – $15.99
• Resident Evil 4 Remake – $19.99

In addition to the various game deals above, a variety of DLC and expansion content for some of the games above is also on sale, again, via the PlayStation Store and until November 2. The discounts are similar to the discounts above, which is to say, meaty.

Xbox Store

• Resident Evil Revelations 1 & 2 Bundle – $7.49
• Resident Evil Triple Pack – $12.49
• Resident Evil 4 Remake – $19.99

Nintendo eShop

• Resident Evil Revelations – $7.99
• Resident Evil Revelations 2 – $7.99
• Resident Evil – $9.99
• Resident Evil 0 – $9.99
• Resident Evil 2 Remake – $9.99
• Resident Evil 3 Remake – $9.99
• Resident Evil 4 – $9.99
• Resident Evil 5 – $9.99
• Resident Evil 6 – $9.99
• Resident Evil 7 – $15.99
• Resident Evil Village – $15.99

For more Resident Evil coverage — including all of the latest Resident Evil news, all of the latest Resident Evil rumors and leaks, and all of the latest Resident Evil deals like these ones — click here. Meanwhile, and as always, feel free to leave a comment letting us know what you think. What Resident Evil games are you playing this Halloween?

The post Resident Evil Games Only $5 in New Sale appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Smile 2 is a great horror movie, in fact, in our review, we here at ComicBook.com noted that it is one of the best horror films of 2024. Writer/Director Parker Finn found a way to make Smile’s sequel bigger, meaner, and scarier by focusing on the world of a pop star who finds herself cursed with the spooky “smile curse.” While the movie has plenty of high-octane tension and jump scares that make for some of the best of the year, there is one major issue that is plaguing the nearly flawless sequel. Not only is the movie’s ending one that might cause some cracks in the overall story but it’s also one that might make future sequels a bit harder to believe.

Warning. If you have yet to watch Smile 2, be forewarned that we’ll be diving into major spoilers for the horror sequel. Many horror fans have rightfully guessed what the ending is to Smile 2 without having seen the movie. Since the curse spreads thanks to someone witnessing an infected person taking their own life, Naomi Scott’s Skye Riley seems like the scariest character to pass the torch onto others. Skye’s status as a major pop star gets plenty of eyes on her and thus, the curse spreads to quite a few people in the film’s final moments.

The Smile Universe

As those who bore witness to Skye Riley taking her own life in the final moments of the movie, grotesquely beating herself with her own microphone, viewers knew that the pop star was living a very different reality. The Smile Curse is one that causes the inflicted to not perceive reality correctly, instead, the supernatural entity is able to make someone like Skye see whatever it wants them to see. This means that a large swath of Smile 2’s story all took place in Riley’s mind and therein lies the problem.

While some may feel cheated that a good percentage of the movie wasn’t real, the big issue for the ending and the potential Smile sequels is that the curse seems unbeatable. While in Skye’s mind, she was given the chance to stop her own heart to dodge the curse but the beast that loomed in her mind never allowed her to actually come close to doing so. How on Earth is it possible to fight something that is able to effectively control your reality from the inside and is this a problem that can be tackled in future films?

The Smile Infection

Thousands of people bear witness to Skye’s death during the grand finale of the sequel, meaning that the potential for the curse to spread even further into the world is one that will help the franchise potentially build more sequels. With the curse seemingly nigh-invincible, Parker Finn might need to start thinking of giving victims some sort of advantage in fighting the curse or there is the possibility that future movies might fall into a cycle of repetition. If an audience knows going into the movie that a protagonist cannot win, can a horror movie still strike fear into the hearts of its audiences?

The future sequel heroes need some legs-up in fighting the smile curse and here’s hoping that Paramount will figure out a way to make it so that the reality-warping villain has a crack in its armor. If everyone who is infected is doomed, is it worth going to the theater to see their descent into madness knowing that their fates are sealed?

Want to see what the future holds for the Smile franchise? Follow along with Team Horror on ComicBook.com and hit me up directly @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and all things spooky.

The post Smile 2 Has A Major Ending Problem appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Dead by Daylight has two big events it celebrates every year: one is the anniversary of the game that’s celebrated in the summer, and the other happens around Halloween. These Halloween festivities just so happen to coincide with DbD Day, a Dead by Daylight event celebrated in Japan where the game has a pretty significant following. Thankfully for Dead by Daylight fans worldwide, that celebration is far from region-locked which means that players everywhere now have some free Dead by Daylight codes to redeem for Iridescent Shards, cosmetics, and more.

Dead by Daylight‘s big DbD Day event officially got underway on October 18th in Japan. The event itself is not explicitly tied to the Halloween season but just so happens to conveniently fall within the already big month for Dead by Daylight thanks to how the game is abbreviated in Japan.

“Since 2022, our friends in Japan have been celebrating DbD Day, also known as Dedoba-no-hi (“デドバの日),” a post from Behaviour Interactive explained. “For those who might not be familiar, October 18th can be read in Japanese as 10 (de), 10 (do) and 8 (ba), which resembles the common Dead by Daylight abbreviation Dedoba.”

Some neat insight into other regions’ Dead by Daylight celebrations from Behaviour there, but if you’re just here for the free Dead by Daylight codes, here’s what you can get this month. Behaviour Interactive has announced two codes so far: one that gives you two unique charms pictured below and another that’ll give you some Iridescent Shards and Bloodpoints. To get the Silk Omamori Charm and the Dbd Day Celebration Coin Charm, enter DBDDMAYOKE in Dead by Daylight‘s code redemption menu. To get 300,000 Bloodpoints and 300 Iridescent Shards, enter DBDDAY2024.

In addition to these free DbD Day codes in Dead by Daylight, the Haunted by Daylight event which is the actual Halloween celebration comes with an Event Tome that has challenges unique to DbD Day. If you complete those challenges, you get cosmetics for Dwight Fairfield, Meg Thomas, Claudette Morel, Jake Park, Yui Kimura, Adam Francis, The Spirit, and The Oni. You also get 25,000 more Bloodpoints each time you unlock one of these, so plenty to be earned during DbD Day and Haunted by Daylight events.

So far, only those two Dead by Daylight codes for October’s DbD Day have been announced, but Behaviour said in its initial post that it’ll be sharing “a few promo codes,” so keep an eye out for more if they drop on socials.

The post Dead by Daylight October Codes Given Out for DbD Day appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Smile 2 landed in theaters this weekend, continuing the terrifying journey that kicked off in 2022’s Smile. With the original movie initially developed as a streaming exclusive, audiences didn’t entirely know what to expect from the original property, with viewers being treated not only to a roller-coaster ride of massive frights, but also a metaphor about hiding your own grief. The blend of effective scares, metaphors about trauma, and a supernatural curse helped earn the film $217.4 million worldwide and 80% positive reviews on aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes. Continuing the concept with a follow-up was a no-brainer, with original writer/director Parker Finn delivering an all-new adventure in Smile 2.

There’s lots to like about this franchise, and what makes its successes all the more impressive is how it’s an entirely original premise, based on Finn’s short film “Laura Hasn’t Slept.” Despite the Smile series being an original experience, there are plenty of films that share some commonality with the movie, so whether you loved Smile 2 and want to see similar experiences or weren’t a fan and want some alternatives, we’ve got some suggestions.

Scroll down to see our picks for seven movies you should watch after Smile 2, which is in theaters now.

The Ring (2002)

Based on the Japanese film Ring, this 2002 movie from Gore Verbinski shares key mythological components with Smile and Smile 2.

As evidenced in the original Smile, a demonic curse would stalk a victim and eventually overtake them, causing them to kill themselves in gruesome ways in front of a witness, with that witness becoming the new target of the curse. The Ring also has a supernatural curse which, once someone inherits it, gives them a deadline of how long they’ll survive before dying by the otherworldly Samara.

While both Smile and The Ring have supernatural curses that cause death as well as a ticking clock that moves towards someone’s demise, both series have key pieces of mythology in regards to spreading the curse. In Smile, someone passes the curse onto another before dying, but in The Ring, it’s possible to escape the curse by incorporating someone else into Samara’s torment.

It Follows (2015)

The Ring featured a curse that centered around a now-iconic figure with Samara, and while It Follows features another type of curse, the actual terror comes from something much more closely related to Smile.

Throughout both Smile films, characters don’t entirely know who or what they can trust, as the strange entity alters their entire mental state. It Follows features a threat that’s a bit more tangible, as audiences witness a slow-moving figure who stalks its target, with the only way to slow the threat being to have sex with someone else, who becomes the entity’s new victim.

What makes It Follows so frightening is that the presence can look like anyone, whether they be a shambling stranger or a victim’s closest friends. Being able to hide terror in plain sight is one major connection between the two mythologies.

The Babadook (2014)

One of the compelling elements of the Smile franchise is that, while being stalked by a strange, smiling presence is creepy enough, the reasoning for the torment is largely unclear. Audiences ultimately learn how the entity feeds on trauma, which it inspires in the witnesses to these suicides.

In Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook, a mother and son read a book called “Mr. Babadook” that has seemingly appeared out of nowhere. The pair begin to be haunted by an otherworldly presence, and with the duo grieving the loss of their family’s patriarch, the real-world trauma is amplified by Mr. Babadook’s torment.

In the past decade, The Babadook has become a go-to example of how to effectively use the horror genre and a superficial monster to reflect real-world trauma. There’s many other horror movies that serve as metaphors for entirely human experiences, though The Babadook is one of the best.

Fallen (1998)

There’s no shortage of movies out there about curses and demons, but it’s worth spotlighting 1998’s Fallen if only for it being an often-overlooked experience.

The movie follows a detective (Denzel Washington) who witnesses a ruthless killer being put to death for his occult crimes, only for the criminal to grab the detective and utter a strange language. Through his investigations, this detective learns of the demonic Azazel, which is said to be able to jump from host to host through touch, with Azazel seemingly having previously possessed the serial killer and now searching for a new host to carry out its crimes.

Joining Washington in the film are John Goodman, Donald Sutherland, and Elias Koteas, making for an impressive cast, while the close-quarters transmission of a demonic entity feels reminiscent of Smile.

Black Swan (2010)

One of the biggest differences between Smile and Smile 2 is that, rather than our protagonist being a doctor who leads a relatively insular life, Smile 2 features a pop singer preparing for her tour. Naomi Scott plays Skye Riley in the sequel, with her performance being one of the components of the sequel earning tremendous praise.

Black Swan scored Natalie Portman an Oscar for her performance as a ballet dancer who loses her grip on reality as she prepares for what could be a career-defining performance.

Audiences know well and good the terrors that are haunting Skye in Smile 2, but as she faces so many pressures for her role in the entertainment industry, everyone around her is questioning her mental state. While Portman’s character isn’t a world-famous pop star, Black Swan is anchored by a powerful lead performance and showcases the devastating mental toll the pressure that being an entertainer can take on someone.

Strange Darling (2023)

While all of the other movies recommended here have some tonal or conceptual connection to the events of Smile and Smile 2, Strange Darling is an entirely different experience. Instead, fans who wanted more of actor Kyle Gallner in Smile 2 will appreciate checking out this twisted story that features a compelling performance from the genre darling.

Part of the joy of Strange Darling is how unexpected the overall narrative is, which is heightened by its non-linear storytelling. We can say, though, that the movie focuses on a serial killer in Oregon and that Gallner is joined in the project by Willa Fitzgerald.

Gallner has tallied a number of genre credits to his name, which include A Haunting in Connecticut, Jennifer’s Body, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Red State, and Scream. The actor is often relegated to supporting roles, while Strange Darling puts all of his acting chops front and center for the unexpected thriller.

Possession (1981)

Parker Finn only has two feature films to his name, Smile and Smile 2, but as far as what his future holds, reports claim he will be developing a reimagining of 1981’s Possession.

The original movie focuses on a marriage that is falling apart when Anna (Isabelle Adjani) alerts Mark (Sam Neill) that she’s developed a relationship with another man while Mark was away for long stretches of time for his career. Mark aims to uncover who Anna has started a relationship with and discovers something he never could have anticipated.

There might not be much cinematic connection between Smile 2 and Possession, but for any fan who has become intrigued with Finn’s directorial sensibilties, watching Possession will give you a tease of what his next project will explore.

Smile 2 is in theaters now.

Which of these films will you be checking out? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror! 

The post 7 Movies to Watch After Smile 2 appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Get Out’s Allison Williams says that the original movie’s ending was absolutely perfect. ComicBook talked to her during New York Comic-Con and had to ask about the Jordan Peele masterclass. Williams described the test audience screenings for the film and shared that including Rod’s character was critical for getting that positive reception. “It’s just such a perfect ending,” Williams argued. “And people left the theater feeling triumph and happiness, instead of feeling deeply down.” The story of Get Out is kind of still a downer when you think about it. But, that little lift at the end probably made all the difference. Back in 2017, the movie catapulted Peele into the stratosphere and raised the profile of everyone associated with the project. Check out what else she had to say right here.

“Well, it’s interesting because we all signed on to the movie with the original ending. It felt really honest, we live in America. If there’s a black man over a dying white woman’s body, and then there’s a house full of dead white people, we all kind of know how that’s going to go. And so, Jordan was pretty clear that he wanted the ending to speak to the truth of the situation,” she told us. “It ended with the Lil Rel character basically trying to get any last bits of information that Chris could think of. Like what? What? Is there anything else? There was film in the camera and there were all these things. It was basically like Chris or Daniel Kaluuya kind of going back into the prison and being like, ‘it’s over now.’”

“That’s good. Basically saying, ‘Yes, I’m in prison for the rest of my life, but I put an end to this thing that they were doing and that’s enough.’ What happened was that when we tested the movie, audiences went from like, ‘I’m at a ten out of ten this movie’s awesome.’ To the ending, which was just like, ‘OOP!,’” Williams continued. “Everyone was like, ‘I feel so darkly sad, and this is too real.’ Basically. What Jordan realized, which is so brilliant, is that the light of two of the police lights on, Chris and Rose on me and Daniel created this reaction in the audience of the fear for him of what the presence of the police was going to mean for his future.”

“You got the message of the long ending. Then he’d read it, and he shot in just that moment with just those lights. And then, you had the release and the triumph of it being, Lil Rel showing up, and it was like, Rod was this savior. He had been the worried one the whole time,” she mused. “And it’s just such a perfect ending. People left the theater feeling triumph and happiness, instead of feeling deeply down. I think it helped create the life that the movie had. I mean, you can’t argue that it would have had the same life with the other ending.”

Williams is probably right on that front. Anytime you get a list of the best modern horror films, Get Out usually ends up in there somewhere. Especially in that genre, getting a twist ending in there can really pay dividends. Peele’s been making bigger and bigger movies ever since. NOPE was big in its own right and Williams and Kaluuya have been busy too. So, the Get Out ending really ended up working out for everyone involved.

This weekend, Blumhouse launched its Shop Blumhouse online store full of exclusive Blumhouse merchandise. You can find it at here.

Do you like the ending to Get Out? Check out all the pop culture conversation over at @ComicBook!

The post Get Out Star Allison Williams Explains Why Get Out’s Original Ending Was “Perfect” appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Behaviour Interactive announced last year plans for a Dead by Daylight movie made in partnership with Jason Blum’s Blumhouse company and James Wan’s Atomic Monster. The Dead by Daylight movie is already in good hands then just by being associated with those two names, but since last year, we’ve heard precious little about the plans for the adaptation. During New York Comic-Con, ComicBook caught up with Blum and got an update from the Blumhouse founder on the Dead by Daylight movie who said that everyone’s still working on a script while comparing the adaptation process to the work that went into Blumhouse’s Five Nights at Freddy’s movie.

“Working on the script,” he said when asked if there was any update to be shared on the Dead by Daylight movie. “You know, we don’t put movies in the calendar until we have the right script.”

For those who might be impatient about hearing more on the Dead by Daylight movie, Blum used the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie adaptation as an example of how long these things sometimes take. The Five Nights at Freddy’s movie was in the works in some form or another for nearly a decade before it released and even changed hands from Warner Bros. to Blumhouse during that process before it finally released in 2023. The movie performed well with Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 fans even if critics weren’t as fond of it, and another one is on the way, so the time spent cooking up the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie was apparently worth it.

“It took 10 years to make Five Nights at Freddy’s, and I think one of the reasons the movie worked is because we spent 10 years trying to get it right,” he said.

Returning back to Dead by Daylight, he said he hopes that those working on the movie get a script that they’re in love with, but he said broadly it could take anywhere from a year to five years.

“I hope we get a script that we love,” he said. “We’re working on a script, but it could be five years, it could be 12 months. You just don’t know. You can’t make the movie until the script is right, and you don’t know how long that’ll take.”

When the Dead by Daylight movies was first announced, it was said that the search was underway for a director and screenwriter. Nobody has been confirmed for those roles since then, so aside from Blum, Wan, and executive producers from their companies and Behaviour Interactive, no other names are attached to the film currently.

Dead by Daylight is in the midst of one of its biggest events of the year since we’re right around Halloween, so Behaviour Interactive still has plenty to do with the game itself while work continues on the movie. More DLC is on the way, too, including one for none other than Five Nights at Freddy’s that’s releasing next year.

This weekend, Blumhouse launched its Shop Blumhouse online store full of exclusive Blumhouse merchandise. You can find it at here.

The post Jason Blum Shares Dead by Daylight Movie Update, Compares Process to Five Nights at Freddy’s appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Smile 2 is a game-changing sequel story, which sets up an even bigger franchise twist for Smile 3. If nothing else can be said about it, Smile 2 refines writer/director Parker Finn’s formula and metaphor for how human trauma often begets more human trauma when those suffering can’t cure their minds. That concept takes on a whole different dimension when the smile entity curse gets passed to one of the world’s biggest pop stars and tabloid celebrities (Naomi Scott’s Skye Riley), and creates a whole new level of danger.

WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW!

How Smile 2 Setups Up A Very Different Smile 3

Skye Riley’s mega-star lifestyle ultimately proves to be her undoing. Skye has to expose herself to constant public scrutiny due to the media and promotional junkets she’s doing leading up to her world tour kickoff; the rest of the time, she’s isolated in private, where the entity can toy with her mind in horrible ways. By the end of the film, Skye loses touch with reality and is fully possessed by the entity, which puppets her onto the stage on the opening night of the tour, and has her shove her microphone through her eye, killing herself in front of the entire crowd.

Smile (2022) and Smile 2 explored the concept of the demonic grinning entity as an ‘infection’ that’s passed person to person on a 1-to-1 basis; however, Skye Riley’s death in front of a packed stadium crowd suggests that the smile curse could become the equivalent of a mass pandemic, with the entity infecting dozens (if not hundreds) of minds at once.

Smile 3 (or “Smiles” perhaps) could be a big departure from the formula of the first two films – for better or worse. Parker Finn has a lot of leeway to change up the format of the film, telling multiple short stories that interconnect in some way – or, he could borrow from the Alien movie franchise and coat the threequel in entirely new genre tropes. If the smile curse goes wide, the entity could arguably possess masses of people hive mind-style, potentially creating a sort of action-horror Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Dawn of the Dead type of horror movie, that still pepper in the franchise’s signature psycho-horror reality fakeouts.

It’s clear that Smile 2 was all about refining the concept of the first film, but Smile 3 almost has no choice but to be a massive expansion of the concept. But if the sequel is any indication, Parker Finn can pull of that expansion, beautifully.

“I think there are so many different, interesting directions the world of Smile can take, different roads it can go down,” Parker Finn recently teased to GamesRadar. “Right now I’m very excited to see how audiences respond to Smile 2 and if we are lucky with how audiences can connect with and embrace the film, I think the sky’s the limit.”

Smile 2 is now in theaters.

The post How Smile 2 Sets Up a Very Different Smile 3 Story appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Last month, horror fans at Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Orlando Resort got a glimpse of the titular Wolf Man form Blumhouse’s upcoming Wolf Man movie but pretty soon after images and footage of the iconic Universal Monster made their way online, fans were a bit confused as to whether this was really the final look for the character. Now, speaking with ComicBook at New York Comic Con, director Leigh Whannell is setting the record straight — and calling out Halloween Horror Nights’ version of the character as the “Spirit Halloween” version that isn’t much like what fans will see in the movie.

“First of all, we’ve got Arjen Tuiten doing the makeup and he’s a genius, the level of makeup that he can do,” Whannell said. “It’s kind of like, without spoiling anything, it’s like comparing a costume at Spirit Halloween to Rick Baker’s makeup. There’s a level of lighting and artistry. I can confidently tell you that the Halloween Horror Nights Wolf Man they had running around is not much like what we have going.”

For reference, the Halloween Horror Nights version of the Wolf Man is a far cry from the more monstrous versions that have previously been represented in cinema with the theme park’s offering being more like a grizzled old man with large, wolf-like claws and a white beard.

Wolf Man stars Christopher Abbott (Poor Things, It Comes at Night) as Blake, Julia Garner (Ozark, Inventing Anna) as Charlotte, and Matilda Firth (Hullraisers, Coma) as Ginger. In the film, Blake inherits his remote childhood home in rural Oregon after his own father vanishes and is presumed dead. With his marriage to his high-powered wife, Charlotte, fraying, Blake persuades Charlotte to take a break from the city and visit the property with their young daughter, Ginger. But as the family approaches the farmhouse in the dead of night, they’re attacked by an unseen animal and, in a desperate escape, barricade themselves inside the home as the creature prowls the perimeter. As the night stretches on, however, Blake begins to behave strangely, transforming into something unrecognizable, and Charlotte will be forced to decide whether the terror within their house is more lethal than the danger without.

Wolf Man also stars Sam Jaeger (The Handmaid’s Tale), Ben Prendergast (The Sojourn Audio Drama) and Benedict Hardie (The Invisible Man). Leigh Whannell also co-wrote the screenplay alongside Corbett Tuck, Lauren Schuker Blum & Rebecca Angelo (Dumb Money). Blumhouse Pictures produces the film alongside Universal.

This weekend, Blumhouse launched its Shop Blumhouse online store full of exclusive Blumhouse merchandise. You can find it at here.

Wolf Man is set to open in theaters on January 17, 2025.

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The Wolf Man (2025) full trailer has been released by Universal Pictures and you can watch it below! Director Leigh Whannell is continuing the re-invention of the Universal Monsters brand he began with the Invisible Man (2020) remake, with a dark tale about a father infected with the curse of man-turned-beast, and the threat he poses to this family. The teaser trailer for Wolf Man (2025) got horror fans buzzing – and mainstream audiences seem to be taking notice now that the film has been given an R-rating.

The full trailer for Wolf Man (2025) starts with a very intense scene, which shows the protagonist family hanging over a cliff in a moving truck, after being attacked by a werewolf. The mother (Julia Carner), father (Christopher Abbott), and daughter (Matilda Firth) escape the truck, but not before the dad is wounded in the attack. When they hold up in a nearby house, the threat begins to grow from within as the dad starts to succumb to the werewolf infection, forcing the mother and daughter to try and escape.

Wolf Man (2025) Full Story Synopsis

This newly released synopsis for Wolf Man breaks down the deeper subplots and themes of its story:

Golden Globe nominee Christopher Abbott (Poor Things, It Comes at Night) stars as Blake, a San Francisco husband and father, who inherits his remote childhood home in rural Oregon after his own father vanishes and is presumed dead. With his marriage to his high-powered wife, Charlotte (Emmy winner Julia Garner; Ozark, Inventing Anna), fraying, Blake persuades Charlotte to take a break from the city and visit the property with their young daughter, Ginger (Matlida Firth; Hullraisers, Coma). But as the family approaches the farmhouse in the dead of night, they’re attacked by an unseen animal and, in a desperate escape, barricade themselves inside the home as the creature prowls the perimeter. As the night stretches on, however, Blake begins to behave strangely, transforming into something unrecognizable, and Charlotte will be forced to decide whether the terror within their house is more lethal than the danger without.

Like Invisible Man, it seems Whannell is channeling a lot of modern themes about relationship dynamics and gender into the metaphors behind the monster-horror. There’s a lot of juicy potential in the premise of San Francisco tech and/or entrepreneur types (Invisible Man connection?) having to confront repressed anger and tap into primal savagery far removed from digital life. The synopsis is right to include the accolades that Abbott and Garner have received, as both are bubbling talents – and both are set to got mainstream in Marvel movie projects (Kraven the Hunter and Fantastic Four, respectively).

Of course, the design of the Wolf Man creature(s) will have a lot to do with whether this film succeeds or fails. Invisible Man nailed the concept with creepy and creative sequences of stalking and assault using a tech-based invisibility suit; Wolf Man has classic makeup and effects challenge to meet – one that not every adaptation gets right (see

The supporting cast of Wolf Man includes Sam Jaeger (The Handmaid’s Tale), Ben Prendergast (The Sojourn Audio Drama) and Benedict Hardie (The Invisible Man). Leigh Whannell also co-wrote the screenplay alongside Corbett Tuck, Lauren Schuker Blum & Rebecca Angelo (Dumb Money). Blumhouse Pictures produces the film alongside Universal.

Wolf Man will be in theaters on January 17, 2025.

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Five Nights at Freddy’s fans just got their very first look at the movie version of Toy Freddy, another animatronic that’ll appear in the Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 movie that’s coming out in December 2025. The first look at Toy Freddy comes from a new poster shared out of Blumhouse’s New York Comic-Con showcase and just so happens to be our first official poster for the sequel, too. With Five Nights at Freddy’s star Matthew Lillard having just confirmed to ComicBook that filming on Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is starting very soon, fans can hopefully expect to see more of these kinds of teasers in the near future.

While he looks quite similar to the original Freddy Fazbear seen in the first Five Nights at Freddy’s movie, Toy Freddy is a different character and is part of the “toy” line of animatronics including alternate versions of Bonnie, Chica, and more. He’s distinguishable from the other versions of Freddy Fazbear by his sleeker, more plastic-y look. You can see the movie version of Toy Freddy in the poster below courtesy of Blumhouse:

The first poster for Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 reiterated that the movie already has a set release date with Blumhouse bringing it to theaters on December 5, 2025. That’ll be just over two years after the first Five Nights at Freddy’s movie released, so a pretty quick turnaround for FNAF fans to look forward to. The first movie also came to streaming pretty soon after its theatrical release, too, and was an immense success on Peacock, so Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 will hopefully follow suit for those who want to watch it at home.

There’s technically a chance that we’ve actually seen Toy Freddy before in some of the Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 teases, though not in this fully formed way that he’s depicted in the poster. Blumhouse and Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, the latter being the company working on the animatronics for the new movie just as they did for the first Five Nights at Freddy’s film, have both been sharing behind-the-scenes looks at some of the in-progress animatronics. People have been able to recognize some of them from the rough versions which has led to predictions about what characters we might see in Five Nights at Freddy’s 2.

It’s also fitting that Toy Freddy will be introduced in the Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 movie as well seeing how he made his first appearance in the Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 game. He’s been in most of the games afterwards including Five Nights at Freddy’s 3, Five Nights at Freddy’s 4, and spin-offs such as Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted and Help Wanted 2, though some of those appearances have just been cameos such as posters or cutouts.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 will come to theaters on December 5, 2025, so look for more teasers between now and then to see which other characters will make an appearance in the sequel.

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American Psycho is getting a remake, with writer Scott Z. Burns (Side Effects, Contagion, The Bourne Ultimatum) set to do a new adaptation of author Brent Easton Ellis’s classic novel, and director Luca Guadagnino is in “final talks” to helm. Guadagnino is best known for directing the 2018 remake of Dario Argento’s Suspiria, and more recently the steamy sports-romance film Challengers starring Zendaya. It’s noted that this will be a new adaptation of the book – and not a remake of the original film.

Lionsgate and Frenesy Films are developing the new American Psycho with Sam Pressman executive producing. Pressman is also the son of Edward R. Pressman, the producer of American Psycho (2000).

“We are thrilled to add another elite filmmaker to our upcoming slate,” Lionsgate Motion Picture Group chair Adam Fogelson said in a statement. “Luca is a brilliant artist, and the perfect visionary to create a whole new interpretation of this potent and classic IP.”

The first American Psycho (2000) movie adaptation from writer/director Mary Harron was a box office flop ($34M on a $7M budget), but went on to become one of the cult-hit breakouts of the early DVD era. The film also made an international star out of Christian Bale, who starred as psychotic 1980s NYC yuppie Patrick Bateman.

American Psycho (2000) admittedly took liberties with how it adapted Ellis’s novel – even though it became infamous for some of its more hardcore scenes of sex, murder – or a combination of both. This new adaptation, in this day and age, could potentially go further into sort of graphic details that got the novel censored in so many different places over the years; however, if Luca Guadagnino is the sort of director being considered, it seems like this new version could also play with the lines of fantasy, reality, and satirical imagery that Ellis was playing with in his book.

This new American Psycho movie is now in development.

Via Deadline

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Smile 2 is now in theaters and without getting into spoilers (yet), the sequel opens on a pretty wild note that sets the tone for a film that has horror fans buzzing. That said, there are some pretty close connections between the original Smile movie and the opening act of Smile 2 — pieces of a puzzle that viewers may not be able to put together if they haven’t seen the first film — or even if it’s been a while since they have. Below you will find the breakdown of everything you need to know — and we’ll address a potential plothole Smile 2 creates in its opening scene.

WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW!

What Happened at the End of Smile?

Smile followed therapist Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon), who was infected by the evil entity by one of her graduate students. Rose spends the movie trying to determine what the curse is and how to cure herself — and she gets aided in her investigation by her ex-boyfriend Joel (Kyle Gallner), a police detective. Rose and Joel follow the chain of smile entity suicides to one survivor: Robert Talley (Rob Morgan), who explains he survived the curse by brutally killing someone in front of a witness and letting the entity pass on to that traumatized onlooker. Rose rejected that idea and instead chose to try to kill herself, ending the chain of traumas with her death. Instead, the entity intervened, and Joel found Rose possessed and watched her set herself on fire, thereby making Joel the new host for the curse.

Smile 2‘s Opening Scene Explained

Smile 2 begins by letting viewers know that six days have passed since Joel got infected. Joel is now an ex-cop (implying the curse’s hallucinations got him fired) who is running out of time before his inevitable possession. Joel finally decides to try Robert Talley’s strategy — while putting a moral twist on it. Using police resources, he tracks down two Eastern European drug dealer brothers at their stash house and tries to kill one in front of the other, passing the curse on to someone who deserves the bad Karma.

The plan quickly goes sideways: the brothers both end up dying in a shootout with Joel, with small-time drug dealer Lewis Fregoli (Lukas Gage) witnessing their deaths, while there to pick up his drugs. Joel desperately tries to escape the drug den when the brothers’ crew comes in guns blazing but ends up getting hit by a truck while running across the road, leaving a gruesome, bloody smear in the shape of a smile.

Is Smile 2‘s Opening Scene a Major Plothole?

Some viewers have come away wondering about the logic of Smile 2‘s opening scene. By the “rules” of the smile entity’s curse, a witness who sees an infected person kill themselves or someone else then inherits the curse. By those rules, Joel passes the curse to Lewis — who then passes it to pop star Skye Riley, setting the events of the sequel into motion. However, Smile 2 is confusing some viewers, since Joel is seemingly killed by the curse entity, even after he passes it to Lewis.

Is it a pothole? There’s never confirmation that the entity carried out Joel’s death: he’s just running away from gunshots in a panic and doesn’t look where he’s going carefully enough. The detail about Joel’s blood and entrails forming a gruesome smile in the road can be chalked up to writer/director Parker Finn finding a clever way to introduce the Smile 2 title sequence, and quickly sever ties with the dangling threads of the first film.

Smile 2 is now in theaters.

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The Strangers fans were given the first glimpse of what could be next for the franchise thanks to a first teaser for The Strangers: Chapter 2 being released today. Since the early phases of the reboot’s development, fans were aware that the project would consist of three entries, so while we knew that two more movies would be coming, audiences have largely been kept in the dark about the status of the series since The Strangers: Chapter 1 was released earlier this year. Given the lengthy wait between Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, it’s possible we might not get Chapter 3 until sometime in 2026. You can check out the teaser for The Strangers: Chapter 2 above.

Madelaine Petsch returns in Chapter 2 as Maya, having survived the horrific attacks by three masked figures. Her and her boyfriend Ryan (Froy Gutierrez) suffered some car trouble on a road trip, forcing them to take an impromptu stop in a rural Oregon town. Once night fell, Maya and Ryan were visited by masked tormentors, with Ryan suffering seemingly fatal attacks. Maya was luckily able to get to the hospital, though a post-credits scene teased that her tormentors weren’t through with their game.

The original The Strangers came from writer/director Bryan Bertino and was released in 2008. That movie similarly saw a couple in a rural home being attacked by masked intruders, with the figures ultimately revealing this couple was selected solely because they were home. While it wasn’t a major box-office success, the movie earned a passionate following among horror fans and largely set the standard for contemporary home-invasion horrors. The movie earned the sequel The Strangers: Prey at Night in 2018, which similarly featured masked killers tormenting a family, though there was little narrative connection to its predecessor.

Given the nature of the premise and how the first two films didn’t feature direct connections to one another, some audiences have wondered why a reboot approach felt necessary for this project. While Chapter 1 followed many of the same beats as the original movie, part of what set this approach apart was the idea that we would see a journey unfold over three films as opposed to merely getting another isolated experience.

Renny Harlin, who directed all three movies, previously expressed that the whole project was considered one epic journey of terror, feeling like a 4.5-hour movie broken up into chapters as opposed to three disparate adventures.

“We, of course, shot them on top of each other and mixed up, like movies are always made. But we had to keep in mind that this is one story arc,” Harlin detailed to ComicBook earlier this year. “It is one 4.5-hour movie, and the first movie is a first act. It sets up the characters and the terror and the killers and our main character, who will survive the first movie, but then go on a journey for the next two.”

Stay tuned for updates on The Strangers: Chapter 2.

Are you looking forward to the sequel? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror! 

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The witching hour is about to be upon us again. On Thursday, AMC Networks announced at New. York Comic Con that Season 2 of Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches will premiere on January 5, 2025. The series will air on both AMC and AMC+. AMC had previously indicated back in May that Mayfair Witches would return for its sophomore season sometime in 2025. Thursday’s announcement finally gives fans of the gothic horror series a reason to put away their summoning circles when it comes to an exact date. Additionally, while those in attendance for the show’s NYCC panel were treated to an early screening of the Season 2 premiere, the network also released first look footage at the upcoming season revealing something ominous regarding Rowan’s (Alexandra Daddario) infant son and Lasher (Jack Huston). You can check out that clip here.

Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches is based on the late author’s Lives of the Mayfair Witches trilogy of novels. Season 2 of the series will continue Rowan Mayfair’s journey after she has unwittingly given birth to the demon Lasher. She is determined to understand what he has become — human or monster? — and to use him to fulfill her purpose as a healer, but when tragedy strikes, she must put aside her own desires and fight to protect her family. In addition to Daddario and Huston, the series stars Tongayi Chirisa and Harry Hamlin. They will be joined by a handful of new cast members in the new season, including Ben Feldman, Thora Birch, Ted Levine, and Alyssa Jirrels.

Season 1 of Mayfair Witches ended with Rowan giving birth to her child and thus, facilitating Lasher’s rebirth. The season finale also saw the truth about Rowan’s parentage come to light when it was revealed that her uncle Cortland Mayfair (Hamlin) raped her mother, Deirdre. When Cortland attempts to convince Rowan to give him the baby as he wants the power Lasher promises, Rowan turns him to stone. However, first look photos from Season 2 reveal and alive and (seemingly) well Cortland, meaning that Cortland’s story is far from over — and will only get crazier from here with the addition of Levine’s Julien Mayfair, Cortland’s father.

“I find my way out and then a lot of very, very weird things happen to Cortland,” Hamlin said previously. “

“My father is a new cast member, Ted Levine, who was Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs and is an extraordinary actor,” Hamlin continued. “I mean, watch out because it’s crazy.”

Will Season 2 of Mayfair Witches Improve the Series?

While Mayfair Witches is part of AMC’s overall Immortal Universe based on Rice’s novels — the network also has the critically acclaimed Interview With the Vampire which has a third season anticipated for fall 2025 and the upcoming The Talamasca series expected sometime in 2025 as well — fan response to the first season of Mayfair Witches was mixed. However, some of the responses to the early screening of the Season 2 premiere of Mayfair Witches as well as the first look footage shared with the wider public have been promising, including comments that things already “looks and feels wildly better” than the first season.  Certainly, moving the series away from Rowan’s journey to finding her true self and getting more rooted into the dark mysteries of The Witching Hour, the novel that serves as much of the basis for the series, will allow for more interesting stories and conflicts. Lasher (presumably) being made flesh offers a much larger threat for Season 2 to explore, as well as the suggestion that the Talamasca may have their own reasons for wanting Lasher to be manifested.

Additionally, given that a Talamasca-centric series is coming, there is certainly potential for crossover, though series showrunner Esta Spalding made clear during the show’s NYCC panel that the only confirmed crossover between Mayfair Witches and the larger Immortal Universe in Season 2 will be an appearance by Felix (Gabriel Freilich), Lestat de Lioncourt’s fledgling vampire first seen in the Season 2 finale of Interview With the Vampire. He will appear in the third episode of Mayfair Witches Season 2. For fans of Rice’s work — and who know that the stories of the witches and the vampires intersect, eventually — that connection could make all the difference.

Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches Season 2 premieres on January 5, 2025, on AMC and AMC+.

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Smile 2 follows an ongoing path of carnage being left in the wake of the evil grinning demonic entity from the first film. When the curse infects troubled pop superstar Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) the terror of the horrific hallucinations caused by the entity take on a whole other level, as the demands of being a celebrity expose Skye to all sorts of pressured and vulnerable situations for the demon to play upon.

By the time Smile 2 reaches its bloody end, a lot of viewers may be confused about what happened – and which parts were real. Below you’ll find a detailed explanation of Smile 2‘s ending, and which parts actually happened.

Smile 2 Ending Explained (Spoilers)

The third of Smile 2 begins after Skye has a major public breakdown while giving a speech at a fundraiser for her record executive boss, Darius (Raúl Castillo). Skye retreats into seclusion but finally decides to answer the mysterious texts for an unknown number she’s gotten since first being infected by the curse, watching her drug dealer kill himself. Skye meets the mystery texter who turns out to be Morris (Peter Jacobson), a nurse whose brother was killed by the entity. Morris pitches a theory that the entity is a supernatural parasite who must pass from one live host to another – and that if Skye can isolate herself, stop her heart, and then resuscitate it, she will kill the entity.

As soon as Skye and Morris form the plan, the entity attacks Skye in her apartment that night, causing her to hit her head and get a concussion when fighting off grinning versions of her background dancers. Skye wakes up in a recovery facility where her mom Elizabeth (Rosemarie Dewitt) insists she straighten out her erratic behavior and get ready for her upcoming tour. Skye witnesses the entity possess her mom and it makes her cut her own neck open with a broken shard of the mirror – only for Skye to suddenly find she is the one holding the shard of glass and is covered in her mom’s blood. Skye grabs a gun and breaks out of the facility, escaping with her best friend Gemma – only to realize that she never really reconciled with Gemma, and she’s escaping alone.

Skye returns to Morris and together they go to an old restaurant Morris rented that has a deep freezer and tries to give Skye a series of injections – one to stop her heart and one to restart it, while the freezing temperature preserves her brain. The plan goes sideways and the entity ultimately reveals that it’s all a hallucination, and Skye can’t really kill herself.

In reality, Skye finds herself onstage at her tour opening, with her mom very much alive, cheering her on from the front row. The entity finally appears as a smiling version of Skye and then bursts out of her to reveal its true demonic form. The entity crawls inside of Skye’s mouth, completing her possession; Skye takes her microphone and impales herself through the face with it.

Smile 2: What Was Real?

There are any number of story beats from Smile 2 that are forcing viewers to question the reality of the film, afterwards. The sequel has multiple rug-pull moments that reframe what we think we know – such as the climatic reveal that had never really reconnected with her estranged BFF Gemma, and every scene the character has in the film is just an illusion. That said, here’s a breakdown of some of the more specific questions about what is reality and what is illusion in the film.

Did Skye Really Kill Her Mom?

No, the entire sequence at the recovery center where Elizabeth got killed and Skye went on a gun-toting rampage was an illusion – we know this because Elizabeth is alive in the crowd at the concert, and the concert is still taking place, instead of Skye being arrested or in jail.

Did Skye Really Try to Kill Herself?

The entity outright tells Skye during their climactic showdown in the freezer that the entire sequence with Morris and the two injections isn’t real. That’s actually a saving grace for the film: up until that moment the entire rehab escape and slapdash plan to run a Flatliners play on Skye started to feel like it jumped the shark. Finding out it was a cruel prank being played by the entity makes so much more sense.

Was Morris Real?

This is one of those areas of Smile 2 that is going to be ambiguous (at least until writer/director Parker Finn or the cast clarify it). There’s no real hard proof that Morris was ever really there: the entity clearly laid a trap for Skye with the whole death and resuscitation plan, and Morris definitely wasn’t there the second time they met up and tried to use the freezer.

At best, Morris was real the first time and is a character who is still out there with knowledge on how to fight/kill the entity. At worst, he was a red herring all along and, like every character in these films so far, no one has actually figured out a way to beat the entity.

What Happens Next With The Smile Curse?

The big game-changing element in Smile 2 is that Skey Riley is a major celebrity. That creates a unique framework for the scares that Smile 2 creates – but it also has major ramifications for the ending.

It’s been established that the entity needs moments of trauma to move from one host to another – but up until now in the series, that’s been a 1-to-1 transfer process. When Skye kills herself in front of an entire viewing audience, it causes trauma on a widespread scale – as highlighted by the final camera shot of the people in the crowd all being traumatized. The implication is that the entity can now infect people on a widespread scale (a whole pandemic of infection, if you will…), setting up Smile 3 to be a much, much, bigger scale of the psychological-horror concept.

Smile 2 is now in theaters.

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Stars Emilie Bierre and Caleb Dolden play siblings Meryl and Arlo in the Peacock series Teacup, in which a bizarre and frightening threat has put their family and their farm at risk. Understandably, this presents a number of challenges for all of the characters in the series, and while the adults might have the life experience to be able to stay focused on keeping cool, the younger characters are undergoing an entirely different experience. Despite the harrowing things that their on-screen characters endured, the pair both recalled how filming the series felt more like a summer camp than a collection of cast and filmmakers telling a frightening story. New episodes of Teacup premiere every Thursday on Peacock.

“Filming felt like summer camp, pretty much,” Dolden revealed to ComicBook of the production. “There wasn’t a scary part of it because I had read the scripts and memorized everything, and so once I had it memorized, I knew exactly what was going to happen. And I knew everybody on that set, and as soon as a take was over, everybody would go back to smiling and being happy.”

Bierre noted that this vibe persisted, even as new directors would cycle in for specific episodes, as she expressed, “It felt like a different counselor at the same summer camp. Everybody was working towards the same goal. All of them were great and they all fit their episodes so well. It was so lovely, because it would just change the rhythm of our days filming, and the approach with directing and everything. It was slight differences, but at the end of the day, it was still Teacup, for sure.”

Teacup follows a disparate group of people in rural Georgia who must come together in the face of a mysterious threat in order to survive. Inspired by the New York Times bestselling novel Stinger by Robert McCammon.

While Arlo is the youngest member of the ensemble, allowing him to act out in ways others can’t, Meryl is stuck between wanting to connect with the adults while also being tasked with caring for her younger brother. Bierre went on to address how she used these components of her character to connect to her actual self.

“The points that we have in common, the most important things, were her being a big sister,” the actor pointed out. “I also have a little sister that’s three years younger than me in real life, so I could instantly connect to that feeling. Those relationships are always complex. You love them, some days, you’re like, ‘Ugh, you’re annoying,’ but at the end of the day, you just want to make sure they’re okay and you love them with all your heart, so that was something that was really easy to connect to. We’re different on a lot of little things, I guess I’m slightly older than she is.”

She added, “I would say maybe the most different thing would be how she has her guard up a little bit with people. She’s trying to act like she’s all cool and she doesn’t care about things a little bit, at first. I’m more like, ‘Hey, let’s be friends!’ More open than she is, but I think she’s doing that to protect herself a little bit with certain people.”

New episodes of Teacup premiere on Thursdays on Peacock.

What do you think of the series? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

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The rise of streaming platforms has pushed the art of storytelling into all-new realms, making possible narratives that could never exist in more traditional mediums. Both in the production values and in their distribution models, audiences are introduced to a variety of stories with the push of a button, as well as streamers offering the chance to dive deeper into a platform’s library to witness classic movies and TV series. Despite all of the positive ramifications of streaming and the doors they’ve opened for storytellers, one unintended consequence has been the almost complete death of beloved October traditions: Halloween-themed commercials and TV episodes.

Prior to the Internet becoming such a powerhouse when it came to how audiences consumed content, the dominating platform for such entertainment was in-home television. For those of us who grew up watching TV, one of the first indicators that the spooky season was right around the corner was the debut of commercials honoring All Hallow’s Eve. Whether it was a commercial specifically promoting Halloween candy or related festivities, or if a brand used the season as a clever way to honor their year-round mascots, these commercials started to roll out as early as August and would dominate the airwaves up through November 1st.

The current age of streaming means that, while you might still have to suffer through ads on platforms while you attempt to catch up on your favorite programs, the emphasis on any advertisement is taking an evergreen approach. Brands are far less interested in making a commercial that comes with an expiration date than they are in making a promo that can run for a majority of the year, if not in perpetuity. Halloween-themed commercials aren’t a requirement to enjoy the holiday, and they do still sporadically get made, but anyone born in the last two decades has missed out on being treated to a few minutes of ads that all honor the spirit of the season. Given that Halloween is such a community-focused event, seeing dozens of new Halloween commercials pop up every year added a universality to all of the content you consumed on your TV.

Commercials aren’t the only things that hope to embrace an evergreen approach to delivering stories, as TV series, no matter what the genre, have all modified their storytelling structure. Network series would often have at least 22 episodes per season, which meant that writers were always looking for ways to fulfill that quota. The tradition of making an episode that directly tapped into the Halloween season goes back to the ’50s, but the popularity of Halloween and of sitcoms arguably peaked in the ’80s and ’90s, resulting in some of the most popular programs on TV delivering viewers themed episodes. And, if you were lucky, ABC’s TGIF or Nickelodeon’s SNICK could see the entire evening dominated by tributes to October 31st.

No matter what the title might be, there’s always something a little special about watching an episode of a TV series honoring a real-world holiday, if only to use the premise to honor the sillier sides of the season. These tie-in specials aren’t gone for good, as animated series like The Simpsons and Bob’s Burgers regularly take part in the tradition, while Ghosts, The Goldbergs, Modern Family, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine kept the spirit alive over the past decade of live-action sitcoms. With so many TV shows in the streaming age maxing out at 13 episodes a season, and some being as short as six episodes, there’s less of a need and likely less of an interest in filling time with a tribute to Halloween, or any holiday. Additionally, with so many series potentially being released without much certainty as to whether it’ll get picked up for more seasons, the stories themselves need to have a timelessness to them so that, if it’s discovered years later, they can be just as entertaining in a complete bubble and without any cultural signifiers to potentially date them.

There have been countless, undeniably beneficial components of streaming platforms and what they’ve done for entertainment over the past decade. Despite those advantages, we can’t help but pine for the earlier days of TV and the opportunity to watch Halloween-themed episodes of our family’s favorite series as you’re surrounded by those closest to you, only to have those shows interrupted by creepy and kooky commercials to help build excitement towards October 31st. With the market trending towards offerings that can be consumed all year round, entire generations of TV fans will be denied the thrill of seeing your favorite characters sporting Halloween costumes to build excitement about getting to participate in those festivities yourself.

Do you wish more TV series had Halloween episodes? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

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Smile 2 is the sequel to the successful breakout horror film Smile (2022), and by all indications from the first wave of reviews, the franchise is only getting better. Given how fast Paramount decided to put the first film in theaters (instead of streaming) and greenlight a sequel, there’s no reason to think (save for box office disaster) that the Smile franchise is ending with the sequel.

So is there anything extra waiting at the end of Smile 2 that viewers need to stick around for – something that could reveal the next chapter in the series?

Does Smile 2 Have A Post-Credits Scene?

No, the only setup done for the future of the Smile franchise (Smile 3? Smiles?) is done in the final scenes of Smile 2. The end credits are just credits, so no need to wait around or put off bathroom stops hoping for one last good jump scare.

The good news is that Smile 2 will apparently have plenty of great scares before the end credits roll, so most viewers may not feel need for any additional post-credits content. In his 4 out of 5-star review of Smile 2, ComicBook critic Evan Valentine calls the sequel “One of the Best Horror Films of 2024”:

“Smile 2 takes what made the first movie work and improves upon it in quite a few ways. If you enjoyed the first Smile, Smile 2 is definitely worth catching and here’s to hoping that creator Parker Finn has far more stories to tell in this developing horror universe. Truly, the sky might be the limit for this unsettling horror franchise.”

Smile 2 Story Explained

About to embark on a new world tour, global pop sensation Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) begins to experience increasingly terrifying and inexplicable events. Overwhelmed by the escalating horrors and pressures of fame, she must face her dark past to regain control of her life before it spirals out of control.

Smile Creator on Future Sequel Plans

Frachise writer/director Parker Finn has already teased that, based on how Smile 2 ends, he already has ideas for what’s next:

“I think there are so many different, interesting directions the world of Smile can take, different roads it can go down,” Finn recently told GamesRadar. “Right now I’m very excited to see how audiences respond to Smile 2 and if we are lucky with how audiences can connect with and embrace the film, I think the sky’s the limit.”

When speaking with ComicBook after the first film’s release, Finn added that “I never want to overtly just repeat myself or do the same thing I just did, but I think that there could be a really exciting way for there to be more in the world of Smile, but something very unexpected and surprising for an audience with a lot of tricks up its sleeves,” 

Smile 2 hits theaters on October 18th.

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Five Nights at Freddy’s star Matthew Lillard already said recently that filming for the sequel, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, would be getting underway in October, but now, we have a more precise answer as to exactly when filming would start. During an interview with ComicBook at New York Comic-Con, Lillard was asked if he’d started filming Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 yet given that we’re already halfway through October. Lillard said that he hadn’t yet but confirmed that filming would start in “10 days” which puts the filming date at October 27th.

The filming start date was all Lillard offered by way of insights into Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, but with that date now set, the franchise’s many fans can look forward to the end of October to perhaps see more from the movie. The start and end dates of filming for movies like this one are usually accompanied by an image or two from the set which may give Five Nights at Freddy’s fans something to pick apart until the next teaser is shared.

During the interview, Lillard joked that the filming date being so soon was why he was sporting such a “horrible beard.” He’s talked about Five Nights at Freddy’s and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 plenty of times on-camera during the build-up to the sequel, but now that he’s about to start filming, he’s back to looking like William Afton, the antagonist introduced in the first movie who’s shown below.

The October 27th start date for the filming of Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is in line with what previous teases and reports indicated. The first Five Nights at Freddy’s movie was filmed in New Orleans, Louisiana, and on the Louisiana Entertainment site which keeps track of various entertainment projects upcoming or ongoing, there’s been a project called “Music Box” which has been listed there for a while now. Five Nights at Freddy’s fans deduced that Music Box was most likely a reference to Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, an assumption made even more convincing when Lillard said previously that filming would start in October. The site has Music Box filming beginning on October 28th which is only a day off from Lillard’s newer statement about the start date.

One of the best teasers so far from the Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 movie consisted of several pages from the screenplay that were revealed by series creator Scott Cawthon, but those came with a big catch: almost all of them were fake. It’s still unknown which one is real and which aren’t but future teasers and trailers will perhaps help Five Nights at Freddy’s fans filter out the fakes.

ComicBook’s NYCC interview with Lillard touched on Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 of course, but we also discussed other projects he’s got in the works like Macabre Spirits — the new tequila brand he’s launched with Mike Flanagan — as well as his love for Dungeons & Dragons and movies he was in that he wished would’ve gotten sequels. We’ll have more up from out interview with Lillard soon as well as other news out of NYCC as it comes.

The post Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 Star Matthew Lillard Confirms When Filming Starts (Exclusive) appeared first on ComicBook.com.

The upcoming Wolf Man from director Leigh Whannell has earned an official R rating, which marks a promising update for the project. The film scored its rating for “bloody violent content and grisly images,” which seemingly confirms that Whannell won’t be pulling his punches when it comes to intense subject matter. While his The Invisible Man was a hit with both audiences and critics, the nature of the premise leaned more into psychological torment than brutal encounters, but this rating would imply Whannell is honoring the more monstrous components of the character for this new take on the material. Wolf Man is currently set to hit theaters on January 17, 2025.

Wolf Man was previously described, “What if someone you loved became something else? From Blumhouse and visionary writer-director Leigh Whannell, the creators of the chilling modern monster tale The Invisible Man, comes a terrifying new lupine nightmare: Wolf Man. Golden Globe nominee Christopher Abbott (Poor Things, It Comes at Night) stars as Blake, a San Francisco husband and father, who inherits his remote childhood home in rural Oregon after his own father vanishes and is presumed dead. With his marriage to his high-powered wife, Charlotte (Emmy winner Julia Garner; Ozark, Inventing Anna), fraying, Blake persuades Charlotte to take a break from the city and visit the property with their young daughter, Ginger (Matlida Firth; Hullraisers, Coma).

“But as the family approaches the farmhouse in the dead of night, they’re attacked by an unseen animal and, in a desperate escape, barricade themselves inside the home as the creature prowls the perimeter. As the night stretches on, however, Blake begins to behave strangely, transforming into something unrecognizable, and Charlotte will be forced to decide whether the terror within their house is more lethal than the danger without. The film co-stars Sam Jaeger (The Handmaid’s Tale), Ben Prendergast (The Sojourn Audio Drama), and Benedict Hardie (The Invisible Man).”

Horror fans are wary of virtually every reboot or remake of a beloved property, so there’s been some apprehension about this new Wolf Man ever since it was teased back in 2020. At the time, Whannell was announced to be developing the project and Ryan Gosling was set to star, but over the years, Whannell dropped out, then Gosling dropped out, then Whannell returned. At this point, it’s entirely unclear if this new take on the material aligns with Whannell’s original vision for the project or if the movie’s various evolutions have altered the approach dramatically.

The last attempt to revive the titular character came in 2010’s The Wolfman, which starred Guillermo del Toro, Emily Blunt, and Anthony Hopkins. Directed by Joe Johnston, the movie did honor some of the core elements of the original 1941 movie and also delivered some gruesome special effects, though it also relied heavily on CGI to bring sequences to life, with fans ultimately unimpressed by the adventure.

In 2017, Universal Pictures announced it would be launching a “Dark Universe” of reboots focusing on the Universal Monsters, which kicked off with The Mummy. While there were plans in place to follow that Tom Cruise-starring project with new takes on The Invisible Man, Frankenstein’s Monster, Bride of Frankenstein, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the film’s poor critical performance saw that franchise stagnate and ultimately fizzle out completely.

While The Invisible Man helped show audiences that, with the right take on a property, it was entirely possible to put a fresh spin on an iconic character, fans still had their doubts about what this would mean for Wolf Man. After years of reports about the movie, last month at Universal Orlando Resort’s Halloween Horror Nights, a photo opp debuted which initially featured an ominous backdrop of a remote cabin. Shortly after its official opening, a video was posted of a costumed character at the Wolf Man backdrop, which many fans assumed was the new version of the beast. Given that the figure looked less like a werewolf and more like an old hermit, fans on social media were not impressed. The character never appeared at the event again and, when a teaser for the movie was released shortly after, viewers were denied any significant glimpses at the monster.

Despite all the doubts fans might have about the new Wolf Man, knowing it will be fully embracing the horrors of a monster will likely build some good will towards the project.

Wolf Man is set to land in theaters on January 17, 2025.

Are you looking forward to the new movie? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!  

The post Wolf Man Reboot Gets Official Rating, Building More Excitement in Fans appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Stephen King’s Fairy Tale, which was once planned as a feature film from Jason Bourne director Paul Greengrass, will now be developed as a ten-episode TV series instead. Greengrass will co-write the scripts with J.H. Wyman, who will serve as showrunner. It will build on the screenplay that Greengrass had written for the feature film. King’s dark fantasy novel was originally in development with Universal, but it’s A24 who will team with Wyman and Greengrass to develop the series. Universal reportedly dropped Fairy Tale after they couldn’t find a way to make the 600-page epic into a single, satisfying film.

Wyman’s credits include Fringe, Almost Human and Debris. According to Deadline, who first reported the move, Greengrass is still expected to direct the show, although he does not yet have a deal in place officially. Peter Rice will be executive producer (with Greengrass, Wyman and King). Rice recently launched a producing career on Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night, a look at the earliest days of Saturday Night Live.

“Needless to say, I’m a Paul Greengrass fan and think he’s a wonderful choice for this film,” King said back in 2022.

At the time, Greengrass added, “Fairy Tale is a work of genius. A classic adventure story and also a disturbing contemporary allegory.”

In Fairy Tale, a 17-year-old boy inherits the keys to a portal to another world, where good and evil are locked in an epic battle with consequences that can spill over into the boy’s world.

Deadline compares Fairy Tale to The Stand — a story so huge it will likely work better as a TV show than a film. In the story, they note that King takes his time to develop the lead characters — so much so that the main meat of the plot doesn’t get rolling for around 100 pages.

Greengrass, who started his career as a journalist and author, has alternated between dramas — often based on true stories, like Sunday Bloody Sunday and United 93 — and bigger franchise fare. At one point, he was attached to a film adaptation of Watchmen that got so close to reality it even had a website. He later said that he thought the Dark Knight trilogy did what he had hoped for his Watchmen movie better than he could have.

King, one of the best-selling and prolific authors in America, has helped shape horror for decades both in novels and onscreen. There have been dozens of adaptations of his books and short stories, ranging from Carrie and Pet Sematary to Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption.

Keep an eye on ComicBook for details on the TV adaptation of Fairy Tale.

The post Stephen King’s Fairy Tale Adaptation Comes Back From the Dead as a TV Series appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Ryan Murphy’s latest horror-fiction series Grotesquerie aired a nail-biting Episode 7 tonight on FX. It should have led into episode 8 … only, a rerun of this week’s episode played instead. Since Grotesquerie premiered in late September, viewers have been treated to two episodes weekly for a highly entertaining 90-minute period of twists and turns. Last week ended with a major cliffhanger that Lois might have caught the Grotesquerie killer, or at least one of their associates.

Tonight’s episode answered the question of who was really under that mask and so much more. She’s also back to drinking rather heavily and is definitely not in the right frame of mind, but now she believes she’s managed to crack the case — at least part of it. They made it clear early on that Father Charlie was in fact the man under the mask (and he’s a doctor!) But Lois thinks he worked with someone else and that his accomplice is none other than Sister Megan.

The ending confirms a major twist that has been speculated over for weeks about Lois, her alleged comatose husband Marshall (Courtney B. Vance), and the entire Grotesquerie case. So with all of this being said … when does Episode 8 of Grotesquerie actually air?!

Grotesquerie Release Schedule

This season of Grotesquerie contains a total of 10 episodes. This week is an anomaly in terms of its release schedule but next week FX will continue the tradition of airing two episodes back-to-back. After that, the finale will premiere on October 30th, the night before Halloween.

Grotesquerie centers around Detective Lois Tryon (Niecy Nash) who is determined to find out who this serial killer in her small town is before she retires from police work for good. Along the way, her husband Marshall falls into long-term hospital care, she meets some interesting characters like Travis Kelce, an orderly at the hospital, and a journalist nun who writes for the Catholic Guardian, Sister Megan (Micaela Diamond).

Per the synopsis, “Sister Megan, with her own difficult past, has seen the worst of humanity, yet she still believes in its capacity for good. Lois, on the other hand, fears the world is succumbing to evil. As Lois and Sister Megan string together clues, they find themselves ensnared in a sinister web that only seems to raise more questions than answers.”

Grotesquerie airs Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. EST on FX. Episodes stream next day on Hulu. Stay tuned to ComicBook for updates!

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Tonight’s episode of Grotesquerie was a complete whirlwind from beginning to end. While last week ended on a cliffhanger about “Father” Charlie being the man under the mask that Lois “shot.” However this week, the episode opens with Lois — drinking heavily like she has most of the season — only this time, she’s clearly deteriorating. She’s not all there, but none the less she persists to solve the case. Not only that, she’s in the midst of pulling Marshall off of life support; visiting the hospital and reading him poems bedside.

As things progress throughout the hour-long episode, she begins to think that his accomplice is none other than Sister Megan! Gasp. Because, duh, right? The obvious answer is the priest and the nun. After she finally corners Sister Megan inside her home, she becomes a woman possessed and attacks Lois with a knife. They get into a pretty heated brawl and she stabs Lois seemingly to “death.”

The scene then switches to Marshall, Merritt and an emo looking Ed at dinner where they are discussing Lois as if she was really going to die. Merritt confirms to her dad that Ed had been sleeping with her mother for quite some time. Marshall doesn’t seemed to phased about it as the cameras pan to him driving over to the hospital. Viewers then see a comatose Lois laying in the bed. He’s pretty insistent on taking her off life support as soon as possible, too, so time is definitely running out for her. And … Charlie is ACTUALLY the doctor?!

So… has Lois been the one in the coma this entire time? Not Marshall?! A few elements throughout the first seven episodes have certainly hinted at that being the case. Namely, the fact that several people have continued to tell her to “wake up.”

In one instance, when she was in the motel with Sister Megan, she continued to ignore her pleas for help with the increasingly hostile situation outside. Lois instead insisted she needed a phone to call the station back because her “wake up call” got cut off. Another time, Merritt tried to get her to answer the phone because “it might be dad.”

New episodes of Grotesquerie drop Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. EST on FX while streaming next day on Hulu.

The post Grotesquerie Drops Bombshell About Lois (And It’s Not What You Think) appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Actor Mark Duplass and filmmaker Patrick Brice have reunited to bring back their bizarre “Peachfuzz” character for The Creep Tapes, which has earned an all-new trailer. Keeping the spirit of their Creep and Creep 2 films, which each saw Duplass starring as an eccentric man who terrorized people who he hired through Craigslist to film him carrying out various activities, the upcoming six-episode series looks to be focusing on six all-new targets for the character. As evidenced by this full trailer, it looks like Peachfuzz will be finding bizarre new ways to terrorize his victims through various identities. You can check out the trailer for The Creep Tapes above before it premieres on Shudder on November 15th.

Shudder describes The Creep Tapes, “From writers and executive producers Mark Duplass and Patrick Brice, The Creep Tapes continues to unravel the mind of a secluded serial killer who lures videographers into his world with the promise of a paid job documenting his life. Unfortunately, as the tape rolls, the killer’s questionable intentions surface with his increasingly odd behavior and the victims will learn they may have made a deadly mistake.”

The first Creep had its world premiere in 2014 before officially being released in 2015. While Netflix’s streaming platform was on the rise, independent releases were often relegated to limited theatrical debuts or Video on Demand services, which highlighted the divide between major studio projects and independent releases. The 2017 sequel Creep 2 similarly earned a Video on Demand release, though appeared on Netflix only two months later.

The ways in which horror fans have consumed media over the years has earned a drastic change, as Hulu, Max, Prime Video, and Peacock have all emerged as major destinations for independently funded projects. Both Creep films might not have been major box-office earners, but their availability on streaming platforms have seen their followings grow over the past decade.

Debuting in 2016, the streaming platform Shudder launched, with its main focus being to deliver subscribers exclusively genre fare. While every major platform has a devoted section of horror and sci-fi titles, Shudder’s entire lineup focused on more experimental and boundary-pushing experiences, thanks to both its library of beloved titles and its acquisition of indie efforts. The Creep Tapes has seemingly found the perfect home at Shudder, with the news series also set to bring in all-new subscribers.

Whether these six episodes will serve as a sendoff to Peachfuzz is yet to be seen, as Duplass was asked by ComicBook earlier this year if the project would be the end of the character, to which he taunted, “Wouldn’t you like to know? This is the character that I love to play and if I can find ways to play this until I die, I will.”

Mark Duplass shared of the project, “A little over 10 years ago, Patrick Brice and I spent a week together in my cabin with a small digital camera. We emerged with a found footage horror film that was so wildly strange and uncomfortable we assumed no one would see it. To be continuing this unholy legacy in the series format is a true nightmare come true.”

Courtney Thomasma, EVP of streaming for AMC Networks, added, “Patrick and Mark have given us two of the most unique and exciting takes on psychological horror with Creep and Creep 2, both of which amassed a huge fan following and camp audience. We’re thrilled to be working alongside them in expanding this popular franchise with six thrilling episodes that will unfold more of this twisted story and Peachfuzz antics.”

The Creep Tapes premieres on Shudder on November 15th.

Are you looking forward to the new series? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror! 

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Alien: Romulus is now on streaming, making the complete set of Alien movies available for home viewing, just in time for the Halloween season. Romulus has proven to be a successful step forward for the Alien franchise, taking in over $350 million at the box office, earning acclaim from critics, and getting both old and new fans re-invested in the Alien series.

Now it’s time for Alien fans to update their rankings — and this time we’re going to look at where Alien: Romulus fits within the hierarchy of “scariest Alien films.”’ Check out that list below!

NOTE: The Alien vs. Predator movies are not counted in these rankings, only the films in the proper Alien series.

Alien Movies Ranked by Scariness

7) Alien: Resurrection

Alien: Resurrection has become something of a kooky fan-favorite entry of the Alien series. Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet and writer Joss Whedon hardly feel like they’re taking any of the Alien franchise history or brand seriously, with this weird story of Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley being cloned into a Human/xenomorph hybrid, at a space lab where (surprise!) things go horribly wrong and xenomorphs run rampant. Alien: Resurrection is more weird than scary, and almost every death scene evokes a laugh — right down to “The Newborn” hybrid creature getting sucked through a bullet-sized hole into the vacuum of space.

Alien: Resurrection gets just one trophy for its freaky underwater chase sequence. Xenomorphs are somehow even more terrifying in shark mode.

6) Alien 3

Alien 3 is often ranked at the bottom of the pile in terms of quality — with good reason. Even a remarkable director like David Fincher couldn’t save this film from the years of development hells and revisions it had been through — nor was he yet fully capable of pulling off a big-budget franchise sequel. That all said, Alien 3 has mainly achieved cult status because it still manages to accomplish some frightening scares and kills — including one of the more memorable “boss battle” finales — while having a grittier dystopian tone than any of the other films.

Ironically enough, the most iconic image of terror in the entire Alien franchise (see above) belongs to Alien 3, proving that while it might have been low heat, Fincher was still cooking.

5) Prometheus

Prometheus is a strange case of a film that gets scarier as it ages. At first, Ridley Scott’s pivot into a whole new, larger mythology of how the xenomorphs came to be was jarring, and a lot of fans were satisfied with the official (but very indirect) prequel storyline. However, the Prometheus sequel Alien: Covenant further connected the story of the Engineers and their bio-weapon to the legacy of xenomorph infestation and havoc, and Alien: Romulus has made it a game-changing new piece of the franchise storyline. Now, viewed in retrospect, Prometheus becomes a dramatically ironic tale of a doomed crew looking for God, and instead finding doom as their answer.

It’s still a little too preachy to be “scary,” but upon re-watch, it’s chilling to know how screwed the Prometheus crew was the moment they landed. The prequel also has one of the most gnarly sequences in the franchise, as Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) undergoes a nightmare C-section “birthing” to escape xenomorph infection.

4) Alien: Romulus

Alien: Romulus Director Fede Álvarez is an unabashed student of the game when it comes to the Alien franchise, and his entry is pumped full of head nods and odes to the entire franchise that preceded it. It should be no surprise then that Alien: Romulus lands where it does on the list: it is a pretty good showcase of everything the Alien franchise has done to scare viewers, with a few novel additions of its own. It must be acknowledged that Romulus also hooked an entire new generation of Alien fans, who never really got to see the classic version of the franchise on the big screen — and now can’t forget “The Offspring” that haunts their dreams.

3) Aliens

Aliens feels more and more like an odd detour that the franchise took. James Cameron was clearly more interested in crafting an action-thriller version of the mythos, after Ridley Scott had broken through with his isolation survival-horror space nightmare. Cameron puts on a masterclass of how to craft a suspenseful, edge-of-your-seat action-thrill ride from the moment Ripley and a crew of marines touch down on LV-426.

The Hitchcockian approach to scare sequences (Ripley and Newt ambushed by a facehugger, the motion sensor radar sequences) and twists like the climatic reveal of the xenomorph Queen and its final battle with Ripley, remain classic moments in terror. All in all, you can call it an action film — so long as you call Aliens one of the most thrilling and scary “action films” ever made.

2) Alien: Covenant

Taking a big (personal) swing here, but Alien: Covenant is low-key one of the most underrated entries in the franchise. It’s also one of the scariest. Covenant is Ridley Scott balancing perfectly between the headier ideas and deeper mythos of Prometheus, and the more traditional formula of xenomorphs and mad robots that Alien was built on. Covenant makes everything from cryogenic sleep to planetary exploration into big scare and/or horror moments; the “Neomorphs” and “Protomorph” creatures were savage variants on the xenomorph design, and the kills are some of the most frightening and violent ones in the series.

However, what really elevates Covenant is Michael Fassbender’s freaky dual performance as androids David and Walter — and David fully graduating to the greatest (non-alien) villain in the franchise, during the chilling twist ending.

1) Alien

The classic that started it all is still the scariest of them all. Granted, it may be hard for modern audiences to look at the modest-budget ($11M), 1970s-era visuals of Alien and its titular creature and think it registered on the same level of horror as today’s films. That said, credit must be given where credit is due: Ridley Scott’s Alien re-opened an entire lane of sci-fi, creature-feature B-movies, and created an entire artistic wave of nightmarish creature design inspired by the work of Swiss artist H.R. Giger. Alien also inspired another 45 years of Alien Universe films and stories — and you don’t do that without touching a deep, primal, fear that viewers can’t help but revisit.

Alien movies are streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.

The post Every Alien Franchise Movie Ranked by Scariness (Including Romulus) appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Parker Finn’s Smile was originally set to be a Paramount+ exclusive, but based on feedback from the studio and from test screenings, the decision was made to instead release the movie in theaters. The movie would go on to earn $217 million worldwide and earn 80% positive reviews on aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, paving the way for this year’s Smile 2. As far as what the future holds for the series, the filmmaker confirmed that there are plenty of avenues to explore, though the motivating factor will be seeing how audiences connect with this latest adventure when it lands in theaters on October 18th.

“I think there are so many different, interesting directions the world of Smile can take, different roads it can go down,” Finn shared with GamesRadar+. “Right now I’m very excited to see how audiences respond to Smile 2 and if we are lucky with how audiences can connect with and embrace the film, I think the sky’s the limit.”

The original film saw Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) being a witness to a woman taking her own life in a gruesome manner, resulting in Rose being the target of an otherworldly curse that continued the cycle of death and trauma. In Smile 2, that curse persists, as we see pop star Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) becoming the new target of the curse.

While there are direct narrative connections between the characters in the original and the characters in the sequel, the overall concept of the franchise would allow future sequels or spinoffs to pivot into a variety of new worlds and situations. Additionally, the performance of Smile 2 could see Finn taking on new projects that would open the door for other filmmakers to put their stamp on the Smile series.

Given that Smile 2 targets a famous pop star, this potentially opens up a bigger world of possibilities for where the series could go, with Finn himself sharing back in 2022 how one of his biggest goals was to not repeat himself in follow-up films.

“I still feel that I never want to overtly just repeat myself or do the same thing I just did, but I think that there could be a really exciting way for there to be more in the world of Smile, but something very unexpected and surprising for an audience with a lot of tricks up its sleeves,” Finn shared with ComicBook.

Reviews for the sequel have only just started to make their way online, though Finn and Paramount will have to wait a few more days to see how the film performs financially. With only two years having passed between the debut of the original movie and the release of the sequel, it’s unclear when, or if, a Smile 3 could take shape.

Stay tuned for updates on the future of the Smile series. Smile 2 hits theaters on October 18th.

Would you like to see the movie get another entry? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

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The United States is currently wading through two recurring traditions simultaneously: the early fall Halloween season, in which most people indulge in the playfully demonic and monstrous, and the more seriously cursed election season, with 2024 being especially potent as it is a presidential election year. The two meet in The Exorcism at 1600 Penn #1, the first installment of a four-issue miniseries from writer Hannah Rose May, artist Vanesa Del Rey, colorist Jordie Bellaire, letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, and published by IDW Publishing. Though the combination of the political and the infernal may appear to be a superficial draw, The Exorcism at Penn 1600 #1 reveals greater depth in atmosphere and characterization as its inner darkness slowly creeps in.

The issue’s motifs are visually apparent on its opening page. Former United States Senator Kelly Doyle is delivering her fiery, optimistic inauguration speech following her swearing-in as the first female President of the United States. Yet, the scene looks anything but sunny, as grey clouds blot the sky and the Capitol Building looms behind, as if ready to consume her and everyone around her. It’s only a shame that staying true to how these traditions play out keeps the scene from occurring in front of the White House. Yet, once inside the president’s home, readers find it rendered like a haunted house with creeping shadows advancing from the edges and coloring that turns brackish or sickly in certain moments. Bellaire’s palette and technique combine with Del Rey’s thick lines and impressionistic facial features to create an unsettling sense of wrongness within the White House’s environment as if the entire place is ill without anyone realizing it.

But soon this malignance makes itself known. It isn’t long before the entire, once close-knit family (established by an almost unbelievably wholesome family dinner in the White House dining room early on) begins drifting apart as the pressures of being the first family drive a wedge. Kelly’s responsibilities as POTUS keep her away from her family, forcing her husband, Eric — a doctor who gave up his career to be first husband — to shoulder more parental responsibilities alone. Her son, Kevin, becomes all too willing to fit into a new circle of friends at his new school, even if it means sacrificing his relationship with his sister Mara.

Mara’s ostracization is the most acute and becomes the story’s cornerstone. She spends her days being ridiculed by her peers without backing from her brother. With her mother often absent, she receives some support from her father but spends most of the night doomscrolling on her phone. Del Rey pulls these posts out of Mara’s phone, making her compete with them for space within the panel, visualizing the mental anxiety this habit is causing her, taking up more and more space with each instance.

The deeper into doom-scrolling that Mara gets, the more she seems to awaken something supernatural lurking in the forgotten room of the White House that she has made her sanctuary. It’s in this room that Mara wakes after a nightmare of nuclear apocalypse. Following this is the issue’s only splash page, which places Mara and her consoling parents in a corner of light as the darkness, and whatever lurks within it, surrounds and threatens to consume them. Mara’s anxiety, or perhaps that of her entire family, is haunting them.

This isn’t a story specifically about corrosive media habits, even if it is a recurring point –another scene sees Del Rey’s brilliant layouts depicting shifting power dynamics as President Doyle goes from being in control during a press briefing to cornered as she’s barraged with bad-faith press questions. Mara’s plight is one aspect of a larger theme linking the infernal with mental health. While Mara spirals into depression, her mother is dealing with a crisis involving Havana Syndrome, that controversial diagnosis of a collection of mental health symptoms that have become fodder for conspiracies, seemingly linked here to something truly evil. The issue more subtly lampshades its focus on mental health in the repeated mention of Mary Todd Lincoln, the first lady who was Abraham Lincoln’s wife, whose history of manic episodes has led some historians and experts to believe she suffered from bipolar disorder. While the connection is not explicitly drawn in this issue, it may be that whatever lingers in the room Mara has been staying in had a hand in Mary Todd Lincoln’s struggles.

May’s dialogue can be offputting at times (the phrases “chicken tendies,” “trending number one on TikTok,” and “liked by The Rock” appearing in quick succession may have some readers wanting to tap out early on), but weaves an intriguing tale of family drama against a backdrop both political and supernatural. Del Rey’s layouts, particularly over two pages, are sometimes flashy to the point of distracting from the scenes they are meant to frame. However, with Bellaire’s moody colors, her artwork makes the White House seem possessed and conveys the fracturing of a family. Otsmane-Elhaou’s lettering drives home key character moments, using irregular speech bubbles conveying crucial changes in voice (though some additional variation may have helped distinguish one vocal alteration from another). While those flaws are present, The Exorcism at Penn 1600 #1 is an impressive debut that draws readers in slowly but will likely have them fully enthralled by the final page-turn. 

Published by IDW Publishing

On October 16, 2024

Written by Hannah Rose May

Art by Vanesa Del Rey

Colors by Jordie Bellaire

Letters by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou

Cover by Vanesa Del Rey

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Neon Pictures has released a new teaser for The Monkey, an upcoming film based on the award-winning short story by Stephen King, which centers on an evil, cymbal-banging monkey toy. The story originally appeared in Gallery magazine in 1980, and was reworked dramatically when it was published in King’s Skeleton Crew story collection five years later. The iconic image of the monkey was used on the cover of Skeleton Crew and has been revisited throughout King’s career, notably on the poster and promotional imagery from the 1988 film Monkey Shines, which is not based on The Monkey and wasn’t as well-loved.

The film is set to be written and directed by Longlegs‘s Osgood Perkins, who previously said that they’re intentionally going for an ’80s/’90s throwback feel. You can see the trailer below.

“It’s gonna feel more like Misery or Creepshow or Gremlins or American Werewolf,” Perkins explained back in June. “It couldn’t be less like Longlegs. To me, if you’re gonna make a movie about a toy monkey, you can be serious about it. But so much of King is funny and nostalgic feeling. So we tried to make a movie that felt a little bit more like something from the late ’80s – ’90s. It’s sorta like, if Robert Zemeckis had just like a little bit of acid and made a Stephen King picture about a monkey toy.”

Here’s the movie’s synopsis: 

In The Monkey, when twin brothers Hal and Bill discover their father’s old monkey toy in the attic, a series of gruesome deaths starts occurring all around them. The brothers decide to throw the monkey away and move on with their lives, growing apart over the years. But when the mysterious deaths begin again, the brothers must reunite to find a way to destroy the monkey for good before it takes the lives of everyone close to them. The Monkey was originally published in Gallery magazine in 1980, before being revised and reprinted in the 1985 collection Skeleton Crew.

The cast of The Monkey includes Theo James (The White Lotus), Tatiana Maslany (She–Hulk: Attorney at Law), Elijah Wood (The Lord Of The Rings), Christian Convery (Sweet Tooth), Colin O’Brien (Wonka), Rohan Campbell (The Hardy Boys) and Sarah Levy (Schitt’s Creek). Producers on The Monkey also include Michael Clear (M3GAN), Brian Kavanaugh-Jones (Insidious), and Chris Ferguson (Child’s Play). Executive producers include Fred Berger (La La Land), Peter Luo and Nancy Xu, and John Friedberg (Greenland).

The Monkey will be in theaters on February 21.

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Smile as a franchise first took the world by storm with a combination of creepy marketing and a creepier story that resonated with horror fans in 2022. Considering the success and concept of the first film, it seemed like an easy enough bet to know that Paramount would quickly greenlight a sequel. What many fans might not have bet on was the idea that Smile 2, in its premise, goes bigger, badder, and manages to weave a story that makes it both surpass its predecessor and become one of the best horror films of 2024. Smile 2 is a relentless, unnerving film that brings some of the biggest scares for the spooky season.

Smile 2 follows a pop star, Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), as she struggles with past addiction and a career comeback that she is hoping will help her rise to the top once again. Skye is joined by her mother and her right-hand assistant, who act more as handlers to Riley as if she were a theme park attraction versus a loved one. In attempting to score some drugs to help with her back pain, the singer gets dragged into the supernatural curse that helped make the first film a worthy addition to Paramount’s horror library. Trying to find a way to save her own life, Smile 2 examines both the predicament of Scott’s character, thanks to the supernatural affliction, and the dark side of celebrity, in unique ways.

Much like its predecessor, Smile 2‘s story as a concept feels like it could have ultimately been “phoned in,” but turns the tables on any preconceived notions and jam-packs its scripts with jump scares and a lingering dread. Whenever there is a quick fright to be had here, the sequel uses it effectively and in some rather ingenious ways. There’s a particular scene involving a smiling dance troop which is sure to send shivers down many viewers’ skins, for example. On top of this, writer/director Parker Finn, who was responsible for the first film, injects an uncomfortable tone into the film overall that will stick with you long after the credits roll.

In general, Smile’s 2’s premise of having the curse infect a “celebrity” is an exceptionally strong springboard here. Riley’s journey is one wherein she feels both overexposed and claustrophobic, never quite able to get the help she needs in a world that she both fears and one that she simultaneously is scared to destroy. The horror sequel also has fun with its premise, as Skye will routinely be pushed into more skin-crawling scenarios thanks to her mother’s need for the tour to go off without a hitch. In one hilariously dark scene, a gun-touting Skye screams to be left alone as one of her managers begs her to “think of the tour.” Smile 2 knows when to focus on some black comedy to add a touch of levity to Skye’s terrible run-in with a supernatural monstrosity.

Finn returns to writing and directing duties here and brings a stronger sense of both with Smile 2. Some of the camera work in this film almost feels downright experimental, shifting the camera in ways to heighten the tension or make a viewer uncomfortable by focusing a little too closely on a face that is flashing its pearly whites. Moments are stretched, camera angles tilted, and sound design mixed in such ways that you never quite feel at ease in watching this horror sequel. Finn feels like a wizard with the camera here and the movie is all the better for it. I, personally, will be thinking of that extremely effective opening scene ( which follows just days after the events of the first film) for some time to come.

While Art the Clown might be the talk of the town in the blood-and-guts department, Smile 2 surprisingly attempts to play catch-up to the Terrifier villain here. On top of the imagery of creepy smiles filling up the poor pop star’s life, the kills are quite grotesque when they want to be. Finn is able to go “hard into the paint” on the blood here while using some imaginative sound design to have viewers think far worse of things that are transpiring in the darkness. Both what you see and what you don’t see in Smile 2 make for a bone-chilling symbiosis.

Naomi Scott has a lot to work with here in bringing pop star Skye Riley to life, as the horror heroine is already a nervous wreck, thanks to her long-time bout with drugs, alcohol, and a daredevil lifestyle in the film’s early minutes. Riley is a conflicted character, unable to quite get a grasp on herself, let alone the new supernatural menace that is lurking around every corner. Scott is truly a star here as the multi-layered pop idol, helping sell the horrifying events she’s a part of while sometimes regressing to a child-like state when her mother, played deliciously nefariously here by Rosemarie DeWitt, reminds her how much her fans depend on her. You also can’t help but feel terrible for Skye, especially during some truly uncomfortable scenes wherein things go more than a little wrong in delivering a speech about “inspiration.” Scott sells every scene and it wouldn’t surprise me if she gets a lot of recognition for her work here.

The ending might be a little predictable when you start thinking about the overall premise and how the “Smile” curse works, but that doesn’t halt the enjoyment of seeing how Skye’s terrifying journey plays out. Much like the rest of the movie, the ending, predictable as it might be, is one that is executed strongly and presents a chilling visual that I certainly can’t recall seeing in many other movies this year, let alone ever in the horror genre. Smile 2 works on several levels and all the aspects feed into one another to make for an excellent horror outing that is firing all cylinders.

Smile 2 takes what made the first movie work and improves upon it in quite a few ways. If you enjoyed the first Smile, Smile 2 is definitely worth catching and here’s to hoping that creator Parker Finn has far more stories to tell in this developing horror universe. Truly, the sky might be the limit for this unsettling horror franchise.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Smile 2 releases in theaters in North America on October 18th.

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Smile 2 opens in theaters on Friday and ahead of the horror sequel’s arrival, Paramount Pictures has released a final, terrifying trailer for the film. On Tuesday, the last and perhaps bloodiest trailer for Smile 2 was released online, offering up the most chilling and unhinged look yet with lots of new footage as well as some of the first reviews calling the film “nightmare fuel” that is “not for the faint of heart” – which as you can see for yourself in the video below, is certainly in line with what we’re seeing of the movie.

Smile 2 is the sequel to 2022’s Smile with the sequel moving onto a much larger scale with the horrifying smiling entity taking its curse on tour — literally. In Smile 2, “about to embark on a new world tour, global pop sensation Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) begins experiencing increasingly terrifying and inexplicable events. Overwhelmed by the escalating horrors and the pressures of fame, Skye is forced to face her dark past to regain control of her life before it spirals out of control.”

Smile 2 stars Naomi Scott, Rosemarie DeWitt, Lukas Gage, Miles Gutierrez-Rile, Peter Jacobson, Ray Nicholson, Dylan Gelula, Raúl Castillo, and Kyle Gallner. The film is written and directed by Parker Finn, who also wrote and directed the first film which was based on Finn’s short film Laura Hasn’t Slept.

In addition to giving audiences plenty of brand new, bloody footage of Smile 2, the final trailer is also perfectly timed — and not just in terms of being in line with the film’s release this Friday. The trailer comes just a day after the movie got a little bit of perhaps more viral than expected marketing when an actor doing a bit of that viral marketing for the film during Major League Baseball’s National League Championship Series game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets on Monday night broke character in the face of foul ball going into the crowd. With that sort of traction probably not being exactly what Paramount Pictures had in mind for the film, the new and disturbing trailer sort of sets things back to right. More than that, however, horror in general is having a moment. The number one movie at the box office this past week was another horror film, Terrifier 3. The film beat out the Joker sequel with a $19 million opening weekend. While there are certainly some key differences between Smile 2 and the third film in the Terrifier franchise — the former is a psychological supernatural horror film and is distributed by a major studio while the latter is a slasher film distributed by Cineverse and has a much smaller budget — the success of Terrifier 3 already suggests that audiences are down for more horror. The new trailer and the early reviews featured in it suggest that Smile 2 will fit into that.

Smile 2 opens in theaters Friday, October 16^th.

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Art The Clown is number one at the box office but if Terrifier 3 didn’t have enough blood and gore to satiate you, there are more than a few movie options to follow in the slasher’s footsteps. To avoid “cheating” in this list, we are going to assume that our readers looking for additional movies have already seen Terrifier 1 and Terrifier 2, so those will not be a part of the breakdown. Luckily, there are more than a few movies that happily fit the bill of not just presenting quite gory details but also blending horror and comedy in a way that many fans might not see coming.

7.) Dead Alive

Streaming: Amazon Video, Apple TV (Paid)

Peter Jackson’s pre-Lord of The Rings horror movie, Dead Alive is well worth your time, Terrifier fan or otherwise. The 1990 film follows protagonist Stewart McAlden attempting to take care of his ailing mother while encountering a “unique” monkey that is spreading the zombie curse like a plague. What makes Dead Alive so appealing is that it is fit to burst with “zany” violence that might rival Art The Clown. The movie might not feature a killer clown but the zombie-focused story from Jackson is one that that definitely inhabits the spirit of Art.

6.) All Hallow’s Eve

Streaming: The Roku Channel, Tubi

Remember how I previously mentioned that I wouldn’t be including Terrifiers 1 and 2 into the list? Well, this technically doesn’t fall under that umbrella. All Hallows Eve was written and directed by Damien Leone, Art The Clown’s creator, and includes the original short story that introduced the killer clown. The anthology also includes some other creepy tales that have the same “feel” as Terrifier and are well worth watching this Halloween series, if you can take the blood and gore in them that is.

5.) Killer Klowns From Outer Space

Streaming: Freevee

While Killer Klowns From Outer Space doesn’t have the same amount of blood and viscera that Art The Clown shares on a regular basis, it has its fair share of slasher clowns that refrain from talking their victims to death. Much like Art, the space-faring killers find themselves dispatching their pretty while simultaneously pantomiming many of their actions. Thanks to Art’s supernatural origin story, it’s pretty safe to say that the latest slasher villain isn’t an alien, but were he somehow related to the Killer Klowns, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch.

4.) Stitches

Streaming: Tubi, Plex

There has never quite been a killer clown like Stitches, and while this slasher isn’t as brutal as Art, he is perhaps far more theatrical as he blends more of his clownish antics into his quest for revenge. Also unlike Art, Stitches is more than willing to talk to his victims before he dispatches them, returning from the grave due to an unfortunate accident involving a kitchen knife. Like the Terrifier series, Stitches was a horror movie made on a far lesser budget than many of its horror counterparts and leans more into the hilarious than the horrific. Luckily, the movie also has some quite clever use of special effects when the titular character unleashes his unique brand of violence on the world.

3.) House of 1000 Corpses

Streaming: The Roku Channel, Shudder, Tubi

Rob Zombie has plenty of gruesome horror movies to choose from, whether it be his two Halloween entries, The Devil’s Rejects, or even still, his lesser-known film, 31, which is all about killer clowns. However, when it comes to the best movie that captures that same Art spirit, look no further than House of 1000 Corpses. First releasing in 2003, the movie follows a band of unsuspecting college students who are unfortunate enough to have a run-in with the Firefly family. Captain Spaulding, the film’s resident killer clown, remains one of the best examples of this moniker as he gets a ghoulish glee from his work in the opening scene. Zombie is able to blend the gruesome with some truly hilarious moments in a way that only the horror director can, feeling almost like a predecessor to Art’s antics.

2.) Evil Dead 2

Streaming: Shudder, AMC+

You may be wondering why we are putting an entry so high on the list that has no clowns to speak of. Well, Ash Williams is the clown of the movie and while he never wears face paint or hunts down teenagers, the Evil Dead star sees his fair share of blood. What Bruce Campbell’s character also does is bring a wild level of pantomiming into the role, pulling off physically intense scenes that are still hurting the actor to this day. Trust us, even without a killer clown, this one is well worth your time as it has all the trappings of what make Terrifier work so well. Speaking of which…

1.) Hatchet

In breaking down this list, there was one clear entry as to a series of films that would give Art The Clown a run for his money in the gore department, creating murders so ridiculous that they are almost comical. Enter Adam Green’s Hatchet franchise, which was first released in 2007. There have been four Hatchet movies to date and while its main slasher Victor Crowley is no clown, his kill scenes might cause Art to blush. We have to imagine that in some other reality, the Hatchet series would have spread in popularity like wildfire as the Terrifier series has because it certainly has many of the same aspects. While Victor, played by Friday The 13th’s Kane Hodder, might not have the same level of ghoulish glee as Art, he certainly appears to enjoy his work all the same.

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Arthur Fleck was supposed to be the talk of the town this fall, as Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie à Deux was expected to follow in the ultra-successful footsteps of its billion-dollar, Oscar-winning predecessor. That sure didn’t happen. As WB’s Joker sequel bombs in phenomenal fashion, another sadistic clown is getting the last laugh, and he’s showing just how much moviegoers still love seeing slashers on the big screen.

Terrifier 3 is the latest installment in Damien Leone’s independent horror franchise that follows the horrifying actions of horror icon-in-the-making Art the Clown. The film is so dark, brutal, and gory that some audience members have reportedly been vomiting in response to the carnage. Those stories have only increased the hype for the Terrifier movies, shockingly leading the new installment to a victory at the domestic box office this weekend. Terrifier 3 toppled the Joker sequel with more than $19 million in ticket sales. It only cost around $2 million to make.

There are a lot of lessons to be taken from Terrifier 3‘s surprise success, but perhaps the biggest is that moviegoers — especially horror fans — haven’t been getting the kind of films they’ve always loved. The slasher subgenre in particular has been in a tough spot for decades, and a smash-hit success like Terrifier proves how big of an audience there really is for these types of films.

Now, this isn’t to say that we haven’t had great horror movies in recent years — we absolutely have. With studios like Neon and A24 rising up alongside franchises like The Conjuring and A Quiet Place, horror fans have been spoiled in some regards. This also isn’t to say that we want more movies just like Terrifier. Personally, I’m not a big fan of Art the Clown or his films. I think they rely too much on gore and shock to be particularly effective. But Terrifier represents something that our generation hasn’t really experienced to this point: a slasher franchise to call our own.

A lot of the memorable modern slashers that actually reached big audiences have been a part of long-running franchises from decades past. The Scream films continue to find a way to reinvent themselves. Universal and Blumhouse just released a whole trilogy of Halloween films. There’s a Friday the 13th prequel series in the works at Peacock. Studios have been relying on nostalgia almost exclusively when it comes to slashers that actually get wide releases or big marketing pushes.

The rise of streaming and the studio reliance on major IP obviously factor into this. Big expensive movies with major stars or franchise connections are going to theaters, while anything that could be a small win gets either axed or sent to streaming. This is a problem that needs course-correcting in basically every genre, it’s just particularly glaring when you look at slashers.

But there’s very obviously a demand here. It doesn’t even seem to matter if the films are all that good, as long as there is some kind of hook to them. The first Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey movie is one of the worst reviewed films of the past couple of years, yet the incredibly low budget and inclusion of beloved childhood characters helped spawn an entire franchise. (It’s worth noting that the second Blood and Honey is exponentially better than the first.)

The first Terrifier movie back in 2016 was released to average reviews and made very little money. But, again, it was an independent feature that cost next to nothing, and it had a major hook that people hadn’t seen in a while. Terrifier had a charismatic killer in Art the Clown to slap on posters and merchandise. In the years since, Art has become a genuine staple of Spirit Halloween stores, which in turn has generated interest in the Terrifier films from people who haven’t already seen them.

Think back to the big slasher boom of the 1980s. Many of those films — good or bad — made money because they delivered something people wanted and they cost pennies compared to other projects. The films that turned into iconic franchises were able to do so by creating unique antagonists and involving them in ongoing stories that only boosted their legacies.

Studios have become so obsessed with chasing nostalgia and past IP that they forgot how that IP was created in the first place. Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, Freddy Krueger, Chucky, Ghostface; all of these horror legends were created in real time. Fans were surprised by something innovative like Halloween or The Nightmare on Elm Street and continued going back to the theater to see how those stories continued. Now, studios are simply trying to skip that step, hoping people will be excited enough about the slashers their parents watched that they’ll want to be part of the next generation of fans.

That will only go so far. Eventually, interest in Michael Myers will fizzle out. Ghostface will become a relic of the past. What then?

Terrifier and Art the Clown are showing there’s a way forward, as long as studios are willing to take small wins as opposed to trying to launch the next big connected universe. Just last year we saw an original slasher get through the Hollywood studio system and actually get a shot to launch a franchise of its own. Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving had no previous franchise connection (save for the beloved Grindhouse trailer) and the biggest star on the call sheet was Patrick Dempsey. Nevertheless, the film made more than $46 million on a $15 million budget, and Sony quickly ordered a sequel.

Horror audiences love these slasher franchises. We crave them. It’s impossible to count the number of times Halloween and Friday the 13th films are rewatched every October. But none of those franchises really belong to us, they’re simply leftover from a bygone era that younger fans constantly wish we could’ve lived through. There’s a built-in, hungry audience anxiously awaiting the next slasher boom.

The question is, are the studios going to do anything about it?

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Last week saw the premiere of Teacup on Peacock, with its first two episodes igniting excitement among audiences who were already familiar with the novel Stinger upon which the series was based. While the original novel from Robert McCammon might not have the same built-in legacy as something like a Stephen King story, this allowed producer Ian McCulloch to make tweaks to the source material as necessary. Even though this new take on the material might deviate from the original story, it manages to blend together horror, sci-fi, and drama into an entirely compelling experience that will keep audiences guessing right up to the end. New episodes of Teacup premiere on Thursdays on Peacock.

“I read the book and I knew what I wanted to do. Pretty much by the time I finished the book, I knew what I wanted to do,” McCulloch shared with ComicBook about his thoughts on changing the core story. “I thought it was better to ask forgiveness than permission, so I went and I wrote the script for the first episode, which, shockingly, almost four years later is pretty much the same script as the episode that you see. I sent that script to Atomic Monster, to James Wan’s company, who had brought me the book. I said, ‘Here’s what I wanna do,’ they said, ‘Oh, we love this, great.’ I said, ‘Let’s show this to Robert McCammon,’ and we sent it to McCammon, and he said, ‘Oh that’s great, let’s do that,’ and he pretty much said, ‘Go with God.’ I didn’t talk to him until we were in the middle of production. We brought him to production, we brought him to the set and had him there for a while, he had a fantastic time, and he’s over the moon about it, which is really, really … I feel very lucky that he was so open. The book still exists, but this is a very different thing, so I’m just glad he was on board and took a big leap, big swing, and it paid off.”

Teacup follows a disparate group of people in rural Georgia who must come together in the face of a mysterious threat in order to survive.

Even if an audience isn’t familiar with the source material, the themes of paranoia, invasion, and otherworldly encounters will evoke familiarity with projects like The Thing, A Quiet Place, and Annihilation. McCulloch addressed how he developed the project in a way that was influenced by horror greats without directly replicating their approaches to horror.

“It comes from having done this for a while. I’ve written a lot of scripts, some good, some bad, some produced, some not produced,” the writer explained of honoring his influences. “Years ago, I was an actor, and there’s the idea that you go and you do all your research and you learn your lines and you go over it again and again and again and you walk out on stage and you forget all of that and you’re just this person and you say these things, and that’s how I feel about writing. I’ve seen all the movies you referenced, and hundreds more, and I just trust that I’m not gonna steal something.”

He added, “Although, I’m not against stealing, that’s what artists do, we steal stuff, but those things are just part of my DNA now. Those things that I enjoyed, and, ‘Oh, that moment from that movie worked really well,’ when I end up in Teacup with a moment that feels somewhat similar to that, I probably, somewhere in the back of my brain, it goes, ‘Well this worked really well there so maybe you can do it this way, it works just as well for the same reasons, or maybe for different reasons.'”

While only one season was ordered initially, McCulloch isn’t planning on leaving the series behind once the season finale debuts on October 31st.

“It’s definitely not a one-and-done situation, to my mind, I would like to continue the story,” McCulloch confirmed. “I’ve thought about, both things that have to do with this family’s continuing story, obviously, because I love these characters, even the ones that don’t make it to the end of the season, I love them, but I’ve also thought about other parts of the country, other parts of the world. As long as it all funnels back. It wouldn’t be an anthology, it is following one story. Characters come and go, different characters have different experiences that perhaps would lead them to our characters from Season 1. I’ve left it open because I’d like to … I don’t know what’s going to happen in the end, and that, to me, is exciting. I like to be the first audience for this story as it unfolds, if that makes sense.”

New episodes of Teacup premiere on Thursdays on Peacock.

What do you think of the series? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

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The third installment of indie slasher franchise Terrifier has officially hit theaters and Art the Clown has given a completely new meaning to the Christmas spirit. Despite being up against another killer clown, DC’s Joker: Folie à Deux, Terrifier 3 opened in the box office at #1 with over $18 million on a $2 million budget. It has already become the most successful film in the franchise to date, surpassing the sequel’s take in of $15 million. This go around, director Damien Leone recruited wrestling legend Chris Jericho for a small part in the threequel.

In an interview with ComicBook, the AEW star explained his feelings of watching himself get murdered on camera. “So back in the day you would have a mold of your head done with plaster and all that sort of thing. Now it’s all done digitally,” Jericho said. “So they took a big kind of scan of my face and I show up on set and there’s this head on set that looks exactly like me. Obviously, spoiler alert, [my] jaw getting ripped off and fingers in the eyes and just the whole terrible desecration of my face. So we’re doing the scene and you do the part up until and it’s not just Art, it’s Art and Victoria and they’re kind of double teaming me.

And then it’s like, ‘cut!’ Then you put my head in there and that’s when they start ripping pieces of my face off and I’m standing right behind the camera. That was really weird because it’s literally my face getting violated. It’s like you’re thinking to yourself, ‘hey, guys, I’m right here. Can you have done this when I’m not watching?’ It’s pretty weird; it’s surreal to see. And then watching the actual scene itself yeah, it’s pretty cool, but it’s also a little bit messed up to watch yourself.”

What is Terrifier 3 About?

Terrifier 3 picks up five years after Sienna Shaw survived Art’s terror by decapitating him. Now he’s back for vengeance with a now possessed Victoria at his side. For Sienna, moving past the incident hasn’t been the easiest. She still blames herself for what happened to her best friend, Brooke, and often sees hallucinations of Brooke as she battles survivor’s guilt. As Sienna and her loved ones try to put the past behind them and indulge in Christmas cheer, Art is laying in wait, ready to turn that cheer into a nightmare.

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For more than 40 years, Michael Myers has been an icon of terror, racking up dozens of kills across 13 entries into the Halloween franchise. He’s killed people with knives, hammers, axes, and telephone cords. In hopes of stopping him, heroes have shot, stabbed, and decapitated him, with his ultimate “death” in 2022’s Halloween Ends seeing him tossed into a trash compactor to have his entire body decimated. With Miramax having secured the rights to bring the Halloween franchise into the TV space, it’s clear that the property won’t be ending anytime soon, but the often-underwhelming reception of a majoriy of Halloween films proves that, for the franchise to ever find new life, it needs to leave Michael Myers behind for good.

Written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill, the original Halloween explored the idea that, while All Hallow’s Eve is meant to be a night of playful merriment, maybe that masked figure you ran into really had nefarious intentions. After seemingly meeting his match in Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence), the masked Michael Myers suffered what would be fatal injuries for a normal man, only to escape into the night. The survivors of these attacks in Haddonfield, Illinois would never get answers for the brutality, with Myers first killing his sister on Halloween 15 years earlier and escaping a mental institution to once again cause chaos in his hometown.

The strength of the original Halloween is in its restraint and its subtlety; with slashers not yet becoming a major subgenre in the world of horror, Carpenter and Hill delivered audiences a creepy premise featuring authentically teen-aged characters that came to life with moody and ominous cinematography. The experience was heightened by Carpenter’s sparse and jarring musical score, which he crafted in order to save time and money, only to become a seminal composition.

The film was a resounding financial success, and while Carpenter and Hill never aimed to offer audiences anything other than a singular spooky story, it became quite clear that the studio was going to move forward with a follow-up, whether they liked it or not. Carpenter has often expressed that he and Hill agreed to write Halloween II in hopes of maintaining some creative input on the project, especially since they were able to kill off Michael in the finale. One of their more disastrous decisions, however, was revealing that Michael was motivated to kill based on his familial connection to Laurie, who audiences learned was his younger sister. This kicked off a long-running and convoluted mythology for the figure, earning only diminishing returns with each subsequent sequel.

Halloween isn’t the only franchise that released a long string of underwhelming follow-ups, but the real-world terror of the debut entry is what has made each sequel so frustrating. Movies like Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Hellraiser all had supernatural elements which, while unbelievable, could justify within these worlds how our monstrous villain could return from beyond the grave on a regular basis. Even if those films never had to spend copious amounts of exposition explaining the ins and outs of a killer’s mythology, there was a willingness on the audience’s part to suspend their disbelief. While the first two Halloween movies featured Myers earning horrific injuries, there’s a world in which someone could miraculously survive these wounds, especially how those first two movies unfold in under 48 hours. Without ever getting much explanation for his origins, other than he was “evil,” Michael somehow returned year after year and was rarely worse for wear. By the time the Halloween franchise started to attempt to explain the otherworldly abilities of Myers, it grew only more convoluted.

Back in 1982, the Halloween series attempted to move away from Myers with Halloween III: Season of the Witch, an experience that wasn’t nearly as dreadful as the previous two movies, yet had a direct connection to October 31st. Instead of a masked killer stalking teens in a suburb, Season of the Witch featured an evil mask-maker embedding the power of ancient runes into Halloween masks that would kill their young wearers, ultimately making the children a massive sacrifice to otherworldly entities. The absence of Myers was felt among audiences who were largely disappointed in the effort, especially given that the experience was a much campier and lighthearted affair. There’s still a lot to love about the adventure, which has earned a passionate cult following over the years. The producers of the franchise, though, immediately caved in to fan backlash and released Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers in 1988.

Largely due to mismanagement and never imagining anything beyond “make Michael Myers kill people,” the Halloween franchise has earned one of the most nonsensical and inconsistent timelines. Including Season of the Witch and Rob Zombie’s two reboot films, the Halloween franchise has earned five different timelines, some of which contradict or retcon one another, or even have to go out of their way to explain how the narratives negate the events of their predecessors. The reason for all of these changes, retcons, and reboots is due to filmmakers’ attempts to explain how Michael could persist, regardless of his horrific injuries.

Arguably the closest audiences have ever gotten to earning an explanation for Myers’ durability, regardless of how absurd it was, came in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. The story revealed that Michael became the vessel for an ancient evil, imbued on him by the Thorn Cult, which explained his passion for killing and his physical prowess. Despite how this explanation could have justified a number of mysteries about the figure, test audiences for a “producer’s cut” didn’t appreciate the insight into the figure, resulting in significant reshoots to resemble previous installments in the slasher series, only to make for a more confounding experience.

The biggest boosts in popularity the franchise has seen came in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, Rob Zombie’s Halloween, and David Gordon Green’s Halloween trilogy. Halloween H20 and Green’s films both brought back Jamie Lee Curtis after extended breaks from the series, while Zombie’s film reimagined Michael’s origins. In this sense, fan enthusiasm was more about the elements outside of Myers’ traditional orbit and instead proved that even glimmers of breaking the mold would pay off. Each sequel to those more original outings, which would often just bring Michael back arbitrarily, would fail to impress audiences or critics.

Green’s films, though, mark a bit of an outlier, as the tremendous success of his 2018 movie saw his two sequels, Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends, outperform the rest of the franchise at the global box office, yet still marked dips in interest from fans. Green made the controversial decision with 2022’s Ends to imply that Michael’s treachery could somehow be passed on to a new individual, resulting in Rohan Campbell’s Corey Cunningham being primed to take over for the sinister sexagenarian. While there were glimpses of potential in this path, Green abandoned everything he was setting up in the first half of the movie just to deliver fans yet another showdown between Laurie and Michael in the final act. The sequel’s divisive response among audiences and critics was less about branching away from Michael and more centered on the messy ideas the filmmakers attempted to explore.

While Michael might be subjected to the Curse of Thorn in some narrative timelines, the Halloween franchise itself also suffers from the Curse of Michael Myers; films fail when they lean too heavily on repetitive tropes, though they also fail when deviating too far from audience expectations. Even if we don’t have an answer in regards to what the Halloween franchise should be, there are really only two paths: bring back Michael Myers or leave him behind completely. Of this fork in the road, we’ve already seen what happens when a studio opts to go the Michael route, which typically means a quick financial gain that shortly thereafter runs out of steam. At least if a new project attempts to take a riskier approach, any success could then be continued with nearly limitless possibilities, as opposed to having to start from scratch with another attempted reboot or retcon of predecessors.

There’s no question about Halloween III: Season of the Witch being an initial failure, though it has earned significant reassessments in recent years. Movies like Trick ‘r Treat and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark have proven audience enthusiasm for experiences that tie directly into Halloween, so for a franchise to have trademarked the holiday itself, putting more attention on a killer who isn’t inherently linked to the annual event feels like a completely missed opportunity to expand its scope.

The next chapter in the Halloween saga being a TV series will help alter expectations. Shows like Hannibal, Scream: The TV Series, and the 2019 Are You Afraid of the Dark? helped showcase how projects could take beloved concepts, blend them all together, and pull out something that managed to honor the source material while not feeling beholden to expectations. In this sense, this is the perfect opportunity to touch upon all of the nostalgic elements that fans are expecting in a Halloween-related story while also expanding it into something more ambitious and experimental. Fans currently don’t know where the TV series will land or how many episodes can be expected, but even if it’s a limited series with six episodes, the run time alone will allow plenty of room to forge a new path, which is something the franchise desperately needs.

It’s hard to imagine a Halloween movie without Michael Myers, much like it would be hard to imagine a Friday the 13th movie without Jason Voorhees. In 1994, though, Wes Craven proved with New Nightmare that the right filmmaker could reinvent a figure as iconic as Freddy Krueger to put a fresh spin on a concept, opening doors for new storytelling avenues for A Nightmare on Elm Street. If the Halloween franchise makes a hard pivot away from Michael Myers, it runs the risk of earning a Halloween III-esque backlash that results in a complete reset back to a traditional stalking slasher, but the lengthy run time of an entire season of TV could finally allow the franchise to open up all-new narrative paths, as opposed to offering up recycled and redundant stories featuring Michael stalking, killing, and ultimately being defeated.

Do you think the Halloween franchise should move on from Michael Myers? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

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Victoria Justice is making audiences freak the freak out this spooky season. Justice stars in Depravity, a new mystery thriller from her longtime studio partner Paramount and debuting director Paul Tamasy (The Fighter, Patriots Day). While horror may be an unfamiliar genre to fans of Justice’s, the former Victorious star has been a fan of the frights for years.

“I love The Exorcist, but recently, Barbarian,” Justice told ComicBook. “30 minutes into that movie, I was on the edge of my seat. I couldn’t breathe. I was like, ‘What is going to happen? This is insane!'”

“Edge of seat” is an appropriate description for Depravity as well. The film simultaneously unravels a serial killer threat and art heist conspiracy that ultimately ropes Justice’s character, Grace, and her roommates (Devon Ross, Taylor John Smith) into a sadistic game of survival, one that effectively takes place in one apartment complex, The Lancaster, for the entire runtime.

“I think set design is such an important part of a film. The Thai crew did such an amazing job and really helped bring the story to life,” Justice praised the production process, which took place in Thailand’s Baang Rig Studios. “There’s some scenes where we’re in the air ducts together, sneaking around. That was definitely close quarters and was a little claustrophobic to film. As an actor in those scenes, you have all that to play off of. It obviously just adds to making it more real and adds to the performance.”

One of the few scenes that goes outside of The Lancaster takes place in a parking garage.

“It was raining a lot that day. It was like, so humid. I just remember my hair was just like frizzing out like crazy,” Justice recalled filming this particularly crucial scene to Depravity‘s story. “Other than that, it was a really long day on set. There was a lot to cover. It was one of my favorite scenes to film. I’d never done anything like that before, so it was really cool to experience it. It’s really hard to talk about this without spoiling anything! But it really is such an interesting turning point in the movie.”

Depravity does have a brief period of normalcy, even if its just for the opening scenes. When Taylor John Smith’s Alex arrives at The Lancaster, he meets Justice’s Grace while waiting for the elevator.

When Alex asks Grace how she knows the elevator is coming, she replies bluntly: “You listen.”

“I feel like that’s been my entire career,” Justice responded when asked about how that line applies to her own life. “I feel like as an actor, you don’t really have any control. You walk into a room and my job is to just do the best that I can and give my interpretation of the scene or of this character and then leave it in the room and be done with it. I think ultimately, just as being an actor, you have to just let things go. You just have to listen to the universe. You have to trust that what is meant for you will come to you, and if it’s not, then it’s not, and there will be something else.

“To take it a level deeper, as an actor, listening is the most important thing. That is what acting is. It’s not just waiting to say your line. You’re listening to the other person and having what they say affect you in real time. That’s the goal and that’s the whole point. I think that is what good acting is. It’s all about listening, whether it’s to your fellow actor or to the universe. You just got to stay open.”

Depravity is available on digital platforms now.

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Smile 2 is arriving in theaters and Paramount is once again counting on the viral marketing strategy that made the first film a box office winner before it even opened. However, it’s hard to catch lightning in a bottle twice – and that’s proving to be the case with the Smile 2 viral marketing campaign, as one of the actors hired to invoke the horror film’s signature creepy grin couldn’t keep up the act.

One actor hired by the Smile 2 marketing team was planted behind home plate at Major League Baseball’s National League Championship Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets. In the bottom of the 8th inning, Mets pitcher Ryne Stanek was trying to close out the inning against Dodgers batter Max Muncy, who hit a pop-fly foul ball back over home plate.

The prospect of the ball falling on his head was too much for the poor Smile 2 viral actor because he did a quick duck-and-cover move that totally broke the character of an unflinching, always-grinning creep in the crowd. Unfortunately for that actor, his moment of actual fear was caught on camera and the video is quickly going viral – making it hard to imagine he’ll be getting a callback from the Paramount marketing team in the future.

VIDEO: SMILE 2 VIRAL MARKETING GOES WRONG!

As stated, the Smile horror movie series became a pop-culture fixation before it opened in theaters in the fall of 2022. That summer, the PR team planted actors at key sporting events (“like” MLB playoff games), causing major trending buzz on social media – hype that ultimately translated into a big box office return ($217.4M on a $17M budget) and set the stage for a sequel film to follow.

Smile 2 Story & Cast Info

The Smile sequel will trade the smaller-scale premise of the first film (a therapist tracking a demonic curse entity after witnessing her patient’s violent suicide) for a pop-star-sized expansion:

While “about to embark on a new world tour, global pop sensation Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) begins experiencing increasingly terrifying and inexplicable events. Overwhelmed by the escalating horrors and the pressures of fame, Skye is forced to face her dark past to regain control of her life before it spirals out of control.”

Creator Parker Finn crafted Smile to be a psychological horror tale, with the first film using mental illness and suicide as the metaphorical subtext for its supernatural horror. Smile 2 looks to be continuing those themes while adding on the pressures and anxieties of being famous – issues that Finn, and this sequel, are not-so-coincidentally facing, as well.

Smile 2 stars Naomi Scott, Rosemarie DeWitt, Lukas Gage, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Peter Jacobson, Ray Nicholson, Dylan Gelula, Raúl Castillo and Kyle Gallner. Parker Finn once again writes and directs, and the sequel is produced by Marty Bowen, Wyck Godfrey, Isaac Klausner, Finn, and Robert Salerno.

Smile 2 will be released in theaters on October 18th.

The post Smile 2 Viral Marketing Is Happening Again, But This Time The Actor Broke Character appeared first on ComicBook.com.

Fans of classic movies / horror have a new limited edition 4K Blu-ray box set to covet that includes six of Alfred Hitchcock’s best films packaged together for the first time. The lineup includes Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho and The Birds along with over 15 hours of bonus features. To top it all off, the discs come in a deluxe, 38-page coffee table-style book with storyboards, sketches, rare photos, and exclusive artwork from Tristan Eaton.

At the time of writing, the Alfred Hitchcock 4K Blu-ray set is available to pre-order here at GRUV with a 20% discount when you use the code SIGNUP20 at checkout. That will bring the price down to $104, which isn’t bad for such a fantastic collection. Granted, you could save some money by picking up the films in 4K individually or as part of previously released sets here on Amazon, but they’re not going to look as good on your shelf as this set does. Note that will arrive on November 26th, so if you know someone that would love this as a holiday gift, consider grabbing it before they disappear for good. The special features in the set include the following:

REAR WINDOW (1954):

• Rear Window Ethics: An Original Documentary
• A Conversation with Screenwriter John Michael Hayes
• Pure Cinema: Through the Eyes of the Master
• Breaking Barriers: The Sound of Hitchcock
• Hitchcock/Truffaut
• Masters of Cinema
• Production Photographs
• Theatrical Trailer
• Re-release Trailer Narrated by James Stewart
• Feature Commentary with John Fawell, Author of Hitchcock’s Rear Window: the Well Made Film

TO CATCH A THIEF (1955):

• Filmmaker Focus: Leonard Maltin on To Catch a Thief
• Behind the Gates: Cary Grant and Grace Kelly (2009)
• Commentary by Dr. Drew Casper, Hitchcock Film Historian, and more!

VERTIGO (1958):

• Obsessed with Vertigo: New Life of Hitchcock’s Masterpiece
• Partners in Crime: Hitchcock’s Collaborators
• Foreign Censorship Ending
• Hitchcock/Truffaut
• Feature Commentary with Film Director William Friedkin
• Theatrical Trailer
• Restoration Theatrical Trailer
• 100 Years of Universal: The Lew Wasserman Era

NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959):

• North by Northwest: Cinematography, Score, and the Art of the Edit
• Destination Hitchcock: The Making of North by Northwest
• The Master’s Touch: Hitchcock’s Signature Style
• North by Northwest: One for the Ages
• A Guided Tour with Alfred Hitchcock
• Commentary by Screenwriter Ernest Lehman

PSYCHO (1960):

• Psycho Uncut
• The extended version of the movie as seen in theaters in 1960 is exactly as intended by Alfred Hitchcock.
• The Making of Psycho
• Psycho Sound
• In The Master’s Shadow: Hitchcock’s Legacy
• Hitchcock/Truffaut
• Newsreel Footage: The Release of Psycho
• The Shower Scene: With and Without Music
• The Shower Sequence: Storyboards by Saul Bass
• The Psycho Archives
• Posters and Psycho Ads
• Lobby Cards
• Behind-the-Scenes Photographs
• Production Photographs
• Psycho Theatrical Trailers
• Psycho Re-release Trailers
• Feature Commentary with Stephen Rebello, author of “Alfred Hitchcock and The Making of Psycho”

The BIRDS (1963)

• The Birds: Hitchcock’s Monster Movie
• All About The Birds
• Tippi Hedren’s Screen Test
• Deleted Scenes
• The Original Ending
• Hitchcock/Truffaut
• The Birds Is Coming (Universal International Newsreel)
• Suspense Story: National Press Club Hears Hitchcock (Universal International Newsreel)
• Theatrical Trailer
• 100 Years of Universal: Restoring the Classics
• 100 Years of Universal: The Lot

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