Unicorn Overlord, Vanillaware’s take on the tactical/strategy genre, is here, and it is good. The game blends the best of real-time and turn-based strategy games to create a melting-pot of tactical combat. As a follow up to the studio’s last game, the twisting narrative adventure of 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, Unicorn…
The new Texas Chainsaw Massacre video game from Gun Interactive and Sumo Nottingham was just released for PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One back on August 18th, and it has been frequently updated since then. A couple weeks ago, it was revealed that a new character portrayed by genre icon Barbara Crampton is being added to the game in an upcoming update – and now details on the character have been unearthed on the game’s official website! The character with Crampton’s voice and likeness is a Victim character named Virginia.
Here are the details: Virginia is a grief-stricken mother who cannot get over the disappearance of her son Jesse. She’s obsessive over his vanishing and refuses to believe that he could be gone. The weight of her pain is so immense she leaves behind her nursing career to move to Newt, TX, the last location Jesse was seen. Out of determination and desperation, she travels alone to remote areas in hopes of finding him. She even goes so far as to talk to anyone who could possibly have information on Jesse’s whereabouts. This eventually leads to Virginia spotting some unusual behavior near a remote farmhouse. With hope in her heart that she’ll find Jesse, her investigation of the property leads to her tragic run-in with The Family. Captured and trapped in a different kind of nightmare, Virginia will use her vast knowledge of homemade remedies to escape.
Virginia’s time as a nurse allows her to see Sissy’s flower powder and make special concoctions that she can use to possibly save her own life. With this mixture, she can throw it directly at a Family member to create a blue cloud that temporarily blinds them. This will buy Virginia and the other Victims time to run away and possibly live to see another day. Her special ability, Boon, can also be used to contaminate blood buckets on the property. If a Family member gathers blood from one of these buckets, they will be disoriented for a short amount of time.
Crampton had this to say about joining the Texas Chainsaw Massacre video game: “Gunnar Hansen was my friend so it’s been a great experience to keep the wonderful legacy of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre going with my inclusion in this game. Working with all the folks at GUN on my new DLC character has been a remarkable experience! They are among the best in the business. I’m so proud of what they have created and excited for everyone to see all the new stuff!“
Matches of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre video game pit 4 victim characters against 3 killer characters. The story of the game has the following set-up: When Maria Flores went missing, and local law enforcement seemed to stall out in their search, her younger sister Ana teamed up with some of Maria’s friends from college to pick up the trail. The game takes place before the events of the original film.
Kane Hodder (who also worked on Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III) did the motion-capture performance for Leatherface in the game, as well as the Grandpa character. Other motion-capture performers include Sean Whalen (The People Under the Stairs) as The Hitch-hiker; Troy Burgess (Swedish Dicks) as The Cook; Kristina Klebe (Don’t Kill It) as new killer character Sissy; and Dove Meir (Dig) as new killer character Johnny. Scout Taylor-Compton (Rob Zombie’s Halloween) did the mo-cap for all of the female victim characters while Hunter C. Smith (Lucky) did the mo-cap for all of the male victim characters. Although Whalen did the mo-cap for the Hitch-hiker, Edwin Neal, who played the character in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, provided his voice for the game. Damian Maffei (The Strangers: Prey at Night) provided the voice of Johnny, and Michael Johnston of Teen Wolf did the same for Danny. BAFTA winner Cissy Jones did the mo-cap and vocal performance for Nancy. You can find out more about the killer characters at THIS LINK and the victim characters HERE. To learn more about the voice cast, head over HERE.
Developer Sumo Nottingham recently decided to step away from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre video game, passing the job over to Black Tower Studios, a company Gun Interactive previously worked with on Friday the 13th: The Game. (Black Tower Studios replaced IllFonic on that project and had a hand in the creation of the Jarvis House and Pinehurst maps.)
Have you been playing the Texas Chainsaw Massacre video game, and are you interested in playing as the Barbara Crampton character? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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The journey to get a Beetlejuice sequel has been a long one. But like stepping onto Saturn, time has flown since filming wrapped earlier this year, and since then, those anticipating Beetlejuice Beetlejuice have been treated to news about minimal CGI, teases about new characters and what stands as the best poster of the year so far. Now, Michael Keaton is giving even more hype, saying “this thing is great.”
Speaking on The Jess Cagle Show, Michael Keaton said he has seen a cut of this summer’s Beetlejuice sequel and it is everything he had hoped for. “It is really good. And beautiful. Beautiful, you know, physically. You know what I mean? The other one was so fun and exciting visually. It’s all that, but really kind of beautiful and interestingly emotional here and there. I wasn’t ready for that, you know. Yeah, it’s great.” He went on the praise both returning and new cast members, adding, “It’s great and the cast, I mean, Catherine [O’Hara], if you thought she was funny last time, double it. She’s so funny and Justin Theroux is like, I mean, come on.” O’Hara of course returns as Delia Deetz, while Theroux signed on last spring. Other newcomers in the cast include Jenna Ortega as Lydia’s daughter, Monica Bellucci has Betelgeuse’s wife and Willem Dafoe as a dead B movie actor.
Keaton would go on to say how excited he is to check out another cut of the Beetlejuice sequel once it’s complete. “It’s just so fun and I’ve seen it now, I’m gonna see it again after a couple little tweaks in the editing room and I confidently say this thing is great.” Keaton has been all in on Beetlejuice Beetlejuice since it got the greenlight, which no doubt amps up excitement for many of us. Showtime for the sequel is September 6th.
The journey from the original Beetlejuice to its sequel more than 35 years later is a long one that we couldn’t possibly get into here. But might we suggest you say aloha to our episode of “WTF Happened to This Movie?!”, which not only hits on Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian but the production of the original movie.
How excited are you for the sequel to Beetlejuice? Let us know below!
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PLOT: Po (Jack Black) is ordered by Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) to train a new “Chosen One” so that he can take on a new role as Spiritual Leader of the Valley of Peace.
REVIEW: Kung Fu Panda 4 is pretty standard fare for a new movie in a franchise that’s gone inactive. Watching Kung Fu Panda 4, I couldn’t help but think of Cars 3 or Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol, which were both “passing the torch” sequels that didn’t really work out that way. Cars 3 all but ended the franchise; while Ghost Protocol was so badass, people fell in love with Tom Cruise all over again, making the notion of him passing on his franchise to a would-be-successor (in that case Jeremy Renner) ludicrous. All that is to say Kung Fu Panda 4 does the usual thing for a long-awaited sequel, with the movie designed to have Jack Black’s Po eventually pass the reins of a franchise – to some extent – over to a new character, in this case Awkwafina’s Zhen, a Corsac Fox. I suppose they’re aiming to eventually get a Kung Fu Fox franchise going, with Black’s Po shifting to a wizened mentor role, but watching this movie with a packed matinee audience, I’m not sure this idea works.
Kung Fu Panda 4 is a decent enough animated romp, even if the franchise kinda ran out of steam a while ago. For me, a forty-two-year-old critic, it felt like the series had gotten a little tepid, but here’s the thing – the kids in the audience went crazy any time Black’s Po was on-screen. There’s something about a funny, furry panda that children love, and for me, the reason a Kung Fu Fox franchise might fall flat is that the character design on Awkwafina’s Zhen just isn’t as instantly iconic or recognizable as Po.
Kung Fu Panda 4 will likely do fine at the box office, as even if the franchise is set to (potentially) focus on Zhen in future films, Po is still the star here. One of the interesting things about an animated franchise is that the characters never have to age, and Black’s voice work is as energetic as ever. Yet, it can’t be denied that his arc as the Dragon Warrior seems to have run its course, so perhaps finding a successor in the Karate Kid vein isn’t a bad idea. It should have been another Panda, though. Heck, even one voiced by Awkwafina, who’s actually quite funny as Zhen, a duplicitous thief with a heart of gold. She dropped her controversial “blaccent” some time ago and gives the part a lot of energy, with her having a swarmy energy as opposed to the still naive Po.
Too bad then that too many of their adventures seem recycled from the other films when they pursue a villainess called The Chameleon (voiced by Viola Davis) who can take on the shape of other villains, such as Ian McShane’s Tai Lung from the first film. One thing that’s a surprise is that Davis has never voiced a character in a big animated film like this. Given that she has one of the best voices in the business, it’s no surprise that her voicework as the Chameleon is one of the movie’s highlights.
One thing the film suffers from is the near total absence of Po’s friends, the Furious Five, meaning the biggest stars from the last few movies – like Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, David Cross, and Lucy Liu – aren’t really in this one. Their absence is felt, but they try to make up for it by giving Po’s two dads, voiced by Bryan Cranston and James Hong, bigger roles. Their buddy-comedy scenes together are the movie’s highlight. New additions like Ronny Chieng and Ke Huy Quan are fun but not as iconic as the Furious Five, making the movie feel a little less epic than its predecessors.
In the end, the film is all about planting the seeds for a potentially new direction for the franchise, but again, after having seen this with a kiddie audience, I don’t think they want to see Po in the wise mentor role. They want him leaping around yelling “ska-doosh”. Kung Fu Panda 4 has enough of that to make it a fun enough romp for kids, but it can’t help but feel like this franchise’s moment has passed, and isn’t really strong enough material to sustain a spin-off.
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Last August, we heard that Imagine Entertainment had picked up the film rights to Daniel Kraus’s “swallowed by a whale” thriller novel Whalefall (you can buy a copy at THIS LINK) and now Deadline has a cool update on the project: 20th Century Studios has come out the winner in a bidding war over the Whalefall theatrical distribution rights, and Brian Duffield – who recently worked with 20th Century on the alien invasion film No One Will Save You – has signed on to co-write, direct, and produce the film.
Duffield is working on the screenplay with Kraus, and here’s the story they’ll be bringing to the screen: Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool’s errand – to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach. He knows it’s a long shot, but Jay feels it’s the only way for him to lift the weight of guilt he has carried since his dad’s death by suicide the previous year. The dive begins well enough, but the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in very real jeopardy, made infinitely worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. Suddenly, Jay is caught in the squid’s tentacles and drawn into the whale’s mouth where he is pulled into the first of its four stomachs. He quickly realizes he has only one hour before his oxygen tanks run out – one hour to defeat his demons and escape the belly of a whale. Suspenseful and cinematic, Whalefall is an “astoundingly great” (Gillian Flynn, New York Times bestselling author) thriller about a young man who has given up on life… only to find a reason to live in the most dangerous and unlikely of places.
What a shorter description? Whalefall is “The Martian meets 127 Hours,” a “scientifically accurate thriller about a scuba diver who’s been swallowed by an eighty-foot, sixty-ton sperm whale and has only one hour to escape before his oxygen runs out.“
Duffield is producing the film alongside Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, and Allan Mandelbaum of Imagine Entertainment. Richard Abate and Will Rowbotham of 3 Arts Entertainment serve as executive producers. J.R. Young is overseeing the project for 20th Century Studios.
In addition to writing and directing No One Will Save You, Duffield also worked on the screenplays for Jane Got a Gun, The Babysitter, Underwater, and Love and Monsters, and he created the Netflix animated series Skull Island. He made his feature directorial debut with Spontaneous.
What do you think of Brian Duffield signing on to direct Whalefall? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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What if the real “final fantasy” was the friends we made along the way? Final Fantasy VII has the most memorable and adored RPG cast of all time, with fans even falling in love with the optional characters that were a pain to recruit in the original 1997 game. If there’s one thing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth gets right,…
What if the real “final fantasy” was the friends we made along the way? Final Fantasy VII has the most memorable and adored RPG cast of all time, with fans even falling in love with the optional characters that were a pain to recruit in the original 1997 game. If there’s one thing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth gets right,…
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is now opening its doors and its arms to welcome Deadpool in Deadpool & Wolverine. Before Disney purchased 20th Century Fox, Fox’s Marvel playground was the X-Men franchise. They could give a team member spin-offs, like Wolverine’s solo series, or explore a different facet of mutant-kind with a film like The New Mutants. Before the Deadpool movies with Ryan Reynolds took off, there was actually another version of his story that was planned involving the X-Force team getting their own movie.
According to ScreenRant, Jeff Wadlow, director of Kick-Ass 2, recently appeared on A Trip to the Movies with Alex Zane. He revealed his scrapped plans for an X-Force movie that would have had Ryan Reynolds redeem the interpretation of Wade Wilson from X-Men Origins: Wolverine. This project was one of many canceled explorations into the X-Men universe, such as Channing Tatum‘s solo Gambit movie.
Wadlow explained, “I was lucky enough to write an X-Force script for Fox before the original Deadpool film was made. He’d been in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and, as a comic book fan, I knew that was a travesty. That was a total abomination. I wanted to get it right. My pitch for the movie was, ‘If X-Men is about mutants that get to go to private school, what about the mutants that get to go to public school?’ I wrote this movie that was very much inspired by the original X-Men run back in the ’90s. I introduced Cable as this dark mentor for our characters. It was definitely about the young mutants formerly known as the New Mutants. In my movie, it was Cannonball, Boom-Boom, I aged Domino down…Rictor was there. Feral was there. I put them on this road movie. I modeled it after Red Dawn. They were on the run in West Texas.”
He continued, “I wanted this antagonist chasing them the whole time. Deadpool was introduced as a villain in the original X-Force run, so I had our main villain hire a mercenary to hire this group of ragtag villains down and the mercenary hired was Deadpool. He was in motorcycle leathers with this red ballistic face mask. I made it very clear he was going to look just like he did in the comic books. I wanted Ryan [Reynolds] to play the part…I got in touch with Ryan, got him the script and he loved it. He said it was, like, a grand cameo for Deadpool. It was a supporting part. I played him as an antagonist but, ultimately, they turned him in the end.”
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Last month, it was announced that writer/producer Judalina Neira is developing a TV series reimagining of the classic sitcom Bewitched for Sony Pictures Television, aiming to turn it into an “irreverent hourlong” show. NBC clearly likes the idea of reviving Bewitched, because now Deadline has broken the news that the network has their own “Bewitched-inspired” show called Something Wicked in the works, and this one already has a star attached: June Diane Raphael, who may be best known for playing the character Brianna Hanson for the 94 episodes that make up the Netflix series Grace and Frankie, which ran for seven seasons.
Raphael is also writing and executive producing Something Wicked with Dickinson creator Alena Smith. A multi-camera comedy, the show is described as having a Bewitched-type premise and will also serve as an homage to TV sitcom classics. It examines the condition of modern adult womanhood and how even with witchcraft, balancing everything is impossible.
The show is set up at Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group.
If you need a refresher: The classic sitcom Bewitched ran for eight seasons and a total of 254 episodes, premiering on September 17, 1964 and wrapping up on March 25, 1972. A spin-off called Tabitha came and went in 1977, then Bewitched received a big screen reboot back in 2005. The original series showed us what happened when a witch married an ordinary mortal man, vowing to lead the life of a typical suburban housewife.
What do you think of the fact that there are now dueling Bewitched-inspired projects in the works? Would you be interested in watching a witchy comedy series that stars June Diane Raphael? Share your thoughts on Something Wicked by leaving a comment below.
In addition to Grace and Frankie, Raphael’s credits include Zodiac, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Bride Wars, Year One, Going the Distance, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, The Disaster Artist, Blockers, 8-Bit Christmas, Cheaper by the Dozen, and episodes of Flight of the Conchords, Party Down, Players, Parks and Recreation, Burning Love, The League, The Muppets, Veep, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The New Girl, Fresh Off the Boat, The Goldbergs, Abbott Elementary, The Morning Show, and Frasier.
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PLOT: A woman returns to her childhood home to discover that the imaginary friend she left behind is very real and unhappy that she abandoned him.
REVIEW: 2024 has already not been a great year for Blumhouse horror films. Night Swim absolutely sunk on release and I can’t imagine a world where Imaginary does well. Because everything about this PG-13 horror venture feels tired and uninspired. That’s not a massive surprise, as the trailer induced groans at nearly every screening I’ve attended over the last few months. But whenever these kinds of movies are released, I always wonder: is there at least some dumb fun to be had? Unfortunately, this one is nearly barren of entertainment value.
Imaginary follows a young artist named Jessica (DeWanda Wise) as she returns to her childhood home with her new husband and stepkids, Alice and Taylor. There’s a mystery around what happened to her as a kid, as young Alice makes an imaginary friend of her own. Weird things start to happen as Jessica starts to realize that she may know Alice’s new friend. And if you’re hoping for some fun mystery elements then prepare to be disappointed. Every twist and turn is telegraphed well in advance, with some reveals happening more than one time.
One of Imaginary‘s biggest issues is its overreliance on exposition through dialogue. I lost track of the number of times a character just described exactly what was happening and erased any sense of nuance. It got to the point of absolute hilarity as the filmmakers simply won’t let a moment go unexplained. Even if that character is by themselves. They instantly need a character to come in and spell things out for the audience. It reeks of a studio demanding more clarity, in the process dumbing everything down to the lowest common denominator. Which is too bad because there are a few interesting ideas, but they never have any time to develop, often being sidelined by something idiotic.
There’s not a single character to root for as they’re all so bland and one-dimensional. Wise does her best, but Jessica is such a nothing person on the page. Taylor is the stereotypical emotional time bomb of a teenager, getting angry for no reason, and making nonstop bad decisions. They try to add a conflict between her and Jessica, but there’s not much reason for it. Not even a misunderstanding. It feels like Taylor was simply told that kids are supposed to be mean to their step-parents and she gleefully took on the challenge.
Despite tipping his toes in the genre for the last twenty years, director Jeff Wadlow fails to make anything interesting yet again. Like his prior efforts Fantasy Island and Truth or Dare, Imaginary relies on jump scares and dull characters to make up its runtime. Unlike either of those trainwrecks, I struggle to even laugh at this. The “so bad it’s good” genre can make for a great watch with friends, but there needs to be something to latch onto to carry it into that holy ground. Unfortunately, this just treads water until winding up exactly how you expect it to. There are no stakes and such minimal consequences that I couldn’t help thinking: what was the point?
The third act finally gives us something slightly more unique and interesting. I obviously won’t go too far into detail, but it involves a lot more imagination than anywhere else in the film. Imaginary is at its best when it’s taking advantage of a fantastical/nightmarish setting. But it does this so little, that I question why they even decided to make a movie on this subject matter in the first place. An imaginary friend in the horror space should have resulted in so much more. Instead, the audience is going to have to keep on using that imagination if they’re hoping for a good movie.
IMAGINARY IS IN THEATERS IN THE US ON MARCH 8TH, 2024.
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