Shadow of the Erdtree is Elden Ring’s only expansion, and is therefore a really big deal. After years of anticipation, it finally landed last week, and players have been digging into it ever since. Evidently there’s a lot there, considering this expansion builds on one of the biggest games I’ve ever played, and the…
Shadow of the Erdtree is Elden Ring’s only expansion, and is therefore a really big deal. After years of anticipation, it finally landed last week, and players have been digging into it ever since. Evidently there’s a lot there, considering this expansion builds on one of the biggest games I’ve ever played, and the…
PLOT: American social psychologist Ben Monroe investigates a local cult connected to a disturbing event, while his daughter becomes embroiled with a mysterious local boy.
REVIEW: I love it when a film comes out of nowhere and manages to impress without a big budget or marketing campaign. Usually, it’s reserved for the festival circuit. But with so many films released every month, whether it’s in theaters or on streaming services, the likelihood has never been greater. And with leads like Eric Bana and Sadie Sink to help intrigue audiences, I think few will expect the wonderful character study that follows. Because as much as this is about a modern cult and its ill intentions, A Sacrifice very much focuses on the people involved and how they would get to such a place.
I’ve always enjoyed Eric Bana and he’s perfect here as Ben Monroe, an American psychologist living in Germany. He’s always had that everyman quality that makes him instantly relatable. Amongst all the chaos, he’s the film’s moral compass. This is why I really enjoy what they do to his character, giving him a little more dimension than these roles often allow. His investigation of a mysterious cult in Berlin leads him on a chase that brings danger to Ben’s life. At the same time, Ben’s daughter Mazzy is visiting for the summer and trying to repair their fractured relationship. Sadie Sink continues to flex her acting muscles, bringing a lot of complexity to Mazzy. She sells every moment like her life depends on it and provides so much, whether it’s a “meet cute” with a boy or an intense moment with the cult, she nails it.
Cult leaders have a certain indescribable quality when it comes to their aura. I’d argue, especially for a cult movie, that it’s the most important casting element. Sophie Rois manages to be an utter psychopath hidden beneath a smile. The way she convinces others to do despicable acts and the gaslighting to get them to complete their tasks is truly terrifying. Rois brings an energy that gives every scene involving her a feeling of underlying tension. You just never know what decision she’ll make, that the cult will then carry out. Sylvia Hoeks is absolutely phenomenal as Nina, the mysterious woman that Ben meets in Berlin. She has two scenes in particular that are absolute showcases for her. The less said about her role the better; just sit back and enjoy her greatness.
Based on a book by Nicholas Hogg, Jordan Scott (daughter of filmmaker Ridley Scott) adapted and directed the film herself. She does a wonderful job, really having a great eye for the beautiful Berlin architecture. She’s not afraid to let an actor tell the story of the scene with their eyes versus excessive exposition, which I will always appreciate. There’s so much handholding in modern cinema that a little bit of nuance and ambiguity goes a long way. A Sacrifice rides the line perfectly between the more fantastical side of a cult with a more grounded reality. A lot of that credit has to go to Scott. I’m not familiar with the source material, but it’s clear she really understood what worked about the cult element.
I have been waiting for a movie like A Sacrifice for quite some time. Cult films often go into such absurd territory that I was happy to see them nail the ethereal tone with a grounded reality. This is truly a character piece focusing on many different people and the intense changes they go through during the film. Anyone who makes contact with the cult will have their life changed in one way or another. I recommend going into this one knowing as little as possible. It’s a slow burn with a great payoff and some truly fantastic performances.
A SACRIFICE IS PLAYING IN THEATERS ON JUNE 28TH, 2024.
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Back at the start of May, the Netflix streaming service unveiled their 2024 Summer Movie slate, and in the process they revealed that an action comedy called The Union, which stars Mark Wahlberg (The Family Plan) and Halle Berry (The Call), has a release date of August 16th. With that date just seven weeks away, a trailer for the film has arrived online, and you can check it out in the embed above.
Directed by prolific television director Julian Farino, who was also at the helm of the 2011 dramedy The Oranges, The Union has the following synopsis: Mike (Mark Wahlberg) is happy living a simple life as a construction worker in his native New Jersey – until his long-lost high school sweetheart, Roxanne (Halle Berry), shows up with more on her mind than romance. Knowing he’s the right man for the job, she recruits Mike on a dangerous intelligence mission in Europe that thrusts them back together into a world of spies and high-speed car chases, with sparks flying along the way. iBoy, The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself, and The Lazarus Project writer Joe Barton crafted the screenplay with David Guggenheim, who also receives story credit. IMDb currently has this listed as Guggenheim’s first credit, but it’s actually the same person who wrote Safe House, Stolen, and The Christmas Chronicles, and created the TV series Designated Survivor.
Wahlberg and Berry are joined in the cast by Mike Colter (Luke Cage), Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Lost), Jessica De Gouw (The Secrets She Keeps), Alice Lee (Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist), Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen), Lorraine Bracco (The Sopranos), and J.K. Simmons (Whiplash).
Wahlberg produced The Union with Stephen Levinson and Jeff G. Waxman. Jennifer Madeloff executive produced.
The Union doesn’t look like anything we haven’t seen before, a couple times over, but it could be a decent flick to waste some time with some evening. There appear to be some fun action sequences in there.
What did you think of the trailer for The Union? Will you be watching this movie when it starts streaming on Netflix? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
The post The Union trailer: Mark Wahlberg / Halle Berry action comedy starts streaming in August appeared first on JoBlo.
Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 3 battle pass has weekly quests that players can complete to be rewarded with XP. The latest batch of quests adds five new challenges to complete that are worth 15k XP each. So if you complete them all, you’ll rack up 75,000 XP. Below is a quick list of all the quests you’ll be able to…
Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 3 battle pass has weekly quests that players can complete to be rewarded with XP. The latest batch of quests adds five new challenges to complete that are worth 15k XP each. So if you complete them all, you’ll rack up 75,000 XP. Below is a quick list of all the quests you’ll be able to…
We’ve talked a lot about what makes a black sheep a black sheep. It can be a number of things really. We look at horror series and see what the underappreciated or even outright hated ones are to lift them up and defend them. It can also be a relatively underseen or unknown entity in the career of an actor, director, or series of films to shine a light and get it on more radars. A black sheep can be seen as bad at the time of its release (or even now) and just needs someone to speak of the positives for the flick. The Gate II (get it HERE) is, well, it’s all of that. It’s a mostly underseen and unknown movie in a short horror series that is not really loved by the people who have seen it. With the first movie in the series being a spooky kids classic, I’m here to tell you that not only is The Gate II worthy of the Gate moniker, its worth your time and attention too.
The Gate came out in 1987 and gave us a few things. First, it gave us a horror movie that you show your kids to gage whether or not they can handle horror. I think it’s a little scarier than The Monster Squad even if I prefer that movie due to Shane Black’s magic and the collected sum of its parts. The other big thing it gave us apart from its effects was the first on screen appearance of Stephen Dorf. The Gate still holds up really well as I recently showed it to my 10-year-old and apart from thinking that 1987 was too old of a year to watch a movie, ouch, he was invested from start to finish. He asked me, as he often does after our movie viewings, if there was a sequel. I told him yes but it’s not as good as the first one. There I was, already setting up the expectation that a movie wasn’t great even before he watched it. I was, in every sense of the word and then some, GATE keeping.
The movie, as was the first one, was directed by Tibor Takacs. It was written, just like the first one, by Michael Nankin. The budgets were similar, and they even had one of the actors return but it just isn’t quite the same. Director Tibor Takacs has a ton of experience with visual FX and had a fun little horror run with The Gate in 1987, I, Madman in 89, and today’s movie in 1990. He also helped create the Sabrina the Teenage Witch show and directed a few of the made for TV movies with the character while also working quite a bit in TV in general. His other horror output falls in line with Syfy channel originals and while they may not be great, they are a heck of a lot of fun. Rats, Mansquito, and Ice Spiders are just but a sampling of the late-night dumb fun you can have with his movies. Writer Nankin only has the first Gate and its sequel for scripts but is actually a pretty prolific director, particularly of TV. Sarah Connor Chronicles, The Purge, and Van Helsing among many others round out his directing jobs.
The cast is mostly unknowns, or at least not well known, aside from Pamela Adlon as Liz. Adlon has over 200 credits and is particularly prolific in the world of voice over both in TV shows and even video games. Her daughter Gideon has followed in her footsteps and is becoming quite the actress in her own right in movies, tv shows, and video games. The cast is co-led by Louis Tripp as Terry, Simon Reynolds as Mo, and James Villemaire as John. Villemaire doesn’t have much to his name but did star in Italian horror disaster piece Zombi 5: Killing Birds. Simon Reynolds has had a much larger career including showing up in other horror Dark Water and P2. Finally, we have Louis Tripp who I thought I recognized from more things, but I guess the first Gate movie was a bigger part of my childhood than I reckoned because he really isn’t in much at all except these two movies.
The Gate II opens with Terry going back into his friends abandoned house after the family moved away and trying to trade with the evil forces there. The first movie shows he comes from a bit of a broken home, but this one has things much worse with his alcoholic father not being able to support the two of them. Terrence wants to get the life back that was taken from him and will gladly mess with the demonic forces to get them. He looks a lot older than the first movie and its a little jarring even if the actor does a decent job here. Its not Stranger Things noticeable in terms of looking older but its still there.
Everything in the house that he sets up is appropriately techy for the time but now just looks like a bunch of NES accessories. Even though his friend Glen is gone, he is joined by a group of teens who have broken into the house to do bad teen stuff. Moe and John are your typical bully dbags but Liz is somewhat sweet and is very interested in the inner workings of demonology and the act itself that Terrence is trying to perform. They all pitch in things to sacrifice and are answered with demons in the forms of the little guys we saw from the first movie.
These things look mostly as good as the first one, most of the 7-million-dollar budget I would reckon went to the effects here, but they overuse 1 in particular. Even though its shot and seemingly killed, Terence takes it home and it becomes a genie that can grant wishes but in the way that the monkey’s paw goes about wish granting, not like a friendly genie way. Terence’s dad gets a job back at an airline, but his alcoholism is still there and leads to a terrible accident. The other wishes kind of turn to crap. No, I don’t mean that metaphorically either. The car that Liz asks for turns to a big pile of poop, the things Terrence asked for do the same and even the things that Moe and Jon ask for all eventually crap out as it were.
The characters here actually have some charisma to them as well. Moe has medical issues that he needs to take an inhaler for, John is a jerk for most of the movie but ultimately has a good heart, Liz ends up liking Terrence for who he is, and Terrence realizes that nothing is worth bringing in evil to the world. While its not as dark or fun as the first movie it somehow got an R rating even though nobody actually dies, but more on that later. There are a couple of great sequences in the movie too that stand out amongst the rest. Very much a sum of its parts are better than the whole situation. The nightmare Terrence has before he finds out that his dad was in an accident is a lot of fun with the dad going completely off the rails in the cockpit and the way Terrence falls out of bed is an interesting looking shot.
Moe and John fighting the minion that grants wishes leads to them turning into demons themselves, sort of like a zombie bite or werewolf scratch. John transforming is an effects showcase that is equal parts impressive and gross. It shows where that budget went even if the first movie still looks a bit better overall. After John changes into a monster, the other 3 go after him and also try to figure out how to reverse the damage that they did. Monster John kills Moe while Liz and Terrence go back to the abandoned house to do a different kind of ritual. A very not dead Moe, or maybe its undead Moe in this case, turns into a demon and they take Liz to sacrifice in their world to let more of the monster in. a hamster was sacrificed in the beginning, and it only brought one minion through so it stands to reason that a person will get the job done.
The demon world looks great. The rest of the world is your typical milk toast suburban area while the steps leading up to the altar with a gorgeous matte painting in the background look great and make you want more. Terrence has to finish this, and the demons point out that hes the one that started all of this in the first place. They change him into a demon but before he is completely taken over and forced to sacrifice Liz, he fights back and closes the gate. Closing the gate destroys all of the demons though, including Terrence. The last scene is a fun mixture of makeup and costuming with that previously mentioned old school animated charm. Liz seems to be the only one who made it out alive but at the funeral, Terrence busts out of his coffin followed by Moe and John. Normally I’d say that’s a cheat but with the way the characters are, I’m actually not mad at it.
While this movie is probably relatively unknown, hell, I had heard of it but hadn’t seen it until a few years ago and never heard it talked about, it’s a black sheep to be celebrated. Not only did some of you probably grow up with it on HBO or Showtime, but it’s a fun sequel that decides to try out some new things rather than just rehash the same ground from the first one. While it doesn’t hit the highs of the first movie, it isn’t as bad as you would rightfully expect it to be and is a fun venture back into a universe that brings us back to being kids. It works best when you watch it right after the first movie but either way, The Gate II deserves a spot on your watch list and holds it’s own as one of horror’s Black Sheeps.
A couple of the previous episodes of The Black Sheep can be seen at the bottom of this article. To see more, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
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The Pelt of Ralva is a new helm only available in Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree expansion. Though it’s technically part of the Iron Rivet set, it is found in an entirely different location than the remainder of the armor. This sets itself apart from other helms in the game by being made of a bear pelt, giving…
The Pelt of Ralva is a new helm only available in Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree expansion. Though it’s technically part of the Iron Rivet set, it is found in an entirely different location than the remainder of the armor. This sets itself apart from other helms in the game by being made of a bear pelt, giving…
I’ve been very lucky to have worked for JoBlo as long as I have because, over the years, I’ve been able to interview many people I admire. Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Anne Hathaway, Denzel Washington, Jessica Chastain, Daniel Craig, Ralph Fiennes, and many more. I’ve been able to cross more than a few names off my all-time bucket list (with Sylvester Stallone being a big one), but one guy I never thought I’d get the chance to talk to is Eddie Murphy.
Indeed, as a guy who grew up in the eighties and nineties, Murphy has always been an all-timer for me. I was born in ’81, so Murphy has pretty much been a star the entire time I’ve been alive. I grew up on a diet of his films, with Beverly Hills Cop and its first sequel always being particular favourites of mine. When Netflix announced they were making Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, I never in a million years imagined I’d get to cover the press junket in Los Angeles (in Beverly Hills) for the site and speak to Murphy himself. But it happened, and it was a HUGE moment for me.
While the interview was short, Murphy was hysterical as always, with him explaining how Axel Foley has evolved over the years and how he never knew the franchise would become when it did when he signed on to do the first one. He’s also teased his upcoming action flick with Pete Davidson, The Pickup, but the best part of the interview is when he asks me how old I was when I saw Beverly Hills Cop for the first time. I told him I was about seven (true), and he got a HUGE kick out of that, especially when he realized the movie had strippers and nudity in it, and how that probably blew my seven-year-old mind. It’s definitely a moment I’ll treasure!
Check back in a few days for more stuff from Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, including our review and interviews with Joseph Gordon Levitt, Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Kevin Bacon, Jerry Bruckheimer and director Mark Molloy!
The post Interview: Eddie Murphy on Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, R-ratings and more! appeared first on JoBlo.