Almost two years have gone by since A24 announced that production was underway on the psychological horror film The Front Room, with Brandy Norwood (Queens, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer) taking on the lead role and Max and Sam Eggers – the younger brothers of The Witch, The Lighthouse, and The Northman director Robert Eggers – at the helm. Now we’re just weeks away from the film’s theatrical release date of September 6th (a date that puts it in direct competition with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice), and a new trailer has dropped online. You can check it out in the embed above.
Based on a short story by Susan Hill, The Front Room has the following synopsis: Everything goes to hell for newly-pregnant Belinda (Brandy) after her mother-in-law (Kathryn Hunter) moves in. As the diabolical guest tries to get her claws on the child, Belinda must draw the line somewhere… If you would like to read the short story source material, it can be found in Hill’s collection The Travelling Bag and Other Ghostly Stories. Copies can be purchased at THIS LINK.
Norwood is joined in the cast by Kathryn Hunter (The Tragedy of Macbeth), Andrew Burnap (WeCrashed), and Neal Huff (Spotlight).
The Front Room is being produced by A24, along with Lucan Toh, Babak Anvari, and Bryan Sonderman of Two & Two Pictures, as well as Julia Oh and David Hinojosa of 2AM. A24 is financing the project and will be handling the worldwide theatrical release. The film has received an R rating from the Motion Picture Association ratings board for language, some violent/disturbing content, brief sexuality and nudity.
Max Eggers co-wrote The Lighthouse with his brother Robert and was a production assistant on Robert’s 2008 short film adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story The Tell-Tale Heart. Sam Eggers was also a production assistant on that short film, and on The Witch. Sam also co-wrote and co-edited the 2018 documentary Olympia, about actress Olympia Dukakis.
Will you be catching The Front Room during its theatrical run? Take a look at the new trailer, then let us know by leaving a comment below.
I have three gaming consoles plugged into my TV in the living room and it’s a mess of wires and HDMI input hopping. Ibrahim Al-Nasser has over 400 consoles plugged into a single TV and seems to be doing just fine. In fact, his obsession just broke a world record.
I have three gaming consoles plugged into my TV in the living room and it’s a mess of wires and HDMI input hopping. Ibrahim Al-Nasser has over 400 consoles plugged into a single TV and seems to be doing just fine. In fact, his obsession just broke a world record.
Nine years years ago, we heard that Ant-Man co-writers Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari had joined a writers room that was put together to develop an animated Transformers project called Transformers One, which “would take place on the Autobots and Decepticon’s home planet of Cybertron.” Eventually, Toy Story 4 director Josh Cooley signed on to take the helm of the film. Now that movie is set to make its way out into the world, with Paramount Pictures scheduling a September 20th theatrical release – and the Motion Picture Association ratings board has revealed that they’ve given the movie a PG rating for sci-fi violence and animated action throughout, and language.
Cooley directed the film from a screenplay written by Barrer, Ferrari, and Eric Pearson, whose credits include Thor: Ragnarok and Godzilla vs. Kong. The animated movie tells the “long-awaited origin story of how the most iconic characters in the Transformers universe, Orion Pax and D-16, went from brothers-in-arms to become sworn enemies, Optimus Prime and Megatron.”
Chris Hemsworth (Thor) and Brian Tyree Henry (Eternals) are providing the voices of Optimus Prime and Megatron, respectively, and they’re joined in the voice cast by Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow) as Elita, Keegan-Michael Key (The Predator) as Bumblebee, Jon Hamm (Mad Men) as Sentinel Prime, and Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix) as Alpha Trion. Hemsworth recently explained that he was drawn to the project because it’s an origin story. “It isn’t a remake; it’s not a reimagining. It shows the early years of these characters, whom we only knew later in their lives. This film delves into friendships and relationships you have with people when you’re vulnerable and afraid. It talks about what bravery really means and how good and evil aren’t as simplistic as they might first appear. We make mistakes, and we learn from them. But ultimately, we are defined by the decisions that we make.“
Are you a Transformers fan, and are you looking forward to Transformers One? What do you think of it getting a PG rating for sci-fi violence and animated action throughout, and language? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
It wouldn’t be a Final Fantasy game without Chocobos, so it’s no surprise that the giant rideable birds show up in the franchise’s online entry, Final Fantasy XIV. The creatures first appear very early on in the MMO, but are only able to ferry you to specific locations on a pre-set route for a fee. Luckily, you can…
It wouldn’t be a Final Fantasy game without Chocobos, so it’s no surprise that the giant rideable birds show up in the franchise’s online entry, Final Fantasy XIV. The creatures first appear very early on in the MMO, but are only able to ferry you to specific locations on a pre-set route for a fee. Luckily, you can…
Zombies and demons aren’t the only things that were considered for Deadpool & Wolverine battle sequences but didn’t make it into the finished film. While the movie features some awesome cameos, there were more cameos discussed that didn’t pan out. Deadpool himself, Ryan Reynolds, recently admitted that a potential cameo appearance by Nicolas Cage’s Ghost Rider fell through – and now concept art has dropped online to give us a glimpse of a battle with the Deadpool Corps that would have involved Deadpool, Wolverine, some of the characters who did make it into the movie – plus Ghost Rider, Ben Affleck’s Daredevil, and a dinosaur! You can take a look at this concept art, which was shared by artist Rodney Fuentebella, in the Instagram embed below.
Fuentebella wrote, “Here is an early concept illustration I did for the Marvel Studios Deadpool & Wolverine film. This was in the beginning stages of the making of the film so a lot changed but I wanted to show the how epic and awesome this film could be at the time. I had a blast creating all the interactions between our heroes and the Deadpool variants. Thank you to @andyparkart for leading this project on the vis dev side and to all the Marvel Studios peps. Check out @ryan_meinerding_art Wolverine concept if you haven’t already. And enjoy!!! This piece will also be included in the upcoming The Art of Deadpool & Wolverine.“
Directed by Shawn Levy from a screenplay that was crafted by Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, Reynolds, Zeb Wells, and Levy himself, Deadpool & Wolverine has the following synopsis: Marvel Studios presents their most significant mistake to date – Deadpool & Wolverine. A listless Wade Wilson toils away in civilian life. His days as the morally flexible mercenary, Deadpool, behind him. When his homeworld faces an existential threat, Wade must reluctantly suit-up again with an even more reluctantlier… reluctanter? Reluctantest? He must convince a reluctant Wolverine to – F–k. Synopses are so f–king stupid. Well, the movie has made over a billion dollars at the box office, so you probably know what it’s about.
Would you have liked to see Ben Affleck’s Daredevil and Nicolas Cage’s Ghost Rider make cameos in Deadpool & Wolverine? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
When you look at the true legacy of a scream queen there are a lot of options out there to choose from. When looking at the top of the heap though? I’d argue that there really is only one option. Jamie Lee Curtis has been making horror movies in 6 different decades now and while a lot of them are directly tied to her most famous franchise with 7 of her horror films being in the Halloween series, there’s so much more. In fact, her run from 1978 to 1981 includes the likes of Halloween 1 and 2, The Fog, Terror Train, and Prom Night. ALL of those movies have now been remade and are considered classics but there is one in there that doesn’t get talked about enough, was a bomb when it came out, but keeps getting better with age. While Halloween II came out and stole the spotlight in 1981, Road Games (watch it HERE) has only gotten better in its 40 plus years of existence. While it could probably be on a list of Best Horror Movies You Never Saw, I want to revisit it and show off why its so good so many years later.
Road Games is an example of Ozploitation and honestly one of the finest and most approachable. The term Ozploitation refers to the boom of films that came out of Australia from the early 70’s to the late 80s as its heyday with some still happening in the 90s and 2000s and is honestly one of my favorite types of film. It encompasses multiple genres too like comedies, action, sci fi, and of course, horror. Some of the other examples include bigger names like Mad Max and its sequels, Razorback, and Turkey Shoot but also has some real gems like Next of Kin, Wake in Fright, and The Return of Captain Invincible to name just a few. It’s worth seeking out as many as you can, especially their horror movies, and checking out the documentary Not Quite Hollywood for better context and more suggestions. Director of Road Games Richard Franklin may have gone on to direct things like Psycho II, Link, and Cloak & Dagger (RIP Dabney Coleman) but his first big success was another well-known Ozploitation horror film in Patrick.
During the production of that movie, Franklin gave his writer Everett De Roche a copy of Rear Window and asked that he develop a similar movie but put it in a moving vehicle. The movie didn’t do well at all in either Australia or the US with it not coming close to touching its 1.75-million-dollar budget. It ran afoul of the Australian actor’s union Actors Equity and Jamie Lee Curtis even had people on set come up to her and ask how it felt to put Australians out of work. Jamie Lee Curtis wasn’t the original choice, but Franklin was an old USC friend of John Carpenter and visited him on the set of The Fog where he was able to secure her services. Avco Embassy was the American production company on this just as it had helped put out The Fog for Carpenter. Stacey Keach was also not the first choice as Franklin wanted to shoot for the moon and have Sean Connery in the lead role of Quid, but they didn’t have the budget for that and Keach ended up with the role. Look, I love Sean Connery as much as the next person, but this role is my favorite Keach performance, and I really couldn’t see it with anyone else in the role.
The movie was filmed in Nullarbor Plain and Melbourne and the shots are incredible. While Razorback has an almost existential music video feel to it, the cinematographer here, Vincent Monton, gives Road Games a flair that you don’t see. From the 360-degree longshot while Quid is trying to report things on the phone to the long drives and beautiful scenes of the city lights, it’s just a gorgeous movie to behold. He really didn’t do much else, but this will last the test of time for generations to come. The movie itself is seen as a pastiche to Hitchcock and there is certainly merit there. The scene where Keech and Curtis discuss the serial killer and who he is or how he is getting away with it feels a lot like dialogue between two characters from one of the master’s many films. The character that Curtis plays does have a name that we learn later but she is known as hitch to us for a while and that is both her tag as a hitchhiker but could also be a wink to the man.
The movie opens with our beloved truck driver Pat Quid and his best friend, a dingo named Bosworth. Almost everything you need to know about the movie can be seen in the first 7 minutes of the movie. We have our main protagonist in Quid, our killer in a hotel killing a victim, and a long monologue from Stacey Keatch. That kill scene brings me to my first soapbox about the movie: It’s not Hitchcock. The movie’s dialogue is certainly Hitchcock inspired but I would argue that the movie is much more of an Ozploitation Giallo informed by Brian DePalma’s late 70s and 80s catalogue. Sure, he is seen as a modern Hitchcock with things like Blow Out, Dressed to Kill, Body Double, and even Snake Eyes but even Dressed to Kill seems more appropriate to be placed in the American Giallo department.
That first kill really informs of it’s Giallo presence. We have the signature kill weapon, the gloves, the lack of real identity of the killer, and the Lucio Fulci special: the close-up eye shot. The only things we are missing to make it a true entry in the genre are the score from Goblin and the overly complicated reason for the killings. The answer to the last part, and really its fine by me, is that he’s just a dude who likes killing women and goes about disposing of them in bags along the highway. While the score isn’t done by Italy’s preeminent synth score group, it’s a memorable mix or like a western, 60s World War II movie, and suspense thriller at times and boy, does it work. It’s done by none other than Brian May. No not the killer queen but the dude is named Brian May, and he had a great career, particularly in the Ozploitation realm, and is probably most famous for the Mad Max scores.
Keach as Quid is a renaissance man. His belief system, cadence of speech, and rules he follows are all so incredibly unique. We spend a lot of time with him too and a good chunk of that time is really just him. He plays games to keep himself entertained and engaged, is incredibly quick-witted, and plays the harmonica. He believes in the cleanliness of Dingos over K-9s. He may drive a truck, but he’s no truck driver. He keeps passing the same hitchhiker which ends up being Jamie Lee Curtis character Pamela, or Hitch, but ends up the unwilling driver of another lady where we get some of the fun things that movies can do. Of course, she thinks that Quid is the killer they talk about on the news, even when he sees the real killer and explains what he is doing. Keach figures out the exact motives and reasons for the killer and its all interspersed with great shots and little humorous sight gags that both relieve and add to the tension.
I said earlier that we don’t know the identity of the killer, but we sure do see them. The movie chooses wisely to not have a bunch of red herrings on who the killer could be, at least for us, but definitely has the other characters in the film question the motives and sanity of Quid. Sometimes he feels he is living and operating in a madhouse with how the other characters talk to him or act around him. Only us as the audience and Quid as our avatar see the whole picture clearly. Quid finally picks up Hitch and she’s the only other character on his level. They are charming together and when they discuss the killer and his motives, its some of the best in the movie. It even almost rubs up against the zany fast talking screwball comedies of Howard Hawks. As soon as Curtis utters the line, “Looks like we are going to have to get him ourselves.” We are right there with them.
The most suspenseful scene in the movie is when they think they have the killer stuck in the bathroom and are checking out his car. We have the alarm in the background going off, the fact that we think he really is in the bathroom stall, and also the brilliant use of a ticking clock we hear in the van while Hitch is looking through it. While in the scene it’s a quieting and suspenseful tool, but once she pulls down the sleeping back cover to reveal the killer’s face, you realize it was a literal alarm waiting to go off. While it’s not suspenseful in the standard sense, my other favorite scene is after Hitch is taken by the killer and Quid is left to his own dark thoughts. The visual que of the sun going down and the sky getting just as dark as what’s passing through his mind is one of my favorite shots of all time. It fills with wonder in the same way that the desert scene in Razorback does.
The final chase after a creepy exploration of Quid’s truck has the upbeat “good guy” music that motivates us and him to stop this guy. While there is no literal ticking clock like we have heard multiple times throughout the movie, when he is stalled at a weigh station, we feel every second tick by. His impatience finally reaches its peak as he watches the killer gas up his van while talking to the police knowing that his friend, who may not even be alive anymore, is in there. He gets the truck stuck between the cops and the killer where neither can see each other and plays cat and mouse in the biggest coffin you can think of. The final fight looks like it will frame Quid as the killer after he gets the upper hand and attempts to strangle the real murderer, but he is saved with the pleasant surprise of Hitch not being killed and disposed of yet. She clears his name and points out Smith or Jones who smiles and never says a thing. The upbeat music and back and forth dialogue close out a wild ride and one hell of a game.
Road Games sadly didn’t perform at all but those that did see it, either critic or audience, seem to love it. It was improperly marketed as a slasher film from both its poster and trailer but that does it a disservice and probably tanked its box office numbers. It’s not a slasher and, even though I like to call it one, it’s not exactly a Giallo either. It’s a unique piece of cinema that found all the right parts in front of and behind the camera firing on all cylinders. The horror works in all the right ways even if it isn’t in the traditional ways and it’s thankfully easy to find now. It has a wonderful Scream Factory disc but is also streaming on Tubi often. Weather you want to venture into the realms of Ozploitation, top tier Hitchcock copycats, or dip your toe into the Giallo section of cinema, Road Games is a great time to be had.
Two previous episodes of Revisited can be seen below. To see more of our shows, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals channel – and subscribe while you’re at it!
Get ready for another go-around with the Guy Ritchie series, The Gentlemen. Variety has reported that the Netflix series has been renewed for season 2. In his review for season one, our own Alex Maidy said, “The Gentlemen series feels like a reimagining of the film. The story hits some vaguely similar notes but the vast majority is completely different. […] This is a unique reimagining of a successful story that takes it in a different direction and sets up future seasons.”
Netflix U.K.’s VP spoke ecstatically about the show’s successful first season, “With its gun-toting chickens and drug-dealing Dukes, The Gentlemen was a huge hit with audiences in 2024. Not really a surprise as Guy Ritchie remains one of the industry’s most iconic creators telling authentically British stories with his signature swagger, grit and wit. We are thrilled the series will be returning to Netflix for a second season, and cannot wait to see what happens when the worlds of old money and drug money collide once more.”
The official logline from Netflix reads, “THE GENTLEMEN sees Eddie Horniman (Theo James) unexpectedly inherit his father’s sizable country estate – only to discover it’s part of a clandestine cannabis empire. Moreover, many unsavory characters from Britain’s criminal underworld want a piece of the operation. Determined to extricate his family from their clutches, Eddie tries to play the gangsters at their own game. However, as he gets sucked into the world of criminality, he begins to find a taste for it.”
Ray Winstone joins a host of on-screen talent, led by Emmy-nominated The White Lotus 2 star Theo James as The Duke of Halstead, Eddie Horniman, who finds himself embroiled in criminality after inheriting his father’s estate, and Kaya Scodelario(Crawl, The Pale Horse) who plays Susie Glass, Bobby’s effortlessly stylish and steely daughter who runs the day-to-day business of the empire.
The series also stars Daniel Ings (I Hate Suzie), Joely Richardson(Lady Chatterley’s Lover), Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels actor Vinnie Jones, Giancarlo Esposito(Better Call Saul), Chanel Cresswell(This is England), Michael Vu, Max Beesley(Hijack), Jasmine Blackborow (Marie Antoinette), Harry Goodwins (In His Hands: The Emergence), Dar Salim (The Covenant), Pearce Quigley (Detectorists), Ruby Sear and Peter Serafinowicz (The Tick).
Writers on The Gentlemen include Guy Ritchie and Matthew Read, with Haleema Mirza, Billy and Theo Mason Wood, Stuart Carolan and John Jackson. Directing episodes along with Ritchie will be Nima Nourizadeh, Eran Creevy and David Caffrey. Executive producers on the show include Guy Ritchie, Will Gould, Matthew Read, Frith Tiplady, Marc Helwig, Bill Block, Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies. The Gentlemen is a co-production from Netflix, Moonage Pictures, and Miramax TV.
Kraven the Hunter is coming out this year. Did you forget? Well, Sony is here to jog your memory by dropping a new trailer at 3:00 in the morning. The Russian supervillain is out for bloody, R-rated revenge as the movie teases a final showdown with the Rhino.
