Two years ago, we heard that production had wrapped on Spin the Bottle, a supernatural horror film that has genre regulars Ali Larter (the Final Destination and Resident Evil franchises) and Justin Long (Tusk, Drag Me to Hell, Barbarian, etc.) playing supporting roles and Tanner Stine (Impulse) and Kaylee Bryant (Legacies) taking on the lead roles. Now Spin the Bottle is finally ready to make its way out into the world, as Paramount will be giving the film a digital release on October 4th – and with that date just a couple of weeks away, a trailer has arrived online. You can check it out in the embed above.
Gavin Wiesen directed Spin the Bottle from a screenplay written by John Cregan (Plague Town). The actors mentioned above are joined in the cast by Christopher Ammanuel (Black Lightning), Ryan Whitney (Reagan), Angela Halili (American Horror Stories), Samantha Cormier (Legion), Hal Cumpston (The Greatest Beer Run Ever) and Tony Amendola (The Curse of La Llorona). Wiesen previously directed the 2011 romance The Art of Getting By and the 2017 comedy All Nighter. Spin the Bottle marks his horror debut.
The story Cregan crafted for this film centers on a group of teenagers in small town Texas who unleash a deadly force after playing the famed party game Spin the Bottle in an abandoned house where a grisly massacre once took place. The idea of a deadly force being unleashed by a game of spin the bottle doesn’t sound very enticing to me, but the fact that Ali Larter and Justin Long are in this film’s cast is enough to guarantee that I’ll be watching it at some point.
Financing for Spin the Bottle was provided by Fortress Media Group. Will Hayes, Jim Valdez, Kyle Hayes, and Chris Barish produced the film, with Harrison Kordestani serving as executive producer and Scot Ruggles co-producing.
What did you think of the trailer for Spin the Bottle? Does this look like a movie you’d like to include in your Halloween season viewings this year? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
From DreamWorks Animation—creators of the beloved blockbuster franchises Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon and The Boss Baby—comes the canine-crime-fighting film adaptation of Dav Pilkey’s New York Times bestselling literary phenomenon: Dog Man.
When a faithful police dog and his human police officer owner are injured together on the job, a harebrained but life-saving surgery fuses the two of them together and Dog Man is born. Dog Man is sworn to protect and serve—and fetch, sit and roll over.
As Dog Man embraces his new identity and strives to impress his Chief (Lil Rel Howery, Get Out, Free Guy), he must stop the pretty evil plots of feline supervillain Petey the Cat (Pete Davidson; Saturday Night Live, The King of Staten Island). Petey’s latest plan is to clone himself, creating the kitten Lil Petey, to double his ability to do crime stuff. Things get complicated, though, when Lil Petey forges an unexpected bond with Dog Man.
When Lil Petey falls into the clutches of a common enemy, Dog Man and Petey reluctantly join forces in an action-packed race against time to rescue the young kitten. In the process, they discover the power of family (and kittens!) to bring even the most hostile foes together.
Dog Man also stars Isla Fisher (Wedding Crashers, Rango) as TV reporter Sarah Hatoff; Poppy Liu (Hacks, The Afterparty) as Petey’s assistant, Butler; Emmy nominee Stephen Root (Barry, King of the Hill) as Grampa; Billy Boyd (theLord of the Rings franchise, Seed of Chucky) as Sarah’s cameraman, Seamus; and Emmy and Golden Globe winner Ricky Gervais (The Office, Extras) as Flippy the fish.
Dog Man is directed by Emmy winner Peter Hastings (The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants, Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness), whose credits include the groundbreaking animated series Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain. The film is produced by Karen Foster (Spirit Untamed), who served as co-producer on DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon.
Launched in 2016 by Dav Pilkey—the #1 global bestselling author and award-winning illustrator of the Captain Underpants books—the Dog Man Scholastic series now includes 12 books. The series has more than 60 million copies in print and has been translated into 47 languages. Cat Kid Comic Club, a spin-off of Dog Man launched in 2020, has also topped bestseller lists around the world. The most recent Dog Man book, Dog Man: Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea, was overall the #1 bestselling children’s book in the U.S. in 2023, across all children’s formats and ages. Pilkey’s newest book in the Dog Man Series, Dog Man: Big Jim Begins, is set to release on December 3, 2024.
DreamWorks Animation’s Dog Man will be distributed by Universal Pictures.
2024 marks the 85th anniversary of the first Batman comic, published in 1939. To celebrate, DC Comics has partnered with Barbie to make two dolls based on two of the series’ most iconic villains: Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. In a roundabout way, we’re getting another Margot Robbie doll, as she portrayed both Barbie in…
2024 marks the 85th anniversary of the first Batman comic, published in 1939. To celebrate, DC Comics has partnered with Barbie to make two dolls based on two of the series’ most iconic villains: Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. In a roundabout way, we’re getting another Margot Robbie doll, as she portrayed both Barbie in…
The latest story missions for Fortnite Chapter 5, Season 4, are here. And so is Iron Man! This week’s batch of quests will have you running tasks for Captain Jones and Tony Stark himself, all over the island. This guide will detail everything you need to know about completing these quests.
The latest story missions for Fortnite Chapter 5, Season 4, are here. And so is Iron Man! This week’s batch of quests will have you running tasks for Captain Jones and Tony Stark himself, all over the island. This guide will detail everything you need to know about completing these quests.
After being delayed several months by the writers strike and the actors strike, season 5 of the hit Netflix series Stranger Things (which is also the last season of the show) finally went into production at the start of the year and is now deep into its twelve month shooting schedule… So deep, in fact, that the cast has gotten together for a read-through the script for the final episode – and while speaking with ComicBook.com, cast member David Harbour revealed there was “heavy weeping” during the reading of that script.
Stranger Things has the following synopsis: A love letter to the ‘80s classic genre films that captivated a generation, Stranger Things is a thrilling drama set in the seemingly normal Midwestern town of Hawkins, Indiana. After a boy vanishes into thin air, his close-knit group of friends and family search for answers and are pulled into a high-stakes and deadly series of events. Beneath the surface of their ordinary town lurks an extraordinary supernatural mystery, along with top-secret government experiments and a dangerous gateway that connects our world to a powerful yet sinister realm. Friendships will be tested and lives will be altered as what they discover will change Hawkins and possibly the world — forever.
Harbour told ComicBook.com, “Getting back to the OG crew of this final season has been wild in a way because we have come so far and it is not the show that we started in Season 1. I think that’s a wild experience for all of us. I mean, those kids were 11 years old when we started, 12 years old. Now they’re 20 and they’re shaving and they aren’t kids anymore. Finn (Wolfhard) just directed a movie. I think to have it all come back full circle… We just did a read-through of the last episode and the amount of crying… like the episode is very beautiful. But there’s also a deeper level of that, this was actually their childhood. They were 11 years old and grew up and fought this monster. And I’ve never seen so much heavy, heavy weeping from teenagers or young adults in my life. There was some cameras there, but we didn’t do it for the publicists or the Instagram people. There was something intimate about the way they structured it that I’m hoping that you don’t see very much of that, because there was something profound in the sense that we are a family. There is the deeper level, it is about us as individuals who’ve worked together for nine years since they were kids, and that really came through. There was a real deep kind of honesty and heartbreak and bittersweet quality to all of it.“
Here’s the list of the cast members and the characters they played in season 4: Winona Ryder (Joyce Byers), David Harbour (Jim Hopper), Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven), Finn Wolfhard (Mike Wheeler), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin Henderson), Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas Sinclair), Noah Schnapp (Will Byers), Sadie Sink (Max Mayfield), Natalia Dyer (Nancy Wheeler), Charlie Heaton (Jonathan Byers), Joe Keery (Steve Harrington), Maya Hawke (Robin Buckley), Priah Ferguson (Erica Sinclair), Brett Gelman (Murray), Cara Buono (Karen Wheeler), Matthew Modine (Dr. Brenner), Paul Reiser (Dr. Owens), Jamie Campbell Bower (Peter Ballard), Joseph Quinn (Eddie Munson), Eduardo Franco (Argyle), Sherman Augustus (Lt. Colonel Sullivan), Mason Dye (Jason Carver), Nikola Djuricko (Yuri), Tom Wlaschiha (Dmitri), Myles Truitt (Patrick), Regina Ting Chen (Ms. Kelly), Grace Van Dien (Chrissy), Logan Riley Bruner (Fred Benson), Logan Allen (Jake), Elodie Grace Orkin (Angela), John Reynolds (Officer Callahan), Rob Morgan (Chief Powell), Amybeth McNulty (Vickie), and Freddy Krueger himself Robert Englund (Victor Creel).
Stranger Things is produced by Monkey Massacre Productions and 21 Laps Entertainment. Series creators The Duffer Brothers serve as executive producers alongside Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen of 21 Laps Entertainment, Iain Paterson, and Curtis Gwinn.
10 CloverfieldLane and Prey director Dan Trachtenberg directed an episode of the final season before heading off to make the new Predator movie Badlands, starring Elle Fanning. New to the cast for Stranger Things season 5 are Linda Hamilton (The Terminator), Nell Fisher (Evil Dead Rise), newcomer Jake Connelly, and Alex Breaux (Joe Pickett).
Are you looking forward to the last season of Stranger Things, and to finding out what happens in the final episode? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
Switch-tember continues apace with more wild speculation about the Switch 2 or whatever Nintendo ends up calling its upcoming gaming console. This time it’s due to allegedly leaked manufacturing information out of China which appears to show renders of what the Switch 2 might look like as well as its specifications.
INTRO: 1815. Canadian settlers are pushing westward. A trading company has set up a fort in the middle of a vast wilderness… and now that fort is under siege. Ravenous beasts lurk in the forest, howling, scratching at the gate. These pioneers have entered werewolf territory. That’s the set-up for the most unexpected prequel of all time, Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning (watch it HERE). And it’s the Best Horror Movie You Never Saw.
CREATORS / CAST: Director John Fawcett’s teenage werewolf movie Ginger Snaps started making its way out into the world in the year 2000. It quickly earned a cult following, and a reputation for being one of the best werewolf movies ever made. It had a low budget and was so financially successful, two follow-ups were given the greenlight. These would be shot back-to-back, with Ginger Snaps editor Brett Sullivan taking the helm of one and Ginger Snaps’ second unit director Grant Harvey being chosen to direct the other. Every film in the trilogy had a male director and a female screenwriter. Fawcett directed the first movie from a script by Karen Walton. For Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed, Brett Sullivan teamed with writer Megan Martin – and while the first movie had a quirky sense of humor, Sullivan and Martin largely set that aside. Their sequel was darker and more nihilistic than its predecessor, leading to a downer ending that was begging for a sequel to come along and resolve some issues. But that’s not what Grant Harvey’s contribution to the franchise would be. Working with writers Christina Ray and Stephen Massicotte, Harvey crafted a bizarre prequel, taking the setting from the early 2000s back to the early 1800s.
Ginger Snaps had starred Katharine Isabelle and Emily Perkins as teenage sisters Ginger and Brigitte Fitzgerald. On the same day her first period begins, Ginger is attacked by a werewolf. And while that creature ends up roadkill, Ginger has been infected by its bite. She gradually becomes a werewolf. This girl’s adolescence involves a monstrous transformation. Brigitte desperately tries to find a cure for her sister’s ailment before it’s too late… But in the end, she has to decide whether to kill her sister or join her. The story of Ginger and Brigitte is a heartbreaking one, and Isabelle and Perkins reprised their roles in the downbeat sequel.
Grant Harvey’s Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning brings Isabelle and Perkins back again, but they’re not quite the same characters we knew before. They’re still playing young sisters named Ginger and Brigitte Fitzgerald – but now they’re making their way through the Canadian wilderness in the year 1815. They’ll say they were accompanying their parents on a boating trip, trying to find a way to pass through the western mountains, then their boat overturned, their parents drowned, and the girls are on their own. This seems to be a lie. Their parents may be dead, but they didn’t drown. It’s likely the girls killed them in some way, for some reason. But the method and the motive don’t mean much. We just need to know the sisters have been through something extreme and they have pledged to stick by each other’s side. Together forever. This pledge will be put to the test when they reach a place called Fort Bailey, which presumably stands in the same area where the suburb Bailey Downs, the setting of the first movie, will be built.
This fort was set up by men from the Northern Legion Trading Company. The indigenous people warned them this was a bad place to build a fort in, but they didn’t listen. The natives believe in the ancient legend of the Wendigo, a curse passed down through the blood of generations. There’s talk of a day of reckoning and the arrival of two sisters, referred to as the Red and the Black, in a time when death will consume the land and good will face evil. The outcome of that confrontation will decide whether the curse will be broken or grow stronger to plague further generations. Well, Ginger and Brigitte are the Red and the Black, and when they get to Fort Bailey, death is already consuming the land. There are only a handful of men left in the fort, and most of them seem to be at the edge of insanity. A group that left in the spring was supposed to return with supplies that would help them survive the harsh winter. That group is two months overdue. It’s winter. Supplies are running low. And, worst of all, werewolves stalk the forest surrounding the fort, and they’ll take any opportunity to try to get through the gate.
Seeking shelter in Fort Bailey, Ginger and Brigitte interact with characters played by Nathaniel Arcand, JR Bourne, Hugh Dillon, Adrien Dorval, David La Haye, Tom McCamus, Matthew Walker, Fabian Bird, Kirk Jarrett, David MacInnis, Stevie Mitchell, Edna Rain, and Brendan Fletcher, who played a different role in Ginger Snaps 2. A lot of these characters, we don’t get to know much about. Some of them are likeable. Most of them are not. And several of them will be dead by the time the credits roll.
BACKGROUND: Harvey told Fangoria magazine that he decided to make an oddball prequel because he was intimidated by the idea of making a follow-up to Ginger Snaps. He said, “I’m a huge fan of the first film; it’s a great movie. When they asked me to do a sequel, I was like, ‘Oh God, I don’t know if I want to screw that up.’ To deal with that, I kind of said, ‘We should take the idea of a sequel and just flip it on its head.’ So that’s what we’ve done. … We took the same two main characters, and the same two actresses playing those characters. Put them in a similar situation, in that Ginger gets bitten by a werewolf and is starting to turn. But we placed it in the early 1800s. So we’re just totally messing with the idea of a sequel. … We’ve put our two girls, Brigitte and Ginger, in Canada’s past, and we haven’t explained it. They’re just there.”
Ginger Snaps Back was a low budget production with a month-long shooting schedule. Crew members were tired because they came to the set directly after finishing Ginger Snaps 2. As a period piece that features a lot of characters, the script was a challenge to bring to the screen. It was made more complicated when revisions took longer than expected, so Harvey didn’t have as much prep time as he would have liked. Instead of planning his shooting days ahead of time, he had to map out each day during the morning. But the director had a blast making the movie anyway. He said, “It’s so much fun. Every day I show up and we’re doing something cool. There isn’t a day that doesn’t have some sort of cool set, or some cool scene between amazing actors. Or werewolves. Every day is just awesome.”
The film benefited from the fact that the fort location was a real place. The filmmakers didn’t have to build it. It was Fort Edmonton, a detailed replica of a fur trading post. So it was exactly what the movie needed – with the bonus that it was built in the 1970s, so it was heated and had plumbing. The cast and crew didn’t have to rough it as much as the characters did. Harvey wanted the movie to look the way a Brothers Grimm fairy tale feels. Working with cinematographer Michael Marshall, he was able to achieve that. The movie has a dark, unsettling atmosphere that does make it seem like a fractured fairy tale, and the fort setting goes right along with that feeling.
Lionsgate had co-financed and been a distributor on the first Ginger Snaps, and they were behind the two follow-ups as well. They released Ginger Snaps 2 in January of 2004 – and Ginger Snaps Back followed later that year, reaching home video in September. The movies were well received, although both fell short of the positivity and excitement the first film had stirred up. Ginger Snaps 2 didn’t score as highly as Ginger Snaps did… and Ginger Snaps Back didn’t go over as well as part 2 did. Which is understandable. The idea of making a prequel but still having Ginger and Brigitte as the lead characters, living in the 1800s, it was confusing. Jarring. A lot of fans were probably asking “What the hell is this?” within minutes of putting the movie on.
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Harvey and the writers attempted to make the idea make sense, working in the idea of a curse that is passed down through generations, presenting the idea that the Ginger and Brigitte Fitzgerald of the early 2000s were always destined to have a werewolf experience. The Ginger and Brigitte of the 1800s are presumably blood relatives of theirs. The Fitzgerald family had to go through this multiple times until it reached the right conclusion. So if you want an explanation, you can keep thoughts of cursed bloodlines and reincarnation in mind while watching the movies. For others, the best way to approach Ginger Snaps Back would be to not think about that stuff at all. Just take it as a standalone werewolf story that’s set in the 1800s, and the fact that it’s part of the Ginger Snaps franchise just gives us the opportunity to see Katharine Isabelle and Emily Perkins in the lead roles. Never mind that they’ve played characters just like these ones before.
Taking it on its own merits, pushing franchise implications aside, Ginger Snaps Back is a well-told werewolf story. There are elements that are reminiscent of John Carpenter’sThe Thing: you have a group of characters trapped in an isolated location during the winter, and not only are there monsters at the gate, there are also some inside the fort. The young son of one of the fur traders was bitten… and his dad is keeping him around. This little wolf boy is still running around inside the fort. He’s not the only werewolf who has infiltrated the fort. Ginger is bitten early on and gradually transforms.
Isabelle and Perkins turned in great performances in all of these movies, and they have a strong supporting cast to work with in this movie. Most of the men in the fort are deeply unpleasant. Viewers will probably be rooting for the werewolves to come in and eat these guys. But even if the characters are awful people, the performances are solid. One standout, a rare likeable character, is the Hunter, played by Nathaniel Arcand. A member of the Cree tribe, he has been hearing of the werewolf legend his entire life. Now that his homeland is infested with werewolves, he proves to be a skilled werewolf killer. Unfortunately, the resolution of the werewolf situation doesn’t rest on his shoulders. It’s all up to Ginger and Brigitte.
The first Ginger Snaps had unique werewolf designs; the monsters moved on all fours and were less hairy than you might expect. Creature designer Paul Jones chose to show skin and muscle instead of covering the werewolves in fur. For the follow-ups, the filmmakers had the money to bring in the legendary KNB EFX Group. They took the original design and built on it, making the werewolves hairier in the process. You don’t get to see a great deal of the werewolves in Ginger Snaps Back, but when they are on the screen, they look awesome. The movie also adds to werewolf lore with the idea that leeches are the best way to check for werewolf infection. If a leech is placed on someone who has been bitten by a werewolf, both the person and the leech will have intense reactions.
BEST SCENE(S): The scene where Finn, the character played by Brendan Fletcher, undergoes a leech test is one of the best in the movie, and one where the film is most reminiscent of The Thing. It’s a low-key variation on that movie’s blood test scene. Finn is suffering from a werewolf bite and has decided to chop up the leeches so they can’t reveal his secret. But the fort doctor catches him in the act, when there are still leeches left. Gun in hand, the doctor makes Finn place a leech on his chest. And we see that leeches and lycanthropy do not mix.
Of course, the biggest werewolf action is reserved for the end of the movie. And when it comes, with the werewolves getting inside the fort, it’s very cool. Especially when we get to watch the Hunter take down werewolves with bullets, blades, and arrows. Luckily, killing these werewolves doesn’t require silver.
PARTING SHOT: Making an 1800s-set prequel to Ginger Snaps, one that still involves Ginger and Brigitte, was an odd choice. But it worked, because Ginger Snaps Back turned out to be a great werewolf movie. There aren’t enough of those out there – so if you’re a werewolf fan who hasn’t seen this one yet, seek it out and give it a try. The connection to the original Ginger Snaps is weird, but the movie is dark and creepy, with strong acting performances and some cool werewolves. So take a trip to Fort Bailey, spend some more time with the Fitzgerald sisters, and watch some people get ripped apart.
A couple previous episodes of the Best Horror Movie You Never Saw series can be seen below. To see more, and to check out some of our other shows, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
Jeremy Saulnier’s Rebel Ridgedominated Netflix’s Top 10 list for the second week this week and it has gained acclaim with a certified fresh Rotten Tomatoes rating of 96% with an audience score of 69%. Our own Chris Bumbray says in his review, “But what makes Rebel Ridge such a must-watch movie are the action sequences, which are shot in a lean, mean, and realistic way. You see, in the film, Terry is a former close combat instructor, and those are the tactics he uses to take on his opponents, with Pierre thrillingly adept in the well-staged martial arts sequences. This kind of action role makes a guy like him a star, and one has to imagine that the suits at Marvel and DC will be keeping an eye on him.” The fights scenes are a standout for the film and one person who has ample experience with hardcore fighting is director Timo Tjahjanto.
Tjahjanto has worked with The Raid‘s Iko Uwais on a couple of features, including Headshot and The Night Comes For Us, also starring The Raid‘s Joe Taslim. Tjahjanto also has a new bloody affair coming out from Netflix, titled The Shadow Strays and while promoting that film, Tjahjanto proclaimed his love for Rebel Ridge while talking to our EIC. “I love Rebel Ridge. Jeremy [Saulnier] is my personal hero. It’s funny, whenever Jeremy is releasing a film, I’m releasing a film as well. I remember when he released Hold the Dark, I was releasing The Night Comes for Us. And I always feel, obviously, he’s a much better filmmaker than me and much more mature filmmaker than me.”
He continues with the statement, “Rebel Ridge is an exercise of knowing that violence is not the answer. While, me…like I’m still very much living in this weird, violent, confrontational [world].”
Tjahjanto also is in production for Nobody 2 and recently praised his leading man, Bob Odenkirk, on his drive. Tjahjanto stated, “I underestimated just how crazy Bob Odenkirk is! Honestly, Bob is a 61-year-old man and his dedication and the training that he undergoes…man….like, I’m embarrassed. I’m significantly younger than him and I get tired by the time we are shooting.”
