Naughty Dog’s next game is still steeped in mystery, but another tease has been plucked from the ether. Troy Baker, one of the best-known faces in video game acting following his performance as Joel across The Last of Us Part I and II, is on deck to appear in director Neil Druckmann’s next project.
.After bringing his break-out hit Baby Reindeer to Netflix, Richard Gadd is teaming up with Jamie Bell (All of Us Strangers, Shining Girls, Fantastic Four) for Half Man, formerly known as Lions. Gadd is the creator, writer, and executive producer of Half Man, a drama series that stars Gadd and Bell as estranged “brothers” Ruben and Niall, respectively.
Here’s the official synopsis for Half Man:
“When Niall’s estranged ‘brother’ Ruben shows up at his wedding, it leads to an explosion of violence that catapults us back through their lives. Spanning almost forty years from the 1980s to the present day, this ambitious series will cover the highs and lows of the brothers’ relationship, from them meeting as teenagers to their falling out as adults — with all the good, bad, terrible, funny, angry, and challenging moments along the way. It will capture the wild energy of a changing city — a changing world, even — and try to get to the bottom of the difficult question… What does it mean to be a man?”
With Wendy Griffin producing, Alexandra Brodski (Somewhere Boy, Rivals, Joy) and Eshref Reybrouck (Hassel, Undercover, Ferry: The Series) will direct Half Man for HBO and BBC. Filming will take place in Scotland in 2025.
Richard Gadd’s popularity exploded when his biographical drama series Baby Reindeer became Netflix’s hottest show at the start of 2024. The show stars Gadd as Donny, who experiences a warped relationship with a female stalker (Jessica Gunning). The impact it has on him forces him to face a deep, dark, buried trauma.
Audiences became obsessed with Baby Reindeer for weeks, posting theories and spoilers on social media non-stop. The real-life “Martha,” whose real name is Fiona Harvey, launched a lawsuit against Netflix for defamation in September, saying Gadd falsely implied that she sexually assaulted him, gouged his eyes, and had been sent to prison for stalking.
“There is a major difference between stalking and being convicted of stalking in a court of law,” the judge wrote. “Likewise, there are major differences between inappropriate touching and sexual assault, as well as between shoving and gouging another’s eyes. While plaintiff’s purported actions are reprehensible, Defendants’ statements are of a worse degree and could produce a different effect in the mind of a viewer.”
Regardless of how the lawsuit shakes out, HBO and BBC are eager to bring Richard Gadd’s new series, Half Man, to audiences. What do you think about the concept for Gadd’s latest show? Will he have great on-screen chemistry with Jamie Bell? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
The post Baby Reindeer creator Richard Gadd to star alongside Jamie Bell in his new HBO & BBC drama series Half Man appeared first on JoBlo.
Nava Mau earned an Emmy nomination (in the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie category) for her breakthrough performance as the lead character’s love interest Teri in the hit Netflix series Baby Reindeer, and was named as a 2024 BAFTA Breakthrough cohort. We’ve previously heard that she will be following up her Baby Reindeer success with a role on the final season of the Netflix series You, and now Deadline has broken the news that she’s set to star in the comedic thriller The Dregs – which has something to do with a cursed wine bottle.
Before appearing on Baby Reindeer, Mau played the role of Ana on 16 episodes of the Max streaming series Generation. (16 episodes also happens to have been the show’s full run.)
Set in Tuscany, The Dregs will mark the directorial debut of writer Connor Martin. Filming is expected to begin in Italy next March. The story Martin crafted for this project is said to center on a friends’ trip to Tuscany that gets derailed by old wounds and a cursed bottle of Vin Santo.
Mau is joined in the cast by Benjamin Norris (Never Have I Ever), Marta Pozzan (From Scratch), Maria Grazia Cucinotta (Il Postino), and Zach Tinker (American Horror Story).
Mike Stern developed the project and is producing the film through the company Astral Plane. Alessandro Bertolucci of Dublab IT serves as co-producer. Tinker is an executive producer on the film. Co-executive producers include Pozzan, Jeremy O’Keefe, Marco Allegri, and Austin Aronson.
Stern had this to say about the casting of Nava Mau: “Nava was incredible on Baby Reindeer, and we are thrilled to have her join The Dregs following the global success of the show. Connor Martin’s script for The Dregs is inventive, suspenseful, and painfully funny. Nava, Ben, Maria, Zach and Marta bring authenticity and conviction to everything they do and it’s a real honor to provide such a fun showcase for their talents.“
Does The Dregs sound interesting to you? Share your thoughts on this Connor Martin / Nava Mau comedic thriller by leaving a comment below.
The post The Dregs: Baby Reindeer’s Nava Mau to star in comedic thriller about a cursed wine bottle appeared first on JoBlo.
You have three seconds to name Wesley Snipes’ best ‘90s action movie: Go! As the numbers tally, only six options remain: New Jack City, Passenger 57, Boiling Point, Rising Sun, Demolition Man, and Blade. If we’re talking crime-action, New Jack City reigns supreme. Horror-Action? Blade all damn day. Sci-Fi Action? Demolition Man is too silly to miss. But if we’re simply counting hyper-violent, hard-boiled action fare – it’s hard to elevate above Passenger 57 – a lean, mean, bullet-laced blitzkrieg of thrilling throwback action made in the wake of Die Hard. In the film, Snipes portrays John Cutter, a badass airport security expert who finds himself in a hijacked airliner overrun by Charles “The Rane of Terror” Rane and his undercover henchmen.
Despite overtly adopting the Die Hard formula of isolating a grumpy, charismatic hero in a single location and pitting them against a troupe of gun-toting terrorists, Passenger 57 soars above most cheap imitators and brazen knock-offs and ascends into rarified air as one of Snipes’ most kick-ass action extravaganzas. With the film celebrating its 32nd anniversary this November, it’s only right to give Snipes his just due. Flight risk or not, remember to “Always bet on Black” as we find out What Happened to Passenger 57 ahead!
Checkered Hollywood filmmaker Stewart Raffill conceived Passenger 57’s story following the infamous debacle of Mac and Me (Paul Rudd’s favorite movie), one of the worst E.T. rip-offs known to man. Raffill’s original script for Passenger 57 was designed as a starring action vehicle for someone like Clint Eastwood. The initial story involved a grieving loner en route to Spain to bury his son, when Iranian terrorists suddenly overrun his airplane and divert it toward Tehran. Once the plane is redirected to Iran, Eastwood’s character escapes captivity, captures several Iranian hostages, and exchanges them for American detainees. According to Raffill, the script was drastically altered when the project movies from Columbia to Warner Bros., stating:
“It would have seen Clint Eastwood on a plane flying home from Spain and it gets hijacked by Iranian terrorists who take it to Tehran. So everyone is put in cages, but Clint works out where he’s been taken and he eventually gets out, rescues all the other prisoners, finds the Mullahs, and then takes them prisoner and everyone fights their way out of Iran.
The action was incredible, but it was too much money. The head of Columbia Pictures said that he would have loved to make that film, but the Iranians would have blown up a plane or something. So Warner Brothers bought it and kept re-writing until only the first quarter or so remained.”
Due to the escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran in the wake of the first Gulf War, Warner Bros. demanded Raffill alter the screenplay. According to Raffill via Slash Film:
“The head of the studio said to me, ‘If I make that movie, they’ll blow up the theaters.’ So I did a couple of re-writes for them, for Warner Bros. who owned it, then I got another picture and came back and then it became a black movie.”
When Raffill says Passenger 57 “became a black movie,” he’s referring to the initial casting of John Cutter, the widowed airline security expert thrust into heroic duty. Before Snipes earned the part, Sylvester Stallone was offered the part but he turned down to make Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, a dubious decision he may want to take back retrospectively. Once Stallone turned down the role, a sly in-joke was made by writers by naming Cutter’s buddy, Sly Delvecchio after Stallone’s nickname. Speaking of Delvecchio, Michael Madsen turned down the role before the late Tom Sizemore was cast. Other actors considered to play Cutter before Snipes was cast included The Boz, Brian Bosworth, who had to decline to accommodate his post-NFL career surgery. Passenger 57 was one of two projects at Warner Bros. offered to Steven Seagal. The other was Under Seige, which Seagal chose to make. Both films were released in 1992, with Passenger 57 knocking Under Seige out of the number-one spot at the U.S. box office. Always bet on black indeed!
Once the film was reconceived as a starring actioner for a Black movie star, Eddie Murphy and Denzel Washington topped the list of casting hopefuls. Looking back, it’s hard to imagine anyone other than Snipes playing Cutter, especially given the number of authentic stunts he performed in the film. Before photography began, Passenger 57 was written to take place at night, but the script was changed to daytime to cut costs. Rewrites came from screenwriters Dan Gordon and David Loughery, the latter of whom recently passed away in July 2024. Actor-turned-director Kevin Hooks was tapped to fly Passenger 57 to commercial success, which he did when the film quadrupled its budget worldwide. Hooks’ father, Robert Hooks, plays FBI Agent Dwight Henderson.
As for the movie’s numerical title, Raffill claims he came up with Passenger 57 after randomly spotting a bottle of Heinz 57 Ketchup nearby. Yeah, this is the same dude who wrote and directed Tammy and the T-Rex! Raffill also claims that only Passenger 57’s first 20 minutes retain his contributions.
Fuelled by a $15 million budget, the principal photograph of Passenger 57 began on January 13, 1992, and finished on February 26, 1992. Despite the story occurring in a small Louisiana airport, the brisk six-week film shoot occurred in Orlando and Sanford, Florida, with additional aerial scenes shot in the Florida Keys. Snipes lived in Orlando, and filming occurred close to his house. Snipes visited his old high school, Jones High in Orlando, and offered paid extra work to honor students with the highest GPAs. The qualifying students were placed on a list and chosen at random to appear in the film and share lunch with Snipes after a day of filming. The youngsters selected can be spotted in the movie’s vibrant carnival chase scene as Cutter hotly pursues British terrorist Charles Rane, the golden-mulleted madman played with scene-stealing intensity by Bruce Payne. Regarding giving back to his community, Snipes told E! News:
“It should be a normal thing where if you came from a place, you give respect to the people who got you through that. Or you go back, and you give a little something to those who are coming up, who are looking at you and everybody else at the school is telling them. ‘hey, you know who went to school here, such and such went to school here.’ So you come back, and you make yourself known. You become part of their lives, so that’s the purpose of having the whole Jones thing here.”
Footage of Snipes eating lunch, talking with, and educating the students can be seen on the E! News making-of documentary, which comes highly recommended for Passenger 57 fans. If nothing else, Snipes’ authenticity as a humble, down-to-earth movie star willing to give back to the less fortunate makes him even cooler and more relatable.
Apart from the 300+ extras used for the carnival sequence, it’s also worth noting that Elizabeth Hurley gives one of her earliest performances in a career-launching turn, playing Rane’s covert accomplice, Sabrina Ritchie.
Hooks hired David Cronenberg’s longtime cinematographer, Mark Irwin, to shoot Passenger 57. Irwin’s previous credits include Videodrome, The Dead Zone, The Fly, and non-Cronenberg flicks The Blob, Fright Night Part 2, Dark Angel, Class of 1999, RoboCop 2, and more.
Scenes set in Lousiana’s Lake Lucille Airport were filmed at the Orlando-Sanford International Airport. Due to the hasty schedule and budgetary restrictions, grounded scenes on the tarmac were often filmed at the authentic airport between landings and take-offs. The airport control room and communication tower were photographed at the nearby Naval Air Station Sanford. The location was destroyed shortly after filming. Although producers originally intended to film at the Orlando International Airport, the airport was too booked and busy to accommodate filming. Instead, the Orlando-Sanford Airport afforded Hooks and crew to utilize an 8,000-ft runway to choreograph several visceral action set pieces. The interior plane sequences were filmed in linear order to maintain continuity.
As for other memorable scenes in the film, Cutter begins reading Sun Tzu’s The Art of War on the plane en route to Los Angeles. Of course, Snipes would star in the loose big-screen adaptation of The Art of War eight years later in 2000, capping his iconic ‘90s action movie run.
For the hijacking scene, Rich International Airlines provided an aircraft for the exterior shots. The pilot overtaken by Rane is a real pilot who worked for the airline. The model of airplane that Rane and his crew steal is a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, easily identifiable by its triple Rolls Royce motor.
Another unforgettable moment in Passenger 57 comes when an old lady hilariously mistakes Cutter for Arsenio Hall, the popular actor, stand-up comedian, and TV host. In a playful response, the TV show Martial Law poked fun at the confusion when Arsenio Hall’s character is mistaken as Wesley Snipes after a woman states, “I loved you in Passenger 57!”
As for the ultimate showdown between Cutter and Rain on the tarmac, zero stunt doubles were utilized. In addition to riding the motorcycle earlier in the film at his insistence, Snipes performed nearly all his stunts in Passenger 57. Despite producers protesting the decision, Snipes, Payne, and Hooks remained adamant that the fight scene be filmed without using body doubles and stunt performers. The absurd plotholes aside, the result is a brutally badass blitz of blood-soaked, brain-bashing bliss!
In addition to a black director and movie star leading the way, Passenger 57’s soundtrack was composed by iconic black jazz bassist Stanley Clarke, who worked on Boyz n the Hood and The Five Heartbeats one year earlier. Although the main theme was oddly omitted from the movie’s official soundtrack release, it can be heard on the compilation album Stanley Clarke: At the Movies. Stranger yet, the song “Chaos on the Tarmac” was remixed and used in the trailer for the Van Damme action flick Sudden Death, released three years after Passenger 57. While Hollywood mandates such inclusionary measures in 2024 as a kind of creative censorship, the black talent involved with Passenger 57 developed organically through earned merit, the way it should be.
Passenger 57 touched down in theaters on November 6, 1992, instantly becoming a commercial success. The film took down Under Siege to become the #1 movie at the U.S. box office. Ending its theatrical run, Passenger 57 grossed $44 million domestically, nearly tripling its production budget. The film added $22 million in overseas grosses, totaling $66 million globally before factoring in the home video sales and rentals. The film solidified Wesley Snipes as a bona fide action star, leading to a string of high-profile hits and misses for the actor in the ‘90s, including Rising Sun, Demolition Man, Drop Zone, Money Train, The Fan, Murder at 1600, U.S. Marshalls, the Blade trilogy, and The Art of War. Meanwhile, Kevin Hooks followed Passenger 57 with the action movie Fled before returning to television where his career began.
Critically speaking, Passenger 57 suffered its fair share of turbulence. The film boasts a paltry 30% on Rotten Tomatoes and a middling 50 Metascore, indicating average to subpar reviews. However, according to one of the film’s longtime producers, Lee Rich, the movie struck a chord with audiences due to the comedic quips and refreshing one-liners that add comic relief to the action. As Rich told the L.A. Times upon the film’s release:
“You sit there for an hour and a half to be entertained. You walk out and you’ve had a good time. That’s all you can ever ask of a movie. I think the violence and everything else (in action films) turns them off. If you can have a little humor with it, they accept it for what it is.”
Despite Passenger 57 launching Snipes’ career as a legitimately bankable action movie star, it’s interesting to note that outside of Blade, Snipes never made a sequel to his popular 90s action movies. However, in a cool cameo, Snipes appears as Blade in the currently playing smash hit Marvel movie, Deadpool & Wolverine.
Now that we’re all caught up, it’s time to ground this motherf*cker and say, That’s What Happened to Passenger 57! The title was inspired by a goddamn ketchup bottle and the story was conceived by the man who gave the world Mac and Me. The dramatic action was originally meant as a starring vehicle for a white action hero like Clint Eastwood or Sylvester Stallone before Wesley Snipes won the part over Eddie Murphy and Denzel Washington when the project was retooled for a black actor. Snipes was in total control while on the set, performing most of his own stunts and actively repaying his career successes to his Orlando stomping ground by giving local honor students paid background extra roles. Fly Hard rip-off or not, Passenger 57 remains one of Snipes’ best ‘90s action flicks, and John Cutter still holds as one of his most badass movie characters. If any of Snipes’ halcyon day action characters deserves a sequel, it has to be John “Smooth as Butter” Cutter.
The post WTF Happened to Passenger 57? appeared first on JoBlo.
Forty-two years ago, actor Michael Villella (whose last name was sometimes spelled Villela in credits) made his screen acting debut in the classic slasher The Slumber Party Massacre. He went on to earn several more acting credits over the years – and today, we have to share the sad news that Villella has passed away at the age of 84.
As confirmed by The Hollywood Reporter, news of Villella’s passing first emerged on Facebook, on both his own profile and his daughter Chloe’s. According to TMZ, he died due to multiple organ failure after spending over a month in the hospital.
Following his screen debut, Villella landed roles in Love Letters, an episode of Amazing Stories, Gotham (1988), Wild Orchid, Wild Orchid II: Two Shades of Blue, an episode of Getting Away with Murder, and some short films. He had a character name in the first Wild Orchid, Elliot Costa, but when he returned for the sequel he was simply called “Man with Mona.” It was Getting Away with Murder that gave him his best character credit: there, he played “Bathtub Fatcat.”
The Slumber Party Massacre, however, remains his most popular credit – which is understandable, since it’s an eminently rewatchable movie and he delivered a very memorable performance as Russ Thorn, a.k.a. the Driller Killer.
Directed by Amy Holden Jones from a screenplay by Rita Mae Brown, The Slumber Party Massacre has the following synopsis: When Trish decides to invite her high school girls’ basketball teammates over for a slumber party, she has no idea the night is going to end with an unexpected guest – an escaped mental patient and his portable power drill – crashing the party.
Villella was joined in the cast by Michele Michaels, Robin Stille, Debra Deliso, Andree Honore, Gina Mari, Jennifer Meyers, Pamela Roylance, and Brinke Stevens.
I’m sure many horror fans are going to be having memorial viewings of this movie to celebrate Villella’s performance as the madman who says he’s killing people out of love.
Michael Villella is survived by his ex-wife and his daughter. Our sincere condolences go out to his family, friends, and fans.
The post R.I.P.: The Slumber Party Massacre driller killer Michael Villella has passed away at age 84 appeared first on JoBlo.
These days the horror genre is one of the only ways to get a thoughtful, original story made in Hollywood. But believe it or not, there were those who used to be ashamed to take part in the genre. Basket Case and Frankenhooker director Frank Henenlotter was never one of those people. He basked in it. And though it may not be his most famous film, the film we’re going to cover today might be his grossest, funnest, and most thought provoking of all them. Featuring heavy drug references, a phallic parasite, and a scene so twisted it made some of the crew walk off the set. This is what happened to Brain Damage.
Seasoned 80s horror fans and monster movie aficionados may look back at Basket Case as a decently known cult commodity. Not enough so at the time that its director, Frank Henenlotter was given a huge budget for his next production. It wasn’t like today when a great horror movie sets the world on fire and the next Jordan Peele or Oz Perkins sign a fat contract with a major movie studio.
Though Brain Damage would have more than double the budget of its predecessor, that still only amounted to around $1.5 million dollars. And even that was a slog to achieve. According to Henenlotter, Embassy Pictures agreed to finance Brain Damage but then sold to Coca-Cola (of all places). So Henenlotter and the former head of Embassy Andre Blake became partners with a company called the Cinema Group. Who absolutely hated Frank’s movie. He said they had to make two versions of the film, one of them strongly edited, and even then Cinema Group “took the footage I did as if I was some kind of pornographer”.
Originally titled Elmer the Parasite up until the final stages of writing, Henenlotter’s follow up would be another low budget affair with a punk rock, f*ck you attitude. A movie that literally had to be edited at night in the Film Center Building in New York, so long as they promised to clean up after themselves before real business showed up in the morning.
In the film, our lead character Brian, your every day average dudes dude, becomes ill. He decides to stay home instead of taking his girlfriend to concert they planned. Seeing as though he had Bauhaus and Siouxsie and the Banshees posters in his bedroom, it was probably a pretty cool concert. None the less, his girlfriend is forced to go with his dutiful but secretly in love with her brother instead as he sleeps it off. Once alone, things gets weird and hallucinatory as Brian’s apartment fills up with various lights and liquids. When he wakes up, he discovers a disgusting puppet-like parasite with the gentlemanly voice of a manly news anchor has attached itself to him. The parasite convinces Brian to let him explain what’s happening to him by allowing it to “juice him up”. Aylmer then crawls on to his neck and injects a fluid that makes Brian euphoric and care free; literally tripping balls in a junk yard. Meanwhile, Aylmer is in control and looking for human brains to graphically eat. And I mean graphic.
You can’t tell while watching it, but Brain Damage bravely employs three first time actors in its leading roles. Brian would be played by Rick Hearst (who can be seen to this day as the character of Ric Lansing in General Hospital) in a performance that felt quite natural for him. Not too natural however, as Henenlotter had the makeup team give him a split lip throughout filming because he “looked too f*cking pretty”. Gordon MacDonald was cast as his brother Mike and Jennifer Lowry as his abandoned girlfriend, Barbara. They were each equally natural and likeable in their roles and because of this, it’s rather easy to care for all three characters as they are thrust into a wacky and cruel situation.
The voice of our smooth sounding, drug packing sock puppet from Hell, belongs to John Zacherle; An American TV horror host and friend of Dick Clark who Henenlotter had watched when he was younger. It’s such an ironic voice for such a disgusting little creature, that it never would have worked as well with anyone else. Zacherle would have to go uncredited for the film unfortunately, as the production wasn’t Screen Actors Guild approved.
Creating the official Henenlotter movie universe with a cameo appearance is Basket Case actor Kevin Van Hentenryck. And this awful wig (He had short hair at the time). Hentenryck appears on a bus across from Brian and Barbara carrying none other than the basket from Basket Case with his own little monster inside. On this moment Hentenryck would say, “The original idea for that film was that both paths would cross. In other words, I would be in Brain Damage, and the main character from Brain Damage would appear in Basket Case 2, because we filmed it back to back. Now there’s some union rule that once you start someone that you have to pay them continuously until they wrapped. That prevented the other side of the cross over, but I thought was a very cool idea of Frank’s.”
With Aylmer’s physical prowess being just as important as his voice, Henenlotter recruited Gabriel Bartalos and Al Magliochetti to create him. Together they created two separate Aylmer puppets for the production. One in its natural state of size and another for close up shots. More on why they chose this specific (phallic) design for Elmer, later.
The creature is transfixing, resembling everything the film itself is: Silly, cool, and gross as hell. Whether Aylmer is opening his mouth and shooting his drug needle into Brian’s neck Neo-from-the-Matrix style or making conversation with his haunting human eyes…this disgusting little bastard is mesmerizing. As are many of the effects in the film.
Brain Damage features tons of gross out, over the top special effects gags and trippy brain-melting moments. Which meant the production had to become very crafty producing them with their modest budget. And they would…..working with everything from stop motion to calf brains purchased from a local deli to achieve their gross out gags.
Speaking of calf brains…..one of the film’s most memorable moments featured them in a way you’ll never envy. In a scene that resembles exactly what its meant to resemble, Elmer goes inside of the mouth of a woman and pulls out her brains. That woman was played by actress Vicki Darnell, who had to endure a model of Aylmer being inserted in her mouth, with sewn calf brains on the end of it. All of this for the scene to be dramatically edited down by the MPAA for both the films theatrical, and home video VHS release. It wasn’t until the DVD in 2007 that the moment was included in the film on screen. There weren’t “intimacy coordinators” on the set back in those days, of course. But hey, they did give her Binaca breath spray before the scene. So, there’s….that.
Another jaw dropping moment where Brian has a hallucination that his brain is leaking copious amounts of blood and brain matter was cleverly done by placing him on a metal brace at an angle, removing him from the shot, and pouring said blood and brain matter down a heat duct before transposing him back into the scene. It’s truly disgusting and unbelievable. And awesome.
All of this blood, guts, and depravity was shot in New York City, New York. Most of it on the fourth floor of a building in Manhattan that used to be home to a belt manufacturing and a sign business. Of the location, Henenlotter said, “On that street there was a row of industrial buildings on one side and on the other the train tracks. Because of the layout that block was hooker central. Every morning I’d walk there and the sound effects under my feet were either a gushy sound from stepping on a used condom or a crunching from crack vials.” I wonder if they do weddings?
Along with the films ultimate release, Fangoria’s original editor, the late Robert “Bob” Martin penned a novelization of the film titled Brain Damage: A Trip Through Hell that goes into further detail on its lore. Including some of Elmer’s deep history hinted at in the film by the obnoxious Morris character. Though limited to 1,000 copies, the book can still be purchased to this day in a digital version via Amazon Kindle. Brain Damage released in a limited fashion in April 15th of 1988 and eventually screened at the TIFF Film Festival as a “Midnight Madness” entry.
There’s not a lot of financial information about the film’s release but it’s pretty obvious it wasn’t the next Avatar, financially. Henenlotter in part blamed this on Cinema Group saying, “They got it out there, made sure it failed and then buried it. It was only when it came out on home video (that it found an audience)”. Henenlotter would later tell Fangoria that Basket Case fans weren’t originally accepting of the film either, saying, “they just wanted another Basket Case! People loved Basket Case and they just want you to make the same film over and over again”.
As films like this so often do, however, the film found its own life on Betamax, VHS, and eventually DVD where it could shine in all its degenerate glory. It’s currently available both on Blu-Ray and is streaming for free on Tubi as of the time of this writing.
As time has passed, some folks have looked far deeper into elevated ideals of Brain Damage. There are of course, the obvious allegories to drug addiction. I mean, c’mon, we’re talking about a creature that injects you with a needle that makes you see bright colors and forget the world around you. A fluid that once you’ve come down from causes debilitating withdrawals. It gets so bad it causes Brian to become an accomplice to murder and lie awake in bed listening to his brother sleep with his girlfriend. With almost no reaction.
Of this, Henenlotter says, “To me, the drug is a function of the plot and that’s that”, adding that Brian’s situation was about escapism in general. It just so happened that drug imagery was the easiest way to express that. He told Dazed Magazine that the films message wasn’t quite anti-drug either, saying, “A lot of people thought Brain Damage was anti-heroin because we see this strange drug being injected into the guy but that reading is not quite true. In fact, my drug of choice was always cocaine. So, I had the guy speeding more than I had him downing.”….Oh.
Others put the sexual nature of the film under a microscope. Fair. I mean, look at him (Aylmer). It’s a gross, veiny, phallic monster. The films most shocking scene is of course, the demise of the club goer about to go down on Brian that we referenced earlier. The kind of scene that makes you pray no-one is going to walk in the room unannounced and see you watching out of context. A moment so gnarly it allegedly caused some of the crew to walk off the set at the time of filming.
All this caused journalists to run wild overanalyzing what the film was trying to say about masculinity and sex. One writer even surmising the film was about the transmasculine experience….because of a scene where Brian wakes up covered in blood. Which is supposed to say something about menstruation. I think we’ve lost the plot. Henenlotter agrees, saying, “I didn’t set out to put (the phallic images) there; that’s simply what the imagery turned out to be, and I’m not about to change the imagery just to eliminate that.” Henenlotter would continuously disregard a lot of others claims about what he made his movie about, saying instead that it’s just “a monster movie”.
Although stop motion animator and optical effects artist Al Magliochetti did remember Henenlotter discussing that he wanted Aylmer to look phallic and like a, and I quote, “black dildo”. Moving on.
Though Brain Damage clearly didn’t cause a stir upon its release or knock over the box office ATM, it certainly left folks with very strong, thoughtful opinions. Personally, I found it a disgusting, depraved, and most importantly entertaining and shocking little horror movie. It’s certainly impressive. And that my friends, is what happened to Brain Damage.
A couple of the previous episodes of What Happened to This Horror Movie? can be seen below. To see more, head over to our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
The post Brain Damage (1988) – What Happened to This Horror Movie? appeared first on JoBlo.
Star Wars Outlaws finally came to Steam last week. Unfortunately, there’s also an issue with the latest version of Windows that makes it so the sci-fi open-world adventure and other Ubisoft games don’t work. Microsoft has acknowledged the issue and is pausing the update in the meantime.
Star Wars Outlaws finally came to Steam last week. Unfortunately, there’s also an issue with the latest version of Windows that makes it so the sci-fi open-world adventure and other Ubisoft games don’t work. Microsoft has acknowledged the issue and is pausing the update in the meantime.
Do my eyes deceive me? Is that The Chao in the latest Sonic the Hedgehog 3 trailer? Where’s my Dreamcast VMU? It’s party time! Quick! I need a brown paper bag to breathe into. Okay, I’m good. Paramount Pictures is ready to drop some great news this Monday morning with word that Sonic the Hedgehog 3 tickets are officially on sale! But wait! There’s more! Paramount Pictures and Sega announced a Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Opening Day Fan Event before the film’s nationwide theatrical release on December 20th.
To celebrate the cinematic experience, Paramount Pictures will give fans the opportunity to see Sonic the Hedgehog 3 in theatres at an opening-day movie event on Thursday, December 19th. Fans will see it first at 3 p.m. local time, presented exclusively in premium formats at participating locations, including Dolby Cinema,4DX, DBOX, SCREENX, and other premium format theatres across the country.
The following information comes from Paramount’s official press release:
To purchase tickets for the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Opening Day Fan Event Screening and to find participating theatre listings in your area, go to www.sonicthehedgehogmovie.com/seeitfirst. General tickets are also on sale at www.sonicthehedgehogmovie.com. Tickets for all shows are also on sale at exhibitors’ websites & mobile apps, 3rd party ticketing platforms, and at participating theatre box offices nationwide.
Ticketholders seeing Sonic the Hedgehog 3 at the Fan Event screening will also see additional behind-the-scenes content prior to the feature for this special show and will also receive limited-edition gifts, including one of four different limited edition character keychains plus an exclusive 12″ x18″ collector’s art print created for fans attending this one-night event – while supplies last.
“There is tremendous excitement from fans for the upcoming release of Sonic the Hedgehog 3. The series keeps growing from film to film, and this will be the biggest installment yet. We’re thrilled to reward loyal fans nationwide with the chance to see Sonic first in the most immersive way on the big screen,” said Pictures’ President of Domestic Distribution, Chris Aronson.
Here’s the official synopsis for Sonic the Hedgehog 3:
“Sonic the Hedgehog returns to the big screen this holiday season in his most thrilling adventure yet. Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails reunite against a powerful new adversary, Shadow, a mysterious villain with powers unlike anything they have faced before. With their abilities outmatched in every way, Team Sonic must seek out an unlikely alliance in hopes of stopping Shadow and protecting the planet.”
In today’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3 trailer, The Chao make their silver screen debut as mascots for a Chuck-E-Cheese-style restaurant. You know what? I’ll take it—anything to get those adorable raindrop-looking sentient stuffies into the mix. We’re so close to Big the Cat and Amy Rose making their debut; I can feel it. As the trailer continues, we find Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) teaming up with his grandfather to hatch his latest plan to wipe Sonic and his friends off the planet. Sonic (Ben Schwartz), Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey), and Knuckles (Idris Elba) are ready to throw down, but they’ll need to face Shadow (Keanu Reeves), a rival Hedgehog armed with lightning speed, a motorcycle, and guns! Hold onto your chili dogs, Sonic fans!
The post The latest Sonic the Hedgehog 3 trailer introduces the Chao as tickets go on sale and an Opening Night Fan Event races in appeared first on JoBlo.