Foamstars was Final Fantasy maker Square Enix’s attempt at a live-service party game. The shooter took some inspiration from Splatoon but had its own twist on goo-based arena combat. Unfortunately, the finished game struggled to find an audience. Like Sony’s failed hero shooter Concord, it’s now being abandoned. Unlike…
Foamstars was Final Fantasy maker Square Enix’s attempt at a live-service party game. The shooter took some inspiration from Splatoon but had its own twist on goo-based arena combat. Unfortunately, the finished game struggled to find an audience. Like Sony’s failed hero shooter Concord, it’s now being abandoned. Unlike…
Last year, we heard that Spyder Dobrofsky – who worked on the scripts for such flicks as The Housewives of the North Pole and One Christmas Wish, as well as Mom’s Day Away, and made his feature directorial debut with the mystery thriller Spiral – was making a holiday horror movie called Down Below. That movie made its way out into the world back in October (you can check it out on Amazon), and now it has been announced that Dobrofsky is following it up with a creature feature called The Weeping! Lindsey Shaw (Ned’s Declassified), Alexis Knapp (Pitch Perfect), Reggie Lee (Tropic Thunder), Chris Zylka (The Amazing Spider-Man), Shoshana Bush (On My Block), and Hutch Dano (Zombeavers) have signed on to star in the film, which heads into production next month.
Dobrofsky will be directing The Weeping from a screenplay he wrote. The synopsis: When a group of friends go camping in a protected Native American forest, they unknowingly wake up a sinister beast that haunts all who trespass. Sounds promising to me; I’m always up for another story about campers getting messed up, whether by slashers or by sinister beasts. I’m looking forward to finding out just what sort of sinister beast these campers are going to have to go up against.
The film is being produced by Brienne Austen and Giovanna Andolina of Rock and Royal Productions
In addition to directing the horror films Down Below and The Weeping, Dobrofsky also wrote the 2022 horror film Teardrop, which was directed by Steven R. Monroe (the remake of I Spit on Your Grave) and was released through the Tubi streaming service as a Tubi Original. Down Below tells the following story: On the 20th anniversary of the gruesome Christmas Eve murders at St. Agnes Church, a demonic preacher from the past returns to haunt that same town’s residents. Among them is Salem, a young man whose once-happy life is being torn from him piece by piece, as he’s framed for an unspeakable crime. The only one who believes his innocence is a broken-hearted call-girl, who has nightmares of her own. Together and apart, they’re forced to face their own demons as well as a real one, who goes by the name of Mr. Monday. As for Teardrop, The nightmare begins when a teacher takes his students on a field trip to an obscure ghost town that may be haunted.
Does The Weeping sound interesting to you? What do you think of the cast that has been assembled for the film? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
The post The Weeping: Lindsey Shaw, Alexis Knapp, & more set to star in creature feature appeared first on JoBlo.
When you end up making an all-time classic movie, there’s a more than insignificant chance that a sequel will happen. This can be something that happens almost immediately like the Friday the 13th or Saw franchises or it can be a part of this new breed of legacy sequels that occur 20, 30, or even 40 years after their original entries. Both of these can work with the immediacy of striking while the iron is hot and following trends immediately or by being patient and tugging on the public’s nostalgia strings by bringing out the original actors and creative team. What doesn’t work usually is what The Descent Part 2 did, with original creator Neil Marshall stepping aside and the movie releasing four years after the original. It already had an uphill battle going against the first movies powerhouse out of nowhere showing and its… admittedly not as good. It either gets outright ignored or openly hated by most who discuss it. Sounds to me like The Descent Part 2 is Black Sheep material.
The first Descent was released in 2005, and I remember going to see it with my co-worker and friend Kevin Johnston after we closed Blockbuster for the night. It was late at night, far later than I can usually make it to movies 3 kids and 20 years later, but the movie instantly grabbed me and even at 20 years old, I had a hard time sleeping that night. I’m not even claustrophobic, just afraid of being devoured by blind cave creatures in an unidentified part of the U.S. so I can imagine that only adds to it. I got the DVD and explored all the special features and the alternate ending too. The original ending has Sarah, our final girl and main character, waking up to a hallucination of her daughter instead of actually escaping. It’s a great and dour ending that plays with all of the other dreams and hallucinations she has throughout the movie. The other ending, the one that works for the purposes of having a sequel, just doesn’t have the impact or ferocity that the downer one brings to the table. Neil Marshall, the director of the first film, didn’t want to write or direct the sequel so he stepped into a producer role. Enter editor Jon Harris.
I don’t just mean that he’s an editor in general although he has been Oscar nominated and done nearly 50 films including stuff as recently as this year with the James McAvoy remake of Speak No Evil. Jon Harris was also the editor on The Descent for Neil Marshall so not only did he know this world and characters, but that movie has incredible edits. One of the original script ideas was to flip the original idea on its head and have 6 male journalism students go into the same cave to investigate what happened to the women on their trip. This changed quite a bit and even though Marshall doesn’t have any credits in the creative process, it seems like he helped shape what the story eventually became. Sarah makes it out of the ordeal, picking a definitive ending of the two for the original, and the local police make her go back down into the caves to show them what happened to her and find any survivors.
Of course, they do find survivors but not the ones they want and the group, which includes 3 cave divers, two officers, and Sarah, run afoul of the cave dwellers again after coming down through a mine shaft with the help of a local man. The movie follows a very similar path with nightmares, hallucinations, cave ins, misdirection, and sudden bursts of violence. While this is a little bit derivative of the first one, the movie has more going for it than I think a lot of people are willing to give it credit for. The original cast of exploring women friends was originally supposed to come back in the form of hallucinations, ghosts, and flashbacks but during production it was decided to use them to expand the videos found on the video cameras left in the cave. This works and we also see the bodies in some cases where they were killed that adds to the lived in feel of the original. Therin lies probably my biggest problem with The Descent Part 2.
Let’s look at the bad first. While there were only 18 cave sets built for the first movie, a total of 30 are here for part two and they look great… until they don’t. There are a couple scenes where it stands out badly both technically and practically. While its not as obvious as some of the puppet master movies using the same damn hallway over and over again it still is noticeable in a way the first one isn’t with fewer options no less. On top of that, there are a couple scenes where it’s clear that there are some digital effects at play. Whether or not these could have been cleared up, it stands out like a sore thumb.
The cast is also just not as compelling as the first movie. While Shauna Macdonald comes back as Sarah and is great, the rest just feel like meat to be eaten and don’t resonate with the viewer nearly as much as the group of close-knit friends do in the first one. Macdonald has never been better than the first movie but check out Filth with James McAvoy to see another great, albeit non horror, performance. Krysten Cummings, Gavan O’Herlihy, Douglas Hodge, Josh Dallas, and Anna Skellern round out the rest of the cast. This was Skellern’s first movie and while she doesn’t have anything else big to her name, she appears in what looks like a ton of straight to video horror. This was an early role for Josh Dallas, but he would go on to appear in Marvel’s Thor and make it big on TV as Prince Charming in Once Upon a Time and Ben from Manifest. Hodge is a wonderful English actor who was in Penny Dreadful for a bit and was recently Alfred in Joker, not the new bad sequel. Krystal Cummings only has 2 other credits to her name and Gavan O’Herlihy is the son of Robocop and Halloween III great Dan O’Herlihy. This was his last role, but his career was more varied than you remember with roles alongside Superman and James Bond to name a few.
While everyone apart from Macdonald is underwhelming, this could also be due to the abundance of writers. As I said earlier, Marshall declined to come back in a creative role, so they replaced him with three writers in James McCarthy, J Blakeson, and James Watkins. The team of triple J has a small but interesting list of credits between them. Blakeson wrote and directed the underrated thriller The Disappearance of Alice Creed while Watkins has had the largest impact, directing Eden Lake, Woman in Black, and most recently Speak No Evil. Man, this episode has James McAvoy sneaking in a ton. While this would be the only directorial credit for Harris, he does a fine job and also edited his own work which helps. Other than the previously mentioned grievances with acting and some effects, the biggest issue is that this movie is a sequel to The Descent. That’s the whole reason that Marshall didn’t want to return in the first place.
You know what? He isn’t wrong. I think this movie would have been more compelling not as a sequel but as a standalone where maybe we didn’t see what happened to these women in the first place. What if their bodies were found and we didn’t get a full explanation or only were shown what could be found on the tapes? It would have given back the mystery and luster that made the original so enthralling and scary. Taken as is though it still works. The practical gore effects look great from the bodies found and rats crawling out of orifices to throats getting torn out and hands getting cut off. It’s suitably gross almost in a way that wasn’t offered previously. The new creatures are also more detailed and more disgusting while also showing us female versions explaining how they remain a population as well as child ones and a hulking chieftain of sorts. While the movie follows a lot of the same beats for the first one, it also has a couple stand out scenes with my favorite being a tight tunnel game of chicken where Sarah takes out a crawler barreling towards her while escaping into a hole.
The first movie made 57 million on a 3 and a half million-dollar budget with great audience scores and even better critical praise but this movie only made 7 million in its limited release and I cant find its budget. It just came out at the wrong time and maybe had the wrong idea. It negates a great original ending while also waiting an odd amount of time to be released. Not soon enough to really go after the crowds that adored the original and not long enough to have proper nostalgia for a revisit. The Descent Part 2 sits in a rather lost position in horror with its timing being around mostly forgotten entries flooded with remakes, sequels, and original fare that just fell flat.
While it may not be the best movie ever, an obvious statement if there ever was one, it overcomes a lot of its missteps to be worth your time. The sameness of the original, dumb ending, questionable effects at times don’t wipe away the good gore, fun creatures, and great central performance. If you have been avoiding it or let your memories spoil the experience its high time you strapped a flashlight to your helmet and jumped back into the cave to see what you’ve been missing.
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!
The post The Descent Part 2 (2009) Revisited – Horror Movie Review appeared first on JoBlo.
The original PlayStation was never supposed to happen. Sony had intended to team up with Nintendo on a disc-based, next-gen successor to the SNES. Then the Mario maker decided to stick with cartridges at the last minute, completely changing the console gaming timeline in the process. A new machine was born, one that…
The original PlayStation was never supposed to happen. Sony had intended to team up with Nintendo on a disc-based, next-gen successor to the SNES. Then the Mario maker decided to stick with cartridges at the last minute, completely changing the console gaming timeline in the process. A new machine was born, one that…
Mark L. Smith and Director Peter Berg bring us a new look at the early struggles in the American landscape. American Primeval is a six-episode series that stars Taylor Kitsch (Isaac), Betty Gilpin (Sara Rowell), Dane DeHaan (Jacob Pratt), Saura Lightfoot-Leon (Abish Pratt), Derek Hinkey (Red Feather), Joe Tippett (James Wolsey), Jai Courtney (Virgil Cutter), Preston Mota (Devin Rowell), Shawnee Pourier (Two Moons), and Shea Whigham (Jim Bridger). Netflix has just released the trailer for the historical drama.
The official synopsis from Netflix reads,
“This is America…1857. Up is down, pain is everywhere, innocence and tranquility are losing the battle to hatred and fear. Peace is the shrinking minority, and very few possess grace — even fewer know compassion. There is no safe haven in these brutal lands, and only one goal matters: survival. AMERICAN PRIMEVAL is a fictionalized dramatization and examination of the violent collision of culture, religion, and community as men and women fight and die to keep or control this land. TV-MA.
From director/executive producer Pete Berg, writer/creator/executive producer Mark L. Smith, and executive producers Eric Newman and Alex Gayner, AMERICAN PRIMEVAL stars Taylor Kitsch, Betty Gilpin, Dane DeHaan, Saura Lightfoot-Leon, Derek Hinkey, Joe Tippett, Jai Courtney, Preston Mota, Shawnee Pourier, and Shea Whigham. Julie O’Keefe is Indigenous Cultural Consultant and Project Advisor. Artisans include: Hovia Edwards-Yellowjohn (Shoshone Bannock-Navajo), Pete Yellowjohn (Shoshone Bannock), Georgette Running Eagle (Shoshone Bannock), Robert Perry, Kugee Supernaw (Quapaw and Osage) and Son Supernaw (Quapaw-Osage and Caddo), Joe Cheshawalla (Osage) Debbie Cheshawalla (Choctaw), Molly Murphy Adams (Oglala Lakota).”
Berg told Netflix, “We are very appreciative that Netflix is trusting us to take a big swing with American Primeval. I’m looking forward to taking viewers into the most dynamic, intense, and heart-pounding survival tale humanly possible. We are going into the belly of the beast.” The series is Berg’s premiere project under his first-look deal with the streamer, and Mark L. Smith looks to continue his illustration of the gritty and raw atmosphere of old America as he did with The Revenant. American Primeval also marks the second collaboration between Berg, Newman, and Kitsch, who all worked together on the limited series Painkiller, which premiered on Netflix in 2023.
The post You can’t survive alone in the trailer for Netflix’s American Primeval appeared first on JoBlo.
The nine episode first season of the Marvel series Daredevil: Born Again is scheduled to premiere on Disney+ on March 4, 2025 – and even though we’re still a few months away from that date, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has already let it be known that season 2 of the series is set to go into production next year. Although the initial plan was to rework some elements and make Daredevil: Born Again stand separate from the Netflix Daredevil series (despite sharing some cast members), the show underwent a creative overhaul when the writers and actors strikes shut down production in 2023. Now, this series is a direct follow-up to the Netflix series – and cast member Wilson Bethel, who reprises the role of Benjamin “Dex” Poindexter, a.k.a. Bullseye, has confirmed that the events of Born Again pick up five years after the events of the Netflix show!
During an appearance at Fan Expo San Francisco, Bethel said (as reported by Collider), “I think one of the things that’s interesting is, I mean, maybe it’s different on a sitcom or something like that, but if you’re on a show for over a period of time and the characters are aging together sort of in real-time, and if the show is well written and the writers are sort of responding to that reality transpiring, the wrinkles or their hair, et cetera, then in theory, the character is evolving in a way, whether or not the show was on air. So there’s kind of like this funny thing stepping back after five years where Born Again will pick up with that amount of time having transpired. The show doesn’t pick up the day after we last saw it. It picks up five years later. And so in theory, these are characters who have all lived five years of life and all of the twists and turns that you take in the meantime. So whether or not even those stories are necessarily on screen, there’s just that little extra bit of life in there, which I think is… as an actor, it gives you an opportunity to bring whatever your own journey has been in that time and they get sort of a little longer in the tooth.“
Dario Scardapane, who worked on Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan and the Netflix series The Punisher, was brought in to serve as showrunner on Daredevil: Born Again during the creative overhaul. The behind-the-scenes shake-up also led to Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, the directing team who were at the helm of multiple episodes of Moon Knight and Loki season 2, being hired as directors on the show. Matt Corman and Chris Ord were previously the head writers on the show, but they were let go.
In addition to Bethel, the cast of Daredevil: Born Again includes Charlie Cox, Vincent D’Onofrio, Elden Henson, Deborah Ann Woll, Jon Bernthal, and Ayelete Zurer, reprising the roles of Matt Murdock / Daredevil, Wilson Fisk / Kingpin, Murdock’s associates Foggy Nelson and Karen Page, Frank Castle / The Punisher, and Vanessa Marianna Fisk. Also in the cast are Margarita Levieva as Matt Murdock’s love interest Heather Glenn, Michael Gandolfini as a character named Daniel Blade, Genneya Walton as BB Urich, Jeremy Earl as Anti-Vigilante Task Force member Cole North, and Lou Taylor Pucci, taking on an unspecified role.
Cox previously told Empire, “There was talk early on about reinventing the whole thing, to see if Matt was a slightly different person. But it ended up more of a continuation. A lot of the history follows on. The relationships and dynamics set up in the previous seasons still exist. A few years have passed. In that time, Matt, Foggy, and Karen have found a pretty good rhythm. Matt’s made peace with his role both as a lawyer and a vigilante. Then, of course, shit hits the fan.“
Are you looking forward to Daredevil: Born Again? Are you glad to hear that it picks up five years after the Netflix show – and that season 2 is already on track to film next year? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
The post Daredevil: Born Again picks up 5 years after the Netflix series; season 2 begins filming next year appeared first on JoBlo.
Pokémon TCG Pocket offers players a number of ways to express yourself. Even if you prefer to use a meta deck during matches, you can still represent yourself with emblems or your favorite card. Another way to distinguish yourself is with your Profile Icon. Although you only have six to choose between at first, you…