Civilization VII, if it’s anything like past games in the 4X strategy series, will play just fine with a single mouse in one hand. And while it’s coming to console with bindings for controllers, a mouse will still be many people’s preferred way to play. What if the Switch 2 Joy-Con can also double as PC gaming mice?
Larry Cohen isn’t really a horror guy, at least not in the same vein as his contemporary filmmakers like Wes Craven, John Carpenter, or Tobe Hooper. Cohen wasn’t even really the same type of director as he wrote almost 3 times as many projects as he directed. What he lacked in quantity for horror movies though, he more than made up for in quality. This quality started with 1974’s It’s Alive and moved through very different types of horror like God Told Me To, The Stuff, and Q the Winged Serpent. The only series of movies he was involved in was his trilogy of It’s Alive movies. While the first two were heavy hitters in terms of themes that were hidden under the guise of creature features, the third one had far less to say but is unfairly seen as less fun. 1987 was a weird year for the man, as I already talked about his other movie from that year in fellow Black Sheep A Return to Salem’s Lot. While that is the Black Sheep of Cohen’s career, the third It’s Alive movie is by far the black sheep of that series. Let’s take a look inside this particular baby carrier.
As I said, 1987 was a big year for Cohen in terms of output. Two sequels, two direct to video movies. Two movies that have more to offer than what’s on the surface. Originally, Larry Cohen and Hungarian director and eye patch connoisseur Andre de Toth came to Warner Brothers to pitch a remake of Andre’s own House of Wax, but Warner wanted something different, they wanted a name like Cohen to make a movie for their recent direct to video line. Ever the strategist and consummate filmmaker, Cohen agreed on the condition that he would be able to make two movies, and they agreed and gave him two recognizable franchises to work with. One of these was his own, It’s Alive, and the other was from one of their older titles, Salem’s Lot directed by Tobe Hooper. Go check out my defense of that movie for more information.
For the main cast, Cohen decided to use Michael Moriarty for the lead in both. He had already used Moriarty in both The Stuff and Q the Winged Serpent and even though others found the Emmy winner had to work with, Cohen liked his style and would kind of let him do what he wanted. He has played kind of a jerk, a super jerk, and a good guy for Cohen with all of them being believable. Moriarity still works today and has had great roles on both the big and small screen. James Dixon would come back as his cop character from the first two movies, being the only actor in all 3, and he has worked with Cohen more than anyone else appearing in more than just the director’s horror output. Karen Black, Laurene Landon, and the great Gerrit Graham also appear in meaty roles for this third installment.
Black has been in some stone-cold classics from Trilogy of Terror and Burnt Offerings to House of 1000 Corpses and Invaders from Mars. Landon was a stunner from her first screen appearance and has made a career with roles showcasing those talents like as a model in The Stuff or her role in Airplane 2 with a costarring role in the immortal Maniac Cop. Graham was one of the most underrated character actors of the 80s and 90s with credits like Child’s Play 2, CHUD 2, Chopping Mall, TerrorVision, and one of my all-time favorites, Used Cars with Kurt Russell. The cast delivers here as you would expect them to, and Cohen knows what he is doing. The movie is silly at parts, far sillier than the serious tone given off by the first two movies, but it still has something to say.
The movie opens with a woman about to give birth in a cab, and it doesn’t end well. She is having one of the now famous mutant kids and the cabby doesn’t want anything to do with it. The situation doesn’t end well for anyone, and the movie starts the way a movie like this should, with blood and screams, and intrigue. A funny note about that scene is that Warner Brothers used it in a clip reel for the final Dirty Harry movie where it shows various movies that the director, played by Liam Neeson has done. What a strange connection. The movie then moves to a courtroom drama as the first of many whiplash moves. It is funny that there is a courtroom scene considering that Moriarty’s 4 Emmys are from Law and Order. This is also the first part of the movie trying to have something bigger to say when the court decides they can put these children that nobody wants on an island of their own.
Moriarty plays Stephen Jarvis who is a father to one of the poor kiddos and it’s a little opposite from the first two movies. In those, the characters are every man who the press want to make into celebrities but here, Jarvis is an actor and now can’t get any work because of his parentage. His wife has left him and wants to remain anonymous and gets fairly pissed when he writes a tell all book. This doesn’t work though and 5 years later he is pulling an Al Bundy and selling shoes. He is asked to come to the island to look into the children who ae now grown as their life cycle is drastically different than a normal human and a team of scientists go with him. Credit to Moriarty because the first act of the movie he plays Jarvis with a lot of humanity and now that we have caught up to him, he is miserable and isn’t above making everyone around him miserable too. While we get the same blurred vision camera for the creatures, something I love that they kept consistent, we get a different look for the monsters.
The horror of babies being evil creatures exits and we now get something that looks more akin to Humanoids from the Deep. Are they people in suits? Yes. Is it charming as hell and Cohen paying homage to 50s B horror movies? Also, yes. The group that goes to the island is first terrorized by Stephen’s unpleasantness, particularly towards the female of the expedition but also picked off one by one until there is only Stephen and out detective friend who has stuck around for the whole series. Detective Perkins jumps the ship and swims to the island while Stephen stays on the boat with a few of the creatures, one of them he believes to be his son. It switches again in tone to a survivalist drama where Stephen narrates what’s going on via a captain’s log and Moriarty gets to completely own the movie instead of just being a standout.
The kids kick him off the ship and he ends up in Cuba as a prisoner of Castro. Cohen had time to flesh out the series in this third entry and also kind of do whatever the hell he wanted. Cohen, as stated, was a much more prolific screenwriter than he was a director and given the chance to expand on a series he had already put two movies into gives him plenty of room to breathe. Usually when a movie is all over the place it can be alarming and jarring but here it is a blast and full of pleasant surprises. It takes a near 180 from the first one and the whole series feels like the original Evil Dead trilogy in how it goes horror to horror comedy to almost outright satire. Stephen ends up back in the USA and the monster kids end up saving a woman from a gang before the local police do what they feel is the right thing and start blasting away.
The children find Karen Black and pick her up like Frankenstein’s Monster bringing the little girl back to town. From there Stephen miraculously becomes a good dude again and we get the reveal that the monster kids have been able to produce monster kids of their own. In a really unexpected but very welcome twist, Karen Black and Michael Moriarty end up getting back together to raise their grandchild like they agree they should have raised their own child in the first place. The original creatures from It’s Alive are not, well, alive, anymore due to their different life span but none of that matters to our main characters who drive off into the sunset with a new lease on life and a chance to make good on some of their past transgressions both with each other and the family they never gave a chance too.
Cohen is sneaky like that. He is able to imbue some good themes into his shlock. While A Return to Salem’s Lot put in thoughts on the AIDS crisis at its height, It’s Alive III decided to tackle parenthood and redemption. In a movie called It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive of all things. I don’t have any information on the budget and while the Salem’s Lot sequel was released briefly theatrically at the Cannes Film Festival, his other 1987 sequel was very much a straight to video affair. While it feels very much like a straight to video release, it does so in the best possible ways. The strange collection of actors, fun and loopy story, B movie roots, and confident script and direction from Cohen all make this a worthwhile watch.
Scream Factory did the right thing when they released the trilogy in a gorgeous box set of Blu-rays and each film is worth watching and exploring to see what they have to offer. It’s Alive III may indeed be more silly than its predecessors but that and nearly a decade off from the first sequel don’t slow down what the movie has to offer audiences. Whether you watch them in a row or just feel like visiting the island after many years or the first time, this Black Sheep is worth the time.
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 It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987) Revisited – Horror Movie Review appeared first on JoBlo.
Last year, we learned that Lights Out and Annabelle: Creation director David F. Sandberg would be re-teaming with Annabelle: Creation screenwriter Gary Dauberman for a movie based on the horror video game Until Dawn. Production began in August, wrapping in October, and the film is aiming for an April 25, 2025 theatrical release. A couple of days ago, a teaser video dropped online to allow Sandberg and Dauberman to explain their approach to the material. Now, a full trailer has been unveiled, giving us a look at the result of that approach. You can check it out in the embed above.
As The Hollywood Reporter previously noted, first released in 2015, Until Dawn is an interactive horror video game that follows eight friends and frenemies who are brought together a remote mountain retreat. With live or die scenarios featuring a mysterious killer, cannibalistic wendigos, a cable car, and a long-ago mining cave-in that reverberates into the present day, the members of the group must fight through their fear if they all hope to make it through the night in one piece. The game proved to be a surprise hit with critics and received numerous gaming awards nominations.
Sandberg and Dauberman didn’t reveal what exactly will be going on in their movie version of Until Dawn, but the project is described as being an “R-rated love letter to the horror genre, centering on an ensemble cast.” Dauberman’s script is a rewrite of a previous draft by Blair Butler, who wrote the vampire movie The Invitation. The story centers on Clover, a young woman who visits a remote cabin with her friends in the wake of her sister Melanie’s disappearance.
Until Dawn is set up at Sony’s Screen Gems, where Dauberman has a first-look deal as part of the plan to “rebuild Screen Gems, Sony’s division focused on lower-budgeted fare, into a more productive label, with horror being a top focus.” Dauberman is producing the film through his company Coin Operated while Sandberg and Lotta Losten produce through their Mångata shingle. Roy Lee of Vertigo Entertainment and PlayStation Productions’ Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan are also producing. Ashley Brucks and Michael Bitar are overseeing the project for Screen Gems.
The film’s cast includes Ella Rubin of The Idea of You and the upcoming Fear Street: Prom Queen, Odessa A’zion of the recent Hellraiser reboot and the sitcom Fam, Michael Cimino of Love, Victor and Annabelle Comes Home, and Ji-young Yoo of Expats and Smoking Tigers. His fellow new additions are Belmont Cameli of Along for the Ride and Saved by the Bell and Maia Mitchell of The Fosters and Good Trouble. Peter Stormare (Fargo, John Wick: Chapter 2) is also in there, reprising his role from the video game.
What did you think of the Until Dawn trailer? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
The post Until Dawn trailer: David F. Sandberg’s horror video game movie reaches theatres in April appeared first on JoBlo.
After years of waiting and months of leaks, Nintendo has shared the first official preview of what the Switch 2 actually looks like. The handheld hybrid hardware is more of an iterative upgrade on the existing console than perhaps any new device the company’s ever released. Even the launch game, which appears to be Mar…
After years of waiting and months of leaks, Nintendo has shared the first official preview of what the Switch 2 actually looks like. The handheld hybrid hardware is more of an iterative upgrade on the existing console than perhaps any new device the company’s ever released. Even the launch game, which appears to be Mar…
Barbarian (watch it HERE) writer/director Zach Cregger has assembled a strong cast for his mysterious horror project called Weapons, including Julia Garner (Ozark), Josh Brolin (No Country for Old Men), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo), Benedict Wong (Doctor Strange), Amy Madigan (Antlers), Austin Abrams (Euphoria), June Diane Raphael (Grace and Frankie), and Cary Christopher (Days of Our Lives)… and during an interview with Collider, Garner said that we should not expect Weapons to be “a proper horror movie.”
Most details about Weapons are shrouded in mystery. It has been said that it’s “an interrelated, multistory horror epic” that’s tonally in the vein of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, and The Hollywood Reporter adds that the story revolves around the disappearance of high schoolers in a small town.
Cregger wrote the Weapons screenplay (which Brolin has said had “a really brilliant design”) and is directing the film. He’s also producing it with Roy Lee and Miri Yoon of Vertigo and J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules of BoulderLight Pictures. At one point, Pedro Pascal of The Last of Us was set to star in the film with and Renate Reinsve of The Worst Person in the World. Pascal had to leave the project so he could star in the Marvel Cinematic Universe reboot of Fantastic Four (which Garner also has a role in) instead, and it appears that Reinsve followed him out the door.
New Line Cinema went all-in on a partnership with Cregger and Barbarian’s producers at BoulderLight Pictures. New Line came out the winner in a bidding war over Weapons, which they’re planning to give a theatrical release date on January 16, 2026 (but they might end up moving it into 2025).
New Line Cinema is paying Cregger a sum in the eight figure range to make this movie. When they won the bidding war over the rights, New Line’s president and CCO Richard Brener released the following statement: “Zach proved with Barbarian that he can create a visceral theatrical experience for audiences and that he commands every tool in the filmmaker toolbelt. We couldn’t be happier that he, Roy [Lee] and Miri [Yoon], and J.D. [Lifshitz]and Rafi [Margules] chose New Line to be the home of his next film, and hope it is the first of many to come.“
When the subject of Weapons came up, Garner told Collider, “It’s not a proper horror movie. It feels very Zach Cregger in that element. There are some comedic elements to it. Barbarian felt like that as well.” It’s not clear what Garner considers to be “a proper horror movie,” but she does have some genre experience, as her credits include the Rosemary’s Baby prequel Apartment 7A and the Wolf Man reboot that reaches theatres this weekend.
Are you looking forward to Weapons, whether or not Julia Garner believes it’s “a proper horror movie”? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
The post Julia Garner says Barbarian director’s new film Weapons is not a proper horror movie appeared first on JoBlo.
PLOT: A man (Christopher Abbott) is scratched by a mysterious monster while defending his family. Soon, he begins to transform, endangering the people he was trying to protect.
REVIEW: Wolf Man is co-writer/ director Leigh Whannell’s attempt to ground yet another of the classic Universal Monsters following his hit The Invisible Man. Like that movie, it works more-or-less as its own thing, separate from any established lore. While The Invisible Man was basically an elevated stalker thriller, Wolf Man is an attempt to take on body horror with heavy doses of family drama baked in. The result is a decent-enough thriller that lacks the thrills one might expect from a werewolf movie, opting for atmosphere and emotion instead. While it sports a terrific performance from star Christopher Abbott, it also totally lacks scares, making it a movie that might alienate horror fans hoping for something a little more edge-of-your-seat than what Whannel delivers.
It has to be said that the director does seem less interested in making a horror film than a drama exploring the deeper theme of generational trauma. As the movie begins, we see Abbott’s character, Blake, as a child, being raised by his survivalist father, Grady (Sam Jaeger), whose intensity and demands for obedience leave Blake estranged from him as an adult. When he finds out his father has died, he takes his family, including his workaholic wife, Charlotte (Julia Garner) and adoring daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth), to pack up his secluded home in Colorado. Of course, once there, they are attacked by a wolf that seems to stand on two feet and infects Blake.
Now, it should be said that Whannell dispenses with pretty much all the lore you’d expect from a werewolf movie, meaning no full moons or silver bullets. The transformation also seems to be a one-and-done thing, meaning once Blake becomes a wolf, there’s no way back. That makes it feel more like a generic monster movie, as it does away with the most interesting bit of werewolf lore, being that the hero transforms back and forth and has to live with the carnage he inflicts.
Pretty much the only element this has in common with the original Universal Wolf Man is that, like Lon Chaney Jr’s Larry Talbot, Blake is exceedingly mild-mannered, with him an innocent victim of the curse who winds up being infected due to his own heroism, as he got hurt trying to protect his family. Abbott gets a solid showcase as Blake becomes more beastly, gradually losing the ability to talk, with the make-up effects used for the full werewolf much better than what we saw in early images.
Given the remote settings, the movie is almost entirely confined to one location, with Abbott, Garner and Firth the only ones on-screen for ninety percent of the running time. Garner’s role as the breadwinning mom (Blake is a stay-at-home father) of the family initially seems one-note until she gradually becomes more active as the film goes on. Yet, the heart of the movie belongs to the relationship between Blake and his daughter, who is shown to have a special bond with him from the beginning and is the only thing allowing him to hold onto some shreds of his humanity.
While it’s well-acted and shot, the fact remains that Wolf Man has one major failing – it’s simply not scary. Blake’s transformation is played for pathos and drama, and even if we know there’s another wolf around there stalking the family, the attack scenes are limited and shot so darkly that a lot of the werewolf stuff is hard to make out.
As such, Wolf Man is a notch or two below The Invisible Man, a movie that had some really memorable scares, and the terrific Upgrade. It will likely pull in a solid crowd this weekend. Still, to me it’s another disappointing Wolf Man reboot (following the big-budget Benicio del Toro film) that’s forgotten what makes that iconic monster such a classic.
The post Wolf Man Review: Well-Acted But Not Very Scary appeared first on JoBlo.
PLOT: A man (Christopher Abbott) is scratched by a mysterious monster while defending his family. Soon, he begins to transform, endangering the people he was trying to protect.
REVIEW: Wolf Man is co-writer/ director Leigh Whannell’s attempt to ground yet another of the classic Universal Monsters following his hit The Invisible Man. Like that movie, it works more-or-less as its own thing, separate from any established lore. While The Invisible Man was basically an elevated stalker thriller, Wolf Man is an attempt to take on body horror with heavy doses of family drama baked in. The result is a decent-enough thriller that lacks the thrills one might expect from a werewolf movie, opting for atmosphere and emotion instead. While it sports a terrific performance from star Christopher Abbott, it also totally lacks scares, making it a movie that might alienate horror fans hoping for something a little more edge-of-your-seat than what Whannel delivers.
It has to be said that the director does seem less interested in making a horror film than a drama exploring the deeper theme of generational trauma. As the movie begins, we see Abbott’s character, Blake, as a child, being raised by his survivalist father, Grady (Sam Jaeger), whose intensity and demands for obedience leave Blake estranged from him as an adult. When he finds out his father has died, he takes his family, including his workaholic wife, Charlotte (Julia Garner) and adoring daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth), to pack up his secluded home in Colorado. Of course, once there, they are attacked by a wolf that seems to stand on two feet and infects Blake.
Now, it should be said that Whannell dispenses with pretty much all the lore you’d expect from a werewolf movie, meaning no full moons or silver bullets. The transformation also seems to be a one-and-done thing, meaning once Blake becomes a wolf, there’s no way back. That makes it feel more like a generic monster movie, as it does away with the most interesting bit of werewolf lore, being that the hero transforms back and forth and has to live with the carnage he inflicts.
Pretty much the only element this has in common with the original Universal Wolf Man is that, like Lon Chaney Jr’s Larry Talbot, Blake is exceedingly mild-mannered, with him an innocent victim of the curse who winds up being infected due to his own heroism, as he got hurt trying to protect his family. Abbott gets a solid showcase as Blake becomes more beastly, gradually losing the ability to talk, with the make-up effects used for the full werewolf much better than what we saw in early images.
Given the remote settings, the movie is almost entirely confined to one location, with Abbott, Garner and Firth the only ones on-screen for ninety percent of the running time. Garner’s role as the breadwinning mom (Blake is a stay-at-home father) of the family initially seems one-note until she gradually becomes more active as the film goes on. Yet, the heart of the movie belongs to the relationship between Blake and his daughter, who is shown to have a special bond with him from the beginning and is the only thing allowing him to hold onto some shreds of his humanity.
While it’s well-acted and shot, the fact remains that Wolf Man has one major failing – it’s simply not scary. Blake’s transformation is played for pathos and drama, and even if we know there’s another wolf around there stalking the family, the attack scenes are limited and shot so darkly that a lot of the werewolf stuff is hard to make out.
As such, Wolf Man is a notch or two below The Invisible Man, a movie that had some really memorable scares, and the terrific Upgrade. It will likely pull in a solid crowd this weekend. Still, to me it’s another disappointing Wolf Man reboot (following the big-budget Benicio del Toro film) that’s forgotten what makes that iconic monster such a classic.
The post Wolf Man Review: Well-Acted But Not Very Scary appeared first on JoBlo.
Almost two years have passed since it was announced that James Mangold would be writing and directing the DC Comics adaptation Swamp Thing… but we haven’t gotten many updates on that project, because Mangold has been busy working on things like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and A Complete Unknown, and developing the Star Wars prequel Dawn of the Jedi. Mangold has been doing the press rounds for A Complete Unknown lately, and MovieWeb was able to get a fresh quote about Swamp Thing about him. A quote where he says he sees the project, which is part of the DC Universe that producers James Gunn and Peter Safran are building with the likes of Creature Commandos, Superman, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, Clayface, Sgt. Rock, and The Brave and the Bold, as a standalone horror movie.
Mangold said, “With other kinds of IP, it gets to a religious level. While I’m sure DC views Swamp Thing as a franchise, I would be viewing it as a very simple, clean, Gothic horror movie about this man/monster… Just doing my own thing with this, just a standalone.” This is very similar to a quote Mangold gave to Variety a year and a half ago, so at least we know he has a consistent vision for Swamp Thing.
Mangold says he had been thinking of making “a kind of Frankenstein movie” for years, so when he heard that James Gunn and Peter Safran were taking control of the DC Comics adaptations at Warner Bros., he put in a call to suggest himself for the job of making Swamp Thing. While Swamp Thing is part of the first wave of DC movies Gunn and Safran are overseeing – as they call it, “Chapter One: Gods and Monsters” – the project still doesn’t have a release date, and it’s not clear when it’s expected to go into production.
Are you looking forward to seeing what James Mangold does with Swamp Thing? What do you think of the fact that he sees it as a standalone horror movie? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
The post James Mangold considers his Swamp Thing adaptation to be a standalone horror movie appeared first on JoBlo.
The Charlize Theron action film The Old Guard was a hit for the Netflix streaming service when it was released in 2020, but the sequel The Old Guard 2 has had an unexpectedly bumpy ride while making its way out into the world. It went into production back in 2022, and filming had to be halted briefly after a fire broke out at the film studio where the movie had been shooting; Rome, Italy’s historic Cinecittà Studios. Then there was a shake-up at Netflix during post-production, so the project got shut down for a while – and even though Theron was quoted as saying that it was back on track and coming soon last summer, it turns out that we’re going to have to keep waiting, because there are still reshoots to do. What’s on Netflix reported that The Old Guard 2 was supposed to undergo additional photography last October, and now World of Reel has heard that Netflix is aiming to get more reshoots done several months from now, in the early summer.
Based on a graphic novel series created by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández, The Old Guard was scripted by Rucka and directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood. The film introduced viewers to a covert group of tight-knit mercenaries with a mysterious inability to die who have fought to protect the mortal world for centuries. When the team is recruited to take on an emergency mission and their extraordinary abilities are suddenly exposed, it’s up to Andy and Nile, the newest soldier to join their ranks, to help the group eliminate the threat of those who seek to replicate and monetize their power by any means necessary.
Rucka wrote the screenplay for the sequel and serves as executive producer. The Old Guard 2 is being produced by David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, and Don Granger of Skydance, Theron, Beth Kono, and AJ Dix of Denver and Delilah, and Marc Evans of Marc Evans Productions. Prince-Bythewood is also on board as producer.
The Old Guard 2 was directed by Victoria Mahoney, who has previously directed episodes of multiple TV shows, including You and Lovecraft Country, and was also the second unit director on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Theron is joined in the cast by fellow returning Old Guard cast members KiKi Layne, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Luca Marinelli, Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari, Veronica Ngo, as well as new additions Uma Thurman and Henry Golding.
Are you a fan of The Old Guard, and are you disappointed to hear that The Old Guard 2 still has to undergo additional photography? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
The post The Old Guard 2 to undergo additional photography this summer appeared first on JoBlo.