Many of Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s choices are personal and focus on your team’s relationships and life paths. However, one of the big, world-changing ones comes early on, shortly after you recruit Davrin, the Grey Warden companion. Right now, you might be staring at a choice between helping either the Tevinter city…
Many of Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s choices are personal and focus on your team’s relationships and life paths. However, one of the big, world-changing ones comes early on, shortly after you recruit Davrin, the Grey Warden companion. Right now, you might be staring at a choice between helping either the Tevinter city…
Yesterday, the Netflix streaming service released the time travel slasher Time Cut, which was produced by Christopher Landon and co-written by Michael Kennedy, a duo that had previously worked together on the body swap slasher Freaky. Now, Sony Pictures has unveiled a red band teaser trailer for the Valentine’s Day-set horror romantic comedy Heart Eyes, which Landon and Kennedy wrote with Phillip Murphy (The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard) – and you can check it out in the embed above! Heart Eyes is set to reach theatres on February 7, 2025.
February 14th is a Friday in 2025, so that would seem to be the perfect choice for this movie’s release date, but it was already taken by Disney/Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World and Paramount’s Smurfs animated movie, so Sony had to move it to the week before Valentine’s Day. Its competition on that date is the Universal action movie Love Hurts, starring Ke Huy Quan.
Coming our way from Josh Ruben, the director of Werewolves Within and Scare Me, Heart Eyes has the following synopsis: When the Heart Eyes Killer strikes Seattle, a pair of co-workers pulling overtime on Valentine’s Day are mistaken for a couple by the elusive couple-hunting killer. Now they must spend the most romantic night of the year running for their lives. Ruben previously provided the following statement: “My love of horror is rivaled only by my love of romantic comedies. I’m excited as hell to mount my most challenging genre bender to date: a brutal slasher in a nostalgic rom-com universe.“
Olivia Holt of Totally Killer and Mason Gooding from the two most recent Scream movies star alongside Jordana Brewster (The Fast and the Furious), Devon Sawa (Final Destination), and Gigi Zumbado (The Price We Pay).
Heart Eyes is set up at Spyglass, and Republic Pictures has picked up distribution rights to the film outside of the U.S. and Canada. Landon is producing the film with Divide/Conquer’s Greg Gilreath and Adam Hendricks. Spyglass’ Gary Barber and Chris Stone serve as executive producers with Murphy and Mel Turner.
What did you think of the Heart Eyes teaser trailer? Will you be catching this movie on the big screen in February? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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Found footage seems tailor-made for horror because it’s typically built around the idea that the footage was lost or hidden for suspicious reasons. The genre’s signature use of wobbly camerawork and raw dialogue places audiences directly in the shoes of a film’s panicked characters as nightmarish situations unfold.…
Found footage seems tailor-made for horror because it’s typically built around the idea that the footage was lost or hidden for suspicious reasons. The genre’s signature use of wobbly camerawork and raw dialogue places audiences directly in the shoes of a film’s panicked characters as nightmarish situations unfold.…
Deadline is reporting that Elegance Bratton is set to make his sophomore effort with Mark Wahlberg and Sterling K. Brown in tow. Bratton made his directorial debut with the film The Inspection in 2022 and film would garner accolades from critics. Bratton’s next film is set to be By Any Means, which is a period crime thriller that’s based on a true story. The movie will be brought to us by Hammerstone Studios, Thunder Road, Freedom Principle, and North.Five.Six.
Per Deadline, the movie “is based on the incredible true story of the notorious mafia hitman who was hired by Hoover’s FBI off-the-books and partnered with a young Black special agent to hunt down those responsible for the murders of civil rights leaders in 1966 Mississippi.” By Any Means was a formerly blacklisted script called CI34, which was written by Sascha Penn and Theodore Witcher. It was then presented to the American Film Market by Michael Rothstein and Samuel Hall’s North.Five.Six., who are handling international sales. Witcher would complete multiple revisions of the script, with Bratton also contributing to the rewrites.
Filming is set to commence in March. Alex Lebovici is producing the crime thriller for Hammerstone Studios, alongside Basil Iwanyk and Erica Lee for Thunder Road Films, Chester Algernal Gordon for Freedom Principle. Also, Stephen Levinson and Wahlberg are producing under his Closest to the Hole Production banner. Executive producers on board are Jonathan Oakes for Hammerstone, Michael Rothstein, Samuel Hall, and Warren Goz for North.Five.Six., Adam Kolbrenner, Sascha Penn, Waylen Lin, Zach Zhang, and Logan Coles.
Meanwhile, Wahlberg is also gearing up for a sequel to his hit family action comedy The Family Plan from Apple. The Family Plan sequel will take place at Christmas in Europe, where Wahlberg’s Dan has planned the perfect vacation for the Morgans, but his past continues to haunt them in unexpected ways. “I am beyond excited to step back into the shoes of Dan Morgan again alongside my brilliant co-stars, and with Simon and David returning,” Wahlberg said in a statement. “Making The Family Plan, and seeing it become an instant success with global audiences in the way that it did, has been incredibly rewarding. We can’t wait to collaborate with our partners at Apple and Skydance again on this next chapter for the Morgan family as their European holiday inevitably goes awry.“
Simon Cellan Jones is returning to direct from a script by David Coggeshall. “I’m thrilled to be back with The Morgans as they tear through Europe in search of the perfect action-packed family Christmas,” Cellan Jones said.
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One lesser known but extremely cool horror series that’s worth revisiting is the Maniac Cop franchise. Directed by William Lustig and scripted by Larry Cohen, the Maniac Cop trilogy got off to a great start in 1988 with a film that stars Tom Atkins, Richard Roundtree, William Smith, Laurene Landon, and Evil Dead franchise hero Bruce Campbell, with Robert Z’Dar as the title character. Although Campbell emerges as the hero in the first film, he’s killed off early in 1990’s Maniac Cop 2 – which, despite losing Campbell so quickly, still manages to be one of the best horror sequels out there. Things don’t get questionable until 1993’s troubled Maniac Cop 3. But even though the first two movies are awesome, Campbell doesn’t seem to have the fondest memories of them, as he revealed during a recent interview with Variety.
Variety gathered lines from several of the movies and TV shows Campbell has worked on and tested him to see if he could remember which project each quote came from. He did a great job overall… but one line that stumped him was, “I tried to stop her. But she had a gun.” Which came from Maniac Cop.
Reminded of the film, Campbell said, “Maniac Cop? Were there any memorable lines in that movie? See, this is the only one you could pull. ‘I tried to stop her. But she had a gun.’ That’s how memorable Maniac Cop is. The guy who wrote this movie, by the way, Larry Cohen, I think is his name, wrote a bunch of exploitation stuff and he claimed that his dialogue was actor proof. His dialogue was so good, no actor could screw it up. I had a different take. Your dialogue is so bad, it’s actor proof, because no actor can say your dialogue. Thanks for playing, Larry. I made them kill me on the second one. They were like, ‘Hey, come on back,’ and I was in the middle of a divorce. Never catch an actor in the middle of a divorce because they don’t care about life anymore. I said, ‘Give me this number or kill me.’ And they went, ‘Okay, we’re gonna kill ya.’“
Are you a fan of Maniac Cop? What do you think of Bruce Campbell being killed off in Maniac Cop 2? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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Jude Law doesn’t seem like the type to lead a Star Wars installment, but he is going all-in for the upcoming series Skeleton Crew, headlining as Jod Na Nawood. It’s also only one of a handful of shows Law has been in.
Speaking on why he decided to finally join the Star Wars force, so to speak, Jude Law said it took a lot of contemplation because of the scale of the series. “I don’t think I would have dived in willy-nilly. I wanted it to be right. I didn’t want to be the guy that dropped the ball on Star Wars.” Oh, don’t worry, Jude, plenty of people have beaten you to the punch on that one…
Undergoing the filming process of shooting a big-budget Star Wars project — the first season has been pegged at over $130 million by some reports — Jude Law said there were plenty of challenges in bringing it to the screen. “It’s technically complicated to get those things right — you’re dealing with animatronics and puppets and machines and huge, complicated worlds. I’m the guy that wants to see how the wizard does it.” He, too, got to see how the cinematographer worked in a way like he has never seen before, which further alllwed himself to be immersed in the saga. “There are certain shots they don’t allow you to do if you’re the director. You can’t pass through the glass of the spaceship; you have to stay on the outside or inside. I love that. You see the shot and go, ‘Oh, I’m in Star Wars.”
Outside of Jude Law, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew doesn’t have much wattage to it, with Encanto voice actor Ravi Cabot-Conyers and Firestarter’s Ryan Kiera Armstrong supporting. Nick Frost and Urkel himself, Jaleel White, also have roles.
The Star Wars saga has seen plenty of drops and questionable moves as of late, so we’re genuinely hoping that Skeleton Crew can help turn things around. And we will when it arrives on Disney+ on December 3rd.
Are you looking forward to Skeleton Crew? Do you expect it to be a worthwhile endeavor in the Star Wars franchise?
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Fall is upon us, and that brings the changing of the leaves, apple cider, and of course, scary movies. Seeing scary movies when you’re a little kid is the best. Really wanting to see what all the bigger kids are seeing but also being scared of what you just saw. It’s a magical time to be alive… and now is a great time to run down the best kid’s films for Halloween. These are guaranteed to frighten your little ones but not leave you unable to sleep after they crawl into your bed at night.
While this film was a mainstay of my childhood, if you look at it today, some of the language hasn’t aged very well. I still love this film, as I can look past its flaws and remember the absolute glee I would get watching it over and over again. Plus, there is a scene of a child using a shotgun, which can be a little much in today’s climate. I would say it’s up to the parents on this one, but be warned. A group of kids has a club called The Monster Squad, where they talk about monster movies and decide who could beat who. It’s a lot of fun until some very famous and very real monsters show up in their town. Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, and the Gill-man arrive, searching for an amulet, and they won’t let anyone stand in their way of getting it. No one believes the kids, so they have to take on the monsters themselves. Think The Goonies meets the classic Universal Monsters.
Another classic Halloween film for kids. The lovable oaf Ernest finds himself in the middle of a curse that transforms kids into dolls. He accidentally lets loose a troll that wreaks havoc upon his town. He has to find a way to imprison the troll once again and release the children from the horrible spell. Ernest is funny in his usual slapsticky way, and the creature designs by the Chiodo Brothers look fantastic. It’s fun to go back and see their great practical effects work from this time.
Neil Gaiman teams with Henry Selick to bring to life this stop motion animated story of a young girl who finds a way to cross over to another world that is closely similar to ours but finds that things are a little… off. She feels neglected by her own family, but their doppelgangers in the other world have buttons for eyes and can’t stop expressing their love for her. When offered a chance to stay in their world, she refuses. She quickly finds that the inhabitants will not take no for an answer. It’s a great, creepy film that both kids and parents can enjoy.
Fred Savage might be canceled nowadays, but when he was a child star, he made this fun film with Howie Mandel. Savage plays Brian, who finds that monsters are real but, for the most part, harmless. They enjoy a few good scares but also enjoy having a good time. When things at home get tough to take, Brian climbs into the portal under his bed and hangs with his new monster friend Maurice. They get into all sorts of adventures until Brian discovers that the longer he hangs out in the monster’s world, the more he starts to become one. Little Monsters is a fun family movie with lots of funny monsters but very few actual scares.
Norman is a kid that loves horror films. He also has a special gift that lets him see the dead. He is told of an ancient curse on his town of Blithe Hollow. In order to keep his town safe, he must perform a ritual that only his recently deceased uncle used to know. Things obviously don’t go well. The voice cast is fantastic, with John Goodman, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Anna Kendrick, Leslie Mann, Casey Affleck, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse lending their talents to the film. This comes from the same animation studio as Coraline and looks beautiful, as you would expect.
Jack Black stars in this fun film as R.L. Stine, the famous author of all the Goosebumps books. When a kid named Zach moves to town, he befriends Stine’s daughter Hannah. He quickly learns that, in reality, Stine’s monsters are real and he keeps them trapped in his books. Zach lets them out by accident, and now they all have to go across town to trap them back into their books. If you’re a fan of the Goosebumps series of books or the 90s TV series, then you’ll see a lot of familiar monsters throughout the film. It’s a lot of fun and a great watch. One of the best kids films to watch for Halloween.
Three kids learn that the house which belongs to the mean old man that lives on their street is actually a giant living monster that likes to eat kids. They have to find a way to destroy the house to protect kids everywhere. This fun movie is written by Dan Harmon of Rick & Morty fame and has another great cast list. Steve Buscemi, Catherine O’Hara, Fred Willard, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jon Heder, Jason Lee, and Kevin James all voice the characters in this fun film.
A young boy that is obsessed with horror stories finds himself trapped by a witch. To keep her from killing him, he offers to tell her a new scary story every night. When he finds another girl trapped there as well, he begins to formulate a plan to escape the witch’s house, which won’t let them leave. Krysten Ritter stars as the witch and does a great job of scaring the children in this film without traumatizing the viewer. Sort of an updated version of the Arabian Tales story.
Victor’s dog dies unexpectedly, and he turns to science to reanimate the pup. After the dog comes back to life, his friends and neighbors are terrified. The boy has to convince everyone that his dog is the same lovable companion they have always known. This animated film, directed by Tim Burton, was based on a live-action short film that he made back in 1984 starring Shelly Duvall and Daniel Stern.
Eli Roth is mainly known as the splatter horror director for such films as Cabin Fever and Hostel, but he directed this children’s movie starring Jack Black and Cate Blanchett. After being orphaned, a young boy moves in with his uncle. He quickly learns that his uncle is a warlock and has been trying to find a clock constructed by an evil wizard. The clock was put in the house’s walls, and if it reaches the end of its countdown, then the world will end. This is a lot of fun and a surprising entry from Roth.
Another one from the mind of Tim Burton. We meet the residents of Halloween Town as their king Jack Skellington begins to tire of all the Halloween cheer every day. While walking in the woods, he stumbles upon a Christmas tree-shaped door. Once he enters, he finds Christmas Town. Intrigued by the new world he has stumbled upon, Jack decides to bring the Christmas spirit to Halloween Town in the only way he knows how. A great cross-over film as the Halloween season winds down and we begin to look towards Christmas. The spooky elements are quintessential Tim Burton, but the Christmas heart of the film makes you remember what the holiday season is all about. A must-watch every year between seasons.
What kid’s films do you watch on Halloween? Let us know in the comments.
The post Best Kids Films For Halloween appeared first on JoBlo.
If Hollywood is good at anything, it’s seeing what hits big at the box office and then churning out a hundred clones of that product until it gets driven into the ground. We see it all the time. One such incident came around the release of the 1978 film Halloween. Once it began to rack up box office numbers, everyone scrambled to put out their own slasher film, preferably built around a holiday. This led to a glut of slasher films – which, if you’re a slasher fan like myself, was a fantastic time to be alive. Let’s look at the best Halloween rip-offs.
Offerings might be the most egregious rip-off Halloween there could be. A young kid accidentally falls down a well while playing with a group of kids. Some of them scare him as he’s walking along the edge, and he hits his head. He will end up killing his mother before he is shipped off to a mental hospital. Years later, he escapes to get revenge on the kids who caused his accident. He takes a body part from each person and leaves them as presents to the one girl who was always nice to him. Of course, a doctor from the hospital is hot on his trail to try and stop his killing spree. If only his name was like Lam Soomis, then the homage would be complete. The plot is only minorly tweaked to avoid a lawsuit, but they barely make any effort to hide the fact that they are mimicking the score from Halloween. Some parts even sound like they lifted it right off the soundtrack. It’s pretty blatant and the filmmakers didn’t seem to care. They put the movie out and I assume made some money off of it.
This film tries to throw some “modern” technology into the plot but at its base, Edge of the Axe is still just another Halloween rip-off. Someone in a small California town is murdering women. Laura thinks it might be her cousin, who recently escaped from a mental hospital. The women he seems to be targeting have all worked at psychiatric facilities. Laura and her new boyfriend use his high-tech computer system to determine who the killer is. Without the computer story, this whole thing is just Halloween, but the killer likes to use an axe instead of a butcher knife. He even wears an all-white mask. If anything, the kills are fun to watch. The incompetent police force is laughable but all in all the film is still a good time.
What’s better than one psychopath escaping from a mental hospital and going on a murder spree? How about four? This movie has a great cast, as Jack Palance, Donald Pleasence, Martin Landau, and Erland van Lidth play the killers. Donald Pleasence gets to play on the other side of the film this time and Erland van Lidth will be known to most genre fans as the opera-singing Dynamo from The Running Man. During a town-wide blackout, four known killers escape from a mental institution and head to their new psychiatrist’s house. They believe he killed their former doctor and want to get revenge. Dwight Schultz of The A-Team and Star Trek fame plays the psychiatrist. Along the way, we meet young people who are trying to have fun during the blackout but end up being fodder for the killers.
While it didn’t come out during the slasher boom of the 80s, it did hit during the smaller slasher boom of the 90s after Scream hit big in theaters. It borrows more from Halloween than any other slasher of the time, including Scream. It may be a little cliche even for the time it came out, but it is still a lot of fun. Thirteen years ago, a man committed a series of murders. Now, he has escaped from a mental institution and is hunting down the children of his former victims. This film has a couple of ‘before they were famous’ actors involved. Anna Faris plays Jannelle Bay in this. The following year she would star in the slasher spoof Scary Movie, which would catapult her to stardom. Sarah Lancaster plays Chloe Grefe. She would go on to earn acclaim in the WB series Everwood. Most probably know her as Chuck’s sister Ellie on the series Chuck.
George is released from a mental hospital after being deemed fit to rejoin society. Years before, he murdered a family. Ever since then, he has been having horrible nightmares that his medication can’t seem to fix. Not long after being released, his killing spree begins again as he drives down to Florida to find his ex-wife. Along the way, his murders become more and more violent. George does end up killing a babysitter and her boyfriend at one point in the film, and wears an old man mask while doing it. The film has the typical slasher methodology in it while also throwing a few curve balls with mischievous children for a final touch. The old man mask looks like a creepy Telly Savalas killing people. It’s a weird addition.
Four college students volunteer to help clean out a dorm building that is going to be demolished. As they begin their work, someone starts to stalk them around the abandoned dorm. One of the best lines from the trailer, if you look it up, is: “The only thing you will learn is how to die!” The film is super cheesy but a lot of fun. Just don’t take it too seriously. The killer uses a baseball bat with spikes driven into it. It’s a great time.
While the title doesn’t tell you, this is actually a Thanksgiving horror film. When twins Todd and Terry were younger, one of them killed a man at a drive-in. Terry blamed it on Todd, and he was sent to live in a mental hospital. Ten years later, Todd decides to escape from the hospital so his mom will know the truth. This causes Terry to once again feel the urge to kill. The film is a lot of fun and has the usual twin hijinks. Look for a young Ted Raimi in his first film role as a guy selling condoms at the drive-in. The special effects for the film are great and worth celebrating. Arrow Films put out a good disc set of this film that even has a cut of the film with the old title card Slasher from before it was changed to Blood Rage.
During the senior prom, a killer is stalking students who participated in the accidental death of a classmate years earlier. Now, as their big night is here to celebrate their upcoming graduation, they are being killed off one by one. This one even includes Jamie Lee Curtis as the final girl of the film. While there is nothing that just screams Halloween rip-off in the film other than Jamie Lee Curtis, Prom Night plays on all the horror tropes that were established just two years earlier. If you have sex, you die. If you drink or do drugs, you die. It’s a simple formula but it makes for a fun watch. The killer in this film is almost the inverse of Michael Myers. They are dressed all in black, including a black ski mask. The killer moves quickly and strikes fast. A fun time, if you are into slasher films.
A mining accident trapped six people underground. When they are able to dig them out, only Harry Warden survived, but in a deranged state. He is sent to a mental hospital but escapes on Valentine’s Day to kill those he felt were responsible for the accident. Decades later, a young crew is set to have a Valentine’s Day party. People start dying again and think Harry Warden may be back. Killer in coveralls and a mask? Check. Killer killing on a specific holiday? Check. Killer possibly coming back after escaping from a mental hospital? Maybe. The film checks off all the boxes that make for a great Halloween rip-off but still manages to make the movie its own thing. The killer in the film looks great and is genuinely frightening at times. A great film to watch at just about any time of the year, but especially around Valentine’s Day. The fact that Scream Factory was able to release a Blu-ray with a bunch of cut footage of gory attacks restored makes it all the better.
Yes, even the juggernaut that is Friday the 13th is a Halloween rip-off. Producer/director Sean Cunningham has admitted that after Halloween hit box office gold, he looked around for a holiday that he could build a slasher film around. He settled on Friday the 13th and the rest is history. The series obviously came into its own but it was born as a way to cash in on Halloween’s fame. A group of teenagers helps set up a camp that is about to reopen. It was closed for decades after a young couple was murdered during camp season. Someone is not happy that the camp is about to reopen and begins to kill off the teens one by one in order to keep the camp closed. Friday the 13th would garner its own popularity and spawned a slew of rip-offs like The Burning, Sleepaway Camp, and Madman. Once Jason came into the series in the second film, it hewed even closer to the Halloween films with a silent killer that has a penchant for covering his face. Eventually, it would go the more supernatural route and completely work, while any time Halloween tried to move that way it completely fell flat.
What are your favorite Halloween rip-offs? Let us know in the comments.
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