Ever since James Wan and Leigh Whannell introduced a little horror to the world with Saw, they have become exciting names in the horror genre. Mr. Whannell continues to impress from his directorial debut in the world of supernatural frights with Insidious: Chapter 3. From his excellent Upgrade to the wonderfully suspenseful and expertly crafted The Invisible Man – an absolute favorite of mine. And now, he brings us the impressive Wolf Man, the filmmaker’s take on the 1941 classic starring Claude Rains. Thankfully, Whannell offers up a terrific cast that includes Christorpher Abbott, Julia Garner, and Matilda Firth. And frankly, this one is such a personal take on the story that it struck a chord with this viewer.
Recently, we spoke to the cast, as well as executive producer Beatriz Sequeira. We also sat down for the first of our two-part interview with the man of the hour, Leigh Whannell. I sat down with Julia Garner – who you can look for in the upcoming Madonna biopic Who’s That Girl and The Fantastic Four: First Steps as the Silver Surfer. Julia brings a quiet strength to her performance as Charlotte in Wolf Man. It’s an impressive performance. And as for her co-star, the wonderfully talented Christopher Abbott, he spoke about taking on such a challenging character, both physically and mentally. Whannell impressed me with his casting choices here. It’s a very believable family portrayal, which makes the movie all the more chilling.
And finally, I spoke with executive producer Beatriz Squeira. Having talked to her before about last year’s effective, Speak No Evil, it was terrific to discuss classic monster tales. As well as what she is looking forward to when it comes to bringing frights to the big screen. And of course, sitting down with Leigh Whannell is always a joy. For part one of our conversation, we focus mainly on the film and the cast itself. Leigh, who co-wrote Wolf Man with his wife Corbett Tuck, brings a very personal touch with this take on this classic Universal movie monster. And it’s all the more involving because of it.
Wolf Man opens this Friday and I recommend seeing it with a crowd. It’s tense, scary, and even heartbreaking. It’s yet another solid feature from one of genre’s most exciting voices. Check out our review HERE.
Ever since James Wan and Leigh Whannell introduced a little horror to the world with Saw, they have become exciting names in the horror genre. Mr. Whannell continues to impress from his directorial debut in the world of supernatural frights with Insidious: Chapter 3. From his excellent Upgrade to the wonderfully suspenseful and expertly crafted The Invisible Man – an absolute favorite of mine. And now, he brings us the impressive Wolf Man, the filmmaker’s take on the 1941 classic starring Lon Chaney Jr. Thankfully, Whannell offers up a terrific cast that includes Christopher Abbott, Julia Garner, and Matilda Firth. And frankly, this one is such a personal take on the story that it struck a chord with this viewer.
Recently, we spoke to the cast, as well as executive producer Beatriz Sequeira. We also sat down for the first of our two-part interview with the man of the hour, Leigh Whannell. I sat down with Julia Garner – who you can look for in the upcoming Madonna biopic Who’s That Girl and The Fantastic Four: First Steps as the Silver Surfer. Julia brings a quiet strength to her performance as Charlotte in Wolf Man. It’s an impressive performance. And as for her co-star, the wonderfully talented Christopher Abbott, he spoke about taking on such a challenging character, both physically and mentally. Whannell impressed me with his casting choices here. It’s a very believable family portrayal, which makes the movie all the more chilling.
And finally, I spoke with executive producer Beatriz Squeira. Having talked to her before about last year’s effective, Speak No Evil, it was terrific to discuss classic monster tales. As well as what she is looking forward to when it comes to bringing frights to the big screen. And of course, sitting down with Leigh Whannell is always a joy. For part one of our conversation, we focus mainly on the film and the cast itself. Leigh, who co-wrote Wolf Man with his wife Corbett Tuck, brings a very personal touch with this take on this classic Universal movie monster. And it’s all the more involving because of it.
Wolf Man opens this Friday and I recommend seeing it with a crowd. It’s tense, scary, and even heartbreaking. It’s yet another solid feature from one of genre’s most exciting voices. Check out our review HERE.
Announcements for the next generation of video game consoles are usually made in advance to build hype and get the presales rolling. The Hollywood Reporter is revealing that not only has Nintendo officially announced a new console with the Nintendo Switch 2, but it will also already be hitting retailers sometime in 2025. The legacy video game company has also provided a new image of the upcoming console.
As with every video game console, whether it be Microsoft’s X-Box or Sony’s Playstation, there are usually games that are exclusive to the brand in addition to the games that can be played across every platform. Nintendo will continue to capitalize on its mascots that include the Mario brothers, Donkey Kong, Zelda and the like. The popular titles featuring these characters usually are the next iteration of games like Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros., Donkey Kong, and more.
It is yet to be determined how much of a jump in technology the Nintendo Switch 2 will have, but it is also reported that the new machine will be able to support the physical and digital versions of games from the original console, which was released in 2017. According to THR, “more details on the Switch 2 will be announced at a premiere event to be held in cities around the world on April 2. The company will also bring the console on a tour around the world for gamers to try it out, with stops in Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris and Tokyo planned.”
Nintendo also released a teaser trailer of the console, which you can view below. The teaser shows a newer aesthetic design for the system itself, which includes a bigger screen and controllers for the handheld mode. Much more detail has been added along with seemingly new hardware capabilities.
Are you excited for the new Nintendo Switch? What are some of your favorite games on the original? Mario Kart 8 has been updated with the largest number of tracks to date. Do you think they will be able to top it? Let us know below!
You season 5, which happens to be the final season of the Netflix series, filmed in New York City for five months last year, wrapping up in August – and now Netflix has unveiled a teaser for the season that reveals it has a premiere date of April 24th. You can watch the date announcement teaser in the embed above.
Series star Penn Badgley is joined in the cast of You season 5 by season 4’s Charlotte Ritchie, who plays heiress Kate Galvin, who ended up in a relationship with Joe at the end of season 4. Also in this new and final season are Madeline Brewer of The Handmaid’s Tale, who is taking on a series regular role in the new batch of episodes, and so do Anna Camp of the Pitch Perfect films and Griffin Matthews of The Flight Attendant. Camp will actually be playing two different characters, as she has been cast as both Raegan and Maddie Lockwood, twin sisters-in-law to Joe Goldberg. Baby Reindeer‘s Nava Mau will show up in the guest star role of Detective Marquez.
We don’t have a full description of Mau’s Detective Marquez, but we have descriptions for the other characters. The new character being played by Brewer is Bronte, an enigmatic and free-spirited playwright who comes to work for Joe Goldberg at his bookstore. As the two connect over literature and loss, she stokes in him a nostalgia for his former self, causing him to question everything his life has become. Matthews’ character is Teddy Lockwood, the “snarky yet loyal brother-in-law of Joe Goldberg. A confidante who was never fully accepted by the Lockwood family, Teddy brings authenticity and empathy to a family for whom such things are a foreign concept.“ And Camp’s characters: “Raegan is the cunning, cutthroat CFO of the Lockwood Corp who has her eyes on the throne and will crush any adversary… be them family or not. Maddie, on the other hand, presents as the unserious twin, a thrice-divorced socialite whose job is ‘vaguely PR.’ But make no mistake, a master manipulator lies underneath Maddie’s frivolous façade.“
While executive producers Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter said that You was always intended to be a “five season journey”, showrunner Sera Gamble decided not to guide the journey to its conclusion. Although she remains attached as an executive producer, she has passed showrunner duties over to fellow executive producers Michael Foley and Justin W. Lo. Thankfully, Foley and Lo are no strangers to You. They have been working on the series since season 1 and season 2, respectively.
Based on a series of novels by Caroline Kepnes (take a look at her work HERE), You was developed by Gamble and Berlanti. The show centers on Joe Goldberg, a man who will do just about anything when love is at stake. In the epic fifth and final season, Joe Goldberg returns to New York to enjoy his happily ever after… until his perfect life is threatened by the ghosts of his past and his own dark desires.
Will you be watching You season 5 when it premieres on Netflix in April? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
We had heard that director Rhys Frake-Waterfield and producer Scott Jeffrey Chambers were planning to create a cinematic universe with the Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey films and other horror movies inspired by children’s stories, like Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare, Bambi: The Reckoning, and Pinocchio Unstrung. Then, Jagged Edge Productions and ITN Studios officially announced that this cinematic universe, which is being referred to as The Twisted Childhood Universe, is building up to the crossover movie Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble, which will be released in 2025. Chambers has said that the Mad Hatter will be one of the “worst of the worst” in Poohniverse, and during an interview with Screen Rant he took a moment to talk about the Mad Hatter horror movie Alice the Mad, as well as the upcoming Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 3 – which is actually a Tigger solo movie!
When asked about what’s coming up next for the Twisted Childhood Universe, Chambers said, “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 3: Tigger’s Return, which is going to be a Tigger standalone film because everyone responded quite well to Tigger, so he’s going to get a standalone. Then the next one I think I’m going to direct is Alice the Mad. And at the minute, I’m enjoying exploring the idea that basically it’s set at an escorting agency, which is called the White Rabbit. And Alice is an escort, which is a sex worker, and the Mad Hatter becomes obsessed with her. And for me, the references are a film called Opera, a little bit of Maniac with Elijah Wood, and a bit of MaXXXine in there maybe as well. I’m excited for that.“
A.A. Milne’s 1926 children’s book Winnie-the-Pooh and the characters in it lapsed into the public domain at the start of 2023, and that’s how Frake-Waterfield and Chambers were able to make these movies happen, no permission required. In the build-up to the release of the first movie, the filmmaker explained to Variety that Pooh and Piglet (go) on a rampage after being abandoned by a college-bound Christopher Robin. “Christopher Robin is pulled away from them, and he’s not [given] them food, it’s made Pooh and Piglet’s life quite difficult. Because they’ve had to fend for themselves so much, they’ve essentially become feral. So they’ve gone back to their animal roots. They’re no longer tame: they’re like a vicious bear and pig who want to go around and try and find prey.”
Matt Leslie, writer/producer of Summer of 84, wrote the screenplay for the second movie, working from a story he crafted with Frake-Waterfield. Here’s the synopsis for Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2: Deep within the 100-Acre-Wood, a destructive rage grows as Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Owl, and Tigger find their home and their lives endangered after Christopher Robin revealed their existence. Not wanting to live in the shadows any longer, the group decides to take the fight to the town of Ashdown, home of Christopher Robin, leaving a bloody trail of death and mayhem in their wake. Winnie and his savage friends will show everyone that they are deadlier, stronger, and smarter than anyone could ever imagine and get their revenge on Christopher Robin, once and for all.
We’ve previously heard that Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 3 will have a bigger budget than either of its predecessors, and “will introduce new characters from the original Winnie-the-Pooh stories, including Rabbit, the heffalumps and the woozles.” Heffalumps are animals that resemble elephants and woozles are critters that leave tracks in the snow. In the source material, they’re both imaginary. Some adaptations have depicted woozles as villainous, weasel-like creatures that steal honey.
Are you looking forward to Alice the Mad and/or Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 3? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
Today, in partnership with RSA, Netflix announced the trailer and premiere date for Surviving Black Hawk Down, a three-part 360-degree telling of the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, whose events served as inspiration for Ridley Scott’s Academy Award-winning film Black Hawk Down, which starred Josh Hartnett. The description of the events revisited in this film reads, “On Oct. 3, 1993, when an American task force was sent out to capture two of Aidid’s lieutenants, his militia retaliated, managing to take down two Black Hawk helicopters that had been assisting from above. With each downed helicopter, soldiers were dispatched to recover the men who had been inside each aircraft, turning what had been a military strike operation into a rescue mission.”
The logline for this new documentary states, “Surviving Black Hawk Down tells the gripping real story of the horror and heroism behind the events that inspired Ridley Scott’s blockbuster movie Black Hawk Down, blending raw, immersive storytelling with first-person interviews from both sides of The Battle of Mogadishu.”
This new documentary comes from director Jack MacInnes. The producers of the film include Jamal Osman and Emma Supple. Dominic Crossley-Holland and Tom Pearson are the executive producers on this film. The movie comes from production company RSA and Dominic Crossley Holland, Global Head of Unscripted RSA stated, “RSA are thrilled to bring this compelling story to a new audience with Netflix, almost 25 years after Ridley’s iconic movie. It’s a gripping tale, and powerful and moving to hear from both US forces and Somalis for the first time.”
The three-episode docuseries features new interviews with members of the Army Rangers and Delta Force — the special operation units that worked together on Oct. 3, 1993. Additionally, the residents of Mogadishu will also featured throughout the documentary, which interestingly includes militiamen who fought against US forces, local women who found themselves trapped in a war zone with nowhere to hide, and a party photographer-turned-war documentarian who was prompted to bring his camera to the front lines out of a personal sense of duty to capture the reality of what was happening to his home.
Surviving Black Hawk Down streams globally on Netflix on FEBRUARY 10.
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!
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 gameUntil 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.
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 prequelApartment 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.
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.
