Remember George Lucas? He’s back… in figure form! Yes, the filmmaking visionary who, with some help, conceived a ubiquitously-dominant film franchise, is set to be immortalized in plastic via the practice that put the Star Wars merchandising machine on the map. Indeed, Hasbro Toys has revealed a new George Lucas rendition, this one arriving in
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Warning: contains spoilers for Endeavour Series 8 Episode 3 ‘Terminus’. Fittingly for a drama about a detective with a taste for The Times cryptic crossword, the murder mystery is far from the only game in an episode of Endeavour. As we explore here, the prequel’s films feature nods to pop culture contemporary with the episode’s
As Disney’s Star Wars Sequel Trilogy movies became a hot button topic in recent years, the scathing stigma once widely attached to their immediate predecessors, Lucasfilm’s 1999-2005 Prequel Trilogy, has oddly eased back. It’s a phenomenon that, 16 years after their conclusion, is attributed to generational nostalgia and, arguably, plot-enriching context on the films’ era
This feature is sponsored by Shizuka Satomi, a violin teacher known as the Queen of Hell, owes one more soul to demons due to an infernal bargain she struck. Young violinist Katrina Nguyen needs to escape her homelife, where her transness is rejected by her family, and to start anew, hopefully making videos with her
The latest Metroid Dread previews include quite a few (mostly positive) words about the highly-anticipated upcoming Switch game, but the one word that’s jumping out at everyone at the moment is “scary.” Granted, the Metroid franchise has always utilized horror elements (its revolutionary atmosphere can partially be attributed to the various ways it was influenced
This article is sponsored by Catriona Ward’s latest novel, The Last House on Needless Street, is the sort of book that defies easy description and categorization. Part horror story, part mystery thriller, and part tragedy, the book subverts a lot of expectations about what a genre story should be and do, unpacking a complex emotional
Warning: this Vigil review contains spoilers. DCI Silva needs to send a fruit basket to whoever thought to include a ‘Cancel Tube Flood Cycle’ button on Britain’s vanguard-class submarines. That one will have gone straight to the top of her personal Best Button list (my top three: Cadbury’s, R1 on a PlayStation controller, and Moon). Silva had a narrow
This article contains spoilers for Midnight Mass. Ending a horror story is hard. Perhaps no one knows that better than Mike Flanagan, the writer-director behind horror hits like Doctor Sleep, The Haunting of Hill House, and The Haunting of Bly Manor. After observing the occasional less-than-enthusiastic reaction to the endings of some of his other
The Sandman author Neil Gaiman has famously fought off numerous attempts to adapt his most famous graphic novel series, but in Netflix’s TUDUM event, a sneak peek clip and some character art for a few of the most recognizable characters give fans a glimpse of the vision the author finally brought to life along with
Few series have been more resilient than Castlevania. The first few games in the franchise were fairly standard 8-bit platformers (albeit with a unique horror vibe), but over time, entries in this series became less linear and more about exploration, eventually helping to inspire a whole new subgenre: “Metroidvania.” While the 3D Castlevania games never
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth has proven to be one of the Bard’s most elusive tragedies for filmmakers. Despite being among his best known plays and full of visceral imagery like witches and war, murders and revenge, this allegedly cursed title has appeared genuinely damned on-screen. It thwarted masters like Roman Polanski and defeated would-be revisionists, such
This article contains no spoilers for Midnight Mass. Horror auteur Mike Flanagan is responsible for many excellent spooky sagas since his first major film Oculus debuted in 2013. The writer/director has shepherded films like Ouija: Origin of Evil, Gerald’s Game, and Doctor Sleep; and TV series like Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House and The
Nearly two decades before Twilight, Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles had all the makings of the definitive vampire movie franchise. Interview with the Vampire, a film based on the writer’s first book in the vampire series, starred Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt as stately Louisiana vampires Lestat de Lioncourt and Louis de Pointe du Lac.
If you find yourself thinking ‘where have I seen that guy before?’ while watching a Mike Flanagan show or film, the answer may well be ‘in another Mike Flanagan show or film’. The horror writer-director is known for his rep company of actors, many of whom appear in multiple roles across various projects. Below is
There’s a scene midway through Safe House, the 2012 thriller which stars Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds, that hits entirely differently in 2021. As with any number of films starring these leading men, the stars are cultivating an oil and water relationship in the sequence, one built on mutual distrust and loathing as they drive
Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America is as epic as The Godfather, gorier than Goodfellas, and as streetwise as Mean Streets. It tells a full history, from childhood to old age, street hustles to political suicides, community toilets to opium dens. The version which is right now available on Netflix has been amazingly
Daniel Craig stirred up international headlines back in 2005 when the press was horrified that we were about to get a blonde James Bond. Or “James Blond” as The Daily Mail (among many others) cracked. But now Craig is making headlines of his own about who should and shouldn’t be the next 007, as he
Tom Hardy wore a Spider-Man: No Way Home hat, which means he has to be in the movie, right? Right?! “Tom Hardy was wearing a Spider-Man: No Way Home hat, though… I think? You have to zoom in on the pic to tell what it says. Hardy isn’t alone in the picture, sitting next to