New Mutants Trailer Breakdown

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One of the curious things about film success in the 2020s is that “quiet victories” have become more and more prevalent.  That’s more the result of Geek Media spending a lot of time talking up the loud victories than anything else.  For instance, the X-Men franchise is a great example of something quietly successful.  Outwardly the franchise is considered mostly past its prime and running on goodwill and fumes.  

However, a lot of that is simply because the main film series doesn’t draw a lot of interest in the online circles, meanwhile, the spin-off material like Deadpool, Logan, and Legion have been making big waves and spawning imitators left and right.  A lot of that is that Fox seems more willing to experiment on the job with the X-Men peripherals, probably because they assume they aren’t going to be successful anyway so might as well get weird with it.  That certainly seems like the attitude at play with the latest X-Men spin-off flick The New Mutants whose trailer has revealed it to be…a teen horror flick? 

Jamie Lee Curtis Joins the Cast of Halloween (2018)

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One of the curious trends of the 2010s has been the stealth “return” of horror as a dominant force in cinema.  I use air quotes there because horror, as a genre, has never really gone away as it’s fundamental to storytelling as a craft, same as drama or romance.  However, horror has undeniably changed in how it’s perceived and how its made in the 2010s versus previous genres.  

There are a lot of factors to this like the rise of indie art-house horror hits like Babadook, It Follows, and The Witch as well as the return of summer horror blockbusters like The Conjuring and Purge franchises.  The biggest changeup, though, is in the spread of horror influences and how we’re making new films. 

Despite the 2010s as an age of franchises and cinematic universes horror has doggedly rejected those trends, settling more into a ton of very individualistic and different films between one or two actual franchises.  There’s not a lot of common ground between stuff like Lights Out, IT, You’re Next, and Krampus but they were all sizeable horror hits.  

Even among the heavily sequalized horror series like Insidious, they don’t have the same spread and impact as predecessors like Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, or Saw.  Now, in the waning days of the 2010s, that seems like it might be on the road to change with the coming of Danny McBride’s Halloween reboot, which will see the return of series star Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode. 

IT Trailer Breakdown

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This might be an uncouth statement, but I’ve never really understood the big deal about clowns.  I mean, we all collectively agreed that zombies and vampires are overdone, with the days of the werewolf being indisputably numbered, but for some reason clowns just keep on hanging in there as a reliable boogeyman.  

Maybe that’s because there aren’t actually that many clown horror films to see really.  There’s Killer Klowns from Outer Space, certainly, but that was more of a horror-comedy while more recent offerings like Clown or 31 seem to have flown completely under the radar. 

Honestly, I’ve never even been that on board with the idea of clowns being inherently scary.  I understand the mechanism by which they can be twisted to invoke dread but most of the time when people say they’re afraid of clowns they really just mean they’re afraid of creepy clowns and, spoilers, it’s the creepy they’re afraid of.  

All of this is part and parcel to why I’m not terribly on board with everyone’s new favorite Horror trailer for the remake of IT, the Stephen King novel whose original TV adaptation put killer clowns on the horror landscape back in 1990.  As I probably already gave away I’ve got some harsh words about both the original and this trailer for the remake but let’s watch said trailer before going forward. 

Film Land - Blockbusters According to Comics 2016

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It’s no secret that I love superhero comic books, but part of what I like about them is that there’s so much variety to the material.  That’s part of why I’m not surprised superheroes have grown into the state religion of big budget blockbusters at this point in time.  It’s a genre that includes everything from space opera to spy thriller to irreverent comedy so it only makes sense that it would be perfectly situated to cater to the changing trends and tastes of a modern audience.  

That idea is what’s fueled my now yearly custom of looking at the year’s biggest success stories and trying to find the comic book answer to those properties.  Last year this was more aimed at films but as 2016 was a little light on big, impactful movies I’ve broadened that subject to include some major TV success as well.  With that said, let’s dive into the subject and find out what 2016’s blockbusters look like according to comics. 

Film Land - The Collector (2009)

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Edited by Robert Beach

One of the big trends of 2016 is that horror, as a popular genre, is back with a vengeance. This particular shift has been building for a while now with a lot of recent horror output being new films or modern series. The Purge franchise has roared through three installments to wave the banner of political horror; The Conjuring and Insidious have become a dynamite double feature complete with spin-offs. What’s more, art house horror has been a major force lately with popular hits like Babadook, It Follows, The Invitation, and VVitch making a major splash. 

Home invasion horror reared its head as a major genre force this year, not having been present since the 2013 horror boom with You’re Next. 2016 gave us the Netflix original Hush, the tense indie thriller Green Room, and this week’s studio hit Don’t Breathe.  Now, I can’t stand the genre most of the time, and I didn’t like any of the three films I just mentioned. Instead, I’m focusing on my favorite home invasion horror flick of all time and one of the best horror films of the 2000s: The Collector. 

Film Land - What's Next for The Conjuring?

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This weekend marked the return of Ed and Lorraine Warren to the box office scene with The Conjuring 2.  The follow up to 2013’s shock horror smash dominated the box office over the weekend, crushing Warcraft in totals, and cementing The Conjuring as the latest dynamite horror franchise of the 2010s alongside Insidious and The Purge. 

Given that monster success and the low cost of the films to produce, a spin-off film entitled The Nun is already in production and a 3^rd film is entering the discussion phase.  However, a third movie would raise a lot of questions this time around in terms of setting, antagonist, characters, plot, and creative team.  Thankfully, I’ve broken these issues down into 6 central questions about what’s next for the Conjuring films.