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. 

The Belko Experiment Trailer Analysis

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Let’s talk about James Gunn.  Before 2014’s smash hit Guardians of the Galaxy Gunn was a bit of an unknown.  He had made a few good movies, most notably Super and Slither which undoubtedly endeared him to the film geek in everyone’s life, but he wasn’t necessarily a sought after auteur filmmaker.  That’s been true of a lot of Marvel’s collection of misfit and maverick directors, with the most common thread being a cult success like Joss Whedon’s Firefly or the Russo Brother’s work on Community. 

Now, however, Gunn is a name in Hollywood, and that means he’s got the kind of clout to do what he wants now.  Most Marvel directors go through this period, some coming out stronger like Jon Favreau giving us Chef and The Jungle Book while others squander the chance, like Alan Taylor following up Thor: The Dark World with Terminator Genisys.  As for Gunn, while Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is on his plate, his real follow-up effort has taken the form of a grimy horror flick called The Belko Experiment. 

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 Purge?

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Edited by Robert Beach

This weekend, The Purge enjoyed its third major success with Election Year, the latest film in the shockingly successful franchise. The series, based around a dark future in which all crime is made legal for one night out of the year, first emerged onto the scene in 2013 to mostly tepid, yet lucrative responses. The first films was a bog-standard slasher film with no thrills or surprises and a disappointingly static location and palette. Additionally, it was made worse by the complete disinterest the movie seemed to have in its own politics. 

Then the great The Purge: Anarchy hit in 2014, an action thriller set against the slasher-apocalypse Purge Night that served as a walking tour of cool ideas and violent action. This latest installment adds a judicious helping of politics to the film’s central set-up, emphasizing the destructive price paid by the lower classes and minorities for the Purge and the way this night epitomizes predatory capitalism and class warfare. After all that and three major box office hits, I have to ask: what’s next for The Purge? Caution: spoilers to follow. 

Cover Story - Top 15 Evil Empire Covers

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This Friday marks the premiere of The Purge: Election Year, the third installment in the shockingly profitable political horror/dystopian thriller/Slasher action film series.  Yes, The Purge wears many hats but the one most key to this article is that of political horror, which this latest installment seems to be getting back to in a big way.  

There was still a socio-economic angle to the excellent Purge: Anarchy but Election Year looks to be taking the “American nightmare” set-up full force with a ton of creepy, Slasher infused American iconography punctuating pretty much all the marketing for it.  All that nightmarish Americana got me thinking about Evil Empire, a fantastic comic from BOOM Studios about the rise of anarchic fascism in the US.  

It was a great comic and my number 10 pick for the 10 best comics of 2015, it also featured a ton of spectacular covers that we’re going to showcase today.  So, with that said, let’s dive into the shallow end and get the cover story on the top 15 Evil Empire comic covers.

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. 

Film Land - The Dead Zone

Edited by Robert Beach 

In case you’re one of my international viewers not paying terribly close attention, America is in the midst of an election year, and what an election it’s shaping up to be. We actually haven’t even entered the election proper. However, we have been slowly making our way through the Democratic and Republican primaries, and we’ve already been confronted by an avalanche of nightmare candidates and idiocy that makes it seem like we’ve all been enveloped by a surrealist political satire and just didn’t realize it. 

Even though I don’t cover politics on this blog, they’re a big part of life as they inform the art and media that I do focus on here. All the terrible politics that have been clogging up the national consciousness this entire year have left me thinking a lot about the idea of political horror. It’s a strange concept, and while we’ve got a pretty good standard bearer for it now in the Purge series, there used to be only one name in this limited subgenre: The Dead Zone. 

Static Thoughts - Street Sharks

Edited by Robert Beach

I’ve been playing something of a game of catch-up with geek news lately after being pretty busy with other projects, so I know I’m quite late to the party on this particular news story: the Street Sharks. In case you’ve been as unconnected as me lately, the Street Sharks were recently at the crux of an Internet news story when some plucky cub reporter altered their Wikipedia page to suggest there was a female Street Shark to fill out the roster. 

The ‘twist’ of our story was how the entire Internet was taken in by this ruse and immediately misremembered the show as having a female member of the team, and we all shared a good belly laugh at the fallibility of the human mind (it’s a dark joke.) 

Putting aside the “haha, your mind can betray you at any minute” comedy/commentary of the gag, I think the whole thing brings up a pretty interesting subject that’s been on my mind for a couple of years now, which is the incredibly bizarre relationship nerds all seem to share with The Street Sharks. Rather than pointing and laughing at people remembering the show inaccurately, my question is this: why do we remember the Street Sharks at all? 

Film Land - The Invitation

Edited by Robert Beach 

This past weekend saw the release of The Invitation, a masterwork of directing and performance that stands as a true triumph of its genre. I was originally planning to review the film, but that’d honestly be doing it something of a disservice. See, I went into The Invitation with literally no knowledge of the film aside from a few vague tweets from critics I followed praising it. That ignorance made the experience infinitely richer and more engaging. 

Cold is honestly the best way to experience this film, so by way of review, allow me to just say it’s an absolute great, an instant classic and a high watermark for a genre that’s been turning out a lot of great entries lately. It’s full of tense moments, engaging surrealism, and a powerful emotional core; All of which is backed up by cinematography and acting in peak performance. I’ll be discussing the film’s content in great detail going forward, including spoilers. If all that appeals to you, I implore you: see The Invitation now and then finish reading this piece later.