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It’s been several years since I graduated from college, so I’m unqualified to say with certainty whether or not it’s a regular occurrence for today’s savvy students to bond over their love of Ashlee Simpson, whose last album came out before some of them were born.

This unexpected celebration of the “Pieces of Me” auteur is one of several moments in Benito Skinner’s new Amazon comedy Overcompensating that feel not exactly “wrong,” but more appropriate for juvenile millennials than Zoomers. Almost every pop culture reference in Overcompensating, including extended nods to Twilight, Glee and the reappropriated Megan Fox classic Jennifer’s Body, comes across, at best, as a thing that the main characters might have discovered from their much older siblings. Or parents.

It all fits because the cast of Overcompensating projects, top to bottom, as several years older than the characters they’re playing, a...

Time is ticking, and there’s too much on the line. Yet, fans fail to see any real progress in finding the culprit in Lazarus. The latest episode of the anime (episode 6) was hollow to say the least. The episode led to no plot progression, and the stakes didn’t feel nearly as high as they should have been.

The episode began with the hope that the team was closer to finding Skinner. They thought they had pinpointed his location. Yet, by the end of it, nothing added up to any real progress. The anime is already halfway i,n and nothing about the characters is any different.

Episode 6 of Lazarus decided to waste even more time

Episode 6 of Lazarus was supposed to reveal some crucial information about Skinner, if not find him already. Instead, viewers received a spinoff about a deranged cult. Of course, even cults can be done incredibly well,...

Spoiler Alert !!!This article contains spoilers for Lazarus Episode 5.

Fight scenes aside, Lazarus is an underwhelming mess of a story that feels like it’s setting up something big but might not be. I shouldn’t feel as bored as I am because, on paper, the concept seems really nice. Axel, the king of parkour, is jumping off skyscrapers to catch helicopters in one episode and beating people up in an elevator in the next. It works, but only to an extent.

Everything that made it feel so compelling now just makes it feel utterly bland, not to mention that it is so buried in its own chaos that the actual story just gets lost. The previous episode was something I could get on board with. The entire dance fight with Axel and Chris was something I would dream of reading in fan fiction. Then I woke up.

Lazarus has...

Warning: This article contains Spoilers for The Simpsons season 36, episode 7, "Treehouse of Horror Presents Simpsons Wicked This Way Comes"

Although The Simpsons has mined thirty years of drama and comedy from one recurring feud, season 36 ended this storyline with a hilariously unexpected twist. The Simpsons season 37’s renewal might not have been announced yet, but the show’s future still seems pretty positive. From Vulture to YouTube, critics across the Internet have dubbed The Simpsons “Good again” thanks to the uptick in writing quality found throughout seasons 34 and 35. While The Simpsons’ worst changes saw the show’s decline begin as far back as season 11, seasons 34-36 have earned praise for their renowned focus on character.

Related The Simpsons Season 36’s Parody Of Margot Robbie's Barbie Repeats An Annoying Problem

The Simpsons season 36 parodied Margot Robbie's blockbuster Barbie, but the show's spoof of the huge hit ran into an all too familiar problem.

Benito Skinner is digging deep for his starring TV debut.

The actor and comedian recently opened up about Overcompensating, his upcoming Prime Video series in which he plays “a version of myself in the closet” during his college years.

“I’m so excited. I just got back,” said Skinner while appearing on Jake Shane’s Therapuss podcast. “It was a really, truly unbelievable experience. I feel like I learned so much about myself and the way I make things, and I was so inspired by working with the cast.

“I just dissociated so many times because I would be like, ‘I wrote this scene four and half years ago and now I’m seeing an actor that I have respected my whole life doing it, and I’m kind of me but not really me and Mary Beth [Barone] kind of looks like my sister but it’s not really her,...

Warning: This article contains Spoilers for The Simpsons season 36, episode 1

Although he is often blamed for heralding the end of the shows Golden Age, The Simpsons season 36, episode 1 brought back one of its most controversial supporting characters ever. The Simpsons has been on the air for over 35 years and, in this time, its critical decline has been well documented. It is broadly agreed that the so-called Golden Age of The Simpsons began around season 3 and ended before season 12, meaning 23 of the shows seasons arrived after its peak. Despite this, recent years have seen YouTube creators and critics like Vulture's Jesse David Fox alike question whether The Simpsons is good again.

Related The Simpsons Season 36s Exciting Treehouse of Horror Experiment Revives A Classic Golden Age Trend

The Simpsons season 36's Treehouse of Horror special promises to bring back something that made the show's Halloween episodes iconic decades ago.

Seasons 34 and...

Exclusive: Prime Video’s Overcompensating has added to its cast with 9 including Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights), Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks), Kaia Gerber (Palm Royale), Julia Shiplett (Love Life), Tommy Do (Miracle Workers), Alexandra Beaton (Luckiest Girl Alive), Claire Qute (The Detail), Elias Azimi and Maddie Phillips (Gen V).

From creator, writer, executive producer and star Benito Skinner, Overcompensating is a college-set ensemble comedy about the wild, chaotic journey of Benny (Skinner), a closeted former football player and homecoming king, watching as he becomes fast friends with Carmen (Baram), a high school outsider on a mission to fit in at all costs. With guidance from Benny’s older sister (Barone) and her campus-legend boyfriend (Dimarco), Benny and Carmen juggle horrible hookups, flavored vodka, and fake IDs. The show explores the lengths to which we all overcompensate while on the path to finding out who we really are.

Britton plays Kathryn,...

After introducing readers to the masked convention slasher known as Killr™ last fall, Stephen Graham Jones, Joshua Viola, and Ben Matsuya are teaming up to bring readers back to the Colorado Festival of Horror for another round of killer cosplay in True Believers #2. Once again featuring star-studded cameos and plenty of murderous mayhem, True Believers #2 is coming soon to Kickstarter via Hex Publishers, and we're thrilled to exclusively reveal that Trivium vocalist and guitarist Matthew Kiichi Heafy will appear in the second issue, and we also have a reveal of the new variant cover by Luigi Scarcella!

Below, we have the official press release and exclusive variant cover art reveal, and to support True Believers #2, be sure to keep an eye on the comic book's official Kickstarter page:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hexpublishers/true-believers-2-a-horror-cosplay-comic-book?ref=4cf9gc

Also, to learn more about True Believers, watch Jonathan James' previous...

Star Wars Rebels introduces characters that have a significant impact on upcoming Star Wars TV shows, bridging the gap between The Clone Wars and the original trilogy. The show's voice cast includes seasoned actors who have brought these characters to life, such as Taylor Gray as Ezra Bridger and Freddie Prinze Jr. as Kanan Jarrus. The ending of Rebels has important implications for the future of the Star Wars galaxy, with its story impacting upcoming movies in the New Republic era and characters continuing their journey in Ahsoka season 2.

Star Wars Rebels' voice cast brought to life one of the first Star Wars projects released by Disney, telling the compelling story of a found family in the midst of the Empire's reign. Introducing characters who will continue to impact upcoming Star Wars TV shows, Rebels’ Ghost crew transitioned from low-level nuisances on the planet of Lothal to full-blown rebels that...

The Simpsons' "Golden Age" of seasons 3 to 10 was known for its constant rewriting and improvisation, which contributed to the show's success. Actors Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer improvised a memorable scene in season 4, leading to an iconic running gag between Skinner and Chalmers. Skinner and Chalmers' absurd relationship and Skinner's penchant for elaborate lies continued to be a recurring theme throughout the show's 36 seasons.

While The Simpsons had some of the best writing in TV history, one beloved sequence was inspired by two actors improvising. The Simpsons enjoyed a huge amount of critical acclaim and mainstream popularity during the show’s peak. Running from around seasons 3 to 10, the so-called “Golden Age” of The Simpsons was lauded at the time and is now looked back on as one of the most influential eras in television comedy history. The show’s success was largely down to a culture of constant rewriting, with...

Found in your local “Shower After Watching” section of the suspicious flea market around the corner is 1993’s Skinner. And it’s probably the only movie in that bin to feature an acting performance from daytime talk show host Ricki Lake. Seriously.

This little piece of rarely spoken about horror history is one part Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and one-part uncategorizable madness that I’m semi-shocked is still available to watch at all, much less to be reached in an instant on Tubi.

In the film, directed by feature director turned porn director Ivan Nagy, Dennis Skinner (the great Ted Raimi) is an active serial killer who murders mostly prostitutes and then skins them, stitches them back together and wears them while talking about his childhood and saying things like “This really is the clothing…..for a divine soul.”

Skinner darkens the doorway of Kerry Tate (Ricki Lake...

The artist known as Skinner paid loving tribute to the horror comics of yesteryear with his brand new horror comics anthology magazine Skin Crawl Magazine last year, a project that was fan funded through Kickstarter. Skinner is back on the road to Halloween with Skin Crawl Issue #2, a giant-sized follow-up issue that’s also now funding via Kickstarter.

The upcoming Skin Crawl Issue #2 will feature a whopping 96 pages – that’s 32 more pages than the first issue – and it’s packed with four brand new tales of horror from Skinner.

Skinner explains, “I went all out to bring you an even higher level of quality And quantity since last time. I got Eisner nominated colorists to blast this thing into another dimension of sights and Color!”

Skin Crawl Issue #2 will feature “a 33 page adaptation of the fantasy horror epic, The Seven Geases, by Clark Ashton Smith; a Cosmic Odyssey aka Jack Kirby called,...

101 Films Black Label presents David Cronenberg’s Rabid on two-disc UK Blu-ray 26 August and lost 90s horror Skinner of UK dual-format 23 September Rabid 101 Films is proud to present Rabid, the enduringly tense and gruesome horror that marked a landmark in David Cronenberg’s early career.When Rose suffers terrible injuries …

The post David Cronenberg’s Rabid (26 Aug) & lost 90s horror Skinner (23 Sept) head to UK Blu-ray from 101 Films Black Label appeared first on Hnn | Horrornews.net.

101 Black Films has announced that they will be releasing Blu-ray special editions of David Cronenberg’s 1977 film Rabid as well as Ivan Nagy’s 1993 film Skinner, which was thought to be a lost film. The former will be released on August 26 while the latter hits shelves on September 23. Both releases come packed […] The post 101 Black Films Announces UK Blu-rays For Cronenberg’s Rabid And Nagy’s Skinner appeared first on Dread Central.

The early ’90s were an interesting time for horror; theatrical distribution was wanting, and what films were made mostly found themselves victims of the direct-to-video route. I shouldn’t say victims; they were still made for those cruising the video store aisles in need of the latest adrenaline fix of terror. One film of the era that received extra attention was Skinner (1993), but not necessarily due to content; no, it turns out that director Ivan Nagy was at the time the boyfriend of the notorious Hollywood Madam, Heidi Fleiss. Had audiences paid closer attention to the film than the gossip rags, they would have been privy to a somewhat disjointed yet interesting flick. Thanks to Severin Films, everyone has a chance to see what all the fuss is about with another stellar Blu-ray release.

Meet Dennis Skinner (Ted Raimi – Deadwax); your average, run-of-the-mill nice guy who just happens to walk...

Last month, Samsung announced they would no longer produce Blu-ray players. It gave physical media fans – like me, and presumably you, if you’re reading this column – pause. The reasoning could be because Samsung’s 4K technology has been subpar in compared to others. Or it could spell the beginning of the end – a […]

The post New Blu-ray Releases: ‘Creed II’, ‘The Favourite’, ‘The Craft’, ‘Burning’, ‘Skinner’, ‘The Standoff at Sparrow Creek’, ‘Between Worlds’ appeared first on /Film.

“I know you think I’m crazy, but it’s not me, it’s the world. The world’s gone mad.” Sounds like something any one of us could say on any given day of the week, but those words kick off an extended midseason trailer for The X Files.

The three-minute clip includes new footage from the next five episodes, including tonight’s episode, written and directed by Darin Morgan, as well as the Feb. 7 “Skinner”-centric episode guest-starring Haley Joel Osment.

From creator and executive producer Chris Carter The X-Files stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, along with Mitch Pileggi as FBI Asst. Director Walter Skinner.

In tonight’s episode “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat,” the idea of The Mandela Effect, in which large groups of people remember an alternate history, is explored as Mulder (Duchovny) and Scully (Anderson...

Afm 2013 came to a close yesterday, but we still have a few tales to tell from the huge event... such as the latest on Hitchhiker Massacre, which debuted a new trailer and poster art at the show, both of which we have right here!

Retrofocus Pictures' slasher horror film Hitchhiker Massacre is directed by James L. Bills (Refuge of Last Resort) and produced by J. Horton (Monsters in the Woods, Edges of Darkness). Retrofocus is the brainchild of executive producer Ivan Nagy, who created the HBO series "The Hitchhiker" and directed Skinner.

The film stars Ely Lamay, Calista Carradine, John Barrymore, James Bartholet, Veronica Lavery, and Katherine Cronyn.

"Hitchhiker Massacre is a love letter to the slasher flicks I loved as a kid: Friday the 13th, Halloween, The Toolbox Murders, The Slumber Party Massacre. Gone is the self-referential, jokey comedy that infected so much horror post-Scream. I just wanted to make an honest,...

The grindhouse slasher Hitchhiker Massacre is currently at the American Film Market, in Santa Monica. Here, the film, from producers Jason Horton (Edges of Darkness) and Ivan Nagy (Skinner), is showing to distributors. The film has also released a second trailer at the event. The clip shows more of the film's bare bones story and it focuses on what matters, bloodshed! Also, Hitchhiker Massacre stars John Barrymore, Calista Carradine, Playboy Playmate Veronica Lavery, Ely Lamay and Stephanie Gerard. The film begins with Sally (Lamay). She wants to leave her troubles behind by travelling across America. Things go wrong when Sally is picked up by a mysterious trucker. This driver is more cannibal, than good Samaritan. Now, Sally will have to fight for her life, or become just another meal. Hitchhiker Massacre is a throwback to slasher films of the past. Director James L. Bills says of the film: "[it] is a...

Director James L. Bills (Refuge of Last Resort) has recently completed work on the grindhouse slasher film Hitchhiker Massacre. This film was shot in Northern California, this year. Hitchhiker Massacre involves a roaming serial killer, who likes to serve up cannibal dishes, from those he picks up on backroads. This title was produced by Jason Horton (Edges of Darkness) and executive produced by Ivan Nagy (Skinner). As well, this title hosts an assortment of eye candy including: Playboy Playmate Veronica Lavery, Ely Lamay and Stephanie Gerard. Some of that sex appeal is shown in the film's first trailer. The film's official trailer sets that sexy tone early. Hitchhikers in booty shorts are the order of the day. As well, the clip shows a little of the gore that takes place after dark, in an isolated campground. Some strange culinary arts are also revealed in the film's first trailer. Hitchhiker Massacre...

Horror shorts anthology Obits will be having its world premiere during the 10th annual Screamfest La Film Festival on Saturday, October 9th, and one of the project's co-directors, Paul Hart-Wilden, sent over some stills and the basic plot outlines for all four of the installments.

Obits, which was filmed on location in Indianapolis, Indiana, was written by Rob Bola (Fake I.D.) and directed by Joel Umbaugh (Fake I.D.) and Paul Hart-Wilden (screenwriter of Living Doll, Skinner, and Alone and producer/screenwriter of the upcoming Wolf Town). Stars include Nova White, Kaleigh Howland, Marc Szewczyk, Danielle Ireland, Kelly Kruthaupt, Melissa Fenton, and Ladonna Pettijohn

An homage to the horror anthology movie, Obits is comprised of four chapters:

"The Pack" (directed by Paul Hart-Wilden) - Life on the run in a world under siege from werewolf-like creatures. "See No Evil" (directed by Joel Umbaugh) - A blind man wakes up beside his dead wife.

In writer / producer Paul Hart-Wilden's 'Wolf Town', Kyle (Levi Fiehler from Charles Bands's Puppet Master: Axis of Evil) a shy college student finds himself and three of his friends (Alicia Ziegler, Josh Kelly, and Max Adler) trapped in an old western ghost town by a pack of ferocious wolves and has to overcome his personal fears to confront the wolves and lead his friends to safety. Wolf Town is directed by John Rebel with Todd Ramsay (The Thing, Escape From New York) editing. Here's what Paul Hart-Wilden (Skinner) had to say on Wolf Town.

So who is Paul Hart-Wilden and what is he all about?

Hmmm… good question. Essentially, all about making movies. That’s pretty much the all and everything of it. I’ve spent my entire career and life since the age of about 14 wanting nothing else but to make movies and doing everything I...

The writer, comedian and original lad has moved in and out of the spotlight over the years. His controversial new comic movie will ensure he's centre stage once more

As cameras rolled on the set of the new film comedy The Infidel, the screenwriter could be spotted hunched over a state-of-the-art laptop in a dark corner. Director Josh Appignanesi was intrigued. "It is a bit late to alter the script," he called over. But far from refining comic dialogue for the actors working around him, David Baddiel was deep into his next project. "I am working on my depressing novel," came the reply.

For around 20 years now, the 45-year-old writer has darted in and out of popular consciousness like a restless moth. Here is a man who longs to shelter in obscurity just when he is faced with the glare of publicity and who, conversely, is never more keen to...