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“Peter Hujar’s Day” has found a home.

The film, written and directed by Ira Sachs and starring Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall, made its debut at the Sundance Film Festival, where it quickly became one of the most buzzed-about titles. On Tuesday, Sideshow and Janus Films revealed they have since acquired the North American rights for the film.

Sideshow and Janus Films are eying a fall theatrical release for the movie. Sbs is handling international sales for the film, with a deal negotiated by Sideshow and Janus Films with WME Independent. It will next screen at the Berlinale in Panorama.

“Peter Hujar’s Day” was produced by Jordan Drake and Jonah Disend, and co-produced by Fred Burle and Aaron Craig. The film is a Complementary Colors, Blink Productions & Primo Content Presentation in association with We Are Films & Materia Cinema, and a Jordan Drake & One Two Films Production based on the book...

After its Sundance Film Festival premiere, Ira Sachs’ latest film, Peter Hujar’s Day, has landed at specialty distributors Sideshow and Janus Films for North America.

Peter Hujar’s Day, which is next set to screen at the Berlin Film Festival, is a word-for-word rendering of a 1974 conversation between photographer Peter Hujar and writer Linda Rosenkrantz. The back and forth is focused on Hujar recounting the entirety of his previous day’s activities, which included photographing Allen Ginsberg for The New York Times and talking about his other acquaintances in the ’70s New York art scene. Ben Whishaw stars as Hujar and Rebecca Hall as Rosenkrantz.

The Hollywood Reporter‘s review of the film called it among Sachs’ best, with critic David Rooney writing, “Led by a performance of transfixing grace and subtlety from Ben Whishaw in the title role, the diaristic film spins compacted time into something free-flowing, expansive,...

David Cronenberg has said that his new film The Shrouds – which has been making the festival rounds lately (you can read what JoBlo’s own Chris Bumbray thought of it Here) – was originally intended to be a Netflix TV series, but the streamer dropped it after paying him to write the pilot episode. So a feature film it is, and Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired all U.S. distribution rights to the film, with their plan being to give it a theatrical release sometime in the spring of 2025. We don’t know a specific release date for this one yet, but a new teaser trailer has arrived online and you can check it out in the embed above. We saw the previous teaser trailer eight months ago.

Pyramide Distribution will be giving the film a theatrical release in France on April 30th.

In The Shrouds, Vincent Cassel, who previously...

French cinema star Juliette Binoche will preside over the 78th Festival de Cannes, marking a remarkable full-circle moment in her celebrated career. The acclaimed actress has been selected as the international jury president for the 2025 festival, exactly 40 years after her breakthrough performance launched her to global stardom.

Binoche’s appointment carries deep personal significance. In 1985, she first climbed the festival’s famous steps in André Téchiné’s “Rendez-vous,” a film that catapulted her into the international spotlight. “I was born at the Festival de Cannes,” Binoche has often said, reflecting on that pivotal moment.

“In 1985, I walked up the steps for the first time with the enthusiasm and uncertainty of a young actress,” Binoche shared. “I never imagined I’d return 40 years later in the honorary role of Jury President.” She emphasized her appreciation for the responsibility, noting the need for humility in such a prestigious role.

The actress brings...

French actress Juliette Binoche has been named President of the Jury for the 2025 edition of the Cannes Film Festival in May.

The honor, which was announced on Tuesday morning Paris time, will fall exactly 40 years after the Oscar-winning The English Patient star first touched down at the festival with André Téchiné’s Palme d’Or contender Rendez-vous in 1985.

Binoche follows in the footsteps of U.S. director Greta Gerwig whose jury feted Sean Baker’s Anora with the Palme d’Or last year.

“I’m looking forward to sharing these life experiences with the members of the Jury and the public. In 1985, I walked up the steps for the first time with the enthusiasm and uncertainty of a young actress; I never imagined I’d return 40 years later in the honorary role of President of the Jury. I appreciate the privilege, the responsibility and the absolute need for humility,” said Binoche.

One of the least-expected, most welcome, and coolest surprises on Star Trek: Discovery was the ongoing, recurring presence of David Cronenberg as the mysterious character, Dr. Kovich, who first popped up in season three of the show. Cronenberg has acted on occasion over the years but is far, far better known as the director of such features as The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome, The Dead Zone, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Crash, Eastern Promises, Cosmopolis, and Crimes of the Future. And now he’s back in the director’s chair for The Shrouds, which, nearly a year after premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, will open in the United States on April 25.

Sideshow and Janus Films, which will release the film, just dropped a brief synopsis and a short teaser trailer. The synopsis reads, “Karsh (Vincent Cassel) is a prominent businessman. Inconsolable since the death of his wife, he invents GraveTech, a...

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) is allowing audiences topause, rewind and travel back to an era when video shops were at the epicentre of film culture.

The IFFR special Focus programme ’Hold Video In Your Hands’ has premieres of two new documentaries about VHS culture: Alex Ross Perry’s Videoheaven, exploring the role of VHS in US film and TV, and Gyz La Rivière’s Videotheek Marco, a tribute to the once booming Dutch video scene.

The Focus also includes movies set in video stores (Be Kind Rewind); films about video dubbing and piracy (Video Kings); some horror (The Video...

Take a look at writer/director David Cronenberg’s latest horror feature “The Shrouds”, starring Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, Guy Pearce and Sandrine Holt, with a North American theatrical release Tba:

‘…‘Karsh’, an innovative businessman and grieving widower, builds a device to connect with the dead inside a burial shroud.

“Installed at his own controversial state-of-the-art cemetery, the device enables him and his clients to watch their departed loved ones decompose in real time.

“Karsh’s morbidly revolutionary business is on the verge of breaking into the international mainstream when several graves within his cemetery, including that of his wife, are vandalized and nearly destroyed.

“While he struggles to uncover a clear motive for the attack, the mystery of who wrought this havoc, and why, drives him to re-evaluate his business, marriage, and fidelity to his late wife’s memory, and pushes him to new beginnings…”

Click the images to enlarge…...

At the controversial intersection of graphic violence in pop culture and women’s liberation in politics, you’ll find the taboo and too often overlooked subgenre of feminist body horror. In 2025, Coralie Fargeat, Demi Moore, and Margaret Qualley are changing all that with “The Substance”: a triumphant all-timer that was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director.

These extreme female-centric movies wield over-the-top gore and violence like exacting scalpels, peeling away society’s thick skin of deference and niceties to reveal an insidious underbelly of gendered violence, gendered shame, gendered betrayal, gendered hell. You’ll see flourishes of those themes in all kinds of movies, including last year’s “The First Omen” and “Alien: Romulus.” But movies like “The Substance” and Marielle Heller’s “Nightbitch” — starring Amy Adams as a young mom who shape-shifts into a dog — make a meal of them for their movie’s entire duration.

In the newest episode of Severance, Mark S. (Adam Scott) and Helly R. (Britt Lower) explore the bowels of the Lumon basement and solve a mystery that's been plaguing fans since the first season: why is there a roomful of goats in the basement of his tech company? After crawling through a long liminal duct full of poop, they found themselves in a huge, windowless room where rolling green hills were bathed in florescent light, possibly the strangest image this show has produced yet, and that's saying something.

Naturally, those hills were crawling with goats. This is the Mammalians Nurturable department, managed by the intimating Lorne (Gwendoline Christie). Christie revealed to Entertainment Weekly that she's been "obsessed with the goats" ever since watching the first season of Severance, and was "thrilled" when she found out she would get to be in charge of them in season 2. "I was actually in...

Body horror fans, get ready to be thrilled by this exciting news! David Cronenberg's latest body horror flick The Shrouds finally has a U.S. release date. When Sideshow and Janus Films picked up the U.S. rights to the film back in September 2024, the companies revealed that it would be hitting theaters in the U.S. in spring 2025. That meant anywhere between March and June. Now, we have an official release date for its U.S. theatrical debut!

Before hitting theaters nationwide, The Shrouds will be released on Friday, April 18, 2025, in New York and Los Angeles. Then, on Friday, April 25, the body horror will be available in theaters across the country. Don't forget to mark your calendar because you won't want to miss this latest chilling creation from David Cronenberg.

If you're familiar with Cronenberg's previous work, you'd know that he's in no way new to the body horror subgenre.

"How dark are you willing to go?" Janus Films has revealed another brand new US teaser trailer for The Shrouds, the latest feature film made by genre mastermind David Cronenberg. This originally premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival last year, earning mixed reviews from critics at the fest. "The Shrouds centers on Karsh, a prominent businessman. Inconsolable since the death of his wife, he invents GraveTech – a revolutionary and controversial technology that enables the living to monitor their dear departed in their shrouds. One night, multiple graves, including that of Karsh's wife, are desecrated. Karsh sets out to track down the perpetrators." It's inspired by the idea of having a permanent connection with the dead, but goes beyond that as Cronenberg explains his own "shrouds" are "cinematic devices" and calls this as "cemetery cinema." Starring Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, Guy Pearce, and Sandrine Holt. The mysterious, macabre thriller about the...

At long last, David Cronenberg‘s latest will hit US theaters this Spring. And a new film from the body horror maestro himself may always cause for celebration, but “The Shrouds” feels particularly special.

Read More: ‘The Shrouds’ Review: David Cronenberg Digs Into The Core Of How Messy Grief Can Be [Cannes]

Why’s that? Well, it may be Cronenberg at his most personal. Written by the director after his wife’s death, “The Shrouds” is a profound personal reckoning with grief done with Cronenberg’s signature clinical and ominous flair.

Continue reading ‘The Shrouds’ Teaser: David Cronenberg’s Latest Finally Hits Theaters Everywhere On April 25 at The Playlist.

After acquiring horror master David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds after the film’s North American premiere at TIFF, Sideshow and Janus Films has set a Spring release date, Deadline reports today.

The Shrouds will open on April 18 in New York and Los Angeles, before expanding nationwide on April 25, 2025.

Vincent Cassel (Irreversible, Eastern Promises) stars alongside Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds), Guy Pearce (Memento) and Sandrine Holt (“Fear the Walking Dead”).

In the film, “Karsh (Cassel) is a prominent businessman. Inconsolable since the death of his wife, he invents GraveTech, a revolutionary and controversial technology that enables the living to monitor their dear departed in their shrouds. One night, multiple graves, including that of Karsh’s wife, are desecrated. Karsh sets out to track down the perpetrators.”

As Joe Lipsett wrote in his review, we can expect The Shrouds to be among Cronenberg’s more personal works. Lipsett writes, “Cronenberg is on...

After his long-awaited return with Crimes of the Future, David Cronenberg returned last year to the festival circuit with The Shrouds, a darkly funny conspiracy thriller led by Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, and newly minted Oscar nominee Guy Pearce. Picked up by Sideshow and Janus Films, they’ve now announced the Cannes, TIFF, and NYFF selection will open in NY and LA on April 18 followed by a nationwide release on April 25.

Here’s the synopsis: “Karsh (Vincent Cassel) is a prominent businessman. Inconsolable since the death of his wife, he invents GraveTech, a revolutionary and controversial technology that enables the living to monitor their dear departed in their shrouds. One night, multiple graves, including that of Karsh’s wife, are desecrated. Karsh sets out to track down the perpetrators.”

Rory O’Connor said in our Cannes review, “David Cronenberg’s films have often imagined a future where technology would find a way into our collective id.

Exclusive: Sideshow and Janus Films will release The Shrouds, written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, Academy Award nominee Guy Pearce and Sandrine Holt on Friday, April 18 in New York and Los Angeles.

It will expand nationwide on Friday, April 25. See the latest teaser here.

The film had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival where it screened In Competition and subsequently played at the Toronto International Film Festival and New York Film Festival.

Producers of the film are Saïd Ben Saïd, Martin Katz and Anthony Vaccarello for Saint Laurent. It is an Sbs, Prospero Pictures & Saint Laurent Productions Film with the participation of Telefilm Canada, Eurimages, Ontario Creates in association with Sphere Films, Crave & CBC Films with the support of Canal +, Ocs & the Centre National du Cinema et de L’image Animée.

Karsh (Cassel) is a prominent businessman.

After the better part of a year on the festival circuit, the latest David Cronenberg picture is finally becoming available for everyone else. Well, almost. Sideshow and Janus Films announced this morning that The Shrouds will open in New York and Los Angeles on April 18, followed by a nationwide release...

Please see Second Sight Films’ new release announcement herewith for David Cronenberg’s The Brood Limited Edition 4K Uhd/ Blu-ray Box Set. Please do get in touch to request previews. One of the most introspective and grotesque features from maestro of horror David Cronenberg, The Brood finally gets its highly …

The post David Cronenberg’s ‘The Brood’ set for Limited Edition 4K Uhd/ Blu-ray Box Set from Second Sight Films on 31 March 2025 appeared first on Horror News | Hnn.

Exclusive: HanWay Films has expanded its classics library after being appointed to represent The Cohen Film Collection.

The library of Cohen Media Group’s founder, Charles S. Cohen, comprises more than one hundred restored classic titles spanning from the silent era to the present day, including The Buster Keaton Collection and The Merchant Ivory Collection.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed and Cohen Media Group is the owner of HanWay, having acquired the company in 2022.

Late last year Charles Cohen’s media group hit choppy waters when the company was forced to sell multiple assets including British arthouse exhibitor and distributor Curzon to Fortress Investment Group. The company was acquired in a foreclosure auction involving multiple Cohen assets, including the Landmark cinema chain. Fortress had lent Cohen $534M but sued him last year for default. Cohen acquired Curzon in late 2019 amid a buying spree by the U.S. real estate developer.

Peter Jackson clearly failed to recreate his Lord of the Rings magic with The Hobbit trilogy. Viggo Mortensen, who played Aragorn in the earlier film trilogy, had no role in The Hobbit films. However, prior to the release of the Martin Freeman-starring first film, Mortensen expressed his one doubt about Jackson’s second film series in J.R.R. Tolkien’s universe.

Martin Freeman in a still from The Hobbit films | Credits: Warner Bros. Pictures

Mortensen’s doubt turned out to be valid as that one thing became the trilogy’s biggest enemy. Jackson tried to emulate the success of The Lord of the Rings but made a big misstep when he tried to follow the three-film format of the earlier film series to these prequel films.

Viggo Mortensen had doubts about Peter Jackson’s misstep in The Hobbit trilogy Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings films...

Body horror is having a moment. “Together” is a squishy, fleshy, scream-worthy body horror movie that premiered at Sundance under the festival’s Midnight banner, which means that it’s basically allowed to be the opposite of everything most Sundance movies are. It’s the rare film-festival horror film that could wind up playing in megaplexes, the way “The Substance” did. Not that it’s nearly as good; this is more of an over-the-top roller-coaster acid-trip if-it-looks-weird-do-it freak-out of a movie.

Yet it’s fun (in a rather bumptious way), it stars two very good actors playing a couple who have as many issues as couples in real life do, and it works as a totally unhinged yet far from mindless thriller built around a Big Idea. When it was over, I thought: This is the sort of movie David Cronenberg would have been making if he were less of...

Exclusive: Sean Baker’s latest Anora has won Best Picture at this year’s Online Film Critics Society Awards. Scroll down for the full list of winners.

Anora also won Best Actress for star Mikey Madison and Best Screenplay while Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance also took home three awards for Best Director, and Best Supporting Actress for Margaret Qualley alongside a Technical Achievement Award for Makeup/Hairstyling.

Comprised of nearly 300 voting members from around the world, the Online Film Critics Society was founded in 1997. Members include writers from outlets such as Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Slant, Paste Magazine, AARP, and Sight & Sound.

In addition to the 2024 top film honors, the Online Film Critics Society hands out Special Achievement and Lifetime Achievement Awards. This year the body honors Ava DuVernay with a Special Achievement Award for her “brilliant work and for supporting a new generation of female filmmakers.” This year...

The Ugly Stepsister, Blichtfeldt’s debut feature — which premiered at Sundance and will screen in the Panorama section at the Berlinale — reframes the classic fairy tale through the Pov of Cinderella’s sibling and her horrifying quest to achieve the beauty she sees as required for love and acceptance.

Taking equal parts inspiration from the Brothers Grimm — whose version of Cinderella includes the stepsisters mutilating their feet to fit the famed slipper and fool the prince — and from the visceral gore of David Cronenberg, Blichtfeldt’s film is a further addition to a new wave of feminist body horror and would make a nice double bill with Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance. In place of the high-tech, Ozymepic-esque injections Demi Moore subjects herself to in Fargeat’s film, we have a low-tech parasite, in the form of a tapeworm egg which the stepsister Elvira (Lea Myren) swallows to make her thin.

With the exception of how Young Frankenstein scared the hell out of Homer Simpson —

— Mel Brooks’ directorial output isn’t known for being terribly creepy. But his filmography as a producer is a whole other story.

In the ‘80s and ‘90s, Brooks’ production company Brooksfilms was behind a number of disturbing movies, including David Lynch’s The Elephant Man, the grave-robbing drama The Doctor and the Devils and The Vagrant, a horror-comedy about a yuppie who’s terrorized by an unhoused man.

But perhaps most shockingly, Brooks also produced David Cronenberg’s 1986 body horror classic The Fly. In fact, Brooks ended up saving the project after 20th Century Fox read the script and decided to withdraw funding. Brooksfilms stepped in to finance the picture, with Fox agreeing to distribute it.

As the director revealed in an interview published in Cronenberg on Cronenberg, Brooks was thrilled about having the freedom to...

While the likes of David Cronenberg’s Videodrome and Steven Lisberger’s Tron have examined the thrills and fears of humanity’s relationship with screens since the early ‘80s, there’s been a recent, renewed interest as the number of screens in one’s life has ever-expanded. At last year’s Sundance Film Festival, Jane Schoebruen explored identity-forming bonds with media and the eventual curdling nostalgia with I Saw the TV Glow. This year, Obex finds Albert Birney following Strawberry Mansion with another inventive and lo-fi adventure, but one that finds the director honing in with a more satisfying focus. Even though our main character spends every waking moment in front of a screen, this is no damning screed but an earnest, even poignant look at how entertainment can provide a sense of comfort for the most lonely souls.

It’s 1987 in Baltimore, an unlucky year in which 17-year cicadas...

Filmmaker / musician Chris Alexander is the former editor-in-chief of Fangoria magazine, the co-founder/editor of Delirium magazine, and he wrote the book Corman/Poe. Now, he’s teaming with Headpress Publishing to send his new book Art! Trash! Terror!: Adventures in Strange Cinema out into the world. The book has a release date of March 15th (you can pre-order copies on Amazon at This Link), but the launch event is set to take place at Dark Delicacies in Burbank, California and the Cinelounge Sunset theatre in Hollywood, California this weekend!

Art! Trash! Terror! has a page count of 460. The official description says it’s a treasure trove of in-depth essays and edifying interviews that celebrate some of the most eccentric and unforgettable movies in cult cinema history. From recognized classics to misunderstood masterpieces to unfairly maligned curios, the author takes an alternately serious and playful but always personal look...

It’s tough times out there for a feminist body horror fairy tale in a newly post-“Substance” filmmaking world. Coralie Fargeat’s gory parable of the abyss of self-loathing at the center of women’s society-stoked quest for beauty upped the stakes in terms of the genre’s potential cultural reach.

But female genre directors have been responding to impossible, often body-contorting standards of beauty for decades. Enter Norwegian filmmaker Emilie Blichfeldt, who makes her gruesome entrée into that movement with her playfully grotesque feature debut “The Ugly Stepsister.” One character’s name being Sophie von Kronenberg in this stylized gothic retelling of the Grimm Brothers’ spin on Cinderella should offer enough portent for where the film is heading in all its nose-breaking, flesh-eating, tapeworm-infested grandeur.

“The Ugly Stepsister” begins with the tragically forced communion of two families as the brace-faced, ringleted Elvira (Lea Myren) arrives via carriage at a Victorian estate in Sweden.

When we discuss Hollywood flops, it's important to stress that the term "flop" has nothing to do with the quality of the film. It's strictly about the movie's extreme financial failure. Francis Ford Coppola's "One from the Heart" was a massive flop, but, over 40 years later, it's now considered by many to be an artistic triumph (something to keep in mind as we move further away from the wipeout of 2024's "Megalopolis"). Brian De Palma's "Casualties of War" was a costly bomb for the legendary filmmaker, but the movie received rave reviews at the time and still stands as one of the greatest Vietnam War films ever made. And while Michael Lehmann's "Hudson Hawk" might've thrown a dent into Bruce Willis' commercial reputation, people with exquisite taste have come to recognize its anarchic genius.

When a non-franchise movie flops, my initial instinct is to find a way to stick up for it,...

February is shaping up to be an exciting month for horror fans as Nyx UK unveils a packed lineup celebrating the genre’s most influential creators and iconic creatures. Women in Horror Week (10–16 February) will spotlight the extraordinary contributions of female filmmakers, while Zombie Week (3–9 February) takes viewers on a chilling journey through the legacy of the living dead. These programmes highlight Nyx UK’s commitment to delivering expertly curated horror content that captivates and terrifies in equal measure.

Women in Horror Week: A Tribute to Trailblazers

Kicking off on 10 February, Women in Horror Week showcases films directed by some of the genre’s most innovative female voices. Axelle Carolyn opens the event with Soulmate (2013), a gothic tale of grief and the supernatural. On 11 February, Marina de Van’s psychological horror Dark Touch (2013) explores trauma with supernatural undertones, creating a deeply unsettling experience.

Ida Lupino’s groundbreaking noir classic The Hitch-Hiker (1953) screens on 12 February,...

Scanners is the cornerstone of 1980s horror/sci-fi and a breakthrough for the now legendary director David Cronenberg, now the seminal shocker is set a mind-blowing Limited Edition makeover from experts in the field, Second Sight Films, this March. Second Sight Films announce the brand-new Scanners Limited Edition 4K/Uhd …

The post David Cronenberg’s ‘Scanners’ set for Dual Limited Edition release from Second Sight Films ‘So good, it’ll blow your mind’ released 31 March 2025 appeared first on Horror News | Hnn.

The Possession episode of Revisited was Written and Narrated by Vannah Taylor, Edited by Paul Bookstaber, Produced by Tyler Nichols and John Fallon, and Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian.

Critics once called it “too vulgar for arthouse, too pretentious for grindhouse.” A body horror film that’s not really horror, the most depressing break-up movie, a socio-political drama that ends in apocalyptic hysteria. It is hard to believe that this is all contained into one film. The most bizarre psychological thriller you can lay your eyes on is a horrifying and captivating film that oozes chaos and defies categorization: Andrzej Zulawski’s 1981 cult film, Possession.

Zulawski was a Polish film director born in Soviet Ukraine but moved to France after his film The Devil was banned by the Polish government and landed him in jail. His next film was again halted by authorities, causing him to lose his right to...

Thanks to a fluke in Night of the Living Dead’s original copyright notice, the modern concept of “zombies” has been in the public domain since the release of Romero’s masterpiece back in 1968. That’s why it’s no surprise that so many filmmakers have gone on to reappropriate and update these undead flesh-eaters for new audiences, often changing their mythology and behavior in order to better suit their respective stories.

Naturally, some takes on these shambling corpses are stranger than others, and that’s why we’ve decided to compile a list celebrating six of the weirdest zombies in horror movies. After all, when it comes to breaking the rules, no one does it better than the horror genre!

Before we begin, I think it’s worth noting that we’ll defining “zombie” as any form of cannibalistic ghoul derived from an infectious outbreak – so there’s no...

Ever since the invention of splicing and clever camera trickery, there have been instances of utilizing the same actor to portray a set of twins in film. Some talented twins have played the roles individually, notably Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, and Tia and Tamera Mowry. However, sometimes, it's even more exciting when the roles are played by just one person. This allows the actor to showcase their varied abilities and gives audiences an extra layer of excitement as they try and figure out just how the directors were able to pull off the switch.

What's also interesting is that, quite often, these two twins represent very different types of people. Whether one is more creative and the other more logical, one very privileged and the other having to face more disadvantages, or even one good, one evil, there are countless tropes that get to be explored. Films with twins played...

When Jack Nicholson starred in Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of "The Shining," the horror stigma surrounding Stephen King temporarily disappeared in Hollywood. Though he tended to write pulpy, gory fictions, if the A-list team of Kubrick and Nicholson deemed his material worthy of a major motion picture, perhaps there was box office and awards glory to be mined from his other books (which the prolific author was pumping out at an astonishing pace).

This notion would be challenged something fierce throughout the 1980s. While esteemed directors like David Cronenberg and Rob Reiner earned favorable reviews for, respectively, "The Dead Zone" and "Stand by Me," critics had little use for "Cujo," "Firestarter," "Children of the Corn," "Silver Bullet," "Pet Sematary," and the King-directed "Maximum Overdrive." Really, if not for Reiner's "Stand by Me," the prestige-picture potential of a King tale might've been blotted out completely.

This was the Hollywood state...

From creating the “Saw” franchise alongside James Wan to revitalizing the monster-movie genre with his critical and financial hit “The Invisible Man,” Leigh Whannell has been tapping into our fears for over two decades, and his latest star, Julia Garner, believes he’s done it again with “Wolf Man.” Not only that, but that he’s gone further than ever before.

In a recent interview with ScreenRant, Garner shared that Whannell’s “Wolf Man” sources more terror than previous iterations by making the transformation from man to wolf part of the journey. In the film, Garner’s character is forced watch in alarm as her husband (Christopher Abbott) starts to become a beast, both physically and emotionally — like a disease slowly taking hold.

“It’s more scary when it is a slower transition because I still recognized little elements of Chris,” said Garner. “His skin and his hair was changing,...

Wolf Man is now playing in theaters in most major markets worldwide, and we're delving into the horror reboot's intense final act while touching on how this latest take on the classic Universal Monster differs from other versions of the terrifying tale.

Spoilers follow.

The movie begins with an overprotective (borderline abusive) father taking his young son hunting in the dense Oregon woods. After an encounter with an unseen creature, the man becomes obsessed with tracking the monster down.

We then jump forward 30 years, as Blake Lovell (Christopher Abbott) receives a letter informing him that his estranged father has legally been declared dead after going missing in the woods years earlier. Blake convinces his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) and daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth) to accompany him to his dad's secluded house to pack up his belongings.

After swerving to avoid a shadowy figure standing in the middle of the road,...

For years, one Stephen King short story has been begging for an adaptation, but, more than any other of the author's stories, its success will hinge entirely upon nailing the casting. There are several Stephen King short stories absolutely begging for an adaptation, whether as a movie or as a TV show. The best Stephen King short story collections hit like a gut punch, with a galaxy of interesting ideas and terrifying concepts delivered in bite-sized pieces.

While he has rarely had a bad short story, some stand out more than others for their shocking twists or brilliant execution, such as Stephen King's "The Jaunt," lauded by many as his most haunting short story. While his short stories can be tricky to adapt and maintain the overall tone or punch of the premise, when they're executed well, they make for great on-screen translations. One such story would be really challenging to adapt,...

Having already tackled one of the biggest villains in Universal Studio’s Mount Rushmore of Monsters, Leigh Whannell returns to battle the beast in Wolf Man (2025). Remaking a classic is never an easy task but, as with Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu (2024) and really any picture that’s has been worked and re-worked so many times, it’s less about the painting itself and more about how the artist decides to fill the space inside the lines. For better or worse, Whannell and co-writer Corbett Tuck find new ground to recontextualize the classic story for a modern audience, using themes and motifs from the contemporary horror playbook in an attempt to make these monsters of yesteryear feel universal once more.

Wolf Man (2025) stars Julia Garner (Apartment 7A) and Christopher Abbott (Possessor) as Blake & Charlotte, a couple on the verge of collapse. In an attempt to rekindle the fire of their family bond,...

A Different Man, The Substance, Wolf Man… Body horror films have seen a sudden surge in Hollywood. We take a look at why that might be.

The human body has long been violated, penetrated and torn apart on the silver screen. Horror has always thrived on gore and the multiple ways you can make people suffer, especially physically. The early 2000s even saw the rise of ‘torture porn’, a genre which focuses primarily on extensive, almost silly gore.

2024 was a particularly strong year for body horror with both The Substance and A Different Man making their ways into UK cinemas. The Substance, which we awarded the full five stars in our review, is a strong contender at this year’s Oscars, especially after Demi Moore took home one of the Best Actress awards at the Golden Globes. A Different Man’s Sebastian Stan also took home Best Actor in Musical Or Comedy,...

Writer-director Leigh Whannell’s “The Invisible Man” was one of the best films of 2020, a thoughtful and terrifying thriller about domestic abuse that earned comparison with the work of horror masters like John Carpenter and Wes Craven. Understandably, the studio and production company behind the movie — Universal and Blumhouse, respectively — wanted something similar from Whannell for his next film. The director himself wasn’t so sure.

“I was a bit wary of leaping into another monster movie,” he told IndieWire. When Universal and Blumhouse asked him if he had any ideas for a new “Wolf Man” movie, he was apprehensive — but his prospective employers weren’t willing to give up easily. “They were very clever. They basically said, ‘If you were to do it, what would be your take? No commitment, just what you would do.’ And of course, I started thinking about it as an exercise.”

Once Whannell came...

David Cronenberg’s cult classic Scanners, a defining film in 1980s horror and science fiction, is set for a spectacular re-release with a brand-new Limited Edition 4K Uhd and Blu-ray box set from Second Sight Films. Available from 31 March 2025, this special edition celebrates the groundbreaking effects, unforgettable performances, and haunting themes that have made Scanners an enduring entry in the genre.

Scanners marked a turning point in Cronenberg’s career, cementing his reputation as a master of visceral storytelling. The film’s chilling exploration of telepathy and corporate conspiracy introduced audiences to a terrifying new vision of psychic warfare. Now, with a fresh 4K restoration approved by Cronenberg himself, viewers can experience every unnerving detail with stunning clarity.

The Limited Edition box set features a rigid slipcase with striking new artwork by Krishna Shenoi, paying homage to the film’s eerie, otherworldly tone. Packed with extras, the set includes a...

Julia Garner, Matilda Firth, and Christopher Abbott in ‘Wolf Man’ (Photo © 2025 Universal Studios)

After the apparent failure of Tom Cruise’s The Mummy in 2017, the plug was pulled on the Dark Universe reboot plans from Universal’s Monster movies. But then…Blumhouse’s partnership with Universal brought in writer/director Leigh Whannell to reimagine The Invisible Man in 2019. Which was awesome. So awesome that Blumhouse/Universal gave Whannell a crack at Wolf Man.

Wolf Man is about a man named Blake (Christopher Abbott from Kraven the Hunter) whose father was obsessed with a legendary creature that stalked the woods near their cabin when Blake was a boy. When his father passes away, Blake brings his wife, Charlotte (Ozark’s Julia Garner), and daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth from Hullraisers), with him to pack up the cabin and put the estate in order. On the way there, the family learns that the...

Inside every man lies a beast, waiting to be unleashed — that’s the central conceit behind most werewolf movies, be they horrifying (The Howling), sexy (the Twilight movies), or occasionally, both (the Jack Nicholson/Michelle Pfeiffer potboiler Wolf). Sometimes this full-moon fever is seen as liberating. Other times it’s a painful affliction. Rarely is it subtext. And since the gory glory days of 1980s horror, artists like Rob Bottin and Rick Baker have turned those lupine transformation scenes into special-effects showstoppers. Next to their creature-of-the-night cousins, a.k.a.

While on an upcoming episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit Podcast, writer and director Coralie Fargeat broke down the cinematic lineage of her “The Substance.” When talking about her much-heralded body horror sensation — the rare genre film to break into the awards race — Fargeat discussed wanting to make a film that “stays with you long after you leave the theater.” Fargeat has spent a great deal of time analyzing why certain movies left a lasting imprint on her and what she could learn from each.

“It’s about the phantasmagoria, the fact that you break the rules of reality,” said Fargeat. “You create the reality of your film, and then I think it gives you such a freedom to create something that no one else but you is going to create for your own movie.”

It’s how David Cronenberg, Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, the Coen brothers, Darren Aronofsky, and John Carpenter...

Luca Guadagnino released two films in 2024, and coming off the energetic “Challengers” was the more introspective “Queer.” The filmmaker’s latest stars Daniel Craig as William Lee, a fictionalized stand-in for author William S. Burroughs, whose slender novel the movie is based on.

The movie premiered at the Venice International Film Festival and later played the New York Film Festival and BFI London Film Festival. A24 acquired the domestic distribution rights to the movie, with Mubi releasing the movie internationally.

But how can you watch Guadagnino’s latest? Read on to find out.

Is “Queer” streaming?

After being released in theaters last November and December, “Queer” is now finally available to rent on Digital. The film will eventually be streaming on Max due to an output deal between the streamer and A24, but a streaming release date has not yet been revealed. “Queer” will also be released on Blu-ray in April.

(Warning: This story contains spoilers for Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance).

In the final scenes of The Substance, things get messy.

Coralie Fargeat’s body horror satire follows the descent of former A-lister Elisabeth Sparkle who, in a desperate attempt to recapture her youth and stay relevant in sexist and ageist Hollywood, starts taking a mysterious chemical called The Substance. Things go very, very wrong.

Shortly after injecting the substance, Sparkle (Demi Moore, who just picked up her first-ever Golden Globe for the role) is writhing on her bathroom floor. Her back splits down the spine and Sue, a slimy, younger version of herself (played by Margaret Qualley) crawls out. Initially, the two clones follow the plan, swapping out every seven days. The body in the bathroom is kept alive with a feeding tube, while the other free is free live their life.

But the siren of youth beacons, and...

While some gangster movies have become ever-present within mainstream pop culture, other great releases always seem to get left out of the conversation. In some instances, this is because the filmmakers already have movies that are considered masterpieces of the genre, meaning that their less-acclaimed or well-known work always seems to become an afterthought or footnote in lists and reviews. However, this is a real shame because it means that almost-perfect gangster movies get left behind in the public consciousness.

Although the best gangster movies ever made are consistently written about with great reverence, other gangster movies just haven’t been recognized in the same way. While the work of filmmaking greats like Martin Scorsese, David Cronenberg, or the Coen brothers will always have a big audience, even these directors have movies that viewers seem to forget about. Considering this, it’s important to highlight all of these films that have been criminally underrated,...

A Wolf Man star breaks down what makes the horror movie's central transformation so terrifying. Co-written and directed by Leigh Whannell, known for 2020's The Invisible Man, the upcoming reboot of the classic 1941 film follows a family man who moves into his inherited childhood home and is attacked by a werewolf during a full moon, beginning a terrifying transformation witnessed by his family. Christopher Abbott leads Wolf Man's cast in the titular role, formerly Blake, alongside Julia Garner as his wife Charlotte and Matilda Firth as their daughter.

During an exclusive interview with ScreenRant, Julia Garner broke down exactly what makes Blake's transformation into the Wolf Man so horrifying. The star says the transformation is so terrifying because the prosthetics are "incredible" and the transition happens slowly, which creates an unsettling familiarity that amplifies the fear experienced by his family members, and the audience. Read her full comments below:

It was really interesting.

Over the weekend, my wife and I watched Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be the same. Fargeat’s unnerving body-horror thriller goes to the extreme, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I hid behind a pile of pillows for 40% of the film. What? Fingernail and teeth “stuff” is my horror movie kryptonite, and The Substance gives audiences no quarter with its approach to gross-out scenes and unforgiving self-reflection. Luckily, I watched the movie in the comfort of my home, but now those brave enough to watch The Substance in public can do so at the cinema when the film returns to US theaters on January 17, 2025.

In The Substance, a fading celebrity called Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) takes a black-market drug: a cell-replicating substance that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself. When Elisabeth’s other self, Sue (Margaret Qualley...

One of David Cronenberg‘s most beloved films is getting a brand-new ultra-high-definition treatment. Blu-ray.com has revealed that the label Second Sight is going to be releasing new Blu-rays and 4K Blu-rays of Scanners. The sci-fi thriller, which features powerful telepaths, is sealed in history as having one of (if not The best) head explosion scenes. And you can now see it in every gory detail when the new physical media is released on March 31.

Scanners stars Jennifer O’Neill, Stephen Lack, Patrick McGoohan, Lawrence Dane, and Michael Ironside. Following his 1975 film Shivers, Cronenberg penned a treatment for a sci-fi story called Telepathy 2000. The basic idea of the plot concerned a protagonist named Harley Quinn raping a woman telepathically in a subway before revealing itself as a spy story of corporate espionage. The evil Cytodyne Amalgamate Corporation deliberately bred Scanners as a government program to overtake the world. This idea...