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Exclusive: In a competitive situation, 20th Century Studios has won rights to Test Drive, an original action spec from Matt Venne, to be produced by Safehouse Pictures.

While plot details are under wraps, sources said Venne secured a healthy mid-six against seven figure deal for his script. The spec had no talent or director attachments and caused a stir on the back of its concept and writing alone, in a scenario not too commonly seen these days.

Director of Development of Safehouse, Austin Bowman, found the spec. We’re told Joby Harold and Tory Tunnell will produce.

Currently staffing on Showtime’s Dexter spin-off series Dexter: Resurrection, Venne is a prolific genre writer who previously adapted Stephen King’s Bag of Bones as a limited series for A&e. He sold his series Cruel Summer, based on the same-name novel, to Legendary TV, with David Goyer boarding to produce, and also...

The moment could arrive anywhere, anytime, but you always knew it was coming. It was the moment, at a Grateful Dead show or on a live recording, when Phil Lesh and his bass would make themselves known.

Most bass players in traditional rock & roll bands provide a solid low-end foundation for what’s around then. Maybe they sing an occasional harmony or are content with a supportive, background role. That was never the case with Lesh. At some point, whether in early jams on “China Cat Sunflower” or “Dark Star...

Genre filmmaking legend John Carpenter has recently taken to Letterboxd to write some frank reviews of his own movies and others. The results are incredible.

Having made some of the greatest genre movies ever made, John Carpenter has quite deservedly shifted down a gear or two over the past decade or so. These days, he’s keeping himself busy with his music, playing videogames (he really loves Fallout 76), holding the occasional mercurial interview with the press – and, as it turns out, writing the odd review on Letterboxd.

Brilliantly, as spotted by Twitter’s Haunted Hippie (via our own John Moore), Carpenter has even cast his jaded eye over his own movies. Take Halloween II, for example, which he’s long admitted he wrote for the money. Here’s his Letterboxd review:

They paid me more money than I had ever seen to write a sequel to a film that did not need one.

How would you define “locked in”? Sure, we know it’s a matter of staying focused on the task and letting nothing get in your way. But how would we describe that in movies and TV? What examples would you give? Well, in a recent social media trend, fans are putting their money on some of the biggest names in the history of entertainment.

Last week, X user jayjjalen asked followers to “define ‘locked in’”, resulting in millions of views and thousands of replies. The real catch here is that the “locked in” phase must have been consecutive and uninterrupted. In other words, if there was one slip-up via a box office bomb or creative flop, it doesn’t count – that is, they weren’t truly “locked in.”

define “locked in”

— Jalen (@jayjjalen) September 9, 2024

There have been a lot of awesome answers in the thread, with some saying Jim Carrey...

John Carpenter's 1983 horror film "Christine," based on the then-new novel by Stephen King, was about a 1958 Plymouth Fury that seemed to have a consciousness of its own. The Fury was not a benevolent being, however. Indeed, it seemed to hate people and took lives whenever possible, including when it was first rolling off the Plymouth assembly line. After remaining in disrepair for decades, Christine was rescued by a modern teen named Arnie (Keith Gordon), a hopeless nerd with no social skills. When Arnie fixes Christine, the car kind of falls in love with him, and begins imbuing him with eerie strength. He begins dressing like a 1950s greaser, while Christine begins driving herself around, running down Arnie's rivals and potential girlfriends. In a dark way, "Christine" is about how the often-romanticized 1950s weren't finished with America.

Carpenter brought a great deal of skill and craftsmanship to "Christine," and the film is scary and effective.

Which of these characters has Not appeared as a captain of the USS Enterprise in the cinematically released Star Trek movies?Captain GarrettCaptain PicardCaptain HarrimanCaptain PikeHan Solo claims the Millennium Falcon can do the Kessel Run in under how many parsecs?1214919In Pandorum (2009), crewmembers awaken from cryosleep to find their colony ship is…At the bottom of an oceanMarooned in deep spaceIn hellA simulationIn Wall-e (2008) the survivors of humanity live aboard a vast space cruise ship called The Axiom. What is an axiom?A statement accepted without questionSomething from a different timeA model of perfectionA typical example of somethingIn the movie Starship Troopers (1997) the troop transport Rodger Young was named after an infantryman who died in which war?World War IIWorld War IAmerican Civil WarAmerican War of IndependenceThe spaceship Nostromo that picks up an unwelcome hitchhiker in Alien (1979) is named after a novel by which writer?Joseph ConradHenry FieldingH.P.

Stars: Jordan Lane Rice, Lisa Starrett, Brandon Whipple, Alex Nimrod, Elizabeth Hadjinian, Devin Harris | Written by Alex Nimrod | Directed by Maximus Jenkins

Spearheaded by a quartet of USC students, All Alone Together was shot for a mere $15,000 with a cast and crew comprised of mostly other USC students and alumni. But before you read the film’s plot and write it off as just another pretentious student film, remember that this was also the same school and process that resulted in John Carpenter’s first feature, Dark Star.

As the film opens, we watch Tyler, an unhappy-looking individual going through his life before ending up at work, where the even less pleasant Fiona (Lisa Starrett) goads him into losing his temper and getting fired. Back at home, things become even worse as he finds The Thing (Brandon Whipple) waiting for him with more sinister intentions than just getting him fired.

Stars: Joe Mayes, Mark Hyde, Claudia Troy, Georgia Anastasia, Ulysses E. Campbell, Julie Kashmanian | Written and Directed by Philip J. Cook

“You just push the handle, drop into T Space, and take off to destinations unknown.” With these words Max Stone introduces us to the world of Ghost Planet. A world where he, his half-brother George, and their sister Julia hunt for technology left behind by the Tesserans.

They were an alien race who mysteriously disappeared, leaving behind ships far beyond anything humans could develop. And, it looks like the trio have found a base full of them. And then a neutron star flares up, forcing them to abandon their discovery.

That was a year ago. Now George has developed some strange tumours, his insurance covers removing them, apart from the 90% deductible that is. And the loan Max took out, with one of his organs as collateral, has come due,...

Christopher Nolan movies have always something philosophical and spiritual to offer besides their scientific marvel, according to a fan. When Nolan came out with Interstellar, it was a movie that blew your mind with its attention to detail. However, the fan noticed one mistake that irked him, especially after knowing this one trait of the Inception director.

Christopher Nolan and Matthew McConaughey on the set of Interstellar | Paramount Pictures

Nolan never reuses footage in his film, but when the fan saw one clip from Interstellar being used at two different places, he got suspicious. The fan rewatched the entire film and came up with an insane theory, much like the grim Top Gun: Maverick theory, that explains the minor mistake.

Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar Mistake May Not Be A Mistake After All Anne Hathaway and Matthew McConaughey in Interstellar | Paramount Pictures

In a short video posted to TikTok via the channel @StarkVerse,...

Movies always go through a number of changes between an idea in the shower to streaming from your couch, whether minor (your protagonist now wears leather jackets instead of tweed suits) to major (he’s also a wild stunt man instead of a quiet professor). It’s not uncommon, for example, to lighten up some dark source material for a broader audience, so you know when the opposite occurs — a comedy becomes a heavy drama or high-stakes thriller — some choices were made.

5 Alien

We’re usually relegated to merely imagining what a movie might have been like if it had been taken in a different direction, but in the case of Alien, we can see it. It started as Dark Star (which itself started as John Carpenter’s USC master’s thesis), a comedy featuring an alien very obviously made out of a beach ball. “I went away from Dark Star...

Bring up the films of John Carpenter to any movie buff worth their weight in celluloid, and once they finish praying in the direction of Bowling Green, Kentucky, they'll start in on the essentials –- i.e. every movie in his oeuvre stretching from 1974's "Dark Star" to 1988's "They Live." From here, they'll single out 1994's "In the Mouth of Madness" as a return to peak form after the disappointing "Memoirs of an Invisible Man," and maybe share kind words about "Escape from L.A." "Vampires," "Ghosts of Mars," and, heck, even "The Ward." But that '74 -- '88 run is considered sacrosanct. You don't dispute this, and if you're fortunate enough to be a working filmmaker, you think long and hard about the wisdom of remaking one of these classics should a studio ever offer you the opportunity.

This is because Carpenter's aesthetic is inimitable. The widescreen compositions, the long takes,...

After a moderately positive reception but not achieving the success it sought, Starfield offers a rather solid gaming experience. This Xbox-exclusive game provides players with a galaxy full of planets to explore, each with different stories and secrets to uncover.

Recently, in a Reddit post, a user shared their experience of starting New Game + mode after accessing Unity in the game. They reported encountering various “ghosts” and other very strange things that had never happened before. All of this is related to the Starborn.

It Seems Starfield Still Has Many Hidden Surprises A Starfield player has encountered strange and hostile entities. Image via Bethesda.

Despite promising all sorts of features that ultimately did not meet players’ expectations, the overall reception was quite positive, and it became a worthy Xbox-exclusive game.

However, many fans expected more from Starfield regarding how to explore space and travel freely with a spaceship. On the other hand,...

Comedy is an art form that to truly succeed requires mastery of both subtlety and audacity, and a keen sense of timing. But usually two out of three is enough to pull some chuckles from an audience, and so a veneer of comedy finds its way into a lot of genres besides its own. And a little like how science fiction comments on our current era, comedy also tends to highlight current storytelling trends and topics, making it a natural companion to the speculative genre.

Unlike how Airplane killed the disaster movie in the ’70s by brutally skewering every trope that that genre relied on, comedy’s place in science fiction is often evolutionary and frequently affectionate. Something about this blend simply enhances the way sci-fi comments on us as a species. Call it symbiotic—a raucous relationship similar to Eddie Brock and Venom’s bonkers movie marriage. But don’t call it Shirley.

More than thirty new stars are going to be added to the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2025 (and into 2026), with the new batch of honorees who will be receiving stars having been chosen by the Hollywood Chamber’s Board of Directors. Variety reports that that honorees include Jessica Chastain, Bill Duke, Emilio Estevez, Colin Farrell, Jane Fonda, Nia Long, Lisa Lu, Glynn Turman, Toni Vaz, Fran Drescher, Lauren Graham, Bill Nye, Molly Shannon, Sherri Shepherd, Courtney B. Vance, Chris Wallace, Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Misty Copeland, Alan Cumming, Adam Carolla, Fantasia, Depeche Mode, Los Bukis, The B-52s, Green Day, The Isley Brothers, Busta Rhymes, George Strait, Keith Urban, War, Prince, David Beckham, and Orel Hershiser… but the two honorees that stand out more than any others on this list for us here in the Arrow in the Head horror section of JoBlo are character actor Robert Englund and legendary filmmaker John Carpenter!

Criminal Minds Season 17 Episode 3 featured a new case that was subsequently solved, reintroduced Voit's family, and revealed a secret that threatens JJ's life.

There was also a conspiracy-theory-loving former neighbor of Emily's who was getting information on the Dark Star story -- not enough to expose the truth, but enough to cause a ruckus.

Let's break it down!

What Did Voit Whisper to Alvez?

Uh, guys, the words below do not match the length of time Elias spoke in Luke's ear!

"Voit said it's a site on the dark net. Something called Bau Gate. It involves pictures and memes of this team in deep fake pornography. He also said you knew about it," Alvez told Prentiss.

Why did Voit tell Alvez his tantalizing secret and not JJ? JJ surmised it was to drive them apart or to prove that Alvez couldn't keep a secret. She claimed to know about Bau Gate,...

Tom Cruise is one of the last true blue movie stars in Hollywood who commands immense star power in the industry and is respected by his peers. He has made some of the most memorable films that have shown his range as an actor while also showing his enthusiasm for practical filmmaking with his Mission Impossible films.

Tom Cruise as Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick | Paramount Pictures

Another of Cruise’s beloved franchises that showcases this aspect is the Top Gun franchise, with 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick being one of the top grossers of the year. The film’s director Joseph Kosinski was made aware of a theory about Maverick in the film. As wild as the theory is, the director won’t throw cold water on it and does not rule out its possibility.

Joseph Kosinski Does Not Rule Out Maverick Possibly Dying in The Darkstar...

Emanating from their studio in Cincinnati, Ohio, The History of Bad Ideas sees hosts Jason, Jeff and Blake talk about all things geeky on their podcast. Whether it’s rumours of the latest comic book movies, debating who really is the worst villain of all time, discussing the latest comic issues or just wondering about life in general, you are sure to have a fun time with them! In theory.

If you haven’t listened to the show before – why not? – you can check out previous episodes of The History of Bad Ideas podcast on iTunes and look out for new episodes here on Nerdly each and every week…

Episode 544: Clear Your Gallbladders!

The Hobi Gang is together again and debating the best Ghostbuster’s film, Breath of Silence for Angel Hernandez’s career, the complicated life of Morgan Spurlock, and the lack of love for Ryan Reynold’s films.

Actress and model Brande Roderick is making her directorial debut with Wineville, a horror movie that’s been acquired by Dark Star Pictures.

THR reports that Dark Star will release Wineville in September 2024.

Brande Roderick stars in the 1970s-set horror film as Tess Lott, “a woman who escaped her abusive father as a teen. Now she returns as a single mother to her family’s vineyard after her father’s death to sort out her inheritance, only to discover the dark secrets and painful memories she left behind return as a murderous legacy sparking violence and death.”

“Wineville was influenced by ’70s horror classics like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Last House on the Left, as I wanted my first feature to be not only in the horror genre that I loved so much growing up, but to also pay homage to the flavor and style of that...

Brazilian director Marcelo Caetano’s Critics’ Week title Baby has been sold to Dark Star Pictures and Uncork’d Entertainment for North America in advance of its Cannes premiere later this week.

Germany’s M-Appeal is handling sales on the film about an 18 year-old boy is released from a juvenile detention centre, only to find himself alone and adrift on the streets of São Paulo.

The film is a Brazil-France-Netherlands co-production involving Cup Filmes, Desbun Filmes, Plateau Produções, Still Moving, Circe Films and Kaap Holland Film.

Further recent Dark Star releases include 2023 Critics; Week winner Tiger Stripes and Fantastic Fest winner Property.

The music of Crosby, Stills, and Nash was celebrated with a tribute concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall on Monday night. The lineup included Todd Rundgren, Steve Earle, Yola, Grace Potter, Guster, Rickie Lee Jones, Shawn Colvin, A.C. Newman, Iron & Wine, Real Estate, and several others. Graham Nash wasn’t officially on the bill, but he came out at the end of the night to perform a moving rendition of “Our House.”

“Let’s give a big round of applause to the 20 incredible artists that performed tonight,” he said.

The so-called Xenomorph is one of the greatest monsters in movie history. The brainchild of Swiss artist H.R. Giger, the Star Beast combines biological and mechanical elements, blending genders in a way that underscores the themes of pregnancy and violation in Alien.

But before Giger and director Ridley Scott brought the Xenomorph to life in 1979, the alien had a very different trial run. Before crafting the initial treatment and script that would become the basis of Alien, writer Dan O’Bannon worked on another sci-fi project, alongside a fellow student at the University of Southern California film school. That student was John Carpenter, and while he and O’Bannon would go on to make some of the most influential horror films of all time, their first movie Dark Star has a very different monster.

In fact, rather than a sleek black beast with a retractable mouth, Dark Star‘s group of stoned space travelers battled…...

Space is great. It’s massive, it’s colorful, and you can have big fights with lasers there. It really does have everything you could want. But it also has problems—mainly, like we said, that it’s massive. In fact it’s so massive that if you want to go anywhere in it (apart from a few nearby planets with hardly anyone to shoot lasers at), by the time you get there, you’re dead. Now you might think that if you can just go fast enough, you’ll get there before you die, but there’s a problem.

That problem, as Albert Einstein tells us, is the speed of light. Light, in a vacuum, travels at just short of 300 million meters per second, fast enough to get from Earth to the moon in a little over a second. The thing is if you’re chasing a light beam,...

Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter’s long-lost manuscript, The Silver Snarling Trumpet, has been set for publication. Out October 8th, the recently unearthed book will tell the band’s origin story.

The late Hunter — who co-wrote Grateful Dead songs like “Dark Star,” “Touch of Grey,” and “Box of Rain” — originally penned The Silver Snarling Trumpet: The Birth of the Grateful Dead — The Lost Manuscript of Robert Hunter in the early 1960s. At the time, he had just been introduced to Jerry Garcia and began chronicling the band’s early days in the Bay Area, including performances at Kepler’s Books and road trips through the countryside.

Get Dead & Company Tickets Here

The Silver Snarling Trumpet features a foreword by Dead & Company guitarist John Mayer, an introduction by the band’s biographer Dennis McNally, and an afterword by Brigid Meier, a close friend of Hunter’s. Pre-orders are ongoing.

“Fans will...

It’s a good day for Deadheads: Robert Hunter’s lost manuscript is headed for publication.

The Grateful Dead lyricist — who penned gems like “Ripple,” “Box of Rain,” “Uncle John’s Band,” “Eyes of the World,” “Dark Star,” and more — died in 2019. Five years later, Hachette Books will release The Silver Snarling Trumpet: The Birth of the Grateful Dead — The Lost Manuscript of Robert Hunter, out Oct. 8.

Unearthed by Hunter’s widow, Maureen, Silver Snarling Trumpet chronicles the origin of the Grateful Dead in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Dark Star Pictures has acquired North American distribution rights to “Big Boys,” an LGBTQ coming-of-age comedy. The company is planning a theatrical release in May, followed by a digital launch in June, which will coincide with Pride Month.

Written and directed by Corey Sherman, “Big Boys” follows a group of teenage boys whose unexpected romantic attachment transforms a simple camping trip into a weekend of self-discovery. “The first crush of a young queer person is a profound experience, filled with awkward, humorous moments. We aimed to delve into this pivotal phase, resonating with those who’ve had similar experiences,” says Sherman. “We’re thrilled to partner with Dark Star Pictures and share this film across North America.”

The film’s ensemble cast includes Emily Deschanel (FX’s “Bones”), Dora Madison (“Alone With You”), Taj Cross (Hulu’s “PEN15”), Marion Van Cuyck (Hulu’s “PEN15”) and newcomer Isaac Krasner. It was...

What do we talk about when we talk about 1979’s iconic outer space slasher, Alien (watch it Here)? Personally, I start the list with the incredible slow-burn tone and impressive special effects, then I usually gush for twenty or thirty minutes about how inspired the horror aspect was- and especially for its time. It creeps along with nothing but quiet, dark spaces to lure out your fears as this mysterious man-eating creature stalks your every move. Truly scary stuff. And then of course I mention how Sigourney Weaver swiftly cemented her status as one of the greatest final girls in slasher cinema. All of that to say that this film truly lives up to the chills they promise from the movie’s tagline- In space, no one can hear you scream. Folks, slasher movies are kind of a big deal here on JoBlo Horror Originals. We love seeing Ghostface reveal...

For a time, it seemed like an auteur war was about to break out over Adam Sandler, with some of America’s most revered directors vying to find the right role for the comedian. It was rumored, but never confirmed, that Quentin Tarantino imagined him a key role while writing Inglourious Basterds, although this might have been wishful thinking from critics who saw the talented Sandler heading in the same direction as John Travolta until Pulp Fiction saved him from a lifetime of Look Who’s Talking movies. In the end, Paul Thomas Anderson got there first, with Punch Drunk Love (2002), although the glow of a bona fide arthouse hit didn’t last long, and Jack and Jill still happened less than ten years later.

Nevertheless, though he returned to the fanbase, Sandler has always been good in serious supporting roles, even in films that don’t broadly work, like...

"It will only be a matter of time before he is made to pay the ultimate price for dabbling in the dark side of his own desire." Dark Star has revealed an official trailer for a freaky, twisted, disquieting horror anthology feature titled Midnight Peepshow, made in the UK. This premiered at FrightFest 2022 and is only now getting a direct-to-video release over here. An unnamed madame operates a unique peep show that caters to its customers deepest desires, fears, and sins. Tonight, it welcomes a businessman with a unique connection to an extreme fantasy website. Soon he will become a witness to three stories of victims that found the dark web site. It's only a matter of time before he's made to pay the ultimate price for dabbling in the dark side of desire. Starring Zach Galligan, Chiara D'Anna, Richard Cotton, Sarah Diamond, Jamie Bacon, and Derek Nelson. Another online streaming voyeurs torture horror concept,...

New Europe Film Sales has sold US rights to Ulaa Salim’s sci-fi romance Eternal to Dark Star Pictures and has boarded Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s next feature Hot Spot.

Eternal recently world premiered in the Big Screen Competition at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Dark Star is planning a theatrical release in the US.

The film centres on an obsessive, young climate change scientist who leaves behind his girlfriend to participate in a multi-year research mission exploring a fissure on the ocean floor that threatens the world. Years later, during his mission, he experiences a vision of what his life...

Dark Star Pictures has acquired the North American distribution rights to Zach Clark’s genre-bending comedy “The Becomers,” with plans for a theatrical release in the third quarter of 2024. The acquisition took place before the commencement of the 2024 European Film Market on Feb. 15.

The alien romance film had its world premiere at the 2023 Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal; it subsequently screened at Beyond Fest and the Leeds International Film Festival. The cast includes Molly Plunk, Mike Lopez, Frank V. Ross, Isabel Alamin and Keith Kelly. Russell Mael, the lead singer of Sparks, lends his voice to the film as narrator.

Written in march 2021, the film “reverberates with the pulse of American politics of that time,” according to the description. It draws from Covid, Qanon, and “constant states of anxiety while exploring themes of confusion, isolation and the deep need for human connection through the story of two body-snatching alien lovers.

In 2022, director John Carpenter curated a special four-film marathon for Shout! Factory TV, one of the best streaming services out there. As recorded by Den of Geek, the lineup included Carpenter's four favorite films in the Godzilla mythos: "Gojira" (1954), "Rodan" (1956), "Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster" (1964), and, naturally, "War of the Gargantuas" (1966). One should be warned, however, that watching all four of those films in a row will instigate severe brain growth and usher in a phase of enlightenment previously unexperienced by most mortals.

Carpenter has long been a fan of Godzilla movies, having grown up in the 1950s when many of Toho's celebrated kaiju movies were opening in the United States. Carpenter's exposure to Godzilla at an early age not only contributed to his love of cinema but encouraged him to make movies of his own. As Carpenter's own fans might know, he got his start in filmmaking as a kid,...

One of last year’s collaborations between Bloody Disgusting and Dark Star Pictures was Japanese crime thriller Missing, now nominated for the 51st annual Saturn Awards!

Deadline explains, “The Saturns, which honor the best in genre entertainment across film and television, are organized by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror.”

Missing has been nominated in the “Best International Film” category, alongside Madeleine Collins, The Origin of Evil, Ransomed, Speak No Evil and Sisu.

You can see the full list of Saturn Awards nominations over on Deadline.

Winners will be announced February 4, 2024.

In Missing from Bloody Disgusting and Dark Star Pictures…

“Depressed and in debt following the death of his wife, Santoshi (Jiro Sato) tells his young daughter he has found a way out. Pointing to a reward note, he vows to find the infamous serial killer ‘No Name’ (Hiroya Shimizu) and cash in, claiming to have seen the...

He may be the greatest horror director of all time (just ask Jordan Peele), but John Carpenter’s film taste skews farther away from the genre than you might expect.

Born in 1948 in Carthage, New York, Carpenter grew up with a love of cinema, watching Howard Hawks westerns an early age, and started making short films with an 8mm camera before he started high school. He studied at Western Kentucky University and University of Southern California, before dropping out of the latter after a short he made, “The Resurrection of Broncho Billy,” won an Oscar.

Now with a sudden amount of prestige, Carpenter made two little seen projects “Dark Star” and “Assault on Precinct 13,” both now critically acclaimed, before really breaking out with 1978’s “Halloween.” Starring a young Jamie Lee Curtis, the independent film became a massive hit, grossing $70 million, turning main villain Michael Myers into a horror icon,...

The Thing (1982)A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.Rating: 8.2/10Stars: Kurt Russell (MacReady), Wilford Brimley (Dr. Blair), Keith David (Childs), Richard Masur (Clark)Halloween (1978)Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a...

Graphic: Images: IMDBThe Thing (1982)

A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.

Rating: 8.2/10

Stars: Kurt Russell (MacReady), Wilford Brimley (Dr. Blair), Keith David (Childs), Richard Masur (Clark)

Halloween (1978)

Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes...

Reigning chaos agent John Mayer has finally fulfilled an internet prophesy spawned nearly ten full years ago: he transitioned from Grateful Dead‘s “Dark Star” into “Your Body Is a Wonderland.” In 2015, the musician stepped into the Jerry Garcia role as Grateful Dead offshoot Dead and Company’s touring guitarist, and in the process inadvertently birthed the ultimate “What If” about the collision of their catalogs.

“I’m not going to set it up, this is going to be the weirdest thing you ever saw in your life and I’m proud to do it,...

We’ve talked about Stephen King as the king of horror literature, but there’s another name who is pretty important in the grand scheme of horror. He has had tabletop games, video games, comic book adaptations, and movies made after his work. He has sort of become like John Carpenter in a way. You hear all the time how a movie, or its score in particular, is Carpenter-esque and that has happened to one Howard Phillips Lovecraft. He only lived to 46 and had many works published after his death, but also is the man behind the old gods and the Cthulhu mythos. Even when filmmakers and game designers don’t use creations directly from the author’s work, a lot of horror can be considered Lovecraftian. While some of the more famous ones like Re-Animator and From Beyond are stone cold classics, I wanted to look at an underseen adaptation.

Spooky Season is now well underway, and that means a deluge of new horror movies for the next two months straight. Today alone, Eight new horror movies have just been unleashed.

Here’s all the new horror that released for September 8, 2023.

For daily reminders about new horror releases, be sure to follow @HorrorCalendar.

First up, the darkest – and most financially successful – chapter in The Conjuring Universe continues in The Nun II, which is now playing in theaters nationwide.

Valak returns in The Nun II from director Michael Chaves (Curse of La Llorona, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It), and you can read Meagan’s review right here.

Taissa Farmiga will be back as Sister Irene, with Bonnie Aarons again playing the demonic nun known as Valak. Storm Reid (“Euphoria”) will also star in the film.

Here’s the first The Nun II plot synopsis: “1956 – France. A priest is murdered.

This article contains spoilers

John Carpenter is hands down one of America’s greatest filmmakers and composers, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a horror geek that doesn’t adore at least one of his movies. Born in 1948 to a a college music professor, Carpenter fell in love with cinema as a child and was out there making his own short films before he’d even started high school.

As the decades flew by, he was at the helm of some of the most beloved sci-fi and horror pictures of all time, whilst also composing the music for most of them, including the iconic scores for Halloween and Escape from New York.

Today, we’re ranking the director’s output, from Dark Star in 1974 to The Ward in 2010, but we should note that we haven’t included TV movies like Elvis or Someone’s Watching Me here, as we...

Six years ago, John Carpenter released an album called Anthology: Movie Themes 1974–1998, on which he teamed up with his son Cody Carpenter and godson Daniel Davies to re-record music from his films In the Mouth of Madness, Assault on Precinct 13, The Fog, Prince of Darkness, Vampires, Escape from New York, Halloween, Big Trouble in Little China, They Live, The Thing, Starman, Dark Star, and Christine. (A limited edition version also contained tracks from Village of the Damned and Body Bags.) Now Sacred Bones has announced they’ll be releasing a new album from Carpenter and his cohorts that’s called Anthology II: Movie Themes 1976-1988! The release date is October 6th, and you can listen to the first track – a re-recording of “Chariots of Pumpkins” from Halloween III: Season of the Witch – in the embed at the bottom of this article.

John Carpenter had this to say about “Chariots...

This summer has been packed with horror on the big screen, with films including Insidious: The Red Door, Talk to Me, Haunted Mansion and Meg 2: The Trench currently playing in theaters nationwide. This week, one of horror’s classic icons joins them at the box office.

Here’s all the new horror releasing August 8– August 13, 2023!

For daily reminders about new horror releases, be sure to follow @HorrorCalendar.

First up from Dread is the horror movie Island Escape, the latest feature film from prolific indie creature feature director Bruce Wemple (Monstrous, Dawn of the Beast).

Island Escape is available On Demand today, and it’s hitting Blu-ray on September 12.

In the film, “After a mysterious accident at a research camp on the Isle of Gran Manan, a CEO hires a team of blue – collar mercenaries to extract his daughter, a scientist working at the camp. Upon arrival, the team soon...

Dark Star Pictures is set to give the supernatural Sasquatch horror film Summoning the Spirit a digital and DVD release on August 8th, and with that date just one month away we’ve gotten our hands on a trailer for the movie! You can check it out in the embed above.

Directed by Jon Garcia, who also wrote the screenplay with Zach Carter, Summoning the Spirit follows Carla and Dean as they decide to escape the hustle of the big city, purchasing a home in the remote forest. They have big plans for their new quiet life, only to find something much more sinister. The couple quickly realize that they are on the land of a cult, and the leader claims a telepathic connection to a legendary flesh-eating beast deep in the woods surrounding them. Carla and Dean are forced to uncover the terrifying truth of the cult’s prophecy.

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Aftersun (Charlotte Wells)

One of last year’s most resonant films, Aftersun looks at the scratchy dynamics between a father and daughter while on vacation. It’s about memory, the finite nature of the relationships in our lives, and the difficulties of a parent’s diminishing mental health. Charlotte Wells knows where to put the camera in her debut—undeterred from taking risks, from placing her characters outside of the frame, from looking at shadows instead of the people themselves. Aftersun is a rare, tremendous first film, full of heart and focused melancholy; it breaks you down and fills you up simultaneously. The consistent inclusion of camcorder footage, and the fact that it enhances the story rather than becoming a distraction, further...

The Halloween III: Season of the Witch episode of Wtf Happened to This Horror Movie? was Written by Cody Hamman, Narrated by Adam Walton, Edited by Jaime Vasquez, Produced by Lance Vlcek and John Fallon, and Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian.

For two films, movie-goers watched the masked slasher Michael Myers stalk Jamie Lee Curtis and murder his way through the small town of Haddonfield on Halloween night. So you can understand that some were shocked when they went to see Halloween III and it wasn’t anything like the previous two films. Instead of more Michael Myers, they got a movie about a warlock who wanted to use the power of Stonehenge to kill millions of children. With masks that would melt their heads down into puddles of snakes and bugs. This change in direction did not go over well. For decades, Halloween III: Season of the Witch (watch it Here) was largely disregarded.

I honestly never expected Steven Spielberg in a Criterion Channel series––certainly not one that pairs him with Kogonada, anime, and Johnny Mnemonic––but so’s the power of artificial intelligence. Perhaps his greatest film (at this point I don’t need to tell you the title) plays with After Yang, Ghost in the Shell, and pre-Matrix Keanu in July’s aptly titled “AI” boasting also Spike Jonze’s Her, Carpenter’s Dark Star, and Computer Chess. Much more analog is a British Noir collection obviously carrying the likes of Odd Man Out, Night and the City, and The Small Back Room, further filled by Joseph Losey’s Time Without Pity and Basil Dearden’s It Always Rains on Sunday. (No two ways about it: these movies have great titles.) An Elvis retrospective brings six features, and the consensus best (Don Siegel’s Flaming Star) comes September 1.

While Isabella Rossellini...

Film reunites writer/director Polak with British actor Vicky Knight.

BFI Distribution has acquired Berlinale Panorama title Silver Haze from New Europe Film Sales for theatrical release in the UK and Ireland.

The film reunites its Dutch writer/director Sacha Polak with British actor Vicky Knight who previously worked together on Dirty God in 2019.

Knight’s performance won the Teddy Jury Award in the Panorama strand at Berlin. Earlier this week the film had its North American premiere in competition at the Tribeca Festival.

The film has also sold to Dark Star for the US, Caramel Films for Spain, Lucky Red for Italy,...

Dark Star Pictures has picked up the North American distribution rights to the Australian slasher movie Bad Girl Boogey, The Wrap reports. The second film from writer/director/producer Alice Maio Mackay (the first was the 2021 vampire movie So Vam), Bad Girl Boogey features a voiceover cameo from genre icon Bill Moseley and will be receiving a VOD, digital, and physical media release on July 4th. Dark Star Pictures also intends to give the film a theatrical release at some point before that date.

Written by Mackay and Ben Pahl Robinson, Bad Girl Boogey centers on Angel, whose mother was brutally murdered one Halloween night, when blood was shed by a deranged killer wearing a parasitic mask cursed with black magic and bigotry. Sixteen years later, when Angel’s best friend is slaughtered by a killer with the same mask, they must overcome their personal struggles, fight their fear, and...

The They Live episode of Wtf Happened to This Adaptation? was Written and Narrated by Andrew Hatfield, Edited by Mike Conway, Produced by Lance Vlcek and John Fallon, and Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian. Here is the text of Hatfield’s script:

I bet you thought when we started covering adaptations that we would be going to the Stephen King well more than a few times and believe me, we will. Today though, we are covering our second John Carpenter helmed adaptation after we discussed The Thing in the inaugural episode. While that one was pretty well known for being a more faithful adaptation of the book his hero Howard Hawks had adapted, not a lot of people may realize that They Live was sparked from a very short comic that adapted a very short story.

We came here to chew bubble gum and find out what the f*ck happened to this adaptation,...

There are lots of ways to pitch If You Were the Last. How about “Michel Gondry remakes When Harry Met Sally — in space!” Who wouldn’t want to see that? But for all the ingenious hot takes one can dream up for Kristian Mercado’s ambitious feature-length debut, there’s no escaping the fact that it’s less than the sum of its parts. To be brutal, although it does, for an hour at least, cast a spell, raise interesting metaphysical questions, and center on an odd couple who, for once, actually don’t seem like they’ll get together and then totally convince us when they do — it doesn’t really pass muster as a movie at all.

Which is surprising, because character-based, low-budget sci-fi indies set in the howling existential wilderness of deep space do have a history of working against the odds, like John Carpenter’s blackly...

March Madness continues — are we seeing the most significant rebound since theaters reopened?

On Thursday, “Scream 6” (Paramount) took in $5.7 million. That stemmed from a combination of 5 p.m. fan events and regular initial previews, but no matter how Ghostface sliced it: That’s big.

How big? That beats the impressive “Creed III” (MGM) performance last week of $5.45 million and it’s much bigger than last year’s initial “Scream” reboot, which generated $3.5 million. However, this one has “Wednesday” star Jenna Ortega in the lead.

Last weekend, “Creed III” flew to $58.4 million; in January 2022, “Scream” opened to $30 million. The strong preview for “Scream 6” is even more impressive when industry expectations placed the horror film last among the four highly touted sequels that will be released this month. (“Shazam! Fury of the Gods” from Warner Bros. Discovery and “John Wick: Chapter 4 are still to come.)

Horror sequels tend to...