Punch Drunk Critics is happy to team up with Gravitas Ventures on an exclusive clip from their new religious horror, Inhabitants! The film is open today, Valentine’s Day, and it was timed that way for a reason as Gravitas wants it to “be the perfect escape from the traditional Valentine’s Day romance.” The film stars Josh Rivera (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes), Anna Jacoby-Heron (The First), Ana Auther (Goats) Kevin Nealon (Weeds), and Todd Robert Anderson (You’re the Worst).
The film is directed by Matt McClung who also wrote the screenplay. He had this to say about the film in a released statement:
“Our film deals with a wide range of subject matter — fear, guilt, faith, relationships — that we’re hoping will make it resonate beyond its initial premise. But above all, this is a spooky movie to watch on a rainy night. We are excited to share it with the world.”
The story follows Olivia (Jacoby-Heron) and her lapsed Catholic boyfriend Francis (Rivera) who decide to move in together against the wishes of his devout family, including his mother. Soon, Francis is haunted by a vengeful spirit and must seek help from those closest to him to be rid of it.
In this scene, we see Olivia and Francis attempting to cleanse the house of the evil spirit, but something doesn’t feel quite right.
If Goonies never say die, nor do Goonies fans clamoring for a sequel to the iconic 1980s adventure film. Well, it’s taken a big step forward now as Deadline reports The Goonies 2 has landed Old Henry writer Potsy Ponciroli to pen the screenplay.
The wishlist film is set up at Warner Bros., and has Steven Spielberg producing through Amblin Entertainment, joined by original Goonies writer Chris Columbus. Lauren Shuler Donner, known for her long association with Fox’s X-Men films, is an exec-producer.
This is still very early on. No plot details are available, and no director is attached.
Rumors about a sequel have been persistent for decades. Every time the cast get together, as they did recently for Ke Huy Quan’s hand and footprint ceremony at TCL Chinese Theatre, those rumors get a resurgence of energy. Quan also reunited with Goonies castmate Sean Astin in his latest film, Love Hurts.
Despite stellar reviews from critics and audiences alike, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves didn’t hit the box office many expected. That film was based on the popular Forgotten Realms campaign setting, and despite the movie’s failure, Netflix and Hasbro are teaming up with Stranger Things producer Shawn Levy to develop a live-action series.
Deadline reports Netflix, Hasbro Entertainment, Shawn Levy, and WeCrashed writer Drew Crevello are developing The Forgotten Realms, a Dungeons & Dragons live-action series. The fantasy world debuted in 1987 and quickly became one of the most popular D&D settings with many of its greatest characters and most epic campaigns.
Crevello has written the pilot and will act as showrunner and exec-producer. Levy is already one of the powerhouse producers behind Stranger Things, but with that show’s final season coming up this gives him another top series for Netflix. Levy is also the director of Deadpool & Wolverine, one of last year’s biggest hits.
You might recall a previous attempt in 2023 to launch this project at Paramount+. That version had Crevello and Red Notice director Rawson Marshall Thurber, but it failed largely due to the acquisition of eOne by Lionsgate.
Dungeons & Dragons remains a massively popular multimedia franchise, so count on Netflix expanding the franchise if this series is a streaming hit.
It’s been five years since Steve Rogers handed the shield over to Sam Wilson at the conclusion of Avengers: Endgame, and finally Anthony Mackie is getting his solo shot on the big screen. Sam Wilson’s hesitation to carry the torch was explored in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, in which he grapples with complicated feelings about the country. But in Captain America: Brave New World (review here), Sam has other worries on his mind; such as General Thunderbolt Ross becoming President of the United States, a dangerous conspiracy inside the White House, and the emergence of the rare metal Adamantium that has nations fighting to claim it.
Mackie has big shoes to fill. Chris Evans made his mark as Captain America for years, becoming the centerpiece of the MCU in the process. He takes over at a political hot point in the country, and many of Brave New World’s themes mirror what’s happening in the country right now.
Joining Mackie in the cast is Danny Ramirez as Joaquin Torres, aka Falcon. Torres has stepped up from helping out on the sidelines to going airborn as the new Falcon, and acts as Cap’s right hand man. He’s young, a bit rash, eager to prove himself, and the right balance as Cap also aims to prove to the world that he’s the right Captain America for right now.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, and director Julius Onah about Captain America: Brave New World. Mackie talked about his need to “level up” to the moment and claim the role for himself. He also talked about the moment he learned Harrison Ford would be joining the cast. Ramirez spoke about the expansion of Joaquin’s role in the MCU, and what it means to him to be part of such a huge franchise. Onah too on the biggest film of his career and talked about the opportunity to introduce so many elements that will have far-reaching impact on the MCU.
Captain America: Brave New World is in theaters now. Check out the interview below, and please consider subscribing to our YouTube channel for more!
DC Studios co-chairs James Gunn and Peter Safran are moving quickly on Clayface, the horror film centered on the popular Batman villain. With a release date set for September 11th 2026, Deadline reports that the list of potential directors has begun to narrow down.
According to the report, Imaginary and Kick-Ass 2 director Jeff Wadlow is the running to direct Clayface. Also in the mix is The Woman in Black and Speak No Evil director James Watkins.
If you’re asking why horror maestro Mike Flanagan isn’t in the mix even though he’s writing the script, it’s due to his obligations for Universal’s The Exorcist reboot.
Both Wadlow and Watkins come with considerable experience in the genre. Along with the aforementioned films, Wadlow has directed horror films Cry Wolf, Fantasy Island, and Truth or Dare. Watkins also worked on The Descent II and directed Eden Lake.
I don’t know which director has the upper hand here. Both are solid filmmakers, but Watkins could have the edge because he’s managed to get standout lead performances from Daniel Radcliffe and later by James McAvoy. Clayface is going to need that, too, from whoever lands the lead role.
It’s hard to believe Renate Reinsve only “burst” onto the American film scene three award seasons ago with her electric performance in The Worst Person in the World. It was the kind of role actresses dream of — featuring a range of genres, emotions to play with, and a character arc to die for. She took full advantage of it, ultimately getting an Oscar nomination for the unconventional part.
Since then she’s been booked and busy. You may have seen Reinsve on the Apple TV+ show Presumed Innocent opposite Jake Gyllenhaal. It was a remake of the 1990 film starring Harrison Ford about an affair gone wrong. Reinsve played the mistress. She had two films at Sundance last year including Handling the Undead which reunited her with her Worst Person in the World costar Anders Danielsen Lie. The second was A Different Man starring Sebastian Stan as an actor with Neurofibromatosis who undergoes a procedure that changes his body completely. She played his neighbor who takes his story and makes it into a play, leading him back to his old life and to regret his transformation.
As her career has taken off, so has the variety and size of the roles she chooses. But Reinsve’s latest part in the Norwegian psychological drama Armand gives her a lot to chew on. She plays a recently widowed well-known actress sent to her child’s school after another student accuses him of something sinister. As she meets with the school administrators and the other parents, her own relationship to the truth and those around her starts to unravel. Is she a manipulative grieving mother and widow or just a woman trying her best in an unfair situation?
I had the opportunity to chat with Reinsve about playing such an emotionally demanding role and how close the cast of A Different Man has been during this awards season.
Sony Pictures Classics thinks it might have a big hit on their hands with On Swift Horses, and they might be right. The adaptation of Shannon Pufahl’s buzzy 2019 bestseller stars rising stars Daisy Edgar-Jones (Twisters), Jacob Elordi (Saltburn), and Will Poulter (Midsommar). The film made a splash at TIFF last fall, and now a new trailer has been released before it hits theaters in April.
Here is the official synopsis: Based on the novel by Shannon Pufahl, ON SWIFT HORSES follows Muriel and her husband, Lee, as they begin a bright new life in California upon Lee’s return from the Korean War. But their newfound stability is upended by the arrival of Lee’s charismatic brother, Julius, a wayward gambler with a secret past. A dangerous love triangle quickly forms. When Julius takes off in search of the young card cheat he’s fallen for, Muriel’s longing for something more propels her into a secret life of her own, gambling on racehorses and exploring a love she never dreamed possible.
Also in the cast are Sasha Calle, Diego Calva, and Don Swayze.
This is the biggest film yet from writer/director Daniel Minahan, and his first since 2001’s Series 7: The Contenders. I’ll confess that Series 7 is a personal favorite, as it arrived just when we were starting to understand how corrosive reality TV could be on our society. Minahan has kept busy over the years in TV, directing episodes of Fellow Travelers, Game of Thrones, The Girl from Plainville, and many more.
Not only can you see Anthony Mackie this weekend soaring in Captain America: Brave New World, he’ll soon get back behind the wheel for season two of Twisted Metal. The Peacock series based on the popular racing video games returns with more vehicular manslaughter and deranged ice cream truck drivers across an apocalyptic wasteland. The show was created by Deadpool and Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, along with showrunner Michael Jonathan Smith.
Here’s the synopsis for season two: Following the revelations in the season one finale, John and Quiet find themselves entering the deadly TWISTED METAL tournament, a sinister demolition derby hosted by a mysterious man known as Calypso. As they try to survive an onslaught of dangerous new foes and familiar faces alike, including the murderous clown Sweet Tooth, things get complicated for John when he reunites with his long-lost sister, the vigilante Dollface.
Mackie is joined in the cast by former AEW World Heavyweight Champion Samoa Joe, along with Stephanie Beatriz, and Joe Seanoa, with Will Arnett and Anthony Carrigan who joins as Calypso, the host and creator of the Twisted Metal demolition derby.
Sony Pictures will release Twisted Metal‘s second season on Peacock this summer.
Video game movies are having their moment in the sun, so what better time to bring Until Dawn, the incredibly popular slasher/horror game, to the big screen? Shazam director David F. Sandberg returns to his horror roots where he delivered hit films Lights Out and Annabelle: Creation, with the hope that he can recreate that box office success.
Directed by Sandberg and co-written by G4 favorite Blair Butler and It writer Gary Dauberman, Until Dawn is set in the same universe as the game and follows a group of teens murdered in a remote valley by a serial killer. They’re sent back in time to relive the nightmare again and again, with the deadly threat worse each time.
So basically it’s like Happy Death Day, and we know how much fun that movie was.
The film stars The Sweet East breakout Ella Rubin, along with Michael Cimino, Ji-young Yoo, Odessa A’zion, Maia Mitchell, Belmont Cameli, and Peter Stormare
Sony Pictures will release Until Dawn in theaters on April 25th.
SYNOPSIS: One year after her sister Melanie mysteriously disappeared, Clover and her friends head into the remote valley where she vanished in search of answers. Exploring an abandoned visitor center, they find themselves stalked by a masked killer and horrifically murdered one by one…only to wake up and find themselves back at the beginning of the same evening. Trapped in the valley, they’re forced to relive the nightmare again and again – only each time, the killer threat is different, each more terrifying than the last. Hope dwindling, the group soon realizes they have a limited number of deaths left, and the only way to escape is to survive until dawn.
This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.
The poetic words of T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” form the unexpected heart of Scott Derrickson’s incredible Apple Original film, The Gorge. It’s rare that a movie comes along that offers literally everything one can ask for. Amazing action, monsters, dark fantasy worlds, and a beautiful love story with a pair of undeniable stars in Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller. My only regret watching The Gorge was that it wasn’t on a big screen, denying me the privilege of seeing it in a theater where it belongs.
Taylor-Joy and Teller play elite snipers Drasa and Levi, who individually have hundreds of confirmed kills to their names. Both are struggling with the weight of their violent pasts, stuck between guilt over what they’ve done and despair for the future. He’s suffering from night terrors and lives in isolation. She usually has her father to help bury what she’s done, but even that isn’t helping anymore. Whether it’s a potential lifeline or just a means to vanish quietly, both accept a mysterious mission to man watchtowers on opposing sides of a massive gorge, with no idea what lurks inside of it. Levi is warned by the officer (Sope Dirisu, an unfortunately small role) he’s relieving that there’s to be no communication with the other watch tower. Just keep watch on all of the various weapons and cloaking systems, and don’t let anything get out of the gorge.
Derrickson has long been known as one of the great horror filmmakers with such films as Sinister, The Black Phone, and The Exorcism of Emily Rose. But in some ways, The Gorge has more in common with his Marvel outing, Doctor Strange, in that it uses horror to enhance the other genres at play. The Gorge is, surprisingly, a love story first and foremost. Zach Dean’s script arranges a playful meet-cute from a distance: Drasa celebrating her birthday by signaling to Levi from afar. With no other human communication, they entertain one another with stuff they have in common: music and high-caliber weapons. It’s the lonely sniper equivalent of bumping into the person of your dreams at the grocery store.
We’re immediately invested in this semi-long-distance relationship because of the emptiness we know both characters are feeling. Rather than dragging things out for too long and coming up with manufactured ways for them not to interact directly, the film puts all of that aside and throws them right into the thick of it. The consequences of their first physical encounter find them thrust deep into the gorge itself, which turns out to be a nightmarish Hellscape like something out of The Lord of the Rings, complete with monstrous warriors on horseback. There’s a larger conspiracy that Drasa and Levi must figure out if they’re going to survive and have a chance at being together once and for all.
Dean’s screenplay was placed on the Black List of best unproduced screenplays and it’s easy to see why. He previously wrote the Chris Pratt sci-fi actioner The Tomorrow War, and tonally there are times when they mirror one another. The Gorge is fast-paced, endlessly exciting, and hopelessly romantic, with some cool set pieces including a terrific mountainside fight aboard a slowly-climbing jeep.
Derrickson has used his powers to scare us more often than not but here he shows a deft hand at directing action and romance. He’s got the perfect pair of leads in Taylor-Joy and Teller, whose romantic and physical chemistry is off the charts. There’s even a nice callback to Teller’s Whiplash drumming skills during the surprisingly lovely courtship. If I have a complaint, it’s that at just over 2 hours long, there isn’t enough story without a few scenes that are stretched thin. But then, there’s so much to enjoy about The Gorge that you don’t mind being stuck with guard duty this time.
Apple TV+ will stream The Gorge beginning February 14th.
