Sam Raimi is making his return to horror with Send Help, a film that we recently learned would star Rachel McAdams. Deadline reports that her co-star has been found and it’s Dylan O’Brien, who is coming off a tremendous 2024 with his 2025 looking just as strong.
Directed by Raimi from a script by Damian Shannon & Mark Swift (Freddy vs. Jason), Send Help“is a survival horror thriller about two colleagues (O’Brien and McAdams) who become stranded on a deserted island, the only survivors of a plane crash. On the island, they must overcome past grievances and work together to survive, but ultimately, it’s a battle of wills and wits to make it out alive.”
Raimi last directed Marvel’s Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness. He hasn’t directed full-fledged horror since Drag Me to Hell in 2009.
O’Brien has a lot of buzz here at Sundance for his performance in Twinless. He also earned strong reviews for playing Dan Akroyd in Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night, and for the MAX time-travel mystery Caddo Lake.
Like the zombies in Capcom’s hit Horror video game franchise, Resident Evil just won’t stay dead. After seven live-action movies, a live-action series that lasted one season, and loads of other media, Resident Evil is coming back to the big screen and it’s got a Hell of a director attached. THR reports Barbarian director Zach Cregger will write and direct a new film from Constantin Film and Playstation Productions.
Apparently, a studio bidding war is as the report states “Four studios are elbowing for the win, among them Warner Bros. and Netflix, according to sources.”
We’ve heard this before, but Cregger’s vision will “take the title back to its horror roots and be more faithful to the initial games.”
That’s what Johannes Roberts attempted with 2021’s Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, but fans had tuned out of this franchise by that time. It’s up to Cregger to find a way to get them interested again. And there’s reason to think an audience is still out there. Milla Jojovich starred in six movies that earned over $1B globally. You could argue the video games are more popular than ever right now.
Next up for Cregger is the long-awaited horror epic Weapons, opening in January 2026. He’s also a producer on next week’s thriller Companion, starring Jack Quaid and Sophie Thatcher.
Bryn Chainey’s feature debut, the Celtic folk horror Rabbit Trap, begins with an otherworldly voice,“With your eyes, you enter the world. With your ears, the world enters you. It is immediately followed by an aural barrage, a controlled chaos orchestrated by Daphne (Rosy McEwen), an influential musician whose music combines sounds you might find in nature with those manufactured by man. She and her husband Darcy (Dev Patel) have escaped to the Welsh countryside to develop their next album in solitude.
From the outset, Chainey establishes a unique use of sound to create bonds of intimacy, and as doorways to something dark and supernatural. Composer Lucrecia Dalt and sound designer Graham Reznick create a deafening abyss, pulling us into Daphne and Darcy’s collaborative undertaking. She is the star of this musical act, while he roams the natural world with his boom mic picking up new sounds for her to incorporate. It’s a partnership that works, both creatively and romantically. The passion put into their music is then expressed physically. However, when Darcy picks up a “sublime”, ethereal new sound it opens them up to something unexplainable. He wanders unknowingly into a fairy circle and it’s like stepping into another realm.
Shortly thereafter, a mysterious child (Jade Croot) begins watching their home, drawn to the music. Rabbit Trap starts getting really weird here, but also compelling as Darcy and Daphne deal with this strange kid, who they refer to as a boy but is more androgynous than that. The enigmatic child has a deceptive charm and chilling aura of Barry Keoghan, winning the couple over with knowledge of the area, weird gifts, and words of praise. He is particularly drawn to Daphne, who willingly offers up information about herself while the child remains evasive. Meanwhile, he shows Darcy how to trap rabbits while ominously stating the best way to do it is to offer the prey something it dearly wants.
The first hour of Rabbit Trap is compelling, as the youth worms his way further into Darcy and Daphne’s lives, exposing small cracks in their relationship. Darcy’s frequent night terrors are a source of tension, but go relatively unexplained, like so much does. As the boy becomes more aggressive and the couple’s parental instincts are challenged, the film becomes increasingly vague, any tension that had been conjured up evaporating like mist over the rolling hills.
Chainey bewitches you with an aural and visual marvel that would have benefited from a more cohesive story. While Patel is good as the paranoid Darcy, and McEwen brings an earthy spirit to her performance as Daphne, it’s Croot who astounds as one of the creepiest children to grace a horror film in recent years. Rabbit Trap has the makings of a great, stalker-ish horror movie with folklore influences, but Chainey plays it too close to the vest, too cryptic to be satisfying.
Brad Pitt has lined up his next major project, and it’s something of an unexpected reunion. Deadline reports Pitt will reunite with director David Ayer for the military survival adventure Heart of the Beast, which was announced last March.
Pitt will star in and produce Heart of the Beast through his Plan B label. The film, penned by Cameron Alexander, centers on a former Army Special Forces soldier and his retired combat dog who battle for survival after a plane crash deep in the unforgiving Alaskan wilderness.
Whiplash and Babylon director Damien Chazelle is aboard as a producer, along with Ayer.
Pitt and Ayer last worked together on the 2014 tank thriller, Fury, which earned $211M and numerous accolades. Coming up for Pitt is Joseph Kosinski’s anticipated racing thriller F1, opening this summer. He also has a reunion with George Clooney for Ocean’s 14, a sequel that has David Leitch eyeing the director role.
We’re happy to offer our DC readers the chance to attend a free screening of Prime Video’s comedy You’re Cordially Invited, starring Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell!
SYNOPSIS: When two weddings are accidentally booked on the same day at the same venue, each bridal party is challenged with preserving their family’s special moment while making the most of the unanticipated tight quarters. In a hilarious battle of determination and grit, the father of the bride (Will Ferrell) and sister of the other bride (Reese Witherspoon) chaotically go head-to-head as they stop at nothing to uphold an unforgettable celebration for their loved ones.
The screening takes place on Tuesday, January 28th at 7:00pm at AMC Tysons Corner. If you’d like to attend, RSVP at the Amazon site here. Please remember all screenings are first come first served and you’ll need to arrive early to ensure seating. Enjoy the show!
You’re Cordially Invited streams globally to Prime Video on January 30th.
While the recent news of Lucasfilm’s Daisy Ridley Star Wars project wasn’t good, with the film pulled from its 2026 slot, the film is far from dead. In fact, it’s found new life as THR reports George Nolfi will take a shot at the screenplay.
The film is still expected to be directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, and tell a story set 15 years after events in The Rise of Skywalker. Ridley returns as Rey Skywalker who is now a mentor to a new generation of Jedi.
Prior to the film’s announcement, writers Damon Lindelof and Justin Britt-Gibson were hammering out the story. They were eventually replaced by Peaky Blinders creator and Eastern Promises writer Steven Knight, but he dropped out last October, causing more delays on a potential start date.
Nolfi is best known for his screenplay work on the Bourne films, as well as on Ocean’s 12. He tends to deliver high-concept action and has always attracted top-notch talent, as seen in the movies he’s directed such as The Adjustment Bureau, The Banker, and Elevation, all three featuring star Anthony Mackie.
Due to the delays, the film has been passed on the pecking order by Shawn Levy’s untitled Star Wars project which has Ryan Gosling circling the lead role. But it looks as if Rey’s story is not over yet, and the hiring of Nolfi is a move in the right direction.
Someone needs to tell me why Stephan James isn’t an A-list actor right now, sought after by directors far and wide for intimate and blockbuster-sized projects. His breakthrough role as Jesse Owens in Race was a solid starting block, and while he’s been good elsewhere, it’s never clicked perfectly the way it does in Ricky. Rashad Frett’s drama, an expansion of his short film that was here at Sundance a couple of years ago, boils over with the emergence of raw talent. As an ex-con struggling to stay out of prison and do right in a world that seems stacked against him, James balances ferocity and vulnerability to create a character who feels instantly real, and like someone we all might have in our lives.
James plays Ricardo Smith, and he’s only a few weeks out on parole after serving a 15-year stint in prison. Given that he’s only 30 years old, Ricky doesn’t have the tools to survive that an adult his age should have. He’s also got severe rage issues, and can snap at a moment’s notice. Ricky has spent half of his life in prison with violent adults, learning not to trust anybody as a means of self-preservation. This is no way to exist in the real world, though; and Ricky isn’t exactly a patient man eager to learn new life lessons.
By the looks of it, Ricky is making it easy for himself to end up behind bars again He’s required to attend these self-help group meetings for ex-cons and he can’t seem to ever get there. His parole officer Joan (Sheryl Lee Ralph, with an occasional Caribbean accent that peaks through), takes no shit. She needs that signed letter saying Ricky attended the meetings. Ricky can’t hold a job, neither, in part because of his own screw-ups but also because he can’t endure the background checks.
One of the many positive things about Ricky is how it doesn’t try to paint him as a saint caught up in an obviously stacked legal system. The deck is stacked against him the way it’s stacked up against all ex-cons, and the film doesn’t even talk about the racial component because it’s obvious. But Ricky is also his own worst enemy and makes bad choices when the right ones are there in front of him.
What we also see is that Ricky is a decent soul; an imperfect one who can be scary when the rage is too hot to contain, but he’s trying the best he can with the skills he possesses. One of those is cutting hair; he has a real gift for it. It’s through this gift that he meets Jaz (Imani Lewis), a young mother who lets Ricky cut her son’s hair. She’s weary of Ricky at first but warms to his innocent, boyish nature. Ricky’s escapades with women are hit and miss, like the doomed sexual tryst with Cheryl (Andrene Ward-Hammond), another former felon who seems nice but later becomes one of the many mistakes that threaten to make his time on the outside short.
Throughout, Ricky shows street smarts and naivete as he comes of age. We witness his first sexual encounters, his first driver’s license, and his first girlfriend, all things he should have done years earlier but is only now able. Ricky works best when seen as a coming-of-age story rather than one of social justice. Frett, for all of his skillful direction and ability to capture small moments and intense violence, fails to fully flesh out Ricky’s world in a way that feels unique.
The film is set in Hartford, CT in a bustling Caribbean community much like the one Frett grew up in. Prior to the film’s world premiere at Sundance this evening, Frett talked about wanting to tell this kind of story but do it in a way unique to the people of that community. But Ricky fails to do that. It could’ve been set in Oakland or Los Angeles like so many movies telling a similar story. Frett also wanted to highlight the mental health issues that so many face upon leaving prison, but Ricky barely skims the surface. The same goes for frequent allusions to those exonerated after wrongful convictions, and the tragic story of Kalief Browder, who spent 800 days in solitary confinement for a crime he may or may not have committed, and then hanged himself shortly after release. These may have been an influence but don’t necessarily fit with Ricky’s hardships, and feel like Frett’s forceful attempts to give his film some meaning.
Ricky doesn’t need any of that. James’ soulful, compelling performance is one of the best to pass through Park City in years, and Frett knows how to tell a story that crackles with life and genuine stakes. While I wouldn’t dare compare Ricky‘s debut to the world premiere of Fruitvale (later Fruitvale Station) more than a decade ago, if we’re so lucky, the pairing of Frett and James will become as tight-knit as Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan.
You’d have to be made of stone to not get a bit weepy at Cole Webley’s feature directing debut, the heartbreaking road trip drama Omaha. Led by the red-hot John Magaro, who has long been a reliable hand but now is reaching must-watch status, the film is absolutely drowning in sadness and dread for the end of one broken family’s journey. There are moments of light and laughter to be found, and even a spark of hope, but they are all tinged with a melancholy that is tough to bear.
All of that is said as a positive, I might add, because that somber tone is essential to driving home his message, revealed in the film’s final moments. But for much of it, we are left in the dark as to the destination that Dad (Magaro) has in mind. That puts us on level footing with his perceptive children, 9-year-old Ella (Molly Belle Wright), and 6-year-old Charlie (Wyatt Solis), who are pulled sleepy-eyed out of bed and into their broken-down car for a trip to parts unknown, leaving behind a home with eviction notices stuck to the door. Ella, wise beyond her years, helps Dad push start the barely-functioning vehicle. From the look in her eyes, this is something she is quite used to and even enjoys because it bring her closer to Dad, who has been struggling after the death of his wife and the financial collapse. Along with their loyal golden retriever Rex, the family is on what feels like one last ride together. Webley isn’t hiding that feeling; he wants you to have that pang of worry in your gut for the fate of these kids, for this family.
Intimate and yet at times profound, Omaha is imbued with small personal touches that resonate and expand our understanding of this family and its dynamic. With Dad slipping further into despair, Ella has picked up the slack in caring for Charlie and Rex. In quiet moments, she looks with desperation at her father, seeing the spark drain from his eyes and wondering if she is somehow to blame. And yet she’s still a kid who misses her mom; she bursts into singing her late parent’s favorite song, “Mony Mony”, and plays a handmade CD with mother’s soothing voice on it. The fun-loving, precocious Charlie is a junior thief in the making, as his collection of toy cars stolen from gas stations grows as the miles pass behind them.
While grief is at the heart of Omaha, there’s also a sense of adventure and wonderment, backdropped by glorious shots of the countryside. Still, it’s impossible to escape the encroaching darkness and it constantly threatens to push the film over the edge. Keeping us fully engaged are the performances, with Magaro at his most heartbreaking and Wright showing the maturity of an actress three times her age. Eventually, Dad reveals the destination, Nebraska, and some will pick up on why he’s headed there. The rest will figure it out in the film’s most gut-wrenching scenes, confirming the fears we’d been holding in throughout. Fortunately, after Omaha twists the knife, it also leaves a little room for hope, and the feeling that there might be brighter things ahead is what makes this tough road one worth traveling.
In the opening moments of Steven Soderbergh’s Presence, his camera swoops and swirls throughout an empty, multi-tiered home in an idyllic suburb. While Soderbergh’s style is always distinguished, more so than a lot of other directors with no fingerprint at all, here his lens is an actual presence, a supernatural force lurking in some places, observing carefully in others. We’re trained to consider all such entities to be menacing, but Soderbergh plays his true intentions close to the vest in this deliberately-paced film about a new family that moves into the haunted home.
Once again working with frequent collaborator in screenwriter David Koepp, Soderbergh crafts a lean ghost story that isn’t focused on scares, but in the building of tension among a troubled family in a confined space. To be charitable, it takes some time to get going properly, and you wish there was a bit more of the dark wit shown in the initial moments. Julia Fox has a small role as a realtor who, when we first meet her, has just arrived seconds before the potential clients arrive to see the house. “Oh I always arrive early”, she lies almost immediately. Lucy Liu is the family matriarch, Rebekah, a no-nonsense type used to getting her way. She already knows she wants this house before anybody else can look at it. Her husband, Chris, played by Chris Sullivan, isn’t sold but he knows better than to push the issue. Rebekah sees the place as being in the perfect school district for her favorite child, Tyler (Eddy Maday), a competitive swimmer who would benefit from it. Their daughter Chloe (Callina Liang) is sullen and quiet, still grieving from the recent deaths of two friends by what we are led to believe are accidental overdoses. Tyler has no problem rubbing it in Chloe’s face, while Chris is worried she could go down the same path.
Soderbergh establishes the contours of this family dynamic easily with no fuss, but Presence ironically takes its time making an impression. We learn precious little about their background; all of the details we need are dished out conservatively as they interact. It becomes clear that Chris and Rebekah are going through some marital discord, and that Rebekah has begun focusing all of her energy in supporting Tyler while ignoring Chloe’s obvious calls for help. When strange things start happening around Chloe, such as items being moved and a closet shelf collapsing mysteriously, nobody believes her when she says she can sense something unnatural in the house.
But Chloe does find a willing listener in Ryan (West Mulholland), one of Tyler’s friends and one of those guys you instantly know is going to be trouble. His words drip honey, and he comes with his own stories of anguish. It isn’t long before he and Chloe are hooking up in secret, but as his manipulation turns more sinister, the presence…well, it makes its presence felt. This happens again later, as the entity shows itself to the entire family after Tyler regales them with a horrible story about a humiliating prank on a girl in his class. Rebekah loves every word of it, while Chris vocalizes his displeasure. The presence isn’t having it, either, revealing to us the first inkling of a motivation why it has chosen to be active now.
After a build that’s almost too slow, Presence ramps up in intensity, backed up by an escalating score by Zack Ryan that takes on more of a horror tone. The long wait is worth it, as disturbing motives are revealed, others become attracted to the entity’s presence, and a shocking sacrificial act that will leave you gasping for air. Under difference hands, this would be a bloated Hollywood thriller with jump scares, extraneous characters, and unnecessary visual effects. But Soderbergh only needs 85-minutes, an eerie home, and a solid cast to spin a satisfying ghost story that is more tangible than ethereal.
Sweet and demented don’t often go hand in hand, but in James Sweeney’s second feature, Twinless, they are a match made in cringe comedy heaven. Written, directed, and starring Sweeney, with a brilliant turn from Dylan O’Brien, the film starts out as a sweet dramedy until the opening credits roll, an ominous 20 minutes in.
After a car crash kills his identical twin brother, Rocky, Roman (both men played by O’Brien) is having a difficult time adjusting to being an only child. Realizing his anger is a problem he heads to a support group for grieving twins where he meets Denis (Sweeney), an unassuming gay man who is mourning his twin, Dean.
Seeing some of Rocky in Denis, Roman reaches out and the two form a bond, eating sandwiches in diners together and going grocery shopping. Roman does most of the talking, explaining why he and his twin weren’t close and remembering the things he misses about him. The relationship that forms between a man so straight it’s almost cliche and an out gay man isn’t like any we’ve seen onscreen before. But it is the endearing bond between Roman and Denis established in the first half hour that holds the film together when things get increasingly uncomfortable and more morally gray.
I don’t want to reveal too much but Denis’ motivations are anything less than pure — they are almost predatorial. I do feel comfortable saying he knew Rocky in a sexual capacity. As we learn more about his past and mental state, the focus shifts away from Roman and onto Denis. At times, it feels like the two are in very different films. Sweeney is more suited to a Mike White/Tim Robinson/Emerald Fennell kind of comedy while O’Brien is firmly in a dramedy space (think like 50/50, The Farewell, or This is Where I Leave You). Both shine in their perspective genres, though O’Brien is clearly at the top of his game here. As Rocky, he rocks a Freddy Mercury-like swagger complete with a mustache and a flouncey strut. As Roman, he brings out a sensitivity to what could be a dumb-jock role. In the latter performance, you just want to hug him until
When the other shoe finally drops, Sweeney takes his time with the fallout, making you question how — and if — he will stick the landing. He certainly stumbles and the climax can’t live up to the build-up, but everything about this concept, from the broadest level to the smallest micro-joke, feels interesting and daring. His first film, Straight Up, felt this way as well but didn’t cross into the taboo as this one does.
Try to go into Twinless as clueless as possible. The twists Sweeney leads you on are a flipping ride and you don’t know where or what the next turn is. Though, at times there’s a tonal clash between O’Brien’s numb Roman and Sweeney’s almost surreal portrayal of Denis, their different approaches pay off in the end and prove the latter is a filmmaker to watch.
Twinless premiered at Sundance this week and will compete in the U.S. Dramatic Competition. It will be distributed by Paramount’s Republic Pictures. A release date has not been announced.
