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27 Sep

The Walking Dead Season 11 Episode 6 Review: On the Inside

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This The Walking Dead review contains spoilers. The Walking Dead Season 11 Episode 6 Clearly, writer Kevin Dieboldt and the various creative crew behind The Walking Dead are Wes Craven fans. The 1991 Wes Craven film The People Under the Stairs was one of the better movies Craven did, and it remains a lot of fun while also being shocking and still having some great scares. “On the Inside” takes that premise, combines it with Mile Flanagan’s Hush, and the end result is one of the most jaw-clenching, teeth grinding episodes of straight-out horror that The Walking Dead has done.…

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27 Sep

Cobra Kai Season 4: Can Daniel and Johnny Make Amends?

Netflix, New DVD release

Aristotle said, “A common danger unites even the bitterest enemies.” In the upcoming season 4 of Cobra Kai, Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) may finally bury the hatchet, or the axe kick, in their battle to save the valley from Cobra Kai’s villainous Sensei Kreese (Martin Kove). During Netflix’s global fan event, TUDUM, the latest sneak peek at Cobra Kai revealed a few clues about where season 4 might go. The next season of the breakout reboot hit premieres on December 31 so fans can nurse their New Year’s Eve hangovers with a Karate Kid binge.  …

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27 Sep

The Simpsons Season 33 Episode 1 Review: The Star of the Backstage

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This The Simpsons review contains spoilers. The Simpsons Season 33 Episode 1 Why don’t we do the show right here, Mickey Rooney or Judy Garland might ask in a Hollywood Golden Age movie about barnstorming local theater. Sadly, The Simpsons’ “The Star of the Backstage” can’t go Rent-free. The techies, theater-geeks, and all the animators pull out almost all the stops for the season 33 premiere, but offer a mixed bag, even when it takes a Wicked turn. The premise is great. It begins at the funeral for Springfield High School’s theater director Franklin Chase, and Marge wants to bring…

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27 Sep

Vigil Ending: Russian Spies, Navy Conspiracies and Murders at Sea

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Warning: contains Vigil finale spoilers. Nobody could accuse BBC thriller Vigil of lacking plot. That series was a Matryoshka doll, in which each mystery broke in half to reveal another, then another, and another. What began with a sunk trawler, a heroin overdose and a whistle blower ended with a Russian plot, a multi-layered Naval conspiracy, a drowned activist, three dead crew members, and a saboteur in a cage, shitting in a bucket. Along the way there were family revelations, broken hearts, an extra-marital affair, and the deadliest tin of sliced grapefruit ever to feature on television. Join us as…

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27 Sep

Vigil Episode 6 Review: a Thrilling Pay-Off

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Warning: this Vigil review contains spoilers. DCI Silva needs to send a fruit basket to whoever thought to include a ‘Cancel Tube Flood Cycle’ button on Britain’s vanguard-class submarines. That one will have gone straight to the top of her personal Best Button list (my top three: Cadbury’s, R1 on a PlayStation controller, and Moon). Silva had a narrow escape from the triple nightmare of drowning in an enclosed space while screaming so loudly that everybody can see your fillings without actually making a sound. Add in an exam she hadn’t revised for and some public nudity and she’d have covered all bases.  It…

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27 Sep

Endeavour Series 8 Episode 3 Review: a Turning Point for Morse

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Endeavour Series 8 Finale Review: Terminus Warning: contains Endeavour spoilers. Back in 2019, I interviewed Endeavour’s writer Russell Lewis for Den of Geek. We talked about the young Morse’s love life (or lack thereof), the show’s many nods to 1960s cinema, and even Endeavour’s interesting choices in facial hair. After what had, at that point, been six series of the Inspector Morse prequel, one question was inevitable. Where would it all end? Lewis (appropriate name, that) wouldn’t be drawn on exactly what the long game was at that point. Quite right, too: it was always going to be ITV’s call,…

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26 Sep

Evil Season 2: What Is Sheryl Pumping into Her Veins?

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This Evil interview contains spoilers. Evil knows how to get the blood pumping. From mundane angst to cosmic dread, Paramount+’s psychological and paranormal mystery series finds the vein which controls the pulse. The main team of investigators are warned they will face their most frightening subject in their latest probe. Though it is said with a chuckle, the fear is universal. If it’s not death, it’s taxes. But “I Is for IRS” doesn’t merely mine the collective subconscious for a familiar terror, it turns the horrors of abuse upside down for an insidious take on the empowerment of darker dabblings.…

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26 Sep

Evil Season 2: Does Leland Fake His Exorcism or Is Satan Behind Him?

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This Evil review contains spoilers. Evil Season 2 Episode 11 Leland (Michael Emerson) does all the voices, from the venerated holy relics of The Exorcist to Laraine Newman’s Shirley Temple in Saturday Night Live’s takeoff on it. He tosses priests across rooms with one hand tied to a bedpost. He sweats, swears and pukes vile, living, inky blackness from the bowels of hell. He looks lost and defeated, beaten, and busted. But when it’s all over, Leland gives a knowing wink to a suspicious David Acosta (Mike Colter), and bitches about the new kids on the block and those awful…

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26 Sep

Netflix’s The Midnight Club Is Not a Midnight Mass Sequel (But There Is Cast Crossover)

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Between booze and cigarettes, says Mike Flanagan, he’s shed a lot of addictions by this point in his life, but work isn’t one of them. “I cannot eliminate work,” the writer-director tells Den of Geek and other press over Zoom. “That is the addiction I haven’t escaped and it’s running amok in the absence of all the others.” He’s not kidding. In the last five years, Flanagan has directed, written or co-written and edited five feature films (Hush, Before I Wake, Ouija: Origins of Evil, Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep) as well as directing, co-writing and executive-producing three Netflix series…

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25 Sep

The Witcher Season 2 First Look Asks What Kind of Father Geralt Will Be

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The fate of Geralt of Rivia and Ciri, the Lion Cub of Cintra, were forever linked when the law of surprise was invoked in The Witcher season 1 after the monster killer saved the life of the princess’ father. But when Ciri finally found the man her dying grandmother, Queen Calanthe, urged her to seek out, a question arose: what sort of role would the two play in each other’s lives as the story of season 2 unfolds? The multiple first look previews that Netflix shared for The Witcher season 2 during its TUDUM event seems to indicate that Geralt…

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25 Sep

The Sandman First Look and Character Posters Introduce Dream, Death, and Desire

Netflix, New DVD release

The Sandman author Neil Gaiman has famously fought off numerous attempts to adapt his most famous graphic novel series, but in Netflix’s TUDUM event, a sneak peek clip and some character art for a few of the most recognizable characters give fans a glimpse of the vision the author finally brought to life along with executive producer David Goyer. The first look at Dream, Death, and Desire illustrate the conceptual personifications that Gaiman became known for even in later works like American Gods. The first image is of the sandman himself, Morpheus the Dream King, Lord of the Dreaming, played…

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25 Sep

Stranger Things Season 4 Trailer Introduces … a Full-on Haunted House?

Netflix, New DVD release

By its very title, Netflix horror hit Stranger Things has promised some, well, stranger things.  Still, through three seasons of nostalgia-tinged spookies, Stranger Things has mostly stayed in the realm of monsters. Whether it was the Demogorgon, its “Demo-dogs”, or the skyscraper-sized Mind Flayer, Stranger Things’ big bads have been more Dungeons & Dragons style creatures from the Upside Down rather than your traditional things-that-go-bump-in-the-night spirits. Perhaps, however, that is all set to change with Stranger Things season 4. During Netflix’s global fan event, TUDUM, Stranger Things creators The Duffer Brothers and actors Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin Henderson) and Joe Keery…

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25 Sep

Midnight Mass Ending Explained

Netflix, New DVD release

This article contains spoilers for Midnight Mass. Ending a horror story is hard. Perhaps no one knows that better than Mike Flanagan, the writer-director behind horror hits like Doctor Sleep, The Haunting of Hill House, and The Haunting of Bly Manor. After observing the occasional less-than-enthusiastic reaction to the endings of some of his other projects, Flanagan decided to end his latest, Netflix series Midnight Mass, on his own terms. “I didn’t want to come up with an ending that I thought would please people,” Flanagan told Den of Geek and other outlets prior to Midnight Mass’s premiere. “I wanted…

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25 Sep

Why the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Paywall for N64 and Sega Genesis Games Is a Terrible Idea

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Almost every announcement in the September 2021 Nintendo Direct broadcast tried to one-up the other reveals. Audiences finally got the long-awaited Bayonetta 3 gameplay trailer (it was every bit as exciting as we hoped), minutes after the internet was left to decide whether to shout “Wahoo!” or “Mamma mia!” over the Super Mario movie voice cast. But the highlight of the mini-expo, even though virtually everyone predicted it, was the announcement that Nintendo Switch Online subscribers can soon play Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis games… assuming they pay for a more expensive subscription model. Something doesn’t smell right. Before we…

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25 Sep

My Hero Academia Season 5 Finale Review: The High, Deep Blue Sky

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This My Hero Academia review contains spoilers. My Hero Academia Season 5 Episode 25 “Let me ask you, why do you still wish for more power?” My Hero Academia has always been very elegant with its exploration of the  fine line that can exist between hero and villain, but that’s never been more apparent than after the events of this bifurcated season. Season five of My Hero Academia heads into this finale with newfound empathy and anxiety. The tension that exists between the Pro Heroes Association and the League of Villains Paranormal Liberation Front is rejuvenated in a way that…

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25 Sep

Should the Next James Bond Care About Continuity After Daniel Craig?

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With No Time to Die, Daniel Craig says goodbye to the role of James Bond after 15 years and five films—the longest tenure in the franchise since Roger Moore’s 12-year, seven-film run. Like the five previous Bond actors before him, Craig’s era was marked by both highs and lows in quality, and certain controversial decisions, creatively and narratively. If the Craig run is remembered by one thing though (besides its return to a grittier, more psychologically complex 007), it will be that for the first time the series told one overarching story over the course of the actor’s entire run.…

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25 Sep

Midnight Mass Is Creative, Bold, and Flawed Horror

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This review contains huge spoilers for Midnight Mass. Don’t you dare even think of reading one word before you watch. Mike Flanagan, the maestro of horror responsible for Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and this spooky season’s entry, Midnight Mass, has always taken a novelistic approach to storytelling.  The man knows his way around a jump-scare, sure, but he excels in crafting deep, rewarding themes, richly drawn characters, and ornate dialogue. It’s what has drawn him toward adapting novels from horror legends like Shirley Jackson, Henry James, and Stephen King. And it’s perhaps what’s…

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25 Sep

The Starling Review: Melissa McCarthy Netflix Movie Doesn’t Fly

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The Starling is a movie that can be held up as a good example of why Netflix should not get behind every single project that comes its way. The streaming giant probably thought that a tragicomic drama starring Melissa McCarthy, Chris O’Dowd, and Kevin Kline (making one of his rare onscreen appearances these days) would be a sure bet. But like the CG-created bird that gives the movie its title, the movie never once approaches anything resembling reality. What makes it worse is that the movie deals with some intensely painful and very real subjects: depression, grief, and that most…

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25 Sep

Denzel Washington Leads First Great Tragedy of Macbeth Movie

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William Shakespeare’s Macbeth has proven to be one of the Bard’s most elusive tragedies for filmmakers. Despite being among his best known plays and full of visceral imagery like witches and war, murders and revenge, this allegedly cursed title has appeared genuinely damned on-screen. It thwarted masters like Roman Polanski and defeated would-be revisionists, such as Justin Kurzel only six years ago. But with Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, a haunting and meditative work from one-half of the Coen Brothers, the Scottish play finally gets its due. How much more marvelous then that it does so with two astonishing…

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25 Sep

Could Marvel Lose Full Ownership of Spider-Man and Avengers in New Lawsuits?

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Marvel Studios’ transformation from an entertainment conglomerate to a legal firm that occasionally makes blockbusters is apparently well underway. Following the paradigm-shifting lawsuit filed against Marvel by actress Scarlett Johansson for Black Widow’s release strategy, the Disney subsidiary behind The Avengers and many other superheroes is set to return to court soon. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Marvel is filing a series of lawsuits against various Marvel comics figures, including the heirs of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, in a bid to maintain complete ownership over its most popular characters. THR obtained a copy of one such complaint for declaratory…

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