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06 Nov

Heretic: The Horror of Mormonism, Atheism and Everything Between

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The character of Mr. Reed frightened Scott Beck and Bryan Woods years before they knew he looked like Hugh Grant. Dapper, erudite, and domineeringly cheerful in his condescension, their creation was meant to embody every suspicion, doubt, and perhaps ill thought that two lifelong friends from Iowa had about religion. And yet, when they got down to putting pen to paper, a realization occurred: How much about religion did they really know? When Beck and Woods began writing what became Heretic 12 or so years ago, they knew what their setup would be. Two young Mormon missionaries arrive on the…

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05 Nov

Pokémon The Movie 2000 Introduced a Generation of Kids to Harsh Capitalism

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Released at the apex of the first wave of Pokémania in 2000, the second Pokémon feature film put an exclamation point on a worldwide phenomenon. By the time Pokémon the Movie 2000 arrived to North American theaters in July of…well, 2000, Pokémon was already the biggest game in town. From the 1998 release of the video games Blue and Red to the ongoing run of the anime, to the successful launch of its trading card game, the Pokémon franchise didn’t need to sweeten the pot to get kids to show up en masse for the opening weekend of the second…

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02 Nov

Kamala Harris Did What Even Doomsday May Not: Reassemble the Original Avengers

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In 2012, they assembled to confront Loki and hordes of Chitauri aliens who were attacking New York City; in 2019 they assembled again to give Thanos and his extreme form of population control the spanking it deserved; and now in 2024, to many’s surprise—including perhaps the Disney executives who ran Scarlett Johansson’s name through the mud three years ago—the Avengers are back. And as they see it, they are confronting the gravest threat to America they’ve seen in their lifetimes: Donald J. Trump. That is at least one way to read the pointed, if light-footed and humor-leaning new political video…

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02 Nov

Hollywood’s Forgotten Love Letter to American Fascism in the 1930s

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Near the tailend of producer Walter Wanger’s Gabriel Over the White House, an American commander-in-chief sits side by side with the leader of an American gang. The visual and cultural cues of such a scenario might look unfamiliar to modern eyes, but the subtext being conveyed to audiences circa 1933 feels eerily familiar. The self-named Nick Diamond—who we learned earlier in the picture was born with the ethnic-sounding moniker of Antone Brilawski—presents himself as a man about town, a dapper gent with a smart suit and expensive cane. He even quotes the recently incarcerated Al Capone. And yet, the President…

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01 Nov

Drop: Blumhouse and the Director of Happy Death Day Redefine Horror in the Twitter Era

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When trying to describe his new movie Drop, Happy Death Day and Freaky director Christopher Landon found the scariest premise of all time. “This movie is like Twitter,” Landon tells Den of Geek at our New York Comic Con studio. “The movie touches on online culture, where you are being harassed or tormented by someone that you cannot see and cannot find, and cannot respond to.” Honestly, it was only a matter of time before someone made a horror movie about the most cursed hellsite on the internet. Barbarian, Open Windows, M3GAN, and AfrAId already showed the terrors of Air…

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31 Oct

Heretic Review: That Hugh Grant Is a Devil

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The thing—the one gnawing, irreconcilable thing—about religion is you never get to see “the truth,” which you’re told repeatedly exists just beyond your senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Instead you are asked to think of the answers as a great mystery someone else has solved for you, and you must take their word for it as a matter of faith. The appeal of Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’ Heretic is a little bit like that too. You don’t see what exactly is at the end of its central game, its own great mystery, but you’re left with the unwavering…

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31 Oct

The Sexy Monster and Girl Trope: The Many Movies That Said Dead Is Better

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Love can come in many forms, and in horror movies, anything that has a beating heart can make for an affectionate partner. Think about it: hairy beasts, grotesque flies, glistening vampires, and other creatures have proven time and again to be better romantic partners than actual humans. Many of these entries are the perfect lover boys who gave definition to the horror romance subgenre, whether it be creatures who bite, claw, roar, growl, or what have you. You hear, fellas, you need to become as potent as Edward Cullen or Lisa Frankenstein’s monster!  In that vein, last weekend’s weekend’s Your…

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31 Oct

Movies to Watch After Don’t Move

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There is something bleakly sinister about a serial killer thriller that begins with said killer “saving” a woman from suicide so that he can kill her himself. Such is the perverse opening sequence of Don’t Move, directors Brian Netto and Adam Schindler’s nasty little genre piece which is blowing up on Netflix just in time for Halloween. Set in a gorgeous stretch of remote backwoods, Don’t Move is all about the cat and mouse moves between “Richard” (Finn Wittrock), the cat, and Iris (Kelsey Asbille), the mouse. In fact, Iris is a grieving mother who lost a child under tragic…

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30 Oct

1980s Cop Movies Ranked by How Many Laws They Break

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At the end of Dirty Harry, tough guy Inspector Harry Callahan guns down the Scorpio Killer. In 1971, audiences were primed to see a Zodiac Killer stand-in get so definitively taken down. But Callahan himself felt clear remorse for crossing a line. After killing Scorpio, Callahan tosses his badge into a murky pond and walks away, no longer fit to be a police officer. Despite the moral clarity Callahan shows in Dirty Harry, and when he goes up against rogue cops in the sequel Magnum Force, audiences loved the rough and tumble attitude embraced by Dirty Harry and The French…

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30 Oct

Kolchak: The Night Stalker at 50 – A Character Who Changed the Horror Genre Forever

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From M.R. James’s lone academics, stalked by ancient horrors, to the grisly cases explored by the Fringe Division: the search goes on for answers to the questions most of us don’t dare ask. The truth is out there, somewhere. It always was. Twenty years before the X-Files were opened, another intrepid investigator was already on the case. Chasing down ghouls and ghosts, he was the scourge of vampires and werewolves: a thorn in the side of police chiefs and politicians. In a well-worn suit straight out of the ‘50s and his trademark hat, he looked – to loosely quote his…

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30 Oct

Venom 3’s Sinister Six Tease Is Too Little, Too Late

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This article contains spoilers for Venom: The Last Dance. “Your champion is fallen,” sneers the symbiote god Knull in the post-credit scene of Venom: The Last Dance. “The planets will be mine. The King in Black is awake. I will kill your world. Everyone will burn.” With each clipped line, the camera pans up a little bit more, from the black CGI sludge of Knull’s body to the white CGI sludge of Knull’s face. In the last second, Knull looks directly into the lens to growl at the audience, “And you will watch!” The scene raises a lot of questions,…

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30 Oct

How The Electric State Sees the Russo Brothers Return to Big Sci-Fi Action

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Five years since Joe and Anthony Russo unleashed Avengers: Endgame on the world, the pair are finally returning to the big sci-fi action genre, this time in a brand new world. But just like the Avengers, many of the heroes of this new world are… assembled. This weekend, audiences at MCM London got a first glimpse at just what that new film will look like. The new movie, inspired by artist Simon Stålenhag’s graphic novel The Electric State, is coming to Netflix next year. But the Russos have been working on it since before Thanos had finished assembling the infinity…

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30 Oct

A List of Cinema Visits Ruined By Other People’s Personalities/Choice of Snack

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Cinemas can be transcendent places. Sitting elbow-to-elbow with your fellow man and basking in the glow of other human imaginations? Joy itself. As long as everybody behaves. When a few simple rules are followed (phones away, shoes on, no talking, stinky food, or stretching your legs through the gap between the seats in front to rest your stockinged feet next to your neighbour’s nose) it all works like a dream. When those rules aren’t followed, then it’s very easy to wonder why you’ve shelled out £15 for the privilege of hearing your fellow man rustle crisps in the dark and seeing…

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30 Oct

Haunted House FearFest Hosts Its Biggest Show Yet

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Den of Geek is a media partner of Haunted House FearFest. A crisp autumn weekend is the perfect time to relax in an old and potentially haunted theater for a marathon of horror films and video games. Now in its third year, Haunted House FearFest hosted its biggest festival yet on the last weekend of October, in the heart of New York City and before a sea of bloodthirsty fans. The three-day event showcased independent short and feature-length films, TV shows, and even video games—all highlighting the broad scope of today’s horror landscape.  Renee Huff, the festival owner and executive…

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30 Oct

The Best Nightmare on Elm Street Kills Ranked

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This month’s 40th anniversary of A Nightmare on Elm Street offers all of us a chance to dwell upon the unforgiving passage of time and celebrate one of horror’s greatest franchises. Back in a moment when slashers and their sequels were still trying to prove they could do more than corrupt youths, A Nightmare on Elm Street showed how big such movies could become, and how they could use their popularity as an excuse to explore increasingly elaborate ideas.  … And few aspects of the Freddy Krueger franchise exhibit the evolution of the series better than its kills. While it…

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29 Oct

Venom 3: All the Symbiotes and Cameos Explained

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This article contains spoilers for Venom: The Last Dance. We. Are. Venom. Those three words really capture the appeal of the Venom franchise, a trio of films that somehow, despite being a Spider-Man spinoff that lacks Spider-Man and despite being made by Sony, managed to be huge hits. Those three words, delivered by Tom Hardy in an outrageous voice, point to the warm-hearted romantic comedy vibes that make the movies so much fun. The other appeal to the Venom movies have been seeing just how hard they commit to the symbiote concept. For those who didn’t read Marvel Comics in…

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29 Oct

‘Horror Fatigue’ Is a Hollywood Delusion That Will Never Exist

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In 1936, Universal Pictures was at the forefront of the American horror genre. The studio built by Carl Laemmle, a man who did not personally care for spooky stories, established its reputation in the silent era, in part, on some of the most iconic chillers starring Lon Chaney Sr. And in the 1930s, they defined what still remains our image of Halloween decorations via classic monster movies like Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), and The Mummy (1932). But by the mid-point in the decade, conventional wisdom suggested horror had run its course. British censors outright banned Universal’s Bela Lugosi and Boris…

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29 Oct

Star Wars Will Finally Explore the Kylo Ren and Darth Vader History the Movies Missed

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Family and legacy have always been important parts of the Skywalker Saga in Star Wars. The sequel trilogy especially expanded on this idea in interesting ways. Rey (Daisy Ridley) was revealed to be the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), but decided to carry on the Skywalker legacy instead. Meanwhile her counterpart in the Force, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), the son of Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) and Han Solo (Harrison Ford), decided to carry on the legacy of his grandfather, Darth Vader, instead. In the movies, we don’t get to see much regarding Ren’s posthumous relationship with his grandfather. We…

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28 Oct

The Best Creepypastas That Never Became Movies

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If there’s one thing Hollywood loves, it’s an inexpensive intellectual property ripe for the optioning. That’s why, for a moment there, it really looked like creepypastas were going to be the future of cinema. For the uninitiated, a creepypasta is simply a scary story crafted for the internet. The noodly name derives from the memeable blocks of text known as “copypastas” that get copied, pasted, and shared across multiple forums on the web. The horror version of a “copypasta” is therefore dubbed a “creepypasta.” Creepypastas have been a spooky season internet staple long before they were even known as creepypastas.…

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26 Oct

Conclave Director Explains Ending’s Final Twists

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This article contains Conclave spoilers. For many viewers who think they recognize a bit of foreshadowing when they hear it, having Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci) demand to know what would be the chosen papal name of Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) seemed to promise a likely finale: the reluctant and doubtful priest we’ve been following this whole time becomes pontiff and heir to the throne of St. Peter. After all, as is wrongly said more than once about Bellini, isn’t the man who does not want power the most deserving of it? Yet if you saw Conclave this weekend, then you…

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