New York Comic Con is an event filled with cosplay, merch, and plenty of fan interaction, but the annual convention also features plenty of big announcements coming from the television and film panels as well as activations to create a unique experience for attendees. If you weren’t able to make it to NYCC this year, we’ve got you covered with all of the most exciting news and memorable moments coming from this year’s gathering. Plus, a few exclusive tidbits we learned at our interview studio! Panels  The Future of the Star Trek Universe Star Trek was in full force at…

Some people say the 1990s weren’t the best years for horror since they marked the end of many of the popular slasher franchises from the ‘70s and ‘80s that previous generations grew up on. In those movies’ place, the ‘90s introduced way more postmodern teen horrors (following on from Scream). But there was way more to ‘90s horror than that, and it’s an era which deserves a second look. While Scream was revising the slasher model, making it more female-friendly and catering to teen gore hounds who knew all the tricks, The Blair Witch Project ushered in a new era…

Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut is Woman of the Hour, a crime drama centered on the time when serial killer Rodney Alcala appeared on show The Dating Game, while he was in the middle of his killing spree and had already been arrested and convicted of child molestation twice. Kendrick’s film is not a mawkish biopic of Alcala, it’s more a study of women being unsafe around men and how, certainly in the ’70s in the USA, the police and legal systems let victims down. The story is told through Kendrick’s portrayal of Cheryl Bradshaw, the bachelorette who picked Alcala on…

This article is sponsored by Sneak Energy. Check out their Terminator 40th limited edition collection here! From its first shocking future-tense moment to its ominous, and haunting ending, The Terminator is so much more than just a well-made action sci-fi movie. Forty years ago, with a script co-written by Gale Anne Hurd, James Cameron directed what can only be called his first masterpiece. Though the larger franchise is broadly beloved, the original film—featuring brilliant performances from Michael Biehn, Linda Hamilton, and Arnold Schwarzenegger—remains an unforgettable piece of cinematic art. Now, 40 years after its initial release, The Terminator is back…

Where now are the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? The Horse-lords of Tolkien’s Middle-earth rode into New York Comic Con with a star-studded panel for New Line Cinema’s forthcoming animated feature, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim. This prequel takes place approximately 200 years before the events of The Fellowship of the Ring, when Helm Hammerhand, ninth king of Rohan and the namesake of Helm’s Deep and Rohan’s legendary horn, escalated a family feud against his Dunlending neighbors and brought war and tragedy to his realm.  Emmy Award-winning Brian Cox,…

Willem Dafoe has a history with Nosferatu. Long before appearing in Robert Eggers’ reimagining of the German Expressionist classic, the Oscar-nominated actor starred in a film about the making of the original vampire movie. In fact, one of the Oscars he was nominated for was the movie about Nosferatu—or at least a fantasy version of it where Dafoe played a literal vampire who is cast by eccentric director F.W. Murnau (John Malkovich) to provide authenticity to the 1922 picture. Willem Dafoe’s performance in Shadow of the Vampire (2000) had a formative influence on Eggers too. Albeit the way Eggers tells…

This article is full of spoilers for Smile 2. Lots of musicians spill their guts on stage, but no one does it quite like Skye Riley at the end of Smile 2. Smile 2‘s stomach-ripping conclusion is the climax of Smile 2‘s mandate to go bigger in every way than the 2022 original. Whereas writer/director Parker Finn kept things small in Smile, dealing with therapist Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) and her familial history of mental illness, Smile 2 raises the stakes to stadium tour size. This time, pop star Skye Riley (a committed Naomi Scott) becomes the target of the…

This article appears in the new issue of DEN OF GEEK magazine. You can read all of our magazine stories here. History tells us that for a brief period circa 209-211 A.D., twin brothers named Caracalla and Geta ruled the Roman Empire as co-emperors at the behest of their late father (and previous emperor) Septimius Severus. The brothers’ shared stewardship of their kingdom did not end well, nor was it a particularly illustrious time for the empire itself. But it has, more than 18 centuries later, provided us with one positive aftermath: it forms much of the basis of Gladiator II, the long-awaited sequel…

Fans from all over the world hit the Big Apple once again for New York City’s biggest pop culture event of the year. And New York Comic Con 2024 boasts some of the biggest and most exciting panels and activations ever.  From panels that will deliver the inside scoop on the debut of Dune: Prophecy and Star Trek: Section 31 to deep dives into The Walking Dead Universe and the seedy world of HBO’s The Penguin, there’s plenty to look forward to in and around the Javits Center this weekend. There are even a few nerdy exhibits and giveaways you…

This article is part of Collector’s Digest, an editorial series powered by: VISIT THE EBAY LIVE HUB FOR ALL NYCC LIVE STREAMS HERE. NYC’s biggest pop culture convention of the year is here! New York Comic Con brings the biggest stars in comics and geek culture to the Javits Center for a weekend of news and chats and cosplay. And a weekend of stuff! New York is going to have more con-exclusive merch than it will Famous Ray’s Pizzas. And if you can’t make it to New York, good news! eBay is bringing the con to you, with a special…

In an early scene from the best Joker movie of 2024, the camera pans across Gotham City in ruins. Despite the protesters rioting outside, one person seems completely calm. Waiting in a studio green room, the Joker prepares to go onto live television and shock the society in which we all live. Of course this Joker isn’t going to shoot Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro doing his best Johnny Carson impression). Nor is he going to flashback to shooting Murray Franklin while on trial for murder. No, this is Joker the Harlequin, who disrupts the totalitarian state that Bruce Wayne…

If you like learning about serial killers, scammers, cults, dodgy doctors, tech fraudsters, fake millionaires, Tiger Kings and the unbelievable clusterfuck that was FyreFest, then Netflix has got you covered with a host of documentaries. Trouble is they are not all gold, and don’t all lend themselves to the format. A good story does not equal a good documentary, such is the case with Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare. This is the incredible tale of a young woman, Kirat, from the South Asian community living in London who meets a man named Bobby via Facebook. Bobby knows members of Kirat’s…

Smile 2 might have the most uncomfortable scene in any movie this year, a notable feat given that Terrifier 3 is playing across the hall. Director Parker Finn throws the viewer in the middle of an argument between drug-addicted pop star Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) and her movie star boyfriend (Ray Nicholson). As the two race down twisting California roads, their argument gets increasingly intense, each hurling cruel barbs at the other and neither showing any tenderness. Finn puts the camera right between the two combatants and whip pans from one to the other, forcing the audience to look at…

Generation Z consists of the last remnants of births from the 20th century and the early founding generation to have been born in the 21st. The Zillennial generation has witnessed the emergence of numerous social media platforms, the dominance of CG-animation in the film industry, the peak of Disney/Cartoon Network/Nickelodeon, flash games, and the departure of Saturday morning cartoons. Among that, Gen-Z has become more socially conscious, or “woke” as an out of touch loser old dude would say, in the midst of the offerings of humor as we aged into adulthood. As the initial generation to be fully ingrained…

Kohei Horikoshi’s My Hero Academia has been one of the biggest shonen anime of the past decade ever since it made its debut in 2016. Now, seven seasons and four feature films later, My Hero Academia is more popular than ever and primed to end on a high note. Set in a world where superpowered “Quirks” are commonplace, Izuku “Deku” Midoriya and other strong heroes-in-training tirelessly fight against vicious villains who want to watch the world burn. My Hero Academia: You’re Next, the franchise’s latest movie, follows a deluded criminal who co-opts All Might’s inspirational message of hope into a…

This article appears in the new issue of DEN OF GEEK magazine. You can read all of our magazine stories here. John Jackson Miller watched 1989’s Batman 12 times in the theater. As a reviewer for his college paper, Miller went into the film with low expectations, burned by the poor adaptations of the past, but was thrilled to find a movie that reflected the richness of the comics he loved. And yet, there was one nagging issue he couldn’t get over, one moment that just didn’t make sense, no matter how many times he revisited Batman. “Hey, bat-brain, I was a kid…

This post contains spoilers for Terrifier 3. Terrifier 3 is often a joyful movie, and not just because of its Christmas trappings! That might strike some as a surprising statement. After all, writer/director Damien Leone begins his film with Art the Clown, dressed as Santa Claus, murdering a little girl’s family with an axe. Another sequence climaxes with Art using explosive gifts to blow up a bunch of kids. Yet another is a prolonged sequence of Art spraying an older, good-natured store Santa with liquid nitrogen and then battering away at his body parts. And yet, Terrifier 3 is joyful,…

Russian toughs are scary most of the time. You know the look: big muscles, hard stares, and often a faint suggestion that they’re connected to something while strutting around the boardwalks of Brighton Beach. In most American movies, this kind of typecasting is a visual shorthand for intimidation and menace. But not in Anora, and not next to Mikey Madison. Five-foot nothing, petite, and buried beneath a forest of raven hair, Madison is dismissed as “just a little girl” by Toros (Karren Karagulian), an Eastern European middle manager who is attempting to put the fear of Ivan the Terrible into…

This article appears in the new issue of DEN OF GEEK magazine. You can read all of our magazine stories here. Bathed in light and shadow, past and present, the castle looming over Robert Eggers and his companions is haunted by its history. It was here, at Pernštejn Castle, that Werner Herzog filmed his reimagining of the German Expressionist classic Nosferatu (1922), and it is here again, more than a hundred years after the original F.W. Murnau masterpiece, that Eggers is attempting to make the most famous vampire story his own. In a location that actor Nicholas Hoult describes as “cold in terms…

Even from the first film, Joker has only had the thinnest veneer of being a film about the criminal clown who fights Batman. It was, first and foremost, an homage to Martin Scorsese’s films The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver, with some comic book signifiers to guarantee a wider audience and studio funding. So when Joker: Folie à Deux announced that it was going to introduce Joker’s on/off girlfriend, Harley Quinzel (played by Lady Gaga), it should not have been a surprise the character was going to see some reworking. In an interview with Variety, director Todd Phillips revealed,…