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PLEASE, GO ON...
Scream 7 (2026)
FEBRUARY 25, 2026
GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)
As I am back to pretty much full time in the office as opposed to working from home, I no longer have the time to rewatch a franchise before a new entry. And let's face it, with a movie like Scream 7, I hardly NEEDED to refresh my mind - I've been there on opening weekend for every single entry, and watched them all multiple times since (even the ones I don't care for as much!). But I do at least usually rewatch the previous entry and, if time allows, one other random one just for the hell of it. So I sighed my way through VI again (that third act gets worse with every viewing, folks) and then, for my random one, I opted for Scream 3.
That may surprise those who know me, as I've never exactly been enamored by that one, but over the years I've come to like it a little more than I used to (in fact, Scream 4 now takes my bottom slot). However, the real reason I picked that one is because Kevin Williamson was returning to the series in full force for the first time since Scream 2, as his contributions to 3 and 4's screenplays were largely overwritten by Ehren Kruger and his presence on 5 and 6 were kind of ceremonial at best. So I had a feeling that, for him, this would be a sort of "true" Scream 3 - not that he'd be erasing the entries in between or anything, but sort of taking it back to basics and doing something along the lines of what he would have done had he been able to work on the original Scream 3 as much as he did with the first two. (The return of Matthew Lillard as Stu, which has been publicized to the point that his name is on the poster, also suggested this, since Williamson's original idea had a surviving Stu be the mastermind behind that film's plot. More on Lillard later.)
But even if I was way off, I'd still be grateful for my random selection, because there's a moment in Scream 3 I love that really kind of sets up what I enjoyed most about this entry, and I'm glad it was fresh in my mind. It's about halfway through the movie, when Sid finally arrives in Los Angeles and sees Dewey. After their big hug and hello, Sid takes a pause and says "...is she OK?", meaning Gale. It's a perfectly played moment; Sid and Gale are not exactly besties, and there's some deserved animosity toward the latter, but they had been through this crap together *twice* by that point, and at the end of the day, Gale did save her life, so she can't help but care about the woman even if she's probably hoping for another excuse to smack her in the face. This "frenemy" status is confirmed a scene later, when they meet and share an awkward hug. But since then, we hadn't gotten much of this dynamic; they don't interact much in 4, and in 5 their pairing is motivated more by their shared love of Dewey than any real affection for each other, and then of course in 6 Sid doesn't appear at all.
That unlikely bonding they now have drives a lot of their scenes together here, and while obviously people are coming for a fresh round of Ghostface attacks, for my old ass-who has watched these two characters grow along with me for three decades-I absolutely adored how their relationship is handled here. Gale doesn't enter the story until about 45 minutes in (and does so in absolutely spectacular, crowd-pleasing fashion), and doesn't have much to do in the climax, but she spends nearly every one of her scenes with Sid, and their long, strained history is at the forefront of nearly every one of those encounters. Gale, suffering extreme nerve damage from her near-fatal attack in 6, assumes that since this new Ghostface is after Sid and her daughter specifically that Sid will be proactive and joining her old pal for another crime solving adventure, and is dismayed that Sid just wants to run and keep her daughter safe. I won't run through every one of their conversations, but there's one that genuinely made me tear up, as it offered what may be the first time in this series that Sid actually felt sorry for Gale, and also realizing that despite her fame-seeking demeanor, the woman has done a hell of a lot more for her over the years than she has in return. It's lovely!
But then Ghostface calls again and ruins the whole thing.
OK that's being a bit harsh. But while I enjoyed the movie overall (more than the last one, at least after this one viewing), I can't help but feel that they have officially run out of ideas for the mystery plots. I thought 6's reveal was clunky and plot-hole ridden (still trying to understand how neither Sam, Gale, OR Kirby were totally in the dark about Richie's family), but at least the usual "I'm out for revenge for killing my kid!" thing makes sense. Here, not only is the identity of the killer almost laughably easy to pin (thankful that Dermot Mulroney had the decency to not even bother with an unmasking scene, since it was so obvious - when the killer takes their mask off here, it's as anticlimactic as any such moment has been in this entire franchise), but their motive is utter nonsense, to the extent that I turned to my friend and said "Wait, what?" I mean, to be fair, these people are lunatics, so I guess it kind of tracks that their motive will be equally insane, but it sure doesn't make for a very exciting reveal (also, once we know what their motive was... what exactly was the point of the opening scene?). And as I've noted more than once: nailing the final reel is absolutely crucial to these things, because that's what we're gonna leave on. It doesn't matter how good the first 90 minutes are (and they are, for the most part, quite good here), if it's all building to a wet fart, it's gonna be hard to justify further viewings. Think about the first time you rewatched the OG Scream and noticed that winking nod from Billy to Stu when the former showed up at the party (after killing Tatum) and how fun that was - there's nothing like that here. You'll know who it is as soon as they appear, leaving only the "Why?" to your imagination, and I'm guessing whatever you come up with will probably be more satisfying than what these writers did.
That said, I was charmed by the fact that (minor spoiler, maybe?) Sid's book plays a part in the big "Why I am doing this" speech. Again, Williamson hasn't exactly been a driving force behind the storytelling since the 2nd film, and I wouldn't have been surprised if he flat out ignored 3-6. But no, every single sequel has some kind of connection here, without any kind of retconning or erasing (for those who were fretting about how Sidney clearly had more than one child in 5 - it's explained: the younger girls are off at their paternal grandparents for the week, and we can just assume that the 17ish Tatum, who would have been 12 or 13 in 5's events, was just at school or something). But apart from Chad and Mindy's appearance (which is brief and largely pointless, though I maintain that Mason Gooding is so effortlessly charming that I will forgive the clunkiness just to spend a few minutes with him again), you could honestly pick up from 3, maybe even 2, and not really feel like you're missing out on anything, character-wise.
And actually, if you go from 2, you'll be spared the rest of the fans' agony that Sidney's cop husband Mark is not the same cop named Mark that was clearly set up as a love interest in 3. Scheduling/salary stuff prevented Patrick Dempsey from returning as planned, but since 5 and 6 both went out of their way to establish that Sid was married to "Mark" (as an easter egg for fans), they had to keep the name here. Why he had to still be a cop, I have no idea (Sid has a type?), but Joel McHale makes the most of it, especially in his flirty bedroom scene with Sid, which is basically the first/last time we see her smile in the entire movie. No reference to Dempsey's Mark is made, though given the numerous rather catty jokes about Sid not being in New York (a story decision also dictated by salary squabbles) I wouldn't be surprised if there was a petty line about ol' Detective Kincaid in the script at one point.
Mark 2.0 is also written out as a suspect extremely early, which is weird. Yes, we can expect more than one killer (only Scream 3 tried a solo venture, and given its generally low popularity among fans, I can't imagine them ever trying it again), but GF attacks him at around the 30 minute mark with no other witnesses, so if it was an intentional way to throw us off, it would be a big cheat (in 4, whenever Jill was "attacked," she was with Sid or Kirby at the time), only failing to get the kill due to his trademark clumsiness. Again, the mystery is totally bungled here, with a shocking lack of red herrings, most of whom are canceled out within moments of their introduction for one reason or another, but they could have at least let McHale be a reasonable suspect for a little while, and a few edits could have allowed it to be so.
Especially when the main suspect is... (big spoiler here for those who haven't paid attention to any casting news) Stu Macher. Again, Williamson toyed with the idea of making him the mastermind in 3, and ever since, fans have clung to the idea that he never actually died. They even bring this up in 6, and when Lillard was actually announced as returning in this one, my heart sank a little, because I found it to be an incredibly stupid idea. I know this series can be sloppy in retrospect as each new sequel tries to rewrite some old history (i.e. Gale writing books about people but apparently never looking at a family photo), but even by their standards, I cannot for one second believe that in the FIVE times that a new Ghostface has popped up in these peoples' lives since Stu got a TV dropped on him, no one ever said "Could it be Stu?" if he somehow survived and was merely locked up somewhere. And if he was in hiding all this time, what the hell was he waiting for, for 30 years? You'd think he'd want to at least help out his successors and make sure he got the death blow himself. I won't spoil the particulars of his appearance, but I will say it was actually rather fun to see him again (especially since we've gotten two revivals of Billy) and Lillard seemed to be having fun with his part, despite his brilliant quote about how he appreciates what it did for him but ultimately doesn't care about the character (he likened it to a plumber still caring about a toilet he fixed decades ago). I saw somewhere that people were upset that the series was going the supernatural route, but that's not the case. That said, even a straight up Jason-style undead zombie Stu would be better than what they came up with instead.
Luckily the chases/kills themselves are largely fantastic, and as a result this is certainly the scariest entry since 2. 6 has some good setpieces (the ladder, the convenience store) but they're held back by the film's obvious inability to bring themselves to kill any returning characters. They get around that here by leaving our four returning friends largely out of harm's way (Gale never directly interacts with Ghostface once, and he flat out tells Sid that he's not going to hurt her because he wants her to suffer from seeing her daughter die) and having him focus on the daughter (named Tatum) and her friends. There's a terrific, Argento-y kind of kill involving a harness, and a moment with a beer tap that would make Mr. Voorhees proud. He also stalks more than he has in recent entries, at one point even doing a Michael Myers-style "fading in and out of the light in the background" move, which delighted me. And as bungled as the mystery might be, at least I can say "Yeah, I can see that person doing the Ghostface stuff we saw earlier", which hasn't been the case for five of the last seven murderers (I like 5 a lot, but I don't know if anything in this franchise is as silly as specifically making it clear that it's tiny Mikey Madison lifting Dewey off the ground to kill him). Alas, the flipside is that when you go back and rewatch, there can never be much of a "OK, THIS kill had to be _____, because [other killer] was accounted for" type of puzzling it out, because the culprits were so peripheral to the story anyway it could conceivably be both of them for every single kill. Now, is this better or worse than scenes like the convenience store in 6, where all THREE killers were accounted for elsewhere? You tell me.
And yet all those issues just kept getting shrugged off, because I was getting the first real full on Sid movie since 2 (she was kind of jammed into 3 as much as possible due to having scheduling issues with her show, in 4 she splits her time with the new cast, in 5 she doesn't really enter the story until the third act, and she's not in 6 at all). Neve Campbell came back firing on all cylinders; someone noted that thanks to H20 this is the 2nd time Williamson has brought back the lead for a part 7, but unlike that movie, where Jamie Lee was just playing herself instead of Laurie Strode, Campbell really does feel like the older, wiser version of that normal girl we met 30 years ago. And in a nice contrast from the OTHER return of Jamie Lee (for the DGG Halloweens), she hasn't turned her daughter into a survival expert - in fact it's the opposite, and she's sheltered her so much that the girl doesn't have much of a fight in her at all. Tatum doesn't really know much about her mom's history (at first I thought she was living under a fake name or something and the girl had no idea; she actually does know a bit, but wants to hear it from her mother, not the Stab movies and Gale's books, and Sid just brushes off such prying attempts). Sid has yet another career (now she runs a coffee shop!), but she does mention she used to act, with a note of sadness that she gave it up after her time at Windsor - another nice example of how much of her life has been affected by this stuff, and it's made clear that she's not hiding or running from it, but merely wants to stop having so much of her life being dictated by it as well, which is exactly what running would do. That she eventually finally takes a second to acknowledge how much all this misery has taken a toll on Gale is just icing on the cake - it's a legitimately great arc to play out for the actress, and while Williamson's script (with Guy Busick) may be spotty when it comes to the Ghostface stuff, it certainly doesn't let Sid down even for a second, which more than makes up for her absence last time around.
Of course, as we all know, this was not even the original plan. Whether she would have even been in it at all, I don't know, but the 7th Scream film was going to focus once again on Sam and Tara Carpenter, played by Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega, but the former was fired from the film after tweeting in support of Palestine and the latter either quit over scheduling, salary, or in solidarity with her on-screen sister, depending on who you ask. This also led to the departure of Christopher Landon (who received death threats for Barrera's firing, even though he didn't do that himself or even agree with it), forcing Paramount and Spyglass to presumably back up an armored truck to Neve Campbell's house and let Williamson direct himself, something he's only done one other time (Teaching Mrs. Tingle, all the way back in 1999). Both of these moves can only be seen as "Let's make sure fans have something to be excited about to make up for our shitty business practices," and I have to wonder if, as one final punishment to the performers, Williamson was forbidden to even MENTION their two characters. So it's a cynically made movie, and I don't blame those who are boycotting or letting that cynicism (which isn't evident on-screen; if you don't read behind the scenes stuff you'd never know anything was amiss) inform their opinion on the film itself. But luckily, at least for me, while Campbell may have been enticed more by the big paycheck than a burning desire to play this character for a sixth time, it never once shows in the finished product. And Courteney Cox, who seemed a bit bored last time around in her limited role, seems to have some of her old spark again as a result of playing off her old pal instead of a bunch of kids she has no real connection to. A silver lining to a very dark, unfortunate, and frankly icky cloud.
So ultimately, it's another mixed bag like 6, though as of this writing I will give it the edge for the strong character work, the surprisingly graphic kills (holy shit, this film's obligatory "you gotta shoot them in the head" moment), and keeping it grounded after all the worry. Yes, it's a little weird that Sam and Tara aren't mentioned (another reason why Chad and Mindy's appearance felt so forced - the "core four" split up, I guess?) and the film occasionally feels like the very sort of slasher that the first film would have name checked (in fact, outside of the cold open, no horror movies - or the Stabs - are mentioned at all unless you count a marquee showing Texas Chainsaw Massacre). But the shift back to being suspenseful while downplaying attempts to be clever/meta was a relief for me, as I just wanted to get my slasher fix in a familiar setting. That it gave my girl Sid several layers to play AND some true bonding moments with Gale that we've been denied for quite some time now? Icing.
What say you?
P.S. Since it seems relevant for these things: 1 2 5 7 6 3 4.
PLEASE, GO ON...Send Help (2026)
FEBRUARY 1, 2026
GENRE: THRILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)
HMAD has been here for almost 20 years now, and in that entire time there's only been two Sam Raimi movies that qualified for review here. The first was Drag Me To Hell, which I loved so much I hosted a "repertory" screening of it not even five years later, and the second is Send Help (which I'd love to host someday!). In between we got a godawful Oz movie that I don't even want to remember, and his Doctor Strange sequel (which had some solid scary stuff in it too, for the record, but it was first and foremost a Marvel movie that was following up a TV show and also a Spider-Man movie, while also setting up more multiverse stuff, so it's not fully HIS). Basically it's nice to have him back, but it'd be nicer if he didn't leave at all, you know?
The plot set up is simple but genius: "What if Cast Away but also Misery?" Rachel McAdams (she will only make a genre movie if a plane is involved, I guess) plays Linda, a frumpy, awkward woman who is also the most competent employee of a finance company. The president of the company has promised her a big promotion, but unfortunately he dies (all we see of him is a painted portrait, which you should definitely pay attention to) before it goes into effect. And now his son Bradley (Dylan O'Brien) has taken over and given the promotion to his frat buddy. This part of the setup isn't all that unique, and could have been a routine office thriller where she gets her revenge, but instead, the one employee there who sees her worth insists she join O'Brien and his bros on a private flight to Bangkok to oversee a merger. During the flight the engine explodes and the plane crashes into the water just offshore of a deserted island. Only Linda and Bradley survive, and the latter only thanks to the efforts of the former, who-as we learn via her homelife and as well as Bradley's ridicule-is also a survival expert hooked on Survivor.
So the tables turn; he's an alpha male in the office but can barely tie two sticks together on his own, whereas she only needs a day to have a fire, shelter, food, and water for them (it took Tom Hanks like a week!). At first he's still berating her and dismissing her, but ultimately he realizes he has to depend on her... just as she starts realizing that she is happier here and doesn't want to leave. To say more would be spoiler-y, but I will say that part of the fun of the movie is that we are constantly shifting our sympathies. No one in their right mind would be on Bradley's side for the first 45 minutes or so (maybe longer;? the office section feels a bit longer than necessary, but this might just be some "We know it's an island movie so GET TO THE ISLAND!" type impatience on my part), but once Linda does something that almost certainly delays their chances of being rescued, and Bradley admits he was abused by BOTH of his parents as a child, we get into more of a gray area. Right down to the end of the movie, I wasn't quite sure who would be the victor, as they were both villains in a way.
Naturally, their increasing antagonism is what gives us the Raimi splatter we hoped for once it was announced that the film would have an R rating. To be fair it's mostly for the language - honestly, the PG-13 Drag Me To Hell had far more violence, but the handful of moments that unleash his goo-happy tendencies are top notch, and it was great to see such things on the big screen again. I mean, it's not really a spoiler to say that these people who are on a deserted island eventually have to hunt an animal for food, but while we've seen this sort of thing in any number of island-set movies/shows, only Raimi would do it THIS way, which had me cackling and - yes! - even jumping a bit from a well-executed scare.
But it mostly plays out as a psychological thriller, meaning it's closer in tone to his movies like The Gift and Simple Plan, dipping into "Sam Raimi, the director of Evil Dead" territory at key moments almost as a diversion. Not saying this is a bad thing, to be clear, but I think the fans of those aforementioned grounded films will be more satisfied than those going in expecting Rachel McAdams to be the new Ash Williams. There are even a few moments of bodily damage that are played off-screen, something that would be unthinkable in an Evil Dead.
Honestly though, I didn't even think much of these omissions. The real draw was seeing McAdams and O'Brien having a blast playing against their type and playing mind games with the other. It was also interesting to have a dynamic where the female was older than the male; again, the "unappreciated female goes after her asshole male boss" scenario has been done a lot, so flipping the sexes but retaining the usual age gap made for an interesting pairing. I've been a fan of McAdams for decades now, but after Saturday Night I started really appreciating O'Brien's talents (say what you will about the movie itself, but he was SPOT ON as Dan Aykroyd) and he continues that streak here, finding humanity in what could have been a generic "bro" role. And both of them go for broke when it comes to the splattery stuff, particularly a scene where... well, again, no spoilers. But it comes after a raft breaks, that's all I'll give away.
Apparently this is in DBox, and converted to 3D as well... I'm sure it's fun for a few key moments, but I had a blast at a normal 2D screening, and rarely felt I was missing out on anything (the plane crash probably would have been fun in that capacity). I have yet to be convinced that 3D conversions can look as good as the real thing, so I never bother unless I have to (most recent attempt was another island movie in fact: Jurassic World Rebirth, and I forgot it was even in 3D half the time, if that gives you any impression), but Raimi seems tailor-made for the silliness that a good DBox presentation provides, so if you're not as picky about 3D as I am then by all means add to your enjoyment. But I just want to be clear: this movie would have worked even without the moments that were clearly designed for/by its director. The most anonymous filmmaker alive could have made a good movie out of watching Rachel McAdams go psycho on a desert island - Raimi just added some very sweet gravy to it, and the world is the better for it.
What say you?
PLEASE, GO ON...28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026)
JANUARY 16, 2026
GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)
Despite not loving 28 Years Later, I worked my morning schedule around making sure I could see its sequel, simply titled The Bone Temple on screen, on opening day. It's a busy month for the genre, with a new wide release every week, and since I can only get to one movie a weekend (at most!), this one would get lost in the shuffle if I wasn't proactive. Plus the word of mouth was strong, with many even naming it their favorite of the franchise, so I was quite curious to see how it played for me, someone whose favorite entry is the one most people don't even remember at all, let alone laud.
Anyway, Bone Temple is an improvement on its predecessor, thanks to a more focused narrative and better use of the key assets of the previous film, namely Ralph Fiennes' doctor Ian Kelson and his excellent taste in music. In a move that would make "Dr Frankenstein" proud, Kelson figures out a way to communicate with one of the zombies (and yes, the Z-word is used again) and perhaps even reverse the infection, which allows him to bond with Samson, the oft-naked "Alpha" we met in the last movie. Their scenes are the best in the film, and honestly I could happily just watch the two of them form their strange, wonderful friendship over the course of these two (and maybe three) films.
But we spend the other half of the runtime with the "Jimmies", a group of thugs led by Sir Jimmy Crystal, played by Jack O'Connell. We met them at the end of Years, and now Spike (the young protagonist of the previous film) is, through happenstance, part of their gang, though he certainly isn't fond of the predicament. These scenes, alas, grew tiresome for me - there's never any sense that Spike is being corrupted by Sir Jimmy or even in any serious danger from the other "Jimmies", and as with the last movie, it feels like this stuff would play best to someone who hadn't seen a single zombie movie since the original 28 Days in 2002. I mean, if seeing yet another evil human use the ongoing zombie threat as an excuse to invade someone's home before killing them for their supplies is still somehow novel to you, enjoy! But I've seen this sort of thing too many times, and considering how engaging the Kelson material was to me, every time it cut back to this group I found myself losing interest.
As with the last one, the last reel or so is where the movie really shines, because that's when Spike's two would-be father figures finally come face to face (his actual dad, played by Aaron Taylor Johnson, isn't seen this time around). It's a bit unfortunate that Kelson doesn't realize Spike is among their number until the very last moments of their encounter, but it's more than made up for with how Kelson introduces himself to the group. I won't spoil the particulars (though social media posts with a song attached have almost certainly clued you in to one aspect), but it's an electrifying sequence on par with the musical interlude in Sinners (which also co-starred Jack O'Connell, incidentally).
Oh, it reprises John Murphy's iconic "In The House" during the credits, so that made me happy as it was absent from Years.
It's also a better LOOKING movie, so that was a relief. I couldn't stand the iPhone photography (I cannot use the word "CINEMAtography" in that context without feeling some of my soul die) in Years, but this was thankfully shot with normal (digital) cameras, allowing the striking production design of its titular setting to shine through. And yes, this means you get better looks at the dongs on display - it's not just Samson that bares all for the audience this time around! (I know Samson's is a prosthetic, but semantics aside: what was the last major studio movie to offer lengthy shots of TWO male penises? In a movie with no female nudity of any sort, to boot? Like some alt-Bechdel test up in here.) There isn't a lot of action, but at least when there is, it's easier to follow thanks to the improved imagery it offers.
I also liked that it was hopeful. This genre, more than any other in horror, is often used as a subtle (or not subtle) commentary on what's going on in the world, and given the state of things now, it'd be easy to make something truly nihilistic and grim. But no; Kelson keeps hope alive for the good in the world (thanks in part to his music collection; the man has good taste) and the final line is worth cheering for, not just because it's a good character moment for the person saying it, but also because it's an attitude we need more of in the real world, where innocent people are being murdered by a fake police force for merely trying to stand up for their neighbors.
Basically, it's a really good movie that is burdened mainly by being a direct followup to one that I felt was uneven (and ugly!), leaving me less enticed about returning to its world. Even the ho-hum Jimmy stuff isn't BAD, per se - it just lacks the compelling and less common nature of the scenes with Samson and Ian, because even a casual fan could probably tell you how it will end up. Perhaps if Spike was able to convince his fellow "Jimmies" to rise up against their tyrannical (and full of crap) leader, there would be more gravy to these scenes, but Spike mostly just silently follows them around for most of his scenes, only becoming (slightly) proactive near the very end. O'Connell is great, but there's only so much that good acting can do with such an overused character archetype in this sort of thing.
As for the promised third part of this trilogy, I am curious what it will be like. Without spoiling things, it seems that the next entry will be a bit of an outlier for a trilogy closer, as a few of the plot threads from these two are pretty much tied up at the end of this one, and the setup for the next movie seems like it will be more tied into the very first film than these two. And then Bone Temple didn't open all that well, so with stiff genre competition over the next few weeks (Silent Hill, Send Help, The Bride!, etc.) there's no guarantee it'll be made anyway. If Sony decides not to pursue it any further, at least the setup isn't exactly a major cliffhanger; we've certainly been left hanging in worse situations (the Divergent series, perhaps even the last Fast & Furious, not to mention all the go-nowhere plot threads of the Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Texas Chain Saw franchises). But it'd be a shame for them not to see it through. Even though neither of them were exactly my favorite films of the year (well, I HOPE this doesn't end up being one of them for 2026), there's certainly enough good in both to warrant seeing how it all turns out.
What say you?
PLEASE, GO ON...The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (2025)
OCTOBER 16, 2025
GENRE: BLANK FROM HELL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PREMIERE SCREENING)
I saw the original The Hand That Rocks The Cradle in theaters, but can't recall if I ever saw it a second time. If I did it had to have been right when it came to video, because before we watched this remake a friend noted Julianne Moore was in the original and I had no idea; I was only 12 when I saw it for the first (only?) time but by the mid 90s I had a mega crush on her and have been convinced for 30 years that the first time I saw her was via her bit part in The Fugitive. But even with my hazy memory, it didn't take long for me to realize that this version was, at least in theory, the right kind of remake, where it took the same basic plot but changed all the details, letting it succeed or fail on its own terms instead of just copying what someone else did thirty years ago.
So the two line pitch is the same: a career woman with two children decides to hire a nanny to help out, and after a few weeks of feeling the woman is the answer to all her problems, the mother starts to suspect that this "helper" might be dangerous. And she's right, as it turns out the nanny has a personal vendetta against the mom, and is seeking revenge. But this take changes all the details, and even weirdly hides the woman's agenda from us until the third act. In the original, we knew all along why the nanny (Rebecca DeMornay) targeted this family: the mom (Annabella Sciorra) had testified against DeMornay's rapey doctor husband, but here it's only revealed an hour or so into it.
Don't worry, it's not that new nanny Polly (Maika Monroe) hides her intentions until then. It's actually amusing how casual she is about some of her early transgressions, like poisoning one of mom's (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) dishes before a dinner party. But the switch means we never have the same kind of unnerving sympathy we felt for the DeMornay version, so she just comes off as another random psycho, and it's too late to fix the movie by the time we find out she actually has a good reason to want to go after Winstead and her family. Of course, since it's a third act reveal I can't get into it, but I can say it's very clunkily handled throughout, so it never quite works as (seemingly?) intended - despite her reason, we are never once sympathetic to her plight.
It doesn't help that the script is one of those ones where large chunks of the movie wouldn't even happen if people acted like normal human beings. Taking Moore's place as the meddling friend is Martin Starr, who goes through Monroe's trash and gets some of her DNA to run a background check on her. He finds out this tragic connection, but rather than call his best friend and tell her about it, he randomly has Monroe over and invites her in (to "explain herself") even though he's only doing this because she's already weirded them out enough to get suspicious. We also have to just roll with the idea that Winstead, who is overly protective to the extent that she won't even allow the family to have certain kinds of pesto sauce because of the oils in them, would settle for just one random reference by a complete stranger before allowing this woman to watch her children alone.
And then there's the stop sign. Early on, a neighbor speeds past their house and hits the baby stroller after it rolls out of their driveway (empty, thankfully), so Winstead says "There should be a stop sign there" as the scene continues, then repeats it in closeup. Then there's talk of a meeting about having one put up. Then there's a completely baffling scene where she's driving along and suddenly pulls over, gets out of her car, and inspects a different (busted) stop sign elsewhere. Later on her and Starr actually stand outside and watch the stop sign be installed, so by now they've clearly beaten us over the head enough that this stop sign is going to play a major part in the climax. But all it is is... someone misses the stop sign and causes an accident that dictates how the rest of the final fight goes. Personally, I think an ironic payoff, where the other driver DOES stop and Winstead realizes that her helicopter-y ways can be a detriment, or a running Monroe was able to get further away because the car stopped instead of plowing right into her, would have at least made this ridiculously blunt bit of foreshadowing pay off.
It's also simply not that suspenseful or tense. The highlight for such things is probably a scene where Winstead comes home and finds Monroe hanging with her husband and also her girlfriend, and that's only because we know in the original that DeMornay had designs on Sciorra's hubby so it stands to reason that this incarnation might follow suit. But nah, nothing really comes of it, nor do they explore the interesting idea that Monroe may actually be into Winstead's bisexual character (and vice versa). A goofy little bit where Winstead removes one of Monroe's socks while she sleeps is about as close as they get to having the women get intimate, which would have been at least a new dynamic to explore, especially since they establish her and her husband haven't had sex since the baby was born. Then again relationships aren't the movie's strong suit across the board; poor Riki Lindhome pops up as Starr's girlfriend in two scenes, the first of which has her lamenting that she wants a baby (with Starr saying that they'll discuss it later) but in the second we learn they don't even live together, making the idea that they're apparently talking about having a child a bit premature. Why they cast Lindhome to play this role, which would be thankless even for a first time performer, is beyond me.
(Without spoiling particulars, the movie perhaps inadvertently creates its best moment in this second scene. If you watch it, consider what Lindhome plans to do for Starr's sake, and what happens to him next.)
The score is also bizarrely ill-fitting, often sounding more like the soundtrack to a movie about a drug trip or maybe some kind of A24 drama. Not the end of the world, but adds to the feeling that this was a movie where a producer said "I have the rights to remake this movie!" and everyone that got involved after had a different idea of how to modernize this '90s staple. As with The Stepfather, modern technology makes a lot of these kind of plots harder to pull off, because you can just Google/check social media for anyone and learn more about them than Winstead does with her one (1) phone call to an unknown reference (who eventually re-enters the story and is yet another person in the movie who can't be bothered to act like a normal human being). So they side step that sort of thing and just hope we won't notice, despite (again) establishing Winstead as an overbearing worry wort.
Basically: it just doesn't work, man. The leads do their best and it's always nice to see a modern movie being shot in Los Angeles, but without any real thrills and a convoluted backstory, there's just nothing that justifies its existence, either. After a while the audience was laughing at it (it's not a comedy), so was at least an amusing experience to see this direct to streamer movie with a crowd, but that's not going to apply to you watching alone at home. I mean you can give it a shot I guess (bring a few friends over?), but if your Hulu subscription is about to expire, I certainly wouldn't renew it just to see it if I were you.
What say you?
PLEASE, GO ON...Blu-Ray Review: Night of the Living Dead (1990)
OCTOBER 13, 2025
GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: 4K UHD (OWN COLLECTION)
A while back during the glory days of HMAD, I spent a week on different versions of Night of the Living Dead, including this 1990 remake. (The others were the 3D one with Sid Haig, an animated one, and the godless "30th anniversary" recut version.) In my review of the original DVD, I noted that it surprisingly had some bonus features, considering the film was a flop and, being a library title, meant new features would have to be created (as opposed to modern films, which have EPK crews and commentaries recorded before the film is even released, so if it tanks, the stuff all exists already so they might as well put it on there). And thankfully, Sony has seen fit to carry them all over to this new 4K UHD set, along with other ones that were created for a standard Blu-ray in 2016.
But the main draw is that the film is presented in Tom Savini's preferred director's cut form, restoring the gore that the MPAA made him cut and also offering the first few minutes in black & white; an homage to the original that the studio wouldn't let him do at the time. So when Barbara (Patricia Tallman) and Johnny (Bill Moseley) are driving to the cemetery and doing the whole "They're coming to get you!" sequence, it's all in B&W like the original, with the color only showing up when the first zombie attacks Barbara few minutes later. It's a fun little gimmick, and I'm glad Savini was finally able to show us all how it would look (though I must admit I did momentarily worry that the entire film would be stripped of its color, a trend I do not have much patience for).
Unfortunately, if you're expecting other major changes, that's pretty much it - everything else is just a little bit of gore here and there. Apparently even in its "X rated" form, the film was pretty tame in that department, and I am willing to bet that if the film were shown to the censors even a few years later, it would have passed with an R easily as they got more lenient after their overly conservative approach to the '80s horror fare. The most overt restoration occurs when Barbara is trying to prove to the others (mostly the hysterical Judy) that the things attacking them are not human, shooting a zombie a few times in the chest before taking him out with the standard shot to the head. In the cut version we've had for 35 years, he is shot and goes down quick without any real splatter, but now a nice little geyser of blood explodes up from the top of his head before he drops. Again, if you just saw this uncut version for your first viewing, you'd never guess the MPAA ever had a problem with it, but for those who have watched it a bunch, it's sadly the highlight of such re-insertions.
The 4K transfer looks spectacular though, and for those who had the Twilight Time Blu, you can be relieved that the weird recoloring that they gave it for that release has been undone, and it looks like it should again. I know it's an overly bright film at times (even at night), but I never minded it all that much, and I'd take that look over the bizarre recoloring that we had to deal with if we wanted the film in high def. Even the B&W sequence (which, to be clear, was a normally filmed scene that had its color removed in post) looks really good to my eyes, and I had to chuckle that one scene actually made more sense to me now, as I never realized Sarah was laying on one of the doors that Ben wanted to board stuff up with, as the image was always too murky to really tell what she was laying on. When Harry says "You want this one too?" I always thought he was referring to the girl herself, like that Ben wanted to bring her up to the main floor as he did Tom and Judy Rose! I will happily junk my DVD, now.
As for bonus features, again Sony has brought back pretty much everything of note that I could find (thanks, DVDCompare.net!), including Savini's commentary and a retrospective documentary called "The Dead Walk!" from the DVD. They also included everything from the 2016 special edition Blu-ray, which mostly consists of new interviews with Tallman, the Optic Nerve FX guys, and Savini himself. That actually would have been plenty, but they really went all out and offer a bunch of brand new bonus features on top of the already generous assortment, making this a true ultimate edition.
The big one is a new commentary with Savini, moderated by Michael Felsher (whose Red Shirt Pictures produced all of the new features). I actually noted when I watched his original commentary that he might be better off with a partner, as he often went silent and just watched the movie, so I'm glad they listened! Felsher keeps him talking, with the only silences most likely being edits (Sony is notoriously cautious about potential "dirt" being spilled on their tracks). He also seems to remember the film better than its director; more than once Savini will say "OK now watch this" and then Felsher will have to remind him that the moment won't be coming for several more seconds. At any rate, it's a much better track than the older one.
Then there are several new interviews with Moseley, Bill Butler (Tom), McKee Anderson (Helen) and Heather Mazur (Sarah), who has the funniest recollection in that the FX team kept getting annoyed with her showing up in full "pretty girl" makeup (she was 13 and boy crazy at the time) because they had to spend time cleaning it all off before applying her zombie look. There's also one with editor Tom Dubensky, two of the guys who played zombies, and (sigh) John Russo along with Russ Streiner, who shouldn't be allowed within 50 yards of anything involving this franchise after their godawful 30th anniversary thing, but oh well. At least they have nice things to say about it. It's unfortunate that they couldn't have gotten this going before Tony Todd (or Tom Towles for that matter) passed away, as their absence is notable when it has thoughts from pretty much everyone else involved (sans Romero, but as it wasn't really his thing, it's not essential to hear from him and several of the interviews note that he did show up on set a few times and gave the editor some notes).
But really, while all the bonus features and the restored images are great, the best thing about rewatching this particular take on the story in the year 2025 is that it actually has a message of how we all need to calm down and listen to our fellow man. While Cooper is an even bigger jerk here than he was in the OG, at the end of the day he was not only right about the basement being safer, but if Ben had at least taken a few minutes to go down and see it for himself, he might have found the key to the gas that would have saved them all. Ben is also quick to assume Harry is stealing the TV, and throughout the movie Barbara has good ideas that are ignored. I feel a number of the problems in the world right now (both on a macro and micro level) are the result of everyone thinking they are right and everyone else is wrong, and this is a movie that could have had a much happier ending if people just took the time to hear someone else's perspective instead of stubbornly accepting only their own. Something to consider!
What say you?
PLEASE, GO ON...The Long Walk (2025)
AUGUST 29, 2025
GENRE: SURVIVAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (ADVANCED SCREENING)
I’ve never pinned down an all-time favorite book the way I have for movies (Halloween), albums (Bat out of Hell), sandwiches (Italian) and evil Canadian children (Cathy). But I have a rough idea of the contenders, and I have certainly *read* The Long Walk more than any other novel, so that tends to be my answer when pressed.* I read it for the first time when I was 15 or so, via the Bachman Books, then read it again about two years later, and then I read it several times when I adapted it into a screenplay along with my buddy JB, a bit of personal attachment that is relevant. Not exactly a bias, but I'm certainly invested in a "Hey, did they pull it off?" kind of way that I wouldn't be for any other novel I read before seeing the adaptation (it's usually the other way around for me).
I can't find the whole thing anymore (probably for the best!), but I do recall it was around 200 pages and was more or less a straight transcript in screenplay form, but we added some bits and condensed some of the dialogue exchanges into one chunk. I was only 19 (fitting!) at the time but I was aware that both the rigors of film production and also the demands of cinematic storytelling meant that the book would be hard to film *and* watch as presented on the page, because it’s just an endless walk down a road. Stephen King (né Richard Bachman) could write “hours passed, and three Walkers got their ticket” and then resume a conversation more or less where it had left off prior - that wouldn’t work on screen, so we tried to make it more movie-friendly without changing/losing all that much.
Did we succeed? I don’t know. Partly because all but a handful of pages have been lost to several moves since then, partly because... you know, it was never filmed, obviously. But while I can’t speak for JB, I know I am not as talented a filmmaker as either JT Mollner (Strange Darling) or Francis Lawrence, so it’s safe to say that their movie, while imperfect, almost certainly turned out better than ours would have. And again, while it didn’t all work for me, I know all too well from that experience that the book may be incredible, but it is not as easy to turn into a movie as some of King's others, so its few blemishes are eclipsed by the fact that it exists at all, and that it's pretty damn good on top of that.
For those uninitiated, the story centers on 100 teenaged boys who volunteer for an annual walk that starts in Maine and makes its way down through the rest of New England. But it’s no ordinary stroll; they have to maintain a speed of 4 MPH at all times, and if they drop below that speed they are warned. If they get three warnings, they get “a ticket,” which as we horrifically learn about seven miles down the road from the start line, means the young man will be executed on the spot. The walk continues until all but one Walker has been ticketed, at which point that literal last man standing will receive untold riches.
The novel is a grueling, harrowing journey, one of King’s darkest books in fact. The boys feel compelled to form friendships with their fellow Walkers, but of course, this just means making it harder when they are ticketed (or, as is often the case, trying to help them when they start slowing down even though it’s in their best interest to thin the ranks). Some die from sheer exhaustion, others from bad luck (one poor sod gets diarrhea and can’t pick up his speed fast enough after letting go, dying in his own excrement), and a handful go out in an act of defiance. But what really makes it unsettling, at least for me, is the fact that our heroes eventually grow numb to the violence, barely pausing in their conversations as unnamed Walkers around them meet their end.
The adaptation doesn't quite aim for that level of eventual indifference; outside of the ones that occur during time jumps (it takes place over several days) every death is reacted to with appropriate horror and shock. Presumably due to budgetary and logistic concerns, the number of Walkers is dropped to 50 here, so it makes sense that they treat the majority with the same impact as the first. There are still anonymous deaths, but the film skips a hefty number of them at a surprisingly early point, wiping out over a dozen during a sequence where they have to walk up a steep hill (a harrowing sequence from the book that occurs much earlier here). Then a later point has our hero Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman) doze off while walking and learn of several more deaths that occurred as he slept. The movie isn’t even halfway over by the time there are only about a dozen boys left, which means every death always counts. Worse, they get a bit repetitive; several times we see Ray and Pete (David Jonsson from Alien: Romulus) right in front of the camera, trying to maintain their composure as someone is ticketed in the background. Somehow they never get used to it, which may be the point, but since it struck me as one of the most memorable things about the novel, it felt a weird thing to drop.
Here I will note, once again, that this is why I prefer to watch the movie before reading the book, because I stand a much better chance of fully enjoying both as the book will almost certainly be better, anyway. Perhaps this wouldn’t even have bugged me. But I would still take issue with Jonsson and a few others’ casting; not that they’re bad or anything (quite the opposite; on a performance level Jonsson is astounding) but they are all noticeably too old to be playing these teenaged characters. There’s a character named Curly who is barely old enough to qualify, and he’s pretty much the only one played by an actual teen. It’s weird to go from Hoffman playing NBC exec Dick Ebersol around this time last year to someone who is supposed to be 17, and Jonsson is over 30! As with the “numb to death” thing, part of what made the story so horrifying is that these are essentially children, some not even legally able to drive yet, but here they’re all played by adult actors, which diminishes that aspect.
Outside of those two choices, the only other thing that bugged me was the ending, which I won’t spoil other than to say it was changed from the book’s and not to its benefit. Well, not ALL to its benefit - one change legit worked great for me! But after that one change they do another thing that felt more like a studio note, and I dunno. I coulda done without it, is all I’ll say on that matter for now. But if you’re a fellow book fan, just prepare yourself.
Otherwise I think they did a terrific job with what is not an easy story to tell on screen. Watching the core group (Ray, Pete, Olson, Stebbins, etc. - except for Scramm and Percy, every notable character in the book is present here and more or less in line with their original counterparts) bond and hold each other up throughout the story worked like gangbusters, and their ball-busting and camaraderie evoked the best of Stand By Me and even a bit of Shawshank Redemption (think the library or lunch room scenes). And Jonsson isn’t the only one who gives a great performance; in fact they pretty much all do, despite the weird aging up casting they sell the fearlessness that only teenaged boys would still possess.
It also doesn’t hold back on the violence. Apparently King (listed as an executive producer, which isn’t always the case for his adaptations) demanded an R rating, and it is earned. While there are a number of backgrounded or off-screen deaths as mentioned, there are also plenty of them that occasionally seem like the MPA wasn’t really paying much attention. I can only imagine the directors of the Friday the 13th sequels watching this and thinking about their kills - some of which weren’t as graphic as these are to begin with! - being trimmed down to barely a drop while this goes out on a couple thousand screens with no argument. If you’ve read the book, you’ll probably remember a certain character’s throat being harmed? Happy to report its kept intact (albeit slightly modified to use a tool instead of a bare hand).
In fact pretty much everything we see is taken directly from the book, but they do that thing where it might depict an event that happened on the page, but have a different character do it (The Ruins did this brilliantly). So as on the page, someone rushes at the soldiers and tries to take them out, but not the same character who did it in King’s original depiction. And the character of Scramm is MIA, but the sad reveal that he is married and the winner should do something for his wife is handed over to one of the other primary characters. I like this approach, because it keeps veteran readers on their toes, but without going so far off the reservoir that it becomes something to get potentially angry about. Does it matter WHICH character had a wife back home? No, but it matters that these guys will continue looking out for each other even after all but one of them have been executed.
(They also drop the speed to 3 mph, which King has admitted was a mistake on his part the first time around. I actually listened to the book again earlier this year while taking my own daily walks, and I felt pretty slow as I was barely hitting 2 mph or so. I'd be dead instantly in the book, but I think I could last a bit in the movie!)
There’s also some humor. Not a lot (and my favorite crack from the book, when a character quips “OK everyone, take five!” is sadly missing), but the levity is dished out when needed, often in the form of the guys just joshing with one another. That said, Lawrence and Mollner never let you forget how grueling this marathon is; even with the necessary flash forwards (especially in the third act; where it jumps past several dozen miles at one point) you feel how tired and broken these guys are, with some gnarly foot trauma on display to remind you not to try this at home. I got the idea that Lawrence wished he coulda gone harder in his Hunger Games movies (which, as you know, also depict a dystopian world where teens have to kill each other) and was relishing the freedom he had here as opposed to those PG-13 blockbusters.
So overall it works, but fell short of being truly great due to a couple of decisions that sanded down the intensity and harshness of the book. I’m sure they were unable to cast actual teens because of labor laws (I doubt this was a fun shoot for anyone except maybe Mark Hamill as the Major, who gets to sit in a jeep and bark his lines while the rest of the actors are constantly walking alongside an endlessly moving camera that they needed to be mindful of), but certainly the casting folks could have tried a little harder to find ones that at least LOOKED like teens, no? Still, as an adaptation of what is a tough sell to both audiences and executives, it’s remarkably faithful and checks off most of the boxes, and considering how long it took to get to the screen (Romero, Darabont, Overdal, and probably more have all come and gone over 30 years) the fact that they even made it at all counts as a win. That it’s an upper tier example of a King adaptation is just icing on the cake.
What say you?
*other ones: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Dark Tower (as a whole), and Sphere. All of which became middling movies. Long Walk is the first one I didn't walk out somewhat or mostly crushed!
PLEASE, GO ON...Weapons (2025)
AUGUST 9, 2025
GENRE: THRILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)
I never wrote a review for Barbarian, because so much of that film’s strength relied on its constantly surprising, chronologically jumbled narrative. So writing about it seemed counterproductive - literally everything I said, despite how positive it would have been, would just weaken the reader’s experience (given that this site started as a way to discuss movies after seeing them, with no regard for spoilers, I find that evolution kind of amusing). But Weapons has a bigger marketing push behind it (since its studio actually believes in it, unlike Disney for Barbarian), so its premise is more widely known and in turn it’s easier to talk at least a LITTLE bit about how good it is.
(That said, if you haven’t seen a trailer yet, I’d still encourage seeing the movie first, with the knowledge that I am jealous of you! If you HAVE seen the trailer, I will only be sticking to things that they show, with one minor exception that I will be noting again when it comes up.)
But even if you're still unaware of any details whatsoever, the movie doesn't take long in spelling it out-the premise is explained through voiceover in the first scene, more or less the same as it is on its poster. One night, at 2:17 am, all but one of the children from a particular elementary school class walk out of their homes and run off into the night to some unknown destination. Naturally, given the only thing the kids all have in common, suspicion falls on both the teacher for their classroom (Julia Garner as Justine) and, to a lesser extent, the one child who kept on sleeping (Cary Christopher as Alex). As you might expect, the movie spends its remaining runtime (just over two hours, most of which races by) solving the mystery of a. Where they went and b. Why it happened in the first place.
Obviously you won’t get the answers to those questions from me. At least, not here. (I’ll tell you at the bar or something if you ask, sure.) What I WILL say is that writer/director Zach Cregger has publicly cited Magnolia as an influence on his story, and it’s pretty apt. The film is broken up into chapters that are titled after a particular character, including the two I mentioned along with Archer (Josh Brolin) as one of the fathers of the missing children, Paul (Alden Ehrenreich) as a local cop who had a previous relationship with Justine, etc. Each new segment usually answers a question about the previous one while adding new mysteries of its own, and occasionally we see events happen again with the new context that we didn’t have before.
It’s the sort of thing we’ve seen in other genre movies (Strange Darling comes to mind), and I love it because it seems to be a giant F U to the unfortunate trend of movies being written for people who are barely paying attention to them. Creator friends have told me about producers demanding they modify their scripts/edits to remind viewers (“viewers”) of information that was already explained in earlier scenes, so that the people who are only half watching while they look at their phones won’t get too lost, and it depresses me. But there’s no such hand holding here - it’s not exactly a complicated story, but if you’re not paying attention, you won’t understand why the movie works. Many of the reveals and payoffs aren’t even spoken aloud; there’s a shot of a paint can that explains an earlier scene without anyone actually commenting on it, and that’s the sort of thing that makes this movie such a rewarding experience.
I also loved how these characters aren’t bad people by any means, but all have some kind of flaw that makes them targets for those who love to criticize anyone who isn’t as perfect as they believe they are (kind of like Magnolia!). There’s an alcoholic, a cheater, a drug addict… the self righteous among us will deride these people as “unlikable” or “hard to root for” or whatever, but I didn’t see any of them that way. And the one that comes closest to being a traditional "bad person" is the same one who does more to help the missing kids than anyone else has up to that point in the narrative. Finally, a modern horror movie that doesn’t equate “trauma” with “interesting character” as so many others have done!
Another thing that worked in its favor, at least for me: it almost seemed like it could have been a period piece. The suburban setting (Pennsylvania somewhere) gives it an Amblin/Stephen King vibe, which of course speaks to the '80s and '90s, but a handful of Ring camera shots (of the kids running away) and a Fury Road poster clearly establish that it’s set in the modern day, more or less. Even cell phones barely appear; there’s a few texts between Justine and Paul and I think that’s about it for their usage. I can’t even remember any computers beyond scanning the Ring-cam videos; hell, Brolin’s character is an architect and uses a printed out map and a ruler to figure something out, same as anyone would have done in a 1987 film. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some version of this script that was indeed set 20-25 years ago and the subsequent rewrites simply failed to erase all of that DNA.
On the flip side, there are a few things that nagged at me a bit, and the second one is a spoiler concerning a character death, so please skip it if you haven’t seen/are sensitive to such things! One is that there are around 20 kids missing but we only meet the parents of two of them, and if you take away Brolin the others’ combined screen time is maybe four minutes. This might just be my own overactive protective parent gene talking, but it felt a little weird to me that the movie barely even mentions what is likely to be a group of very upset people. Since the King vibes were so strong, it almost felt like this was adapting a book that DID include all those other folks in supporting roles, and the movie version opted to trim them out to compress time. (SPOILER WARNING AGAIN!) I also found it somewhat unfortunate that the story introduced two gay characters and then gave them the most graphic deaths other than the villain or villains’ own demise(s). Not that the movie felt homophobic or anything, but it gave me that same feeling I get whenever I see a movie where the Black Guy does indeed die first, like “Can’t we do a little better, here?” Especially considering the body count wasn’t as high as the “lot of people die” trailer promised.
But neither of them were crippling flaws, and for the most part it got everything at right, at least for my sensibilities. It’s very funny at times (a reaction to a Willow DVD damn near killed me, and the climax is the sort of thing that will have revival audiences giving standing ovations for years to come) and the constant give and take of reveals kept it far more engaging than I’ve come to expect from a lot of modern horror. The actors are all great (always nice to see Ehrenreich; damn Solo for derailing what probably would have been a bigger career by now), there are a couple of jolts that got me good, and Cregger’s established “no one is safe” approach to his horror films meant it was tense down to the last moments. An ideal horror film, and another winner for WB, who hasn’t exactly been the favorite studio for filmmakers in the Zaslav era, but between this, Sinners, and FD6 are certainly on a roll with the scary stuff.
What say you?
PLEASE, GO ON...Together (2025)
JULY 21, 2025
GENRE: BODY HORROR
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PREVIEW SCREENING)
If you saw the trailer for Together and thought it was giving too much away, I must admit I agreed... until I watched the movie. Yes, it spoils some of the best "body horror" gags, but not *all* (including the one that made me look away from the screen!), but there's more going on here than the highlight reel of shots that demonstrate the movie's concept. Which is, if you HAVEN'T seen the trailer, about a complacent couple (Alison Brie and Dave Franco, who are actually married in real life) who find themselves starting to actually meld together. And yes, the movie makes me, old school Born defender and Community fanatic, actually understand why the idea of being stuck to Ms. Brie all day long can actually be a bad thing. Nice work.
The trailer also doesn't give away the fact that (so, I guess, spoiler? But not really since we learn this instantly) this isn't just a metaphorical "What if?" scenario - there's actually an explanation for it, involving a strange pit that Brie and Franco find in the woods behind their new home. So despite it hitting the usual body horror tropes of a person being uncomfortable in their own skin and all that, it also pays tribute to things like Creepshow ("Jordy Verill" specifically), Slither, and Evil Dead, with someone ruining their life by investigating a weird thing they find in the woods. For me at least, this is preferable to things like Men, which has an equally fantastical concept but relies solely on the metaphorical pitch ("What if all men really were the same?") and asks you to just accept it at face value.
Not that it overly explains it either! The movie never gets bogged down in exposition; it just gives you a quick explanation for why it's happening for the people like me in the crowd that are like "Huh? What?" and then focuses on the good stuff. And it is really good! Brie and Franco are terrific and barely even have anyone else to play off of, which is always a gamble but it actually works well here. A friend of Brie's who talks over Facetime sometimes (probably why Men came to mind, now that I think of it) and another teacher at the school she works (played by Damon Herriman) are pretty much the only other characters in the movie we see more than once, allowing us to focus on the couple and, presumably for those who are in these type of codependent relationships or had one (raises hand), see yourself in one or both of the characters.
The script also wisely doesn't let either character come off as the "right" one. Franco is haunted by the death of his parents, but using it and his go-nowhere music career as an excuse not to be intimate with his girlfriend/fiance anymore, and she emasculates him in front of their friends and belittles his ambitions. There's a LOT of passive aggressiveness here on both sides, and it's almost kind of fun to be made to squirm whenever the movie hit a little too close to home (more than once I felt guilty hearing one of them make a putdown or snide comment that was similar to something I've said myself). There's a scene where they have Herriman over for dinner, and some of it borders on "Dinner Party" from The Office-levels of awkwardness as the two make their remarks at the others' expense as their guest gets increasingly uncomfortable.
And that's the other thing: it's a legitimately funny movie. Perhaps its improv thanks to starring a long-term married couple who have almost certainly gotten into arguments over the years, but that thing you do where instead of saying "Sorry" you just gently tease the other or make a little joke about yourself comes up throughout the movie (even when the body horror stuff really takes hold) and it always plays perfectly. I can't waste time explaining the context, but just know that "Remember when I found north?" had me cackling as much as anything in either actor's traditional comedy work, as well as a bit of advice involving crushing a pill.
Plus, as with this year's Companion (which you guys dropped the ball on! Boooo!!!), it got me thinking a lot about my old relationships (romantic and platonic) as well as a few friends who are "suffering by choice" in this kind of dynamic, which always makes a movie more appealing as I get older and a little more introspective. Don't get me wrong, I still love my meat n potatoes slashers, but they rarely give me anything to chew on. I rarely spend much time considering my own relationships when Jason spears a couple simultaneously. But I once had this actual discussion with a friend during what was an emotional "fight" of sorts:
Me: You'd be OK without me, I'd be a wreck.
Them: No, you'll be fine, I'd be the one who couldn't function without you.
Yeah, sounds sweet and all that, but looking back? It's dysfunctional af, and that sort of thing drives this movie. I still miss that friend from time to time, but clearly it's better for us both that we are no longer part of each others' lives, because when you say something like that to someone it puts too much pressure on them to be there for you 24/7, which isn't sustainable even in a marriage, let alone two friends with their own actual partners. Maybe they'll think of that conversation if they see the movie, maybe not. Either way, it'd definitely suck if we ended up falling into a weird pit and our legs started fusing together. We have very different sleep schedules, for starters.
But on that note, the movie also never really judges the characters either. Can't really get into it without spoiling, but as the "fusing" events get more pronounced, audience members will likely recoil and think "No, cut the parts apart!", but there is occasionally the sense that writer/director Michael Shanks (yes, I'm aware of the lawsuit; no, I don't have an opinion either way, only to say the other movie isn't a horror movie and we are only a couple years removed from people being forced to co-exist more than usual, so it's not totally out of the realm of possibility that two people had the same idea) is fine with people thinking "This actually doesn't sound so bad." If two broken people in a committed relationship really do find themselves whole only when together, and feel loved and at peace with it, who are we to say they're wrong? So that's another thing to discuss.
(I, for the record, never want to be glued to anyone. But if you told me you were undergoing surgery to do it with your partner, I'd support you. However, while I am always happy to splurge for a friend, I will not buy BOTH of your tickets when we go to the movies. If I'm going to be a third wheel I sure as hell ain't paying for the date!)
Anyway, yeah. Good film. Glad it's going wide, even if body horror is never really a big box office draw (and neither actor can be considered one either), because it's a good date movie. Maybe it'll help you realize your partner isn't so bad, or maybe you'll realize you're *spiritually* fusing yourself to someone else and it's best to get out before you drag each other down. Or maybe you'll shave all of your body hair off, since the movie offers not one but two nightmarish scenarios involving it. Both actors are fully committed and do some fantastic physical work, and yes, if you've heard about the lawsuit, you know there's a solid Spice Girls needledrop. So essentially it's an ideal movie in many ways.
What say you?
PLEASE, GO ON...
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