This article contains some spoilers for ParaNorman. Every year, adults filled with nostalgia and kids ready for something a little bit spookier seek out the stop-motion classic Coraline. Even after the utterly disgusting revelations about author Neil Gaiman, who wrote the source novella, Coraline remains a charming evergreen watch, thanks to the strong voice performances and the incredible stop-motion animation from veteran director Henry Selick. Believe it or not, though, Coraline isn’t the best movie from its studio, LAIKA. There’s another stop-motion release with even better visuals, even more compelling characters, and an even more moving story. That movie is…

This article appears in the new issue of DEN OF GEEK magazine. Find out how you can subscribe to get the full physical copy right here! Anime’s rich relationship with video games goes all the way back to the ‘80s and has only become more prominent over time. Netflix has found tremendous success with its anime adaptations of iconic gaming franchises such as Castlevania, Devil May Cry, and Arcane. This synergy often feels natural, but it’s still a challenge to pull off in a way that appeals to both seasoned gamers and anime acolytes who have never worked their ways through these virtual…

Street Fighter, the second attempt to bring the legendary fighting game franchise to the big screen, is somehow even weirder and more colorful than its trailers have made it look. In fact, the marketing hasn’t done it justice. But dismiss this flick as a misguided send-up at your own peril, because it packs a surprisingly charming punch underneath its bold, colorful visuals. Street Fighter follows Ken Masters (Noah Centineo) and his former best friend and fellow fighter Ryu (Andrew Koji) six years after the end of the first World Warrior Tournament. Ryu walked away as champion, but with terrible, long-lasting…

This article contains spoilers for Digger. For a movie about the end of the world as we know it, Digger sure has a hard time imagining what that would actually look like.  As the conclusion of Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s film reveals, New York City streets are overrun with floods of water, while survivors cling to life rafts and military enforcers, robots, and drones patrol the streets. Meanwhile, we are told a “level four” condition has descended (mirroring the same alarm system we’ve seen in the play, which has become a reality for the citizens of today). The theater-goers leave the…

Batman knows that criminals are a suspicious, cowardly lot. Movie fans know that Ben Affleck is a sad, tired man. Put the two together and movie magic should happen. Yet, for some reason none of Affleck’s four outings as Bruce Wayne have really stuck with anyone other than the dwindling group of Zack Snyder fans, still yelling on the internet about something. Yet, whatever the many (many, many) problems with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Justice League, Zack Snyder’s Justice League, and The Flash, there’s no question that Affleck puts in good work as a beleaguered Bruce Wayne and…

A child with an alliterative name is born into an unassuming family in an unremarkable small city in the middle of the United States. He grows up poor, experiencing the sting of segregation and intolerance. He becomes preoccupied with justice, honing his body and mind to win glory and fight oppression. And when he eventually reaches his final form, he changes his name into something more elemental that becomes a symbol of strength, perseverance, and controversy to millions across the globe. This is a journey familiar to many comic book readers who have seen heroes like Bruce Wayne, Peter Parker,…

This article contains spoilers for VisionQuest season 1 episodes 1-2. Speed has arrived! Years after Tommy Maximoff and his twin brother Billy seemed to disappear after their mother Wanda dropped her hex in WandaVision, VisionQuest reveals that Tommy somehow lives, now as a Scottish man called Thomas Shepherd (Ruaridh Mollica). The second episode of VisionQuest shows us how this happened, as the drowning of young Thomas allowed for Tommy Shepherd’s spirit to find a new host, not unlike the way Billy Maximoff’s spirit found a home in the body of the late Billy Kaplan (Joe Locke) in Agatha All Along.…

This article contains spoilers for VisionQuest season 1 episodes 1-2. With few exceptions, the primary appeal of a new Marvel property is the way it expands the shared universe, bringing back old favorites with new characters. VisionQuest follows suit by giving Vision the spotlight and pairing him with his creator and arch-enemy, the evil robot Ultron. But VisionQuest also puts a twist on the formula by bringing back names we know with faces we’ve never seen before.  D.U.M.-E. And U, robotic arms who have lived in Tony Stark’s shop since the first MCU movie Iron Man appear as handymen played…

Good child actors are hard to come by, and when you find the ideal performer, in just a few years they’ll stop being a child. For roles about teenagers, however, finding ideal candidates is far easier, since a lot of adults can play them convincingly. So convincingly, in fact, that audiences might not realize the actors were adults at all. Of course, there are films where the entire high school is populated by adults, but in well made productions, we can suspend our disbelief. These are the actors that, when their movies happened, seemed eternally young. IMDb Stockard Channing in…

This article contains spoilers for VisionQuest season 1 episodes 1 and 2. From the first episode of VisionQuest, it seems that the chief pleasure of the show will be watching Paul Bettany and James Spader chew the scenery. The actors reprise their Marvel roles, with Bettany back as a more questioning, less empathetic Vision than we’ve seen before, and Spader returning as a more avuncular, but still genocidal Ultron. The two crackle in every scene they share, as they prod and debate with one another about the value of humanity and the value of the humanities. The actors clearly love…

We were incredibly relieved at Summer Game Fest 2026 when we learned that Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival wouldn’t be yet another asymmetrical online horror game based on an existing cinematic property. After all, following in the steps of Dead by Daylight, there has been no shortage of them, including Friday the 13th: The Game, Evil Dead: The Game, and Halloween: The Game – that well has run bone dry for some time. After that SGF preview, we’ve gotten to play the full version of the game and we’re happy to report that Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival is a solid single-player…

Greta Gerwig was pitching a Chronicles of Narnia movie to Netflix before she realized she wanted to make it. The year was 2019 and her frequent collaborator/husband Noah Baumbach was in the midst of the Netflix rollout for his own passion project, Marriage Story. Meanwhile Gerwig was fresh off the release of her solo directorial debut, Lady Bird, and on the eve of her second feature opening: Little Women. She was a renowned filmmaker with two Oscar nominations to her name, but she was also still an indie maven who simply wanted to corner Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos. At the…

When a product does well, it’s only natural for other markets to want to replicate the success. Beyond that, producers can licence an intellectual property and make a version that would appeal to their markets, at least according to whatever studies they might’ve done. And yet, when it comes to Japanese movies, the attempt is almost always seen as dumbing down the source material, and trying to capture the magic without any of its soul. While not all of them are terrible, they leave a lot to be desired. These are the biggest examples of Japanese classics ruined by Western…

The protagonist of a story can often do nearly anything the plot throws at them, mainly because they’re the protagonist. We know that, and can accept that, as long as the story itself tries at least a little bit to sell the concept. More often than not, it’s a secret life as some form of hitman/secret agent. Sometimes, however, that excuse isn’t enough. Or isn’t even there. How can people with desk jobs become full blown squad leaders, master marksmen, and who knows what else? We’re all day at a desk, and we don’t know how to do any of…

This article contains spoilers for Prime Video TV series Carrie. Carrie White was never alone. While the titular teenager of Stephen King‘s debut novel may have felt isolated under the burdens of high school bullies, an abusive mother, and burgeoning telekinetic powers, in reality she was but one of many experiencing those same trials and tribulations… yes, even the “telekinetic powers” bit. That’s made apparent in the pages of King’s epistolary text and it’s something that showrunner Mike Flanagan wanted to make even clearer in Carrie, Prime Video’s eight-episode modern update to Carrie White’s story. “[King] is pretty explicit about…

Being good-looking can sound like an easy advantage, and in some ways, it is. People may be friendlier, offer free things, or give you opportunities before they know anything about you. But being attractive can also bring unwanted attention, jealousy, awkward assumptions, and the uncomfortable feeling that people are interested in your appearance rather than who you are. In a recent Reddit discussion, people shared what life is like when others consider you extremely attractive. Their stories ranged from perks to exhausting social situations, showing that good looks can change interactions in ways that are flattering, frustrating, and sometimes lonely.…

Movie plots often depend on people making terrible decisions at exactly the right moment. Someone ignores an obvious warning, refuses to ask a simple question, or walks straight into danger despite having several perfectly reasonable alternatives. Sometimes the characters are supposed to be intelligent, experienced adults, which makes their choices even more frustrating. You can practically see the credits rolling if anyone would stop for thirty seconds and think things through. These stories gave us memorable entertainment, but their biggest problems could disappear almost immediately if the characters acted like real people instead of following a script designed to keep…

Comedy shows are supposed to make you laugh, so it hits differently when an episode suddenly leaves you feeling absolutely miserable. You can spend years watching ridiculous arguments, awkward dates, running jokes, and characters making terrible decisions, only for one unexpected moment to change the entire mood. Sometimes a beloved character dies, a relationship falls apart, or a seemingly ordinary storyline reveals something painfully real. The hardest part is that these episodes often arrive without warning, catching viewers completely off guard. Some of television’s most emotional moments happened in shows nobody expected to make anyone cry, and fans still remember…

People in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s had some pretty interesting ideas about having fun. Kids rode around in the back of station wagons, families dressed alike on purpose, and somebody apparently decided that keeping a raccoon as a pet was a perfectly reasonable plan. There were giant playground slides, questionable furniture choices, and enough polyester to furnish an entire department store. Luckily, plenty of people had cameras ready to document these decisions. Reddit is full of old family snapshots and vintage photographs that capture just how wonderfully strange everyday life could get. Here are 15 photos from a time…

Why in the world would anyone make a time-travel movie? As soon as a character steps out into the past or the future, even by a matter of minutes, it raises huge questions that most filmmakers don’t want to answer: Is this a new reality? What happens at a physics level? Is the future different now? And yet, when we’re watching a great time travel movie, we don’t ask any of those questions. We just go along for the ride. The ability of the best movies to overcome those fundamental questions and grip the audience make time travel one of…