Director Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance is rightfully drawing praise from critics and body horror fans these days. It’s a colorful, creative, and surprisingly entertaining examination of the self-loathing generated by society’s expectations of the female body.  If you’ve heard nothing else about the film so far, you still probably know that it is one of the most violent and disturbing horror movies to come along in quite some time. The internet—or at least the film-obsessed corners of social media—is already filled with stories of people leaving their screenings, vomiting outside the theater, or otherwise finding themselves unable to process what…

Horror fans, prepare for a spine-chilling celebration as the 6th annual Haunted House FearFest is set to take over the Triad Theater in New York City from October 24-26, 2024. The festival is presented by HauntTV with Den of Geek proudly serving as media sponsor, and it promises to be an immersive experience of horror films and game exhibitions, with the added thrill of renowned creators from the genre in attendance. This year’s Haunted House FearFest is packed with unmissable moments that will excite any horror enthusiast. Don’t miss a special screening of season 3 of HauntTV’s hit paranormal series…

This article contains Joker: Folie à Deux spoilers. If Arthur Fleck had a favorite song, it was probably “That’s Life,” the Dean Kay and Kelly Gordon big band standard first recorded in 1963 and popularized by Frank Sinatra in ’66. A bit of a mean-spirited lament, the song features acerbic observations like “you’re riding high in April, shot down in May,” and “but if there’s nothing shaking, come this here July, I’m gonna roll myself up in a big ball and die.” Frankly, it’s pretty bleak if you listen to it for more than a minute, and diametrically opposed to…

For his past few cinematic adventures, Batman has been a creature of the night, a solitary force against crime and corruption in Gotham City. In the new DCU movie universe, that is going to change. According to an announcement from DC Studios co-president James Gunn, Batman will be lonely no more. A new animated theatrical film, appropriately titled Dynamic Duo, will feature not one but two Robins: the original Dick Grayson and his first successor Jason Todd. Over the moon excited to announce the newest DC Studios/Warner Bros Pictures Animation greenlit film for theaters, DYNAMIC DUO, the story of Robin……

One can judge the quality of a Stephen King adaptation less by the way it handles its monsters and more by the way it approaches the author’s idiosyncrasies. Gary Dauberman, writer and director of the latest version of Salem’s Lot, proves his worth in a single scene. Eleven-year-old newcomer to small town Jerusalem’s Lot, Mark Petrie (Jordan Preston Carter), tries to wow his recently discovered playground friends by performing a Houdini escape trick. His hands still bound, Mark cannot block an attack by bully Richie Boddin (Declan Lemerande), who stands over the new kid and sneers, “Welcome to the Lot,…

When most folks think of Universal horror, certain images spring to mind. Windswept castles littered with debris and bats; windmills standing alone on a dark and stormy night; vampires, werewolves, and other assorted beasties fleeing into the fog. Despite the Universal Monsters cycle running its original course nearly 80 years ago, its most famous icons—Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Wolf Man, and the Mummy—remain firmly planted in the pop culture imagination every October. Much of this is descended from the classics of the 1930s: Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi, Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, starring Boris Karloff and later Elsa Lanchester. Yet…

Good news, everyone, sex is back in the movies! Okay, sure, we were saying the same thing about 2023 when Poor Things and Saltburn set audiences’ tongues wagging, but this Christmas sees the release of Babygirl, in which Nicole Kidman… drinks a glass of cold, white milk. On its own that doesn’t sound particularly alluring. But the first trailer for the A24 thriller Babygirl puts the moment in context, in which a young intern (Harris Dickinson of The Iron Claw and Triangle of Sadness) in Kidman’s company orders her to do her body good and down the milk. The exchange…

Is the third time the charm for Salem’s Lot? Stephen King’s iconic 1975 novel about a small Maine town overrun by vampires (his second published book, and still widely regarded as one of his masterpieces) has now been filmed three times: as a three-hour (minus commercials) 1979 miniseries directed by Tobe Hooper, another miniseries of the same length, directed by Mikael Salomon in 2004, and now a 114-minute feature film adapted and directed by Gary Dauberman. Dauberman came to Salem’s Lot with his horror and Stephen King bona fides already in place too. He wrote the three Annabelle movies (the…

Even if you don’t know Nosferatu, you know Nosferatu. Part of that knowledge comes from the promotional trailers that Focus Features has been running for the past several months, building excitement for the film’s Dec. 25 release. The latest one, in fact, focuses on Lily-Rose Depp as the story’s Ellen Hutter, a Mina Harker equivalent if you know your Dracula, and her desire for the titular vampire. As her husband Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) and Prof. Albin Eberhart Von Franz (Willem Dafoe) look on in confusion, Ellen explains the fear mixed with excitment that draws her to the bloodsucker Count Orlok…

Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis had a rough opening weekend. A film that reportedly cost $120 million—most of it self-financed by the filmmaker after he sold a portion of his winery business—the epic is estimated to have grossed a mere $4 million in its first three days. That’s not even enough to crack the top five for the weekend.  Ultimately, Megalopolis opened in sixth place, behind movies like Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Speak No Evil, which are in their fourth and third weekends, respectively, as well as The Wild Robot, which opened at number one—a movie that is also, by the by,…

Can you be nostalgic for a moment while you’re living in it? It’s a question posed earnestly and quietly between two characters in Saturday Night, Jason Reitman’s deeply nostalgic film about a time, a place, and a pop culture moment that was simultaneously fleeting and never-ending. The film is, after all, about the birth of a television landmark; a 50-year-old sketch comedy series which proved so popular that it still plays every Saturday night on NBC, whether via new episodes or reruns. It even continues to see Lorne Michaels as its credited and reportedly hands-on executive producer. Yet Reitman’s Saturday…

In Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, there is nothing of greater importance than an artist. As its various characters opine, debate, and brood about to the point of exhaustion, an artist alone has the ability to shape time: a painter freezes it in a moment; an inspired architect conquers it for eternity; and a musician gives it rhythm. Thus in what is most likely Coppola’s final film, as well as a valedictory for a career which helped define cinema as we know it, the central character has the literal ability to pause, rewind, and change time as he sees fit. Like…

We Millennials will forever occupy an awkward space. Born at the turn of the century, and changing of the tide in technology and culture, the oldest among us can vaguely remember a world without the internet—and certainly a childhood without social media. Many of us grew up during the so-called “end of history” good vibes, as per some of our most oblivious Boomer parents, and then lived to see how history changed again, often in horrifying or difficult ways. Coming of age between two global economic disasters and often ridiculed for clinging to our adolescent mess in that wake, Gen-Yers…

This post contains spoilers aplenty for Megalopolis. Megalopolis has become one of the most anticipated movies of the year, and not really because it’s the (likely) final film in director Francis Ford Coppola’s incredible career. From behind the scenes reports about Coppola’s misbehavior on the set to an audacious, unclear epic of a script he wrote himself, Megalopolis has attracted the intention anyone who appreciates a masterpiece and/or a fiasco. Somehow Megalopolis exceeds those expectations, whatever they are. It is a totally insane film, overstuffed with moments brilliant, misjudged, and absurd. A quasi-sci-fi story following the conflict between brilliant architect…

Will Ferrell will do anything for the sake of comedy. Wear basketball shorts that ride up to his junk in Semi-Pro? Yup. Dress in a corny Christmas attire to craft a Yuletide classic? Of course! He’ll race cars, mingle with the dinosaurs, and figure skate in effeminate garb just to get a few laughs from the audience at home or in the theater. And yet, nothing Ferrell has done in his career so far has forced him to get as authentically vulnerable as he is when he hops in a public swimming pool with his lifelong friend, Harper Steele, in…

Nicholas Meyer is perhaps one of the most influential living American writers. To prove it all you have to do is say two things: He saved Star Trek and he made Sherlock Holmes popular again. With his incisive work as the director of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in 1982, and his break-out Holmes novel hit The Seven-Per-Cent in 1974, Meyer made a name for himself as the kind of writer who geeks out with characters and historical situations that interest him, and weaves his deep knowledge of adjacent interests to make something entirely new. “These things sort…

Alex Murphy is back. According to Deadline, director James Wan will produce a new RoboCop TV series for Amazon and MGM, with Ladder 49 creator Peter Ocko as showrunner. Some people might roll their eyes at that idea, and not just because every RoboCop entry since the original movie has been various degrees of disappointing. They roll their eyes because they think Alex Murphy’s story came to a natural close at the end of the 1987 film. They see the final conversation as a fairly happy ending, in which Murphy (Peter Weller) recovers his identity and gets to be a…

James Bond’s loss is John Wick’s gain judging by the first trailer of Ana de Armas in Ballerina. Nearly four years after the Cuban actress stole the show in No Time to Die, de Armas will finally be getting her own spinoff… but not in the series you might have expected. Like Daniel Craig’s 007, Keanu Reeves’ beloved John Wick character appears to have been given a permanent dirt nap after the events of John Wick: Chapter 4. Nonetheless, the series lives on with a new lead played by de Armas. And she still appears to kick plenty of ass…

“You’ll believe a man can fly,” boasted the famous tagline for Superman: The Movie. And to its credit, the film pulled it off by delivering state-of-the-art special effects. But as time goes by and technology improves, it’s increasingly clear that the flying scenes aren’t Superman’s true special effect. Rather, it’s star Christopher Reeve, who gives the greatest performance in any superhero movie. Period. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the oft-shared clip from Superman, in which Reeve’s Clark Kent considers revealing his identity to Lois (an equally great Margot Kidder). In one shot, with absolutely no special effects, we…

In HBO miniseries The Penguin, what is the name of Colin Farrell’s character?Oz CobbOswald Chesterfield CobblepotMr. BonifaceOzzie CosbourneWhich of these is NOT one of the Infinity Stones, as collected by Avengers villain Thanos to bedazzle his Infinity Gauntlet?DreamRealityTimeSoulWhich 2022 comic book movie was labelled by critics “ludicrously pointless”, “a heartbreaking work of staggering idiocy” and “a monstrous union of bottom of the barrel intellectual property and fiscal year planning”?MorbiusThe BatmanBlack AdamThor: Love and ThunderBritish actor Nicholas Hoult played Beast in the X-Men franchise. Which famous comic book villain is he due to play in 2025?Lex LuthorGalactusSamuel Sterns aka The LeaderBob…