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Stephen King's delightfully screwed-up stories have been getting the big screen treatment since 1976, but not a single adaptation over the past 49 years looks quite like "The Monkey." That's likely because none of those other movies had Oz Perkins, the creative horror mastermind behind movies like the trippy Nicolas Cage-starrer "Longlegs" and the terrifying slow-burn "The Blackcoat's Daughter," behind the camera. Perkins is clearly suited to the absurdity of the King short story, which was featured in his 1985 book "Skeleton Crew." In the latest issue of Empire magazine, the filmmaker draws direct parallels between the story's cursed toy and his own strange, tragic family life.

Perkins tells the outlet that "The Monkey" actually already had a "very serious script" when he joined the project, one provided by James Wan's Atomic Monster production company. "I felt it was too serious, and I told them: 'This doesn't work for me,...

Some great horror movies predate the burst of color filmmaking as the predominant form of cinema and are still scary watches even for modern audiences. The horror genre is one of the oldest kinds in film, an early source of chills and thrills on the big screen. In modern discussions though, people often only go back to the '70s and '80s when talking about classic horror movies. Despite this, there are some black and white horror films from the old golden era of the genre are still quite compelling.

It is a misconception that horror movies from that time aren't as technically strong as today's movies because of the technological advancements in modern filmmaking. If anything, the unique and imaginative techniques employed by the pioneers of the genre to create terrifying atmospheres and visuals add to the charm of black-and-white vintage horror cinema. Modern remakes of such classic...

Spoiler warning: there are spoilers for both films in this piece.

Women in horror spin delicious webs. Complex renderings of rage, grief, and madness require astute interpretations of the material. Whether it’s Simon Simone coloring Irena with suffocating loneliness in Cat People (1942) or Rebecca Hall drowning Beth in wine and sorrow in The Night House (2020), women frequently tap into primal instinct and guttural play to transmit their stories of heartbreak, misery, and bloodthirsty glee. Barbaric conditions push them to the edge, the cliff dropping down and away from their feet. Women teeter there on the brink, and all they can do is scream. With J.T. Mollner’s Strange Darling and Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho, two women carve beating hearts from their chests and take a juicy bite. Sticky blackness oozes from pulsating veins, their bloodlust irresistible. Their murderous motives sprout from very different places, yet they...

In the late ’90s, producer James G. Robinson and screenwriter William Wisher Jr. started developing a prequel to the 1973 horror classic The Exorcist – and no one could have predicted just how messy this project would get. Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI director Tom McLoughlin was hired to take the helm, but then dropped out due to issues with the script. John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate) took the helm, with author Caleb Carr handling rewrites… then Frankenheimer left because his health was declining (he passed away soon after) and was replaced by Paul Schrader. Schrader was known for writing films like Taxi Driver, Rolling Thunder, Raging Bull, and The Last Temptation of Christ, and he had also directed several films: Blue Collar, Hardcore, American Gigolo, Cat People, and others. During a recent interview with MovieWeb, Schrader admitted that he shouldn’t have taken on the job of directing Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist.

Film noirs have always leaned into the darkest impulses of human existence, and the desire for revenge has long been a cornerstone of the genre. From widowed cops tirelessly pursuing those who harmed their loved ones to old enemies emerging from the protagonist's past in search of vengeance, sinister tales of revenge included some of the greatest film noirs ever made. As corrupt crooks, fatalistic femme fatales, and vilified victims become embroiled in conspiracies of murder and deceit, its inevitable that those who have been wronged wish to seek revenge.

Plenty of must-watch film noirs explore themes of revenge, as classic noir actors like Robert Mitchum excelled at playing morally corrupted characters who would stop at nothing for a chance at vengeance. These stories echo the fears and anxieties of their era, as the aftermath of the Second World War and fears around impending nuclear conflict led to many depictions of darkly sinister characters.

The marketing behind The Northman director Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu has made it clear that the inhuman visage of its central monster won’t be revealed until audiences arrive in theaters on Christmas Day. That’s all the more intriguing considering that descriptors like “erotic” and “sexualized” have been attached to Bill Skarsgård’s performance as Count Orlok, both in critical first reactions and from the cast.

Skarsgård even teased his character in an earlier chat with Esquire, saying: “He’s gross. But it is very sexualized. It’s playing with a sexual fetish about the power of the monster and what that appeal has to you. Hopefully you’ll get a little bit attracted by it and disgusted by your attraction at the same time.”

Of course, cinema’s history is filled with sexualized vampires that inspire lust, using it themselves to prey upon their victims. It’s an entirely...

Oh, Canada (2024) may noy be the last film that Paul Schrader ends up making, as the notoriously active writer/director has already hinted at what his next project might be. That being said, “Oh, Canada” certainly feels like an acclaimed artist looking back on the achievements of their career, as it is by its very nature a reflective story about two fixed points in a man’s life. Schrader has long been interested in exploring the lurking feelings of anxiety and self-destruction that exist within archetypes of masculinity, such as a priest (“First Reformed”), a drug dealer (“Light Sleeper”), a gambler (“The Card Counter”), a male escort (“American Gigolo”), or a family man (“Hardcore”). “Oh, Canada” is perhaps the best evidence that these stories were all derived from Schrader’s own self-analysis, as it recontextualizes the accoladed Russell Banks novel “Foregone” as a commentary on the ramifications of the New Hollywood movement.

Sure, there are plenty of new and classic horror movies on streaming this year. But there’s nothing that beats the sensation of sliding a disc into a Blu-ray player. It harkens back to the thrill of going to your local video store, picking out a scary movie and taking it home.

We thought we’d celebrate that sensation by picking out our very favorite new home video releases for this Halloween, a mixture of obscure favorites, outright classics, near-hits from some of our favorite modern filmmakers and a new movies that gets a terrific home video treatment. Grab some candy, your comfiest pajamas and settle in for the night with these gems.

Janus “Demon Pond”

One of the season’s must-have titles is “Demon Pond,” a bizarro, late-‘70s nightmare from Masahiro Shinoda, whose “Pale Flower” and “Double Suicide” are already a part of the Criterion Collection. Shinoda updates...

If you were looking for the nerdiest spot at this year’s New York Film Festival, it was parked outside of Alice Tully Hall at the Lincoln Center. To celebrate its 40th anniversary, Criterion packed up its famous closet collection and took it on the road in van form, opening...

Shirley Jackson once wrote in her journal: “who wants to write about anxiety from a place of safety? although, i suppose i would never be entirely safe since i cannot completely reconstruct my mind.” That verb “reconstruct” is an apt one for Jackson, whose most famous novel The Haunting Of Hill House...

You used to hear the refrain from horror film fanatics with a lot more frequency – the original was so much scarier.

And while this is still true to some degree (the films of John Carpenter have been remade with an oddly uniform lousiness), there are still plenty of horror films that have been remade well. Sometimes the remakes are just as good as the original. In rare cases, it even surpasses the original.

Here is our definitive list of the very best horror remakes ever.

(United Artists) “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1978)

Don Siegel’s 1956 classic “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” is based on Jack Finney’s story “The Body Snatchers,” which was serialized in Collier’s in 1954 and published as a novel shortly after, has been remade several times over the years. But the very best iteration is still the 1978 version, the first since Siegel’s, from director Philip Kaufman and writer W.D. Richter.

What would happen if Raymond Chandler and H.P. Lovecraft wrote a novel together? Comic series "Fatale" by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips offers an answer. Published from 2012 to 2014 across 24 issues at Image Comics, "Fatale" is named for the archetype every film noir needs: the femme fatale, the sultry knockout who wraps men around her fingers without a care for what happens to their twisted forms (phallic cigarette optional).

The center of "Fatale" is one such woman, named Josephine or simply Jo. Colorists David Stewart and Elizabeth Breitweiser give her blood red lips and hair as black as Ava Gardner. Is her raven hair the same shade as her heart? Not quite. You see, Jo simply can't help making men desire and chase after her — especially men who want her for an occult sacrifice. Brubaker and Phillips mostly cook their comics hardboiled, such as "Criminal" (soon to be a Prime Video...

Veteran director and screenwriter Paul Schrader will be honored at this year’s Lucaa Film Festival with a lifetime achievement award.

The Italian event, which runs Sept. 21-29, will also screen a retrospective of Schrader’s work, including Blue Collar, Hardcore, The Comfort of Strangers, Affliction, Auto Focus, The Walker, The Canyons, The Card Counter, Master Gardener, Mishima, and First Reformed.

On Sept. 26, Schrader will hold a public masterclass at the Cinema Astra, attended by film students from various Italian universities. The following day he will receive the festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

The director began his career as a screenwriter for Martin Scorsese with scripts to such classics as Raging Bull and Taxi Driver before stepping behind the camera for his 1978 directorial debut Blue Collar, a crime drama starring Richard Pryor and Harvey Keitel. Schrader’s greatest commercial success came in the early 80s with films including American Gigolo (1980) starring Richard Gere,...

Leonard Engelman, the esteemed makeup artist who worked on films including Rocky IV, The Princess Diaries, Batman & Robin and How the Grinch Stole Christmas and did Cher’s makeup for more than 30 years, has died. He was 83.

Engelman died Thursday at Northridge Hospital Medical Center, his wife of 42 years, artist Esther Engelman, told The Hollywood Reporter. The cause of death is unclear, she said.

The son of a Hollywood makeup artist, Engelman labored for a long time to convince the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to install a makeup branch, as those artisans had always been “at-large” members. And when it did so in 2006, he was elected its first governor. Later, he worked to have hairstylists added.

He also served as an Academy vice president and board member for many years.

Engelman received Emmy nominations in 1972 for an episode of Night Gallery and in 2001 for the miniseries Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis,...

With review quotes claiming a film that is “nerve-shredding”, so scary you might pass out and a “perfect horror experience” it’s safe to say that Longlegs, written and directed by Osgood Perkins, is one of the most anticipated horrors of the year.

As the son of Norman Bates himself, actor Anthony Perkins, and photographer and actress Berry Berenson, who stared in the 1982 Cat People remake, you would hope Osgood’s horror credentials were legit.

Starting out as an actor, Osgood’s first credit was an inspired yet nepotistic piece of casting, turning up as the Young Norman in Psycho II alongside dear old dad and carrying on with bit parts in Six Degrees of Separation, Secretary and Legally Blonde.

Moving behind the camera he penned and directed chillers The Blackcoat’s Daughter and I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, following this by directing a twisted take...

New Rose Hotel.A figure is lodged in the depth of our speech, operating like the matrix of these effects, attacking our words to make forms and images out of them. —Jean-François Lyotard, Discourse, FigureThe body is never in the present, it contains the before and the after, tiredness and waiting. Tiredness and waiting, even despair are the attitudes of the body. —Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 2: The Time-Image“There are three essential propositions underlying Ferrara’s work,” writes Nicole Brenez in her book on Abel Ferrara’s films, first published in English in 2007. The first proposition, Brenez theorizes, is as follows: “Modern cinema exists to come to grips with contemporary evil.” In many ways, this statement—one of many piercing axioms and assertions that populate her writing—crystallizes not only Ferrara’s cinema but also Brenez’s film-critical and curatorial project since the late 1980s. She approaches cinema as a...

Some of the most memorable ventures into "The Twilight Zone" are bottle episodes in spirit if not exact definition. "The Invaders" follows a woman in a remote cabin menaced by tiny aliens. "Nothing in the Dark" features not only a young Robert Redford but also an elderly woman (Gladys Cooper) scared that death will be arriving at her door.

Cooper returned for a similar "Twilight Zone" in the show's fifth and last season: "The Night Call" Cooper plays Elva Keene, an aged widow living in a Maine cabin who is dealing with repeated phone calls that always go silent whenever she picks up. Is it just a technical error, like her nurse assures her? Or is something sinister and supernatural lurking in the phone lines?

On "The Night Call," the guest talent wasn't only in front of the camera. The episode was directed by Jacques Tourneur, one of the first...

The creature feature, at its most basic, is simply a horror movie in which a monster plays a prominent role as the primary antagonist; the term says it all. It’s the creature part that’s loose for interpretation, of course. A creature feature could be anything from carnivorous aliens from space to manmade monsters to genetically altered animals run amok.

This week’s streaming picks highlight creature features from the glorious age of practical effects: the ’80s. These five horror titles run the gamut in tone, style, and creature, showcasing just how nebulous and varied the creature feature can be. Whether you’re in the mood for quirky parasites with personality or lust that turns monstrous, these ’80s creature features go big on practical effects. Here’s where you can stream them this week.

For more Stay Home, Watch Horror picks, click here.

Alligator – AMC+, freevee, Night Flight+, Peacock,...

Cult classics from the 1980s set new standards in horror, blending genres and introducing influential ideas. Films like Cat People and Gothic may not be mainstream, but they deserve recognition for their impact. The 1980s gave us underrated gems like The Return of the Living Dead, Christine, and From Beyond that deserve more credit.

The 1980s were a fantastic time for horror movies and were full of cult classics that just didn't get enough credit. While acclaimed horror movies like The Shining or massive franchises like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street have dominated the conversation around 1980s horror, its important to shine a light on all the other great movies out there. The best cult classics were beloved by horror enthusiasts but sadly didnt have as much resonance for a mainstream audience and have been lying idle, just waiting to be rediscovered.

Many cult classics never got...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Am I Ok? (Stephanie Allyne and Tig Notaro)

A romantic comedy that functions best as a fable of friendship and self-reflection, Am I Ok? is the kind of lightweight, amiable movie that just barely earns the emotional beats at the heart of its story. Set in Los Angeles, it follows the converging life events of two best friends, Lucy (Dakota Johnson) and Jane (Sonoya Mizuno), soul sisters with opposite personalities who tell each other everything—except for the big secrets they’ve been harboring from each other. How they respond to hearing them fuels Stephanie Allyne and Tig Notaro’s gentle and wobbly feature debut. – Jake K-s. (full review)

Where to Stream: Max

Dad & Step-Dad (Tynan DeLong)

Following the stellar comedy Free Time,...

"Once the sound of the future, now awesomely retro..." Every month, the Criterion Channel streaming service (one of the best in cinema) debuts a series of programming collections. Each one features a batch of films with a particular theme or connection by actor / director / composer. This is one of the best sets that I need to feature! One of June's latest offerings is Synth Soundtracks - a collection of 20 films featuring synthesizer scores, ranging from classics like Forbidden Planet (1956) and Thief (1981) to more obscure titles like Space Is the Place (1974) and Cat People (1982). Everyone knows Vangelis' iconic synth score for Blade Runner, but this selection went with Vangelis' other film Missing (1982). I enjoy this kind of curation because there's such a range of unique movies, not only expected classics. This also includes: A Clockwork Orange (1971), Shogun Assassin (1980), The Legend of Hell House (1973), Liquid Sky (1982), Tenebrae (1982), For All Mankind (1989), Delta Space...

Oh, Canada debuting this week on the Croisette is high time to see lesser-seen Schrader on the Criterion Channel, who’ll debut an 11-title series including the likes of Touch, The Canyons, and Patty Hearst, while Old Boyfriends (written with his brother Leonard) and his own “Adventures in Moviegoing” are also programmed. Five films by Jean Grémillon, a rather underappreciated figure of French cinema, will be showing

Series-wise, there’s an appreciation of the synth soundtrack stretching all the way back to 1956’s Forbidden Planet while, naturally, finding its glut of titles in the ’70s and ’80s––Argento and Carpenter, obviously, but also Tarkovsky and Peter Weir. A Prince and restorations of films by Bob Odenkirk, Obayashi, John Greyson, and Jacques Rivette (whose Duelle is a masterpiece of the highest order) make streaming debuts. I Am Cuba, Girlfight, The Royal Tenenbaums, and Dazed and Confused are June’s Criterion Editions.

BayView Entertainment have released the horror film A Stranger In The Woods worldwide on Digital Platforms including on FlixFling, Hoopla, Vudu and Xumo.

A Stranger In The Woods will arrive on AVOD Digital Platforms worldwide on 25th June 2024.

Starring popular cult film actors Bill Oberst, Jr. and Lynn Lowry, and multi-award-winning actress and black belt martial artist, Laura Ellen Wilson.

Synopsis:

A young film student is about to make a documentary about an elderly man who has been hiding from the world for many years. But as secrets from his past come to light, their strange relationship takes a fateful turn.

A Stranger In The Woods was Directed by József Gallai (Moth). The film stars Bill Oberst Jr., Laura Ellen Wilson and Lynn Lowry.

Keep up to date with all things BayView Entertainment by following them on social media and via their website.

Links below:

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Facebook

Twitter

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French distributor Arp has picked up all French rights Paul Schrader’s new film Oh, Canada ahead of its world premiere in competition in Cannes next month.

The feature stars Richard Gere, Uma Thurman, Michael Imperioli and Jacob Elordi.

Oh, Canada reunites Schrader with Gere, more than 40 years after their first collaboration on American Gigolo. Adapted from the Russell Banks novel Foregone, Oh, Canada sees Gere playing Leonard Fife, a famed American documentary filmmaker who fled to Canada as a young man to avoid the Vietnam War draft. Dying from cancer, he agrees to give a final interview where he promises to reveals his long-held secrets, speaking in front of his wife (Thurman), a devoted former student (Imperioli), and the film crew.

David Gonzales is the lead producer on Oh, Canada alongside Tiffany Boyle, Luisa Law, Scott Lastaiti and Meghan Hanlon. Arclight Films is handling international sales and WME Independent...

BayView Entertainment will be releasing the horror film A Stranger In The Woods on Digital Platforms worldwide on 30th April 2024.

A Stranger In The Woods will arrive on AVOD Digital Platforms worldwide on 25th June 2024.

Starring popular cult film actors Bill Oberst, Jr. and Lynn Lowry, and multi-award-winning actress and black belt martial artist, Laura Ellen Wilson.

Synopsis:

A young film student is about to make a documentary about an elderly man who has been hiding from the world for many years. But as secrets from his past come to light, their strange relationship takes a fateful turn.

A Stranger In The Woods was Directed by József Gallai (Moth). The film stars Bill Oberst Jr., Laura Ellen Wilson and Lynn Lowry.

Keep up to date with all things BayView Entertainment by following them on social media and via their website.

Links below:

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

Youtube

Youtube

The post...

Admit it – there’s at least one horror movie out there with a “gotcha” moment that made your heart slam against the inside of your ribcage. A sudden out-of-nowhere reveal, often accompanied by a loud noise on the soundtrack. Scenes like this have been making audiences soil their seats since the era of classic monster movies, and it’s not hard to see why. The response is hardwired into our brains; an instinctive fight-or-flight reflex when our natural defense mechanisms are rudely interrupted. The term “jump scare” wasn’t commonly used to label this effect until the 21st century, and it only really became part of popular culture after the birth of YouTube – which practically weaponized the technique with viral “screamer” videos and clip compilations.

Legendary director Alfred Hitchcock once famously criticized this kind of scare tactic, claiming suspense far is more effective than a sudden shock… but he’s...

Released soon after the end of the Great Depression and on the precipice of America’s entry into World War II, William Dieterle’s All That Money Can Buy is a peculiar and fascinating blend of the populist agitprop of the 1930s and the patriotic hokum that defined much of the war years.

In transposing the legend of Faust and his pact with the devil to a rousing bit of American folklore, the screenplay by Dan Totheroh and Stephen Vincent Benét presents greed as anathema to the American way of life, and in one of the few brief eras where that notion was anything short of risible. As such, rugged individualism is spurned in favor of collectivism, specifically in the exalting of the values of an agricultural grange—a communal safety net for small farmers like All That Money Can Buy’s protagonist, Jabez Stone (James Craig).

After a string of bad luck,...

For as much as Rod Serling's landmark anthology series "The Twilight Zone" reinvented the genre of science fiction storytelling, many of its best episodes also deal in the world of the fantastical, whether through witches, time-traveling radios, or just plain inexplicable phenomena. What kept "The Twilight Zone" consistent through it all is its focus on human nature and irony, the idea of following desire ultimately leading to one's downfall. You can see that in many of the classic episodes of the show, no matter what the genre is.

That focus on human drama is what keeps "Jess-Belle," a most unusual episode of "The Twilight Zone," in the running for the show's top tier. For one, "Jess-Belle" came out of the show's difficult fourth season, during which CBS had contracted hour-long episodes, twice as long as the episodes' usual length, per Marc Scott Zicree's indispensable "Twilight Zone Companion." While...

If Ann Landers had it right, and hanging on to resentment amounts to letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head, then “Your Monster” is what happens when you kick open the door and let those feelings run amok. Drawing from personal experience, writer-director Caroline Lindy delivers a clumsy metaphor of a movie, in which a promising young actor named Laura Franco (“In the Heights” star Melissa Barrera) has her Broadway dreams derailed by a cancer diagnosis, only to discover a ferocious inner strength, courtesy of the beastly creature she finds hanging around her childhood home.

In what amounts to a heavy-handed empowerment tale, the monster in question is at first a surly roommate, later a potential love interest and ultimately a manifestation of Laura’s long-suppressed sense of rage. The symbolism isn’t exactly subtle as Laura learns to break free of her polite good-girl upbringing and embrace those roiling emotions.

These days, "Batman Returns" rightfully gets its due. But Tim Burton's sequel to his 1989 effort, "Batman," was assailed by critics upon its release, who felt that it was either too dark, too overcrowded with characters, lacking in plot, or just plain weird. Even many fans were ticked off by the Burton-ness of the whole thing and felt the director and screenwriter, Daniel Waters, had strayed too far from the core of the Dark Knight.

In a way, they were right. Burton had let his freak flag fly, making his own movie and not necessarily a Batman movie. Waters admitted as much after a recent screening of "Returns," saying (via IndieWire):

"It was a weird assignment in that I didn't need to please anyone but Tim Burton. Before the internet, you didn't have to go before a tribunal and say what you were doing — it was just two guys in a room riffing.

Screenwriter Daniel Waters reveals that Tim Burton's unmade Catwoman spinoff was almost a superhero satire starring a retired Selina Kyle. The original Catwoman movie pitch would have injected more humor and social commentary into the solo film than the 2004 movie, which fell flat with its oversimplified and oversexualized plot. Burton's Catwoman couldn't be made after the director and star Michelle Pfeiffer abandoned the project and the franchise took a different direction.

Tim Burton's third Batman movie could have been a Catwoman spinoff that would have kept the 2004 Halle Berry movie from tarnishing DC's movie history. In 1989, Tim Burton's Batman shook Hollywood with its unprecedented reimagining of the Dark Knight, earning the film a record-breaking $100 million in 11 days and setting the movie as a major turning point in Batman's extensive cinematic history. Not only did Burton's 1989 Batman help kick off the rise of superhero movies, but it also helped...

Believe it or not, the dreadful 2004 Catwoman was not the movie Warner Bros. set out to make. After Michelle Pfeiffer‘s stunning turn as Selina Kyle in Batman Returns, nobody initially thought, “Yes, but what if we get some terrible French commercial director to shoot a story about a different cat lady fighting a budget-Emma Frost like it’s a perfume ad?” In the truth, the Catwoman project went through many iterations, not landing on the laughable mess that stalled the career of Halle Berry (who’s actually quite good in Catwoman) until the early 2000s.

Recently, Batman Returns screenwriter Daniel Waters shared some ideas about the original treatment for a Catwoman spinoff that director Tim Burton himself wanted to make after his Batman sequel. As revealed to IndieWire after a screening in Los Angeles in December, Burton had no intention of continuing the superhero route for his Catwoman film.

Tim Burton's "Batman Returns" is one of the more unusual blockbusters of its era. Following the massive, massive success of his 1989 "Batman," Burton was seemingly given a lot more creative leeway with his sequel, transforming the world of Batman into a noir carnival nightmare of hopelessness and kink. "Returns" saw the Dark Knight (Michael Keaton) facing off against the sewer-dwelling creep the Penguin (Danny DeVito) and beginning an unhealthy flirtation with the mentally unwell Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer).

Burton's rendition of Catwoman may be the best Batman villain to have been depicted in live-action. She was unbalanced and terrifying, using her newfound mindset as a tool for liberation. It's no coincidence that her costume is a skintight leather vinyl costume with a corset and a whip. This was Catwoman as a horror movie dominatrix. She had more in common with the Cenobites from "Hellraiser" than anything from a Batman comic book.

Tim Burton wanted to make ‘Batman Returns’ an $18 million black-and-white version of 1942’s ‘Cat People’. The ‘Batman’ director ended up producing a movie featuring Michelle Pfeiffer as Selina Kyle, who becomes Catwoman, and Michael Keaton returning as the caped crusader. But its screenwriter Daniel Waters told Variety about the torturous process of making the 1992 movie: “(Tim) wanted to do an $18 million black-and-white movie, like the original ‘Cat People,’ of Selina just low-key living in a small town. “And I wanted to make a ‘Batman’ movie where the metaphor was about Batman. “So I had (Selina) move to a Los Angeles version of Gotham City, and it’s run by three asshole superheroes. “It was ‘The Boys’ before ‘The Boys.’ But he got exhausted reading my script.” Indie Wire has reported Daniel’s idea for ‘Batman Returns’ was to also satirise the franchise built around the vigilante. It was reportedly originally...

Tim Burton's Batman spin-off movie featuring Catwoman was canceled in 1992. The two different pitches for the spin-off included a black and white movie and a Los Angeles version of Gotham City. The spin-off would have taken a meta approach, making fun of the male superhero mythos and critiquing the merchandising of the Batman franchise.

New details about Tim Burton's canceled Batman spin-off movie have been revealed by the project's screenwriter, detailing some bold creative decisions that came close to being a reality. After Michelle Pfeiffer stole the show in Batman Returns alongside Michael Keaton's Batman, Burton was given the chance to continue his vision with a Catwoman spin-off movie around 1992. The project never came to light, sadly, but now Batman Returns writer Daniel Waters has spoken to IndieWire to confirm some surprising details.

According to Waters, both he and Burton presented very different ideas for the Catwoman spin-off...

Daniel Waters, the screenwriter behind 1992’s Batman Returns, said the proposed “Catwoman” spinoff from that film had two very different takes.

Waters spoke during a December 22 Los Angeles screening of Batman Returns at the Egyptian Theater.

Director Tim Burton wanted “Catwoman” to be an intimate drama shot in black and white to pay tribute to Jacques Tourneur’s iconic 1942 horror film, Cat People.

On the other hand, Waters wanted a satirical take wherein Catwoman moves to Los Angeles and takes on three corrupt superheroes.

“He wanted to do an $18 million black and white movie, like the original ‘Cat People,’ of Selina just lowkey living in a small town,” Waters said. “And I wanted to make a ‘Batman’ movie where the metaphor was about ‘Batman.’ So I had her move to a Los Angeles version of Gotham City, and it’s run by three asshole superheroes. It was ‘The Boys’ before ‘The Boys.

“Batman Returns” screenwriter Daniel Waters described differences between his creative vision for a “Catwoman” spinoff and that of sequel director Tim Burton.

The spinoff project would have centered on Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman, and Waters envisioned a comic book satire film much like Prime Video’s “The Boys.” Burton, though, imagined Pfeiffer’s Selina Kyle living in a small town. Waters unveiled details in a recent discussion about “Batman Returns” (1992) after a screening of the film at the Egyptian Theatre.

“He wanted to do an $18 million black-and-white movie, like the original ‘Cat People,’ of Selina just low-key living in a small town,” Waters said. “And I wanted to make a ‘Batman’ movie where the metaphor was about Batman. So I had her move to a Los Angeles version of Gotham City and it’s run by three asshole superheroes. It was ‘The Boys’ before ‘The Boys.’ But he got exhausted reading my script.

“Batman Returns” screenwriter Daniel Waters participated in a recent discussion about the Tim Burton-directed sequel (via IndieWire) and revealed the collaborators’ clashing visions for a spinoff project centered on Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman. Waters was envisioning a satirical take on the comic book movie genre, something he says was more akin to Prime Video’s “The Boys” these days, but Burton had something far more risky up his sleeve.

“He wanted to do an $18 million black-and-white movie, like the original ‘Cat People,’ of Selina just low-key living in a small town,” Waters said. “And I wanted to make a ‘Batman’ movie where the metaphor was about ‘Batman.’ So I had her move to a Los Angeles version of Gotham City, and it’s run by three asshole superheroes. It was ‘The Boys’ before ‘The Boys.’ But he got exhausted reading my script.”

It appears Waters always wanted to inject...

Michelle Pfeiffer is the best Catwoman, and it’s not even close. Fight me. After the release of Batman Returns, screenwriter Daniel Waters and director Tim Burton began developing a Catwoman spinoff which would have seen Pfeiffer returning to the role. The project was ultimately scrapped, but Waters spilled a few details during a recent screening of Batman Returns in Los Angeles.

“[Burton] wanted to do an $18 million black and white movie, like the original ‘Cat People,’ of Selina just lowkey living in a small town,” Waters said via IndieWire. “And I wanted to make a ‘Batman’ movie where the metaphor was about ‘Batman.’ So I had her move to a Los Angeles version of Gotham City, and it’s run by three asshole superheroes. It was ‘The Boys’ before ‘The Boys.’ But he got exhausted reading my script.” Sounds like two very different visions, but I can’t help...

Every “Batman Returns” fan worth their salt knows that following the success of Tim Burton’s twisted Christmas classic, Warner Bros. started developing a spinoff featuring Michelle Pfeiffer’s breakout villainess Catwoman. What they probably don’t know is that Burton had some unique ideas for a superhero blockbuster, including going black and white to pay tribute to Jacques Tourneur’s iconic 1942 horror film, “Cat People.”

Daniel Waters, the screenwriter behind 1992’s “Batman Returns,” spoke about the proposed Catwoman spinoff and revealed some behind-the-scenes tidbits about both films during a recent Los Angeles screening of “Returns” on December 22 at the Egyptian. Speaking about the Catwoman film, Waters referred to it as a strange process where he and Burton were both interested in making completely different films. While Burton wanted to make an intimate drama, Waters described his take — which would have seen Selina Kyle move to a Gothamized version of...

Catering directly to my interests, the Criterion Channel’s January lineup boasts two of my favorite things: James Gray and cats. In the former case it’s his first five features (itself a terrible reminder he only released five movies in 20 years); the latter shows felines the respect they deserve, from Kuroneko to The Long Goodbye, Tourneur’s Cat People and Mick Garris’ Sleepwalkers. Meanwhile, Ava Gardner, Bertrand Tavernier, Isabel Sandoval, Ken Russell, Juleen Compton, George Harrison’s HandMade Films, and the Sundance Film Festival get retrospectives.

Restorations of Soviet sci-fi trip Ikarie Xb 1, The Unknown, and The Music of Regret stream, as does the recent Plan 75. January’s Criterion Editions are Inside Llewyn Davis, Farewell Amor, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and (most intriguingly) the long-out-of-print The Man Who Fell to Earth, Blu-rays of which go for hundreds of dollars.

See the lineup below and learn more here.

Back By Popular Demand

The Graduate,...

John Bailey, a seasoned Hollywood cinematographer who served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 2017 to 2019, died Friday in Los Angeles. He was 81.

Bailey’s death was announced by his wife, Carol Littleton, in a statement released by the Academy on Friday evening.

”It is with deep sadness I share with you that my best friend and husband, John Bailey, passed away peacefully in his sleep early this morning,” Littleton wrote. “During John’s illness, we reminisced how we met 60 years ago and were married for 51 of those years. We shared a wonderful life of adventure in film and made many long-lasting friendships along the way. John will forever live in my heart.”

“All of us at the Academy are deeply saddened to learn of John’s passing,” said Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Janet Yang in a joint statement. “John was a...

John Bailey, the cinematographer on Ordinary People, Groundhog Day, As Good as It Gets and dozens of other notable films who endured two “stressful” terms as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, died Friday. He was 81.

Bailey died in Los Angeles, his wife, Oscar-nominated film editor Carol Littleton (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial), announced.

”It is with deep sadness I share with you that my best friend and husband, John Bailey, passed away peacefully in his sleep early this morning,” she said in a statement. “During John’s illness, we reminisced how we met 60 years ago and were married for 51 of those years. We shared a wonderful life of adventure in film and made many long-lasting friendships along the way. John will forever live in my heart.”

They worked on more than a dozen features together.

The Southern California-raised Bailey served as the director of photography for...

Clockwise from bottom left: The Thing (screenshot), Insidious (screenshot), Alien (screenshot), Friday The 13th (screenshot)

You might love them or you might loathe them, but you cannot deny that the jump scare has flourished, developing into a cornerstone of modern horror moviemaking. Their presence (or lack thereof) has the power...

Amazon is running a massive sale on over 100 Scream Factory titles today, including some of the lowest-ever prices on their 4K UHDs and Blu-rays. Now is the time to stock up!

Here are some of the top horror highlights from the sale…

Halloween 4K UHDs:

Halloween – $22.99 Halloween II – $20.99 Halloween III – $20.99 Halloween 4 – $20.99 Halloween 5 – $19.99 Halloween 6 / Halloween H20 / Halloween: Resurrection – $59.99

John Carpenter 4K UHDs:

They Live – $18.99 They Live [Steelbook] – $23.99 The Fog – $19.99 The Fog [Steelbook] – $25.99 Prince of Darkness – $19.99 Escape From New York – $20.99 Halloween – $22.99

4K UHDs:

Child’s Play – $22.99 Child’s Play 2 – $20.99 Child’s Play 3 – $19.99 The Howling – $19.99 The Funhouse – $19.99 Slumber Party Massacre / Slumber Party Massacre II – $20.99 Carrie – $20.99 Carrie [Steelbook] – $22.17 Brotherhood of the Wolf – $20.99 Cat People – $20.99 Happy Death Day – $20.99 Happy Death Day 2U – $20.99 Army of Darkness – $21.99 Evil Dead (2013) – $21.99 Dog Soldiers – $21.99 The Haunting of Julia – $21.99 Lifeforce – $21.99 Krampus: The Naughty Cut – $21.99 Alligator – $21.99 The People Under the Stairs -$22.99 Bubba Ho-Tep – $22.99 The Exorcist III – $22.99 Dawn of the Dead (2004) – $22.99 Motel Hell – $22.99 Dead Silence – $22.99 The Return of the Living Dead...

We’re now just a few days away from the widest release of Martin Scorsese’s career as Killers of the Flower Moon is set to open in around 3,500 theaters in the United States from Paramount and Apple. With the SAG strike underway, the legendary director himself has led the promotional campaign, which means the publishing of several stellar interviews digging deeper into the process.

One of the most interesting bits to arrive about the production of his David Grann adaptation is that Scorsese drew inspiration from Ari Aster when it comes to the project. “I very much like the style and pacing of good horror films like Ari Aster’s Midsommar or Beau Is Afraid,” he told The Irish Times. “The pacing of those films goes back to the B films of Val Lewton, Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People or I Walked With a Zombie.” While Scorsese’s admiration for Aster is well-documented,...

Based on David Grann’s best-selling crime thriller, Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon tells the real-life mystery of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma in the 1920s, who became wealthy after oil was discovered beneath their land. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off, and the ensuing spiral of conspiracy, greed and murder got so bad that the FBI had to step in. It’s a sprawling story with a nearly three-and-a-half-hour runtime, and Martin Scorsese looked to the films of Ari Aster for influence on its pacing.

“I very much like the style and pacing of good horror films like Ari Aster’s Midsommar or Beau Is Afraid,” Martin Scorsese told The Irish Times. “The pacing of those films goes back to the B films of Val Lewton, Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People or I Walked With a Zombie. Just going a little slower.

Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio have been quite open in interviews when discussing the massive “Killers of the Flower Moon” script overhaul that took place during the film’s development. In a new interview with The Irish Times, the director revealed that he and co-writer Eric Roth had been working on the “Flower Moon” script for two whole years when DiCaprio took issue with the approach.

“Myself and [my co-screenwriter] Eric Roth talked about telling the story from the point of view of the bureau agents coming in to investigate,” Scorsese said. “After two years of working on the script, Leo came to me and asked, ‘Where is the heart of this story?’ I had had meetings and dinners with the Osage, and I thought, ‘Well, there’s the story.’ The real story, we felt, was not necessarily coming from the outside, with the bureau, but rather from the inside, from Oklahoma.

Martin Scorsese is crediting Ari Aster’s “Midsommar” for inspiring the pacing and running time of “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

Scorsese told The Irish Times that the 206-minute length of “Killers of the Flower Moon” is in line with horror films ranging from auteurs like Aster or Val Lewton. “Killers of the Flower Moon” borrows from a blend of genres like Westerns and horror.

“I very much like the style and pacing of good horror films like Ari Aster’s ‘Midsommar’ or ‘Beau Is Afraid,'” Scorsese said. “The pacing of those films goes back to the B films of Val Lewton, Jacques Tourneur’s ‘Cat People’ or ‘I Walked With a Zombie.’ Just going a little slower, a little quieter.”

Scorsese continued, “I was very concerned about allowing scenes that were not narrative into the story, scenes to do with the Osage culture — leaving in those scenes of custom,...

Earlier this year, Max announced it would be housing over 200 episodes of AMC Networks’ television at no additional cost to subscribers beginning in September.

That two-month window is coming to an end, so you’ll want to catch up on “Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire” Season 1; “Dark Winds” Season 1; “Gangs of London” Seasons 1 and 2; “Fear the Walking Dead” Seasons 1-7; “Killing Eve” Seasons 1-4; “A Discovery of Witches” Seasons 1-3; and “Ride with Norman Reedus” Seasons 1-5 while you still can.

A number of great horror titles are leaving at the end of October as well, including: “A Cabin in the Woods,” “Beetlejuice,” “Eight Legged Freaks,” “From Hell,” “It” and “It: Chapter 2,” and several more. They’ll be great to put on while you host your Halloween bash.

Here’s everything leaving Max in October 2023.

October 3

Rx Early Detection: A Cancer Journey with Sandra Lee (2018) (HBO)

October...