Black Gate

Forty years ago, 17-year-old baby sitter Laurie Strode had a really lousy Halloween that forever changed her (and our) lives. Played by a then 20-year-old pedigree scream queen in her first movie role, Jamie Lee Curtis, daughter of Janet Leigh of Psycho fame, Laurie spent October 31^st of 1978 being menaced by the evil-incarnate psycho Michael Myers who, in spite of being repeatedly damaged to death, returned for seven sequels collectively raking in $366 million at the box-office worldwide.

Unfortunately, not all of these films were created equal and though many had great elements, quite a few of us still considered the original film to be one of the quintessential horror films of a generation. That said, it probably comes as no surprise that a now 57-year-old Laurie Strode is facing Michael Myers one final time in what is meant to be the swan song of the franchise and one that ignores all the sequels, picking up the story line left off in 1978.

Thanks to USA Today, a brand-new shot from the final installment to John Carpenter’s original classic shows Laurie preparing to take down Michael once and for all, and she’s looking mega badass in the process.

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As we all know, there is no such thing as bad press. But in the world of horror, “bad” press is actually the best possible press you can get. Remember when several stores pulled the 90’s PC game Phantasmagoria off their shelves due to the violence? And suddenly if you had a copy you were the most popular kid on the block?

I do.

Earlier this week, a YouTube ad for Corin Hardy’s The Nun got a lot of people talking, mostly because it scared the crap out of them. In case you haven’t been following the plotline, The Nun is a spin off from The Conjuring 2, which itself is the fifth installment in The Conjuring series. Based on a story from James Wan, chief architect of the franchise, The Nun will be the chronological starting point for the entire shared universe, telling an origin story of sorts for a recurring villain, the ghoulish nun Valak.

And by the way, Valak isn’t and never has been a nun. According to the demon conjurer’s go-to guide, The Lesser Key of Solomon, a 17th century grimoire that acts a kind of Yellowpages of Hell, Valak (or Ualac, Valac, Valax, Valu, Valic, Volac) is none other than the Great President of Hell. Often depicted as riding a two-headed dragon and commanding 30 legions of demons, he takes on the visage of a small child with wings, which if you ask me, would have been way more terrifying than a nun in corpse paint. Hopefully The Nun will explain why a big cheese in the demon world has decided to take on the persona of early Marilyn Manson.

Anyway, back to the video.

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Honestly, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry about this one.

Sony has recently been toying around with the idea of revisiting several of its franchises, which may be due to the clamoring of fans, but sounds suspiciously like a sincere and long-lasting drought of new ideas. Word has it they’re already casting another Charlie’s Angels (insert face palm here), with Kristen Stewart attached (double face palm), as well as having planning meetings around the most rebooted of all rebooted franchises in the last 20 years – Spider-Man.

This, when we can all name at least five books each which should become films immediately, but for whatever reason remain in development hell… if they even got that far.

But there we are. Life is definitely not fair.

However, this week we got some serious Sony reboot news – or it may be a spinoff, we’re not entirely clear yet. But we did learn that Rafe Spall (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom) and Kumail Nanjiani (The Big Sick) will star alongside Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson and Liam Neeson in next year’s revisiting of Men In Black being directed by F. Gary Gray.

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There is a demon in here, so bear with me.

Last summer, Netflix ordered twenty episodes of Disenchantment, an  animated comedy-fantasy series from the mind of The Simpsons and Futurama creator Matt Groening. If you’re a fan of either show, you know how close to the line both get without stepping over what would be tolerated on commercial television. So, l invite you to let this news sink in…

It’s going to be an adult-themed animated comedy-fantasy series on Netflix.

Sweet.

In Disenchantment, viewers will be whisked away to the crumbling medieval kingdom of Dreamland, where they will follow the misadventures of hard-drinking young princess Bean, her feisty elf companion Elfo, and her personal demon Luci. Along the way, the oddball trio will encounter ogres, sprites, harpies, imps, trolls, walruses, and lots of human fools.

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Most people assume The Addams Family started life on TV in the 1960s, but they were actually conceived by Charles Addams as a series of comic panels for The New Yorker magazine, beginning in 1938 and running until Addams’ death in 1988. The roughly 150 unrelated panels that make up The Addams Family story are still enormously popular today, especially with me, who has stationary, artwork, and couple of tee-shirts depicting the family as well as a vintage Morticia and Gomez, Ken and Barbie set which is about as close as I have or ever will get to the Malibu version.

In the spring of 2017 there were rumors that on the heels of the success of The Incredibles and Hotel Transylvania, the world was now sufficiently primed for a seriously upscale animated version of The Addams Family which to me sounded like first-rate idea considering what happened the last time.

If you can believe this, The Addams Family had been animated before, having appeared in a well-received 1972 episode of The New Scooby-Doo Movies, “Scooby-Doo Meets the Addams Family” which saw several of the original cast members return to voice their TV roles. This resulted in Hannah Barbera’s launch of a cartoon modelled on Addams’ comic panels, which ran for two seasons (although the second was just repeats). A big change to the format was having the family hit the road in a Wacky Races-style Victorian motorhome. Sadly, the format change along with the loss of all but two of the original cast sort of doomed this venture, though not without launching the career of a 10-year-old Jodie Foster who voiced Pugsley.

Last summer it was officially announced that Oscar Isaac (Star Wars, X-Men) was slated to voice Gomez Addams in Sausage Party director Conrad Vernon‘s animated Addams Family film for MGM. This week Deadline has reported the entire core voice cast was announced, and it’s pretty unbelievably awesome end-to-end.

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