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Exclusive: With a horror project for Universal/Monkeypaw and a Night of the Living Dead sequel still in the offing, Nikyatu Jusu has begun development on The Fly, a new film based on David Cronenberg’s body horror masterwork, which she wrote and will direct for 20th Century Studios and Chernin Entertainment.

While the film’s plot is under wraps, sources stressed that it’s set in the universe of Cronenberg’s film, rather than a straightforward remake. Nikyatu will direct from her own script, with Chernin Entertainment’s Peter Chernin and Jenno Topping producing. The project coalesces in a moment when body horror is very much back in vogue, with the success of Coralie Fargeat’s Cannes prize-winner The Substance, which has grossed over $43M worldwide and drummed up Oscar buzz for star Demi Moore.

A landmark in both science fiction and horror cinema, Cronenberg’s The Fly follows...

For as long as there have been horror movies, there has been body horror — and it’s not hard to see why the subgenre is unlikely to ever go out of style. Great horror movies tap into the darkest corners of our subconscious minds to poke at our deepest fears, and few emotions are more human than the fear of bodily harm. The human tendency to identify with our own bodies is so strong that watching transformations and mutilations can evoke the feeling that characters are being stripped of their very humanity.

While early filmmakers explored these themes in projects like “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” the second half of the 20th century saw body horror elevated to the level of high art. Nobody deserves more credit for that shift in public perception than David Cronenberg, whose films like “Videodrome” and “The Fly” contained as much scientific and social commentary as blood and guts.

Sean Penn, David Cronenberg and late great Moroccan actor Naïma Elmcherqui are set to be celebrated with career tributes by the Marrakech International Film Festival.

Elmcherqui, who was one of Morocco’s best-loved personalities, died in Casablanca on Oct. 5. After becoming a household name during the 1960s and 70s working with Moroccan theatre director and dramatist Tayeb Seddiki she soared on the big-screen in movies such as Souheil Ben Barka’s “Blood Wedding” (1977), which was Morocco’s first submission for the international Oscar; Mohamed Abderrahman Tazi’s female empowerment drama “Badis” (1989); and, more recently Mohamed Mouftakir’s “The Fall of Apple Trees,” her final film role, for which Elmcherqui won the best actress prize at Sweden’s Malmö Arab Film Festival.

Elmcherqui – who was a member of the board of the foundation that oversees the Marrakech fest – had also appeared in a slew of soaps and Moroccan TV movies that boosted boosted her popularity.

It’s been another massive year for horror, whether we’re talking about film, TV, or books. On that note, the literary world is teeming with spine-tingling graphic novels, nonfiction books, and unsettling novels to keep you busy this Halloween season and beyond.

Whether you’re looking to catch up on new reads or fill your final days of October with the spookiest offerings, this guide offers something for everyone. From Nick Cutter’s graphic and gory teen horror tale to official movie novelizations and beyond, these books are worth snatching up.

Here are just ten 2024 horror books you need to seek out…

Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees, written and illustrated by Patrick Horvath, letters by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou

Filmmaker Patrick Horvath (Southbound) spins a delightfully disturbing story in a graphic novel that looks cute and cuddly but has sharp teeth. Described as “Dexter meets Richard Scarry’s Busy, Busy Town,...

Gazer, at its core, is a film about voyeurism and humanity’s innate compulsion to not just want to be voyeurs, but to understand and make sense of the people who are being spied on. People, by nature, have an urge to act as a storyteller and connect disparate ideas, even if they don’t naturally go together. There’s a very human desire to do these things and apply logic and reason to a species that can be inherently chaotic, messy, and illogical. There are definitely pangs of Rear Window in Gazer. In fact, the film feels like a very post-modern deconstruction of many of Alfred Hitchcock’s films, albeit with a more horror-centric slant. However, there are also traces of other polarizing character studies like Lee Chang-dong’s Burning, Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, or Chan Wook-park’s Decision to Leave. Gazer is about making sense of madness...

This is the time of year that really puts us in the spooky spirit. Like all of you, we love watching horror movies and content year-round, but October is something special and Halloween is the most special in that month. The last couple of years I’ve tried to pick something big to discuss either for horror in general or perhaps from one of horror’s biggest authors. Lately though I’ve been on a kick of looking up the opposite of what we do on this show. A reverse Uno card of a situation where instead of looking at the movie which is based on a book and their differences, I wanted to look at books that were written as tie-ins to their movie counterparts. There are a metric ton of these but as the trees change colors and all the Spirit stores inhabit long dead brick and mortar businesses,...

Body horror, a subgenre of horror that delves into the visceral and grotesque violations of the human body, occupies a distinctive and unsettling space in cinema. As a genre that takes pride in showcasing nightmarish transformations, mutilations and mutations, body horror reveals the raw and often uncomfortable truths about the human condition. Films like The Fly, The Brood, Hellraiser, Videodrome and the recent The Substance reflect not only primal anxieties and physical decay but also the fragility of our humanity. In the realm of body horror, few films leave as indelible a mark as Julia Ducournau’s debut movie Raw (2016), who established herself as the protégé of ‘the king of body horror’ David Cronenberg, a reputation she further solidified with her sophomore feature Titane (2021).

It is a French-Belgian horror that juxtaposes cannibalism with the sinister initiation rituals of college hazing, weaving a dark allegory that explores the dichotomies of abstinence and excess,...

Composer Howard Shore likes to sleep on it.

“I try to get in touch with my inner feelings,” he said at the Zurich Film Festival, explaining his preferred method of working.

“If you think about cinema, you go into a dark room and all this imagery starts appearing. You are in a dream-like state and I like to use that idea when I write music for film. There is some napping involved, you try to be very relaxed and imagine what the piece could be. And then I set to work with my pencil, creating the actual score to what I am dreaming,” he said.

“I don’t study a film: I listen to it. I listen to the rhythm of the actors, the sounds. I kind of imagine the visualization, writing to this more abstract idea in my mind.”

A three-time Oscar winner, Shore received the Career Achievement Award at the Swiss festival,...

Much of the press about The Shrouds since its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year has focused on the deeply personal inspiration for the film: David Cronenberg’s grief over the death of his wife in 2017. For those who are aware of this context going in, one could see signs of that extra investment on the writer-director’s part here and there, especially in the way one of the film’s stars, Vincent Cassel, is made up to look like Cronenberg himself. Lest that suggests something more overtly emotional than what one might expect from the Canadian auteur, though, The Shrouds dispels that notion very early on.

The film’s opening credits sequence features a bunch of swirling dots that eventually form into the outline of a woman. Allied with the insinuating low-pitched electronic droning of Howard Shore’s score, the sequence dissolves into a dreamy...

It’s that special time of year again, folks. A time when pumpkins come out, ghouls are prone to haunt, and streamers of all variety load their platforms with terrifying selections aimed at attracting horror fans and casual viewers alike. This year, those selections are quite exceptional, with loads of franchises like “Saw” and “The Omen” to keep people glued to their TV all the way up to Halloween. Not interested in violence or gore? Put away your fears, as there are plenty of options for the more tame and easily frightened. From classic Stephen King adaptations like “Salem’s Lot” (1979) to recent theatrical releases that are now streaming, such as “Late Night with the Devil,” if you’re looking for a good scare, you can probably find a few on one or more of the apps you subscribe to.

There are so many terrific terrors that we actually weren’t...

Frankie (Ariella Mastroianni) is a young single mother struggling to make enough money, having just been fired from her job as a gas station attendant. Finding another gig isn’t going to be easy. Gainful employment is a tough ask for Frankie, who is living with a rare degenerative brain condition called dyschronometria, meaning she has problems with perceiving the passing of time. Her brain is essentially the unreliable narrator of her own reality. Like any noir hero worth their salt, Frankie makes audio cassettes to help her organize her thoughts about “a life lived in no specific order,” as she puts it on one tape.

This is the promising jumping-off point for a stylish low-budget mystery, directed by electrician-turned-filmmaker Ryan J. Sloan, which finds time along the way to riff on everything from “Memento” to “Videodrome.” In the best traditions of film noir, the initial offer which will help...

With spoilers, we look at Pascal Plante’s mesmerising thriller, Red Rooms, and how Arthurian legend might unlock the meaning of its final act.

Nb: The following contains major spoilers for Red Rooms.

Most movies are predictable, which is fine. There’s an appeal in seeing, say, Tom Cruise stuck in a deadly situation and seeing how he figures his way out of it. There’s entertainment in knowing the staples of a genre and watching as a skillful storyteller works within them – or in the case of Red Rooms, intelligently breaks them.

In Canadian writer-director Pascal Plante’s thriller Red Rooms, protagonist Kelly-Ann’s desires and goals are left enigmatically obscure. What she wants, exactly what she’s thinking, what her motivations might be, are kept away from us – and for some, remain tantalisingly open to interpretation even at the end. Red Rooms is many things, but it’s seldom predictable.

David Cronenberg’s “The Shrouds” has finally found a home.

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired all U.S. rights to “The Shrouds,” written and directed by Cronenberg and starring Vincent Cassel as a tech mogul who invents a technology that allows you to watch your loved one rot in their grave.

The latest freakout from the Canadian auteur premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year (where it screened in competition) and recently screened at the Toronto International Film Festival as a special presentation. It will have its U.S. premiere next month as part of the main slate of the New York Film Festival. Sideshow and Janus are planning a spring 2025 release.

The deal was negotiated by Sideshow and Janus Films with Sbs International. The producers of the film are Saïd Ben Saïd, Martin Katz and Anthony Vaccarello for Saint Laurent. It is an Sbs, Prospero Pictures and Saint Laurent Productions Film,...

After having its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival back in May, The Shrouds will have its France theatrical debut on Jan. 22, 2025, followed by its U.S. theatrical release in spring 2025. Yes, you read that right. Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired the U.S. rights to The Shrouds and set its release in U.S. theaters this coming spring.

An official release date has not been revealed just yet, but a spring release means we're looking at somewhere between March 20, 2025, and June 20, 2025. No worries! We'll get back to you with the official U.S. release date once it's announced.

The Shrouds is described as an arthouse horror film. It was written and helmed by David Cronenberg, who you might recognize as the writer and director of the horror films Shivers, Scanners, Videodrome and The Fly. Initially, it was going to be a Netflix show, but the streaming giant...

Sideshow and Janus Films have picked up the U.S. rights to David Cronenberg’s sci-fi drama The Shrouds.

The U.S. deal follows a world bow in Cannes, a North American premiere in Toronto and additional play at the New York Film Festival next month. Sideshow and Janus plan a spring 2025 theatrical release.

Sideshow and Janus Films are also reteaming with body horror director Cronenberg after earlier releases of films like Videodrome and Naked Lunch. “This is Cronenberg at his wittiest, most personal and romantic in this thought-provoking thriller with knockout performances from Vincent Cassel and Diane Kruger,” the distributors said in a joint statement.

Cronenberg originally pitched the project, inspired by his real-life grief over the loss of his wife in 2017, to Netflix executives as a TV series. But after financing a first episode, the streaming giant passed on going further with the project.

The Shrouds stars Vincent Cassel as Karsh,...

David Cronenberg has said that his new film The Shrouds – which has been making the festival rounds lately (you can read what JoBlo’s own Chris Bumbray thought of it Here) – was originally intended to be a Netflix TV series, but the streamer dropped it after paying him to write the pilot episode. So a feature film it is, and Deadline reports that Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired all U.S. distribution rights to the film, with their plan being to give it a theatrical release sometime in the spring of 2025.

In The Shrouds, Vincent Cassel, who previously worked with Cronenberg on Eastern Promises and A Dangerous Method, takes on the role of Karsh, “an innovative businessman and grieving widower, who builds a novel device to connect with the dead inside a burial shroud. This burial tool installed at his own state-of-the-art though controversial cemetery allows him and his...

Fresh off the film’s North American premiere at TIFF, horror master David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds has been acquired for U.S. release by Sideshow and Janus Films.

Deadline notes that they’re planning a Spring 2025 release for the film.

“Building on a long history with David Cronenberg that has included releases of Videodrome, Scanners, The Brood, Crash, Dead Ringers, and Naked Lunch, Janus Films and Criterion are very proud to be working with Sideshow and Saïd Ben Saïd, Martin Katz and Anthony Vaccarello to premiere The Shrouds, a major new work by the Canadian master in the United States,” Sideshow/Janus said in a statement shared by Deadline this morning.

Vincent Cassel (Irreversible, Eastern Promises) stars alongside Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds), Guy Pearce (Memento) and Sandrine Holt (“Fear the Walking Dead”).

Variety previews, “The Shrouds centers on Karsh, a prominent businessman. Inconsolable since the death of his wife,...

Sideshow and Janus Films have acquired all U.S. rights to The Shrouds, written and directed by David Cronenberg and are planning a spring 2025 theatrical release.

The film world premiered at the Cannes Film Festival where it screened In Competition. It played the Toronto International Film Festival as part of the Gala program and is set for its U.S. premiere in the Main Slate at the New York Film Festival next month.

The deal was negotiated by Sideshow and Janus Films with Sbs International. Producers are Saïd Ben Saïd, Martin Katz and Anthony Vaccarello for Saint Laurent. It’s an Sbs, Prospero Pictures & Saint Laurent Productions Film with the participation of Telefilm Canada, Eurimages, Ontario Creates in association with Sphere Films, Crave & CBC Films with the support of Canal +, Ocs & the Centre National du Cinema et de L’image Animée.

“Building on a...

Audiences hungry for David Cronenberg’s infamous brand of body horror may have hoped that 2022’s Crimes of the Future marked his return to the genre. That film, which formed an unofficial trilogy that began with 1983’s Videodrome and continued in 1999’s eXistenZ, featured several callbacks to the Canadian director’s recurring visual and thematic interests.

The Shrouds, Cronenberg’s latest, is even less of a genre film than Crimes of the Future, though it does share its predecessor’s same dark sense of humour, as well as the director’s tendency to revisit or reconsider his previous work.

The film is ostensibly set in 2023, four years after the death of Karsh (Vincent Cassel)’s wife, Becca (Diane Kruger). Becca died of bone cancer and Karsh has yet to recover, as the opening scene of him crying during a visit to the dentist proves.

The introductory scenes also establish the...

Maxxxine Arrives 10/8 on 4K Uhd, Blu-ray™, DVD, and Digital: "The third and final installment of Ti West’s X trilogy finally comes home when Maxxxine arrives October 8 on 4K Uhd, Blu-ray™, DVD, and Digital from Lionsgate. With the previous titles in the trilogy receiving critical and audience acclaim, star Mia Goth shares that “it’s the biggest story of the three with the highest stakes” and Maxine is “just a force to be reckoned with.” Maxxxine will be available for the suggested retail price of $42.99 on 4K Uhd (+ Blu-ray + Digital), $39.99 on Blu-ray™ (+ DVD + Digital), and with Walmart-exclusive art on Blu-ray™ (+ DVD + Digital) also for $39.99."

Official Synopsis

In 1980s Hollywood, adult film star and aspiring actress Maxine Minx finally gets her big break. But as a mysterious killer stalks the starlets of Hollywood, a trail of blood threatens to reveal her sinister past.The murderous finale of Ti West’s...

Watch the Trailer for Y2K: "On the last night of 1999, two high school juniors crash a New Years Eve party, only to find themselves fighting for their lives in this dial-up disaster comedy."

Directed by Kyle Mooney Written by Kyle Mooney & Evan Winter Produced by Evan Winter, Jonah Hill, Matt Dines, Alison Goodwin, Chris Storer, Cooper Wehde

Y2K - In Theaters on December 6, 2024

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Prime Video Orders Frightening Two-Part Competition Baking Special Killer Cakes from Blumhouse Television and High Noon Entertainment: "Prime Video announced it has ordered the new deliciously-gory, competition baking show, Killer Cakes. The Thursday, October 8, premiere date was also revealed and first-look images. The entire two-part special is set to debut exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.

From horror visionaries Blumhouse Television, and Cake Boss creators High Noon Entertainment, Killer Cakes is a one-of-a-kind competition show where bakers with...

Stars: Shelley Valfer, Andrea Figliomeni, Christopher Bligh, Chrystal Peterson, Hunter Kohl | Written and Directed by Michael Turney

Video Vision used to be a video rental store back in the golden era of physical media. Now Rodney and Kibby struggle to keep it open, repairing old VHS decks and transferring tapes to digital.

As the film opens, Kibby has fielded calls from Creepy Phil (Christopher Bligh) about transferring footage of his old public access cable show to disc, from Gator who wants to convert some tapes of their father’s band, and dealt with the delivery of an extremely heavy, and odoriferous, VHS player with no return address. Being three months behind on the rent, they can’t afford to turn any customers down, even Creepy Phil.

Complications ensue when Gator turns out to be a trans man whom Kibby finds herself attracted to. Even more problems arise when she cuts...

The enduring legacy of campy cult favorite “Ed Wood” is still celebrated 30 years later.

The beloved 1994 film was directed by Tim Burton and starred Johnny Depp as the filmmaker known for helming B-movie greats, most infamously 1959’s “Plan 9 from Outer Space.” Wood’s other features include “Orgy of the Dead,” “Glen or Glenda,” and “Bride of the Monster.” He was awarded the Golden Turkey title of Worst Director in 1975.

Burton’s 1994 biopic “Ed Wood” was written by Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander, and co-starred Bill Murray, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Martin Landau, who won an Oscar for portraying Bela Lugosi.

“Ed Wood” producer Denise Di Novi detailed her own love of the film three decades later, explaining why “Ed Wood” is one of the most personal projects for both her and longtime collaborator Burton to date. After working as the creative consultant on David Cronenberg’s iconic “Videodrome,” Di...

Die Retrospektive des Internationalen Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg zeigt zwölf Filme, die verdeutlichen, wie sich die Darstellung von Körpern seit den Anfängen des Kinos verändert hat.

Einer der zwölf Filme, die im Rahmen der Retrospektive beim Internationalen Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg zu sehen sein werden: „Die Schwarze aus Dakar“ (Credit: trigon-film)

Unter dem Titel „Körper im Film“ zeigt die Retrospektive des 73. Internationalen Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg zwölf Filme, die verdeutlichen, wie sich die Darstellung von Körpern seit den Anfängen des Kinos verändert hat. Das teilt das von 7. bis 17. November stattfindende Festival heute mit.

Ausgewählt wurden die Filme von Festivalleiter Sascha Keilholz zusammen mit Kurator Hannes Brühwiler, der über die Retrospektive sagt: „In diesem Jahr haben wir für unsere Retrospektive ein Thema gewählt, das uns kaum näher sein könnte: den menschlichen Körper. Auch in der Geschichte des Films nimmt er eine besondere Rolle ein. Der Körper der Darsteller*innen ist für das Kino ein Mittel der Verführung,...

Netflix documentary Dirty Pop is the latest to use AI to generate footage that didn’t previously exist. Ryan ponders a strange, hallucinatory new world of filmmaking.

If you’ve been wondering what filmmaker Bennett Miller’s been up to in the decade since he put out his last movie, Foxcatcher, then the 30th July delivered the answer: he’s been busy delving into the fast-moving and often weird world of artificial intelligence.

Miller has, he revealed, been working on a feature film on the subject, as well as an exhibition of images generated using Dall·E, and also a documentary about AI which appears to be on hold due to legal issues of some sort.

Miller is far from the only filmmaker fascinated by AI, with its usage is gradually creeping into the industry much as it is elsewhere. In fictional storytelling, we’ve seen generative AI used to...

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is launching two marquee exhibitions for Fall 2024.

AMPAS’ Los Angeles Museum will host both the “Color in Motion: Chromatic Explorations of Cinema” and “Cyberpunk: Envisioning Possible Futures Through Cinema” to celebrate the aesthetics of famed features.

“Color in Motion” includes technologies from Technicolor and Eastman Color, and displays objects such as the iconic ruby slippers from “The Wizard of Oz” (1939), as designed by Gilbert Adrian; the eponymous ballet slippers from “The Red Shoes” (1948) designed by Hein Heckroth; Kim Novak’s green dress from “Vertigo” (1958), designed by Edith Head; a Wonka chocolate bar from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” (1971); and a blue ensemble worn by Jaime Foxx as Django in “Django Unchained” (2012).

“Color in Motion” spans 130 years, from 1894 to 2024, and is organized into six main themes: Choreographing Color, Technologies and Spectacles, Monochrome Film Installation, Color as Character, Experimentation, and Color Arcade. A recreation of...

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has unveiled the first wave of its honorees for this year, naming Canadian directing legend David Cronenberg as the recipient of the Norman Jewison Career Achievement Award and Amy Adams as the winner of this year’s TIFF Tribute Performer Award.

Cronenberg is among the most unique and influential filmmakers of his generation an auteur who has created a bespoke brand of intellectual horror with films such as Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly, Crash and A History of Violence. His latest, The Shrouds, premiered in competition in Cannes last month. Shawn Levy (Free Guy, Deadpool & Wolverine) received the inaugural Norman Jewison career award in 2023.

Adams, a six-time Oscar nominee (for Junebug, Doubt, The Fighter, The Master, American Hustle and Vice), will be seen next in Nightbitch, a comedy horror film from director Marielle Heller (Can You Ever Forgive Me?) adapted from Rachel Yoder’s debut novel of the same name.

David Cronenberg's "Videodrome" was made in the wired world of 1983, when cathode ray tubes were the only video screens available, Betamax videocassettes were still common, and snagging pirated TV signals with special antenna equipment was still seen as a punkish subversion of dominant media paradigms. The technology may be dated to audiences in 2024, but Cronenberg's sci-fi essay on media obsession remains as timely as ever, easily applicable to a screen-addicted generation accustomed to a state of near-constant media consumption. When we're constantly projecting ourselves into virtual spaces, are we essentially inventing new bodies for ourselves? New Flesh?

James Woods plays Max, a media pirate who has recently discovered a mysterious rogue TV signal — Videodrome — that carries a 24-hour show of nothing but scenes of torture. Max, jaded by violent media, finds it fascinating and thinks he can broadcast the signal on his local public access station, free of censure.

10. House (1977)

The concept of a haunted house has been done too many times to count, but Nobuhiko Ôbayashi knew how to liven it up. In House, seven Japanese schoolgirls go to visit one of their grandmothers at her place, but they have no idea that the house itself is an insidious demon waiting to consume them one after another. You can watch House on Max, Apple TV, and Prime Video.

9. Uzumaki (2000)

Speaking of unsettling, what could be scary about snails? If you don’t know the answer, Uzumaki will give it to you. A small town’s inhabitants are becoming increasingly obsessed with spiral patterns. This spreading obsession is driving them insane, and while some escape, others stay to try and uncover the truth behind it all.

You can watch Uzumaki on Prime Video.

8. Xtro (1983)

A young boy witnesses his father being abducted by aliens, but no one believes him.

Apart from Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and The Matrix (1999) that were absolute bangers at the time and are still considered cult classics, we can’t really say that the decade of 1990s was fruitful in terms of worth-watching sci-fi movies that left a mark on history.

We’re going to talk about a movie that was forgotten just like hundreds of 90s science fiction flicks. It deserves much more attention as it brings surrealism to the genre and breaks its canons: here, it is a person who does most of the evil, not an alien or a robot.

The intricate plot of the film revolves around Bill, a disgraced writer struggling through a creative crisis, severe drug addiction and failed relationship. His wife Joan gets used to stealing his supplies and messing around with reckless Beat poets.

The apotheosis of Bill’s troubles is reached when he kills Joan. The...

One of IndieWire’s favorite movies of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival has found a home. Metrograph Pictures has acquired the North American rights to “Gazer,” the neo-noir, heist thriller from director Ryan J. Sloan that premiered in the Director’s Fortnight sidebar at Cannes, IndieWire can reveal exclusively.

Metrograph is planning a theatrical release for the film with release plans to be announced at a later date. Financial details were not disclosed.

IndieWire’s review raved about “Gazer,” saying it combines “the manic paranoia of ‘After Hours‘ with a ‘Memento’-esque unreliable protagonist and touches of flesh-bending body horror that could be ripped straight from ‘Videodrome.'” It offers a new spin on neo-noir and paranoia thrillers of the ’70s and ’80s, but it resists becoming pure pastiche, as our critic Christian Zilko dubbed it.

The film tells the story of a young, single mother named Frankie who suffers from...

David Cronenberg is one of our greatest living directors; a Canadian auteur who made a name for himself with body horror masterpieces like "Scanners," "The Fly," and "Videodrome," just to name a few. And every now and then, Cronenberg will step in front of the camera, too. He has a memorable supporting turn as the villain in Clive Barker's "Nightbreed." And he has cameos in films such as "To Die For" and "Jason X." He also appeared in several seasons of "Star Trek: Discovery" as the character Doctor Kovich. 

With Cronenberg having spent so much time on the series, you might have wondered: why didn't he direct any episodes? He is, after all, a director first, actor second. Well, according to Cronenberg himself, it's not a gig he's particularly interested in. When asked by StarTrek.com what would happen if he was asked to direct an episode of the show,...

The 80s and 90s were a great time for character actors. Guys like Gene Hackman, Brian Dennehy, Christopher Walken, John Lithgow, Morgan Freeman and many others occupied this really interesting place where they could lead their own movies and be just as comfortable playing supporting roles – whether large or small – in bigger films without worrying about things legit movie stars have to, such as bankability. Of that era, one of the biggest character actors was no doubt the fast-talking James Woods. In the eighties, his star rose thanks to movies like Videodrome, Salvador, True Believer and many others. While he never became a legit box office superstar, he was in that niche place where he could lead his own movies, such as the underrated Best Seller, while also playing plum supporting roles in movies like Chaplin, The Specialist and Casino. He was noted as one of the town’s biggest scene-stealers,...

David Cronenberg always makes personal cinema, whether telepodding Jeff Goldblum into a human-sized pest in “The Fly” or asking James Spader to fuck a gaping flesh wound in “Crash.” The Canadian filmmaker will never tell you what makes his body horror classics so close to home, but he doesn’t feel it should matter to viewers anyway.

“For an average audience, they shouldn’t have to know that,” Cronenberg, behind oversized Saint Laurent sunglasses, told IndieWire at Cannes on a windy day atop the Jw Marriott. “They shouldn’t have to know that it has any basis in my reality at all. The movie has to stand on its own, and you can’t expect the audience to give you credit because it’s really happened to you.”

But his latest film “The Shrouds,” his seventh to compete for the Palme d’Or at Cannes and a co-production of fashion house Saint Laurent,...

Imagine if “Baby Driver” was a tragic, music-free exploration of mental decay, and you might be able to start picturing the tensest robbery sequence in “Gazer.” Just like Ansel Elgort’s tinnitus-inflicted getaway driver, Frankie (Ariella Mastroianni) needs to put her headphones in before she tackles a dangerous job. But she’s not blasting Queen or The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

The struggling single mother suffers from dyschronometria, a deteriorating mental condition that leaves her unable to accurately perceive the passage of time. Seconds and minutes seamlessly turn into hours and days in a way that leaves her constantly questioning when she is. It’s a workable, if inconvenient, situation when your biggest fear is missing a doctor’s appointment or zoning out at work. But when you have a matter of minutes to steal car keys from a dangerous man’s apartment before he comes home, the risks become considerably greater.

by Cláudio Alves

I can't wait to plunge into the enigmas of The Shrouds.

Another day, another lackluster reception to a highly anticipated Cannes title. Ali Abbasi's Donald Trump film, The Apprentice, seems neither thrilling nor especially deep, with various comparisons to Wikipedia entries throughout naysayer's reviews. At least, its cast got general praise, with highest honors to Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn. Then again, it did receive one of the festival's longest standing ovations yet, so make of that what you will. On a more somber note, David Cronenberg's The Shrouds is being described as the director's most transparent movie, laying bare the grief of an artist dealing with his wife's passing. In a recent interview, the Canadian master described cinema as a cemetery, and it seems his latest work follows that idea to literal ends.

For the Cannes at Home odyssey, let's examine two horrors from...

Romancing the Mummy.

After concluding April with discussions of Ciarán Foy’s Eli (listen), a horror version of The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, and the pseudo-sequel to Videodrome in David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ (listen), we’re kicking off May with a revisit to one of our favorite years for cinema: 1999! The film we’ve selected is Stephen Sommer‘s action-adventure-horror-romantic-comedy The Mummy!

In the film, adventurer Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) travels to Hamunaptra, the City of the Dead, with librarian Evelyn “Evy” Carnahan (Rachel Weisz) and her older brother Jonathan (John Hannah). While there, they accidentally awaken Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo), a cursed high priest-turned-invincible mummy, and must stop him before he sacrifices Evy in an attempt to resurrect his former lover (Patricia Velásquez).

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Game Loop.

Trace and I inadvertently bookended our April discussions of John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London (listen) and Ciarán Foy’s Eli (listen) with Jude Law films. At the start of the month, we tackled Matt Damon’s Italian grifter in The Talented Mr. Ripley (listen) and now we’re closing out April with David Cronenberg‘s eXistenZ (1999).

The unofficial sequel to Videodrome (listen) and precursor to Crimes of the Future, eXistenZ takes place in the world of virtual reality and simulation. Game goddess Allegra Gellar (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is forced to go on the run with PR nerd Ted Pikul (Jude Law) through the Canadian backwoods when ‘Realist’ terrorists declare open season on her life.

Featuring no shortage of strange encounters and oddball characters, including Willem Dafoe‘s queer-coded Gas and Canadian film royalty like Don McKellar and Sarah Polley, Allegra and Ted must travel between the...

by Cláudio Alves

As far as I'm concerned, Existenz has Oscar-worthy production design.

Over the years, David Cronenberg has unleashed unimaginable visions onto the big screen, stretching the limits of body horror along the way. In the week the underrated eXistenZ celebrates its 25th anniversary, I was reminded of one name that should be nearly as recognized as that of the Canadian director. After all, Cronenbergian wouldn't be the same without the contributions of Carol Spier, his hard-working production designer whose mind has birthed such sights as Videodrome's flesh-like walls and the ruined tomorrow in Crimes of the Future. This year, the duo's new collaboration, The Shrouds, will premiere at Cannes in the official competition. Maybe Spier could even take the festival's Technical Grand Prize. It'd be a nice change of pace since, despite her genius, the artist has rarely been recognized by awards voters.

With all this in mind,...

Science fiction has such flexibility and breadth as a genre that it should come to no surprise that so many popular sci-fi movies get released worldwide year after year. With so many sci-fi projects crowding the cinema and various streaming services, it's easy to miss some hidden gems in the genre that don't enjoy the same publicized fanfare. This oversight affects even the most critically acclaimed sci-fi movies which, despite the buzz, don't always get the general audience awareness they truly deserve.

From indie darlings to foreign films that don't receive major attention during their international distribution, there are plenty of overlooked sci-fi movies. For the purposes of this list, we've narrowed it down to movies that have scored exceptionally high with critics' scores on Rotten Tomatoes, but don't seem to have the wider viewership or recognition, even among sci-fi fans. Here are some near-perfect sci-fi movies that you might...

Earlier this week, Carrie Coon became ever more beloved among film fans when she told Jimmy Fallon that she and her husband Tracy Letts have over 10,000 movies on Blu-ray, praising physical media. Recently, we sat down with Coon to discuss her role in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and couldn’t help but ask her to elaborate on her physical media comments. She took the opportunity to double down on the importance of collecting movies:

“I guess I didn’t understand what we would be losing with streaming. Tracy (Letts) really did educate me about the fact that so many of these films now are completely inaccessible if you don’t own them yourself.” She also took the opportunity to give a shout-out to boutique labels like Kino Lorber, Arrow Video, Criterion, Shout Factory and more: “And, of course, there are all these companies putting out new imprints of original films and doing beautiful work.

Clay McLeod Chapman And Andrea Mutti Conjure The New Horror Series “SÉANCE In The Asylum”: "We’re receiving a message from the beyond! Dark Horse Comics presents Séance in the Asylum, a new historical horror series from renowned writer Clay McLeod Chapman and artist Andrea Mutti that will have you questioning what’s real and what’s not. Chapman will write the series and Mutti will illustrate, with Trevor Henderson, Francesco Francavilla, Lukas Ketner, and Jenna Cha rounding out the circle and providing variant cover art on issues #1-4.

“Years back, I uncovered an esoteric text -- The Homeopathic Principle Applied to Insanity: A Proposal to Treat Lunacy by Spiritualism by Dr. James John Garth Wilkinson -- written all the way back in 1857, and I knew within my bones, my blood, that this was destined to be a story,” said Chapman. “As a lifelong acolyte of the Fox Sisters,...

Acclaimed filmmaker David Cronenberg's 1983 film "Videodrome" stars his frequent collaborator James Woods as Max Renn, the owner of a Canadian video channel that plays the raunchiest content Max can find, offering viewers things that they can't find on major networks. In his search for new material, Max stumbles across Videodrome, a shockingly violent program of sadomasochistic torture.

Max can't help but develop an obsession with the program — as does his thrill-seeking lover, the advice hotline radio host Nicki Brand. He inquires about Videodrome and is directed to the office of Professor O'Blivion at the Cathode Ray Mission, a place that offers people free access to television in confessional-like cubicles. Inside he meets the professor's daughter, Bianca O'Blivion, who offers to send him a taped message from her father.

In his tape, the professor explains that he helped develop Videodrome, but it caused him to develop a brain tumor. O'Blivion...

From prehistoric campfire tales to modern movies and video games, storytelling has come a long way since we first began expressing ourselves through fiction. In fact, it seems that every time we invent a form of communication, someone comes along and discovers a way to use it to tell stories in new and interesting ways. And if any medium comes close to defining the spirit of 21st century storytelling, it would have to be Alternate Reality Games.

Commonly defined as a kind of interactive fiction that incorporates several different forms of media into a cohesive narrative that supposedly takes place in real life, ARGs have been steadily growing in popularity since the 2000s – especially when it comes to horror. And with A24 currently developing a big screen adaptation of Kane Pixel’s immensely popular The Backrooms, we’ve decided to come up with a list highlighting six other ARGs that Hollywood should adapt next.

I was a kid just as the drive-in craze was coming to a close. I can recall packing into our giant boat of a Chrysler station wagon and trekking out to see some first-run movies with my family back in the early 80s. I vividly remember seeing The Muppets Take Manhattan, Superman III (which terrified young me to no end), and Return of the Jedi on the massive screens of the Starlight Drive-In that stood for decades after the projectors were shut down and the lot converted into a gigantic swap-meet. Unfortunately, I was far too young to take in the legendary exploitation fare of the period. Sometimes I wish I had been born fifteen or twenty years earlier so I could have experienced the heyday of Aip, New World, and their ilk firsthand, but living through the dawn of the home video boom wasn’t a bad trade off.

Blondie lead vocalist Debbie Harry opened up about her film career at International Film Festival Rotterdam.

“I am not really fluent in the film industry, but I have been fortunate to get scripts from the directors I admire and trust, and who scare me a little. It’s a small selection of interesting films that are a bit odd. I guess my oddness fits into that.”

Nothing was odder than David Cronenberg’s “Videodrome.”

“We didn’t know what ‘virtual’ was. We had no term [for it] back then. We didn’t know what my character was, but we knew who she was and what she was doing to others. I think Jimmy Woods had more of a problem with it than me. Let’s face it: Cronenberg is out there and always has been,” she said.

“There was no ending to the film and some people were getting pretty uptight about it.

M3GAN (Universal Pictures), Taken 3 (20th Century Studios), Paddington 2 (Warner Bros.), Cloverfield (Paramount Pictures)Graphic: The A.V. Club (AP)

Historically and annually speaking, January is a bad month for Hollywood movies. It’s a “dump month,” that time of year when the major studios offload the projects in which they have no faith.

JoBlo.com recently launched a new weekly documentary series called 80s Horror Memories, where each year of the 1980s has five episodes dedicated to it. Looking back at 1980, we discussed Maniac, Dressed to Kill, Alligator, Friday the 13th, The Shining, Prom Night, and The Fog. The second five episodes were a journey through 1981, covering The Funhouse, The Burning, Friday the 13th Part 2, My Bloody Valentine, Halloween II, The Evil Dead, The Howling, and An American Werewolf in London, as well as the careers of horror hosts Elvira and Joe Bob Briggs. The next five were, of course, all about movies that came out in 1982: Conan the Barbarian, The Thing, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, and Poltergeist, with an examination of the short-lived 3-D boom along the way. For 1983, we talked about a trio of Stephen King adaptations, Jaws 3-D, Sleepaway Camp, the rise of TV horror anthologies, and...

Sofia Coppola, whose awards contender “Priscilla” is now in theaters, is just one of several filmmakers whose parents were already major names in the industry. Both her father, Francis Ford Coppola, and her mother, Eleanor Coppola, are directors, as is her brother Roman.

Here are some of the most notable second-generation directors in Hollywood, including Jason Reitman, Rob Reiner, Mario Van Peebles and Colin Hanks.

We’re also a big fan of Francesca Scorsese’s TikTok videos with her dad, Martin Scorsese, especially the one where he auditions the family dog.

Photo credit: Getty Images

Ivan and Jason Reitman

Jason has picked up the “Ghostbusters” mantle from his father, who died in Feb. 2022. He directed “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” and the fourth film in the franchise is due in 2024. Jason’s films include “Up in the Air,” “Juno” and “Thank You For Smoking.”

Photo credit: Getty Images

Brandon and David Cronenberg

The...

Although analog technology has gone all but extinct in the 40 years since Videodrome first permeated viewers’ psyches, there’s no denying the prescience of its themes. Writer-director David Cronenberg, circa 1983, portended the exploitation of the internet age, virtual reality, and media manipulation. At its core, Videodrome confronts the viewer to examine their own relationship with entertainment.

As the head of Civic TV, Max Renn caters to the subterranean market, transmitting sex and violence into Toronto homes over Uhf airwaves. His appetite for depravity no longer fulfilled by the likes of softcore pornography, Max’s interest is piqued by a mysterious pirated broadcast called Videodrome. As he describes it, “It’s just torture and murder. No plot, no characters. Very, very realistic. I think it’s what’s next.”

Max’s perception of reality is altered from the moment he’s first exposed to Videodrome, as devious hallucinations — from a cancerous...