By George Robbins
There have been plenty of cheesy horror movies over the years with some of even the most well recognized of films being a part of that list as time has gone on. Among those horror movies that became parodies of themselves over the years have been movies such as the ‘Friday the 13th’ series, the ‘Nightmare On Elm Street’ series, and the ‘Halloween’ series. These movies started off being their own type of horror movies that all fit within the slasher genre, but they are regarded as being very important horror movies. They are horror movies that helped establish the genre and bring it into a new age, but they eventually just started getting ridiculous because the kills in the film became the biggest part of the films. It is due to this that the movies eventually shifted away from telling a story with horror elements to just ridiculously crazy plots with interesting ways for the antagonists to kill people.
While more unique horror movies do exist out there in the world, there are many that came out in the 80’s that defined the horror genre as a whole and among them was the movie ‘Killer Klowns From Outer Space.’ While the premise and plot of the film were ridiculous, this is the exact reason why people fell in love with the movie in the first place and why it became so popular. Ridiculous horror movies are the reason for a lot of the stuff we see nowadays in horror films because they inspired entire generations of films. While the films that we get now may not be as crazy plot-wise as those old films used to be, they definitely take some inspiration from them. This is only if they were trying to take inspiration from them though because movies now are making their own identities.
The horror movies that were made in the 80’s can very easily be split up into two separate groups based on what I have already said which is the group of serious films and the not so serious films. The not so serious group of films had a much larger tendency to be campy films that clearly were not meant for people who did not like horror movies. In order to watch them, you had to have something of a morbid sense of humor because they were closer in relation to black comedies instead of horror movies for the most part. The acting in the films was not really all that great, but a lot of effort was usually put into the set pieces which is what people really like about horror films to begin with. Plots have never taken precedence in horror movies and visuals are the part that a lot of people pay attention to, at least for those older films.
Nowadays we have been gifted various horror films with well-designed plots which no one ever would have expected, but this wasn’t really the case in older horror films. The plot usually just took back seat in those films, but it always catapulted a movie to critical success status if the movie had both well-done plot and visuals. Horror movies are something that is hard to get right because everything in those movies is meant to illicit some kind of strong emotional response from the audience. Whether that be adrenaline pumping nightmare fuel or something that is supposed to keep the audience on edge, it is the response that filmmakers look for from their horror films. In order to try and illicit this kind of response from the audience, filmmakers have tried focusing more on making the plots better in new films in order to better create tension.
Visuals are still very important for getting people to appreciate the film that they are watching and horror movies usually provide some very good visuals, albeit very gory or disturbing in some way. This way of using visuals in movies is what attracts people to horror movies so much because people have an innate morbid curiosity and seeing something morbid in a movie feeds that curiosity. Thus horror movies and shows have become a huge part of modern day entertainment media that always manage to draw people back in even if the plots of said movies aren’t that great. Movies from the 80’s did something that wasn’t really possible before and allowed for more people to enjoy horror movies as time went on. They normalized horror movies in the modern day and created an entire generation of horror fans that have continued to consume horror content since then and that love of horror movies has been passed down over the years.
Campy horror movies of the 80’s may not have received all that great reviews but they have gained cult status over the years due to the ridiculous nature of the content seen in the movies. As mentioned before, ‘Killer Klowns From Outer Space’ is one of those campy horror movies that is just so ridiculous that it has made a lot of people want to see it. It is due to the nature of the film where we see alien clowns land on earth and start killing people that has made this fever dream film all the more endearing. Clowns have been seen as a symbol of fears for many years so making those fears take form in this movie is something that was seen as inventive. It gave an actual reason to people to fear clowns from that point on, but they went a step further with their film by just distorting the figures of clowns even more than they are usually distorted in our minds.
When we have a fear of something we often have the image of that thing distorted in our minds to the point that they start naturally looking horrifying to us in some way. It seemed like they were really trying to capitalize on this distortion to really sell the movie because they purposefully made them look way more terrifying than clowns actually are and people in the movie don’t start taking them seriously until they start killing. Like trying to avoid fears in real life, people in the movie just laugh off the titular Klowns or they ignore them for the most part but it comes back to haunt them in the end. The Klowns make sure that they kill as many people as they can before eventually being forced back into space by the main characters of the film. This movie is easily responsible for creating a lot of fans that enjoy those type of ridiculous horror films.
Plenty of people over the years have been saying that they would like to see a sequel for the film release at some point but the likelihood of that was very low from the beginning. Horror movies often end on cliffhangers in order to leave the audience with an open ending that is filled with suspense, but this also opens up the opportunity for future films. This is how horror movies have been able to come up with sequels over the years and make them naturally fit in with the end of the previous film somehow. As a result of this type of open ending being common for 80’s horror films, people are hopeful that they will get to see sequels to the films they originally fell in love with. ‘Killer Klowns From Outer Space’ is one of the films that has gained the cult status necessary for a possible sequel to be brought about. The original film’s director Stephen Chiodo has said that it could be possible for a sequel to be made if fans ask for it.
It isn’t really all that much of a surprise that asking fans to ask the studio would be the answer to the question of whether there can be a sequel or not. Studios need a good reason to make movies and that reason is often the money that will come out of the movie if people were to go and see it. In this case, it would be a bit more difficult because the film originally only made back about what its budget was at the time and not many people cared for the horror-comedy genre at the time. It has since become a much more popular film in the eyes of horror movie enthusiasts but it is still hard to make a proper case for the film where they will be able to make the movie. Luckily, the horror-comedy genre has become a much more commonplace type of film because it has expanded the overall market.
If ‘Killer Klowns From Outer Space 2’ was to be requested by fans to be made, it would take a fair number of people asking for it before MGM would actually decide to make the film. Even then, it would have to be made on a low budget like the original was because they only have the original film to go off in terms of box office returns so they would be hesitant in making it. However, this could work in the movie’s favor because the original film was made on a low budget and yet people have fallen in love with it over the years. There is a lot of doubt that they would be able to work on it any time soon with the pandemic currently going on, but it would take some time before they were convinced by people to do it anyway. Horror fans are most definitely going to hope that this wish becomes reality but there is no guarantee.
By George Robbins
According to ‘Doctor Strange‘ director Scott Derrickson, all of the movies featuring Spider-Man which have been made over the years could be part of the MCU in some capacity. It is no surprise that this kind of statement would be made considering the vast openness of the MCU as a whole as well as the fact that Marvel films have been releasing before the MCU. Without any other context, movies outside the MCU were movies whose IP’s have been picked up by various studios over the years who only wanted to focus on the individual characters. This is how we ended up with the original Sam Raimi ‘Spider-Man‘ and Fox’s ‘X-Men‘ movies which have held their own fanbases over the years because of the characters. However, their portrayals were eventually considered too far outside of what the characters would be like and they didn’t adapt everything that well.
Many of the movies outside of the MCU have had countless issues over the years because they have been considered to be non-faithful to the original comics. Not only were they outside of normal character personality, but the plots of each film were just considered not good in the end. This eventually led to Sony making a deal with Marvel Studios and Disney so that they could use Spider-Man in the MCU. Eventually Disney would also acquire a sizable portion of Fox and with it, the X-Men intellectual property which may still be a ways off from being shown in the MCU, but the possibility is now there for all to see. When Spider-Man was introduced to the MCU, everything we knew about the character we had seen in previous films had changed and we got a new Spider-Man.
‘Spider-Man: Homecoming‘ was the first major film for the character’s own devoted storyline in the MCU and it blew people away, especially for those hoping for a good Spider-Man story. Sony still retained the rights to the character though and they were never going too let that go, so they continued working on spin-offs. Sony being the hopeful company that it is has been trying to make spin-offs which could eventually tie into the MCU Spider-Man’s story at some point. Of course, people have been wondering for years at this point how that could even become a possibility. It turns out that this may not be as far-fetched as we originally believed it to be because there are more and more rumors swirling around as of late about the multi-verse in the MCU.
For those unaware of what this means, it means that there are multiple universes in the Marvel universe other than just the one we have been seeing in the MCU films. We saw a taste of that in ‘Endgame‘ when they traveled through time and therefore created alternate universes due to what they had done in those timelines. Sony touched upon the concept of a wider multi-verse in their own animated ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse‘ which saw multiple Spider-People being brought to one universe. This has also been mentioned to some capacity in the more recent ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home‘ and although it was a red herring, the possibility still existed somewhere out there. It is pretty much apparent at this point that the Multi-Verse in the MCU does exist though because of the title of the upcoming Doctor Strange sequel, ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.’
As people have learned by now, Doctor Strange is easily one of the most interesting characters to exist in the MCU because he possesses the capability to manipulate reality to some capacity. This makes him all the more capable of being able to move between various dimensions in the MCU and this is made all the more apparent by comments from Scott Derrickson who directed the original movie. Recently, ‘Moon‘ director Duncan Jones made a tweet that asked people to describe themselves with one gif from the MCU while using one from the ‘Into the Spider-Verse’ movie. People on twitter were quick to point out that this animated feature was not a part of the MCU to which Jones asked Derrickson for a ruling on whether this was accurate. Derrickson then responded the Jones is in the right and that, “All Spider-man iterations are defacto MCU.”
Of course this now has fans speculating as to whether this statement will actually hold over with the rest of the Studio’s films because it has been revealed earlier this year that Derrickson would not be directing the next film. He will instead be staying on as executive producer for the film while director Sam Raimi will be taking over as the director of the upcoming Doctor Strange film. Even if it just ends up being a throwaway in the upcoming movie, it wouldn’t be surprising if Raimi did something to confirm this in some way especially since he was the first person to make a live-action Spider-Man. While the movie certainly had its differences from the original comics, the first two films he did brought large crowds of people in and popularized the character. Hopefully he will be able to do right by the characters this time around as well and at least nod towards the possibility that all of those previous films are a part of the MCU in some way.
By George Robbins
George Lucas is well known now for the contributions he has made to the world of cinema, but simultaneously he is known for messing up the things that he has helped create. Arguably the most memorable thing he ended up working on was ‘Star Wars’ which has become one of the most popular franchises to ever exist. It is because of that movie that so many people were given a common outlet for which they could express themselves through and they could find something in common with other people. Lucas would go on to not only make the original trilogy but also the prequel trilogy which has a more cult like following among younger audiences who grew up with it. Now, Lucas is no longer in control of the property and Disney now holds control over the much-beloved franchise.
After Disney took over Lucasfilm, they immediately made it apparent to fans that everything that was taking place in Star Wars canon up to that point was now under their discretion. They released a book which outlined exactly what stuff was being kept from the extended universe and what was going to be called non-canon and thrown to the wayside. Much of what people felt should have been canon in some way has been scrapped and there is now much less from the expanded universe for people to work with. If George Lucas were still in charge, things probably would not have worked out with his ideas for future films but it is interesting to hear about it anyways. After all, while many of his ideas have fallen flat in the eyes of fans, he did make everything possible.
For those who don’t know, George Lucas did actually have some ideas in mind for what he wanted to do if there was ever going to be a sequel trilogy and he has been making it known what he would do. He revealed that he actually planned to have prequel villain Darth Maul return as an underground crime lord for the trilogy and he would be the big bad guy for the whole new trilogy. Now he has said that he apparently set things up so that Leia could be the one who would be known as the “Chosen One” in the sequel trilogy. She would be built up in such a way that she would be the one who would eventually bring Balance back to the force as originally described while Luke rebuilt the Jedi Order. We may have seen a small glimpse of that in the actual sequel trilogy we ended up with, but it is clear that the sequel trilogy we got was nothing like the one Lucas planned on making.
By George Robbins
Hollywood is abuzz for many a reason at the moment whether that be due to scandal, as per usual, or due to the developments currently in play for many upcoming films. There are a lot of films that actually just got started up once again not too long ago after months of waiting to finally get everyone and their equipment back on set. Beyond just being able to get people back on set, they had to wait for the proper conditions as they had to wait for local and foreign governments to allow them back onto the set to begin with. That is not all that is going on in the world of movie development and production as it seems there are plenty of newer projects being worked on as well. Things seem to never calm down in Hollywood as there are new movies being drafted up everyday and because people have been trapped inside or on their own for so long, there are now more than usual.
People always get excited when they hear about possible new movie releases showing up in the not-too-distant future, especially when it is something that would interest them. As of late, there have been a lot of discussions about future comic book character interpretations and those talks don’t seem like they will be dying down at any point in the near future. Most of this new discussion comes from the fact that people found out earlier this year that director Zack Snyder would actually be putting out his version of the ‘Justice League’ movie. His version of the film is one that fans have been after for a long time now and the announcement that it was going to be real sent tons of fans into an excitement phase. All fans of DC characters and the DCEU films quickly became excited by the prospect of seeing the film how they believe it should have been done.
When the ‘Justice League’ movie was in production, Snyder was the original director on the film and he was making it to be in-line with his previous films that he directed. Unfortunately, partway through the filming process, he had to leave the production because of a family tragedy and the movie was handed off to director Joss Whedon. Whedon decided not to go along with his original plans and instead reshot a large number of scenes from the film to try and make the movie his way. The end result was an alright film, but many fans were just disappointed in the end due to the fact they felt it was not the film they should have ended up with. Thus began the petitioning from fans that would see Zack Snyder’s version of the movie come to fruition instead of sitting off in the wings somewhere.
Apparently that petitioning from fans managed to pay off in the end because those fans would go on to rejoice as the Snyder Cut for ‘Justice League’ was announced when HBO Max launched. The new Snyder Cut version of the film is set up to be a four part mini-series where each episode is an hour long; making the overall new version of the film about 4 hours in length. This has further hyped up the movie for fans and people are getting more excited for this version of the film, but fans of the DCEU as a whole are faced with a bit of sadness. Apparently the Snyder version of the film will not be the version that is canon to the whole film series like some people were hoping it would be. That being said, fans are most definitely looking forward to seeing the movie when it finally gets to release some time early next year.
It is pretty evident to people everywhere that Zack Snyder does care about the characters that he has been given the reins over and he wants to make a film he and fans will be proud of. This is why it is even more exciting to fans when he spoke recently about wanting to possibly do a Dark Knight Returns storyline in his version of the DCEU. This storyline sees Bruce Wayne return with the cape on when he is much older to try and defend the people of Gotham once again and it ends with Bruce finally hanging up his cape for good by staging his own death. It is a storyline that people have been wanting to see for years and some are now hoping Snyder could possibly bring that storyline to the big screen. Even if it is a long time off, it would still be something that is fascinating to see.
By George Robbins
These past months since the pandemic began have made things a lot more difficult for plenty of people all over the place and in many industries across the globe. Among the industries that have suffered the hardest following the beginning of the pandemic is the film industry which has been trying to figure out exactly what to do for months now. Primarily they are having the worst time imaginable trying to figure out their upcoming release windows because they have to come up with something that would allow them to get people in theater seats. Most studios still have their primary way of bringing in revenue set to being theatrical releases for their movies and they have no reason to release in the current market.
Theaters need business, but there is no guarantee after recent events that they will be able to bring people in even if they have more films to show. It is because of this that studios have essentially pushed all of their blockbuster films into next year hoping a vaccine will be made by then to quell the pandemic. Everyone knows that this is pretty much the only guaranteed way of getting people to steadily go back to theaters and experience any kind of new movies that are out. In the meantime, studios are only really left with the option to either release their films straight to VOD or delay their films for pretty much up to a year or more. This is terrible for everyone, but the studios that were just about to release their films when the pandemic hit are feeling it just that little bit more in the end.
Included in the movies that were meant to release when the pandemic first struck is the next entry in the ‘Fast and Furious’ franchise, ‘F9.’ This upcoming entry was originally meant to release back in May, which would have normally been the best time frame for a blockbuster film to release in theaters. Unfortunately, like all movies set to release at that time, the film was delayed to late this year and as we can see, it is already late this year and the movie still hasn’t released. The reason for this is because, just like every other movie out there, this one was yet again delayed to accommodate for the current social climate and the state of theaters. There are plenty of reasons for why movies are being delayed at this point, but the most obvious has to relate to theaters.
Theaters, as everyone well knows have been losing money hand-over-fist because people are just far too worried to even try and go out to theaters, so theaters have no revenue flowing through their doors. Most studios are hoping this will be remedied with time and that they will be able to release their films like nothing happened when they reach their new release windows for their films. On that list is ‘F9’ which was set for its new release date which will now be one year after when it was originally set for release in May of 2021. With the delay, one would think that the movie would actually already be set up to be released on the big screen and it turns out this was not the case. The upcoming entry to the franchise has just had its audio mix finished for when it releases in theaters and thus perhaps its largest hurdle has been crossed before release.
This upcoming entry to the now beloved action franchise is expected to be an incredible work that features stunts and set pieces that can one up its predecessors. Every movie in that franchise just tries harder and harder to outdo the previous film so it is crazy to think about what we will end up seeing when this movie does finally come out. There are only going to be two more entries in the mainline series after this movie releases, so it is hard to imagine just how much they will be able to change things in the upcoming films. Everything they do becomes harder to top, but with Justin Lin directing, people are hopeful for the future of these films. They believe that this will be a return to form that fans have been hoping for ever since Lin left after the sixth film.
By George Robbins
Movie releases are perhaps one of the most complicated types of deals that are happening in the world right now because things just aren’t functioning like usual. In particular, movie theaters aren’t functioning properly because they were forced to shut down months ago and it has negatively affected them ever since then. When theaters shut down, they did so to further prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus, but it isn’t like they really had all too much of a choice in the matter. Public venues of all kinds were forced to shut down after the pandemic began; whether it was restaurants or theaters, they had no choice but to shut down as mandated by the government. The idea was that, eventually, there would be guidelines put into place which would allow businesses to reopen even during the pandemic.
After a couple of months had passed, those guidelines that businesses were waiting for had been put into place and some businesses like restaurants were able to open with limited capacity. The issue that soon arose was the fact that only smaller businesses were allowed to open to any degree. Before that though, any essential businesses like grocery stores were able to be open with limited capacity, but those capacity limits were usually still a lot. What followed was that larger business venues that would get more foot traffic were not given any kind of dates for when they might be able to reopen to the public again. Among those businesses were obviously theaters and theater owners were very vocal about this as they felt like they were bring discriminated against.
What theaters owners were truly getting upset about was the fact that places like malls were able to open to limited capacity, but theaters were not allowed to reopen at all. Theaters already had the new health and safety guidelines in place to allow people back through their doors but they were still not allowed to have their re-openings. This mainly stems from the fact that people were moving around and not being near one another for extended periods of time in other locations. Despite the fact that it is obviously more dangerous to reopen a business where people sit in an enclosed space together for a prolonged period of time, theater owners still tried to sue to reopen. The irrefutable fact that it is clearly dangerous to reopen a business with a model like that made it hard for that lawsuit to go anywhere and nothing happened.
During the summer, it was finally decided that movie theaters would be given the opportunity to reopen their doors to the public, but a strong wave of the virus made that a difficult venture. As a result movie releases were pushed back further and theaters were unsure of just when they would be able to open their doors, especially if they had no new movies to show. Eventually, in an effort to break through the stalemate, AMC theaters decided that they would reopen their doors regardless of what happens come the middle of August. Upon finally reopening, they were given a chance to test the market in the coming weeks when the movie ‘Tenet‘ released, but it was anything but good for them. The movie has managed to bring in around $50 million domestically, but it has been an overall disappointment for theaters.
Theaters were hoping that ‘Tenet’ would be the film to bring people back to theaters, but this ended up not working out the way they had hoped it would. Instead, they found out that people are worried about going out to theaters because they are worried about contracting the virus and that they were going to be losing business all over the place. Thus began the lengthy process that involved theaters starting to shut down and theaters like AMC even possibly going bankrupt by the end of the year. It is due to this that they are now desperate for a way to somehow bring people in so that they don’t have to shut down completely. Movie theaters are in a very precarious situation right now so there is no easy way for them to be able to get out of the situation they have been forced into at the moment.
So what would the answer be for them since they can’t bring people back into theaters; they could try the option that sees them just trying to bring in as many people as possible with different films. If they manage to bring some variety to what they are showing on their screens, they might be able to draw more people in. Thus, they are trying to get as many films as they can even if it means only getting to show films for a shorter period of time before having a VOD release. Universal was the first to make this deal with them and now they only have to show their films in theaters for three weeks before they get to release them to VOD. This deal was also offered up to other studios and some people are definitely intent on making use of that deal. Even if things don’t go as intended with the release, it offers an opportunity to both the studio and the theaters showing the film.
With theaters actually showing films for the first time in months, if they add more to the roster, even temporarily, they can try and get more people in seats. If things don’t work out that way and people still aren’t coming in to watch movies, studios don’t lose out on much because they get a VOD release very soon afterward to try and make that money back. Of course, movies that don’t want a straight to digital release are still delayed into next year, but those going with that release method now have more opportunity. The opportunity to not only try and get more revenue, but to also try and help theaters which could only affect them positively in the long run is pretty great. That is the precise reason that Jason Blum seems to be going with this release method with Blumhouse’s new film ‘Freaky.’
The upcoming Blumhouse film sees a teenage girl and a serial killer swapping bodies and the girl then has to try and stop the killer from hurting people she cares about. The upcoming horror-comedy is in line with the likes of ‘Happy Death Day’ which was also directed by Christopher Landon and produced by Blumhouse. It is certainly a departure from some of the movies being shown in theaters right now and it may help bring people back to theaters. There is no guarantee that this will help theaters in any way whatsoever, so we’ll have to wait and see if the film can manage to bring in customers. All we can do now is wait for the film’s theatrical release and if people don’t want to go to theaters, it will only take a few weeks before it gets its VOD release.
Get Some Strange!
