Author: Justin

If you were a kid in the 80s there’s a good chance you read (or were too scared to read) the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series. Hollywood has dragged its feet, but it finally has attempted to adapt a book of short stories into a coherent film. While the writers deserve credit for that feat, the problem is the result isn’t very good. It’s Halloween night and a group of kids out pulling pranks on the local bully (this is a weird setup) take refuge in the local haunted house. You see, this is the kind of…

Locke & Key is based on a comic book series, but I couldn’t help from the start thinking about the 80s horror flick House II: The Second Story. Both are about haunted houses with doors that can take you to bizarre other places, and both are more comedic, dark fantasies than the horror their trappings might imply. But while I adore House II, I found Locke & Key more of a muddled mess. It’s the story of the Locke family moving in to Keyhouse (clever, though it should probably go the other way, right?). The father has recently been killed…

Over the years, I’ve been very clear on my evolving love for this show about a washed-up acting horse. While BoJack starts slow in its first season, it quickly reveals itself not just as the smartest show on television today, but one of the smartest ever. Its depictions of addiction, grief, depression, and other issues are among the most nuanced television has ever seen. Here, in its final season, the show is still swinging big and goes out how so few classics manage—on top. The sixth season chronicles BoJack from rehab. to a teaching position. to his entire life falling…

2019 marked the final year for Playstation 4 and Xbox One as the dominant consoles. For one, the Nintendo Switch sold more consoles and released more games. Second, both brands will see new consoles before the end of 2020. That didn’t mean it was a bad year for games, however. If anything, the game landscape has grown more diverse with a wider variety of original titles for niche audiences. While I don’t play everything, below are my ten favorites of what I did play. But first, some honorable mentions: The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan, Ape Out, Cadence of…

It’s difficult to review most shows after an episode but give at least three and you’ll usually get a decent taste. That’s the case with the new Star Wars series, The Mandalorian. The first episode is without dialogue for long stretches, and the second episode really starts to give the feel for the series. However, it’s in the third I finally think I know what this series might be. Set after the events of Return of the Jedi and before The Force Awakens, The Mandalorian follows the titular character for the first three episodes as a completes a bounty. No,…

Apple came out swinging with their new streaming service by investing heavily into star driven projects. Rumors put the budget of spotlight series The Morning show somewhere north of $15 million per episode. If it actually did cost that, it certainly doesn’t look like it. The budget must have gone to the cast, but what a cast it is! The Morning Show is loosely inspired by the #MeToo scandals at NBC’s The Today Show and CBS This Morning. The show opens on the scandal breaking that Mitch (Steve Carell), host of The Morning Show, has had inappropriate affairs with staff…

Ari Aster has directed two feature films—this and Hereditary. I found that previous film to be visually arresting with a terrible payoff. Well, I suppose he’s now two for two. Telling too much of Midsommar’s plot with spoil the journey, but the basic plot line is a group of grad students travel to Sweden to participate in a summer solstice festival and horror ensues. Except, this isn’t your usual horror movie of monsters jumping out of closets. The horror here is mostly a slow-burn and showcased in broad daylight. That’s unique for certain, and Florence Pugh again shows here why…

Given the insane success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you can’t really blame every other studio trying to get in on the action. From DC Comics to Universal Monsters, however, the landscape is mostly littered with failures (The Conjuring horror universe being one of the few successes). Here’s another in the form of a spinoff of the Fast and Furious franchise, itself already a cinematic universe of sorts as the films bounce from genre to genre. Hobbs is Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s federal agent character from the main series, and Shaw is Jason Statham’s, well, once bad guy but also…

How long can you reboot a time-travel film series before the audience stops caring? Because even though this is the sixth film in the Terminator franchise, it’s ignoring the previous three sequels as if they took place in alternate timelines. How convenient. Still, convenience doesn’t account for audience fatigue which may turn out to be a bigger franchise killer than any cyborg from the future. Financial fate aside, Dark Fate is an attempt to reboot the franchise to something resembling 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgement Day. It features big explosions, big car chases, and big heroes. This time the evil terminator…

I imagine the pitch meeting for The Society went something like, “What if we took Lord of the Flies and mixed it in with a bit of Riverdale and Lost?” I can’t even argue with that being an alluring pitch. Unfortunately, for me, those disparate elements never coalesce into something I really cared about. In The Society a group of high school students are taken on a school trip, but upon return to their small town they discover everyone is gone and the roads out of town have vanished. Has something apocalyptic occurred? Have they slipped into an alternate reality?…