The Tribeca Festival has unveiled its reunions, retrospectives and talks series for the 23rd edition unspooling in June including a Storyteller Series with Judd Apatow, Andy Cohen, Kieran Culkin, Kerry Washington, Laverne Cox, Jon Batiste, and Michael Stipe.
The Directors Series features Gus Van Sant in conversation with art dealer, filmmaker, and actor Vito Schnabel (Van Sant directed Schnabel in Ryan Murphy’s FX series Feud: Capote vs the Swans.)
The fest will celebrate the 25th anniversary of The Sopranos at the Beacon Theatre with the world premiere of Alex Gibney documenary Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos with a reunion of creator David Chase, EP Terence Winter, and stars Edie Falco, Michael Imperioli, Aida Turturro, Annabella Sciorra, Robert Iler, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Drea De Matteo, Steve Schirripa, Michele Chase, Kathrine Narducci, and Dominic Chianese.
Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, with rapper Nas, will talk Mean Streets on its 50th anniversary.
The Directors Series features Gus Van Sant in conversation with art dealer, filmmaker, and actor Vito Schnabel (Van Sant directed Schnabel in Ryan Murphy’s FX series Feud: Capote vs the Swans.)
The fest will celebrate the 25th anniversary of The Sopranos at the Beacon Theatre with the world premiere of Alex Gibney documenary Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos with a reunion of creator David Chase, EP Terence Winter, and stars Edie Falco, Michael Imperioli, Aida Turturro, Annabella Sciorra, Robert Iler, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Drea De Matteo, Steve Schirripa, Michele Chase, Kathrine Narducci, and Dominic Chianese.
Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, with rapper Nas, will talk Mean Streets on its 50th anniversary.
- 4/30/2024
- by Jill Goldsmith
- Deadline Film + TV
"Abigail" is hitting theaters this weekend, bringing audiences a new vampire film to sink their teeth into. With that in mind, we're turning to the granddaddy of all vampires, Dracula! There are a lot of Dracula movies. Too many to Count, in fact (pun intended). Dracula has been to space ("Dracula 3000"). Dracula has turned out to be Judas Iscariot ("Dracula 2000"). Dracula has been to the Old West ("Billy the Kid Versus Dracula").
Hell, Dracula has been with us more or less since horror movies began (with the unauthorized adaptation "Nosferatu"). With that in mind, it's probably impossible to make a comprehensive list of every Dracula movie. So we're not even going to try to do that. Instead, we're going to list the five best Dracula movies, ranked. With so many Drac-centric flicks out there, any list like this is bound to be controversial. If your personal favorite Dracula movie didn't make the list,...
Hell, Dracula has been with us more or less since horror movies began (with the unauthorized adaptation "Nosferatu"). With that in mind, it's probably impossible to make a comprehensive list of every Dracula movie. So we're not even going to try to do that. Instead, we're going to list the five best Dracula movies, ranked. With so many Drac-centric flicks out there, any list like this is bound to be controversial. If your personal favorite Dracula movie didn't make the list,...
- 4/18/2024
- by Chris Evangelista
- Slash Film
Warning: The following contains major spoilers for The Babadook.
The first time I watched The Babadook, I nearly had a nervous breakdown. It was March of 2015. My husband, a Cpa, was deep in the throes of tax season, leaving me alone for long stretches of time with our one-year-old son and three-year-old daughter who was going through a screaming phase. Needless to say, the story of a mother pushed to the edge of sanity resonated with me deeply. One scene in particular, monstrous clothing reigning down as the frightened heroine crawls across the floor, was so affecting that I paused the movie and cried for a good ten minutes. Despite the extremity of my reaction, I would wager that I’m not alone. In the ten years since The Babadook premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, Jennifer Kent’s debut feature has become known for its ability to blend horror...
The first time I watched The Babadook, I nearly had a nervous breakdown. It was March of 2015. My husband, a Cpa, was deep in the throes of tax season, leaving me alone for long stretches of time with our one-year-old son and three-year-old daughter who was going through a screaming phase. Needless to say, the story of a mother pushed to the edge of sanity resonated with me deeply. One scene in particular, monstrous clothing reigning down as the frightened heroine crawls across the floor, was so affecting that I paused the movie and cried for a good ten minutes. Despite the extremity of my reaction, I would wager that I’m not alone. In the ten years since The Babadook premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, Jennifer Kent’s debut feature has become known for its ability to blend horror...
- 1/19/2024
- by Jenn Adams
- bloody-disgusting.com
The holidays are upon us, so whether you looking for film-related gifts or simply want to pick up some of the finest the year had to offer in the category for yourself, we have a gift guide for you. Including must-have books on filmmaking, the best from the Criterion Collection and more home-video picks, subscriptions, magazines, music, and more, dive in below.
Giveaways
In celebration of our holiday gift guide, we’ll be doing a number of giveaways! First up, we’re giving away My First Movie Vol. 2, a three-part ‘lil cinephile series by Cory Everett and illustrator Julie Olivi, featuring My First Spaghetti Western, My First Yakuza Movie, and My First Hollywood Musical.
Enter on Instagram (for My First Yakuza Movie), Twitter (for My First Hollywood Musical), and/or Facebook (for My First Spaghetti Western) by Sunday, November 26 at 11:59pm Et. Those that enter on all three platforms...
Giveaways
In celebration of our holiday gift guide, we’ll be doing a number of giveaways! First up, we’re giving away My First Movie Vol. 2, a three-part ‘lil cinephile series by Cory Everett and illustrator Julie Olivi, featuring My First Spaghetti Western, My First Yakuza Movie, and My First Hollywood Musical.
Enter on Instagram (for My First Yakuza Movie), Twitter (for My First Hollywood Musical), and/or Facebook (for My First Spaghetti Western) by Sunday, November 26 at 11:59pm Et. Those that enter on all three platforms...
- 11/20/2023
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Halloween is perfectly suited for watching movies at home – it’s the time of year where, conceivably, things start getting cooler and a cozy night in with your favorite horror movie is at its most appealing. And thankfully there are plenty of new Blu-rays and 4K Ultra HD discs out there to fill every need, for the fans of the mega-scary, to those who just want to watch a semi-spooky romp with the family.
“Night of the Demons” 4K International Film Marketing
One of the most beloved cult movies of the 1980’s gets gussied up in 4K finery. If you’ve never seen “Night of the Demons,” it’s a hoot – and one of the most Halloween-y movies of the era. It’s about a bunch of kids who break into an abandoned funeral parlor to launch an epic Halloween party. (Shouldn’t they know better?) Soon enough they’re...
“Night of the Demons” 4K International Film Marketing
One of the most beloved cult movies of the 1980’s gets gussied up in 4K finery. If you’ve never seen “Night of the Demons,” it’s a hoot – and one of the most Halloween-y movies of the era. It’s about a bunch of kids who break into an abandoned funeral parlor to launch an epic Halloween party. (Shouldn’t they know better?) Soon enough they’re...
- 10/21/2023
- by Drew Taylor
- The Wrap
The three films included on the Criterion Collection’s Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers collectively suggest a miniature narrative of Browning’s evolution as a filmmaker. Though this two-disc set offers but a dip of the toe into Browning’s work, it’s governed by a persuasive through line. Here we get a film, 1925’s The Mystic, that’s rich in promise and less personal than the other two, one a perverse masterwork, 1927’s The Unknown, that’s criminally underseen by contemporary audiences, and the other a cult classic, 1932’s Freaks, that’s too often discussed in terms of its notoriety. Watching these films together offers a sketch of an artist’s sensibility reaching fruition, as a fine-grained empathy rises to the fore.
Browning’s affinity for outcasts has been well-documented and is discussed at length in the supplements included with this set, particularly in a new interview with author...
Browning’s affinity for outcasts has been well-documented and is discussed at length in the supplements included with this set, particularly in a new interview with author...
- 10/18/2023
- by Chuck Bowen
- Slant Magazine
Guillermo del Toro doesn’t hold back about his love for his favorite movies. If you’ve spent any time on his Twitter feed over the years, you’ve likely seen him praise Stanley Donen’s use of the color red throughout the late director’s body of work, and hail everything from William Wellman’s 1931 film “Other Men’s Women” to David Cronenberg’s “Crimes of the Future” from 2022. The man has wide-ranging taste, and a deep awareness of cinematic history that’s informed his own films.
Now he follows Turner Classic Movies advisors Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and Paul Thomas Anderson in giving his own picks from TCM’s lineup, all titles that will be airing in October. Watch the video, exclusive to IndieWire, above.
First up, he picks one of the most sorely underrated titles from Alfred Hitchcock’s filmography, 1941’s “Suspicion,” airing on TCM at 2:00am...
Now he follows Turner Classic Movies advisors Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and Paul Thomas Anderson in giving his own picks from TCM’s lineup, all titles that will be airing in October. Watch the video, exclusive to IndieWire, above.
First up, he picks one of the most sorely underrated titles from Alfred Hitchcock’s filmography, 1941’s “Suspicion,” airing on TCM at 2:00am...
- 9/29/2023
- by Christian Blauvelt
- Indiewire
These last few years the Criterion Channel have made October viewing much easier to prioritize, and in the spirit of their ’70s and ’80s horror series we’ve graduated to––you guessed it––”’90s Horror.” A couple of obvious classics stand with cult favorites and more unknown entities (When a Stranger Calls Back and Def By Temptation are new to me). Three more series continue the trend: “Technothrillers” does what it says on the tin, courtesy the likes of eXistenZ and Demonlover; “Art-House Horror” is precisely the kind of place to host Cure, Suspiria, Onibaba; and “Pre-Code Horror” is a black-and-white dream. Phantom of the Paradise, Unfriended, and John Brahm’s The Lodger are added elsewhere.
James Gray is the latest with an “Adventures in Moviegoing” series populated by deep cuts and straight classics. Stonewalling and restorations of Trouble Every Day and The Devil, Probably make streaming debuts, while Flesh for Frankenstein,...
James Gray is the latest with an “Adventures in Moviegoing” series populated by deep cuts and straight classics. Stonewalling and restorations of Trouble Every Day and The Devil, Probably make streaming debuts, while Flesh for Frankenstein,...
- 9/28/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
This October is a Massive month for horror movies on physical media.
The studios and physical media labels tend to save some of their best stuff for spooky season, and this year is no exception. The Criterion Collection, Kino Lorber, and Shout Studios all have a huge selection this month, and studios like Paramount, Universal, and Lionsgate are bringing forward some awesome releases with unique packaging that will appeal to collectors.
If you haven’t jumped back into the world of physical media, this is as good a time as ever to start a horror movie collection.
The Criterion Collection
‘Videodrome’
The team at the Criterion Collection have truly outdone themselves with horror releases for October. First up on October 3rd is Nicolas Roeg’s thriller Don’t Look Now in a new 4K Uhd release from a recent remastering of the film. This is followed by another 4K Uhd release...
The studios and physical media labels tend to save some of their best stuff for spooky season, and this year is no exception. The Criterion Collection, Kino Lorber, and Shout Studios all have a huge selection this month, and studios like Paramount, Universal, and Lionsgate are bringing forward some awesome releases with unique packaging that will appeal to collectors.
If you haven’t jumped back into the world of physical media, this is as good a time as ever to start a horror movie collection.
The Criterion Collection
‘Videodrome’
The team at the Criterion Collection have truly outdone themselves with horror releases for October. First up on October 3rd is Nicolas Roeg’s thriller Don’t Look Now in a new 4K Uhd release from a recent remastering of the film. This is followed by another 4K Uhd release...
- 9/21/2023
- by Jeff Rauseo
- bloody-disgusting.com
Ghosts are ubiquitous and zombies have had their moments of dominance, but of all the classic horror monsters, vampires have the strongest claim for the greatest film legacy. The vampire genre is nearly as old as cinema itself, with F.W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu” scaring up audiences in 1922, followed by the countless iterations that came in its shadow. Every era and every filmmaking country has since taken up its own spins on the myth of the vampire, from Universal Studios’ “Dracula” series beginning with Tod Browning’s Bram Stoker adaptation in 1931, all the way up to Iranian-American director Ana Lily Amirpour’s indie feminist twist “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” in 2014.
2023 though, has not exactly been a banner year for brilliant takes on the horror genre’s most iconic creatures of the night. Sure, there have been plenty of movies starring vampires; it’s just that most of them haven’t been very good.
2023 though, has not exactly been a banner year for brilliant takes on the horror genre’s most iconic creatures of the night. Sure, there have been plenty of movies starring vampires; it’s just that most of them haven’t been very good.
- 9/20/2023
- by Alison Foreman and Wilson Chapman
- Indiewire
A few years before directing Dracula and Freaks, Tod Browning made a silent horror film titled London After Midnight. Starring Lon Chaney as “The Hypnotist,” the 65-minute film was distributed by MGM in December of 1927; though audiences saw it upon release, it’s likely that everyone who did is no longer with us. Sadly, the last known copy was destroyed in the infamous MGM vault fire of 1967, which tragically resulted in the loss of many classic films.
We may never lay eyes on Tod Browning’s London After Midnight, but those who’ve been salivating to experience it may be excited to hear that a full-cast audio drama is on the way.
Scripted Audio Drama producers Lance Roger Axt, Jack Bowman and Kenton Hall have meticulously adapted the original screenplay by Waldemar Young and Tod Browning as an immersive Dolby Atmos aural experience, with the recording taking place over two...
We may never lay eyes on Tod Browning’s London After Midnight, but those who’ve been salivating to experience it may be excited to hear that a full-cast audio drama is on the way.
Scripted Audio Drama producers Lance Roger Axt, Jack Bowman and Kenton Hall have meticulously adapted the original screenplay by Waldemar Young and Tod Browning as an immersive Dolby Atmos aural experience, with the recording taking place over two...
- 9/12/2023
- by John Squires
- bloody-disgusting.com
2023 Festival dedicated to founders Tom Luddy, Bill Pence, Stella Pence, James Card.
Telluride Film Festival has announced its 2023 50th anniversary line-up with Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner Anatomy Of A Fall, and Steve McQueen’s Occupied City on the roster.
The selection, which will play in the Colorado Rockies locale from August 31 to September 4, includes Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders, Jonathan Glazer’s Cannes sensation The Zone Of Interest, Pablo Larrain’s El Conde, Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel, George C. Wolfe’s Rustin, Nyad from Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin,...
Telluride Film Festival has announced its 2023 50th anniversary line-up with Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner Anatomy Of A Fall, and Steve McQueen’s Occupied City on the roster.
The selection, which will play in the Colorado Rockies locale from August 31 to September 4, includes Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders, Jonathan Glazer’s Cannes sensation The Zone Of Interest, Pablo Larrain’s El Conde, Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel, George C. Wolfe’s Rustin, Nyad from Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin,...
- 8/30/2023
- ScreenDaily
The Adams Family have done it again! The filmmaking team, made up of father John Adams, mother Toby Poser and daughters Zelda and Lulu, have been writing, directing, producing and starring in their own independent productions for a little over a decade, and have crafted festival favorites including The Deeper You Dig and Hellbender. Last week, at the Fantasia Film Festival, they premiered their most ambitious project yet, Where the Devil Roams, a supernatural horror set in Depression-era America.
Hard times have fallen upon a small carnival. Attendance is at an all-time low, and there's not enough nickels to go around to feed the sideshow acts. Among them are the performing trio, Maggie (Toby Poser), Seven (John Adams) and Eve (Zelda Adams), who do a song and dance routine that hardly draws a crowd. Stealing their spectators is Mr. Tibbs, a magician who slices off his fingers one by one with rusty scissors,...
Hard times have fallen upon a small carnival. Attendance is at an all-time low, and there's not enough nickels to go around to feed the sideshow acts. Among them are the performing trio, Maggie (Toby Poser), Seven (John Adams) and Eve (Zelda Adams), who do a song and dance routine that hardly draws a crowd. Stealing their spectators is Mr. Tibbs, a magician who slices off his fingers one by one with rusty scissors,...
- 8/5/2023
- by Chris Aitkens
Editor’s Note: This review originally premiered at the 2024 Locarno Film Festival. Mubi will release it in theaters on March 22, 2024.
It takes flair to concoct visual-gag-after-visual-gag within episodic riffs on the raw deals suffered by the gig-economy-classes in modern day Bucharest. Radu Jude blends absurdist humor with keen social integrity, like a sharper Romanian riposte to Ruben Östlund, as the trials of a dangerously overworked production assistant named Ange builds to a 40-minute final shot in which tragicomedy is heaped upon tragicomedy to unbearably brilliant effect.
Observing a nation’s shortcomings is not typically this fun. Yet — unlike latter-day miserabilist works by the likes of Ken Loach — Jude’s “Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World” and its barbs stick entirely because Jude trusts his audience to appreciate tonal scope.
Ange also trusts her audience to correctly interpret a character she performs to a growing online following.
It takes flair to concoct visual-gag-after-visual-gag within episodic riffs on the raw deals suffered by the gig-economy-classes in modern day Bucharest. Radu Jude blends absurdist humor with keen social integrity, like a sharper Romanian riposte to Ruben Östlund, as the trials of a dangerously overworked production assistant named Ange builds to a 40-minute final shot in which tragicomedy is heaped upon tragicomedy to unbearably brilliant effect.
Observing a nation’s shortcomings is not typically this fun. Yet — unlike latter-day miserabilist works by the likes of Ken Loach — Jude’s “Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World” and its barbs stick entirely because Jude trusts his audience to appreciate tonal scope.
Ange also trusts her audience to correctly interpret a character she performs to a growing online following.
- 8/4/2023
- by Sophie Monks Kaufman
- Indiewire
The Criterion Collection is celebrating Halloween with a brand new lineup of horror releases this October, and we’ve got the full scoop straight from Criterion’s website.
Coming this October, “three Pre-code chillers from a master of the morbid; a gothic supernatural tale; & a haunting modern-day fable of cultural dislocation in NYC.”
Those films are Freaks, The Unknown and The Mystic, packaged together in Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers; The Others (2001); and Nanny (2022). Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers will first be added to the Criterion Collection on October 17, followed by Alejandro Amenábar’s The Others on October 24 and Nikyatu Jusu’s Nanny on October 31.
Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers:
“The world is a carnival of criminality, corruption, and psychosexual strangeness in the twisted pre-Code shockers of Tod Browning. Early Hollywood’s edgiest auteur, Browning drew on his experiences as a circus performer to create subversive pulp entertainments set amid the world of traveling sideshows,...
Coming this October, “three Pre-code chillers from a master of the morbid; a gothic supernatural tale; & a haunting modern-day fable of cultural dislocation in NYC.”
Those films are Freaks, The Unknown and The Mystic, packaged together in Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers; The Others (2001); and Nanny (2022). Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers will first be added to the Criterion Collection on October 17, followed by Alejandro Amenábar’s The Others on October 24 and Nikyatu Jusu’s Nanny on October 31.
Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers:
“The world is a carnival of criminality, corruption, and psychosexual strangeness in the twisted pre-Code shockers of Tod Browning. Early Hollywood’s edgiest auteur, Browning drew on his experiences as a circus performer to create subversive pulp entertainments set amid the world of traveling sideshows,...
- 7/17/2023
- by John Squires
- bloody-disgusting.com
Nowadays a spooktacular Shocktober means 4K restorations––just look at the work from Arrow or Shout Factory (naming only the two most obvious) to elevate that most disreputable genre into incredible resolution and detail. Never one to miss an opportunity, Criterion will upgrade two of the greatest horror films ever made: David Cronenberg’s Videodrome and Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, for those who want explosive tumors and Donald Sutherland’s penis (respectively and respectfully) in the finest possible quality home video affords.
While the Nicole Kidman-led Blockbuster Video classic The Others rounds out 4K selections, the Blu-only Tod Browning set boasts Freaks, The Unknown, and The Mystic. Lastly, Nikyatu Jusu’s 2022 Sundance winner Nanny is now among the newer titles in Criterion’s canon.
Find artwork below and more at Criterion.
The post The Criterion Collection’s October Slate Includes 4K Cronenberg, a Tod Browning Set & More...
While the Nicole Kidman-led Blockbuster Video classic The Others rounds out 4K selections, the Blu-only Tod Browning set boasts Freaks, The Unknown, and The Mystic. Lastly, Nikyatu Jusu’s 2022 Sundance winner Nanny is now among the newer titles in Criterion’s canon.
Find artwork below and more at Criterion.
The post The Criterion Collection’s October Slate Includes 4K Cronenberg, a Tod Browning Set & More...
- 7/17/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
The Basket Case 3 episode of The Black Sheep was Written and Narrated by Andrew Hatfield, Edited by Brandon Nally, Produced by Lance Vlcek and John Fallon, and Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian.
One of the quintessential drive in kinda guys to me is Frank Henenlotter. Not only because of the anointing from the patron saint of Drive-ins himself, Joe Bob Briggs, but also just from a horror core memory. Long before I knew about the fabled 42nd Street in New York and all the magical movies that were shown there, I was introduced to Belial and his brother Duane on grainy VHS from Video Unlimited. That’s the magical part about being a horror fan. My brothers weren’t even particularly fond of the first movie, but knew it was an important piece of independent horror cinema. Shot for 35,000 and released in April of 1982, Basket Case is now enshrined in Moma,...
One of the quintessential drive in kinda guys to me is Frank Henenlotter. Not only because of the anointing from the patron saint of Drive-ins himself, Joe Bob Briggs, but also just from a horror core memory. Long before I knew about the fabled 42nd Street in New York and all the magical movies that were shown there, I was introduced to Belial and his brother Duane on grainy VHS from Video Unlimited. That’s the magical part about being a horror fan. My brothers weren’t even particularly fond of the first movie, but knew it was an important piece of independent horror cinema. Shot for 35,000 and released in April of 1982, Basket Case is now enshrined in Moma,...
- 6/20/2023
- by Cody Hamman
- JoBlo.com
Now that Renfield is available on Blu-ray and DVD, I think a lot of people will be kicking themselves for not sinking their teeth into the horror-comedy on the big screen. The home video release boasts an hour of making-of featurettes and deleted/extended scenes, plus an audio commentary with eight crew members.
The track features producer Samantha Nisenboim, screenwriter Ryan Ridley, makeup effects supervisor Christien Tinsley, visual effects supervisor James E. Price, assistant editor Noah Cody, supervising sound editor/sound designer John Marquis, supervising sound editor Nancy Nugent, and supervising digital colorist David Cole.
Here are eight things I learned from the Renfield commentary…
1. Using footage from the original Dracula was Adam McKay’s idea.
Renfield opens with Nicolas Cage’s Dracula and Nicholas Hoult’s Renfield inserted into footage from Tod Browning’s 1931 classic adaptation of Dracula, a concept that came from McKay after boarding the project.
“This...
The track features producer Samantha Nisenboim, screenwriter Ryan Ridley, makeup effects supervisor Christien Tinsley, visual effects supervisor James E. Price, assistant editor Noah Cody, supervising sound editor/sound designer John Marquis, supervising sound editor Nancy Nugent, and supervising digital colorist David Cole.
Here are eight things I learned from the Renfield commentary…
1. Using footage from the original Dracula was Adam McKay’s idea.
Renfield opens with Nicolas Cage’s Dracula and Nicholas Hoult’s Renfield inserted into footage from Tod Browning’s 1931 classic adaptation of Dracula, a concept that came from McKay after boarding the project.
“This...
- 6/9/2023
- by Alex DiVincenzo
- bloody-disgusting.com
By the middle of the 1950s, gothic horror was dead. Modern-set films dealing with nuclear war, radioactive fallout, and the Red Scare filled American theaters with giant bugs and body snatchers. England’s Hammer Studios was no different, releasing successful films like The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) and X the Unknown (1956), which were firmly rooted in these science fiction-based fears. In 1957, however, they took a gamble and single-handedly resurrected the gothic monster movie with The Curse of Frankenstein, which became an international hit. The following year they outdid themselves by resurrecting the King of Vampires. Horror of Dracula (simply titled Dracula in England) completely redefined the character, and indeed the entire vampire subgenre, for a generation, and its influence would echo through the decades to come.
By 1958, Tod Browning’s Dracula, with Bela Lugosi in the starring role, had become deeply ingrained in popular culture. The 1957 debut of Shock Theater, the package...
By 1958, Tod Browning’s Dracula, with Bela Lugosi in the starring role, had become deeply ingrained in popular culture. The 1957 debut of Shock Theater, the package...
- 4/27/2023
- by Brian Keiper
- bloody-disgusting.com
Chris McKay's new horror/comedy "Renfield" has a whimsical premise: it seems that when Count Dracula was vanquished at the end of Tod Browning's famed 1931 feature film "Dracula," he wasn't quite dead. His weaselly assistant Renfield, played in 1931 by the incomparable Dwight Frye, absconded with Dracula's remains and went into hiding. Renfield, now immortal and made powerful by eating bugs, stalked the night to find victims for his still-barely-alive vampire master. Dracula would drink blood, slowly grow back from the brink, and eventually be a whole monster once again. Once empowered, however, Dracula would go a little hog wild and being drinking the blood of nobles willy-nilly. This would inspire another round of attacks, Dracula would be vanquished once again, and the cycle would repeat.
"Renfield" catches up with Dracula (Nicolas Cage) and Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) in the modern day while Dracula is in one of his recovery periods.
"Renfield" catches up with Dracula (Nicolas Cage) and Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) in the modern day while Dracula is in one of his recovery periods.
- 4/22/2023
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
If there was anything about "Renfield" worth getting excited for, it was Nicolas Cage playing Dracula. Though the movie sadly sucks, he's genuinely good. It's not even an out-there performance destined to be made into memes like the kind Cage has become infamous for. Cage is the only one in "Renfield" acting like he's in a horror movie and is thus the only one with a compelling screen presence. Frankly, I'd rather see a straightforward Dracula movie starring him than have him stuck in the confused schlock that is "Renfield."
Cage is the latest in a long line of silver-screen Draculas, so how does he stack up? Ranking Count Dracula performances can be difficult because different actors and storytellers interpret the character differently. Depending on the movie, he can be a hero or a villain. Is Dracula a foreign invader, a tragic romantic, or a bloodthirsty monster? Let's look at...
Cage is the latest in a long line of silver-screen Draculas, so how does he stack up? Ranking Count Dracula performances can be difficult because different actors and storytellers interpret the character differently. Depending on the movie, he can be a hero or a villain. Is Dracula a foreign invader, a tragic romantic, or a bloodthirsty monster? Let's look at...
- 4/20/2023
- by Devin Meenan
- Slash Film
Chris McKay's new horror comedy "Renfield," starring Nicholas Hoult as the title character and Nicolas Cage as a very familiar vampire Count, may serve as a direct sequel to Tod Browning's 1931 classic "Dracula." Set in the present day, it catches up with Count Dracula and his enslaved, immortal henchman Renfield as they have fallen into a pattern. As it goes: Dracula kills too many people, vampire hunters nearly kill him, he and Renfield flee the country to convalesce, Renfield finds new victims to restore his master, Dracula rises again, and the cycle repeats.
Renfield, having been locked in the same pattern for a century, has grown weary. While he is immortal and eating bugs gives him a short burst of superpowers, he hates that his boss is so narcissistic and controlling. Over the course of "Renfield," the character will go to self-help meetings aimed to support those in controlling relationships,...
Renfield, having been locked in the same pattern for a century, has grown weary. While he is immortal and eating bugs gives him a short burst of superpowers, he hates that his boss is so narcissistic and controlling. Over the course of "Renfield," the character will go to self-help meetings aimed to support those in controlling relationships,...
- 4/18/2023
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
“I want you to promise to keep this a secret, from everyone,” says Edward C. Burke, a mysterious professor played by mythic master of the macabre, Lon Chaney Sr. The line is a warning to a mourning daughter in the surviving screenplay for London After Midnight; it’s also part of the eeriest horror movies of the silent era. Unfortunately though, director Tod Browning’s 1927 classic has become one of the most inadvertently well-kept secrets of Hollywood, even as it remains one of the most influential works in horror movie history. If only we could see it.
While the film has been lost to time, the ghastly image of Chaney’s vampire in the film has lingered in the pop culture imagination, influencing everything from the earliest Hollywood Dracula film of 1931, which was originally supposed to star Chaney until his death in 1930, to seemingly this year’s recent Renfield reimagining at the same studio.
While the film has been lost to time, the ghastly image of Chaney’s vampire in the film has lingered in the pop culture imagination, influencing everything from the earliest Hollywood Dracula film of 1931, which was originally supposed to star Chaney until his death in 1930, to seemingly this year’s recent Renfield reimagining at the same studio.
- 4/18/2023
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
In the new horror comedy monster flick Renfield, actor Nicholas Hoult is the titular character, a human familiar who has spent more than a century in servitude to the world’s worst boss, the vampire Count Dracula, played with relish by Nicolas Cage.
And as directed by Chris McKay (The Lego Batman Movie), and based on a story by producer Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead), this Universal film adds a chapter to Tod Browning’s classic 1931 Dracula, imagining that Bram Stoker’s vampire lived on before ultimately taking refuge in modern-day New Orleans. As he recovers from his latest row with slayers, Renfield is tasked with providing adequate blood to aid in his boss’ healing. Instead the servant begins to question his lot in life and the co-dependent relationship he has with Dracula.
Renfield is an over-the-top, explosively bloody romp, with Cage and Hoult joined by Awkwafina (The Farewell) as...
And as directed by Chris McKay (The Lego Batman Movie), and based on a story by producer Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead), this Universal film adds a chapter to Tod Browning’s classic 1931 Dracula, imagining that Bram Stoker’s vampire lived on before ultimately taking refuge in modern-day New Orleans. As he recovers from his latest row with slayers, Renfield is tasked with providing adequate blood to aid in his boss’ healing. Instead the servant begins to question his lot in life and the co-dependent relationship he has with Dracula.
Renfield is an over-the-top, explosively bloody romp, with Cage and Hoult joined by Awkwafina (The Farewell) as...
- 4/17/2023
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
Gabriele Mainetti on the streets of Rome with Anne-Katrin Titze: “In Once Upon A Time In America you don’t even have the American Dream like Scarface does.”
In the second instalment with Gabriele Mainetti we touch upon Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in Brian De Palma’s Scarface, Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In America, John Ford and John Wayne, Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City, Michael Haneke’s comment on Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, Tod Browning, and the painful process of accepting yourself in Freaks Out, co-written with Nicola Guaglianone.
Gabriele Mainetti on Franz (Franz Rogowski): “Franz says no and Matilda can’t say no and says yes with all the pain.”
There’s Franz, the German pianist blessed with 12 fingers and the ability to see the future. He wants the “freaks” on his side. But what exactly is his side?...
In the second instalment with Gabriele Mainetti we touch upon Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in Brian De Palma’s Scarface, Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In America, John Ford and John Wayne, Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City, Michael Haneke’s comment on Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, Tod Browning, and the painful process of accepting yourself in Freaks Out, co-written with Nicola Guaglianone.
Gabriele Mainetti on Franz (Franz Rogowski): “Franz says no and Matilda can’t say no and says yes with all the pain.”
There’s Franz, the German pianist blessed with 12 fingers and the ability to see the future. He wants the “freaks” on his side. But what exactly is his side?...
- 4/15/2023
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Inevitable comparisons are going be made between Bela Lugosi's classic Universal monster in Tod Browning's 1931 "Dracula" and Nicolas Cage's homage to the character in the new action comedy "Renfield," especially when director Chris McKay refers to the film as a "quasi-sequel" to the original. McKay's version certainly takes liberties with the material, catching up with Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) 90 years after Browning's masterpiece. Renfield realizes he's been in an extremely lengthy toxic relationship with his master while he sits in on group therapy sessions looking for potential victims. The abuse that Renfield suffers dates all the way back to their original meeting, prompting McKay and writers Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ridley to return to the scene of the crime in the opening prologue for "Renfield."
McKay and his team came up with the idea to essentially replace Lugosi and the original actor to play Renfield, Dwight Frye, with...
McKay and his team came up with the idea to essentially replace Lugosi and the original actor to play Renfield, Dwight Frye, with...
- 4/14/2023
- by Drew Tinnin
- Slash Film
When Nicolas Cage was cast as Dracula in "Renfield," it felt like the universe was finally giving something back to genre fans. The planets had aligned, and one of the most unique actors of his generation was getting the chance to sink his teeth into one of the most iconic horror roles in cinema history. In his review of the film, /Film's Chris Evangelista says that Cage delivers but the movie "can't come close to matching the actor's wacko energy."
Director Chris McKay's action comedy horror hybrid puts the dark lord's faithful, bug-eating servant, Renfield (Nicholas Hoult), in the spotlight this time around to make a loose-fitting legacy sequel to Tod Browning's original 1931 masterpiece starring Bela Lugosi and Dwight Frye. The characters of Dracula and Renfield are embedded in our pop culture lexicon and they've both appeared in countless versions of Bram Stoker's classic tale over the last century.
Director Chris McKay's action comedy horror hybrid puts the dark lord's faithful, bug-eating servant, Renfield (Nicholas Hoult), in the spotlight this time around to make a loose-fitting legacy sequel to Tod Browning's original 1931 masterpiece starring Bela Lugosi and Dwight Frye. The characters of Dracula and Renfield are embedded in our pop culture lexicon and they've both appeared in countless versions of Bram Stoker's classic tale over the last century.
- 4/14/2023
- by Drew Tinnin
- Slash Film
This article contains spoilers for "Renfield." The Marvel Cinematic Universe has made post-credits scenes commonplace these days, with nearly every genre of cinema feeling free to utilize the space during the end credit roll to toss in additional material. That space used to be the near-exclusive domain of the comedy movie. Beginning somewhere around the 1980s, some comedies inserted scenes both during and after the credits (as in 1986's "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"), some included blooper reels (as in 1980's "Smokey and the Bandit II"), while others hid jokes inside the credits themselves (as in 1984's "Top Secret!").
While the mid- and post-credits format is still relatively young enough that it can be experimented with, that doesn't quite explain what exactly is going on with the end credits for "Renfield." A comedy-horror-action movie, "Renfield" is exactly the type of film to put little jokes and bits into the end credits,...
While the mid- and post-credits format is still relatively young enough that it can be experimented with, that doesn't quite explain what exactly is going on with the end credits for "Renfield." A comedy-horror-action movie, "Renfield" is exactly the type of film to put little jokes and bits into the end credits,...
- 4/14/2023
- by Bill Bria
- Slash Film
In “Renfield,” the title character, played by Nicholas Hoult, is desperate to end his centuries’ long codependent relationship with his master, the legendary vampire Count Dracula (Nicolas Cage). Director Chris McKay and writers Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ridley knew they needed to quickly establish the long history of Renfield and Dracula from the outset, and their method to do so led to one of the most delightfully entertaining and technically impressive openings in horror movie history — and they reached back into horror movie history to achieve it.
The prologue that begins “Renfield” takes us through the film’s core relationship by placing the actors in scenes from Tod Browning’s 1931 “Dracula,” the first of the classic Universal monster movies that inspired and influenced McKay.
The montage of classic moments in which Cage and Hoult take the place of Bela Lugosi and Dwight Frye is both an affectionate tribute and an effective means of exposition,...
The prologue that begins “Renfield” takes us through the film’s core relationship by placing the actors in scenes from Tod Browning’s 1931 “Dracula,” the first of the classic Universal monster movies that inspired and influenced McKay.
The montage of classic moments in which Cage and Hoult take the place of Bela Lugosi and Dwight Frye is both an affectionate tribute and an effective means of exposition,...
- 4/14/2023
- by Jim Hemphill
- Indiewire
(from left) Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) and Dracula (Nicolas Cage) in Renfield, directed by Chris McKay. Courtesy of Universal
The horror comedy Renfield gives the Dracula story gets a modern twist by re-imagining the vampire’s servant Renfield, played by Nicholas Hoult, as in a co-dependent relationship with his demanding boss/ master Dracula, played with scenery-chewing glee and comic menace by Nicolas Cage. A big part of the real fun of this very bloody horror comedy is in it fabulous recreations of Tod Browning’s classic 1931 Dracula with Bela Lugosi. Hoult does an impressive Dwight Frye as Renfield impression, including that crazy laugh, in these sequences (and occasionally throughout the movie). Nicolas Cage mimics the elegant Bela Lugosi in the recreations of Tod Browning’s classic but otherwise Cage’s Dracula is his own mix of monsters, drawing on more on Christopher Lee and others than Lugosi.
Actually, a lot of...
The horror comedy Renfield gives the Dracula story gets a modern twist by re-imagining the vampire’s servant Renfield, played by Nicholas Hoult, as in a co-dependent relationship with his demanding boss/ master Dracula, played with scenery-chewing glee and comic menace by Nicolas Cage. A big part of the real fun of this very bloody horror comedy is in it fabulous recreations of Tod Browning’s classic 1931 Dracula with Bela Lugosi. Hoult does an impressive Dwight Frye as Renfield impression, including that crazy laugh, in these sequences (and occasionally throughout the movie). Nicolas Cage mimics the elegant Bela Lugosi in the recreations of Tod Browning’s classic but otherwise Cage’s Dracula is his own mix of monsters, drawing on more on Christopher Lee and others than Lugosi.
Actually, a lot of...
- 4/14/2023
- by Cate Marquis
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
This article contains massive spoilers for "Renfield."Count Dracula is a character whose attributes vary over the decades of different adaptations on stage, page, and screen. Some versions of Dracula show him using fangs to drain his victims of blood while others do not. The Count may or may not be able to transform himself into various animals (ranging from a bat to a wolf), he may or may not possess extraordinary strength, he may or may not have a peculiar aversion to garlic, and so on.
Yet although only some versions of Dracula find him utilizing a faithful servant (aka a Familiar), one of the vampire's powers that has never left him is that of bringing ordinary humans under his thrall. Sometimes this power is akin to a combination of mentalism and charm, and sometimes it's full-on supernaturally-powered hypnosis, but Dracula is always able to bring those he wishes...
Yet although only some versions of Dracula find him utilizing a faithful servant (aka a Familiar), one of the vampire's powers that has never left him is that of bringing ordinary humans under his thrall. Sometimes this power is akin to a combination of mentalism and charm, and sometimes it's full-on supernaturally-powered hypnosis, but Dracula is always able to bring those he wishes...
- 4/13/2023
- by Bill Bria
- Slash Film
Bram Stoker's 1897 novel "Dracula" is told in epistolary form, and begins with the character of Jonathan Harker trekking into the Carpathian Mountains to close a real estate deal with a mysterious, elusive Eastern European count. The Count, a small smiling bald man with a mustache, is none other than Dracula, an ancient vampire that feeds on human blood and is in league with Satan. Dracula signs the paperwork, locks Jonathan in his dilapidated castle with a trio of succubi, and takes a ship to England. Jonathan will eventually escape to Budapest, but Dracula is still at large, ready to infiltrate England.
Later in the novel, it will be revealed that Dracula has been psychically convening with a local mental patient named Renfield, currently locked up in a British asylum. Dracula will use Renfield to infiltrate homes and drink his victims' blood. Renfield's role in Stoker's novel is relatively small,...
Later in the novel, it will be revealed that Dracula has been psychically convening with a local mental patient named Renfield, currently locked up in a British asylum. Dracula will use Renfield to infiltrate homes and drink his victims' blood. Renfield's role in Stoker's novel is relatively small,...
- 4/13/2023
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
Nicolas Cage has never been better than he is in the pitch-black horror-comedy Vampire’s Kiss (1988), playing the role of a Manhattan yuppie convinced he’s been turned into an immortal bloodsucker. Cage acts in the film with feral sincerity, burrowing deep enough into the madness to find some childlike desire to be seen and loved. He also found the most unthinkable ways of delivering straightforward lines. “Am I getting through to you, Alva?”; “I never misfiled anything! Not once. Not one time!”. They’re inconsequential on paper, but by the sheer, weird force of how he said them, they’ve been immortalised in meme form.
Cage was born to play a vampire. Renfield, then, feels like the long-withheld fulfilment of a promise – the actor finally gets to play the biggest vampire of them all, Dracula. His performance is faultless. There’s an elegance in the Old World elongation of his...
Cage was born to play a vampire. Renfield, then, feels like the long-withheld fulfilment of a promise – the actor finally gets to play the biggest vampire of them all, Dracula. His performance is faultless. There’s an elegance in the Old World elongation of his...
- 4/13/2023
- by Clarisse Loughrey
- The Independent - Film
My first proper introduction to Dracula was the 1931 Tod Browning film starring Bela Lugosi. Released the same year as James Whale’s equally seminal Frankenstein, Lugosi’s Transylvanian count would shape the pop culture image of vampires in the century to come. Even so, according to conventional wisdom the movie aged far worse than ol’ flattop. And to be sure, Browning’s direction is largely static, the script stagey (with it being based on a play instead of the Bram Stoker novel), and all the best scenes occur inside of the first 20 minutes. But Lugosi? He remains forever, preternaturally magnetic.
Much of this common critique is true, but there is one other virtue to this Universal chiller that’s gone largely overlooked: R.M. Renfield. Created for the screen by character actor Dwight Frye, this previously minor subplot in Stoker’s book became the veritable protagonist—a poor, dim schmuck...
Much of this common critique is true, but there is one other virtue to this Universal chiller that’s gone largely overlooked: R.M. Renfield. Created for the screen by character actor Dwight Frye, this previously minor subplot in Stoker’s book became the veritable protagonist—a poor, dim schmuck...
- 4/13/2023
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
There have been so many variations and film versions of Bram Stoker’s classic Dracula, from 1926’s Nosferatu to Tod Browning’s 1931 Dracula to Francis Coppola’s well-regarded take with Gary Oldman to even comedic satires like Love at First Bite with George Hamilton taking on the role. Now in Universal’s latest effort to rescue its horror classics and make them new again, we have the perfectly cast Nicolas Cage as the Prince of Darkness. Even he has done an offshoot before, in 1988’s Vampire’s Kiss. However this time around the film is not centered on Dracula himself, but rather his beleaguered servant, henchman, whatever you choose to call him, Renfield, and it is another Nicholas, as in Hoult, who has the title role this time in Renfield. Cage’s part, though meaty, is actually supporting as the emphasis turns to the long-suffering assistant who was tasked with bringing...
- 4/12/2023
- by Pete Hammond
- Deadline Film + TV
Historically, the character of Renfield is known for doting on Dracula. So it's only fitting that "Renfield," the new film by Chris McKay starring Nicholas Hoult as the titular servant and Nicolas Cage as the world's preeminent vampire, loves all things "Dracula."
Dracula is one of the most consistently popular fictional characters, turning up in numerous books, films, TV shows, and other media since his debut in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel. While "Renfield," being a Universal Picture, is most reverent toward the original cycle of Universal Horror films (of which Tod Browning's 1931 "Dracula" is often considered the start), there is obviously a wealth of other Draculas that followed.
"Renfield" is not only well aware of these progenitors but McKay, Hoult, and Cage were eager to pay homage to as many of them as possible within their movie. These tributes run the gamut from acting as creative inspiration for certain...
Dracula is one of the most consistently popular fictional characters, turning up in numerous books, films, TV shows, and other media since his debut in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel. While "Renfield," being a Universal Picture, is most reverent toward the original cycle of Universal Horror films (of which Tod Browning's 1931 "Dracula" is often considered the start), there is obviously a wealth of other Draculas that followed.
"Renfield" is not only well aware of these progenitors but McKay, Hoult, and Cage were eager to pay homage to as many of them as possible within their movie. These tributes run the gamut from acting as creative inspiration for certain...
- 4/11/2023
- by Bill Bria
- Slash Film
It seemed great on paper. Nicolas Cage as Dracula? It’s a role he was born to play; it’s a wonder it hasn’t happened before now (sorry, Vampire’s Kiss doesn’t count).
Renfield, Dracula’s long-suffering servant — or in vampire parlance, “familiar” — plagued by co-dependency issues and seeking help in a support group? Sounds hilarious. An original story by Robert Kirkman, creator of The Walking Dead? I’m there.
So why does Renfield downplay those promising aspects and turn out to be such a bloody mess?
The film, stemming from Universal’s understandable continuing attempts to capitalize on its classic monsters IP, certainly starts out promisingly. Renfield, played by Nicholas Hoult, provides background information about his relationship with the vampire in his life, illustrating his narration with nothing less than scenes from the 1931 classic Tod Browning film Dracula. Cage and Hoult are digitally inserted into the footage, replacing...
Renfield, Dracula’s long-suffering servant — or in vampire parlance, “familiar” — plagued by co-dependency issues and seeking help in a support group? Sounds hilarious. An original story by Robert Kirkman, creator of The Walking Dead? I’m there.
So why does Renfield downplay those promising aspects and turn out to be such a bloody mess?
The film, stemming from Universal’s understandable continuing attempts to capitalize on its classic monsters IP, certainly starts out promisingly. Renfield, played by Nicholas Hoult, provides background information about his relationship with the vampire in his life, illustrating his narration with nothing less than scenes from the 1931 classic Tod Browning film Dracula. Cage and Hoult are digitally inserted into the footage, replacing...
- 4/11/2023
- by Frank Scheck
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
In one of the many jacked-up, bodies-leaping-and-flying, vampire-meets-action-film sequences that punctuate “Renfield,” Dracula (Nicolas Cage), jutting into the movie well before we expect him to, does all the throat-ripping damage he can in a montage that culminates in drapes being thrown open, the sunlight flooding in, and the vampire, in his red bathrobe, bursting into flame. It looks like the climax of many a vampire film, and it leaves Dracula a charred husk. But has he been killed? No way! As Renfield (Nicholas Hoult), Dracula’s servant and disciple through the ages, explains to us in voice-over, when something like this happens it takes a great deal of work to return Dracula to his previous state. Renfield must gather up many new victims for his master to feed upon. But with enough blood and enough time, Dracula can claw his way back to his old robust undead form.
A little later,...
A little later,...
- 4/11/2023
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
If you've been following us this weekend on Daily Dead's Instagram and Twitter accounts, you'll know that we've had an incredible time at this year's Overlook Film Festival, which was packed with features, shorts, immersive experiences, and special events! After announcing that this year's Overlook had a record-breaking year in sold-out screenings, audience attendance, and filmmaker guests, the festival revealed their juried and audience winners for features and short films, and trust me when I say that you should keep all of these films on your radar!
"April 6, 2023 | New Orleans, LA – The Overlook Film Festival, the seventh annual celebration of all things horror, announced today the winners of the 2023 juried competition along with the Audience Award recipients.
The Best Short Film honor was awarded to Violet Butterfield: Makeup Artist for the Dead by Brooke H. Cellars. Fidel Ruiz-Healy and Tyler Walker’s Dead Enders received an honorable mention in the category.
"April 6, 2023 | New Orleans, LA – The Overlook Film Festival, the seventh annual celebration of all things horror, announced today the winners of the 2023 juried competition along with the Audience Award recipients.
The Best Short Film honor was awarded to Violet Butterfield: Makeup Artist for the Dead by Brooke H. Cellars. Fidel Ruiz-Healy and Tyler Walker’s Dead Enders received an honorable mention in the category.
- 4/6/2023
- by Jonathan James
- DailyDead
There is a great deal of controversy surrounding the creation of Batman. For many years, sole creative credit for the character was given to artist Bob Kane, who often spoke eloquently about his character. It wasn't until years later that a co-creator, Bill Finger, entered the conversation. Kane and Finger's relationship with Batman and each other is detailed in a Hulu documentary film called "Batman and Bill," and a 2012 book called "Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman." It seems that Finger had a lot more to do with how audiences know Batman than Kane ever did, and only ever operated as a ghostwriter for DC Comics. Finger died in poverty in 1974. It wouldn't be until the 1980s that Kane would admit, only passingly, that Finger contributed as much as he did to the character. Eventually, Finger would be given posthumous credit. Kane himself passed in 1998 as a celebrated millionaire.
- 4/2/2023
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.
Museum of the Moving Image
Tokyo Story plays on 35mm this Friday and Sunday.
Film Forum
Bob Fosse’s Sweet Charity plays in a 4K restoration; Ken Loach’s The Spirit of ’45 and The Conformist continue their runs; a Jeanne Moreau retrospective highlights her three, rarely screened directing efforts as well as her onscreen work; Panahi’s The White Balloon plays on 35mm this Sunday.
Anthology Film Archives
Films by Luis Buñuel screen through the weekend in Essential Cinema.
Film at Lincoln Center
A retrospective of Tod Browning’s dark world brings the likes of Freaks and Dracula, while the newly restored Drylongso continues screening. (Read our interview with director Cauleen Smith here.)
IFC Center
Before Sunrise screens, while Fight Club, Akira, Jaws, Barb Wire, and Poison Ivy have late showings.
Roxy Cinema
Synecdoche, New York and Paul Williams...
Museum of the Moving Image
Tokyo Story plays on 35mm this Friday and Sunday.
Film Forum
Bob Fosse’s Sweet Charity plays in a 4K restoration; Ken Loach’s The Spirit of ’45 and The Conformist continue their runs; a Jeanne Moreau retrospective highlights her three, rarely screened directing efforts as well as her onscreen work; Panahi’s The White Balloon plays on 35mm this Sunday.
Anthology Film Archives
Films by Luis Buñuel screen through the weekend in Essential Cinema.
Film at Lincoln Center
A retrospective of Tod Browning’s dark world brings the likes of Freaks and Dracula, while the newly restored Drylongso continues screening. (Read our interview with director Cauleen Smith here.)
IFC Center
Before Sunrise screens, while Fight Club, Akira, Jaws, Barb Wire, and Poison Ivy have late showings.
Roxy Cinema
Synecdoche, New York and Paul Williams...
- 3/24/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.
Film at Lincoln Center
A retrospective of Tod Browning’s dark world brings the likes of Freaks and Dracula, while the newly restored Drylongso starts screening. (Read our interview with director Cauleen Smith here.)
IFC Center
The Dardenne brothers are subject of a career-spanning retrospective, with L’Enfant, The Kid with a Bike, and Lorna’s Silence showing on 35mm; Fight Club, Akira, Jaws, Times Square, and Poison Ivy have late screenings.
Film Forum
Ken Loach’s The Spirit of ’45 begins a run; a Jeanne Moreau retrospective highlights her three, rarely screened directing efforts; Lou Ye’s Suzhou River continues showing in a 4K restoration, while The Conformist returns; Selena plays this Sunday.
Roxy Cinema
Dressed to Kill, Chabrol’s The Champagne Murders, Minnie and Moskowitz, Belly, and Synecdoche, New York have 35mm showings.
Museum of the Moving Image
With First Look underway,...
Film at Lincoln Center
A retrospective of Tod Browning’s dark world brings the likes of Freaks and Dracula, while the newly restored Drylongso starts screening. (Read our interview with director Cauleen Smith here.)
IFC Center
The Dardenne brothers are subject of a career-spanning retrospective, with L’Enfant, The Kid with a Bike, and Lorna’s Silence showing on 35mm; Fight Club, Akira, Jaws, Times Square, and Poison Ivy have late screenings.
Film Forum
Ken Loach’s The Spirit of ’45 begins a run; a Jeanne Moreau retrospective highlights her three, rarely screened directing efforts; Lou Ye’s Suzhou River continues showing in a 4K restoration, while The Conformist returns; Selena plays this Sunday.
Roxy Cinema
Dressed to Kill, Chabrol’s The Champagne Murders, Minnie and Moskowitz, Belly, and Synecdoche, New York have 35mm showings.
Museum of the Moving Image
With First Look underway,...
- 3/17/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
West of Zanzibar (1928) shows in Unspeakable: The Films of Tod Browning, running March 17 - 26, 2023, at Film at Lincoln Center in New York.Untitled (Fay Wray with Masks) (ca. 1928).He referred to them not as photographs but as pictures, akin to John Ford’s self-description as a “picture-maker.” This was not by accident or due to eccentricity, for there was a war happening among photographers. One party, represented best by Ansel Adams’s Group f/64, advocated a “pure” photography in which sharp focus and an eye for “realism” aided the photographer’s holy scientific task of capturing the immense object of reality. The other less-centralized party, sometimes called Pictorialists, chose to depict reality by representation and exaggeration. For William Mortensen, who lauded and exemplified the Pictorialist vision when it was most unfashionable, the camera was simply another artistic tool to be revered and used alongside graphite or clay. What mattered was...
- 3/17/2023
- MUBI
Credited as a pioneering director who helped create the horror film genre, Tod Browning‘s influence can be seen in the work of David Lynch, John Waters, Guillermo del Toro, and David Cronenberg, and Film at Lincoln Center pays tribute to Browning this month.
Film at Lincoln Center has announced Unspeakable: The Films of Tod Browning, a retrospective of the pioneering filmmaker’s career consisting of 17 films presented almost entirely on 35mm, running from March 17 through 26.
Tod Browning (1880–1962) ranks among the most original and enigmatic filmmakers of his time. Born Charles Albert Browning, Jr., son of a middle-class family, he ran away from his Kentucky home at age 16 to join the circus, where he took jobs as a barker, a contortionist, a clown, and a somnambulist buried alive in a box with its own ventilation system. Following a stint in vaudeville and adopting the moniker Tod (German for “death”), Browning...
Film at Lincoln Center has announced Unspeakable: The Films of Tod Browning, a retrospective of the pioneering filmmaker’s career consisting of 17 films presented almost entirely on 35mm, running from March 17 through 26.
Tod Browning (1880–1962) ranks among the most original and enigmatic filmmakers of his time. Born Charles Albert Browning, Jr., son of a middle-class family, he ran away from his Kentucky home at age 16 to join the circus, where he took jobs as a barker, a contortionist, a clown, and a somnambulist buried alive in a box with its own ventilation system. Following a stint in vaudeville and adopting the moniker Tod (German for “death”), Browning...
- 3/6/2023
- by John Squires
- bloody-disgusting.com
We are only a matter of weeks into 2023, but a strong contender for the title of “scariest movie” in some folks’ minds has already emerged in Skinamarink. The idea of the “scariest movie ever,” i.e. a horror film that generates word-of-mouth buzz, might seem like a modern concept but it actually goes back nearly a century. One of the first examples can be traced back to 1932 and the tastefully titled Freaks, a movie centered around a beautiful trapeze artist who schemes to steal a side-show performer’s inheritance only to be thwarted by his deformed cohorts.
Featuring real life circus performers, the movie was drastically recut by MGM after test screenings in which several terrified audience members “got up and ran out.” Today, those kinds of reports would be worth their weight in gold, but back then they led to the 90-minute running time being slashed to just 64, with...
Featuring real life circus performers, the movie was drastically recut by MGM after test screenings in which several terrified audience members “got up and ran out.” Today, those kinds of reports would be worth their weight in gold, but back then they led to the 90-minute running time being slashed to just 64, with...
- 2/20/2023
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.
Museum of Modern Art
Always a highlight of the repertory year, To Save and Project presents the best in restored cinema, this weekend including Luis Buñuel and Tod Browning; a Guillermo del Toro retrospective brings 35mm prints of his features and inspirations.
Museum of the Moving Image
A series on awards-snubbed films begins with Chaplin, Ray, and Hawks; the director’s cut of Donnie Darko plays on Friday.
Film Forum
A Preston Sturges retrospective has begun, while The Conformist screens in a new 4K restoration; The Sin of Harold Diddlebock plays this Sunday on 35mm.
Japan Society
Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama screens in a 4K restoration on Friday night.
Roxy Cinema
Lost Highway plays on 35mm Friday and Saturday; “City Dudes” returns Saturday night; Peggy Ahwesh and Keith Sanborn’s The Deadman screens on Sunday.
Metrograph
A series...
Museum of Modern Art
Always a highlight of the repertory year, To Save and Project presents the best in restored cinema, this weekend including Luis Buñuel and Tod Browning; a Guillermo del Toro retrospective brings 35mm prints of his features and inspirations.
Museum of the Moving Image
A series on awards-snubbed films begins with Chaplin, Ray, and Hawks; the director’s cut of Donnie Darko plays on Friday.
Film Forum
A Preston Sturges retrospective has begun, while The Conformist screens in a new 4K restoration; The Sin of Harold Diddlebock plays this Sunday on 35mm.
Japan Society
Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama screens in a 4K restoration on Friday night.
Roxy Cinema
Lost Highway plays on 35mm Friday and Saturday; “City Dudes” returns Saturday night; Peggy Ahwesh and Keith Sanborn’s The Deadman screens on Sunday.
Metrograph
A series...
- 1/20/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
The silent horror film London After Midnight, which starred the legendary Lon Chaney (father of the also legendary Wolf Man star Lon Chaney Jr.) did very well when it was released in 1927, earning over a million dollars at the box office on a budget of 151,666.14. But that didn’t help the film when it came time for it to be preserved. Every known existing print of London After Midnight was destroyed, with the last copy going up in the flames in the 1965 MGM vault fire. For almost fifty years, genre fans have been wondering what it would be like to watch London After Midnight. And now film historian Daniel Titley has written an entire book dedicated to movie. Titled London After Midnight: The Lost Film, this book was released on December 28th and has quickly become a bestseller. You can pick up a copy at This Link.
London After Midnight:...
London After Midnight:...
- 1/17/2023
- by Cody Hamman
- JoBlo.com
Of the many macabre quotes attributed to writer-poet and goth luminary Edgar Allan Poe, one of the most implemented in fiction is his insistence that the death of a gorgeous woman is the "most poetical topic in the world." It's the focal point of his celebrated 1841 short story, "The Murders of the Rue Morgue," concerning the procedural investigation into the brutal death of a mother and adult daughter. It's a detective story crafted before such a term existed, and one of its big-screen adaptations featured a completed scene so vicious that the powers-that-be kept it from seeing the light of day, no matter how "poetical."
The year is 1932. Audiences are reeling in the wake of two major horror game-changers; James Whale's "Frankenstein" and Tod Browning's "Dracula" were both fairly faithful adaptations of their respective novels the previous year and (no thanks to the restrictive Hays Code) pushed the...
The year is 1932. Audiences are reeling in the wake of two major horror game-changers; James Whale's "Frankenstein" and Tod Browning's "Dracula" were both fairly faithful adaptations of their respective novels the previous year and (no thanks to the restrictive Hays Code) pushed the...
- 1/15/2023
- by Anya Stanley
- Slash Film
With the new trailer for Chris McKay's action comedy "Renfield" dropping last week, the legend of Dracula is back and possibly bigger than ever. Nicolas Cage, thankfully, is finally getting around to playing the classic vampire and his performance should go down as one of the most memorable portrayals to date. Cage recently told Variety that he took inspiration from "Malignant" and the J-horror staple "Ringu" to come up with some unique movements for his version of Dracula, and went back to study Bela Lugosi's ageless performance as well. In most people's eyes, Lugosi's appearance in Tod Browning's 1931 film remains the most iconic and most romanticized depiction of all time.
Browning's "Dracula" was the first talking picture to feature Bram Stoker's ghoul, allowing audiences to see a much more elegant representation of the character that Lugosi turned out to be tailor-made for. Lugosi was a stately...
Browning's "Dracula" was the first talking picture to feature Bram Stoker's ghoul, allowing audiences to see a much more elegant representation of the character that Lugosi turned out to be tailor-made for. Lugosi was a stately...
- 1/14/2023
- by Drew Tinnin
- Slash Film
In "Dracula," Bram Stoker's epistolary-style gothic horror novel, the titular Count is cold and menacing, devoid of the sensuality associated with vampirism. Despite the novel's depiction of the Count in a wholly unsavory manner, adaptations on the big screen have invariably imbued Dracula with some degree of eroticism. Be it Sir Christopher Lee's feral rendition in Hammer Horror films or Gary Oldman's lovesick re-interpretation in "Bram Stoker's Dracula," Dracula has always had a sensual edge.
However, it was Bela Lugosi's Dracula that helped cement the iconography of the world's most famous vampire as a suave seducer. The 1931 Universal film, "Dracula," saw Lugosi make the role his own by etching the blueprint of a monster who was equally terrifying and mesmerizing. Although "Nosferatu" is now regarded as an influential entry that shaped the vampire genre, this unauthorized adaptation had limited distribution at the time of its release.
However, it was Bela Lugosi's Dracula that helped cement the iconography of the world's most famous vampire as a suave seducer. The 1931 Universal film, "Dracula," saw Lugosi make the role his own by etching the blueprint of a monster who was equally terrifying and mesmerizing. Although "Nosferatu" is now regarded as an influential entry that shaped the vampire genre, this unauthorized adaptation had limited distribution at the time of its release.
- 1/14/2023
- by Debopriyaa Dutta
- Slash Film
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