Good Morning, World

Hello, you. Happy Monday. Hope you had a nice weekend. (Also the three days that preceded the weekend when I was off doing NYFF screenings.) I didn't have such a great weekend -- I had a filling fall out on Saturday and spent all weekend with its jagged remains tearing up my tongue. So I'm unexpectedly running to the dentist this morning to get that fixed, thereby delaying my proper return to the site this week. Dunno how long this'll take but I will probably hopefully be back on here at some point today. For now just please enjoy the above video of the ever-adorable Joey Pollari getting dressed for the premiere of Ryan Murphy's new Lizzie Borden series, which dropped onto Netflix over the weekend. Being as busy as I've been I haven't been able to watch it yet -- did you? Is it good or what? Tell me! I'm in pain here and need the distraction!

I Walked With a Black Zombie

One of the best movies that I saw at the Fantasia Fest in Montreal back in July was Maya Annik Bedward's horror documentary Black Zombie, which takes a glancing look at the subject of race via the eating-brains genre -- I wrote up my thoughts right here. And happily y'all didn't have to wait long to see it -- it's out in NYC and LA today! I imagine it will play some other places too, or perhaps hit streaming instead -- if I see that news I will share it. But if you're in either of thoise places go see it this weekend! It is super.

ETA oh also available today -- one of the year's best horror films Mārama just landed on Shudder! I wrote some very brief thoughts on it at this link -- if the phrase "Gothic Maori" doesn't make every nerve-ending of yours tingle and immediately run to Shudder then I cannot comprehend you. This movie is also getting a physical media release thanks to Vinegar Syndrome -- in case you missed that here's the link. Fuck Obsession, this one is so much better. 

Hope in 200 Words or Less

Kind of astonishing that a movie that careens towards three hours is able to keep you hyperventilating on the edge of your seat for quite as long as Na Hong-jin's South Korean blockbuster does, but Hope is a rare breed -- a pile of pedal-to-the-metal monster-mayhem that obliterates any questions or doubts you might have before they can properly form in your head. Is there some extremely dodgy CG? Oh hell yes. Does it never let up long enough to let you know who any of its characters are? Oh double hell yes. I just complained about the same stuff in Adam Wingard's Onslaught a few days ago and yet somehow Hope, at three times the length of that film, is three times the movie even with the same deficits dangling about -- it's just that unlike Onslaught, which revels in showing us things we've seen before Xeroxed to lifelessness, Hope is constantly showing us things we've never seen before. Not this way. It's kind of like the opening scene of Bong Joon-ho's The Host meets Mad Max: Fury Road -- it's a breathless monster of a movie that will blow your hair right back.

Drew Starkey in Our Sights

Per usual I liked last week when I said I'd update my last post before the long weekend with a link to my review of Onslaught -- one I got fully settled into my puddle of laziness there just weren't no shaking it off. But this is a net good for you because now you get to stare at that sexy bonus photo of Drew Starkey while I play catch-up -- win win and winnnn. Click here to read my thoughts on Onslaught, which are... mixed, to put it mildly. I even went to see it a second time to see if my expectations had been to high the first time, to see if I might be able to enjoy it more on its own terms as a dumb thing, and nope -- it was even less fun on a second watch. (Except for Drew, who I think walks away with the movie -- yes even more than Dan Stevens doing his own weirdo thing.) Shrug. A shame.

Dan Stevens Gives Labor (Day)

Remember how everybody yelled "David Caruso! David Caruso!" at Dan Stevens when he ditched Downton Abbey after its third season to try and become a movie star? Well joke's on those psychopaths  -- I mean who yells "David Caruso!" out like that? Positively unseemly! -- because little Danny-boy's aquitted himself quite nicely, ekeing out a surprising little niche among today's most interesting weirdo character actors. I sure didn't see it coming since I hated him on Downton and was happy when Matthew Crawley's car veered off that damn road! Sorry not sorry, Lady Mary. But then he got hot for The Guest and all ill will was forgotten. Yes I am that easy. You know I am that easy. We all know I am that easy! But speaking of The Guest, Dan has gone and reunited with that film's director Adam Wingard for this weekend's fresh release Onslaught -- and I am reviewing it! But nnnnnnot jusssst yet. Consider this post a place-holder until the review goes up at Pajiba in the next couple days. I'm seeing the movie a second time tonight -- with Mr. Stevens in attendance, even! -- so this post will be updated once my review is live. For now I'm just saying my (semi) goodbye for the long weekend -- we'll be closed up til Tuesday. Everybody have a good Labor Day weekend -- make it even better by donating to (or joining!) a local union. Fuck the billionaire pigs! Bye!

Thursday's Ways Not To Die

Scanner Cop (1994)

Kind of can't believe it took me until this week to watch one of the Scanner Cop movies, given I'm such a big fan of the original Scanners film (aka anything David Cronenberg ever touched) -- I suppose its status as a property only nominally related  to his classic 1981 film (it's set in the same world but nobody involved with the original had shit to do with this) was enough for me to shrug it off and you know what? I wasn't wrong to -- it's fairly awful. But it does have a few moments so ridiculous in their badness...

LOL I forgot the drug in Scanners is called "Ephemerol" David Cronenberg really is the greatest to ever do it

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) September 1, 2026 at 8:42 PM

... that it's not an entirely fetid experience, and the one up top really made me howl. The story is that ordinary people are being brainwashed to kill cops, and in this moment a cop's wife for some reasons is made to envision a gigantic devil cockroach when her husband playfully shows off his badge. I don't know but the devil cockroach got me. Also her chopping of a head of lettuce made me think about the head of lettuce scene in 1988's Slugs and anything that makes me think of Slugs is worthwhile. Viva Slugs! But not so viva Scanner Cop. If any of you have seen any of the other sequels tell me if there's any reason to watch anything else. Otherwise I'm probably bailing while I'm, uhh, behind. Until I get the urge to watch a bad movie again anyway. So... tomorrow? Probably tomorrow. Hit the jump for links to all of the previous Ways Not To Die....

Superhero, Gay Monk, What Can't Kit Do

Everything really is coming up Kit Connor -- having just been cast to play Cyclops in Marvel's new X-Men line-up, the Heartstopper star has got two projects clamoring for my attention in particular. (And that's besides Andrew Haigh's A Long Winter, which I'll be seeing at NYFF.) First up today comes news that he will star as the real life 1980s murderer and tabloid sensation Robert Chambers in PRƎPPY from (drumroll please) Zola director Janicza Bravo. As massive Zola-heads we're already buying our tickets -- Diana Silvers from Ma and Booksmart will be playing Chambers' victim Jennifer Levin; if you google what Chambers looked like you'll see Kit's casting is extraordinarily generous but then what's new. 

The second project of Kit's that I cannot believe I haven't given any updates on since we first heard rumors of it in May, since there have indeed been updates -- the movie is called Rapture and it's about mediveal monks battling the undead, killed by a plague that makes their corpses rise, and it is going to shoot this fall. And as mentioned before it will also star Kit's Warfare pally Will Poulter as well as MNPP fave Manu Rios. Oh and it's gay -- two of the monks, who grew up together, share a "deep, passionate relationship." I'm assuming that the monk-boys in love will be Connor & Rios since they're the same age while Poulter is a decade older, but if they all want to have a threesome while the zombies bang on the door I wouldn't complain. Quite the opposite, actually!

Space Fassys

Imagine my delight when I went looking for a recent photo of Michael Fassbender and stumbled upon this gem of him posing with a fan on vacation a couple of weeks ago! He's all but quit doing press over the past several years -- if only we'd understood how good we had it back during his slutty photoshoot heyday. (Actually I did -- I understood how good we were having it then.) Anyway that made me happy to see -- are any of you watching The Agency? I have been and think the show really came into its own in its second season -- I really kind of love it now. With a cast that also includes Jeffrey Wright, Richard Gere, Katherine Waterston, John Magaro, and Harriet Sansom Harris, well how the hell could I not? Anyway y'all should give a shot if you haven't, with the understanding that its second season is when it really picks up. 

Oh my god I had totally forgotten about this Michael Fassbender / Charlize Theron photoshoot circa Prometheus. GOOD LORDDDDDD THE 🔥🔥🔥 (more here www.mynewplaidpants.com/2012/07/they...

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) August 26, 2026 at 5:42 PM

But that's not why we're here! We're here because Sir Ridley Scott has a new movie coming out this week (The Dog Stars with that other whippet-shaped-man Jacob Elordi) so he's doing interviews and in one he just said that he's working on a third Alien prequel film to round out his Prometheus / Alien: Covenant trilogy, which would follow the further wackadoo exploits of Fassbender's David character. Even though I think both of these movies are hot messes to various degrees (ones I can nevertheless watch over and over again) I'm all for it -- because hopefully Sir Scott makes the Michael Fassbender Clone Throuple of our dreams a reality this go! Third movie -- three gay Fassys! That's the rule!

Breeder Me

Are any of you watching the show The Shards, Ryan Murphy's adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' book? I am watching it but it's sort of a hate-watch -- I think all of the young actors who make up the main cast are fairly awful. (How is that nepo-baby supposed to be Richard Gere's son??? I refuse to believe they are even related.) That said the older actors playing the adults on the show are pretty much the exact opposite, a delight to watch to a tee; I would much rather be watching a show about them. And when Glee actor Dot-Marie Jones showed up in an episode that I watched this past weekend playing a porn director that went triply true. So much fun. And seeing her also reminded me that I saw and loved a horror movie called Breeder earlier this year at Tribeca that she's the villain in -- and well whaddya know the trailer for Breeder just dropped today and who do you think...

... was quoted? Me, that's who! And that my quote drops over DMJ getting her face absolutely tongue-wrecked by one of her adorable doggies is very very funny to me because that's one of my boyfriend's triggers -- he finds it absolutely repulsive when people let dogs lick their face haha. That gif's for you, sweetums! Anyway Breeder is extremely fucked up and has far more disgusting things in store for y'all than some face-licking, but you can find out all about that when it lands in theaters on October 16th. Here's the full trailer:

Thankfully, It Does

If only the new horror movie It Ends was a great as that poster is! Thing is I think that poster is an unofficial one made by somebody online -- the film's official poster is fine not special (like the movie). But the poster above? Killer. Anyway we've got a big case of the second watch blues with It Ends -- I originally saw this movie last year at 2025's "Scary Movies" series here in NYC and it would've been better for the movie had I reviewed it out of there since I remembered liking it. But then I re-watched it for this past weekend's actual release to theaters and... I did not like it nearly so much. Click here to read my review at Pajiba if you care to. I haven't had my opinion on a movie switch this much between a first and second viewing since Cronenberg's Cosmopolis. And that was in the opposite direction -- I went from hating it to loving Cosmopolis. Although I can't say I "hate" It Ends -- I look forward to seeing what writer-director Alex Ullom does for a second film. This one just very much suffers from First-Film-itis. 

Thursday's Ways Not To Die

Soulm8te (2026)

I considered throwing the disgusting half of this scene behind a page-jump but you know what? The site's been too yuck-free lately -- we needed to bring some yuck. I miss the yuck. So there's the yuck! Enjoy! Anyway -- speaking of not yuck -- the minute I learned that my Daredevil crush Arty Froushan was in the M3GAN spin-off Soulm8te I knew I would be watching Soulm8te...

Oh I guess the M3GAN spin-off SOULM8TE got dumped onto streaming amzn.to/4fU7kcz so obviously it's high-quality! That said I will probably still watch it because hey look Arty Froushan

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) August 3, 2026 at 1:11 PM

... and you know what? I'm glad I did. As far as 2026 movies reveling in the "crazy girlfriend" trope I'd rather watch this trash than I would the critical and box-office hit Obsession -- at least Soulm8te doesn't pretend to be something it's not. Still, as much fun as I had with this incredibly dumb movie, I do feel a responsibility to point out that the "that bitch" genre of bro-horror is tip-toeing itself back onto the scene and we should all do our part to shoo that shit back into the Aughts. Shoo, misogyny, shoo! Okay now that we have solved sexism, hit the jump for links to the previous ways not to die...