Hugh Grant ditches the orange face paint and green hair in favour of a large country house in the first trailer for A24’s psychological horror feature, Heretic.
Hailing from writer-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, Grant stars opposite Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East. In Heretic, two Mormon missionaries are invited into the house of Mr. Reed (Grant) after knocking on his door. However, they soon realise that the sinister homeowner has ulterior motives and wants them for a series of psychological experiments.
“I won’t keep you if you wish to leave,” Grant tells his guests, leading them to two closed doors on which he writes “belief” and “disbelief”. “But I want you to choose which door to go through, based on your faith.” He goes on to say: “It will make your hearts beat faster. It may even make you want to die.”
Beck and Woods, who first rose to prominence for writing the 2018 horror hit A Quiet Place – the prequel for which releases in cinemas this week – are also known for writing the Stephen King adaptation The Boogeymanand directing the sci-fi action film 65, starring Adam Driver.
Watch the trailer for Heretic below. The film releases in cinemas from November 15th.
Our favourite free-to-air horror channel, NYX UK, has a great line-up of new and classic films for July. These include Seed (2007, screening on July 16th) from the notorious director Uwe Boll, to humorous shocker Discopath (2013, July 5th), Reeker 2 (2008, July 11th), Mid-Century (2022, July 12th), Black Circle (2018, July 18th), and The House at the End of Time (2013, July 26th).
Among the classics highlighted in July include the channel premiere of the superb giallo Amuck (1972, July 9th). There’s also a celebration of the birthdays of a pair of Italian legends, Sergio Martino on July 19th and Mario Bava on July 31st. For Sergio, NYX UK is showing the gloriously gory Torso (1973) and the brilliant, Poe-influenced (and contender of the greatest title of all time) Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have a Key (1972). The late Mario Bava’s tribute boasts the forerunner to the slasher movie, A Bay of Blood (1971) and The House of Exorcism (1975), which stars Telly Savalas and Elke Sommer.
Check out the channel’s weekly schedule, which also includes classic anthology TV shows such as Tales of the Unexpected and One Step Beyond and the bizarre kid’s show The Hilarious House of Frankenstein, as well as Elvira’s Movie Macabre, over at https://www.nyxtv.co.uk/tv-guide.
The first teaser trailer for Robert Eggers’Nosferatu has finally released, giving fans their first glimpse at the auteur filmmaker’s dark new take on Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
The horror film stars Bill Skarsgard as Count Orlok (aka the Nosferatu, or Dracula), along with Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Simon McBurney, and Willem Dafoe and Ralph Ineson. As writes Focus Features, Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu is a gothic tale of obsession, set in 19th-century Germany, between a haunted young woman (Depp) and the terrifying vampire (Skarsgard) infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake.” The teaser smartly keeps Skarsgard’s version of Nosferatu under wraps for now, but it does let slip some chilling glimpses.
Eggers previously promised that his fourth film – having previously directed The Witch, The Lighthouse, andThe Northman,– would deliver on the scare-factor. “There hasn’t been an old-school gothic movie that’s actually scary in a while. And I think that the majority of audiences will find this one to be the case.”
Following Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), it is the second remake of the 1922 silent film written by Henrik Galeen and directed by F. W. Murnau, which in turn is an unauthorised adaptation of Stoker’s Dracula.
Watch below for the Nosferatu teaser trailer. The film will release in cinemas from December 25th in the US, and January 1st, 2025 in the UK.
Fancy a local comic con that’s free and accessible plus features a classic Doctor? Well, head over to Bury on June 30th. Following the success of the event in Sale earlier in the month and two previous comic cons in Bury, there’s another free family fun day out happening at various locations across the town: the Fusiliers Museum, Bury Art Gallery, Mill Gate Shopping Centre, and The Rock Shopping Centre.
A host of guests, TV and film props, and many different traders will provide plenty to do for all ages. The top guest is Sylvester McCoy, and he will head up the Doctor Who Zone, which also features actors Kai Owen (Torchwood) and Clem So (who has appeared in several Who episodes as well as a number of James Bond movies and Star Wars films). The Zone will also feature a Tardis, Daleks, and other Who props. There will also be comic book artists and other attractions.
Bury Comic Con takes over the town centre on June 30th. Don’t forget, all attractions are free to access (autographs are paid for, though!).
SOULM8TE is already slated for a January 2nd, 2026 release at Universal. Kate Dolan, who directed the 2021 thriller You Are Not My Mother, is attached to helm the feature, after rewriting the script from an original draft by Rafael Jordan. The story hails from Wan, Ingrid Bisu, and Jordan.
Described as an erotic thriller, SOULM8TE sees a man acquire an A.I. android to cope with the loss of his recently deceased wife. In an attempt to create a truly sentient partner, he inadvertently turns a harmless love robot into a deadly soulmate.
“Fundamentally, I view this film as an exploration of relationships and loneliness,” Dolan said in a statement. “Despite technological advances, there are enduring human truths we cannot escape, and I am looking forward to delving into those depths.”
M3GAN 2.0 will release on June 27th, 2025, with stars Allison Williams and Violet McGraw returning.
Brandy Norwood navigates a difficult mother-in-law in the first trailer for A24’s psychological horror, The Front Room. The feature, which hails from directors Max Eggers and Sam Eggers – the twin younger brothers of Robert Eggers, director of The Witch, The Lighthouse, The Northman,and the much-anticipated upcoming Nosferatu– is set to release in cinemas on September 6th.
The story focuses on an expecting couple whose lives change dramatically after they allow the husband’s (Andrew Burnap) stepmother (Kathryn Hunter) to stay in their home , and supernaturally-tinged chaos ensues. Or, as the official synopsis reads: “Everything goes to hell for newly-pregnant Belinda (Brandy) after her mother-in-law moves in. As the diabolical guest tries to get her claws on the child, Belinda must draw the line somewhere.”
Hunter is best known as a character actress who recently starred in Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbethand in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things. Brandy Norwood is best known for her globally successful music career, but has also done film and television work, including starring in the series Moesha and appearing in the horror sequel film I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.
Sam and Max Eggers both write and direct The Front Room, which is based on the short story of the same name from author Susan Hill.
Watch the darkly funny trailer for The Front Room below:
Warner Bros. Animation and DC Studios are developing an animated series based centred on Jaime Reyes’ Blue Beetle, which would follow on the 2023 feature film that starred Xolo Maridueña as the titular character.
Miguel Puga is serving as showrunner and director on the animated series, with Cristian Martinez writing. The Blue Beetle film’s writer, Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, and director, Angel Manuel Soto, are on board as executive producers, alongside John Ricard and Galen Vaisman. There’s no word yet on whether Maridueña or other members of the film’s cast will reprise their roles in the animated show.
In the DC feature film Blue Beetle, “Jaime Reyes suddenly finds himself in possession of an ancient relic of alien biotechnology called the Scarab. When the Scarab chooses Jaime to be its symbiotic host, he’s bestowed with an incredible suit of armour that’s capable of extraordinary and unpredictable powers, forever changing his destiny as he becomes the superhero Blue Beetle.”
It’s a good thing that this superhero is getting another go-around, considering it looks to have no place in James Gunn and Peter Safran’s reboot of the DC movie universe. As STARBURST’s very own Paul Mount wrote in his review, “fast, funny, colourful, and genuinely exciting, Blue Beetle deserves a better fate than to be left on the DCEU scrap heap. It’s a genuine shame that the world’s first onscreen Latino superhero – a cultural marker that the film bears proudly but without feeling the need to shout about it – seems doomed to crash and burn into the wreckage of DC’s brasher, stupider cinematic mistakes.”
Fingers crossed the project makes it out the gate, and stay tuned for updates on this Blue Beetle animated series as we hear them!
A sequel to the 1980s parody film Spaceballs is in early development at Amazon MGM Studios, with Josh Gad and Mel Brooks (who co-wrote, directed, and produced the original) attached to the project. Gad is expected to star, with Josh Greenbaum directing the comedy from a script jointly written by Gad, Benji Samit and Dan Hernandez. The latter two are writing partners best known for their work on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Pokemon Detective Pikachu,and the upcoming Disney+ special Lego Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy – appropriate that they’d be tapped for this project then, since Spaceballs was conceived as a Star Wars spoof.
Plot details for the sequel have not yet been revealed. Originally released in 1987, Spaceballs starred Bill Pullman, John Candy, Rick Moranis and Daphne Zuniga, as well as Joan Rivers in a voice role as C-3PO in a wig. In Spaceballs, “heroic mercenary Lone Starr (Pullman) and his alien sidekick Barf (Candy) rescue Princess Vespa (Zuniga) of Druidia and her droid, Dot Matrix (Rivers), from being captured by the Spaceballs, led by President Skroob (Brooks), who wants to use Vespa as ransom to obtain Druidia’s air for their own planet. However, the heroes get stranded on a desert moon, where they encounter the wise Yogurt (also Brooks), who teaches Starr about the metaphysical power known as “the Schwartz”. Meanwhile, Spaceball commanders Dark Helmet (Moranis) and Colonel Sandurz (Wyner) lead the search for them but are hindered by their own incompetence.”
Though primarily a parody of George Lucas’ franchise, Spaceballs also takes jabs at other popular films and franchises like Star Trek, Alien, The Wizard of Oz, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Planet of the Apes, and even Transformers.
Josh Gad previously teased his work on the project in a cryptic Instagram post, in which all relevant details were blacked out. “Just handed in a film script that I think may be the funniest and best thing I’ve ever worked on and I am so freaking excited,” Gad captioned.
The world’s most played tabletop roleplaying game, Dungeons & Dragons, has a new edition on its way; it’s now available for pre-order. This 50th-anniversary edition is wholly compatible with the incredibly popular 5th Edition while also promising to do something new.
The history of D&D is full of revisions; the game is constantly being refined and tinkered with, though the 2024 editions promise to clarify and make the game more balanced and accessible. The future of D&D is incremental change rather than radical shifts; time will tell if that truly does become the future of this iconic game.
The new Player’s Handbook (PHB) has some pretty interesting changes. For a start, it no longer assumes that you know how to play the game. The old model was that the PHB was something you picked up as you got into D&D, either through a friend or through one of the many starter sets. This assumption has been abandoned in favour of the brightly illustrated ‘how to play’ chapter. This isn’t new to RPGs, but it is something we’ve never seen in D&D.
The PHB also revises and changes character creation. Character options are much more flexible. The upshot of this means that players are likelier to pick elf, human or dwarf characters because that’s the story they want to tell rather than for a mechanical advantage. Feats (special abilities) have become tied to your characters background, and are designed
Character classes have also been overhauled. Of the twelve character classes you can play, each has four sub-classes, for a total of 48. This does mean that Wizard and Cleric characters only get four subclasses each, and traditionally those types of characters get a whole laundry list of options. Don’t panic. This new edition is completely compatible with the older iteration of the game, so the multi-class Grave Domain / War Magic character you have planned is still totally doable.
Monk and Ranger classes have been overhauled to be more attractive to players (previously, they were the least popular options), and at least sixteen of the subclasses have been radically changed to be more fun and interesting to play.
They’ve brought in the old ‘shopping catalogue’ style of presenting equipment; this was one of the more interesting bits of the older versions of the game, as you could actually see what the difference between a spear and a javelin was. There are more illustrations throughout the three core books than in the previous version. The Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and Monster Manual all promise to be prettier.
Fans of D&D’s fourth edition will be delighted to hear that the Dungeon Master’s Guide also brings back solid advice on how to run and manage a campaign (something the fourth edition did very well.) In addition, it contains a sample campaign, namely Greyhawk, D&D’s very first setting and the default world for the first edition of the game. It will also contain rules on Bastions; basically a way for characters to build a power base in the game world. This feature was part of the game primarily back in the 1970s and ’80s and is an artefact of D&D’s origins as a wargame. This style of gameplay has been missing from official D&D since the ’00s and it’s reintroduction might offer hints as to what is to come. Is a “diplomacy, politics, trade, construction and war” style game of D&D (such as 1995’s Birthright) on its way? Time will tell.
For now, the new books look like guides, even the Monster Manual, which has 500+ monsters, including 75 new ones.
The new Player’s Handbook comes out on September 17th , the Dungeon Master’s Guide on November 11th, and the Monster Manual on Feb 18th, 2025, keeping another tradition of releasing the big book of bad guys till much later. You can pre-order them now.
Terry Matalas, the showrunner who helmed the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard, has been tapped to write a remake of the 1985 cult sci-fi movie Enemy Mine, for 20th Century Studios.
Set in a future where mankind is warring with a reptilian alien species, Enemy Mine starred Dennis Quaid as a human pilot and Louis Gossett Jr. as an alien who crash land on a desolate planet. Both have deep-seated hatred for one another, but are forced to overcome their prejudices to survive. Things are taken up a notch when the human pilot must take care of the alien’s baby when the reptilian is no longer able. The original film was directed by Wolfgang Petersen, and was based on a novella by sci-fi writer Barry B. Longyear, which itself was originally published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine.
No producer or director is currently on board Matalas’ remake. Though best known for his work on Picard, Matalas was also the creator and showrunner behind the 12 Monkeys television series and the showrunner of season four of the rebooted MacGyver series. Which means, not only has he got plenty of practice in the sci-fi sphere, but he’s earned his stripes with remakes and reboots, too.
Stay tuned for more information on the reboot of Enemy Mine as we hear it.
