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New Escapist Column! On the Pre-Packaged Cult Appeal of “Cocaine Bear”…

We’re launching a new column at The Escapist, called Out of Focus. It will publish every Wednesday, and the plan is to use it to look at some film and television that would maybe fall outside the remit of In the Frame, more marginal titles or objects of cult interest. This week, we took a look at the release of Cocaine Bear, which is an obvious attempt to manufacture a cult hit.

On one level, it seems like a fool’s errand to try to build a movie with the express purpose of making a cult hit. After all, cult hits only grow organically, often over years and through home media or television. However, changes to the industry – including the collapse of home media and the decline of linear television – make it very difficult for movies to find that sort of niche. Cocaine Bear feels like a movie designed with that understanding in mind, a film very consciously pitched towards streaming virality as much as theatrical box office.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

New Escapist Column! On M3GAN’s Monstrous Motherhood…

I published a new piece at The Escapist this evening. With the recent release of M3GAN in theatres, it seemed like a good opportunity to delve into the breakout horror success.

Like most stories about artificial intelligence, M3GAN is ultimately a story about parenthood. In particular, it’s a very modern story about parental anxieties, concerning how modern technology has in some ways usurped or replaced the role that parents place in shaping the lives of their children. Central to M3GAN is the idea that the eponymous doll serves as a parental surrogate for its companion, and in doing so makes life easier for parents. However, M3GAN itself is a child without a parent, left to educate and raise itself, with potentially horrifying results. What is M3GAN but a child of the internet?

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

New Escapist Column! On “M3GAN”, “Renfield”, “Cocaine Bear”, “Knock at the Cabin” and the Enduring Appeal of Universal Horror…

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. This week, with the release of M3GAN, Renfield, Cocaine Bear and Knock at the Cabin all in the first four months of the year, it seemed like as good a time as any to consider Universal’s embrace of the horror movie and creature feature.

For the next couple of months, Avatar: The Way of Water is just going to dominate the box office. It will be unchallenged until the release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania in mid-February. However, what’s interesting is that other studios aren’t necessarily hiding from this. In fact, they’re releasing smaller and lower-budget movies in the space, in the hopes that they can quietly earn back relatively impresive box office on a low investment. In particular, Universal is returning to one of the studio’s most reliable models: the low-budget horror movie and creature feature.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

New Escapist Video! “Halloween Ends, Thank Goodness”

I’m thrilled to be launching movie reviews on The Escapist. Over the coming weeks and months, I will be joining a set of contributors in adding these reviews to the channel. For the moment, I’m honoured to contribute a five-minute film review of Halloween Ends, which is in cinemas and on Peacock now.

296. Jaws: The Revenge (Jaws ’87) – Shark Week 2022 (-#27)

Hosted by Andrew Quinn, Darren Mooney and Emma Kiely, and this time with special guest Jason Coyle, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

This week, we’re doing something a bit unusual. To line up with Shark Week, we are covering the Jaws franchise. So today, rounding out the week with Joseph Sergeant’s Jaws: The Revenge.

Following the death of her son Sean in a freak shark attack, Ellen Brody becomes convinced that her family has become a supernatural magnet for sharks. Her surviving son Michael convinces Ellen to travel to the Bahamas, where she meets a mysterious sea plane pilot named Hoagie. As a relationship begins to blossom between Ellen and Hoagie, Ellen discovers that perhaps there are some secrets that can’t be escaped.

At time of recording, it was ranked 27th on the lists of either the worst movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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294. Jaws 2 – Shark Week 2022 (#—)

Hosted by Andrew Quinn, Darren Mooney and Emma Kiely, and this time with special guest Jess Dunne, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

This week, we’re doing something a bit unusual. To line up with Shark Week, we are covering the Jaws franchise. So today, Jeannot Szwarc’s Jaws 2.

It has been several years since a series of shark attack scarred Amity Island, but Chief Brody is still scarred by the experience. As the community prepares to usher in a prosperous new era of investment and development, Brody starts to see signs that a shark is once again stalking the waters off these peaceful shores. Can Brody convince the community that they are in mortal danger or will the monster finish off the seaside town?

At time of recording, it was not ranked on the lists of either the best or the worst movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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164. Cats – This Just In (-#34)

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Phil Bagnall, Jenn Gannon and Luke Dunne, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.

This time, Tom Hooper’s Cats.

Abandoned by her owner in a surreal wasteland of early twentieth century London, the young cat Victoria finds herself drawn towards the neighbourhood’s feline inhabitants on the night of a most special and peculiar celebration.

At time of recording, it was ranked 34th on the list of the worst movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Non-Review Review: The Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)

In many respects, The Creature From the Black Lagoon feels like a brass band funeral for the golden age of the Universal monster movies. The subgenre would continue ticking over for quite some time. Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy would be released the following year, The Creature From the Black Lagoon would spawn two sequels for the two years following, and Universal would try a spate of monster movies up until The Leech Woman in 1960. However, it’s clear that – by 1954 – the golden age of the Universal monster movie was well over.

And I think that part of the reason that The Creature From the Black Lagoon works so well is because it’s almost a mournful eulogy for the genre.

Out of the depths…

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Non-Review Review: Pitch Perfect

This movie was seen as part of Movie Fest, which is as much of a joy this year as it was last year.

Pitch Perfect seems like a recipe for a disaster. It’s a college pseudo-coming-of-age comedy set in the competitive world of acapella, with a women’s group fighting to break “the acapella glass ceiling.” (We’re told – by a commentator described as “a misogynist at heart” – that “woman are about as good at being acapella singers as they are at being doctors.”) However, the film is a joy to watch, a light feel-good film with a wonderful charm and a bright wit about it, brought to life by a fantastic cast working off a wry script. It’s never too heavy, and it never insists upon itself, but it’s engaging and fun in a way that makes it hard to resist.

Anna-phonic sound…

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Snow White & The Huntsman Trailer

Hi there. Just a quick one. The guys at Universal sent over the new Snow White & The Huntsman trailer earlier, and I’ve included it below. It’s certainly a bit darker and grittier than the other Snow White reimagining being released this year, Mirror Mirror. I’m actually looking forward a bit to both films, if only because they have two very distinct visual identities, and I am interested in fairytale reimaginings and deconstructions. I have to admit to quite liking the imagery with Charlize Theron in the bath of milk. While some might argue two Snow White films within the space of a month is over-saturating the market, I suspect make an interesting comparison. What do you guys think? The trailer’s below.