First, let's start with something outta left field and by that I mean the 9th offering in the "Saw" franchise a movie titled "Spiral: From The Book Of Saw" which now boasts a new killer who seems to be targeting police officers. Considering this is a different title featuring no iteration of the word "saw" (the last film was titled "Jigsaw") with the exception of its subtitle we can safely assume no one in Jigsaw's camp is carrying out these murders. The most notable thing about this film, however, is that it stars Samuel L. Jackson in all his motherf*ckin' glory, Darren Lynn Bousman, a "Saw" alumni ("Saw II" & "Saw III") is directing and the oddest of all, Chris Rock is starring, producing and has a story by credit in the film.
Aside from all that and Black comedians getting into horror (we'll get to Jordan Peele in a bit, don't worry) I'm genuinely excited for this film. I'm a huge fan of the "Saw" franchise for the exact same reason everyone is afraid to admit girls in anime are hot, the traps. No, I don't see the films as any profound statement on life or anything of the sort, I love the inventiveness of the traps, "Hello Zepp" and all of its remixes, I love the whole kit and kaboodle, its just mindless, gory fun that takes its self seriously enough to not be completely absurd (although "Saw 3D" was absolute bullsh*t, fight me!). So for this film to come out of nowhere and boast the acting talents of Samuel L. Jackson and Chris Rock (in what I believe to be his first non-comedic role) is a treat, I'm looking to check this one out.
Now that we're back and still on the topic of horror, let's talk about Jordan Peele producing the new "Candyman" film. Here's a throwback if there ever was one! Oh boy, we're going way back to the 90s. "Candyman" was something of an underdog horror icon that primarily stayed within urban circles, not having the same appeal as Jason, Freddy or Michael. While being played effectively by Tony Todd (in pretty much the only role he's known for...aside from the mortician in the "Final Destination" movies) Candyman never quite penetrated the cultural zeitgeist. The film tells the story of an urban legend by saying "Candyman" 5 times in a mirror the eponymous Candyman will come out and kill you (similar to Bloody Mary). The original films were standard 90s fare but this new one by Jordan Peele (who is only producing, mind you) seems to play more like a psychological thriller.
For those of you who don't know (and why wouldn't you, the films came out in the 90s) Candyman was once a talented slave named Daniel who was having sex with his owner's daughter when the owner caught wind of this affair he had Daniel's painting hand cut off, he was then smeared with honey and stung to death by bees and forced to gaze into a mirror at his disfigured body as the crowd chanted "Candyman" at him...(hence his drive to kill when summoned...you're essentially mocking him). Will this be the story of this new Candyman? Well, I can't help but point out the new character in this film (played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is a photographer and painter like Daniel and from what we see in the trailer seems to be morphing into Candyman or at least becoming something of a disciple of his.
What's also notable and something I caught very early on in the trailer is that this iteration of the character seems to be only visible in mirrors, which adds an interesting element to the character. I'm guessing this version will be more interesting than the originals but I wasn't too big on the originals so I don't care. Hopefully, "Candyman" gets his due, Tony Todd returning to the role already makes me happy considering the man is menacing enough and his voice just makes him all the more awesome. We'll see how this one turns out.
BUT...since we're on the topic of slavery horror movies...can we talk about "Antebellum"...am I saying the movie is going to be bad? No. But what I am saying, and I said this before (in another Strange Log not in an honest to God article) that I am tired of racism being the drum Black people have to beat. No matter what industry you're talking about whenever a high profile African American gets interviewed inevitably the interviewer will ask "So tell us about racism in *insert industry here*" and they'll go on to tell some story about how a White co-worker or whatever said something either openly racist (depending on the time period) or something that could be perceived as racist if one were to read too much into it (as a lot of Black people are want to do these days...must to my irritation).
"Amtebellum" is essentially "Sankofa" but a horror movie and if you have no idea what "Sankofa" is don't feel bad, it was a film that dropped in '93 and only me and a few people saw it. From what I can gleam from the trailers this author is transported back in time to slavery days *sigh*. What a great premise but I am tired of racism being the backdrop of every Black person headed project (hence my excitement for "Spiral" no racism there, just good ol' gory fun). And again, I am not saying the movie will suck, I genuinely don't care about it (aside from writing this snippet about it) I'm just pointing out how quickly my eyes rolled once I found out it was about racism.
That being said let's talk about The MCU, more specifically the upcoming TV shows and WOW, I had no clue these were going to be live-action (Disney must have their hooks in a lot of actors to get them to commit to television projects, which are time-consuming, just listen to Keifer Sutherland talk about his experience on "24"). My question is just how long are these series supposed to last. I mean you got big-name actors here committing to television (Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olson, Tom Hiddleston, Paul Bettany, Anthony Mackie, and Sebastian Stan). Not to mention new characters such as Moon Knight is being introduced and if you have no clue who Moon Knight is...let's just say he's Batman and The Punisher combined...and he's also nuts. So nuts in fact that most villains want nothing to do with him on the grounds that he'd mercilessly kill them. This is a guy who opened a can of whoop-ass on The Taskmaster so hard that homeboy literally begged him to stop.
We'll see how Disney handles the brutal and unstable nature of this character and whether or not they're gonna go for a hard "R". Part of me says "Yes", another says "No" but they didn't shy away from the hard stuff with the Netflix shows and not everything on Disney Plus has to be family-friendly, after all, they just acquired "The Simpsons" and although not "South Park" isn't exactly family-friendly. So we'll see just how hard Disney is willing to go with their new streaming service and what they're willing to produce.
Since we're talking about the MCU let's talk about the MCU adjacent a.k.a Sony and the upcoming "Morbius" a role in which Jared Leto won't get crucified for. Michael Moribus, I remember many a moon my brother and I spent actually reading Spider-Man comic books and Michael Morbius (despite probably not remembering, which is fine, Pepperidge Farm remembers) was my brother's main dude at one point in time. We even owned a Michael Morbius comic book back when he had his own series. Now despite being introduced as a foe to Spider-Man, he was never entirely a villain and has since then evolved into a tragic anti-hero. Furthermore, Morbius is NOT a vampire in the traditional sense, he's called The Living Vampire because he's alive and wasn't turned into a vampire by another vampire, he has a soul and everything else. Morbius is more or less an addict now and his addiction mirrors the behaviors of a vampire. I'm far more interested in this than I was "Venom" and with the inclusion of Michael Keaton...I have no clue what this means for The MCU and the Sonyverse. Guess we'll see.
Since we're on the topic of streaming services some new players have stepped up to the challenge, Shudder which is a horror exclusive streaming service created by AMC and Quibi which is a mobile video streaming service. Why am I discussing these two? Because they've produced things that have caught my attention. The first is an interesting movie titled simply "The Room", and while that title has been used and used and used (like a 13-year-old's right hand) it will never fail to interest me and this one caught me. I won't discuss it completely but after watching the trailer I was like "Okay, this is good." so I'll encourage you to check the trailer out, I see this being really good, a very niche, fly under the radar type of movie.
The other serving is Quibi's "The Stranger" which boasts the acting talents of Dane Dehaan (once again playing a villain) and Maika Monroe (who is nicely settling into being his generation's new scream queen). Dehaan plays a psychopath who is holding her hostage and promises to release her unless she tells him a good story. I like things like this as it gives a reason for the killer to do what they do. Now granted "I like killing people." isn't a satisfying reason, not entirely anyway, but take "The Hitcher" films John Ryder was just nuts...there was no rhyme or reason why he wanted to kill people but the films made it as if Ryder had a reason. In this film, Dehaan's character, Carly, is just killing for kicks and wants to make those kicks fun, hence "Tell me a story and I won't kill you."...which is also a good premise for an anthology series...hrm...If you haven't seen the trailer for these films DO check them out.
"Mortal Kombat" is getting a new film. I wish I could say I was excited but after seeing the choice for Mileena I was already done. She'd make a great Tanya, Mileena, NO! That said, I don't know, for my money, I think the in-game cutscenes are about all the "Mortal Kombat" movie I need. The 1st "Mortal Kombat" movie was fine and did a good enough retelling of the "Mortal Kombat" mythos without being too offensive, then "Annihilation" happened and we all wish we could forget it (although personally, I adore "Mortal Kombat: Annihilation" as a so bad its good movie) and while no one cared about or remembered the short-lived TV show "Mortal Kombat: Conquest" (which I did a review of you can check out Here, shameless plug) it too did a decent enough job with filling in some gaps. So after years of "Mortal Kombat" not being anywhere on the small screen or the big screen (despite IGN's Mortal Kombat series which was fine up until the actual tournament...which was sh*t, as it had Liu Kang being evil, Sub Zero played by Emily's dad from "Pretty Little Liars" and Shoa Khan looking like...well...like this:
Last but not least Christopher Nolan comes back into the conversation (or has "entered the chat" as the kids say these days...gotta stay in with the kids) with "Tenet", a time-bending film in which little is known about and will star Denzel Washington's son John in the lead role. Christopher Nolan has always been one of those pop-up directors, he drops something really awesome, disappears for a while and then just pops up again with something else. Now granted he was active prior to this but I didn't see "Interstellar" (just didn't look sci-fi enough for me) and I didn't see "Dunkirk" (I don't care for movies based on a true story and I'm none too keen on war movies) but "Tenet" has my attention because I like time manipulation and I like stories about spies and espionage, plus the title in unusual and as much as like "The" followed by noun titles, I love unusual titles more and "Tenet" is just strange enough for me to go "What are you about?". I have a feeling this will be his new "Inception", but we'll see.
Speaking of "What are you about?" a 4th "Matrix" movie is being developed. On a list of bad ideas for films, I'd say this ranks somewhere on the top 20. What's this aversion studios seem to have with letting things go? Where we last left everyone, Neo was dead and Zion was saved as Neo got the machines to back off in return for keeping Agent Smith in check. Things ended in a good place for everyone...but apparently not. Am I excited about another "Matrix" movie? No. Laurence Fishburn and Hugo Weaving aren't coming back and they made those movies. Keanu has moved on to being John Wick and while I have yet to see those movies I hear they're good and he's a badass in them. He has no business stepping back into Neo's trench coat...or man dress or whatever it is he's wearing. No, can we just let franchises ride off into the sunset and leave the multiple sequels to horror franchises and The Fast & The Furious series, please and thank you.
And that's all. It's currently 2:19am and I have waited a LONG time to write this and am foregoing sleep to do so. Because I work in retail my job as shown no signs of slowing down given everything going on (which I won't be addressing here) so time is more scarce than it has ever been in my life. I'm trying to take things one day at a time but it's tough given my current living situation. Here's to hoping things can change sooner rather than later. In the mean time I'll catch you all later!
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