Connect with us

News

TRAGEDY GIRLS Perfectly Combines Gore, Horror and Good Times

Published

on

Tragedy

There has been a recent new wave of what I like to call “millennial-sploitation” films as of late. Its hard to tell if these films are being helmed by a card carrying, H&M clad, actual millennial or if they are being directed by an archaic hand who is trying to simultaneously understand and preach about a generation they don’t understand. I go into those films with the bar set low. The heavy handed-exploitative nature can be abrasive. Lucky for us, while Tragedy Girls does fit into the above mentioned sub-genre it manages to do everything spot on and refreshing in its approach.

Tragedy Girls follows Sadie Cunningham (Brianna Hildebrand) and McKayla Hooper (Alexandra Shipp), two social media obsessed high school students, who have some super macabre extra curriculars. See, they spend their time playing a dangerous game that toys with serial killers, incorporates murder and the inevitable posting of true-crimish manipulative material to social network channels. Like other students, they have goals, only difference is theirs seem to be more on the blood soaked side of the spectrum.

Almost anything said about this film can spoil it. I have to treat this synopsis with kid-gloves. So, I don’t want to say too much more about the plot. All I can say is that if you can skip the trailer and just go in blind to the experience, I definitely recommend it.

The film is gleefully, gory, stylish and self aware. But never gets heavy on the whole social commentary of, say, the dangers of social media usage. It isn’t a PSA, even though it could have quickly become that. It is refreshing to see a film that knows it is allowed to be fun and light – and Tragedy Girls absolutely revels in the fun and the gore.

Director, Tyler MacIntyre makes interesting choices in terms of the look and feel of the film itself. He chooses to use an overly-neat, crisp digital polish that is easily comparable to a Lifetime movie. I found it distracting at times but there there is reward to this method of madness. Once realized, it makes that aesthetic choice part of the experience in a smart subtle wink that doesn’t reveal itself until late in the movie.

Both Hildebrand and Shipp are great. They balance the right amounts of playfulness and sociopathic tendencies to make them a great new addition to the horror genre. Watching these two, its hard to not be silently praying that Tragedy Girls becomes a franchise. Cause dammit, these two could easily carry one.

I also, gotta give a shout out to actor Timothy V. Murphy who plays Sheriff Blane Welch. It took me a while to recognize him with the moustache and accent, but this is the dude from those adorable DirecTV ads, that featured an overly wealthy Russian guy kissing a tiny giraffe. I was a sucker for those ads and it made me happy to see him pop-up in this. Dude does great work and I hope to see him in a lot more stuff.

Also, keep your eye out for tons of small winks and easter eggs that will appeal to genre fans. From the two lead characters last names, to some of the kills in the film. This is ultimately a love letter to the things, people and places in horror that all us fanatics hold dear.

Tragedy Girls is smart about its nature. It takes the best of Heathers and Scream, mixes in social media obsession and works up some horror alchemy that reaches exciting heights. It is unrelenting in its ideals and semi-sociopathic in some of its choices, but choosing those paths helps to subvert tropes and keep you engaged and surprised from start to finish.

'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?

Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

Movies

‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

Published

on

It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?

Continue Reading

Movies

‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

Published

on

Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?

Continue Reading

News

Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

Published

on

Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?

Continue Reading