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The Dog Dies: ‘I Won’t See the Movie’

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There is something that I have noticed about people who love horror movies: a character can be chopped, drawn-and-quartered, decapitated, impaled or tickled with a chainsaw, but when it comes to animals, especially a dog undergoing the same torture, some viewers say “nope.”

[Spoiler alert: there are pictures contained in this text in which the dogs in the films do die.]

There are some animals which are more acceptable than others to see torn apart or smashed; aquatic creatures are at the top of the list.

Look at the king of all shark movies: Jaws. In that classic film a summer smorgasbord of beachgoers resulted in the razor-toothed fish getting hit with the bad end of a rifle/oxygen tank combo. Audiences cheered.

But ask how they felt about the stick retrieving dog in the film who never returned from the surf and you might get a different response.

After the commercial success of “Jaws,” countless non-human celluloid monsters were disposed of in knock-off movies and cheap imitations.

Movies featuring orcas, grizzlies, alligators and even frogs being shot at, burned, blown up and disposed of. Nobody seemed to care, just as long as it wasn’t a cat or yikes, a dog.

In 1983, Stephen King’s bestseller Cujo hit theaters. In the novel and the film, Cujo is a jumbo-sized Saint Bernard whose curiosity got the better of him, leaving him riddled with rabies.

The once gentle-natured beast goes on a rampage trapping a mother and her young son in a Ford Pinto in the driveway. His demise isn’t pleasant, but people seemed more sympathetic to his undoing than they are about the insatiable great white shark stalking New York.

This is probably because a dog is considered man’s best friend, and King knowing that played with reader’s emotions and fears about the creatures we trust going rogue, literally biting the hand that feeds them.

Stephen King's Cujo.

King played with this scenario again. This time with cats in 1992’s “Sleepwalkers.” Whereas Cujo’s death was an empathetic demise – I’m sure many thought he was put out of his crazed misery – Sleepwalkers was more aggressive in its treatment of cats. They got twisted, kicked, shot at and ensnared in bear traps.

Although not as popular as its canine counterpart, “Sleepwalkers” could be excused maybe because the cats being killed looked more like FurReal friends than FurReal enemies; you could almost see the stuffing coming through the stitches on the props as actors used methodology in responding to claws-out face hugs.

Unfortunately, Hollywood has a long history of being cruel to real animals. And this may be the reason why people are so squeamish and untrustworthy about seeing them “harmed” on screen.

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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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

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

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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.

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

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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.

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