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Movie Review: ‘Out of the Shadows’

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A pregnant mother confronts a nightmare in Out of the Shadows, the new supernatural horror film from Australian director/co-writer Dee McLachlan.

Eric and Katrina Hughes (Blake Northfield, Kendal Rae) have found their dream home in an old, abandoned midwifery until Katrina begins to suspect both she and her baby are being targeted by something evil from the building’s past.

Eric, of course, is unconvinced and begins to suspect her sanity is slipping as her behavior becomes more erratic, but after a while even he can’t deny the activity in the home and they soon find themselves in a battle for all their lives to protect their unborn child.

If you’re thinking you’ve seen this movie before, you’re partially right. Out of the Shadows follows a pretty standard pattern, but that certainly doesn’t mean it isn’t worth watching. The film is a taut horror/thriller with plenty of tension to keep its audience on the edge of its seat.

Blake Northfield and Kendal Rae as Eric and Katrina in Out of the Shadows (Photo by Michaela Johnson-Carroll-Blue Fox Enter)

Much of its success falls upon the shoulders of her substantially talented cast.

Rae plays Katrina with raw emotional depth; you can palpably feel each emotional shift as the film progresses while Northfield’s Eric is equally convincing and it was interesting to watch him slowly shift from disbelief to confusion to belief to fear.

The film’s real standout, by far, is Lisa Chappell as Linda Dee, a motorcycle-riding, leather wearing, badass demonologist enlisted by the Hughes to help them when they are turned away by the church.

It isn’t often that we see a woman in this type of role and it was not only refreshing, but highly entertaining as she prepared for spiritual battle with the forces inside the old widwifery. Chappell’s performance heightens what we’ve come to expect in this type of role, and it was a much needed breath of fresh air.

And then there’s Goran Kleut…I can’t say much about Kleut’s character, Mr. Augusta, without spoilers so I’ll just say that he is both menacing and terrifying onscreen, and deserving of the attention that he will no doubt receive from this role.

The action of the film is perfectly complemented in its score by Christopher Gordon, who previous work can be on heard on film such as Daybreakers and the 2004 mini-series adaptation of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. Gordon’s work here is starkly beautiful and haunting with a classic style that creates an audio landscape as enigmatic and breathtaking as the film’s setting.

As I said before, Out of the Shadows has not re-invented the wheel, here. Many of the tropes we’ve come to expect from this type of film are present and accounted for throughout this story of menacing spirits/demons, but they have certainly created an entertaining and scary film with a few tweaks to the norm here and there.

My one complaint comes at the end. It was rather like seeing a gymnast performing a complicated, successful routine beautifully and then failing to stick the landing.

The last ten minutes or so of the film are a bit of a mess as the plot unravels in a sudden and intense rush of over-the-top special effects, and while they managed to quickly knit some of it back together for the final scene, I’m afraid it wasn’t enough to save them completely from the damage that had been done.

Still, if you’re a fan of things that go bump in the night, of restless spirits and disembodied voices, and of stories of families who stand together and fight the unseen evils menacing their homes, then Out of the Shadows is a journey that is totally worth taking.

You can see Out of the Shadows on Amazon Streaming and other VOD services right now with a physical release set on September 11, 2018. Check out the trailer below and let us know what you think in the comments!

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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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Trailer for ‘The Exorcism’ Has Russell Crowe Possessed

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The latest exorcism movie is about to drop this summer. It’s aptly titled The Exorcism and it stars Academy Award winner turned B-movie savant Russell Crowe. The trailer dropped today and by the looks of it, we are getting a possession movie that takes place on a movie set.

Just like this year’s recent demon-in-media-space film Late Night With the Devil, The Exorcism happens during a production. Although the former takes place on a live network talk show, the latter is on an active sound stage. Hopefully, it won’t be entirely serious and we’ll get some meta chuckles out of it.

The film will open in theaters on June 7, but since Shudder also acquired it, it probably won’t be long after that until it finds a home on the streaming service.

Crowe plays, “Anthony Miller, a troubled actor who begins to unravel while shooting a supernatural horror film. His estranged daughter, Lee (Ryan Simpkins), wonders if he’s slipping back into his past addictions or if there’s something more sinister at play. The film also stars Sam Worthington, Chloe Bailey, Adam Goldberg and David Hyde Pierce.”

Crowe did see some success in last year’s The Pope’s Exorcist mostly because his character was so over-the-top and infused with such comical hubris it bordered on parody. We will see if that is the route actor-turned-director Joshua John Miller takes with The Exorcism.

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