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Inside Blumhouse’s ‘Black Box’ with Phylicia Rashad and Mamoudou Athie

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Black Box

Welcome to the Blumhouse is slated to launch this week. The eight-film anthology tackles a variety of topics centered around family, relationships, and the terrifying positive and negative wielded by each. The first two films–Black Box and The Lie–are set to drop on Amazon Prime on October 6, 2020 with two more features the following week. The back four feature-length episodes will drop in 2021.

In advance of its opening this week, Black Box stars Phylicia Rashad and Mamoudou Athie sat down with iHorror to talk about the film and the particularly dark vision it presents.

Athie plays Nolan, a single father suffering from amnesia after surviving the terrible car accident that killed his wife. His life is falling apart and he is at his wits’ end when he is convinced by a doctor (Rashad) to take part in an experimental treatment in an attempt to recover his memories.

The experiment works, but with terrifying results revealing far more questions than answers with a mind-blowing conclusion you must see for yourself.

When I began watching this film, I couldn’t help note that this was exactly the kind of role I would expect Rashad to play, but the genre was surprising, and I had to know what what drew her to Black Box.

“I liked the story,” the legendary actress explained. “I like the way it’s told. I like the humanity of the story. Also, I really like the challenge and the opportunity to research a field that I haven’t researched before. I mean, not since college studying general psych and abnormal psych, but this was on another level. This was researching from a practitioner’s point of view. Not just learning about it. So that was quite nice.”

One of the particularly interesting points of the film was the growth and development of the relationship between doctor and patient. Athie and Rashad’s chemistry onscreen is incredible, especially considering there was very little time to rehearse.

“We were thrown in like peas and carrots in a pot of soup,” Rashad said with a laugh. “We didn’t have much rehearsal because we didn’t have much time.”

“Yeah we were just really just thrown right into it,” Athie–who you might remember for the recent deep sea horror film Underwater–agreed, “but you know with an actor like Ms. Rashad it’s like you’ve been there all your life.”

It’s not only their relationship that evolves throughout the film, however. Athie’s character has an incredible arc especially as he begins to feel a darkness in the memories that are coming back to him in the healing process.

It’s an intense transformation to watch, and offered its own challenges to the actor as he was preparing for the role.

“It’s one of those things where it looks kind of awful,” the actor said. “I had a teacher that once said you can use acting as a kind of therapy sometimes and get some things out of you. This was an opportunity to do that. I was like, this is the one. It was wonderful.”

“He’s very modest,” Rashad said of Athie. “He’s really phenomenal. Al Freeman, Jr., I don’t know if you remember him or not; he was a masterful actor and a master teacher, and he would say to his students that acting is movement of thought. Move to the center of thought and put yourself in the way of the reality. He never studied with this master, yet that’s what Mamoudou does.”

Black Box premieres on October 6, 2020 on Amazon Prime. Check out the trailer below and don’t miss this excellent film!

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Brad Dourif Says He’s Retiring Except For One Important Role

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Brad Dourif has been doing movies for nearly 50 years. Now it seems he is walking away from the industry at 74 to enjoy his golden years. Except, there is a caveat.

Recently, digital entertainment publication JoBlo’s Tyler Nichols talked to some of the Chucky television series cast members. During the interview, Dourif made an announcement.

“Dourif said that he’s retired from acting,” says Nichols. “The only reason he came back for the show was because of his daughter Fiona and he considers Chucky creator Don Mancini to be family. But for non-Chucky stuff, he considers himself retired.”

Dourif has voiced the possessed doll since 1988 (minus the 2019 reboot). The original movie “Child’s Play” has become such a cult classic it’s at the top of some people’s best chillers of all time. Chucky himself is ingrained in pop culture history much like Frankenstein or Jason Voorhees.

While Dourif may be known for his famous voiceover, he is also an Oscar-nominated actor for his part in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Another famous horror role is The Gemini Killer in William Peter Blatty’s Exorcist III. And who can forget Betazoid Lon Suder in Star Trek: Voyager?

The good news is that Don Mancini is already pitching a concept for season four of Chucky which might also include a feature-length movie with a series tie-in. So, Although Dourif says he is retiring from the industry, ironically he is Chucky’s friend till the end.

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Editorial

7 Great ‘Scream’ Fan Films & Shorts Worth a Watch

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The Scream franchise is such an iconic series, that many budding filmmakers take inspiration from it and make their own sequels or, at least, build upon the original universe created by screenwriter Kevin Williamson. YouTube is the perfect medium to showcase these talents (and budgets) with fan-made homages with their own personal twists.

The great thing about Ghostface is that he can appear anywhere, in any town, he just needs the signature mask, knife, and unhinged motive. Thanks to Fair Use laws it’s possible to expand upon Wes Craven’s creation by simply getting a group of young adults together and killing them off one by one. Oh, and don’t forget the twist. You’ll notice that Roger Jackson’s famous Ghostface voice is uncanny valley, but you get the gist.

We have gathered five fan films/shorts related to Scream that we thought were pretty good. Although they can’t possibly match the beats of a $33 million blockbuster, they get by on what they have. But who needs money? If you’re talented and motivated anything is possible as proven by these filmmakers who are well on their way to the big leagues.

Take a look at the below films and let us know what you think. And while you’re at it, leave these young filmmakers a thumbs up, or leave them a comment to encourage them to create more films. Besides, where else are you going to see Ghostface vs. a Katana all set to a hip-hop soundtrack?

Scream Live (2023)

Scream Live

Ghostface (2021)

Ghostface

Ghost Face (2023)

Ghost Face

Don’t Scream (2022)

Don’t Scream

Scream: A Fan Film (2023)

Scream: A Fan Film

The Scream (2023)

The Scream

A Scream Fan Film (2023)

A Scream Fan Film
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Movies

Another Creepy Spider Movie Hits Shudder This Month

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Good spider films are a theme this year. First, we had Sting and then there was Infested. The former is still in theaters and the latter is coming to Shudder starting April 26.

Infested has been getting some good reviews. People are saying that it’s not only a great creature feature but also a social commentary on racism in France.

According to IMDb: Writer/director Sébastien Vanicek was looking for ideas around the discrimination faced by black and Arab-looking people in France, and that led him to spiders, which are rarely welcome in homes; whenever they’re spotted, they’re swatted. As everyone in the story (people and spiders) is treated like vermin by society, the title came to him naturally.

Shudder has become the gold standard for streaming horror content. Since 2016, the service has been offering fans an expansive library of genre movies. in 2017, they began to stream exclusive content.

Since then Shudder has become a powerhouse in the film festival circuit, buying distribution rights to movies, or just producing some of their own. Just like Netflix, they give a film a short theatrical run before adding it to their library exclusively for subscribers.

Late Night With the Devil is a great example. It was released theatrically on March 22 and will begin streaming on the platform starting April 19.

While not getting the same buzz as Late Night, Infested is a festival favorite and many have said if you suffer from arachnophobia, you might want to take heed before watching it.

Infested

According to the synopsis, our main character, Kalib is turning 30 and dealing with some family issues. “He’s fighting with his sister over an inheritance and has cut ties with his best friend. Fascinated by exotic animals, he finds a venomous spider in a shop and brings it back to his apartment. It only takes a moment for the spider to escape and reproduce, turning the whole building into a dreadful web trap. The only option for Kaleb and his friends is to find a way out and survive.”

The film will be available to watch on Shudder starting April 26.

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