News
Instagram Suggests #Horror Fans are in Danger of Harm
If you’ve recently been on Instagram and tried to search anything #horror, you’ve probably noticed something odd. An alert pops up, warning genre-loving Instagrammers that “posts with words or tags you’re searching for often encourage behavior that can cause harm and even lead to death”.
Another screen reads:“We’ve hidden posts for #horror to protect our community from content that may encourage behavior that can cause harm and even lead to death.”
But don’t worry, they’d like to help.
Users have the option to “Get Support”, which will take them to a page that suggests they “talk to a friend”, talk with a helpline volunteer, or “get tips and support”.
And still, there are far more destructive terms that can be effectively searched on Instagram with no issue. You can even search #death, #killer, #despair, #hurt, and other emotionally loaded hashtags with no alert.
But for whatever reason, Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) has decided that #horror was harmful enough to halt and warn its users.
Horror is a genre. It’s lively; it celebrates the thrills that life can bring and pushes the limits of what effects teams are physically capable of creating. Horror is cathartic and has been known to help relieve anxiety and depression among its viewers. Horror is a lifestyle.
As a genre, it explores darkness without encouraging it; we can imagine ourselves in the position of the survivor. A quote from author Joe Hill perhaps explains it best: “Horror isn’t about extreme sadism; it’s about extreme empathy”.
Even after the horror hot takes of 2018, you would hope that we’ve moved beyond such overdramatic misunderstandings. Horror has made a lot of progress with mainstream appeal, and there’s still more on the horizon.
And while it’s noble (if not a touch misguided) for an app to provide crisis support, the implication that horror “encourages behavior” that can “cause harm and even lead to death” is a bit of a slap in the face. It harkens back to concerns about “violent movies and videogames” that are… very outdated. These negative stigmas and delinquent stereotypes are far more harmful than the media they oppose.
In the wake of last week’s shooting in New Zealand (of which a Facebook video livestream played for 17 minutes before it was reported), it is to be expected that Facebook would aim to tighten their (very) loose grip on what is published on their platform.
But this seems like an odd stance for Instagram to take. A lot of fans, creators, influencers, and merchants all follow the popular hashtag as a way to find and connect with one another on this platform, which focuses on still frame photos and 15-second video clips.
In the grand scheme of things, is a hashtag on a social media platform really that important? Not really. We’ll adapt. But perhaps that’s one of the reasons why this particular update feels so petty. Because all things considered, there are far bigger fish to fry.
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Movies
‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments
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.
“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:
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Movies
‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening
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.
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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News
Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date
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.
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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