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Fantastic Fest 2019: ‘After Midnight’ Effectively Combines a Creature Feature with A lot of Heart

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After Midnight

There is something utterly gripping about isolation horror. Those features that take their main character and place them in a solitary, or mostly solitary, location and then allow us to get to know them intimately while much conflict is sent their way. After Midnight fits very nicely into that isolation horror wheelhouse while simultaneously opening the floodgates on something warm, relatable and absorbing.

Writer-Director Jeremy Gardner, (The Battery) returns with a deconstruction of the most significant parts of a relationship with an almost Before Sunset trilogy vibe, rooted in horror sensibilities.

Speaking specifically to its approach to horror, there are a few scenes that are wildly hair-raising. Keeping the camera ever moving while focusing on the creature elements makes your heart pound between the moments of being heartfelt. Co-director, Christian Stella also handles the cinematography in After Midnight and really works some innocuous bits of sorcery in that department when it comes to conveying both the visceral and stillness. Those moments are furthered by well-placed needle drops that audibly spell out intent in their respectable scenes.

After Midnight (previously titled, Something Else) circles around Hank (Jeremy Gardner) following a separation from his girlfriend Abby (Brea Grant), who left a note and vanished from Hanks life. While attempting to cope by way of drinking copious amounts of alcohol, Hank begins to get nightly visitations from what he believes is a full fledged monster. As he attempts to trap and kill the monster, and his sanity begins to dissolve, he starts to look to his past with Abby to figure out where things went wrong in order to try to save any love the two have left.

I love a good love story and I love a good monster movie. So, guess what? This movie really had me. Similar to 2014’s Spring, this film isn’t afraid to subvert genre bending alchemy out of romance and the creature faire. Not surprising that Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, the team behind Spring and The Endless are both onboard as producers on this one.

Gardner effectively makes awkward timing work from his writing to the characters he plays there is something uniquely outside by way of cadence and something that makes his films easy to identify. Gardner continues his particular brand of natural charm that instills in the audience a very direct requirement of wanting to grab a beer and to chat with the dude.

The writing here is fantastic especially when it comes to scenes of dialogue that aren’t afraid to hold the camera on its subjects, isn’t afraid to let its character’s blossom and isn’t afraid of the romantic substance to pause the horror. It’s a film that would have worked without the otherworldly bits… but is ultimately made completely exceptional by their addition.

After Midnight is Charles Bukowski by way of a harrowing creature feature, all while maintaining a sweet streak. Fans of The Battery will be please to see Gardner continuing his richly innovative approach to indie film, and will be pleasantly surprised with the big heart and connective tissue that ties this films genres and characters together.

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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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