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[SXSW Review] ‘Body at Brighton Rock’ Effectively Fun, Spooky Night in the Woods

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Brighton Rock

I’ve been lost in the woods. It’s a complete hoot let me tell ya. There is a firm grip of fear placed upon you and the spiraling thoughts of “hey I might die out here” combined with a heightened state of overall “Oh, fuck.” Roxanne Benjamin’s (Southbound, XX, VHS) latest film Body at Brighton Rock captures those elements succinctly making for a damned spooky night in the woods and a fun night at a midnight movie.

The story centers on Wendy (Karina Fontes) junior park ranger. When we first meet Wendy, who is stumbling in late for her shift, it’s clear that she isn’t the park ranger’s biggest asset. In a move to gain some respect from her fellow co-workers, Wendy switches duties with another ranger. This tasks her with hiking out quite a ways and switching some advisory signs.

Once she looses her direction and stumbles upon a dead body in the woods it becomes an all out fight for survival.

Wendy stepping into the woods is essentially our protagonist stepping into the old dark house. We all know this is going to go bad for her but are along for the ride. Fontes gives a memorable performance as Wendy. Her choices for the character make Wendy a totally lovable, relatable protagonist and one that we can all cheer for… even when she is prone to mistake after mistake.

The palettes and tone of the film are eclectic and change from entirely playful frames that are reminiscent of early John Hughes’ sensibilities complete with a new wave driven soundtrack, to the later dread inducing claustrophobic, dark confines of the woods.  

The sound design is incredible as well. Similar to 63’s The Haunting, Body at Brighton Rock’s sound becomes its own character. Unexpected strings shrieking adds to complete fluid and effective jump scares. It’s constantly evolving and experimental as heck and never allows the audience to rest.

Benjamin who writes and directs, plays with several components as well as possible and fully realized antagonists… or possible antagonist. It’s hard to know exactly what direction the film is going to take making it a treat for genre fans like myself, who tend to see the blueprint of films early on. It manages to keep you guessing by combining real corporeal fears with moments of psychosis and skewed dream logic.

Body at Brighton Rock is a tight, fun survival thriller with a lot of spookiness going on in its runtime. It’s a feast of shifting genre pieces that make for a terrifying night in the woods and an ending that effectively sticks with you. It is an entirely a two fisted approach to a lost in the woods Twilight Zone episode and I’m entirely here for it.

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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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