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John Dies at the End Saga Continues with Third Book on the Way

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Fans of David Wong’s effervescently deranged John Dies at the End saga can rejoice and prepare to ask themselves “what the hell did I just read?”. The third installment of the series is on its way.

The book – actually titled What the Hell Did I Just Read: A Novel of Cosmic Horror – is now available for preorder with a release date set for October 3. The third installment will continue the “gruesome yet baffling adventures of John, Dave, Amy and other characters who may or may not still be alive”.

The first book, John Dies at the End, was adapted into a film by genre legend Don Coscarelli. If you’ve seen the movie, it’s remarkably loyal to (most of) the details of the book. His dedication to recreating the delirious energy of the book makes it clear that Coscarelli is a fan – he both wrote and directed the film version. That being said, the film only covers about a third of the action because, really, there’s a lot to cover, and the majority of it might be… challenging… to convince a producer that it should be committed to film.

Yes, that is a monster made of meat

Reading John Dies at the End is like consuming way too many psychotropic drugs with your best friend and listening to them describe an extraordinarily batshit crazy dream that they had. Told in the style of first-person narrative, each sentence is personal. It carries the complexity of an unreliable narrator with ease, building tension when appropriate to create horrific and hilariously bizarre scenes of confusion and carnage.

John Dies at the End was first published online as a webserial beginning in 2001, then as an edited manuscript in 2004, followed by a printed paperback in 2007 before it was published by Thomas Dunne Books in 2009. The events unfold in the (hopefully) fictional town of [Undisclosed] – an apex of unusual and supernatural activity.

The plot is difficult to describe, but in brief, two best friends (John and Dave) are exposed to a new drug called Soy Sauce that has the unsavory side effect of either brutally killing the user or unlocking their ability to see inter-dimensional beings – among other things. Needless to say, they find that they must become the most unlikely of unlikely heroes to stop evil forces from invading the universe.

The sequel, This Book is Full of Spiders: Seriously Dude, Don’t Touch it, extends Wong’s delightfully specific descriptive writing style (there’s mention of a “turkey Voltron”, which, in context, is a helpful descriptor). It occasionally switches to a third-person narrative to follow the perspective of other main characters. While at first the transition is a bit jarring, it’s necessary to tell all sides of the much larger story.

In This Book is Full of Spiders, the town of [Undisclosed] is overrun with parasitic spiders that violently take over their hosts, however, it is not easy to tell who is infected and who isn’t. As everyone reacts to what they are certain is a zombie invasion, the reluctantly heroic team of John and Dave once again find themselves thrown into the center of the chaos.

David Wong (the pseudonym for Cracked editor Jason Pargin) has built a vivid world with a visceral and palpable absurdity. Both books have a high rating on Goodreads and Barnes & Noble, which is no small wonder. They’re well written, viciously captivating, and outrageously entertaining. We may have to sit tight until October 2017 for the next installment, but if Wong keeps up his track record, it should be well worth the wait.

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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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