It’s wall to wall Halloween this week, with the release of David Gordon Green’s Halloween Kills, but I’ve also got the scoop on Gordon Green’s Exorcist trilogy, a new thing from M. Night Shyamalan, a TV adaptation of Leigh Whannell’s Upgrade, and much more!
Following up on his recently-released and frankly, not great Old, M. Night Shyamalan’s next project is already underway. Deadline reports that Knock At The Cabin will be released on February 3, 2023 for Universal.
Even more interestingly, Shymalan’s producing a new film from Logan George and Celine Held, who did the incredible Topside, which I wrote about a while back. That film will be called The Vanishings at Caddo Lake and will centre on an 8-year-old girl who – wait for it – vanishes at Caddo Lake. I’ll report on any details about either project when I have them!
David Gordon Green is 2/3 of the way through his Halloween trilogy, with this weekend’s Halloween Kills and next year’s Halloween Ends. But once that’s wrapped up, Green will be tackling another beloved franchise with The Exorcist. In an interview with Collider this week, Gordon Green says that “the script’s written. And it was a very, entirely different writing process [from the Halloween trilogy]. The first one of our trilogy is written and the second two are being outlined. So we’ve got a ways to go on that, but we know where we’re going. It’s a new journey [with] some familiar characters and some new ones as well.”
Gordon Green’s trilogy brings Ellen Burstyn back as Chris MacNeil, and adds Leslie Odom Jr as “the father of a possessed child. Desperate for help, he tracks down [MacNeil].” The first film in the new trilogy will be released theatrically almost exactly two years from now, on October 13, 2023.
Speaking of Gordon Green’s Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis took our breath away this week as she showed up to the premiere party for Halloween Kills dressed as another horror icon – her mother Janet Leigh. JLC dressed as Leigh’s character, the iconic Marion Crane (complete with a bloody shower curtain) from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.
Hail Raatma! Radio Silence’s V/H/S/94 is a massive hit for Shudder, which premiered the film on October 6. According to the press release from the streaming service, the fourth installment of the anthology series had “more members watching its debut in it’s opening weekend than any prior movie premiere on the service.” That’s great news for Radio Silence, and segment directors Simon Barrett, Timo Tjahjanto, Jennifer Reeder, Ryan Prows, and Chloe Okuno. The film is also a hit with fans with a 92% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes (as of this writing), the most acclaimed film in the V/H/S series so far.
Danis Goulet’s Night Raiders hit theatres last week, playing in 80 cinemas across Canada. The filmmaker said about the release, in an interview with Windspeaker, that “I saw the list of theatres yesterday. I totally started to cry. It had been so many years of getting to this place. [It was] a long journey of making the film, but it also just made me reflect on how many people have fought for so much for so long.” I caught Night Raiders at the Toronto International Film Festival this year and it’s an outstanding science fiction film set in 2043 that’s inspired by Canada’s residential school system.
In Night Raiders, “a military occupation controls disenfranchised cities in post-war North America. A desperate Cree woman joins an underground band of vigilantes to infiltrate a State children’s academy and get her daughter back. Night Raiders is a female-driven dystopian drama about resilience, courage and love.”
Deadline reports that Lin Shaye (Insidious, The Grudge) will cement her scream queen status with a new horror series called Ellen. In the show, Shaye plays an 80-year-old who gives a land developer a nightmare of a time when he tries to intimidate her into relinquishing her Montana ranch. The series is based on an idea from Jalmari Helander (Rare Exports, Big Game) and is directed by Clif Prowse and Derek Lee (Afflicted).
Speaking of the small screen, Leigh Whannell’s Upgrade is in the process of getting the TV treatment with the director and Jason Blum working on scripts in an effort to get a series order. Blum spoke to Collider this week and said that “Upgrade should have been a wide release. I was pissed about that. We’re working on a TV show. So working on the scripts. This first round, didn’t come out. I didn’t get the response I wanted to get. I don’t want to be in development. I want an order. We’re working on the scripts again, so that we can get an order.” The series is said to be picking up a few years after the original film, with a new version of the STEM system and a new host to embody it. In the series, the government will use the STEM system to curb crime.
Finally, if you haven’t gotten enough Michael Myers this week, action figure masters NECA have a brand new Ultimate figure that’ll commemorate his latest turn in Halloween Kills. The figure will be screen accurate, featuring knives, a bulb, a bat, skull mask and other accessories. This version of Mike stands at a very unthreatening 7 inches tall, but looks just lovely. Take a look at the Ultimate Michael, courtesy of our pals at Dread Central!
