When it comes to leaving a mark on cinematic history and scaring the bejesus out of people while doing it, John Carpenter would be on the Mount Rushmore of Horror. Known for directing some of the most iconic and influential films in horror history, Carpenter is responsible for helming Halloween, The Fog, Escape From New York, The Thing, Christine, Starman, Big Trouble in Little China, and Prince of Darkness, to name a few. Each of the films mentioned above has left an indelible mark on film hist...
Jan 19, 2024•24 min
There are few horror films that are able to surpass the genre and make it to Awards season. But the winning combination of Rob Reiner, Kathy Bates, and James Caan proved to be too much, and Academy voters were no longer able to ignore the often-forgotten genre. Yet why, of all the films, was this able to surpass those unfair expectations? Join us as we tell you all about it as we dive into Stephen King's Misery.
Jan 15, 2024•16 min
Let us preface this by saying that we know Jennifer Lawrence is still a massive star. After all, she’s got several movies coming out this year and, by all accounts, delivers an excellent performance in the TIFF-bound drama Causeway. But, it has to be said that Hollywood tends to anoint young actors as the next big superstar and then ditch them after one or two flops. In the wake of The Hunger Games, Jennifer Lawrence was everywhere, winning an Oscar for Silver Linings Playbook and solidifying he...
Jan 12, 2024•15 min
2016’s Gods of Egypt was meant to be a significant franchise starter for Lionsgate, mixing Egyptian mythology and fantasy in a way that should have been explosive but landed with a thud. Director Alex Proyas, who directed a few seminal classics, including The Crow and Dark City, did his best to deliver an exciting fantasy film. Still, critics were savage, and audiences stayed away. In the end, it lost an estimated $90 million, despite the presence of Gerard Butler and Game of Thrones’ favorite N...
Jan 08, 2024•18 min
As with many film adaptations based on a title in any medium loved by many, it’s hard to get the right tone to satisfy a die-hard fan. Well, I’m here to tell you that one has seemingly been overlooked in the praise department. One that captures the tone and spirit of the game completely. Fasten your seatbelts and keep your eyes on the road as we take a trip to find out WTF Happened To Silent Hill?
Jan 05, 2024•12 min
With WB/DC's The Flash finally hitting theaters this Friday, fans have no doubt noticed that the movie's star, Ezra Miller, is nowhere to be seen. Usually, the star of a tentpole movie would be out promoting the heck out of it, but Miller is such an issue for the studio that the actor has been sidelined. What's ironic is that Miller's performance has earned raves, and many people are saying The Flash is one of the best superhero movies ever made. Surely now should be a time for celebration? Alas...
Jan 01, 2024•21 min
In this episode of WTF Happened to this Movie, we look at Zack Snyder’s divisive big-screen adaptation of Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Hollywood tried for years to turn this into a film, with directors such as Paul Greengrass, Terry Gilliam and more attached. In the end, Snyder, who was coming off of another ambitious graphic novel adaptation, Frank Miller’s 300, was the one who made it work. Boasting a unique cast of character actors and a period 1980’s setting, Snyder made a mostly faithful adaptati...
Dec 29, 2023•17 min
Blair Witch, for those unaware, is a sequel to the 1999 surprise hit The Blair Witch Project and is a definite return to the series roots in terms of story and filming style. It came as a surprise that a film was shot under the title The Woods and revealed to be a Blair Witch sequel at San Diego Comic-Con 2016. For many, the return to the roots of the franchise was a welcome sight after Books of Shadow: Blair Witch 2. So let's dig in and find out WTF Happened to This Horror Movie?
Dec 25, 2023•12 min
When it comes to leaving a mark on cinematic history and scaring the bejesus out of people while doing it, John Carpenter would be on the Mount Rushmore of Horror. Known for directing some of the most iconic and influential films in horror history, Carpenter is responsible for helming Halloween, The Fog, Escape From New York, The Thing, Christine, Starman, Big Trouble in Little China, and Prince of Darkness, to name a few. Each of the films mentioned above has left an indelible mark on film hist...
Dec 22, 2023•24 min
It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that in 1994, Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction revolutionized popular cinema. While 1992’s Sundance breakout, Reservoir Dogs, made Tarantino an indie icon, Pulp Fiction made him a household name, spawning a “cool crime” genre that dominated the second half of the decade, even as the director himself moved away from the genre. The movie revitalized the career of star John Travolta, whose career had bottomed out in the nineties but soon became a $20 million a film A...
Dec 18, 2023•17 min
Stephen King adaptations are a dime a dozen these days. It seems like every month, there's a King story being adapted to the world of cinema. But it all had to start somewhere. So join us as we cover the debut of one of the greatest authors of all time with 1976's Carrie.
Dec 15, 2023•12 min
As far as rock stars go, they don’t get much bigger than Axl Rose. As the front-man of Guns N’ Roses, he became an instant legend when their debut album, “Appetite for Destruction” was released in 1987. Spawning hits that are still iconic twenty-five years later (with the soundtrack for Thor: Love and Thunder featuring them prominently), including “Welcome to the Jungle,” “Paradise City,” and “Sweet Child of Mine,” the album broke out from the hard rock/heavy metal genre to become one of the big...
Dec 11, 2023•15 min
You sunk my Battleship! That’s probably what the executives at Universal Pictures were thinking the weekend Battleship, Peter Berg’s megabudget adaptation of the board game, opened in theaters. Costing a massive $200 million, Battleship was meant to kick off a franchise, but it landed with a thud both critically and commercially. While star Taylor Kitsch unfairly took a lot of blame, with it one of two back-to-back flops for the unproven lead (alongside the excellent John Carter), there was a lo...
Dec 08, 2023•14 min
Anthology films are the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to being a horror fan. It allows so many different tropes and sub-genres to be explored while still providing bite-sized fun. So what happens when two of the greatest creators in all of horror combine forces for their very own anthology film? One of the best out there, of course! So join us as we cover George A Romero and Stephen King's Creepshow.
Dec 05, 2023•16 min
When it comes to the most disappointing comic book movies that were planned but never produced, which one tops the list? Is it Tim Burton’s Batman Continues? Guillermo del Toro’s Doctor Strange? Perhaps JJ Abrams’ Superman: Flyby? Nah, there’s only one correct answer: Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 4, a movie that continues to breathe potential flickers of life nearly 15 years after it was declared dead by Sony Pictures. Indeed, with the exciting new announcement that Tobey Maguire’s version of Peter Pa...
Dec 01, 2023•11 min
There was a time in the mid-nineties when Pauly Shore was a very big deal. Rising to fame as a VJ on MTV, he parlayed his alter-ego “The Weasel” into unlikely big-screen stardom. His first movie, Encino Man, introduced the world to Brendan Fraser as a caveman, and Shore was such a hit in it that he got his own solo comedy Son in Law (opposite a young Carla Gugino), which was a money-maker. His follow-up, IN the Army Now, also made money, but that would be the end of Shore’s short-lived reign as ...
Nov 27, 2023•17 min
Ben Affleck’s Argo was a runaway hit in 2012. His highly anticipated follow-up to The Town, it finally won Affleck the respect from his peers that he always deserved, with it earning a Best Picture Oscar, despite the man being shut out as director in a controversial move. Audiences and critics alike raved about the movie, but it wasn’t without controversy. Some involved with the original “Canadian Caper” that the film was based on slammed it for various inaccuracies. However, these were largely ...
Nov 24, 2023•23 min
The final girl, the opposite of horror villains, is a character defined by her innocence, intelligence, and girl-next-door charm. She's a survivor who outwits supernatural evil to protect her friends and neighbors. This archetype was pioneered by Jamie Lee Curtis, a legendary horror actress who transitioned into a top-tier film career. In this episode of "WTF Happened To This Horror Celebrity," we explore the journey of Jamie Lee Curtis, one of the horror genre's reigning queens.
Nov 20, 2023•20 min
These days, horror and comedy are no stranger to each other with recent films such as Bodies Bodies Bodies, Freaky, and the Happy Death Day series. But in the early eighties, blending the two genres was practically unheard of. Enter John Landis, who had already established himself as a successful comedic director with The Blues Brothers and Animal House, to change the formula with 1981’s An American Werewolf in London. Grab your best flannel and keep clear of the Moors as we find out WTF Happene...
Nov 17, 2023•11 min
Unless you’ve been living under a rock the last few months, you’ve probably had your fill of the name Amber Heard. The court case between her and ex-husband Johnny Depp played out in all of its Livestream infamy recently and ended with a decisive victory by team Depp. In many ways, the disgraced star was redeemed in the public eye when a jury found Heard defamed him in an op-ed about being a survivor of “sexual violence” and “domestic abuse.” As revealed in the trial, the facts behind their rela...
Nov 13, 2023•17 min
The Spirit is a Neo-noir superhero film based on the classic character created by Will Eisner. A live-action film version of the character had been planned for years, with William Friedkin coming close to making a movie back in the eighties. It almost got made as an animated film. In the wake of Robert Rodriguez’s successful version of Sin City, that film’s co-director/writer, the legendary Frank Miller, was able to get the rights. It would be done in a similar style to that film, with it shot i...
Nov 10, 2023•15 min
The debate over which is the best Friday the 13th is always a tough one. Is it the original? The Final Chapter? Jason Lives? An argument can be made for any of them. Yet usually, when it comes to the worst in the franchise, specifically for the Paramount years, there's only one contender. So join us as we dive into Friday the 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan
Nov 06, 2023•16 min
It was the slap heard around the world. March 27th, 2022 should have been the greatest moment of Will Smith’s career. He had worked his entire career towards finally winning the award that would prove, beyond any doubt, that he genuinely had the respect and admiration of his peers - the Academy Award. Indeed, Will Smith won that night for King Richard, but he also lost something precious. He lost the respect of his peers after an ill-advised (but innocuous) joke by Chris Rock led to the #OscarSl...
Nov 03, 2023•24 min
Assassin's Creed wasn't supposed to be a bad movie. It was supposed to be the rare video game adaptation that got the source material right. Boasting a talented arthouse director, Justin Kurzel, and one of the most exciting leading men of the era, Michael Fassbender, this was supposed to kick off a fantasy action franchise that would put anything else based on video games to shame. Alas, it didn't work out that way, with the film being panned critically and only grossing $54 million domestically...
Oct 30, 2023•18 min
Busta Rhymes' Freddie Jones is everyone's favorite character from Halloween right? What about Josh Hartnett's John Tate? Well, I know you love Charles Cypher's Sheriff Leigh Brackett! So take all three of those elements, add some snow, and what do you get? An entry in the Halloween series they tried to make back in 2003, which just never gained momentum. So we're here to tell you what happened to Halloween: Retribution.
Oct 27, 2023•11 min
Making a HALLOWEEN 3 without iconic slasher Michael Myers, hadn’t worked out very well. The plan had been to turn HALLOWEEN into an anthology series – but that plan went down in flames. Fans were disappointed. The HALLOWEEN franchise was tarnished so badly, major studios didn’t want to touch it. Michael Myers needed to come back for HALLOWEEN 4, and the filmmakers had to make sure his return was a triumphant one. And they did, which is why we’re still getting Michael Myers movies to this day. Ho...
Oct 23, 2023•24 min
Is there any artist with a more enormous effect on pop culture than Madonna? You could probably rank Madonna with Elvis Presley and The Beatles for the impact she had on pop music, and while she has her detractors, no one can doubt her talent. With a new biopic starring Julie Garner on the way, in this episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity, we look into Madonna’s origins, her film work and what she’s up to nowadays, including those wacky TikTok posts. Even after forty years at the top of the...
Oct 20, 2023•16 min
Next year, Paramount Pictures is going to try and turn Dungeons and Dragons into the next huge fantasy franchise. Indeed, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves has it all - a huge budget, a cast of stars (including Chris Pine) and people behind the scenes who take it seriously. It’s a far cry from the first, disastrous attempt to turn the famous RPG game into a franchise, 2000’s mostly forgotten Dungeons & Dragons, which starred a scenery-chewing Jeremy Irons as an evil mage. The cast ...
Oct 16, 2023•14 min
Home invasion films are often able to tap into a primordial fear. The invasion of such a sacred space is enough to keep you up at night. So in 2008, a film took the world by storm and had people locking their doors like they were going to be next. We're of course talking about Bryan Bertino's The Strangers.
Oct 13, 2023•11 min
Those of us that grew up in the 90s remember the complete overtaking of pop culture that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles experienced. Suddenly every kid was saying Cowabunga and only wanted to eat pizza. Through the onslaught of Turtlesmania, a ton of merchandise was made. Toys, clothes, games, and of course movies. The original live-action film came out in 1990 and followed with two sequels in quick succession. While the first film was lauded by audiences, the second film began to show some cr...
Oct 11, 2023•10 min
