A24’s new film is drawing a lot of questions. Alex Garland explains his reasoning for uniting two famously opposing states.

Alex Garland‘s Civil War has turned a lot of heads on a number of issues. His hypothetical film about a modern-day civil war can be incendiary on its concept alone, and with a lesser respected filmmaker and studio behind the project, many would accuse the film of exploiting a seemingly boiling issue. However, Garland is a director that movie fans know isn’t necessarily going to emulate Michael Bay after such heady films like Men and Annihilation. When the trailers were released and it was revealed that the film featured an alliance between two states with notably opposing politics, many questioned the possibility and purpose behind it.

So, how did California and Texas unite to form the Western Forces? According to The Hollywood Reporter, Garland addressed this decision at a special screening of the film. The director says it was “intentional” as it was “partly to get around a kind of reflexive, polarizing position that people might fall into, that’s one thing, but actually that’s not the main thing. The main thing is to do with how the president is presented and what can be inferred from that.” Nick Offerman plays the president in the film, who uses air strikes on American citizens as a way of acquiring additional terms.

Garland continued to expound, “Then it’s saying that two states that have a different political position have said, ‘Our political difference is less important than this.’ And then the counter to that is if you cannot conceive of that, what you’re saying is that your polarized political position would be more important than a fascist president. Which, when you put it like that, I would suggest, is insane. That’s an insane position to hold. So it’s sort of an oblique commentary and I think that’s how the film works in general. It’s not explaining this stuff but it’s also not avoiding this stuff.”

Offerman would also add that the plot point of the Western Forces “serves a few purposes but one of them is to immediately say, ‘This is not supposed to represent the world as it is.’ But I think it also serves to say the way the world is working these days, anything is possible and so quickly.” As Garland wrote the story in 2020, he says having it release in an election year “is really strange, just the sense of déjà vu.” He also says, “I think the film was written really not just about this country, about a weird state we’re in to do with division and polarization and extremism, the things that flow from populism. At the moment I wrote it, I don’t think I imagined it would take four years to get to this point, but also if it did take four years, that things would be so similar.”

Civil War is declared in theaters on April 12.

About the Author

E.J. is a News Editor at JoBlo, as well as a Video Editor, Writer, and Narrator for some of the movie retrospectives on our JoBlo Originals YouTube channel, including Reel Action, Revisited and some of the Top 10 lists. He is a graduate of the film program at Missouri Western State University with concentrations in performance, writing, editing and directing.

Director Maggie Gyllenhaal has shared of images of Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale from her film The Bride

Several months ago, word leaked out that Maggie Gyllenhaal was set to direct a film called The Bride!, a new take on the concept of the 1935 classic The Bride of Frankenstein  (watch it HERE). Once thought to be set up at the Netflix streaming service, this one is actually happening at Warner Bros., and the studio has set the film for a theatrical release, IMAX screens included, on October 3, 2025. Other filmmakers would make us wait a long time to see their take on the iconic characters at play in this story, but Gyllenhaal has already gone ahead and given us the first look at Jessie Buckley as the titular Bride, as well as Christina Bale as Frankenstein’s Monster. Buckley’s Bride can be seen at the top of this article, while Bale’s Monster can be seen below.

Buckley and Bale are joined in the cast by Penelope Cruz, Annette Bening, Peter Sarsgaard, and Julianne Hough. At one point, Cruz was rumored to be playing the Bride, but now we know for sure that it’s Buckley who is taking on that character. Sarsgaard is rumored to be playing a detective.

The Bride! has the following synopsis: A lonely Frankenstein travels to 1930s Chicago to seek the aide of a Dr. Euphronius in creating a companion for himself. The two reinvigorate a murdered young woman and the Bride is born. She is beyond what either of them intended, igniting a combustible romance, the attention of the police and a wild and radical social movement.

This isn’t a Universal project, but it wouldn’t be the first Bride of Frankenstein remake to be made by a different company. In 1985, Columbia Pictures brought us another movie simply called The Bride, which starred Sting as Baron Charles Frankenstein, Jennifer Beals as Eva (the bride) and Clancy Brown as Viktor (the monster). A few years ago, it was announced that Scarlett Johansson was going to star in a similar project called Bride for A24 and Apple, but that still hasn’t made it into production.

Are you interested in The Bride? What do you think of the first look images showing Jessie Buckley as The Bride and Christian Bale as Frankenstein’s Monster. Let us know by leaving a comment below.

With Godzilla x Kong‘s box office success and Godzilla Minus One’s Oscar win making the kaiju legend more relevant than ever, let’s turn the doomsday clock back to 1998 as Awfully Good Movies tackles Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin’s infamous American reboot, known simply as GODZILLA!

With TriStar eager to keep its rights agreement with Toho to make its own Godzilla trilogy after director Jan de Bont was dropped from the film, they turned to the same duo that just blew up both the box office and the White House with Independence Day, who were allowed to do whatever the hell they wanted with the giant lizard’s American debut as long as they could get the flick made within a year for Memorial Day 1998. And much like the Toho executives who first saw Emmerich’s redesigned Godzilla, the eager audiences of Godzilla fans in Japan and America also reacted with several minutes of stunned silence and not the good kind of stunned.

It’s got a cast of wisecracking sitcom rejects that includes a post-Ferris Matthew Broderick, a post-Leon Jean Reno, the late Michael Lerner as the Roger Ebert-parodying corrupt mayor of NYC, and three voice actors from The Simpsons, but all of them are lost against a non-existent Godzilla (or as Toho insists the ‘98 version be called now, “Zilla”) with only 11-13 minutes of screen time none of the soul or artistry of the olden rubber suit days. But any children of the 90s can still hold onto the good memories left behind by the flick’s $20 million advertising campaign: those Taco Bell commercials, that surprisingly decent Saturday morning cartoon, and the theme song performed by P. Didd–you know what, maybe we can skip that one.

And with Godzilla far better served these days by both Toho and Legendary Pictures, we can certainly laugh in retrospect at this epic funeral for the 90s blockbuster as we once knew it. Now who wants to head down to Taco Bell to see if they’ve got leftover Godzilla cup holders?

Previously on Awfully Good Movies…

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Nightwatch director Ole Bornedal and star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau re-team for the sequel Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever, coming to Shudder

Back in 1994, long before he was cast to play Jaime Lannister in the hit series Game of Thrones, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau made his feature film debut in the thriller Nightwatch, where he played a character named Martin, a law student who takes a job working as a night watchman at The Department of Forensic Medicine in Copenhagen just as the place starts filling up with the bodies of a serial killer’s victims. Nightwatch was so well-received that writer/director Ole Bornedal was given the opportunity to direct an English-language remake, which he wrote with Steven Soderbergh. Ewan McGregor played the Martin role in that 1997 film. Now, thirty years after working on the original Nightwatch together, Bornedal and Coster-Waldau have re-teamed for a “30 years” later sequel called Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever, which is set to be released through the Shudder streaming service on May 17th!

Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever has the following synopsis: 22-year-old medical student Emma has just taken a job as the night watch in the same forensic department where her parents were once almost killed by the famed psychopathic police inspector Wörmer. The events led to her mother’s suicide, and her father Martin has turned to tranquilizers to suppress the memories. Determined to investigate what exactly happened to them, Emma tracks down and confronts Wörmer, only to unintentionally reawaken his bloodthirst and ignite a violent revenge on everyone who sealed his destiny years ago.

Coster-Waldau reprises the role of Martin, while Fanny Leander Bornedal (the writer/director’s daughter) takes on the role of Martin’s daughter Emma. Also in the cast are Kim Bodnia, Sonja Richter, Ulf Pilgaard, Casper Kjær Jensen, Paprika Steen, Nina Rask, Alex Høgh Andersen, Sonny Lindberg, Niels Anders Thorn, Tina Gylling, Casper Phillipson, Vibeke Hastrup, and Christopher Læssø.

Thomas Heinesen, Christel C.D. Karlsen, and Signe Baasch produced the film, with Katrine Vogelsang, Henrik Zein, Peter Nadermann, and Doris Schrenner serving as executive producers.

Are you a fan of Nightwatch, and will you be watching the “30 years later” sequel Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever when it reaches Shudder? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Marvel commemorates April the 4th with a new teaser from The Fantastic Four. While the artwork continues the retro look, it’s our first peek at The Human Torch.

As Marvel Studios attempts to recover from a series of underperformances, the company hopes to recapture fans with some returning favorites like the revival of Daredevil, as well as Jon Bernthal’s incarnation of The Punisher. And one of the most-anticipated films to come out this year will be the Ryan Reynolds-Hugh Jackman frenemy team-up in Deadpool & Wolverine. As Marvel Studios reclaim certain film properties like the X-Men as they did long ago with Spider-Man, fans are hoping for a thrilling and faithful adaptation of Marvel’s first family in The Fantastic Four.

As the calendar reaches April 4, or 4-4, Marvel has commemorated the day, which they’ve dubbed “4-4 Day,” with a new teaser image of The Human Torch. The art on the poster carries the retro style of the Valentine’s Day image in which the studio announced the casting of the core four characters. Popular franchise actor Pedro Pascal of The Mandalorian and The Last of Us gets a touch of grey in his hair for his casting as Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic. Vanessa Kirby, known from the Mission: Impossible movies, plays Sue Storm, aka The Invisible Woman. Joseph Quinn, of Stranger Things and Overlord, fires up as Johnny Storm, aka The Human Torch. And Ebon Moss-Bachrach, from The Bear, will portray Ben Grimm, aka The Thing. You can get a look at the poster below.

Recently, it’s also been announced that Julia Garner from Ozark has been cast as the Shalla-Bal version of The Silver Surfer. A character from the comics that has close ties to Norrin Radd, who is the main Silver Surfer, and had made an appearance in the previous Fox incarnation of the franchise in the 2007 film Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. In the comics, Shalla-Bal was the lover of Norrin Radd. When Galactus came to their planet, Radd volunteered to become his herald in exchange for sparing his world. Speaking of Galactus, there have been rumors that Javier Bardem is being eyed for the role.

WandaVision director Matt Shakman teases that his Fantastic Four film will be unlike anything seen from Marvel, “It’s different in so many ways. I wish I could be specific. I wish I could say more. But we are doing things very differently from a story standpoint, from an approach to the filmmaking standpoint, that really fits the material. I wish I could say more. I would love to, but I can’t. But I think it’s going to be unlike anything you’ve seen before, and certainly unlike anything at Marvel that you’ve seen before.“

About the Author

E.J. is a News Editor at JoBlo, as well as a Video Editor, Writer, and Narrator for some of the movie retrospectives on our JoBlo Originals YouTube channel, including Reel Action, Revisited and some of the Top 10 lists. He is a graduate of the film program at Missouri Western State University with concentrations in performance, writing, editing and directing.

The Dracula’s Daughter movie Abigail has gotten a new Dolby Cinema poster ahead of its April theatrical release date

A Universal Monsters project is coming our way from Radio Silence, the filmmaking team that previously brought Ready or Not, Scream (2022), and Scream VI to the screen. Universal has scheduled an April 19, 2024 theatrical release date for the film, which was once going by the title Dracula’s Daughter and now going by the less informative title of Abigail. With the release date just a couple weeks away, the film has gotten a new trailer, which you can check out in the embed above, as well as a Dolby Cinema poster, which can be seen at the bottom of this article.

Radio Silence members Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett directed the film, while the third member of the trio, Chad Villella, is a producer. Their Scream movie collaborators William Sherak, Paul Neinstein, and James Vanderbilt of Project X Entertainment are also producing the monster movie alongside their Ready or Not producer Tripp Vinson. Ron Lynch and Macdara Kelleher serve as executive producers. Jay Polidoro, Holly Goline, Kelly Cannon, and Jacqueline Garell are overseeing the project for Universal. Stephen Shields wrote the initial screenplay for this take on Dracula’s Daughter, and Guy Busick (who co-wrote the two recent Scream movies with Vanderbilt) did some revisions.

Abigail has the following synopsis: Children can be such monsters. After a group of would-be criminals kidnap the 12-year-old ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, all they have to do to collect a $50 million ransom is watch the girl overnight. In an isolated mansion, the captors start to dwindle, one by one, and they discover, to their mounting horror, that they’re locked inside with no normal little girl. 

Kathryn Newton (Freaky), Dan Stevens (Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire), Melissa Barrera (Scream), William Catlett (Black Lightning), Kevin Durand (X-Men Origins: Wolverine), and Angus Cloud (Euphoria) star as the kidnappers, with Alisha Weir (Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical) as Abigail. Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad) is also in the cast.

Universal previously indicated to The Hollywood Reporter that the project falls in the lane of such films as Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man and Renfield, Chris McKay’s take on a Dracula side character — movies that provide “a unique take on legendary monster lore and will represent a fresh, new direction for how to celebrate these classic characters.” Universal released a movie called Dracula’s Daughter in 1936, telling the story of “Countess Marya Zaleska (Gloria Holden), the daughter of Count Dracula and herself a vampire. Following Dracula’s death, she believes that by destroying his body, she will be free of his influence and live normally. When this fails, she turns to a psychiatrist, Dr. Jeffrey Garth (Otto Kruger). The Countess kidnaps Dr. Garth’s assistant, Janet (Marguerite Churchill), and takes her to Transylvania, leading to a battle between Dr. Garth and the Countess in an attempt by him to save Janet.”

Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett were hoping they’d be able to move on from Abigail to directing Scream 7, but studio executives weren’t willing to wait for them to finish working on their vampire project, so they were “exited” from the slasher sequel. We recently learned that a Ready or Not sequel is moving ahead without Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett at the helm as well.

Are you looking forward to Abigail? What do you think of the new trailer and the Dolby Cinema poster? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

A press release notes that, “Dolby Cinema offers guests the complete Dolby movie experience. Dolby Cinema unlocks the emotional impact of every film, allowing you to see the subtle details and ultra vivid colors of Dolby Vision, and hear the immersive sound of Dolby Atmos. Dolby Cinema is specially designed to elevate every type of movie experience – and Abigail will be no exception.”

The First Omen is a surprisingly potent prequel to Richard Donner’s original film, with it both faithful and capable of being its own thing..

PLOT: A young novitiate in Rome (Nell Tiger Free) is warned by an ex-communicated priest (Ralph Ineson) that she’s at the center of a sinister conspiracy at her church dedicated to spawning the anti-Christ. 

REVIEW: I’ve always really enjoyed The Omen as a franchise. Even as a kid, I found something about the original trilogy centring around Damien Thorn especially gripping. However, I never had much use for the cheap TV movie sequel (Omen IV: The Awakening) or the scene-for-scene remake, which, despite a game cast, didn’t come close to recapturing the grisly spirit of Richard Donner’s original. 

As such, I figured The First Omen would be just another would-be franchise starter, but I have to give 20th Century Studios and Disney credit – they made one hell of a cool horror flick (pun intended). In some ways, it’s a bit like Wonka (bear with me) in that it’s a prequel that does its own thing without shitting all over the original, with the Donner film and the original movies that follow all existing in the same universe this does. 

Director Arkasha Stevenson (of SyFy’s Channel Zero) will likely come off this as one of the fastest-rising new names in horror. She’s made an Omen film that’s distinctly not what fans feared it might be – watered-down and overly safe. It’s actually quite provocative, with several images, including a gruesome birthing scene, pushing the limits of the R-rating in a way I didn’t expect from a movie bankrolled by Disney.

Without giving too much away, The First Omen basically sets up the events, eventually leading to the birth of Damien Thorn. They do so by telling the story of a young, would-be nun who travels to Rome to work with the seemingly kind priest (Bill Nighy) who helped raise her. Once there, people begin dying in grisly Omen-fashion, with Ralph Ineson’s Father Brennan warning her that a child she’s helping care for, Carlita (Nicole Sorace), is at the center of a vast conspiracy. 

If you remember your Omen films, you’ll know Damien always had many devout followers, and this film does a good job laying the groundwork for a new series of Omen flicks that could, theoretically, exist alongside the original films. It’s helped by the surprisingly gruesome and grim tone that feels right in league with the original films. 

Nell Tiger Free makes for a terrific lead, with her having had years of work on Apple TV +’s Servant to prep her horror bonafides. Her Sister Margaret is a believable lead in the same way that Gregory Peck was in the original, in that both are victims of a vast conspiracy they have no idea how to fight, with the movie having a cool moment towards the end that mirrors a particular scene with Peck in the original that I won’t share. Notably, Margaret isn’t an action heroine; she is believably conflicted and vulnerable throughout. She’s well supported by Ineson, who fills a similar role to what Leo McKern did in the original, with his unhinged stories of a conspiracy in the church being one Margaret doesn’t want to believe but eventually must. Sonia Braga, who I’ll always remember for her henchwoman role in Clint Eastwood’s The Rookie, also has a nifty role as one of the nuns at Nighy’s church who – wouldn’t you know it – might be up to no good.

The film is set in early 1970s Rome. Stevenson takes a different approach than the people in the similarly themed Immaculate in that she doesn’t ape Dario Argento, which is a temptation many horror directors can’t seem to resist. Instead, she makes the film in the vein of Richard Donner’s work on the original, meaning it’s more reality-based and evocative of the era it’s set in. I enjoyed one especially impressive sequence set at an Italian discotheque. Stevenson does a better job making this in the spirit of the original than David Gordon Green did recently when he tried to riff on William Friedkin’s style for his abysmal Exorcist sequel. The score by Mark Korven (The Lighthouse) is also quite good, initially seeming a little too subtle until, as the horror starts to ramp up, it starts playing with the classic Jerry Goldsmith themes in a delicious way.

All in all, I was shocked by how much fun I had with The First Omen. My only complaint is that despite a few shocking bits, too much of the gore had that CGI look, which is a trend I wish horror movies would get away from. Even still, that’s a minor complaint, and I have to say that I’m actually interested in seeing where this new Omen franchise will go. It’s a worthy follow-up to the original trilogy. 

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