W​hat is light without darkness? This is what Tim Curry’s character of Darkness ponders in the 1985 film Legend. This fairy tale film from visionary director Ridley Scott would start filming in 1984 and even though the movie followed characters through a magical world, it would end up running into some very real problems. Scott was able to snatch up a new young actor just before he was about to become one of the biggest stars in the world and pit him against a well-respected actor known for taking chances in the parts he chose to play. Little did Scott know that making the film was only the first dragon he would have to slay. Getting it released was going to be even harder. Let’s find out how Legend became a fairy tale warning of making films in the studio system here on WTF Happened To This Movie?

R​idley Scott had always been a big fan of fairy tales. As he was wrapping up his film The Duelists, he thought it might be fun to create a brand-new fairy tale as a film. He went and re-read all the stories from The Brothers Grimm and set out to think of what he could do that would be interesting. After a while, he put the idea aside as he was worried it might be too much of an art house project and would not pull in a mainstream audience. Instead, he went on to make the classic sci-fi film Alien and began pre-production work on a little movie called Dune.

W​hen that film fell apart and went to David Lynch to direct, he circled back again to the idea of creating this new fairy tale film. Scott felt it would be best to create an all-new story rather than try to adapt something that was already known. It would be easier to build it from the ground up for a film than to try and have to change certain aspects of the story to fit the visual medium. He came up with the general idea of a young hermit who lived in the woods that would be transformed into a hero to fight darkness and save a beautiful princess. In doing so, he would release the world from a wintery curse that had taken over.

W​hile he was figuring out how to approach the script for the film, he discovered the works of American author William Hjortsberg (pronounced Jorts-Berg). He liked his work and soon discovered that Hjortsberg had already written a few scripts for low-budget films. Scott knew he would understand how to craft a visual story and asked him if he would like to write a fairy tale with him. When Hjortsberg said he had already been working on a couple of fairy tales, Scott knew he had asked the right person.

I​n 1981 just before Scott was heading off to make Blade Runner, he grabbed Hjortsberg, and they spent five weeks hammering out the story line for what they were calling Legend Of Darkness. Scott knew there had to be a quest for the characters to go on and had the idea of something trying to capture the fastest animal in the forest. This would be the unicorn that would become a central crux of the story. 

W​hen Scott returned from making Blade Runner, he discovered that they had a script that was too long, very expensive, and hard to sell. The character of Lili had originally been a princess that was transformed into a clawed creature that was whipped and eventually seduced by Darkness. Parts of the story were very dark and horrific. They began to take out sections of the story that didn’t feed into the main quest. After some back and forth, they rewrote the script 15 times. It seemed to be worth it, and they were happy with the new version of the story they had. 

I​n Legend, Darkness sends his goblins to bring him the horns from the last unicorns alive. Once they have been taken, the world will be plunged into night, and Darkness can then rule. At the same time, a young princess goes into the forest to find Jack, the young boy she loves that lives there. He tells her that he will take her to see the fabled unicorns today. When he takes her to where they live, she breaks free of his grasp and runs up to them. She touches one and the animals run off. 

W​e see that the goblins have shot one of the unicorns with a poison dart. They hunt the unicorn down and sever its horn. Once this is done, the world plunges into a dark winter. Lili runs to a nearby cottage and sees that everything has been frozen in time. The goblins come, and she overhears Darkness tell them that the world won’t fall into permanent darkness until the last unicorn is killed.

J​ack teams up with some of his forest friends to protect that last living unicorn but soon learns that Lili has been captured and that the unicorn is in trouble. The group travels into Darkness’ domain to rescue Lili and set the mythical creature free. If they can complete their quest, the world will return to normal and Darkness will once again be banished from the living world.

Scott began casting for the film and wanted someone with a theatrical presence for the role of Darkness. He began to think about Tim Curry’s performance in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Darkness needed to be threatening but also at times seductive. He felt that Curry could easily fulfill that role and Curry found the story intriguing, so he signed on.

F​or Jack, they auditioned a lot of young actors. Among the group were Jim Carrey, Johnny Depp, and Robert Downey Jr. Ultimately they went with Tom Cruise who brings a young innocence to the role. Scott met Mia Sara in a casting session and loved her theatrical instincts. He hired her even though she was only 15 at the time.

When it came to the look of the creatures of the film, Scott hired special effects master Rob Bottin (Beau-Teen). Ridley had wanted him to work with him on the film Blade Runner, but Bottin was already locked into working on John Carpenter’s The Thing. Scott told him about Legend and Bottin thought it would be a great opportunity to create a wide array of creatures and signed on. 

P​erformer Alice Playten was asked if she had any ideas for the look of the goblin Blix. She wasn’t sure if Scott would go for it, but she mentioned that what she had in mind was to make Blix look like Keith Richards. When she brought it up, Scott sat for a second and then agreed that would look really cool if they extended the nose and added the pointy ears. The makeup ended up being so convincing that when Tim Curry was visiting the set before he had to get into makeup, he met some of the other performers. Playten was in her full makeup and when Curry met her he commented that he felt like they knew each other. He couldn’t place it. After mentioning it a few times Playten mentioned that her character was designed after Keith Richards. Curry immediately saw it and started laughing.

W​hen it came time to create Darkness, Scott hoped to showcase an amazing visual that hadn’t been put on film before. The idea was to give him the cool visual with the giant horns and make him a hulking presence. It was decided to create an apparatus that would strap onto Curry’s head to hold the horns, then a body suit to give Darkness a muscled body, and finally he had to wear lifts to make him taller. When the costume was all put together Darkness would stand about 7 foot 3. He towered over the smaller Cruise which gives the character a great presence. 

B​ecause of the form of the horns went straight outward instead of upwards, it caused a strain on Curry’s neck during fittings. Bottin was able to reduce the weight of the horns dramatically. Scott was impressed with how light the horns ended up being. They looked heavy and could withstand minimal use without breaking. It was perfect for what they needed. The makeup became one of the greatest visuals in all of cinema.

F​or Meg Mucklebones, Bottin based her look off of the old witch form the Queen takes in Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs. He made her more extreme looking and the entire thing was made out of foam latex. Performer Robert Picardo, yes the Doctor from Star Trek: Voyager played Meg Mucklebones, said it was tough playing the character in the water. She was supposed to burst out of the water and quickly approach Jack. He said that when they would lower him into the water, the foam latex suit would begin absorbing water so when he burst up into frame, water would go flying everywhere and then begin to leak out of the suit into the seaweed covering parts of his body. It ended up being a great visual on camera but was grueling while shooting.

T​he entire forest was a set built at Pinewood Studios. Scott took a trip to the Sequoia National Forest to research how he wanted this magic forest to look. He liked the giant trees and had some built on the set. It went all the way up to the ceiling and it felt like you were really in a forest setting when you walked onto it. Everything they ended up filming in the forest set had to be dubbed over later because of the abundance of noise. There were lots of fans and mechanical equipment being used. Even the scenes without the use of all this were problematic because local birds had found their way into the studio and had taken up residence in the large fake trees. 

O​ne day while everyone was at lunch, the studio the forest was in caught fire. A large tower of smoke could be seen miles away. They still had 10 days left of shooting on the set and now the entire forest setting had been destroyed. It was determined that since the crew had been using a gas line for some of the campfires in the scenes, fumes had gathered in the top of the studio and eventually ignited. Luck would have it that most of the cast and crew weren’t on set due to lunch. If so there would have for sure been tragedies. Scott even commented in the Making Of documentary on the DVD that some of the crew would have been up on walkways near the top of the studio, and they would have been trapped when the fire started.

S​cott was able to readjust the shooting schedule and had smaller sections of the forest set built on another sound stage and ended up only going over by three days. Because of this, the setting where Lili and Jack meet the unicorns was moved to a garden that was located on the grounds of Pinewood Studios. The amount of greenery matched well with what the set had originally intended and everyone agreed it ended up being the perfect setting for the scene.

O​nce the film was done filming, attention turned to editing the movie. This is where Scott was hit with the dreaded “Studio Notes”. The film that Scott was putting together reflected a throwback to classic fairy tales, and he got Jerry Goldsmith to create an orchestral score that helped enhance that feeling. 

T​he film was sent out for some test screenings and Scott admits that some of the comments from the audience members shook his confidence in the running time of the movie. He then trimmed it down from 2 hours and 30 minutes to 1 hour and 38 minutes. Studio execs were also worried about the film and started to give some suggestions. They wanted to appeal to a younger demographic and commissioned a score from the band Tangerine Dream. This was vastly different from what Goldsmith had done and changed some of the tone of the film. In a compromise, Scott was able to keep the original Goldsmith score for the European release but the US release would include the new score. 

E​ven some of the actor’s voices were changed. A studio exec stated that they thought the character of Gump played by German actor David Bennent “sounded too German,” so the character was redubbed by Alice Playten who played Blix. 

T​he film itself would undergo even more edits. Scott has stated that the film lost some of the magic it originally had. He felt the original story expressed how everyone had their own flaws and would try to overcome them. Jack was supposed to be portrayed as being lustful over Princess Lili but would later prove his true love for her. Gump is shown to have a bad temper when he didn’t get what he wanted. Lili is seen as greedy throughout the film as she is always taking things or constantly trying to go where she has been expressively forbidden to go. When the film was changed, Scott said he felt it had been pushed to be more of a stereotypical 80s fantasy film. Tom Cruise was so unhappy with the American cut of the film that he refused to talk about it for years.

I​n 2002 Scott was given the chance to produce a Director’s Cut of the film. This added in new scenes and even replaced some scenes with alternate takes. The first order of business was to add back in the Goldsmith score for the film. When they went to find the original masters of the recordings, they couldn’t be found. Scott was worried that the original score wouldn’t be able to be used for this new cut of the film. Luckily an engineer at the studio had kept a two-track digital copy of the score because he thought it might be worth preserving. They were able to use that to recut the music for use in the new cut. 

I​n this new version we even get to see a new ending. While it’s not a major change, it does switch things up. The original ending had Jack and Lili running into the forest as they turn to wave goodbye to their forest friends. Here we have a scene with Jac and Lili where she says goodbye and that she will be back to see him soon. She runs out of the forest and waves at Jack. He waves back and watches her go. Then as Jack takes in that the world has been restored as it should be he runs off and runs into the sunset. Jack by himself turns to see his forest friends and waves at them before he runs off into the sunset. 

E​veryone involved with the movies has pretty much universally agreed that the director’s cut is superior to the US Theatrical cut of the film and that it preserves what the original intent of the film was supposed to be. But some of us that came of age in the late 80s and early 90s do find it hard to let the original theatrical cut go as it is how we first saw the film. Both cuts are worth checking out.

W​hat started out as a simple fairy tale did turn into a nightmarish warning of how easily things can turn to Darkness but in the end, Ridley Scott and company made a fairy tale that has withstood the test of time and is a great throwback to a simpler time. When movies were big spectacles and using makeup effects could produce some of the most beautiful images ever put on screen. 

For more on Legend, check out our episodes of Fantasizing About Fantasy Films, and Tom Cruise Revisited!

S​ources:

(January 1986). “Legend Makeup”. Cinefantastique. p. 25.

December 1985). “Ridley Scott: SF’s Visual Magician”. Starlog. p. 64.

C​reating A Myth: The Making Of Legend DVD documentary

One of the many sequences the latest Cruise film will offer is a high speed chase through the streets of Rome.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One will have no shortage of thrilling and practical action set-pieces, especially with daredevil Tom Cruise working his butt off to make sure audiences are entertained. The movie legend continues to deliver his amazing brand of stuntwork as the latest entry in the spy espionage series features the actor atop a bi-plane, hanging from a dangling train, making a cliff jump off of a motorcycle and doing his signature sprinting. The new featurette released by Paramount takes you behind the scenes of another sequence in which Tom and his co-star Hayley Atwell are being chased through Rome while handcuffed.

In the video, Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell and Christopher McQuarrie speak about the filming of a scene in which Ethan Hunt and a new character named Grace are being chased through the busy, cobbled streets of Rome as they’re pursued by the mysterious Paris, played by Pom Klementieff, known for Guardians of the Galaxy. The catch here is Ethan and Grace find themselves running from this assassin while handcuffed to each other. This makes it a challenge for Ethan as the position they settle into has him driving one-handed. And damn if Tom Cruise didn’t actually learn to drift in a speeding car with one hand.

The official synopsis reads,
“In Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team embark on their most dangerous mission yet: To track down a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity before it falls into the wrong hands. With control of the future and the fate of the world at stake, and dark forces from Ethan’s past closing in, a deadly race around the globe begins. Confronted by a mysterious, all-powerful enemy, Ethan is forced to consider that nothing can matter more than his mission – not even the lives of those he cares about most.”

Paramount has also released two specialty posters — one for Dolby and one for IMAX formats. The series has made great use of the IMAX screen expansion to enhance the scope of the action in an effort to immerse the audience into the film. Additionally, Christopher McQuarrie also champions the Dolby format, saying, “I’m devoted to a fully immersive big screen experience and no big screen experience is complete without the extraordinary detail, depth, power and presence of Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos.” 

Samuel L. Jackson’s return to the MCU as Nick Fury is more espionage thriller than super-heroics.

PLOT: Set in the present-day MCU, Nick Fury learns of a clandestine invasion of Earth by a faction of shapeshifting Skrulls. Fury joins his allies, including Everett Ross, Maria Hill, and the Skrull Talos, who has made a life for himself on Earth. Together they race against time to thwart an imminent Skrull invasion and save humanity. 

REVIEW: Phase Five of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has gotten off to a rocky start. While the box office results for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 have been good, the critical acclaim that Marvel Studios has become synonymous with has lost some of its luster in the eyes of many fans. The first Disney+ series of the current phase of the MCU brings back many characters and plot elements from the films leading up to Avengers: Endgame and attempts to set the stage for a new wave of heroes and villains. It all comes under the leadership of Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury in a six-episode limited series. Having seen the first two chapters, Secret Invasion is definitely closer in tone to Captain America: The Winter Soldier and works as an espionage thriller more than a large-scale blockbuster action movie.

Secret Invasion is a direct continuation of plot elements from Captain Marvel and reintroduces us to Talos, the Skrull leader played by Ben Mendelsohn. While only the first two episodes of Secret Invasion were made available for this review, there is a definite distinction between this series and anything else we have seen in the MCU. I have said that often in my reviews of Marvel Studios projects, but Secret Invasion really is not a superhero project in the sense we have become accustomed to. There is a much more mature angle to the storytelling, focusing on the human characters we have seen over the last fifteen years. Aside from the Skrulls, there is no superhero on screen in these opening chapters, as even Don Cheadle’s appearance is without his War Machine armor. There are references to Carol Danvers, The Avengers, and other MCU characters. Still, this tale is truly about Nick Fury’s relationship with the Skrull people after the end of Captain Marvel.

The series quickly explains that after the Skrull people failed to find a new homeworld, there was a schism between those who followed Talos and those who follow Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir). Gravik wants to infiltrate Earth and take it over for the Skrulls. When Fury learns of this from Talos and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), he returns to Earth after spending the majority of the post-Blip years aboard the S.W.O.R.D. space station, S.A.B.E.R. Talos informs Fury that he needs his friend’s help to stop Gravik and rescue his daughter, Gi’ah (Emilia Clarke) who has sided with Gravik. Fury enlists the few remaining friends, including British MI6 agent Sonya Falsworth (Olivia Colman), to convince the world that the Skrull rebellion is among them. What follows over the opening episodes is a lot of detective work and some chase scenes through Moscow that lead to events that could bring the planet to the edge of World War III. Without spoiling any of the plot details in these episodes, I can say that I was left with some theories as to where this series is headed. They include a major adversary connected to the Skrulls from the pages of Marvel Comics.

While we have seen Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury many times before, this character iteration is much different than the last time we saw him. Fury has been changed by the events of Thanos’ snap and his time with the Skrull people, which we see in de-aged flashbacks set in the late 1990s. This new Fury is not as buttoned up as before, and his age is beginning to show. Jackson is in more of these two episodes than most of his total MCU screen time. The legendary actor does not disappoint, spouting some memorable lines that will become instant quotes after this series debuts. Ben Mendelsohn is also quite good, getting to explore more of who Talos is than he did in Captain Marvel. Olivia Colman is spectacular as the brutally efficient Falsworth, while Emilia Clarke is far different than I expected her to be. Gi’ah is a grittier character than Clarke has played in her career and works well opposite Kingsley Ben-Adir. Gravik is a menacing and dangerous character and Kingsley Ben-Adir makes him a solid antagonist with a bone to pick with Nick Fury. While we do see appearances from Martin Freeman as Everett Ross and Don Cheadle as Rhodey, their inclusion is minor compared to the rest of the cast.

With all six episodes directed by veteran television, documentary, and commercial filmmaker Ali Selim, Secret Invasion has a different feel from other MCU productions. While The Falcon and the Winter Soldier series carried a similar visual palette as this, Secret Invasion‘s story feels more immediate and less cinematic. There are a couple of bigger set-pieces in the first episodes that would have fit into a big-screen MCU endeavor, but overall most of this story is in backrooms and interiors, lending it a more confined feel akin to Selim’s inspiration, The Third Man and FX series The Americans. Series creator Kyle Bradstreet (Mr. Robot) worked with a small writing team that includes Brian Tucker and Roxanne Paredes, who lay on the spy and Western inspiration delicately while making this feel like a natural extension of the MCU. There are some substantial teases hidden in the opening episodes that tease a fairly super Skrull reveal coming before the end of this show that I expect will excite some hardcore Marvel fans (Hint: See what I did there?)

With a weekly episode drop, Secret Invasion will frustrate viewers who will only be watching one hour at a time. The first episode ends with a big moment for the MCU, and the second will keep fans of Nick Fury waiting for a week to find out more. But, narratively, neither episode really stands out as a solid viewing experience on its own. With Kevin Feige and the creative teams on these Disney+ series often comparing them to extended feature films, the episodes I have seen feel like part of a movie rather than self-contained episodes. I will have a better impression of Secret Invasion in a month and a half once I have seen the entire tale from beginning to end, but there is enough here to keep me intrigued to see where this is going. Hopefully, Secret Invasion will be a turning point for the Marvel Cinematic Universe as these opening episodes are more mature and well-structured than many of their films and series in recent years.

Secret Invasion premiers on June 21st on Disney+.

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A teaser trailer has been released for director Joe Lynch’s H.P. Lovecraft adaptation Suitable Flesh, starring Heather Graham

Fangoria got the exclusive first look at a teaser trailer for the upcoming H.P. Lovecraft adaptation Suitable Flesh, which is coming our way from the team of director Joe Lynch (Wrong Turn 2, Mayhem), screenwriter Dennis Paoli – who has contributed to the screenplays for some of the most popular H.P. Lovecraft adaptations ever made; Re-Animator, From Beyond, Castle Freak, Dagon, Masters of Horror: Dreams in the Witch-House – and producer Barbara Crampton (who was in Re-Animator, From Beyond, and Castle Freak)… and that teaser trailer can now be seen in the embed above!

Suitable Flesh just had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival last weekend.

Described as an “erotic body-swapping horror”, this adaptation of The Thing on the Doorstep stars Heather Graham (Boogie Nights) and Judah Lewis (The Babysitter). Graham plays psychiatrist Elizabeth Derby, who becomes obsessed with helping a young patient suffering extreme personality disorder. But her desire to help leads her into dark occult danger as she tries to escape a horrific fate.

Bruce Davison (X-Men), Johnathon Schaech (That Thing You Do!), and Graham Skipper (The Mind’s Eye) are also in the cast.

Crampton produced the film alongside Bob Portal, Inderpal Singh, and Joe Wicker for Amp, in association with Eyevox Entertainment. Brian Yuzna, who produced Re-Animator, From Beyond, and Dagon (and directed the Re-Animator sequels) is on board as executive producer, as are Eyevox’s Rick Moore, Amp’s James Norrir and Nina Kolokouri, and Lynch. Amp is handling worldwide sales – and Crampton is the Vice President of Production and Development at Amp.

RLJE Films will be giving Suitable Flesh a theatrical, VOD, and digital release later this year, and then that will be followed by a streaming release on the Shudder service.

Paoli and Crampton worked with director Stuart Gordon on the Lovecraft adaptations mentioned above. Gordon passed away in 2020, and it’s really nice to see his collaborators continuing to dig into Lovecraft and honoring his memory. I’m hyped for Suitable Flesh and can’t wait to check it out.

Are you interested in Suitable Flesh? What did you think of the teaser trailer? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Relations between Christopher Nolan and his former studio home, Warner Bros, might be thawing, with the new studio heads wanting him back.

While one might assume there’s bad blood between Warner Bros execs and Christopher Nolan following the auteur’s much-publicized exit from the studio, the new creative team at the studio says that just isn’t so. According to a new piece in Variety, studio bosses Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy want Nolan back – pronto. “We’re hoping to get Nolan back…I think there’s a world,” said De Luca. 

Nolan, a few years ago, infamously slammed WB for sending their theatrical releases day and date to Max (then called HBO Max), saying previously, “Some of our industry’s biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out they were working for the worst streaming service.” 

Nolan took his latest project, Oppenheimer, to Universal Pictures, and many figured the decision to go up against WB’s Barbie was a kind of mutual middle finger between the two titans. Not so, says the studio, with him doing Oppenheimer post-production on the WB lot and recently getting a rich royalty check for Tenet which, despite coming out at the worst point of the pandemic, still grossed over $365 million worldwide.

Elsewhere in the piece, creatives such as Todd Phillips, who made all of his films since The Hangover for the studio, say the studio is the best place for filmmakers. Everyone criticizes the move to go day-and-date on Max, but the policy has been rolled back under the new heads of the studio, with Phillips stating, “…in recent years, the studio kind of lost its way. To me, Mike and Pam are a sign to everyone that Warner Bros. is back on track. They have a deep respect for what we do.”

2023 is proving to be a banner year for the studio, with The Flash, Blue Beetle, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, the musical version of The Color Purple, Barbie and Dune: Part 2 all set to hit theatres by the year’s end.

A trailer has been released for the Australian slasher Bad Girl Boogey, which is set to receive a U.S. release in July

A couple months ago, we learned that Dark Star Pictures has picked up the North American distribution rights to the Australian slasher movie Bad Girl Boogey – and at the time, we heard the film would be receiving a VOD, digital, and physical media release on July 4th. But the release strategy is actually a bit more spaced out than that. Dark Star will be giving Bad Girl Boogey a digital release on July 4th, then the film will reach select theatres on July 7th, and the DVD release is scheduled for July 11th. With those dates less than a month away, a trailer for the film has arrived online, and you can check it out in the embed above.

The second film from writer/director/producer Alice Maio Mackay (the first was the 2021 vampire movie So Vam), Bad Girl Boogey centers on Angel, whose mother was brutally murdered one Halloween night, when blood was shed by a deranged killer wearing a parasitic mask cursed with black magic and bigotry. Sixteen years later, when Angel’s best friend is slaughtered by a killer with the same mask, they must overcome their personal struggles, fight their fear, and find the masked killer before he, or it, slaughters everyone they hold dear. Mackay wrote the screenplay with Ben Pahl Robinson.

The Wrap described Bad Girl Boogey as a “queer horror film” and noted that it features a cast of queer and trans actors. Among the cast members are Lisa Fanto, Iris Mcerlean, Chris Asimos, Toshiro Glenn, Lewi Dawson, and Kate Bonney. Genre icon Bill Moseley (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, The Devil’s Rejects, etc.) has a voiceover cameo.

Mackay had this to say about the distribution deal: “I am thrilled to be unleashing my sophomore feature Bad Girl Boogey with Dark Star Pictures for its North American release. I can’t wait for it to connect with its audience of horror-loving queer misfits who I hope will have as much fun watching it as we had putting it together.“

Dark Star President Michael Repsch added: “Bad Girl Boogey is a shock to the system. Writer and director Alice Maio Mackay has masterfully crafted an exciting, visceral slasher film with an important message of identity and bigotry. Her vision is one that will make audiences think, while soaking them in blood and terror.“

What did you think of the Bad Girl Boogey trailer? Will you be watching this movie next month? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Fright Rags has made a board game inspired by the 1981 slasher Halloween II, and they’re accepting orders through a Kickstarter campaign

About six months ago, we heard that Fright Rags was working on a board game based on the 1981 slasher Halloween II (watch that HERE) as part of their “Stop the Killer” series of games. Now they’re running a Kickstarter campaign that serves as a way to order a copy of the Halloween II board game! The price of one game (with Kickstarter-exclusive expansion packs) is $59, but there are also tiers that allow you to buy two or three copies of the game. The estimated time of delivery is December 2023.

Games in the Stop the Killer series are created with the following mandates in mind: The game had to be inspired by the movie. It had be FUN to play! The game could be played with multiple players as well as solo. Playing the game had to be EASY… NO complicated instructions. Although the game should be easy to play, it should be CHALLENGING. NO SCORING! Who likes to keep track of scores during a game? The game had to have UNPREDICTABLE outcomes and be DIFFERENT every time.

While previous games in the series have been played with a 30 card deck, the Halloween II board game has a 40 card deck. Fright Rags has said that the way these decks are used during game play is SO IMPORTANT, and it ensures the each game’s result is different and unpredictable. We also wanted players to think of their favorite scenes in the movie while playing, so the cards are filled with the film imagery that fans love. Remember all of those 2-hour blocks sitting around the Monopoly board during your childhood? You won’t experience that with our board game! During testing, some games lasted 7 minutes, while others lasted 20 or 30 minutes, and the cards have a huge impact on this! We designed the gaming experience so that you can play a few games back-to-back without taking up too much time.

The Halloween II board game will allow fans to play as multiple different characters from the film, including Dr. Loomis, Nurse Karen, Jimmy, Mrs. Elrod, Mrs. Alves, and Sheriff Brackett. Laurie Strode is included in an expansion pack. The board has two sides – one where Michael Myers stalks, and the other where he kills. And there are three different levels of difficulty.

Here’s the set-up: Michael Myers has just been shot six times by Dr. Loomis and is on his way to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital to kill Laurie Strode! Your only goal is to stop Michael from reaching the hospital. Sounds simple… but it’s not easy!

For the full details, click over to Kickstarter… and if it all looks and sounds good to you, go ahead and secure your copy!

Fright Rags got their “Stop the Killer” series of board games started with a board game inspired by the 1984 killer Santa classic Silent Night, Deadly Night (watch it HERE). That was followed by a board game inspired by another classic slasher, the 1981 film My Bloody Valentine (watch it HERE). After Halloween II, they’re already planning to make a fourth game in the series.

Are you interested in the Halloween II board game? Have you played the Silent Night, Deadly Night and/or My Bloody Valentine games? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

A trailer for the horror film Cobweb (starring Lizzy Caplan, directed by Samuel Bodin, produced by Seth Rogen) is now online

Four and a half years ago, Lionsgate – a studio that had once been a prominent force in the horror genre, with releases like The Devil’s Rejects, Cabin Fever, the Hostel films, and of course the Saw franchise – announced that they were developing a genre project called Cobweb with the intention of taking back their “ownership” of horror. We’ll have the chance to see just how impressive and unnerving the movie turned out to be when Cobweb receives a theatrical release on July 21st… and with that date just one month away, a trailer for the film has arrived online. You can watch it in the embed above.

Directed by Samuel Bodin, who created Netflix’s short-lived French horror series Marianne, from a screenplay by Chris Thomas Devlin (Leatherface), Cobweb has the following synopsis: Eight-year-old Peter is plagued by a mysterious, constant tap, tap from inside his bedroom wall – a tapping that his parents insist is all in his imagination. As Peter’s fear intensifies, he believes that his parents could be hiding a terrible, dangerous secret and questions their trust. And for a child, what could be more frightening than that?

We previously saw a synopsis that said a boy’s abusive parents have always told him the voices he hears in the walls of his house are only in his head. But when he discovers that they’re real, he conspires to let them out.

The film stars Lizzy Caplan (Fatal Attraction),

Antony Starr (The Boys), Cleopatra Coleman (Infinity Pool), and Woody Norman (C’mon C’mon).

Cobweb was produced by Point Grey’s Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and James Weaver, along with Vertigo Entertainment’s Roy Lee. Vertigo’s Andrew Childs serves as executive producer with Jonathan McCoy and Josh Fagen, who oversaw the project for Point Grey. Jim Miller and Meredith Wieck oversaw the project for Lionsgate. Rogen isn’t an obvious producer for an intense horror project, but we’re also living in a world where Kevin Smith made a horror movie about a man being surgically turned into a walrus and where Danny McBride has co-written three Halloween sequels.

Cobweb looks pretty good to me. What did you think of the trailer? Do you think Lionsgate’s attempt to take back ownership of the horror genre looks like a success? Let us know by leaving a comment below.