All My Friends Are Dead, a slasher directed by Marcus Dunstan and starring Jade Pettyjohn and JoJo Siwa, is now filming

At one point, Saw VI director Kevin Greutert was on board to direct a slasher movie called All My Friends Are Dead… but then Greutert got busy working on the upcoming sequel Saw X and ended up handing the helm over to Marcus Dunstan – the director of The Collector and co-writer of Saw VI. All My Friends Are Dead is now filming in Vancouver with Dunstan at the helm, and the first image from the film has been unveiled. You can take a look at this image, which features star Jade Pettyjohn of the School of Rock TV series, at the bottom of this article.

John Baldecchi is producing All My Friends Are Dead with Kirk Shaw and Stephanie Rennie, while Dominic Ianno, Sarah Donnelly, Jason Resnick, Suraj Gohill, Dan Rubin, Chris McGurk, Yolanda Macias, and Brad Miska serve as executive producers. Scripted by Josh Sims and Jessica Sarah Flaum, the film will tell the following story: A group of close college friends get a steal on a killer Airbnb for the biggest music festival of the year. A weekend of partying quickly takes a turn for the worse, as the group is murdered one by one. They soon discover that each one of their deaths directly corresponds to one of the seven deadly sins.

Pettyjohn is joined in the cast by JoJo Siwa, Jennifer Ens, Ali Fumiko Whitney, Justin Derickson, Julian Haig, Cardi Wong, Jack Doupe-Smith, and Michaella Russell.

All My Friends Are Dead is being financed by Banc of California and Budding Equity, among others. Distribution deals have been secured in multiple territories, with Cinedigm holding the North American rights.

Miska, Managing Director of Bloody Disgusting and Cinedigm, had this to say about the project: “Scream has revitalized the ‘90s slasher and All My Friends Are Dead delivers all the gory fun of those classic films with modern flair. It’s going to deliver all of the gory goods that horror fans expect to see when Marcus Dunstan gets behind the camera.“

Sarah Donnelly, Head of Production at Roundtable, added: “This is a landmark moment for the highly-anticipated Roundtable and Cinedigm collaboration, as All My Friends Are Dead is the debut thriller that launched this exciting partnership. Production in Vancouver is going beautifully, thanks to the skilled work of producers Kirk and Stephanie, the dedicated local crew, and the incredibly creative direction of Marcus Dunstan. Fans of the genre are not going to want to miss this one.“

I’m very interested to see how All My Friends Are Dead is going to turn out. Are you interested in this one? Let us know by leaving a comment below… and check out the first image while you’re scrolling down.

It’s not great quality, but it’s something:

Disney’s The Little Mermaid remake has a couple of winning performances, but ultimately feels unnecessary.

PLOT: Young Ariel (Halle Bailey) yearns to explore the world beyond the sea but is forbidden by her father, King Triton (Javier Bardem). When she meets a handsome prince (Jonah Hauer-King), she hitches a plan to explore dry land but makes a deadly bargain with the evil Ursula (Melissa McCarthy), which could imperil the undersea kingdom.

REVIEW: I’ve never really been down with Disney’s decision to take all their best-animated films and make them into live-action. To me, it’s never made sense. Would you make Toy Story live-action? What’s worse is that, typically, these live-action movies run at least half an hour longer than their animated counterparts and are bloated with extraneous musical numbers and plotting, making them an altogether less fun experience than the classics we grew up with. Have any of them been good? I suppose Jon Favreau’s The Jungle Book comes the closest. Still, I must admit to preferring Andy Serkis’ more provocative (and demented) take on the material for Netflix – Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle.

Despite two inspired bits of casting, The Little Mermaid is more of the same. Running a whopping fifty or so minutes longer than the original, it’s padded out with Lin Manuel-Miranda songs which, while good, aren’t as catchy as the late Howard Ashman originals. In a poor bit of timing, Disney Plus almost scuttled a documentary on his life only to reverse course. The people behind this movie treat him with more respect, leaving most of his classic tunes intact. Directed by Rob Marshall, who made Mary Poppins Returns for Disney, like the other live-action versions, this is a decent movie. Still, it’s unlikely to replace the animated original in anyone’s heart.

However, I will give them this – two main roles have been inspiringly well cast. Halle Bailey was a controversial (for some) choice to be Ariel, but it’s hard to imagine even the most reluctant critic not being won over by her charming performance. She plays the part very much in the tradition of what was done in the animated movie. Many people thought this version of The Little Mermaid would be too modernized, but Ariel is just how she was in the cartoon, naive, headstrong and lovable.

Melissa McCarthy was the other smart choice, with her having a whale of a time as Ursula. She brings just the right amount of camp to her portrayal, and she can belt out a show tune with the best of them, doing a terrific job with “Poor Unfortunate Soul.” When McCarthy and Bailey are on-screen, the movie works.

The rest of the cast is more of a mixed bag. Javier Bardem’s King Triton winds up being a pretty thinly conceived part, and he’s probably too grounded of an actor for it. McCarthy injected her role with a ton of camp, and Bardem should have done the same. Leading man Jonah Hauer-King, while handsome (his shirt tends to get ripped open by waves regularly), doesn’t have the charisma to make us believe Ariel would give up her undersea kingdom for him. However, the same was arguably true of the cartoon…

Of the animated critters Ariel calls her friends, I did find how photo-realistic they were a touch creepy. I loved Daveed Diggs’ voice work as Sebastian, but he looked too real. I wish they had made him more cartoony – and the same goes for Jacob Tremblay’s Flounder. The character who’s the least faithful to the cartoon, Awkwafina’s Scuttle, actually fares the best, as the actress has a great voice for roles like this. But there’s one bizarre scene where Scuttle eats a fish in front of a Flounder, and it’s laughed off. Wouldn’t Flounder be terrified? Why is he the only fish that can talk? Again though, that’s the problem with going the live-action route and still using the cartoon critters.

I also found the film way too dark in the underwater moments. While I was lucky and saw the film on a premium format screen, the “poor unfortunate souls” that see this on a conventional screen may have a rough time deciphering what’s happening underwater. It’s in vogue to make things dark, but does The Little Mermaid need to look so murky?

Overall, Rob Marshall and Disney’s The Little Mermaid remake is decent enough, thanks to Bailey and McCarthy, but like Aladdin, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast and other live-action remakes, it feels unnecessary. The animated version holds up fine, but if they had to give it a live-action upgrade, they did a decent enough job.

6

While Sly is settled at Paramount+, Arnold Schwarzenegger has his chips on Netflix as the streamer pumps up action content.

Netflix wants audiences to know they’re serious about getting into the action game. And what better way to prove it than to appoint one of the biggest names in action movie history, and one of the longest actor names in general, as the Chief Action Officer of the platform. A new video released by Netflix is promoting the upcoming slate of action titles that the streamer is eager to blow your socks off with. And this video is hosted by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger as he starts his first day at his new position with the company.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was famous for being the first to use a military Humvee as a commercial civilian vehicle and this video quite appropriately begins with the former Governor of California crushing a Mercedes Benz with a tank. Was there a stunt driver for this shot? Hell no. It was Arnold-freakin’-Schwarzenegger. “Was it really me driving? Of course it was. I wasn’t going to let someone else have that fun. And yes — it was as easy as it looked.” And according to Netflix, the Terminator star “performed the stunt in just two takes, bulldozing over two different cars with the support of the stunt team he’s worked with for 30 years.” 

He adds a little fun fact about the tank. “I drove this exact tank when I was an 18-year-old in the Austrian army, and many years later I was fortunate enough to be able to bring it to the US. So when Netflix wanted to name me as CAO, I jumped at the opportunity to have a little fun with the tank,” Schwarzenegger says. He restored the antiquated vehicle and now uses it to raise money for charity.

Schwarzenegger is looking forward to a new resurgence with a few projects about to be released, including a new show, a new action film in which he’ll be the star, a new documentary, and a new book. As Netflix promotes the upcoming action comedy FUBAR, which will be starring Arnold and Top Gun: Maverick‘s Monica Barbaro as a father and daughter secret agent duo, the streamer also headlines a smattering of other action titles that will be heading your way shortly this year.

The video which shows Arnold working at Netflix Headquarters, has their new Chief Action Officer pumping iron as he watches Chris Hemsworth fight people in Extraction 2, as well as promoting Jennifer Lopez’s new action vehicle, The Mother, and the upcoming Gal Gadot actioner, Heart of Stone. Of course, he also plugs his own show, FUBAR, which will be streaming this week on May 25th.

The Free Movie of the Day on the JoBlo Movies YouTube channel today is the psychological thriller Definition of Fear

On the JoBlo Movies YouTube channel, we will be posting one full movie every other day throughout the week, giving viewers the chance to watch them entirely free of charge. The Free Movie of the Day we have for you today is the psychological thriller Definition of Fear. You can watch it over on the YouTube channel linked above, or you can just watch it in the embed at the top of this article.

Written and directed by James Simpson, Definition of Fear has the following synopsis, provided by Simpson himself: Four beautiful girl friends spend the weekend at a holiday cabin by a lake, under the pretense of a ‘girlie weekend away’ organised by Sarah Fording. Sarah has a hidden agenda to secretly film her three friends as part of her PHD Thesis in Psychology. She has set up the weekend to carry out her experiment and secretly film it using hidden cameras. The friends find a Ouija board which has been planted by Sarah, and when they start to play the board, strange paranormal experiences start to happen. They discover that maybe they are not alone, and what turns out to be a girl’s weekend away, turns out to be a weekend from hell.

Katherine Barrell, Jacqueline Fernandez, Sean Tucker, Mercedes Papalia, Matthew Stefiuk, Michael Mancini, Stacey Martin, Blythe Hubbard, Ryan Maisey, Mardy Men, and Gavin Ridgeway star.

Definition of Fear was Simpson’s first and to date remains his only directing credit. Most of his work in the entertainment industry has been done as a producer, starting with an executive producer credit on the thriller Five Moons Plaza in 2003. Over the last twenty years, he has earned over a dozen more producing credits. He does have a few more directing projects in the works: a documentary called Hope, which is said to be in production; the “feel good” movie Love & Pride, in pre-production; and a mysterious project called The Boy Who Said Nothing, also in pre-production.

So take a look at Definition of Fear – it’s free! – then let us know what you thought of it by leaving a comment below or on the YouTube page. After you’ve seen this one, will you be watching the sequels?

The movies that have previously been featured as the Free Movies of the Day can be found at THIS LINK, and also on the JoBlo Movies YouTube channel.