Director David Gordon Green’s 2018 movie Halloween was great fun (reviewed here), a welcome callback to the low-budget filmmaking style of the 1970s, a sequel/reboot of the original horror film that set off a new era of scream queens and slasher horror films. But it was only the first act in a three-act opus that continues in Halloween Killsand will wrap next year in Halloween Ends. With this month’s premiere of Halloween Killson streaming platform Peacock Premium, fans will realize Gordon knows the franchise, the genre, and all that retro nostalgia that has audiences clamoring for shows like Stranger Things and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Complete with obscure characters from the corners of Haddonfield, Illinois, returning 40 years later, Halloween Kills is not just good horror but great–complete with all the non-apologetic, operatic gore and scares that have been the backbone of the modern monster movie mega-franchises first resurrected by John Carpenter and Debra Hill back in 1978. Since then we’ve seen the likes of Michael, Jason, and Freddy stepping in for Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, The Mummy, and the Phantom of the Opera.
It’s been a little more than a year since we said it. Now the distributors of Halloween Killsare doing exactly as we’d hoped. The latest installment in John Carpenter’s original slasher movie series has been ready for viewing since early 2020. Halloween Kills was wisely kept from theaters a year, so the studio released a teaser then and another earlier this year to keep us interested. The excuse for not just streaming the movie to viewers was always that the filmmakers didn’t want audiences to have a “compromised theatrical experience.” We suggested streaming it for Halloween last year here at borg, because it just makes financial sense. And guess what? They must have changed their minds. This Halloween we get a 1980s style celebration with another Halloween movie entry streaming at home for anyone and everyone who wants to see it. Now it will be released the same day as in theaters via Peacock’s Premium streaming platform. That’s not the free version we bragged about a few weeks ago here, but the version you can subscribe to for as little as $4.99 per month. So instead of dropping $20-40 in a crowded theater at the height of the second year of the pandemic, you can just stay home with the fam and watch it for less than five bucks. That’s going to be great for the streaming service, as it’s sure to be the top bet this Halloween weekend. Then you can hang around for some of the best classic TV series available on any current platform. Plus, we now have a full preview of a new Carpenter music track from the film. Check it out below!
It’s that time of year again, time to take a look forward at what movies should be on your radar for 2021! But wait! Next year’s list sure looks a lot like the the films we previewed last December. The covid pandemic has delayed hundreds of film projects, but some made it through. When you walk back through last year’s list and compare it to movies released after theater lockdowns, you get some insight into how Hollywood thinks. Big movies and movies predicted to be successes were universally held back, while less popular films were released to low box office returns from theaters that remained open, and yet other films went directly to home streaming or related media platforms.
Last year we pulled 85 of the hundreds of films then slated for the 2020 movie calendar. The first two dozen made it to theaters (films like Underwater, Dolittle, and Birds of Prey) before the national shift began on March 11 with news of the NBA reacting to the pandemic by suspending pro basketball–the first national awareness of the scope of the problem. Suddenly we saw Vudu and other home platforms coming to the rescue for our entertainment fix, adding a new Theater at Home option, which captured movies like Anya Taylor-Joy’s Emma, Vin Diesel’s Bloodshot, and the animated Scoob! Disney began an interesting tiered release of Mulan, which for half the year showed a studio doing its best to maximize returns on what would have been a key release in any other year. After another delay The New Mutants made it briefly to theaters followed by home release after three years of getting kicked aside as the last vestiges of the Disney-Fox merger were shaken out. Other films, like Vast of Night, Extraction, The Old Guard, Rebecca,Radioactive, and Fantasy Island safely premiered on Netflix and Amazon Prime, with Chris Hemsworth’s Extraction standing out as the clear popular winner–the entire world needed some new entertainment and after what would only be the first of several months of shelter-at-home, it tentatively filled the void.
So our predictions for the year’s big genre films were flat wrong, every single one except Mulan was delayed to 2021, including Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Black Widow, No Time to Die, a new Fast & Furious, Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse, and superhero flicks Venom 2, Eternals, and Morbius. Wonder Woman 1984 is expected to have a theatrical release by year end. Altogether 35 of last year’s 85 movies previewed on our annual list are back again below, plus we found more than 35 new genre films we think will appeal to borg readers.
So what’s left and what’s new?
Grab your calendar and start making your plans–here are the movies you’ll want to see in 2021. Then compare the below list to our 2020 list, and look back to the 2019 list, 2018 list, 2017 list, 2016 list, 2015 list, or 2014 list. Last year we noticed studios moving genre content from the big screen to the small screen via streaming services, and the pandemic only stepped up that migration. Note: Warner Bros. has reported it will issue its 2021 releases simultaneously on HBO Max. Netflix has mostly dramas slated for 2021, but a few genre films are in pre-production, so expect a few surprises throughout the year. Amazon Studios has fewer, most partnerships with Blumhouse Productions.
As we learned well this year, many of these films will have revised release dates, and even get pushed to 2022.
January
Mortal Kombat. Based on the video game. New! Tentative release date: January 15, 2021. HBO Max.
Wrath of Man. Next Jason Statham action flick. New! Tentative release date: January 15, 2021.
The French Dispatch. Wes Anderson and his familiar actors in new quirky film about journalists. New! January 28, 2021.
The Dig. A film about a woman finding archaeological treasures on her land, starring Ralph Fiennes, Lily James, and Carey Mulligan. January 29, 2021. Netflix.
We all know what that jack-o-lantern feels like. We learned this past week the latest installment in the original slasher movie series is ready to go. But the sequel and second part of the most recent Halloween trilogy, Halloween Kills, is being delayed a year until October 2021, so the studio released a teaser (below) as a sort of consolation prize. The excuse for the delay is that the filmmakers don’t want audiences to have a “compromised theatrical experience.” So how about showing it through all the available streaming channels this Halloween? Is holding back a movie that is ready for release because of the COVID-19 pandemic really the best financial move they can come up with? It can’t be. With not just the United States but a fair chunk of the movie studios’ international market at home, it’s inconceivable that the studios aren’t working out deals to get new movies in front of home audiences now, audiences who are starving for new movie content.
It wasn’t enough they got to co-star on Supernatural. We’ve seen them in a few live action movies, but now we get to see Scooby, Shaggy, Velma, Fred, and Daphne on the big screen in animated form in their first full-length animated film. The movie is titled Scoob! and it looks like the animation is cranked up a few notches, more like the style of The Incredibles, The Peanuts Movie, Toy Story, and Ferdinand. And now with theaters closed for the COVID-19 pandemic, this means Scoob!, scheduled to debut in theaters this Friday, instead is coming directly to your home Friday via streaming platforms including Amazon Prime and Vudu. As part of Vudu’s Theater at Home, you can also get a $3 credit via email by pre-ordering Scoob!today–May 14–only.
A little bit Robocop, a little bit Bionic Man, a little bit of every Marvel solo character origin story, and very Vin Diesel, the movie adaptation of the 1990s Valiant Comics Harvey and Eisner Award-nominated sci-fi/superhero Bloodshot was the first movie industry collateral damage from the pandemic because it arrived March 13 in theaters, the same weekend the U.S. federal government began responding and theaters began to modify their rules and ultimately close. Which also made it the first for a studio to release at theatrical prices via the new “theater-at-home” option from Vudu and Amazon Prime. The good news is it’s well worth full ticket prices, and would have been even better on the big screen. It has all of the right beats we’ve seen in the past decade in the better movies adapting comics beyond the traditional superheroes of DC Comics and Marvel. It also introduces fans of all things borg to the next squad of cyborg warriors worthy of sequels.
