Tag Archives: Movies

Oct 19 2025

Zombies Refuse To Die!

It is all too easy to write off the zombie sub-genre as being dead and buried. After all, zombies have fallen out of favor with the public ever since The Walking Dead TV show was cancelled years ago. Before its cancellation, The Walking Dead and zombies in general were at their zenith in the 2010s. There were zombie TV shows, films, comics, novels, etc. all over the place. But inevitably the popularity of zombies declined as too much product was put out and the quality and uniqueness of the zombies faded. Casual critics were ready to write off the zombie sub-genre and move on to their next target, but somehow, the zombies refused to die.

Yes, The Walking Dead TV show and the comic book series that inspired it are both long gone, but there are many TV spinoffs of The Walking Dead like The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon and The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live that are still around and slowly gathering buzz about their quality. These shows wisely chose to focus on popular characters like Daryl Dixon and Rick Grimes and even the villainous Negan, which partly explains why the shows have done well. Of course, these TV shows have not reached the numbers and heights of popularity as The Walking Dead did in its heyday, but they have their devoted followers and are doing well enough.

Other zombie-related TV shows, films, comics and more are still coming out strong and many are very popular. Just take a look at the slate of current and upcoming projects that are related to zombies. The most recent examples were The Last of Us (technically not about zombies but the infected humans behave just like zombies) and the animated TV show Marvel Zombies, which was based on the Marvel Comics mini-series (and currently has a new mini-series Marvel Zombies: Red Band out in stores and digital platforms) and was a spinoff from the animated What If…? TV show.

The Marvel Zombies comics are still going strong with its many limited series and the TV show was well received with talks of a new season underway; hopefully that will happen given how the last episode left us with a cliffhanger. Not to be outdone, DC came out with its own comic books starring undead versions of its DC heroes and villains, DCeased. No word yet if DC Studios will make an animated version of DCeased but they should consider it. Also even though the comic book series ended years ago, The Walking Dead are still in comic form with the color reprints The Walking Dead: Deluxe.

Meanwhile, there are many high-profile zombie films and TV shows on the horizon, such as 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (a direct sequel to this years’ 28 Years Later), We Bury the Dead, Twilight of the Dead, which will conclude the George Romero zombie film saga, Return of the Living Dead, and an American remake of the classic Korean zombie film, Train to Busan. How well received they will be is anyone’s guess, but they demonstrate how popular the zombie genre is.

So, why does the zombie sub-genre refuse to die? There are many reasons. For one, many zombie properties go hand-in-hand with our fascination with post-apocalyptic/survival stories, which fit in well with zombies. These zombie stories also engage us as we face our fear of death and decay and more recently with infection. We like to watch and read these zombie yarns and wonder how we would behave in a zombie apocalypse. Most of us would probably be zombie food minutes into the apocalypse, but its still fun imagining ourselves turning into stoic and heroic warriors like Daryl Dixon, who in his life before the zombie apocalypse was a nobody.

The sub-genre also helps engage with unexpected human dramas that test our notion of family and friendship. Examples of this include the films Maggie, Cargo and Warm Bodies. While the latter film was an offbeat romance with a zombie twist, the first two films dealt with the main characters facing the inevitable. Maggie featured a father coping with the fact that his teenage daughter would soon turn into a zombie and his agony about having to kill her. Cargo was an agonizing film about a doomed father who was desperately trying to find someone to care for his infant before he turned into a zombie.

It can be said that on the surface the zombie sub-genre appears to be limited in story, but can be quite versatile. As long as the zombie story whether on film, video game or on print, is presented well, the quality will stand out and keep us engaged. That is why the zombies refuse to die.

Oct 7 2025

Good Boy and Other Pets In Horror Films and TV Shows

Indy, the canine star of the horror film Good Boy, brings attention to the presence of beloved pets in various horror films and TV shows. It can be said their inclusion is way to raise the stakes of the terror faced by the film’s main characters, as with Good Boy. But these animals can have more complex roles in horror films and TV shows.

Other times, the animals wind up playing a pivotal or even a heroic role as with Nanook, the malamute that helps his owner fight off the title vampires in The Lost Boys. In Nanook’s case, his crow-pleasing moment came when he pushed a vampire into a tub full of holy water and garlic. Another example is the dog Thor in Bad Moon. It’s another horror film told from the POV of a dog, in this case, Thor faces off against a werewolf, who tragically was his owner when in human form. Then there is the title character in Frankenweenie, a dead dog who was revived by his grieving owner. Also, let’s not forget Kojak (formerly “Big Steve”), a retriever featured in The Stand who wound up playing an important role late in the TV mini-series when he helped care for the main character Stu Redman after he was badly injured.

These pets are often imperiled by the supernatural forces that threaten the main characters, and sadly these beloved animals wind up becoming victims. There are too many to go into here, but some standouts include Tank, the terrier, from V/H/S 2, Churchill, the cat in Pet Semetary, and Samantha, the German shepherd in I Am Legend, who gave her life defending her owner against mutants before she had to be put down when she began to mutate.

On the other hand, there are many horror films and TV shows where the beloved family pet becomes a source of danger to humans. The best example of this is with Cujo, where a docile St. Bernard becomes a vicious killer that threatens his owner and her child. Other examples include several dogs in Day of the Animals, various pets in the TV show Zoo, and the title dog in Man’s Best Friend.

We get very alarmed and feel uneasy whenever beloved pets put themselves at risk to defend their human families. It is second nature for dogs to act as guardians for us even though they are at risk whenever tackling the supernatural. This was very prevalent in Good Boy as Indy tries his best to protect his owner Todd from a malevolent spiritual force that haunts Todd. It must be mentioned that the animals’ ability to sense the supernatural before the humans could make them more vulnerable to looming threats.  What was even more distressing in Good Boy was that only Indy was aware of this evil force and was unable to communicate this danger to Todd unlike another human.

The inability to adequately communicate with humans is part of what makes the animals’ dilemma so engaging. Another example of this was in the film Cat’s Eye, where a stray cat is involved in three separate stories, and becomes the hero in the last segment. In that story, the cat (now named “General”) defends a young girl from an evil troll trying to steal her soul. What made General’s job more difficult was that he was the only one who sensed the troll’s presence, and he could not communicate to the girl’s parents about her imperilment.  

What made Good Boy such a standout from your standard haunted house story was that the film was told from the POV of Indy. We are able to empathize with Indy not just because he was a loveable dog but because of how his worldview was presented. We never fully see the faces of the human characters or hear their dialogue clearly; Indy is also able to get into the dark corners of his owner’s home to get more details about the otherworldly threat, which a person could never do. Essentially, through Indy’s eyes, we get a better sense of the ghostly presence haunting Indy’s owner.

Also, the stakes of danger are raised since Indy is more vulnerable to the supernatural presence. Unlike a human who could find out how to combat the supernatural threat and use tools, Indy and other animals only have their own instinct and natural abilities to combat the threat. Sometimes that is not enough. That is why films and TV shows featuring pets like Good Boy are so captivating.

Sep 28 2025

Alien: Earth Crashes Down To Earth

Given that the Alien franchise has been around for nearly 50 years, it was surprising that until Alien: Earth, no TV show was made about the famous sci-fi horror IP. One would think that more effort would have gone into making the first Alien TV show much better than it turned out.

Alien: Earth was created by Noah Hawley (the writer and producer of Legion and Fargo) and takes place a couple of years before the first Alien film, around 2120. It expands upon the universe created in Alien by showcasing life on Earth and answering many questions about this universe while raising many more questions.

The TV show focuses on Wendy (Sydney Chandler), a prototype hybrid and her evolution. She and other hybrids (nicknamed the Lost Boys after Peter Pan) differ from the synthetic people shown in other Alien films in that originally they were dying children whose consciousness were transferred into synthetic human bodies, which makes them in essence immortal. Wendy and the Lost Boys were created by the corporation called Prodigy, which is based in Asia, and is owned by a douchey trillionaire tech bro called Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin).

Kavalier covets the extraterrestrial biological specimens collected in a spaceship owned by rival company Weyland-Yutani and he arranges for the spaceship to crash land in Prodigy territory on Earth so his corporation could claim the specimens as salvage. As it turns out, one of the dangerous organisms is the famous xenomorph that made the franchise so revered.

When the Weyland-Yutani spaceship crashed in the Prodigy city New Siam, one of the first responders to arrive at the scene was Wendy’s brother Joe Hermit (Alex Lawther), who is soon endangered by a xenomorph that is now loose in the crash site. After Wendy learns of this, she volunteers to go to the crash site to help collect the alien specimens with Prodigy soldiers and rescue her brother. Once Hermit is rescued and the aliens are captured, Kavalier has the alien creatures brought to his private Neverland Island, where Wendy and the Lost Boys are based, to study the creatures. Of course, as things go in Alien stories, things get out of hand as the xenomorph and other alien creatures break loose from captivity and imperil not just the people on the island but the entire planet. Meanwhile, Wendy and the other hybrids go through existential crises as they struggle to find meaning in their new lives as hybrids.

There are many great and promising elements in Alien: Earth, such as the fact that it feels like it is part of the franchise and captures the mood and atmosphere of the films. The special effects are truly outstanding, as well as the production design. More importantly, Alien: Earth truly fleshes out the universe it takes place in with new characters, explaining the overall makeup of the Alien universe, and by introducing new kinds of synthetics and aliens.

The TV show introduced unique and terrifying alien creatures that rival the xenomorphs for deadliness and reinforce how hostile space is to humanity. The most terrifying creature is something called the trypanohyncha ocellus, a tentacled eyeball that kills its victims and takes over their bodies by forcibly burrowing itself into the victims’ eye socket. What was more disturbing by this cyclopean horror was that it clearly displayed a high level of intelligence and helped created the chaos throughout the show.

As for the synthetic beings, the most interesting ones were Kirsh (Timothy Oliphant), a classic synthetic who is naturally distant and dismissive towards humans, and operates as one of Prodigy’s chief scientists and Wendy’s trainer. Another is Morrow (Babou Ceesay), who is actually a cyborg, meaning that he is technically human but with cybernetic implants. He was the only survivor from the crashed Weyland-Yutani spaceship and has a rather tragic backstory Morrow only exists to complete his mission of bringing the specimens to his company and he will stop at nothing to achieve his goal. The episode “In Space, No One…” was a flashback episode that showcased Morrow’s time onboard the spaceship before it crashed and gave us much of his backstory. Being that the episode was in essence a remake of Alien and emulated the look and feel of the classic film, it was easily the best episode of the season.

While all this sounds promising, the payoff was ultimately disappointing, which is regrettable since there is a lot to commend about Alien: Earth.

There are glaring problems with the show, namely with the scripts were characters behave stupidly and there are enough plot holes to drive the Nostromo through them. Here is just one example: the xenomorph is now bulletproof no matter how many times it’s shot. Many characters are poorly written with some being downright irritating. The worst offender is Kavalier, who is so annoying with his one-dimensional nature and dirty bare feet. There was this scientist who does not seem to notice that her husband had gone missing (he was killed by a facehugger in an episode) and never mentions him.

It seems as if Hawley is more interested in exploring the synthetic beings instead of focusing on the alien creatures, which is puzzling since the show is supposed to be about aliens and it left us with many questions about the xenomorphs and other aliens. The thing is that the exploration of artificial beings has been done better many times in other TV shows. There are too many Lost Boys who are thinly developed with heavy-handed references to Peter Pan and frankly their immature behavior got irritating after a while. Wendy’s motivations were all over the place. First she is confused about whether or not she is human, then she’s trying to discover who she is, then she is disdainful of humanity. Her arc was very inconsistent, then to make matters worst, the show turned her into some kind of God-level being by giving her the ability to control all electronics and then the xenomorphs themselves. For some reason, Wendy is able to communicate with the aliens (in many dumb looking scenes where she opens her mouth and chitters at the creatures) and turns the xenomorphs into her pets. This robs the xenomorph of its infamous savagery and deadly nature. During scenes where a xenomorph follows her commands it appears far less threatening than in the films and the way these scenes were shot in bright light did not help either.

Alien: Earth starts off with much promise and has genuine moments of creepiness and intensity, but it starts to lag in pace midway through its too short season. It created many situations that were not fully developed and the payoff by its final episode “The Real Monsters” was lacking as the show crashed back to Earth. What sucks even more is that many questions were unanswered and we will probably have to wait for at least two years before we get any answers, that is if Alien: Earth is renewed, but few will care by that point.

José Soto

Sep 21 2025

Should The Next Star Trek TV Show Be About Kirk?

The powers that be that are in charge of the Star Trek franchise are busy planning a new Star Trek TV show that will feature a young James T. Kirk in his early days as captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise starship. This version of Kirk would be portrayed by Paul Wesley, who appeared frequently in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and the proposed show would be a sequel to Strange New Worlds called Star Trek: Year One. It’s a great idea since Kirk is still one of the most popular characters in Trek. But should there be another TV show based on Kirk?

Let’s put aside the acting chops of Wesley or the idea of Kirk being recast, which has always been a challenge that producers had to deal with since William Shatner, the original actor to play the role, is ingrained with many fans who have a hard time accepting someone else playing Kirk. Just look at the trouble the production team behind the 2009 Star Trek film went through to cast Chris Pine as Kirk. People have to accept that Shatner will never play the role again, especially since Shatner is in his 90s and the budget to digitally de-age him would be prohibitive for an ongoing TV show.

In Wesley’s defense, he does a good job playing a young Kirk without resorting to Shatner’s unique method of acting that gave lots of fodder for comedians. To get an idea of how Wesley would have aped Shatner, take a look at the season three Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode “A Space Adventure Hour”. It was one of those by-now obligatory holodeck malfunctioning episodes where Wesley as Kirk played a parody of Shatner’s Kirk. The point is if any actor tried to act like Shatner, he would not be taken seriously, which would doom the show.

Getting back to the idea of a young Kirk TV show. On paper it seems like a natural, do a TV show about a young Kirk settling into his command, making mistakes and learning from them, and seeing how he formed his bond with the famous Enterprise crew. It would be fairly easy to create the show since it would be a sequel to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and the standing sets and design are already done, so that would save money and time. Plus, many of the actors from Strange New Worlds like Ethan Peck would just transition over to Star Trek: Year One since Peck would be playing Spock, who became first officer of the Enterprise during Kirk’s command. The proposed Star Trek: Year One could also remake some of the more famous first season episodes like “Space Seed” (which would give us a recast of Khan) or “City on the Edge of Forever” but with better production and effects. This is very tantalizing.

The problem is that we saw Kirk’s early adventures in the original TV show. When Star Trek first aired, it featured Kirk when he first commanded the starship Enterprise. The implication with the first season of Star Trek was that the first season took place during the beginning of the ship’s five-year mission. On the other hand, there are signs that there was a time gap during the very first episodes and the later episodes. “Where No Man Has Gone Before” and “The Corbomite Maneuver” had the crew wearing slightly different uniforms than what was shown soon after. In fact, Doctor McCoy was not even around in the pilot episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before”. More importantly, there are implications in the early episodes that the crew of the Enterprise had been on their mission for some time. So, this leaves room for a Star Trek: Year One.

Kirk v Gorn in Arena

There is a headache that the writers of the proposed TV show would have to deal with and that is with continuity. This has plague all the Star Trek TV shows and films as they had to make sure the continuity established in the original Star Trek and later shows and films remained intact. Unfortunately, this did not work out many times and the recent Trek shows received a lot of flack from angry fans, such as with the look of the Klingons, the Gorn and with the early history of Star Trek. For example, Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds established that there was a Klingon War which was never implicitly mentioned in the original Star Trek, yet it happened close to the era of the original Trek. In the Star Trek episode “Arena” the Gorn looked radically different than the species shown in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and in the original show, the Enterprise crew acted as if they never heard of the Gorn, who were an ongoing threat in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. This is an issue that long-running TV shows and films have to grapple with and Star Trek is not unique to this situation. As long as the basic history is adhered to, then fans should be willing to give the writers a pass.

One way out of this would be to do what the 2009 Star Trek film did and establish that the recent Star Trek shows are set in another reality. The trouble is that it has been shown already that the recent Trek shows are set in the so-called Prime Timeline.

The most pressing problem for a so-called Star Trek: Year One has to do with whether or not there is any demand for it. Not everyone is thrilled with Wesley’s performance or the fact that the character has hijacked Star Trek: Strange New Worlds by appearing in practically every other episode. This was supposed to be a show about Christopher Pike not Kirk and we already have an idea of how the early years of Kirk went. Do we need to see it play out? Why not create a new Star Trek adventure with new characters? There are many time periods that have never been covered that are ripe for presenting like the time period between the original Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation. In fact, a TV show about a young Picard sounds more interesting. Ever since Star Trek: Picard concluded, fans have been begging for a Star Trek: Legacies show featuring the crew of the Enterprise-G with Picard’s son, but it seems like the powers that be are hellbent on ignoring fans and plowing ahead with a young Kirk show. This is a sign that the current showrunners do not truly understand Star Trek. Over the decades, the franchise has proven repeatedly that it was rich enough to provide new characters and situations set in the franchise. It allowed Trek to reinvent itself and not rely on Kirk and his crew to generate interest.

To date it’s not known if Star Trek: Year One will get the green light. A lot depends on studio politics and budgets since modern Trek shows are very expensive. If the show goes through, we’ll have to give it the benefit of the doubt that it will be a worthy addition to the legacy of Star Trek.

Aug 30 2025

Jaws: Still Terrified Of The Water 50 Years Later

One of the things this summer movie season will be remembered for is for being the 50th anniversary of the first blockbuster summer movie, Jaws. It’s not an exaggeration to say this movie changed the film industry forever.

The 50th anniversary of Jaws was this past June, but the film is having special screenings in theaters this Labor Day weekend to celebrate the event. If you’re lucky, your local theater will have the film in 3D or some other upscale format like IMAX. What is surprising is that the upscale of the film actually holds up and the genius of the filmmakers, including its director, is the reason why with the way the scenes were filmed.

Everyone knows Jaws was one of master director Steven Spielberg’s earliest works and is still considered one of his finest films. Thanks to his brilliant directing skills, Jaws was elevated from a standard thriller into a masterpiece of adventure and horror. Plus, it made many viewers afraid or at least wary about going into the water during beach visits.

Jaws excelled at creating a sense of dread and unease with the way the ominous ocean was filmed as it hid the terror of the great white shark that feasted on the hapless citizens of Amity. This uneasiness with the mysterious ocean hit us right at the start of the film when a drunk young woman foolishly went for an evening swim; something you must never do, sharks and other water predators are at their most active at this time. She was attacked by an unknown, unseen force that turned out to be an unusually large great white shark that would go on to terrorize the town of Amity. The scene where she was attacked was punctuated with unsettling dark imagery, John Williams’ iconic score and the fact we never saw the shark. Not revealing the shark until later exploited our fear of the unknown, and increased our anticipation of finally seeing it when the film’s heroes, Amity Police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), marine biologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), and the salty shark hunter Quint (Robert Shaw), confronted the great white terror.

An important reason why Jaws worked so well was that Steven Spielberg was forced to keep the shark offscreen for most of the film. That was because the mechanical shark built for the film rarely worked and Spielberg had to work around this by implying the shark’s presence. You would hear the haunting bars of John Williams’ Jaws theme to announce the shark’s presence, just offscreen. You would see quick shots of the shark’s fin or a blurry image of the shark just underneath the surface or later in the film when the shark was speared with lines attached to barrels. These were supposed to keep the shark close to the surface as the film’s heroes hunted it. However, it wasn’t too long before the film’s heroes realized the barrels not only were not effective, but whenever the barrels bopped up to the surface, their presence signaled the approach of the invisible enemy and added to the scenes’ tension and suspense.

Spielberg’s challenge with creating suspense and keeping the shark hidden until the pivotal final act helped forge his directing skills early in his career. Of course, he had a miserable experience directing the film and avoided directing films set in the open ocean afterwards. In fact, he was so bothered by his experience that it was only recently that he was able to bring himself to watch the film. He admitted to liking the film. Who knows what he could do with the film if he made it today?

What is incredible about Jaws and one reason why it is held in such high esteem today was that after a few inferior sequels, there have not been any attempts to remake or reboot it. Yes, there are other skilled directors that could film a theoretical Jaws remake today, but they would have to compete with the mystique of the original film. How could a remake distinguish itself and improve upon perfection?

As mentioned above, a major reason why the 1975 film still terrifies us today is because it exploited our collective fear of the unseen. Most directors today would be too tempted to have a CG shark popping out of the water every five minutes. Sure, today’s special effects could easily have the shark out in the open in nearly every scene, but it would not work. We’ve seen this with films like The Meg, the Sharknado films, and Deep Blue Sea, though the latter film has its merits. So, while it is tempting to pine for a Jaws remake it is best for now to leave that idea alone and enjoy the original classic…even though it will leave you too afraid to go into the water 50 years after its release.