The Strangersfranchise is making a comeback with a new trilogy of films that are currently in development thanks to Lionsgate, and the first of these films has already started production in Bratislava, Slovakia. Renny Harlin (Cliffhanger, Deep Blue Sea, Die Hard 2, The Long Kiss Goodnight) is directing the movie from a script written by Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland (The Freak Brothers, Due Date).
I really liked the original The Strangers movie. It delivered some great horror! Good luck to the creative team trying to top that one. I’m curious to see what they do with it, though. Maybe they’ll do something unique and inventive.
Madelaine Petsch (Riverdale, Jane) will star in the film, and in it, she “drives cross-country with her longtime boyfriend (Froy Gutierrez, Cruel Summer, Hocus Pocus 2, Teen Wolf) to begin a new life in the Pacific Northwest. When their car breaks down in Venus, Oregon, they’re forced to spend the night in a secluded Airbnb, where they are terrorized from dusk till dawn by three masked strangers.”
Producer Courtney Solomon said in a statement: “When setting out to remake The Strangers, we felt there was a bigger story to be told, which could be as powerful, chilling, and terrifying as the original and could really expand that world. Shooting this story as a trilogy allows us to create a hyperreal and terrifying character study. We’re fortunate to be joining forces with Madelaine Petsch, an amazing talent whose character is the driving force of this story.”
Producer Mark Canton said: “When you’ve got two horror aficionados like Courtney Solomon and Renny Harlin coming together, you’ve got all you need to create some incredibly smart, lean-forward-in-your-seat, addictively thrilling entertainment. Fans of the original film will be blown away; new audiences will discover the intensely unnerving world of The Strangers.”
Eda Kowan, Lionsgate’s EVP of Acquisitions & Co-Productions, added: “The Strangers taps into such primal fears that it will always be relevant – but what truly sets this project apart is the way the filmmakers have expanded the story and given these characters a new life.”
Renny Harlin shared: “My mother instilled the love of movies in me through the world of Hitchcock and other masters of suspense and horror. My breakthrough to Hollywood happened with the success of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4. It is only fitting that I get to return to my favorite genre with the incredibly well written trilogy of The Strangers. The characters and the storyline are all grounded in reality and offer me an endless tapestry of haunting visuals in bringing these movies alive.”
What do you think about The Strangers getting a remake trilogy?
A teaser trailer and release year were given this past weekend for the Tron: Identity video game that is being developed by Disney. The game was announced during Marvel and Disney’s gaming showcase at this year’s D23 Expo, and they revealed that it is coming in 2023.
The game will be developed by Bithell Games, with developer Mike Bithell — who made the hit video game Thomas Was Alone in 2012 and John Wick Hex — now branching out into a much larger world in this latest game.
According to the Steam store listing for the game, Tron: Identity will be a visual novel adventure that follows Query, a detective program that’s tasked with uncovering the mystery of what was taken.
Currently, not much else is known about the game, but its brief features list on its Steam page does promise “a new extension of the Tron franchise,” including never-before-seen servers filled with original programs, as well as the ability to explore a brand-new Grid with its own unique structure.
Tron: Identity is currently available to wishlist on Steam. Check out the super brief teaser trailer for Tron: Identity below, and let us know if you’re looking forward to picking it up next year.
Universal Pictures has released a new TV spot for director David Gordon Green’s Halloween Ends. This is supposedly the last Halloween film that will be made, but I can’t help but think someone else will attempt to reboot it or continue it in some way at some point. It’s just what Hollywood does. But, it’s safe to say that this will definitely be the last time Jamie Lee Curtis will play Laurie Strode.
The new TV spot offers up some new footage from the film that includes some new characters, who will find themselves being brutally murdered by Michael Meyers. Hell, you even get to see him kill one of them in this trailer! You can check it out below!
Here’s the full synopsis for the film:
After 45 years, the most acclaimed, revered horror franchise in film history reaches its epic, terrifying conclusion as Laurie Strode faces off for the last time against the embodiment of evil, Michael Myers, in a final confrontation unlike any captured on-screen before. Only one of them will survive.
Icon Jamie Lee Curtis returns for the last time as Laurie Strode, horror’s first “final girl” and the role that launched Curtis’ career. Curtis has portrayed Laurie for more than four decades now, one of the longest actor-character pairings in cinema history. When the franchise relaunched in 2018, Halloween shattered box office records, becoming the franchise’s highest-grossing chapter and set a new record for the biggest opening weekend for a horror film starring a woman.
Four years after the events of last year’s Halloween Kills, Laurie is living with her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) and is finishing writing her memoir. Michael Myers hasn’t been seen since. Laurie, after allowing the specter of Michael to determine and drive her reality for decades, has decided to liberate herself from fear and rage and embrace life. But when a young man, Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell; The Hardy Boys, Virgin River), is accused of killing a boy he was babysitting, it ignites a cascade of violence and terror that will force Laurie to finally confront the evil she can’t control, once and for all.
Halloween Ends co-stars returning cast Andi Matichak, Will Patton as Officer Frank Hawkins, Kyle Richards as Lindsey Wallace and James JudeCourtney as The Shape. The movie hits theaters on October 14th, 2022. For more recently shared information on the film, click here.
The turn-based historical strategy game Humankind is getting its first expansion this fall. The new expansion is called Together We Rule and is focused on diplomacy and espionage being brought to the forefront of the game with the Congress of Humankind, Embassies, Agents, and a new Diplomatic culture affinity.
The Congress of Humankind lets players vote on global doctrines and serve as arbiter on international conflicts. Meanwhile, Embassies are a new Quarter that works on agreements between empires and permits you to use Leverage currency to force other empires to take certain actions.
Agents are a new unit family used to gather the aforementioned Leverage currency as well as “infiltrate, sabotage, and disinform other empires.” The new Diplomatic Affinity allows a more active role in the diplomacy of the world through actions like demilitarizing a territory for 10 turns or using non-Agent units to collect Leverage currency.
Together We Rule will also bring 6 new cultures (Sumerians, Han Chinese, Bulgarians, Swiss, Scots, and Singaporeans), 6 new wonders (Monument Valley, Pamukkale, Chocolate Hills, Eldgjá, Palace of Versailles, and the Congress of Humankind Headquarters), new narrative events, and new music.
You’ll be able to enjoy the expansion in Fall 2022.
In addition, a major free update will be release alongside Together We Rule. This will add “Stealth mechanics, revamp independent peoples, allow for third-party battle re-enforcements, and add new UI options and improvements.” Are you excited for the expansion and update?
I have been so excited for Rocksmith+. Last week, Ubisoft released it to the world. It was quickly met with confusion and disappointment for various reasons. I wanted to try it for myself and Ubisoft was kind enough to provide me with a 3-month subscription so that I could take a look. All the thoughts that follow are my own, but you are welcome to try it out for yourself. Rocksmith+ is available now through the Ubisoft Store (affiliate link) starting at $14.99 a month on PC. I do want to note that this is labeled as a first impression instead of a review because it is a subscription service that barely launched. I hope to write a follow up after a couple of months to assess how the platform has evolved over that time to provide more of an indication of where it’s headed.
I just don’t know where to start. I think I’ll start with the highlights. Rocksmith+ feels smoother overall than its predecessor Rocksmith 2014. The note tracks look and feel nicer. The sheer number of songs is massive. As of writing, there are over 7,700 songs in the game. They added a ton of videos to help teach techniques and have categorized them based on approximate skill level. They have videos about health and wellness while playing such as your posture, stretches to warm up, and stretches to cool down. Those are very important things that rarely get talked about in the world of guitar. One of the big strengths of Rocksmith+ is the promise of additional content. They’ve announced that new songs and content will become available monthly (although they had previously said it would be more often). This is always good and because it’s a subscription you don’t have to buy the game and then buy a bunch of DLC. You get the full library with your subscription. Also, there are multiple ways to connect to the game. You can use a Real Tone Cable (¼” to USB), an audio interface (compatibility varies), or the Rocksmith+ Connect mobile app that uses your phone’s microphone to listen for the guitar/amp as you play. Finally, there are a ton of international artists which is really cool.
Now we get to the areas that I consider downgrades. For starters, the UI feels very busy and very cluttered and very overwhelming. Every time I load it up, I have to take a second to orient myself. This isn’t helped by the fact that they have a ton of song recommendations on the Home tab along with your favorite songs and your recently played and the content they’re promoting like their videos. Then, they have a whole other section called Play where you can find more songs categorized in a million different ways and then you have the Search section where you can look for songs based on a keyword or genre. It’s very busy.
Also, when you go to the Learn section, they have video lessons where people tell you about techniques and chords and stuff, but I’ve found that these aren’t paired with exercises like in Rocksmith 2014. You have to watch the video and then go search for a song with whatever technique or thing you just watched a 3-minute video on. It would’ve been much nicer if they followed the video with a simple exercise or a small list of songs that utilize whatever the video covered. In addition, Rocksmith+ has done away with the Guitarcade which was something a lot of players enjoyed as a way of practicing scales and techniques. I also haven’t found anything like Session Mode where you can just jam with a band. For a platform that talks about teaching guitar, it really feels like they’ve eliminated a lot of teaching tools they had.
As I mentioned before, there are 3 ways to connect your guitar or bass to Rocksmith+. I have tried all three and based on my experience, the mobile app is the worst as you might expect. The cable and interface options essentially plug your guitar directly into the game and there’s a bit of a delay that I felt, but it didn’t seem to affect my score at all. Meanwhile, with the app I was marked as missing a bunch of notes and chords that I know I hit and that’s to be expected when you’re essentially using a wireless microphone over a direct wired connection. If you can, I would avoid the app. I will also admit that there’s a chance the problem was how I had my phone placed and maybe if you spend the time to really find the sweet spot it works better, but if you already have a Real Tone Cable and/or audio interface, I’d just recommend those.
Now we get to the heart of why Rocksmith+ feels doomed. The song library leaves a ton lacking. I understand that getting licenses can be very challenging and/or expensive and so I do want to start this section with the acknowledgment that I’m sure licensing is a big reason for a lot of my gripes with this topic. One of the reasons I originally wanted Rocksmith 2014 was to be able to play some of my favorite songs by some of my favorite bands like Foo Fighters, Alter Bridge, Rise Against, Halestorm, blink-182, Green Day, etc. All of those artists are available in the base game or were made available via DLC. I made the silly mistake of thinking that these bands would all license songs for Rocksmith+. Not a single one that I just mentioned has a song available on the new platform. It doesn’t end there. When I hear the name Rocksmith, I obviously think of rock music and famous rock bands. When you search by genre, Rock and Metal take up maybe 1/10 of the library. Sometimes you can find a big name like Alice Cooper or Opeth in there, but I don’t know them outside of their names. They don’t pull me in to play their songs. Now, I am a fan of Bowling For Soup and noticed that they had a number of songs in the game. They had one song that I recognized and I’ve listened to quite a bit of Bowling For Soup. This points to a pattern I noticed though. If a bigger name is included in Rocksmith+, you maybe get one or two of their songs that people recognize if you’re lucky and the rest are all songs no one has heard of. There’s also just a weird disconnect for who’s included.
I want to start this next section with a huge note. There are a lot of international artists that I’ve found in the game and I do think that’s awesome. There are Japanese, Latinx, etc. musical groups that I’ve never heard of and now they’re getting a new audience and I think it’s awesome to have them on here. Back to my rant.
A lot of the songs make very little sense. Who know who’s really known for the guitar in their songs? Kristen Chenoweth. I love Chenoweth. She’s fantastic and she can sing like crazy. I’ve never heard one of her songs and thought, “I need to learn the guitar part.” I don’t even know if her songs have guitar in them. I can understand having some songs by pop artists like Britney Spears and *NSYNC. These were popular acts and I could definitely see ways you could make cool guitar parts for them. Heck, I’ll even accept The Wiggles. However, Pentatonix is on here. You know, the a capella group. A capella, the genre of music that is about making music with only your voice. I have nothing against Pentatonix. They have some fun songs. Why are they in a game that revolves around guitar? Looking at the song list, it looks like Ubisoft went to record labels, asked for song licenses, and the labels gave them a box of forgotten scraps. I can’t speak for everyone and if these are the songs that get you excited, great! However, it has been a struggle for me to find songs that I’m interested in. I finally found a song to get me pumped to play (“Seven Deadly Sins” by Man with a Mission), but a single song won’t hold me over for very long.
That’s not the only problem with the song list though. As of writing, Rocksmith+ says that it has 7,762 songs. Of those, 960 songs have a Lead track (931 of those were made by the Rocksmith+ team) and 153 have a Rhythm track (143 of those were made by the Rocksmith+ team). I know at least some of those numbers overlap meaning that there’s only approximately 1/7 of the library available to learn actual guitar parts for. 7,759 songs in the library have Chord Charts. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a new feature for Rocksmith+ where the song plays and instead of the notes coming down, it just has chord diagrams come down at the chord changes. This isn’t a terrible tool per se, but when that is 90% of your game that’s supposed to be dedicated to helping people learn to play the guitar it feels like a slap to the face. Chord charts are extremely plentiful online for free or through music books. Having them come down a track is a negligible improvement over seeing them on a piece of paper.
One final note about the song list is that it will change based on your region. For example, if you live in Germany, you can have access to “Master of Puppets” by Metallica. If you live in the United States, you do not get access to that quintessential metal song. However, you can use a VPN to access it.
Rocksmith+ does have the Rocksmith Workshop where you can create arrangements for songs and then others can play them. I haven’t played around with this feature yet, which is why there’s no mention of it before.
I remember there being rumors based on job postings about Rocksmith+ possibly having tools for drummers, keyboardists/pianists, and vocalists. That would definitely explain a lot of the song library. Unfortunately, for a guitar and bass focused game, what we’ve been given feels extremely lacking and laughable. Not to mention, it feels almost insulting. In my opinion, the improvements do not outweigh the downgrades. Rocksmith+ feels like it’s still in beta and incomplete, but shipped out just to shut people up. I really hope that in these first couple of months there are some major improvements to just about every aspect of the game. What has your experience been? Have you tried out Rocksmith+ yet? Do you plan on it? Tell me if you think I’m dead wrong about my initial impressions in the comments.
Legendary Comics released a trailer to go with their upcoming YA graphic novel Tragic. Written by Dana Mele, art by Valentina Pinti, and color by Chiara Di Francia, Tragic redefines the classic characters from Hamlet into a new queer narrative that weaves together lovely and unsettling perspectives. Here’s the official synopsis:
Tragic is a retelling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet told through the eyes of a 17-year-old who has just lost her father.
After her father Hamilton Hayes dies a mysterious and tragic death, Harper Hayes is convinced that he was murdered and her first suspect is her uncle Clayton, who has been sleeping with her mother, Greta. With the help of her ex-girlfriend Talia and her best friend (sometimes with benefits) Holden, Harper is determined to find her father’s killer. But when Caius, Talia’s father, and Hamilton’s business partner, is found dead, Harper realizes the answer to Hamilton’s murder is more complicated than she had initially realized. And when Harper starts seeing his ghost in the form of a teenage Hamlet everywhere and slipping into hallucinations of his murder that end with blood on her hands, one thing becomes clear–in order to uncover the truth about what happened to her father, Harper has to confront her own demons and ones that haunt the Hayes family.
It sounds like a cool thriller that should really keep you questioning what is and isn’t real from the very beginning just like Hamlet. Volume 1 is set to release on September 13, 2022 and you can check out the trailer for it below.
BOOM! Studios revealed a first look at the new original graphic memoir I’m Still Alive. Written by Roberto Saviano with art by Asaf Hanuka, the story details Saviano’s personal account of his 15 year long work exposing the Italian Mafia.
When Saviano wrote Gomorrah he exposed the inner workings of the Naples mafia which resulted in real world investigations into the corruption. Saviano is still paying the price of exposing them with death threats and the need for armed guards everywhere he goes.
I’m Still Alive will document Saviano’s time in Naples witnessing the brutality of the mafia through his daily life after exposing their crimes. I’m not huge into mafia stories, but given his vast experience, it should be interesting to see Saviano’s personal memoir come to life in graphic novel form.
I’m Still Alive will be available on October 5, 2022 at comic book shops and October 11, 2022 at bookstores everywhere as well as digitally.
Humble Games and Old Moon have announced that their new 2D action RPG Ghost Song will be launching on November 3, 2022 for PC, Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Game Pass.
Piece together your broken memory as you traverse a desolate moon full of ancient mysteries and cosmic terrors. Find upgrades for your armor as you encounter terrible monsters and a fully voice cast group of others trapped in this place.
The trailer looks great, I really like the atmospheric music and having the NPC’s be voiced is always a bonus. I would say definitely check this out if you like Metroidvania games. Watch the trailer for yourself below and let me know what you think.
We’re coming up on the season of fall and that means some seasonal changes. Enjoy a less serious Dungeons & Dragons adventure embracing some seasonal tropes in Andrew Nagel’s Pumpkin Spice, Not So Nice. This is a 3-hour combat heavy one-shot adventure designed for 3-5 level 5 players and just sounds like fun.
A chilly autumn night at the tavern. The insatiable thirst for Pumpkin Spice. Overly used seasonal tropes. Will you find only tricks, or also some treats?
You can purchase Pumpkin Spice, Not So Nice from DMs Guild (affiliate link) for $4.99.
Valkyrie has arrived on the scene as Hot Toys’ latest collectible figure from Thor: Love and Thunder. Based on Tessa Thompson’s portrayal, the ⅙ scale figure is ready to join Thor and Mighty Thor to defend her people. She comes decked out in white and metallic silver armor with a flowing fabric cape. Accessories include her Dragonfang sword, a pair of daggers, thunderbolt, portable speaker, and an attachable Korg face sculpt. Overall I think the figure looks good, but I think that thunderbolt accessory looks a little corny. You can preorder your Valkyrie figure for $270 from Sideshow now.
