Alam Nyo Ba?

Made on a budget of less than $100,000, director Rhys Frake-Waterfield’s movie Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey earned more than $6 million during its global release in early 2023, so not only did the sequel Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 have a substantially higher budget, that success opened the door to an entire cinematic universe that will consist of at least one more Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey sequel and other horror movies inspired by children’s stories, like Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare, Bambi: The Reckoning, and Pinocchio Unstrung. (Along with the crossover Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble.) Viva Pictures will be giving Pinocchio Unstrung a theatrical release in North America on July 24th – and with that date right around the corner, we’re proud to share an EXCLUSIVE clip from the film that brings the fairy tale horror to a hospital! You can watch it in the embed above.

What is Pinocchio Unstrung about?

Frake-Waterfield directed Pinocchio Unstrung. The story follows young James as he learns of his grandfather Geppetto’s deadly secret: Pinocchio. 

Cameron Bell, Jessica Balmer, Jack Art Gray, and Peter De Souza-Feighoney star alongside A Nightmare on Elm Street‘s Robert Englund and Rob Zombie regular Richard Brake.

As we’ve previously heard, Todd Masters of MastersFx, who worked on the 2019 Child’s Play remake, headed up the animatronics and puppetry. The Prosthetics Studio, which has worked on the Star Wars and Harry Potter franchises, provided the practical gore.

What has been said about Pinocchio Unstrung?

Brake previously had this to say about the project: “Not only is the script dark, twisted and gory, it’s also at times very funny. Todd Masters and his team have created incredible practical effects. Audiences are in for a crazy ride.” Masters added, “I’ve forever loved the original and demented story from the 1880s. So I was excited to join this production, to bring this little puppet to life — with all practical FX. This version is still a little puppet’s pursuit to becoming a boy… but the way he becomes one, is extremely gnarly… and frankly, very fun.“

Frake-Waterfield said, “Our movie flips everything you know about Pinocchio on its head. We have an incredibly talented cast and crew working on this. We are heavily relying on practical effects for all of the deaths and creature work. I can’t wait for the world to meet Pinocchio.“

Are you interested in Pinocchio Unstrung? Take a look at our exclusive clip, then let us know by leaving a comment below.

The post Pinnochio Unstrung clip brings fairy tale horror to a hospital – Exclusive! appeared first on JoBlo.

Mike

Imagine losing a parent as a young child and then, thirty years later, getting the chance to have one last conversation with them. You’re an adult now. Life hasn’t gone the way you hoped. The years have left scars, regrets, and questions that never got answered. Then, somehow, you’re handed one impossible opportunity to speak with the person you’ve missed most. Just imagining that conversation is emotional. That’s the premise of Frequency. But that barely scratches the surface of a movie that also manages to weave together time travel, a serial killer investigation, solar flare science, and even the miraculous 1969 New York Mets.

Today, we’re answering the question of how filmmakers managed to combine science fiction, drama, mystery, and even horror into a story that somehow feels believable more than twenty-five years later. Did audiences simply overlook the outrageous premise because they were too busy crying and having a great time? Or did Frequency ground its fantasy in just enough real science and human emotion to make us believe every second of it?

This is the story of What Happened to Frequency.

The Original Idea Was Completely Different

Frequency was written by Toby Emmerich, who today serves as Chairman of Warner Bros. Pictures Group. Back in the late 1990s, however, he was an executive at New Line Cinema whose responsibilities leaned heavily toward the company’s music division. One night, an idea struck him that he believed would make a great episode of The Twilight Zone. Ironically, he apparently wasn’t aware that The Twilight Zone already featured an episode called Long Distance Call, where a young boy communicates with his deceased grandmother through a toy telephone.

Still, Emmerich’s concept was very different. He imagined two brothers searching through an old steamer trunk that belonged to their late grandfather. After plugging in his antique ham radio, they’re shocked when their grandfather answers from the past. Even stranger, Grandpa tells them he’s hidden a fortune in European gold somewhere inside the family home after smuggling it out of World War II. Hopefully not the Pulp Fiction way.

If I didn’t know any better, and I definitely don’t, I might assume Toby Emmerich had access to some very creative inspiration that evening. But that’s the funny thing about ideas. Sometimes they just appear.

From Hidden Treasure to Time Travel

As Emmerich continued developing the story, the treasure hunt gradually disappeared. Instead, he began wondering what would happen if the characters were an adult police officer and his firefighter father rather than two children and their adventurous grandfather. He was especially inspired by heartfelt fantasy films like Ghost and Field of Dreams, stories that asked impossible “what if?” questions while staying emotionally grounded.

That influence also helped inspire another memorable element of the film: the improbable championship run of the 1969 New York Mets, whose real-life Cinderella season would become surprisingly important to the story.

Screenwriter Glen Brunswick, a friend of Emmerich’s, suggested raising the stakes even further by introducing a serial killer storyline. That idea transformed the screenplay.

By the time Frequency reached theaters, it wasn’t simply a father-son drama or a science-fiction movie. It had become an ambitious blend of family drama, detective thriller, murder mystery, supernatural fantasy, and emotional character study. Honestly, it’s almost like a suspense-driven version of Forrest Gump, constantly shifting between genres while somehow making every piece fit.

A Father Lost Too Soon

The story introduces Frank Sullivan, a fun-loving firefighter, devoted husband, and proud father who courageously dies while battling a warehouse fire. His death leaves behind his wife Julia and their six-year-old son, John.

Thirty years later, John has grown into a New York City detective, but unlike his father, life has worn him down. He still lives in the same house where he grew up, yet everything about it feels colder. Relationships never last. The laughter is gone. Instead of sharing beers with friends, John spends his nights drinking whiskey straight from the bottle while sitting alone in the dark.

It’s painfully clear that growing up without his father shaped the man he became.

An Impossible Conversation

One evening, while experimenting with Frank’s old ham radio, John hears an unfamiliar voice. Before long, he realizes something impossible. The person on the other end isn’t a stranger. It’s his father. Somehow, Frank is speaking from 1969.

John understands what’s happening before Frank does. More importantly, he realizes his father’s fatal fire is only days away. For the first time in thirty years, he has a chance to change history.

Frank understandably struggles to believe that the mysterious voice belongs to his grown son from the future. But when John desperately warns him about the deadly warehouse fire, Frank decides to trust him. The decision changes everything. Frank survives. History rewrites itself.

When Saving One Life Changes Everything

At first, it seems like the perfect ending. Frank lives. John gets the father he always wanted. New memories flood into his mind as his entire childhood rewrites itself around this new reality.

Except… That’s only the end of the movie if you’re about forty minutes in. Anyone who’s seen The Butterfly Effect knows exactly what comes next. Changing the past never fixes only one thing. It changes everything.

The Butterfly Effect Takes Over

Right from the opening minutes, Frequency quietly plants clues about what’s really happening. Television broadcasts, radio reports, and newspaper headlines constantly mention three seemingly unrelated topics. The miracle run of the 1969 Mets. Powerful solar flares creating spectacular auroras above New York City. And an unidentified serial murderer known as the Nightingale Killer.

None of these details seem especially important at first. Eventually, however, they become the backbone of the entire movie.

Frank surviving the fire creates an entirely new timeline. Unfortunately, that new timeline allows the Nightingale Killer to claim even more victims than before. One of them is John’s mother, Julia. Suddenly, saving Frank wasn’t enough. Now father and son must work together across thirty years to stop a serial killer before he murders Julia and permanently destroys the future.

There’s just one problem. Even in 1999, no one has ever discovered who the Nightingale Killer actually is.

The Science Behind Frequency‘s Time Travel

One of the most impressive things about Frequency is how much it asks the audience to accept. A father and son communicate across thirty years through a ham radio. Time changes in real time. Memories rewrite themselves. A serial killer investigation unfolds simultaneously in two different decades. On paper, it sounds like complete nonsense. But the film earns your trust because it never treats any of it like a joke.

As Frank searches the streets of 1969 using information John has gathered in 1999, the two slowly piece together the identity of the Nightingale Killer. The irony is that Frank himself becomes a suspect, meaning the race to catch the real murderer before history changes again becomes just as dangerous for him as it does for John.

With so many moving parts, you’d almost forgive the filmmakers if they had simply hand-waved away the science. Instead, Frequency grounds its impossible premise in real scientific research surrounding solar flares and their effects on radio communications and Earth’s magnetic field. The movie never claims that solar activity allows people to talk across time. But it uses actual scientific phenomena as the foundation for its fantasy, making the leap feel surprisingly believable.

Gregory Hoblit Wanted the Audience to Figure It Out

One of director Gregory Hoblit’s smartest decisions was resisting the temptation to explain everything. To Hoblit, exposition was practically a dirty word. Rather than stopping the story every fifteen minutes so characters could explain the mechanics of time travel, he trusted viewers to assemble the puzzle themselves.

Bits of information are scattered throughout the film. News anchors casually mention unusual solar activity. Newspapers reference powerful geomagnetic storms. The Aurora Borealis repeatedly appears over New York City. Background radio broadcasts quietly reinforce the same ideas.

Nothing is ever presented as a lecture. Instead, the audience gradually pieces together what might be happening. It’s the kind of storytelling that modern studios sometimes seem terrified of.

In an era when movies often stop every few scenes so someone can explain exactly what’s happening, Frequency assumes viewers are paying attention. Ironically, that’s one of the reasons the movie still feels fresh today.

Gregory Hoblit Found the Perfect Follow-Up to Fallen

The man tasked with bringing Frequency to life was Gregory Hoblit. Before becoming a feature director, Hoblit had built an impressive television résumé working on Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue. He then made a successful jump to movies with Primal Fear, the courtroom thriller that helped launch Edward Norton’s career.

Just before Frequency, however, Hoblit directed another ambitious genre mash-up: Fallen, starring Denzel Washington. That film blended police procedural storytelling with supernatural horror, but it struggled at the box office despite developing a passionate fan base over the years.

Hoblit viewed Frequency as another opportunity to successfully combine multiple genres into a single emotional story. This time, he wanted to get everything just right. There was also a deeply personal reason the project spoke to him: Hoblit had lost his own father only about a year and a half earlier. It’s hard not to imagine that grief helped him connect with the screenplay on a level beyond simply directing another studio picture.

Casting the Sullivan Family

Finding the right actors proved far more difficult than Hoblit expected. Several performers reportedly backed away from the project because the father-son relationship hit too close to home emotionally. Others weren’t enthusiastic about sharing equal dramatic weight with another lead actor, something the script absolutely required.

At one point, Variety reported that Sylvester Stallone was being considered to star, with Cliffhanger director Renny Harlin attached to direct. Now there’s an alternate universe I’d love to visit. That version of Frequency would have been an entirely different movie.

Thankfully, things worked out exactly as they needed to.

Dennis Quaid Was Exactly What Hoblit Needed

There’s a very short list of actors who can convincingly play a tough 1969 firefighter while also radiating warmth, humor, and fatherly charm. Dennis Quaid happens to sit comfortably at the top of that list. Fresh off one of his strongest performances in Any Given Sunday, where he played aging quarterback Cap Rooney, Quaid brought exactly the blue-collar authenticity Hoblit envisioned for Frank Sullivan.

Interestingly, it wasn’t one of Quaid’s action movies that convinced Hoblit he’d found his leading man. It was The Parent Trap. Watching Quaid play a loving father in that film convinced Hoblit that audiences would instantly believe the emotional bond between Frank and John.

The director even joked that Quaid’s physical build helped seal the deal. He wanted someone who genuinely looked like they belonged inside a firefighter’s gear. As Hoblit put it, he didn’t want someone like Al Pacino disappearing inside an oversized turnout coat. It’s a funny observation, but it’s also classic Hoblit. The man obsessed over details.

Jim Caviezel, Elizabeth Mitchell, and a Nearly Perfect Supporting Cast

Opposite Quaid was Jim Caviezel as the emotionally damaged John Sullivan. At the time, Caviezel was still establishing himself as a leading man after drawing attention in The Thin Red Line. His reserved, quietly wounded performance becomes the emotional anchor that allows all of the movie’s science fiction to work.

Elizabeth Mitchell was cast as Julia Sullivan after Hoblit searched extensively for an actress audiences would immediately adore. His reasoning was simple: if viewers didn’t genuinely care about Julia, the entire second half of the movie would lose its emotional punch. Mitchell apparently walked into the audition room and charmed everyone almost immediately. The filmmakers knew they’d found Julia.

Andre Braugher was equally perfect as Detective Satch DeLeon, Frank and John’s longtime friend who has absolutely no patience for anyone’s nonsense. Braugher somehow manages to be intimidating, funny, and reassuring all at once.

Toby Emmerich’s brother, Noah Emmerich, appears as John’s best friend Gordo. Thankfully, he’s a much better friend here than he was to Jim Carrey in The Truman Show. Although, if we’re being honest, they’re surprisingly similar characters. You can almost picture Gordo showing up with a six-pack every time John’s life starts falling apart.

And if you blink, you’ll miss one very familiar face. Gordo’s son is played by a young Michael Cera in one of his earliest screen appearances.

Meanwhile, Shawn Doyle landed the role of the Nightingale Killer halfway through reading the script with Hoblit. Which is both impressive… and maybe a little concerning. Imagine being told halfway through an audition, “Yep. You’re definitely convincing as a serial killer.” Congratulations?

Recreating New York City on a Tight Budget

Although Frequency takes place in New York City across two different decades, most of the film was actually shot in Toronto, with select location work completed in New York. That presented Gregory Hoblit and his crew with an enormous challenge. They weren’t just making a contemporary thriller, they were making a period piece that constantly jumped between 1969 and 1999. And they knew from the beginning that the movie probably needed a larger budget than they had available.

If you watch Frequency closely, you can actually see the filmmakers stretching every dollar. Many scenes are framed tightly, limiting how much of the city has to be dressed for the period. Instead of massive citywide celebrations during the Mets’ improbable World Series run, we get neighborhood barbecues where families crowd around televisions to watch the games together. Fire sequences take place largely inside factories and sewer tunnels instead of sprawling city blocks, while much of the 1999 storyline unfolds inside John’s house or familiar neighborhood locations.

Rather than trying to fake an entire city, Hoblit focused on making the pieces we did see feel authentic. It’s a smart example of filmmakers embracing limitations instead of fighting them.

Bringing the Fire Sequences to Life

One of the film’s biggest action scenes is Frank Sullivan’s daring escape from the warehouse fire, a sequence that feels like it would have made an incredible Universal Studios attraction. To create it, the production found an abandoned warehouse in Red Hook, New York, that was large enough to safely stage a controlled fire. Additional interior shots were filmed on a three-story set constructed in Toronto, allowing the crew to safely capture the more dangerous moments.

Authenticity was a priority throughout production. Rather than filling the sets entirely with actors, Hoblit and New Line hired real firefighters and police officers to appear throughout the film whenever possible. Aside from characters with substantial dialogue, many of the emergency personnel audiences see on screen were professionals doing versions of the jobs they performed every day.

That attention to detail extended behind the scenes as well. Hoblit had grown up with an FBI father and already had years of experience directing police procedurals, but both he and writer Toby Emmerich still spent time inside firehouses learning how firefighters interacted with one another when they weren’t battling blazes. Jim Caviezel went on ride-alongs with New York detectives to study police work firsthand, while much of the cast underwent dialect coaching to make their New York accents more convincing. Considering how many members of the production were Canadian, that was probably time well spent.

Two Sets, Four Cameras, and One Radio

The emotional heart of Frequency isn’t the time travel. It’s the conversations. Every scene between Frank and John lives or dies on whether audiences believe these two men are genuinely reconnecting after thirty years apart. To make those exchanges feel as natural as possible, Hoblit came up with an elegant solution. The production built the 1969 and 1999 versions of the Sullivan home side by side. Four cameras rolled simultaneously while Dennis Quaid and Jim Caviezel spoke to one another through working radios rather than delivering dialogue separately. Instead of acting opposite stand-ins or reading lines into empty space, they were reacting to each other in real time.

Hoblit later said he was amazed by how much this changed their performances. The conversations became looser. The interruptions felt genuine. The emotion became more spontaneous. Rather than feeling like carefully rehearsed dialogue, it often sounded like two family members simply talking. It’s one of those invisible filmmaking choices that audiences rarely notice consciously, but it makes all the difference.

Every Timeline Has Its Own House

The production design quietly performs some of the movie’s most impressive storytelling. Because history changes several times throughout Frequency, the Sullivan home constantly evolves alongside it. If Frank dies in the warehouse fire, the house reflects decades of grief. If Julia is murdered by the Nightingale Killer, the atmosphere shifts again. When both parents survive, the home transforms into something warmer and fuller, subtly reflecting a happier family life.

Most viewers probably never stop to analyze those differences while watching the film. They simply feel them. It’s another example of Hoblit trusting visual storytelling instead of spelling everything out through dialogue.

Cutting More Than an Hour

Gregory Hoblit’s first cut of Frequency ran an astonishing two hours and thirty-two minutes. Considering the finished film clocks in at just under two hours, that means well over thirty minutes of material disappeared in the editing room. Hoblit has said the editing process became an exercise in ruthless decision-making. Entire sequences the filmmakers loved were removed; not because the studio demanded it or because test audiences rejected them, but because they ultimately slowed the story down.

The goal wasn’t simply to make the movie shorter. It was to make it better.

Ironically, test screenings became invaluable for another reason. With such a complicated story involving constantly shifting timelines, everyone making the movie had become too close to the material. Fresh audiences quickly pointed out moments that were confusing or seemed to create potential continuity problems. Those screenings helped the filmmakers tighten the story before release.

The Ending Gregory Hoblit Still Wishes He Could Change

Despite all of that careful planning, Hoblit believes one major timeline mistake survived into the finished film. It has bothered him ever since. Near the climax, John tells the Nightingale Killer, “You went down thirty years ago. You just don’t know it yet.” The problem, according to Hoblit, is that the killer is still alive during the 1999 confrontation. Once the director realized the contradiction, he immediately wrote several new pages of script and sent the studio a lengthy proposal requesting reshoots.

His alternate ending would have played out very differently. Rather than Frank appearing in 1999 to save the day, the Nightingale Killer would prepare to shoot him. At that exact moment, Frank would hear a shotgun blast over the ham radio, the sound of John killing the murderer back in 1969. Frank would smile. The killer would pull the trigger. But before the bullet could reach him, both the projectile and the killer himself would dissolve away, erased from history because John had already changed the past. John would then return home, completely unaware that the final confrontation in 1999 had ever taken place.

From a time-travel perspective, Hoblit believed this version made far more sense. Audiences disagreed. During test screenings, viewers erupted when Frank appeared in the existing ending, cheering as he rescued his son one last time. The reaction was so overwhelmingly positive that the studio kept the theatrical ending.

To this day, Hoblit still considers it a plot hole. Most audiences simply consider it one of the film’s most satisfying moments. Sometimes emotion beats perfect logic. And Frequency is living proof of that.

The Science Was More Real Than You Might Think

One of the biggest surprises behind Frequency is just how seriously Gregory Hoblit treated its science. The movie never tries to convince audiences that solar flares really let people communicate across time. That leap remains firmly in the realm of science fiction. But everything surrounding that central idea was built on legitimate scientific research.

Hoblit consulted with a published physicist who spent nearly a year helping the production develop a theoretical framework for the film’s time-travel mechanics. Together, they worked to ensure that every discussion involving solar flares, radio transmissions, magnetic fields, and changing timelines felt internally consistent.

That attention to detail is one of the reasons Frequency still holds up today. he audience may never fully understand how Frank and John are talking across three decades, but they believe that the filmmakers understand it. Sometimes that’s all a great science-fiction story needs.

Even the movie’s baseball subplot was rooted in reality. The miraculous 1969 New York Mets season wasn’t simply chosen because it made for good nostalgia. Specific moments mentioned throughout the film, including details like the famous shoe-polish incident during the World Series, were based on real events from that remarkable championship run. Like everything else in Frequency, the emotional storytelling was supported by painstaking research.

Finding the Right Musical Voice

Once the story, science, and editing had been locked into place, Gregory Hoblit faced another unusual challenge. What should Frequency actually sound like? After one test screening, a friend jokingly asked Hoblit how many composers he planned to hire. It wasn’t a ridiculous question. One moment, Frequency is a heartfelt family drama. The next, it’s a serial killer thriller. Then it becomes a science-fiction mystery before suddenly transforming into an emotional tearjerker. Finding one composer who could navigate all of those tonal shifts wasn’t easy.

The filmmakers ultimately turned to Michael Kamen, whose résumé already demonstrated remarkable versatility. Whether scoring explosive action films like Die Hard or emotional fantasies like What Dreams May Come, Kamen had repeatedly shown he could shift seamlessly between genres. That flexibility proved essential. His score quietly ties together a movie that constantly changes emotional gears without ever feeling disjointed.

The MPAA Nearly Gave Frequency an R Rating

Ironically, one of the final obstacles wasn’t time travel. It was the MPAA. Despite Frequency containing relatively restrained violence compared to many thrillers of its era, the ratings board initially pushed toward an R rating.

According to Hoblit, the reasons were frustratingly minor. Several shots had to be trimmed or altered, including a lingering view of the Nightingale Killer’s hand after it’s blown apart during the climax. Additional images of murder victims visible in police files were shortened or removed. Finally, a single use of the f-word during one particularly intense confrontation had to go.

After those relatively small edits, the film secured the PG-13 rating New Line had been hoping for all along. Considering everything the movie gets away with emotionally and thematically, it’s funny that a handful of brief shots almost made all the difference.

A Quiet Success at the Box Office

Frequency arrived in theaters on April 28, 2000, opening in more than 2,000 theaters. It debuted with roughly $9 million during its opening weekend, good enough for third place at the North American box office. While it wasn’t an explosive opening, the film demonstrated something studios always appreciate: it held. Thanks to positive word of mouth, Frequency steadily attracted audiences over the following weeks, ultimately earning nearly $70 million worldwide against a production budget of approximately $31 million.

No, it wasn’t a blockbuster. But for an original screenplay that blended science fiction, family drama, detective mystery, and serial killer suspense into one package, it was far from a disappointment.

Frankly, it’s easy to see why the marketing department probably had a few sleepless nights. How exactly do you sell this movie in a two-minute trailer?

Critics Connected With the Emotion

Critics generally embraced Frequency, but one review in particular has become closely associated with the film. Roger Ebert awarded it three-and-a-half stars out of four, arguing that any logical inconsistencies simply didn’t matter because the emotional core was so effective.

It’s hard to disagree. The movie succeeds because it constantly gives audiences something new to invest in. One minute you’re watching a time-travel story. The next, you’re following a serial killer investigation. Moments later, you’re unexpectedly tearing up over a father and son finally getting another chance together.

Somehow, all of those elements coexist without feeling like they’re competing with one another. Better yet, the movie never winks at the audience. It treats every genre with complete sincerity. That allows us to do the same.

Why Frequency Still Holds Up

Unlike many successful genre films, Frequency was never designed to launch a franchise. Its story feels complete. Frank and John’s journey reaches a satisfying conclusion, and it’s difficult to imagine a sequel improving upon it.

Sure, you could theoretically tell other stories involving strange auroras and people communicating across time, but now we’re starting to push our luck.

Instead, Frequency became something arguably more valuable. It became one of those movies. The kind you stumble across on cable while folding laundry. You tell yourself you’ll watch five minutes. Two hours later, you’ve accomplished absolutely nothing. Commercials and all.

We’ve all had that movie. For a lot of people, Frequency is one of them. Even today, it’s impossible not to have the same reaction whenever someone mentions it: “Oh yeah… I haven’t watched Frequency in years. I really need to fix that.”

The Television Revival Didn’t Last

Hollywood eventually tried revisiting the concept. In 2016, The CW adapted Frequency into a television series, once again with Toby Emmerich serving as an executive producer. This time, the relationship centered on a father and daughter rather than a father and son. It was an interesting twist on the original premise, but audiences never connected with it the same way.

After one season, the series was canceled. Sometimes lightning really does strike only once.

A Movie That Keeps Finding New Fans

Like many films released during the height of the VHS, DVD, and rental boom, Frequency arguably enjoyed an even longer life after leaving theaters. It’s remained a regular recommendation for fans of science fiction, thrillers, mysteries, and heartfelt dramas alike.

At the time of this video, the film still hasn’t received the 4K release many fans continue to hope for. Its Blu-ray, however, offers an excellent collection of special features, including commentary tracks from Gregory Hoblit and Toby Emmerich, deleted scenes, and featurettes exploring both the filmmaking process and the science that inspired the story.

For a movie built around revisiting the past, it seems fitting that audiences keep revisiting it too.

Conclusion

Frequency asks us to believe something impossible: that love can travel across time. It wraps that idea inside a serial killer mystery, layers it with real scientific theory, grounds it in one of baseball’s greatest underdog stories, and somehow makes the whole thing feel completely sincere. That’s an incredibly difficult balancing act. Gregory Hoblit, Toby Emmerich, Dennis Quaid, Jim Caviezel, and everyone involved managed to pull it off because they never treated the material like a gimmick.

The science mattered. The details mattered. But most importantly, the relationship between Frank and John mattered. That’s why audiences still remember Frequency more than twenty-five years later. Not because of the time travel. Because every one of us has wondered what we’d say if we could have just one more conversation with someone we’ve lost.

And that’s What Happened to Frequency.

A couple of previous episodes of this show can be seen below. For more, check out the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel—and don’t forget to subscribe!

The post How Frequency Mixed Time Travel, Mystery, and Family Into a Modern Classic appeared first on JoBlo.

The End of Oak Street, the latest film from It Follows writer/director David Robert Mitchell, has been taking a long, slow road out into the world. For three years, we’ve been hearing updates on this mysterious Warner Bros. Pictures / Jackson Pictures / Bad Robot project. We didn’t even know the title for most of that time – and when a title was first revealed, it was called Flowervale Street. Now we know that the movie is actually called The End of Oak Street. Having missed the May 16, 2025 release date that it previously had, it’s now heading for an August 14, 2026 theatrical release – and with that date just one month away, a batch of character posters have been unveiled. You can check them out at the bottom of this article.

What is The End of Oak Street about?

The official plot synopsis reads, After a mysterious cosmic event rips Oak Street from suburbia and transports their neighborhood to someplace unknown, the Platt family soon discovers that their very survival depends on them sticking together as they navigate their now unrecognizable surroundings.

Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada 2, Mother Mary) and Ewan McGregor (Trainspotting, Doctor Sleep) play the matriarch and patriarch of the main family. Joining them are Maisy Stella (My Old Ass, Nashville), Christian Convery (Sweet Tooth, Cocaine Bear), Jordan Alexis Davis (Defending Jacob, Just Between Us), P.J. Byrne (The Wolf of Wall Street, Final Destination 5), and Chris Coy (Black Rabbit, The Peripheral).

The character posters below feature the members of the Platt family, including their dog.

Written and directed by Mitchell, The End of Oak Street is produced by J.J. Abrams, Hannah Minghella, Jon Cohen, David Robert Mitchell, Matt Jackson and Tommy Harper. The executive producers are Chris Bender, Jake Weiner, Joanne Lee, and Leeann Stonebreaker.

Are you interested in The End of Oak Street, and are you looking forward to catching it on the big screen next month? Take a look at the character posters, then let us know by leaving a comment below.

I have been sold on this one for a long time, ever since sources described it as “a family adventure set in the 1980s that involves dinosaurs.”

The post Meet the Characters of The End of Oak Street in New Official Posters appeared first on JoBlo.

The premium television network Home Box Office (a.k.a. HBO) launched as a regional service in northeastern Pennsylvania back in 1972, gradually building up over the years until it became the nationwide, 24-hour powerhouse we know it as at the end of 1981.

Needing to fill 24 hours of programming every single day, the network ended up showing some movies over and over. One of the most famous repeat offenders was the 1982 fantasy adventure film The Beastmaster. It allegedly aired so much that subscribers joked HBO stood for “Hey, Beastmaster’s on!”

This brings up a fascinating piece of cable trivia: Have you ever wondered exactly how many times The Beastmaster was shown on HBO in the ‘80s—and what the top 50 most-aired movies actually were?

I can’t say I ever pondered these specific questions. Yet, when I saw that the recently launched YouTube channel The HBO 80s Database had the data, I immediately clicked on their video.

What were the top 50 most-aired movies on HBO in the 1980s? You can watch the full 25-minute video embedded above to find out, and I highly recommend it. But if you just want the cheat sheet, here is how the numbers stack up:

The 12-Way Tie (38 Airings)

• Numbers 50 through 39: Yes, Giorgio (1982), Under the Rainbow (1981), The Man from Snowy River (1982), The Competition (1980), Tender Mercies (1983), Superman: The Movie (1978), Star Wars (1977), On Golden Pond(1981), Looker (1981), Gloria (1980), Dirty Tricks (1980), and Brainstorm (1983).

The 39-Airings Club

• Numbers 38 through 34: A five-way tie between Threshold (1981), Second Thoughts (1983), Raggedy Man(1981), Lone Wolf McQuade (1983), and King of the Mountain (1981).

The 40-Airings Club

• Numbers 33 through 25: A nine-way tie between The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia (1981), The Jazz Singer (1980), The Great Muppet Caper (1981), The Four Seasons (1981), Superman II (1980), The Sea Gypsies (1978, a.k.a. Shipwreck!), Kiss Me Goodbye (1982), Continental Divide (1981), and Any Which Way You Can (1980). (I have a feeling I personally caught most of those airings of Any Which Way You Can.)

The Top 24 Countdown

• 41 Airings (24 & 23): St. Helens (1981) and Six Weeks (1982)
• 42 Airings (22 & 21): The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981) and Chariots of Fire (1981)
• 43 Airings (20 & 19): The Secret of NIMH (1982) and Blue Skies Again (1983)
• 44 Airings (18 to 15): Wonder of It All (1974), Right of Way (1983), Eddie and the Cruisers (1983), and Absence of Malice (1981)
• 45 Airings (14 to 12): The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), Dragonslayer (1981), and Arthur (1981)
• 46 Airings (11 to 9): Super Fuzz (1980), My Favorite Year (1982), and Finnegan Begin Again (1985)
• 48 Airings (8 to 6): 9 to 5 (1980), Flash Gordon (1980), and Between Friends (1983). (Fun stat: No movies were shown exactly 47 times!)

The Top 5 Most-Aired on HBO

• 51 Airings (5 & 4): Victory (1981) and Daffy Duck’s Fantastic Island (1983)
• 54 Airings (3 & 2): The Terry Fox Story (1983) and The Cannonball Run (1981). (I distinctly remember watching the absolute hell out of The Cannonball Run when I was a youngster… though I still think my total viewings of Any Which Way You Can might beat it.)

The #1 Most-Aired Program of the ’80s

With 58 total showings, the number one spot goes to the 1983 stand-up comedy special Bill Cosby: Himself.

Yes, in a shocking turn of events, The Beastmaster didn’t even make it into the top fifty! According to the historical data, it was only broadcast 23 times. The running joke was a total myth.

Were you watching HBO in the 1980s? How many of these did you catch on repeat? Reminisce in the comments!

The post The 50 Most-Aired Movies on HBO in the 1980s: The #1 Spot Will Shock You appeared first on JoBlo.

Mike

We all know AI is scary. Amid all the good it could bring, there’s always the looming fear: job displacement, the collapse of creative industries, or worst-case scenario… Skynet-level catastrophe with rogue machines deciding humanity is the problem. But setting global extinction aside for a moment, what if someone built technology that could turn “Satan’s personal ChatGPT” into a walking, talking humanoid serial killer, programmed with the psychological profiles of over 200 of history’s most violent figures? People like Hitler and John Wayne Gacy. That’s the question the film Virtuosity dared to ask in 1995, back when people were still figuring out America Online using free trial CDs.

And somehow, this strange sci-fi action thriller starred two future Academy Award winners, helped inspire The Matrix, and still slipped through the cracks. So what happened?

A Cyberpunk Idea Before Its Time

After writing Surviving the Game, writer Eric Bernt pivoted from human hunting survival thrillers into full-on virtual reality horror sci-fi. Inspired by a 3D AI demonstration at Carnegie Mellon University, he created SID 6.7, a digital entity built from multiple criminal personalities. The concept was disturbingly forward-thinking: training AI on violent human behavior and watching it evolve.

Director Brett Leonard, fresh off The Lawnmower Man, was brought in to steer the project. He was already associated with popularizing the concept of “virtual reality” in mainstream film culture, even if he didn’t invent the term.

Leonard’s approach leaned heavily into spectacle. He wanted Virtuosity to be entertaining first, philosophical second, and unsettling always. He had also been influenced by K. Eric Drexler’s Engines of Creation, which explored nanotechnology and future systems that now feel uncomfortably close to reality.

The Story: A Killer Built From 200 Minds

Virtuosity (1995) follows Parker Barnes, played by Denzel Washington, a disgraced cop turned convict offered a chance at redemption. He’s forced to test experimental VR law enforcement training at LETAC. Inside the system is SID 6.7, a synthetic criminal built from over 200 psychopathic personalities. The role is played with chaotic energy by Russell Crowe.

SID isn’t just a simulation. He learns. Evolves. Escapes constraints. And eventually finds a way into the real world using nanotechnology. He becomes something like Freddy Krueger fused with a cybernetic god complex.

A Future That Looks Weirdly Familiar

The film opens with VR cops navigating digital environments filled with glitchy NPCs and over-the-top training scenarios. Even early on, it feels like a prototype for modern video game logic.

SID quickly proves he’s more than a training tool. He begins killing inside the simulation and destabilizing the system itself. When threatened with deletion, he responds with chilling arrogance, calling his creator “frighteningly inadequate for a deity.”

From there, things escalate fast. SID escapes into the real world via nanotechnology, turning physical reality into an extension of his digital violence.

Parker Barnes: A Broken Man on a Mission

Barnes isn’t your typical hero. His backstory reveals tragedy: the loss of his wife and child, and a violent breakdown that led to the death of two reporters. He’s emotionally volatile, damaged, and barely controlled.

The film leans into a grim, almost proto-Training Day energy, with Barnes constantly teetering between justice and rage.

Opposite him is criminal psychiatrist Madison Carter, played by Kelly Lynch, and police authority figure William Cochran, played by William Forsythe.

Russell Crowe’s Unhinged Breakout Energy

SID 6.7 is not subtle. He evolves into a physical form that behaves like a digital demigod of chaos: sarcastic, violent, theatrical, and completely unrestrained.

Crowe leans fully into the role, creating a villain who feels like a prediction of internet-era personality fragmentation: too many voices, too much stimulation, no moral grounding. He is, in every sense, a system overload made flesh.

The Film’s Most Insane Ideas (Even Now)

Virtuosity doesn’t just predict AI fears, it accidentally stumbles into them. SID’s ability to evolve, manipulate systems, and spread through infrastructure feels eerily close to modern concerns about autonomous AI behavior.

Other standout elements include:

• A nightclub massacre staged like a distorted digital symphony
• A futuristic UFC-style arena where SID causes chaos mid-event
• “Death TV,” an early version of interactive streaming violence
• Nanotech regeneration using glass as a fuel source
• SID literally consuming materials to rebuild himself

It’s messy. It’s absurd. But it’s also strangely imaginative.

Behind the Scenes Drama and Lost Romantic Subplot

Originally, the film reportedly had a stronger romantic storyline between Barnes and Carter. That subplot was significantly reduced during production, with conflicting accounts about creative control and script rewrites.

There were also claims that early versions may have been designed with different casting in mind, including Mel Gibson in the lead role.

The final version became much colder and more procedural, focusing on action and chaos rather than emotional connection.

Box Office and Critical Reaction

Despite its cast and concept, Virtuosity underperformed. It opened modestly and barely cleared its budget globally. Critics were largely unimpressed, and it holds a low aggregate score on major review sites.

Some praised its ambition and performances, especially Washington’s grounded portrayal in contrast to Crowe’s chaos, but overall reception was mixed to negative.

The Legacy: A Film That Aged Into Relevance

Over time, Virtuosity has been reassessed. Modern viewers increasingly recognize how many ideas it touched before they became mainstream fears:

• AI identity modeling
• Synthetic personality construction
• Digital violence simulation
• Interactive media as spectacle and control

It’s also frequently mentioned in discussions about early cyberpunk cinema that helped shape later films like The Matrix. According to industry accounts, filmmakers including The Wachowskis acknowledged being influenced by the era of ideas Virtuosity was part of.

Final Thoughts

Virtuosity is chaotic, uneven, and wildly over the top. But it’s also a fascinating snapshot of mid-90s anxieties about technology, filtered through action cinema, studio ambition, and pure creative overload.

Denzel Washington plays it grounded and serious. Russell Crowe plays it like a system glitch with teeth. And somewhere in between, the film becomes something unforgettable, even if it never fully found its audience.

It’s not a perfect movie. But it might be a perfect example of a film ahead of its time trying and occasionally failing to hold itself together. And that is what happened to Virtuosity.

A couple of previous episodes of this show can be seen below. For more, check out the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel—and don’t forget to subscribe!

The post What Happened to Virtuosity? The AI Thriller That Predicted the Future (and Went Unnoticed) appeared first on JoBlo.

Cody

For more than 70 years, Godzilla has continually evolved to reflect the fears, filmmaking trends, and storytelling ambitions of each generation. The Reiwa era has taken that idea further than ever before. Rather than building a single shared continuity, Toho has treated each new project as an opportunity to completely reinvent the King of the Monsters, resulting in a wildly varied lineup that includes a politically charged live-action reboot, an ambitious anime trilogy, a cerebral television series, and an Academy Award-winning blockbuster.

This ranking covers Toho’s major narrative Godzilla releases of the Reiwa era: Shin Godzilla, the Netflix anime trilogy, Godzilla: Singular Point, and Godzilla Minus One. Some of these projects have become instant classics, while others are fascinating experiments that don’t always stick the landing. Taken together, they show a studio that’s far more interested in pushing Godzilla in unexpected directions than repeating past successes.

Here’s how every major Reiwa era Godzilla project stacks up.

6. GODZILLA: CITY ON THE EDGE OF BATTLE (2018)

• Release Year: 2018
• Format: Animated feature film (part of trilogy)
• Directors: Kōbun Shizuno, Hiroyuki Seshita
• Writer(s): Gen Urobuchi, Sadayuki Murai, Tetsuya Yamada
• Main Monsters: Godzilla, Mechagodzilla (conceptual/partial), Servum
• Continuity: Standalone anime continuity (Godzilla anime trilogy)
• Why It’s Ranked Here: Prioritizes extended philosophical dialogue and worldbuilding over monster action, resulting in a slow middle chapter that struggles to justify its runtime despite some strong conceptual ideas.
• Best Feature: The late-film escalation into direct confrontation with Godzilla.
• Biggest Weakness: Minimal kaiju action and heavy reliance on repetitive exposition.

Directors Kōbun Shizuno and Hiroyuki Seshita remained at the helm for the second installment in the trilogy of anime features that began with Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters, and returning screenwriter Gen Urobuchi was joined this time around by Sadayuki Murai and Tetsuya Yamada – although it’s not clear why three writers were required to craft this script, because there’s not much going on in the movie, despite its 100 minute running time.

Set 20,000 years in the future, in a time when humanity has largely been destroyed and Earth’s ecosystem has evolved to serve the planet’s ruler, the seemingly immortal (and six-times larger than before) Godzilla, this anime picks up directly after the events of Planet of the Monsters and proceeds to spend a lot of time spinning its wheels while the characters spout a lot of dialogue. We have not-quite human twin natives that guard the egg of their fallen deity, but don’t expect to see Mothra. There’s a reference to Ghidorah, but don’t expect to have him swoop in before the end credits. There’s talk of the characters activating a long-abandoned Mechagodzilla to fight Godzilla with, but don’t expect to see any Mechagodzilla action in here, either. We get references to other famous kaiju, but they’re not in the movie, which is quite disappointing.

Instead, we get humans and aliens teaming up to battle Godzilla with the nanometal that was used to create that unused Mechagodzilla. You would think that animation would give the filmmakers the chance to dazzle the audience with action sequences that wouldn’t be possible (or at least not cost-efficient) to bring to the screen in live-action, but the filmmakers didn’t really take advantage of that opportunity. There’s no excuse for City on the Edge of Battle being as slow, dull, and repetitive as it is. At least the climactic confrontation with Godzilla is somewhat exciting.

5. GODZILLA: THE PLANET EATER (2018)

• Release Year: 2018
• Format: Animated feature film (final part of trilogy)
• Directors: Kōbun Shizuno, Hiroyuki Seshita
• Writer(s): Gen Urobuchi
• Main Monsters: Godzilla, King Ghidorah
• Continuity: Standalone anime continuity (Godzilla anime trilogy)
• Why It’s Ranked Here: Attempts a philosophical conclusion to the anime trilogy with a focus on ideology and despair, but sacrifices monster spectacle and pacing in the process.
• Best Feature: The introduction of Ghidorah in a more cosmic, abstract form.
• Biggest Weakness: Dialogue-heavy structure limits payoff for the final confrontation.

The trilogy of Godzilla anime movies delivered by directors Kōbun Shizuno and Hiroyuki Seshita and writer Gen Urobuchi could be cut together into one four-and-a-half-hour movie, since the events of each one lead directly into the next… but it’s not advisable that anyone do that. Watching all three of these overly chatty animated movies in close proximity is already enough of an endurance challenge without trying to conquer all three of them in one sitting.

Following the events of both Planet of the Monsters and City on the Edge of Battle, The Planet Eater finds tension running high between the remaining humans and their alien cohorts, the devout Exif and the tech-savvy Bilusaludo, while the Houtua, the natives that live on Earth – which has been the domain of Godzilla for 20,000 years at this point – watch in wonder. The mission to annihilate Godzilla has reached peak desperation, so the Exif call in their god: Ghidorah. Of course, as viewers will have come to expect from the anime trilogy by the time they reach The Planet Eater, you have to sit through a series of interminable conversations before the movie finally gets around to showing off the kaiju clash. The action doesn’t kick in until the midway point… and even then, it’s not very exciting. (And if anyone was waiting for Mothra to hatch from the egg that’s protected by the Houtua, prepare for disappointment. She only makes a non-physical cameo.)

One could give the filmmakers kudos for focusing on character drama and the resolution of the philosophical issues at the core of their story rather than going all-in on monster mash spectacle, but someone watching a Godzilla anime shouldn’t feel like it’s too much to ask that there be a larger amount of exciting action than The Planet Eater, and the overall trilogy, decided to deliver.

4. GODZILLA: PLANET OF THE MONSTERS (2017)

• Release Year: 2017
• Format: Animated feature film (trilogy opener)
• Directors: Kōbun Shizuno, Hiroyuki Seshita
• Writer(s): Gen Urobuchi
• Main Monsters: Godzilla, Servum, Mechagodzilla (concept)
• Continuity: Standalone anime continuity (Godzilla anime trilogy)
• Why It’s Ranked Here: Strong concept and ambitious worldbuilding establish an intriguing future Earth, but the pacing is weighed down by exposition-heavy storytelling.
• Best Feature: The post-apocalyptic Earth setting dominated by Godzilla.
• Biggest Weakness: Delayed monster action and heavy exposition dumps.

Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters marked another major first for the franchise as Toho produced its very first Godzilla anime. Rather than testing the waters with a single animated feature, the studio hired directors Kōbun Shizuno and Hiroyuki Seshita and screenwriter Gen Urobuchi to craft a complete trilogy of anime features. The gamble didn’t pay off with audiences as well as Toho had hoped, but it demonstrated the studio’s willingness to experiment, and you have to give them credit for not holding back when they decide to try something new.

This take begins in the summer of 1999, when giant monsters started appearing all over the world and wrecking the place. The most dangerous of the bunch was Godzilla, who wiped out the other monsters before the major powers on Earth launched a nuclear war on the beast, almost destroying their own planet in the process. Not even two separate races of aliens, the devout Exif and the tech-savvy Bilusaludo, could help in the battle against Godzilla, so humans joined with the aliens to go searching for another planet to inhabit. After twenty years of unsuccessful space travel, the survivors return to Earth, only to discover that nearly 20,000 years have passed since their departure and the planet has evolved into an ecosystem ruled entirely by Godzilla.

Planet of the Monsters boasts one of the most imaginative premises in the franchise and the animation looks great, but a lot of the 88 minute running time is taken up by chatter, sci-fi exposition, and philosophical world-building. Things don’t really get exciting until about halfway through, when the humans who land on Earth find that Godzilla isn’t the only monster living on the planet, and then face off with the world-destroying monster in an extended final battle. There’s a lot of set-up, but the second half of Planet of the Monsters is entertaining enough to be worth the ride it took to get there. This movie lays the groundwork for a sci-fi saga unlike anything the franchise had attempted before, making it a fascinating addition to the Reiwa era, even if it’s a bit clunky and has a pair of lackluster follow-ups.

3. GODZILLA: SINGULAR POINT (2021)

• Release Year: 2021
• Format: Animated television series
• Director: Atsushi Takahashi
• Writer(s): Toh EnJoe
• Main Monsters: Godzilla, Jet Jaguar, Rodan, Anguirus, Manda, Kumonga, Salunga
• Continuity: Standalone anime continuity
• Why It’s Ranked Here: Reimagines Godzilla through dense science fiction concepts and rapid fire ideas, blending classic kaiju with complex theory and modern reinterpretation.
• Best Feature: Creative redesigns and reinterpretations of classic kaiju.
• Biggest Weakness: Overwhelming technobabble and dense exposition in later episodes.

Another Reiwa era project means another complete reimagining of Godzilla – and since this anime TV series (directed by Atsushi Takahashi from scripts by Toh EnJoe) had thirteen half-hour episodes to work with, we also get reworkings of multiple other kaiju from the classic Shōwa era like Rodan, Anguirus, Manda, and Kumonga. There’s also a newly introduced character called Salunga and an ever-upgrading version of the flying robot Jet Jaguar. Godzilla himself doesn’t really come into play until the second half of the show’s run – and even then, it takes a while for him to evolve into a recognizable version of himself. It’s a staple of the Reiwa era that we get versions of Godzilla that change over the course of the story.

This epic story EnJoe crafted centers on graduate student Mei Kamino and a trio of people who work at the “do-it-all” shop called Ōtaki Factory: Yun Arikawa, Haberu Katō, and eccentric inventor Gorō Ōtaki, whose latest creation is the Jet Jaguar robot. When kaiju start running loose around the world, Mei does some intensive investigating while the Ōtaki folks put Jet Jaguar to use fighting a variety of monsters – building up, of course, to a one-on-one battle between Jet Jaguar and Godzilla.

Singular Point is a really fun and fast-paced show, and it’s entertaining to see how the familiar monsters are reimagined… even if Anguirus gets screwed over again, much like he was at the end of the Shōwa era. Here, the creature is portrayed as playful and easily distracted, but that doesn’t save him from being executed. That’s a bummer, but the main downside to watching this show is how much sci-fi technobabble dialogue is packed into some of the episodes. That really starts to wear out its welcome as the show nears its conclusion. Nonetheless, it’s an enjoyable viewing experience overall.

2. SHIN GODZILLA (2016)

• Release Year: 2016
• Format: Live-action feature film
• Directors: Hideaki Anno, Shinji Higuchi
• Writer(s): Hideaki Anno
• Main Monsters: Godzilla
• Continuity: Standalone Reiwa era continuity
• Why It’s Ranked Here: Reimagines Godzilla as an evolving national disaster while using bureaucratic response systems as a framework, resulting in one of the franchise’s most radical reinventions.
• Best Feature: Godzilla’s constantly evolving design and conceptual reinvention.
• Biggest Weakness: Heavy focus on procedural dialogue over monster action.

When Toho gave TriStar the rights to produce a trilogy of American Godzilla movies in the ’90s (a deal that only resulted in one film), they put their own franchise on hiatus so the market wouldn’t become oversaturated with competing Godzilla projects. But when they licensed the King of the Monsters to Legendary for the MonsterVerse, they took the opposite approach. Their series had been dormant since 2004’s Godzilla: Final Wars, yet soon after Legendary’s Godzilla hit theaters in 2014, Toho announced that they would be reviving their franchise. They launched the Reiwa era with a film that, like the 1954 Gojira, was inspired by recent national tragedy. This time, the catalyst was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, along with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

Co-directed by Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi (who previously collaborated on the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion), Shin Godzilla – which also has the rarely used English title Godzilla: Resurgence – doesn’t take any previous continuity into account, rebuilding the Godzilla concept from the ground up. Suitmation is left behind in favor of a fully CGI Godzilla, but this isn’t simply a digital recreation of the classic monster. Instead, Godzilla is reimagined as an evolving organism that begins as an awkward, amphibious creature with bulging googly eyes before transforming into a more recognizable form, albeit with a stranger appearance. This one gets so weird, there even looks to be humanoid creatures emerging from Godzilla’s tail in the final moments.

Shin Godzilla was a highly experimental addition to the franchise, and it’s almost surprising to see just how well-received it has been, considering the fact that the moments of Godzilla action are few and far between – and even when there is a monster rampaging through Tokyo, it’s not quite the Godzilla we’ve come to know and love over the decades. The human side of the story can be just as divisive, as it plays like a satire of Japanese bureaucracy, and that means we get scene after scene of various officials and authority figures discussing how to handle the situation. This is easily the most talky Godzilla movie ever made. It has been said that around 85% of the running time consists of “rapid-fire government meetings, diplomatic debates, and scientific jargon,” which not every viewer will find fun to sit through. Others will appreciate that the movie treats Godzilla as a national crisis that exposes the strengths and shortcomings of modern institutions. Whether you love or dislike the approach, Shin Godzilla proved that the Reiwa era wasn’t interested in repeating the past. Instead, Toho was willing to completely reinvent its most famous creation.

1. GODZILLA MINUS ONE (2023)

• Release Year: 2023
• Format: Live-action feature film
• Director: Takashi Yamazaki
• Writer(s): Takashi Yamazaki
• Main Monsters: Godzilla
• Continuity: Standalone Reiwa era continuity
• Why It’s Ranked Here: Balances emotional human storytelling with classic monster devastation, delivering a fully realized interpretation of Godzilla that succeeds across spectacle, theme, and character drama.
• Best Feature: The integration of human stakes with large-scale destruction.
• Biggest Weakness: Limited monster variety compared to other entries.

Toho first contacted writer/director Takashi Yamazaki about making a Godzilla movie around the end of the Millennium era, but he turned down the opportunity because he would have wanted to make Godzilla a CGI creature, and the tools required to pull that off weren’t available in Japan at the time. He did give Godzilla a fantasy cameo in his film Always: Sunset on Third Street 2 (2007), but waited almost twenty years before making a full movie with Goji… and it was worth the wait. Godzilla Minus One became the first entry in the franchise to win an Academy Award – and it took home Oscar gold in the category of Best Visual Effects.

Feeling that Godzilla worked best in the Shōwa era, Yamazaki takes us back to where it all began: the aftermath of World War II. A kamikaze pilot named Kōichi Shikishima first crosses paths with Godzilla (in its initial dinosaur form) on Odo Island in 1945, and many people lose their lives because he can’t bring himself to shoot the beast. As time goes by, Godzilla mutates and grows bigger due to nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll. When the giant monster starts wreaking havoc on the mainland and injures someone Shikishima cares about, he joins the effort to stop the monster – and this time he won’t hesitate to kill it.

Like the other entries in the Reiwa era, Godzilla Minus One first presents Godzilla in one form, then sees him change into another. What’s refreshing to see this time is that Yamazaki didn’t stray too far from what was familiar. Unlike other variations in this era, the Godzilla in this film still feels like the classic character. And yes, those visual effects were indeed Oscar-worthy. The Godzilla action in this movie looks great. Another area where Minus One shines is in the human drama scenes between the action. Yamazaki wanted viewers to empathize with and connect with his characters, and he and his cast managed to make that happen. While other Reiwa era projects go heavy on the chatter and technobabble, this is the one that does the best job of making the dramatic scenes just as interesting and engaging as the moments of destructive spectacle.

While other Reiwa projects excel in one or two specific areas, Godzilla Minus One succeeds across the board. It delivers thrilling monster action, compelling human drama, spectacular visual effects, and a version of Godzilla that feels both fresh and faithful to the character’s origins. That’s what makes it not only the best Reiwa era Godzilla project, but one of the finest entries in the franchise’s entire history.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Reiwa era of Godzilla?

The Reiwa era began with Shin Godzilla (2016), Toho’s first Japanese Godzilla film since Godzilla: Final Wars (2004). Unlike previous eras, the Reiwa period doesn’t follow a single ongoing continuity. Instead, Toho has treated each major project as a standalone reimagining of the King of the Monsters, resulting in live-action films, an anime trilogy, and an anime television series that all tell independent stories.

Which Godzilla movies are part of the Reiwa era?

The major narrative projects released during the Reiwa era are:

• Shin Godzilla (2016)
• Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (2017)
• Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle (2018)
• Godzilla: The Planet Eater (2018)
• Godzilla: Singular Point (2021)
• Godzilla Minus One (2023)

This ranking focuses on those major Toho productions and does not include short films, attraction films, or projects like Godziban.

Are the Reiwa era Godzilla projects connected?

No. One of the defining characteristics of the Reiwa era is that each major project stands on its own. Shin Godzilla, the anime trilogy, Godzilla: Singular Point, and Godzilla Minus One each take place in separate continuities with their own versions of Godzilla and supporting characters.

Why isn’t the MonsterVerse included?

Because this ranking is limited to Toho’s major Reiwa era productions. Although Legendary’s MonsterVerse movies were released during the same period, they are part of a separate American-produced continuity and aren’t considered part of Toho’s Reiwa series.

Which Reiwa era Godzilla project is best for newcomers?

Godzilla Minus One is the easiest recommendation for newcomers. It tells a completely standalone story, features some of the franchise’s strongest human drama, delivers spectacular monster action, and requires no prior knowledge of earlier films.

Which Reiwa era Godzilla project is the most experimental?

Shin Godzilla and Godzilla: Singular Point are probably the most experimental entries. Shin Godzilla reinvents the monster as an evolving national disaster while satirizing government bureaucracy, whereas Godzilla: Singular Point combines classic kaiju with dense science fiction concepts and an entirely new mythology.

All 15 Shōwa Era Godzilla Movies Ranked Worst to Best

Every Heisei Godzilla Movie Ranked, From Worst to Best

Millennium Era Godzilla Movies Ranked: All 6 Films From Godzilla 2000 to Final Wars

MonsterVerse Movies Ranked: From Worst to Best

The post From Shin to Minus One: The Reiwa Era of Godzilla, Ranked appeared first on JoBlo.

These days, every major horror release seems to need an outrageous themed popcorn bucket to survive the box office, and Evil Dead Burn is absolutely no exception.

Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema have officially unveiled a tie-in collectible inspired by one of the upcoming film’s most gruesome trailer moments: a character falling backward into an open dishwasher, landing directly onto a rack of upright kitchen knives. The studio leaned heavily into the fandom’s unhinged suggestions and actually constructed a miniature, movie-accurate dishwasher popcorn bucket—complete with an exposed knife rack right where you’re supposed to grab the popcorn.

It’s ridiculous, incredibly dangerous-looking, and completely perfect for the franchise. But there is a massive catch.

Can You Buy The Evil Dead Burn Popcorn Bucket?

We heard your screams. Only available in our nightmares.

Get your tickets for #EvilDeadBurn NOW – only in theaters July 10. https://t.co/t6oUYtDGx6 pic.twitter.com/eVBn2mdPU3

— Evil Dead (@EvilDead) June 30, 2026

Unfortunately, horror collectors will have a hard time finding this one at their local concession stands. According to reports from Dread Central, the horrifyingly creative bucket won’t actually be for sale.

Instead, the dishwasher piece was “created strictly as a promotional display piece” to drum up hype on social media. While a bucket that actively hazards a stabbing might have faced some legal and safety hurdles in real theaters, fans are already chanting like Deadites online for a limited commercial release.

But if you’re on the hunt for an exclusive popcorn bucket, you can win a JoBlo popcorn bucket (or bobblehead) by subscribing to our newsletter!

First Reactions to the New Sequel

Directed by Sébastien Vaniček, the upcoming film follows a woman who seeks solace with her in-laws in their secluded family home after the loss of her husband. However, the gathering becomes a family reunion from hell as members are transformed into Deadites one by one.

The first reactions recently began circulating on social media, and it sounds like this is another gruesome win for the long-running horror franchise. Gloriously mean-spirited. Seriously nasty. Relentlessly twisted. These are just some of the descriptions which emerged from the screening. Count me in. Evil Dead Burn will hit theaters on July 10.

Vaniček’s Evil Dead Burn isn’t the only Evil Dead movie on the way. We’ve also got Evil Dead Wrath, which was written and directed by Francis Galluppi (The Last Stop in Yuma County). The film takes place in 1972, which actually sets it before the events of Sam Raimi’s original film.

The post The Evil Dead Burn popcorn bucket is glorious, but there’s just one problem… appeared first on JoBlo.