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.) A release date for Pinocchio: Unstrung has not yet been announced, but the movie is coming soon – so soon that a trailer has arrived online! You can watch it in the embed above.

FX and Story

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, will be providing the practical gore.

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.

Statements

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 the trailer, then let us know by leaving a comment below.

The post Trailer unveiled for Pinnochio: Unstrung, starring Robert Englund and Richard Brake appeared first on JoBlo.

Cody

There’s no doubt that the late Wes Craven was one of our great masters of horror… but he did make some weird movies on occasion. Sometimes he’d deliver an undisputed classic like The Hills Have Eyes, A Nightmare on Elm Street, or Scream. Then, sometimes you’d get a strange one like Deadly Friend, Shocker, or Vampire in Brooklyn. And let’s not forget the dog flashback in The Hills Have Eyes Part 2.

One of his oddies-but-goodies is the 1991 film The People Under the Stairs. Where did this crazy story come from? What was Craven’s biggest concern during post-production? And what was the important character moment that got cut? We’ll dig up the answers to those questions and more as we find out what happened to The People Under the Stairs.

The Inspiration Behind the Story

Craven could never be accused of being a superficial filmmaker with nothing to say. He gave deep thought to all of his projects. He was mindful of themes and subtext. Like A Nightmare on Elm Street, this film was inspired by a newspaper article he read in the late 1970s. While a respectable couple was away on vacation, neighbors saw someone breaking into their home. When the police arrived, they didn’t find any burglars inside – but they did find the couple’s children, who had been imprisoned in the house their entire lives.

Craven explained to Cinefantastique magazine that he was intrigued by the idea that “beneath the surface of apparent normalcy can be found strange aberrations of behavior: two people that appear to be well-behaved can still, in secret, perform atrocities on their own children.” Neighbors thought outsiders, burglars, were bringing depravity into their decent world… but the depravity had been there all along, hidden behind locked doors.

The Story of The People Under the Stairs

Craven wrote a screenplay about a young boy named Poindexter, though his tarot-reading sister has given him the nickname Fool. His family is poor and facing eviction from their apartment in the ghetto, so Fool is roped into a robbery scheme by his sister’s friend Leroy and his criminal associate Spenser. They plan to break into the landlord’s mansion and steal an extremely valuable coin collection. But once they reach the mansion, they find that it’s a very strange place.

The doors are electrified. The windows are covered with screens, padlocked from the outside. There’s a boy living in the walls. And a group of tortured cannibals locked in the basement.

The owners of the mansion are a bizarre pair of siblings. They call each other Mommy and Daddy, and they’ve been trying to adopt the perfect child. Boy children always disappoint them in some way. They see or overhear something they weren’t supposed to, or they talk back. So Daddy cuts out the bad parts and tosses them into the basement. One of them, called Roach, has managed to escape into the walls. With his Rottweiler Prince by his side, Daddy hunts him through the house, carrying a shotgun and wearing a leather bondage outfit. Only a girl child named Alice has managed to stay in Mommy and Daddy’s good graces, sort of, by not seeing, hearing, or speaking evil.

Leroy and Spenser are taken out of the picture early on, leaving Fool to try to find a way out of this seemingly inescapable house. At least he has the help of Alice and Roach… and when he learns just how twisted Mommy and Daddy are, he begins to feel sympathy for the people under the stairs as well.

Writing and Filming Challenges

Craven worked on the script for years, writing and rewriting. The problem was, he couldn’t figure out how to get Fool to the mansion quickly enough. In early drafts, which sported the title The Puzzle, he wouldn’t reach the house until sixty or even eighty pages in. Fittingly, the answer finally came to him in a dream. A lucid dream that allowed him to go over the story multiple times. In the finished film, it only takes Fool eleven minutes to get to the mansion, and he’s trapped inside by the twenty minute mark.

After he finally cracked the script, getting the movie made turned out to be fairly easy. He had a two-picture deal with the production company Alive Films and distributor Universal Pictures, and full creative control on the movies he made under this deal. Shocker had been the first, and the executives quickly gave him the green-light to make The People Under the Stairs the second. Filming began in March of 1991, less than a year and a half after Shocker was released.

Cast and Characters

The main children roles of Fool, Alice, and Roach went to Brandon Adams, A.J. Langer, and Sean Whalen, each of them turning in strong performances that make you care about their characters. There’s also:

• Kelly Jo Minter as Ruby, Fool’s sister
• Bill Cobbs as Grandpa Booker
• Ving Rhames as Leroy
• Jeremy Roberts as Spenser
• Yan Birch as the Stairmaster (often mistaken for Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum)
• Wendy Robie and Everett McGill as Mommy and Daddy

Craven lifted Robie and McGill right out of the cast of Twin Peaks. Their characters are so off-the-wall, they feel like the actors were still in David Lynch mode when they reported to this set.

The Rottweiler Prince was played by four dogs: Brutus, Bubba, Schultz, and Zeke. It’s not clear which dog was used for which scene, but their combined efforts made Prince a memorable menace.

The house used for the mansion exterior can be found in Los Angeles, but the interiors were all built on set, and Craven had a specific vision for them. For him, the interior of the mansion represented the human mind, with madness depicted in the different spaces within the house. “The outside seems quite normal, and the first floor seems luxurious and appropriate, yet the farther in you go, the more unexplained or bizarre.” If that weren’t enough, he also said the house and its occupants represent “the whole society of the United States.”

The people under the stairs, howling and trying to crawl up through cracks in the foundation, represent the thoughts of insane people. They try to suppress these thoughts, but they can’t be contained. Fool and other children escaping from the insane parents’ house represent the next generation liberating itself from the madness of a previous generation. Craven considered the film to be a positive social statement about minorities and children who have been oppressed by adults finding their freedom. Like we said, he was a deep thinker.

Post-Production Concerns

Once The People Under the Stairs was in post-production, Craven started worrying. He had some bad experiences with the MPAA ratings board before, and he was certain they were going to give him a rough time with the film. It’s about child abuse. It has underage children in terrifying situations. The NC-17 rating had just been created, and he feared they were going to slap that rating on his movie. All that worrying was over nothing. The MPAA only objected to one bit of KNB-supplied gore: a shot of Daddy biting into a human liver. Once Craven snipped that out, they gave the movie an R.

Test screening audiences encouraged Craven to make two more cuts. Originally, there was an epilogue in which Ruby gives Fool a fresh tarot card reading and reveals that, since he has undergone a rite of passage, his nickname will now be upgraded from Fool to King. But viewers didn’t want to sit through another dialogue scene after the climactic action, so that character moment was removed. Daddy was also supposed to return for an ending jump scare, but Craven decided to take that out. He had done plenty of ending jump scares in his career, and he was tired of them. It also implied that the door was open for a sequel, and he had no intention of making one. It’s better off that way.

Release and Reception

The People Under the Stairs is a very unique horror film that stands alone, telling a complete story with a satisfactory ending. Craven brought his story to the screen with a specific type of insanity and dark humor that couldn’t be replicated. Moviegoers saw the charm of it when it reached theatres on November 1st, 1991… an unusual release date, coming in right after Halloween. That didn’t stop it from being the number one movie its opening weekend. It was made on a budget of six million dollars, and earned just under that in its first three days. It remained in the box office top ten for an entire month, ending its theatrical run with over thirty-one million dollars.

A good number of critics gave it positive reviews, admiring its sense of humor and socially conscious subtext. It has been called a parody of conservatism and a satire of late capitalism. Other descriptions include “creepy,” “disturbing,” “deranged,” and “surprisingly funny.” In fact, some felt that Craven went too far with the humor.

Legacy and Remakes

This may not be one of his most popular movies, but it is a respected entry on his filmography. And it has never lost its place in the pop culture consciousness over the decades. Mommy and Daddy’s house has inspired a Halloween Horror Nights maze at Universal Studios Florida. The film was featured on the drive-in movie screen in the Twister…Ride it Out attraction. It has remained in viewing rotations thanks to DVD and special edition Blu-ray releases… And in the late 2000s, when he was producing remakes of The Hills Have Eyes and The Last House on the Left, Craven considered giving The People Under the Stairs the remake treatment as well.

It didn’t happen as a feature film, but in 2015 it was announced that Craven was rebooting The People Under the Stairs as a TV series for Syfy. Sadly, he passed away just four months after the announcement, so that project was scrapped. In 2020, Universal brought in Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld of Monkeypaw Productions to produce a remake… but that still hasn’t gone into production.

Maybe we’ll see a new take on the concept someday. In the meantime, the 1991 film still holds up as a one-of-a-kind cult classic. Inspired by a horrific real-life case and guided by a dream, Craven brought us an entertaining movie with its own vibe. He made some weird stuff… but sometimes weird is exactly what you’re looking for.

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 Behind the Madness of The People Under the Stairs: Wes Craven’s 1991 Cult Classic appeared first on JoBlo.

Scream 7 released this weekend (you can check out my review HERE) ,and everyone is buzzing at the return of Stu Macher. And no, that’s not a spoiler as he was announced as in the cast and his voice appears in the trailer. How that happens, I won’t say, but because of his return, I was able to speak to Matthew Lillard, in conjunction with his release of the film and Ghostface vodka (of which we recently covered its Red Carpet launch).

Unfortunately, this interview was before Scream 7‘s release, so we couldn’t really dive into that like I would have wanted. In fact, Lillard implied something that didn’t even end up being true, so he really Andrew Garfield’ed me. So we certainly talk about Stu and what the character means to him, but we aren’t able to discuss specifics, as I hadn’t seen the film yet. But he is very grateful for Radio Silence putting Stu back in the minds of viewers to even allow his return to happen.

And Twin Peaks/David Lynch fans are in for a treat, as Matthew tells a hilarious story about a note Lynch gave him while acting in Twin Peaks: The Return. Not to mention the fact that he wouldn’t call him by his actual name. Oh Lynch, you eclectic man. This was a great conversation so make sure to check it out in the video above!

Scream 7 plot:

When a new Ghostface killer emerges in the town where Sidney Prescott has built a new life, her darkest fears are realized as her daughter becomes the next target.

Scream 7 is now playing in theaters and Ghostface Vodka releases wide this October.

The post Matthew Lillard Talks About His Involvement in Scream 7 plus the funniest note David Lynch ever gave him appeared first on JoBlo.

Tyler

Despite being February, we here at JoBlo are still celebrating Christmas because we recently received the Silent Night, Deadly Night (2025) 4K Blu-Ray. I really enjoyed the film when it came out back in December, and I was honestly a little surprised that it took so long for it to release digitally, as well as it’s physical counterpart. I always wonder how much that has to do with the ability to print discs (disc manufacturers are backlogged like crazy) versus any actual strategy behind it. It’s always tough to release a holiday movie outside of its holiday window. But how does is hold up?

The transfer on the 4K itself is decent enough but it’s hard to notice the fidelity and it really doesn’t appear much better than the Blu-ray. I did appreciate that there’s a fine layer of grain still present but the image rarely pops. Everything feels a bit dull and doesn’t take advantage of the HDR capabilities. There are no outright problems in terms of haloing or artifacting, but it all feels a bit underwhelming.

There are only two special features on the disc: a making-of featurette titled “Silent Night, Deadly Night: Unwrapping a New Legacy” as well as the trailer. It feels pretty bare minimum and the featurette is just a hair under 11 minutes, so it doesn’t dive too heavily into what went into the making of the film. It’s a pretty basic video that doesn’t really tell you anything you don’t already know. But, if I can rant for a moment: can companies stop leaving special features off the 4K disc? To watch them, you have to put in the Blu-Ray and that just feels incredibly lazy. Put them all on one disc! And Mike P. Nelson is an interesting guy (check out my interview with him HERE) so it’s disappointing that we don’t get a commentary track with him.

Unfortunately, as much as I enjoy the film itself, I can really only recommend this for Fans Only. There’s nothing here that will sway anyone who isn’t already on board for some Santa slaying shenanigans. The presentation is nothing special, and it’s not filled to the brim with extras to get a cinephile’s blood pumping.

In case you forgot: The unique take on the iconic ‘80s holiday franchise quickly became a fan-favorite, and now audiences at home can experience the bloody absurdity of Silent Night, Deadly Night on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K + Blu-ray. The film is written and directed by Mike P. Nelson (Wrong Turn, V/H/S/85). The film stars Rohan Campbell as Billy and Ruby Modine as Pamela, along with Mark Acheson, David Lawrence Brown, and David Tomlinson.

The physical media includes DVD, Blu-ray (Collector’s Edition), 4K + Blu-ray (Collector’s Edition) and a Steelbook – 4K + Blu-ray (Collector’s Edition). Silent Night Deadly Night can be purchased on Amazon in Collector’s Edition Blu-Ray, 4k Ultra HD, 4K UHD Steelbook and DVD, and on Walmart in 4k Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD. 

The post Is the Silent Night, Deadly Night ’25 physical release worth a purchase? appeared first on JoBlo.

Despite mixed reviews, Scream 7 is giving the box office a much-needed jolt after several weeks of dismal returns. At one point, the slasher sequel, directed by Kevin Williamson, could have been different if Radio Silence directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett had remained a part of the franchise. Thankfully, the filmmaking duo is feeling chatty now that Scream 7 is playing in theaters, and they’re ready to tease their ideas, had they taken a stab at another bloody whodunit for the fan-favorite series.

Radio Silence Talk Scream 7

“We never read a draft of any version of Scream 7 that we were going to do because we had left to do Abigail before that,” Bettinelli-Olpin tells Entertainment Weekly, while referring to their 2024 vampire ballerina movie. “The thing that we had in our minds for Scream 7 was sort of like, ‘How hard can we go with this?’ It was the thing that we talked a lot about. For us, it was always this idea of, [if] Scream VI is like a secret feel-good movie, Scream 7‘s going to f— you up. That was as much as we ever got to.”

It doesn’t sound like Radio Silence got too deep into the weeds with Scream 7, as they were busy making Abigail, a fun horror film that doesn’t get enough love. I suppose that’s a good thing, as time spent on a project they would eventually abandon would have kept them from working on one of my most anticipated horror films of this year, Ready or Not: Here I Come.

How Far Did Radio Silence Get on Scream 7?

“Given that we expanded the sort of scope of the story by going to New York,” Gillet adds, “the other thing that we had talked about — just Matt and I, by the way, it wasn’t a conversation with the writers — was, ‘How do you do the opposite for 7?’ Like, shrink it down and make it this like ultra-contained, almost continuous, like minute-to-minute thing. But outside of our own stupid idea, we weren’t privy to any plan beyond just, ‘There’s gonna be another one.'”

Scream 7 welcomes Kevin Williamson, the original screenwriter of the Scream movies, back to the fold to direct and write the latest film in the franchise. Looking at reactions online, many Scream fans are loving the new chapter, while critics remain divided. Our own Tyler Nichols says Scream 7 has the worst final act in the franchise’s history. Now, I’ve not seen the movie yet, so I don’t know if I agree, but I’ve never found Scream finales to be all that exciting. It’s more about the thrill of the hunt for me, and wondering about who the killer (or killers) could be, not who they actually are. I plan to check Scream 7 out as soon as I get some time away from my desk. Hopefully, the end won’t get spoiled before I make it to the theater.

The post Radio Silence Say Their Scream 7 Idea Would’ve “F—ed You Up” appeared first on JoBlo.

Despite mixed reviews, it seems like any fear of “franchise fatigue” wasn’t warranted for Scream 7, with the latest film looking like it’s going to smash franchise records as far as opening weekends go. According to Deadline, the movie is on track for a $60 million weekend (about $20 million more than we predicted), which is significantly higher than the previous franchise record, which belonged to Scream VI with $44.4 million.

Scream 7 hits theaters under a cloud of controversy, with it having initially been intended to star Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega, who would have reprised their roles from the previous two installments. That plan went kaput when Barrera made social media posts about the Israel-Hamas war that initially provoked outrage in some Hollywood circles, leading to her dismissal. Ortega declined to reprise her role afterward, and the original director, Christopher Landon, also eventually stepped down, leading to a creative overhaul. This involved producers Spyglass going back to original franchise star Neve Campbell (who left the sixth film after a pay dispute) and Scream mastermind Kevin Williamson.

The reviews and audience reactions have been mixed (the B-minus CinemaScore is weak), but the box office has far exceeded anyone’s expectations. Even if it turns out to be front-loaded, this will be considered a major win for Paramount, which is distributing the film, so I’d expect an eighth film in theaters before long.

As expected, GOAT should be in second place with about $11.75 million and a $73 million domestic total. Wuthering Heights will come in third with $7 million for a $72 million total, meaning a $100 million finish is definitely out of reach for Emerald Fennell’s period pic. The rest of the top five will consist of concert films, with Twenty One Pilots: More Than We Ever Imagined – Live in Mexico City making $3.5 million. Neon’s EPiC: Elvis in Concert (read our review HERE) continues to perform well, expanding this weekend — it’s also looking at about $3.5 million.

What are you seeing this weekend? Let us know in the comments.

The post Box Office Update: Scream 7 on track for a franchise best opening appeared first on JoBlo.

You really have to give Matthew Lillard some serious credit. While arguably at the height of his fame in the late nineties thanks to his roles in Scream, Scooby-Doo, and other teen-focused movies, he’s always been able to reinvent himself. I remember being struck by his supporting performance opposite George Clooney in The Descendants some time ago, and while a lot of his contemporaries faded over the years, Lillard has maintained his place in pop culture. He’s similar — in some ways — to a guy like Brendan Fraser. He went away for a while, but at a certain point Hollywood woke up and realized just how beloved he really was, leading to a full-on resurgence for him in movies like Five Nights at Freddy’s. Now, there’s also some buzz about him possibly returning in Scream 7, which opens today.

Of course, Lillard is also an entrepreneur, having launched Ghost Face Vodka by Macabre Spirits, which pays tribute to his iconic role as one of the first Ghostface killers, Stu Macher. Our man Ryan Cultrera was able to attend the Los Angeles launch of a limited-run boxed set of the vodka, all of which are signed by Lillard. The red carpet took place at Funko Hollywood, and while he was there, Ryan not only got to chat with Lillard about the franchise’s lasting legacy, but also series mastermind Kevin Williamson, who takes the director’s chair on Scream 7 and used the opportunity to pay tribute to the late, great Wes Craven.

Plus, one of Lillard’s contemporaries, the great Michael Rosenbaum (Smallville), chatted with us about the horror icon he’d most like to grab a drink with, while Ice Nine Kills frontman Spencer Charnas — whose track “Twisting the Knife” appears on the Scream 7 soundtrack — talked to us about his contribution to the franchise.

Watch our event coverage embedded above and let us know in the comments if you’re checking out Scream 7 this weekend (read our review HERE).

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