Curry Barker caught my attention with ‘That’s a Bad Idea.’ The shorts he and his pal Cooper Tomlinson produce are wonderfully creative and sometimes creepily awkward in a good way. When news arrived that Barker would be writing and directing a feature for Focus and Blumhouse, the match was quite exciting. And yes, Obsession (read our review here) is one f’ed up movie that will strike a nerve for those looking for a thrill.

Obsession stars Michael Johnston and Inde Navarrette as Bear and Nikki. Over the course of their friendship, Bear has developed a crush on Nikki. Desperate and lonely, he decides to ‘make a wish’ with a little toy that supposedly can grant them. Unfortunately, for him, his wish comes true. You should always be careful what you wish for.

Recently, I had a blast sitting down with Curry, Michael, and Inde. The moment I walked in, I offered them a little token of my appreciation. One I picked up at a little place called Cassell’s Music. It has been one of my favorite music stores for decades. And it’s prominently featured in the film. It made me appreciate Obsession all the more.

During our conversation, they discussed taking the film to such dark places. And with Barker taking a shot at The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I’m thrilled to see what he does. I love what he and Cooper do together, so I’m already curious.

Obsession is going to hit some of you hard. It is most definitely the type of flick you’d have a blast at on opening weekend. It hits theatres Friday!

The post Interview: Curry Barker, Inde Navarrette, and Michael Johnston Talk Obsession appeared first on JoBlo.

The Prom Night series is definitely what I’d call a cash-in franchise. Consisting of four films — well, almost five, but more on that later — and a remake, it doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense. The first and second films are separated by seven years, but they might as well exist in different universes based on how they present themselves. Prom Night 3: The Last Kiss, though, took a couple of viewings for me to really appreciate. It was a movie that wasn’t originally written to be a Prom Night sequel (Hellraiser feels your pain), technically has two directors according to the Director’s Guild, and took the series in a direction nobody expected, especially at the time of production.

Now that the movie is finally getting the boutique-label physical media treatment it deserves — check out our own article on the release — it’s time to revisit this weird entry in Canadian horror cinema and head back to Hamilton High for a strangely comedic, surprisingly gory sequel in a franchise that probably shouldn’t exist.

This is Prom Night 3: The Last Kiss, a movie that shouldn’t be as fun as it is.

How Prom Night Became a Supernatural Franchise

Prom Night 2: Hello Mary Lou from 1987 decided to chase the Freddy Krueger crowd with an undead killer who murders with supernatural powers. No, not through dreams, so it’s obviously not apples-to-apples, but it’s far removed from the Halloween or Friday the 13th style of slasher filmmaking. The supernatural approach worked incredibly well, though. For one thing, sequels suddenly became easy. You no longer needed plausible explanations for why the killer kept returning because Mary Lou operates on ghost logic that doesn’t really have to make sense.

The other big plus? If you’ve revisited the original Prom Night starring Jamie Lee Curtis recently… it’s a little boring. Hello Mary Lou added better kills, more gore, stronger makeup effects, and the kind of sleaze and excess these movies absolutely thrive on. The film barely made its budget back, but a lack of profitability has never stopped horror studios from pushing forward with another sequel.

Thankfully, part of the groundwork was already there.

The “Hamilton High” Origins

Parts two and three were actually written by the same person at the same time, and here’s the real twist: neither movie was originally intended to be part of the Prom Night franchise. The movie we now know as Prom Night 2: Hello Mary Lou began life as a standalone project titled The Haunting of Hamilton High. Today’s movie was originally called The Haunting of Hamilton High 2.

Knowing that suddenly makes everything click. These two movies fit together perfectly while having almost nothing to do with the 1980 original.

The writer behind both films was Ron Oliver, who also became one of the credited directors on Prom Night 3. Producer Don Simpson, the only person involved in all four original films, spent so much time helping during the freezing Canadian shoot that he earned a directing credit as well.

While Simpson had produced films for years, this was the only directing credit of his career. Oliver, meanwhile, was just getting started.

Ron Oliver’s Horror Legacy

Prom Night 3 marked the first feature film directed by Ron Oliver, but he would go on to rack up nearly 100 directing credits, including television movies as recently as 2025. If you grew up in the same era I did, you’ve absolutely seen his work before. Oliver directed 17 episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark? and 16 episodes of Goosebumps.

While most of his career has been spent directing TV episodes and made-for-TV movies, horror fans will always remember him for those two gateway horror series and for the bizarre middle entries in the Prom Night franchise.

His unconventional script is one of the main reasons Prom Night 3 works as well as it does.

Horror Comedy Done Right

Prom Night 3 is a horror comedy with a heavy emphasis on comedy. It doesn’t necessarily look that way at first glance, especially if you’re coming directly from part two, but once you lock into that mindset, the movie becomes way more enjoyable.

The film opens in a spooky graveyard before transporting us to a version of Hell where doomed souls dance forever to terrible prom music. Mary Lou, now played by Courtney Taylor, files away at her restraints until her gravestone explodes.

The whole thing feels like A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master levels of absurdity or Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives zombie-era cheese.

Taylor does a fantastic job stepping into the role. Apparently, Lisa Schrage was never even contacted about returning despite positive reviews and her later cult status among horror fans. Taylor takes the character in a more dangerous direction while still keeping Mary Lou playful and weirdly charismatic.

Straight-to-Video Energy in the Best Way

For a movie that went straight-to-video in the United States and received only a brief theatrical run in Canada, Prom Night 3 feels like there should be more material out there surrounding it. Hopefully that changes. This movie feels like it has deleted gore scenes sitting somewhere in a vault. It also seems like the kind of production that deserves cast and crew interviews about the making of it.

Still, what survives is entertaining enough on its own.

The Rare “Final Boy”

The movie flips the slasher formula by centering around a rare “final boy” protagonist.

Alex Grey, played by Tim Conlon, is a socially awkward teenager stuck in a painfully average life. He gets bullied by jocks, dismissed by teachers, and completely written off by the guidance counselor.

Naturally, Mary Lou responds by murdering nearly everyone who treats him badly.

Alex also has a loyal best friend in Shane, played by David Stratton, and a genuinely caring love interest in Sarah, played by Cynthia Preston. Preston’s career is packed with cult genre appearances, including voicing Princess Zelda in the late-1980s The Legend of Zelda cartoon and appearing in horror films like Pin and The Brain.

The cast is clearly having fun, but the real heavy lifting comes from Oliver’s script, the practical effects, and Courtney Taylor’s gleefully chaotic performance as Mary Lou.

Gore, Surrealism, and Total Chaos

After Alex and Mary Lou sleep together (on an American flag, no less), she becomes obsessively attached to him. She murders the guidance counselor who sees no future in Alex, kills the teacher constantly humiliating him, and wipes out the football players tormenting him at school.

Eventually, though, everyone becomes expendable. Mary Lou even kills Shane and Sarah after dragging everyone back into her 1950s timeline.

The movie constantly bounces between surreal comedy and full-on gore showcase. Mary Lou can seemingly manipulate reality however she wants, appearing anywhere at any time.

You can also tell where the production either ran out of ideas or budget. Several deaths reuse the same pink-purple electrocution effect, and multiple victims get their hearts ripped out with minimal gore shown onscreen.

Thankfully, the creative kills make up for it. Ice cream cones through hands, exploding pacemakers, acid-filled salon deaths, and footballs transforming into drills before impalement all help give the movie its own bizarre identity.

At just under 100 minutes, the pacing rarely drags. Every time it feels like the movie is about to completely lose control, it somehow escalates into something even crazier: zombie gauntlets in Hell, random time travel, or Alex ending the movie trapped out of his own era and slowly losing his mind.

Why Prom Night 3 Works

One of my favorite running jokes comes after Alex is arrested for Mary Lou’s murders. The media blames everything on diet, music lyrics, and horror movies, the exact same cultural panic arguments that continued throughout the 1990s and still exist today.

Prom Night 3: The Last Kiss took a couple of rewatches for me to fully appreciate. It’s horror that isn’t particularly scary and comedy that doesn’t always land. By traditional standards, it’s probably not a “good” movie. But I’d still take it over the slow original film or the 2000s remake any day.

I originally watched this and Prom Night IV: Deliver Us from Evil during the beginning of COVID, and neither really connected with me at the time. Revisiting part three, though, has made me want to give part four another shot.

Interestingly, the franchise almost had a fifth entry. A 1994 movie titled The Club was nearly turned into Prom Night 5. Instead of being folded into the franchise like parts two and three were, it went the opposite direction and became its own forgotten mid-90s straight-to-video horror movie.

Here’s hoping Mary Lou’s final outing finally gets the physical media release it deserves. Until then, you should at least consider taking this deranged date to the prom.

Some of the previous episodes of the show can be seen below. To see more, head over to our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!

The post Revisiting Prom Night 3: Mary Lou’s Wildest Night Yet appeared first on JoBlo.

Evil Dead Rise director Lee Cronin recently teamed up with Atomic Monster, Blumhouse Productions, and New Line Cinema to bring us his take on the concept of a classic horror monster, the mummy. His film, Lee Cronin’s The Mummy, reached theatres last month (you can read our review HERE) – and now, we’re just one week away from the digital release! Our friends at Bloody Disgusting have learned that Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is set for a May 19 digital release, with a physical media release to follow on July 14.

What is the runtime of The Mummy?

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy has a runtime of 134 minutes (2 hours and 14 minutes), making it one of the longest mummy movies ever made.

Who’s in the cast?

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy stars Jack Reynor (Midsommar), Laia Costa (Victoria), May Calamawy (Moon Knight), Veronica Falcón (Queen of the South), Hayat Kamille (Vikings: Valhalla), and May Elghety (Clash).

It should be noted that, since the project is set up at New Line Cinema, this “new take on the horror trope revolving around the ancient mummified undead” has nothing to do with the classic Universal horror property. We heard back in May 2024 that there are three Mummy projects in development at Universal, including a prequel that screenwriter Wes Tooke is working on and a sequel to the Brendan Fraser films (those being The Mummy 1999, The Mummy Returns, and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor). It was recently confirmed that Fraser and Rachel Weisz are coming back for The Mummy 4, which has Radio Silence attached to direct from a script by David Coggeshall.

What is the film about?

Here’s the synopsis: The young daughter of a journalist disappears into the desert without a trace—eight years later, the broken family is shocked when she is returned to them, as what should be a joyful reunion turns into a living nightmare.

Atomic Monster and Blumhouse are co-financing Lee Cronin’s film. James Wan is producing alongside Jason Blum and John Keville. Michael Clear, Judson Scott, and Macdara Kelleher serve as executive producers. Alayna Glasthal is the executive overseeing the project for Atomic Monster. Cronin’s Doppelgängers banner is also producing.

Are you glad to hear that the digital release of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is only a week away? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

The post When will Lee Cronin’s The Mummy get a digital release? appeared first on JoBlo.

Filmmaker Charles Band has a career that stretches back into the 1970s, and over the decades he has brought more than four hundred genre movies into the world. He’s best known for launching the company Full Moon, which got its start with the classic Puppet Master back in 1989. All these years later, Full Moon is still going strong – and it looks like 2026 is going to be a great year for the company. A while back, they launched a poll where fans to choose their next ten productions, with fourteen options to pick from. One of the winners was a project called The Grim Rapper, which has been on the Full Moon “to do” list for a long time. It made it through production a few months ago, and now a trailer for the finished film has dropped online! You can check it out in the embed above.

A specific release date hasn’t been announced, but Full Moon says the movie will premiere sometime this summer, and it will be streaming on Full Moon Features.

What is The Grim Rapper about?

When a different version of The Grim Rapper was announced several years ago, it was going to be directed by William Butler from a script by C. Courtney Joyner. At the time, the project had the following description: The year is 1996. After the East-Coast West-Coast hip-hop war leaves a notorious L.A. gangsta rapper shot dead, the resurrected thug returns as a relentless killing machine, hellbent on revenge! He’s “The Grim Rapper”, determined to wipe out the posse that did him wrong by executing his targets with his gruesome weapon of choice: a massive skull-laden boom-box that obliterates anyone in its path with deadly beats blasted straight outta Hell! As the bodies pile up, the streets run red and everyday hustlin’ turns into a hip-hoppin’ horrorshow!

Now The Grim Rapper has the following synopsis, and Joyner’s script has been updated to a modern setting: Rap icon D.A. Mann is murdered at the height of his fame and returns from the dead three decades later after forging a dark pact with an Aztec blood demon. Driven by vengeance and the desperate hope of seeing his true love one final time, he rises to confront the people who betrayed him and deliver their souls to the demon. When Hathorne Slim a ruthless record label executive attempts to cash in by releasing D.A. Mann’s unreleased albums, the resurrected rapper unleashes a wave of supernatural retribution that threatens the executive and everyone in his path.

The film marks the feature directorial debut of Hugo Velazco, who is already a trusted member of the Full Moon team, as he has been working in the marketing department for at least ten years.

Will you be watching The Grim Rapper when it premieres this summer? Take a look at the trailer, then let us know by leaving a comment below.

The post Full Moon unveils a trailer for The Grim Rapper, premiering this summer appeared first on JoBlo.

There are three films in Paramount’s sci-fi horror A Quiet Place franchise – but the most recently released film, last year’s A Quiet Place: Day One, didn’t count as “A Quiet Place Part III.” That film, directed by Michael Sarnoski, was a prequel story that was set in the same world as the first two movies and had a character connection to A Quiet Place Part II, but didn’t continue the trilogy. The trilogy capper is coming our way from writer/director/producer John Krasinski, who also directed the first two movies – and filming on A Quiet Place Part III is now underway! The film is set to be released in theatres on July 30, 2027.

Krasinski and Allyson Seeger’s Sunday Night Productions are producing the film with Platinum Dunes. Sunday Night has a first-look deal with Paramount.

Krasinski hypes A Quiet Place Part III

Back when Paramount Pictures released A Quiet Place Part II in 2020, Krasinski said he had some elements of the third film in mind while working on the script for the second. He told Collider, “I genuinely hadn’t thought about a second one when I was doing the first one. However, I really had these questions while I was doing it. I put the fires out in the distance in the first one, and I always thought to myself, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we got to explore where those fires lead to? Who’s on the other end of those fires?’ But I never thought that there would be a sequel. So then when I actually came around to writing the sequel, I started with the fires. And so this time, I think when my brain started wandering of questions of what would this mean later on, I started to write down notes in case I could prepare myself for a third one.”

Who’s in the cast?

Returning stars Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy, Millicent Simmonds, and Noah Jupe are joined in the cast of A Quiet Place Part III by Jack O’Connell (Sinners, 28 Years Later), Jason Clarke (A House of Dynamite, The Last Frontier), and Katy O’Brian (Love Lies Bleeding, Queens of the Dead).

Filming is taking place in New York, and Krasinski took to social media to share a picture of the film slate in front of the Manhattan Bridge Arch and Colonnade in New York City’s Chinatown.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by John Krasinski (@johnkrasinski)

Are you glad to hear that A Quiet Place Part III is now filming? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

The post A Quiet Place Part III is now filming for a summer 2027 release appeared first on JoBlo.

Chris

This week marks the kick-off of the 79th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, and this year, JoBlo is going to be there! This marks my first trip to perhaps the grandest, most celebrated festival in the world, and I couldn’t be happier. While there has been plenty of talk of Hollywood films skipping the fest, there are still a lot of really interesting titles playing — here are five I’m especially excited to see (the gods of festival ticketing permitting).

Paper Tiger:

Easily the highest-profile title playing the fest this year, Adam Driver, Miles Teller, and Scarlett Johansson star in this crime drama about two brothers who get tied up with the Russian Mafia. It’s written and directed by one of my favorite directors, James Gray, who’s never made a bad film in my book (his last one — Armageddon Time — was wildly underrated, and The Lost City of Z is a masterpiece). If this one takes off, it could generate some awards buzz, especially with this being Driver and Johansson’s first movie together since Marriage Story.

Hope:

Na Hong-jin is a director whose career I’ve been following ever since I caught his thriller, The Chaser, at the Fantasia Film Festival way back in 2008. His last movie, The Wailing, was widely considered a horror masterpiece, and he’s back with his most ambitious movie ever. Not much is known about the premise other than it’s a science-fiction thriller. The Wailing’s Hwang Jung-min plays the lead in a cast that — intriguingly — contains a few big Western actors, including Michael Fassbender, Taylor Russell, and Alicia Vikander.

Teenage Sex & Death at Camp Miasma:

This is director Jane Schoenbrun’s follow-up to her acclaimed I Saw the TV Glow, which was a huge art-house horror hit a couple of years ago. In this one, a filmmaker is hired to direct the latest installment of a long-running slasher series called Camp Miasma, and becomes obsessed with tracking down the reclusive actress who once played the Final Girl in the original, iconic film. Hannah Einbinder stars alongside the great Gillian Anderson, as well as SNL’s Sarah Sherman and Sorry, Baby mastermind Eva Victor.

Her Private Hell:

Nicolas Winding Refn is back at Cannes with his first feature in a decade (since The Neon Demon). Sophie Thatcher and Charles Melton star in this futuristic film about a young woman’s search for her missing father. Knowing Refn, this will be wildly provocative and divisive — but hey, that’s why we love him.

Fjord:

One of the movies everyone here is most excited to see is Cristian Mungiu’s latest, which features a huge cast including Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve, and is supposed to be a dark drama about a family in turmoil. Stan has always been underrated, and Reinsve is one of the best actresses in the game, so this could be a potential Best Foreign Film Oscar contender.

What are you most excited to see? Let us know in the comments!

The post Cannes Film Festival Preview: 5 Films We Can’t Wait to See! appeared first on JoBlo.

Sean Byrne is a director whose career I’ve been keeping an eye on for a long time – which hasn’t been too difficult to do, because he doesn’t make movies nearly as often as I would like. He made his feature directorial debut in 2009 with The Loved Ones, the story of the worst prom night this side of Carrie. His second feature didn’t come along until 2015, the haunted house movie The Devil’s Candy. Then we had to wait a decade for his third movie, Dangerous Animals, which blended serial killer thrills with shark thrills. Thankfully, it looks like we won’t have to wait too long for his fourth feature, as The Hollywood Reporter has broken the news that Academy Award winner Melissa Leo (The Fighter) has signed on to star in Bryne’s serial killer thriller The Mannequin!

What is The Mannequin about?

Scheduled to start filming this summer, The Mannequin is described as being “an original, violent and blistering high-stakes thriller” of the serial killer procedural variety. Unfortunately, an official synopsis isn’t available at this time.

Byrne will be directing the film from a screenplay he wrote himself.

The Mannequin is coming our way from Studiocanal’s new genre label Sixth Dimension, which is designed for “high-concept storytelling across horror, thriller, action and sci-fi, giving creators a new dimension in which to surprise, shock and entertain.” The company is launching worldwide sales this week in Cannes. They’ll be releasing the film theatrically in their own territories of the U.K., France, Germany, Benelux, Poland, Australia, and New Zealand. Elevation Pictures will release it in Canada.

William Woods and Maddy Falle are producing the film for Page 12 Pictures Inc. while Kristian Moliere does the same for Triptych Pictures. Executive producers include Steven Schneider, Phil Hunt, Compton Ross, Charlie Kemball, and Jed Benedict for Studiocanal’s Sixth Dimension. Head Gear Films packaged the project with Schneider’s Room 101.

What has been said about The Mannequin?

Byrne provided the following statement: “After wading through bloodied waters together on Dangerous Animals, I’m thrilled to be alongside my friends at Studiocanal’s Sixth Dimension. I can’t wait to unleash The Mannequin on the big screen. There have been other serial killer procedurals, but this is its own thrillingly deranged beast — twisted, intense, propulsive, and anchored by a fearless performance from Melissa Leo, building to a shocking twist you won’t see coming. It’ll put you on the edge of your seat and keep you there.“

Benedict added, “Nostalgia exists for the best serial killer movies of the noughties for good reason; not only are they brilliantly scary and tense, but they’re meticulously written. With The Mannequin, Sean Byrne has gifted us two unforgettable characters in Charley and Sadie and then thrown them into a fast-escalating nightmare. With the extraordinary Melissa Leo set to star, and a stellar creative team, we at Sixth Dimension can’t wait for audiences to discover Sean’s terrifying manhunt thriller.“

Does The Mannequin sound interesting you? Share your thoughts on this Sean Byrne / Melissa Leo thriller project by leaving a comment below.

The post The Mannequin: Melissa Leo to star in Sean Byrne’s serial killer thriller appeared first on JoBlo.