The Carmilla Movie Is Your Halloween Pregame

Wear your garlic necklace, ready your holy water, and pull that wooden stake out of storage, the Carmilla Movie drops on Thursday and is treating us all to a little pre-Halloween vampire bloodlust!  The web series based on Sheridan Le Fanu’s gothic vampire novella, Carmilla, is headed to our streaming devices and Canadian theaters for a full-length movie this week!  I’m restraining myself from writing in all caps with a ridiculous amount of exclamation marks because I am so EXCITED!!!!!!!

Carmilla began as a web series about a university student named Laura attempting to solve the mystery of missing students.  She discovers the monstrous history of the university and her new vampiric roommate while navigating the perils of student life.  After three seasons of vampires, evil fish gods, a world-ending apocalypse, and plenty of relationship drama, Laura and her group of friends are ready to take on the challenge of life after university- which is terrifying enough by itself.  You can watch seasons one through three on the KindaTv Youtube channel (which I highly recommend binge watching before Thursday).

The Carmilla Movie offers us less angst than the web series and more creepy mystery as recently human Carmilla begins to go back to her vampiric ways.  Besides the mystery, hauntings, and smart dialog the movie includes queer and non-binary characters and actors.  It is always refreshing to see yourself reflected in the media you consume and there are not many options for an audience wanting to see LGBT and non-binary characters, especially for people of color.  The Carmilla Movie has continued to provide this by adding more diverse actors and characters while attempting to stay away from some of the harmful plot tropes LGBT characters typically fall into.

If you are looking for something new and interesting to supplement the usual Halloween horror movies, catch The Carmilla Movie in Cineplex theaters in Canada, or hop online and view it on Fullscreen or  VHX from anywhere.  Seriously, take a break from watching Hocus Pocus for the millionth time and check out a fresh vampire story.   Then do what all of the other Carmilla fandom Creampuffs do, go online and tweet, favorite, and reblog all of The Carmilla Movie goodness! I’m not joking, please @ me some Carmilla content!  Who knows, it may even inspire a few last minute Halloween costume changes!

The post The Carmilla Movie Is Your Halloween Pregame appeared first on The Nerd Element.

When Star Wars: The Force Awakens was in production, much was made of the movie’s commitment to honor the feel of the originals by using practical effects and puppetry when possible. There was still plenty of CGI, but the added touch of actually building something like BB-8 went a long way towards generating the right feel for the movie. The Last Jedi is set to do the same thing with some new additions, and it’s not the only movie showing off some impressive visual effects.

But here, first check out this video that details how the “vulptex,” the “crystal fox” from the Last Jedi trailer, came to life:

Of course, not every scene with the vulptex (Vulptexes? Are we doing same-word plural for this one, or what?) is practical to do with puppetry, and they digitized the physical models to make those happen, but did you catch the animatronic movements? Here, this is what I’m talking about:

How in the Hell? And how dare they call the CGI scan the “perfect version”? (OK, OK, that’s probably not what they meant, but still.) I just want to pet it and play with it and snuggle with its probably-too-pokey self forever. It’s better than porgs (fight me), and it’s a physical things that exists in the world. That’s amazing, and totally worth the extra effort on top of just doing a CGI creature. There’s definitely a place for both technologies in modern movies, and I only wish more of them would make room for them.

Which brings me to the Jurassic World sequel. Jurassic Park was a visual effects spectacle for its time that still holds up relatively well today (much like Star Wars), especially in how it blended CGI with animatronic dinosaurs. Today, debate is raging in a Twitter thread of new Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom footage posted by Colin Trevorrow, in which Chris Pratt lets a baby velociraptor snuggle his finger. Take a look:

From our Jurassic family to yours. @FilmBayona @PrattPrattPratt @BryceDHoward @LeDoctor #FALLENKINGDOM pic.twitter.com/KiR3et9Vx1

— Colin Trevorrow (@colintrevorrow) November 22, 2017

There’s a lot of talk about how it could easily pass for animatronics, as well as speculation that its some blending of animatronics and CGI. Or maybe it’s entirely CGI, which would be pretty impressive on its own when people are having trouble telling the difference (although, admittedly, Twitter video compression would probably cover some CGI flaws).

It’s great to see both of these franchises continuing to push movie magic forward. We all need a bit of wonder in our lives right now.

(images: Disney/Lucasfilm, Universal Pictures)

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There’s at least one thing to be thankful for this Turkey Day that doesn’t even count eating a metric tone of potatoes and bread products. Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return, otherwise known as the revived version of Mystery Science Theater 3000 made possible by crowdfunding that launched on Netflix, has been renewed by the streaming service giant for a second/12th season! That means more of Jonah Heston, Crow T. Robot, Tom Servo, Gypsy, Kinga Forrester, TV’s Son of TV’s Frank, and every other weird and wacky character from Moon 13: The Moon.

The announcement was made at the end of MST3K‘s 2017 Turkey Day marathon on Shout! Factory by creator Joel Hodgson and new series stars Jonah Ray and Felicia Day.

It seemed a gargantuan, unfathomable prospect for MST3K to come back after an absence of 18 years following its cancellation in 1999, after 197 episodes on Comedy Central and Syfy (nee The Sci-Fi Channel), but return it did, thanks entirely to a majorly successful Kickstarter campaign in 2016. The campaign raised so much money, the team was able to make 14 new episodes, which were eventually picked up by Netflix for distribution. This was followed by a nationwide “Watch Out for Snakes” live tour.

There was some worry that Netflix might not pick up the series, despite receiving 100% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and almost uniformly good fan reaction, because, unlike most Netflix original series, it’s not super easy to binge a season of Mystery Science Theater. Lucky for us MSTies, though, the response was enough to warrant making more, and long may the new Satellite of Love reign.

As of now, the release date given for the next new season is “the not-too-distant future” but we hope that means late 2018. Hope, hope, hope.

Let us know your thoughts on more MST3K in the comments below!

Images: Shout Factory/Netflix

Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!

Get a look back at MST3K season 11!

• Why we think the new MST3K didn’t lose a step!
• Creator Joel Hodgson on making the show the same, but different!
• How the new season was made!

Just in time for National Diabetes Month, Black-ish star Anthony Anderson is sharing his story about being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes 15 years ago in hopes that it will help others.

Anderson is partnering with drug maker Novo Nordisk on the “Get Real” campaign, which aims to educate, motivate, and support those living with diabetes as they learn to manage their disease.

“For a long time following my diagnosis, I didn’t take type 2 diabetes as seriously as I should have, and I struggled to get my blood sugar under control,” the 47-year-old actor said in a press release.

“But, when my father passed away from diabetes complications, I reflected on what it was doing to me, and realized I had to change.”

Anderson opened up even more on the Get Real website about how his father’s death 10 years ago affected him: “That was really tough, especially knowing that if my dad had taken better care of himself, he might still be here.”

“My dad just didn’t know what happens when you don’t take control of your diabetes. That was a real wake-up call for me.”

“I didn’t want to just be a memory for my family, I wanted to be there. So, I vowed right then and there that things would be different, that I would get serious about managing my diabetes.”

Anderson is candid about how long it took him to change his lifestyle, particularly his diet, considering the Emmy nominee’s well-documented love of food. He also shares how resistant he was initially to taking some of the medications his physician suggested.

“My doctor just had to get real with me, and I’m glad she did. So, if you see me out there I’ll be asking people straight up: ‘Are you doing enough to manage your blood sugar? Are you being real with yourself? If not, now is the time.'”