deerstalker
https://www.themarysue.com/jingle-jangle-trailer/
While October has only just begun, Christmas season is already upon us, as networks and studios prep their holiday releases. One of the most highly anticipated films is Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey, a family fantasy movie from Netflix. Described as a “musical adventure and a visual spectacle for the ages”, the trailer features glossy production values, actors we love, and an over-abundance of holiday spirit sure to melt the coldest of hearts.
The synopsis reads: “Set in the gloriously vibrant town of Cobbleton, the film follows legendary toymaker Jeronicus Jangle (Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker) whose fanciful inventions burst with whimsy and wonder. But when his trusted apprentice (Emmy winner Keegan-Michael Key) steals his most prized creation, it’s up to his equally bright and inventive granddaughter (newcomer Madalen Mills) — and a long-forgotten invention — to heal old wounds and reawaken the magic within.”
For the culture. For the world!! #jinglejangle https://t.co/OTCuu6SeQx
— David E. Talbert (@DavidETalbert) October 4, 2020
The film is written and directed by David E. Talbert, the man behind the holiday-themed films Almost Christmas and El Camino Christmas. The talented cast includes Forest Whitaker, Keegan-Michael Key, Phylicia Rashad, Hugh Bonneville, Madalen Mills, and Anika Noni Rose. Jingle Jangle also features original songs by John Legend, Philip Lawrence, and Davy Nathan.
What’s especially exciting about the film is that offers something new and refreshing: a big budget holiday fantasy film with a mostly Black cast. Christmas movies are, on the whole, exceedingly white, and stories about POC families are rarely afforded the big studio treatment. Hopefully, Jingle Jangle will join the pantheon of new Christmas classics.
Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey arrives on Netflix and in select theaters on November 13.
(featured image: Gareth Gatrell/NETFLIX)
- Convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein faces 6 new felony sex crime charges in Los Angeles. (via NPR)
- Check out this interview with Primal creator Genndy Tartakovsky. (via Collider)
- Here are the release dates for all 40 (yes, 40) Hallmark Christmas movies. (via Entertainment Weekly)
- We’re digging this Spider-Man vs. Electro fan art from Yadvender Singh Rana. (via CBR)
- Jack Quaid and Shawn Ashmore on the latest explosive episode of The Boys. (via Syfy Wire)
- Here’s the first look at DUNE action figures, sand worm not included. (via Nerdist)
- Henry Cavill is, unsurprisingly, psyched for the Snyder cut. (via Heroic Hollywood)
- This angry eagle in a blanket is our new best friend and we love him:
absolutely losing it over this picture pic.twitter.com/o4T1rtsM1h
— Nerd Ghoul Says (@Rachael_Conrad) October 3, 2020
Congrats Mary Suevians, we made it through another wek!
Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site!
—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—
“They’re here.”
We all know the line. It’s one the spookiest and most famous in all of horror. It’s from the film Poltergeist, and that it comes from Carol Anne Freeling (Heather O’Rourke)—young and blonde and cherubic—makes it all the more terrifying. The “they” she’s referring to are ghosts who’ve come into her suburban house through a portal. And with them has come something known as The Beast, a dark presence that will eventually snatch Carol Anne through her bedroom closet and take her into another dimension.
But before all of that happens, the Freeling home experiences paranormal activity that one can liken to the poltergeists of the film’s title. Poltergeists are known as noisy spirits, prone to physical disturbances: raps on the wall, bent spoons, moving furniture. There have been thousands of real-life reported cases of poltergeist activity around the world. And one such case loosely inspired the film Poltergeist.
Here’s everything you need to know about the Herrmann House and the terrifying things that happened there back in 1958.
MGM/UA Entertainment Co.
What happened at the Herrmann House?
On the evening of February 3, 1958, a man named James Herrmann from Seaford, Long Island, N.Y., received a telephone call at work from his wife, Lucille. She informed him and she and their teenaged children, Jimmy and Lucy, heard a series popping sounds coming from various spots around the house. When they investigated, they found uncapped bottles of several substances completely upended in many different rooms—including a vial of Holy Water, which spilled all over a bedroom dresser.
Herrmann, skeptical of the whole thing, advised his family to stay calm and to keep the occurrences to themselves. He believed some prankster teenagers got inside and tried to spook the family. It was important to him to keep things under control. But five days later, the same thing happened again. And the next day, it happened again. This time, Mr. Hermmann watched in horror as bottles moved about his bathroom, as if dragged by some unseen hand. This time, he called the police.
When the police arrived, more bottles began popping throughout the home. They performed a series of tests to rule out radio transmissions or electrical disturbances, but the bottles were not warm or otherwise charged. Whatever was happening to them could not be explained with logic. On February 17, a priest came to the home to bless it.
MGM/UA Entertainment Co.
What was the public reaction?
News of the activity at the Herrmann house spread like wildfire and was the subject of an article in Life Magazine. People wrote the Herrmanns letters offering potential reasonable explanations, while others believed the activity to be the result of poltergeists. Whatever the case, more activity occurred, and officers even witnessed the moving of objects this time. To make matters all the more unusual, the Herrmann house was not your typical haunted house; it was a suburban model, purchased new in 1953. The Herrmanns were the only people who’d ever lived there. There was nothing to indicate the unfinished business of some previous tenant. So why did this seem like an otherwise traditional haunting?
That’s what Dr. J.B. Rhine, director of Duke University’s Parapsychology Laboratory, hoped to find out. He approached the Herrmanns after about a month of disturbances. Rhine believed that the presence of the teenage Herrmann children might have attracted the poltergeist activity. (Adolescents are usually present in home where poltergeist activity takes place.) He brought some of his colleagues to the house, and they studied it, interviewing the family and recording some of the mysterious occurrences.
However, shortly after their arrival, the activity ceased. All in all, there were about 70 documented reports of unusual activities in the house between February 3 and March 10. The family eventually moved away. Years later, daughter Lucille appeared in a documentary, Real Fear: The Truth Behind the Movies, which aired on the Chiller network.
(Another home that was the subject of the same documentary, the notorious Amityville Horror House, is only about seven miles away from the Herrmann house.)
MGM/UA Entertainment Co.
How did the events inspire Poltergeist?
Fans of the 1982 Tobe Hooper-directed, Steven Spielberg-produced horror film Poltergeist will recognize the Herrmann’s story. It sounds similar to what the Freeling family goes through. A young, happy family moves into a new suburban home with their children and quickly notice disturbances—noises, bent utensils, objects moving about. When the activity increases, they seek help from a local university’s parapsychology department, who come to investigate the house. Eventually, fed up with the lack of resolution—and the disappearance of their daughter—they seek out a psychic who helps them “cleanse” the house.
Obviously, Poltergeist is more sensationalized than the story of the Herrmanns. There are physical apparitions, Native American burial grounds, body-chomping portals, and skeletons popping out of the swimming pool. The film is also said to be “cursed. Stars Dominique Dunne and Heather O’Rourke both passed away very young, and other mysterious activity was reported on set. We can’t speak truth to the curse, but it’s definitely a story that follows Poltergeist more than that of the Herrmanns, the real people who loosely inspired the film.
“I never saw ‘Poltergeist,’” Lucille Herrmann told HuffPost Weird News around the release of Real Fear: The Truth Behind the Movies. “I felt I had my own nightmare.”
Featured Image: MGM/UA Entertainment Co.
The post The Terrifying True Story That Inspired POLTERGEIST appeared first on Nerdist.
Jim Cummings really loves to cast himself as a cop. In his sophomore directorial offering, he goes for a classic noir rendering of an alcoholic lawman and struggling father: John Marshall, who’s driven to distraction by the weight of a strange series of murders. It’s an emotionally hard-hitting and humorous portrayal that’s at the heart of his wintery horror, The Wolf of Snow Hollow. The chilling and often bloody genre flick also features the iconic Robert Forster in his final performance as Marshall’s long-suffering father and the ailing sheriff of the snowy ski town.
![[10/03 AM] THE winter WOLF OF SNOW HOLLOW Delivers a Wintery Noir Horror (Beyond Fest)_1](https://nerdist.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Wolf-of-Snow-Hollow-Review.jpg)
The Wolf of Snow Hollow begins and ends brilliantly. There’s around half an hour in the middle that will divide viewers as Cummings leans into the more human part of his story. Before that happens, though, we get a beautifully shot introduction to Snow Hollow. Epic aerial shots of snowy forests are liable to give you a chill.
The story begins as a young couple ventures to the town for a weekend break. American Vandal’s Jimmy Tatro shows massive range in a small yet vital role as the sole survivor of the romantic trip away. His partner isn’t so lucky, butchered at the hands of a mysterious killer. While most of the police force believes an animal or perhaps even something supernatural is involved, Marshall Jr. is convinced that the killer at large is human.
![[10/03 AM] THE winter WOLF OF SNOW HOLLOW Delivers a Wintery Noir Horror (Beyond Fest)_2](https://nerdist.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Wolf_of_snow_hollow_xlg.jpg)
Orion Classics
That mystery, along with John’s struggle with booze, is at the core of The Wolf of Snow Hollow, and it mostly keeps you engaged. Cummings is a talented director with an eye for making the mundane feel extraordinary. It helps that his daughter, Jenna, is played with emotion and attitude by Chloe East. She’s our in-road to John’s obsession and addiction, and she’s wonderful. There’s one particularly powerful scene that will hit hard anyone who’s loved an addict or supported a loved one struggling with addiction. East is the calm heart of the movie while still getting to be a teenager. Her performance grounds John’s arc, which can at times lean into the anxiety-inducing chaos of substance abuse.
Cummings fills John with a level of instability that makes him electric to watch even if it’s not for any good reasons. Forster is wonderful as his father; The Wolf of Snow Hollow marks his last role and it’s a beautiful swan song that he imbues with depth and empathy. Sheriff Marshall is terrified of aging, frozen by the idea of saying goodbye to the life and career he loves. It’s one of the many quiet explorations that gives Snow Hollow so much heart. And it’s unlikely anyone other than Forster could have done so much with such a small but still affecting role.
![[10/03 AM] THE winter WOLF OF SNOW HOLLOW Delivers a Wintery Noir Horror (Beyond Fest)_3](https://nerdist.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/wolf-snow-hollow.jpg)
Orion Classics
The Wolf of Snow Hollow does lose its way slightly in the second act as we focus more on John and less on his mission to catch the violent threat to his town. But I found the third act to be supremely satisfying and enjoyable. Without revealing the movie’s secrets, it took a frightfully fun turn I wasn’t expecting; and utilized some very tangible practical effects. A drive-in world premiere at Beyond Fest means some lucky film lovers have checked the movie out. With the nights drawing in and the wind getting colder; The Wolf of Snow Hollow is a surprising and snow-covered chiller to add to your watchlist when it hits small screens on Friday, October 16.
3.5/5
Featured Image: Orion Classics
The post THE WOLF OF SNOW HOLLOW Delivers a Wintery Noir Horror appeared first on Nerdist.