This week Hope & George review They Will Kill You, Forbidden Fruits, Alpha, Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice, A Magnificent Life, Refuge, and The Serpent’s Skin. Plus News & Notes from The Schlocketeer, Daniel Baldwin!
Tag Archives: George Wolf
Retail Equinox
Forbidden Fruits
by George Wolf
Just a few minutes into Forbidden Fruits, it’s clear that Apple (Lili Reinhart) has created a living space that does not bow to the patriarchy – at the local mall or anywhere else.
Apple, Fig (Alexandra Shipp), and Cherry (Victoria Pedretti) are the Queens of the Highland Place mall in Dallas, and the awestruck whispers we hear as they walk in tell us much about the kind of power the “Fruits” enjoy.
Reporting to an unseen manager named Sharon (stay late for an important reveal), the ladies work the floor at the Free Eden boutique, fleecing customers into big dollar buys, worshipping Marilyn Monroe and adhering to a strict regimen that includes sex on a schedule and communicating with boys only through emojis.
Also…there are hexes and spells when needed. So, all seems good with this coven as a trio. Until Pumpkin (Lola Tung from “The Summer I Turned Pretty”) strolls in from that pretzel place in the food court.
Pumpkin is unintimidated by the Fruits, confidently telling Apple, “My job doesn’t define me, my hotness and personality do.”
That’s just one of many priceless lines, and writer/director Meredith Alloway’s adaptation of Lily Houghton’s stage play becomes a sharp, sly and sardonic treat, spilling the beans (and the blood!) about the chaos and contradictions of trying to stay true to yourself.
All four actresses are terrific, carving out distinct identities that keep various secrets on simmer. Is Cherry really that much of an empty-headed vessel? Does Fig have aspirations beyond Highland Place? And what’s the real truth about the death of Apple’s abusive Dad (“R.I. – but not P!”)
Tung makes it fun to guess Pumpkin’s true motives for joining the Fruits, and Alloway crafts an engaging ecosystem of complex girl power. The limited setting of the play never feels claustrophobic, and the mashup of storefronts, costuming and technology creates an anachronistic callback to the glory days of mall society.
Alloway does take her time getting to the bloodletting, but leans in pretty hard with some fun practical magic once it does hit. Remember those warnings about getting caught in escalators? Ouch!
But the real delight here is how the film utilizes a horror device derived from the fear of a women’s power to discuss how messy and imperfect the path toward self-actualization can be. There is strength in community, but danger when – as Cherry points out – you forget Shine Theory and “ruin my glow!”
These are definitely some hot topics for a day at the mall. But in the world of Forbidden Fruits, digging into them is even more fun than sorting through the blacklight posters at Spencer’s.
Fright Club: Interview with Dream Story Director Florian Frerichs
Bonus episode! We sit down with filmmaker Florian Frerichs, joining us from one of Germany’s most legendary film studios! We discuss his latest feature, Dream Story, as well as his other films and his novel, They Will Claim that I Was Dead.
Screening Room: Project Hail Mary, Ready or Not 2, 1000 Women in Horror & More
This week, Hope & George review Project Hail Mary, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, Vampires of the Velvet Lounge, By Design, 1000 Women in Horror, and The Well.
It’s Time Go
Project Hail Mary
by George Wolf
The arguments about Awards Season 2026 may still be raging on social media, but Project Hail Mary arrives to start the conversation about next year. It’s the kind of lavish, well-polished, big movie star project that could generate word-of-mouth excitement, bring crowds back to the theater, and leave audiences with an inspiring message of hope and humor that is sorely needed.
And that will be awesome, truly. So, I already feel like a cynical jerk for not thinking it’s a masterpiece.
Thanks a lot, Ryan Gosling.
Actually, it’s pretty damn hard not to love Gosling’s turn here as Dr. Ryland Grace, a molecular biologist who’s teaching middle school science thanks to some of his less-than-peer-approved theories.
But when he wakes from an induced coma on a ship in outer space, “Grace” is our last hope for saving Earth from the nasty space dust that is about three decades away from destroying the Sun.
How did he get here? And how can a man “who puts the ‘not’ in “astronaut'” hope to succeed all alone?
Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller give us those answers, adapting Andy Weir’s best-selling novel with another crowd-pleasing script from Drew Goddard – who also adapted Weir’s The Martian for the screen. And much like The Martian, we’re among the stars with a solitary man who must rely on science to find the solution to survival.
But Grace isn’t really alone, once he meets a crab-like alien (voiced by James Ortiz) he calls “Rocky” thanks to an appearance that resembles a strategic stacking of stones. Rocky’s planet is also facing extinction, and the two form a bond that quickly aligns the film as a family-friendly mashup of 2001 and E.T.
Gosling’s self-deprecating charm and sharp comic timing are instantly likable, and once Rocky learns some basics of English, the alien’s penchant for inverting certain words and gestures leads to warmly funny exchanges. Lord & Miller (The Lego Movie, 21 Jump Street, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) bolster the rapport with wondrous IMAX sequences, but can’t completely overcome the feeling that this is all just a little too obvious and cute.
Flashbacks to a terrific Sandra Hüller as the impatiently blunt leader of the Hail Mary project give the film some much needed depth, and the mild twist in Act Three pulls the narrative out of the safe zone, albeit too briefly. The Martian suffered from the same calculated, broad brush feel at work here, and thankfully Lord & Miller don’t follow suit and resort to a succession of eye-rollingly precise needle drops.
The film’s title could also apply toward winning back those finicky theater-goers. And Project Hail Mary is perfectly suited to be a memorable cinematic experience with mass appeal. It looks great, there’s a charismatic leading man, his little alien buddy, and an easily digestible life lesson.
An enjoyable trip to the movies will be had. It just ain’t a trip to deep space.
Fright Club: Teenage Vampires in Horror Movies
Those teenage years can be beastly! A lot of vampire movies channel the alienation, hormones, angst and general misbehavior into a cautionary tale about teeth. Here are some of our favorites.
5. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)
Back in ’92, Rutger Hauer and Paul Reubens played vampires (thank you!) bent on draining a California town. But one superficial mean girl at the local high school happens to be the Chosen One, the Slayer, or so says Donald Sutherland, and it generally seems like a fine idea to listen to him. Kristy Swanson then flirts with Luke Perry while training to stake some bloodsuckers.
Swanson is joined by Ben Affleck and Hilary Swank as vacuous teens in a highly dated but no less fun horror comedy. Reubens was a huge inspiration for our own short film Drunkula. Plus, anytime you crown Rutger Hauer prom king, you can count us in.
4. The Lost Boys (1987)
Out and proud Hollywood director Joel Schumacher spins a yarn of Santa Carla, a town with a perpetual coastal carnival and the nation’s highest murder rate. A roving band of cycle-riding vampires haunts the carnival and accounts for the carnage, until Diane Weist moves her family to town. While hottie Michael (Jason Patric) is being seduced into the demon brethren, younger brother Sam (Corey Haim) teams up with local goofballs the Frog brothers (Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander) to stake all bloodsuckers.
Michael’s a recent high school grad, and the coven of vampires seems to also be allegedly the same roundabout age. Certainly Sam and the Frog Brothers would be high school age, although none of them turn. (Spoiler!)
What’s most fun about this movie is how gloriously gay it is, from the “will he or won’t he” chemistry between Michael and David to Sam’s Rob Lowe poster to the grinding sax man, Schumacher’s film finds sexuality in the vampire tale that swings.
3. Fright Night (1985)
Fright Night takes that Eighties, Goonies-style adventure (kids on an adult-free quest of life and death) and uses the conceit to create something tense and scary, and a bit giddy as well. The feature debut as both writer and director for Tom Holland, the film has some sly fun with the vampire legend.
Roddy McDowall got much deserved love at the time for his turn as a washed-up actor from horror’s nostalgic past, and Chris Sarandon put his rich baritone to campy, sinister use.
Still, everyone’s favorite character was Evil Ed, the manic, pitiful loser turned bloodsucking minion. Credit Stephen Geoffreys for an electric and, at least in one scene, heartbreaking performance.
2. My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To (2020)
Making an unnervingly assured feature film debut, writer/director Jonathan Cuartas commingles The Transfiguration’s image of lonely, awkward adolescence with Relic’s horror of familial obligation to create a heartbreaking new vampire tale.
Many things are left unsaid (including the word “vampire’), and My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To confines itself to the daily drudgery of three siblings. Dwight (Patrick Fugit) longs to break these family chains, but sister Jessie (Ingrid Sophie Schram) holds him tight with shame, love, and obligation to little brother, the afflicted Thomas (Owen Campbell).
What could easily have become its own figurative image of the masculine longing for freedom mines far deeper concerns. Cuartas weaves loneliness into that freedom, tainting the concept of independence with a terrifying, even dangerous isolation that leaves you with no one to talk to and no way to get away from yourself.
1. The Transfiguration (2016)
Milo likes vampire movies.
So, it would seem, does writer/director Michael O’Shea, whose confident feature debut shows us the relationship between the folklore and the life of a forlorn high school outcast.
Eric Ruffin plays Milo, a friendless teen who believes he is a vampire. What he is really is a lonely child who finds solace in the romantic idea of this cursed, lone predator. But he’s committed to his misguided belief.
O’Shea’s film borrows ideas from George Romero’s Martin, Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In, and openly gushes over Murnau’s Nosferatu. Inside and out, the film draws on the best in vampire cinema to help Milo deal with a world in which he is a freak no matter what he decides to do.
Now With Extra Whitening!
Slanted
by George Wolf
Writer/director Amy Wang’s debut feature Slanted has so many plates spinning in the air, I expected most of them to eventually come crashing down. For just over ninety minutes, Wang juggles social satire, body horror, high school comedy and cultural drama with a fearless commitment to boundary pushing.
Actually, maybe more like boundary shoving.
Chinese-American teen Joan Huang (Shirley Chen) has a singular mission: to beat out her high school’s Queen Bee Olivia Hammond (Amelie Zilber) and be elected Prom Queen.
Just imagine her gigantic framed picture in the hallway next to all those other white, blonde Queens of the past!
Joan’s mother, Sofia (Vivian Wu) and best friend, Brindha (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) aren’t thrilled when Joan bleaches her black hair, but that’s just the beginning. Lured into the office of the smiling Dr. Singer (R. Kieth Harris), Joan is hooked by his pitch of a perfect new life. She tricks her mother into signing a consent form and undergoes Dr. Singer’s experimental surgery.
And when Joan Huang wakes up from the operation, she’s Jo Hunt (McKenna Grace). No scars, no bandages, just all pretty, blonde and perfectly white.
Dr. Singer’s first recommendation: “Go see Michael Buble!”
Anyone who remembers Eddie Murphy’s classic “White Like Me” SNL bit from 1984 will recognize the world that suddenly opens up to Jo – and Wang skewers that world with biting humor and wry precision. But as much as Wang pushes her character envelopes, she gets balance from a more subtle hand that calls out the systems that breed and perpetuate this Lilly white playground. (Keep an eye on the local business names, as well as the photographs chosen for mantles, bedroom walls and school lockers.)
Could there be a price to pay for Jo abandoning her family, friend and heritage? Oh yes. And while I won’t be the first or last to mention the resulting mashup of Mean Girls and The Substance, give Wang credit for not giving a flying F.
There’s plenty of last year’s Grafted here, too, though Wang never dives that deeply into a horror show. What she does do is pull all of these influences through her own lens with unapologetic abandon, and a fittingly flawed final girl.
This is a wonderfully ambitious, high concept debut for Amy Wang. At turns both familiar and ferocious, it never lets you get too comfortable with its message. Funny, horrific, bittersweet, angry and insightful, Slanted feels like an experiment gone right.
Fearless Oscar Predictions 2026
Who ya got: “Sinners” and its record-setting 16 nominations or “One Battle After Another” and 13 nods?
There are other deserving nominees, to be sure, but these two films have dominated the movie year 2025 and much of Awards Season 2026. There is no reason to think it won’t continue come Oscar night.
Which is better? Wow. What day is it? Let’s just say we have extra love for the split in the Best Screenplay category this year, where they both can collect the hardware.
And what a great year for Horror! Don’t forget del Toro’s visionary “Frankenstein” nabbed 9 nominations, Amy Madigan’s Aunt Gladys gets recognition for “Weapons” and “The Ugly Stepsister,” Emilie Blichfeldt’s beautifully brutal debut, is up for the Best Makeup and Hairstyling award. All well deserved.
So let’s dig in:
Best picture
- “Bugonia”
- “F1”
- “Frankenstein”
- “Hamnet”
- “Marty Supreme”
- “One Battle After Another”
- “The Secret Agent”
- “Sentimental Value”
- “Sinners”
- “Train Dreams”
Should win: “Sinners” or “One Battle After Another”
Will win: “Sinners”
Best Actress
- Jessie Buckley, “Hamnet”
- Rose Byrne, “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”
- Renate Reinsve, “Sentimental Value”
- Emma Stone, “Bugonia”
- Kate Hudson, “Song Sung Blue”
Should win/Will win: Buckley. Probably the surest bet this year.
Best Actor
- Timothée Chalamet, “Marty Supreme”
- Leonardo DiCaprio, “One Battle After Another”
- Ethan Hawke, “Blue Moon”
- Michael B. Jordan, “Sinners”
- Wagner Moura, “The Secret Agent”
Should win/Will win: Jordan
Best Supporting Actress
- Elle Fanning, “Sentimental Value”
- Inga Ibsdotter LilIeaas, “Sentimental Value”
- Amy Madigan, “Weapons”
- Wunmi Mosaku, “Sinners”
- Teyana Taylor, “One Battle After Another”
Should win: Mosaku
Will win: Madigan
Best Supporting Actor
- Jacob Elordi, “Frankenstein”
- Sean Penn, “One Battle After Another”
- Stellan Skarsgård, “Sentimental Value”
- Benicio del Toro, “One Battle After Another”
- Delroy Lindo, “Sinners”
Should win: Lindo – how does he not have an Oscar by now?
Will win: Penn*
*Hope disagrees. Her last shred of faith in humanity says Lindo will pull it out.
Director
- Paul Thomas Anderson, “One Battle After Another”
- Ryan Coogler, “Sinners”
- Chloé Zhao, “Hamnet”
- Josh Safdie, “Marty Supreme”
- Joachim Trier, “Sentimental Value”
Should win: PTA or Coogler
Will win: PTA
Original Song
- “Golden” from “Kpop Demon Hunters”
- “Train Dreams” from “Train Dreams”
- “Dear Me” from “Diane Warren: Relentless”
- “I Lied to You” from “Sinners”
- “Sweet Dreams Of Joy” from “Viva Verdi!”
Should win/Will win: “I Lied to You”
Original Score
- “Bugonia,” Jerskin Fendrix
- “Frankenstein,” Alexandre Desplate
- “Hamnet,” Max Richter
- “One Battle After Another,” Jonny Greenwood
- “Sinners,” Ludwig Göransson
Should win/Will win: Göransson – the integration of music in Sinners was masterful.
Animated Film
- “Arco”
- “Elio”
- “KPop Demon Hunters”
- “Little Amélie or the Character of Rain”
- “Zootopia 2”
Should win/Will win: “Little Amélie or the Character of Rain”
International Film
- “The Secret Agent,” Brazil
- “It Was Just an Accident,” France
- “Sentimental Value,” Norway
- “Sirât,” Spain
- “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” Tunisia
Should win/Will win: “Sentimental Value” in a category so stacked that neither “No Other Choice” or “The President’s Cake” could crack it.
Documentary Feature
- “The Perfect Neighbor”
- “The Alabama Solution”
- “Come See Me in the Good Light”
- “Cutting Through Rocks”
- “Mr. Nobody Against Putin”
Should win/Will win: “The Perfect Neighbor“
Casting
- “Hamnet”
- “Marty Supreme”
- “One Battle After Another”
- “The Secret Agent”
- “Sinners”
Should win: “Sinners” or “OBAA”
Will win: “OBAA”
Best Sound
- “F1”
- “Frankenstein”
- “One Battle after Another”
- “Sinners”
- “Sirāt”
Should win: “Sirāt”
Will win: “F1”
Cinematography
- “Frankenstein”
- “Marty Supreme”
- “One Battle After Another”
- “Sinners”
- “Train Dreams”
Should win/Will win: “Train Dreams” in another category brimming with excellence.
Original Screenplay
- “Blue Moon,” Robert Kaplow
- “It Was Just an Accident,” Jafar Panahi, with script collaborators Nader Saïvar, Shadmehr Rastin, Mehdi Mahmoudian
- “Marty Supreme,” Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie
- “Sentimental Value,” Eskil Vogt and Joachim Trier
- “Sinners,” Ryan Coogler
Should win/Will win: Coogler
Adapted Screenplay
- “Bugonia”; Will Tracy
- “Frankenstein,” Guillermo del Toro
- “Hamnet,” Chloé Zhao and Maggie O’Farrell
- “One Battle After Another,” Paul Thomas Anderson
- “Train Dreams,” Clint Bailey and Greg Kwedar
Should win/Will win: PTA
Live Action Short Film
- “Butcher’s Stain”
- “A Friend of Dorothy”
- “Jane Austen’s Period Drama”
- “The Singers”
- “Two People Exchanging Saliva”
Should win/Will win: “Two People Exchanging Saliva”
Animated Short Film
- “Butterfly”
- “Forevergreen”
- “The Girl Who Cried Pearls”
- “Retirement Plan”
- “The Three Sisters”
Should win: “The Girl Who Cried Pearls”
Will win: “Butterfly”
Visual Effects
- “Avatar: Fire and Ash”
- “F1″
- “Jurassic World Rebirth”
- “The Lost Bus”
- “Sinners”
Should win/Will win: “Avatar: Fire and Ash”
Production Design
- “Frankenstein”
- “Hamnet”
- “Marty Supreme”
- “One Battle After Another”
- “Sinners”
Should win/Will win: “Frankenstein”
Film Editing
- “F1”
- “Marty Supreme”
- “One Battle After Another”
- “Sentimental Value”
- “Sinners”
Should win/Will win: “F1”
Makeup and Hairstyling
- “Frankenstein”
- “Kokuho”
- “Sinners”
- “The Smashing Machine”
- “The Ugly Stepsister”
Should win/Will win: “Frankenstein”
Costume Design
- “Avatar: Fire and Ash”
- “Frankenstein”
- “Hamnet”
- “Marty Supreme”
- “Sinners”
Should win/Will win: “Sinners”
The 98th Academy Awards will take place March 15th, 2026.
The Camera Never Lies
Bodycam
by George Wolf
Take the frenetic desperation of The Blair Witch Project‘s final minutes, move it to a more urban battleground and layer it with plenty of first-person shooter sequences, and you’re in the ballpark of Bodycam, director Brandon Christensen’s shaky cam shakedown of two cops and one very bad choice.
Officer Bryce (Sean Rogerson) and officer Jackson (Jamie M. Callica) respond to a domestic dispute, and we follow along thanks to their bodycams. The house is dark and plenty creepy, and things escalate to the point of a fatal shooting. The possible fallout spurs Bryce to panic.
He has too much to lose for this situation to go public and convinces Jackson to help him cover up what happened. But when a techie colleague tries to scrub the cam footage, she notices some strange graffiti on the wall, and realizes it’s already too late to keep the killing a secret.
At least from certain, very scary people.
Uh oh. Bryce and Jackson are in for a bad time.
Christensen (Night of the Reaper, Z, Superhost, The Puppetman), co-writing again with his brother Ryan, doesn’t waste any time getting down to nasty business. And once the 75-minute film hits the midway point, the bloody fun is amped up a notch or three as the two cops come to grips with the promise of retribution for their actions.
“Why couldn’t you have done the right thing?”
In today’s climate, that question from one cop to another carries some serious weight. And though the implications are clear, Christensen is more committed to the repercussions.
Bodycam dishes them out in frenzied, crowd-pleasing glory.
Screening Room: The Bride!, Hoppers, Peaky Blinders & More
Hope & George review this week’s new releases: The Bride!, Hoppers, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, Billy Idol Should Be Dead, For Worse, War Machine and Heel.
