Movies
UPDATE: A Special Public Service Announcement About Cell Phones
I know I am supposed to use this platform to talk about horror, so here you go, the horrors of seeing a movie in a theater. I’ve had it, I’m fed up and I’m raging war. I urge you all to spread the word, who knows, maybe the collective voice of us horror fans will turn into the collective voice of CHUD fans or AICN fans, before erupting into the public eye of CNN, FOX and beyond. Cell phone use in movies, it’s out of control. I paid $13-f*cking-50 tonight to see a movie in a theater that swears by their “no cell phone use” policy (the Arclight in Sherman Oaks, CA). Through the entire feature people were checking their texts and answering calls. One douche next to me had it on the ENTIRE movie, but made sure to cup it with his knee. This isn’t fair and it’s bullcrap. We all work really hard to go out and enjoy a night at the movies just to have it ruined everything-single-mother-effin-time; it’s ridiculous. If you’re one of these people, I beg you to cut it out, tell your friends to cut it out and spread the word. Don’t tolerate it anymore. Complain before, during and after the movie. Demand refunds. If enough people start ragin’ war, they’ll start to listen. I want to live in a world where there’s zero tolerance for cell phone use in theaters and people are escorted out for doing so. For real, what’s so important that you need to be texting through the entire movie? Your girl is next to you (hopefully) and your buddies are still gonna have plenty of booze after the movie ends. Now I’m going to bed pissed off and angry, thanks. Talk about it below.“So Bob says to me, ‘Nancy, you’ve got to get an iPhone!'”
UPDATE: Arclight’s response below:
“Dear Brad:
Thank you for contacting ArcLight Cinemas.
I apologize for your experience at ArcLight Sherman Oaks. May I inquire as to the date, show time, and film your experience was in, so that I may further follow up with the managers at ArcLight Sherman Oaks?
I read the article, and I understand your frustration, as obviously many others do by the large number of responses to your article. As an employee of ArcLight I am obviously uncomfortable with the name of our theater publicized in a bad light, and we wish to correct the situation as much as possible. I hope we come to a point at which it is not necessary to baby-sit our guests and check on cell phone usage—we check our theaters to maintain our picture and sound presentation, usually which takes place out of sight of the guests, in the hallway. Certain films seem to bring out the cell phone-using guests, however.
Again, I do apologize for the situation, and I encourage you to visit guest services after a show like that, or find an employee during the show to correct the situation—not just in our theaters, but in any theater or performance.
Please feel free to contact me again if I can be of any further assistance. We value and appreciate both you and your business.“
There’s been a lot of talk about how Christopher Nolan snuck in some horror elements into his epic adaptation of The Odyssey. However, even before the Cyclops began to eat Ithican soldiers and Circe subjected them to magical body-horror, cinemagoers were already witnessing supernatural terror through a certain trailer that was attached to most IMAX screenings of Nolan’s film.
It turns out that this trailer was for Rob Savage’s Other Mommy, an adaptation of Bird Box author Josh Malerman’s horror novel, Incidents Around the House. With the teaser now available online and revealing that the award-winning Jessica Chastain is playing the titular antagonist (as well as her ill-fated human counterpart), not to mention the fact that the picture is being helmed by the director of hits like Host and The Boogeyman, genre fans are understandably hyped for this upcoming thriller.
That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the trailer and share four things we learned from this sneak peek at Other Mommy!
4. Rob Savage is Going Back to His Supernatural Horror Roots
I know I’m in the minority when I admit that Dashcam is my favorite Rob Savage movie, but even I understand why the filmmakers’ fans have been waiting a while for the director to get back to telling more grounded paranormal stories as he did with 2020’s Host.
Other Mommy obviously isn’t a found footage movie, but moments like the poltergeist activity on the kitchen table combined with the nature of the source material, which actually features a full-on exorcism, indicate that this adaptation is more than a simple creature feature. That’s why I think Savage is once again going to borrow from the same ghostly narratives that made his debut film such a viral hit.
3. Other Mommy is a More Convincing Doppelganger in the Adaptation
Part of the horror from Malerman’s original novel came from the fact that the entity taking on the form of Bela’s (Arabella Olivia Clark) mother wasn’t very good at passing itself off as human. This resulted in several uncanny moments where other characters began to notice that there was something visibly wrong with the family and decided to keep their distance.
Savage’s film appears to be taking a different route, with the trailer showing a version of the entity that can, at least physically, imitate Chastain’s character perfectly. This change is likely the result of the filmmakers wanting to incorporate more paranoid scenes where Bela and her father, played by Jay Duplass, are confused about which Mommy is safe to interact with.
2. The Family is Also Better Off This Time Around
Incidents Around the House featured some interesting subtext about how poverty can negatively affect American family dynamics. After all, the main characters were already feeling scared and isolated before the entity emerged from Bela’s closet and began scratching at their emotional wounds. The trailer for the movie, however, depicts the family as being relatively well off before these incidents begin to occur.
I can only imagine that this part of the story was changed so that the family’s fall from grace can be even more dramatic as the mom and dad’s pasts are revealed and Bela falls further into the clutches of the demonic antagonist.
1. Jessica Chastain is Embodying Evil Dead Rise’s Alyssa Sutherland
Mothers turning against their children is one of the most disturbing horror tropes out there (just check out classics like Hereditary and Carrie if you need proof), but it takes a remarkably skilled actress to pull off such a monstrous transformation. This is especially true when both a regular, loving mother and the Other share the screen in the same film.
That’s why I appreciate how Chastain appears to be channeling another evil redhead mother that recently traumatized audiences with her performance. It’s too early to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that Chastain’s character has at least some amount of Ellie in her cinematic DNA – Ellie being the iconic deadite brought to life by Australian actress Alyssa Sutherland in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise.
Let us know in the comments if you think we missed any important details from the trailer, and don’t forget to check out Other Mommy when it hits theaters on October 9!
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