Movies
[Book Review] ‘Wayward’ Is So Good, Not Even M. Night Can Screw It Up
Last year’s novel Pines was good enough to backbone a TV mini-series by M. Night Shyamalan, set to premiere on Fox next year. Author Blake Crouch’s follow up, Wayward, (September 17; Thomas and Mercer), is even better. With its dialogue-driven plot and balls-to-the walls pacing, it already flaunts the punchy wordplay of an excellent TV series. Even after considering M. Night’s past flubs (and admittedly, there are many), this is going to be a hard mini-series to jack up; Crouch’s books are just that good.
Pines saw Secret Service agent Ethan Burke waking up in Wayward Pines, a secluded town deep in the forests of Idaho, severely injured after an apparent car accident. Days of concussed, amnesia-driven investigation led Ethan to eventually discover that the entire town was surrounded by an electric fence and under constant electronic surveillance. Nobody comes into Wayward Pines, nobody leaves, and the townsfolk are willing to mob-kill anyone who tries. Is it a government experiment? An episode of The Twilight Zone? The afterlife? Pines concluded with a soul-shattering cliffhanger, as the secret of Wayward Pines was finally revealed to Ethan (a secret I will not divulge here).
Crouch’s sequel finds Ethan not only a voluntary resident of Wayward Pines, but its full-time sheriff. He‘s prohibitted from divulging the town’s dark secret, but when forced to investigate the vicious stabbing murder of one of the townsfolk, Ethan’s loyalties are severely tested. Was the victim murdered by “The Wanderers”, a group of rebels lurking on the outskirts of Wayward Pines? Or someone in town? Does Ethan continue to keep his big secret for the benefit of the 461 residents who occupy the mountain village? Or is it better to tell the truth, at the risk of losing a few dozen citizens? And perhaps most importantly, what’s going on with the misshapen mutant creatures that lurk beyond the fence?
I don’t mean to sound intentionally vague, but based on Pines and Wayward, Crouch’s series is happily mired in the sort of juicy, small-town secrets that keep the pages turning––and I don’t want to spoil any surprises for the uninitiated. Like some, I spent of much of Pines wondering if the mysterious plot was going to pay off. But Crouch not only ended Pines with a cliffhanger keen enough to make Stephen King blush in shame, he carried that self-same confidence right into the first chapters of Wayward. Make no mistake–– this is an author who knows exactly what he‘s doing. Fans of Pines (of which I consider myself a proud member) will blaze through this riveting sequel like a forest fire. Just prep yourself for another borderline-cruel cliffhanger going into book three.
Rating:4.5 out of 5 Skulls
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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