Editorials
10 Terrific A24 Titles to Watch Before ‘Hereditary’!
A24 has come to be a household name that you can trust. Whether it be The Florida Project, First Reformed, American Honey, 20th Century Women, or Moonlight, if you’re a fan of indie genre film and you’ve fallen in love with a movie that came out within the last ten years, there’s a good chance that A24 released it. They have a habit of diving into the world of myriad movie gems and picking stellar film after stellar film to show the world – the epitome of finding the needle in the haystack. And they make it look easy.
Up next from this ridiculously successful production company is the gut-punching Hereditary from first-timer Ari Aster, which feels like less of a movie and more of a roller coaster that dares you to keep watching. It’s not for everyone, but you will truly be missing out if you decide to skip this one on the basis of it being too much to take. Opening up the film with a funeral and only growing bleaker as the feature drags on, this horrific take on a family cursed with tragedy is just as meticulous and beautifully composed as it is guttural and unnerving. It might just be the best movie A24 has ever had their hands on, which is why it comes as no surprise that the entertainment company has already gone into negotiations with Aster for his next movie, tentatively titled Midsommer.
In the meantime, while you’re waiting for Hereditary to boggle your mind and rip your heart out of your chest, there’s plenty of other worthy A24 titles to feast your eyes on. Read on, and get these great gems in your eyeballs, before you cover them with your hands in a darkened theater for Aster’s directorial debut on June 8th.
EX MACHINA
Known previously for writing 28 Days Later and Dredd, Alex Garland’s directorial debut tells the story of a tech-savvy young man named Caleb (Domhall Gleeson) who wins a competition at his Google-esque company to spend the weekend away at his CEO’s exclusive estate, to work on a secret project with the elusive Nathan (Oscar Isaac). From the outside looking in, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime – Caleb gets to meet the man who put this entire mega-successful search engine into motion, Nathan reveals his next big project to the young up-and-comer, and Caleb experiences his first ever interaction with a real, live artificial intelligence being named Ava (Alicia Vikander). But all is not as it seems. Little does he know, Caleb is interacting with a prisoner, and Ava is not the first woman made within these walls with the intention of becoming Nathan’s love slave – and she won’t be the last. Built to fulfill sci-fi fantasy thrills and brimming with social commentary, Ex Machina is a highly stylized, wholly inventive look at what makes us human, and calls into question the methods with which we make scientific advancements in the name of research.
GOOD TIME
Robert Pattison can act! Who knew? And all it took to bring out those chops was a modern day, Paul Schrader-esque, heist-gone-wrong, race-against-time thriller like Good Time to show us what he can do. Pattinson may have gotten his start in melodramatic made-for-tween vampire romance movies, but where he really shines is as a down-on-his-luck smooth-talking criminal who uses his mouth and his quick wit to maneuver himself out of every sticky situation and into the next. Written and directed by the Safdie Brothers, Good Time is not to be missed – a true white-knuckling adrenaline-fueled fiery ride from start to finish. Movies as tense as this one are hard to come by.
THE WITCH
Back in the 1600s, in the time of early Protestant settlers being brought over to the New World, people used to believe that the woods were full of sin – for they were the only place untouched by man, and therefore, never cleansed with the purification of Christianity. Perhaps that’s why when William and Katherine lead their five children away from the busy colony and out into the barren wilderness, something reaches out from the trees and claims their youngest, Samuel, an unbaptized babe. Maybe that’s why their crops begin to fail, and the family begins to turn on one another. Maybe it was the woods that brought them all of this melancholy. Or maybe, it was the witch hidden within its hovel. Written and directed by first-timer Robert Eggers, this is simply an astonishing directorial debut. Taut, purposeful, and period accurate, this surreal New England nightmare is arguably the best movie A24 has released thus far, bringing with it an air of originality and uncompromised vision.
IT COMES AT NIGHT
Despite the madness, Sarah and Paul live peaceful lives. The world outside may be falling apart, but this couple, along with their son Travis, have mostly held it together during the end times – mostly. It seems like the oxygen masks and taped-shut doors and cautionary, aloof lifestyle has kept them safe from the sickness stretching itself across the globe thus far — but suddenly, outsiders arrive. A shy family of three has come to join their little hideaway in the woods. Although they seem good-hearted at first, as time goes on and suspicions arise, paranoia begins to creep into every corner of this little house, choking and suffocating the inhabitants within – until somebody snaps, and chaos ensues. Brilliantly directed by Krisha filmmaker Trey Edward Shultz, this hypnotic portrait of two families unraveling in the face of adversity is a haunting meditation on how sickness can turn good people into monsters.
GREEN ROOM
They may have been a couple of gas stealing, record blaring, anti-establishment types, but this little punk band didn’t deserve a fate like this. Donning themselves ‘The Ain’t Rights’, Pat (Anton Yelchin), Sam (Alia Shawkat), Reece (Joe Cole), and Tiger (Callum Turner) find themselves trapped within the confines of an ever-shrinking green room after they witness a murder in a Nazi-owned nightclub. Now, with nowhere left to turn and their bandmates being brutally offed one by one, these kids must find a way out of this skinhead infected territory – lest they want this to truly become their final tour. The follow-up to his indie sensation Blue Ruin, Jeremy Saulnier proves himself as a visionary filmmaker with Green Room, his surprisingly timely foray into the world of extreme nationalism, using the power of film to prove that the power of rock and roll can defeat nearly any evil, even the kind that stems from racist bigotry.
THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER
After his father passes expectantly on the operating table, Martin clings to surgeon Steven Murphy – a father figure to fill the void growing within his soul. Although it starts small, with little guilt-ridden gifts passed from Steven to Martin, and the occasional dinner date here and there, eventually, Martin begins to latch onto the Murphy family, and grows a little too close for comfort. Like a festering tumor, Martin inserts himself into the Murphy’s daily lives, and spreads his sickness from within – a child in pain turned parasite. Before they know it, the whole family has seemingly fallen prey to some sort of invisible sorcery, as paralysis befalls each of them one by one, with no motivation in sight. This wicked tale of guilt and blame and revenge not only plays as a horrible nightmare, but also provides a sobering look at human behavior, and our natural tendency to detach ourselves from any unwanted emotions to the extent of rendering ourselves sociopathic. Coming off hot from the success of The Lobster and back with his new twisted The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Yorgos Lanthimos is a name every cinephile should know.
ENEMY
Have you ever woken up out of a dream and gone straight into another one? Remember that strange, eerie feeling of being trapped within some surreal place that you couldn’t quite shake yourself from? Think about that hazy hallucination and you’ll feel a little bit of what it’s like to watch Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy for the very first time. Look into this one as little as possible before you see it for guaranteed maximum suspense and whimsical wonder. No trailers, no synopsis – just dive in.
SWISS ARMY MAN
It takes a special kind of filmmaker to take a story about a man befriending a corpse on the beach and turn it into an endearing light-hearted comedy about love and relationships and life and loss, but somehow, with their powers combined, Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert manage to pull it off. Because of its somewhat silly premise is instigated to handle somewhat serious subject matter, the result is a movie with a perspective of enjoying and appreciating life, while also allowing the leeway to not take it all so seriously. This is one you’ve got to see, if for no other reason than to watch Paul Dano ride a lifeless, farting Daniel Radcliffe across the ocean like a gas-powered dolphin straight into the sunset.
SPRING BREAKERS
This is an A24 release that gets a lot of unwarranted hate from film critics and cinema connoisseurs alike, with most people claiming that it’s nothing but a shallow and vulgar display of young, good-looking girls in skimpy bikinis. Here’s the thing – in a way, they’re right. But at the same time, what’s so wrong with that? Film isn’t limited to narrow Ivy League points of view. It’s not always going to be family-friendly, and it’s not always there to make a statement, or to save the world from its own blind self-destruction, or to create a commentary about the current political climate. Film is an art, a media of expression, and sometimes, that just means watching hazy, neon-infused oiled skin bounce just right to the beat, a portrait of unhindered youth and freedom and the unexplainable high of doing what you’re not supposed to be doing while you’re away from home on spring break. Sometimes, heightened simplicity is just as beautiful as cutthroat commentary.
UNDER THE SKIN
An extraterrestrial falls to earth and inhabits the body of a beautiful young woman. Slowly learning how to be human, she then begins sweeping the Scottish countryside, preying on unlucky men with her newfound powers of seduction. It always goes the same way – she flirts, she whisks them away to her private little home, and then she literally sucks the life out of them. Sure, it’s an easy game at first – like taking candy from a baby, as they say – but being human comes at a price. Over time, it begins to take its toll on this otherworldly vixen. There are only so many men she can meet, seduce, and discard before she finally comes across one that puts butterflies in her belly, makes her heart skip a beat. Now, suddenly, capturing and killing isn’t so easy. Directed by Jonathan Glazer, this futuristic masterpiece begs the question of what it means to be a human being – and doesn’t necessarily reflect back our greatest traits.
Five decades ago, Stephen King published the story of a bullied girl with telekinetic powers and forever changed the world of horror.
Carrie follows a high school misfit who seeks revenge for a hideous prank by psychically destroying her senior prom. The name Carrie White has become synonymous with the concept of a formal dance thanks to a flawless adaptation from Brian De Palma. Now fifty years after the film’s release, Mike Flanagan is putting his own stamp on the troubling story.
Rather than a feature film, the writer/director will expand King’s relatively slim debut novel into an eight-episode miniseries for Amazon Prime set to premiere on October 7.
Flanagan is no stranger to the world of Stephen King. A long-time Constant Reader, he first made waves with his daring adaptation of Gerald’s Game (2017), a novel many fans considered un-filmable. His underrated Doctor Sleep merges the disparate plot of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining with King’s original source material, and his 2024 genre-bending tearjerker The Life of Chuck faithfully executes one of the author’s most metaphysical novellas.
He’s currently mired in pre-production for an expansive adaptation of The Dark Tower series, keystone to King’s connected universe, and Warner Bros. recently announced that Flanagan will helm a new version of The Mist, King’s 1980 novella which sees a small Maine town overrun by otherworldly monsters.
Considering the vast array of the author’s previously unadapted material, an obvious question arises. Why reimagine Carrie in 2026? Noting the timeless nature of the content, Flanagan expressed his desire to bring the story of a bullied girl into modern times, mirroring his approach to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. He explained, “The only way to approach it was to build something new out of the ingredients of Carrie. Otherwise, there’s really no purpose in trying to retread ground that’s been so beautifully walked before.”
His miniseries will maintain the novel’s bloody bookends while delivering “big surprises” along the way.
A New Prom Night Nightmare
The roughly 60-second teaser introduces Summer H. Howell as Carrie White just before the moment of catastrophe. Standing in a prom dress, she smiles at her applauding classmates with an ominous crown perched upon her head. Moments later, Carrie unleashes a rage-filled scream into the night air while promgoers rush for the exit doors. But careful examination of this scene shows Carrie wearing a different, albeit dirty dress as she seems to telekinetically punish her peers.
In an exclusive first look with Entertainment Weekly, Flanagan explains that in his version of the story, “the events of that prom are going to be completely different.” An open trunk emitting a crimson glow does hint at the pig’s blood dumped on Carrie’s head, but it’s likely Flanagan’s formal dance will be a different kind of horror altogether. Despite these changes, the series may end with the widespread destruction outlined in the source material. Unlike any previous adaptations, King’s novel ends with the near-total destruction of Chamberlain, Maine. A flaming street in Flanagan’s trailer promises similar carnage no matter what prank sparks Carrie’s deadly revenge.
The Monstrous Addition of Social Media
On the opposite end of this fiery conclusion is an extreme act of bullying that brings together the story’s main cast. King’s novel begins as Carrie gets her first period while showering in the girls’ locker room. Completely unaware of the concept of menstruation, the sheltered girl thinks she’s bleeding to death. Her classmates respond with vitriolic rage. Led by ultra-mean girl Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton), they mock the terrified teen while pelting her with tampons. Glimpses of this disturbing event reveal that Flanagan has excised the scene’s nudity while adding a seismic update. As Carrie sobs in the shower stall, Chris and her friends film the breakdown with their phones.
Other scenes note the presence of social media, bringing King’s fifty-year-old story into the digital age.
Flanagan’s adaptation promises to explore the destructive power of social media, an often invisible entity with a potential for harm rivaling Carrie’s own powers. While King’s tormented heroine suffers in front of a small group of girls, Flanagan’s version of the incident will likely become a viral video, potentially circling the globe on social media. Similar to Katt Shea’s criminally underrated The Rage: Carrie 2, which includes elements of revenge porn exploitation, Flanagan’s modern retelling will distinguish itself by exploring the nebulous cruelty of online bullying, a force ten times more powerful than the irl pranks King first envisioned.
A Completely Reimagined White Family
In addition to modernizing these canon events, Flanagan hints at updates to Carrie’s oppressive upbringing at the hands of her mother, Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan). Dead before the novel begins, we never meet Carrie’s domineering father Ralph, known to carry a bible alongside his gun. Flanagan’s White household will be an altogether different beast. In his version of the story, Carrie and her mother have been hidden away in the unassuming home, forced out of hiding by Ralph’s unexpected death. Perhaps we will finally meet this elusive man whose shadow hangs over his wife and child. Considering the White family’s fundamentalist lifestyle, this reimagining hints at tradwife culture and a home ruled by staunch patriarchal control.
Whereas King’s Carrie has been tormented by her classmates since Kindergarten, Flanagan’s Carrie will be a wide-eyed newcomer to public school, eager to make friends and engage with her peers. We glimpse Carrie cozying up to Chris and the equally popular Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) as she navigates a new social scene. Of course, we know this kindness is part of an elaborate plot designed to lull Carrie into a false sense of camaraderie, setting up an atrocious act of public humiliation. These brief moments of feigned compassion put Sue’s own complicity into question. Will Flanagan’s version of the character find the courage to defend Carrie from vicious bullies or will she succumb to peer pressure and join in the mob mentality?
Perhaps the biggest deviation from King’s original text is the relationship between Carrie and her mother. King’s Margaret White is a horrifically abusive religious zealot whose worldview has been hardened by internalized misogyny. She shames Carrie for menstruating, locks her in a closet to “pray,” and regrets not killing her child in infancy. She’s also responsible for Carrie’s social ostracization. Known to berate her neighbors for their “sins,” Margaret forces her daughter to live by an extreme code of conduct and disallows any potential friends lest they corrupt the girl with their worldly ways.
Flanagan’s version of the character is perhaps just as much a victim as Carrie herself. Also trapped inside her home, his Margaret is overly vigilant, her own trauma manifesting as strict control. Describing a more sympathetic depiction of the iconic villain, Flanagan explains, “Our Margaret White is a woman who fiercely loves her daughter and wants to protect her from this world … [She] doesn’t know how to do that and thinks the way to protect her is to close her off; not punitively, but to create this private utopia.”
Despite this potential softening, Sloyan’s Margaret may still have a sharp edge. Though she has appeared in many Flanagan projects, from Hush (2016) to The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), she is best known for her role as the abhorrent Bev Keane in the poignant saga Midnight Mass (2021). Perhaps inspired by King’s Margaret White, Bev is pious and sadistic, willing to punish anyone who does not adhere to her warped approximation of Catholicism.
Flanagan specifically wrote Margaret with Sloyan in mind, likely remembering the actress’s eerie ability to create deceptive empathy and shift our allegiances on a dime.
Expanding Stephen King’s Telekinetic Universe
While most of King’s story deals with an unthinkable prom night in Chamberlain, Maine, large sections of the semi-epistolary novel see experts debating the nature of telekinesis. Do Carrie’s frightening abilities represent a new phase in human evolution or is the prom night carnage merely a fluke? King settles the debate with a shocking denouement in which a young mother recounts her infant daughter’s ability to dangle her crib toys in midair. We’re left to wonder if she will become another tormented girl who surprises the world with metaphysical strength.
Flanagan plans to build out this brief scene while amplifying themes of female empowerment. After introducing our main cast of characters, episode two will open with an unrelated story in which we meet another girl with the TK gene. Each subsequent chapter will expand this world, building out a roster of telekinetic young women. Considering King’s fondness for stories about powerful kids, often described as possessing “the shining,” Constant Readers will no doubt have their eyes peeled for various Easter Eggs nodding to the author’s vast catalogue.
Giving Carrie Her Own Voice
Perhaps the most striking distinction in Flanagan’s new trailer is the extent to which we hear Carrie’s voice. The sneak peek is fully narrated by the titular prom queen as she demands accountability. “I want to know why,” she explains while detailing Chris’ elaborate plan. Aside from the aforementioned coda, King’s book essentially ends with the aftermath of the prom night tragedy, leaving little time for Carrie to reflect. His shifting narrative does bring the reader into her fragile mind, though not before she’s been cowed by relentless cruelty. We watch Carrie sink into bloodthirsty revenge, but never hear a considered desire for justice or repair.
Flanagan’s original monologue allows Carrie to voice her pain and mourn the life she could have had. We’re also treated to a mug shot-style photo of Chris with a bruised and bandaged face, implying that the mean girl will have to answer for her senseless sadism.
Flanagan is known for filling his series adaptations with heartwrenching speeches that cut to the heart of his thematic intentions, and this teaser seems to follow suit. After years of fans, critics, and scholars analyzing Carrie’s pain, perhaps his modern retelling will offer the titular anti-hero a chance to finally speak for herself.
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