Movies
‘The Life of Chuck’ Returns to Theaters for One Night Only with Insight from Mike Flanagan & Mark Hamill
After hitting physical media on September 30, The Life of Chuck will return to theaters for one night only next Wednesday, October 1, via Neon.
This special engagement will feature an exclusive conversation with writer-director Mike Flanagan and actor Mark Hamill, offering insight into the making of the film, its emotional resonance, and the enduring legacy of Stephen King’s original story.
Tickets are available now at participating theaters and ticketing platforms. The film will be screened in Dolby at AMC theaters and in RPX at Regal locations.
The genre-bending film is based on the novella of the same name from King’s 2020 collection If It Bleeds.
An extraordinary story of an ordinary man, the film celebrates the life of Charles ‘Chuck’ Krantz as he experiences the wonder of love, the heartbreak of loss, and the multitudes contained in all of us.
Tom Hiddleston, Jacob Tremblay, and Benjamin Pajak each play the titular character at different points in his life.
Hamill, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, Annalise Basso, Mia Sara, Matthew Lillard, Carl Lumbly, Samantha Sloyan, Harvey Guillen, and Kate Siegel co-star.
The ensemble also includes Heather Langenkamp, Rahul Kohli, David Dastmalchian, Violet McGraw, Hamish Linklater, and Nick Offerman as the narrator.
Meagan Navarro wrote in her review, “It’s the little things that matter most, both in life and in The Life of Chuck. Flanagan finds inventive and stylish ways to remind us of this throughout, shaking loose deep-seated memories from Chuck’s upbringing and highlighting the way small choices or unobtrusive memories can create a lasting ripple effect throughout the years.”
It’s been eight years since Ari Aster came onto the scene and helped usher in a new wave of horror with Hereditary, one of the rare horror movies from the past ten years that still seems to come up in conversation every single week. And it’s back in the conversation this week, with Ari Aster revealing at an event that he’s already written a prequel to Hereditary!
Ari Aster was on hand at the American Cinematheque for Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair last week, a Los Angeles festival that screened all of Aster’s movies to date. The website Gold Derby reports that Aster revealed the Hereditary prequel script during a Q&A at the event, and you can watch the full Q&A conversation below for confirmation on the website’s report.
“I wrote a prequel to this,” Aster told the crowd, referring to Hereditary. “It never feels like the right time to do it. It’s a prequel, not a sequel so I don’t know where this goes.”
Would a potential Hereditary prequel dig deeper into the mythology of demon king Paimon? Unfortunately, Aster provides no further details on his prequel approach at this time.
Aster said of Hereditary during the same Q&A, “I was just trying to make a really good horror movie.” I think most horror fans would agree that he more than accomplished that goal, and the past eight years have proven that Hereditary is an enduring classic of its generation.
We celebrated the fifth anniversary of Hereditary here on BD back in 2023.
Ron Breton wrote, “Hereditary offers a similar emotional resonance to this new generation of horror – my generation of horror– as movie-goers in the seventies when they first saw Exorcist. Much like Aster’s film, we see the incomprehensible evil wear the face of a young girl; the victim of a raw deal she had no say in, as it tears a family to its core. Sure, both films offer so many terrifying visuals that can make the hair stand up on anyone’s neck – but it also depicts intense relationships and emotions that are tangible. Real. Familiar.”
“In that familiarity lies the uncanny, ready to rear its ugly head and force us to confront thoughts and horrors laying dormant and clawing at our psyche,” Breton continued his 5th anniversary celebration of Hereditary. “And it doesn’t matter if it’s been five or fifty years. These horrors are always there, as we become pawns in its horrible, hopeless machine.”
Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff, Ann Dowd, and Milly Shapiro star in Hereditary. In the film, “A grieving family is haunted by tragic and disturbing occurrences.”
That’s putting it mildly, eh?!
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