Movies
The ‘Rampage’ Adaptation Is In Serious Trouble
While I was beyond disappointed with Godzilla, I had high hopes for New Line Cinema’s Rampage, which would pit mankind against a giant gorilla, wolf and lizard.
Rampage is an adaptation of the classic video game in which the players controls the aforementioned monsters in an attempt to destroy cities across the country.
Now, New Line is looking at another disaster film for inspiration. And it’s a bad one.
Deadline is reporting that Brad Peyton is in talks with the studio to direct Rampage, reteaming him with the key players from the summer hit San Andreas, star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and producer Beau Flynn.
This is terrible news as, while Johnson is always a scene-stealer who can carry a movie on his massive shoulders, San Andreas was awful. And it’s awful because of both the screenplay and overabundance of CGI. You see, San Andreas looked like a lame cartoon, with giant tidal waves and buildings crashing down. It was poorly done, as the execution left little to the imagination. It’s so unrealistic that I found myself mentally checking out at multiple times during the movie.
Do we really want to see San Andreas with three giant monsters digitally inserted into it? Because that’s exactly what we’re going to get, unless of course the filmmakers learned from their mistakes. Odds are they didn’t as San Andreas‘ gross has shaken past the $460 million global gross mark worldwide to become most certainly the most successful original live action tent pole launch this summer, and also the highest grossing film Warner Bros has released this year (Deadline).
Oh, did I mention that Brad Peyton also directed both Journey 2: The Mysterious Island and Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore? Yeah, that’s who I want directing an adaptation of the beloved videogame. Consider me nervous, even though there have been some truly great surprises in Hollywood (like Bryan Singer’s X-Men film).
The live action adaptation of the 80s Midway Arcade game Rampage has a script by Ryan Engle, who scripted the Liam Neeson-starrer Non-Stop. In the script, three giant monsters–a gorilla, a lizard and a wolf–wreaking havoc on major cities and landmarks across North America, with Johnson standing in their path.
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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