Movies
‘Transformers’ and ‘Friday the 13th’ Share a Weird Universe Connection
Michael Bay directed one and produced the other. But it goes deeper than that.
With Transformers: The Last Knight now out in theaters, I was reminded of something over the weekend that I had been meaning to look into for a while now. The latest Michael Bay-directed film is the fifth in the franchise that kicked off back in 2007, just two years before Bay’s Platinum Dunes remade Friday the 13th. But what do the two universes have in common, aside from Bay being creatively connected to both of them?
Oddly enough, actor Travis Van Winkle links the two in an unexpected way!
Van Winkle appeared in Transformers as Trent DeMarco, the character perfectly described on Wikipedia as “the stereotypical jock: he’s on the football team, has big arms and washboard abs, a sweet ride, a smokin’ hot girlfriend, and he hates nerds.” At the start of the film, DeMarco is the boyfriend of Megan Fox’s Mikaela Banes, though he’s dumped by her when she finally catches on that he’s, well, the biggest douche in school.
Trent exits the film after Mikaela leaves him.
Cut to two years later.
In the Friday the 13th remake, directed by Marcus Nispel, Travis Van Winkle plays one of the douchiest characters in the franchise’s history. He’s a self-obsessed asshole who ends up cheating on his girlfriend with her best friend. His character’s name? Trent, described as “a snobbish rich kid who loves to show off his wealth.”
And get this. As if it wasn’t already clear (he even drives virtually the same vehicle), IMDb notes that the character’s full name in Friday the 13th is, you guessed it, Trent DeMarco!
Yes, Travis Van Winkle played the same exact character in Friday the 13th as he did in Transformers; the horror remake reveals that Trent was killed by Jason Voorhees just a couple years after Mikaela dumped his sorry ass!
Now I’m not going to pretend that this means Jason Voorhees exists in the same universe as the Autobots and Decepticons, as it’s really just a fun connection between two Michael Bay films, but there is something undeniably amazing and amusing about a character we hated in Transformers being killed within the Friday the 13th universe.
That’s Jason for ya. Righting the world’s wrongs, one asshole at a time.
This week kicked off with the release of hippo horror movie Hungry at home, and four more horror movies have arrived for at-home viewing as we head into the final weekend of June.
Here are the new horror movies that released on Friday, June 26, 2026!
The Halloween season can no longer be contained to the months of September and October, with “Summerween” becoming a thing in recent years. Essentially, it allows for Halloween to bleed into the warmer Summer months, and the first ever Summerween movie has arrived.
The Asylum released Summerween onto Digital outlets today.
In the film from writer/director Ryan Ebert, “On Summerween, a former circus clown escapes a mental institution to return to his abandoned mansion and hunt the teens partying there.”
Cole Chapleski, Chase Breithoff, Logan Roe, Sophia Sabol, and Clint Morrison star.
Director Ryan Ebert is the man behind a string of recent indie horrors we’ve covered, including Shark Side of the Moon, The Jolly Monkey, Jurassic Reborn, and Predator: Wastelands.
A witchy coming-of-age story from Dark Sky Films, Camp is now playing in select theaters.
Check your local listings to find a theater near you.
Camp is from writer-director Avalon Fast (Honeycomb, The Serpent’s Skin).
“Emily is the root cause of two devastating tragedies very early in her life, and she feels the weight of these accidents as though cursed. At her father’s suggestion, she takes a position at a summer camp for troubled youth to ease her guilt. When Emily arrives, she is welcomed by the other counselors, who accept her as she is and surround her with peace and forgiveness.
“As Emily begins to believe in a new kind of life, she starts to hear a voice whispering from deep in the woods — one that urges her to go home, and one that may be impossible to ignore.”
The film stars Zola Grimmer in her screen debut alongside Alice Wordsworth, Cherry Moore, Lea Rose Sebastianis (Castration Movie Part 1 & 2, In A Violent Nature), Ella Reece, Austyn Van de Kamp (This Too Shall Pass), Sophie Bawks-Smith (Honeycomb), Izza Jarvis, and Aiden Laudersmith.
Producers Tyler Perry and Jason Blum have joined forces for Peacock Original Strung.
The film is now streaming only on Peacock.
“A talented violinist takes a prestigious job as a music tutor for the gifted daughter of an influential and enigmatic family. As she becomes entangled in their opulent world, unsettling secrets begin to surface, forcing her to question her safety, her dreams, and even her sanity.”
Malcolm D. Lee (Scary Movie 5, Space Jam: A New Legacy) directs from a script written by Alan B. McElroy (Wrong Turn, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers).
Chloe Bailey (“Swarm“), Lynn Whitfield (Jaws: The Revenge), Lucien Laviscount (“Scream Queens”), Anna Diop (Us), Coco Jones (Vampires vs. the Bronx), Langley Kirkwood (“Banshee”), and Romy Woods star in Peacock’s Strung.
Produced by Diablo Cody, director Meredith Alloway’s Forbidden Fruits brought a new coven of witches to the big screen earlier this year, and it’s now streaming on Shudder.
Lola Tung (“The Summer I Turned Pretty”), Victoria Pedretti (“The Haunting of Hill House”), Alexandra Shipp (Tragedy Girls), Gabrielle Union (Breaking In), and Emma Chamberlain star in Forbidden Fruits, released by IFC and Shudder.
Free Eden employee Apple secretly runs a witchy femme cult in the basement of the mall store after hours. But when new hire Pumpkin challenges the group’s ‘girl boss’ ways, the women are forced to face their own poisons or succumb to a bloody fate.
“Forbidden Fruits grabbed me by the neck the very first time I read it,” Diablo Cody said. “It’s one of the craziest, most creative, beautifully bonkers projects I’ve ever worked on.”
Meagan Navarro writes in her review for Bloody Disgusting, “Forbidden Fruits may not necessarily forge new terrain in the teen satire space, but Alloway brings so much style and energy to her well-cast single-location stage play adaptation for the Gen Z crowd.”
The film is an adaptation of playwright Lily Houghton’s stage play Of the Women Came the Beginning of Sin and Through Her We All Die. Alloway and Houghton co-adapted.
This week’s new release roundups are presented by HUNGRY.
All aboard the swamp tour from hell – this hippo isn’t playing games…
HUNGRY is now available on Digital. Watch it now!
You must be logged in to post a comment.