Related: Steven McBee Jr. Reveals When Dad Steve Sr. Will Be Released From Prison
Advertisement
Entertainment
How The Most Popular Movie Of The 1990s Made You The Bad Guy
By Joshua Tyler
| Published
Below is what you think South America’s Aztec pyramids look like.
This is what they actually look like.
What the Aztecs actually built was so shoddy it dissolved in the rain after the Conquistadors showed up. The impressive, long-lasting structures you’ve been attributing to them weren’t built by the Aztecs or any other Native American culture. They predate them by thousands of years, and no one knows for sure who built them. The Aztecs found them in the jungle, moved in, and started using them to perform horrific human sacrifices.
You believe something different because of Hollywood’s persuasive ability. It’s a process that’s been happening since the dawn of film, and it began with the books of Zane Grey.
Hollywood Was Created By Agreeing To Do Anything For Money
If you know Zane Grey at all, it’s as the author of cheap cowboy books your Dad used to read before bed. But his work wasn’t always viewed that way. In the early 1900s, he was one of the pet authors of America’s elites, who had recently become enamored with a trendy ideology suggesting we had the American Indians wrong.
These ideas had been around since the mid-1800s, but never gained any traction. The elites continued circulating them, though, lapping up books which supported their unpopular view of American Indians as victims.
So Zane Grey wrote a book called The Vanishing American, in which he reframed American Indians as morally superior and European descendants as inferior murderers. The elites loved it. However, no one else did. The average American of the time, perhaps with the recently heard horror stories of their grandparents’ real experiences fighting them in their heads, still thought of Natives as brutal savages who had it coming.
Around that same time, movies were just starting to become a thing. But the movie industry was viewed as low-class, and it was sneered at by those same Zane Grey fanboy elites.
So, in what would become a pattern for the film industry, in 1923 Hollywood cynically adapted Zane Grey’s The Vanishing American into a movie, specifically to access the investment capital of the American upper class. This strategy worked and was one of the first steps toward legitimizing the film industry.
Despite being turned into a movie back in the days when there weren’t many movies, The Vanishing American didn’t change the minds of anyone outside that upper crust. While Hollywood had made the movie, it hadn’t made them true believers in its ideology.
Jimmy Stewart’s Broken Arrow Launders American Indians
Hollywood spent World War II cranking out government-mandated content showcasing Germans as crazed demon worshippers and the Japanese as evil caricatures. When the war was over, the head honchos in Hollywood, who were by then on their way to becoming the new elites, had begun to adopt those early-1900s elitist views.
Yet the war hadn’t changed the minds of average Americans, who returned from fighting Nazis with their belief in the superiority of their own culture not only intact, but fortified by their experience battling repugnant Nazi culture. So in 1950, Hollywood set out to change those average American minds, starting with their favorite and long-time cultural villain: the American Indian.
20th Century Fox hired director Delmer Daves to adapt a book by Elliot Arnold called Broken Arrow, a book that fictionalized the signing of a peace deal between the Apache Chief Cochise and the American government. Daves’s explicitly stated purpose in making the film was to make it Pro-Indian, something which was at the time basically unheard of.
To play Broken Arrow’s native loving crusader, he hired the most sympathetic actor who has ever lived: Jimmy Stuart. To play the chief Cochise, Daves hired a white man. In fact, all the Indian speaking roles are played by white actors in brownface, actors who talk in plain English rather than attempting some semblance of an accent.
That was Broken Arrow’s chief trick. Daves wanted his caucasian audience to think of Native Americans as being no different from them. This isn’t a guess; the movie explicitly states that as its primary goal. So Broken Arrow painted some Californians brown and called them Indians, while doing little to make them seem like Native Americans.
This is Familiarity Laundering.
Familiarity Laundering is the process of making a person, group, idea, or culture seem safer and more acceptable by stripping away the traits that make it feel foreign, difficult, alien, or threatening. It’s like changing the cover of a book and pretending that has somehow also changed its contents.
The native characters’ costuming is minimal. Feathers are nowhere to be seen, and most of the natives Jimmy Stuart encounters look more like day laborers hanging out in a Home Depot parking lot than they do fierce Apache warriors.
Of course, the real Apaches didn’t speak English and didn’t act like Europeans at all, but in this movie they do, and Broken Arrow papers over that factual inaccuracy at the outset with an announcement claiming everything you’re about to watch is totally factual and truly how it happened.
It’s a clumsy and obvious attempt at audience manipulation, but it worked. After decades of trying, public opinion started to shift. The myth of the noble savage began to grow among the media class.
Kevin Costner Pushes Jimmy Stewart’s Message Across The Finish Line
Average Americans continued to resist. Schools still taught the Plains Indians as savages and their Mesoamerican counterparts as doubly so, while the Conquistadors were still taught as heroes.
So the now fully convinced media doubled down on the noble savage myth, with crying Indians and rock songs about how cool they were. They had limited success, but it wasn’t until 1990 that it finally, fully took hold and became the common view. It was Kevin Costner who made it happen.
1990 was the year Dances With Wolves arrived in theaters, made half a billion dollars at the box office, and cleaned up at the Oscars. In it, Costner plays Union soldier John Dunbar. He becomes a war hero by accident and uses his reward to escape to a remote frontier post.
He finds his post abandoned, but stays anyway. Alone with his horse and a curious wolf, Dunbar slowly comes into contact with a nearby Lakota Sioux tribe.
What begins as fear turns into trust, helped by Stands With A Fist, a white woman raised by the tribe. Her entire family was slaughtered by the Lakotas she lives with, but the film glosses over that by only showing it in a flashback with slow motion and careful cutaways, so the audience never sees any of the true brutality.
Stands With A Fist is played by Battlestar Galactica’s Mary McDonnell, and she’s a key component. Until this movie, most people believed women taken by natives were kept as slaves or worse. But Dances With Wolves uses her to “prove” the Lakota are kind and caring. She loves her life there; is treated like an equal, and doesn’t want to leave.
Costner’s Dunbar learns their language, joins their hunts, fights beside them, and begins to understand that the “savages” he was taught to fear are not the threat. The audience is made to believe that real danger on the frontier isn’t the natives; it’s the army coming west behind Dunbar.
This is an Identification Reversal
Identification Reversals are something we’ve talked about a lot on Screenwashed. If you want to see how it’s used in other movies, check the link! It’s a psychological technique in which an audience is initially encouraged to identify with one character, viewpoint, or emotional response, only for that identification to gradually shift to an opposing or contrasting figure as the story progresses.
Soon Dunbar, as the audience representative, turns traitor and joins the Lakota in fighting his own people. The film justifies this by portraying American civilization as collapsing and corrupt. Every part of it Dunbar encounters is a mess.
American medicine is quackery; American forms of government are frauds; American frontier living is so terrible that people are literally committing suicide to escape it. It’s so cartoonish and ridiculous that your brain never questions it. You accept it as, ok, this is what history must have really been, because obviously no one would invent something this silly.
This is an Absurdity Bypass.
An Absurdity Bypass is a persuasion trick where an idea is made so extreme, exaggerated, or openly ridiculous that the audience stops applying ordinary skepticism and accepts it as part of the premise.
It’s an intellectual clown show, but Dances with Wolves looks and feels beautiful. It was all anyone could talk about that year. The world fell in love, and whatever remaining anti-Indian sentiment was left after decades of screenwashing totally evaporated.
Now Americans were clearly the evil ones, and Native Americans were a great and proud civilization which had somehow been conquered by a totally inferior one. None of that makes any sense, but that’s how it felt to audiences walking out of Dances With Wolves. That feeling has only intensified, pushed by further and continuous screenwashing being used on the public ever since.
Dances With Wolves finished the job Broken Arrow started, by fully flipping popular sympathy toward Native Americans and transferring the stereotype of violent savage Indians over to the soldiers who’d previously been portrayed as defenders of civilization.
That stereotype reversal was then transferred to all native cultures. Suddenly Aboriginal bushmen became noble, and the Aztecs invented an advanced civilization with a polite and peaceful culture that definitely didn’t ritually murder millions of children. Even those cannibalistic tribesmen in Papua New Guinea probably weren’t actually so bad. Sure, they may have eaten Michael Rockefeller back in 61, but have you seen a picture of him? That guy looked delicious.
For you see, my fellow Americans, you were the bad guy all along. Enjoy your fake Aztec pyramids, everyone; you’ve been screenwashed.
Continue Reading
Steven McBee Jr. is not ready to dip his toe back into the dating pool just yet after his messy split from Allie Eklund earlier this year.
“I am not dating right now. I’m solely focused on my family, myself and, obviously, the businesses,” Steven, 33, exclusively told Us on Thursday, July 16, referring to his family’s McBee Farm & Cattle Co. company and their other ventures, including selling meat and tallow skincare.
The McBee Dynasty: Real American Cowboys star noted that the rush to date after his breakup with Allie, 29, in April goes “back to that pressure that I feel with my family all settling down and starting their lives.”
While two of Steven’s younger brothers have found The One already, he told Us he’s trying not to compare himself to them. (Cole McBee is engaged to Kacie Adkison, with whom he shares daughter Blair. Jesse McBee is married to Alli McBee, and the couple share daughter Summer. The youngest brother, Brayden McBee, is single.)
Steven McBee Jr. Tommy Garcia/Bravo
“I don’t want that to persuade my timeline or affect my timeline. I think that’s a bad way to do a relationship,” Steven confessed. “Obviously, I think it contributed to the downfall of my last one.”
The McBee Farm & Cattle Co. CEO added, “I want to make sure I’m in a relationship on the right timeline and for the right reasons. And so for that, I’m just focused on myself, family and the businesses right now.”
Steven began dating Allie in fall 2025, which fans saw play out on season 3 of the Bravo series, airing now.
Just weeks into their relationship, Steven told his family that he wanted to propose to Allie, calling her The One.
During the Monday, July 20, episode of the show, which was filmed in November 2025, Steven told his mom, Kristi McBee, that he was trying to figure out how soon was too soon to ask Allie’s dad for her hand in marriage.
“I went into it with really high expectations. I was like, ‘I’m gonna go down there, and her family’s gonna love me. I’m gonna woo her family, and by the end of the week, I’ll be asking for her dad’s blessing to marry her,’” Steven told Us of meeting Allie’s family over Thanksgiving 2025. “I was head over heels, love drunk there.”
During the episode, Steven admitted that Allie’s family wasn’t as all-in on their relationship as he was, which took him aback.
“I went in with way too high of expectations,” he recalled to Us. “Her family ended up loving me. It just took a little bit longer than I expected, but I had some really, really high expectations.”
Allie Eklund and Steven McBee Jr. Todd Williamson/Bravo
Steven shared on the episode that he had a list detailing the exact type of engagement ring Allie wanted in his phone. He confessed to Us that he got a little ahead of himself.
“No, I did not buy the ring,” he added. “There was a financial component to it. I was gonna have to save up for a little bit for that.”
Steven never had a chance to pop the question, as he and Allie broke up in April. Their split came after Steven publicly accused Allie of cheating on him at Stagecoach Music Festival, which she denied. (Steven later issued a public apology for his “cruel and degrading” messages about Allie and vowed to be “better.”)
While Steven is not currently focused on finding a new girlfriend, he told Us that he still has a “list” of what his dream girl looks like — both physically and mentally.
The McBee Dynasty: Real American Cowboys stars are gearing up to welcome Steven “Steve” McBee Sr. home early amid his two-year prison stint, Us Weekly can exclusively confirm. “Thankfully, we’re down to less than two months now before he gets out,” Steve’s eldest son, Steven McBee Jr., exclusively told Us on Thursday, July 16, confirming that […]
“The list [has] definitely changed a little bit since last November,” he revealed. “And I will say that list was not, like, a hard set of rules that without a doubt, this is exactly what has to happen. It was more of a manifestation. Like, if I had my dream ideal situation, this is what it would be.”
Steven noted that he is no longer set on a blonde, saying, “The physical looks have changed. I’m open to any hair color.”
“As far as what I want to do with my wife and build a life together, not only on the personal side, but professionally, I want to work day in and day out with my wife,” he shared. “I think that is such a cool experience to say that hey, we built something from the ground up together. I still really want to do that.”
Allie, meanwhile, exclusively told Us earlier this month that cowboys aren’t off the table when it comes to who she wants to date next — despite her messy split from Steven.
“Whenever I was dating Steven, you know, I didn’t think that I was going to have first dates again. So, I’ve been wrapping my head around that,” she confessed.
Allie explained, “I really would prefer to date someone that’s been in my life before, is what I am thinking. [Someone] that I know has a proven track record of supporting me.”
The influencer, who is from Texas, added that having a man who resides in her home state would be “amazing,” because she sees herself being there “long-term.”
“I would love to find someone in Texas, and a lot of Texas boys are cowboys. So they are not off the table for me. We’ll see,” Allie teased.
The McBee Dynasty: Real American Cowboys airs on Bravo Mondays at 9 p.m. ET.
Us Weekly has affiliate partnerships. We receive compensation when you click on a link and make a purchase. Learn more!
Anne Hathaway’s summer maternity looks are seriously inspiring my style, and I’m not even pregnant! The moment I saw her step out in a beachy crocheted cardigan, I knew I had to recreate the outfit. Luckily, I found this breezy sweater style on Amazon that mimics her look for under $30.
Let’s analyze how maternity wear has changed, shall we? Gone are the days of boxy, loose items that are designed to hide the fact that your body is growing a human. Women can (and should) wear anything, and it seems Hathaway believes that, too. That’s why I love seeing her rock clothing that anyone can wear, like this cardigan style.
Get the Kate Kasin Cropped Crochet Cardigan for $22 (was $27) at Amazon! Please note, prices are accurate as of the publishing date but are subject to change.
Hathaway looked like a vision when she stepped out in New York City wearing an all-white get up. Her cropped crocheted cardigan added dimension and a boho flair to her summery outfit. And honestly, the simple, thin layer added even more personality to her outfit, which is inspiring me to buy one for my collection.
If you’re seeing Nicole Kidman‘s woven shoe style all over your feed, same. Whether you call it a sneakerina, ballet sneaker, ‘jazz shoe’ or anything in between, there’s no denying it appears expensive. We found Kidman’s luxe look hiding on Amazon! For the 2026 Wimbledon Tennis Tournament, Kidman paired a cream-colored power suit with ballet […]
The beauty of this Kate Kasin lookalike is its intricacy. When you wear it, you won’t even feel the need to put on additional accessories because it makes a statement all on its own with the detailed floral knit. The slight warmth it provides also makes it ideal for chillier nights when temperature dips or when the air conditioner is turned on low at the office.
We’re partial to the white color because of Hathaway’s choice, however, shoppers are fans of every hue. One even owns the sweater in eight colors. “I wear it with everything; jeans, dress pants, skirts, dresses, sundresses, crops,” the reviewer wrote. “It is a perfect sweater to wear year round . . . the sweater is lightweight and it has a beautiful texture, almost a silky feel. It is my go-to wardrobe piece.”
One simple piece, like this Kate Kasin crochet cardigan can be a game changer for your wardrobe. Level up your summer layering today by adding it to your cart.
Get the Kate Kasin Cropped Crochet Cardigan for $22 (was $27) at Amazon! Please note, prices are accurate as of the publishing date but are subject to change.
Looking for something else? Explore more from Kate Kasin here, and don’t forget to check out all of Amazon’s Daily Deals for more great finds!
UsNow Summer Sale Alert: These Chic Fashion Finds are over 30% off – Plus Free Shipping
Welcome to summer with our biggest sale of the year. This summer’s chicest dresses, tops and swimsuits are all over 30% + free shipping. Inventory is limited so hurry before they’re gone.
Sure, jeans pair well with basic tops, but on days when you’re looking for something a bit more elevated, Reese Witherspoon‘s outfit is the perfect source of inspiration. Her classy blouse style begs to be worn with denim, and we found a near-identical, expensive-looking design on Amazon, on sale for only $13! Witherspoon recently took to […]
“Dutton Ranch,” one of the most recent spinoffs of Taylor Sheridan‘s “Yellowstone,” premiered in May 2025 with Ed Harris among the cast. However, while promoting his new Apple TV film, “The Dink,” Harris opened up about feeling misled about his role on the Paramount+ series and wanting to quit partway through filming.
Harris attended the premiere for Apple TV’s “The Dink” on July 20. While on the red carpet, the legendary actor spoke to Variety’s Marc Malkin, and the topic of “Dutton Ranch” arose. He was first asked how many seasons of the show, which was created by Chad Feehan and Sheridan, he’d signed on for.
Harris confirmed that he’s contracted to film two seasons of the Paramount+ show. However, regarding how he initially felt about the series, he shared that “Midway through this first season,” he told his representation to “get me the f-ck out of here.” When asked why, the 75-year-old stated, “Because I didn’t feel I was being used.”
He went on, “I felt a little bit misled. Prior to signing on for it, I was talked to quite a bit about what the season was, and what my character was going to do — and that I was one of the four main characters.” Harris then said that it “wasn’t really the case” regarding his character being one of the main ones.
Ed Harris Still Says The ‘Yellowstone’ Spin-Off Is A Good Show
The “Apollo 13” alum continued his interview with Variety by sharing what he told the production crew at “Dutton Ranch” about how he felt. According to the actor, “I said, ‘I’m feeling underused and inconsequential,’ and they kind of went, ‘Oh.’”
Regarding season two, Harris said, “I’m being told my character will have a little bit more to do [in Season 2]. I was just a little frustrated, to tell you the truth.” He also shared that filming for the second season will begin in February.
From there, he revealed his honest reaction to the show, calling it “pretty good” and saying he “felt fine” about his performance in it. Harris also called his character “relatively important to the story.” However, he admitted, “But the doing of it did not feel that way.
In revealing what “really p-ssed him off” about the show, Harris stated that he was told he’d need to sing in one of the episodes. However, the song was edited out of the scene.
‘Dutton Ranch’ Is A Blockbuster Hit
Paramount+ debuted the first two episodes of “Dutton Ranch” on May 15 of this year. The series follows “Yellowstone” characters Beth Dutton, Rip Wheeler, and Carter. The show takes place roughly six months after the events of the “Yellowstone” finale.
Regarding viewership, according to Deadline, “Dutton Ranch” became the biggest series premiere in Paramount+ history, garnering 12.9 million eyeballs in its first seven days of release. Notably, the show also debuted on Paramount Network, with 1.9 million people tuning in when accounting for delayed viewing.
‘The Dink’ Arrives On Apple TV Soon
Harris has multiple projects in various stages of development. His latest, sports-comedy film, ‘The Dink,’ is set to premiere on Apple TV on July 24 following its premiere event, where the beloved actor spoke about “Dutton Ranch.”
The film follows a down-on-his-luck tennis player, played by Jake Johnson, who begins playing pickleball in order to rehab an injury. Over the course of the film, Johnson’s character discovers a passion for the sport. The cast also includes Patton Oswalt, Chloe Fineman, and more.
Ed Harris Previously Spoke About Not Retiring
Harris has played over 100 roles throughout his decades-long career in Hollywood, and it seems the actor has no plans to slow down. In 2022, he spoke to Senior Planet and was asked if he had plans to retire.
Harris responded, “No, because I don’t know what else I would do with myself. I really do enjoy acting on stage and in front of the camera. After doing this for 40+ years, I don’t particularly enjoy trailer time, waiting to work.”
He then said, “So I actually just enjoy working; it still gives me a thrill. And I really love directing. I haven’t directed a film since ‘Appaloosa,’ which was, unfortunately, 15 years ago. But I’ve got a project to direct that I’ve been trying to get going and hopefully will in the next year or so.”
In the 1990s, the sci-fi genre reached new heights. With the advent of CG-character technology, the tools available for filmmaking increased exponentially. The impossible was now possible, and ideas that were once non-viable in the feature film format were now able to be realized. Of course, technology is only a tool—it can get you so far, but it’s story and character that determine whether a film will stand the test of time. But master filmmakers like James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, Luc Besson, and the Wachowskis seized upon these new opportunities and crafted sci-fi films that would endure for decades.
Of course, the advent of new technology also opened up a wealth of new thematic potential as well. The rise of the digital age gave way to fear of robot uprisings or computers taking over the world, and this resulted in terrific (and terrifying) stories that were relevant to a rapidly changing world. All in all, the ’90s were one of the best decades for sci-fi filmmaking, and in an effort to highlight some of the most memorable films from that period, Collider’s own Haleigh Foutch, Adam Chitwood, and Dave Trumbore have singled out 25 great examples. Behold, the best sci-fi films of the ’90s.
25
‘Screamers’ (1995)
Set against the backdrop of a Cold War on a nuclear war-ravaged planet, Screamers takes a grim and desolate view of the future, focusing on a planet full of soldiers from two sides of the same battle who have been abandoned by their government in the aftermath of war. On the planet Sirius 6B, commanding officer Joe Hendricksson (Peter Weller) sets out to seek peace with his combatants when he learns the truth that Earth has essentially left them for dead on their remote posts. But Sirius 6B is populated by “Screamers,” a form of man-made artificial intelligence weaponry, properly called an Autonomous Mobile Sword (AMS), that evolved beyond what man ever intended. As Hendricksson and his team set out across the wasteland, they face peril at every turn from the various, sometimes deceiving, forms the Screamers have evolved into, and director Christian DuGuary makes fine work of ratcheting up the tension, along with the dramatic stakes, as they make their way towards an uncertain alliance.
The underrated Screamers has some serious sci-fi pedigree, based on a short story by the great Philip K. Dick with a screenplay co-penned by Alien scribe Dan O’Bannon. It never quite lives up to that grand promise, but Screamers is a refreshingly serious-minded spin on what could have easily become a schlocky B-movie that delivers visceral, pulse-pounding thrills every time its titular murder-bots attack. —Haleigh Foutch
24
‘Escape from L.A.’ (1996)
Where Escape from New York was a precisely cut, stylish science fiction classic — politically subversive, serious-minded in its conception, and vibrantly inventive in its imagery — Escape from L.A. seems more purposefully cheeky and cheap. This isn’t to say that the second mission by Snake Pliskin (Kurt Russell) isn’t encoded with John Carpenter’s particular brand of leftist politics, but it’s delivered in a far more bombastic aesthetic, the dark greys and blues of the first film traded in for yellows, oranges, and reds. This is, in a sense, a reflection of the difference between the two cities, but also reflects the mythology of those cities. New York is thought of as a dangerous realm rife with killers, gangs, and violent thieves, whereas Los Angeles is the playground of the blowhards, the covert sadists, the con men, and the self-obsessed.
In a sense, this is a commentary on Carpenter’s arrival in the Hollywood system, far away from his early days as a cult genre filmmaker who had to do some hard-scrapping to get his meager budgets. In Escape from L.A., pitted against a cruel revolutionary who makes himself up like Che Guevara, Pliskin is a man with a name, a celebrity even, brawling and shooting his way out of an island of West Coast maniacs and derelicts, just trying to get a job done. —Chris Cabin
23
‘Stargate’ (1994)
An early work of Roland Emmerich‘s, Stargate is a disaster film that laid the groundwork for the grand-scale sweeping popcorn movies that would come to define his career. The film takes place after the discovery of an extraterrestrial teleportation device that transports matter from Earth to a far-flung alien planet with a distinctly ancient Egyptian flavor. When James Spader‘s Egyptologist Daniel Jackson discovers how it works, he joins Kurt Russell’s military man Jack O’Neill through the portal with a team of soldiers to investigate the planet on the other side. Naturally, once they’re there, everything goes to hell as they come up against the tyrannical sun god Ra (Jaye Davidson).
Emmerich hadn’t yet fully defined his signature style, and it often feels like he’s borrowing moves from familiar playbooks, but the sum of Stargate‘s parts is something that feels wholly his. It can be far-fetched and ridiculous, but part of Emmerich’s greatness is his grandiosity, and the Spader/Russell team-up delivers on its promise of eccentric odd-couple chemistry. It’s a big, boisterous popcorn movie carried by a fantastic leading duo and the emerging outlandish sensibilities of its filmmaker. —Haleigh Foutch
22
‘Tank Girl’ (1995)
Straight up, Tank Girl just isn’t for everybody. It’s cheeky camp to the utmost degree that essentially boils down to a series of strange vignettes and set-pieces that occasionally feel like someone built a film around a string of high-octane music videos. But it’s also fun as hell. A pure product of the MTV generation, the forgotten Tank Girl is like a highly concentrated dose of the alt-rock ’90s, with a pretty jammin’ soundtrack that includes Portishead, Bjork, Hole, Veruca Salt, and Bush.
Based on the comic of the same name by Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin, Tank Girl stars Lori Petti as the titular smart-mouthed hellion, a flippant, fearless icon of zero-f**ks-given who squares off against the evil Power & Water Corporation in a desert landscape where water has become a commodity so valuable it’s worth killing for. It’s consummately silly, unapologetically so, but it’s made joyfully and without abandon, and if you’re of the right disposition, it’s an absolute delight. —Haleigh Foutch
21
‘The Faculty’ (1998)
Spun from familiar threads of classic sci-fi yarn, The Faculty is a teen movie through and through, but in the hands of director Robert Rodriguez and screenwriter Kevin Williamson, it’s got enough punchy zeal and reverence for the genre it’s playing in to make for a fun, if somewhat silly, pulpy pleasure in its own right. If you’ll allow me to be a bit reductive, The Faculty feels like The Breakfast Club by way of Invasion of the Body Snatchers with a healthy dose of The Thing. The film pits a rag-tag group of teenagers against an alien invasion that turns the infected hosts into a conforming hive mind.
While The Faculty may deal in cliché characters on the surface level — the annoying cheerleader and her quarterback boyfriend, the twerpy smart kid, the slacker genius, the vaguely goth outsider, the too-pure Midwest transplant — it works because they’re all much more interesting than your standard trope fare. The teachers don’t get quite as much of a fair break, but with actors like Robert Patrick, Bebe Neuwirth, and Famke Janssen in the roles, they’re fabulously creepy as they fall one by one to the alien infestation. While teen movies are all too easy to deride, the virulent conformity narrative may have no more natural home than the halls of a high school, and Rodriguez largely steers clear of angst and apathy in favor of a campy, gleeful thrill-ride. —Haleigh Foutch
20
‘Event Horizon’ (1997)
There’s something about Event Horizon that is just downright unsettling and chilling. It’s a complete B-movie, directed by Paul W.S. Anderson of Resident Evil fame, but it also lands on a surprisingly effective tone that somehow wrings out a nightmarish sense of doom amidst the poor character decisions and indulgent flourishes. The story follows Sam Neill as Dr. William Weir, the designer of a groundbreaking space travel vehicle, who journeys into space with a team of military scientists to uncover the cause of a distress beacon. Weir’s great invention was a gravity drive that allows for rapid space travel by creating black holes that close the gap between points in spacetime. But, as always in any good horror sci-fi, that kind of defiance of nature reaps unholy rewards when an evil force consumes the ship, thrusting the rescue crew into the same terror that befell their predecessors.
There’s no doubt that Event Horizon cribs from superior films, and not in a way that feels like homage, but the sense of dread it conjures is a work all its own, punctuated by well-rendered moments of visceral gore and violence, all of it stemming from the natural middle ground where science fiction meets horror. —Haleigh Foutch
19
‘Gremlins 2: The New Batch’ (1990)
Gremlins 2 is a damn delight that may even be better than the original Gremlins, and I will fight anyone who says differently. While the first film was firmly in the horror genre, for the sequel, director Joe Dante wanted to craft a darkly funny satire, and boy did he do just that.
The follow-up takes place in a massive skyscraper in New York City as corporate greed leads to the creation of a hodgepodge of Gremlins (this Key & Peele sketch apparently isn’t too far off). The result is a hilarious, twisted, colorful monster movie with nods to classic films throughout. I get that some may think Gremlins 2 is cheesy or dopey, but Dante was purposefully leaning into the ridiculousness of the conceit, and his willingness to get crazier and crazier as the film rolls on is what makes Gremlins 2 such a joy to behold. —Adam Chitwood
18
‘Mars Attacks!’ (1996)
If Tim Burton is often guilty of style over substance, Mars Attacks! is all style, no substance. The title is literally the plot of the film. Martians show up on Earth. Then they attack. That’s it. That’s the movie. It’s not bad; in fact, it’s pretty fun; it’s just not much. Fortunately, if style’s all you’ve got, Mars Attacks! has got it in spades. A doting spoof and homage to 1950s alien invasion pics, it’s pure B-movie schlock and surprisingly sadistic. As the Martians stage their no-prisoners invasion, Burton relishes finding new ways to dispatch and torment his earthlings, who are played by an impressive cast.
But this movie isn’t about the acting, and most of them end up with not much to do. The political satire is on-the-nose, and the plot… wait, just kidding, there isn’t really a plot, and without a narrative to hold things together, it’s the top-notch production value that ends up being the real star of the film. Spectacle isn’t enough to be great, but in this case, it’s enough to be good enough thanks to how Burton lovingly harkens back to the films that so obviously influenced him as a budding filmmaker. — Haleigh Foutch
17
‘Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country’ (1991)
Nicholas Meyer just gets what makes Star Trek tick. The filmmaker behind what’s almost universally considered the greatest Star Trek movie of all time, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, returned to helm another standout installment with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. The film is essentially a sci-fi murder mystery set against the backdrop of racial tensions and the threat of war that finds Captain Kirk and McCoy wrongfully charged and imprisoned for the murder of the Klingon High Chancellor, while the rest of the Enterprise’s crew rally to rescue them.
It’s a fine send-off for Star Trek‘s original crew, a philosophical and introspective exploration of the series resonant deeper themes that always respects the characters while still delivering the sci-fi spectacle with outstanding effects and clever gadgetry. The Undiscovered Country can feel bloated in parts, but it never overstays its welcome as a well-crafted vehicle for the beloved Enterprise crew and their iconic cast of characters —Haleigh Foutch
16
‘Independence Day’ (1996)
Image via 20th Century Studios
While the sins of the ill-advised sequel may be fresh in our minds, that unfortunate debacle can’t quite dim the shine of Roland Emmerich’s 1996 sci-fi spectacle, Independence Day, which remains a bombastic delight even now. The movie follows three heroes of the alien apocalypse: Will Smith‘s hotshot army pilot Captain Steve Hiller, Jeff Goldblum‘s everyman satellite technician David Levinson, and Bill Pullman‘s Thomas J. Whitmore, president of the United States in the aftermath of a hostile invasion from an unknown alien combatant.
Through the use of miniatures, Emmerich crafted enormous effects set-pieces, sending the world’s iconic landmarks up in flames and billowing plumes of smoke. But unlike a lot of Emmerich’s inferior works, Independence Day delivers characters as entertaining as the explosions, making for a blockbuster disaster adventure that has genuine charm and humor along with its kaboom-ing excess. —Haleigh Foutch
Adam Levine and Behati Prinsloo are celebrating a major relationship milestone, but their anniversary has also reignited discussion about one of the most difficult chapters in their marriage.
As the longtime couple marked 12 years together with a romantic getaway in St. Tropez and a heartfelt social media tribute, new reports suggest the Maroon 5 frontman has spent the years since his 2022 messaging scandal working to rebuild the trust he nearly lost.
Nearly four years after his texting controversy dominated headlines, insiders say Adam Levine has worked to move beyond the scandal that threatened both his family life and career.
According to one source, the fallout became a turning point for the singer, forcing him to reevaluate how he approached both fame and his personal life.
“Adam has spent the last several years trying to repair his public image following the texting scandal. It was a wake-up call on multiple levels,” the insider told the Daily Mail.
They added, “It hit his ego, his public perception, and ultimately his earning potential.” Another source claimed the 47-year-old eventually realized he needed to change course if he wanted to protect everything he had built.
“Ultimately, he realized the industry wasn’t going to bend to him forever. He had to adapt or risk losing the career and lifestyle he’d built,” the insider explained.
Levine And Behati Prinsloo Reach A Major Marriage Milestone
Those reported changes come as Adam Levine and Behati Prinsloo celebrate 12 years as husband and wife.
The pair recently escaped to St. Tropez, where they were photographed sharing affectionate moments aboard a yacht before Levine honored the occasion on Instagram.
“Twelve years married to my favorite human. I love you… over and over again for the rest of my life,” he wrote.
Besides the public affection, another insider believes their relationship has made significant progress since the scandal erupted.
“Their relationship is in a much healthier place than it was in the immediate aftermath of the scandal,” the source explained.
They added, “That doesn’t mean everything is perfect… but Adam has made enough changes to keep the marriage intact and avoid repeating the mistakes that nearly cost him everything.”
Adam Levine’s Texting Scandal Sparked Widespread Scrutiny
Levine’s personal life came under intense scrutiny in September 2022 after model Sumner Stroh posted a TikTok claiming she had carried on a “year-long affair” with the singer while sharing screenshots of alleged conversations between them.
“Essentially, I was having an affair with a man who’s married to a Victoria’s Secret model,” Stroh said, adding that they were seeing each other for about a year.
Among the alleged messages was, “It is truly unreal how f-cking hot you are.” Stroh later described herself as “young,” “naïve,” and “manipulated,” claiming she believed Levine’s marriage was effectively over before Prinsloo announced she was expecting their third child.
She also alleged the singer wanted to name the baby after her. Additional women later shared alleged exchanges of their own, including one message that read, “I shouldn’t be talking to you, you know [that] right?” and another saying, “Yes but it’s a bit complicated,” when asked about his marriage.
Following the allegations, Levine denied having physical affairs but admitted that his online behavior crossed a line.
Levine Was Described As A ‘Super Weird Guy’
While Adam Levine has largely stayed focused on his family and career in recent years, one insider claimed the controversy exposed long-standing issues with how he handled fame.
“Adam Levine is a super weird guy… he has not handled fame well. He is not warm and fuzzy, and he used to be arrogant,” the source alleged.
The insider also claimed the situation had been especially difficult for Prinsloo, adding, “It has been hard on Behati as he has flirted with other women. She has just taken it. She has stood by his side because she is very in love with him.”
Even so, multiple sources now say Levine has embraced a different outlook, with his attention centered on maintaining both his marriage and the career he nearly jeopardized.
Adam Levine Says Fatherhood Changed Him In Unexpected Ways
Levine’s recent anniversary celebration with Behati Prinsloo isn’t the first time he’s reflected on how much his family has changed him.
Before marking 12 years of marriage, the Maroon 5 frontman opened up about the impact fatherhood has had on his life, revealing that raising his three children has made him far more emotional than he ever expected.
Speaking to PEOPLE in February 2025, Levine said becoming a dad didn’t alter his coaching style, but it transformed him personally.
“I’ve softened a lot as a person in a lot of other ways,” he explained, adding that he has always tried to treat people with kindness because he believes it’s never productive to be mean.
The star also admitted fatherhood had made him much more emotional, joking, “I have three kids, I cry every day,” while describing raising his children as “the best sh*t ever.”
Levine added that leaving home for work was difficult, but providing for his family had become his greatest motivation.
Influencer Ulissias Marcelli and her boyfriend Vinícius Souza de Carvalho were reportedly shot to death ahead of a festival appearance in Brazil.
The alleged murders were announced by Brazil’s Festival Rock Gaya, as Marcelli and Carvalho were scheduled to appear at the festival prior to their deaths at ages 30 and 28, respectively. (Marcelli was expected to host Festival Rock Gaya festivities on Saturday, July 25.)
“We’re still trying to find the words for a moment like this. It’s hard to believe that someone who was about to share such a special moment with us is gone so soon,” the festival announced on Saturday, July 18. “At this moment, the entire team of the Rock Gaya Festival joins together in solidarity with the family, friends and everyone who has had the privilege of knowing it. Rest in peace Ulyssias.”
Per People and local outlets, civil police in Bahia, Brazil, confirmed that a farm worker found Marcelli and Souza de Carvalho’s bodies on a rural roadside in Porto Seguro on July 17. Gunshot wounds were reportedly visible on the late couple’s bodies.
Ulissias Marcelli Courtesy Instagram / Ulissias Marcelli
Local outlet G1 reported that police suspect that Marcelli and Souza de Carvalho may have been held captive by their alleged killers before their murders. Investigators are looking into whether the alleged murders may be connected to drug trafficking and the sale of narcotics in the area.
Marcelli is survived by a 13-year-old son, according to G1. Her Instagram bio indicated that Marcelli was from the Porto Seguro area.
Marcelli grew a loyal fanbase of more than 20,000 Instagram followers with her ornate and elaborate styling and cosplay videos. She became known for an aesthetic that embraced gothic and modern horror elements.
She was also reportedly famous for her eye-catching live stage performances where she often incorporated fire into her choreographed routines.
Following news of her death, fans flooded Marcelli’s Instagram comments section to pay tribute to her life and legacy.
“Unfortunately, I only got to know this goddess after her demise. May Hekate keep her spirit with great glory,” a newer fan wrote in the comments section of Marcelli’s pinned Instagram post.
Another fan added, “May spirituality welcome you and your companion 😢 and take care of your child and kitten 😢 who’s going to pay!!! If you calm down, follow the light, everything will be alright.”
“Shocked, I really enjoyed seeing her posts, she was beautiful. God comforts the hearts,” a third fan wrote.
“I’m in disbelief 😭 ! One of my biggest inspirations, one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen. Rest in peace,” an admirer added in the comments section of another recent post.
After several seasons on “Saturday Night Live,” Chloe Fineman is reflecting on what it was like to leave the long-running sketch comedy series. While the comedian is excited about what comes next in her career, she admitted that saying goodbye to the iconic show was a bittersweet experience and shed light on her relationship with her former cast members.
On July 16, Chloe Fineman took to Instagram to announce her departure from “Saturday Night Live” after seven seasons. She included a carousel of screengrabs from sketches and photos with her fellow cast members, writing, “It’s cliché to say this but working at SNL has been the greatest privilege of my life. I still can’t really believe I got to be a part of it.”
Fineman also addressed “SNL” creator Lorne Michaels and said, “I want you to know that I am forever in your debt.”
Days after the announcement, The Hollywood Reporter caught up with the comedian and asked her about her departure. Fineman said it was difficult to leave the show and her co-stars.
“It’s a hard show, but the people, it’s because of hours and everything. But, like, it really is a family, and I’ve been crying, like, sweet tears,” she shared.
Following Fineman’s exit announcement, an insider claimed that the comedian found it difficult to establish a rapport with some cast members, as The Blast previously reported. Another source disputed the claim and said she had no issues with her co-workers.
Fineman shed light on her relationship with the “SNL” cast, sharing that she has formed a meaningful bond with them. “I’m genuinely really good friends with everybody and I genuinely couldn’t love that job more. So, it’s really bittersweet,” she explained, adding that she will still be staying in New York, down the street from where “SNL” is filmed.
Why Did Chloe Fineman Leave ‘SNL’?
Fineman’s departure follows the exit of other cast members, including Heidi Gardner, Ego Nwodim, and Bowen Yang, who all bid farewell to the sketch series in 2025. The former left after eight seasons, and the other two exited after seven seasons.
“Seven years is kind of like the classic way,” Fineman said about leaving. The comedian revealed that her contract with “SNL” was about to end when she was presented with an opportunity to pursue another avenue. “It just felt like the perfect time,” she added. As she noted in her social media post, “It’s time for my next chapter.”
Fineman said that her former co-stars have been supportive of her decision, and they have reached out to her. Yang, Nwodim, Sarah Sherman, Marcello Hernandez, and Kenan Thompson all posted sweet replies to her social media post.
“SNL” big boss Lorne Michaels was preoccupied when Fineman called to tell him she was leaving the show. “In classic form, he was watching England vs. Argentina,” she shared.
Lorne said he was going to call her back because he was watching the game, to which Fineman joked, “I assume you’re rooting for England because you’re energetically very British.” Michaels, indeed, returned her call, and while she didn’t share details about what they talked about, she told Variety that they “had a really lovely chat.”
Before joining “SNL,” Fineman was a sketch improv artist and had minor roles on TV. She became a cast member in 2019 and became widely recognized for portraying original recurring characters such as Kelsey and The Snack Homiez Boy. She also impersonated celebrities including Drew Barrymore, Britney Spears, JoJo Siwa, Sydney Sweeney, and Timothée Chalamet.
Chloe Fineman Joins Cast Of Upcoming Netflix Series
Fineman stars in the upcoming sports comedy from Apple Original Films titled “The Dink” alongside Jake Johnson, Ben Stiller, Mary Steenburgen, Ed Harris, Patton Oswalt, and Aaron Chen. It is scheduled to be released on July 24.
Furthermore, the comedian landed the role of sports reporter Parker Quinn in Netflix’s “Myron Bolitar,” a drama series based on the collection of thriller novels written by Harlan Coben. The show will focus on the titular character, played by Colin Woodell, a sports agent who protects his clients while navigating the world of professional sports.
“Myron Bolitar” is currently in production, but a release date has yet to be announced.
Silo did not become one of Apple TV‘s most beloved original series by sticking to the script. Although the show is based on a trilogy of books by Hugh Howey, the story has been expanded and changed quite a bit in the adaptation, and fans haven’t complained. Howey’s novels were short and self-published, and practically begging for more detail. However, Season 3 kicked off this month with one of the first changes to cause widespread muttering among fans — the story of Juliette’s (Rebecca Ferguson) induced amnesia. Now that we’re three episodes in, it’s clear that this was actually a brilliant move for the TV show, and perhaps an overall improvement to the story.
When the trailers for Silo Season 3 began to show Juliette suffering from amnesia, fans and critics came up with all kinds of theories about how and why this plot line was added. We feared it might feel like a stretch, added just to draw out Juliette’s story while other things were introduced to the narrative. Even then, there were some ideas online about how the amnesia arc might work well, but they all fell short of showrunner Graham Yost‘s actual vision.
Viewers Get A Timeline While Juliette Loses Hers
A major unforeseen aspect of Juliette’s amnesia plot line is that it juxtaposes the experience of the audience themselves. Viewers have spent two seasons now wondering how, when, and why humanity ended up confined to these underground shelters, and the mystery has been woven into complex knots without coming any closer to a solution. Readers of Howey’s books new that we’d have to start answering these questions with the storyline of Congressman Daniel Keene (Ashley Zukerman) in Season 3, yet we didn’t imagine how well these info-dump flashbacks would work alongside Juliette’s amnesiac nightmare.
Of course, the connection works narratively as well, since Keene’s story deals directly with the same memory loss drugs afflicting Juliette in her story. In fact, it’s becoming clear how much groundwork the show has done to set up the memory loss drugs in general. The storyline concerning Dr. Cnkovich (Matt Craven) is already hitting harder on the show than it did in the books. It’s always a good idea to add more depth to the fantastical elements of a sci-fi series, and it looks like the Silo team has been planning this from early on.
This week, Season 3 Episode 3 “A Dark Web” gave some clear indications of where the amnesia plot line is going and how it will flow into the next phase of Juliette’s story. By all appearances, it’s going to work very smoothly. The show won’t miss anything from the books, and it will feel perfectly natural to get back on track. Some may still call this a detour made just for the sake of the show’s run-time, but even then, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. With most streamers tightening their belts and shortening the seasons on their most expensive shows, it’s a relief to see one series taking its time and pacing things right.
‘Silo’ Adds Stories Without Replacing Anything
Adaptations are generally criticized for any changes to their source material, and for the most part, that’s valid. Popular novels tend to work as they are, and changes threaten to destabilize the entire house of cards the story stands on. Modern audiences are particularly traumatized by shows like Game of Thrones, and these days it can be a full-time job cataloging all the changes in an adaptation and debating them online.
Somehow, Apple TV has attained an exemption from this trend. The network’s adaptation of Foundation by Isaac Asimov might be unrecognizable to the author himself or one of his contemporary readers. However, its approach to changes is very similar to that of Silo — they fill in gaps in the books rather than change events and characters. This mostly serves to deepen worldbuilding, add visual flair, and make the most out of the talent on hand.
For Silo, this amnesia plot line might be their biggest addition so far, yet it doesn’t really replace anything essential. So far, the show has thoroughly adapted Howey’s first novel Wool, which ends at the point when Juliette returns to Silo 18. The second novel in the trilogy is Shift, which completely ignores Juliette’s story to follow Keene through his flashbacks. Only in the third book, Dust, do we pick up the story and move it forward.
Naturally, Silo Season 3 did not want to drop Juliette’s plot entirely. It seems likely that the season will begin including material from Dust, but in the meantime, this amnesia plot is a clever way to tell two parallel stories without losing the momentum of the series altogether. On top of that, this addition doesn’t need to replace or alter anything about the beginning of Dust. If anything, Juliette’s memory loss will flow perfectly into her time as mayor and her confused scramble to help her people before it’s too late. Many aspects of the story will make more sense this way in the end, and will emphasize the undercurrent of manipulation and social engineering that keeps the silos running.
Silo Season 3 continues on Fridays on Apple TV. Previous seasons are streaming there now, and Howey’s books are available in print, digital, and audiobook formats.
- Release Date
-
May 5, 2023
- Network
-
Apple TV
- Showrunner
-
Graham Yost
- Directors
-
Morten Tyldum, David Semel, Michael Dinner, Aric Avelino
- Writers
-
Graham Yost, Hugh Howey, Jeffery Wang, Lekethia Dalcoe
NFL legend Aaron Rodgers reunited with his family after at least a decade of estrangement, though one member of the Rodgers clan was seemingly missing.
On Monday, July 20, Aaron, 42, shared an Instagram carousel of himself posing with his parents, Ed and Darla Rodgers, and older brother, Luke Rodgers. While the family was all smiles in these new photos, Aaron’s younger brother, The Bachelorette star Jordan Rodgers, was noticeably absent.
“Another bonding week,” Aaron captioned the carousel.
Aaron’s rift with his family reportedly dates back at least a decade. When Jordan, 37, competed on future wife Jojo Fletcher’s season of The Bachelorette, he revealed to her that he wasn’t in touch with Aaron.
“Like I said, I have a great relationship with my brother Luke. Me and Aaron don’t really have that much of a relationship,” he said in the 2016 episode. “It’s just kind of the way he’s chosen to do life and I’ve chosen to stay close with my family and my parents and my brother. Yeah, it’s not ideal and I love him and I can’t imagine what it’s like to be in his shoes and have the pressure he has, the demands from people that he has. Don’t have hard feelings against him, it’s just how things go right now.”
The Bachelorette memorably left two empty chairs for Aaron and his then-girlfriend Olivia Munn at a family dinner — which the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback took issue with.
“They go on a bulls*** show and leave two empty chairs,” Aaron said on his 2024 Netflix series Enigma. “They all agreed this was a good thing to do, to leave two empty chairs at a stupid dating show that my brother just went on to get famous — his words, not mine. That he ended up winning. But a dinner that was during the season, I was never asked to go to. Not that I would’ve gone.”
Aaron was not in attendance when Jordan and Fletcher, 35, tied the knot at the Sunstone Winery in Santa Ynez, California, in May 2022.
In another Aaron Rodgers: Enigma scene, Aaron briefly touched on the origins of his rift with Jordan.
Megan Briggs/Getty Images; Kareem Black/USA Network Given the very public estrangement with his family, Aaron Rodgers certainly hasn’t been eager to share the spotlight with his brother. While Aaron, 40, was competing in the American Century Championship celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe in 2016 — which coincided with his younger brother Jordan Rodgers, 35, […]
“It wasn’t like I was super duper close with everybody in the family. I was close with my little brother,” Aaron said of his brother. “But in actuality, it goes back to stuff from high school that kind of made me feel distant. Stuff in college, stuff post-college.”
He also pointed to his “rigid” religious upbringing as a point of contention.
“I grew up in a very white, dogmatic church and that just didn’t really serve me,” he recalled in Enigma. “It was very rigid in structure. I’m not a rigid person. Shame, guilt, judgment. It was like, ‘We have the truth. Our way or the highway. Our way is heaven; your way is hell.’ Even talking to my parents, it was very black and white. Like, somebody has to be wrong, somebody has to be right. I just slowly uncoupled from that in high school.”
More recently, Aaron blasted his family for speaking publicly about their rift for years before he finally decided to address the situation.
As Aaron Rodgers celebrates his new marriage, he revealed the hostility within his immediate family continues to rage on. Rodgers, 41, appeared on ESPN’s The Pat McAfee Show on Tuesday, June 24, where he discussed his wife, Brittani, for the first time since he announced they had tied the knot recently. In doing so, Rodgers […]
“If you look at the saga with my family, for years it was one-sided,” Rodgers said on The Pat McAfee Show in March. “They were making shots in the media saying bulls***.”
He added, “I never said anything until it got to the point where I’m like, ‘Alright, enough is enough.’”
It is not clear whether anyone in Aaron’s family was in attendance when he married wife Brittani in 2024.
The year 2020 will forever be known in history as the year that the world shut down. Nevertheless, you can’t stop horror movies — especially vampire movies, as the crepuscular crop that’s been produced since then has included some of the most outstanding films in the entire eerie canon. Indeed, the eternal plague of ageless bloodsuckers has been at the forefront of many talented filmmaker’s minds, and the work produced has been thankfully immortalized on film.
Welcome to the roaring/sucking 20s of vampire cinema. Some of the macabre moving pictures of the last six years have resurrected old fables from far-off lands, like in The Vourdalak, while others tackled morbidly modern mischief, as in the thrill-a-minute genre mash-up Abigail. No matter how you slice it, vampires are here to stay, and they are only getting more and more complex and creepily charming. So, break out the holy water and crucifixes, and enjoy these six malevolent masterpieces. Just remember…there’s a lot at stake.
6
‘Blood Red Sky’ (2021)
Director/co-writer Peter Thorwarth’s innovative vampire story is quite fast-paced; 500 miles per hour, to be exact (it’s set on a plane). Indeed, the story is a wild, riveting one that never lets up on the heart-rate-accelerating action. It’s a dazzling mixture of horror, action, and suspense, with bold vampiric scares and blazing fight sequences to spare.
The premise of this film is great. It’s about a mom, Nadja (one minute lovely, the next terrifying, Peri Baumeister), who has a rare “blood disorder.” She hops a flight from Germany to New York with her tiny son, Elias (Carl Anton Koch), in hopes of receiving medical treatment for her blood…issue. The only problem is that the flight is hijacked midway through by terrorists, led by Berg, (scary in his own right, Dominic Purcell). The aforementioned problem really belongs to Berg and his insidious crew, since Nadja is a (beautifully bald) vampire who will stop at nothing to protect her lil’ pointy-toothed progeny. Brimming with tantalizing twists and rocking reveals, this film quenches even the most discerning vamp enthusiast’s thirst for boldly bloody fun.
5
‘The Vourdalak’ (2023)
We always hurt the ones we love the most. This appears to be the major theme of French director and co-writer Adrien Beau’s visually lavish period piece The Vourdalak. It’s a uniquely conceived tale with very memorable (and terrifying) imagery that also manages to entertain with ironic humor and cleverly subtle commentary. Based on a Slavic vampire yarn from the 1800s, this sometimes humorous, often chilling tale is highly ambitious, and manages to deliver the stylized goods at every turn.
The story begins with a 19th century nobleman, Marquis d’Urfé (Kacey Mottet Klein), who finds himself lost in the deep, dark woods. He entreats locals to grant him entry (a little room and board, mayhaps?), yet is denied at every turn. Eventually, he’s directed to the rustic Gorcha homestead, where the family members eagerly await the return of the patriarch of the clan. This proves to be a big mistake, since papa Gorcha has been fighting hordes of evil in not-so-nearby Turkey. In fact, he warned his fam that he would most likely return as a wickedly evil entity intent on draining them of their blood (manifested in a disgustingly skeletal puppet, which the director voiced). Nevertheless, the fam welcomes his horrid homecoming, and the fish-out-of-water Marquis is smack-dab in the middle of all this. Gorcha’s clan (with the comely daughter Sdenka, played by Ariane Labed, as the standout) is torn between murking daddy and letting him feed — and the horrific hijinks are doled out in deliciously ironic fashion. Certainly a different type of vampire film, The Vourdalak is a glorious watch for fans of the darkly different.
4
‘Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person’ (2024)
A different French co-writer/director, Ariane Louis-Seize, tackles a bunch of the standard vampire tropes in Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person — like existential angst, morality versus primal impulses, and insatiable hunger — but she goes a few steps further with this nuanced reflection on the very nature of the human condition. Immortality comes with some hidden terms and conditions, Louis-Seize clearly posits.
Sasha (the precociously talented Sara Montpetit) is an early teen vampire who, for some bizarre reason, has a huge reserve of empathy, which has impeded her fangs from “dropping.” This is problematic for a sucker of blood, since it’s imperative that vampires have a killer instinct in order to survive. Her family (who has been supplying her with fresh, tasty hemoglobin) gets fed-up with her overly human sensibilities and gives her the directive: “find your own blood, or die.” Luckily for Sasha, she encounters Paul (Félix-Antoine Bénard), a lonely teen looking to end it all. Voilà. A beautiful bond is born, in a symbiotic relationship for the ages. This coming-of-(endless)-age tale is wryly comedic and sensitively unveiled. A biting dissection of familial alienation, this is a poignantly presented work that gives new meaning to the term “enfant terrible.”
3
‘Nosferatu’ (2024)
Gothic film master director Robert Eggers was handed quite a challenge: remake one of the most iconic horror films ever (that’s already received a bloody bevy of terrific remakes) and improve upon it. Well, he certainly was up to the expressionistic challenge with Nosfertatu. The tone, color palette, mood, and overall look are stunning; a truly well-designed and sublimely executed take on an undeniable classic.
The story (more commonly known to everyday filmgoers as Dracula) is focused on a relatively innocent girl, Ellen Hutter, played with wide-eyed wonder by Lily-Rose Depp (who, despite her nepo-baby status, does a remarkable job with the role). Ellen is betrothed to the dashing Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult), who’s been called away to the Carpathian Mountains to secure a land deal with the mysterious (and thoroughly revolting) Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård, who, despite his matinée star looks, has quietly made a lucrative career in playing the creepiest of antagonists). Orlok sees an image of Ellen in Tommy boy’s locket, and immediately becomes obsessed with making her his dark bride. The rest of the (near black and white) film plays out as one would imagine, with Orlok using his mystical powers of the night to try to seduce Ellen into joining him in demonically damned eternity. Eggers received a ton of acclaim for his careful handling of the gruesomely beautiful gothic material — and he deserves it. The film is a true work of baroque art, even if it’s the 4,582nd version of this story.
2
‘Abigail’ (2024)
Who said vampire movies can’t be fun? Definitely not directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who delivered one of the most action, laugh, and gore-packed vampire flicks of all time. Basically every morsel of this multi-genre mash-up movie is super entertaining. The story (conceived by screenwriters Stephen Shields and Guy Busick) is extraordinarily rich, crammed with clever subplots and twisty twists that permeate the entire tale. Add to all these already fantastic elements a perfectly assembled cast that delivers the goods — especially the titular star — and you’ve got one of the best vampire films of any time period.
The supremely well-crafted story revolves around a diverse cadre of criminals, kidnappers, if you will, that receive some (eventually revealed to be suspicious) intel about a massively valuable target housed in a huge estate. The thing is, each member of this crew has got quite the backstory — but none as layered as that of the main character, Joey (Melissa Barrera, who’s poised to become the next scream queen of the moment). So, they gear up, ready to snatch the person…who turns out to be a little girl…who turns out to be a sneaky, devilishly precocious vampire. Meet Abigail (the outlandishly gifted young actress Alisha Weir). Once her true, vampirific nature is exposed, things devolve into a nightmarish web of horrors for the kidnapper crew, as they try to navigate the booby-trapped home. Truly wonderful supporting performances by Kevin Durand as Peter, Dan Stevens as Frank, Giancarlo Esposito as Lambert, and Matthew Goode as the ambiguous, undead patriarch “Father” really bolster the already imaginative story, ferocious fight (and dance) choreography, and visually luscious art direction. Abigail dispatches the ultimate lesson of “never underestimate your opponent.”
1
‘Sinners’ (2025)
Music and cinema have always gone together. In fact, music has been an integral part of movies before there was even talking in them. So, when writer-director Ryan Coogler set out to develop one of the most entertaining and profound vampire films of all time, he knew that the specific music of the era that he was capturing had to be woven into the story in a groovily smooth manner. He definitely achieved this goal, as Sinners features the most soulful soundtrack and score of possibly any horror film ever.
The sublimely structured story is set in a very specific place and time, which informs all the action of the film. Sammie Moore (Miles Caton) is a young blues-loving guitarist in the Mississippi Delta in the 1930s. His preacher poppa wants him to follow in his devout footsteps, but Sammie would rather jam out at his cousins’ new juke joint. Yes, Elijah “Smoke” Moore and Elias “Stack” Moore (Michael B. Jordan in his Oscar-winning role(s)) have breezed back into town from the Windy City and have their hearts set on using their city slicker ways to make a buck in their old community. Stack’s old flame, Mary (Hailee Steinfeld, who is phenomenal at exuding smoky sexuality, earnest emotion, and then brazen wickedness), gets involved in the mix, complicating things tremendously (and not just because she’s white). Now, to the vampire aspect; a trio of Irish-born vamps desire entry to the Juke Club, and are met with some resistance…yet Remmick (the beguilingly dark Jack O’Connell), their de facto (de fango) leader, will not be thwarted. Of course, hefty themes of racial inequality, injustice, faith, and a lot more heady topics are explored here that elevate this film to one of the best of the decade, but now…back to the music. Sammie plays his guitar with such passion and soul that he is able to invoke the musical spirits of his ancestors…and even future descendants. The way Coogler and his sound crew blend the blues with the luxurious sounds of other eras is a wonder to behold (and then, naturally, the manner in which they masterfully mix in the scary score to accompany the vicious vampire parts is also perfectly executed). Overall, this moving movie is a knockout all around (just ask The Academy), and the earthy, pulsating sounds of the South will be resonating in the ears of vampire-movie-lovers for a long, long time.
Crypto World58 seconds ago
Robinhood Chain Booming, Bernstein Puts Higher Target on HOOD
Entertainment2 minutes ago
Steven McBee Jr. Is ‘Not Dating’ After Allie Eklund Split
NewsBeat5 minutes ago
Raven Adams: Mum of Belfast crash victim has had ‘heart shattered into a million pieces’
Entertainment1 month ago
Renter of Home in Anne Heche Crash Denies Settlement With Son
Business1 month ago
No Jackpot Winner as $257 Million Prize Rolls Over to $269 Million Monday Draw
Fashion4 weeks ago
Weekend Open Thread: Staud – Corporette.com
News Videos26 minutes ago
Crypto Gold Live Trading 20 JULY | Market Trader | #goldtrading #cryptotrading #bitcoin
News Videos40 minutes ago
5 Proven Ways To Make Money With AI (No Experience)
News Videos1 hour ago
8 Smart Money Habits to Clear Debt Faster | Tamil Motivation & Financial Tips#financialfreedom
-
NewsBeat5 days agoLondon Mayor Sadiq Khan handed a peerage by Keir Starmer alongside 15 other Labour figures… just days before the PM leaves No10
-
Fashion4 days agoWeekend Open Thread – Corporette.com
-
Politics3 days agoThe House | The City of London can help the new chancellor deliver growth in every postcode
-
Politics6 days agoYoung campaigners urge incoming PM to act on outdoor junk food ads
-
Crypto World6 days agoCFTC blocks Kalshi from unwinding Michigan trades after court order
-
Crypto World4 days agoTwo July Windows Left: The CLARITY Act’s Senate Fight and What Failure Means
-
Crypto World3 days agoRipple Payments Joins MiCA With 14 Firms, Does It Mean Anything For XRP?
-
Business5 days agoNvidia Stock Slips After Big Tuesday Rally as Huang Confirms Vera Rubin Chip Is Now in Production Today
-
Politics2 days agoDemocrats look to World Cup watch parties to register thousands of voters
-
Entertainment6 days agoDisney’s Most Ambitious Failed Star Wars Attraction Is Coming to SDCC
-
Crypto World4 days agoRipple wins EU-wide access as ESMA adds it to MiCA register
-
Crypto World4 hours agoGrayscale Files For Worldcoin ETF, WLD Registers Sharp Rise
-
Business5 days agoPalantir Shares Rise After Expanded Nvidia Partnership and Fresh Analyst Upgrades Ahead of Earnings Day
-
Crypto World5 days agoInjective Submits SEC Transfer-Agent Registration to Onchain Ownership Records
-
Tech12 hours agoSail Virtually Aboard The “Itanic” With IA-64 Emulator
-
Tech10 hours agoTurtle Beach Command Series KB7 review: a nifty screen-equipped gaming keyboard
-
Tech7 days agoDark Secrets Emerge When Jailbreaking LLMs
-
NewsBeat4 days agoRegistration is now open for March for Men with Kev 2026
-
News Videos7 days agoXRP BOMBSHELL… XRP OMBOARDED FOR TRANSACTIONS!!!
-
NewsBeat1 day agoUnregistered fitter used Gas Safe logo on business flyers
You must be logged in to post a comment Login