24fps

A Screenphiles.com blog

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REview: The Eternaut (2025) | Close Encounters of Another Kind

If you’re a movie fan, alien invasion movies are not only fairly common, they’re fairly repetitive thematically speaking. Which is to say that the aliens turn up, humanity puts aside their various differences, and the aliens are repelled. The thing is this is not a fairly common template, it’s the version of such things Hollywood exports all over the world. This is exactly why the Netflix…

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Shooting With a Virtual Green Screen

I recently did a REview of M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap – it’s not a great movie – but the making of that video was the first time I worked with a virtual green screen on a longer-length video (I use it regularly on shorter ones). The experience was informative and something I intend to use again, so I wanted to write briefly about what I learned. Positives Image resolution I noticed that when…

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REview: The Monkey (2025) | A (Very) Bloody Good Time

I have to admit that when I learned that Osgood Perkins (I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House, Longlegs) was working with James Wan on a Stephen King adaptation, I wasn’t optimistic. After all, Wan is at best uneven as a director/producer while I’d argue that there are more mediocre to bad Stephen King adaptations than solid ones. And then there’s Osgood Perkins, who’s very patient…

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Trailer Into Reaction - Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) | Official Teaser Trailer

I remember growing up wishing that Marvel Studios had control of the properties they ‘leased’ to other studios during their bankruptcy, like Spider-Man, the X-Men and the Fantastic Four. Well, 2.5 out of three ain’t bad because with Disney’s purchase of the theatrical assets in 2019 they officially regained possession of the X-Men and Fantastic Four. And while Sony Pictures still owns the right…

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REview: Oddity (2024) | An (Almost) Perfect Beast

Damian McCarthy’s Oddity is by my reckoning the best movie horror movie I’ve seen in 2025 (it was released toward the end of the prior year) not because it’s perfect – though it’s pretty damn close – but because it does so much right. By which I mean the movie introduces numerous things at the beginning of the movie that it pays off before the credits roll. And while that might sound like a…

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REview: Squid Game 2 | Clear Skies But Clouds Ahead?

The second series of Netflix’s Squid Game is really good though I wonder if the upcoming third, and final, season can maintain momentum and wrap in a satisfying fashion; which if you’ve seen The Prisoner (1967-1968) – a series Squid Game is likely inspired by, along with Battle Royale (2000) – is harder to do than one might think. And it’s worth reiterating that The Prisoner lasted a single…

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REview - Alien: Romulus (2024) | Alien-ish

I was surprised that I enjoyed Hulu’s Prey (2022) as much as I did though what I think so impressed me about it was the way that it advanced the mythology of the Predator. And sure, it did nothing that Dark Horse Comics wasn’t doing when they had the comics franchise (Predator and Alien currently are released via 20th Century Comics via Marvel) though it’s good that Hollywood can at least glom…

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Losing Momentum

Apparently in the future according to Fede Alvarez and Alien: Romulus acid-bleeding aliens aren’t the only things that don’t quite make sense (I can see no reason for the Alien to have acid for blood and it has always been a part of their mythology that’s bothered me. It’s clearly an apex predator and such an ability comes off as little more than overkill. The Facehugger? In that instance it…

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Review: Salem's Lot (2024) | Must See TV (For All The Wrong Reasons)

My expectations for the, as far as I could tell, unnecessary remake of Steven King’s Salem’s Lot were fairly low because there were not only already two prior miniseries based on the same novel but both were pretty good. I prefer the 2004 version but there’s nothing at all wrong with the 1979 one. As a result I didn’t see the point of a remake unless perhaps the filmmakers had something more to…

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Trailer Into REaction: Nosferatu (2024) | Official Trailer

I have a sneaking suspicion that Robert Eggers’ upcoming Nosferatu is going to not do all that well at the box office. And there are a few reasons why I think that that going to be the case – take a look at the video for more – one worth thinking about is why it’s being released being Christmas. And let’s be clear, the movie looks (based upon the trailer) like a particularly dour period piece,…

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Trailer into REaction: The Soul Eater (2024) Official Trailer

While I think that the best genre is produced in the United States, there are some pretty strong contenders. Such as the French. Directors like Alexandre Aja, Xavier Gans, Dominique Rochere, Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, etc are really doing some really interesting work in that they take ideas you’ve seen before, such as serial killer or zombies, and tweak it in really interesting ways…

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Trailer Into Reaction- On The Trail of Bigfoot: The Ancients

I don’t tend to enjoy movies that speculate on the existence of cryptids like Bigfoot, Nessie, Champ and whatever based entirely on people’s say-so without a shred of supporting evidence (and it goes without saying that whenever there is proof it that it tends to be unconvincing). Which brings me to the trailer for On The Trail of Bigfoot: The Ancients because I’m willing to wager the movie also…

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Trailer into REaction: Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983) - Crosetti | XPerimental

I’ve gotta admit that I’ve become a bit fixated with Jack Clayton’s Something Wicked This Way Comes because having listened to the soundtrack for his movie by Georges Delerue (before he was replaced by James Horner) it’s music that’s vastly different from the visuals. This leads me to believe that, while I’m quite aware that there were new scenes along with the music, that maybe those reshoots…

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REview: Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)

If you’re familiar with David Ayer’s Suicide Squad (2016) it’s probably due to it being a massive hit at the box office (which I think had to do more with the time it was released than anything else because during what I like to call the superhero boom you could throw a cape on virtually anyone, film it and make millions, if not billions. How else does one explain Captain Marvel, a fairly…

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Marvel's Studios Real Problem

By my reckoning the biggest problem that Marvel Studios faces is less sequels or superhero fatigue – something I’m not at all convinced exists – than runaway production costs. Some might tell you that interest has waned in superhero films, which is blatantly not true (particularly when it comes to Marvel Studios, though DC Films…the jury’s still out) though it’s something that should be looked…

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(Seemingly) Eternal Spawn

There’s been movement on Todd McFarland’s Spawn movie – I don’t know if Jamie Foxx is still attached – though this movie seems to have been in development for almost a decade. According to Comicbook.com McFarland has brought in a two-time Academy Award nominated writer, though at this point I’m just wondering if he’s just stressing details that don’t need the emphasis because I would think that…

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Sorry, That Ain't Cthulhu

I really enjoyed William Eubank’s Underwater – though if you haven’t seen it check out his first movie, The Signal (2014), which combines Dark City (1998) with an alien abduction story; which is admittedly a bit oxymoronic, but it works – and even own a copy (or is that license?) though whatever the creature is that menaced the crew of the undersea rig in that movie, it definitely wasn’t Cthulhu…

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