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If “ Zola ” was one of the best adaptations of a Twitter thread to make it to the big screen, consider “Dear David” one of the worst. Based on a true(-ish?) story, “Dear David” follows Adam Ellis ( Augustus Prew ), a struggling comic artist working in the viral content mines of Buzzfeed in the internet yesteryear of 2017. In the middle of personal and professional uncertainty and a few Twitter feuds with trolls, Adam begins to suffer from sleep paralysis. He is unable to move when he notices his green rocking chair moving on its own or a door in his apartment swings out of its own volition. He notices an apparition staring back at him from the green rocking chair. Now, a cherub face with missing eyes is invading his nightmares (or are they his waking hours now?). As Adam plunges further into the ghost world, his best friend and co-worker Evelyn ( Andrea Bang ) and ex-boyfriend Kyle (René Escobar Jr.) become increasingly worried: Is their friend’s regular tweets about a ghost named David in his apartment real or his break from reality? Despite what his loved ones may suspect, the physical threats to Adam are only just beginning. 

Based on the collection of the real Ellis’ original ghostly tweets , “Dear David” fails to recreate the dread many felt when reading Ellis’ account as they happened in real-time. Whatever genuinely creepy moments, like the chair that rocks on its own or that his two cats stood by the door every night at midnight as if watching something outside, feel watered down by the extra storylines thrown in to expand the thread to a feature-length movie. As John McPhail (“ Anna and the Apocalypse ”) and screenwriter Mike Van Waes try to give David more of a background in 1996 and insert more drama into Adam’s life, very little of it helped make the case for “Dear David” stronger. Even some dialogue and exchanges between Adam, his coworkers, his ex, or sources feel as unbelievable as when these eerie moments are staged for the big screen. 

Perhaps the weirdest part of this ghost story is how and when the filmmakers decide to venture away from their source material. Van Waes, who shares a story credit with executive producer Evan Turner , can’t give the material more heart and soul than a made-for-TV movie, and McPhail and cinematographer Stephen Chandler Whitehead can’t make it look much better than one either. Whitehead also falls into the same trap many recent horror movies have bumbled into, which is to make certain scenes so dark it’s hard to see your characters, let alone the monster, in an attempt for ambiance. 

Something is lost in moving “Dear David” from its native digital platform. The scrappy creepypasta told in little dispatched bursts, loses a sense of its suspense and terror. Even when aggregated into a BuzzFeed article, the story feels less threatening, and now, in its cinematic form, “Dear David” is kind of laughably silly, not spooky. 

As the fourth BuzzFeed Studios movie after titles like “Puppy Love” and “My Fake Boyfriend,” “Dear David” does not bode well for a promising bright future in repackaging the site’s viral content and youth-centric ethos. Even in the film, which keeps Adam’s place of employment intact, there are jokes about the sorry state of media, the crushing pressure for traffic, and the push for aggregated metrics to prove you’re popular online. If the horror elements in this movie feel abysmal, the top ten listicle jokes and Justin Long ’s portrayal of BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti don’t fare much better. “Dear David” is branded content—uninspired and hollow to a fault—and perhaps that’s even more disturbing than a five-year-old internet ghost story. 

Now playing in theaters. 

Monica Castillo

Monica Castillo is a critic, journalist, programmer, and curator based in New York City. She is the Senior Film Programmer at the Jacob Burns Film Center and a contributor to  RogerEbert.com .

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Dear David (2023)

Rated R for violent content, language and a sexual reference.

Justin Long as Bryce

Augustus Prew as Adam Ellis

Andrea Bang as Evelyn

Rachel Wilson as Linda

Ethan Hwang as James

Tricia Black as Norris

René Escobar Jr. as Kyle Sanchez

• John McPhail

Writer (based on the Dear David tweets by)

Writer (story by).

• Evan Turner
• Mike Van Waes

Cinematographer

• Stephen Chandler Whitehead
• David Arthur
• Glenn Garland

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21 Films That Fans Chose As The Most Perfect Horror Movies To Ever Exist In Cinematic History

Get ready to sleep with the lights on.

BuzzFeed Contributor

Spooky season is officially here, which means there's obviously no better time than now for a scary movie marathon.

When reddit user u/motor_variety_4091 asked, " which horror movie is perfect " an endless amount of recs came through from film fanatics., we've rounded up the best movies worth adding to your watch list this halloween season. check them out below:, 1. "for whatever reason, i never get tired of watching poltergeist .".

— u/jaypeg126

"This was the movie of my persisting childhood nightmares. But I loved and kept wanting to watch it."

— u/Extra_Bullfrog

2. "The concepts in A Nightmare on Elm Street terrify me to even contemplate. None of the old slasher types instilled real-life fear in me."

— u/nicholasgnames

3. "The original Carrie (1976) captures the horrors of teenage girlhood brilliantly."

— u/Unique-kitten

4. "The first Scream was a great mix of horror and comedy while also being a parody of horror movie tropes."

— u/Jack1715

5. " Halloween . It’s a suspense masterpiece."

— u/boeheim03

6. " Psycho (1960). It gave audiences of the day quite a scare and set the bar for horror and suspense thrillers for decades to come. Perfect."

— u/CoopedUp1313

7. " The Exorcist . Still the scariest."

— u/KnotKarma

8. " Candyman (1992)."

— u/heretik

9. " The Thing ."

— u/phantomfigure

10. " The Blair Witch Project ."

"I know the whole 'found footage' genre has been done to death now, but this was one of the first movies to adopt this method, and it worked beautifully. You have to remember that this movie came out before the internet/social media...so when the marketing material claimed it was real, there really wasn’t much of a way to disprove it.

I still remember leaving the cinema as a 15-year-old shaking with fear. A superbly made, suspenseful horror movie, which still holds up to this day."

— u/massivebumwizard

11. " The Shining ."

— u/FoxlyticalXD

"Not only one of the scariest movies ever made, it is technically perfect as well. Every camera zoom, even scene, every edit, the sound editing, music, the sets, and the camerawork. Even the performances Kubrick got out of the actors were perfect."

— u/stanfan114

12. " The Others ."

— u/corgi_crazy

"This is one of my favorite movies of all time, regardless of genre. The ambiance is so palpable. All of the actors deliver so hard. And the plot keeps you on your toes the whole damn time. SUCH a good movie."

— u/kobayashi___maru

13. " Hellraiser scared me so much when I was a kid that I still don't watch it."

14. " The Conjuring . It has some terrifying scenes, like the basement scenes, and the wardrobe scene. It's just terrifying.

— u/No-Character5072

15. " Army of Darkness ."

— u/Lucky_Yogi

16. " Hereditary ."

— u/be-excellent

17. "Cabin in the Woods."

— u/Lord_Blackthorn

"This is one that stands out as the only horror-ish movie that I never would’ve been able to predict the outcome in a million years."

— u/Deadlifts_n_Riffs

18. "First movie that came to mind was Signs . A slow build from crop circles to full-scale alien invasion. As far as psych horror goes, that’s my favorite."

— u/WailsHD

19. " The Strangers ."

— u/soundecember

"That scared the bejeezus out of me. I haven’t watched it a second time, but I want to."

20. " Trick 'r Treat ."

— u/CheeseyCrakerz

"Love this and is a staple every Halloween."

— u/armypantsnflipflops

— u/B1gChuckDaddySr

"We actually checked closets and our basement when we got home after watching that at the movies. It scared us that badly."

— u/CardboardChewingGum

Which horror movie(s) would you add to this list? Share your pick in the comments!

Psst did you hear that tasty has its very own halloween tv special snoop & martha's very tasty halloween premieres thursday, october 21 only on peacock. check it out.

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BuzzFeed Stars in BuzzFeed-Produced Horror Dear David

Digital-media workers have always had a lot on their plates — dwindling salaries, layoffs, being chronically online — but one BuzzFeed worker had to deal with all of this while being haunted. And now, BuzzFeed Studios is producing a movie about the whole fiasco, starring BuzzFeed. Convenient. The film is a fictionalized ghost story based on Adam Ellis’s viral Twitter thread, which tells the story of Dear David, an entity he tweeted about haunting him beginning in August 2017. In the trailer, it all starts when Ellis (Augustus Prew) responds to a mean tweet about his artwork sucking since he joined the Jonah Peretti–led website. Despite his co-workers’ advice to ignore idiots on the internet, Ellis chooses to “troll to the trolls” and responds with a note for the hater to die in a fire (DIAF, apparently). Well, joke’s on him. He might’ve been sending a death threat to a malevolent minor spirit who has a tragic family backstory and chooses to haunt his apartment as revenge. Think floating furniture and jump scares. So Ellis turns it into content. A horror, indeed. Dear David the film is out in theaters and on digital October 13.

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Dear David – Movie Review (2/5)

Posted by Karina "ScreamQueen" Adelgaard | Oct 11, 2023 | 4 minutes

DEAR DAVID is a new horror movie based on the viral Twitter thread by BuzzFeed comic artist Adam Ellis. That might sound like a weird premise if you’re not familiar with the story, but it’s actually perfect for a horror movie. Read our full Dear David  horror movie review here!

DEAR DAVID is a new horror movie based on a Twitter thread that went viral and was featured in a BuzzFeed article. It’s a story of being haunted by a child ghost that you’ve somehow provoked by being an online bully. Admittedly, I was already familiar with this story, so it made perfect sense for me to see it adapted into a horror movie.

It’s off to an amazing start, but towards the end, something changes that did not work for me. Everything it had going for it – which was a lot – is thrown away for very generic jump scares. Including some CGI that really isn’t all that good. A damn shame as it was at a 3 star-rating and leaning towards a 4 out of 5, but ultimately ended up lower. You should check it out but don’t expect too much.

Continue reading our  Dear David  movie review below. Find it in theaters and On Demand from October 13, 2023.

Based on a real story

Whether you believe Adam Ellis or not, this movie is actually based on the real story of what he experienced. What happened was that comic artist Adam Ellis (Augustus Prew) made the grave mistake of responding to Internet trolls. He didn’t just respond to them, he wrote something very harsh which didn’t go over well with the Twitter account owner called Dear David.

Very soon, Adam is experiencing sleep paralysis. He is awake but unable to move as he watches an empty rocking chair moving in the corner of his apartment. Obviously, this is the kind of experience you can’t ignore. Especially as it’s only one of the strange things he feels has been happening.

Hiding under the covers, he shares the experience on Twitter. If nothing else, people will know what he’s been experiencing if things get worse. And in  Dear David , things do get worse.

Adam believes he is being haunted by the ghost of a dead child. A child named David who somehow manages to have a Twitter account. All while there isn’t officially a Dear David Twitter account despite Adam communicating with it. The Twitter thread goes viral and Adam’s boss ( Justin Long ) at BuzzFeed encourages him to continue exploring to build on the success.

All too quickly, Adam starts to lose it. He can no longer figure out what’s real and what’s a nightmare. Is there even a difference anymore?!

CreepyPasta and other online horror stories

We’ve seen similar adaptions of various CreepyPasta stories. Most famously is probably Slender Man which did not work well. Grimcutty   did a similar thing, but that one did actually work better. On ScreamBox , you can even find a horror anthology titled  CreepyPasta which also has several really strong segments.

For the first two acts, I was  very  impressed with how well this adaptation worked. And then that ended with the third act which just lost me.

It’s the curse of many of these CreepyPasta adaptions – as it is with all other horror movies. Maybe you’ll love the ending of Dear David , but as far as I’m concerned, they had a perfectly good horror movie and simply ruined it with the ending. For me, it changed the whole tone and went from being a character-driven horror story, based on a real-life experience, to just another generic horror movie.

Watch  Dead David  in theaters or On Demand

John McPhail ( Anna and the Apocalypse ) is the director with the screenplay by Evan Turner and Mike Van Waes. As already mentioned, the movie is based on the viral Twitter thread by BuzzFeed comic artist Adam Ellis. They’ve opted for taking this thread and article origin and including it very directly in the movie, which I appreciated. No need to change his name or the comic he’s known for.

He really should ignore the trolls though. That goes for everyone and anyone. Nothing good comes of arguing with Internet trolls.

You’re just feeding them what they want most, which is also an important point the movie is making. Complete with showing examples of how it can truly be just two teenagers having fun and letting go of (and forgetting) an interaction immediately, while it might fester deep in you. As Elsa says , just let it go!

If you’re familiar with the story from Twitter or BuzzFeed , then this release just in time for Friday the 13th (of October) and in time for Halloween makes it a perfect “new movie” of the year to check out.

Dear David  is out in US theaters, On Demand and Digital from October 13, 2023.

Director: John McPhail Screenplay: Mike Van Waes  Story: Mike Van Waes & Evan Turner  Cast: Augustus Prew, Andrea Bang, Rene Escobar Jr., Cameron Nicoll, Justin Long

Shortly after comic artist Adam (Augustus Prew) responds to Internet trolls, he begins experiencing sleep paralysis — while an empty rocking chair moves in the corner of his apartment. As he chronicles increasingly malevolent occurrences in a series of tweets, Adam begins to believe he is being haunted by the ghost of a dead child named David. Encouraged by his boss to continue the “Dear David” thread, Adam starts to lose his grip on what is online…and what is real.

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About The Author

Karina "ScreamQueen" Adelgaard

I write reviews and recaps on Heaven of Horror. And yes, it does happen that I find myself screaming, when watching a good horror movie. I love psychological horror, survival horror and kick-ass women. Also, I have a huge soft spot for a good horror-comedy. Oh yeah, and I absolutely HATE when animals are harmed in movies, so I will immediately think less of any movie, where animals are harmed for entertainment (even if the animals are just really good actors). Fortunately, horror doesn't use this nearly as much as comedy. And people assume horror lovers are the messed up ones. Go figure!

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‘Dear David’ Review: One of 2017’s Most Viral Twitter Threads Becomes One of 2023’s Worst Horror Movies

David ehrlich.

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I’ve never been especially afraid that Janicza Bravo’s inimitable “Zola” might pave the way for more films based on Twitter threads; in the time since one of history’s biggest losers began to delegitimize the platform just because he’s so bad at using it, not once have I found myself wondering: “But where are we going to get our movies !?” 

“Dear David” made me feel almost grateful that Musk thought he could buy his way out of insecurity, because this movie — written by Mike Van Waes — essentially twists Adam Ellis’ Twitter thread into a cautionary tale about the supernatural dangers of cyberbullying someone who can’t afford to dismantle one of the greatest journalistic tools in history just because he wasn’t getting enough likes. In this case, that someone is a creepy little kid named David, who grew up during the age of AIM and spent all of his time chatting with strangers in the basement of his parents’ bodega. One day someone told him to kill himself after he posted some of his own personal creepypasta into a chatroom, and now he’s a vengeful spirit who lurks around the internet and murders people for leaving mean anonymous comments, like if Samara from “The Ring” exclusively went after the haters. 

As if working at BuzzFeed as the site was losing its grip on meme culture weren’t hellish enough, Adam’s soulless boss (“Drag Me to Hell” co-star Justin Long at his shit-eating best) feels like a relic from aughts-era rom-coms as he circles the open-plan office and chides his staff for their failure to mine traffic from a recent story about someone waking up from a 21-year coma. But someone just waking up from a 21-year coma is the only person who’d find this depiction of online journalism to be realistic. The only thing that checks out is Adam’s constant fear of being fired, and the deep-seated insecurity that it brings to the surface, which leads Adam to withdraw from his boyfriend when they need each other most. That’s when he starts having night terrors in which he’s visited by a kid with half a head. And his rocking chair starts moving on its own. And his cats start huddling at the front door of his apartment at midnight every night.

Everything about this scene feels beneath McPhail’s talents as a storyteller, which seemed obvious in the wake of his scrappy and winning zombie musical “Anna and the Apocalypse”; the set-up for the scare is laughable, the attack itself is duller than watching someone die of natural causes, and the choice to include it in the first place is an irreparable self-own for a film in desperate need of ambiguity. Is this really happening, or is it just a byproduct of Adam’s anxieties and sleep disorder? That’s the first and only question asked by his Twitter followers and his IRL friends alike, and yet “Dear David” has the same need for cheap jolts as BuzzFeed does for web clicks and social media posters do for serotonin hits, and so it opts for bargain-basement horror tropes instead of leveraging its premise into a more probing story about the real horrors of trying to be a working professional on the internet. 

That at least taps into a broader message about the perils of becoming more invested in the abstract world of online strangers than you are in the tangible reality of your offline relationships, which is more than I can say about the later sequence where Adam is… playing himself in a video game? Or something? Whatever is supposed to be going on there, it’s a pretty huge conceptual leap for a movie that hasn’t even managed to meaningfully dramatize the virality of Adam’s Twitter thread, or the effect that sort of attention may have had on Adam’s self-esteem (beyond a few errant kudos from his boss). 

The only aspect of “Dear David” that rings true is its assessment that the internet, and especially Twitter, runs on insecurity. I’m glad that Adam comes to appreciate that he is enough, and I sincerely hope the same is true of the real person the character is based on, because inspiring a movie this bad is probably enough to make anyone have their doubts.

Lionsgate will release “Dear David” in theaters on Friday, October 13.

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'Dear David': Trailer, Cast, Plot, and Everything We Know So Far

What started as a viral Twitter thread is now the plot of Buzzfeed's feature film.

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When and where can you watch 'dear david', what is 'dear david' about, is there a trailer for 'dear david', who's in the cast of 'dear david', what is the background of 'dear david', who made 'dear david', more movies like 'dear david' that you can watch right now.

Adapted for the screen from comic book artist Adam Ellis 's viral Twitter thread, supernatural horror Dear David is set to release this fall. The movie follows a fictional version of Ellis as he becomes haunted by the spirit of a child named David. David - who has a chunk of his head missing due to the mysterious accident that resulted in his death - starts up an increasingly terrifying campaign of torment around Adam's apartment. Encouraged by his boss to exploit the haunting on social media, a reluctant Adam begins to lose his grip on reality. Here is everything we know so far about Dear David .

Editor's Note: This article was updated on October 8.

Set to join 2023's fantastic horror catalog ; Dear David will be available to watch this fall on October 13, 2023. BuzzFeed recently revealed that the movie will premiere both in theaters and on digital on the day of its release, allowing fans to watch it on the big screen or stream it at home. Lionsgate is behind Dear David's release, meaning the movie will likely be hosted on The Roku Channel and Peacock in the United States. Peacock plans start at $5.99 per month.

Based on the 2017 viral Twitter thread of the same title, Dear David centers on the life of BuzzFeed employee Adam Ellis. The movie follows the fictional version of Ellis as he finds himself haunted by the spirit of a boy named David. In the film, it seems Adam becomes haunted by David after engaging with online trolls. However, this differs from the original Twitter thread.

On the thread, Adam becomes haunted by David (who's been appearing to him in dreams) after breaking an important rule: never ask the boy more than two questions. Adam asks David how he died and what happened during the accident - and he also asks who was responsible for said accident. After being met with silence, he realizes his mistake and thus begins the haunting. It's unclear whether this exchange makes it into the movie and exactly how faithful the adaptation will be.

BuzzFeedVideo released a trailer for Dear David on its official YouTube channel on July 19, 2023. It's clear to see that the original storyline has undergone some changes in its journey from the internet to the big screen while watching the recently released video. Changes for the screen aren't uncommon, with classic horrors such as 1931's Dracula famous for veering away from its source material . The Dear David trailer begins with Adam Ellis in his BuzzFeed office, plagued by social media trolls who aren't exactly the biggest fans of his digital comic book art. After returning home and having a little too much to drink, Adam is seen making a rash decision: engaging with the trolls online. Almost instantaneously, Adam receives a reply from an account known as "Dear David," simply asking, "Why are you so mean?". After a notification that David is now following him, Adam crashes out. It's not long, however, before Adam experiences an episode of sleep paralysis, in which he sees an apparition of David staring at him from the corner of the room. Rattled, Adam posts about his experience online and researches more about the origins of David, which leads to his life descending into mind-bending terror and torment. Note to fans of the original Dear David Twitter thread: Keep an eye out for the movie Adam's online username.

On October 4, Lionsgate released a new clip from Dear David titled "Child in a Rocking Chair". The short video creates an extremely tense atmosphere with minimal sound and the cover of darkness. Watch it in the player above.

Augustus Prew ( About a Boy ) plays Adam Ellis and Cameron Nicoll ( Slumberland ) plays David. Joining them is Justin Long ( Barbarian ) as head of BuzzFeed Bryce, Andrea Bang ( Kim's Convenience ) as Evelyn, Rachel Wilson ( In the Tall Grass ) as Linda, Ethan Hwang ( The Umbrella Academy ) as James, Rene Escobar Jr. ( Heartland ) as Kyle, Tricia Black ( Pretty Hard Cases ) as Norris, Rachel Risen ( Leap Year ) as Olive, David Tompa ( Odd Squad ) as Fred, Seth Murchison ( Life with Luca ) as Kevin, and Deshay Padayachey ( The Boys ) as Harpal.

15 Internet-Themed Horror Movies That Will Make You Want to Quit Social Media

As previously mentioned, Dear David came to life via a Twitter thread by BuzzFeed writer turned comic book artist Adam Ellis. On August 7, 2017, Ellis began by tweeting a brief yet effective sentence: "My apartment is currently being haunted by the ghost of a dead child, and he's trying to kill me."

Within minutes, further explanation followed, with Ellis saying that he'd first seen the child in a dream but now believed the child had "crossed over into the real world." That same evening, Ellis revealed how he came to be haunted by the boy (now known as David) before logging off for the night.

By the following morning, Dear David had captured the attention of thousands. Over the coming months, the storyline and lore vastly expanded to the delight of an eager audience before wrapping up in early 2018. During that time, many well-known paranormal YouTubers, such as Loey Lane covered the story on their channels, adding to David's global interest.

Due to Dear David's viral popularity, it's no surprise that production companies were showing interest in adapting the story for the screen as early as 2018. In November 2021, it was officially announced that BuzzFeed Studios and Lionsgate would partner up for the project . Filming took place in Canada in December 2021.

Dear David is directed by John McPhail ( Anna and the Apocalypse ) and written by Mike Van Waes ( The Crooked Man ) and Evan Turner ( The Out-Laws ). Executive producers include Turner, Jonathan Eirich ( The Two Popes ), and Dan Lin ( The Lego Movie ). Stephen Chandler Whitehead ( A People Uncounted ) serves as the movie's cinematographer.

Unfriended (2014) - Set entirely on a computer screen, Unfriended is a supernatural horror centered on a group of friends who find themselves haunted by their now-deceased high school peer Laura Barns ( Heather Sossaman ). One year earlier, Laura took her own life when an embarrassing video of her drunk at a party went viral on social media. In the present day, Laura's childhood best friend Blaire ( Shelley Hennig ), is chatting with her friends on Skype. When the group notices an anonymous account has intruded on their conversation, they do some digging and realize that the account belongs to Laura - who, they quickly learn, is determined to avenge her untimely death.

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We're All Going to the World's Fair (2021) - The movie follows Casey ( Anna Cobb ), a lonely teenager living with her father. When Casey decides to record herself participating in the viral "World's Fair Challenge" (think Bloody Mary), she soon begins to experience disturbing episodes of sleepwalking. After being warned by another World's Fair participant that she's in danger, it's clear to Casey that taking on the challenge was the worst mistake of her life.

Watch on Max

Spree (2020) - Obsessed with becoming a viral social media star, ride-share driver Kurt Kunkle ( Joe Keery ) isn't exactly a natural when it comes to bringing in an audience. It doesn't help that Bobby ( Josh Ovalle ), a child Kurt used to babysit, is now a successful internet celebrity. Determined to gain fame, Kurt decides to subject his ride-share passengers to a horrific journey whilst live-streaming the entire thing.

Watch on Hulu

A viral Twitter thread has been made into a horror movie – and its first trailer is here

Dear David is set to release on October 13

Viral Twitter thread Dear David, which saw Buzzfeed illustrator Adam Ellis document an alleged haunting in his New York apartment, has been made into a movie.

Ahead of its release in October, Lionsgate has just unveiled the flick's first trailer, which boasts way more supernatural scares than the "based on actual events" tease would lead you to believe. Watch above if you're feeling brave enough.

Directed by John McPhail, who grabbed genre fans' attentions with his festive zombie musical Anna and the Apocalypse back in 2017, Dear David gives the titular ghost, who Ellis described in his original tweets as having a caved-in head, a dark backstory. As Adam, in the movie, delves deeper into David's past, he finds himself the target of several malevolent entities. 

Augustus Prew, Andrea Bang, and Barbarian and Drag Me to Hell 's Justin Long star. Mike Van Waes penned the script.

Since it landed online, the teaser has been getting mixed reviews, with some unsure about how much it's expanded the source material and others claiming that it looks like a Saturday Night Live skit. "I remember the thread and it was actually fairly creepy (pretty sure he admitted it was fake later) but this movie looks like too much action," one Twitter user said . "I miss [subtlety] in horror films."

Others were more keen, albeit in a cynical way. "Incredible twist that the film adaptation felt the need to keep him a Buzzfeed cartoonist and give Dear David the motivation of disliking his twitter presence," one joked . 

"Trailer for #DearDavid give me Annabelle , Unfriended and other horror films vibes to it. You know I'm there at theater seeing it," said a third . Here's hoping it'll surprise us...

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Dear David releases in US cinemas on October 13. For more, check out our list of the most exciting upcoming horror movies heading our way in 2023 and beyond.

I am an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering all things TV and film across our Total Film and SFX sections. Elsewhere, my words have been published by the likes of Digital Spy, SciFiNow, PinkNews, FANDOM, Radio Times, and Total Film magazine.

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“The Whale” Portrays Fatness As A Monstrosity

Brendan Fraser is incredible in Darren Aronofsky’s latest drama. But the film is gratuitously fixated on the main character’s fatness.

BuzzFeed News Reporter

Brendan Fraser in The Whale

A long time ago , I learned to be skeptical when critics describe a movie as “unflinching.” “Unflinching” is code for “brave,” shorthand for “willing to go there .” But too often, a movie lauded for being unflinching is often a film rather comfortable with the gratuitous. Lee Daniels’s Precious was dubbed an unflinching look at poverty; Crash was called the same but about racism. Neither label has stood the test of time, partially because we have not yet answered some important questions: When does close observation cross the line from empathy into voyeurism? When does careful attention transform into shameless gawking? Depending on how you answer those questions, Darren Aronofsky ’s The Whale might either be a masterful display of compassion or an exercise in the familiar denigration of leering at the lives of fat people.

The Whale stars Brendan Fraser as Charlie, a depressed fat man who lives alone somewhere in Idaho. A committed shut-in, Charlie teaches online writing classes with his camera perpetually off while living in a cluttered apartment. We learn that his life radically changed after his partner died by suicide, and he’s been on the road to ruin ever since. Because of his 600-pound frame, Charlie is restricted in his movement — he uses a walker to get around and a handle attached to the ceiling to pull himself onto his bed; he needs a grabber to pick up the things that fall on the floor. The Whale relishes in the minute details of Charlie’s movements, offering close-ups as a kind of substitute for humanity. The camera stays uncomfortably close, or perhaps as a viewer you’re uncomfortable because of how close the camera is. Put one point in the “gratuitousness” column.

{ "id": 130912577 } The Whale is a movie that doesn’t know when it should have flinched. 

When Charlie is not working, he entertains a range of visitors, from his nurse best friend Liz (an outstanding Hong Chau ) to his estranged daughter Ellie ( Sadie Sink ) to Thomas (Ty Simpkins), a young missionary from New Life, a church with a persistent local recruiting effort. But when Charlie learns that his health is failing rapidly and he doesn’t have long to live, these visits take on increasing urgency, and we see how his boundless and occasionally misplaced faith in people transforms the lives of those around him. A reluctant point for Team Compassion, I suppose.

With three months to go until the 2023 Oscars, Fraser is comfortably in the pole position to take home the Best Actor trophy. Before you even factor in his specific performance, this makes some sense: It’s the kind of role that Academy voters love, requiring a profound transformation. There are already elaborate descriptions of the hours-long daily process that Fraser needed to put on prosthetics that weighed 300 pounds. Add to that the underdog nature of Fraser’s casting — a beloved actor who has been away from the limelight for an extended period of time — and you have key ingredients of an Oscar-favorite narrative.

But even without the power of the narrative, Fraser’s performance is worthy of the Oscar buzz. On the whole, The Whale is uneven: Its thesis on religion is muddled, and it’s not quite sure what it wants to say about how faith transforms us. Aronofsky’s conclusions on the meaning of life seem half-baked. The Whale misuses Sink’s talents, relying on her to deliver outbursts that feel cartoonish and miscalculated despite her preternatural gift in subtler emotional performances. The film’s eye on Charlie's body is at times unsettling and feels over-the-top. Yet if you stack all of the flaws of The Whale — and there are dozens more — Fraser's performance is still so genuinely moving that it keeps the movie from falling flat.

It’s all the more remarkable considering the conversation The Whale has generated. In the New York Times, writer Roxane Gay called The Whale ’s writing and directing “ utterly careless ” and criticized the film for treating fatness as “the ultimate human failure, something despicable, to be avoided at all costs.” Meanwhile, Mark Hanson wrote for Slant Magazine that Aronofsky “may think he’s presenting some kind of radically cathartic journey but all he’s doing is bringing a hollow sense of dignity to his schematic brand of cinematic misery porn.”

The Whale may not work on all levels, but the conversation it is generating tells us that the film has become a perfect emblem of Hollywood’s struggles with representation of fat people and fatness. It’s reawakening the debate about fat suits even as it breaks the box office record for limited opening this year.

What appeared to be a well-meaning film has ended up as part of a long line of art about fat people that ends up trafficking in the same tropes around representing fat people. The Whale is a movie that doesn’t know when it should have flinched. It is a movie that fails to understand that in trying to dignify a type of person we rarely see onscreen, it fails to grasp where that dignity comes from. Put another one in the “voyeurism” column.

Jada Pinkett and Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor (1996)

It’s a truly stunning fact that in 1996’s The Nutty Professor , Eddie Murphy plays seven characters and five of them require a fat suit. Murphy didn’t invent the fat suit, but he professionalized it, perhaps even proselytized it. Serious question: What would Murphy’s net worth be if we subtract movies that use a fat suit? Actually, scratch that — what would Tyler Perry’s net worth be without fat suits? Actually, scratch that , what would Mike Myers’s net worth be without fat suits?

What I am trying to get at is that it has always been profitable for Hollywood to deploy fat suits. A character being fat has long been a comedic device, and from time to time Hollywood deemed it funnier for actors who are not fat to dress up as though they are; in these instances, the character’s very fatness was the whole joke.

{ "id": 130912589 } The camera is obsessed with Charlie’s fat, relishing its minuscule movements.

Fatness has long been pathologized in film and television. From Shallow Hal to Precious , from Roseanne to The Drew Carey Show , the fact that fat characters were fat was often a central struggle in their life. But in recent memory, representation of fat people has become much more complex — NBC’s This Is Us was praised for involving actor Chrissy Metz in the development of the arc for her character Kate. Metz spoke openly about the in-depth conversations she had with the producers of the show. Still, critics pointed out the ways Kate represents the worst of Hollywood anti-fat bias . Meanwhile in Pitch Perfect , Rebel Wilson’s Fat Amy reclaimed fatness, and that made her a fan favorite .

But despite whatever progress has been achieved, the fat suit abominations never stopped: There’s Sarah Paulson’s role as Linda Tripp in American Crime Story: Impeachment from last year. In 2017, Gary Oldman won an Oscar for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour , in which he wore a fat suit. Fat suits seem, by and large, still acceptable in Hollywood, though it’s worth noting where that attitude may be turning. Paulson has promised to never wear one again and told the Los Angeles Times that she regretted wearing it. “I think fat phobia is real,” the actor told the paper. “I think to pretend otherwise causes further harm. And it is a very important conversation to be had.”

It is unfortunate that we are having this conversation with The Whale as its entry point. This is a movie that has made a spectacle of its prosthetics, both onscreen and off. In the film, the fat rolls spill from Charlie’s torso onto his thighs. The camera is obsessed with Charlie’s fat, relishing its minuscule movements. Offscreen, the Herculean task of applying 300 pounds of fake weight to Fraser has been a central pillar of the press tour. (Fraser called the prosthetics “ beautiful and arresting .”) Aronofsky pushed back against calling it a fat suit ; “I wouldn’t use that word,” he protested. “It’s prosthetics and makeup.”

Fraser, for his part, has been trying to complicate the fat suit story a little more: As he stumps for The Whale , he has been arguing that he’s not a trespasser — that he himself is bigger than he used to be in his days as a younger actor, and that his son is fat, so Fraser is no stranger to the difficulties of navigating the world as a fat person. His comments attempt to insulate the movie from the most potent criticism — that it is telling a story about fat people but made by people who have no business telling a story about fat people.

Fine. Let’s check the tape. The Whale ’s source material is the play by the same name, written by Samuel D. Hunter, who adapted his own work for the screen. Hunter has explained that The Whale draws from his own past, including his sexuality and negative relationship to food; he told the New Yorker that in college, he “started falling deeper and deeper into depression, and—this is not everybody—but for me personally it manifested in pretty rapid weight gain throughout my early twenties.”

When the play debuted to rave reviews in 2012, Hunter told the New York Times that his characters are an attempt to capture “a quotidian America that is often hidden behind curtains and doors.” His characters are meant to be “off-putting,” the Times noted, but Hunter’s skill is that they “become more humanized and relatable as the action progresses.”

But despite the best intentions of playwrights turned screenwriters, the translation from one medium to another requires a sophistication that The Whale does not possess. Onstage, audiences can watch Charlie struggle to move as they’re engrossed in the action of the play. His size becomes a part of a broad tapestry that brings his pain, his grief, and his capacity for love to life. But in a movie theater, audiences will watch Aronofsky’s gaze linger on his body in ways that don’t serve the narrative — ways that seem exploitative and possibly even cruel.

The fat suit debate doesn’t have a satisfying answer. Its roots are in a larger debate over whether it is reasonable to demand that everyone involved in the making of any movie depicting an underrepresented community has to be from that community. Surely this can’t be the case — this would undermine the point of the medium itself, which is to be transplanted into another experience in order to understand it, wrestle with it, and absorb it into our understanding of the world.

But the source of the debate is itself linked to a larger problem, which is that Hollywood so rarely makes an effort to accommodate a diverse range of experiences. The major Hollywood studio roles for fat people, or queer people, or trans people come along so rarely that it feels doubly insulting to then have actors of those communities miss out amid a drought of those roles. The Whale is being positioned as a film made by people who are aware of all these conversations. But their mere awareness doesn’t mean the filmmakers have anything insightful to say about fat representation.

Mickey Rourke, left, and director Darren Aronofsky on the set of The Wrestler in 2008. 

Aronofsky is no stranger to the careful attention/shameless gawking dichotomy: From the fixation on the scars in The Wrestler to the confrontational shots of the calluses and bleeding toes in Black Swan to, oh, I don’t know, literally any scene in Requiem for a Dream , Aronofsky seems to think that zooming in and staying close on a scene is the same thing as shedding light and inviting empathy. The Whale is the strongest piece of evidence that this approach does not work.

The movie opens with a cautious shot that slowly reveals that Charlie is masturbating to gay porn, before it quickly sets up the stakes: just seeking this personal private pleasure might literally kill him. As he climaxes, Charlie’s heart is unable to cope with the exertion. But what is frustrating about this scene is the way the camera approaches Charlie; it’s staged like the monster reveal in a horror film. As critic Sean Donovan put it , the camera goes in “as if it’s afraid to approach him too quickly, a reticence that is hard to distinguish as a fear of what Charlie is doing or a fear of what Charlie is .”

{ "id": 130912752 } Aronofsky seems to think that zooming in and staying close on a scene is the same thing as shedding light and inviting empathy. 

In the throes of a cardiac episode, Charlie receives an unexpected visitor, a young missionary. Gasping for air and exclaiming in pain, Charlie demands that his visitor read an essay aloud. It is here we learn that the title of the film is not only a convenient reference to Charlie’s size, but in fact it refers to Moby-Dick . But death hangs in the air from that moment on: We learn from Liz, Charlie's nurse friend who drops in to check on him, that his heart is failing, and he has maybe a week or so to live.

Charlie’s visitors can’t help but react to his weight. It’s the first thing they notice about him — his estranged daughter, the missionary, his ex-wife, and even the pizza deliverer who finally sees him after months of coming every day to leave the pizza at his front step. Though Liz is deeply familiar with Charlie's size, even she struggles with how to respond to it: She debates giving him a large sub because she doesn’t want to enable his compulsive eating habits.

That conflict bears out in The Whale — multiple scenes where Charlie’s mental health is spiraling has him frantically eating. These scenes are meant as clear displays of self-harm, but still there is something disquieting about anxious horror music swelling as the protagonist shoves a pizza in his mouth. Another point to Team Leering.

As the credits rolled, I kept thinking about the way those binging scenes were shot. One credit line thanks the Obesity Action Coalition for its participation in the film. The OAC’s website states that the organization is “dedicated to giving a voice” to people “affected by the disease of obesity.”

How did the coalition do that in the production of The Whale ? In a written statement, a representative told me that the OAC is “honored” to have participated in the film. “A24 approached us with the opportunity to offer the production team and the film's lead actor, Brendan Fraser, insight into the realities of living with severe obesity,” the statement said. “Our goal was to make sure the representation of severe obesity was realistic and respectful—not the caricature we so often see in movies or television shows.”

The OAC said it shared “the significant physical, emotional and social impacts of obesity, and we see that insight reflected in many of Charlie’s (Brendan Fraser) movements, actions and emotions throughout the film.” The statement described Fraser as “highly receptive to our feedback.”

But what does it mean for The Whale to consult the OAC in the first place? Activist Aubrey Gordon wrote in her book What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat that use of the word “obesity” itself is complicated because its definition is “inherently blaming fat people for their bodies.” (BuzzFeed News’ own style guide eschews “obese” and “overweight” in favor of the neutrality of “fat.”) How engaged is The Whale in conversations about fat justice in the first place? And how can it claim to be accountable to them if its preferred source of guidance employs outdated terms?

On the one hand, it sounds like those involved in the production of The Whale at least made an effort to hear about the lived reality of fat people before bringing it to life onscreen. But on the other hand, is The Whale really what care looks like? Is this as good as it gets? ●

Topics in this article

• Brendan Fraser

I Saw The TV Glow Review: A Teen Horror Masterpiece Where The Channel Changes You

• The sort of movie that expands young viewers' minds
• Certain folks will find it painfully relatable
• Great acting, music, and cinematography
• Won't be for everyone

Watching "I Saw the TV Glow," the new horror-drama from writer-director Jane Schoenbrun, recalls nothing less than the experience of watching "Donnie Darko" for the first time. Like Richard Kelly's 2001 mind-bender, "I Saw the TV Glow" thrusts viewers into an uncomfortable headspace where one can never be sure what's real or a psychotic break. Both films recreate past eras (the '80s for "Darko," the '90s for "TV Glow"), but rather than regurgitating the pop culture nostalgia of such eras "Stranger Things"-style, they tell fresh stories firmly attuned to the concerns of their present moment. These movies broaden the minds of their young adult target audience, exposing them to new possibilities of what cinema is capable of as an art form.

While "I Saw the TV Glow" feels destined to become a formative experience for many Gen Z moviegoers, millennials watching it will find themselves reflecting on their own formative experiences with media fandom. This movie is about that cool friend in school who introduced you to your favorite TV show, the illicit thrill of staying up past your bedtime to watch together, the dangers of getting  too  obsessed, and the personal struggles you were facing that made such obsession an appealing escape in the first place.

Maybe that life-changing obsession was "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," the primary model for this film's teen fantasy pastiche "The Pink Opaque." Perhaps you're a bit older and your "Pink Opaque" was "Star Trek" or "The X-Files," or you're a bit younger and it was an anime or "Superwholock." Heck, maybe your tastes lean toward "Frasier," which Schoenbrun claims "I Saw the TV Glow" was somehow almost about. But if you had one, this movie has something for you (especially if you're queer or questioning).

Not your average creepypasta

To set proper expectations: "I Saw the TV Glow" isn't the sort of horror movie that will continually thrill you or startle you with fright. I describe it as a "horror-drama" because it's at least as much about exploring the realistic friendship between shy sheltered Owen (played by Ian Foreman in 7th grade and Justice Smith from 9th grade through to middle age) and deadpan goth Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) as it is about the disturbing events that might or might not be happening in their lives and on TV in "The Pink Opaque." Jane Schoenbrun's previous film, "We're All Going to the World's Fair," pleased critics but divided audiences who went in expecting straightforward creepypasta horror and got a weird slow-burn psychological tragedy about a creepypasta fangirl. "I Saw the TV Glow" is less slow and a big step up from its predecessor in terms of filmmaking, but its similar offbeat genre profile may prove similarly divisive.

Creepypasta remains one of Schoenbrun's influences. The kids' show gone wrong premise calls to mind Kris Straub's "Candle Cove" story (which was adapted into the first season of SyFy's "Channel Zero"), but this is neither an adaptation nor a rip-off. Multiple original twists open up divergent perspectives on the true nature of "The Pink Opaque" — one angle is hilarious, another is chilling. You feel the emotional impacts of these twists regardless of what you choose to believe is the truth, a question that remains up in the air due to the inherent unreliability of the film's viewpoint character.

Owen can't be trusted to provide an objective viewpoint because he can't even define his own truth. Raised by an overprotective ailing mother (Danielle Deadwyler) and a father who embodies toxic masculinity (Fred Durst from Limp Bizkit!), Owen is a passive figure who narrates his life to the audience as if he were in a TV show but can scarcely vocalize the real issues that trouble him. Maddy exudes confidence Owen lacks but shares the same sense of depression and alienation. Romance is off the table — Maddy's the rare out-and-proud lesbian at Void High, while Owen can't say if he likes boys or girls but definitely "likes TV shows" — yet their connection parallels the psychic bond between "The Pink Opaque" heroines Isabel (Helena Howard) and Tara (Lindsey Jordan). But when things go south on both TV and in real life, how deep do those parallels run? 

Continuing a great year for trans cinema

In case you haven't figured it out yet, let's state the obvious: "I Saw the TV Glow" is a pretty unsubtle transgender allegory. 2024 is shaping up as a standout year for trans cinema: Vera Drew's hilarious satire "The People's Joker" escaped copyright limbo, "Monkey Man" featured trans women fighting back against an oppressive government, Hunter Schafer's becoming a movie star in "Cuckoo" and "Kinds of Kindness," and even "Lisa Frankenstein" has been embraced for trans-inclusive messages. Coming from a non-binary director with non-binary and queer lead actors, "I Saw the TV Glow" is perhaps the year's most moving LGBTQ+ film so far, exploring a character gradually collapsing within the constraints of the closet, only able to explore their identity through escapist entertainment. Additional props for addressing all these brutal emotions within a PG-13 context — no bigoted parents can stop the teenagers who need this movie the most from seeing it.

Amongst its many impressive artistic qualities, the music of "I Saw the TV Glow" deserves special note. It would be easy to rely on just the coolest period needle drops and call it a day, and there are some of those, but this soundtrack goes beyond nostalgia with both transformative covers (Yeule's version of Broken Social Scene's "Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl" stands out) and tons of great new music. Jane Schoenbrun asked each of the artists to play what they would perform if they appeared at The Bronze on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" — King Woman, Sloppy Jane, and Phoebe Bridgers get their own full-on concert sequences at the film's Bronze equivalent.

Entertaining yet depressing, surreal yet too real, frustrating yet somehow cathartic, "I Saw the TV Glow" leaves such a strong impression that it's hard to stop thinking about it days after seeing it. Whether or not you fully embrace it, you can't deny it's a singular work coming about as close as possible to the ideal version of itself. We'll be feeling the impacts of this one for a long time to come.

"I Saw the TV Glow" opens in limited theatrical release on May 3, expanding nationwide on May 17.

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Witch review – occultist gothic horror takes a swerve into the psychedelic

In a wholly original turn, writer-directors Craig Hinde and Marc Zammit spin out an atmospheric, but orthodox British horror into realms of multiverse-type mind expanding entanglement

A fter kicking off with an atmospheric but orthodox piece of hoary British witchfinder gothic, Witch takes a genuinely unexpected and ambitious swerve after 45 minutes; as if writer-directors Craig Hinde and Marc Zammit had divined a scenario through a Ouija board during a fly agaric bender in the small hours. Divulging it would earn a dose of the ducking stool, and in any case it’s not quite clear that all the details hold up. But to broach the general nature of their devilry, it zooms this story of religious persecution out into a multiverse-type entanglement.

In 1575, the Horned One appears to have targeted the town of Dawnbrook; a woman takes to its streets carrying her parents’ severed heads. But at the murderer’s trial, blacksmith’s wife Twyla (Sarah Alexandra Marks) unexpectedly finds herself in line for a 16th-century cancellation when the accused fingers her as a diabolic accomplice. The uncanny thing is that this development was predicted by Thomas (Russell Shaw), the raving drifter about town who, given the pentangle-covered grimoire he is carrying, probably bears listening to. So she, staunch hubby William (Ryan Spong) and this dungeon-dodging Gandalf head for the woods.

What is revealed to them is genuinely mind-expanding, ripping open the obscurantist horizons of a backwater painted in thorough civic detail by Hinde and Zammit; from the enterprising bar keep, amazing the locals with the miracle of gin, to the officious sheriff. It feels living, bustling and malodorous. But given how the pair readily summon up sharp, backlit traditional Hammerish ambience on cue, they disappointingly don’t go one stage further towards the kind of intense psychedelic visuals that, say, Ben Wheatley might have wreathed Thomas’s spaced-out concepts.

Quite a bit of the acting is also missing some period patina, only partly redeemed by a gristly turn from Daniel Jordan as the judge champing at the bit to purify Dawnbrook. Meanwhile, the particulars of how the occultist party plans to execute its mission do get a bit hard to decipher – possibly indulging in the storytelling dark arts, like convenient vagueness, on the way. But if Witch, in the words of the goat from Robert Eggers’ near-identically named 2015 film, doesn’t quite live deliciously, it does show a freethinker’s willingness to experiment.

• Horror films
• Period and historical films

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Screen Rant

2024 horror movie with 81% rt score crosses global box office milestone after initial struggle.

One 2024 horror film which has received positive reviews, crosses a new milestone at the global box office despite initial hiccups after release.

• The First Omen crosses $50 million box office mark with positive reviews, but still falls short of other films in the horror franchise.
• The First Omen has received positive reviews, getting an 81% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
• To reach profitability, The First Omen needs to double its budget with $60 million box office total, with increasingly slim chances of reaching that goal.

The First Omen manages to get past a major box office milestone despite a tough start. The First Omen is a prequel to the classic 1970s horror film The Omen . Its plot focuses on the story of a young woman named Margaret who is sent off to a convent in Rome to begin a pious lifestyle, only to discover a darkness in the church that leads her to uncover a terrifying conspiracy and question her faith.

Per Collider , The First Omen has now crossed a major box office milestone. The First Omen has now made it past the $50 million mark at the global box office. Its total is comprised of just over $31 million overseas and around $19 million at the domestic box office.

The First Omen’s Lackluster Box Office Explained

The first omen faces competition.

Made on an estimated $30 million budget , the horror film saw a slow start as it opened to a lackluster $8.5 million in theaters. This fate was particularly disappointing, seeing as The First Omen received positive reviews . The First Omen scored an 81% Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes and a 69% approval rating among viewers. Both of these scores made The First Omen the second-highest reviewed film in the horror franchise, losing out only to the original 1976 The Omen .

The First Omen ’s box office may have been hurt by the release of Immaculate a few weeks prior. Also focusing on darkness that overtakes an Italian convent when an American woman arrives there, Immaculate had a lot of overlapping themes with The First Omen . Because Immaculate came out first, it may have overshadowed The First Omen , and felt derivative to viewers given the similar content. Immaculate ’s performance in theaters has still been slow, however, as its worldwide box office total is only $21.9 million at the time of writing.

Every Omen Movie Ranked, Worst to Best

Even with its new box office milestone, The First Omen still pales in comparison to other films in the series . The 2006 remake of The Omen , which was received poorly by critics and viewers, still made $119.9 million worldwide. This total is more than double what The First Omen has made to date.

As The First Omen finishes out its theatrical run, its chances of fully making back its budget are getting slimmer. Typically, a film needs to have a worldwide gross of around double its budget in order to be considered profitable. For The First Omen , this would situate its box office goal at roughly $60 million. While adding $10 million is possible, those chances would hinge on The First Omen maintaining significant momentum as it approaches its one-month-in-theater release marker.

Source: Collider

The First Omen

The First Omen is a horror film from director Arkasha Stevenson that acts as a prequel to the 1976 film The Omen. The film follows a young woman who goes to Rome to become a nun but begins to question her faith after encountering a terrifying darkness that aims to spawn an evil incarnate.

Prime Video has a hit new horror show with 100% on Rotten Tomatoes

If you're looking for a suitably scary thriller, Them: The Scare is worth watching from behind your fingers

The first season of Them on Prime Video attracted mixed reviews, partly because of its very obvious debt to Jordan Peele's movies: while pitched as a horror, the season was really about institutionalised racism. And unfortunately, the consensus is that it was a little too heavy handed. According to Buzzfeed, "while it's gorgeous, Them has nothing new or interesting to say". But things are looking up for the second season: it's currently sitting with 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

While the second season is still socially aware, the time period is different: instead of the 1950s, the second season is set in 1990s LA. And according to butwhytho.net , it's a huge improvement over season one that embodies "the noir thriller aesthetic before it hits a horror stride". This time around the story begins with LAPD homicide detective Dawn Reeve, who is assigned to a gruesome murder case that soon spirals into something even worse.

We should note that the current RT rating is from a small number of reviews, and they're not all glowing, even if they are overall positive – but given how quickly the show has shot up the most-watched charts on Prime Video, it's clearly an early hit with viewers too. We'll see if it ends up being good enough to rank among the best Prime Video shows .

What are people saying about Them: The Scare?

According to Mama's Geeky Movie & TV Geeks , "it's absolutely terrifying". Although the site's Tessa Smith was also a fan of the first season, she says that this time around it's a whole lot scarier: "Not only are there jump scares, there are visuals that will make your skin crawl. Just wait until you see what the murdered bodies look like…"

I like Decider.com's straightforward stream it / skip it rating system, and this season gets a definite Stream It for the first episode, which like the previous season begins by setting up a creepy atmosphere before letting the scares loose. And as with the first season, the show also features race as a key component: the LA of this season is the LA of the Rodney King beating, and our hero is "likely one of the few Black female detectives in the LAPD, and she has to do her job amongst rampant racism and sexism."

Over at Ready Steady Cut , Jonathan Wilson's review contributes to that 100% score, though he gave the show three out of five stars. " Them: The Scare  is superior to its predecessor but still possessed [by] some of the same issues, obscuring worthwhile commentary with try-hard terrors," he says.

Screenrant.com is also more on the fence, saying: "Clearly influenced by horror powerhouses such as Jordan Peele and Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story,  Them: The Scare  attempts to showcase innovative and artistic horror, but falls short of being as captivating as its inspirations." It's not going to be remembered as a standout piece in the Black horror genre, but "the acting and production are masterfully executed" and "The lighting and camera work create several standout moments that resemble the top-notch cinematic visual elements often seen in Hollywood's best horror movies," no doubt thanks in part to the contributions of horror director Ti West.

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Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall ( Twitter ) has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than a dozen books. Her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man , is on sale now. She is the singer in Glaswegian rock band HAVR .

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When a group of friends recklessly violates the sacred rule of Tarot readings, they unknowingly unleash an unspeakable evil trapped within the cursed cards. One by one, they come face to fac... Read all When a group of friends recklessly violates the sacred rule of Tarot readings, they unknowingly unleash an unspeakable evil trapped within the cursed cards. One by one, they come face to face with fate and end up in a race against death. When a group of friends recklessly violates the sacred rule of Tarot readings, they unknowingly unleash an unspeakable evil trapped within the cursed cards. One by one, they come face to face with fate and end up in a race against death.

• Spenser Cohen
• Anna Halberg
• Nicholas Adams
• Olwen Fouéré
• Jacob Batalon
• 1 User review

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Voices : Welcome to the circle. One more at the heart. With this final card, your meeting will start. Follow one rule to stay out of danger. You're never to deal with the deck of a stranger. The Hermit. Magician. High Priestess or Death? Whose face will you see, when you take your last breath?

• Connections Referenced in All About: All About Horror in 2024 (2023)

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• kmkevinn-64733
• May 1, 2024

New and Upcoming Horror

• When will Tarot be released? Powered by Alexa
• May 3, 2024 (United States)
• United States
• Horrorscope
• Belgrade, Serbia
• Screen Gems
• Alloy Entertainment
• Capstone Pictures
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• $10,500,000 (estimated)

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• Runtime 1 hour 32 minutes

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Mysterious director of new John Travolta movie revealed as pseudonym of ex- Vanderpump Rules  star

Randall Emmett, the former fiancé of Lala Kent, helmed the film under the name Ives.

Emlyn Travis is a news writer at  Entertainment Weekly  with over five years of experience covering the latest in entertainment. A proud Kingston University alum, Emlyn has written about music, fandom, film, television, and awards for multiple outlets including MTV News,  Teen Vogue , Bustle, BuzzFeed,  Paper Magazine , Dazed, and NME. She joined EW in August 2022.

Randall Emmett, the ex-fiancé of Vanderpump Rules star Lala Kent and subject of the Hulu documentary The Randall Scandal: Love, Loathing, and Vanderpump , secretly directed a movie under a pseudonym.

The former reality star, whose past producer credits include Martin Scorsese 's The Irishman and Silence , confirmed in a Wednesday Instagram post that he directed John Travolta ’s newest film Cash Out under the mononym Ives. 

“This Friday, CASH OUT is in select theatres and on streaming platforms! Don’t miss it,” he wrote. “Directed by Randall ‘Ives’ Emmett.”

A rep for Emmett did not immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly ’s request for comment, but confirmed to Page Six that he made “a creative decision to use his middle name, Ives, to distinguish himself as a director rather than a producer.”

Emmett first appeared on season 8 of Vanderpump Rules before becoming a recurring cast member during season 9 of the Emmy-nominated (and scandal-ridden ) Bravo show while in a relationship with Kent. The couple, who share a daughter,  called off their engagement  in 2021 and Kent later  accused Emmett of repeatedly cheating  on her.

According to the IMDb page under his own name , Emmett previously directed 2021's Midnight in the Switchgrass, which starred Megan Fox and Bruce Willis, as well as the Robert De Niro-led film Savage Salvation in 2022.

That same year, a Los Angeles Times piece claimed that Emmett offered a woman film roles in exchange for sexual favors. At the time, a spokesperson for Emmett, Sallie Hofmeister, told PEOPLE in a statement that he “staunchly denies the allegations dating back to 2012.” 

Hofmeister also claimed that the allegations were “part of a now-familiar smear campaign orchestrated by Randall's ex-fiancée to sway their custody dispute,” adding, “Lala Kent has lied and manipulated others in her desperate attempt to win full custody of their daughter, keep her name in the press and remain relevant in reality television.”

The L.A. Times report also included allegations of racial discrimination and employment abuse against Emmett — all of which he denied — that were also examined in the 2023 Hulu documentary, The Randall Scandal: Love, Loathing, and Vanderpump.

Roy Rochlin/Getty

In Emmett a.k.a. Ives' action-thriller Cash Out, Travolta plays Mason Goddard, a professional thief who gets caught redhanded during a bank heist with his brother Shawn ( Lukas Haas ). And, to make matters even worse (or maybe better?), Mason's ex-partner Amelia Decker ( Kristin Davis ) just so happens to be the lead negotiator on the scene. The film also stars Quavo , Victorya Brandart, and Demián Castro.

In an Instagram Story post , Emmett said that a sequel to the film, which appears to be titled Cash Out 2: High Rollers , has already been filmed.

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