In the 2025 episodes, “The Four Seasons” gave us a pretty damning portrayal of life in your fifties—the cast of long-time friends, consisting of three couples who go on regular vacations together, all seemed stuck. Unhappy marriages, poor communication, empty nests, and unfulfilling work/life were everywhere.

This season is still sad, but the show has given its protagonists specific things to be sad about, rather than just a broad moroseness of middle age. Now, they’re mourning the friend, Steve Carell’s Nick, who died at the end of season one. They’re still traumatized by COVID and what living through the pandemic really looked like. And they’re making hard decisions about how they want to spend their remaining years, realizing that life and energy are time-bound.

Part of what they come to appreciate is the role of friendship in their lives. Fey’s Kate and Colman Domingo’s Dannt get a particularly sweet arc on this front, testing and reaffirming their connection. It turns out old friends are really like no other. And their chemistry—as friends, as actors, and as comedians—gives the whole thing lots of weight and laughs (see Fey’s physical comedy sequence in the penultimate episode with Domingo playing the straight man).

Domingo’s partner, Claude (Marco Calvani), finally gets some justice this season, freed from his ditzy characterization in season one. We get to some in his native Italy, oozing confidence and strength in a way immigrant Claude, speaking in a foreign language, just isn’t able to. He’s clearly right in many of his arguments with Danny. And what he brings to their relationship has never been clearer. The evolution is palatable but not overwrought as Calvani hits his comedic and dramatic beats with equal ease.

Unfortunately, Fey’s fictional husband Jack (Will Forte) doesn’t fare so well, stuck in the downer role. Forte does what he can with this sad sack, but the show just keeps hurling more fuel for his depression at him. It’s hard to watch, but even as the couple tries various strategies to pull through, it’s hard to figure out what we should make of Jack’s arc. Sometimes people go through dark times, I guess, and there’s nothing to do but stick around.

Of them all, though, Anne (a mischievous Kerri Kenney-Silver) has the best story. The widow and ex of Carell’s Nick, she starts the season needing to sort her emotions about how she feels both about Ginny (Erika Henningsen), the woman Nick left her for, and, of course, the baby she’s carrying. In response, Anne tries on a variety of different identities, effectively creating her own coming-of-(middle)-age story. She’s free to be whoever she wants now, and her attempts at exploration are hilarious, echoing the fierce young woman she once was and the more experienced widow and mom she is now, even if she gets frustrated about her own lack of “executive functioning.”

In this iteration of “The Four Seasons,” the characters grow in compelling, hilarious ways. Anne gets to share prescient truths of early motherhood in one episode, while making a sexting mistake in another. Danny must face his limitations even as he protests that somehow, the little Italian car he’s attempting to move just doesn’t understand that he’s “good at everything.” And the list goes on.

These juxtapositions make your fifties seem, if not something to aspire to, not something to dread either. We can laugh at the vagaries of getting older without positing that they’re the only thing there is. And getting to do that with Kenney-Silver, Fey, and Domingo is a real joy, delivering on the promise of this series in its second outing. Some things really do get better with age.

Whole season screened for review. Currently streaming on Netflix.

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A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.

In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.

The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.

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On paper, Curry Baker’s Obsession sounds like the same old crap that you’re used to seeing from Blumhouse. Another toothless, simplistic horror centered around an object that’s gonna do the bare minimum and still somehow make 3 billion dollars. But there’s one element to this that made this thing stand out from the get go. Curry Barker; a director with a clear vision if his 2024 horror film Milk & Serial is anything to go by. Barker joins the now growing lineage of YouTubers graduating to full on filmmakers, joining the likes of the Philippou Brothers, Chris Stuckman and even Markiplier. But not everyone is cut out for the transition, and when I saw the plot synopsis and Blumhouse’s involvement, I was, admittedly, a bit skeptical. But Obsession is an example of a belief I’ve always held; a film doesn’t have to necessarily re-invent the wheel, it just needs to show a new way the wheel can be used. And Obsession is a speeding, ricocheting wheel straight to the head.

This is the feel-bad movie of the year, and the film is all the more better for it. Obsession takes a pretty familiar monkey’s paw concept and really goes for it, seeing just how dark and messed up it can get without necessarily feeling like torture porn. There’s actually a bit of poignancy to the film; maybe not enough to generate a ton of thinkpieces about it, but enough to come across as honest and grounded while still going absolutely batshit. A lot of this comes through in the lead performances of Michael Johnston and Inde Navarrette, who pull no punches in creating characters that are supremely grounded but also outlandishly psychotic. Plus the atmosphere, blocking and overall structuring of the film breathes actual life into a story you may have seen a hundred times, making it feel fresh with its own voice. This is a gut punch that also has a lot of dark humor to it, with a constant cloud of dread hovered over the entire thing. This is easily one of the best horror outings to come from 2026, if it’s making me say positives about a Blumhouse movie, then you know it has to be doing something right.

A lot of people have rightfully praised Inde Navarrette’s star-making performance as Nikki in this, as they should, but I also want to throw some flowers to Michael Johnston’s Bear as well. Not just because his name makes up two-thirds of my name, but because he does an absolutely tremendous job at capturing a character that easily could have been made out to be a flat, obvious stereotype. Bear isn’t the typical, woman-hating, woe-is-me incel this film could have made him. He has unrequited feelings for a childhood friend that he just can’t work up the courage to vocalize, and it’s that hesitance that drives him to using a One Wish Willow to grant him Nikki’s affection. He’s certainly relatable and a bit sympathetic, but all of that gets thrown out the window when he decides to ignore very obvious signs and takes the easy way out. He is 100% in the wrong and all of his suffering is a direct result of going along with this plan of removing Nikki’s agency, but the film actually refrains from being outright cartoonish with this setup. But Johnston does a terrific job at selling the agony of the situation, being just relatable enough to make us uncomfortable, which really challenges the viewer on how sympathetic you can be.

But let’s talk about Inde Navarrette’s Nikki, the dream girl who is quickly turned into a nightmare through another man’s weakness. A really important part of this film is making sure you know that Nikki is the victim here, despite the fact she’s the one scaring the crap out of everyone and committing heinous acts. She’ll terrify you and keep you on edge the entire film, maybe she’ll even make you laugh. But there’s still a deep sadness to her situation that keeps her from totally being seen as a monster. Navarette is displaying a physicality here that is impressively warped, almost dipping into uncanny valley territory. The way she manipulates her face and plays with the octaves of her voice is super impressive, knowing just the tone to strike for each individual scene. Additionally, the way she’s presented in many scenes where her face is obscured or she’s lit so darkly that you can barely see the glimmers of her eyes is not only haunting, but also fully drives home the idea of the erasure of her identity, being turned into a plaything for someone who’s going to get what’s coming to them.

I wouldn’t go so far as to call this a horror comedy, but I often found this to be just as funny as it was depressing. I think it’s a testament to Barker’s online routes; it’s very clear that, like the Phillipous, he’s tapped into the humor of the modern age and the younger generations that were molded by it. It helps to give this thing more of an identity, more of a voice, but it’s still content with making your skin crawl. I do think the film occasionally gets saddled with some stupidly loud jump scares from time to time, but they’re a bit more forgiving because the tension is laid thick early on and never really relents. Shadows, erratic motions and things just out of view do most of the heavy lifting, with a big emphasis on drawing your eyes to backgrounds or empty spaces to keep you on your toes. It’s this great mix of horror and humor that kept this thing engaging throughout, never really pumping the breaks or showing even a glimmer of possible happiness. 

This is one of those films that puts a pit in your stomach; the kind that leaves a bad taste in your mouth, and yet, you can’t help but savor what you just had. Which is impressive considering this kind of setup isn’t wholly original. The progression of the narrative is pretty cut and dry, but the film still finds ways to surprise you and reel you in. Obsession is elevating the idea, and not in some kind of pseudo-intellectual, snobby way. It’s injecting an actual voice, a personality into it, which is kind of what Blumhouse should have been doing all along. There are ideas and concepts that can be done on a budget, but a real, genuine talent will take them to new heights, shocking people and genuinely giving them a reason to be scared. That’s what I believe Curry Barker has done here, and I hope it leads to a shift in the status quo for not just this studio, but every studio.

Needless to say, I thought Obsession was a blast that also super bummed me out. It generates real feelings, whether it be humor, fear or empathy because it does such a great job at building off authentic interactions and mindsets. At the same time, it revels in its goofiness, but not enough to the point where the impact of each depressing beat after another feels dull or limp. It’s certainly scary, strange and not afraid to challenge you with uncomfortable imagery and ideas. Let this be a reminder that the worst thing she can do is say no, and the sooner you realize that, the sooner you can avoid her doing something much, much worse.

RATING

ONE WISH WILLOW

The One Wish Willow is the latest horror movie MacGuffin to ruin someone’s life, but in this case, this one stands to actually improve yours. This is a bittersweet cherry cocktail that’s loaded with botanical notes and the slight tartness that comes from black cherry and lemon juice. I can’t promise you this drink will make your dreams come true, but a little alcohol never hurts the believing process.

INGREDIENTS

• 1.5oz sloe gin
• 3/4oz amaro
• 3/4oz lemon juice
• 1/2oz dark cherry syrup
• GARNISH: Lemon peel heart (refer to video for visual example)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Add ingredients to a shaker and shake with ice.
2. Strain into coup glass.
3. For the heart, remove the flesh from a lemon wheel and cut the peel to make it a long, linear piece.
4. Cut a slit down the middle of the peel.
5. Trim off the edges of one of the ends to make the pointed part of the heart.
6. Twist the peel to make a heart shape and garnish the cocktail with it.

PakarPBN

A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.

In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.

The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.

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Below is a running index of our reviews, dispatches, and video reports from the festival.

Full Reviews

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma review: Slasher fans get the homage they deserve by Brian Tallerico

Propeller One-Way Night Coach review: Travolta’s directorial debut never takes flight by Brian Tallerico

Hope review: Bonkers Korean monster movie destroys the hero narrative by Robert Daniels

Her Private Hell review: Refn is back with shallow trip to the underworld by Brian Tallerico

Fjord review: Thorny moral quandary in this icy drama by Brian Tallerico

The Samurai and the Prisoner review: Riveting 16th century epic plays like Samurai Columbo by Brian Tallerico

Victorian Psycho: More frustrating than fun horror-comedy can’t find a tone by Brian Tallerico

Video Reports

Cannes 2026 Video #1: The 79th Cannes Film Festival Begins!

Cannes 2026 Video #2: A Look Back at Day One of the Fest

Cannes 2026 Video #3: Nagi Notes, Camp Miasma, Werner Herzog

Cannes 2026 Video #4: Festival Dispatch with Zachary Lee

Cannes 2026 Video #5: Festival Dispatch with Ben Kenigsberg

Cannes 2026 Video #6: Club Kid, Paper Tiger, Clarissa

Cannes 2026 Video #7: Festival Dispatch with Jason Gorber

Cannes 2026 Video #8: Dua, I’ll Be Gone in June, La Gravida

Festival Dispatches

Cannes 2026: The Electric Kiss by Ben Kenigsberg

Cannes 2026: Fatherland, Parallel Tales by Brian Tallerico

Cannes 2026: Nagi Notes, Ashes by Ben Kenigsberg

Cannes 2026: Ken Russell’s The Devils, Pan’s Labyrinth, Moonlighting by Brian Tallerico

Cannes 2026: All of a Sudden, Think Good by Ben Kenigsberg

Cannes 2026: Clarissa, Atonement, Butterfly Jam by Brian Tallerico

Cannes 2026: The Beloved, A Woman’s Life, Gentle Monster by Robert Daniels

Cannes 2026: Paper Tiger, Sheep in the Box by Brian Tallerico

Cannes 2026: John Lennon: The Last Interview, La Libertad Doble by Ben Kenigsberg

Cannes 2026: The Meltdown, La Frappe, I’ll Be Gone in June by Brian Tallerico

Cannes 2026: Avedon, Visitation by Ben Kenigsberg

Cannes 2026: Club Kid, Marie Madeleine by Robert Daniels

Cannes 2026: The Unknown, Another Day by Ben Kenigsberg

Cannes 2026: Iron Boy, Tangles, Lucy Lost by Brian Tallerico

Cannes 2026: Minotaur, Red Rocks by Ben Kenigsberg

Cannes 2026: The Man I Love, Orange-Flavoured Wedding by Ben Kenigsberg

Cannes 2026: Dua, Made of Flesh and Fuel, Six Months in a Pink and Blue Building by Robert Daniels

Cannes 2026: The Black Ball, Bitter Christmas by Brian Tallerico

Cannes 2026: A Man of His Time, Moulin, Coward by Robert Daniels

Cannes 2026: I Saw Buildings Fall Like Lightning, Diary of a Chambermaid, La Perra by Robert Daniels

Cannes 2026: Maverick: The Epic Adventures of David Lean, Dernsie: The Amazing Life of Bruce Dern by brian Tallerico

PakarPBN

A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.

In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.

The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.

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Howdy, folks! I announced this earlier this week on my author newsletter (you can sign up here): Sector M’s first major book release, Axis Point, is now available on Amazon in a paperback, hardback, and Kindle version!

This book is the first installment of the Knight Wolf Saga, my military science-fiction series. It stars a character that came to me when I was 19, one of the most complete ‘downloads’ that my muse has ever sent my way. I knew everything about him instantly. To this day, I consider Caervus Dar’vall a gift.

In this blog post, I will take you through the need-to-know information about this book. Let’s get to it, shall we?

An Alien Protagonist? Really?

Really. Caervus Dar’vall (pronounced care vuss and the rhyme of bar ball) is the central character of this book and the series. He’s a wolflike alien, a Lykosian, that is close enough to human to be emotionally accessible but different enough to give the reader a different perspective.

This also allows Dar’vall to act as an observer to humanity from the outside looking in. He occupies a sort of ‘balcony seat’ in that sense that allows me to write anthropological science fiction stories that shine a spotlight on humanity in all its flaws and triumphs.

Star Trek, (New) Battlestar Galatica, and Halo

I’ve been asked before what the vibe of this book is in terms of other sci-fi stories, which naturally covers my inspirations and influences. Doing so reminds me of the “comps” you use in a query letter, or the high concept used to pitch a television show.

If I had to describe this book in those terms, I would say that the base code of the series is Star Trek: The Next Generation mixed with the darker visual aesthetics of original series Star Trek movies and (new) Battlestar Galatica. Mix in some Halo due to Marines in power armor and ancient technology, then set it all to a Jerry Goldsmith/James Horner movie score, and you’re in the general neighborhood for Axis Point.

Of course, like many sci-fi writers, I’m also influenced by Heinlein, Herbert, Asimov, Bester, and several others both in and out of the military sci-fi subgenre. The list goes on and on.

How did Axis Point Come About?

I first tried to write a Dar’vall story in college. A noble effort, with moments of promise, but it just wasn’t working. I was still developing my writing voice, and I didn’t have the life experiences or philosophical understanding to really tackle a project of this scope.

When I left the corporate scene almost a year ago, I knew that Axis Point needed to be the first book project I delivered. I had previously said that I would “turn the page,” toward the fantasy genre, but that was when I was going the traditional publishing route for all my books. Now I want to maintain creative control over my books, and this series in particular. Thus, I’m going the indie route.

Dar’vall is near and dear to my heart, and I’m over the moon to be able to finally share his story with all of you. I hope you will join Dar’vall on his journey, which in many ways is also my journey.

I’ve linked to the Amazon page a few times here, but here it is again. Click HERE to pick up your copy of Axis Point. 

__________________________________________________

_{Do me a favor, okay? Subscribe to my newsletter for more news, updates, and information on Sector M’s current and upcoming projects!}

PakarPBN

A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.

In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.

The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.

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Legendary Spanish director Estaban Martínez (Javier Bardem) is returning to film in his home country for the first time in fifteen years. The film is a Fuerteventura-shot period piece set in 1930s Western Sahara entitled “Desert,” whose script has the meaty role of Gabriella, the wife of the lead. Estaban believes his estranged daughter Emilia (Victoria Luengo) is perfect for the role. His proof? He watched her on a trash television series that he believes she did more with than the material offered. Bringing Emilia onto such a high-stakes production carries its own landmines: charges of nepotism, Emilia’s stained memories of Estaban’s drunkenness and his abandonment of her, and the pain her mother, a former actress, endured on Esteban’s breakout debut. 

In Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s visually appealing father-daughter drama “The Beloved,” Esteban and Emilia use the film to negotiate their fraught relationship to uneven results. See, “The Beloved” has plenty of ideas swirling around. First off, does Esteban actually believe Emilia is a good actress or is this simply an easy way for him to make amends? Is he actually remorseful about his past actions? What is the responsibility of a director as leader and visionary? The film uses the pair’s shared memories, often with conflicting reflections of what actually happened — Esteban and Emilia argue over lunch whether Esteban got them kicked out of a screening of “Kill Bill 2” when she was a kid — to embellish the potential drama surrounding each question. But no matter how much Sorogoyen and Peña’s bring these themes up, they never quite tie them together. 

Instead, we’re left to admire the picture’s visual acumen and the actorly prowess on display. Thankfully, both are quite captivating. Sorogoyen and cinematographer Álex de Pablo freely switch aesthetics, capturing Esteban or Emilia in black and white during serious conversations, alternating to camcorder footage for psychologically complex scenes, and moving to film whenever an actual scene is being shot on set. The visual approach intimates how blurred the boundary is between Estaban and Emilia’s roles as father and daughter, director and actress, friend and enemy. That is, they’re never truly in one another’s reality. Luengo navigates that ambiguity well, melting into knotty expressions and complex postures depending on whether Emilia feels safe or traumatized. Bardem gives an equally captivating performance, dancing on the edge of madness in one scene, the film’s best, when Esteban demands a take be repeated to the point of making one of the child actors cry. 

Though “The Beloved” never quite gets on the wavelength of its actors, the many threads it leaves blowing in the wind are enchanting enough to make Sorogoyen’s film a paralyzing watch.  

Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet’s “A Woman’s Life” should be the death knell for chapters in movies. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes using chapters can allow for threads and parallels to be more readily discernible, and sometimes rendered in richer contexts. They can also have a rhythmic quality, which can be broken for effect. But quite often they can unnecessarily pull one out of a story that requires immersion. Such is the case with “A Woman’s Life,” which follows the  anxieties of a haggard surgeon, Gabrielle (Léa Drucker), over the course of twelve parts. 

During these segments, which border on being vignettes, we bounce, along with Gabrielle, away and toward the loved ones who fall in and out of her orbit. Frida (Mélanie Thierry), an author, observes Gabrielle for a novel she’s writing. Their relationship soon becomes much more. Gabrielle’s husband feels unappreciated, while her mother is declining from Alzheimer’s. The government is also cutting back on the funding for Gabrielle’s clinic even while she plans to move everyone to brand new facilities, an upheaval that puts a strain on her personal and professional relationships. In some sense, these many parts should add up to an intriguing whole about a 50-year-old woman working to figure out the next phase of her life when the stability of the prior decades begin to erode. 

But that doesn’t successfully happen in this movie. While “A Woman’s Life” is competently, and at times beautifully shot, particularly as it moves through verdant landscapes and a lyrical ballet, each part is too hemmed in for a specific purpose to form an enchanting tapestry. Each fragile character and agitated moment is so overtly calibrated toward a specific effect that, when mixed with the stop-and-go motion of the chapters, it feels as though we’re ticking off boxes to the narrative rather than being swept away by it. And while Drucker is as engaging as always—particularly in one scene with a patient that might be the most human moment of this robotically conceived film—even she’s not enough to breathe life into a picture whose narrative writing and structure zaps any intended pathos.        

There’s a great movie lurking at the heart of writer/director Marie Kreutzer’s morally inert drama “Gentle Monster.” The film, by all indications, was inspired by a 2023 scandal that involved Kreutzer learning that Florian Teichtmeister, her actor from “Corsage,” was charged with possession of child pornagraphy. With that in mind, it’s tricky to make a movie about that level of betrayal and surprise so close to the aftermath of the event. There’s one exchange in the film, in fact, whereby the protagonist, a pianist, is told to seek therapy only for her to respond that the piano is like talking to someone. From that moment, one can assume Kreutzer sees film as a similarly effective method for processing her worries and regrets. 

For that reason, “Gentle Monster” never quite pushes itself as far as its premise promises. An abbreviated montage introduces us to the songwriter and pianist Lucy (Léa Seydoux) and her filmmaker husband Philip (Laurence Rupp). While working on her music, she finds Philip hyperventilating in the sterile hallway of their home. The couple later decide to move with their young son Johnny (Malo Blanchet) to the furtive countryside where they can reset and unplug. It’s a quaint existence interrupted by the arrival of detective Elsa Kühn (Jella Haase), who’s armed with a search warrant for Philip’s hard drives and flash drives. Philip immediately becomes a shivering mess, and whether Lucy wants to accept the score or not, the audience can pretty much assume his guilt. 

Consequently, the primary dramatic engine pushing “Gentle Monster” forward isn’t commanded by any procedural mechanics. This is a film about processing what it means to discover that the person you thought you knew and trusted might actually be a monster. Kreutzer explores that debilitating thought through two arcs: the first being Lucy coming to terms with reality, and the second being a subplot involving Kühn’s touchy father. Both are meant to be commentaries about the ways society and even women can perpetuate the violence of men. But it ultimately loses its bite when those observations don’t lead to personal discoveries. Instead, we’re offered little more than a well-shot sequencing of events that struggles to dig as deep as the complicated subject and character deserve. 

The film in that sense is a notable step down from “Corsage,” particularly because it’s not as tightly calibrated. There are several false endings, instances of jumping backwards and forwards in time, and on-the-nose conversations, such as the one between Lucy and her mother (Catherine Deneuve), that merely roll us from distraction to another. Conversely, there are other moments that aren’t commented upon enough, like when a psychologist explains to Lucy why pedophiles are the way they are. Rather than further exploring that thought, the film becomes consumed by a mystery that isn’t all that mysterious. And by the time we’re halfway through the film’s meandering second hour, it truly feels like Kreutzer doesn’t know where she wants to take her film, making one wish she spent more years fleshing out her own feelings rather than haphazardly translating them into her art. 

PakarPBN

A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.

In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.

The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.

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Mortal Kombat is one of my favorite games that I am absolutely dogshit at. I can’t string combos together to save my life, but that’s not why I really love the games. I like them because they’re just a candy store of interesting characters, great designs and heaps of lore that doesn’t make a lick of sense. But that hasn’t stopped the series from trying to inject a little bit of storytelling into its bones, whether it be through the games or with a handful of movie adaptations. When it comes to theatrical live action adaptations, the series doesn’t have the strongest track record. You’ve got a campy kick off, a follow up considered to be one of the worst movies ever, and a modern reboot that nailed the aesthetic while forgetting that movies also need to have good characters and interesting dynamics. So if you enjoyed that previous film, then I’ve got good news, and if you didn’t, then…well, you probably already know.

Mortal Kombat 2 is perhaps the most true-to-form the Mortal Kombat movies have ever been, wherein its colorful and fun to look at while having an absolutely nonsense narrative. The characters do look their parts, but their characterization is so flat and boring that it often borders on being unfun. The film is stuck between being cheesy and self-serious, not really fully committing to either, leaving you with a slew of good moments that have to live right alongside halfhearted moments of sentimentality. The storytelling is, unfortunately, just not strong enough to make this balance work, so the movie relies on keeping the action constant and plentiful to make up for it. That’s certainly welcome, but outside of a few gory fatalities, the action often doesn’t manage to hold a candle to what the action genre has accomplished in the past few years. You could call this “for the fans”, and as a fan, it’s pretty much exactly what I expected. That doesn’t mean it’s all that good.

For starters, the film has a bit of a main character problem, unsuccessfully juggling the new characters taking center stage while also giving enough play to the returning cast. Johnny Cage, played by Karl Urban, is a washed up action star who is pulled into the world of Mortal Kombat, basically the same kind of set up with Cole Young from the first movie. Don’t worry if you’re not a fan of that OC, by the way. That’s all I’m gonna say. Urban does have his moments, but his performance is so wooden, mostly due in part to the character being as flat as a board. It’s the same “washed up hero” act we’ve seen before, and the film rushes through giving Cage any real depth or emotional moments. And I hate to say this about Urban, but his performance just isn’t funny enough to kind of let that slide. The story leans into the more pathetic side of Cage every now and then, but there seems to be this resistance to really go all in to make his eventual turn into a hero all the more satisfying.

Newcomer Kitana, played by Adeline Rudolph, has the more interesting background out of the two leads, and I kind of wish the film had her more front and center. There could have been more turmoil over betraying her homeland in order to defeat her evil, adoptive father Shao Khan, or more push and pull between her and her longtime protector and friend Jade. She’s easily the heart of the film; a heart that is barely beating after being ripped out of a chest, but still a heart. Speaking of heart ripping, Josh Lawson’s Kano is back and he is the best part of this movie. Everything he says is just so funny, and even though his entire inclusion in this movie is so shoehorned and needless, I’m happy for it, because he makes everybody else look worse by comparison. Seriously, everyone else here is either an exposition machine or background filler, while Kano is the only one I actually got excited to see in each scene.

And Kano ties into this film being a lot more funny than its predecessor. The comedy doesn’t always work, but it does make the film feel a lot more fun in comparison. The cheese isn’t cranked up to the same levels of the original films, but I do think it was needed. For how serious the games are, there’s no real way to approach this source material without being a little tongue in cheek. That being said, the more serious moments feel really jarring to the rest of the film.They try to add some emotional weight to the film, but it honestly just feels kind of insulting with how halfassed they come across. They go through all the cliches you’d expect, struggling to build an enticing narrative around the central idea of the film; punching a hole through a guy’s head. There is actually a Mortal Kombat tournament in this film, even though the rules are insanely loose and apparently don’t matter. It’s supposed to be fights to the death, but the film doesn’t want to kill off too many of its main characters, so some fights just end for no reason. There’s also a moment when someone switches sides right as the tournament ends, which restarts the final fight. Where is the referee? Do something, blue! Maybe these basic storytelling beats would be more serviceable if there was an interesting style to the film, but you’re not really gonna find that outside of the fight scenes.

But narrative weaknesses aside, at least the fights are good…right? Well, some of them. When they’re focused on spectacle and solid use of the environment, they can be. The fight between Johnny Cage and Kitana has some solid use of the area, while Lui Kang’s first fight is quite flashy and has some solid uses of special effects. But, for me, so many of these fights feel heavily choreographed, more like a dance than an all out brawl to the death. It can make it feel like a lot of fists are thrown, but rarely is anything hitting or causing lasting damage. And when the special effects get brought in, things can be a tad mixed. The whole look of the film sways in quality, with green screens looking too obvious at times and some particle and light effects looking shockingly bad. I hate to say it, but I hate the Baraka design here, mostly the mouth. Doesn’t look much better than the Halloween mask the original character was created with.

I’ll be fair; I enjoyed this more than I was expecting to. I can chalk this up to Kano making me laugh every time he’s onscreen, and to the occasional good fight that actually looks visually impressive. The quick pace of this thing certainly helps, wasting no time and getting right into the action. But with the flat characters, the bland story and the hesitance to do anything all that stylish, this just seems destined to be a film remembered less for the movie itself and more for its “Mortal Kombat 2 – All Fight Scenes Compilation” videos on YouTube. You know they’re coming, and they might just be the ideal way to watch this thing.

RATING

NOOB SAIBOT

I was going to do a Sub Zero cocktail to match the Scorpion cocktail I did for the first film a few years back, but unfortunately, old chilly doesn’t make an appearance in this film. At least, not as the cryomancer we once knew. Instead, he has transformed into his next phase, the undead shadow warrior Noob Saibot (who they do not call him that because the filmmakers are cowards). So, to match this dark figure, we have an equally dark cocktail that combines Japanese whiskey, blackberry and a little cola to create a tart, slightly sweet cocktail. For added flavor (and considering Noob is occasionally connected to the character Smoke in the games), I have also smoked the cocktail, which makes for quite a unique and welcome alteration to the fruit and soda flavors. FINISH IT!

INGREDIENTS

• 1.5oz Japanese whiskey
• 1/4oz raspberry liqueur
• 1 barspoon mezcal
• 6 blackberries
• 1/2oz lime juice
• pinch of black sugar
• Top: cola
• EXTRA: Smoke

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Add ingredients to a cocktail shaker and shake with ice.
2. Double strain into a rocks glass filled with ice.
3. Top with cola.
4. If you’d like, smoke the cocktail with whatever smoking apparatus you have available (the glass may have to be smoked beforehand depending on your setup.

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A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.

In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.

The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.

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The 79th edition of the Cannes Film Festival is just days away and one of the biggest stories leading into the festival is strangely about a TV show. The 4th season of HBO’s “The White Lotus” is filming right now in the south of France, with plans to shoot in and around Cannes during the festival. The famous Hotel Martinez is even apparently being rebranded to the White Lotus Cannes Hotel for the duration of filming, and actress Laura Dern was just recently added to the cast. Each season of the series features a murder mystery at a 5-star White Lotus resort in some exotic locale and with a lot of poorly behaved wealthy guests and staff. We’re looking forward to see how much of a presence the production has around Cannes during the festival, but, of course, we’re far more interested in the films themselves.

Presenting the awards to those films this year is the jury presided over by Park Chan Wook, director of last year’s international hit “No Other Choice”. Reports came out this week that actor Jacob Elordi was originally slated to be a member of the jury but had to bow out because of an injury. But the jury members who have been confirmed include Producer & Actress Demi Moore, Writer/Director Chloe Zhao, Oscar-nominated actor Stellan Skarsgard, Oscar-nominated actress Ruth Negga, screenwriter of two Palme d’Or winning Ken Loach films, Paul Laverty, French actor Isaach De Bankolé, last years winner of the Un Certain Regard section with “The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo,” Chilean director Diego Céspedes, and Belgian writer-director Laura Wandel.

The festival begins May 12th with an opening ceremony featuring an honorary Palme d’Or to be presented to New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson. And the opening night film, traditionally shown in theaters throughout France on the same day as the ceremony, is the French romantic comedy “La Venus Electrique” from director Pierre Salvadori. 

This year’s competition slate features many prominent directors from around the world but only two American directors: Ira Sachs with “The Man I Love” starring Rami Malek, Rebecca Hall, and Ebon-Moss Bachrach… and, as a late entry, James Gray’s new crime thriller “Paper Tiger,” starring Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver and Miles Teller.

Two previous Palme d’Or-winning directors return to competition: Cristian Mungiu with “Fjord” starring Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve and Kore-eda Hirokazu with “Sheep in the Box”.

Two World War II-era dramas are in competition including “Moulin” from director Lazlo Nemes and Pawel Pawlikowski, winner of the Cannes best director prize in 2018 for “Cold War,” returns with “Fatherland” starring Sandra Huller.

Two prominent directors are making their french-language debuts with new films in Cannes. Iranian director Asghar Farhadi seeks his first Palme this year with “Parallel Tales” starring Vincent Cassell, Isabelle Huppert, and Catherine Deneuve. 

And Ryusuke Hamaguchi is in competition with “All of a Sudden”

There’s even a few thrillers in competition to keep us on the edge of our seats. Oscar-winning screenwriter for Anatomy of a Fall, Arthur Harari, directs Lea Seydoux in “The Unknown”. South Korean director Na Hong-jin presents the film “Hope” that includes Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander in the cast, and Oscar-nominated screenwriter for “Emilia Perez,” Léa Mysius directs “The Birthday Party” starring Monica Belucci.

And legendary Spanish director, Pedro Almodovar, brings his special brand of melodrama to Cannes with “Amarga Navidad”.

Out of competition titles include “Diamond” directed by Andy Garcia and starring Brendan Fraser and Dustin Hoffman, “Her Private Hell” from director Nicholas Winding Refn starring Charles Melton and Sophie Thatcher, and the directorial debut from John Travolta, based on his book, “Propeller One-Way Night Coach”.

And director Jane Schoenbrun opens the Un Certain Regard section with her latest film, “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma”.

In the Special Screenings section, director Ron Howard showcases his latest documentary about photographer Richard Avedon and Steven Soderbergh presents his documentary “John Lennon: The Last Interview” with material that was recorded just hours before the musician’s death. Soderbergh has courted some controversy by revealing that generative A.I. was used in two sequences of his film to illustrate some of the audio recordings in an abstract way. We’re interested to see how audiences respond.

One of our favorite parts of the festival is the Cannes Classics section that features documentaries about filmmakers and restored prints of cinema classics. “Life Itself” played in the Cannes Classics section back in 2014, and this year a documentary about French film critic Michèle Firk will premiere here. The section will also present documentaries about David Lean and Vittorio De Sica along with restored prints of films by Jerzy Skolimowski, Akira Kurosawa, Roger Corman and Orson Welles among others, along with a 20th anniversary restoration of Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, one of Roger’s Great Movies, and the recipient of the longest standing ovation in the history of the Cannes Film Festival: 22-minutes.

This year’s poster for Cannes honors the feminist classic film “Thelma and Louise” featuring Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon. I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of this image all over Cannes for the next two weeks.

This year, I’ll personally be directing our coverage from Chicago, while our Senior VP of Development, Sonia Evans will coordinate with our critics on the Croisette in France including Managing Editor Brian Tallerico, Associate Editor Robert Daniels, and contributors Ben Kenigsberg, Isaac Feldberg, Zachary Lee and Jason Gorber. Join me as we follow along with the reports and reviews each day at RogerEbert.com/Festivals, anticipating the next cinema classic to come out of the Cannes Film Festival. 

Until then, au revoir!

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In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.

The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.

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This nine-episode revenge saga is equal parts crime drama and nighttime soap about the clash between two families and the ruin that follows. However, it hinges on the duo of Etta Tiger Jonze (Shannon Gisela) and Lovely (Brittany Adebumola), and on the seemingly predestined sisterhood that re-anchors Etta after tragedy upon tragedy. 

Created and executive produced by Bill Dubuque (“Ozark”), with Karen Campbell (“Dexter”) as showrunner and executive producer, alongside Alethea Jones (“High Potential”), and executive producer/director, the ongoing series stars Gisela, Cary Elwes, Danay Garcia, Adebumola, Dylan Jackson, Alberto Guerra, Maurice Compte, Gerardo Celasco, and Marta Milans—with Elwes giving his best quirky’ Florida Man’  detective. 

“M.I.A” gives us a first season that starts and ends with family. Set in the Florida Keys, we meet the Tiger Jonzes, a big, loving blended brood that looks respectable from the outside, but is covertly running drugs for a cartel. That cartel is another family affair, led by the legendary Edward James Olmos. Of course, it wouldn’t be a crime drama dripping in revenge if the criminals played nice. 

The series opens with a pair of action set pieces: The first is a splashy, breakneck chase; the second is an intense volley of bullets and fire. It’s in the action where the series does its best work throughout its run. Fight scenes pop, and desperation fuels ingenuity. The early family dynamics are engaging as well. The cast continues to work well together, while shocks and reversals pop up throughout.

Where did the series lose me? The cultural accents. They’re odd. I don’t mean to call Adebumola out—she’s an engaging actress who makes you believe in Etta’s struggles. But is her accent meant to be vaguely French-Caribbean, or possibly Haitian? I’m just not sure. That’s not necessarily the point of disconnect, but it is distracting.

“M.I.A” breaks down into two basic plot lines with several tributaries fueling each. We have Etta and her developing underground network of outsiders, and the three Rojas siblings as they vie for control of the legitimate and illegal sides of their business.

Standouts include Gisela, Garcia, and Guerra, with a nod to Jackson and Adebumola—despite the accent. However, the storytelling feels disjointed tonally. I’m a fan of genre mashups, or even genre-defying stories, but Etta’s nightlife escapades in opposition to the ‘big villain energy’ of the Rojas family’s dirty dealings don’t mesh well. It’s as though they exist in different worlds. 

The writing does a nice job of establishing Etta as special, reckless, and compassionate. It also grounds both sides of the thriller equation in human upsides and foibles. But this particular combination of elements doesn’t add up to much, and it makes you feel very little about these characters and their struggles.

If you’re looking for a darkly violent Florida revenge saga with its vices and its sensationalism right up front, and a cliffhanger to close it out, give it a try. All I’ll say is, no more for me.

Full season screened for review. All episodes will stream on Peacock May 7th.

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A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.

In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.

The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.

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The only difference this time around? McCarthy has turned to an American actor, Adam Scott, to lead his film. Playing a writer, Ohm Bauman, who is living, writing, and drinking existence away in a small rainy town in Washington state, before he finds himself drawn to a remote area a world away in Ireland, in order to scatter the ashes of his late parents, Scott fits right into McCarthy’s horror sensibility even as his character remains continually out of his depth. As Ohm makes his way through a hell both personal and paranormal, he begins seeing a nightmarish children’s television character, Jack, on the TV in the honeymoon suite he finds himself trapped in, just as there is a witch that may be coming for him from the dark depths below the isolated hotel itself.

McCarthy and Scott spoke with RogerEbert.com about finding horror and dark humor in their film, crafting the many haunting visual and auditory nightmares, the central existential challenge about finding a meaningful end to what could otherwise be a bleakly macabre story, and more. 

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

I’m from Washington state, and there is a line in this film where I believe it says that this character is from “Pullman City, Washington.” Damian, was that Washington state? 

McCarthy: Yeah, that’s Pullman in Washington. So 20 years ago, I went to a Weezer concert there. I spent the summer in New York. You get a three-month visa or whatever it is, so at two and a half months, I think I had two weeks left. I had some cousins out in Seattle, so my friends and I said, “We can either take what little money we have left and fly home, or else go to Seattle to see Weezer, cause they were playing in Pullman in Washington.” And yeah, it was a little nod to that.  

So really, we have Weezer to thank for this film, if you think about it. 

McCarthy: Yeah [laughs].

This is your first film of an American character coming to Ireland, a place that’s obviously significant to their family. I’m curious, Damian, how was it that you approached that?

McCarthy: For me, it was just wanting to start to blend movies that I grew up watching. I loved American cinema but still wanted to tell my stories in Ireland. So I felt like this was the start of that, being able to work with American actors that I actually really admired, but being able to shoot at home with my crew in places I’m familiar with, and to marry those two things a little bit. It was also just so they’d feel like that outsider. That kind of “An American Werewolf in London” type thing, you know? They’ve come here, and everybody seems to know the score and know what’s going on, but this guy is not one of the locals. That was the start of it. 

Adam, what was it like for you to strike a balance between your character’s attempts to connect and his tendency to hold things at a distance, given the skepticism he brings to it?

Scott: That’s something that came somewhat naturally because I was in West Cork, Ireland, a place I’d never been, and I didn’t know anyone. Everyone was unbelievably friendly, but I didn’t know anyone on the crew, the cast, or anything. Everything was foreign to me, and so being a stranger in a strange land came somewhat naturally. And he, being a skeptic, I’m a skeptic. I don’t believe in ghosts or anything like that, so there were certain things about the character and how he was reacting to some of these ideas and situations that line up, at least somewhat, with how I would react.  

I also feel like this character doesn’t believe in the living either.

Scott: Yeah, yeah. 

Damien, this character is really struggling. What was your process of finding the withering humor of that, which then goes hand-in-hand with the haunting horror pieces? 

McCarthy: Yeah, the first act was almost about setting up this character to be so unlikable that the audience will hopefully engage with him so that they get to see him punished. They go, “Oh, I can’t wait to see this guy get what’s coming to him.” Then, as they get to know him, they get to see that there is a little bit more going on than just him being cruel. Then you hope that they’ll change and stay engaged and go, “Oh, well, now I’m with him because I think he’s suffered enough and I’d like to see him get out of this.”

A lot of the comedy, I never tried to be intentionally funny. It’s just that there is something about the characters talking to each other, a turn of phrase, and the way they dismiss each other. In the dialogue and how the characters react, and just in the fact that the film knows it’s a horror movie and it knows it’s trying to scare you, you get both the laughter in the way the wonderful actors I have perform and feed off each other, and then also that nervous laughter when it’s just Adam alone being tortured over this whole night. Trying to escape and frustratingly failing and then coming back and trying something else and getting even more scared, there’s a lot of dark comedy in that. 

Adam, where do you see comedy and horror intersecting? You’re no stranger to both (you got your start in horror), and I feel like those emotional registers are not dissimilar. 

Scott: Yeah, I feel like with comedy and with horror, in particular, they do have some crossover. Because, ultimately, what you’re seeking from the audience is an involuntary response. You can fake laugh, we all do that, you can pretend to be scared, but you know when you’re actually laughing, you know when you’re frightened. There’s nothing you can do to control either of those things. It’s about the tension leading up to a joke or to a scare. It’s about the atmosphere and all that stuff you’re trying to maintain. I’ve always found those two to have certain commonalities. 

Speaking of tension, Damian, your first feature, “Caveat,” was set in a small, remote, confined place, and your next, “Oddity,” was a little bigger but still confined. Now this is much more expansive, but then it ends up getting even more into those confined spaces. How did you find this specific hotel? Was it actually multiple hotels through movie magic, and then they decided to send Adam up before he descended into hell?

McCarthy: We looked for a real hotel to shoot in around West Cork, but nothing would have been practical to film in. It was too small or too inaccessible, or strange. So this became a mix. There was a private residence we found, just a beautiful location with the carpentry and the stonework and everything, where we added a little bit of production design and art direction for that to be our hotel for certain rooms (the lobby, for example). Then it became building everything else, the honeymoon suite, the elevator, and some of the hallways. That was a big part of it, which we built in the West Cork studio. Then, for the basement, that was a beautiful castle that’s in West Cork. We shot on the ground floor of that, which is quite dark and not the prettiest part of that castle, but it worked great for us because the environment felt real.

You again worked with your cinematographer on “Oddity,” Colm Hogan. How was it that you again captured scenes that are always submerged in this darkness, but still something we can very much viscerally see and feel, too? 

McCarthy: It is just about focusing the eye. If we say in “Hokum,” for example, if Adam is there in the shot, I want all eyes on him. I want that whole frame to look lovely, but then it’s all of that darkness around him, that’s where the horror comes in. It’s in all that darkness that the audience uses their imagination to fill in what could be there. Are they seeing things? Because, yeah, I’ve worked with the same cinematographer twice now, and we’ve tried to build on that ghost story type feel to it. 

I know you’d seen “Oddity,” Adam. But did you have an idea of what this would be going into it? 

Scott: Not really at all. I loved “Oddity” and was already excited to work with Damian when I read the script. Then I found the character super interesting and loved the story. But as far as being involved in pre-production or anything like that, I wasn’t involved until I showed up, probably a week before we started shooting. I just started trying on wardrobe and getting going on. 

How did you settle on his wardrobe, and specifically, his glasses? 

McCarthy: For me, it was just the idea that he’s a writer. It’s just that look, and it’s something that I thought would look interesting. Then it allowed us to play with reflections in the glasses with what he’s looking at. I’m really glad that we did it because I think even with scenes, for example, when Adam’s character is watching Jack on the TV, it’s such a disturbing image. He’s laying out everything that he’s done, and he’s punishing him. But when you look at the glasses, all that’s just in that little frame is just static. That is then a nice little tipoff to, is this just in his head? 

Scott: And the jacket was something that was an idea of our costume designer, Lara [Campbell]. It struck a chord with me because it’s kind of a detective story at the end of the day, and that jacket was really evocative of an old-fashioned detective story or movie. That was a little nod when we chose that, or at least it was for me. 

McCarthy: Yeah, when we first talked about it, the mystery and the detective side of it, Adam brought to my attention. I was like, “Oh no, yeah, there is that mystery to it.” That raincoat, that whole “Angel Heart” kind of feel to it, we talked about day one. But sometimes you write these things, and you’re not even aware of it. 

Scott: Yeah, that billowing raincoat on the poster for “Angel Heart” as Mickey Rourke is running, it’s really cool.  

When you mentioned the reflection of the TV, was there a children’s television show that scared you growing up, or something you were drawing from there? Because it’s a very striking image.

McCarthy: It is. I’m sure when I was writing, I went down some rabbit hole on YouTube. You see these lists, “Top 10 Most Disturbing Kids TV Shows From The 1960s,” or whatever it is, and some of them are really freaky. You go, “Did kids ever really find this entertaining?” Then it made me think of what I would’ve watched when I was small, like claymation or some kind of freaky, strange puppets or whatever it would be. It was just about leaning into that because this character’s whole life was ruined by what happened as a child, and it’s something that’s still haunting him. I just thought it was a nice way to bring it back once he’s up in that honeymoon suite. 

Adam, where do you then go to find some of that painful emotional history this character has? Especially when we’re fully confronted, like in the TV scene, with what happened.  

Scott: It’s all there in the script. At least for me, when I’m initially going through something and figuring out what this beat is or what this one is, the thing I’m always looking for is the direct line to me and my experiences. So sometimes you know exactly what something is and exactly what a feeling is. Sometimes it’s not something you’ve experienced or have a direct personal reference to, and you have to find it. It’s a matter of just rooting around, and if it turns out you don’t have any reference, you have to either make one up or find someone who has one and talk to them. All of that stuff is part of the fun for me. Before I even get there, I try to get all of that stuff sorted. 

In terms of a central throughline, I wanted to ask you about the framing story, the story within this story, Damian. The film becomes about trying to find an ending for yourself, for your own life, after what seems like the unimaginable, of being stranded in a desert with no way out. How was it that you were thinking about that through this journey? Did you always know your own ending within that? 

McCarthy: Those bookends with that conquistador, that idea has been floating around in my head for years and years. When I started working on “Hokum,” because he’s a writer, it felt like a nice opportunity. What if we could see a change in this character, that he’s in a more positive mindset, that it’s not so bleak? It just felt like a nice way to use that idea to highlight the change in him. I know myself, in earlier drafts of the script, that those original scripts were a lot less entertaining, or they were certainly heavier. I think there was more violence, and it ended very bleakly, certainly not the way it ends now. There was a lot less hope in it. I think my mood was improving as I wrote it, and it was starting to come through in the script as well. 

That was my goal for the script by the time I got to the end. It was just that there was a bit more hope in the story because there is so much heaviness in it, and it is quite scary and frightening, and all these things. A lot of people are going to see the movie, hopefully, and it’s nice to put them through it, like the character, really have it scary, intense, and all that, but have them come out the other side and go, “Yeah, that was worth it.” 

Adam, what was your experience of navigating your character’s relationship to hope?

Scott: I don’t think there is anything in Ohm’s life that he feels he deserves. I don’t think he feels he deserves any kind of happiness. I think a key component of that is his bleak outlook and how he feels he’s been wronged. He’s at this place where he’s ready to completely give up, but he’s also not taking responsibility for it. In order to let yourself off the hook, you first have to take responsibility, and he’s not ready to do any of that. He just escapes into these stories that he writes rather than really delving into what’s going on in his own life.

Later in the film, when Ohm reaches a transformative point, the fire alarm echoes through the underground, becoming an almost wailing sound. Damian, what was the process like of working with the sound team on that?

McCarthy: I think it was even in the script. I liked the idea of the bell box, or the battery pack, of the alarm, that it’s melting. That it’s starting to go from just that there is a fire in the building to you having this warning sound turning into something very much more ghostly. It was again trying to lean back into that ghost story sound of it. Our sound designer is Steve Fanagan, and he’s a very talented, really great guy. He was kind of saying, “Well, there’s so much Irish folklore, with the witch, and you’re shooting this in a castle, what if it was like the banshee? Are all these characters about to potentially die? Does it go from this alarm to this wailing sound? That something is coming to get them?” It’s always just trying to make it as creepy as possible, and a lot of that is sound design. It’s like 60 to 70 percent of whether or not the film is gonna be scary. 

It can’t just be what you’re seeing; there has to be a second layer to it. 

McCarthy: Yeah, that was it. I just thought it was a nice idea, that alarm dying, but then it becomes more ghostly. It’s kind of spooky. 

What was the experience like for you, Adam, of shooting that sequence? 

Scott: That was fun. It was like the end of the shoot; that was one of the last things we shot. The fire, that was an intense thing to shoot. I’d never really done that before, where you’re shooting in actual fire. I would imagine some of it was augmented, but a lot of that fire was there on the day. Maybe it wasn’t augmented at all; we were surrounded by real flames. It was really intense and really fun. But it was also at the very end. We’d all been on this journey together, and we were all tired, just like the characters are, seeing the end in the distance. 

Without giving away the context, I wanted to ask about the line “You can’t stay here,” as I found it had a profound emotional resonance and a deep impact depending on who is saying it and to whom. Damian, when did you arrive at that, and what did it ultimately mean to you?

McCarthy: The film is about a character who is trying to change. He’s quite hard on himself and on everybody else around him. I guess the whole thing comes down to mindset. You can’t stay here; you do have to participate in your own rescue, try to change the way you’re thinking, and get out of this serious, dark place that he’s in. There’s that, that’s all the internal stuff, but then there’s the literal horror sense of it. There are demons and witches, and the building is on fire. You can’t stay here, either.

Given where you’re going next, I imagine you want to stay in Ireland and continue exploring different haunted spaces. Is there anything you’re currently thinking about for that next stage, and would it potentially include Adam?

McCarthy: I definitely want to stay and make horror films. It’s something I love, and the more you make, one hopes, that you’re getting better at it. Even when you hear the audience screaming and laughing, you go, “Okay, they’re all screaming, and they’re gasping, but, if I were to do this again, I know how to make this even worse by adding just this little thing.” And, of course, I had an amazing experience with Adam. I was just so grateful for all his work on this, what he brought to it, and even just how supportive he was of the other cast members. It was a lovely feeling being in the woods, hearing the cast encourage and compliment each other. I thought that was really lovely, really great. Certainly, it would be wonderful to experience it all again. 

“Hokum” opens in U.S. theaters May 1, via Neon.

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Hokum is the latest horror film from director Damian McCarthy, who just a few years ago gave us the supernatural horror film Oddity, and before that, the film Caveat. Oddity is really what put McCarthy on the map for me. I thought: here’s a guy who understands how to take what we’ve seen before and do something unique with it. Oddity was one of my favorite horror films of 2024, so when the chance to see McCarthy’s newest film early fell into my lap, I couldn’t help but react like the statue from Oddity. Just petrified with anticipation.

And if you’re looking for something that just has that old school horror feel with a contemporary approach, Hokum is the movie for you. A lot of what I appreciated about McCarthy’s previous film returns here in spades, giving us a tense, creative haunted house flick that plays with your mind and gets under your skin. While light on the disturbing imagery, the film makes up for it with expertly paced sequences of looming dread that actually pay off with some of the more effective jump scares I’ve seen in a minute. If I’m honest, I enjoyed a lot more of the out-there creativity of Oddity, this is still finely distilled Irish folk horror in its purest form. I knew there was something strange going on with a country that only drinks Guiness.

Depressed American author Ohm Bauman decides to make the long overdue trip to the Irish hotel his parents honeymooned at in order to spread their ashes. But, like most old hotels, some things just don’t feel right. After some odd occurrences, a disappearance and the theory of a witch living in the locked-away honeymoon suite, Ohm finds himself trapped in a nightmare as he must try to survive the hotel’s horrors while also battling the demons he brought along with him.

Man, is Adam Scott a dick in this. For me, he’s always just gonna be goofy, lovable Ben Wyatt from Parks and Rec for me, but projects like Severance and this are all the proof you need to believe there’s more range to him than you may think. Scott’s Ohm Bauman is a rather difficult character to make work, because he comes with both a lot of baggage and a bad attitude that he takes out on the kind employees of the hotel. You do learn more about why he’s like this later in the film, but the movie really tests how much sympathy you can give a main character like this. There’s honestly this interesting balance where you want to see Ohm get the crap scared out of him, but you also want to see him make it out okay as well. It’s a prickly character that can be tough to execute, but I think both McCarthy and Scott do an excellent job with that for the most part.

We’ll get into why the horror in this is so great in just a second, but I also want to give props to how funny the film can be too. After a very somber and dark film like Oddity, it was nice to see a little bit of comedy injected into McCarthy’s work. A lot of it comes from the phenomenal supporting characters, from the sheepish bellhop played by Will O’Connell to the moonshine and mushroom consuming drifter played by David Wilmot. The comedy adds a nice bit of a reprieve from the more dark and depressing moments of the film, which there are quite a few of. But the impact of those moments isn’t undercut by the little bits of humor, so these moments are okay in my book.

But the horror of this film is pure haunted house-core. There’s a lot of bumping around in the night to be seen and heard, and the film is smart enough not to overplay its hand too early on. Ohm is plagued by visions of his dead mother, distant wailings and dark memories that begin to manifest themselves in frightening ways. I dunno what’s going on with that rabbit, but get it away from me. Like I said earlier, every scare is paced and presented super well. The film really knows how to get you hanging onto every creak and every movement going on in the background, and more often than not, you get some satisfying payoff in the form of actually good jump scares. Although sometimes it does feel like the film is trying to throw in more of them to fill a quota, they aren’t egregiously forced like in many modern horror movies. 

Like Oddity, Hokum makes great use of its primary setting, with the sections of the hotel being meticulously designed to fit the narrative without going too far beyond the realm of believability. Once Ohm makes it to the honeymoon suite is where you really start to see this at play. A lot of thought was put into the room layout and the little pieces that later shape how the story progresses. I love single location films that put a lot of thought into their rooms, and this film is another great example of that.

I do have some minor hang ups with this, despite me pretty much enjoying the entire thing. There’s an underlying theme of trauma, grief and atoning for your sins that I think doesn’t entirely coincide with the plot all that well. It does add some depth to Ohm for sure, but the way it’s integrated into the story, both through Ohm’s novel and his visions of his mother, kind of felt a little forced to me, but not enough where it felt like the film was reaching for something it couldn’t obtain. Additionally, for how great the tension and looming dread is in the film, I did find the big realization to what was going on to be a tad underwhelming. It’s a lot more open ended than I was expecting, but it still felt like more could have been given. I think Oddity did a much more interesting job at building towards big reveals in a unique way, but this felt a lot more straightforward.

That being said, Hokum takes a pretty simplistic idea and setup and elevates it thanks to a lot of different elements working in harmony. Ample attention is put on making every character feel genuine and realized, while the scares are thrown at you smartly and intentionally, feeling more than earned rather than just an expectation. This is a lot of fun with some solid crowd pleasing moments, but it has enough of an edge to still remain dark and ominous. Weirdly this kinda made me want to go back to Ireland. I dunno, the vibes of being haunted and sent to hell in Ireland just sound way more appealing than in the states.

RATING

IRISH HONEYMOON

What’s scarier than an old Celtic witch? Saying “I do!” (unless my wife is reading this, who I am much more scared of than any hag). But we can water down all those fears with this cocktail inspired by the beautiful country of Ireland and all the medicinal compounds its given us. This drink is loosely inspired by a batch of mushroom-laced goat milk that plays a somewhat pivotal role in the film. The Irish Honeymoon is lightly creamy, crisp and has an ever so slight botanical note to it. You’ll be feeling like you’re on your honeymoon every time you have this, and your blood alcohol level will most likely be just as high.

INGREDIENTS

• 2oz Irish whiskey
• 1oz apple juice
• 1/2oz honey syrup
• 1/4oz lemon juice
• 1/4oz Benedictine
• 1/2oz half and half
• garnish: apple chip heart

INGREDIENTS

1. Add ingredients to a shaker and shake to chill.
2. Strain into coup glass.
3. Garnish with two apple chips, skewered with a toothpick to make them look like a heart.

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A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.

In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.

The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.

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