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Review: ‘VHYES’ Is A Hilarious, Absurdist Late Night TV Throwback

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As time marches forward, we as a society seem to fixate on and grow nostalgic for what has come before. Be it trends from our youth, or the technology we grew up with in an advanced society such as ours. For example, VHS tapes still have a significant hold in popular culture to the point that there is still numerous movies and shows made with that aesthetic, and collectives and found footage groups assemble and collect tapes en-mass. What was a cornerstone of the pst continues to shape the present and future. This is an underlying theme in the funny as hell and surprisingly deep sketch comedy movie, VHYES.

Lucia Oskerova (l), Erika Stass (c), and Coral Caltaldo (r) as the aliens in Jack Henry Robbins’ VHYes. Photo by Nate Gold. © Oscilloscope Laboratories.

Much like sketch movies of yore such as The Kentucky Fried Movie or The Groove Tube, the film is a series of interconnected spoof commercials, satirical tv shows, and more. All framed around a young boy named Ralph (Mason McNulty) who has just received a camcorder for Christmas, 1987. Accidentally recording over his parents’ wedding tape in order to capture all matter of late night television, commercials, local access shows and so much more as reality itself seems to go off the rails…

Kerry Kenney as Joan, the host of “Painting with Joan” in Jack Henry Robbins’ VHYes. Photo by Nate Gold. © Oscilloscope Laboratories.

I was fortunate enough to see VHYES for the first tie in theaters at The Alamo, and it truly was a crowd experience. The movie deftly crosses the line between absurdist comedy and nightmare fuel, much like late night programming that you watched and had to wonder: is this a real show, or did I dream it? Segments including Thomas Lennon as a bullying home shopping network host trying to sell things from Confederate pens to ‘bakery baggies’ and Keri Kenney as a cheery local access show host named Joan who isn’t quite what she seems. The film boasts a great ensemble cast of comedy actors for its numerous sketches and faux programs including Mark Proksch, Charlyne Yi, John Gemberling and more.

William Knight as Kid Cowboy, the host of “The Kindly the Cowboy Show” in Jack Henry Robbins’ VHYes. Photo by Nate Gold. © Oscilloscope Laboratories.

Oddly, VHYES feels like a more comical sibling to Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett’s magnetic tape horror anthology, VHS. I don’t want to give much away, but there are videos and segments as the story of Ralph’s late night recording progresses that dive head first into the realm of found footage horror. I even jumped out of my seat at a few scares! Most sketches were fairly entertaining, though a couple dragged a little bit due to the nature of the comedy and material they were lampooning such as the inexplicably edited soft-core porn parody, ‘Hot Winter’. The wraparound segment may feel out of place and out of pace at times, but the build up to its overall theme and conclusion made it all worth it and rather thought provoking about homemade media and the world today.

If you’re a fan of the VHS medium as a storytelling element or are just hankering for some fun, weird, sketch comedy with a sprinkling of surreal terror on top, VHYES is more than worth checking out.

VHYES will be released limited theatrically January 17th, 2020

Image via Oscilloscope Laboratories

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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