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‘American Psycho’ Hit Theaters 20 Years Ago Today!

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American Psycho

“I have all the characteristics of a human being: blood, flesh, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust,” Patrick Bateman says inĀ American Psycho. “Something horrible is happening inside of me and I don’t know why. My nightly blood lust has overflown into my days. I feel lethal, on the verge of frenzy. I think my mask of sanity is about to slip.”

Man, did it ever slip…

American Psycho, directed by Mary Harron and based on the Bret Easton Ellis novel of the same name, debuted at the Sundance film festival in January of 2000, but finally made its way to a larger audience on April 14, 2000.

It was a game-changer of sorts. Darkly funny to the point of being uncomfortable, audiences were utterly charmed by Christian Bale’s performance as obsessive psychopath Patrick Bateman, who took the excessive need to beĀ the best in the world of 80s investment bankers to a whole new level.

Everything in Patrick’s life is perfectly curated and cultivated from his contacts to his business cards to the perfect, perky blonde fiance with exactly the right social status. And yet, there’s another side to Patrick. The side that doesn’t only want and need to kill, but who layers cruelty and torture in the mix, all set to the sounds of Whitney Houston, Genesis and Huey Lewis and the News.

Audiences and critics alike became wrapped up in Patrick’s story. Were the events really happening? Was he delusional? Was it some mixture of the two?

Harron’s direction in American Psycho was immaculate. She seemingly gave her actors permission to be unlikable, and they relished that gift. No one in this film is a good person. They’re all flawed, bitter, angry, and self-absorbed. The only difference between them and Patrick is that Patrick acts out on his aggression.

He doesn’t smear someone’s reputation; he smears their blood across the walls.

For his part, Bale seemed to totally embrace the role of Bateman. He was beautiful and deadly and the image of him running naked down a hallway with a chainsaw is–as it should be–forever burned into our memories.

What worked inĀ American Psycho in 2000, still works in 2020. You can totally watch it on a surface level and enjoy a a film about a serial killing investment banker who loves pop music, but you can also scratch beneath the surface and take in the underlying themes which opens up a whole new realm of discussion.

The choice is ultimately yours.

If you haven’t seenĀ American Psycho in a while, now is the perfect time to revisit it. It’s available to rent on Redbox, Google Play, Fandango Now, Amazon, and Vudu.

Take a look at the trailer below; I’d watch with you, but I have to return some video tapes.

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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 SĆ©bastien 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.ā€

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. Abramsā€™ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turowā€™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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