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Ricardo Henriquez’s “The Catcher’s Trap” is an Impressive Dark Fantasy Debut

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“The door to hell stands under a fluorescent light in an alley in Queens. The devil himself showed me.”–Ricardo Henriquez, The Catcher’s Trap

There are few experiences more satisfying than sitting down with a book and finding yourself in its pages.  The author gets you and you can feel it in your gut.  The author proves to you that you that no matter how unique your own experiences may be, someone else understands them because their life path has been similar.  That’s exactly how I felt the first time I read The Catcher’s Trap, the debut novel from Chilean born author Ricardo Henriquez.

Henriquez’s book centers around a young man named Andres.  Andres is young, handsome and in any other story would be written as the great and confident hero who never backs down as he faces challenge after challenge.  That’s not the story Henriquez is telling, however.  Instead he offers us a hero who is eaten up inside by anxiety and depression, who second guesses his every move, and who fails in his quest at least often as he wins.

In short, the author decided to make Andres real.

It all begins in Queens.  Andres has met three strangers in a bar and they’ve convinced him to tag along to a club he’s never heard of in a not so great part of the city.  Andres has made a promise to himself to stop being such a coward, and though his inner dialogue tells a different story, outwardly he is determined to step way out of his comfort zone and embrace the unknown.  Little does he know that by stepping into that club, he is setting himself up for capture by monsters, both beautiful and terrifying, straight out of his darkest nightmares.

This duality of beauty and terror plays out repeatedly in the novel, and the author uses that duality to perfectly symbolize the inner struggle that many of us know all too well.  For those prone to depression and/or anxiety our own world can be a dark and uncertain place, and even the most beautiful sun bright field of flowers can open the door to hopelessness and fear.

Henriquez deftly created a world and people who embody these abstract traits in their many stages and brings them to horrific life.  Whether it is the handsome catcher, Roman, who kidnaps humans and brings them to his world to serve his even more cruel masters, or the snake-like barbarian guards who watch over the humans and kill at will, these are monsters and their very purpose is to take your life.  If it happens slowly or quickly, that’s up to you.

The Catcher’s Trap is a fine debut novel from Ricardo Henriquez, and it’s the first in a proposed trilogy of books that will continue Andres’ quest.  Fans of Neil Gaiman would do well to get a copy.  The book is available in both ebook and paperback formats from Inkshares.com.

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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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