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Santa Clarita Diet Will Serve a Balanced Meal of Murder and Comedy

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When it comes to genre offerings, Netflix has been killing it lately (pun intended, sorry). Their upcoming offering, Santa Clarita Diet, will serve up a balanced meal of horror and comedy with a dash of family drama.

The early description from Netflix sets the scene, but leaves out an important detail.

“In Santa Clarita Diet, Joel (Timothy Olyphant, Justified) and Sheila (Drew Barrymore, Blended) are husband and wife realtors leading vaguely discontented lives in the L.A. suburb of Santa Clarita with their teenaged daughter Abby (Liv Hewson), until Sheila goes through a dramatic change sending their lives down a road of death and destruction…but in a good way.”

The “dramatic change” that they’re referring to is the death of Drew Barrymore’s character, Sheila. The kicker is that – for whatever reason – she remains vertical. Walking, talking, and with an insatiable desire to consume raw human flesh. In the words of Jud Crandall, sometimes dead is better.

Santa Clarita Diet Netflix

Image credit: Collider

Sheila decides that the best way to satisfy her horrible craving is to only eat those who really deserve it. Ultimately practical, she turns terrible people into a gruesome and nutritious protein shake. It sounds kind of like Dexter meets iZombie, but with really mindful lifestyle choices.

Created by Victor Fresco (My Name is Earl, Better Off Ted), the show takes a (much needed) fresh and satirical approach to the zombie genre.

In an interview with USA Today, Drew Barrymore spoke about the development of her cannibalistic conversion “We do this sort of Cro-Magnon type of evolution with her over the course of the 10 episodes. No gimmicks, no prosthetics, just an awakening”

It sounds like an interesting take on the “oh no what’s this I’m actually some kind of monster” trope that can be found in most possession and werewolf films.

Santa Clarita Diet Netflix

Image credit: Collider

It’s worth mentioning that the first two episodes were directed by Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) and we can expect to see some guest appearances from fan favorites like Nathan Fillion (Slither).

If the tongue-in-cheek promotional material is any indication of the moxie that we can expect from the series, it should be good fun. When you open the Santa Clarita Diet website, you’re greeted with the cheerful promotion of a positive lifestyle. The web design rivals that of any “miracle diet” site.

Santa Clarita Diet Netflix

Image credit: Digital Spy

The inclusion of cheeky testimonials such as “The Santa Clarita Diet is so versatile. You can do it with any body!” is a nice touch. I see what you did there, Santa Clarita Diet. Well played.

Overall, it should be a charming-but-dark look at family dynamics, daily struggles, and straight up murder.

Santa Clarita Diet premiers on Netflix on Friday, February 3.

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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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