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Review: Netflix Offers Nicely Cogged “The Windmill”

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Every so often Netflix surprises its subscribers with a film you’ve never heard of before, but manages to shine up your horror queue with a mildly abrasive polish made of blood (See Train to Busan).

European import “The Windmill,” is one such example and you can stream that now if you so desire.

The story begins much like a Hollywood disaster film: we meet characters who don’t know each other, each with their own set of problems, but their lives eventually intersect in a fight for survival.

In “The Windmill” the strangers are thrown together on an Amsterdam tour bus which makes its way through the countryside, visiting some of the region’s most iconic windmills.

Suffering a mechanical difficulty, the bus stalls and the group is stranded in a desolate part of the landscape, just within walking distance of a windmill that looms high above the hillside canopy. And when the vehicle topples over into the lake their fate seems questionable.

The main character, Aussie tourist Jennifer (Charlotte Beaumont) is the most mysterious of the bunch. She see visions, takes medication to calm them and the group begins to question her sanity after an unexpected outburst.

However, after taking refuge in an old cabin, the tourists begin to have hallucinations of their own. In particular re-visiting times in their lives where they have grievously sinned.

These revelations provide the grotesquely disfigured local spook Miller Hendrik the opportunity to steal their souls by revisiting their darkest, most painful secrets through terrifying visions.

As the tale goes, Hendrik, through a deal with the Devil, uses a large scythe to drain his victims of blood in order to get his windmill spinning again.

There is a twist at the end, but as the body count rises it may be too late to escape Holland’s legendary vigilantly of sin.

Director Nick Jongerius knows how to tell a story, and along with the strength of the actors and the brevity of the film (85 mins), “The Windmill” churns out a satisfying story with plenty of blood and guts to appease genre fans in this tidy well-baked treat.

Jongerius also manages to introduce a startling new movie monster into the mix. Hendrik is an ugly chap with burn-scarred face, complete with drooping eyes and candle wax ghoulishness. And he always gets his sinner.

Like the product of its namesake, “The Windmill” isn’t going to produce anything you haven’t tasted, but it successfully rises above some of the other offerings baking in your Netflix horror section.

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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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