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“To Hell and Back: The Kane Hodder Story” Review

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Written by Patti Pauley

I recently had the immense and honored privilege to check out a screener for To Hell and Back: The Kane Hodder Story, and holy shit guys; I really can’t wait for every single horror fan to be able to watch this documentary.

I guess you can tell where this is going, but humor me anyway. Now let’s all tilt our heads in unison…

Very good.

As you and I are firmly well aware as dedicated horror heads, the community can be a rather fickle one just like any other pop culture genre. However, I think the contrast here between the horror genre of fans compared to any other fan-based community is that we are severely loyal to each other no matter our backgrounds in the genre and respect each other even harder. And that’s exactly what we have here in To Hell and Back: The Kane Hodder Story as literally every major horror icon rounds up to help tell the harrowing tale of how Kane Hodder became the icon he is today. As cool as it is to see the likes of Robert Englund, Bruce Campbell, and Cassandra Peterson weigh in on stories and connections to their genre comrade, it really all takes a backseat when Kane himself is telling these emotionally gripping stories and becoming vulnerable on screen.

Directed by Derek Dennis Herbert and soon to be released by Masterfully Macrabe, The Kane Hodder Story is so much more than about the guy who plays Jason Voorhees and Victor Crowley among numerous other roles. This is about a man that truly HAS been to hell and back, and came out stronger than he ever imagined he could be. From being severely bullied in his younger years, his life-threatening burn accident, and a sense of disappointment in not being involved with Freddy vs. Jason Kane takes his fans on an emotionally gripping roller-coaster filled with tears, chuckles, and a true look inside of the man behind the mask; who is about as much of a true American success story as I’ve ever heard in recent years.

If you’ve ever read Kane’s biography “Unmasked: The True Life Story of the World’s Most Prolific Cinematic Killer”, then you may be already well aware of some of Kane’s hardships before and during his rise to horror infamy. However, it’s truly one thing to see the words on paper, and then see them expressed physically on screen, and for an empathetic person such as myself, its as intense as it gets and can leave you in a hot mess of tears.

Who is peeling onions in here?!!

Visits to locations that serve as a backdrop and help capture the essence of the story such as Kane walking through the burn ward he was sent to after the now infamous interview accident stunt gone horribly wrong along with his childhood home in Kwajalein, add that cherry on the top visual to really bring you in the heroic tale of this living legend. Hodder’s willingness to go all the way in this open book on his life documentary is truly a breath of fresh air and if you’re already a fan of his, you’re going to love the gentle giant even more after a viewing. But I think the greatest thing I personally took from this film, is to humble yourself and count every blessing you have in this rocky road trip we call life. And that my friends, is why I would put this documentary high on the list as one of my favorite biography films of 2017.

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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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