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Indie Short Review: Heir (Starring Bill Oberst Jr.)

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Richard Powell is back with another haunting short film called Heir. You may know him from past shorts like Consumption, Worm, and/or Familiar, which got a fair amount of acclaim from horror enthusiasts.

familiar-poster

Heir is fourteen minutes long, and manages to pack in a mysterious story, some pretty great practical effects, and most importantly, another chilling performance by Bill Oberst Jr. (Resolution, Circus of the Dead, Take This Lollipop). It also features another solid performance from Powell regular Robert Nolan, the star of Familiar.

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When I review a film, I don’t like to just take you through what happens in it because that removes a lot of the mystique, and with a film this short, it would pretty much give away the whole thing, so I’m not going to do that. I’ll give you the official synopsis and leave what happens on screen at that:

After connecting with a stranger of similar interests online, Gordon and his young son Paul, embark on an ill-fated road trip in which Gordon aims to indulge a secret passion. Before the day ends a horrible truth will be uncovered and a harsh lesson will be learned.

What I will do is tell you that Heir is well worth your fourteen minutes, if not for Oberst’s performance alone than for the the climax which lives up to the film’s announcement which calls it a monster movie unlike any other”.

heir2

I can honestly say that I have never seen anything quite like this one. That’s a sentiment I find myself expressing more and more lately with titles like Der Samurai (review) and Spring (review), and that makes me very happy. Films like these are a reminder that there is still plenty of untapped creativity in a genre that all too often feels like everything has been done.

As far as Heir is concerned, I don’t want to oversell it. I don’t know that it’s going to change how you look at the genre, but it’s always a breath of fresh air when an original idea is executed in a way that you know is going to stick with you.

It’s hard to say whether it would have worked so well as a feature, but that’s the beauty of the short. You can make your mark quickly, and get out. If you liked Familiar, you’ll probably dig this one too. If you didn’t, you should still watch this one to be creeped out by Oberst.

Heir comes from Fatal Pictures in association with red Sneaker Media.

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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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