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‘Sabrina’ Sugarcoated the Horrors of Lupercalia, the origins of Valentine’s Day

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Lupercalia. A tradition far from the sappy celebration of Valentine’s Day as we know it today.

What we know about this holiday and its beginnings dates back to the Romans. From February 13 to February 15 they would have the feast of Lupercalia. This feast was conducted to avert evil spirits and purify the city to release health and fertility.

This celebration was seen in an episode of the hit show Chilling Adventures of Sabrina in season 2 episode 3 entitled Lupercalia.

The show explains the ritual as “where a witch is paired with a random warlock, the courting, where the pair spend the night together in unholy abstinence, and the hunt, a run through the woods which climaxes in a frenzy of orgiastic carnality.” A pure sugarcoating of the actual festivities.

However, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina did get two parts right. The partners were matched up randomly. Yet c’mon, we all knew Sabrina and Nick would be paired together. Also, each partner places blood on the other’s forehead and wipes it off in a milk soaked cloth, both laughing while it’s being preformed.

That’s pretty much where the similarities end.

In the old days, Romans would kill a goat and a dog and use their hides to make thongs. With these strips made from the hides they would beat women who lined up for the floggings. Chilling Adventures of Sabrina seem to have glossed over that part.

These lashes didn’t appear to come from a place of sadism, but rather symbolism to help these women ensure fertility. These Roman women would think these beatings would not only make them more fertile, but also give birth to more children.

Other accounts claim the men and women would run naked through the streets during this part of the festivities. If they were caught they would be lashed with the thongs. Not only would these women benefit from the ritual, but the men who preformed the lashings would too.

These young men who lashed the women were seen as making the transition from boyhood to adulthood.

However, as time went on the celebrations changed. Men held women down and whipped their inner thighs against their will. The men laughed and cheered, drunkenly.

Historians have come to the conclusion the relation between Valentine’s Day and romance began in the late 14th century. However, how much of a connection between the two remains unclear.

While the connection between Lupercalia and Valentine’s Day is a bit muddled, it appears to be a distant ancestor of the holiday. Other historians claim it has no connection at all. Regardless, it is very different from the holiday as we know it today.

Read more about the history of Lupercalia here!  As well as a follow up with some history and serial killer Valentine Day cards from one of our own iHorror writers here!

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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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