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Review: ‘Creepshow’ Season 2’s Model Kid/Public Television of the Dead Bring The Series Back To Frighteningly Fun Form

Published

5 years ago

April 2, 2021

Creepshow reviving on AMC’s Shudder horror streaming service has been the gory gift that keeps on giving. From the first season to last year’s gory Halloween cartoon special and over the top Christmas special, it’s been a hell of a ride so far. So, how does Creepshow fare with its season 2 revival? Read on, because the opening episode is one for all the monster kids and deadite heads out there…

The first story, ‘Model Kid’ revolves around Joe (Brock Duncan), a kid who loves monsters so much he surrounds himself with all kinds of creature figures, memorabilia, and movies. Even dressing up as a vampire himself! An escapist comfort that Joe needs from the real life horrors of local bullies and his mother’s illness. Things take a turn when his sympathetic Aunt Barb (Jana Allen) and abusive Uncle Kevin (The Blob‘s Kevin Dillon) move in to help take care of Joe and his mother. But when push comes to shove, Joe decides to get some supernatural help from his ‘real’ monstrous pals thanks to his very own Creepshow comic…

This was a perfect set-up story for the rest of the season. Directed by showrunner and special fx maestro Greg Nicotero and written by John Esposito, you could tell this story was a huge love letter to the monster kids out there. Not only was it a grand display of practical creatures (I’d love to see The Gillman vs The Mummy) but it also had a lot of heart as Joe finds strength from horror fiction to stand up to his oppressive uncle and bond with his vulnerable mother. Also, kudos to Kevin Dillon for playing a great Creepshow heel!

The second tale of terror is ‘Public Television of the Dead’ also directed by Nicotero and written by Rob Schrab, who penned last season’s werewolf World War 2 epic, ‘Bad Wolf Down’. Set in the 1970’s, the story follows the day’s production for Pittsburgh’s WQPS station. Mrs. Booksberry (Coley Campany) is the face of the network and with the most popular show with with her magical library. While she appears sweet and friendly on TV, behind the scenes, she’s a nightmare to work with. Even going to far as to pressure the station’s new executive Claudia Aberlan (Marissa Chanel Hampton) to cancel gentle giant of a painter Norm Roberts’ (Mark Ashworth) art show so she can steal his time slot. Things take a turn for the worst when Ted Raimi himself stops by to get a relic he found in his fruit cellar appraised on an antique show… The Necronomicon!

This episode was a barrel of laughs and deadites! A love letter to all things Evil Dead and public television with more blood and guts than you’d ever see on any publicly broadcast TV show. Ted Raimi is great as… Ted Raimi, and the trio of Claudia, Norm, and producer George (Todd Allen Durkin) make for an incredible group of protagonists and I would watch an entire spin-off movie with them. I don’t want to spoil too much, but keep an eye out for numerous ED references and homages.

Overall, this was a solid start to Season 2 and I am ecstatic to see what further frights are in store for us!

Creepshow airs on Shudder every Thursday.

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The Practical Magic 2 Teaser Trailer Is Finally Here

Published

9 hours ago

April 20, 2026

Luna Gray

The Practical Magic 2 teaser trailer is out, and it is worth taking a second to appreciate what we are actually looking at here. A film that bombed at the box office in 1998, fell short of recouping its $75 million budget, and got mixed reviews at best is now getting a sequel with its full original cast, a rebuilt set, and a room full of theater owners losing their minds at CinemaCon.

What Happened the First Time

The original Practical Magic came out in October 1998 and critics did not know what to do with it. It was part romantic comedy, part domestic abuse drama, part supernatural thriller, part crime story. The tonal whiplash was real, and the reviews reflected that. The film underperformed. Nobody called it a classic.

Then it became one anyway. The film found its audience over the following two decades, particularly among millennial women who responded to what it was actually doing underneath the genre mess. A film about women protecting each other, centered entirely on a bloodline of women, with a finale built around a community of women coming together.

What the Trailer Shows

Sandra Bullock opens the teaser in voiceover as Sally: “I’m sure you’ve heard of the Owens family. The ones from Massachusetts. The ones their neighbors whisper are witches.” Nicole Kidman is back as Gillian, settled into life with a black cat. The house on the cliff was rebuilt from scratch for the film.

Bullock said of returning: “Coming back didn’t feel like shooting a sequel. It felt like coming back home.” Given that the original cast and director were not involved in any franchise maintenance for twenty-eight years, that is something.

The Cast

Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest are both back as the aunts Frances and Jet. The film adds Joey King as Sally’s daughter. She uncovers buried family secrets and develops dark powers of her own. Maisie Williams, Xolo Maridueña, and Solly McLeod round out the new generation.

Practical Magic 2 opens September 11, 2026.

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The HUNGRY Red Band Trailer Is Here and We Need to Stop Laughing at the Hippo

Published

10 hours ago

April 20, 2026

Luna Gray

The trailer for HUNGRY dropped this morning, and before we get into it, I want to address something. You are going to look at the words “hippo horror movie” and your brain is going to do a thing. It is going to go to Hungry Hungry Hippos. It is going to think this is a joke. You are going to be wrong, and the hippo is going to eat you for it.

Hippos kill an estimated 500 people per year in Africa. They are the third largest land animal on earth. They weigh up to 4,000 pounds, can run up to 19 miles per hour, and are aggressively territorial in both water and on land. The animals are also largely nocturnal, which means most of what they do to people happens in the dark. Jaws made us afraid of open water for forty years and sharks kill roughly five people globally per year. Five. Do the math.

The hippo has been waiting for its movie. HUNGRY might actually be it.

What Is Happening in This Movie

HUNGRY follows a group of tourists on a riverboat tour through the Louisiana swamplands who get lured off the main route with the promise of an exclusive experience. What they find instead is a ravenous hippopotamus lurking beneath the bayou’s murky water that has very different ideas about how this excursion is going to go.

That is the whole premise. Tourists. Swamp. Hippo. No one gets out easily.

The Louisiana bayou setting is doing a lot of work here. It is a landscape that already feels like it is hiding something. The water is opaque. The trees close in. Sound travels differently. If you are going to put an apex predator somewhere and make it feel genuinely threatening, a Louisiana swamp is about as correct a choice as you can make. The film is leaning into that and the trailer makes it clear this is not a sunlit adventure film. This is a survival movie.

Distributed by AURA Entertainment and classified as a survival thriller and creature horror, the film opens June 23.

News

This Week in Horror: CinemaCon Delivered, Nicolas Cage Is Coming Back, and Someone Let Ti West Near a Christmas Story

Published

3 days ago

April 17, 2026

Luna Gray

It was a big week. CinemaCon happened, a Longlegs sequel got announced, and Lee Cronin’s The Mummy opened today, which we already covered but deserves to be in the roundup anyway because it is the biggest horror release of the month, and you should go see it. Here is everything else.

CinemaCon: The Horror Stuff

CinemaCon ran April 13 through 16 in Las Vegas and there was a lot. Here is what matters to us.

Werwulf got a real trailer, and it looks unhinged in the best way.

Robert Eggers’ follow-up to Nosferatu showed up at Universal’s presentation and it sounds like exactly what you want it to be. Aaron Taylor-Johnson transforms into a werewolf. Grimy medieval England. Lily-Rose Depp, Willem Dafoe, and Ralph Ineson are all in this. Variety called the transformation sequence alone worth the price of admission.

Practical Magic 2 happened and it was genuinely emotional.

Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman walked out together at Warner Bros.’ presentation and the room apparently lost it. The sequel reunites the Owens sisters, brings back Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing, and adds Maisie Williams and Xolo Maridueña as the next generation. They rebuilt the original house on the cliff. Sally is single now. If you know the original film you know why.

Ti West and Johnny Depp are making a Christmas horror movie and I have questions.

Paramount showed first footage from Ebenezer: A Christmas Carol, directed by Ti West and starring Depp in prosthetics as Scrooge. Ian McKellen is Jacob Marley. The Ghost of Christmas Present apparently shows up with his ribcage open. It is a Ti West film, so presumably this will be deeply upsetting by the end. Filing this under “extremely interested and also a little scared.”

Scary Movie is coming back June 5.

The original cast is back. Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Anna Faris, Regina Hall. The footage shown at Paramount’s panel apparently goes after reboots, remakes, elevated horror, and origin stories. That is a lot of ground to cover.

The Longlegs Universe Is Expanding

Osgood Perkins and Nicolas Cage are doing another Longlegs film, this time at Paramount, which picked it up because the scope was apparently bigger than Neon could handle. Not calling it a sequel exactly, more like something set in the same universe.

The Terror Is Back

The Terror: Devil in Silver drops May 7 on AMC+ and Shudder, and it looks like a proper return for the anthology. Dan Stevens stars as Pepper, a man committed to a psychiatric hospital who starts wondering if what he is experiencing is supernatural or if he is actually losing his mind. Based on Victor LaValle’s novel of the same name, who is also the showrunner. Judith Light, CCH Pounder, Stephen Root, and Marin Ireland are in the cast. Ridley Scott remains an executive producer. The first two seasons of The Terror were genuinely excellent, and this one has the cast to back it up.

Also Worth Knowing

Faces of Death is in theaters now and sitting at 69% on Rotten Tomatoes. Directed by Daniel Goldhaber, stars Barbie Ferreira as a content moderator who finds what might be real execution videos on a TikTok-style platform. It is a smart premise and the reviews say it mostly delivers.

Passenger got a trailer this week. André Øvredal, who directed The Autopsy of Jane Doe and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, is calling it his scariest film yet. A supernatural entity latches onto a couple on a road trip.

The Young People from Osgood Perkins is still coming October 30, which means we are getting two Perkins-adjacent projects in the same year. This one stars Lola Tung, Nico Parker, Tatiana Maslany and Nicole Kidman and follows two school friends whose relationship turns sinister as one starts exhibiting disturbing behavior. Between this, Werwulf, and Other Mommy, fall 2026 is looking very good.

That is the week. Go see The Mummy.