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Review: WEBCAST Is Creepy, Believable and Stays With You

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We’ve reached the point where all one need say is that a film is of the found footage variety to induce eye rolls and dismissal. Though such a declaration is typically followed by a hurried, “Wait, wait! This one is different,” they rarely are. Taking such a stance with Paul McGhie’s project, however, would be a gross miscalculation because Webcast truly was different.

A pair of present day college students embark on a documentary film for a class project that revolves around family dynamics following the sudden disappearance of Chloe Webber’s (Samantha Redford) aunt in 1984. Though memories fade with time, that none of the family members could recall what aunt Amelia looked like was not what baffled and intrigued Chloe, it was that none of them seemed to really know who she was. While filming outside Chloe’s mother’s house, Webber and her boyfriend Ed Dickens (Joseph Tremain), capture the image of a young woman sprinting from a neighbor’s front door only to be tackled by a family member. Confused by the unknown, Chloe and Ed begin to ponder whether the girl was struggling with recovery from drug addiction as they’d been told, or actually being held against her will.

The more the pair look into strange sounds and visitors next door, the stranger and deeper down the rabbit hole they find themselves, only to press on in hopes of finding the truth which never surfaced with Amelia’s disappearance. In the spirit of leaving the film unspoiled, I won’t reveal any more, but from that point forward, Webcast is creepy, frenetically paced and truly jarring.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) was clearly an influence on McGhie, and while Webcast felt like a hike to Coffin Rock set in suburbia, its ultimate credit was that it held one firmly glued to the screen, repeatedly asking “What the hell is going on here?” Not because the script was misguided or confusing, but because much like the best of television, Webcast offered just enough peeks behind the curtain to leave one with a primal urge to know just what was lurking in the dark.

webcast 1McGhie’s writing and direction were perfectly paced, Redford and Tremain’s thoughtful and reserved performances enhanced the feeling of uncertain dread and the twists and turns delivered on intended effect.

It is no easy task to take a subgenre that has run the gamut over the past twenty-plus years and give it an original spin, but Webcast does just that. It is legitimately frightening and what’s more, believable. Nothing was forced and no leap of faith was required to follow the story from beginning to end. Every action and conversation of the characters were the same any one of us may have made had we found ourselves under similar circumstances.

And that’s why Webcast works.

The trailer will leave you itching to see it, but once you’ve take it all in, you will understand all too well that Webcast delves much deeper into the sinister than you could have possibly imagined. And as with all good pictures, it will stay with you.

Above all, Webcast left notes of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” lingering on this writer’s tongue. Not because any character ventured upon revenge or found themselves walled up, but rather out of the concept of regret. Much like The Blair Witch Project, the idea of perseverance in the face of uncertain adversity posed an important question — At what point does turning back go from a reluctance to be scared off the scent to the smart play?

Webcast is the bystander effect put to film. It will leave you questioning whether doing the right thing truly is the best course of action.

At present, Webcast is not slated for theatrical release, but you can find more information on how to see it and demand it play at a theatre near you at isawthewebcast.com.

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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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