WEEKEND BOX OFFICE ESTIMATES JUNE 21-23

(Remember, clicking the highlighted links brings you to the reviews here at The Movie Madhouse!)

1. “Inside Out 2” $100 Million

2. “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” $18.8 Million

3. “The Bikeriders” $10 Million

4. “The Garfield Movie” $3.6 Million

5. “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” $3.6 Million

6. “If” $2.8 Million

7. “The Exorcism” $2.4 Million

8. “Thelma” $2.2 Million

9. “The Watchers” $1.9 Million

10. “GHOST: Rite Here Rite Now” $1.5 Million

-MonsterZero NJ

source: Box Office Mojo

HAPPY 66th BIRTHDAY, BRUCE CAMPBELL!

MonsterZero NJ’s Movie Madhouse wishes the legendary Bruce Campbell a very happy 66th birthday! Hail to the king, baby!…

…and as a special treat! Here’s your own MonsterZero NJ being strangled by Mr. Campbell himself at the 1992 Chiller Theater convention in Hackensack N.J.!…

-MonsterZero NJ

BARE BONES: TAROT (2024)

TAROT (2024)

Teen centric horror has a simple plot. A group of friends partying at a rented cabin break into the locked cellar and find an old tarot deck. Of course, despite knowing that using someone else’s tarot cards is not a good thing, Haley (Harriet Slater) uses it to read everyone’s horoscopes anyway. Now the group are dying one by one in the ways the cards predicted stalked by the entities featured on the spooky deck. Can the survivors find a way to halt this evil force and save their own lives?

Using someone else’s Tarot deck can be deadly!

Supernatural teen horror flick is written and directed by Spenser Cohen and Anna Halberg based on the book Horoscope by Nicholas Adams. Overall, it is fairly generic but does have a few spooky moments. There is some atmosphere and the directing duo both have very good visual eyes as the film has an effective look. There is also some eerie production design especially when it comes to the creatures/entities, what we do see of them, and some creepy flashbacks. What holds it back is we’ve seen it all before. A group of attractive young teens break some supernatural rule and face some otherworldly boogeyman. It’s a familiar and overdone formula and it follows it to the letter. The duo of Cohen and Halberg seem to have a little something and maybe if they had broken some taboo rules of their own, this might have had more bite. Tarot might have had some nice intensity had they went hard R and really let loose. As is, it’s a mildly effective but forgettable flick in an overcrowded field. Thought it was a theatrical hit so its target audience would probably disagree. Also stars Spider-Man trilogy regular Jacob Batalon as Paxton.

-MonsterZero NJ

Photo: Screen Gems

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE ESTIMATES JUNE 14-16

(Remember, clicking the highlighted links brings you to the reviews here at The Movie Madhouse!)

1. “Inside Out 2” $154 Million

2. “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” $34 Million

3. “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” $5.5 Million

4. “Garfield” $4.8 Million

5. “If” $3.6 Million

6. “The Watchers” $3.5 Million

7. “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” $2.6 Million

8. “The Fall Guy” $1.6 Million

9. “The Strangers: Chapter 1” $759,039

10. “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” $632,910

-MonsterZero NJ

source: Box Office Mojo

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TERRIFIER 2’s LAUREN LaVERA!

LAUREN LaVERA as SIENNA in TERRIFIER 2!

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The beautiful and talented birthday girl!

Photo Credit:  Joe Kelly/via IMDB

-MonsterZero NJ

And don’t forget to check out our previous Halloween Hotties!

Head over to the Halloween Hotties listings! to read them all!)

BARE BONES: TRIM SEASON (2024)

TRIM SEASON (2024)

Indie supernatural horror finds Emma (Bethlehem Million) down on her luck losing both her job and her apartment. She and her weed smoking pal Julia (Alex Essoe) decide to go out on the town and drown their sorrows. They meet James (Marc Senter) who offers them an opportunity to come to a remote mountain cabin to trim harvested weed for money. They also get to smoke as much as they want. The girls agree and arrive along with three other women Dusty, Lex and Harriet (Bex Taylor-Klaus, Juliette Kenn De Balinthazy and Ally Ioannides) at the home of the mysterious and eccentric Mona (Jane Badler). Soon after they begin their stay, one of the girls dies horribly smoking Mona’s special stash and the young women begin to think something very not right is going on here and that Mona has a more sinister purpose in store for them.

These young ladies find out the hard way that weed and witchcraft is not a good combination in Trim Season!

Flick is very well directed by Ariel Vida from her script with David Blair from a story by Sean E. DeMott, Cullen Poythress and Megan Sutherland. Despite having a plot that might sound like a Cheech and Chong Halloween movie, Vida creates a spooky, disturbing and sometimes very gory horror that nicely mixes weed culture and dark witchcraft. It has a very unnerving atmosphere and while it takes a little time to get going, once it does there are some very unsettling sequences that sometimes get graphically bloody or violent. She gets some really good performances out of her horror centric cast, especially Bethlehem Million (Sick), Alex Essoe (Starry Eyes, Tales of Halloween), a very likable and sympathetic Bex Taylor-Klaus (Hell Fest) not to mention a delightfully wicked weed witch from legendary Jane Badler (V: The Series). The gore is very well rendered practical effects and Vida has a very effective and mesmerizing visual eye, making spooky good use of her remote mountain locations. Overall, it’s not perfect but is a spooky and blood-spattered supernatural chiller that shows Ariel Vida is a filmmaker to keep an eye on. Recommended! Now streaming!

-MonsterZero NJ

Photo: Paper Street Pictures

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE ESTIMATES JUNE 7-9

(Remember, clicking the highlighted links brings you to the reviews here at The Movie Madhouse!)

1. “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” $56 Million

2. “Garfield” $10 Million

3. “If” $8 Million

4. “The Watchers” $7 Million

5. “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” $5.4 Million

6. “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” $4.2 Million

7. “The Fall Guy” $2.7 Million

8. “The Strangers: Chapter 1” $1.8 Million

9. “Haikyuu!! The Dumpster Battle” $820,448

10. “In a Violent Nature” $640,000

-MonsterZero NJ

source: Box Office Mojo

BARE BONES: DAMSEL (2024)

DAMSEL (2024)

Story is about a young woman named Elodie (Millie Bobby Brown) the daughter of Lord Bayford (Ray Winstone) who presides over a land fallen on hard times. Bayford gets an offer from King Roderick (Milo Twomey) and Queen Isabelle (Robin Wright) of the prosperous kingdom of Aurea for Elodie to marry their son Prince Henry (Nick Robinson) in exchange for enough money to save Bayford’s lands. Elodie finds out too late that the marriage is a deception, and she is to be used as a sacrifice to appease an angry dragon. Thrown into its lair, Elodie chooses not to be a damsel in distress but fights to stay alive and somehow find a way to escape or destroy the monster.

This young lady is no Damsel in distress!

Netflix streaming flick is directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo from a script by Dan Mazeau and is a solid dark fantasy/adventure. There is a lot of action and cat and mouse chases with the dragon toying with Elodie and Elodie not playing games. There are some grim moments, and the FX are very good as are the sets and costumes. The cast is also good with vets like Winstone playing the honorable but beleaguered Bayford, Wright as the traditional wicked queen and Brown making a very strong and resilient heroine as Elodie. The dragon also has enough presence and personality as voiced by actress Shohreh Aghdashloo. All in all, it’s no classic but is an entertaining and satisfying adventure for a night of streaming on the couch. Also stars Angela Bassett as Lady Bayford, Elodie’s stepmother.

-MonsterZero NJ

Photo: Netflix

“ALIEN: ROMULUS” GETS A FULL TRAILER and NEW POSTER!

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From the official synopsis…

“The sci-fi/horror-thriller takes the phenomenally successful “Alien” franchise back to its roots: While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe. The film stars Cailee Spaeny (“Priscilla”), David Jonsson (“Agatha Christie’s Murder is Easy”), Archie Renaux (“Shadow and Bone”), Isabela Merced (“The Last of Us”), Spike Fearn (“Aftersun”), Aileen Wu. Fede Alvarez (“Evil Dead,” “Don’t Breathe”) directs from a screenplay he wrote with frequent collaborator Rodo Sayagues (“Don’t Breathe 2”) based on characters created by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett. “Alien: Romulus” is produced by Ridley Scott (“Napoleon”), who directed the original “Alien” and produced and directed the series’ entries “Prometheus” and “Alien: Covenant,” Michael Pruss (“Boston Strangler”), and Walter Hill (“Alien”), with Fede Alvarez, Elizabeth Cantillon (“Charlie’s Angels”), Brent O’Connor (“Bullet Train”), and Tom Moran (“Unstoppable”) serving as executive producers. ”

Film will open in theaters 8/16/24.

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-MonsterZero NJ

Source: 20th Century Fox

MONSTERZERO NJ’S LGBTQIA+ HORRORS FOR PRIDE MONTH 2024!

MONSTERZERO NJ’S 15 LGBTQIA+ HORRORS FOR PRIDE MONTH 2024!

Colin Minihan’s What Keeps You Alive, pits spouse against spouse.

Its Pride Month and MonsterZero NJ’s Movie Madhouse commemorates by focusing on fifteen horrors with LGBTQIA+ themes or main characters. Horror is a genre with something for everyone and was one of the first to embrace LGBTQIA+ content into its stories, as far back as 1936, when it was still considered taboo! Enjoy! – MZNJ

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Worth highlighting all on its own is Hammer Horror’s groundbreaking Karnstein Trilogy, three vampire flicks which featured openly lesbian themes at a time when it was bold to do so!

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The Rocky Horror Picture Show’s Frank N Furter, a groundbreaking LGBTQIA+ main character!

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(To get to the reviews of the titles listed above covered here at the Movie Madhouse, just type the title in the search engine to find the corresponding critique!)

-MonsterZero NJ