Annabelle Comes Home Is Definitely Not A Horror Comedy, But It Will Have Funny Moments

Annabelle Comes Home Is Definitely Not A Horror Comedy, But It Will Have Funny Moments

The horror movies of The Conjuring Universe definitely take themselves seriously. Sure, there are the occasional laughs featured in the six features we’ve seen thus far, but they are pretty few and far between, as the focus has clearly always been primarily on scares. This is a tradition that fans can expect to see continue soon in the upcoming Annabelle Comes Home, but according to writer/director Gary Dauberman, you may find yourself chuckling while watching the movie a bit more than you did with previous chapters in this franchise.

The tone of Annabelle Comes Homes was a subject that came up during an interview with Dauberman on the set of the film when it was in production late last year, and in discussing his approach the filmmaker revealed that the new release will be a bit different than the previous two Annabelle features (both of which he wrote). While he stressed that there will never be a point in the movie where a comedic beat is given preference over a scare, there are going to be some laughs mixed in with the screams during the experience:

I'm not a huge fan of horror comedies, but I love comedy in my horror – if that makes sense. I like moments of levity, so I'm leaning into that a little bit more on certain moments, because I find if we hit the moments where people laugh, and then they get scared right away… I like trying to land that. I've been playing around with that a little bit more.

It’s an interesting direction to take, and arguably a smart one. While it’s definitely true that too much comedy can undercut the more frightening aspects of a horror film, striking a proper balance can work wonders. After all, making an audience smile with a joke or silly situation can lure them into a false sense of security, and when their guard is down a proper scare can result in shrieks, spilled soda, and flung popcorn.

Furthermore, a proper application of laughs interspersed with shocks does wonders for the ride-like experience that a great horror movie can offer. Those are two emotions on opposite ends of the spectrum, and it can be a blast for crowds to constantly bounce back and forth between those extremes. A recent example of a film that did that brilliantly was Andres Muschietti’s IT – which Gary Dauberman also wrote.

Part of what allows Gary Dauberman to take this approach with Annabelle Comes Home is that the plot offers circumstances that make the laughs natural – something that he didn’t really have in the making of Annabelle or Annabelle: Creation. Specifically, there is a classic horror set up here, with the story centering on young Judy Warren (McKenna Grace) as she spends the night with a babysitter (Madison Iseman) and her babysitter’s best friend (Katie Sarife) in a house that starts to go a bit nuts thanks to the presence of Annabelle. As Dauberman explained, the personalities of the girls allowed him to try some lighter tones with the plot, while never breaking too far from the larger tone of The Conjuring Universe movies. Said the writer/director,

That just fits the girls too because they're just so upbeat. It’s that sort of the teenagers alone in the house thing we're trying to capture too. It's been a lot of... We're not going ‘outside the box’ on this one, but I think we're trying to get a couple more moments of levity that maybe weren't there in the first and second one. I mean, there were moments of levity, but a little bit more of that sprinkled in.

Annabelle Comes Home, which features the return of Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as Ed and Loraine Warren, will be hitting theaters everywhere as a big summer release this year – scheduled to go nationwide on June 28th. It’s one of our most anticipated releases of the season, so you can be sure that we’ll have a lot more for you to read about it here on CinemaBlend between now and when it comes out.

Chris Hemsworth Almost Quit Ghostbusters The Day Before Filming

Chris Hemsworth Almost Quit Ghostbusters The Day Before Filming

The remake of Ghostbusters from 2016 was a movie with issues. Regardless of what you thought of the final product, the movie was fighting a losing battle years before it ever made it to the screen. However, it turns out there was even more going on behind-the-scenes than we realized, as Chris Hemsworth recently revealed that he considered quitting the production the day before filming was set to begin.

It seems that Chris Hemsworth had some issues with the way his character, the Ghostbusters' receptionist named Kevin, was originally written, or, possibly, not written, as it seems the character may have been left quite vague in the original script. Director Paul Feig had assured Hemsworth everything would be taken care of in time for shooting, but that wasn't the case. According to Hemsworth...

The night before I was shooting, I almost pulled out. Three or four weeks prior, Paul said to me, ‘I’m going to write up the character. Don’t worry.’ And then I got the script and nothing had changed.

This led to an emergency meeting between Chris Hemsworth and Paul Feig, in which the director tried to quell the fears of Hemsworth by promising there would be plenty for him to do on set thanks to improvisation.

It seems that this didn't necessarily make Hemsworth feel much better. He says he was literally scared walking on to the set since he didn't really know what he was doing, but, in the end, that's what led him to the character that he found. Hemsworth continues...

I was really scared walking onto that set. I had no real plan, so I was just feeding off of them, and I just felt ridiculous. So I used that.

In the end, it seems that it all worked out for the best, as Variety calls the role in Ghostbusters one of Chris Hemsworth's favorite rolls he's had to date. It's hard not to see that. Because Ghostbusters gender flipped the main characters, the decision was made to do the same thing with the role of the receptionist. Hemsworth takes the trope of the attractive but idiotic secretary character, almost exclusively played by women, and runs with it.

It sounds, based on the way Hemsworth describes it, that this character was mostly his creation if it came about via improvisation. We'd been told previously that much of Hemsworth's performance came from improvisation, but at the time one assumed that this was a decision made by the actor, rather than something he was apparently forced into.

Hemsworth also says that the role had a larger impact on his career as he believes the fact that he could show he was capable of screwball style comedy made Thor's evolution in the MCU into a funnier character easier to accept.

Either way it all worked out for the best. Hemsworth's performance is one of the highlights of the Ghsotbusters remake.

At this point it seems unlikely we'll see Kevin again, though we will see the Ghostbusters at least one more time, but in a film that takes us back to the original continuity.

John Cena's 5 Best Movie Roles, Ranked

John Cena's 5 Best Movie Roles, Ranked

Both physically and professionally, John Cena has been a big man for a very long time. But these past few years have been huge for the professional WWE wrestler-turned-Hollywood actor. In less than five years, John Cena went from being a popular athlete on television to one of the most bankable actors in Hollywood at the moment. Not everyone can say they've done that before — or, at least, that they've done it well as Cena has these past couple years.

Indeed, John Cena's fame is ballooning just like his biceps, and it doesn't look like things will be slowing down anytime soon. Particularly with hot roles coming up soon in major studio properties, including his forthcoming part in The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle and his rumored role in The Suicide Squad. With that, we're taking a moment to celebrate the five roles that prove John Cena has become a fun, versatile, committed and commendable rising actor.

Now, before we get ahead of ourselves, it should be noted that I'm ranking these performances according to personal preference from least to greatest, with the first one being my least favorite of the favorites, while the last one here is my favorite of the favorites from the John Cena movies lineup. Hopefully that makes sense. In any case, each of these roles showcase a wealth of promise for the veteran professional WWE wrestler to make his way into the world of film acting.

John Cena has already amassed more credits than muscles at this point, and that's certainly no small feat. There's a good chance that we'll be seeing more of John Cena, the big-time actor, in the years to come. For now, however, here's my ranking of John Cena's best performances to date.

Bumblebee

In the Transformers series, the larger-than-life characters are often the giant anamorphic alien robots who turn into assorted trucks and vehicles. But John Cena give those Autobots and Decepticons a run for their money in the role of Agent Jack Burns, a grizzled, vengeance-focused colonel who sees Bumblebee has a threat that must be eliminated as soon as humanly possible. But while he is one of the main antagonist of the film, that doesn't mean that he puts his movie star charms aside and reside too deeply into the internal anguish of the character.

Often, John Cena's Agent Burns provides the film's funniest lines, particularly through his dry delivery. And yet, his wholehearted commitment to the film's goofy premise helps to sell the film's earnest '80s-esque sense of wonder, giving it the right sense of charm and captivation that was typically lost in the other Transformers sequels. While Cena doesn't quite match the size of his title co-star, his larger-than-life demeanor makes a good impression.

The Wall

As you'll see in this list, John Cena has collected a variety of comedic roles. However, as an actor hoping to prove himself throughout a variety of different roles and films, Cena has also expanded into some serious-minded territory as well. The results have ultimately been more mixed, but he did find a win with The Wall, Doug Liman's intense, visceral war thriller which finds an Iraq War sniper (Cena) and a spotter (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) fighting for their lives when a mission does dramatically (and deathly) wrong.

As U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Shane Matthews, John Cena showcases his comedy chops briefly in the movie's opening moments. But it doesn't take long before shots are fired and violence ensues, and Cena's role in the film becomes a whole lot more dramatic. As a rare opportunity to prove himself beyond his action and comedy skills, Cena proves that he has the potential to expand himself as an actor and elevate himself beyond the short-sighted aspirations of a few casting directors out there in Hollywood. As a result, John Cena's work in The Wall should hopefully allow him to expand as a dramatic actor, much in the same way that Trainwreck allowed John Cena to become the comedy mainstay he has been these past several years.

Sisters

In 2015, John Cena was best known for his memorable work in Trainwreck (more on that soon). But there was another R-rated comedy where his large-and-in-charge comedy stylings proved to be very beneficial. Specifically, that film was Sisters, the Tina Fey-Amy Poehler studio comedy which imagined two party-loving siblings throwing a hell of a rager when their parents suggest they sell their childhood home. In the midst of the party festivities seen on-screen is Pazuzu, a heavily tattooed drug dealer who is invited to bring some weed to the partying.

In the film, John Cena is expected to play it straight more than he normally does in studio comedies, often portraying a silent, menacing type who lets his imposing physicality speak for him. As a drug dealer with an inconceivably high amount of drugs (no pun intended) as his disposal, his presence in the film definitely heightens things, though not in the way it does in the other R-rated comedies mentioned in this article. Nevertheless, through another solid and often-funny role in a major studio comedy, John Cena continued to prove himself as a flexible, yet dependable, big-time comedic presence.

Blockers

Only a few years after the success of Trainwreck, John Cena was once again able to stretch his comedy capabilities in a major studio comedy. It also helped that the actor was given a bigger, more prominent role in the film as well. That movie in question is Blockers, a charming, heartfelt R-rated comedy that is centered around a trio of helicopter parents (Ike Barinholtz, Leslie Mann and Cena, of course), who dedicate to sabotage their teenage daughters' prom night in order to prevent them from losing their virginities. It's a pretty bonkers premise, and one that was definitely heightened by Cena.

As Mitchell Mannes, the beefy softie of the group, John Cena played into the tropes of your typical sports-loving overprotective parent who is so caught up in keeping his daughter's child-like innocence that he is ignoring the realities of your children growing up and becoming functioning adults. By having John Cena in the film in one of the lead roles, there's inherently something outright silly about the film. Because really, how many suburban dads look like him? But to the actor's credit, he really leans into that silliness, playing the film's premise up to the full extent while never making it too goofy or ludicrous for its own good. The result, particularly towards the emotional third act, is a film with a big heart as well as some hearty gaffs.

Trainwreck

While John Cena had already proven himself to be a muscle-bound, charismatic television personality with almost two whole decades of professional wrestling experience under his WWE heavyweight championship belt back in 2015, his acting skills were still left into question a mere few years ago. The actor had tried — and failed — to expand himself into action superstar status with misfire efforts like The Marine and 12 Rounds, and it wasn't crystal clear if audiences would be seeing more of John Cena on the big screen. Well, that certainly changed when Cena proved his big comedy chops in Trainwreck.

In Judd Apatow's sharp, appealing romantic comedy, Trainwreck, John Cena only appeared in a supporting role as Steven, Amy Schumer's muscular, high-strung casual boyfriend. But in his limited screen-time, much like fellow scene-stealer LeBron James, Cena proved to be surprisingly dedicated to the film's raunchy comedy, while also showcasing a surprise knack for improvisation. The result was an impressive and winsome performance which helped paved the way for more roles in future comedies.

While John Cena is in his 40s by now, his acting career remains relatively young. His future roles suggest that his aspirations will be pushed into more blockbusters in the vein of Bumblebee than the smaller-scale comedies and dramas that he has been accustomed to thus far. Hopefully, that transition into bigger and better things proves to be beneficial. If not, there are always comedies out there that could use his skills, his talents and his dedication.

It should also be noted that in addition to the upcoming roles mentioned earlier, we can also look forward to seeing John Cena in Project X-Traction, which is an action-adventure-thriller, also starring Jackie Chan, that's expected to come out later this year. Furthermore, Cena won't be too far from the small-screen either, as he will become the new host of Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?, which begin its revamped run on Nickelodeon in June.

As for what else is in store for his career, there are some murmurs that he might be involved with the new Fast & Furious movie. That's not confirmed, but it's not hard to see Cena lending his larger-than-life muscle-bound talents to those already-ludicrous action flicks. It would probably be one of the best showcases in Hollywood, truth be told, assuming that John Cena would be given a chance to play up the silliness well-established in the series.

But no matter what is in store for John Cena, we'll be sure to keep you posted on all the latest news, updates and more right here at CinemaBlend.

Why Making Little Woods Was A Huge Step For Tessa Thompson

Why Making Little Woods Was A Huge Step For Tessa Thompson

In the years since she made her professional acting debut in a 2005 episode of Cold Case, Tessa Thompson has seen her star rise to incredible heights. Recurring roles on television shows like Veronica Mars, Heroes, and Detroit 1-8-7 eventually led to leading parts in impressive features, and now she's at a point where she is concurrently starring in three different major franchises. Thanks to years of dedicated and outstanding work, her name now carries a significant amount of clout in the industry – and it’s something of which she’s not only aware, but using responsibly.

This brings us to her new film, Little Woods: the feature debut from writer/director Nia DaCosta. It’s an example of a smaller production that’s garnered more attention because of the cast involved – the ensemble also including Lily James, Lance Reddick, and James Badge Dale – but it should also be noted that Tessa Thompson’s involvement goes beyond just her part as the story’s protagonist. The movie also sees her credited as an executive producer for the first time, and as I recently learned during an interview, it’s a reflection of her desire to become more hands on with the projects that she chooses. Thompson explained,

[Nia DaCosta and I] got on and had a familiarity really quickly, and she was very generous because I was sort of at a point where I wanted to be more than just a cog in something moving. If I was going attach myself to projects and I was passionate about them, I'm someone that sort of looks at the whole picture and thinks really macro. So it became clear to me that I wanted to start producing, and really be integral to the project.

Following its world premiere last year at the Tribeca Film Festival, Little Woods will be getting a limited theatrical release this week, and in advance of the screenings I recently had the immense pleasure of sitting down with Tessa Thompson and Nia DaCosta together to talk about the film. Through our conversation I learned that Thompson was actually one of the first people to sign on to be a part of the movie, and what started as a simple leading role opportunity eventually expanded and led to her debut as an executive producer.

Continuing, Tessa Thompson acknowledged that she is currently at a place in her career where she can help support projects that might otherwise not have the opportunity to be made – and that very much includes movies like Little Woods, which is a dark, original indie drama with a female lead that tackles many prescient issues and themes (I can guarantee there aren’t too many of those currently playing at your local cineplex). At the same time, though, she also noted how important it was to let Nia DaCosta make the movie she wanted to make and not invade the creative process too much:

Particularly when you get to a place where you can help finance a thing, then you want to be able to talk about what the thing is in real robust ways. So [Nia DaCosta] and the producers were really generous letting me come on as an EP, so we continued to work through that. It was really cool through the cut, and at a certain point I was like, 'It's yours.' I can't give notes. It's not my movie, and I see myself and I'm like, 'I don't know - just do another take where I don't have a double chin.' Like, ‘I can't talk about this movie in an intelligible way, so it's yours now.’ (laughs)

Obviously that’s dripping with humorous self-deprecation, but Nia DaCosta followed up by stressing the reality of Tessa Thompson’s impact as a collaborator on the movie – particularly when it came to her specific role. The filmmaker noted that she puts a lot of stock in the perspectives of her actors, and through the production relied on Thompson to make the character as authentic and consistent as possible. Said DaCosta, talking directly to her star,

You also asked lots of questions, and there's always a moment for me personally where you kind of hand the character over because it's like someone checking your work, you know what I mean? It's asking questions like 'What's this?' and tracking the character - who this person is, who this person was before, and who they might be afterwards.

Based on an original screenplay by Nia DaCosta, Little Woods tells the story of two sisters, Ollie (Tessa Thompson) and Deb (Lily James), living in North Dakota trying to make ends meet and take care of the people they love. Unfortunately, things start to snowball in a bad way when they learn not only that their mother’s house is facing foreclosure, but that Deb is pregnant. While Ollie is still on probation following a past arrest, she finds herself forced back into the business of illegally running pills across the Canadian border in order to make the money that she needs, and in doing so risks everything that she has and wants in life.

Distributed by Neon, Little Woods will be playing in limited theaters starting this Friday, April 19th – and you can be sure that we’ll be hearing a lot more about Tessa Thompson productions and new Nia DaCosta movies in the years to come.

Godzilla: King Of The Monsters Cast Can't Stop Debating The Monster's Sex

Godzilla: King Of The Monsters Cast Can't Stop Debating The Monster's Sex

For those with less free time on their hands, it may come as a surprise to hear that Godzilla’s sex is actually the source of much speculation and fierce debate. Is the monster that has been gracing cinema screens for 65 years male, female, or perhaps something else entirely? With Godzilla: King of the Monsters now in theaters, it is only natural that the cast of the latest film weighs in on this important topic and you’ll see that Vera Farmiga and Kyle Chandler had differing views.

Farmiga: Hands down it’s a male. I know the ‘A’ at the end of the name throws it. But he’s King. He’s not Queen of the Monsters. Mothra’s Queen.

Chandler: I’m saying those are semantics. I have a different view on it. I think it’s possible it’s a woman. I don’t know, I’m just not sure yet. Where did Baby Godzilla come from? This is something my wife and I had a full conversation on this morning. It’s a possibility, but it’s not a certainty.

Farmiga: But you know what? He’s sort of a hybrid himself. He’s amphibian and reptile.

I love that these two have such strong opinions on the topic of Godzilla’s sex and have actually given it some thought. Like Jason Lee’s Brodie Bruce discussing superhero sex organs in Mallrats, people want to know what parts this fictional monster has and how they work. Kyle Chandler and Vera Farmiga both make valid points too.

Vera Farmiga applies Occam’s Razor, opting for the simplest answer, which is that king is usually a title given to a male monarch or sovereign and because Godzilla is the King of the Monsters he is therefore male. If he was a female he would be Queen of the Monsters. But since that position is taken by Mothra, and there aren’t two queens, the logical assumption is that Godzilla is a dude-monster.

Kyle Chandler, however, views this argument as dealing only in semantics. And he isn’t allowing labels like ‘king’ and ‘queen’ to narrow his understanding of Godzilla’s sex. Instead he thinks there’s a solid chance that Godzilla is a girl, but he isn’t willing to deal in absolutes and is still puzzling out the question in his head.

The ever-relatable Kyle Chandler even told Yahoo Entertainment that he had a whole conversation with his wife about the subject. Which is quite hilarious to think about Emmy award-winning actor Kyle Chandler having a conversation with his wife over breakfast about the sex of a fictional giant lizard. Celebrities folks, they’re just like us.

He makes an interesting point about where baby Godzilla came from. Now if he’s talking about 1967’s Son of Godzilla, the creature Minilla was adopted by Godzilla and was not his actual progeny.

But the question can be viewed another way, as in where did the Godzilla in the film come from? If Godzilla had a mother it is possible that Godzilla too is female. These are titans and their evolution and biology are not fully understood, so it isn’t necessarily as simple as, to paraphrase Jurassic Park’s Dr. Ian Malcolm, just pulling up Godzilla’s skirt to check.

There’s also the possibility that Godzilla isn’t strictly male or female. Maybe he’s asexual like dragons in Game of Thrones are suspected to be, and he can be whatever he needs to be. Vera Farmiga raises this possibility by mentioning his amphibian traits.

So maybe Godzilla uses asexual reproduction like the parthenogenesis seen in some frogs and salamanders. Or maybe he can spontaneously change his sex like some frogs. There are also slugs with both sex organs, and some rare instances of birds and butterflies born half male and half female. Basically there are lots of possibilities if you want to apply real world biology to a fictional creature.

King of the Monsters actor Ken Watanabe refers to Godzilla as a ‘he’ and director Michael Dougherty also says that the monster is a boy-- so Vera Farmiga seems to be in the majority. For what it’s worth, the original Japanese films referred to him as an ‘it’ and the original actor who played him, Haruo Nakajima, said he had no idea of the creature’s sex.

Male or female, Godzilla makes the case for his kingship in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, now playing. Check out what ticket to buy and our 2019 Release Schedule for all of this year’s biggest movies. For the latest movie news and further deep dives into the sexuality of fictitious creatures, stay tuned to CinemaBlend.

So, The New Pet Sematary Ending Makes A Major Change To The Book

So, The New Pet Sematary Ending Makes A Major Change To The Book

Warning: SPOILERS for Pet Sematary are in play. If you haven’t seen the new adaptation of the same-named Stephen King novel, come back later once you’ve caught up.

Pet Sematary is one of those stories that has such a built-in fanbase, they practically know the basic beats by heart. The big scares, the great heartbreaks and the chilling final moments are all etched in to the minds of those who read the 1983 novel, and that sort of knowledge sits in a book fan’s mind pretty tightly. So obviously, whenever there’s a change to the source material, be it the Creed family being from Boston instead of Chicago or Ellie dying instead of Gage, it’s going to stick out in the mind of those who really liked the source material.

Except in the case of Pet Sematary, there’s a change so great that it alters the outcome of the book to a major degree. And much like with Frank Darabont’s adaptation of The Mist, it all results in an ending that’s absolutely chilling. If you’re still reading, and you haven’t seen the new film currently in theaters, now’s a good time to leave. Otherwise, let’s exhume the film’s ending and do an autopsy of what changed and why it works.

The Ending

Much like both the novel and the previous film adaptation of Pet Sematary, all of the trouble comes down to Louis Creed resurrecting the family cat and a departed child. Only this time, Ellie Creed is the child who dies at the hand of an Orinco oil tanker, and with this switch comes an entirely different set of problems. After burying Ellie in the sour earth that brings the dead back to life, she comes back to her father, but she’s not quite the same. Much like Church the cat, something evil’s come back with her, and it’s not long before it unleashes itself upon the Creed family.

After racing home with little Gage, who saw the spirit of dead patient/portent of doom, Victor Pasgow, Rachel and the young one are surprised that Ellie is back in the house. Louis tells his wife tearfully that he needed more time to say goodbye to her, and urges Rachel to accept her and hug her tight. But his wife cannot accept her, to which Ellie merely replies that it’s ok, she doesn’t want her mother here either. And she’s does something about that rather quickly.

While Louis leaves the house to search for Ellie, his daughter is really at home, terrorizing her mother with a vision that preys on the guilt of her ill sister’s death. After snapping out of that vision, Rachel is attacked by Ellie and eventually stabbed with a kitchen knife. Running from her daughter, with Gage in her arms, she breaks a window when she sees Louis returning to the house. Dangling Gage out of the window, she pleads that he catch the baby and drops Gage as she’s stabbed in the back by Ellie. After locking Gage in the car, Louis rushes up to the room where his wife was attacked, and before she dies, she begs not to be buried in “pet sematary.”

The final moments of the film run totally against Rachel’s wishes, as not only does Ellie knock Louis out in order to bury her mom, Rachel then kills Louis before he murders Ellie’s undead form and buries him in the soil. At the very end of the film, we see little Gage waking up in the car, with his now resurrected family coming to see him. As we cut to Gage, Louis clicks the car unlocked, and we fade to black.

How It’s Different

A huge chunk of the original third act of Pet Sematary is changed from the initial intent of the novel, as well as the first adaptation. While Rachel did die, and Gage was the child terrorizing the family, Ellie was nowhere near the conflict as she was still with her grandparents in Chicago. So originally, the final act of the story was Louis squaring off with the resurrected Gage and Church, the eventual result being that Louis kills both of them in a combination of a morphine overdose and a housefire. Which leaves the classic final hook that Stephen King’s novel and the eventual screenplay for director Mary Lambert’s adaptation would play to end the film.

Louis, no wiser than he was when he buried Gage, thinks that since he’s burying Rachel quicker than he did any of his other loved ones, it’ll work this time. So he puts his wife in the ground, only for her to return just as screwed up as the rest of the family did, and as she approaches him with a kitchen knife, we cut to black and hear a screaming Louis reaping what he’s sewn. Now while that ending is a classic, and pretty chilling in both classic versions of Pet Sematary, this new ending works quite a bit better, and if Stephen King’s reaction to the film is any indication, he probably agrees.

Why The New Ending Works Better

Pet Sematary is ultimately a meditation on death and how grief clouds our minds. Of course, this being a Stephen King story, that grief happens to go hand in hand with a supernatural entity. In this case, the Wendigo is what haunts the woods of Ludlow, Maine, and just as the textbook definition of this creature says, it possesses anything buried in that sour earth and turns them into an unnatural killing machine. But it lures people into dying, as we saw with Church luring Ellie into the middle of the road, as well as baiting them into burying their loved ones.

In this new ending, the call of the Wendigo isn’t merely something that people hear and heed out of grief; it’s downright psychotic. We see it in Louis’s behavior, right up to Rachel’s death, following a pattern of delusion that all started with his resurrection of Church. Part of it is, indeed, the Wendigo, but Louis’ belief that there’s nowhere to go to in death shakes him to his core. So instead of just grieving for a dead child, he’s dealing with his own feelings on the subject of mortality, and this change digs into deeper, scarier waters. Ellie gets to put the final nail in the coffin when she tells her mother that she technically wins in the argument of if there’s an afterlife or not, but it’s not the type of place you’d want to go.

The best part about Pet Sematary’s new ending though is that it’s a subversive gut punch to audiences old and new, and the proper steps taken to set it up. Every move seems to counter the standard expectations from an adaptation of Pet Sematary. The audience expecting Gage to die gets a shock when they see Ellie get taken out by the tanker truck, provided they haven’t seen the film’s later marketing materials. But even if you’ve had that spoiled for you, when Rachel tells Louis not to bury her in order to trigger a resurrection, seeing Ellie knock him out and do it anyway is a pretty big jaw dropper. From that point on, we’re really in new territory, leaving the big turn where the undead Creed family comes to claim Gage as a cold, haunting finale for all to digest mentally.

It’s a new ending to Pet Sematary, with new quirks thrown in to modernize and update the story for current audiences. But the end, the message is the same: if we’re not careful while grieving, we’re likely to make mistakes that might take everything away from us, especially if there’s a Wendigo involved. In the world of Ludlow, Maine, if you aren’t done with grieving before long, you just might find out that what you grieve isn’t done with you. The Creed family learned this the hard way, as being consumed by grief eventually turned them into literal monsters, and their youngest member is as doomed as he was in that original ending.

Pet Sematary is in theaters now, ready to live its life again as a new haunt for the old crowd.

Charlize Theron Reveals She Was Once Harassed By A Hollywood Producer

Charlize Theron Reveals She Was Once Harassed By A Hollywood Producer

Over the past few years, the world of filmmaking has seen a seismic shift. The Harvey Weinstein scandal and #MeToo movement put a spotlight on sexual harassment in the workplace, and how female members of the community have been suffering in silence. Plenty of major actresses have used their voice in the years since the dam broke, and now it looks like Oscar winner Charlize Theron had her own harrowing experience.

Charlize Theron is currently promoting her upcoming comedy Long Shot, including an appearance on the famous Howard Stern Show. Stern eventually brought up the subject of the #MeToo movement and the behavior of Hollywood execs, when Theron revealed she experienced harassment early in her career. She said:

I had just turned 19, I might have still been 18. I had never been out for an audition. I asked this modeling agent if she’d heard of anything … She said, ‘Yep. Go to this guy’s house. It’s on Saturday at 9 p.m.'

While Charlize Theron is a well-known working actress with an impressive career, there was a time when she was still trying to break into the industry. And when asking around for a possible audition, she ended up being convinced to meet a prominent Hollywood producer in his home. And when he answered the door, Theron was surprised to see the unnamed exec was in his pajamas.

In her conversation with Howard Stern and Long Shot co-star Seth Rogen, Charlize Theron went on to speak about her harrowing experience, and the red flags she noticed throughout her first "audition." She went on,

He had a very healthy ego, he felt very good about himself. There was some kind of muzak playing in the house. He sat very close to me. That was strange. The drinking bothered me. I was like, ‘This doesn’t feel right.'

Charlize Theron didn't name names when recounting her past on Howard Stern, she did reveal that he's still a powerful man in the industry. That fact makes her story even more disturbing, although you can't blame her for not revealing her harasser's identity on the air. But she went on to reveal that she got away from the situation, and that her feelings about the incident have evolved over time. Theron revealed:

And then at one point, he put his hand on my knee. You just go blank. Like you don’t know what to do, but I left. I don’t even know how I got out of the house, but I left. It would have ended really badly. I was driving my Ford Fiesta, that I was renting, up Laurel Canyon and I was so angry with myself that I didn’t say something. I was like, I’m not that kind of girl. Why did I not tell him to go fuck himself? It made me so angry.

Charlize Theron's comments echo what other survivors have said about the guilt and anger that can accompany #MeToo incidents. But while it may be difficult to share, Theron's honesty adds to the many voices addressing the issue of sexual harassment, especially as it relates to show business.

While there are many #MeToo stories from within Hollywood, it does look like the conversations and minds are changing over the past few years. One can only hope that the world will be a safer place, as sexual harassment is certainly not a problem exclusive to showbusiness.

Charlize Theron can be seen in Long Shot on May 3rd. In the meantime, check out our 2019 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.