FOLLOWING FILMS - Podcast, Movies, Music, and More

Welcome back to the Following Films Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Maynard, and today we're talking with director Jordan Downey about his new movie, The Cycle, which is currently streaming on Shudder. Before we jump into the episode, a quick heads-up: The Cycle is streaming right now on Shudder, and it works best if you go into it knowing as little as possible. If you haven't watched it yet, pause this episode, go put it on, and come back when the credits roll. We're going to dive into details you'll want to see for yourself first. Ok your back; spoilers ahead, you’ve been warned…  On paper, it sounds like a classic procedural: forensic anthropologist Meg, played by Deborah Ann Woll, gets brought in to help investigate a gruesome double murder along the coast. But things get bizarre fast when they find a third body preserved at the scene, and it turns out to be her estranged father who went missing 36 years ago. Once Meg gets him on the autopsy table, she starts find...

If your holiday movie rotation is feeling a bit tired this year, Toy Robot is shaking things up with three cult favorites hitting 4K UHD this December. Whether you want high-altitude action, gritty detective work, or teenagers losing their minds over KISS, there is something here worth clearing space on the shelf for. Things kick off on December 8 with the absolute classic Passenger 57. Wesley Snipes plays John Cutter, a former cop teaching anti-terrorism to flight crews who ends up trapped on a commercial flight hijacked by Bruce Payne's ice-cold villain. It is fast, loud, and peak 90s action with Elizabeth Hurley and Tom Sizemore along for the chaotic ride. Both the 4K and Blu-ray discs feature a fresh 4K restoration straight from the original camera negative, plus brand-new interviews. Dropping on that exact same day is Burt Reynolds' hard-boiled neo-noir thriller Sharky's Machine. Reynolds directed and starred as a demoted narcotics detective stuck working vice in Atlan...

TRAUMA OR, MONSTERS ALL, the highly anticipated new feature from acclaimed independent horror auteur Larry Fessenden, is opening in theaters today. Kicking off with runs at the IFC Center in New York and the Lumiere Music Hall in Los Angeles before expanding into additional markets. Produced by Glass Eye Pix, TRAUMA OR, MONSTERS ALL serves as the grand culmination of Fessenden’s decades-long project of reinterpreting classic Universal horror lore. The film weaves together the iconic creatures from his previous works—the vampire from Habit, Frankenstein’s monster from Depraved, and the werewolf from Blackout into a single, haunting contemporary narrative. The release marks the latest chapter in a nearly two-decade creative partnership between Dark Sky Films and Glass Eye Pix. Their long-standing collaboration has yielded some of modern independent horror's most celebrated titles, including Ti West's The House of the Devil and The Innkeepers, as well as genre pillars such as Stak...

Middle-earth enthusiasts and physical media collectors have a big reason to celebrate as Amazon MGM Studios announces that Seasons 1 and 2 of the hit fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power are heading to home video formats. Fans can bring the high-fantasy adventure home on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD starting November 3. Set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, this epic drama follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil in Middle-earth. The sprawling narrative spans the rich geography of Tolkien's world, taking viewers from the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains to the majestic forests of the elf-capital Lindon, and from the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor to the furthest uncharted reaches of the map as these kingdoms carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone. Helmed by showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay along...

Fresh off its victory as the Best Thriller Award winner at HollyShorts, the gripping psychological thriller Cameron is heading to digital platforms, becoming available to rent or buy on Apple this November 24th with pre-orders open now, perfectly timed to National Veterans and Military Families Month.  Written, directed, and edited by Emmy winner and LGBT filmmaker Sam Freedman, known for his writing work on NBC/Netflix’s Manifest and HBO’s Parasite series, the film tells a haunting, emotionally rich story about two grieving military parents who are utterly stunned when their ostensibly dead son, played by Aaron Woodward (How to Get Away with Murder), suddenly shows up on their doorstep.  Clocking in at an eerily captivating 28 minutes, the narrative brilliantly interweaves generations of military service, the memory of a once-joyful son, and a dark, tragic secret. Anchored by powerhouse co-stars Patrick Fabian (Better Call Saul) and Tracie Thom (Truth Be Told, RENT) alongside...

In his film The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, writer and director Noah Segan tries to deal with a quietly moving question: what becomes of an old-school thief when the world stops using cash? The film, produced by Rian Johnson, Segan's long-time collaborator, functions as both a tense crime thriller with a countdown element and as a nostalgic character study set in a constantly changing metropolis. Central to the film is an incredible performance by John Turturro, who plays Harry Lehman, a skilled criminal whose entire career is made effectively obsolete by the rise of cryptocurrency, contactless payments, and credit cards that can be easily cancelled. Having mastered tricks of the trade that are on a par with those of professional stage magicians, he sees the "lift" as its own kind of art. Yet in present-day New York City, traditional crime is going through a severe crisis. Harry's actual physical hauls are becoming fewer and fewer; the wallets he steals genera...

  Few artists approached television music quite like Vince Guaraldi; he scored millions of childhoods with a style of music that on its surface would seem like the least likely choice.  The legendary jazz pianist recorded the music for It's a Mystery Charlie Brown throughout December 1973 to January 1974, with sessions at the legendary Wally Heider Studios in San Francisco, California. The result was an innovative piece of music which showcased his genius and thoughtful approach to scoring children's entertainment. Having written the iconic 1960s instrumentals for A Charlie Brown Christmas and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, the intention going into the mid 1970s was to broaden his sound. He worked with an incredible group of West Coast musicians, including Seward McCain on bass, Tom Harrell on trumpet, and a double-drummer duo of Mike Clark and Eliot Zigmund. Guaraldi stepped away from his traditional grand piano and experimented with many different instruments, including elect...

If you purchased a ticket to watch Surf Nazis Must Die in 1987, then you probably knew what you were getting yourself into. This Troma Entertainment-distributed movie directed by Peter George sits close to the top of the cult schlock hall of fame due to its amazing title and poster artwork. However, the movie itself is a weird and slower-paced post-apocalyptic film that rarely lives up to the hectic and bloody marketing. However, if you love rough, low-budget 80s exploitation movies set on sunny California beaches with basic synth soundtracks, then this is a very endearing movie. This 80s bargain bin gem has been given a full 4K UHD release by Troma, giving George's earthquake-ravaged California a surprisingly fresh look, with plenty of special features on the disc. The plot is basic. A huge earthquake strikes Los Angeles, causing chaos and a lawless state of affairs along the coastal area. Rival gangs form from the wreckage; however, the Surf Nazis are the strongest force along th...

Let's get this out of the way first: Hadestown was not intended to be a traditional Broadway blockbuster, and its reaching the Walter Kerr Theatre is practically a miracle. What began as a DIY 2006 community theater production mounted in a school bus touring Vermont by Anaïs Mitchell has been through conceptual indie-folk albums, an Off-Broadway run at New York Theatre Workshop, Edmonton, London's National Theatre, and finally a sweep of the 2019 Tony Awards. With this physical home release, capturing the performance on disc, we can see how it holds up when removed from the dark auditorium and placed on the living room television. Short answer first: It holds up surprisingly well, if lacking some theater sweat, though we lose a little bit of the rawness that makes theater unique. But before getting into the technical specs of the transfer and the audio mix, it's a good idea to discuss the merits of the production: what makes Hadestown tick, what the special qualities were o...

Travis Knight's live-action Masters of the Universe is not something that will play well with the Academy; it will not be a hotly debated work in film schools; hell, I am not even sure I can call it a good movie in the traditional critical sense. Yet, as I watched it, grinning ear to ear, on my couch for over two hours, I was transported back to my childhood, wood paneling on the basement walls, an action figure in one hand and a bowl of sugar-drenched cereal in the other. It is an unabashedly campy, but thoroughly enjoyable movie that delivers a feel-good, 80s-style lark.  If the goal was to produce a slick, multi-generational franchise launchpad that would appeal to the current crop of Gen Z and Alpha audiences, it is safe to say that they have not accomplished it. The dialogue is sometimes unintentionally hilarious, and the lore, to the uninitiated, could feel like a convoluted soap opera in an unfamiliar language. However, if the silent wish of the creative team was to deliver ...