19 Horror Movies and More to Look Forward to in 2019 and More!
In this Issue:
- Tomorrow’s Horror: 19 Things We’re Looking Forward to in 2019
- Movies, TV, Books, Games & Coming to Shudder
- Image of the Week: Rob’s Zombies
- Tiny Bites – This Week’s Best Horror Headlines
- The States of Horror: Montana + Nebraska
- Things We Love: Calendar Ghouls
- Hey, That’s Us! – Shudder in the News
TOMORROW’S HORROR: 19 THINGS WE’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO IN 2019
By Lisa Morton
2018 was another great year for horror. Three films — A Quiet Place, Halloween, and The Meg — made it into the top 20 at the box office, TV shows like Stranger Things,American Horror Story, and Twin Peaks scored major award nominations, there was a new Stephen King book (The Outsider) in the year’s top 20 bestsellers, and horror games like Agony and Days Gone racked up high scores.
But as good as 2018 was, this year may be even better year for horror. Here are 19 things we’re looking forward to in 2019:
MOVIES
Happy Death Day 2 U (February 14) — Tree (Jessica Rothe), the protagonist of 2017’s hit Happy Death Day, is back to die a lot more in Christopher Landon’s sequel.
Jordan Peele’s Us (March 19) — Jordan Peele. His next horror film after Get Out. It’s horror. Need we say more?
Pet Sematary (April 5) — One of Stephen King’s creepiest books comes back to life. Will this version out-shock Mary Lambert’s 1989 adaptation?
Child’s Play (June 21) — Chucky’s back and Legion’s Aubrey Plaza has got him in this reboot of the 1988 murderous doll classic.
Midsommar (August 9) — Director Ari Aster follows up his 2018 critical hit Hereditary with another story of a creepy cult, this one set in Sweden.
Guillermo del Toro’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark(August 9) — The classic Alvin Schwartz stories that have terrified generations are being adapted as a movie, with Guillermo del Toro producing and André Øvredal (The Autopsy of Jane Doe) directing.
The Grudge (August 16) — Producer Sam Raimi and director Nicolas Pesce (The Eyes of My Mother) resurrect J-Horror with what Pesce calls not so much a reboot but more of a new chapter.
It: Chapter Two (September 6) — The Losers’ Club is back to fight Pennywise, only this time they’re adults played by James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, Jay Ryan, James Ransone, Andy Bean, and Isaiah Mustafa.
The Lighthouse — Robert Eggers, who last scared us with The Witch, is back with another period horror, this one shot in black and white and starring Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson.
Into the Tall Grass — Vincenzo Natali adapts the Stephen King-Joe Hill novella about a pair of siblings who encounter something sinister in a Kansas field. Patrick Wilson stars in this Netflix flick.
TV
Good Omens — We didn’t get that promised Terry Gilliam film adaptation, but this mini-series, starring Michael Sheen and David Tennant, has been adapted by Neil Gaiman (based on his original novel, written with Terry Pratchett).
Locke & Key — After Hulu shot a pilot but decided against moving forward, Netflix picked up this series based on Joe Hill’s comics series about three siblings in search of magical keys.
Lovecraft Country — Jordan Peele and J. J. Abrams are behind this HBO series based on the book by Matt Ruff about Atticus Black (Jonathan Majors) facing both racism and monsters in 1950s America.
NOS4A2 — 2019 is going to be the year of Joe Hill. This AMC series based on Hill’s bestselling novel stars Zachary Quinto as Charlie Manx, a supernatural child killer.
The Twilight Zone — Jordan Peele isn’t just an Executive Producer of this reboot, set to air on CBS All Access, he’ll also take over Rod Serling’s hosting duties.
BOOKS
Inspection by Josh Malerman (April 23) — The author ofBird Box and Unbury Carol returns with a story about two mysterious schools — one all boys, one all girls — training geniuses.
Full Throttle by Joe Hill (October 17) — This collection of eleven short stories by the ubiquitous Hill includes the original version of In the Tall Grass.
GAMES
Resident Evil 2 ( January 25) — This is a reboot of the groundbreaking survival horror game that debuted on PlayStation in 1998.
The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan — The developers ofUntil Dawn unveil the first of their Dark Pictures anthology game series with Man of Medan, in which five stowaways are trapped aboard a ghost ship adrift at sea.
COMING TO SHUDDER IN 2019
Creepshow — The 1982 anthology film by George Romero and Stephen King is becoming a TV series on Shudder, with The Walking Dead’s Greg Nicotero at the helm.
A Discovery of Witches — Based on the bestselling series by Deborah Harkness, this new show brings to life a world of witches and vampires.
The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs TV series — After Joe Bob Briggs broke the Internet with his 2018 movie marathon, we had to bring him back for more Texas-style drive-in horror goodness.
The Ranger — Jenn Wexler’s slasher pic has been called the best punk rock horror movie since Return of the Living Dead. This one’s not for the squeamish.
The Night Shifter — In Dennison Ramalho’s acclaimed Brazilian chiller, a morgue attendant finds out he can talk to the dead.
Horror Noire — Jordan Peele, Tony Todd, and other creators talk about black horror in Shudder’s new documentary. Check out the trailer.
Jessica Forever — Shudder continues to gather the best horror from around the world with this dystopian thriller from first-time Canadian filmmakers Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel.
Monstrum — From South Korea comes this historical horror flick about a man-eating creature rampaging across Korea.
Gwen — Writer-director William McGregor’s U.K. film follows a young girl in 19th century Wales as she struggles against mysterious illness within her family and a ruthless mining company in her town.
(There’s a lot more to come on Shudder in 2019 … stay tuned.)
IMAGE OF THE WEEK
Rob’s Zombies
Rob Sacchetto, who bills himself as “the artist behind the most zombie art on planet Earth” thanks to the thousands of Zombie Portraits he’s created, started off 2019 right by wishing us all an undead New Year.
TINY BITES
BLACK MIRROR DELAYED, AMITYVILLE RETURNS & MORE
Someone recut the Us trailer with footage from The Proud Family Movie — and Jordan Peele liked it so much he shared it himself.
The interactive Black Mirror movie Bandersnatch was so complex that season five of the show had to be pushed back.
USA Today claims that 45 years later, The Exorcist feels more gross than frightening. (They’re wrong.)
You can download a free audio book of Frankenstein narrated by Aaron Mahnke, the creator of Lore.
One of horror’s most famous haunted houses returns to kill again in the first trailer for The Amityville Murders.
David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, one of theAquaman screenwriters, says a new reboot of A Nightmare on Elm Street is “inevitable.”
Bird Box had the best first 7 days ever for a Netflix film in history … according to Netflix.
Meanwhile, Esquire has 20 questions about Bird Box, and Mashable thinks you shouldn’t even try to answer those questions.
Robert Kerman, star of Cannibal Holocaust — who also appeared in such horror films as Eaten Alive! andNight of the Creeps — has died at 71.
Check out the impeccable style of the 10 best-dressed killers in horror movies.
Paste picks out the 15 best horror comics of 2018. (We agree.)
Here’s everything you need to know about Giallo, that horror subgenre known for “twisty crime plots and often grisly violence.”
STATES OF HORROR: MONTANA + NEBRASKA
This week’s States of Horror brings us to the mountains of Montana and the cornfields of Nebraska.
Montana: The Blood Hunter
First, let’s shout out director Ted Geoghegan, the horror filmmaker whose fantastic haunted houser We Are Still Here and Native survival horror Mohawk have been two major contemporary genre highlights. Ted hails from, you guessed it, Montana. In searching for horror films made and set in Montana, however, the well is not deep. So today we highlight a film still on its way to release, The Blood Hunter. Recently completed and currently screening around, vampire horror The Blood Hunter is Big Sky Country-made, shot in and around Billings and the Pryor Mountains. Co-directed by Trevor Styles and Chas Llewellyn, The Blood Hunter looks an affair built with a small crew, less money and a whole lot of blood. And isn’t that what regional, indie horror is about?
Nebraska: Children of the Corn/Husk
Let’s talk about corn, a prominent feature in both the makeup and produce of Nebraska and Nebraska-set horror, including the maize-named terror tales Children of the Corn and Husk. The former, one of Stephen King’s most recognizable stories, was adapted for film in 1984 by director Fritz Kiersch. Aside from its setting and freaky cult deity, “He Who Walks Behind the Rows,” Children of the Corn is especially significant for giving me intense kindertrauma in the scene where evil adolescents murder one of their own, and then place the profusely bleeding boy out in the middle of the road to be annihilated by Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton’s car. It’s very bothersome. For bonus corn-based murder, see Brett Simmons’ underrated neo-slasher, Husk, notable for being one of the few killer scarecrow movies, and one of the even fewer good ones, alongside Dark Night of the Scarecrow.
THINGS WE LOVE: CALENDAR GHOULS
Keep that creepy feeling going all year long by hanging up this Hereditary-inspired limited edition Evil Grandma calendar created by A24, and let its 13 Satan-worshipping grannies be a daily reminder that evil runs in the family.
HEY, THAT’S US! – SHUDDER IN THE NEWS
Under the radar films from 2018: French feminist horror, seduction and rom-coms! (Revenge)
A Year In Retrospect: 2018 (Revenge, Mandy, Video Palace)
Scott’s Favorites of 2018 (Mandy, Revenge, Terrified)
/R/HORROR’S TOP 25 FILMS OF 2018 (Mandy, Summer of ’84, Revenge and Terrified)