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That’s right, Dexter Morgan is officially back from the dead (again), and he’s ready to hit the streets for some new kills.

The last time we saw Dexter (spoiler), he was shot dead by his own son, Harrison Morgan, in “Dexter: New Blood.” Just when fans thought their beloved serial killer’s storybook had finally closed, we got an inkling that the timid and kind murderer might still be breathing in the opening scene of the prequel series “Dexter: Original Sin.”

This time around, the series introduces several new faces and welcomes back some of the OGs from the original “Dexter” series. Check out the main cast in “Dexter: Resurrection” below.

Michael C. Hall as Dexter Morgan in “Dexter: Resurrection” (Credit: Zach Dilgard/Paramount+ with Showtime) Michael C. Hall as Dexter Morgan

Michael C. Hall returns to play the skilled, calculated yet shy serial killer, whose only rule...

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In Director Pascual Sisto's 2021 psychological thriller, John and the Hole, viewers are introduced to an eerie premise when a 13-year-old boy drugs his family and places them into an unfinished bunker so he can explore what it's like to be an adult. With no supervision, no rules, and no boundaries whatsoever, John (Charlie Shotwell) satisfies his curiosity about the freedoms of adulthood for the first time but there's far more to John's motivation than curiosity. Living a surface-level existence, John simply drifts through life.

He asks plenty of questions, some of them a bit on the strange side, but his most pressing curiosity is what it feels like to be an adult. Disturbingly, John traps his family in the bunker in the woods near their home and then embraces the freedom to follow his every whim. It's here, however, that the...

What’s the difference between a psychological horror and a psychological thriller?

Well, it could be as simple as comparing the style of Stanley Kubrick to that of David Fincher. One is in love with emotional turmoil, and the other paints vivid images of realistic terror.

Psychological horror is not about catch and release — the formula of most horror thrillers. Most horror films you can think of fall into the cozy genres of suspense thriller (Silence of the Lambs), psychological thriller (Jacob’s Ladder), or slasher (The Strangers).

(Warner Bros. (Max screenshot))

You’re outrunning Art the Clown, Michael Myers, or Freddy Krueger when you watch a thriller.When you watch a psychological thriller, you’re figuring out a mystery in real time with the protagonist.

You’re figuring out the horrible truth of your fate, like Grace in The Others, or uncovering a diabolical plot, like in Chris in Get Out.

John and the Hole is a compelling coming-of-age film with dark elements and thought-provoking themes on wealth and maturity. The movie raises questions about adulthood as young John, played by Charlie Shotwell, takes extreme measures to explore independence. The film's ending left audiences divided, with some praising its unsettling nature and others feeling the conclusion lacked insight.

John and the Hole is the 2021 debut feature film from Spanish director Pascual Sisto, and its statements on wealth, maturity, and evil make for an intriguing deep dive. A coming-of-age movie with a dark angle, John and the Hole's title tells the audience exactly what the film is about. Unsurprisingly, the movie is centered around 13-year-old John (Charlie Shotwell), the youngest child of the affluent Shay family, and it's also very much about a hole in the ground, one John stumbles across in the woods behind his home.

The film also stars...

Previous winners include Roger Deakins, Annika Summerson.

Heartstopper cinematographer Diana Olifirova is one of five nominees for the National Film and Television School’s 2022 Sue Gibson Bsc Cinematography Award.

Two of this year’s selection are on their second nomination – Ula Pontikos, for season two of Russian Doll; and Edu Grau, for Rebecca Hall’s Bafta-nominated Passing.

The other nominees are Nick Cooke for Ben Sharrock’s Limbo; and Paul Kadir Ozgur for Pascual Sisto’s John And The Hole.

This year is the sixth edition of the award, which recognises work by an alumnus of the cinematography course at the UK film school.

Exclusive: Kirby Howell-Baptiste (The Sandman), Darrell Britt-Gibson (We Own This City) and Taissa Farmiga (The Gilded Age) will star in the upcoming romance She Taught Love, which music video helmer Nate Edwards is directing for Marginal Mediaworks, in his feature debut.

The film written by Britt-Gibson—in his feature screenwriting debut—is billed as the love story of this generation, between a guy on a self-destructive path and a girl with an expiration date. What a perfect time to meet and fall in love…

Marginal MediaWorks’ founder Sanjay Sharma and Head of Film Milan Chakraborty will produce alongside Hadley Klein and Pete Van Auker, with Britt-Gibson and Howell-Baptiste serving as executive producers.

“Making a film like She Taught Love feels like a revolutionary act, but it shouldn’t. Hollywood loves to turn out stories of Black trauma, but we’re so much more than that. In fact, we are everything,...

The passage from childhood freedom to adult responsibility can be a difficult time for anyone, regardless of their family and social circumstances. Last summer’s slow-burn psychological thriller, ‘John and the Hole’ offers an enigmatic, unsettling and meditative exploration into the angst associated with adolescence and coming-of-age in modern-day America. ‘John and the Hole’ was written […]

The post Actor Charlie Shotwell Explores the Freedoms and Challenges of Coming-of-Age in John and the Hole Blu-Ray Giveaway appeared first on Shockya.com.

Hello, dear readers! As time marches on, that means we have another bunch of horror and sci-fi home media releases making their debut on Tuesday, and there are some genuinely fun movies, both new and old, featured in this week’s offerings. For all you lycanthropes out there, you’ll definitely want to pick up Arrow Video’s brand-new Limited Edition 4K release of An American Werewolf in London, or if you’re more in the mood for a classic chiller, then you should check out Scream Factory’s Blu-ray for Nightmare. In terms of more recent horror titles, both The Boy Behind the Door and John and the Hole are headed home on multiple formats, and for those of you looking for something a bit more sci-fi, Project Gemini from Well Go USA should do the trick.

Other releases for March 15th include Southland Tales: Standard Special Edition,...

13-year-old John discovers an unfinished bunker while exploring the neighboring woods—a deep hole in the ground. Seemingly without provocation, he drugs his affluent parents and older sister, holding them captive within the bunker. As they anxiously wait for John to free them from the hole, the boy returns home, where he can finally enjoy and explore a newfound independence. One week from today, on March 15th, Pascual Sisto's thriller John And The Hole is coming to DVD and Blu-Ray. IFC have given us two (2) copies to give away on Blu-ray this week. Look below for giveaway details. Screen Anarchy's Managing Editor, Peter, caught the film on it's release last Summer. He had this to say in his review. What initially sets up...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Rlje Films, a business unit of AMC Networks, will release IFC Films’ John And The Hole on DVD and Blu-Ray March 15, 2022! This psychological thriller is directed by Pascual Sisto (Océano) and stars Charlie Shotwell (Captain Fantastic), Michael C. Hall (Dexter), Taissa Farmiga (American Horror Story), and Jennifer Ehle (A Quiet Passion)! In this …

The post John And The Hole | Available on DVD and Blu-Ray March 15, 2022! appeared first on Horror News | Hnn.

After a VOD release last summer, IFC Films‘ psychological coming-of-age thriller John and the Hole, is coming to DVD and Blu-ray March 15, 2022, via Rlje Films. Meagan Navarro was not a fan of the film, reviewing out of the Sundance premiere that, “John and the Hole is a subdued and toothless coming-of-age thriller.” “In the film, 13-year-old […]

The post ‘John and the Hole’ Digs Up a Blu-ray & DVD Release This March appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The influence of the Greek “weird wave,” and to a lesser extent the moral mazes of Austria’s Michael Haneke, have been seeping into U.S. indie cinema for quite a while now, and Riley Stearns’ third feature, Dual, comfortably fits into the Sundance slot taken last year by Pascual Sisto’s bizarre dysfunctional family satire John And The Hole.

Stearns doesn’t quite nail the macabre mundanity of absurdist classics such as Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Lobster — in which the residents of a drab seaside spa hotel must find a soulmate within 45 days or be turned into an animal — but he gives it a good shot, drawing a surprisingly committed performance from Karen Gillan in the kind of role usually earmarked for Aubrey Plaza in her spiky Ingrid Goes West mode.

The opening sequence of Sundance Film Festival U.S. Dramatic Competition entry Dual sets the tone, albeit a little clumsily.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Thursday revealed the 276 feature films that are eligible for consideration at the 94rd Oscars, which are set to air live March 27 on ABC from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

The number is 90 fewer than last year’s 366, but this year’s eligibility period was only 10 months.

To be eligible for Best Picture consideration, films must have submitted a confidential Academy Representation and Inclusion Standards entry as part of the submission requirements. Nominations voting begins January 27 and concludes on February 1. The Oscar nominations will be revealed on Tuesday, February 8.

Today’s news comes about a month after the Academy released its shortlists in the International Film, Documentary Feature, Original Score, Original Song, Makeup & Hairstyling, Visual Effects, Sound and the Live-Action, Documentary and Animated Shorts categories.

Here is the full list of films eligible for Best Picture at the 94rd annual Academy Awards,...

If my shortlist for this piece is any indication, Hollywood adjusted to Covid just fine. I’ve put aside an average of 60-70 posters every year since I’ve been doing Posterized until barely hitting 40 in 2020. It wasn’t a dearth of quality work, but the fact that there were so many fewer releases to choose from. And since I base these columns on current-year US runs rather than when one-sheets start making their rounds, my pool of candidates was greatly reduced.

So either 2021 work was off-the-charts or the hybrid theatrical-streaming schedule found itself whole once again, because I was back to around 65. It helps too when you get new players on the scene, alt-posters too good to dismiss, and social-media controversy courtesy the collision of nudity and art that put more international designs into our American consciousness.

There are a couple below where the domestic marketing team decided to...

The set of “Rust” seemed to produce an unending list of tragic circumstances, snafus, and gaffes: the camera crew quitting in protest over work conditions; the prop gun that fired a bullet, which killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins; the mix of 500 blanks, dummy rounds and suspected live rounds collected on the set by Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office, and even the custom T-shirts reportedly ordered by production staff mocking crew requests for hotel rooms. At this point, “Rust” producer and star Alec Baldwin may be alone in his assertion about his film with a reported budget of under $7 million: “We were a very, very well-oiled crew.”

The “Rust” reports document what might be generously described as gross mistakes and mismanagement, but “low budget does not equal unsafe. That’s not the conclusion to draw from this tragedy,” said Tom Nunan, who was an executive producer of “Crash” and “The Illusionist” and...

Ways & Means, the indie film and television company, has named Thomas Grabinski as head of development.

The newly created role will report to principals Lana Kim and Jett Steiger, who founded the label in 2012.

Grabinski joins them from 3311 Productions, which made notable titles including “The Assistant,” “Brigsby Bear” and “John and the Hole.” He also served at Justin Lin’s Perfect Storm Entertainment.

“We have an incredible team at W&m and we’re so proud of the work that we’ve made together over the past 9 years. Looking forward, we couldn’t be more excited to continue our expansion into the Film & TV world — working with Thomas to uncover new stories and strengthen our relationships with writers and directors. Narrative work has always been an important part of the culture at W&m and we’re thrilled to have a true film lover like Thomas on the...

Spanish artist Pascual Sisto’s fable of a boy holding his family hostage is well made, but it revolves around a tiresome cop-out

Spanish artist and film-maker Pascual Sisto made his directing debut with this movie, written for the screen by Nicolás Giacobone, known for his script collaborations with Alejandro González Iñárritu: it was selected for the First Features section of the Covid-cancelled 2020 Cannes film festival. John and the Hole is well enough photographed and acted, but is really an oppressive and exasperatingly pointless piece of work, without consistency or the courage of its realist convictions.

John (Charlie Shotwell), is a 13-year-old kid in a well-to-do American family (cue traditional tense family dinner scenes) whose main interest is tennis. He is clearly alienated from dad Brad (Michael C Hall), mum Anna (Jennifer Ehle) and elder sister Laurie (Taissa Farmiga). Moody, lonely John one day discovers a large, concrete-lined hole in neighbouring woodland,...

The long awaited and keenly anticipated James Bond film “No Time to Die” dominated the U.K. and Ireland box office with an opening weekend collection of £25.9 million ($35.3 million), according to numbers from Comscore.

The Universal release, Daniel Craig’s swan song, benefited from near universal critical acclaim and looks set for a sustained run at the box office in the weeks to come. It opened ultra wide, across 772 locations in the U.K. alone, and surpassed the opening weekend collections of previous Bond outings “Skyfall” and “Spectre.”

After a stellar run at the top of the box office, Disney’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” collected £779,077 in second position. The film now has a cumulative total of £19.6 million after its fifth weekend.

Another Disney release, “Free Guy,” took £270,266 in third place and now has a total of £16.5 million in its eighth week of release.

In fourth place,...

Alejandro G. Iñárritu has wrapped production in Mexico City on his next film, “Bardo (or False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths).” The new movie is being billed by Iñárritu’s representatives as “a nostalgic comedy set against an epic journey.” The film marks Iñárritu’s feature film follow-up to the 2015 survival drama “The Revenant,” although he did return in 2017 with the acclaimed virtual installation project “Carne y Arena.” With “Bardo,” the director returned to shoot and produce a film entirely in Mexico for the first time since “Amores Perros” over 20 years ago.

An official release on “Bardo” reads: “Written by Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Nicolás Giacobone, ‘Bardo’ is a nostalgic comedy set against an epic journey. A chronicle of uncertainties where the main character, a renowned Mexican journalist and documentary filmmaker, returns to his native country facing his identity, familial relationships, the folly of his memories as well as...

Production, finance and sales outfit Film Constellation has inked new key deals on psychological thriller “John and the Hole,” directed by one of Variety’s top 10 directors to watch, Pascual Sisto. The film is written by Nicolás Giacobone, an Academy Award winner with “Birdman,” adapted from his short story “El Pozo.”

The Cannes 2020 title, which also screened in Sundance and recently played in competition at the Deauville American Film Festival, where it won the Louis Roederer prize of the Révélation jury, sold in France to Ace Entertainment, in Germany, Austria and Switzerland to Koch Films, in Scandinavia to Njuta Films, in Latin America to Synapse Distribution, and in Africa to Gravel Road Distribution Group.

Previous deals included the U.K. with Vertigo Releasing, Australia/New Zealand with Rialto Distribution, and South Korea with The Coup. IFC Midnight released the film in the U.S. earlier this past month.

Described by...

Sean Baker’s “Red Rocket” won a pair of prizes at the 47th Deauville American Film Festival where “Blue Bayou,” “Down With the King,” “Pleasure” and “John and the Hole” also picked up awards during the closing ceremony. Michael Shannon, who was previously at Deauville with “99 Homes” and “Take Shelter,” received the honorary Talent Award from French helmer Bertrand Bonello, who sat on the jury, during the event.

“Red Rocket” stars Simon Rex as a retiring porn star who returns to his small Texas hometown where no one is eager to see him back. The movie, which world premiered in competition at Cannes, won the jury prize (shared with Ninja Thyberg’s “Pleasure”) and the critics awards. Both Baker and Rex were on hand in Deauville to receive the awards. Baker said there were fewer and fewer filmmakers directing indie films in the U.S. “Franchises and series will...

The “Dead Ringers” series at Amazon has added both Jennifer Ehle and Emily Meade in recurring roles, Variety has learned.

They join previously announced series lead Rachel Weisz as well as cast members Michael Chernus, Poppy Liu, Britne Oldford and Jeremy Shamos.

The series was announced at the streaming service in August 2020 with a straight-to-series order. It is a modern update of the 1988 David Cronenberg film of the same name. The series version will see Weisz playing the double lead role of Elliot and Beverly Mantle, twins who share everything: drugs, lovers, and an unapologetic desire to do whatever it takes, including pushing the boundaries on medical ethics in an effort to challenge antiquated practices and bring women’s healthcare to the forefront.

Ehle will play Rebecca, a brilliant and ruthless heiress, regularly featuring on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Married to the hopeful and surprisingly shrewd Susan (Meade), the two share a fascination with science,...

Title: John and the Hole Director: Pascual Sisto Starring: Charlie Shotwell, Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Ehle, Taissa Farmiga, Ben O’Brien, Lucien Spelman, Tamara Hickey There is an abundance of weird, discordant energy coursing through the minds and bodies of adolescents, perhaps especially males, even before the hormonal kick of puberty takes over. One needn’t be […]

The post John and the Hole Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

The Deauville American Film Festival has unveiled the competition lineup of its 2021 edition, which includes Sean Baker’s “Red Rocket” and Michael Sarnoski’s “Pig.”

Under the leadership of artistic director Bruno Barde, the festival’s competition will also showcase Pascual Sisto’s John and the Hole,” David Bruckner’s “The Night House,” Justin Chon’s “Blue Bayou,” Josef Kubota Wladyka’s “Catch The Fair One,” Ninja Thyberg’s “Pleasure,” Wes Hurley’s “Potato Dreams of America,” Tim Sutton’s “The Last Son,” Lauren Hadaway’s “The Novice,” Antonio Tibaldi’s “We Are Living Things,” and Alana Waksman’s “We Burn Like This.”

Several films in the Deauville roster world premiered at Cannes, notably the competition title “Red Rocket,” about a former porn star who moves back to Texas City to get a fresh start and falls back into old habits; and “Blue Bayou,” a heart-wrenching drama with Justin Chon...

Bluntly titled but mysterious all the same, John and the Hole marks the directorial debut of visual artist Pascual Sisto. Originally set to premiere at the 2020 Cannes Film Festival, the film finally premiered (albeit virtually) at Sundance this past January. Played by lead actor Charlie Shotwell (Captain Fantastic), suburban pre-teen John appears content with his suburban life. He lives in a beautiful Massachusetts home with his parents (Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Ehle) and sister (Taissa Farmiga), surrounded by nature and endless open space, complete with an underground bunker (the hole of the film’s title) built in the yard […]

The post “A 12-Year-Old is Not Going to Know What an Existential Crisis Is”: Pascual Sisto on John and the Hole first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Bluntly titled but mysterious all the same, John and the Hole marks the directorial debut of visual artist Pascual Sisto. Originally set to premiere at the 2020 Cannes Film Festival, the film finally premiered (albeit virtually) at Sundance this past January. Played by lead actor Charlie Shotwell (Captain Fantastic), suburban pre-teen John appears content with his suburban life. He lives in a beautiful Massachusetts home with his parents (Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Ehle) and sister (Taissa Farmiga), surrounded by nature and endless open space, complete with an underground bunker (the hole of the film’s title) built in the yard […]

The post “A 12-Year-Old is Not Going to Know What an Existential Crisis Is”: Pascual Sisto on John and the Hole first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

The Little Boy Who Lives Down the Lane: Sisto Finds a Psychopath in Disturbing Debut

There’s no arguing the discomforting vibe of John and the Hole, the directorial debut of Pascual Sisto written by Nicolas Giacobone, the favored scribe of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. From a distance, they’ve ostensibly concocted the portrait of a serial killer’s childhood, but it’s too simple a reading for a complex examination of how invisible privileges afforded the white middle class male craft a perfect storm for sociopathic tendencies bred by detachment and our insistence on normalizing symptoms of the average dysfunctional American family. Frustrating in its ambiguity and refusal to play into the violent catharsis via retribution we’ve become accustomed to, Sisto and Giacobone have crafted the kind of troubling psychological thriller which proliferated 1970s cinema—perhaps a time when we weren’t as afraid of the discomfort of acknowledging...

It was a triumphant second weekend for indie Stillwater from Focus Features, which hit the $10 million mark in 2,611 theatres (up by 80) and 233 Dma’s in North America, where it was no. 5. The Matt Damon-starrer held up strongly from its debut, dipping 45% — compared with a 64% drop for The Green Knight and a 55% decline for Jungle Cruise. Stillwater’s run may not be not specialty-small, but deserves a shout-out here for a standout performance. The complex drama garnered Damon a standing ovation in Cannes but had some concerned at the film’s theatrical prospects in a wide-release battle against big studio franchises on one hand and smaller arthouse fare on the other.

Damon plays an unemployed Oklahoma oil rig worker who travels to Marseille to help his daughter (Abigail Breslin) who’s in prison for murder. The film continued to resonate in the South and Midwest with the top five highest-grossing...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

The Hottest August (Brett Story)

Where better than New York City to make a structuralist film? Cities are iterative, their street grids diagrams of theme and variation, and New York most of all—with its streets and avenues named for numbers and letters and states and cities and presidents and Revolutionary War generals spanning an archipelago, intersecting at a million little data points at which to measure class, race, culture, history, architecture and infrastructure. And time, too—from this human density emerge daily and seasonal rituals, a set of biorhythms, reliable as the earth’s, against which to mark gradual shifts and momentary fashions. Summer is for lounging on fire escapes, always, and, today, for Mister Softee. Yesterday it was shaved ice.

August is here, and with its first weekend comes just one new wide releaseThe Suicide Squad, the follow-up to Suicide Squad, which had the biggest August opening ever ($133.7 million) in 2016 in the same frame. A lot has changed since then, and that opening is bigger than any single weekend’s combined box office total this year. While the box office does not seem to have taken a hit due to concerns over rising Covid cases in recent weeks, recovery has still been slow, and expectations are muted for the latest film in the DC Extended Universe.

James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy) steps into the director’s chair for the standalone installment which is somewhere in between being a sequel and a reboot. It sees the return of Margot Robbie, Jai Courtney, Joel Kinnaman, and Viola Davis, but otherwise it’s a new cast of actors and characters. Gone is...

The expressionless face of a longhaired teenage boy stares at the unconscious body of his family’s gardener. He holds a heavy stick menacingly, and at that point we are not certain what he is going to do with it.

In “John and the Hole,” Spanish director Pascual Sisto toys with the viewer’s predisposition to think violence will ensue throughout his intriguing psychodrama about the threshold between childhood and adulthood.

That fear that things might go awry is not unfounded, as the calibrated plot of the screenplay by Argentine writer Nicolás Giacobone (“Birdman”) astutely conceives situations that constantly hint at the possibility of a gruesome turn. However, and surely intentionally on the artists’ part, that read of what’s on screen might depend partially on one’s jaded adult worldview.

While flying a high-tech drone, 13-year-old John (Charlie Shotwell), a hard-to-read adolescent, discovers a bunker, a hole in the ground,...

Visual artist Pascual Sisto’s feature debut “John and the Hole” hits theaters Aug. 6 after a long wait — the IFC release was a prestigious Cannes 2020 Label selection, and it also played at Sundance earlier this year. Sisto was also named one of Variety’s 10 Directors to Watch in 2021. A cross between an unnerving fable and thriller, “John and the Hole” is written by Nicolás Giacobone, who adapted the screenplay from his short story “El Pozo.” Film stars Charlie Shotwell as a young teen who traps his family in an abandoned underground bunker and plays at being an adult. Film also stars Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Ehle and Taissa Farmiga. Sisto came to the U.S. from Spain to study filmmaking and is also an accomplished artist, having mounted exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe. Sisto talked to Variety over the phone recently. The conversation has been edited for length.

John and the Hole Mutressa Movies & 311 Productions Reviewed by Tami Smith, Film Reviewer for Shockya Grade: B Director: Pascual Sisto Screenwriter: Nicolas Giacobone, adapted from his short story El pozo Cast: Charlie Shotwell, Jennifer Ehle, Michael C. Hall, Taissa Farmiga, Tamara Hickey Release Date: August 6th, 2021 His father calls him Buddy, his […]

The post John and the Hole Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

“The Suicide Squad” will storm the domestic box office, with the Warner Bros. R-rated superhero adventure on track to generate more than $30 million in its opening weekend.

As the only new movie to debut nationwide, “The Suicide Squad” won’t have much competition to top the charts in North America. Like the entire Warner Bros. 2021 film slate, “The Suicide Squad” is premiering simultaneously on HBO Max.

Some box office experts suggest that inaugural ticket sales above $30 million is a modest estimate and predict that revenues could surpass $40 million in its first three days of release. That isn’t a bad start for pandemic times, but it’s a soft debut for a film with a $185 million production budget. However, the studio’s parent company WarnerMedia isn’t just relying on box office ticket sales. It’s also hoping “The Suicide Squad” will drive subscribers to HBO Max. The company hasn...

Hello, dear readers! As we head into the dog days of summer, if you need a way to beat the heat, why not stay in and catch some horror and sci-fi movies from the comfort of your own home? Here’s a look at all the great titles headed to VOD and Digital throughout the month of August, featuring an array of films headed to Shudder, Netflix, Amazon, and a variety of digital rental platforms.

Happy streaming!

Man Under Table (Arrow) - Streaming Exclusively on Arrow August 2nd

Guy is writing a movie, or so he claims in bars, parties, pretty much wherever he can. Guy eventually stumbles into the path of Indie darling Jill Custard and her lackey Ben who endlessly accosts him and pulls him into projects that are not his own. Frazzled and frustrated, Guy decides to join forces with a washed up neverbeen Gerald, and the...

It’s a ubiquitous feeling to want to rebel against your family, especially as a teenager, but a new psychological drama takes things to another level. Pascual Sisto’s John and the Hole, starring Charlie Shotwell, Michael C. Hall, and Jennifer Ehle, finds a son trapping his family in a hole nearby their house, unable to escape as he explores what newfound freedom is like. Following a Sundance premiere and ahead of a release early next month from IFC Films, the first trailer has arrive.

“So in a joke conversation, I think our screenwriter Nicolás Giacobone brought up that it’s like Michael Haneke’s Home Alone, but in a way that to some people that really struck through and they really understood it, because obviously, it’s none of both in a way, but it has the austerity of Michael Haneke, in some ways,” Sisto told us. “The one...

“John and the Hole” drops you into the eerie, ethereal world of a young boy who keeps his family captive in a trench in the ground, and doesn’t let you out. The boy is played by Charlie Shotwell, and his family by Jennifer Ehle, Taissa Farmiga, and Michael C. Hall. The latter three spend the majority of the movie trapped in a pit, crawling up the walls, and squirming in their own filth. The film was an official selection of the canceled 2020 Cannes Film Festival before finally world-premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2021. Ahead of the movie’s release on August 6 from IFC Films in theaters and on demand, watch the trailer below.

The film is directed by Pascual Sisto and written by Nicolas Giacobone, an Academy Award winner for co-writing “Birdman.” Though post-production wrapped just before lockdown took over, the film does emerge as a metaphor for the pandemic in hindsight.

John and the Hole Trailer — Pascual Sisto‘s John and the Hole (2021) movie trailer has been released by IFC Films. The John and the Hole trailer stars Charlie Shotwell, Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Ehle, Taissa Farmiga, Pamela Jayne Morgan, Lucien Spelman, Georgia Lyman, Samantha LeBretton, Tamara Hickey, Ben O’Brien, and Elijah [...]

Continue reading: John And The Hole (2021) Movie Trailer: Charlie Shotwell Puts Michael C. Hall & the Rest of His Family in a Hole...

Everyone expressed pleasure at being back at a physical event.

As the Cannes Film Festival moves into its last two days, international attendees reflected on a pandemic-era event that has required them to grapple with the logistics of 48-hourly Covid-19 tests, rumours of a virus cluster in the early days of the festival and concerns over the lack of mask-wearing, which was tightened up as the event progressed.

Sales agents expressed mixed views on how much business has been done but all said they were happy to be back. Those representing titles in official selection were generally upbeat, suggesting the...

"This is your life, John. This is what you want to do. This could be who you are." IFC Films has unveiled the first official trailer for the chilling low-key drama John and the Hole, which originally premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. This received some rave reviews out of Sundance, and was initially select as part of the 2020 Cannes Film Festival line-up before it was cancelled. The pitch: a coming-of-age psychological thriller that plays out the unsettling reality of a kid who holds his family captive in a hole in the ground. Pascual Sisto's John and the Hole is a very slick, nuanced film about much more than just teenage angst, as there's layers upon layers of subtext regarding what he's doing and how it relates to the world we live in these days. Charlie Shotwell stars as John, who puts the rest of his...

The work of visual artist Pascual Sisto is littered with ominous tedium. He infuses familiar settings with a quiet menace, invisible but inescapable. Sisto’s highly anticipated feature debut, “John and the Hole,” is no exception. The film, which was selected for the last year’s Cannes Film Festival and eventually premiered at Sundance in January, was deliberately conceived as a “contemporary fable,” according to Sisto. “I didn’t want it to be magical or taking place in this other world,” he explained. “It always needed to be anchored in our reality; everybody’s reality.”

Read More: Summer 2021 Preview: Over 50 Movies To Watch

“John and the Hole” is a coming-of-age psychological thriller about an adolescent (Charlie Shotwell) who, seemingly unprompted, decides to hold his family captive in an unfinished bunker behind their suburban home. As noted in our review earlier this year, the movie’s “Twilight Zone” premise and mannered...

Pascual Sisto’s “John and the Hole” — a psychological portrait of a disaffected teenager — has had a circuitous road to the screen. The movie, Sisto’s feature debut, was selected for last year’s Cannes Film Festival, which was, of course, canceled because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Instead, it premiered at the virtual Sundance Film Festival in January, after which it was bought by IFC Films.

At long last, IFC Films is releasing “John and the Hole” in theaters and on-demand on Aug. 6 — and today, dropped its first trailer.

In “John and the Hole,” John (Charlie Shotwell), is a 13-year-old seemingly without affect. He walks through his life of privilege as if in a trance — until one day, he discovers a bunker on the property of his family’s house. The existence of this bunker awakens something in John, and he drugs his father (Michael C. Hall), mother (Jennifer Ehle...

Exclusive: Principal photography has started in Tunisia on contemporary drama Contra, set in the aftermath of the powerful anti-government protests that provoked a wave of change in the region, known as the Arab spring.

The film (previously known as Before Spring) is being directed by Egyptian-British filmmaker Lotfy Nathan and will star French Tunisian actor Adam Bessa, known for his performances in recent action movies Mosul and Extraction.

A modern day parable about resistance, the film centers on the story of Ali, a young Tunisian who dreams of a better life, making a precarious living selling contraband gas at the local black market. When his father suddenly dies, he’s forced to take charge of his two younger sisters and their impending eviction. The movie will feature a combination of local actors and non-professionals.

Nathan’s narrative debut, shot on 35mm film, is being produced by Julie Viez (Long Day’s Journey Into Night...

London-based production, finance and sales outfit Film Constellation has inked the key first deals on psychological thriller “John and the Hole,” directed by Pascual Sisto, on the back of the film’s virtual market premiere at Cannes. The film was written by Nicolás Giacobone, an Oscar-winner with “Birdman,” who adapted his short story “El Pozo.”

“John and the Hole” sold in the U.K./Ireland to Vertigo Releasing, in Australia and New Zealand to Rialto Distribution, and in South Korea to the Coup Corporation. As previously reported, IFC Midnight will release the film in the U.S. later this summer.

Following the film’s selection for the Cannes 2020 Label, and on the back of its Sundance 2021 competition selection, a physical market premiere will be staged for international buyers on Sunday in Cannes, with Sisto in attendance.

Described by Variety’s Peter Debruge as “calculated and precise [with] director Pascual Sisto weaving...

This story about Cannes’ 2020 selection first appeared in TheWrap’s special digital Cannes magazine.

Last year, Cannes announced a list of 62 new feature films as its official selection for 2020, a year in which the festival itself didn’t take place. Bearing the prestigious imprimatur of the festival, the movies had a variety of releases. Here are some of the ones with the highest profiles since being singled out by Cannes.

“The French Dispatch” / Searchlight Pictures

Faithful

“DNA,” Maïwenn

Premiered at the Deauville Film Festival in September 2020, released by Netflix in the U.S. in December and in France in May.

“True Mothers,” Naomi Kawase

Screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2020; submitted as Japan’s entry in the Oscars’ Best International Feature Film category.

“Peninsula,” Yeon Sang-Ho

Released theatrically in South Korea in July 2020 and in the U.S. (as Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula) in August.

“Another Round,...

Chloe Tai, Edward Parodi, Anisha Kasozi and Léo Teste take on new roles.

Film Constellation has promoted four staff to executive level, in a change to the leadership structure at the UK-based production, finance and sales firm.

Chloe Tai becomes director of marketing, general manager, with broadened management responsibilities and a focus on team leadership and corporate impact work. Based in London, Tai will report directly to Film Constellation founder and CEO Fabien Westerhoff, who is based in Amsterdam.

Tai joined Film Constellation in 2017 following a career in marketing at L’Oreal, and has since worked on international distribution campaigns for...

Production, finance and sales outfit Film Constellation has boarded international sales on psychological thriller “John and the Hole.” The film is directed by Spanish helmer Pascual Sisto, who was selected as one of the top 10 directors to watch by Variety this year, and is written by Oscar winning “Birdman” scribe Nicolás Giacobone, adapted from his short story “El Pozo.”

Following the film’s Cannes 2020 Label and Sundance 2021 competition selection, a virtual market premiere will be orchestrated for international buyers in June, combined with a physical screening in Cannes in July.

“John and the Hole” plays out the unsettling reality of 13 year-old John, who decides to hold his affluent family captive in an underground bunker in the land behind their house. Left without supervision, John experiences newfound independence, exploring the difficult passage from childhood freedom to adult responsibility.

The film stars Emmy-winner Michael C. Hall (“Dexter”), Charlie Shotwell, BAFTA winner Jennifer Ehle,...

IFC Films has nabbed North American rights to “John and the Hole,” an unorthodox coming-of-age story that had its premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Directed by visual artist Pascual Sisto, the film follows 13-year-old John (Charlie Shotwell) who decides to drug his well-to-do parents (Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Ehle) and older sister (Taissa Farmiga). He then holds them captive within an unfinished bunker that he discovered while walking through the woods. Home alone, John experiences newfound freedom and independence.

IFC Films plans to release the film on August 6, 2021. The film marks Sisto’s feature debut. He was named one of Variety’s “10 Directors to Watch” in 2021. In a favorable review, Variety‘s Peter Debruge called Sisto a “remarkable new talent” and praised Shotwell’s performance.

“With any luck, the film will put both Shotwell and Sisto on the map,” Debruge wrote. “Through the subtlety of his performance,...

Distributor plans August 6 release.

IFC Films has acquired North American rights to Sundance entry and 2020 Cannes label selection John And The Hole.

Pascual Sisto’s psychological coming-of-age drama stars Charlie Shotwell (Captain Fantastic) as a young boy who discovers an unfinished bunker in the woods.

After he drugs his affluent parents and sister and leaves them in the hole, the boy inhabits the family home and explores a newfound independence.

Rounding out the key cast are Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Ehle, and Taissa Farmiga. IFC Films has set an August 6 release .

Visual artist Sisto directed John And The Hole from...

Distributor plans August 6 release.

IFC Films has acquired North American rights to Sundance entry and 2020 Cannes label selection John And The Hole.

Pascual Sisto’s psychological coming-of-age thriller stars Charlie Shotwell (Captain Fantastic) as a young boy who discovers an unfinished bunker in the woods.

After he drugs his affluent parents and sister and leaves them in the hole, the boy inhabits the family home and explores a newfound independence.

Rounding out the key cast are Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Ehle, and Taissa Farmiga. IFC Films has set an August 6 release .

Visual artist Sisto directed John And The Hole from...