So you’ve ticked off Netllix’s July highlights – you lapped up the bucket of nostalgia handed to you by the better-than-it-had-any-right-to-be Beverly Hills Cop 4: Axel F, you wound back the years (but probably not the tears) with uber-charming anime The Imaginary, and wasted no time bingeing the first available episodes of the final Cobra Kai series. “Next…”
Netflix’s August movie/TV show haul seems likely to feature more lowlights than highlights, but there are a handful of new Netflix releases whetting my appetite, including a much-anticipated decolourised release of last year’s best blockbuster and a new Lee Daniels-directed, Glenn Close-starring haunted house movie.
Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color (1st August)
Ever since this deserving Oscar winner was stripped of its colour for a (properly; not just desaturated) re-graded release in Japan and the US at the start of the year, I’ve been desperate to experience the monster movie in black and white, to see how it fares without its iconic hues – would I miss the blue beam tail or would it actually better suit the post-war era? Well, now I (and you) can find out.
Incoming (23rd August)
In their feature-length debut, the Chernin brothers (It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, The Mick) have presumably had a ball making a teen comedy about the night four freshmen crash their first high-school party. Naturally – and indeed, optimistically – I’m banking on Superbad/American Pie vibes here. The trailer fills me with optimism – people on fire, sexual slip-ups and a badly behaved teacher (Bobby Cannavale).
The Frog (23rd August)
"One peaceful day, an unwelcome guest arrived..."
This one's for you, K-thriller fans. When a mysterious woman arrives at a rural vacation rental one summer, the lives of Koo Sang-Joon (Yoon Kye-Sang) and others around him upend and unravel as events take an uncontrollably chaotic and bloody turn. The trailer promises edge-of-your-seat suspense, a menacing mood, a stellar cast and no short amount of bludgeoning. I'm in.
The Deliverance (August 30th)
Hold onto your ouija boards. Lee Daniels (Precious, The Butler) has had a crack at the horror genre as he directs a true-story paranormal shocker he co-wrote alongside David Coggeshall (Orphan: First Kill) and Elijah Bynum (Hot Summer Nights), based on the Ammons family haunting case in Gary, Indiana in 2011.
When a single mother (Andra Day) moves into a new home in Pennsylvania and experiences demonic occurrences, she and the community (Glenn Close plays one member) must confront the evil forces within the walls in order to save her children. An exorcism on one of them – "whatever it says to you, do not listen to it. It will play on your heart, it will play on your mind" – opens the trailer, which teases many of the classic demonic possession tropes we've come to expect from Hollywood horror.
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