Bateman’s description of himself is something that movie fans might need to keep in mind, given that Italian director Luca Guadagnino plans to make his own adaptation. Granted, the 2000 movie has become a true classic unto itself, and not only because it paved the way for Bale becoming Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins. It also saw Harron and co-writer Guinevere Turner find added humor and even hidden depths in Ellis’ drudging novel about a Wall Street trader who may or may not be a serial killer—making it as much a satire of toxic and fragile masculinity as it is an indictment of the callowness in ’80s yuppie culture among the so-called masters of the universe.

Yet Guadagnino has never been afraid of big swings. In addition to his breakout Call Me By Your Name and this year’s excellent Challengers, he also made the cannibal horror film Bones and All and remade Dario Argento’s Giallo classic Suspiria into a colorless, but no less dense, psychological horror. He knows how to take on impossible challenges… as well as how to cast them to often near perfection. Still, a filmmaker of Guadagnino’s abilities needs the right guy to step into Bateman’s pure leather oxfords. Here are some of the actors who have certainly slipped their embossed business cards to Guadagnino.

Timothée Chalamet

Guadagnino loves to work with actors he knows and trusts, and given that Armie Hammer seems to be too perfect to play Bateman, Timothée Chalamet is the next best thing. Guadagnino has said that he wants to stay more faithful to Ellis’ novel for his movie, which means removing the self-aware humor and feminist perspective that Harron and Turner brought, and increasing the onus on the star to make the vapid Bateman worth watching while committing horrid crimes.

With his sad eyes and perpetually-hunched body, Chalamet can certainly make Bateman look a lot more compelling than he actually is. We haven’t seen the actor play a hot shot before, coming closest as the ebullient and confident Willy Wonka from last year. But he’s already done more complicated characters in Bones and All (directed by Guadagnino) and Dune: Part Two, making American Psycho the natural next step.

Austin Butler

Austin Butler loves to play pretty weirdos, which is Patrick Bateman to a tee. With his model looks and lanky features, Butler commands attention, skills that would benefit someone who wants to command a board room filled with finance bros. Yet as successful as he’s been, Butler tends to play all surface, handsome men with absolutely nothing going on behind the eyes.

That quality could work for Bateman. After all, Ellis gives Bateman endless first-person narration in American Psycho, but spreads it all thin. Bateman thinks about Huey Lewis and skin care routines in part because he can’t think about anything else, certainly nothing that constitutes as human. Butler’s natural aloofness may be the perfect nothing at the center of the film, giving Guadagnino plenty of space to trick audiences into filling the void (a grim mistake made by many of Bateman’s seeming victims in the novel).

Jacob Elordi

And what about the other Elvis of late? Like Butler, Euphoria alum Jacob Elordi commands attention with his large frame, but he has a natural kindness that could bring out an interesting aspect of Bateman. Having already played a privileged kid in Saltburn, Elordi certainly can embody the haughtiness that comes natural to the upper classes, and his affability can be an interesting twist on Bateman.

But Elordi also has a physicality that allows him to make his body imposing, which is perfect for Bateman. While most people think of the American Psycho scenes where Patrick lectures on Huey Lewis or sneers at other stock bros, Bale also captured the bestial nature of Ellis’ character. Like Bale, Elordi can play physically unhinged, which is just as important to the character, given his murderous or sexual moments.

Josh O’Connor

Of course Guadagnino just worked with a pair of young male leads in Challengers. Mike Faist has the open vulnerability that Elordi brings to the role, but not the same physicality, so he may not be the best pick for Bateman. On the other hand, Josh O’Connor exudes confidence, which Bateman needs.

Some might point out that while O’Connor has the height, he also has protruding ears and a mop of curly hair, which he’s put to good use in comic roles, as in 2020’s Emma. where he played the doofy Reverend Mr. Elton. Challengers proved that O’Connor’s unique looks do not prevent him from being an attractive leading man, which adds a compelling wrinkle to a character as concerned with appearances as Patrick Bateman. O’Connor could add an insecurity to Bateman that drives his murderous impulses, something consistent with the character that Ellis wrote.

Tom Holland

Yes, Tom Holland plays Peter Parker as a big ol’ sweetie-pie. But look at Cherry, The Crowded Room, and The Devil All the Time. Whenever he gets out of his blue and red tights, Holland wants to play a darker role so badly that he’s willing to do terrible, terrible projects, such as Cherry, The Crowded Room, and The Devil All the Time.

Challengers star Zendaya must have certainly mentioned her frequent collaborator Holland to Guadagnino, and Patrick Bateman is very much the type of role he’s looking for. Famously, Bale took inspiration from Tom Cruise to play Bateman’s mixture of enthusiasm and dead eyes, but Holland could put a softer spin on Patrick’s obsessions, making the horror all the more striking.

Kelvin Harrison Jr.

Okay, we need to acknowledge that Patrick Bateman is a yuppie whose privilege as a straight white male covers up any crimes that may or may not have happened. Bateman’s race and (especially) his gender and sexuality are a big part of Harron’s film and a subtextual part of Ellis’s novel. All of this is a long way to say that casting a non-white actor in the part closes off some aspects of the source material’s critique.

But at the same time, it opens the door for looking at the intersection of class and patriarchy, even with a man of a different race. And if you’re looking for a young male actor, it’s hard to do better than Kelvin Harrison Jr., who played B.B. King alongside Butler in Elvis, but also put in varied performances in Luce, Cyrano, and Waves (alongside Bones and All star Taylor Russell). Harrison would be the perfect actor for a Bateman that looks at other parts of Ellis’s novel.

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Tilda Swinton

You laugh, but Tilda Swinton has been Guadagnino’s most frequent collaborator. And in Suspiria, she played no fewer than three different characters, one of them an elderly man. If anyone could pull it off, it’s Swinton. And don’t tell me you wouldn’t watch it.

The post American Psycho: The Actors Who Could Be the Next Patrick Bateman appeared first on Den of Geek.

A new Star Wars comic series announced at NYCC 2024 is packed with so much potential, especially if you’re a fan of Prequel-Era Obi-Wan Kenobi stories. Titled Star Wars: Jedi Knights, this series written by Marc Guggenheim and drawn by Madibek Musabekov is set before The Phantom Menace and focuses on a large cast of fan-favorite characters, including Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, Count Dooku, and Mace Windu. Each issue of Star Wars: Jedi Knights will follow a different Jedi duo on a mission across the galaxy, but there will be an overarching threat that binds these stories together.

This is of course rich, unexplored territory in the current canon of Star Wars, especially as it concerns Obi-Wan’s time as a padawan learner. As Prequel fans know, we don’t get to see Obi-Wan as a padawan for long in the Prequels. After Qui-Gin is killed by Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace, Obi-Wan ascends the ranks of the Order and becomes a master himself by Revenge of the Sith. Most things we know about his time with Qui-Gon come from stories he tells later on. One story in particular would make perfect sense to tell during the time period that the new Jedi Knights comic is exploring—the story of when he first met Duchess Satine Kryze and served as her protector.

In Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Obi-Wan briefly talks about the time he spent with the Duchess before the events of the show when he was still Qui-Gon’s padawan. According to Obi-Wan, he and Qui-Gon spent a year with Satine on Mandalore during the Mandalorian Civil War, protecting her from “insurgents who had threatened her world.” They were always on the run, fleeing from bounty hunters and never quite sure what the next day would bring.

During their reunion in The Clone Wars, when Death Watch threatens Satine and her government, we learn that Obi-Wan and Satine came to love each other dearly during their year together—so much so that Obi-Wan tells her that he would have left the Jedi Order for her if she asked him to. But instead, Obi-Wan returned to the Order with his master and Satine went on to rebuild and rule Mandalore. There is clearly still romantic tension and sparks between them when they reconnect on The Clone Wars, but unfortunately Satine dies before the two can reconsider a future together.

This revelation about Obi-Wan’s past paints such a compelling picture of the character and what he gave up to be the legendary Jedi we know him to be. It reminds us that no matter how hard they try to overcome their emotions and control them, that Jedi still feel deeply. And it shows us that Obi-Wan and Anakin really are a lot more alike than either would care to admit.

Even though we mostly know how the story will end, Jedi Knights is still the perfect opportunity to finally dive deeper into this unseen chapter of Obi-Wan’s life. Not only could it offer a look into the psyche of a young Obi-Wan and how this mission potentially affected his relationship with Qui-Gon, but it could also introduce more Mandalorian lore with the civil war as a backdrop.

Satine and Obi-Wan have so much chemistry in The Clone Wars, even after years apart, we can only imagine how much untapped dramatic potential lies in their year together on the run. Forbidden love, life and death scenarios, and Obi-Wan serving as her bodyguard are all ingredients for a great romance—something Star Wars could use a little more of these days.

There’s so much material that could still be mined in Obi-Wan’s story, and his time with Qui-Gon and Satine on Mandalore is the perfect place for a comic series like Star Wars: Jedi Knights to go.

Star Wars: Jedi Knights #1 hits stands in March 2025.

The post Star Wars Can Finally Tell a Part of Obi-Wan’s Story Only Hinted at in Clone Wars appeared first on Den of Geek.

Cristin Milioti is having fun, and she deserves it. Not only is The Penguin star, who has done excellent work for years in projects such as Palm Springs and Made for Love, getting the praise she deserves, but her character Sofia Falcone also finally exacts revenge on her treacherous family, all while establishing her own mob identity as Sofia Gigante.

“It’s as fun as it looks,” Milioti tells Den of Geek when she stops by our NYCC studio. “Because you understand her backstory and her history… I mean, I can only speak for myself, but it deepens how much I wanted her to have that experience and how much I wanted her to sort of let loose. It’s such a long time coming, and obviously I feel that as someone who loves her and roots for her.”

Although we’re only halfway through the first season of The Penguin, Sofia has already transcended her origins as a secondary character in the Batman comics by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale. Where, in the comics, Sofia is the bruising Falcone daughter who becomes a killer called the Hangman and dies in battle with Harvey Dent, on television, she’s stepping up to take control of the city’s underworld.

The Penguin introduces Sofia as recently released from Arkham Asylum, where she’s been staying since being framed for killing seven women by hanging. But in The Penguin‘s show-stopping fourth episode, we learn that her father Carmine Falcone murdered those women, along with her mother, and pinned the deaths on Sofia.

Thus, Sofia in The Penguin flips the script on the character’s standard origin, which was the entire appeal for showrunner Lauren LeFranc.

“I liked the idea of sort of speaking in a larger way about how we often label people as crazy and how historically we’ve labeled women as hysterical, especially with mental institutions in the past. I thought a lot about Rosemary Kennedy in that regard, who received a lobotomy in her 20s because her father put her in an institution.

“So I just wanted to dig into that and … take advantage of the way that we think of the Hangman and of Sophia in the comics,” LeFranc explains. “When Sophia enters the show, she does so as a cipher and it’s through really Oz’s lens that we see her, so it’s easy to side with Oz and it’s easy to call her crazy.”

That perspective allows LeFranc to put ethical import on Sofia’s arc. “I think we all can fall prey to just labeling someone easily without knowing their full story, so it felt essential to give her a full story.”

The central part of Sofia’s story occurs a week after The Batman, in which not only did the Riddler and Batman face off to save Gotham, but Sofia’s father Carmine was revealed to be a rat and murdered. That period of turmoil opens the way for Oz to make his power play and for Sofia to come into her own.

“It’s a rise to power story on some level for Oz, so I knew generally where I needed to leave him as a character,” LeFranc says of The Penguin‘s relationship to The Batman. “But then really the beauty of it is that I had a lot of freedom within that to play. Matt [Reeves, director of The Batman] was really gracious about saying, ‘Yeah, you can create new canon.'”

That new canon comes across in Sofia’s self-actualizing in the wake of her father’s dethroning, which complicates Oz’s own machinations.

“For me, the most important and essential thing in any story, no matter if you’re between two films or anything, is the characters,” LeFranc says. “Making sure that you do the work to have the characters feel alive and rich and complicated, that you have backstory for them, whether you fully see it or not on screen, and that you know where they’re emotionally going.”

The main drive of Sofia’s story is summarized beautifully in a surprising scene from episode three in which she and Oz try to convince the boss of Gotham’s Triads to distribute a new drug called Bliss. To ease the boss’s trepidation, Sofia gives a speech about the psychological need that drives every person and how the people of Gotham experiencing pain from everything they’ve lost have become desperate. Sofia may be gesturing toward teens dancing on a club floor, trying to get over the devastation the Riddler wrought in The Batman, but she’s really talking about herself.

“That speech is kind of a weirdly vulnerable moment for her,” Milioti explains. “She’s in a very unsafe environment, not just the club, but with Oz near all of it. She knows how people look at her when she walks in a room.”

Sofia’s ability to use that vulnerability and surprise those who would underestimate her makes her a formidable opponent to Oz and a larger threat to Gotham City in general. And, for Milioti, it’s what makes Sofia fit within the world of Batman.

“I think that what’s so special about Batman and also about our show is that you’re seeing where pain goes when you don’t treat it with care,” Milioti says.

Both Batman and the Penguin have rocked Gotham City because of the way they deal with their pain. Sofia’s understanding of her own pain clearly makes her a formidable challenge, so we had to ask Milioti whether she felt her character could take on the Batman himself if they ever crossed paths.

“Absolutely, she could!” Milioti enthuses. “She’s so smart and she’s also so instinctual. That’s why she and Oz are such good adversaries. There’s a history there and they know each other, but she can smell when he’s lying. There’s that great line [in episode four]: ‘I trusted him even when every cell in my body told me not to.’ She operates on that level and is surrounded by people who aren’t in touch with that.”

With only three more episodes of The Penguin left, Sofia’s only getting better at operating on that level, and it’s a lot of fun—for her, Milioti, and us in the audience.

The Penguin airs on HBO and streams on Max on Sundays at 9pm EST.

The post The Penguin: Cristin Milioti on Sofia Falcone’s Rise and Whether She Could Take on the Batman appeared first on Den of Geek.

Perhaps that was one reason that when Blumhouse Productions first began entertaining the idea of reimagining some of the classic Universal Monsters for the 21st century, the Wolf Man remained high on the list.

“It’s a project I’ve been passionate about for a very long time, since even before we did Invisible Man with Leigh [Whannell],” Blum says when stopping by the Den of Geek Studio at New York Comic Con. “I always thought if The Invisible Man worked, I’d love to try and tackle The Wolf Man and try to do with The Wolf Man what Leigh did with The Invisible Man. And I would describe that as taking the monster and [not] making it a four-quadrant movie for everybody, but returning it to its roots, which is like a straight horror movie.”

The producer describes that ultimate vision, which will finally bare its teeth next January, as incredibly scary and viscerally bloody. Also like The Invisible Man, it will have one of the most interesting horror writer-directors of this century attached: Leigh Whannell. Once a respected genre writer who co-created both the Saw and Insidious franchises, alongside director and sometime-co-writer James Wan, Whannell really broke out when he stepped behind the camera to helm instant cult classics Upgrade and The Invisible Man, both of which featured Blum as a producer.

So while Whannell’s road to Wolf Man was a little more quizzical—his introduction to the character was Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)—the helmer eventually saw a chance to reinvent the concept similar to what he did with H.G. Wells’ Invisible Man by leaning into the tragedy naturally inherent in the werewolf archetype.

“I knew I had to come up with a version that not only interested me, but a take that justified the movie’s existence,” Whannell tells us. “I didn’t just want to pay homage to this character. If I want to bask in the glory of this character, I can just watch The Wolf Man movie. If I’m going to go to the trouble of actually making a film, I think I have to say something new.”

Intriguingly, the movies that most influenced that approach were less the Universal Monster canon and more several ‘80s horror movies that became iconic in their own right by radically remaking (and some might argue improving on) older classics: David Cronenberg’s redo of The Fly in 1986 and John Carpenter’s twist on The Thing from Another World, 1982’s simply retitled The Thing.

“Obviously they were remaking these movies in a different time,” Whannell considers. “[The originals] were black and white, but they brought a really modern sensibility to [the new versions]. They justified their existence. So in this I was thinking, ‘What am I going to do?’ and without giving anything away, I came up with a way of internalizing it. Rather than watching someone transform, you’re actually experiencing the transformation from within the character.”

The setup of the movie is, indeed, a bit like The Fly in that good people are forced to watch a loved one transform into something… other. In this case, it is a young family composed of father Blake (Christopher Abbott), mother Charlotte (Julia Garner), and young child Ginger (Matilda Firth). After the pair are attacked by a seemingly wild beast, they are forced to hide in a remote cabin while daddy tries to recover from the bite wounds on his arm. But to say the infection gets worse would be an understatement.

“I want this to be a movie where there’s not necessarily a bad guy, you know what I mean?” Whannell says. “If you think of Cronenberg’s version of The Fly, you have empathy for the monster. At no point are you like, ‘This person is evil.’ It’s empathy. He has a disease.”

The concept is the realization of a monster classic Blum has chased for some time. Likewise, it’s proof that he can still re-tinker some of the Universal Monsters for modern audience sensibilities.

“I’ve looked at all the Universal Monster movies but I don’t really want the responsibility of ‘Blumhouse is going to do all the Monster movies,’” Blum says. “Because I don’t really know what we would do with it. It’s kind of a case-by-case basis.” For example, before settling on Whannell’s Wolf Man, the producer spent quite a bit of time ruminating on Bride of Frankenstein.

Says Blum, “We worked on Bride of Frankenstein for a little bit, but I could never figure out a path to making it. It was always sort of funny or always sort of campy, and I could never get a path to making it like a straight horror movie, and so we didn’t tackle it.” But with Wolf Man, he and Whannell found a less-trodden road that felt right—and perhaps eerily familiar to families who have endured the last several years.

“The family in this movie is kind of underwater, they’re stressed like a lot of modern families these days,” says Whannell. “I know from myself, especially during COVID and post-COVID, being a parent just became extra tough, and it’s getting harder. It’s relentless. I wanted to present that side of family life, the difficult part of it, because it is tough every single day to be in a long term relationship, to raise kids… and then someone is suddenly sick, the way disease just suddenly appears in our life.”

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Whannell admits that some monster fans may not initially like the idea of having those real-world implications in their creature feature, however Whannell is a firm believer—as with The Invisible Man four years ago—in being able to do both. You can make a metaphor for families enduring tragedy and illness, and you can make a monster flick where Whannell is at last able to indulge in all the yesteryear glories of prosthetic makeup, in this case courtesy of Academy Award-nominated makeup artist Arjen Tuiten (Pan’s Labyrinth, Babylon).

Says Whannell, “I love that I got to make a creature feature and really prioritize practical makeup effects. I spent a lot of time interviewing people and researching who was going to be the person for this. We talked to a lot of really talented makeup artists, but in the end, I chose Arjen Tuiten… He’s from Holland but he came to the U.S. when he was 16 and was a protégé of Dick Smith [The Exorcist], and then he worked for Rick Baker [American Werewolf in London], and then he worked for Stan Winston [Aliens]. His makeup school was all the best. It was nuts, and he really just treats it like an art. So it was really fun to dive in with him and think a lot about what prosthetic makeup looks like on camera. I never really had done that before on a huge scale.”

The director knows some fans are intrigued that his Wolf Man is keeping the werewolf’s final form secret until release, however he notes, “I can say that you can trust in Arjen. This guy’s an artist, he’s brilliant, and he loves The Wolf Man like you do. So for any fans out there wondering what we’ve done with this movie, rest assured we have done everything possible to create something horrendous and horrific, but also empathetic and memorable. In a perfect world, this would go down in history with Jeff Goldblum in The Fly or Rick Baker’s work in American Werewolf.”

While we have yet to see what the final design is—though we’re promised something “grounded” and perhaps less “Transylvanian” or heightened like Baker’s own Wolf Man remake design from about 15 years ago—it is in service of a monster movie intent on both protecting and reintroducing the Wolf Man for the next generation.

“What is it about those characters that has staying power?” Whannell posits. “I mean, for something to last that long, for Romeo and Juliet to still be a thing, that’s an incredible piece of writing that kids today know exactly what Romeo and Juliet is. So I’m always thinking about what causes that and I think in the case of the Universal Monsters, it’s their durability.” A werewolf can be a father you love, or a husband you still recognize… as well as a snarling, blood-drenched monster trying to break down the door. Family life must always transform.

Wolf Man opens only in theaters on Jan. 17, 2025.

The post Wolf Man: Leigh Whannell and Jason Blum on Making Body Horror That Can Stand Next to The Fly appeared first on Den of Geek.

Panels 

The Future of the Star Trek Universe

Star Trek was in full force at NYCC with panels for three of Paramount+’s most popular offerings: Lower Decks, Strange New Worlds, and the upcoming film Section 31. The much-anticipated Michelle Yeoh movie received a release date of Jan. 24, 2025 exclusively on Paramount+, and the vibrant teaser art featured Emperor Philippa Georgiou in her full royal splendor.

The Star Trek: Lower Decks panel revealed an exclusive clip and a parody poster for the fifth and final season imitating the art of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, replacing “frontier” with “season,” and Strange New Worlds accompanied their exclusive clip with the announcement that beloved actor Rhys Darby would be guest starring in the upcoming season.

Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim

Warner Bros. Pictures gave fans a deeper look at the first new Lord of the Rings theatrical release since 2003’s The Return of the King. The anime film, which takes place almost 200 years before the Peter Jackson trilogy, focuses on the land of Rohan during the time of legendary King Helm Hammerhand. An exclusive clip shown to panel attendees pit the King of Rohan against orcs and an army of Dunlendings that left us wanting to see much more of this epic fantasy war movie.

The Electric State Is a New Sci-Fi Movie From the Directors of Avengers: Doomsday and Endgame

On the heels of the San Diego Comic-Con announcement that they are returning to Marvel to helm Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, directors Joe and Anthony Russo stopped by New York Comic Con to tease their next sci-fi adventure story: The Electric State. Joined by stars Chris Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown, the Russo Brothers explained the complicated mythos of the film, which is based on a 2018 graphic novel. Basically: Walt Disney decided to grant robots sentience and now it’s everyone’s problem. Attendees of the panel were treated to a trailer and some behind the scenes footage that featured various ‘90s artifacts. 

Outlander Season 7 Part 2 Trailer Is Here!

Before beloved Starz drama Outlander can get rolling on its eighth and final season, it has some additional business to attend to. The eight episodes that make up the second half of the historical fantasy epic’s penultimate season premiere on November 22 and the Empire Stage at New York Comic Con 2024 was the best place to hear all about it. Stars Caitríona Balfe, Sam Heughan, Sophie Skelton, Richard Rankin, John Bell, producer Maril Davis, and author Diana Gabaldon prepped fans on what to expect from season 7’s back half. And of course, it wouldn’t be a NYCC panel without an exclusive reveal of a trailer, which led off the proceedings and featured Jamie and Claire’s long-awaited return to Scotland. 

The stars of Marvel Television’s #DaredevilBornAgain, Charlie Cox & Vincent D’Onofrio, surprised fans with a special sneak peek during the #NYCC “Marvel Fanfare” panel today.

Marvel Television’s Daredevil: Born Again starts streaming March 4, only on @DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/hiXGTezZOw

— Marvel Studios (@MarvelStudios) October 19, 2024

Daredevil Release Date Confirmed!

Daredevil stars Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio surprised fans during the Marvel Fanfare panel, sitting down to talk about the show’s revival and to finally announce the release date: March 4, 2025. Marvel also screened exclusive footage for panel attendees that promises plenty of close-quarters combat, gravity-defying stunts, and lots of Kingpin chewing up the scenery. 

DC Vertigo Returns, Batman: Hush 2, a Peacemaker Spinoff

DC Comics brought a few huge announcements to this year’s con. The big headline: DC is finally bringing back Vertigo Comics, the mature comic book label behind some of the greatest books of all time, such as The Sandman, Y: The Last Man, Fables, Hellblazer, and Transmetropolitan. Reimagined is a label for creator-owned projects, the new Vertigo’s first book will be a reprint of James Tynion IV and Alvaro Martinez’s The Nice House by the Sea.

Jim Lee and Jeph Loeb are also returning to Gotham City for a sequel to their seminal Bat-comic Hush. What the bandaged villain might have planned for the Dark Knight this time around is anyone’s guess but we do know that the story will begin in Batman #158 out March 2025.

Wondering what Peacemaker’s best pals have been up to between seasons 1 and 2? Peacemaker Presents: The Vigilante/Eagly Double Feature, a new five-issue spinoff comic, has you covered. James Gunn serves as story consultant for this miniseries with Tim Seeley and Mitch Gerads telling a Vigilante story, while Rex Ogle and Matteo Lolli cover Eagly.

Creature Commandos Trailer

Speaking of James Gunn, the co-head of DC Studios is bringing a very different band of weirdos to the new DCU. When the U.S. government bans Amanda Waller from using human villains for her secret task forces, she turns to a team of monsters to get the job done in Creature Commandos. Assembling characters as strange as GI Robot, Weasel, Eric Frankenstein, Doctor Phosphorus, and the Bride, this animated series looks like a wild time, as evidenced by the very zany trailer released during NYCC. 

Star Wars: Jedi Knights Goes Back to the Prequel Era

Marvel Comics is going back to the beginning with the new series Star Wars: Jedi Knights, which chronicles the further Prequel era adventures of Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, Count Dooku, Mace Windu, and more characters from the films. From creators Marc Guggenheim and Madibek Musabekov, Jedi Knights will also introduce all-new Jedi characters to the Star Wars universe when it hits stands next March.

Interview Studio Highlights

Dune: Prophecy Offers Sympathy for the Harkonnens

The first television series set in Frank Herbert’s foreboding Dune universe is here and it is an absolute epic. Adapted loosely from Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s Sisterhood of Dune, Dune: Prophecy is actually set decades after that book while tracking the ascendant power of Valya Harkonnen, the second Reverend Mother of the Bene Gesserit. She is played in the series by Emily Watson (as well as Jessica Barden in flashbacks).

The cast and executive producers of the series stopped by to discuss the freedom and support they had from the Herbert estate to navigate into uncharted star systems, as well as the appeal of centering the story on a Harkonnen point-of-view between Valya and her fellow Bene Gesserit sister, Tula Harkonnen. “It’s a really properly messed up family with a lot of trauma,” Watson tells us, “a lot of terrible relationships, and then they’ve given themselves to this powerful organization that is trying to control pretty much every aspect of the universe: religion, money, oil. It’s the age-old story.”

Williams agrees with her onscreen sister, noting that the series will offer a different context on the Harkonnen/Atreides rivalry viewers of the Denis Villeneuve Dune movies think they know. Says Williams, “They have that belief that they’re justified. But try to find the baddie in a land war. ‘I was here first.’ It’s got tremendous resonance to what’s happening today politically, and who’s right and who’s wrong? Or there’s just pain.”

Cristin Milioti and The Penguin Cast Break Down the Rise of Sofia Falcone

The Penguin stars Cristin Milioti, Rhenzy Feliz, Michael Kelly, Clancy Brown, and Deirdre O’Connell joined showrunner Lauren LeFranc to chat about what’s next for the hit HBO crime drama. In particular, Milioti explained what was behind Sofia Falcone’s actions in the explosive ending in episode 4, and also teased what’s next for Gotham’s newest crime lord. When we asked Milioti whether she felt her villain on the rise could take on the Batman himself, the actor didn’t hesitate at all, answering with an emphatic, “Yes!” 

Feliz also took some time to chat about Victor’s big decision to stay with Oz instead of escaping Gotham with the love of his life. The actor explained that Victor has never been given an opportunity like the one his new mentor is offering him and that the young criminal in the making feels seen by Oz.

The Wolf Man Enters the Blumhouse

The Wolf Man has always held a special place for Jason Blum. Right after Dracula, the furry guy was his favorite Universal Monster growing up, and the idea of doing a proper modernization of the character was on his mind even before Blum produced Leigh Whannell’s sinister reimagining of The Invisible Man in 2020.

“I always thought if The Invisible Man worked I’d love to try and tackle The Wolf Man, and try to do with The Wolf Man what Leigh did with The Invisible Man,” Blum tells us. “And I would describe that as taking the monster and [not] making it a four-quadrant movie for everybody, but returning it to its roots, which is like a straight horror movie.”

The result is something that is viscerally horrific, bloody, and even tragic in writer-director Whannell’s estimation. When he also stopped by the Den of Geek studio, the filmmaker behind both Blumhouse’s Invisible Man and The Wolf Man likens the film as similar to what David Cronenberg did with The Fly by taking an old school horror movie from a different era and making it a body horror nightmare where you watch a good man turn into something else: “I sort of came up with a way of internalizing it,” Whannell says. “Rather than watching someone transform, you’re actually experiencing the transformation from within the character.”

Cross

The cast of Cross stopped by to talk about their series that’s coming to Prime Video November 17, 2024. Based on James Patterson’s Alex Cross novels, the show promises to feature the flavor of the Washington, D.C. setting readers will be familiar with, showrunner Ben Watkins assured us. In talking about the title character played by Aldis Hodge and his partnership with Detective John Sampson, Isaiah Mustafa, who plays Sampson, described it as less of a Holmes and Watson relationship and more of a Michael Jordan-Scottie Pippen collaboration.

Secret Level

Later this year, Prime Video is dishing out a video game adaptation unlike any other you’ve ever seen. Secret Level creators Tim Miller and Dave Wilson talked to us about what it was like assembling the titles that make up each world in this jam–packed anthology series and why they chose the specific games that they did. 

The post NYCC 2024 Recap: The Biggest Panel Announcements and Best Moments From Our Studio appeared first on Den of Geek.

The new NYCC clip shows what Pike does next, and in revealing these opening moments of SNW season 3, the series doubled down on something that happened in the last season premiere. Watch the clip below:

The clip also teases how the show is continuing to slowly elevate one Enterprise crew member in terms of her importance and screen time. This person isn’t considered a regular cast member, but serious fans know who she is. We’re talking about Jenna Mitchell, played by Rong Fu, who plays a pivotal role in saving the day in Strange New Worlds, even though she’s not a “main” character. Curiously, the name “Mitchell” should also sound familiar to Original Series fans.

Mitchell Takes the Initiative—Again

The overall point of the new SNW season 3 clip is to show that the Enterprise crew is frantic for solutions as the Gorn are closing in. This is a classic Captain Pike command-style decision, asking everyone for input before making a dangerous call. The Next Generation fans will find this frantic technobabble spitball session familiar, and there are even aspects of it that are reminiscent of the TNG classic “Cause and Effect.” But, what’s interesting here is that Jenna Mitchell (Fu)—who is at the ops/navigation station, next to Number One (Rebecca Romijn) at the helm—is the one who comes up with the answer. The Enterprise has to tag the Gorn ship, but they need to disguise the tracker as something else. So, Mitchell suggests using a dud photon torpedo, an attack that is really a way of tagging the Gorn ship.

This gambit works, and the Enterprise lives to fight another day, plus, it now has a way to track their missing comrades. We don’t know what happens next, but interestingly, this scene wouldn’t have worked without Mitchell’s quick thinking. And this isn’t the first time this character has been pivotal in Strange New Worlds.

In the season 2 premiere, “The Broken Circle,” Mitchell is part of a very small inner circle of officers—including Uhura, Chapel, and M’Benga—who all conspire with Spock to steal the Enterprise. It was Mitchell who faked the coolant leak that allowed the Enterprise to have a legitimate reason to leave spacedock. In another episode later that season, she’s the one helping Spock try to make Klingon coffee, raktajino. Mitchell was also transformed into a Crimson Guard character during the storybook effect in season 1’s  “The Elysian Kingdom.”

The point is, in many of the big episodes of SNW, Mitchell has been right there, even though she’s not a main character. But maybe she lowkey is a main character?

The SNW Mitchell Continues a Star Trek Tradition 

Although we think of Sulu, Uhura, Chekov, and Scotty as main cast members of The Original Series, the truth is, from a cast point-of-view, they were guest stars. In her memoir Beyond Uhura, Nichelle Nichols referred to their status as “day players.” Eventually, these characters came to be thought of as the most important regular characters on the series, but that certainly isn’t the case throughout every single TOS episode. Obviously, this is a lot like Mitchell in SNW now. She’s not billed at the top of the cast in our universe, but in-universe, she’s clearly an essential part of Pike’s crew. In a way, Mitchell is a bit like Chief O’Brien on The Next Generation, not part of the main cast, but had been on the ship since the very first episode, in “Encounter at Farpoint.”

To put it another way, Mitchell is the latest example of an interesting Star Trek tradition: Continuing to feature a secondary “background character” and continuing to give that person important jobs to do on the ship, which creates a veneer of realism. Not every single crew member can be on duty 24/7, which means the relief officers, like Mitchell, would be on the bridge all the time. TNG was pretty good about this too, often rotating out helm and ops officers for a degree of realism. But, with her latest quick-thinking, you have to wonder if Mitchell isn’t suddenly going to be promoted to a full-time cast member by season 4.

Where No Mitchell Has Gone Before

Finally, although this is almost certainly a coincidence, the fact that Mitchell shares the same last name with Gary Mitchell (Gary Lockwood), from the second TOS pilot episode is… fascinating. In “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” Gary Mitchell sits at the exact same bridge position that Jenna Mitchell is occupying now. This is a little like the fact that Pike had a crew member named Tyler (Peter Duryea) in “The Cage,” and then worked with a different Tyler (Shazad Latif) in Discovery season 2. 

If this were Star Wars, we could say the duplicate Mitchells and duplicate Tylers are like poetry, they rhyme. But, perhaps with Strange New Worlds, Jenna Mitchell is a better version of Gary Mitchell. In “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” Gary Mitchell is mutated into a space god and tries to murder everyone. We’re fairly certain this isn’t going to happen to Jenna Mitchell. Because if there’s one Mitchell who will go down in Starfleet history as an unsung hero, it’s our current resident Mitchell in Strange New Worlds. Here’s hoping somebody gives her a promotion before the end of season 3.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 will hit Paramount+ sometime in 2025.

The post Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 3 Just Quietly Upgraded a Character with a TOS Twist appeared first on Den of Geek.

Oz Cobb is lighting a fire (quite literally) in Gotham City as The Penguin heads into its final furlong, and the mob wars come to a head. After episode 4 focused on the tragic backstory of Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti), the murderous mobster got her chance to shine again in episode 5 “Homecoming.” While The Penguin’s Sofia is more sympathetic than her comic book counterpart, the latest episode gave fans a twist pulled straight from the pages of DC Comics. 

Throughout The Penguin’s run, we’ve come to know Sofia as the unhinged daughter of Carmine Falcone. While John Turturro’s Carmine (recast with Mark Strong for The Penguin) was a big part of 2022’s The Batman, Sofia was MIA due to her wrongful incarceration in Arkham State Hospital. Although Sofia takes on the villainous persona of the Hangman in the comics, The Penguin theorists were correct that it was Carmine who was responsible for the murders and let his daughter take the fall.

Despite Milioti’s Sofia being a more petite version compared to the towering Falcone from the comics, The Penguin honored her history in the latest episode. Having gassed the majority of the Falcone family in episode 4, “Homecoming” saw Sofia try to cement herself as the new capomandamento. After realizing she was little more than a pawn in her father’s game, Sofia outlawed anyone saying Carmine’s name again and promptly changed the family’s name to Gigante. The Penguin reveals that Isabelle Gigante was Sofia’s mother, and after learning that her father killed his wife, Sofia took her mother’s maiden name: “My father’s legacy is dead. And we will never speak his name again. From this point on I am a Gigante, and this is a new family now.”

In addition to being inspired by the real-life story of Rosemary Kennedy and her institutionalization, Sofia’s new backstory is a play on her introduction in 1997’s Batman: The Long Halloween. Here, Sofia helped Carmine figure out the identity of the Holiday Killer, who turned out to be her own brother, Alberto. Michael Zegen briefly played Alberto in The Penguin, but considering he was killed by Oz (Colin Farrell), it doesn’t look like The Long Halloween will be directly adapted into the series. Elsewhere, The Long Halloween ends with Sofia being knocked out of a window by Catwoman, only to return for its Dark Victory sequel as a wheelchair-bound victim. Dark Victory then reveals that Sofia has faked her paralysis and is actually the Hangman.

The Penguin is doing things differently with Sofia, with people already thinking she’s the Hangman. As for the Gigante part, Sofia is introduced as Sofia Falcone Gigante after marrying a mobster called Rocco Gigante. Given Sofia’s massive stature in the comics, her Gigante surname has a double meaning, but speaking to IndieWire, The Penguin showrunner Lauren LeFranc explained she never wanted Milioti’s version to have a husband. Instead, LeFranc says having Gigante as Sofia’s mother’s maiden name was a wink to the comics but let her do it on her own terms.

Even if Milioti’s Sofia doesn’t have the same physical dominance as she does in the comics (measuring at only 5′ 2″ in real life), LeFranc reiterates how her “Sofia Gigante” persona translated into The Penguin via the moment she found her mother’s fur coat with Isabelle Gigante stitched into it. “She wants to be able to embody who her mother was, her spirit, so she finds that mink and puts it on and becomes a Gigante,” said LeFranc. “It felt very empowering to me to give Sofia that, to say I’m not a Falcone, I just obliterated the Falcones. That’s not who I am, that’s never really who I was, and now I’m going to become a Gigante and this is how I’m going to run my own crime family.” Inspired by the Vanderbilt family and the Gilded Age, it very much feels like the Sofia Falcone of the past has died to make way for Sofia Gigante.

Having put a bullet in Johnny Viti (Michael Kelly) and forged an uneasy alliance with Sal Maroni (Clancy Brown) to cut ties with the Falcone family of old, Sofia now has Farrell’s Penguin in her sights. Comic book Sofia is actually Sal’s secret lover and is eventually murdered by Harvey Dent/Two-Face after Sal burned him with acid, but we don’t see things playing out this way in The Penguin. Although it’s possible that Sofia will end up paralyzed following a finale tussle with Oz, eagle-eyed fans have noticed there’s still a space for Sofia next to her father, mother, and brother in the family crypt. With Farrell confirmed to be returning for The Batman Part II, Milioti’s time in the Reevesverse could be unfortunately short-lived.

The Penguin airs on HBO and Max at 9 p.m. ET on Sundays.

The post The Penguin Pulls Off a Sofia Falcone Twist Straight From the Comics appeared first on Den of Geek.

Even though the clue is in the name, it’s easy to forget that death can come for anyone at any time in the world of The Walking Dead. It’s no different for its ever-expanding roster of spinoffs, with the Norman Reedus-led Daryl Dixon also being stalked by the grim reaper’s shadow. Season 2 episode 4 “Le Paradis Pour Toi” is no exception, and while the latest death has killed off sparks of a budding romance, it might’ve opened the door for a much-requested pairing to rise from the ashes. 

There were two major deaths and an even bigger reunion in episode 4, as Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride) finally found Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) during an emotional but silent scene. Meanwhile, the villainous Genet (Anne Charrier) suffered a horrible fate by being turned into one of her own Amper zombies, while Isabelle (Clémence Poésy) tragically died in the arms of Daryl. Isabelle at least proved to be something of a useful plot device, managing to tell Carol where she could find Daryl for the show’s long-awaited reunion. Considering Isabelle was Daryl’s love interest, another doomed TWD couple is confined to the history books. 

Angry critics have called out The Walking Dead franchise czar Scott Gimple for killing off another interesting character out of nowhere. Just weeks after it broke new ground of actually giving Daryl an on-screen kiss, it seems that shock value can outweigh storytelling on The Walking Dead. Poésy’s portrayal of Isabelle was a beloved part of the series, and having a gun-toting nun was a cool addition to the mythos. With Isabelle out of the picture, some think they know where this is inevitably going. Even if Daryl’s next relationship could be one that fans have been shipping for years, the fact it comes at the cost of Isabelle is a problem. 

The internet is already abuzz with theories that fans will finally see Daryl hook up with Carol. While we imagine Daryl will continue mourning Isabelle for a while, characters in The Walking Dead tend to get into relationships pretty quickly. Carol has at least shown some interest in Daryl in the past, memorably asking if they wanted to fool around in season 3. Also, you don’t tend to travel halfway around the world and battle your way through hordes of the undead for just anyone. But with part of Daryl’s charm having always been his lone wolf persona, to cave to fan pressure and throw him together with Carol would surely feel forced. Fans liked the potential of Daryl and Isabelle because it seemed to grow naturally through sponge baths and longing gazes. Instead, her death felt dragged out, and she was only ‘allowed’ to die after one final meeting with Daryl. 

Daryl Dixon showrunner David Zabel has suggested Daryl and Carol won’t become the next Rick and Michonne, previously telling SFX Magazine (via GamesRadar+) that it would be an “obvious” way to take the pair: “I always felt like that would be a mistake, because it would feel like you were going into the TV book of tricks. To me, there was never a question that [their connection] was something other than what it is, and what it seems to want to be, and why it works so well.” This is particularly frustrating when it comes to Isabelle because, in the same interview, Zabel said he spoke to Reedus about developing a more mature relationship between Isabelle and Daryl instead of falling back on fans shipping him and Carol. 

As for Isabelle, her death falls into a worrying trope that’s plagued far more than The Walking Dead. There are already complaints that Isabelle has been ‘fridged’ to catapult Daryl’s story forward. Being fridged goes all the way back to 1994’s Green Lantern #54, where Alexandra DeWitt was murdered and placed in a refrigerator. Gail Simone coined the term for the 1999 website Women in Refrigerators (WiR), explaining how it refers to female characters who are harmed or killed as a way to motivate a male lead. The Walking Dead has repeatedly done this with Rick Grimes’ (Andrew Lincoln) love interests like Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) and Jessie Anderson (Alexandra Breckenridge), but now, it’s Daryl’s turn.

This isn’t the first time a woman in Daryl’s life has been fridged, and even though they weren’t romantically linked, the death of Emily Kinney’s Beth during season 5’s hospital arc was criticized by many. The Walking Dead has an unfortunate habit of discarding its female characters in favor of developing its male leads, but with McBride officially coming back for Daryl Dixon season 3, at least Carol is safe for now. Zabel has reassured us that Daryl and Carol won’t be the apocalypse’s new golden couple, but if dumpster fakeouts and Robert Kirkman ending the comic series after commissioning fake covers have taught us anything, it’s that The Walking Dead likes to bend the truth. 

New episodes of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol premiere Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on AMC, culminating with the finale on November 3.

The post The Walking Dead Daryl Dixon’s Biggest Death Yet Is a Huge Mistake appeared first on Den of Geek.

Then there’s 2023, arguably the best year for gamers in recent memory. It’s the year that gave us what we’ll likely look back on as some of the best titles of the 2020s: Baldur’s Gate 3, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Alan Wake 2, and Diablo 4. And while this year has perhaps been a slightly humbler year than 2023, there have been plenty of great releases to make 2024 another strong year for the medium.

There are still a few heavy hitters to come this holiday season, but gamers have already been treated to plenty of hits in 2024, including The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Dragon’s Dogma 2, Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, Tekken 8, Helldivers 2, and more. In POWER-UP‘s biggest episode yet, host Sam Stone sits down with Den of Geek Games Editor Matthew Byrd to chat about their favorite games of the year so far. Expect a few surprise picks along the way! You can watch the full episode below:

This episode is powered by Razer. In a special PC Gaming segment, we break down how Razer Axon can help gamers unlock their creativity to make the perfect custom wallpapers. Whether you want to deck out your PC setup with a wallpaper that reflects a specific fandom or you want to design something wholly original, Axon is fast, full of features, and very easy to use. You can read more about Razer Axon here.

Every episode of POWER-UP is available on the Den of Geek YouTube channel and denofgeek.com as well as in audio form on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Now, sit back, plug in, and POWER-UP!

For business inquiries regarding POWER-UP, contact:

Chris Longo, Director of Editorial and Partnerships, clongo@denofgeek.com
Matthew Sullivan-Pond, Publisher, msullivan@denofgeek.com

For media inquiries, contact:

John Saavedra, Executive Producer, jsaavedra@denofgeek.com

The post The PS5, Xbox, Switch, and PC Games That Made 2024 Another Great Year for Gaming appeared first on Den of Geek.

“There’s a station in L.A., KLCS, that is public television, but back then it was like ‘Actual Public Television’s’ broke uncle,” he says. “They didn’t show modern stuff, only old filmstrips and educational shows from the 1970s. The production was so rudimentary to what we have today. I remember the weird trails that old magnetic video used to leave on moving objects, and puppets with wire loops for mouths, tugged open by strings.”

Straub recalls one filmstrip in particular, Inside Out, that was about 15 minutes long and offered up dramatizations designed to teach children various lessons.

“I now believe that it was intended for classroom use – to kick off discussions with a teacher – because the episodes tended to end in uncertain places,” he says. “A kid about to get beat up, an embarrassment in front of a class, a bicycle accident – and then the credits would roll. No resolution, just a dreamlike, half-remembered look at some uneasy choice or little misery.”

Straub turned that feeling of disorientation with media into a story on his website called “Candle Cove.” The story takes on the formatting of a series of posts on the television forum of a site called “NetNostalgia.” The original poster describes a bizarre program from his childhood named Candle Cove and other commenters chime in, discussing further and increasingly disturbing details.

It’s a fascinating and truly terrifying deconstruction of one of the internet’s favorite pastimes: remembering when. Candle Cove captures the feeling of when, instead of your best friend, the ’90s net was rabid dog ready to snap at you at any moment. The story was convincing and terrifying enough that Candle Cove was eventually adapted into the first season of Syfy’s Channel Zero.

Real life has always been a confusing, often horrifying experience for young people. The generations that grew up in the nascent days of the internet or without it at all spent years consuming media they didn’t always fully understand or confronting real-life mysteries they couldn’t quite contextualize. Now those generations have Wi-Fi, and they’re treating us to a renaissance in scary storytelling.

Technology has changed horror in some sophisticated ways. Those interested in visual horror need only to turn to YouTube channels like Marble Hornets to find a scary found footage series. The early 1900s radio play essentially made a comeback through horror podcasts like The Black Tapes and Limetown (the latter of which was adapted into a TV series).

But the real impact of the internet on horror has come in the form of good old-fashioned scary stories. Cyberspace is home to millions of scary stories that are being read by the glow of a computer screen rather than the crackling flames of a campfire.

The terminology for the phenomenon can be a little hard to nail down. In 2010, The New York Times ran an article on “creepypastas” comparing stories like that of Slender Man and The Russian Sleep Experiment to modern day chain letters. Creepypastas are scary stories or urban legends that get copy and pasted from forum to forum. The term comes from the original term for copy and pasted stories, “copypasta,” courtesy of (where else?) 4chan.  

No one is in charge of policing such terms, obviously, but as nearest as it can be explained a creepypasta is something like Slender Man – a story that is destined, whether by design or fate, to become an urban legend. In the modern day, we don’t have to wait around hundreds of years for a relatively simple story to be corrupted into becoming something like a werewolf or vampire myth. We just need a well-told tale of a convincing and terrifying monster and then let it take hold.

Slender Man is an interesting case study in the power of creepypastas. Slender Man, the impossibly tall, faceless, and slender (of course) humanoid monster seen usually in a fine suit took the internet by storm. He’s ubiquitous and kind of an unofficial creepypasta mascot, going so far as to receive his own immensely forgettable feature film in 2018.

The power of such a myth is undeniable and in one instance had tragic consequences. In May 2014, two 12-year-old girls lured another girl into the woods and stabbed her 19 times, allegedly to impress Slender Man. Slender Man is clearly a fictional character with an easy Google-able creator, Something Awful forum user Eric Knudsen. Still, the “legend” proved stronger than the original story.

Even scary stories designed purely as fiction can be turned into creepypastas through the sheer shareability of everything on the modern internet.

“For better or worse though, the internet is amazing at not providing attribution to content,” Straub says. “So things can be spread in earnest, without any understanding on the part of the sharer or consumer where it came from. I never wanted Candle Cove to be a hoax – it’s an epistolary story in the format of forums. It had my name on it and all, but when people shared it, that all got stripped away. So as a creator I get bent out of shape about that – but as a consumer, I see the power that that had in letting the legend grow. People didn’t know if it was real or not. They still don’t.”

The vast majority of scary storytelling on the internet, however, doesn’t fall into that “creepypasta” myth-making category, whether it’s deliberate or otherwise. The most common category of scary story on the web has become a first-person, well-told yard designed to chill. If they’re not creeypastas, then what would the appropriate term for them be?

“I don’t think there’s a broadly accepted term but the term I use is campfire story,” says David Cummings, narrator of the The NoSleep Podcast.

The NoSleep Podcast is an audio spinoff of the popular reddit forum r/NoSleep. r/NoSleep has been up and running since the spring of 2010 and features thousands of first-person style scary stories.

Cummings, who began his career as a full-time musician in the ‘90s and has since transitioned into voiceover work, has been involved with the podcast version of the forum as a narrator since its inception. He began the podcast as a volunteer, but when no one else stepped in he assumed full-time narrator duties. He described the style of the internet “campfire story” thusly:

“A lot of the stories are really well-crafted and well-told, but they’re not necessarily literary. You don’t get these grandiose descriptions. They’re breatheless. ‘Oh my God, I just ran out of my friend’s house and I have to tell you what happened.’ There’s an immediacy and a believability.”

The goal of each story on the podcast and the subreddit is to be scary, personal, and above all else: believable.

There is a near fanatical devotion to the suspension of disbelief on r/NoSleep that has seemingly created the prototype for nearly all internet scary storytelling. Among the extensive rules and guidelines for the site is the phrase, “Suspension of disbelief is key here. Everything is true here, even if it’s not. Don’t be the jerk in the movie theater hee-hawing because monkeys don’t fly.”

“With the NoSleep sudreddit, there’s sort of this debate going on about are they real? Is this fiction? Does it matter?” Cummings says. “You still need to bring authenticity to the story even if it is fiction. I think a big part of it is people are…you need to hold their hand and lead them into a story and a setting they can relate to. If you start a story by ‘I was a sailor in a submarine and we were going in the Article Circle’…it’s harder for people to relate. I’m guessing the majority of people don’t really believe in ghosts or demons, but once they suspend disbelief they get there.”

This new NoSleep model of perpetual suspension of disbelief has, in many ways, replaced creepypasta mythmaking. After years and years of fine-tuning the art of the internet horror story, things seemed to have settled on the first-person campfire stories of old. The format has been producing compelling and unsettling content ever since.

For instance: one of the highest upvoted stories on r/NoSleep is the convincingly titled “My dead girlfriend keeps messaging me on Facebook. I’ve got the screenshots. I don’t know what to do.” Unsurprisingly, the story is about exactly that. Reddit user u/natesw chronicles his ongoing conversations with his dead girlfriend via Facebook chat. The story even concludes candid photos of natesw sitting at his computer purported to be taken by his dead girlfriend. 

If easily suspended disbelief is a hallmark of modern internet scary storytelling, then it’s no wonder the story is so successful. There are virtually no cracks in the narrative that reveal it could be false…other than the truly impossible supernatural aspect of its narrative, of course. The account for natesw has remained silent for a decade and no one has stepped forward to claim authorship of the story. The narrative was even convincing enough to necessitate a Snopes page. Snopes, for its part, classifies it as “Legend.” 

That’s the thing about these stories. By the inherent sharing capabilities of the Internet, any well-told first person narrative is capable of being classified a “Legend” by Snopes. And something about that is comforting – like anyone is a good story away from becoming a legend.

As evidenced by their increasing success, creepypastas/campfire stories/whatever-we-want-to-call-them in many ways represent the promise of the internet. The internet, as has been often observed, means the democratization of art and entertainment. As we’ve witnessed from many vapid YouTube videos or self-indulgent Facebook posts, however, not everyone has had something to say. Not everyone can succeed in dramatic or comedic arts.

But scary stories? We all have one. We all have that go-to legend or unexplainable personal experience in our back pocket for the next time there’s a campfire gathering. Now we don’t even need to wait for that.

The Best Creepypastas and Scary Stories

Here are some other stories from the creepypasta/internet campfire story genre to scare you half to death:

Ted the Caver – This is perhaps the oldest creepypastas, dating all the way back to an angelfire blog from 2001. The writer, Ted, details his exploration of a mysterious cave with his friend. 

Squidward’s Suicide – Squidward’s Suicide is very low on the believability index but is appropriately chilling. It’s a first-person narrative from a person who purports to have once been an intern at Nickelodeon and discovers a lost episode of Spongebob Squarepants created by an unknown psychopath.

Jeff the Killer – Jeff the Killer is one of the few internet bogeyman remotely close in stature to Slender Man. The storytelling is somewhat weak and a clear gambit to create a legend. But the photo that always accompanies Jeff the Killer stories is synonymous with the concept of all creepypastas. There is even some Slender Man vs. Jeff the Killer fan art out there.

The Dionaea House – The Dionaea House is another early creepypasta, dating back to 2004, written by Eric Heisserer, who has actually found some success in the film industry since. That knowledge may ruin the verisimilitude of the story to a certain extent but it’s still profoundly creepy. And it’s written in the same epistolary format as many creepypastas are. 

The Story of Her Holding an Orange – A lot of stories on r/NoSleep can have a bit of an ending problem…in that they don’t. The Story of Her Holding an Orange is similarly long-winded but at least it gets scarier as it goes along. It’s pretty terrifying in its simplicity. 

(´･ω･`) – Ok, the full story’s title is actually “[Help!] The Girl I Like Won’t Respond to My Emails (´･ω･`)” but it’s more frequently identified as just the Prince-like symbol “(´･ω･`)” Of all the internet stories ever published, this would have my vote as most likely to be completely 100% real. The story originally appeared on Japanese forum 2channel in 2011 and features the increasingly desperate original poster asking for advice with his girlfriend “Denko.” The terror arises from the unnamed poster, who finishes every post with “(´･ω･`),” and seems to be the only person on the site who doesn’t realize he is a terrifying stalker. 

The Showers – When describing the platonic ideal of what an internet campfire story should be, this is it. It might not be the best, but it exemplifies the format perfectly. The author regales a personal story about an abandoned haunted location that was told to him, then investigates it and provides the reader ample “updates” and photos. All the while, having a strong sense of narrative and what’s truly scary.

The post Beware the Creepypasta: Scary Storytelling in the Internet Age appeared first on Den of Geek.