With January 2025 underway, it is time to visit what is coming this year to cinemas, video-on-demand platforms, as well as those genre films that are going straight to disc. Also, what's new in video games, television, and genre novels? Last year, 2024 was a heck of a good year and there were a lot of great flicks. This year once again there seems to be a lot of great ones coming. Plus also more superhero flicks. Reboots and remakes and sequels are also arriving too.

Halloween Boutique Psychotronic Reviews once again is back with their look forward to the new year and what seems to interest them most. Some of the more high profile items spoken of include TRON ARES, BALLERINA, ANDOR Season 2, THE MONKEY, and THE HOUSEMAID.

But it doesn't end there. Other items talked about include DAREDEVIL, THE CONJURING LAST RIGHTS, THE BRIDE, and ALIEN EARTH. And then at the very end we list off other films and talk about some of the latest news about movies and genre cinema.

Vampires are one of the most popular movies, but their "cousin", the werewolf, always takes a backseat when it comes to movie monsters. There have been a few great werewolf films over the years, with the occasional hidden gem in-between. Now, late 2024, the film simply titled WEREWOLVES (2024) appeared at theaters.

From IMDB: "Two scientists try to stop a mutation that turns people into werewolves after being touched by a super-moon the year before."

WEREWOLVES was directed by Steven C. Miller, and written for the screen by Matthew Kennedy. The movie stars Frank Grillo, Lou Diamond Phillips, Katrina Law, among others. It was released by Briarcliff Entertainment on December 6, 2024. Receiving mixed reviews, the film was evenly split. We take a look at the movie and give our thoughts.

It's our 650th episode. Over 13 years of podcasting. But even so, we usually don't hit the classics. Yet when we do hit each 50th episode, we do decide to do one. As usual, we put up a poll on our Facebook page, Dark Discussions Podcast, and let you, the listeners and contributors to the Facebook group make the decision. The winner of our poll was 28 DAYS LATER from 2002.

From IMDB: "Four weeks after a mysterious, incurable virus spreads throughout the United Kingdom, a handful of survivors try to find sanctuary." The film was directed by Danny Boyle, written by Alex Garland, and starred Cillian Murphy.

Listen to us discuss this classic for one of our most important episodes, the 650th one.

New Year’s resolutions are a big thing for folks. Some want to lose weight, find a spouse, get a new job, work towards completing something; others have goals that they strive for. Co-host Mike said that there are a lot of genre films he hasn’t seen that he wants to get to, so as a New Year’s resolution, why not ask all the co-hosts to see some film they always wanted to see and then discuss. Another year doing so, each co-host chose a genre movie that they had never seen and decided to watch it and give their opinions.

Films we discuss are Lucio Fulci’s 1981 Lovecraftian film THE BEYOND, the 1974 film known as DAN CURTIS' DRACULA starring Jack Palance, Dennis Hopper's neo-noir thriller THE HOT SPOT (1990), and Hammer horror film TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER (1976).  A wide variety of films they are, but also some important ones too that one of your co-hosts finally got to see.

With all that, Dark Discussions would like to say happy 2025 to all of our listeners and extra mention to our Patreon supporters, both new and old, and hope to hear about some of the films you folks have never seen and plan to in this new year. Email us at [email protected] and let us know.

We take a different approach to the podcast today with some genre news. Instead of reviewing a film or book, we instead go through some of the news of the past year and discuss in detail some of the most interesting things we've heard. We talk about some upcoming adaptations of Red Sonja, Tomb Raider, Swan Song, among others. News about Lord of the Rings and the James Gunn DC Universe. Listed also are some "sleeper" science fiction films from the past that may have been overlooked. Take a listen and let us know what you feel.

Religious horror has been around forever.  Obviously much of it has been related to demons, exorcisms, the devil, and vampires.  Much of it has focused upon faith versus nihilism.  Well, the new film HERETIC (2024) takes an interesting twist with this subgenre of horror.  What if filmmakers decided to pursue more a philosophical approach. 

Two Mormon missionaries, young woman Sister Paxton (Chloe East) and Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher), have donated their time to knock on doors to spread the word of God as well as promoting their religion.  Following up on a lead from a man named Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant), they leave the downtown area and knock on his door.  He welcomes them in, offers them some blueberry pie that his wife has made, and listens to the young ladies and asks follow up questions.

Scott Beck and Bryan Wood, the screenwriters of A QUIET PLACE (2018), both directed and wrote this new psychological horror film.  Starring Hugh Grant once again in an expected and fabulous performance, the film is heavy on dialogue allowing actresses Chloe East and Sophie Thatcher to play directly against Grant’s Mr. Reed.  Your co-hosts take a look at the movie and give their thoughts.

The new Indian film, SHAITAAN (2024), the Hindi word for demon, follows the home invasion film, but with a twist. The movie is a remake of a 2023 film entitled VASH, oddly starring the same actress Janki Bodiwala. Netflix picked this new version up and released it in March.

When a family of four head to their rural vacation home, they stop at a rest area to grab some food. When the counter clerk can’t take cash, a friendly man in line pays for their meal. Unfortunately the friendly stranger has his eyes upon the teenage daughter. And his kindness soon turns into a nefarious plot.

SHAITAAN stars Janki Bodiwala along with Ajay Devgn, Anngad Raaj, Jyothika, and R. Madhavan as the stranger. The movie has received mixed to low reviews by both critics and audiences alike. However, it has gotten a bit of buzz from horror audiences looking for something different upon an old story line. Your cohosts take a look at this recently released film and gives their thoughts.

So the Halloween Boutique Psychotronic Reviews podcast decided to do an episode on the 2009 movie WATCHMEN but our discussion went a bit long as we discussed the background to the movie, and its source material. So we decided to break it into two episodes. The second is all about the movie itself.

Directed by Zack Snyder, written by David Hayter and Alex Tse, and starring Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Good, Jackie Earle Haley, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, was not the success that the studio had hoped. With the usual debate between the fans of the graphic novel and superheroes in general, backlash and praise were both the norm.

Now fifteen years later, the movie has become somewhat of a cult classic. With its fabulous special effects, splendid acting, and changes to the story to make it fit within a movie length, the film, though polarizing, continues to find audiences through streaming. Your cohosts take a look at the film itself and give their thoughts.

Art the clown shocked audiences with the first film in the franchise, TERRIFIER (2018). With its sequel, adding a true “final girl”, and giving Art a back story, the sequel TERRIFIER 2 (2022) became an instant money grosser. Now 2024, TERRIFIER 3, following our hero and villain from the second film, was released in October for the Halloween season.

Sienna Shaw (Lauren LaVera) has been released from a mental health hospital after the trauma of facing Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton) and surviving. She has moved in with her aunt, uncle, and cousin while her brother Jonathan (Elliott Fullam) has gone of to college. When true crime podcaster Mia (Alexa Blair Robertson) tries to get interviews with the two, the past comes crashing back leaving no one safe.

Director and writer Damien Leone is back with the latest in the franchise. Costing only $2M USD to make, the film went on to gross $63.9M USD and became one of the highest grossing films that have been released as unrated. The film, with its great reviews, has solidified Art the Clown as a new horror icon. Your cohosts track to the theater and take a look at the new film and give their thoughts.

In this day and age, not all that surprising, there are sequels to multiple films. One of them that was just released is SMILE 2, the sequel to the 2022 original. SMILE was a bigger success than the studio had expected and so they signed director/writer Parker Finn to a film deal and the first to be produced is SMILE 2.

Pop singer Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) is about to go on tour. Its a new beginning for her after a car accident that injured her back and left her boyfriend and actor Paul Hudson (Ray Nicholson) dead. Recovering from drug abuse, no doctor will prescribe her painkillers for her back pain. When she meets up with a drug dealer, he begins freaking out that some sort of entity is following her.

Picking up right where the prior film ended, SMILE 2 follows the same antagonist from the original. Receiving fairly good reviews from critics and audiences alike, the movie almost tripled its $28M USD budget with a profit of close to $110M USD. You cohosts head to the theaters and decide to review the film giving their thoughts.