During last year’s stretch of record-high gas prices, a lot of people were rethinking how and when they used their car, and considering alternative options. Not everyone is able to walk to work and to run errands, and outside of major cities, there’s not much in the way of public transportation in the U.S. So…

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There are a number of professions that sound like the perfect job. Spending your days teaching actors to surf on Hermosa Beach sounds like a pretty enviable gig for those that have grown a little tired of hustling at their 9 to 5 dead-end job. For actor and surfboard builder Dennis Jarvis, it was a reality back in 1991 when he taught Keanu Reeves, Lori Petty, and Patrick Swayze how to look convincing out on the ocean while filming Kathryn Bigelow's action classic "Point Break." 

The self-proclaimed "surf doctor of Hollywood" had two months to whip all three actors into surf shape. Special attention had to be paid to Petty and Swayze, in particular. Petty's character, Tyler, teaches Reeves' undercover FBI agent how to catch a wave early on in the film. And, of course, Swayze had to appear like he was the legendary local surfer and spiritual guru, Bodhi. 

For Reeves, it was okay for him to look like a novice since Johnny Utah was learning the Zen of it all in real-time, with a bum knee from his football days to boot. Before Reeves was molded into a bonafide action star, he was mostly known for playing a clueless time-traveling stoner in "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure." Sure, Reeves was completely miscast in "Dangerous Liaisons" and should probably never appear in a period piece again, but he was absolutely perfect for "Point Break." Known now for his incredible dedication to stunt work, his deftness for action choreography, and his penchant for spectacular displays of gun-fu, learning how to surf still may be one of the hardest things Reeves has ever learned how to do. 

Reeves Had A 'Stinkbug' Surfing Style

From the sound of it, teaching Reeves, Petty, and Swayze how to surf was a total blast. "It was like a big surf party every day," Jarvis told Entertainment Weekly back in 1991. "The cast would report to my house in Hermosa Beach at the crack of dawn to try to absorb the soulful life-style [sic] of a surfer." Each actor had different comfort levels in the water, even though they were all learning for the first time together. "They were basically all beginners," according to Jarvis. "Patrick said he'd been on a board a couple of times, Keanu definitely hadn't surfed before, and Lori had never been in the ocean in her life." 

Reeves had an ugly but stable "stinkbug" style -- a term used to describe a crouched and splay-limbed surfing posture. The "stinkbug" look is a sure sign of a beginner that shouldn't be competing for the same waves as more accomplished and generally more radical hardcore locals that will cut your surf leash without thinking twice. 

Usually, an actor will exaggerate the level of their skills on their resumé, but it's usually something like lying about being able to ride a horse. For "Point Break," Bigelow entrusted the actors with doing as many of their own stunts as possible, a choice that gave a new intensity to the action scenes. The surfing scenes are magical, but most fans remember Swayze and Reeves jumping out of a plane without a parachute. 

Dennis Jarvis still builds surfboards today, and even gave Reeves one of his custom-made Spyder boards after the original shoot. Reeves has said the experience of learning how to surf changed his life. If you ever happen to see him out on the water, check to see if his stance has gotten any better over the years.

Read this next: The 18 Best Action Movie Actors Ranked

The post How Keanu Reeves Learned The Surfer 'Life-Style' In The Lead-Up To Point Break appeared first on /Film.

Even in 1995, it was easy to snicker at Iain Softley's computer-centric cyber-thriller "Hackers." Firstly, because computer technology is so complex, and develops so quickly, any mention of modern cyber-gear would definitely be dated only a year later. Actual computer experts saw right through Softley's and screenwriter Rafael Moreu's attempts at being cutting edge. 

Additionally, Softley was presented with an interesting problem. While computer hackers occupied an exciting new technological subculture in 1995, people sitting at keyboards weren't very cinematically dynamic. Softley solved this problem by turning computer usage into something a little more abstract, using glowing animations, swirling cameras, and projecting images onto his actors' faces to make his film visually interesting. 

Softley also had to more or less create his own version of hacker culture from the ground up. He dressed his teen protagonists in complex neo-punk garb and invented their own patois. He assembled a glorious three-volume soundtrack of electronica and dance music. He made his own version of cool. Fans of "Hackers" would say he succeeded, even if his film bore no resemblance to reality. Although now considered something of a pop curio, "Hackers" remains a high-energy, power-to-the-youth caffeine jolt. 

"Hackers" stars Johnny Lee Miller as Zero Cool, a.k.a. Crash Override, a once-disgraced cyber criminal (busted when he was 10) who reenters the hacker scene after years away. He quickly falls in with the other computer enthusiasts at his new high school, including Lord Nikon (Laurence Mason), Cereal Killer (Matthew Lillard), and a rival Acid Burn (Angelina Jolie). Over the course of "Hackers," Crash Override and Acid Burn will challenge each other to competitions, eventually leading to a proper romantic date. Crash and Burn. It's cyber-fate. 

We Don't Talk About Cyborg 2

In a 2020 interview with Collider, Softley reminisces on his "Hackers" house style, its soundtrack, and its young, enthused cast. In 1995, the film's biggest stars were Lorraine Bracco and Fisher Stevens. Its young leads weren't yet stars. Jolie, of course, would go on to be one of the most notable A-list movie stars in Hollywood, winning an Emmy in 1998 and an Oscar in 2000, and headlining no small number of high-profile action blockbusters and numerous studio prestige dramas. According to Softley, Jolie considered "Hackers" to be her first movie. It wasn't, but she looks at it that way. Softley said:

"Well, she calls it her first role. That's how she describes it. Certainly her first lead role. I met her at the Berlin Film Festival a few years ago, when she was premiering one of her films, and she introduced me to the cast who were there as the person who gave her her first film and her first husband." 

Jolie and Miller were married from 1996 until 2000. 

Jolie's first credited role came when she was only six years old, in 1982. She appeared briefly in the Hal Ashby gambling comedy "Lookin' to Get Out," which starred her father, Jon Voight. Her first major role came in the 1993 sci-fi action film "Cyborg 2," the sequel to the 1989 flick with Jean-Claude Van Damme. In "Cyborg 2," she played a high-tech android named Cash who was programmed for fighting and assassination. Cash was programmed to self-destruct in the middle of a board meeting in an act of corporate espionage, but found herself resisting. Jack Palance, Billy Drago, and Elias Koteas also appear. It's a slick film, as low-budget Trimark Pictures releases go. 

For some reason, Jolie doesn't mention "Cyborg 2."

The Casting Process

Softley filmed "Hackers" in Los Angeles, New York, and London, using local casting agents for each city. Miller was discovered in London while Jolie was found in L.A. Softley remembers the process well, and even found one of his original audition reels for the part of Acid Burn. While he mentioned no one by name, he did note that most of the actors who auditioned went on to be big stars. It seems that "Hackers" was a hot showbiz commodity during its pre-production. With Miller in place, he called back his favorite performers for screen tests. In his words: 

"[W]hat I did was a sort of final callback session in New York, and we flew Jonny over and paired him, and a couple of the other front runner male performers, with the front runner women. And I actually found the DVD of that casting about five years ago; I think it coincided with the 20th anniversary release of the film. And it's really interesting because there are some really good actresses, particularly. At least three of them have become major movie stars."

Softley notes that, because the characters were teenagers, the actors were also all young and, for the most part, just starting their professional careers. "They were all, like, 18 year olds, so they were very, very young," he said. "And for all of them, it would have been their first kind of major film." 

"Hackers" certainly helped Jolie, as the following year she was to appear in four films, including the rebellious queer romance "Foxfire." Miller, meanwhile, found success in films like "Trainspotting," "Afterglow," and "Mansfield Park." It may be that "Hackers" is a more notable film than it ever got credit for in 1995.

Read this next: The 95 Best Sci-Fi Movies Ever

The post Angelina Jolie Considers Hackers Her First Real Movie Role appeared first on /Film.

The point of all of this is that the configuration of these systems, particularly as we moved to systems running MS-DOS, was handled through configuration files, particularly autoexec.bat and a myriad *.ini files. Even when I started using Windows 3.1 or Windows 3.11 for Workgroups, the same held true...configuration files. We started to see the beginnings of the Registry with Windows 95, and files such as system.dat. 

Even from the very beginning of my experience with the Windows Registry, the amount and range of information stored in this data source has been absolutely incredible. In 2005, Cory Altheide and I published the first paper outlining artifacts associated with USB devices being connected to Windows (Windows XP) systems. What we were looking at at the time was commonalities across systems when the same device was connected to multiple systems, say, to run programs from the thumb drive, or copy files from systems to then take back to a central computer system.

From there, this topic has continued to be explored and unraveled, even as Windows itself continued to evolve and recognize different types of devices (thumb drives, digital cameras, smart phones) based on the protocol used.

In 2009, I wrote a blog post about another artifact stored within the Windows Registry; specifically, MAC addresses of wireless access points that a Windows system had connected to. By tracking this information and mapping the geo-location of those wireless access points based on data recorded in online databases, the idea was that an analyst could track the movements of that system, and hence, the owner. 

Why was this interesting? I'd heard more than a few stories from analysts and investigators who talked about an (former) employee of a company who, usually after the fact, was found to have visited a competitor's offices prior to resigning and accepting employment with that competitor. In one instance, not only did the employee connect their work computer to the Wifi system at a competitor's location, but they also connected to a Starbuck's store Wifi system that morning, next to or close to the competitor's location. With the time stamps of the connections, analysts were then able to use other timeline information to illustrate applications opened and files accessed until the system was shut down again.

I updated the tool I wrote in 2011, and as you can see from the post and comments, there was still interest in this topic at the time. I remember working on the tool, and taking the lat/long coordinates returned by the online database to populate a Google Map URL. So, over the course of about 2 yrs, the interest...or at least, my interest...in moving this forward, or at least revisiting it, was still there.

I recently ran across this tweet (I saw it on 15 Jan 2023), which led me to this Github repository.

This is what I love, truly love to see...how something that was of interest at one point is once again on the forefront of someone's mind, to the point where they create a tool, and post it on Github. This truly shows that no matter how much work and effort is put into something at one point, there will always be growth, and different aspects of the early project (the platform, the Registry, the online databases, etc.) will be extended. This also shows that nothing ever really goes away...

Of the many macabre quotes attributed to writer-poet and goth luminary Edgar Allan Poe, one of the most implemented in fiction is his insistence that the death of a gorgeous woman is the "most poetical topic in the world." It's the focal point of his celebrated 1841 short story, "The Murders of the Rue Morgue," concerning the procedural investigation into the brutal death of a mother and adult daughter. It's a detective story crafted before such a term existed, and one of its big-screen adaptations featured a completed scene so vicious that the powers-that-be kept it from seeing the light of day, no matter how "poetical."

The year is 1932. Audiences are reeling in the wake of two major horror game-changers; James Whale's "Frankenstein" and Tod Browning's "Dracula" were both fairly faithful adaptations of their respective novels the previous year and (no thanks to the restrictive Hays Code) pushed the boundaries of what moviegoers could handle. Alongside Browning's "Freaks," Robert Florey's "Murders in the Rue Morgue" would do the same.

This adaptation would play fast and loose with its source material, transforming it into a vehicle for rising genre icon Bela Lugosi. Therein, sideshow performer Dr. Mirakle (Lugosi), kidnaps women from the streets of Paris with the aim of mixing their blood with that of his gorilla Erik in an evolutionary crusade. The chosen women were to be brides of science, canon fodder for the advancement of humanity, the doctor reasoned. One such victim, played by a pre-"What's My Line?" Arlene Francis, undergoes such onscreen torment that her torture scene, which was originally supposed to open the film, was eliminated by the censor board.

The Hays Code Strikes Again

The scene is a mere YouTube search away these days, despite the efforts of the Golden Age-era censoring bodies.

It begins with Lugosi finding Francis cowering from a violent fight she witnesses by the Seine; Francis has no name beyond her credit as "Streetwalker," so it's clear how things are going to go for her. The doctor whisks her away to his lab, where the notorious scene unfolds: bound to crossed beams and standing in torn underwear, the woman screams as Mirakle, aproned like the sadists of "Hostel," takes a nonconsensual blood sample. "We shall know," he proclaims, "if you are to be the Bride of Science!" He then deems her blood "rotten," tainted by a life of sin. As she succumbs to her wounds, he drops to his knees before her body and wrings his hands together as if in prayer. It's a foul religious image, as perverse and sublime as that of Shelley Winters' pre-death prayers in "The Night of the Hunter."

David J. Skal's cultural history tome "The Monster Show" chronicles the pearl-clutching reactions to the scene, the most damaging of which came from those who had the power to stamp it out of the film entirely, like the New York State Censor Board. Skal writes of the board's judgments:

'Reel 2 -- eliminate all distinct views (5) of the girl bound and tied to cross beams... all views of her writhing in agony -- all views of Doctor standing over her, holding her arm while he tortures her. Eliminate all sounds of girl and loud cries and moans of agony and fear, and accompanying dialogue..."

Ultimately, Arlene Francis' role in the film was decimated, even cut from Universal's 1936 rerelease four years later. So much for poetry.

Read this next: The Best Thrillers Of 2022, Ranked

The post Bela Lugosi's Follow-Up To Dracula Featured A Scene Too Disturbing To Keep In The Film appeared first on /Film.

Are streamers killing indie cinema, or could Netflix be a lifeline for ground-breaking filmmaking? There are solid arguments for both sides, but David Cronenberg firmly believes that streaming services are the future. He knows that streaming has changed the way we watch movies, for better or worse, and has chosen to embrace this change rather than reject it. In fact, the writer-director's upcoming film "The Shrouds" was originally written as a Netflix series.

"The Shrouds" is set to star Vincent Cassel alongside Léa Seydoux. Seydoux starred in Cronenberg's 2022 film "Crimes of the Future" and has appeared in Bond movies and Wes Anderson movies alike. Cassel had his breakout role in the contemporary cult classic "La Haine" and has gone on to star in "Ocean's 12" and "Black Swan." He also collaborated with Cronenberg on "Eastern Promises" and "A Dangerous Method."

Cassel will star as a businessman who invents a device that can connect directly to the bodies of dead loved ones, right after his wife passes away, per Variety. When his wife's grave is vandalized, he is forced to confront his unresolved grief as he solves the mystery of the attack. "It's a very personal project for me," Cronenberg told Deadline. "People who know me will know parts of it are autobiographical."

Cronenberg originally wrote the film as a Netflix series, Indiewire reported. The streaming service paid him to develop the concept but walked away after two episodes. "I think they're very conservative and for whatever reason, they didn't go ahead with my project," the director explained. "I still thanked them because I wrote a script and I wouldn't have done that if it hadn't been for their enthusiasm."

'Streaming In Cinematic Terms'

Financing independent and ground-breaking cinema is never a safe bet, and it's always been hard to get funding. But with the pandemic calling the future of cinema into question, there's even less money to go around. "Right now, if you're doing a film with Netflix, then you don't have to worry about money because Netflix has a lot of money," Cronenberg told Variety. "But if you're doing an independent film and you don't have Netflix, then it's a struggle."

It's great that Netflix is willing to fund independent filmmakers, but their formulaic productions are bound to subdue any auteur's artistic touch. "I think that they're still very conservative," Cronenberg admitted.

"I mean, I think they're still like a Hollywood studio. I thought maybe they would be different. The difference is that Netflix can show very interesting streaming series from Korea, from Finland, and they say it's a Netflix original, but it isn't really — it's something they have acquired. But I think when it comes to their actual production that they do themselves, they're very conservative. I think they think in mainstream terms, that's my experience with them anyway."

The director was initially intrigued by developing a streaming series, and was excited by the challenge of a new media format. "I was disappointed because I was interested in streaming in cinematic terms," he explained. "I thought that would be a very interesting experience for me as a writer, as a creator, and then also as a director." He saw a Netflix series as "an alternative form of cinema, because suddenly you're making eight or 10 hours of film," per Indiewire. Sadly, Netflix just wasn't ready for Cronenberg — not yet, anyway.

A Streaming Series Of The Future

Netflix may be too "conservative" for David Cronenberg, but that doesn't mean the director dislikes streaming services altogether. He isn't interested in preserving the sanctity of cinema. In fact, when asked if he agreed with Pedro Almodóvar that cinema is sacred, Cronenberg replied, "you must perhaps be a Catholic in order to believe that" (via VPro Cinema).

The director is excited by the global potential of streaming services. "If you make a movie for Netflix, it might never be seen on a cinema screen, but in one day it will be released in 190 countries," he pointed out. He's willing to debate if Netflix's productions, or even their acquisitions, can truly be considered cinema without being shown in a movie theater. But Cronenberg doesn't mind adapting to the changing world, even if it means a new viewing experience.

"I wouldn't mind seeing 'Lawrence of Arabia' on an Apple Watch," the director insisted. "It would be a different movie, but it would be interesting." The "Videodrome" director has always embraced emerging forms of media and media capturing. "In fact," Cronenberg told Deadline, "there are some moments in 'Crimes of The Future' that were shot with an iPhone. I won't say which but you can probably figure it out."

But what could possibly keep people coming back to the theater, after all these years? "Nostalgia," Cronenberg replied. "It will be a retro activity, going to a cinema [...] [like] people who still type on typewriters." Going to the movies isn't a religious activity — it's a nostalgic one. The movie theater is an indulgence, a mirror into the past. It feels spiritual because we are being haunted by the spectre of cinema.

Read this next: The Most Controversial Scenes In Sci-Fi Movies

The post David Cronenberg Never Would Have Written The Shrouds If It Hadn't Been For Netflix appeared first on /Film.

TL;DR - this article is longer than any other blog post I’ve published to date, so be ready for a long read. If you aren’t currently interested in a deep dive through the game’s history, internals and fixes, scroll down to the Changelog and download section for a download link.

• Introduction
• Chapter 1: In search of a perfect executable
• Chapter 2: Regional releases and their oddities
  • Polish (3 CD) release
  • Polish (2 CD) re-release
  • Czech release
• Chapter 3: Fixes, so many fixes
  • Fixes & improvements
  • New options
• Chapter 4: The perfect remaster – adding an HD interface
  • Scaling issues
  • Font filtering
  • Half pixel issues
• Chapter 5: Merging regional releases together
• Changelog and download
• Credits and acknowledgments

Introduction

October 2022 was the 20th anniversary of Colin McRae Rally 3. A little over two months later, I’m happy to reveal the biggest SilentPatch since GTA San Andreas. In this release, developed together with Bekoha, we deliver more than just a set of fixes – with full widescreen support, numerous compatibility fixes, new technical features, Quality of Life improvements, and a scratch-made high definition UI optimized for 4K displays, we bring an experience comparable to an unofficial remaster of this classic 2002 rally game.

Originally, this project didn’t start as a SilentPatch. Instead, I only intended to document the different releases of the game, but given the anniversary timing and the attention Colin McRae Rally 3 received around that time, it was hard to pass on an opportunity to give it a new life, especially once Bekoha expressed interest in retouching the game’s fonts and UI.

For this reason, this blog post details the entire journey – from scavenging for different versions of the game, documenting them, through the process of fixing the game, and finally merging regional releases together. Feel free to take a break between chapters, as it’s going to be a lot – it’s the longest post published on my blog to date.

This post may get technical at times, but don’t get discouraged; I intend it to be clear and informative for everyone – players, game developers, and reverse engineers.

But first, a few words about the game for the uninitiated. Colin McRae Rally 3 is a racing game from Codemasters, released originally for the PS2 and Xbox on October 25, 2002, later ported to PC by Six by Nine Ltd. and released there on June 13, 2003.¹ It was received well and was succeeded by two more sequels in 2003 and 2004 before the franchise moved on to a Colin McRae DiRT series.

Unlike Colin McRae Rally 2.0, where the game shined on PC, CMR3 was an enhanced console port. Nonetheless, I have fond memories from playing this game as a kid (although they’ve blurred together with memories from CMR04 and CMR2005). Curiously, back in the day, this was considered a sub-par port, and some people did not enjoy the long wait for the PC port, especially since by then CMR04 was just a few months away from release. I find this comment the most amusing…

Unfortunately it’s a sign of the times and it’s sad to see Codemaster’s, once big supporter’s of the PC, becoming member’s of the lazy developer’s club.

…since it sounds like something that could have been said online in July 2022, not July 2003 – I guess some things never change 😜

Chapter 1: In search of a perfect executable

It’s commonly known that DRM on retail discs sucked. The three leading DRM solutions all came with a varying level of breakage, and these days, two of them are intentionally disabled by Windows; furthermore, one of those DRM solutions is so contrived it can make a Windows 10/11 machine unbootable (shout out to TOCA Race Driver 2 & 3). Much like I did for the TOCA Race Driver games, I wanted to know if the trilogy of later Colin McRae Rally games were all released DRM-free somewhere:

• Colin McRae Rally 04 is easy – much like TOCA Race Driver and TOCA Race Driver 2, it was re-released in Italy by FX Interactive, opting for “physical” DRM (ring on the disc’s surface to make copying unreliable and time consuming) instead of a software solution.
• Colin McRae Rally 2005 was released DRM-free on GOG.com, so even though the game has since been delisted, getting a hold of the DRM-free executable is not hard.
• This left only Colin McRae Rally 3 in an unknown state, as at that time all CMR3 discs submitted to Redump had SecuROM DRM – except for the Polish release.

I initially brushed off that hint, since I thought this listing is incomplete or incorrect. After all, I own a Polish CMR3 release from back in the day – it uses SafeDisc², making it impossible to launch without workarounds or a no-CD executable, and it comes on three discs, while this listing only had two.

However, turns out that this wasn’t an error, as a later re-release of the game did indeed come on 2 CDs:

With the help of Krusantusz, I got access to this executable for analysis. While it indeed is DRM-free, its usability with assets of the “international” version is limited – with the range of issues ranging from a hardcoded French co-driver (replaced with Polish in the actual release)…

…various UI issues…

…through crashes on various screens, e.g. Telemetry and Controls. While salvageable, this means that the Polish release has received a non-trivial amount of code changes.

Shortly after that, I also bought my own second hand copy of the eXtra Klasyka release, so now I’m a proud owner of two CMR3 PL copies:

If the rabbit hole of different versions ended here, this would have been a story of how I created an international DRM-free executable by “internationalizing” the Polish one and removing CD Projekt’s modifications to it (more on that later). There is one more version, though – CMR3 was also re-released in Germany on a single DVD. As SecuROM worked with DVDs just fine, we expected this release to have DRM identical to the original – however, Memorix101 proved us wrong. Together with RibShark we tracked down a copy for sale and submitted its metadata to Redump – at which point it became clear that this re-release is so late, its disc was mastered after the release of Colin McRae Rally 2005!

At this point, I’ve already been “internationalizing” the Polish executable, so this work was technically rendered useless (for now). Regardless, thanks to the German version, we got The Perfect CMR3 Version we wanted – an easy to install, DRM-free, future proof release that ensures the game remains accessible indefinitely. My initial goal was done.

Chapter 2: Regional releases and their oddities

Note: Although the DVD version was only sold in Germany, its content is identical to the international release, so I don’t consider it a regional release per se.

Polish (3 CD) release

As mentioned earlier, the Polish release is more than a straightforward text and speech translation. Aside from making Polish the only language in the game, CD Projekt (or Codemasters) introduced several changes to the international version, localizing the game further:

• Localized onscreen keyboard and keyboard typing – the international version displays a basic keyboard regardless of a selected in-game language:

• Menu cubes received new graphics to match Polish wording:

• The Secrets screen was modified to refer to CD Projekt’s resources rather than the Codemasters’ ones – this is what resulted in a previously shown “Call your Germany” issue if a PL executable is used with English localization:

• By the way, have you noticed how Polish fonts are spaced further apart than international ones? Odd change, but I assume they had a reason to do so.
• Polish introduces 40 new localization strings for texts that were previously hardcoded to English. This is what caused an unpatched PL executable to crash with English localization.
• As other languages have been removed, the Language screen is renamed to “Co-driver’s voice” and gives you a choice between Nicky Grist, the original English co-driver, and Janusz Kulig, the voice of a popular Polish rally driver.

Polish (2 CD) re-release

Around a year after the original release, Colin McRae Rally 3 was re-released in Poland under an eXtra Klasyka label (as you may have noticed above). Aside from being completely DRM-free, it also ships on 2 discs instead of 3. While I initially thought this is solely due to better compression, this isn’t the case – the changes in this release are:

• The removal of Nicky Grist as a selectable co-driver
• The change of the Polish co-driver’s voice from Janusz Kulig to Janusz Wituch

I couldn’t find any in-game comparisons online other than the Polish dubbing wiki, so here is one:

The removal of Nicky Grist explains why the game was now shipped on 2 CDs – while localized co-drivers only use one-shot samples that are played at specific triggers during the stage, Nicky Grist’s pace notes are full audio recordings, created for each stage individually. This makes Grist’s notes sound much more natural than the other co-drivers, at the cost of much higher file size – while each localized co-driver is typically between 1.5 MB and 2 MB in size, Grist’s pace notes are 435 MB!

What about Janusz Kulig, though? We will of course never know for sure if this change was dictated by licensing, but one more plausible reason may be a little clearer for those familiar with the Polish rallying scene. For those unfamiliar, it’s best to show it on a timeline of what I think has happened:

1. June 26, 2003 - The original PL Colin McRae Rally 3 featuring Janusz Kulig gets released.³
2. February 13, 2004 - Janusz Kulig, a Polish rally driver, dies in a road accident after his car collides with a train on a level crossing.⁴
3. After April 2004 - Colin McRae Rally 3 gets re-released in eXtra Klasyka, featuring Janusz Wituch – a prolific voice actor, also starring in TOCA Race Driver and TOCA Race Driver 2.^{3 5}

While there is no definite proof to support that claim, it seems reasonably likely that CD Projekt quickly opted for a new co-driver after Kulig’s death. Their choice to feature Janusz Wituch may or may not have been related to the fact he was presumably recording lines for TOCA Race Driver 2 around that time – as it was released in Poland on June 24, 2004.⁶

Czech release

A Czech release, published by CD Projekt, also exists – albeit the details on it are sparse:

Albeit much like the Polish release it was released by CD Projekt in eXtra Klasika, I don’t know if it ever was released outside of it (it likely was, though). From the technical side, this Czech release is much less interesting than the Polish one – compiled on August 31, 2004, it’s not a special version but rather a translated international release replacing Spanish with Czech. None of the changes from CD Projekt are present in this release, although it’s clear that it must have been translated from Polish, not from English – as the Czech translation file contains (now unused) strings introduced in the Polish release!

That said, there is something interesting about this release, and I only noticed it during the final tests of SilentPatch – although the contents of the Czech executable appear to be identical to the international executable, it has at least one unique UI bug, not present anywhere else! I have no idea how this happened, but the results screens for time trials are completely broken in this release.⁷

I’m disappointed, as this screen was not even changed for the localized release – it’s a completely unwarranted regression.

Chapter 3: Fixes, so many fixes

In this section, I want to highlight the most interesting and unusual improvements present in the patch. This is not a full changelog – for that, refer to Changelog and download.

Fixes & improvements

Console versions of CMR3 included a Widescreen option in Graphics Options, switching the aspect ratio from 4:3 to 16:9. While this option is gone from the PC versions, it’s still functional – it’s just that this option is underwhelming to begin with (also in the console versions), as it only corrects the 3D aspect ratio, and the only UI element it corrects is the co-driver arrow. That said, it’s not the worst, as it opts to fix the aspect ratio by increasing the horizontal FOV, rather than by shrinking it vertically:

Curiously, the PC demo did list 16:9 resolutions, unlike the full version of the game – but unlike the console versions, it is Vert-; the co-driver arrow also appears to be broken. In my opinion, it’s possible that because of issues like this it was decided that the full version should limit the available options:

SilentPatch doesn’t rely on the stock widescreen support at all – instead, much like in SilentPatch for Colin McRae Rally 2.0, I scale the game to arbitrary aspect ratios. The entire UI and menus are positioned dynamically, ensuring that everything looks consistent regardless of resolution. This required an obscene amount of work, as literally all the UI and menus had their layouts designed with a constant 4:3 aspect ratio – therefore, SilentPatch takes control of nearly all the UI and menus to keep elements aligned consistently regardless of the aspect ratio:

For more screenshots showcasing widescreen support, check the next chapter.

The PC version of Colin McRae Rally 3 had a strange bug where the sun would flash in random colors (WARNING: rapidly flashing colors) if the FSAA (anti-aliasing) option was enabled. This happens regardless of whether anti-aliasing is enabled in-game, or forced externally; dgVoodoo would also not help resolve it, proving that it’s not a Direct3D 9 bug.

I tracked down this issue to the game’s occlusion queries that would return values much higher than what the game had expected when multisampling is enabled (due to queries returning the number of samples, not pixels). I find it hard to blame the developers for this, as even the official Microsoft docs got it wrong! Since then, I have submitted a pull request to correct the docs, and my proof in form of a fix for CMR3 was enough for the change to be accepted 😃 This link also includes a more technical writeup on this issue, in case you want to learn more about it.

Interestingly, this bug has been “fixed” officially in the sequels, but I was able to verify that it’s not fixed “properly”⁸ – instead of accounting for the value of multisampling, the game now clamps the result of the occlusion query to (0.0 - 1.0). On one hand, this prevents the sun from being miscolored; on the other hand, sun occlusion is now wrong with multisampling enabled, which means the sun visibility increases quicker the higher the multisampling value is.

This isn’t the only issue related to the sun rendering – aside from broken colors, the sun occlusion would cause a consistent and noticeable hitch every time the sun would either appear on screen or go off screen:

This bug, fixed only in Colin McRae Rally 2005, is caused by the game waiting for the sun occlusion query to return its results as soon as it’s finished. I don’t need to provide pseudocode, as the code flow looks nearly identical to this Query State sample code from MSDN. The important memo that the game ignores goes as follows (emphasis mine):

Note that applications should pay special attention to the large cost associated with flushing the command buffer because this causes the operating system to switch into kernel mode, thus incurring a sizeable performance penalty. Applications should also be aware of wasting CPU cycles by waiting for queries to complete.

Queries are an optimization to be used during rendering to increase performance. Therefore, it is not beneficial to spend time waiting for a query to finish. If a query is issued and if the results are not yet ready by the time the application checks for them, the attempt at optimizing did not succeed and rendering should continue as normal.

In this case, the game waits for the query to finish twice per frame, therefore forcibly syncing the CPU with the GPU two times per frame for no reason. With this in mind, it’s strange that this hitch isn’t more consistent than that – the sync is done every frame, and so technically it should be blocking each time. This is exactly what happens when dgVoodoo is used to make the game use Direct3D 11, but I couldn’t get it to ever happen in Direct3D 9 – perhaps due to a runtime or a driver level optimization/hack:

The fix is trivial in theory, but a little harder to implement – instead of always waiting for the latest result, the game should keep the old sun occlusion data (and not start another query) for as long as the new result is not ready. This means that the value of the sun occlusion (and therefore, its brightness) lags behind the camera by 2-3 frames. However, in practice this is not noticeable during gameplay, and resolves any hitches completely:

Something I only noticed just now when writing this post: I don’t know if the huge difference in CPU9 and CPU11 usage is related to this fix. However, it likely is – the old code essentially included a CPU spin lock waiting for the GPU, and the quote from the docs I included above specifically points out “wasting CPU cycles by waiting for queries to complete”.

Thought we’re done with issues caused by anti-aliasing? So did I, but as it turns out – I was wrong.

Car shadows in CMR3 are simple but effective. They are essentially rendered in two phases:

1. Render the car from the sun’s perspective, with depth testing and writing disabled, and with no color – always drawing full white.
2. Take the 256x256 car shadow render target, downsample it to a smaller 128x128 target, and then upscale it again to achieve a blur effect. Repeat this step n times (8 in the stock CMR3).

Although the effect isn’t complex, it seemingly breaks with anti-aliasing enabled – upon starting the game with FSAA, shadows were there but they were too sharp; even worse, changing the display mode with FSAA enabled would make the shadow vanish entirely for that game session:

Turns out the issue lies in the “softening” pass. In theory, both shadow passes should be performed with depth test and depth write disabled; this means that all draws should go through regardless of depth, and depth should not be updated by these draws. Although the game sets up the depth states for shadow rendering correctly, an error in the 2D drawing functions made downsampling perform with a depth test enabled.⁹ Furthermore, in cases where a render target has no depth buffer associated with it, the game’s graphics engine uses a fallback instead and binds the backbuffer’s depth buffer! Therefore, downsample draws used this as depth:

In theory, this should only make draws fail if the top left part of the screen was obscured (making the depth test fail), but with FSAA it gets worse since it resulted in matching a non-multisampled shadow buffer with a multisampled depth buffer. I don’t know exactly if D3D9 is required to handle this mismatch correctly, but seeing how this can break shadows in multiple ways – I suspect the results here are undefined.

Those familiar with GTA San Andreas might have a déjà vu, as this game had an identical bug affecting mirrors.

SilentPatch fixes this issue and goes a step further – admittedly, those “sharp shadows” look kind of nice, but at the same time, I didn’t want to disable the softening pass entirely. Thankfully, Colin McRae Rally 2005 reduces the number of soften passes from 8 to 2, making shadows a little sharper. I “backported” this change to Colin McRae Rally 3, making shadows a little more defined:

If you prefer to keep the stock, blurrier shadows, this change can be disabled from the SilentPatchCMR3.ini file – by adding these lines at the very bottom of the file:

[Advanced]
SHARPER_SHADOWS=0

A few stages in CMR3 run next to lakes or across rivers. At the highest details, those come with a nice cubemap-based reflection and a subtle animation, producing an appearance of a reflective, moving water surface. However, on PC those reflections don’t always look the same:

Depending on your actions, reflections may appear darker or even be completely black. I investigated this issue in detail, and it is caused not by one, but three separate bugs! While one of them is a nitpick and may not even affect visuals, the other two are worth covering.

Presumably for performance reasons, the reflection cubemap is rendered only once, and it contains the sky and the horizon. This creates an issue during a device lost event, i.e. when minimizing a fullscreen game window – historically, a device lost event invalidates all render targets, so they need to be recreated after restoring the game window. CMR3 is aware of that and gracefully recreates most render targets – but not the reflection cubemap! This results in the reflection being pitch black, making the water look horrendous. Making the game re-render the reflection after a device lost resolves the issue.

The other issue is also related to the device lost event, but it happens when the device resets (either due to Alt + Tab or a display mode change) outside of the race. Since reflections are rendered at the start of the race, they should be unaffected by a reset in menus and render just fine. However, they are rendered slightly miscolored:

Because of the one-shot nature of those reflections (and, of course, making them re-render every frame “fixes” this bug), it was extremely hard to catch on a graphics capture. However, once done, PIX provided a hint – one of the lighting render states is different between the “good” reflection render and a “bad” one:

This essentially means that the scene is rendered to the cubemap with incorrect, possibly unpredictable, lighting – but why? The game code correctly sets the emissive source before rendering the cubemap, and yet it’s still wrong.

The answer is slightly complicated, and it boils down to cache coherency. CMR3’s rendering engine has a layer of abstraction over Direct3D 9 designed to cache the state the game wants to put the rendering pipeline at, and ensures that any state changes call reach D3D9 only when necessary. However, sometimes the game cache needs to be evicted or updated, as the D3D9 runtime discards its state. One such event is… the device reset (emphasis mine):

Calling IDirect3DDevice9::Reset causes all texture memory surfaces to be lost, managed textures to be flushed from video memory, and all state information to be lost.

The developers behind a PC port of CMR3 were aware of this, so the game submits all cached render states to D3D9 again after a device reset, therefore making sure that the runtime state matches what the game expects. Except… a few device states have been missed! Those are:

D3DSAMP_BORDERCOLOR - for all 8 samplers
D3DRS_EMISSIVEMATERIALSOURCE
D3DRS_BLENDOP

While I don’t know if the other two are ever used (despite being cached), D3DRS_EMISSIVEMATERIALSOURCE is the exact render state that is incorrect when the reflections are dark. The fact they were not updated after a device reset means that the game thought the D3D9 runtime is in a different state than it truly is, and thus it’s not setting the render state if it thought it’s “pointless” – hence the state cache losing coherency.

Fixing the Reset function to correctly reconcile those 3 missing states fixes the issue, so now water looks the same at all times:

If you’ve played CMR3 on PlayStation 2 or watched any footage of it, you may have noticed that the game looked a little more vibrant there, most prominently when it comes to car reflections. Albeit present on PC and Xbox, they always seemed a little dull. To verify, I ran the same car and stage on PC and in the PCSX2 emulator, and pulled the reflection data before and after it’s been mapped on a sphere:

They have clearly been rendered differently, but the most noticeable difference is in the sky – PS2’s reflection has a normal sky, while on PC it’s always a grey box, except for night stages.

PS2 reflections are rendered in a really simple way:

1. Take the entire rendered frame up to the point of drawing reflections (that’s why the car shadow is present on the reflection).
2. Project that frame buffer on a sphere drawn to a separate render target.
3. Render the lens flare, if applicable.

PC opts for a more involved solution:

1. Clear a separate render target to grey, unless it’s a night stage. Oddly enough, instead of using a camera clear, this is done by drawing a rectangle spanning the entire render target – no idea why.
2. If it’s a night stage, render the sky.
3. Render most of the scene again with a very low draw distance.
4. Project that on a sphere drawn to yet another render target.
5. Render the lens flare, if applicable.

At first, it might seem like the PC reflections are done better, but I believe this change was made purely for technical, not visual, reasons. Unlike on PS2, on PC taking a frame “rendered up to a specific point” is not trivial, especially with older rendering APIs like Direct3D 9. Most games from the era render directly to a back buffer, and using that surface as an input resource for another draw (to project it on a sphere) is virtually impossible without copying it, which can be a costly and/or memory intensive operation.

That’s not to say that doing it the PS2 way is impossible, of course – CMR3 could have rendered to a separate render target that is simultaneously a render target and a texture. That does the trick, but comes with a few disadvantages:

• A color target + depth target the size of a screen is required, which can take a lot of precious VRAM.
• It is not possible to create a resource that is simultaneously multisampled, can be rendered to, and bound as an input resource. To keep multisampling, yet another intermediate render target would be required.

Neither of those two is an issue for modern games (I implemented this exact thing in another game just a few months ago) – but the situation in 2003, when you only had 32-64 MB VRAM to use, was likely very different.

What about the sky on PC, however? Once again it’s hard to say, but it is possibly a performance optimization, allowing reflections to draw less. Curiously, split-screen uses a full sky in reflections – which I found peculiar until I remembered that the Xbox version uses identical reflections and that split-screen on consoles runs at 30 FPS. If this truly was a performance optimization, then it may not have been needed when the target frame rate is lower.

For SilentPatch, I went ahead and enabled sky rendering for reflections at all times:

Not only does this change make the car reflections more vibrant, but it also “fixes” the TV displays in cutscenes – as they reuse the reflection map, they now display the sky correctly!

If for some reason you prefer the stock reflections, this change can be disabled from the SilentPatchCMR3.ini file – by adding these lines at the very bottom of the file:

[Advanced]
ENVMAP_SKY=0

(In)famously, Direct3D has no option of altering the line thickness of draws; therefore, line draws are always 1px thick. CMR3 uses lines widely (pun unintended) – they are used both in 2D (in menus and graphs), and in 3D (for antennas). This wasn’t an issue on consoles, as well as on PC when played at 640x480 – but the larger the selected resolution is, the more noticeable it becomes that those lines become relatively thin and hard to read. SilentPatch resolves this issue by implementing line thickness:

The default CMR3 menus look notoriously inconsistent. SilentPatch fixes many inconsistently formatted texts (e.g. CONTROLS: on one screen, CONTROLS : on another) and imperfect menu elements – with “line boxes” being exceptionally imperfect:

Just like the previous games in the franchise, Colin McRae Rally 3 comes with a split-screen feature. The issue is, on most modern PCs by default it looks like this:

This issue, fixed in Colin McRae Rally 04, can also be worked around by setting the game affinity to just a single core. However, since that’s not a threading issue, this likely only buys the user some time, and in the future, this method might stop working too.

How was it fixed in CMR04? It’s one of the only fixes I’ve admittedly not understood fully, but it seems to be related to the physics update tick ending up at a 0 ms delta value (which means 0 ms have passed between updates). CMR04 seems to correct this by replacing relatively inaccurate timeGetTime functions with a more accurate QueryPerformanceCounter; however, this wasn’t enough to fix CMR3, so I also additionally offset the first physics update tick by one second. This means that the game thinks the very first physics tick took one second, but in practice, this changes nothing, as that one tick is performed just after the cars are spawned – and this happens before the screen starts to fade from white.

CMR3 comes with support for multiple displays and allows the user to specify what display to render the game to, but unless all your displays are identical, your typical multi-monitor experience was likely to look like this:

The addition of a Refresh Rate option in SilentPatch only made this issue worse, so despite using a single-display system myself, I had to take a look. Turns out the issue is simple – although the game correctly refreshes the list of available resolutions as soon as you switch the selected display adapter, it… doesn’t update the number of available resolutions. This, depending on whether the newly selected adapter has more or fewer display modes, could result in either being unable to select the higher resolutions or in an instant crash (as shown above). SilentPatch fixes the issue by updating the display mode counts and makes sure that the selected resolution cannot ever go over the number of listed display modes.

The last issue I wanted to highlight never showed up in the original game, but it’s somewhat fascinating, and could serve as a cautionary tale for other developers.

Initially, after implementing the windowed mode, I’d observe an issue where the game window flashes black every few seconds. This only happened in normal windowed mode, and not borderless, even though the two are technically nearly identical. I initially thought it was an issue caused by NVidia Shadowplay, as the issue seems to have been caused by something sending this series of messages to the game window:

S WM_WINDOWPOSCHANGING lpwp:0019FA8C
R WM_WINDOWPOSCHANGING
S WM_ERASEBKGND hdc:0F01208B
R WM_ERASEBKGND fErased:True
S WM_WINDOWPOSCHANGED lIpwp:0019FA84
S WM_SIZE fwSizeType:SIZE_RESTORED nWidth:1280 nHeight:720
R WM_SIZE
R WM_WINDOWPOSCHANGED
S WM_GETICON fType: True
R WM_GETICON hicon:00000000
S WM_GETICON fType: True
R WM_GETICON hicon:00000000
S WM_GETICON fType:False
R WM_GETICON hicon:00000000
S WM_WINDOWPOSCHANGING Ipwp:0019FA8C
R WM_WINDOWPOSCHANGING
S WM_ERASEBKGND hde:7D0123DE
R WM_ERASEBKGND fErased:True
S WM_WINDOWPOSCHANGED lIpwp:0019FA84
S WM_SIZE fwSizeType:SIZE_RESTORED nWidth:1280 nHeight:720
R WM_SIZE
R WM_WINDOWPOSCHANGED
S WM_WINDOWPOSCHANGING Ipwp:0019FA8C

The key to understanding is the fact those are not position changes, but style changes – and sometimes I’d also see the window border briefly change the style to the one used by windows that are hung. Indeed, the issue was essentially revealed by this feature of Windows:

Traditionally, Windows thinks the window is hung when its window messages are not pumped often enough, typically 5 seconds. However, at no point, the game was truly unresponsive, and so the chain of events that I think has happened there is:

1. The game processes gameplay logic and renders.
2. The game waits for a message to arrive (without pumping).
3. If any messages are present, process them.
4. Repeat from point 1.

The issue lies in point 2. – the game somehow must be waiting for new messages without pumping them. Therefore, Windows thinks the app is hung and sends several messages to indicate that fact via a window style change. This in turn causes the game to spot that new messages are present, and process them; however, processing messages is an indicator of a window that’s working normally, so that backtracks the “app is hung” state! The cycle repeats every few seconds, causing periodic flashes.

The proper fix would be to always pump messages, without waiting for them – but since I wanted to keep the fix non-invasive and at the same time comprehensive, I opted to “poke” the game window with an empty timer message every 2 seconds to keep it always active. Not the cleanest, but makes it impossible to overlook any places in the code to patch, which arguably is the highest priority when retrofitting fixes like this.

That said, please don’t implement this fix in your app – fix it properly instead 👼

New options

Starting with a small one – the game is now fully portable and saves settings to a SilentPatchCMR3.ini file located in the game directory, instead of saving to the system registry. If you wished to put CMR3 on a flash drive and carry it with you, now you can.

Graphics Options have been expanded with several new options. My patches shipped with new options for a long time, both SilentPatch for Colin McRae Rally 2.0 and SilentPatch for TOCA 2 Touring Cars previously included options like FOV control and more. However, this time those options are present in the game options.

The new options are:

• Tachometer (Analog/Digital) – much like in CMR2.0, the tachometer is now customizable. The digital tachometer was previously exclusive to 2 player split-screen.
• Split-screen (Horizontal/Vertical) – another option inspired by CMR2.0. Previously, the game always used a horizontal split-screen when playing in 4:3, and a vertical one when playing in 16:9; this means that the vertical split-screen remained unused on PC. Since the game now adjusts itself to arbitrary aspect ratios, separating this into a new option made the most sense.
• Field of View control – the default field of view for all in-game cameras is 75 degrees, and now I added an option to set your preferred FOV in the range of 30 - 150 degrees. External and internal cameras get their separate options – something not done even in DiRT Rally 2.0.

Advanced Graphics Options have received a set of new options inspired by later CMR games and modern games in general.

Those are:

• Display mode (Fullscreen, Windowed, Borderless) – using the stock game’s windowed mode that remained unfinished in the code, presumably a scrapped idea and/or a debug feature.
• Refresh Rate
• Vertical Sync – the game’s UI has some issues with high frame rates, but the car physics seem to work well even at hundreds of frames per second!
• Anisotropic Filtering – unlike the option in CMR2005, this one actually works⁸ 🤔

The new options default to English if you’re using an international or a Czech version, and Polish if you’re using a Polish version. However, the Language Pack comes with translations for all new strings added to the game. Please check Chapter 5: Merging regional releases together for more info.

Chapter 4: The perfect remaster – adding an HD interface

A set of fixes and perfect widescreen support make for a nice patch, but it’s not enough to call this a remaster. However, this changed once Bekoha offered to work on retouching the UI and fonts in high quality. The original assets were clearly made with a 640x480 resolution in mind; so when playing at high resolutions the game itself looked gorgeous, but the UI was lacking.

Bekoha’s HD UI addresses this by replacing most interface assets with faithful high quality recreations:

More comparison screenshots (also showcasing SP’s widescreen support) can be found on Bekoha’s website:
CMR3 HD UI Screenshots

Of course, if replacing textures was as easy as just putting them in the game, I wouldn’t be writing about it here, and someone else would’ve likely released HQ fonts/UI years ago. Instead, to get HD textures to look the way we wanted them to, we had to solve not one, but three separate issues.

Scaling issues

Theoretically, replacing textures in CMR3 is easy. Font files are loose DDS files, while the UI textures are DDS files packaged in BigFile archives that have been well understood for nearly two decades. However, a naïve texture replacement produces results that are hardly optimal:

Albeit unusual for PC games, this behavior is perfectly explainable. The original UI design was pixel perfect, with no scaling involved – which means that all UI textures displayed 1:1 to what they are in files. For obvious reasons, this does not translate well to PC where the output resolution is configurable, but there the draws only get linearly scaled, with the setup unchanged. This means that internally, the game still issues UI draws using the texture dimensions as a draw size, producing oversize UI elements (screenshots #1 and #3), or specifying UV coordinates in pixels directly, producing cut off elements (screenshot #2).

The solution here is simple – since the UI has already been “finalized” with specific texture dimensions in mind, scaling can be implemented trivially by lying to the game about the texture sizes, and always pretending the texture dimensions are the same as the original!

static const std::map<std::string_view, TexData, std::less<>> textureDimensions = {
	{ "Arrow1Player", { 32, 16 } }, { "ArrowMultiPlayer", { 32, 16 } }, { "ArrowSmall", { 16, 16 } },
	{ "Base", { 128, 128, true } }, { "certina", { 64, 8 } }, { "Colour", { 128, 128, true } },
	{ "Ck_base", { 128, 64 } }, { "Ck_00", { 32, 32 } }, { "Ck_01", { 32, 32 } },
	{ "Ck_02", { 32, 32 } }, { "Ck_03", { 32, 32 } }, { "Ck_04", { 32, 32 } },
	{ "Ck_05", { 32, 32 } }, { "colin3_2", { 256, 64 } }, { "ct_3", { 64, 64, true } },
	{ "dialcntr", { 32, 32 } }, { "infobox", { 128, 128 } }, { "MiniStageBanner", { 128, 32 } },
	{ "osd_glow", { 32, 32 } }, { "rescert", { 128, 32 } }, { "swiss", { 128, 8 } },
	{ "AUS", { 32, 16 } }, { "FIN", { 32, 16 } }, { "GRE", { 32, 16 } },
	{ "JAP", { 32, 16 } }, { "SPA", { 32, 16 } }, { "SWE", { 32, 16 } },
	{ "UK", { 32, 16 } }, { "USA", { 32, 16 } },
};
auto it = textureDimensions.find(name);
if (it != textureDimensions.end())
{
	result->m_width = it->second.width;
	result->m_height = it->second.height;
}

Because the UV data sent to the rendering API is normalized, this lie allows the game to keep the internal setup unchanged, while the actual rendering stays unaffected and makes full use of the high fidelity resource.

Font filtering

Contrary to a popular belief, upscaling is not always the best solution for a high quality interface. Detailed textures benefit from it the best, but for pixel art there usually is a better solution – nearest neighbor scaling:

For any textures considered pixel art, scaling them via nearest neighbor filtering (as opposed to linear filtering) retains the effect of sharp pixels without the need to ship assets that effectively duplicate pixels multiple times:

SilentPatch opts to always use nearest filtering on a set of textures and fonts predefined by us, so they look sharper than in the stock game even without the HD UI installed.

Half pixel issues

Direct3D 9 comes with a rather annoying texturing phenomenon dubbed “half pixel offset”, where textures display slightly wrong unless the draw is offset by half a pixel. It has finally been corrected on the API level in Direct3D 10 and newer and it has never been an issue in OpenGL, so it’s a commonly overlooked issue – and CMR3 is no different. The issue is documented very well, you can read about it more here:

• Directly Mapping Texels to Pixels from Microsoft
• Solving DX9 Half-Pixel Offset from Aras Pranckevičius

While CMR3 is subject to this issue, with linear filtered textures I couldn’t spot it at any resolution. However, it all changes once nearest filtering is used – textures appear blurry on the edges even though it should be impossible when nearest filtering is used (top image). Applying that specific fix to all UI elements ensures they always stay as sharp as possible (bottom image). Pay attention to the blurred edges, especially on 1, L, and R:

Chapter 5: Merging regional releases together

With all fixes and high definition UI in place, it was time for the icing on the cake – producing a single ultimate package of releases combining the regional editions, not unlike what a real remaster could potentially do. For this, I only consider known official releases, so fan translations are not considered.

The Language Pack includes all 7 official translations (counting English), and 8 co-drivers, including the two Polish co-drivers presented above. The Polish re-release also receives support for Nicky Grist’s pace notes much like the original Polish release, although due to the high file size, Grist’s audio files are a separate download. All regional changes made for the Polish release, such as localized cube textures and the OSD keyboard, are also present; not only that, but the Czech localization also receives its own OSD keyboard, while the official release did not:

Since the regional releases ship their own atlases of fonts, and the Polish release goes as far as updating the codepoints from Windows-1252 (Western Europe) to Windows-1250 (Central Europe), the initial plan was to merge them all and update the game to use UTF-8. However, we ruled against it for several reasons:

• The PCF format is not complicated to reverse engineer, but making a tool that can correctly repack it from a human readable format is another matter.
• Changes like this can be extraordinarily risky and could potentially break compatibility with the existing saves and track records.
• Even if they didn’t break compatibility with “old” records when SilentPatch is installed, it would be highly likely that “new” records would break the stock game.

Therefore, SilentPatch adds support for “regional” fonts for each language. Both Language Pack and HD UI ship Polish fonts in fonts/fonts_P, and Czech fonts in fonts/fonts_C. These alternate sets of fonts are used regardless of whether the Language Pack is installed or not, so the HD UI can only ship a single set of files that works for as long as SP is installed.

Aside from including regional languages and co-drivers, the Language Pack also improves the existing translations. Therefore, it makes sense to install the Language Pack even if you don’t plan to use Polish or Czech localizations:

• Codemasters introduced a “Return to Centre” option in the official 1.1 patch and hardcoded that string. Language Pack extracts it to the localization files, so all languages now received a translated string.
• The Telemetry screen hardcodes a “NA” text in the international release; this was later moved to the localization file for the Polish release. Language Pack unifies this, and now all languages received a translated string.
• The Polish release moved more key names (such as “Left”, “Right”, “Up”, and “Down” arrow keys) to the localization file. Language Pack unifies this, and now all languages received a translated string.
• Thanks to LoStraniero91, the Italian translation has been completely revised and uses more accurate and fitting translations.

Changelog and download

You made it all the way, congratulations 😁 (or maybe you just skipped to here from a TL;DR, that’s fine too)

The full mod’s changelog is as follows; fixes marked with can be configured/toggled via the INI file. The other new options have been added to in-game menus instead.

Essential fixes:

• The game now lists all available display resolutions, lifting the limit of 128 resolutions and the 4:3 aspect ratio constraint.
• The game will now try to pick the closest matching resolution instead of crashing on startup if launched with an invalid resolution specified in the config.
• The game now defaults to desktop resolution on the first boot.
• Several issues related to the sun rendering have been fixed - sun flickering with anti-aliasing enabled has been fixed, and a consistent hitch when the sun was about to appear on screen was resolved.
• Fixed multiple distinct issues causing water reflections to appear either too dark or completely black.
• Fixed car shadows appearing overly sharp, or not appearing at all when anti-aliasing is enabled.
• Fixed a crash when switching between display adapters with different numbers of resolutions, and made the resolutions list automatically refresh when switching adapters, eliminating a possible crash.
• The game now handles arbitrary aspect ratios correctly - with all 3D elements and the entire UI fixed for widescreen and positioning dynamically.
• Fixed a possible out of bounds read when the supplied translation file did not contain all the strings the game needs (for example, when using the PL executable with EN data).
• Improved the overall precision of in-game timers.
• Fixed an issue where split-screen would not work correctly on modern PCs with fast enough CPUs unless the game was forced to use a single CPU core.

Miscellaneous fixes:

• Environment maps on cars now always reflect the sky, like on the PS2; making reflections look more natural and correcting an issue where the big TV screens displayed a grey sky.
• Line rendering now respects the display resolution, making line thickness proportional to resolution and improving their visibility.
• Half pixel issues have been corrected across the UI, improving the overall clarity of the interface, and fixing numerous issues where fullscreen backgrounds would leave a single pixel-wide line (or a seam in the middle) with multisampling enabled.
• Improved the visual consistency of numerous race UI elements.
• Improved the visual consistency of the digital tachometer by using a scissor feature for rendering, improving its accuracy and resolving a possible flicker.
• Support for texture replacements and new fonts has been improved - the game can now handle higher resolution assets without glitching.
• UI elements and fonts with sharp pixels now use nearest neighbor filtering instead of linear filtering for improved clarity.
• Improved the presentation of line boxes used e.g. in the onscreen keyboard and Car Setup, fixing gaps, overlapping lines, and misplaced fill.
• Legend lines on the Telemetry screen now fade out together with the rest of the menu.
• Fixed numerous spacing inconsistencies in menu texts.
• Fixed a broken split-screen Time Trial results screen (Czech executable only).
• Fixed “Player X has retired” texts going off the screen at resolutions above 640x480.
• Fixed an issue where the resolution change countdown went into negatives when fading out.
• Fixed an issue on wider aspect ratios where repeated menu entries would not fade correctly.
• Fixed an issue only showing in the Polish release where leaving the ‘Co-driver’s voice’ screen would flicker the menu animations.
• Alt + F4 now works.
• Removed a debug feature where invalid codepoints flickered randomly.
• The error message displayed when the game fails to load specific game files now doesn’t freeze the game and can be closed with Alt + F4.

Enhancements:

• The game is now fully portable, as the settings have been redirected from the registry to the INI file.
• Car shadows are now slightly sharper, matching the way they are rendered in Colin McRae Rally 2005.
• Menu navigation on the gamepad has been remapped from the analog stick to the directional pad like it is in the console releases.
• New Graphics options added: Field of View (separate for external and internal cameras), Digital Tachometer, Vertical Split-screen.
• New Advanced Graphics options added: Windowed/borderless mode (fully resizable), Vertical Sync, Refresh Rate, Anisotropic Filtering.
• Changed the Bonus Codes URL to point towards a cheat generator hosted by myself since the original URLs are not active anymore.

Language Pack:

• Added support for all official text translations used together - English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish, and Czech.
• Added support for all official co-drivers together - English, French, German, Spanish, Polish (Janusz Kulig), Polish (Janusz Wituch), and Czech.
• Re-added support for Nicky Grist’s pace notes in the Polish re-release.
• Revised some capitalization inconsistencies in all languages.
• Revised Italian translation.
• Included translation lines for all new menu options added by SilentPatch.

HD UI - by Bekoha:

• Made with 4K resolution in mind.
• Font atlases remade using original fonts.
• Support for EFIGS, Polish and Czech languages.
• Banners redrawn for every stage.
• Majority of in-game UI elements replaced.

I’ve created a brief showcase of the patch in video form, you can watch it here:

Unlike most of my other mods, installing this one is a little more involved. Due to the presence of DRM-free executables, I only officially support those, and instead, I provide a ready solution to upgrade the latest official DRM’d executables to the DRM-free versions. If you don’t do this before installing SilentPatch, you will be greeted with a warning message on startup. The mod’s download page includes detailed setup instructions to walk you through this process step by step.

The modification can be downloaded from Mods & Patches. Click here to head to the game’s page directly:
Download SilentPatch for Colin McRae Rally 3 (and addons)
Please follow the installation instructions carefully and extract the components into your game directory in order. Not sure how to proceed? Check the Setup Instructions.

Credits and acknowledgments

• Bekoha for the entirety of the HD UI work and general support
• Krusantusz for help with the Polish eXtra Klasyka release
• Memorix101 and RibShark for help with the German DVD release
• LoStraniero91 for improving the entire Italian translation
• AuToMaNiAk005 for his past efforts in fixing CMR3 for widescreen resolutions
• Pierre Terdiman for a Textured Lines In D3D code snippet
• Various people contributing new translation lines in German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Czech
• abbydiode and Cpone for additional testing
• Several ex-CMR3 developers who are aware of this project and were able to share their feedback 🙂

For those interested, the full source code of the mod has been published on GitHub, so it can be freely used as a point of reference:
See source on GitHub

Windows 11 is the latest version of the most popular operating system in the world, and as long as you have a supported PC, it's very easy to install. But that's the problem: Windows 11 has significantly higher system requirements compared to previous versions of Windows, so there are a lot of unsupported PCs you can't install it on.

With the new trailer for Chris McKay's action comedy "Renfield" dropping last week, the legend of Dracula is back and possibly bigger than ever. Nicolas Cage, thankfully, is finally getting around to playing the classic vampire and his performance should go down as one of the most memorable portrayals to date. Cage recently told Variety that he took inspiration from "Malignant" and the J-horror staple "Ringu" to come up with some unique movements for his version of Dracula, and went back to study Bela Lugosi's ageless performance as well. In most people's eyes, Lugosi's appearance in Tod Browning's 1931 film remains the most iconic and most romanticized depiction of all time. 

Browning's "Dracula" was the first talking picture to feature Bram Stoker's ghoul, allowing audiences to see a much more elegant representation of the character that Lugosi turned out to be tailor-made for. Lugosi was a stately figure who used his hypnotic gaze to seduce the audience and his noticeable Hungarian accent added to the intrigue and mystery of the character. His performance became the benchmark that would go on to influence every actor from that point on. 

Over the decades the original "Dracula" has lost some of its impacts and become almost comedic in parts, leading to funnier portrayals based on Lugosi in films such as "Love at First Bite" with George Hamilton and "Vampire in Brooklyn" starring Eddie Murphy. Lugosi's flare for the dramatic also inspired great dramatic performances in the 1979 version of "Dracula" by Frank Langella and, more recently, Sam Reid's electric performance as Lestat in AMC's new "Interview With a Vampire" series. 

Lugosi himself was terribly typecast for the rest of his career in horror-centric roles following the performance, popping up in films like "Murders in the Rue Morgue" and later with the comedy classic "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein."

Born For The Role

For a role that seemed so perfect for Bela Lugosi, originally, he wasn't even the first choice for the part. After delivering indelible performances in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "The Phantom of the Opera" — a film featuring one of the first jump scares in movie history — silent era star Lon Chaney was set to play Dracula. Chaney, to be sure, would have delivered something special on screen, but he passed away suddenly before production could start. Lugosi had been performing in "the vampire play" in London for over 250 performances before debuting on Broadway at the Fulton Theater in October (of course) of 1927. The play, dramatized by Hamilton Deane and John Balderston, was an unmitigated success, and Universal Pictures cast Lugosi in the role of Cheney's replacement. 

Incredibly, Lugosi was already 49 years old when he was hired, but he was not known for any other role up to that point, setting the stage (so to speak) for audiences to forever link him to Dracula. His presence on screen was only highlighted by Karl Freund's haunting cinematography, especially during Lugosi's unforgettable introduction at Castle Dracula. Those purely gothic visuals combined with Lugosi's peculiar line delivery (probably due to a language barrier) trapped Lugosi inside the minds of moviegoers for the rest of his lifetime. Even if you haven't personally seen 1931's "Dracula," a picture of Lugosi is still imprinted onto your subconscious. Almost 100 years later, it's still one of the most recognizable images in cinematic history. 

Typecast As The King Of The Vampires

Bela Lugosi was well aware of the character's lasting impact on the culture. If he did, in fact, want to distance himself from the character, his naturally theatrical personality wasn't doing him any favors. As mentioned in Roger Ebert's review of "Dracula" in 1999, Lugosi embraced his strangeness and "foreignness" on both coasts, from New York to Hollywood. On numerous occasions, he would appear in public wearing a suit and flowing cape as if he was still in character. 

In "The Immortal Count: The Life and Films of Bela Lugosi" by author Arthur Lennig, several comments by Lugosi reveal how the actor had mixed feelings about how he and Dracula were practically viewed as one and the same. In the spring of 1934, he explained how his life had been forever altered as a result:

"I discovered that every producer in Hollywood had definitely set me down as a 'type,' an actor of this particular kind of role. Considering that before 'Dracula' I had never, in a long and varied career on the stage of two continents, played anything but leads and straight characters, I was both amused and bitterly disappointed."

The link to such a revered literary and film figure was a dream and a curse for Lugosi that he was acutely aware of. "Of course, it is true, that every actor's greatest ambition is to create his own, definite and original role, a character with which he will always be identified, but on the screen I found this to be almost fatal," he admitted. "It took me years to live down 'Dracula' and convince the film producers that I would play almost any other type of role."

Star Of Stage And Scream

Perhaps if Bela Lugosi had only played Dracula on Broadway, his acting career would have been more varied and personally fulfilling. But Lugosi readily admitted that a career in the theatre and the impact he could make as a stage performer could never compare to his astonishing film legacy. As told in the career-spanning book "The Immortal Count," Lugosi spoke about the widespread influence "Dracula" had on countless movie fans around the globe and the undeniable power of cinema:

"It is the greatest medium of expression an actor knows. While the stage is near and will always be dear to me, I cannot truthfully say I would rather be back on the stage. While it is true that a screen actor has no audience before him other than his fellow workers, he is nevertheless compensated in the knowledge that millions will see his performance at one time, where only hundreds could see it on the stage."

Thanks to the preservation of horror classics like "Dracula" and the enduring influence of the Universal Monsters, Lugosi's performance will be available for future generations to discover. While projects like Karyn Kusama's reinvention of "Dracula" is unfortunately not moving forward, the new vision of "Nosferatu" from Robert Eggers is finally coming together, ensuring that the vampire mythos and Lugosi's legacy will never die. 

Read this next: The Highest Rated Horror Movies Of All Time

The post Dracula's Success Wasn't Entirely A Good Thing For Bela Lugosi appeared first on /Film.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AMD revealed in the most recent January update that thirty-one new vulnerabilities were found in its processors, covering Ryzen and EPYC CPUs.

AMD hit with 31 new vulnerabilities to start 2023, affecting Ryzen & EPYC CPU lines

The company has created numerous mitigations to alleviate the exposed processors and has also disclosed a report from the company in cooperation with teams from three top companies — Apple, Google, and Oracle. The company also announced several AGESA variants listed in the update (AGESA code is found when building the system's BIOS and UEFI code).

Due to the vulnerability's nature, the AGESA changes have been delivered to OEMs, and any patching will depend on each vendor to release it as soon as possible. It would be wise for consumers to visit the vendor's official website to find out if there is a new update waiting for download rather than waiting for the company to roll it out later.

AMD Processors vulnerable to this new attack include Ryzen models for desktops, HEDT, Pro, and mobile CPU series. There is a single vulnerability labeled as "high severity," while two others are less extreme but still important to patch. All exposures are attacked through the BIOS and ASP bootloader (also known as the AMD Secure Processor bootloader).

AMD CPU series that are vulnerable are:

• Ryzen 2000 (Pinnacle Ridge) series processors
• Ryzen 2000 APUs
• Ryzen 5000 APUs
• AMD Threadripper 2000 HEDT and Pro server processor series
• AMD Threadripper 3000 HEDT and Pro server processor series
• Ryzen 2000 series mobile processors
• Ryzen 3000 series mobile processors
• Ryzen 5000 series mobile processors
• Ryzen 6000 series mobile processors
• Athlon 3000 series mobile processors

Twenty-eight AMD vulnerabilities have been discovered affecting EPYC processors, with four models labeled with a "high severity" by the company. The three of high severity can have arbitrary code that can be executed through attack vectors in numerous areas. Also, one of the three listed has an additional exploit that permits writing data to specific sections leading to data loss. Other research teams found another fifteen vulnerabilities with lower severity and nine with minor severity.

Because of the large number of affected processors exploited, the company chose to disclose this recent vulnerability list that would typically be published in May and November each year and make sure that mitigations were prepared for release. Other vulnerabilities within AMD products include a variant of Hertzbleed, another that acts similarly to the Meltdown exploit, and one called "Take A Way."

DESKTOP

CVE	AMD Ryzen 2000 series Desktop Processors “Raven Ridge” AM4	AMD Ryzen 2000 Series Desktop Processors “Pinnacle Ridge”	AMD Ryzen 3000 Series Desktop Processors “Matisse” AM4	AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Desktop Processors “Vermeer” AM4	AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Desktop Processor with Radeon Graphics “Cezanne” AM4
Minimum version to mitigate all listed CVEs	Raven-FP5-AM4 1.1.0.D ComboAM4PI 1.0.0.8 ComboAM4v2 PI 1.2.0.4 PinnaclePI-AM4 1.0.0.C	PinnaclePI-AM4 1.0.0.C ComboAM4PI 1.0.0.8 ComboAM4v2 PI 1.2.0.4	N/A	N/A	ComboAM4v2 PI 1.2.0.8
CVE‑2021‑26316	Raven-FP5-AM4 1.1.0.D ComboAM4PI 1.0.0.8 ComboAM4v2 PI 1.2.0.4 PinnaclePI-AM4 1.0.0.C	PinnaclePI-AM4 1.0.0.C ComboAM4PI 1.0.0.8 ComboAM4v2 PI 1.2.0.4	N/A	N/A	ComboAM4v2 PI 1.2.0.4
CVE‑2021‑26346	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	ComboAM4v2 PI 1.2.0.8
CVE‑2021‑46795	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	ComboAM4v2 PI 1.2.0.5

HIGH END DESKTOP

CVE	2nd Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper Processors “Colfax”	3rd Gen AMD Ryzen Threadripper Processors “Castle Peak” HEDT
Minimum version to mitigate all listed CVEs	SummitPI-SP3r2 1.1.0.5	CastlePeakPI-SP3r3 1.0.0.6
CVE‑2021‑26316	SummitPI-SP3r2 1.1.0.5	CastlePeakPI-SP3r3 1.0.0.6
CVE‑2021‑26346	N/A	N/A
CVE‑2021‑46795	N/A	N/A

WORKSTATION

CVE	AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO Processors “Castle Peak” WS	AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO Processors “Chagall” WS
Minimum version to mitigate all listed CVEs	CastlePeakWSPI-sWRX8 1.0.0.7 ChagallWSPI-sWRX8 0.0.9.0	N/A
CVE‑2021‑26316	CastlePeakWSPI-sWRX8 1.0.0.7 ChagallWSPI-sWRX8 0.0.9.0	N/A
CVE‑2021‑26346	N/A	N/A
CVE‑2021‑46795	N/A	N/A

MOBILE - AMD Athlon Series

CVE	AMD Athlon 3000 Series Mobile Processors with Radeon Graphics “Dali”/”Dali” ULP	AMD Athlon 3000 Series Mobile Processors with Radeon Graphics “Pollock”
Minimum version to mitigate all listed CVEs	PicassoPI-FP5 1.0.0.D	PollockPI-FT5 1.0.0.3
CVE‑2021‑26316	PicassoPI-FP5 1.0.0.D	PollockPI-FT5 1.0.0.3
CVE‑2021‑26346	N/A	N/A
CVE‑2021‑46795	N/A	N/A

MOBILE - AMD Ryzen Series

CVE	AMD Ryzen 2000 Series Mobile Processors “Raven Ridge” FP5	AMD Ryzen 3000 Series Mobile processor, 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen Mobile Processors with Radeon Graphics “Picasso”	AMD Ryzen 3000 Series Mobile Processors with Radeon Graphics “Renoir” FP6	AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Mobile Processors with Radeon Graphics “Lucienne”	AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Mobile Processors with Radeon Graphics “Cezanne”	AMD Ryzen 6000 Series Mobile Processors "Rembrandt"
Minimum version to mitigate all listed CVEs	N/A	PicassoPI-FP5 1.0.0.D ComboAM4PI 1.0.0.8  ComboAM4v2 PI 1.2.0.4	RenoirPI-FP6 1.0.0.9 ComboAM4v2 PI 1.2.0.8	CezannePI-FP6 1.0.0.B	CezannePI-FP6 1.0.0.B	N/A
CVE‑2021‑26316	N/A	PicassoPI-FP5 1.0.0.D ComboAM4PI 1.0.0.8  ComboAM4v2 PI 1.2.0.4	RenoirPI-FP6 1.0.0.7 ComboAM4v2 PI 1.2.0.4	CezannePI-FP6 1.0.0.6	CezannePI-FP6 1.0.0.6	N/A
CVE‑2021‑26346	N/A	N/A	RenoirPI-FP6 1.0.0.9 ComboAM4v2 PI 1.2.0.8	CezannePI-FP6 1.0.0.B	CezannePI-FP6 1.0.0.B	N/A
CVE‑2021‑46795	N/A	N/A	RenoirPI-FP6 1.0.0.7 ComboAM4v2 PI 1.2.0.5	CezannePI-FP6 1.0.0.6	CezannePI-FP6 1.0.0.6	N/A

The post AMD Revealed 31 Vulnerabilities Within Its Processor Lines, Ryzen & EPYC CPUs Included by Jason R. Wilson appeared first on Wccftech.

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In "Dracula," Bram Stoker's epistolary-style gothic horror novel, the titular Count is cold and menacing, devoid of the sensuality associated with vampirism. Despite the novel's depiction of the Count in a wholly unsavory manner, adaptations on the big screen have invariably imbued Dracula with some degree of eroticism. Be it Sir Christopher Lee's feral rendition in Hammer Horror films or Gary Oldman's lovesick re-interpretation in "Bram Stoker's Dracula," Dracula has always had a sensual edge.

However, it was Bela Lugosi's Dracula that helped cement the iconography of the world's most famous vampire as a suave seducer. The 1931 Universal film, "Dracula," saw Lugosi make the role his own by etching the blueprint of a monster who was equally terrifying and mesmerizing. Although "Nosferatu" is now regarded as an influential entry that shaped the vampire genre, this unauthorized adaptation had limited distribution at the time of its release. This made Lugosi's Dracula the definitive portrayal of Stoker's character on-screen, as it granted audiences an idea of how a creature of the night looked and behaved. Due to the success of the 1931 film, Lugosi became synonymous with the Transylvanian Count, whose bite was now perceived as both life-draining and titillating.

However, Lugosi, who was predominantly a stage performer, had to unlearn certain techniques that were suited solely for the Broadway adaptations of the classic horror novel. This process of unlearning, although necessary, was extremely demanding. Here's how it went. 

Playing Dracula For Different Crowds

Lugosi's relationship with the role that went on to define him was a complicated one. Although Dracula granted him overwhelming fame, it also typecasted him into parts that demanded a specific brand of theatrical villainy. Lugosi's journey as a Broadway actor commenced with standing ovations for his portrayal of the Count onstage, which was translated onto the screen in a slightly tempered manner. According to Arthur Lennig's "The Immortal Count: The Life and Films of Bela Lugosi," criticism has been directed at Lugosi's "larger-than-life interpretation" of Dracula, as his movements and cadence have been considered too deliberate and stylized for the big screen.

There's a morsel of truth in this claim, as Lugosi himself talked about unlearning the exaggerated mannerisms that made the play a success in a production interview for "Dracula:"

"There was a great deal that I had to unlearn. In the theatre, I was playing not only to the spectators in the front rows but also to those in the last rows of the gallery, and there was some exaggeration in everything I did, not only in the tonal pitch of my voice but in the changes of facial expression. But for the screen...I have found that a great deal of repression was an absolute necessity. Tod Browning has continually had to 'hold me down.'"

Browning, who helmed the 1931 film, clearly played a crucial role in toning down Lugosi's stage-attuned mannerisms for better effect on film. Despite unlearning meticulously, Lugosi found it difficult to shake off these "thoroughly settled" techniques employed while performing as Dracula countless times onstage. While some still believe that Lugosi's style was too much for the camera, I would like to argue in favor of the contrary. 

Lugosi Brought Suave Theatricality To Dracula

In Browning's "Dracula," when Renfield (Dwight Frye) first meets the Count, the terror of the scene is heightened due to the gap in knowledge between the audience and Renfield. Lugosi imbues the Count with appropriate eeriness — although Dracula is endlessly charming toward the solicitor, there is an exaggerated menace that immediately points to the fact that something is amiss. However, like a man who doesn't yet know he's in a gothic horror novel, Renfield is oblivious to the fact that the Count is an undead predator. This is believable largely due to Lugosi's performance, as his demeanor can be read both as menacing and eccentric, depending on your worldview (and genre awareness).

This deliberate, odd acting style, which is a tempered condensation of Lugosi's many theatrical performances as Dracula, undoubtedly heightens the stakes of the film and grants the character the necessary otherworldly aura. Stoker's Dracula, who Jonathan found eccentric and well-spoken, was also charming when he needed to be, albeit completely lacking the sexual element. Lugosi brings the charming aspects of Dracula to life while adding a dangerous sense of eroticism to his undead villainy, which culminates into a formidable image of the 'other,' who knows how to manipulate the living.

Although many fine actors have added their own tint to this fanged role, Lugosi's contribution to shaping Dracula into the figurehead of the vampire sub-genre has been unprecedented. Perhaps, Lugosi lived in Dracula's skin for far too long, unable to shed it off for good in the end. 

Read this next: The Best Horror Movies Of 2022, Ranked

The post Bela Lugosi Had A Lot To 'Unlearn' When Bringing Dracula To The Big Screen appeared first on /Film.

Science fiction is the exploration of our practical imaginations. Its stories can be fantastic, uplifting, and horrifying but they need to remain grounded in a scientifically applied reality -- a reality we already understand or one that's clearly explained. Without these rules governing our experiences, our exploration becomes untethered from reality and sails off into obscurity, and no CGI velociraptor, animatronic android, or puppet-like killer shrew is going to save it. Or can it? If Dr. Ian Malcolm were a film historian, his cinematic chaos theory would predict that over time, lovingly crafted cinema, like life, breaks free, expands to new territories, and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously.

In their era, masterpieces like "The Thing" may have been a little too much for audiences. Some critics struggled to see the beauty present in John Carpenter's classic beyond the gore and creatures. Over time, though, a cinematically enlightened public can now appreciate the artistry behind the chest-ripping — and dissertate the plot's central themes about the frailty of man (men, really) and the decay of humankind. In that spirit, I present to you 14 critically panned sci-fi movies of the past that deserve more love and respect in the present and future. Similar to my fantasy-focused list last month, I include quotes that match the critical consensus of the time and tell you why you should look past oldfangled perceptions to enjoy some of Hollywood's most imaginative and fun scientific explorations.

The Black Hole (1979)

"There's something endearingly human about our ability to take the most astonishing ideas and treat them in trivial stories." -- Roger Ebert, January 1, 1979

Space is an infinite void, but it's rich with potential. Disney spent $20 million to send the USS Palomino on a mission to mine "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" fans for box office receipts. It worked; Disney took in $37 million but the ride was bumpy. In 1979, Ebert called "The Black Hole" a talky melodrama and labeled the black hole a gimmick. He's right. There is too much chatter and the black hole is just a backdrop, but it looks fantastic. The artistic team created 150 matte paintings, hand-made models, and projections of models to establish a sensational celestial setting.

I get the problem — "The Black Hole" feels like one "Star Wars: A New Hope" scene stretched out over 98 minutes. That doesn't take away from the vivid visual work that won the movie two Oscars or John Barry's fun, futuristic score. You may laugh at some of the robot designs that didn't age well, or the voices behind them (Slim Pickens as a robot? What?!?), but it's a journey worth taking. The climax's "sensational visual payoff" (Ebert's words, not mine) is amazing even today and is followed by an ending that looks like an Iron Maiden album cover summoned into "Fantasia." Despite the bumpy ride, "The Black Hole" is one I'll take again when Disney finally releases a 4K version.

Metalstorm: The Destruction Of Jared-Syn (1983)

"... exudes the aroma of something desperately hustled onto celluloid one afternoon on location with limited stock and non-pros in the leads." -- Gary Arnold, The Washington Post, August 23, 1983

Resources are limited in most post-apocalyptic wastelands. I'm sure resources were limited making "Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn." It may have been hustled onto film, as Arnold suggests, but it's still done with enough care to stand out among the era's many post-nuclear landscapes. "Metalstorm" treads the path that "Mad Max" wore deep into its dust-covered, sun-drenched backlands -- and I'm fine with that. Any time I see a gang of mutant humanoids rolling deep in a hand-welded death truck, I'm calling shotgun.

Speaking of mutant humanoids, Richard Moll gives his everything as Hurok, leader of the Cyclopeans. Commitment is a common theme in every low-fi, sci-fi cinematic wasteland that shows signs of life on screen. You can tell when the actors want to be there. Moll said he reached out for his role knowing it required extensive makeup. When you get people to buy in, it shows, like when Tim Thomerson inserts a little Han Solo sidekick charm into Rhodes and Michael Preston flashes his "Mad Max" pedigree as the powerful Jared-Syn. Sure the slo-mo fight sequences drag and the chases go nowhere, but there's enough cinematic sparkle for genre fans to enjoy -- now in 3D! The Shout Factory gang mined a 3D transfer for its Blu-ray. Good luck finding "Metalstorm" anywhere else.

The Ice Pirates (1984)

"... bewildering, exceedingly jokey science fiction film that looks like a 'Star Wars' spinoff made in an underdeveloped galaxy." -- Vincent Canby, The New York Times, March 16, 1984

I love when movies make an early promise about the experience you're about to have. "Ice Pirates" wastes no time as Robert Urich, Anjelica Huston, Michael D. Roberts, and Ron Perlman (how's that for a cast!?) bust through a spaceship bathroom, interrupting an alien mid-discharge, just to bungle an ice caper with all the face-planting flair of an amateur ice capade. Canby is correct, this spinoff is underdeveloped, but its half-baked goofiness still lands for me.

"The Ice Pirates" is a satire that targets the usual suspects. "Star Wars," "Robin Hood," "Alien," and "Mad Max" all get ribbed, but this is no one-trick pony (*cough* "Spaceballs" *cough*). The gags and one-liners stand on their own, though they have a nip of boozy sway to them and range from bawdy (castration assembly line) to buffoonish (clumsy robots), childish (space herpes) to sometimes dark (baby robot cries for dead mom), and occasionally offensive (you'll see). The low-brow humor, though, isn't what drives the movie. Every street, spaceship, and cantina teems with creative life. Few "Star Wars" spinoffs from this era show this kind of thoughtfulness with their prop usage, set design, space-age costumes, and commitment from extras and side characters. The movie can be bewildering at times because of the excessive jokes, but that's also the fun of it.

Invaders From Mars (1986)

"The original 'Invaders From Mars' did something this spoof never even comes close to -- it scared the heck out of you." -- Paul Attanasio, The Washington Post, June 9, 1986

Attanasio is right, "Invaders from Mars" is not scary. However, it is a Cannon movie and a collaboration between Tobe Hooper ("Poltergeist") and Dan O'Bannon ("Return of the Living Dead") -- and that should be enough to grab your interest. In the director's chair, Hooper shows off what he learned from his "Poltergeist" partnership with Steven Spielberg. "Invaders" is soaked with sunny suburban Amblin vibes. There's even a frog-in-the-jar classroom scene. But we soon find out no one is safe in this small town, not a formaldehyde-infused frog and definitely not 12-year-old David Gardner. Hunter Carson brings just enough wide-eyed alarm and windmill-armed running to the role to make you feel David's anxiety as everyone turns on him -- even his dad George (Timothy Bottoms doing his best Paul Rudd years before Paul Rudd was doing Paul Rudd).

The first half of "Invaders" feels like a kid's version of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." The second half ditches the mystery and goes full-on creature feature. Hooper and effects master Stan Winston immerse us in a wondrous practical effects-laden alien environment. I respect the artistry of modern CGI, but it's a treat to see real hands-on craftsmanship of this level executed on screen, even if it makes you smile and not scream.

Alien 3 (1992)

"Director Fincher is best known for his music videos and his MTV sensibilities are in full evidence, right down to the film's breakneck pace and jagged editing." -- Marc Savlov, The Austin Chronicle, May 29, 1992

In space, no one can hear you scream, unless you're with Savlov while he's watching "Alien 3" above the stratosphere. He didn't like the movie. I get it. "Alien 3" is not the horror classic "Alien" and it's not the action classic "Aliens." The story struggles to grab us because it doesn't bring much new to the screen. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is no longer an underdog and Xenomorphs are as beloved as Beanie Babies. Never fear, though, because Fincher knows how to torment characters.

He crashes Ripley and a Xenobyte into a space prison where murderers, molesters, and rapists have all sworn oaths of celibacy. She upsets that balance, turning these reformed people into monsters of a different kind. Before they get Ripley, though, chests start bursting and the action takes off. Savlov doesn't like Fincher's fast-paced editing but it's a style that the award-winning director has become known for later in his career. The camera is jittery and the material has been covered before, but this is David Fincher making his directorial debut with the "Alien" franchise. If that doesn't make you scream in ecstasy, you're probably reading this list by accident or you're my mom trying to rack up clicks for me. Hi, mom!

Fire In The Sky (1993)

"... there's no disguising the fact that the first hour of 'Fire in the Sky' is little more than a laborious delaying tactic." -- Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly, March 26, 1993

Facts! The first hour of "Fire in the Sky" is tedious. It's peppered with abduction flashbacks, but never makes you care about any of the people involved, including abductee Travis Walton (D.B. Sweeney). Yet, you endure because you know what's coming: 13 minutes of what's essentially alien torture porn. Roger Ebert says the 13 minutes "convincingly depict a reality I haven't seen in the movies before, and for once I did believe that I was seeing something truly alien, and not just a set decorator's daydreams." Also facts!

The movie is based on the book of real-life self-described abductee Travis Walton but he couldn't remember the juicy abduction details. The studio brought in professional alien punch-up writer Tracy Torme (yes, son of Mel) to get under our skin –- and, boy, does he. You squirm in your seat as Walton tries to escape his alien tormentors. You want to look away but you can't because you need to eyeball every inch of the screen. Not to be outdone, composer Mark Isham somehow pulls off the impossible task of matching the disturbing visuals by scraping the back of your skull with his hollow, unearthly score. If you survive the first hour, I promise you that Ebert is right, and the abduction sequence will take you to a place you haven't been to before.

Event Horizon (1997)

"... douses almost every scene with glitzy special effects in a futile attempt to cover up a paucity of thought." -- Stephen Holden, The New York Times, August 15, 1997

If "Alien" is "Jaws" in space, "Event Horizon" is "In the Mouth of Madness" in space -– replete with a maniacal Sam Neill. Holden is correct; Paul W. S. Anderson is known for putting style before substance. But I think he finds a balance here. Anderson was inspired by "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Alien," which may be why he's a little more reserved ... for him. Most of the horror and gore is shown in flashes -- only a few times do you see someone bathed in blood. As I said, reserved for Anderson.

The story could have more thoroughly shown Dr. Billy Weir's (Neill) descent to evil instead of throwing him over the edge. One minute Dr. Weir is trying to save a life, the next he sneaks back into the shadows devilishly whispering, "I am home." What a home it is. Anderson uses full-scale models for the interior instruments and meticulously crafted scale models for exterior shots of the ships. Anderson even scanned Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris to bolster every aspect of the Event Horizon ship, as the cathedral was designed to "intimidate the populace." He nailed the space-horror aesthetic, because whenever this movie comes on, I darken the room, sneak back into the shadows of my living room, and devilishly whisper, "I am home."

The Faculty (1998)

"Some of this is fun in a low-grade 'Hellraiser' sort of way, but it reduces the script's mildest ambitions to hamburger." -- Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly, December 25, 1998

"I'm a contradiction" is a line said in "The Faculty" that any character could have stated. Zeke Tyler (Josh Hartnett) is a brilliant flunkee. Delilah Profitt (Jordana Brewster) is a clueless news editor. Casey Connor (Elijah Wood) is a defiant bully victim. "Everyone is a contradiction" should have been the tagline of the movie and, guess what, there's a Tommy Hilfiger outfit to match every archetype. Yet, if you look beyond the aggressively marketed pop-collared polos and goth-mock turtlenecks, you'll find a fully developed sci-fi horror flick.

Director Robert Rodriguez expertly lays a trap for you by not showing too much early and by making you care for a handful of characters, even if they are somewhat cookie-cutter. The script is not great -- it's full of ground-up high school tropes and the kind of hyperintelligent chatter that bogged down many late '90s movies -- but it still feeds you a nourishing storyline. There's a creature on campus that's controlling the faculty and the kids will have to do more than stand on their desks to revolt. The movie unfolds like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" or "The Thing;" everyone is a potential alien. There's not much "Hellraiser" present as Gleiberman suggests but it is low-grade fun, as he noted, and embodies its era, especially the soundtrack.

Pitch Black (2000)

"Night is coming fast. But so is that sinking feeling we've seen this movie before." -- Desson Howe, The Washington Post, February 18, 2000

Long before Vin Diesel preached about family in the "Furious"-verse, he wandered the galaxy as a Furyan fugitive named Richard B. Riddick, dodging bounty hunters and death. "Pitch Black" kicks off the trilogy with a sci-fi horror film that won over audiences, but divided critics. Howe calls the film derivative, saying its creatures, landscape, and plot remind him of "Jurassic Park," "Mad Max," and "Alien." He says that like it's a bad thing.

The cast is excellent. Yes, Diesel chews rocks for dialogue, but it works. He's a gritty former soldier who's been buried alive under rubble and held in a subterranean prison. Radha Mitchell and Keith David lead a talented supporting cast. The world is dark but beautiful, with lighting only where it needs to be. The camera work cleverly follows the action from multiple perspectives. The creature chases are tense and the jump scares are earned. Many sci-fi and horror fans may be surprised to see "Pitch Black" on this list, but it was certainly panned. Bob Graham of the "San Francisco Chronicle" gave it a 0 out of 100, calling it a tiresome experience. Of course, that same year, he gave "Space Cowboys" a 100 out of 100, so take his review with a grain of salt (or rock if you're Riddick).

Pandorum (2009)

"Some scary moments, but its final half-hour is a right old mess, and the title is doomed never to be remembered." -- Anthony Quinn, The Independent, October 2, 2009

Fifteen minutes into "Pandorum," you think you're watching a psychological thriller set in space, and then a bunch of mutants rumble across the screen and rip apart some guy. What!?!? This is a creature feature?!? Quinn is on the money -– there are some scary moments. The tension is ratcheted up in the first few minutes with a realistic (I assume) look at how awful waking up from extended hypersleep must be. The physical agony comes with a form of psychosis called pandorum that's provoked by stress — and (I assume) your situation gets even more stressful when a gang of mutants starts running toward you on all fours, armed with sharpened, fire-protruding instruments of death.

"Pandorum" reminds me of, in some ways, "The Descent." It's claustrophobic and the only thing cast in light is what director Christian Alvart wants you to see. You don't get to scan the screen for potential terrors; they're on you before you know it. The creatures, best described as a mix of the underground dwellers from "The Descent" and the Uruk-hai from "The Lord of the Rings," are the true horrors of this ship, not the titular space psychosis. The effects of pandorum, though, add a layer of tension that drives the film's climax and sets you on course for a pleasant surprise ending.

Oblivion (2013)

"Six minutes or 60 years after seeing the movie, viewers are unlikely to remember it." -- Richard Corliss, Time, April 19, 2013

Mr. Corliss, you are spot on. I forgot I had seen "Oblivion." My wife reminded me it's the one with Tom Cruise as Wall-E. Upon rewatch, it's easy to see "Oblivion" is overly complicated, with too many big sci-fi concepts that are integral to the central story. There's an alien invasion, a cataclysmic event, an escape ship to save civilization, cloned people, survivors underground, and other survivors sleeping in space -- but -- only some of those things are real. If you step back, the story arc looks like the tangled ball of Christmas lights Clark Griswold pulls out of his garage. It's a lot for our brains to untangle.

On second viewing, the cord does start to unravel. You can follow the story arc back to its origin point, and once plugged in, the whole thing lights up wonderfully. The movie is sci-f-eye candy (trademark) and those of us who've been paying attention are not surprised. Director Joseph Kosinski is behind the "Gears of War" commercial many of us geeked out to in 2006 and he expertly landed "Top Gun: Maverick" last year. Watch "Oblivion" again and look to the far corners of your screen. Take in the dazzling effects that bring this beautifully damaged world to life and sit forward for the heart-jolting action sequences. Once you understand the story, it becomes a world you won't forget.

Earth To Echo (2014)

"Even at a cramped and frenetic 82 minutes, the movie feels long. That's what happens when the audience can guess everything that's going to happen..." -- Kyle Smith, New York Post, June 30, 2014

"Earth to Echo" is not an "E.T." rip-off. It's an homage, a rendition of a classic, and its source of inspiration is so obvious that it reverberates in its title: "Earth to Echo" or "E.T. Echo." A neighborhood just like the one that felt so alive in "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" is in danger of being torn down to build a freeway, a social issue rarely explored in movies. It turns out the freeway work is a front for an organization trying to capture Echo but a group of intrepid kids won't let that happen. It's a familiar story for "E.T." fans -- especially the kids-on-bikes-save-the-alien theme -- but the directing style differentiates itself enough that it becomes its own experience.

Smith deems found footage a tired fad. "Earth to Echo" takes a refreshing approach, however, by utilizing multiple photographic formats including phones, GoPros, and video streams. The special effects also elevate the movie; Echo uses telekinesis to reassemble his ship from scrap parts that come from all over your screen. Overall, there are enough parts assembled from "E.T." that the film successfully transports Amblin fans back to the San Fernando Valley, but the modern tools used here tell the story in a way that's familiar to a new generation of sci-fi fans.

Underwater (2020)

"An acceptable creature feature at best and a waterlogged 'Alien' at worst ..." Ty Burr, The Boston Globe, January 9, 2020

Underwater, no one can hear you scream awful phrases like, "I wanna tie myself to you in every humanly way possible." Forget the fang-banging Kristen Stewart of yore. A new, powerful KStew has ripped through that porcelain-skinned doll who fawned over faux monsters. As Norah Price in "Underwater," she faces a real threat. Price is the mechanical engineer of a drilling facility that's uncovered something horrible seven miles below the water's surface and she's going full Ripley to take it down. To the untrained eye, "Underwater" is indeed a waterlogged "Alien" rip-off. Those of us who immerse ourselves in sci-fi creature features will call out that false comparison because we know that "Underwater" is really a waterlogged "Cloverfield" -- and it's fantastic.

There's no shaky "Cloverfield"-style camera to make you sick, though the tight confines of the collapsing Kepler 822 can make you queasy. Some of the movie's murky shots are too much for Burr and other critics to swallow, but if you look past that murkiness, something big is lumbering your way: an immense and intense creature feature. If you're not a Kristen Stewart fan, don't worry, after seeing "Underwater," you'll be 100 percent Team KStew.

The Tomorrow War (2021)

"... it's a big, blundering, CGI-heavy action sci-fi that works within its genre mould rather than outside it." -- John Nugent, Empire, July 2, 2021

I love Sam Richardson.

Editor's note: Brendan, you need 146 more words.

Can I type Sam Richardson 74 more times?

Editor's note: No.

"Tomorrow's War" is a clever sci-fi concept: Earthlings from 2051 arrive in the present day to recruit soldiers for a future alien war. First off, the effects are brilliant; the aliens are thoughtfully designed based on creative and real-world sources and rendered by a veteran VFX team. The action sequences are spectacles with function; they demonstrate the stakes and show you how unprepared humankind is for this fight. The people of 2022 face insurmountable odds in this battle. If only someone could represent the growth we need to see humankind, and the story, take to succeed and survive.

I present to you, Sam Richardson -- from "Veep" and "Ted Lasso" -- as Charlie!. The story operates within the confines of normal sci-fi. Yes, critics, I understand you saw similar aliens in a similar war in "Starship Troopers." I'm glad, however, this movie is not also a sci-fi sendup. That kind of humor is so 1997 (just like this joke). Instead, we get Charlie. He progresses from a hilariously nervous rookie to a chainsaw-wielding veteran. Charlie shoulders both comedic relief and climactic catharsis. The character breaks the genre "mould," and Sam Richardson, who steals the show, deserves top billing. Sorry, whichever Chris is also in this movie!

Read this next: The Most Controversial Scenes In Sci-Fi Movies

The post Critically-Panned Sci-Fi Movies That Are Actually Worth Your Time appeared first on /Film.

Chevy Chase is, and always has been, a compelling comedic actor. He can play smug, and he can play charming; he can be a romantic lead, or a buffoon. His portrayal of Clark Griswold from the "Vacation" series is a bit of a melting pot of all of those components, going from loving family man in one scene to unhinged maniac in the next. And apparently, Chase can often be just as volatile when the cameras aren't rolling as his most famous character is when they are. 

In short, Chase has a reputation for being kind of a jerk and is often difficult to work with. Just ask Dan Harmon and the cast of "Community," or even more famously, comedy legend and fellow "Saturday Night Live" alum Bill Murray.

But when director John Landis was getting set to helm 1978 classic "Animal House," Chase was also arguably the biggest star in comedy at that time, and the breakout performer on "SNL" thanks to his dry humor and leading man good looks. With that in mind, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to learn that Universal, the studio that funded the very first feature film for the folks at National Lampoon, wanted Chase in the movie. Badly. So much so that according to Vanity Fair, "Landis was issued an edict from on high: hire Chase, or else."

That wasn't an edict that sat particularly well with Landis, who at the time was pretty much an unknown, having only directed a couple of low-budget indies. He didn't yet have the Hollywood clout he'd later accrue. If he was going to get his way, and avoid putting an actor in the film he really didn't want to work with, he'd have to get clever. So that's exactly what he did.

A Not-So-Useless And Future Gesture

Now, it wasn't hard to figure out why the studio would want a big star like Chase involved in the movie. Again, Landis was a relative unknown, and National Lampoon was not yet the Hollywood comedy institution it would become on the back of the massive success of "Animal House." So how could the young director wiggle his way out of this particular predicament? Turns out, it was pretty easy. Chase was already known to have a pretty big ego; It's part of why he left "SNL" after one season with an eye toward becoming a movie star, so Landis would simply use that ego against him.

Chase was in the middle of deciding whether to make "Animal House" or "Foul Play" alongside Goldie Hawn. When Landis met with some of the film's producers and Chase for lunch, he went in with a plan. As he told Vanity Fair:

"Chevy was just being impossible and they're all kissing his ass. So when it comes to my turn to talk, I said, 'Listen, Chevy, our picture is an ensemble, a collaborative group effort like Saturday Night Live. You'd fit right in, whereas in Foul Play, that's like being Cary Grant or Paul Newman, a real movie-star part. Don't you think you'd be better off surrounded by really gifted comedians?'"

It turns out, that was all it took. Ivan Reitman, one of the producers present at the lunch, was none-too-pleased, and "furiously kicked Landis under the table." But it was already too late. Chase decided to take the role in "Foul Play" and pass on "Animal House" before the check arrived, and the rest is comedy history.

Read this next: The 95 Best Comedy Movies Ever

The post John Landis Was Desperate To Get Chevy Chase Out Of The Cast Of Animal House appeared first on /Film.

The Neil Patrick Harris vehicle "Uncoupled" has been canceled after one season on Netflix, according to Variety. The gay rom-com made just eight episodes before getting the axe; even the combined star power of Harris and "Sex and the City" creator Darren Star behind the camera couldn't save it.

"Uncoupled" followed Harris as Michael, a New York City real estate agent whose heart gets broken when his partner, Colin (Tuc Watkins), decides to leave him after 17 years together. Michael spend the next eight episodes attempting to get over Colin (when he's not trying to win him back), get the hang of the modern gay dating scene, and navigate relationships with his friends and a wealthy real estate client (Marcia Gay Harden). Harden received a Critics Choice TV nomination for her turn as a brutally honest woman going through a situation that parallels Michael's, but otherwise, "Uncoupled" didn't make much of a splash.

Uncoupled Wasn't A Smash Hit For The Streamer

According to Variety, the series that was co-created by Star and Jeffrey Richman spent only one week in Netflix's coveted Top 10 list, at the number six spot. That means the cancellation may have simply come down to not enough eyes on the series. That being said, "Uncoupled" was also a frustrating watch; Michael is casually caustic, perpetually selfish, and out-of-touch rich, but the show doesn't seem to fully realize that. It positions the season as his unironic journey towards something like self-love, but he's not a character who's easy to root for. And whatever the series attempts to say about gay dating in middle age, it's hindered by its blindly privileged, often wincingly amoral (the joke about one of Michael's friends is that he only dates teenagers) cast of characters.

"Uncoupled" ended its first season with several cliffhangers that now seem like they'll go unresolved for good. After dancing together at a wedding, Colin told Michael he was considering giving their relationship another go. Meanwhile, his friend and business partner Suzanne (Tisha Campbell) was set to meet up with her long-lost son, while the only character in the show worth rooting for, Michael's friend Stanley (Brooks Ashmanskas), was recently diagnosed with cancer. While I personally won't miss "Uncoupled," I will miss Stanley, and I hope that in some unrealized script out there, he got good cancer treatment and a new set of friends.

We're only two weeks into the new year, but Netflix has already canceled at least three other series, including the twisty mystery "1899," the conspiracy theory comedy "Inside Job," and the kid-friendly animated series "Dead End: Paranormal Park." Darren Star's other Netflix series, "Emily in Paris," is now in its third season on the streamer.

Read this next: The Best TV Shows Of 2022, Ranked

The post Netflix Cancels Neil Patrick Harris Comedy Series Uncoupled After Just One Season appeared first on /Film.

Warner Bros Discovery, whose bold business model involves paying creators to create something that they won't bother airing once it's finished, is back at it again! This news might come as a shock, given just last week, WBD CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels promised the company was finally finished with its tax write-off cancelation frenzy ("We're done with that chapter," Wiedenfels said in a statement) but it turns out that there are still a couple of stragglers left for the company to kill.

Once upon a time, the world of TV renewals was simple: you watch a season, anxiously await updates, and eventually read the good (or devastating) news about whether or not your new favorite show will be returning. But lately, that process has become grimly muddled. As it turns out, renewals can be revoked. But wait — it gets worse! You might be thinking, fine, renewals can be revoked, but surely once the series enters production, I can rest easy knowing the studio would never scrap a near-completed project. But they can, they will, and they most certainly have. Just ask the crew of HBO Max's "Minx," whose sophomore season was a week away from wrapping production when WBD announced the series was both canceled and being pulled from the streaming platform. In an even more extreme turn of events, (the WBD-owned network) TBS canceled Nasim Pedrad's teen comedy, "Chad," just hours before it was set to premiere its second season.

Warner Bros Discovery President and CEO David Zaslav has gone to great lengths to find the $2 billion in cost savings that he promised, and turning shows into tax write-offs has been a primary part of that strategy — one that's evidently not quite finished yet.

Snowpiercer Is The Latest Casualty Of Cutbacks

Per Variety, yet another renewal has been revoked. TNT is scrapping the fourth and final season of "Snowpiercer," which is already produced and was expected to air on the network this year. This adds the Daveed Diggs and Jennifer Connelly starring series to the long list of tax-write-off casualties from WBD, including the decision to pull multiple shows from HBO Max and the move to ax "Batgirl," J.J. Abrams' HBO drama "Demimonde," and various TBS titles, like "The Big D," "Chad," and "Kill The Orange Bear."

But on the bright side, this may not be the end for the post-apocalyptic drama.

Deadline reports that the studio behind "Snowpiercer," Tomorrow Studios, is currently shopping the new season, along with a potential prequel and sequel, in the hopes of building a franchise elsewhere. Tomorrow Studios CEO Marty Adelstein and president Becky Clements said in a statement:

"We love Snowpiercer and believe season four completes a story with incredible talent that will entertain viewers while exploring issues of climate change and class warfare. We are so passionate about this series that we have acquired the rights to control the franchise. We hope to find the perfect partner shortly and finish a great ride with the final season."

In their own statement, a TNT spokesperson said that the network is working with producers to find the series a new home. There are plenty of reasons to be hopeful, "Snowpiercer" fans: it seems like it shouldn't be too hard a sell, given the final season is already completed and the show doesn't expect to be renewed. Plus, this strategy has worked for other canceled titles: "Minx" recently found a new home at Starz, thanks to being produced by the network's parent company, Lionsgate. And after a plea by Pedrad to TBS leadership, the team was able to shop "Chad" around and find a new home on The Roku Channel.

Welcome To The Age Of Unrenewals

The "Snowpiercer" heel turn indicates a very particular path for the future of TNT (and TBS, by extension). After the merger, both WBD-owned networks stopped developing new scripted series, which put the future of their ongoing shows in question. "Snowpiercer," the last scripted TV series at TNT, is officially done for, while TBS only has "Miracle Workers" and "American Dad."

The other big takeaway from this news is that the strategy of revoking season renewals is likely to continue. Unfortunately, this wasn't a special one-off phenomenon born in the shadow of the Warner Bros Discovery merger. Sure, WBD has perfected the art like no other but this was preceded by a wave of unrenewals inspired by pandemic cost-cutting (RIP "Glow"). And given the slew of cuts made in the past year, the trend has been revitalized.

AMC is going all-in on this strategy, having recently scrapped the second season of the Courtney B. Vance legal drama, "61st Street," which had already been filmed. The sci-fi comedy "Demascus" also wrapped production only to be canceled and "Invitation to a Bonfire," (a series that starred "She-Hulk" herself, Tatiana Maslany) got the axe when it was partway through filming. Other casualties include ABC's "Avalon," a drama from David E. Kelley and Michael Connelly; the "Workaholics" film for Paramount+, scrapped five weeks before filming was slated to begin; and Netflix's most recently canceled adult comedy series, "Inside Job," which saw its second-season renewal rescinded.

Folks, things are getting pretty bleak out here! But if it's any comfort, just know that creatives are no happier about this decision than their audiences and The Hollywood Reporter recently noted that some writers are "calling for their union to make the corporate takebacks an issue in upcoming contract negotiations."

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The post TNT Drops Final Season Of Snowpiercer, Series Looks For A New Home appeared first on /Film.

Making a movie almost always means coming up against unforeseen challenges and figuring out how to work around them, but it's pretty rare that someone has to smuggle a prosthetic penis across international borders for the sake of cinema. The Iranian serial killer thriller "Holy Spider" faced a few difficulties in telling a brutally honest story about the dangers faced by women in the nation that feels even more horrifyingly relevant in the wake of the surge of protests in response to the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the nation's morality police.

Director and co-writer Ali Abbasi knew that he wouldn't be able to film the movie in Iran, given the nation's strict decency laws, and they ended up settling on filming in Jordan, but there were still some concerns that wouldn't occur to filmmakers in Hollywood. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Abbasi explained the harrowing journey of trying to smuggle a prosthetic penis from Europe to Jordan in order to film a sex scene, and it's surprisingly intense for being a story about sneaking a rubber wiener over thousands of miles. 

The Perils Of Transporting A Prosthetic Penis

"Holy Spider" is based on the true story of Saeed Hanaei, a serial killer who murdered women in Iran that he deemed immoral, targeting sex workers. In order to portray the lives of the sex workers with some accuracy, Abbasi included a scene in the film where a trucker is recieving oral sex, but that proved to be a real challenge to coordinate in sexually conservative Jordan. Abbasi's Jordanian producer had to figure out a way to shoot the scene without getting arrested, which included devising a way to get a prosthetic penis for the scene, because it couldn't be sourced locally. The director told THR:

"Our German producer had to fly with the prosthetic penis to Jordan. And him being German, he goes to the customs and says, 'Hey, we want to make a film. I have a prosthetic penis.' And they're like, 'You come with us.' So they confiscated the prosthetic penis, and we had a crisis meeting about this with me and with the actor, Alice [Rahimi], she's French-Afghani, a fantastic actor. She was like, 'You know, if everything goes bad, I'll do it.' I was like, 'No, you're not doing anything real. We're not going to go there. I have enough troubles.'"

Rahimi sounds like a real one for being willing to take one for the team and be an international schlong smuggler, but they ended up having a slightly better plan that didn't endanger a member of the cast. If only the German producer hadn't been so forthcoming in the first place...

Hiding A Phony Penis ... In Your Pants!

Eventually, one of Rahimi's friends was able to sneak the pretend penis into the country, hiding it in perhaps the most obvious place:

"So finally, we got a person flying from France, who was her friend, with the dildo and hiding it in their pants and going through customs. So they come and the producer comes in, very proud. I'm like, 'Okay, this is great. Let's go and shoot it.' And they're like, 'Yeah, but there's another problem. We don't have anyone who wants to do it, who wants to be the trucker.' So guess who did it."

Sometimes being the director means you have to create an elaborate international scheme to smuggle props into a country, and sometimes it means you have to pretend to get a blowjob on-camera because everyone else is too nervous. It worked out in the end, as "Holy Spider" is a dark and brutal film with a thrilling heroine at its center, and it's made the Oscar nomination shortlist. Director Pan Nalin ("The Last Film Show") was also at the interview and told everyone he wanted to make a movie about the penis-smuggling adventure, and honestly? I'd watch that. 

"Holy Spider" is currently playing in limited theaters.

Read this next: The Best Movies Of 2022

The post One of Holy Spider's Most Controversial Scenes Required Smuggling a Prosthetic Penis appeared first on /Film.

The Sony PlayStation (PSX)'s impact on console gaming cannot be understated.  It was extremely successful, defining its generation of consoles.  It was the first truly successful gaming console to rely on optical discs.  It popularized removable memory card storage, which permitted progress or configuration data to be saved for virtually every game.  The controller design also saw improvements in the form of dual shoulder buttons for each side and later the dual shock analog sticks.  The movement to CDs allowed more games to be published, the US PlayStation library alone amounts to approximately 1,500 distinct games.  Exploring the vastness of the PlayStation library on an original PlayStation has now been made relatively easy thanks to the rise of Optical Drive Emulators (ODEs).  In today's blog post I am going to talk about the X-Station ODE, a modification which opens your PSX to the vastness of PSX gaming.

The Hitman Freelancer mode announced a year ago is finally arriving this month, with a release date scheduled for January 26, developer IO Interactive has revealed. The mode makes Hitman 3 into a true sandbox game, removing all the mission pre-planning done by Agent 47's handlers and letting players take down a global crime syndicate however they choose.

"Good evening. I'm Chevy Chase, and you're not." The weekly introduction from one of the human lightning rods of "Saturday Night Live" made it plain: no one does it like Chase. In the chronicle "Wild and Crazy Guys," telling the story of the comedy mavericks of '80s Hollywood, Nick de Semlyen designates Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase as the first "SNL" cast member to really hit the big time. The braggadocious funnyman's first and only season on the late-night variety series was a wild success — earning Emmys, a Golden Globe for writing, and New York Magazine's designation as "The funniest man in America" in 1975 — before moving onto the big screen with movies like "Tunnel Vision," "Foul Play" opposite Goldie Hawn, and eventually comedy juggernaut "Caddyshack."

The following decade would further boost Chase's ascension. The "National Lampoon's Vacation" movies yielded more of the physical comedy and straight-faced delivery that he was celebrated for, whether on a family road trip, a European holiday, or a Christmas get-together. After an experimentally serious turn in William Friedkin's "Deal of the Century" (a role for which Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd were also considered), Chase went back to comedic basic with private eye laughfest "Fletch" and to great effect — the latest installment in that franchise proves that Chase's presence was key to its power. John Landis' "The Three Amigos" (filmed in the wake of the "Twilight Zone" tragedy) would pair the NY-born actor with fellow "SNL" member Martin Short and frequent host Steve Martin; their comic rapport gives the movie life beyond its time in the same way that the collectively riffed goofiness of "This Is Spinal Tap" lives beyond the British heavy metal era. But for Chase it all began, one could say, with Monty Python.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Paramount

"Wild and Crazy Guys" tells the story of Chevy Chase, standing in line for a movie in the spring of 1974 and acting a fool, in a good way. The Los Angeles Film Festival was in full swing, having screened Richard Lester's "The Three Musketeers" on opening night at what is now the El Capitan Theater. At the time it was known as the Paramount Theater, which was where "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" was running with Chase waiting to enter and take his seat. Making wisecracks and doing spot-on impressions, he held the attention of fellow festival attendees, including one Lorne Michaels, the creator and producer of "Saturday Night Live." Michaels was in the midst of building the show's original cast when a rainy night and a pothole provided his next addition. NBC executive Dick Ebersol recalls in the book:

"He goes into a pothole, does a complete ass-over-teakettle into this immense pothole, and comes out of this thing just soaked. Lorne looks at me and says, 'Now, how could you say no to somebody who was crazy enough to do that?'"

Seeing the pratfalls in action was enough for Michaels. Not only would Chase join the freshman "SNL" group that would come to be known as the Not Ready for Primetime Players, but his physical comedy would get a weekly spotlight, opening each episode of the show's first season with a Chevy Chase tumble, usually as a parody of a clumsy President Gerald Ford. The falls were both lumbering and balletic ("The Jerk" director Carl Reiner would call the physicality "ungainly and graceful" in the book), always good for a laugh — because he's Chevy Chase, and you're not. 

Read this next: The 20 Most Influential Comedy Stars In Movie History

The post How Monty Python, A Pothole, And Lorne Michaels Landed Chevy Chase On Saturday Night Live appeared first on /Film.

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Believe it or not, horror-based musicals are a rarity. Sure, there's "Frankenstein - A New Musical," "Little Shop of Horrors," "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," and "Dracula, the Musical," among a few others. But in the scope of musical theater history, those are mere blips on the radar. Considering original horror movies have raked in hundreds of millions of dollars over the last year alone, horror musicals should be a no-brainer. There is a treasure trove of stories that could easily make the transition from film to the stage. Of course, you'd have to make a few tweaks in the storytelling here and there, pare down the locations to a handful, and hire a strong practical makeup effects department. Let's face it, these days, you've gotta have the blood!

Flipping through the decades, '80s and '90s horror has an inherent theatricality to it, owed largely to Gialli and slasher influence. Naturally, those eras would be easiest to adapt into musicals, while giving you plenty of license to expand on the story and add songs, even for the killers. Whether we're talking about a good old-fashioned slasher, a slap-happy whodunnit, or a dark thriller about obsession, horror movies are a gold mine for potential musical iterations. If you don't believe us, we'll show you. Below, we've selected 12 horror films that would make terrific musical adaptations for the stage.

Frankenhooker

No one ever expected Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" to get such an outrageous treatment. Writer/director Frank Henenlotter flips tired cliches and taps into something far weirder. A real camp treat, "Frankenhooker" stars Penthouse pin-up Patty Mullen as Elizabeth, a sex worker turned Frankenstein-plaything. When Elizabeth is unceremoniously dispatched by a remote-controlled lawn mower, her grieving boyfriend Jeffrey makes it his mission to reconstruct his lady by exploding sex workers and sewing body parts together to create a new and improved Elizabeth. It's as wild as it sounds.

In the right hands, one could bring a "Rocky Horror Picture Show" absurdity and musical panache to the stage. Imagine Elizabeth ripping into a provocative "Sweet Transvestite"-rendered tongue-slider, or even a "Touch-A, Touch-A, Touch-Me" shimmy. "Wanna date?" would make a great musical number, dontcha think? Or maybe Jeffrey, as he stitches together legs and torsos, reworks "I Can Make You a Man" into a gender-flipped crescendo.

As outlandish as the story is, "Frankenhooker" also has something to say about womanhood and identity. These themes could be woven into the musical fabric, allowing the characters to have big, emotional moments. Elizabeth and Jeffrey are the obvious linchpins, but the sex workers and their hot-headed pimp with oversized muscles would need ample screen time to delve into songs about the sleazy underbelly of sex work and the exploitation of women's bodies. There's so much potential to mine, it's rather surprising a production hasn't been mounted, even on the off-off-Broadway scene. It's an absolute gold mine.

Scream

Writer Kevin Williamson has gone on record to say that "Scream" is "coded in gay survival," and there's no better medium to further explore this idea than in a musical setting. With Sidney the prime target, Ghostface has always presented a theatrical flair, from the long black robe to the way he wipes blood from his blade. Not only does the 1996 film have a "Phantom of the Opera" frill, but the deaths are elaborate and melodramatic (Casey Becker's opening kill springs to mind).

There are the obvious musical moments for Sidney -- a contemplative ballad as she remembers her mother and a "Not in My Movie" show-stopping closer -- plus, Gale and Dewey getting at least one big solo performance. In all its gory glory, "Scream: The Musical" takes cues from that "Once More ... with Feeling" episode from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Perhaps even the characters wonder why they're breaking out into song in the first place, with them trading killer suspicions in an "I've Got a Theory"-inspired patter song and an emotional send-up drawn from "Walk Through the Fire," as Sidney contemplates her role in saving the day. And envision Tatum and Stu breaking out into a performance reminiscent of "I'll Never Tell" and Billy waxing bad-boy angsty with a "Rest in Peace" turn 一 nothing short of epic! 

In the end, a musical adaptation embellishes what is already present in the script, from its inherent queerness to the serrated empowerment edge. It just needs a little musical magic.

Werewolves Within

Based on a video game from Red Storm Entertainment, Josh Ruben's "Werewolves Within" boasts an eclectic band of characters, in an "Into the Woods" sort of fashion. Centered around Beaverfield, Sam Richardson's Finn Wheeler, a forest ranger, is tasked with overlooking the small town as its residents battle over a proposed pipeline. In a 15-minute musical prologue, we learn more about the characters, their dynamics, and their dreams and desires.

In the snow-capped town, a werewolf lurks in the surrounding woods, unbeknownst to the townsfolk. When a body, torn to shreds, shows up, Dr. Jane Ellis suspects an animal caused such savagery. Through the web-spun tale, the residents must figure out who could possibly be behind the murders. Character-driven numbers include "Finn's Lament" (in the vein of "Giants in the Sky"), Cecily and Finn aching for one another (think: "Agony"), and an "I Know Things Now" performance delivered by lodge proprietor Jeanine Sherman. With the werewolf reveal, Cecily launches into a smoldering "Hello, Little Girl" performance, snarling and baring her teeth.

A wealth of musical potential lies within "Werewolves Within," a story that could easily be chopped into two acts. Ellis' revelation that the monster is, in fact, a werewolf would make an apt first-act closing number, a perfect time for a deliciously dark and mystical "The Witch's Transformation" interlude. Wound up with mystery, "Werewolves Within" makes for a musical epic with a perfect balance between emotional urgency and humor.

The Final Girls

With its pulsing emotional core, Todd Strauss-Schulson's "The Final Girls" is quite similar to "Anna and the Apocalypse," a holiday-themed zombie musical. Max and Anna, the heroines of the respective films, learn to deal with their grief through extreme circumstances. In "The Final Girls," Max is sucked into the cult classic "Camp Bloodbath," in which her late mother played the part of counselor Nancy. Still reeling from her mother's death, Max rips into a "Break Away"-type song, finding herself longing to break free from her pain and leave the world she knows behind.

Along with her friends Gertie, Duncan, and Chis, Max must figure out how to escape their slasher purgatory, all the while evading the sharp blade of serial killer Billy Murphy. "Hollywood Ending" makes for a great template for the opening number, introducing the film-within-a-film cast. Another counselor, the very horny Kurt, steps into a reworking of "The Fish Wrap" -- I mean, the sexual innuendos practically write themselves. "Turning My Life Around" would give Max that pivotal character moment when she finally conquers her grief, with "Human Voice" setting up the very ending in which the characters quickly realize they are now in the "Camp Bloodbath" sequel.

For all its campiness, "The Final Girls" emotionally pulverizes the viewer, particularly in its use of Kim Carnes' classic hit "Bette Davis Eyes." Through a sweeping pop/rock approach, there are plenty of chances to tap into heavy themes about death and grieving in song form.

Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark

Out of all entries on this list, it's most surprising there hasn't been a "Elvira, Mistress of the Dark" musical. Considering that Cassandra Peterson once fronted such bands as I Latins 80s, toured with Mamma's Boys, and performed in "Vive Les Girls" in Las Vegas, there's so much untapped potential to stage a glam-rock spectacle. "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" makes for a great jumping-off point to razzle 'n dazzle with Elvira's own quirky, hyper-stylized twists -- with some "Hair" tossed in for good measure.

When arriving in the staunchly conservative Fallwell, Massachusetts, Elvira borrows a cue from "Tear Me Down" (from "Hedwig") for an opening epic. "You can try to tear her down" rings like an alarm, a defiant creed in the face of a world that frequently underestimates her. The entire story -- claiming an inheritance from her great aunt -- drives the plot and many of its musical numbers. From the rumble of such "Hedwig" songs like "Sugar Daddy" and "Angry Inch," the stylistic sensibility aims for big choruses, glitzy costumes, and sexual energy.

Thematically, "Elvira, Mistress of the Dark" satisfies the arc from misunderstood outcast to triumphant queen landing her dream show in Las Vegas. Despite the world telling her no and constantly judging her appearance, Elvira perseveres and is able to finally express the deepest desires of her heart through song. She could have easily packed her bags and left town, but she makes it clear she's never going anywhere. Perfect musical material.

Fade To Black

"Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" sets the dark and macabre atmosphere from the outset, its dark and moody "Prelude: The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" twisting the musical screws. The 1980 horror/comedy "Fade to Black" carries a similar tone and supplies a strong, warped backbone apt to be fleshed out for the stage. Its deliciousness comes from Eric Binford, a terribly awkward, smug, and film-obsessed young man who goes on a murder spree dressed up as his favorite icons.

Each costume reveal, from Dracula to Hopalong Cassidy and The Mummy, is ripe for a grand musical number. "The Barber and His Wife," "Pirelli's Miracle Elixir," and "The Worst Pies in London," among other songs, give Eric room to play and showcase real vocal prowess. Each murder committed fuels Eric's slow descent into madness, his grip on reality loosening, as he launches into songs akin to "Epiphany." He hides away in his delusions as a way to not only escape his life but fulfill a deep, unexplainable yearning inside of him.

Eric soon reaches a point of no return and climbs high atop Mann's Chinese Theatre, soundtracked with a "Final Sequence"-type song. He reenacts a scene from "White Heat" but is shot by the police and tumbles to his death onto the ground below. With a brooding closer titled "The Ballad of Eric Binford," the show tangles together its themes of entitlement, obsession, and mental health into a wonderfully knotty knot.

April Fool's Day

Murder mysteries always make for great musicals. This 1986 Fred Walton film presents itself as a slasher, with a mysterious killer picking off the characters one by one. Set on a secluded island, the one location is easily adaptable to the stage, which requires very few separate locations to tell its story. In the vein of "Something's Afoot," "April Fool's Day" is a delightful romp and features quite a cast of characters, including aloof party host Muffy, cigar-puffing Harvey, and final girl Kit. While riffing on genre tropes, it also flips expectation on its head.

"Something's Afoot" and "Suspicious," in which the characters consider the many clues, serve as the core songs for the show. Other entries -- "The Man with the Ginger Mustache" and "Dinghy," for example -- bring some levity to otherwise grim circumstances. As each character is bumped off, their deaths possessing a particular theatrical gleam, the musical numbers build and build into the finale. When all is finally revealed (no spoilers!), the last two characters standing launch into a spirited "I Owe It All"-inspired dance number, leading into the "New Day" closer.

With a delightful humorous edge, "April Fool's Day" is packed full of suspense, mystery, and murder. The vaudeville-spun musical numbers are just an added bonus. It might be little more than fluff entertainment, but it sure is a hoot unraveling the truth.

The Fly

In 2008, an opera loosely based on the 1986 David Cronenberg film premiered in Paris before making its way to L.A. The music was composed by Howard Shore and the libretto written by David Henry Hwang. It was met with rave reviews, as the Los Angeles Times called it a "monster smash." Surprisingly, "The Fly" has yet to see a proper musical adaptation. Fashioned like "Little Shop of Horrors," a fresh iteration could lean into the absurdity of the story through glossy pop hooks and flashy set design.

On the cusp of a major scientific breakthrough, Seth Brundle bemoans his work in creating his teleportation devices a la "Skid Row (Downtown)" and "Grow for Me." All the while, Veronica Quaife struggles as a journalist in finding her next big news story. Much like Seymour and Audrey in "Little Shop," the two strike up a fevered romance, trading off verses in a "Suddenly, Seymour"-pinned musical number. When Seth mistakenly teleports with a fly, their DNA become intertwined, and soon he devolves into a fly-human hybrid.

With the story growing darker, so does the music, veering into "Suppertime" territory. And even Stathis gets a moment in the spotlight with a tune akin to "Dentist!," as the scorned, obsessive ex-lover. I'd like to think "The Fly" and "Little Shop of Horrors" live within the same sci-fi universe. Both involve outlandish premises that easily lend to bold and loud musicals. It's long overdue we get "The Fly: The Musical" primed for the stage.

Death Becomes Her

In 2017, a musical was announced with Kristin Chenoweth set to star as Madeline (performed by Meryl Streep in the 1992 original black comedy). But there hasn't been any news or updates since then. Maybe now is the time. Taking musical cues from "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," namely "Give Them What They Want," a "Death Becomes Her" musical goes big on the glamor. The Robert Zemeckis-directed film has all the campy glory you could possibly want for the stage.

The story follows Madeline Ashton, a Broadway performer who steals Ernest from frenemy Helen Sharp. Helen wails to "What Was a Woman to Do," soundtracking the passage of time as Helen succumbs to a dark depression. Years later, Helen exacts her revenge by drinking a potion that gives her eternal life and beauty. Helen then seduces Ernest to convince him to kill Madeline, who has also consumed the life-giving potion. During an argument, Madeline tumbles down the stairs and breaks her neck. She quickly learns her body can still be mutilated, requiring surgical touch-ups.

Throughout the rest of the musical, Helen and Madeline vie for Ernest's affections through a "The More We Dance" tango number and the "Like Zis/Like Zat" schmoozer. When it becomes clear they will need to keep Ernest around, they attempt to get him to drink the potion, but he refuses. The soundtrack -- including songs inspired by "The Reckoning" and the "Finale" -- are as glitzy as the costumes. The possibilities are endless!

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation

Hear me out: "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation: The Musical." The 1995 Kim Henkel picture is the most outrageous of the franchise and features a gender-bending Leatherface and an unhinged performance from Matthew McConaughey as Vilmer. The cast, also including Renée Zellweger as high school student Jenny, supplies plenty of camp goodness to make a perfect musical adaptation.

From its rock underpinnings and just hilarious conceit, "Bat Boy: The Musical" is a key touchstone for a Leatherface-based musical. "Hold Me, Leatherface" (a rip-off of show opener "Hold Me, Bat Boy") sets both the tone and humor for the show, with heavy rock guitars paired with strong '80s-style vocals. The family unit -- comprised of Vilmer, Darla, and Walter -- leads the cast of characters, rounded out with other teens like Barry and Heather. Influenced by numbers "A Joyful Noise" and "Apology to a Cow," Leatherface steps into the spotlight with songs of his very own, perhaps "Apology to a Corpse" instead.

The show, containing "A Joyful Noise" and "Comfort and Joy"-inspired songs, follows much of the film's story. Teens get lost and get killed off. Only Jenny survives, ending up in a limousine with a member of a secret society, which plotted to terrorize the public as a vehicle to transcend beyond the physical world. With songs also influenced by Elvis Costello, "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation: The Musical" is, if anything, lighthearted fare guaranteed to make you laugh at its zaniness.

Jennifer's Body

Imagine this: a "Jennifer's Body" musical in the vein of "Chicago." In lieu of Needy presenting the story through a flash forward, Jennifer leads with an "And All That Jazz" number, complete with sweeping piano accompaniment, in which she celebrates her tantalizing beauty. She's irresistible to boys and unashamed to admit it. Once Jennifer transforms into an insatiable succubus, one of her first kills takes place in the woods surrounding the high school. Jennifer lays it on thick with a seductive and sexy reimagining of "When You're Good to Mama," enticing a jock to make out before ripping his head off.

Jennifer's bloodlust doesn't stop there. When Jennifer inevitably kills Colin, the resident emo kid, "Cell Block Tango" morphs into "Schoolhouse Tango." Needy and her boyfriend Chip, as well as Low Shoulder band members, jump into the song with their own verses. Playing to the audience, they break the fourth wall and simply act as a Greek chorus, in a way. Needless to say, "He had it coming" takes on a frightening and thrilling new meaning. And how could you tell Jennifer she was wrong? Chip would get his own "Mister Cellophane" solo number, while Needy would close out the show with "I Move On," finding her locked inside a mental ward. Directed by Karyn Kusama, "Jennifer's Body" has a proclivity for glam, so it stands to reason a musical adaption would lean into big, bold musical numbers and vibrant stage design.

Stage Fright

The 1987 Michael Soavi slasher features a play-within-a-play. The characters are involved with an upcoming production based on a serial killer known as the Night Owl. When rehearsals don't quite go as planned, director Peter demands the group stay overnight to fine-tune a few things. Over the course of the evening, a real-life serial killer escapes from a mental ward and sets his sights on the troupe of players. One by one, they each meet a grisly end in true slasher fashion.

Given the premise, it makes it pretty easy to adapt this for the stage. Borrowing rock musical theatricality from "Spring Awakening," a "Stage Fright" musical leans into arena-style production and arrangements. Songs like "Mama Who Bore Me" and "The Dark I Know Well" are ideal jumping-off points for its own sort of dazzling book and lyrics. Considering the killer wears an owl head, you could riff off "The Masked Singer" and give them a few numbers of their own -- in the style of "Totally F***ed" and "The B**** of Living." Musically, all you really need to add is plenty of sexy saxophone solos and maybe some brass instruments.

"Stage Fright" has a grimy feel to it, as well. Despite it being rather ho-hum when it comes to the deaths, a songbook with a pop-rock sensibility would take it to the next level. Can you imagine an owl-headed killer slaughtering someone while ripping into a ballad? Well, now you won't be able to not to!

Read this next: 14 Horror Movie Flops That Became Cult Classics

The post 12 Horror Movies That Would Make Great Musicals appeared first on /Film.

(Welcome to Scariest Scene Ever, a column dedicated to the most pulse-pounding moments in horror with your tour guides, horror experts Chris Evangelista and Matt Donato. In this edition, Chris invites you to try The Mess.)

"The Menu" isn't exactly a horror film, but it has plenty of horrific, shocking moments that keep the viewer both on guard and off-kilter. The premise involves wealthy diners at an extremely exclusive restaurant slowly realizing that this won't be a normal meal. Darkly funny and boasting a killer performance from Ralph Fiennes, "The Menu" announces that things are slightly off almost from the jump, but there's one specific scene where things quickly go to hell, and the horrors of the evening come into focus.

Spoilers for The Menu follow, as well as sensitive, potentially triggering content.

The Setup

Hawthorn is an extremely pricy, extremely exclusive restaurant that operates on its own self-sustained island. The joint is run by Chef Slowik (Fiennes), a renowned chef known for his inventive, out-of-left-field courses. But tonight, the menu is extra special. Because Slowik and his staff have a very special evening planned for their latest batch of customers — a night no one will forget ... if anyone survives.

The Story So Far

At first, the diners at Hawthorn are enjoying the atmosphere and the fine wine being served. But the courses they're being offered are a little ... strange. For example, at one point they're served something called a "breadless bread plate," which is exactly what it sounds like — a bread plate without bread. The customers begin to grow restless with all of this, but Chef Slowik insists there is a method to this madness. And then he introduces Jeremy, a sous chef who comes out from the kitchen and stands on a recently unfolded sheet of plastic. 

The Scene

"Jeremy is talented," Slowik says. "He's very good." But the chef then adds that as good as Jeremy is, he's not great. And he'll never be great. Jeremy, who looks on the verge of tears the entire time, agrees with the chef's assessment of his talents. And then he proceeds to take out a gun and blow his brains out. The guests are understandably horrified, but some of them refuse to believe their own eyes. This must be staged, they reason. This must be some sort of weird piece of performance art. Of course, we, the audience, realize that it's all real — Jeremy just died by suicide, and Slowik and his staff continue to go about their business as if it's perfectly normal. Its here where "The Menu" truly clues us into what the heck is going on, and begins to prepare us for even more dangerous courses to come. 

The Impact (Matt's Take)

The Menu is one of my favorite movies of 2022 — genre or otherwise — so Chris' selection this week brings me much joy. I'll admit I laughed heartily through a large majority of "The Menu," but that doesn't make this display of "artistic expression" any less horrifying. The Hawthorne's last guests haven't quite grasped the gravity of their imprisonment quite yet, until one of Chef's pupils shows his and his brigade's dedication to their boss' genius. The gunshot rings as loud as foreboding dread because sometimes messages benefit from forgoing subtlety. The Menu relishes its plain-as-day themes about the toxic relationship between artist and consumer, as well as its delicious commentary that holds everyone accountable. It's cynical, sensational, and gut-busting hilarious, but also features one pitch-black adieu as Chef Slowik encourages Jeremy to take his own life rather than struggle to become the next Chef Slowik. It's such a devastating blow — Jeremy would rather be dead than continue his culinary path of pretty-dang-goodness, just not greatness.

Read this next: The 31 Scariest Movie Scenes Ever

The post One Of The Scariest Scenes in The Menu Offers You The Mess appeared first on /Film.