Emahlstadt

The world is about to get a lot more excellent.

Look, we realize it’s not exactly horror related, but we’re too excited about this excellent news to *not* take a minute out of our day to gush. The long-rumored Bill & Ted 3: Face the Music is officially happening, Hammerstone Studios and Orion announced today, and we’ve now got a release date along with an announcement video from Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter!

“Following 1989’s Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and 1991’s Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, the stakes are higher than ever for William “Bill” S. Preston Esq. (Winter) and Theodore “Ted” Logan (Reeves). Yet to fulfill their rock and roll destiny, the now middle-aged best friends set out on a new adventure, when a visitor from the future warns them that only their song can save life as we know it and bring harmony to the universe.  Along the way, they will be helped by their families, old friends and a few music legends.”

Production begins this summer on the new film, directed by Dean Parisot (Galaxy Quest) from a screenplay by original Bill & Ted writers Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon.

Bill & Ted will return on August 21, 2020!

Rolling Stone:

the worst installments feel like the show is simply hitting every lowest common denominator for the Comic-Con demographic and turning the volume up to 11. Both “Sonnie’s Edge,” about psychics who engage in Lovecraft-monster cockfights, and “The Witness,” about a belle du jour running from a homicidal perv, look and play like toxic cut scenes from old PlayStation games

Guardian:

If cyberpunk stories about harassed exotic dancers and distressed sexbots are supposed to be state-of-the-art science-fiction, then an R2 #MeToo moment seems long overdue.

Houston held its first spring practice under new coach Dana Holgorsen on Tuesday with a healthy D'Eriq King fully cleared to participate.

Source: The Drinks Business

A month or two back, I saw some news about yet another technical innovation involving enzymes use in beer, or another hop product, or something else wizards in a food-science lab whipped up to make a beer taste like key lime pie. These new technologies come fast enough that I lose track. In any case, it crystallized a thought that has been gestating for some time: beer is cyclical, oscillating between periods of technical change and tradition-building.

The change periods are almost always seen as destabilizing, and people living through them are certain they’ll undermine what is good and wholesome in beer. The examples go back at least two millennia, to the commercialization of beer, which home/farm beer-makers mistrusted. Nearly a thousand years ago, hops created a similar disruption. Then again during the industrial revolution, during the rise of lagers, and on and on. There are regional examples and smaller disruptions, and the history of beer is studded with them.

Of course, what was new and scary eventually becomes old and familiar, and tradition reasserts itself. One of my favorite stories is how the Munich brewers guild nearly had a schism after Spaten began making a pale lager in the manner of the upstart Bohemians, in what everyone knew was a dunkel lager town. They considered pale lager not so much an innovation as an abomination, a sop to what all the kids wanted to drink. Get off my lawn. Well, you know how that turned out.

That’s all dusty old history, though, intellectually interesting (to some), but hardly thrilling. What’s fascinating is how this new era of better-brewing-through-science does  have emotional impact and has  been destabilizing the beer world over the course of the past few years, and how it’s accelerating. First came the news IPA-makers were adulterating their beer with corn sugar (alert your local Bud Light salesman), and then last year the Brut IPAs started appearing through the magic of added mash enzymes. We have entered a new technological era, and the number of products brewers can add to their beer will only proliferate more.

This seems like an ideal moment for a chart to illustrate things: 

To add a bit more words to the graph:

1. Highly engineered beer (1960s-70s). As consolidation reduced the number of breweries over the course of the preceding decades, a ton of science was visited upon brewing. But because the type of beer being made hadn’t changed much in a hundred years, all that science was being used to produce products as efficiently and cheaply as possible. Hop research went into creating super high-alpha hops so fewer would be needed. Engineers were figuring out ways to embiggen and streamline vast breweries that routinely used high-gravity brewing, new gizmos like mash filters, and push-button-technology. Enzymes were being used to make the newest innovation, light beer, and hop products like ones that would allow the use of clear bottles without the lightstruck stink. It was a wondrous moment for industrial-scale production.

2. Craft beer revolution (c. 1980). All that inexpensive, mass-produced beer sold really well. Americans were consuming more beer per capita by 1990 than at any time in history. But the increasingly insipid beer had become anathema to a growing movement that wanted to reclaim tradition from the industrial food and beverage producers. As with other parts of the food ecosystem, the craft renaissance was animated by a moralistic zeal to abandon anything smacking of science (TM). Out went jug wine, in came Chardonnay. Out went Velveeta, in came locally-made blue cheese. Instant coffee gave way to Starbucks. And brewers decided they wanted to make beer as close to traditionally as they could with available ingredients and cobbled-together equipment. Looking around, the new brewers found beer styles and traditions that predated post-war industrial brewing, and started embracing British ales and more traditionally-made Bavarian lagers.

3. American evolution (1995-2015). Brewing is never at rest. Americans spent a decade or two learning how to recreate the beers of other countries, but eventually they began to deviate. (This was a process happening worldwide, but it was most pronounced in the US.) Locally-bred hops were far more expressive than European strains, and instead of trying to conceal them (as Europeans have), Americans began to lean into them. In the course of two decades, they developed an unprecedentedly hop-centric approach to brewing, with techniques and ingredients that helped create a new brewing tradition. Nothing about this approach was especially technological, however, but it was a crucial step away from tradition.

4. Novelty wave (2010-present). When Americans started deviating from European traditions, it freed them to consider beer outside the context of traditional styles—which, honestly, had been a straightjacket for decades. This has resulted in some very interesting beer: Florida’s experimentation with fruited Berliner weisses, an explosion in wood-aged beers, on both the wild and whiskey sides of the barrel-house, and an increasingly deft use of non-standard ingredients. It also continued the move away from Europe and came very close to severing the fidelity to tradition that marked the original philosophy of anti-industrial small-scale brewing. “Innovation” for its own sake became a marketable concept. In fact, breweries not seen to be “innovating” worried trends might leave them behind.

5. Highly engineered beer (20??-present). Things have come back around to highly engineered beer—though they look entirely different than those that ended the last era. Now any ingredient that helps create an effect in the beer is not just widely accepted, but on the cutting edge of brewing. Brut IPA is possible by the use of enzymes that were one of the chief offenders of industrial brewers in the 1980s. Flavor additives are totally kosher, and it’s further acceptable to make beer that doesn’t taste like beer at all, but ice cream, cake, children’s cereal, or chocolate milk. Indeed, there are sunstantial incentives in the marketplace to make these kinds of beers, and people who care how they’re made are increasingly rare.

As Mark Twain never said: history doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes. As products, there is very little in common between mass market lagers and milkshake IPAs. The intention brewers have in creating highly engineered beer in 2019 is flavor, not cost. That’s a huge difference. But what the two eras have in common is a comfort in harnessing science to achieve an end without considering tradition. Once you commit to putting marshmallows in a beer, process and ingredients are beside the point. (“Before adding the marshmallows, we used Weyermann Barke malt and two decoctions” is a sentence said by no one.)

Brewing tends to attract moralist viewpoints, and as this brave new world of synthesized flavor becomes common in brewing, expect blowback. But if there’s irony in craft beer leading the charge back into the highly engineered beer it once sought to eradicate, its not the only one. One of the biggest complaints of the early craft era was its amateurism. Homebrewers played a key role in starting the first new breweries, and they were self-trained. Professional training for brewers is broadly available in US universities now, and the quality and consistency within the industry is far ahead of where it was in the 1980s. But those brewing courses are often housed in ... food science programs, where aspiring brewers learn techniques to engineer flavor in beer. Proof that history has a wry sense of humor. 

If my chart is correct, the next box to the right should be another reset and a return to tradition and rejection of science and change. There are already signs of a counter-revolt starting among brewers who reject trendy beers, but it’s unclear if they’ll constitute a movement anytime soon. Sometimes it takes decades to move from one of the boxes on the chart to the next. For now, have another salted caramel stout (Breakside’s is one of my favorites) and enjoy the moment. After all, there’s not a lot else we can do. 

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Ahead of the PAX East reveal of their worst kept secret (okay, so it’s not much of a secret), Gearbox have dropped another teaser via Twitter. This time it’s for the return of one (or two) of their franchises (which ironically were originally owned by other companies): 2011’s Bulletstorm, and most surprising, Duke Nukem.

“Time to tease another game for PAX!” pic.twitter.com/iSe5PTBwMi

— Gearbox Official (@GearboxOfficial) March 18, 2019

As alluded to, Bulletstorm was originally an Epic Games property, but flopped at retail. Gearbox issued a remaster of the game in 2017. Likewise, if you’re not familiar with the epic that was Duke Nukem Forever, let’s just say that it too flopped once it landed at Gearbox after over a decade in development.

I’d be more interested in seeing Duke finally getting back on his feet (especially with John Cena lined up to be starring in a film based on the series), but the frantic action of Bulletstorm is too good to pass up, either.

PAX East takes place from March 28 until the 31st.

Created by Robert K. Weiss and Tracy Tormé, NBCUniversal Television Distribution’s sci-fi series “Sliders” ran for five seasons between 1995 and 2000, first on Fox and then on the Sci Fi Channel. Starring Jerry O’Connell and John Rhys-Davies, the series followed a group of travelers as they use a wormhole to “slide” between different parallel universes.

Nearly 20 years after its cancellation, could “Sliders” be ready for a comeback? At the Toronto Comicon over the weekend (via Flickering Myth), Rhys-Davies noted that while any sort of revival is far from set in stone at this point in time, conversations have at least taken place.

“Jerry had been pestering me for a number of years and we’re actually talking to NBC at the moment to see if there’s any possibility of rebooting the series,” Davies said at the event, Flickering Myth informs us today. “They’re looking into the basic question of who actually owns it? At the moment we don’t seem to be able to find that out.”

He continued, “I would do it again, if just to show how it should be done. It could have been the best show on television, it could still be on the air. I think maybe if we got another chance at doing it with the new technology, but also new stories, I think we could do something quite extraordinary. I wouldn’t want to do it for the rest of my life, but I would do it for a season or two if it was right.”

In the world of television, we’ve learned to never say never!

Nearly 30 years after the last installment in the franchise – that’d be 1992’s direct-to-video Critters 4… the one in space – those lovable Crites are back in “Critters: A New Binge,“ a brand new Shudder Original Series from director Jordan Rubin (Zombeavers). Made up of eight episodes, the very first Critters TV series actually runs shorter than even the shortest film in the franchise, making for a binge event that’ll take up around 70 minutes of your time.

Trust me, that’s a blessing in disguise.

“Critters: A New Binge,” which is essentially a reboot that bears no storyline connection to the movies, sees the Crites returning to Earth on a mission to rescue one of their own. The journey takes them to California, instructed by their President to bring back the missing Crite and… keep their hunger at bay. Naturally, it’s not long before they get really, really hungry.

After 27 years without the Critters franchise in our lives, the premiere episode of “Critters: A New Binge” is, well, an instantly sobering reminder that we’re a long way from the heartfelt ’80s charm that made so many of the decade’s horror movies – Critters most definitely included – such beloved classics. Even on a budget of just $3 million, Critters managed to take us into a fully realized, super charming world filled with tiny monsters and shape-shifting bounty hunters back in 1986, but “Critters: A New Binge” is playing with what I can only assume to be far less than 1/3 of that budget and it shows every single step of the way.

The series’ CG effects are so Syfy-level bad that they wouldn’t have even passed muster back in the ’90s, and the bad news is that “A New Binge” is absolutely loaded with that bargain basement effects work. If you thought the Silly Putty-looking green heads of the bounty hunters looked, well, silly in the original Critters, just wait until you see how they look when they’re entirely computer-generated. There was a charm even to the bad practical effects of decades gone by, but there’s just nothing even remotely charming about low-grade CGI.

On the plus side, the Crites in “A New Binge” are practically realized, the work of puppeteer Glenn Williams and his team. In a series that’s so CG-happy it’s damn sure nice to see some practical puppets on screen, but at the same time, the Crites never quite feel like real characters so much as they do rubber Halloween decorations that are being shaken around by human hands just out of frame. That said, I do appreciate the effort to imbue some of the Crites with individual personalities, and the puppet work is unquestionably the strongest suit of the whole series – props must also be given for the massive Crite Ball, which Critters 2 fans will get a kick out of. But more than anything, watching the series left me yearning for the classic effects work of the Chiodo Brothers, whose Crites felt more *alive* than they do here. There’s something about magical ’80s effects that seemingly just can’t be replicated today.

As for the other iconic characters from the franchise, well, let’s just say that the presentation of the Bounty Hunters leaves a whole lot to be desired. There are three of them in the series, and both Ug and Charlie – the only two characters who had appeared in all of the Critters films – are sadly absent this time around. The shape-shifting effects work is rough – the green-screen presentation of Australia, where we meet the show’s two main Bounty Hunters, is even worse – and the characters are a far cry from Ug and Charlie. In the original franchise, the Bounty Hunters were one of the most interesting pieces of the puzzle, and they were clearly being treated as an afterthought in the “New Binge” writers room.

The human characters don’t fare any better, unfortunately. The series primarily centers on Christopher (Joey Morgan) and his mom Veronica (Kirsten Robek), characters entirely defined by single traits: Christopher eats a lot, which the series never lets us forget, and Veronica sleeps around a lot, which the series never lets us forget. Both of these character traits, it turns out, are tied to a reveal that comes in Episode 6, which is so unbelievably absurd that you might have found me praising it if it were nestled inside of a series that delivered on the entertainment factor necessary to pull off such an out-there bit of nonsense. It’s either an amusing idea or the worst idea, and I’m leaning towards the latter.

Of course, I won’t sit here and pretend that the Critters franchise set a very high bar beyond the first couple films – I’ve seen Critters 4 – but “A New Binge” doesn’t even manage to clear that low bar. Your enjoyment of this particular entry in the franchise will probably depend on how humorous you find the line “big hairy balls” in reference to the titular creatures, and it seems clear to me right now that I’m probably just too old for such lowbrow humor.

Cheap, unfunny and more Troma (minus the gore) than Critters, “A New Binge” hardly captures the spirit of the films. I’ve seen fan films better than this (in fact, there actually is a Critters fan film titled Critters: Bounty Hunter that’s quite exceptional), and that’s just not something you ever want to say about the official return of a franchise you love.

I want more Critters in my life. Just not like this.

“Critters: A New Binge” heads to Shudder on March 21st.

pic.twitter.com/m1kwrl4byw

— Ramón Varela (@Demondesign) March 15, 2019

okay this is the funniest game I have ever played in my life pic.twitter.com/7l61IaHojH

— RyansAverageLife (@RyanAbe) March 14, 2019

I did scream go hero to Juice like y’all requested pic.twitter.com/437dhLpha6

— |L I Z Z O| (@lizzo) March 16, 2019

Residential neighborhood in https://t.co/oGrSxKkdNs#screenshotsaturday #madewithunity #gamedev pic.twitter.com/U60ZEKwJ4T

— ION 👀 (@ionlands) March 16, 2019

Inspired by our @ESAdevlog's recently released Baba Is You, I (@facepalmgames) implemented a little word-based magic system in #noita.

Obviously this is super hacky, captures none of the meta magic in Baba, and probably isn't going to be in the final game!#screenshotsaturday pic.twitter.com/6jhc2pU6Gv

— Noita Dev Log (@NollaGames) March 16, 2019

Cursed Minecraft mod pic.twitter.com/jCokLn5epY

— Junkboy (@jnkboy) March 13, 2019

This is some real turbo teen business right here pic.twitter.com/waZBn1ahpo

— Cabel (@cabel) March 13, 2019

Robocalypse: Xtreme Pool Master - A Fun Fusion of Tower Defense and Pool!https://t.co/zR1gm3ZigG

by #gamedev @Devastus #indiedev #gaming #indiegames pic.twitter.com/NggHCbZ1s4

— Alpha Beta Gamer (@gameralphabeta) March 17, 2019

- Vous avez un stylo ?
- Yes 😉 #XboxOneX pic.twitter.com/4j0bIXUAXZ

— Titouan #XboxTVLive #VisualRide (@TitouanTV) March 18, 2019

Me earlier this morning… (via https://t.co/4hK3VsjJyC) pic.twitter.com/8XgepDWrCV

— Attract Mode (@AttractMode) March 18, 2019

*More video games.

When Anthony Bourdain visited Houston in the summer of 2016 to tape an episode of Parts Unknown, he gave his producers a single directive: “No white people.” This small bite of culinary affirmative action could have taken place in most any American metropolis—Los Angeles, Chicago, even Minneapolis-St. Paul—but…

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As reported by Pitchfork and confirmed by his bassist to The Guardian, singer-songwriter and legendary surf rock guitarist Dick Dale has died. A cause of death was not given, but Dale suffered from multiple health problems for years—including rectal cancer, kidney failure, and diabetes. Despite his medical issues,…

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No .500 team has ever received an at-large selection, but the Horns are the best .500 team in 18 years of KenPom.com’s rankings.

In a season full of some remarkable wins and even more disappointing losses, at least the Texas Longhorns won’t have the misery extended through a full 90-minute NCAA Selection Show — the shortened 60-minute program will announce each region shortly after 5 p.m. Central.

Coming off of five losses in the last six games as the Horns slid towards and then, apparently, off the NCAA Tournament bubble, that may well feel like a merciful death after head coach Shaka Smart’s team went 4-10 in close games.

A victory in any one of those five late losses likely would have been enough to make the 68-team field. Take out any one of the bad losses to teams like Georgia, Oklahoma State, and Radford, and there would probably be much less drama in anticipation of a much better outcome on Sunday.

Instead, the Horns are widely considered one of the first four to eight teams out of the tournament as Smart’s group hopes to make history — no .500 team has ever received an at-large bid, not even since the field was expanded from 64 to 68 teams in 2011.

But Texas isn’t the typical .500 program, which is why there’s even a need to have this discussion. According to the KenPom.com rankings, which span 18 years, this is the best .500 team in that stretch at No. 30 nationally, with 2014-15 Florida (No. 34). serving as the only other highly-ranked outlier. Credit victories over No. 6 North Carolina, No. 10 Purdue, No. 16 Iowa State, No. 19 Kansas, and No. 23 Kansas State for that unusually high ranking.

Credit some bad “luck” and bad losses for being on the wrong side of the bubble — in addition to going 4-10 in close games, Texas ranked No. 350 out of 353 in KenPom.com’s Luck rating, the deviation between a team’s expected record and actual record.

It was that type of season.

“It sucks. Would’ve, could’ve, should’ve,” sophomore guard Jase Febres said after the Big 12 Tournament loss to Kansas. “But I feel like if we get that one more chance, man, we’ll make some noise.”

Realistically speaking, however, that noise will almost certainly have to come in the NIT, as only 10 of 134 brackets tracked by bracketmatrix.com have the Horns in the field.

How to watch

NCAA Selection Show

Time: 5 p.m. Central

Television: CBS

Streaming: March Madness Live

Printable bracket

NIT Selection Special

Time: 7:30 p.m. Central

Television: ESPNU

Streaming: WatchESPN

When the second trailer dropped for the new adaptation of Pet Sematary, reactions were divisive. A major departure in Stephen King’s overly familiar story seemed to give everything away in that one bit of marketing. But directors Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer, the minds behind the brutal Starry Eyes, weren’t messing around. Everything you thought you knew about this story still won’t prepare you for the abject terror and intimate relationship with grief that they’ve prepared.

For those familiar with Stephen King’s 1983 novel, and subsequently Mary Lambert’s 1989 adaptation, Pet Sematary tells of the Creed family and their recent move to the small town of Ludlow, Maine. Hoping for a quieter life that allows for more time spent with the family, the opposite proves to be true when tragedy strikes and an Indian burial ground hidden in the Creed’s own backyard provides a temptation to defy the very nature of death, leading to catastrophic depths of horror.

One of King’s most well-known, and most terrifying works of all time, how do you approach another cinematic adaptation? Especially considering how involved King was in writing the screenplay of the first film. Well, if you’re screenwriter Jeff Buhler and directors Kolsch and Widmyer, you catch the audience with their pants around their ankles. Everything you thought you knew about this familiar tale will be used against you in the most invigorating, and chilling ways.

This take on Pet Sematary assumes you already know how this story will play out, and subverts that knowledge at every possible turn. From the moment the Creed family arrives, Kolsch and Widmyer honor the very essence of what made King’s novel so utterly terrifying while taking the story in unexpected directions. After a familiar start that introduces us to Louis Creed (Jason Clarke) assuming a new, quieter job at the college campus to spend more time with his wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz), daughter Ellie (Jete Laurence), and son Gage (Hugo and Lucas Lavoie), Louis finds his first day of work overwhelmed by the horrific accident of Victor Pascow (Obssa Ahmed) while Ellie finds herself interested in a funeral procession heading toward the Pet Sematary in the depths of her backyard. It leads to her bonding with neighbor Judd Crandall (John Lithgow), the gruff old man who finds himself moved by Ellie’s sweet innocence. From that point on Kolsch and Widmyer take this story in completely new directions while retaining the core themes of King’s novel.

While many of the same story beats play out in relatively similar fashion, Rachel is given a far more satisfying arc than ever before. Seimetz outshines Clarke as the spouse grappling with the very concept of death, stemming back to a traumatic childhood with her older sister Zelda. Between Seimetz’s captivating performance and the role she’s given here, Rachel Creed is the one we nearly wish was the focal point of the film. As for Zelda, it seemed difficult to conceive anything could’ve topped the nightmare fuel of Lambert’s vision in her ’89 adaptation. Until Kolsch and Widmyer decided that instead of competing, they could bring an entirely different take to the fold. This Zelda is may be different, and yet she’s so extremely scary in her own right. Seriously. It’s so impressively scary.

For a 2 hour run time, you never feel it. Kolsch and Widmyer keep things moving at such a brisk pace. They also layer in an unexpected level of dark humor, which helps when the horror sinks to visceral, singular levels of edge-of-your-seat terror. And it does, often. There’s a level of danger that wasn’t present in the ’89 adaptation. The changes are such a big departure from the source material that it’s quite likely to ruffle feathers of book purists, but it retains the core essence of King’s themes and it always works for the better. And the final act is so absolutely off the rails bonkers that it’s amazing that a big studio release ever let it pass. It’s freaking twisted.

Here’s the bottom line: Pet Sematary doesn’t dare bother following the footsteps of its predecessors. Kolsch and Widmyer don’t bother retreading the story we know and instead give us something far more satisfying in its own right. Instead, they give us a story so bone-chilling, so substantial, and even with a little bit of humor to alleviate the brutal blow of abject terror. It honors every bit of King’s meditation on death and grief while retaining its own identity. Truthfully, I could write another 2000 words on why this is such a great take on one of the best King stories there is, but I’d rather you see if for yourself. Forget King’s novel or the ’89 film, there’s room in the genre space for them all to coexist. Go in fresh, and let the exhilarating tale of primitive dread and anguish wash over you. It’s shocking, heartbreaking, freaking scary, and even funny.  It’s worth it.

Todd Carpenter’s “Traces” at KP Projects.

Currently on view at KP Projects in Los Angeles, California is artist Todd Carpenter’s sensational solo exhibition, “Traces.”

In “Traces” the artist explores the light and shadows of real and imagined landscapes. With his monochromatic palette, Carpenter creates traces of thought and imprints of memory or experience by reducing scenes to their defining features. This emphasis on light imparts depth and atmosphere to places, or the particular patterns of repetition and symmetry that characterize the materialized world.

The exhibition is on view until March 30th, 2019.

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Be sure to follow Supersonic Art on Instagram!

30 years after it originally went off the air, syndicated game show mainstay Press Your Luck is mostly known for two things: Its irritating, cash-gobbling, Noid wannabe mascot The Whammy, and Michael Larson, the guy who set a long-standing record for game show winnings by totally breaking the game, walking away with…

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The Bloody Disgusting film library continues to grow as we’re excited to announce our second title with Doppelgänger Releasing (the genre label of arthouse distributor Music Box Films), the awesome German gothic horror film Hagazussa, which had its world premiere at the 2017 Fantastic Fest.

A feature film debut for director Lukas Feigelfeld, Hagazussa takes place in the Austrian Alps in the 15th century when people lived in fear of witches and ancient magic. It will open in limited theaters on April 19th (see theater listing below the trailer) before arriving on VOD/DVD/Blu-ray April 23rd.

Hagazussa is Germany’s answer to The Witch that has stunning atmosphere mixed with brooding terror from start to finish. Fans of slow-burn horror are going to want to settle in next to a crackling fire and let the story wash over them.

In the 15th Century in the remote Austrian Alps, the orphan Albrun (Celina Peter) grows up to be a simple goatherd living in solitude…and a marked woman. As a scapegoat of ancient myths and monstrous misogyny, Albrun (portrayed by Aleksandra Cwen as an adult) finds herself tormented by the local townsfolk, driving her to unleash the inner darkness that swells within her. A self-styled witch, Albrun soon exercises her other-worldly birthright and conjures a plague that makes the surrounding human cruelty look pathetic and small by comparison.

Here’s the official trailer.

“After researching old pagan beliefs and folklore about witches that were supposed to roam the mountain woods in those times, my interest was to develop a character that these folk tales would have branded as a witch,” says Feigelfeld on his exploration of the intersection between ancient magic, faith and madness. “[I also wanted] to dig deeper into her psyche and see her as the traumatized, mistreated and finally delusional person that society constructed.”

The film was awarded Best Picture in the “Next Wave” Features category at Fantastic Fest 2017 and has toured the international festival circuit, including BFI London Film Festival 2017, Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2017, Music Box Theatre’s Cinepocalypse 2017, and Morbido Fest 2017, to name a few.

This is a vastly different film from our comedy Heavy Trip, from first-time directors Juuso Laatio and Jukka Vidgren, which is now available on all VOD platforms and for free on Amazon Prime.

Fans of truly independent cinema are going to gush over this hidden gem.

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Here are a handful of reviews:

Stephen Dalton at The Hollywood Reporter calls the film “a spooky, stylish, spellbinding debut.” He adds: “Hagazussa works very well as a spellbinding audiovisual symphony.”

Cineurpoa writer Marko Stojiljković declares Hagazussa a “psychologically tense, visually-arresting and mind-blowingly creepy folk horror film.”

Megan Casady of Nightmarish Conjurings calls it “a moody, atmospheric masterpiece” that’s “reminiscent of The Witch.”

Sight & Sound describes it as “sensual, slow-burning and ominous,” while Screen Anarchy adds that it’s “visceral and unforgiving.”

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HAGAZUSSA – Theater locations and dates:
*Please check Doppelganger Releasing website for additional dates & info

Los Angeles (Monica Film Center): April 19
New York (Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn): April 19
Chicago (Music Box Theater): April 19
San Francisco (Alamo Drafthouse New Mission) April 19
Seattle (Grand Illusion Cinema): April 19
Phoenix (Filmbar)
Houston (Alamo Drafthouse La Centerra): April 24
Washington D.C. (Alamo Drafthouse Winchester): April 26
Portland (Hollywood Theater): April 30

Assassin Bug Nymph (Acanthaspis sp., Reduviidae)


Assassin Bug Nymphs (Acanthaspis sp., Reduviidae)

sinobug:

Assassin Bug Nymphs (Acanthaspis sp., Reduviidae)

The ant-feeding Acanthaspis genus of assassin bug nymphs adorn themselves with the desiccated carcasses of their prey.

by Sinobug (itchydogimages) on Flickr.
Pu’er, Yunnan, China

See more Chinese true bugs and hoppers on my Flickr site HERE…..

Klipsch makes some of the best speakers out there, and you can get a pair of powered R-15PM powered monitors today for just $282 with promo code MC93LRPF. Since they’re powered, they don’t require a separate amp, making them a nice middle ground between traditional home theater speakers and a sound bar.

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You're probably not going to get Left 4 Dead 3 any time soon, but you might get the next best thing. Original developer Turtle Rock Studios and Warner Bros. have announced Back 4 Blood, a team-based zombie shooter that aims to modernize the L4D concept with "new features and state-of-the-art technology." The game is so early that there isn't even a logo for it yet, but Turtle Rock said in an FAQ that it will be a "premium, AAA title" initially designed for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

Source: Business Wire, Turtle Rock Studios

Pretend We’re Football does a deep dive on Shaka’s status, what we think is going on, and we talk about Chris Beard because nobody has ever mentioned his name on a Texas Longhorns message board before.

1:36 PYGTKU

6:04 Was TCU the Death Knell to Texas’ Tourney Chances

19:36 Is this it for Shaka Smart?

33:17 The next steps for the coaching position at Texas

46:50 Chris Beard?

Freshman catcher Caston Peter led the Longhorns with five RBIs in a game that didn’t even last seven innings

Legendary novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote: “It’s a funny thing about coming home. Looks the same, smells the same, feels the same. You realize what has changed is you.”

Well, for the No. 12 Texas Longhorns, they certainly returned home to the friendly confines of UFCU Disch-Falk Field a changed team on Tuesday evening. After mustering up just 11 runs over their past five games, Texas absolutely blasted Texas Southern by the score of 17-3. The game was called after seven innings, as both managers had agreed to a run-rule policy before the game.

Typically, these post-game recaps would be an excellent place to read up on both analysis as well as a detailed account of scoring plays and critical moments of the game. However, under these special circumstances of dealing with a football score to cover, please excuse and enjoy an abridged re-telling of tonight’s monstrous beatdown over Texas Southern.

Manager David Pierce tabbed sophomore pitcher Matt Whelan to make his third start of the year. Whelan, who started the last game at the Disch, had arguably his best performance of the young season.

Whelan was able to go four innings, ultimately pitching more than half the game for the ‘Horns. In those four innings of work, Whelan allowed three hits and one earned run, while striking out five and throwing 62 total pitches.

Texas used three pitchers in relief of Whelan — Nico O’Donnell, Matteo Bocchi, and Jack Neely combined to throw three innings, with O’Donnell allowing the other two runs to Texas Southern as Bocchi and Neely each threw scoreless frames.

However, who are we kidding talking about pitching? Tonight was about one thing — the offense.

Texas Southern was actually be the first team to break the ice on the scoreboard, scoring a run off Whelan in the top of the second to get out to a 1-0 lead.

But after that, it was all Texas.

Texas responded with four runs in the bottom of the second, utilizing four walks and two hit batters to their advantage. Somehow, the Longhorns were able to score four runs with just one hit in the inning, a single from sophomore third baseman Ryan Reynolds.

The third inning provided a little more fireworks for the fans in burnt orange.

Texas plated five more runs to extend the lead to 9-1, this time using their bats in lieu of patience and favorable pitch counts. Reynolds singled again, and senior first baseman Tate Shaw was hit by a pitch to put two runners on. Senior shortstop Masen Hibbeler drove in the first run of the inning with an RBI double to left field.

After freshman second baseman Lance Ford got on base with an infield single, the bases were loaded for freshman catcher Caston Peter. Steppping up to the plate, and the moment, Peter ripped a two-run double down the right field line for his first RBI of the season.

The scoring wasn’t not quite over, and not to be outdone himself, freshman left fielder Eric Kennedy capped off the inning with his own two-run double to right field.

Texas added a mere single run to their lead in the fifth inning with an RBI single by junior right fielder Austin Todd to push the game to 10-1. Texas Southern responded in their next time up with two runs in the sixth to cut the lead to 10-3.

At that point, Texas decided enough was enough, proceeding with their best offensive performance in a single inning this season and bludgeoning the Tigers in the sixth inning by scoring seven runs.

Peter, who already had knocked in his first two RBIs of the season, one-upped himself by knocking in three more to go along with his first home run of the season to score the first three runs of the inning.

Four more runs scored, with two coming via a throwing error on a ball hit by sophomore designed hitter Zach Zubia, and two coming off of singles.

Texas and Texas Southern took the field for the top of the seventh, but Neely retired the side and the game was called after 6.5 innings of play — Texas had defeated the Texas Southern Tigers by virtue of a pre-determined run rule, final score 17-3.

Now, before you celebrate this victory too hard, keep in mind that Texas Southern wasn’t exactly, how you say, a good opponent. The Tigers came into tonight’s game sporting a 2-10 record, and allowed on average 13.5 runs per game. A victory this large, quite honestly, should have been expected from Longhorns fans out of respect to what Texas has done so far this season.

However, that doesn’t make this victory any less a reason to praise individual performances or take positive momentum into a huge conference opening series against Texas Tech this weekend.

Peter had his biggest game of his career, and lineup mainstays such as Hibbeler, Reynolds, and Kennedy all had a multi-hit game and were responsible for at least two runs a piece in tonight’s win. Junior center fielder Duke Ellis continued his hot start to the season with a 2-for-4 performance, including a walk and two runs. Todd added another RBI to his team-leading total of 21. Whelan turned in a great start, as Texas continues to search for it’s best midweek starter and fourth option on the mound.

Sure, it was Texas Southern. Saying they’re bad this season might actually be a compliment. Noting that Texas only scored 17 runs is, perhaps, a legitimate complaint.

But it’s a midweek game. These can be weird. This was the final game before a five-game stretch of facing No. 11 Texas Tech and No. 14 Arkansas. If this was the final tune-up before facing some of college baseball’s big boys — you take this result, and the positives with it.

Enjoy tonight, Horns fans. Because the real fun is just about to begin.

Texas will turn their attention to hosting Texas Tech this weekend for a three-game series to kick off conference play. Texas Tech, the preseason favorite to win the Big 12, will undoubtedly be a tough opponent in what could be a pivotal, conference-deciding series. Taking at least two out of three games at home against Tech could be a necessity if Texas has any hope of repeating as Big 12 Champions.

Check back here for your preview of the Texas Tech series later in the week, and for the latest news and rumors surrounding the Texas baseball team, and all other going-ons on and around the Forty Acres.

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NIN:

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