Happy Sunday, horror nerds! Here’s hoping you’ve had a wonderful week and enjoyed the big game today with all of the football, chicken wings and Katy Perry.
Lots of scary stories came out this week including major release date shifts for three of horror’s most popular franchises and there was big news on the UK anthology smash Black Mirror coming to the states. Let’s get to it in Horror Happenings!
Paramount Horror Release Date Switch-A-Roo
Attention fans of Friday the 13th, Paranormal Activity and The Ring: you’re going to have to wait a little longer for the next installment of your favorite franchises. Paramount Pictures announced this week that all three franchises are changing their release dates. The much anticipated tenth installment of the Friday The 13th legacy won’t be out until May of 2016 and Paranormal Activity will not be scaring up cinemas next month but instead returns to the Halloween season that made it famous. Rings, the third installment of The Ring franchise that no one is waiting for, has been called a reboot in the trades but there doesn’t appear to be any confirmation about the actual story with the exception of Samara, the VHS-loving hipster — I mean, demon — returning to scare people via her lost entertainment medium and Italian actress Matilda Lutz leading the cast.
The updated release information is as follows:
Paranormal Activity 5: The Ghost Dimension due out October 23, 2015
Rings (The Ring 3/ reboot) due out November 13, 2015
Friday the 13th due out May 13, 2016
Black Mirror to Get US Version
A few months ago Black Mirror took the US by storm when it was finally released on Netflix. The six episode anthology series out of the UK was a Twilight Zone of sorts with all stories centering around the dangers of technology. Mad Men star Jon Hamm even lead the Christmas special that aired in the UK back in December 2014. Now, like The Office and countless others before it, it would appear that an American version of the series is on the way, according to Variety.
Truthfully, do we need an American version of Black Mirror? No, we certainly do not. Do I want more Black Mirror? Yes, I do and I am prepared to take it however I can. Plus, the format is perfect for not only American versions but essentially any other cultural adaptation one could think of. Does that society have screens? Then it can have Black Mirror. Anthology is ever popular on television right now with shows like True Detective and American Horror Story taking the medium by storm with no signs of slowing down as The CW is expected to premiere its Joe Hill-penned Tales From The Darkside reboot Darkside sometime this year and Ryan Murphy bringing the horror/comedy anthology Scream Queens to Fox.
Black Mirror is different though in that each episode stands alone as opposed to each season being self-contained. I am all for wrangling top genre writers and directors for a 44-minute short film every week. What say you, horror nerds? Could a US version of Black Mirror actually turn out to be a good thing or is it doomed to fail? Tell us your thoughts in the comments!
Maybe it’s how I woke up just now but I need to scratch that pedantic itch. Black Mirror is not a BBC show. It’s Channel 4. When I hear Spaced or IT Crowd being called a BBC show just because it’s British it raises the hackles on the back of my hackles. Channel 4 tends towards more edgy material. Also, the have commercial breaks, so that should also be a clue.