Nia DaCosta

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

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Dr Kelson in front of a stack of skulls

28 Years and a Bit Years Later, as 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple was never going to be called. It’s the 2026 sequel to 2025’s 28 Years Later, which came 18 years after 28 Weeks Later, and it started shooting as soon as Danny Boyle had handed over to his replacement and handed the keys to the director’s mobile cabin to new arrival Nia DaCosta. It’s the second of three, so there’s one more to come, with Boyle back in charge. Be warned, this second one won’t work as a standalone, or barely. Do yourself a favour and watch 28 Years Later first – you can skip Days and Weeks, if all … Read more

The Marvels

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Brie Larson as Captain Marvel

The Marvels, the shortest movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe so far, is also the least successful in terms of box office. It didn’t even recoup its production costs on its theatrical run. I wonder if posterity might be kinder to it than fickle cinema audiences, because whatever you think of the 33rd movie in this gargantuan MCU run, it is at least trying something new and of courting an entirely different audience this time around. Women, in short. This is a fluffier, more touchy-feely, from-Venus-not-Mars kind of superhero movie, and while that might seem, to some, to shortchange women, it looks like that is exactly the direction that Marvel high command have … Read more

Candyman

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Anthony looks in the mirro

Gory but not too scary, 2021’s Candyman is a direct sequel to 1992’s Candyman, which means it builds on the narrative and the lore of the first film rather than the 1995 and 1999 sequels. It also builds on the lore and narrative of Tony Todd’s Candyman, the first mainstream black horror whacko, someone to be pitched alongside Freddie Kruger or Leatherface in a nightmare beauty pageant. Clive Barker wrote the original story, The Forbidden, and set the action in rundown Liverpool. Bernard Rose relocated the whole thing to Cabrini-Green in rundown Chicago for the 1992 version he adapted and directed, reshaping the story to his liking – for example, in Barker’s version … Read more