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Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Anora (Sean Baker)

Sean Baker’s Anora expands his filmmaking vision, pushing the writer-director-editor’s fifth consecutive story on sex workers into a higher plane of awards and commercial success. It’s a romantic comedy, a madcap dash around New York City, a movie ruminating on loss, love, and class disparity. Baker aims to put audiences through a ringer of emotional swings, ending with a desolation that’s been building in the background, easier to spot once the tinsel’s shimmer fades. With a true star-making performance from Mikey Madison and a deep bench of supporting actors, Anora whirls until suddenly it doesn’t, and all that’s left is earned, resonant silence from both its characters and audience. – Michael F.

Where...

Demi Moore is getting some of the most acclaim of her career, and it's thanks to her work in a genre that critics usually don't heap praise on. Moore has won several accolades for her performance in one of 2024's most important horror movies, The Substance, proving the impact of the body horror feature that blew everybody's mind last year. The most recent win was at the Critics' Choice Awards, where Moore won in the Best Actress category. During her speech, the actor was noticeably moved by the recognition, and used the opportunity to share some love for horror, the movie genre Hollywood usually forgets about every year when award season comes around.

In The Substance, Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle, a faded Hollywood star whose career has seen better days. Elisabeth is offered the chance to be relevant again and possibly save her career. She only needs to use "The Substance,...

2024 delivered an incredible lineup of horror films, including A Quiet Place: Day One, Abigail, Alien: Romulus, Heretic, MaXXXine, Trap, Smile 2, The Substance and Nosferatu. Yet, one movie from last year truly rose above the rest. That film is Longlegs, starring Maika Monroe and Nicolas Cage. After leaving theaters, fans eagerly waited for its arrival on streaming. Now, that day is finally here.

Longlegs is now available to stream, but not for everyone. On Jan. 8, 2025, the smash-hit horror film became available to watch on Prime Video but only in select locations. Those locations are Prime Video in the U.K. and Ireland. With only these two locations having access at the moment, this leaves fans outside those regions in suspense. They're stuck having to resort to alternative methods to watch the film.

For example, the only way people in the U.S. can watch Longlegs is by renting or buying it on digital platforms.

2024 was a slightly odd year for horror movies. Audiences and horror fans were completely divided on some of the most critically acclaimed films of the genre. Many of the best horror films went completely under the radar and remain obscure. Arguably the biggest horror release (Nosferatu) was a remake of a century-old film. Most others were just decent, fun, but slightly forgettable films. That somewhat applies to the Carrie-Anne Moss and Douglas Smith movie, Die Alone, but its grim world-building and nasty ending prevent it from being forgettable. That, and a wonderfully memorable performance from Frank Grillo.

While Grillo led his own fun horror movie in 2024 (Werewolves), he only appears for a bit in the final act of Die Alone, but it's a crucial scene and a brilliant little performance from an actor who is usually a much bigger part of things. His inclusion is a testament to the film's strong writing and unusual narrative,...

After her 2021 breakout with The Worst Person in the World, Renate Reinsve’s 2022 and 2023 seemed fairly quiet, but she was working on no shortage of projects that finally saw the light of day. Following A Different Man, Handling the Undead, Another End, and Presumed Innocent, she leads Armand, which marks the feature debut from Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel, grandson of Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman. Norway’s selection for Best International Film was picked up by IFC, who have unveiled a new trailer ahead of its limited release on February 7 and wide opening on February 14.

Here’s the synopsis: “When defamed actress Elisabeth (Renate Reinsve) is abruptly called into a parent-teacher meeting after hours, she is presented with scathing allegations that trigger a tangled web of accusations between parents and faculty. As Elisabeth struggles to uncover the truth amid the empty school rooms and dark corridors, a chaotic fight for redemption arises where desire,...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences announced on Monday the 207 feature films eligible for Best Picture consideration, two days before voting for the 2025 Oscar nominations begins.

There are 323 feature films eligible for the Academy Awards, but just 207 met the Best Picture competition eligibility requirements.

As stated by the Academy in a press release, “To be eligible for consideration in the general entry categories, under rules implemented for the 97th Academy Awards year, feature films must open in a commercial motion picture theater in at least one of six U.S. metropolitan areas: Los Angeles County; the City of New York; the Bay Area; Chicago, Illinois; Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas; and Atlanta, Georgia, between Jan. 1, 2024, and Dec. 31, 2024, and complete a minimum qualifying run of seven consecutive days in the same venue. Feature films must have a running time of more than 40 minutes.”

But Best Picture eligibility is different. Films under consideration...

The fall/holiday season will see the release of several awards contenders shot on Kodak film: Pablo Larraín’s “Maria,” Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu,” Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist, and Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer.”

Kodak, which had a momentous 2023 with more than 60 movies shot on film, also has Sean Baker’s “Anora” and Guadagnino’s “Challengers” as Oscar and ASC 35mm hopefuls.

Kodak had eight on-film premieres in competition at the 81st Venice Festival: “Maria,” “Queer,” “The Brutalist,” Athina Rachel Tsangari’s “Harvest,” Alex Ross Perry’s “Pavements,” Giovanni Perrier Tortorici’s “Diciannove,” Déa Kulumbegashvili’s “April,” and Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here.”

Prior to that, Kodak had 33 on-film premieres at Cannes. These included nine winners, including “Anora,” which earned the Palme d’Or prize; Matthew Rankin’s “Universal Language,” which took the first Directors’ Fortnight Audience Award; and “Grand Tour,” which grabbed Best Director for Miguel Gomes. In addition, Yorgos...

After her 2021 breakout in The Worst Person in the World, Renate Reinsve’s 2022 and 2023 seemed fairly quiet for the viewer, but she was working on no shortage of projects that finally saw the light of day this year. Following A Different Man, Handling the Undead, Another End, and Presumed Innocent, she leads Armand, which marks the feature debut from Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel, the grandson of Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman. Norway’s selection for Best International Film was picked up by IFC, who have unveiled the first trailer and news that they’ll release the Cannes selection for a qualifying run in NYC starting November 29, followed by a limited release on February 7 and a wide release on February 14 next year.

Here’s the synopsis: “When defamed actress Elisabeth (Renate Reinsve) is abruptly called into a parent-teacher meeting after hours, she is presented with scathing allegations that trigger a tangled web...

Could “Challengers,” which moved from an awards season slot last year due to the strikes to a less prestigious March release date this year, actually be a contender after all? The psychosexual tennis drama generated a lot of buzz and a fairly impressive box office performance, and it wouldn’t be crazy to wonder if nominations for Zendaya (Best Actress), Josh O’Connor (Best Supporting Actor), and Justin Kuritzkes (Best Original Screenplay) are possible. Ok, they’re admittedly pretty unlikely, but we do predict that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross should be nominated for their pounding electronic score. The film is now available to stream on Prime Video.

“Challengers,” which hails from director Luca Guadagnino, is about a bizarre love triangle between Tashi (Zendaya), a tennis phenom whose career was derailed by an injury, her husband Art (Mike Faist), who became a superstar under her tutelage but is exhausted by his life,...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Blink Twice (Zoë Kravitz)

Over a close-up of a turtle, ominous sound design builds at such a deep frequency that the walls of a press-screening room in Beverly Hills began rattling. Once the shaking stopped and it’s realized this was not the third Los Angeles earthquake in as many weeks, the setup of Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut Blink Twice is doled out in impressively economical fashion: Rent is due for Frida (Naomie Ackie) and Jess (Alia Shawkat). Rather than pay up and keep the wheels spinning in their going-nowhere-fast lives, Frida has a plan: retrieving a hidden wad of bills, she purchases gowns so she and Jess can crash a fancy gala after their waitress shifts end. Looking suitably glamorous,...

The Walking Dead is often lauded for its use of the gruesome zombie plague trope to weave powerful human dramas. However, the massive franchise does not have a monopoly on heartbreaking horror stories, and Handling the Undead is here to prove it. The latest adaptation of a John Ajvide Lindqvist novel the author who gave us Let the Right One In explores themes of grief and closure through the stories of families whose recently-lost loved ones begin to return...but not as they once were.

Any George Romero fan knows that the graveyard is fertile ground for social statements, and filmmaker Thea Hvistendahl definitely got the memo. Her adaptation of Lindqvist's second novel uses the care and feeding of cannibal corpses as a metaphor for the elusiveness of closure when wounds won't heal and memories refuse to die. Hvistendahl's grasp of this difficult subject matter makes her first feature film...

From Aug. 17-23, the charming coastal town of Haugesund, Norway, will showcase 76 films and 21 shorts in the newly renovated Edda film hub, offering two extra screening rooms, bringing the total halls to seven.

“We are looking forward to using the two new luxury halls and giving both the films and the audience a quality experience,” said festival honcho Tonje Hardersen.

Many of the high-quality features will screen in the festival’s main program, including several Cannes entries making their Norwegian premiere, such as “All We Imagine as Light,” “The Substance,” “Wild Diamond,” “The Girl with the Needle” and “When the Light Breaks.”

Among the four world premieres, three hail from Norway, a nation that boasts an enviable list of 2024 fest winners, such as Sundance’s “A New Kind of Wilderness,” “Handling the Undead,” Berlin’s “Sex” and Karlovy Vary’s “Loveable,” all lined up for Haugesund as well.

“Once again,...

Thea Hvistendahl’s atmospheric slow-burn “Handling the Undead” took top honors at this year’s Neuchatel International Fantastic Film Festival (Nifff), claiming the festival’s H.R. Giger “Narcisse” prize alongside the Silver Méliès for best fantastic European feature.

Toplined by “The Worst Person in the World” stars Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie, director Thea Hvistendahl’s feature debut repurposes walking-dead tropes, reimagining the traditional zombie movie as a more ambient reflection on family grief.

“Full of frail, mortal feeling and overcast last-days imagery, ‘Handling the Undead’ lingers coolly in the bones longer than many zombie films that offer more immediate, grisly gratification,” Variety’s Guy Lodge wrote out of Sundance. “It’s a living-dead nightmare with a brain and a heart, and, most importantly and indelibly, a soul.”

This year’s international jury – made up of sci-fi author Saul Pandelakis, filmmakers Ishan Shukla and João Pedro Rodrigues, festival programmer Annick Mahnert,...

“Handling the Undead” is a horror movie directed by Thea Hvistendahl starring Renate Reinsve, Anders Danielsen Lie, Bahar Pars and Bjørn Sundquist.

“Handling the Undead” is a horror film directed by Thea Hvistendahl and starring Renate Reinsve, Anders Danielsen Lie, Bahar Pars, and Bjørn Sundquist. Life surprises us, and that has happened with the title that concerns us today, “Handling the Undead,” a movie with many virtues that, at the same time, and contradictorily, a great drawback: it doesn’t resemble George A. Romero’s 1968 classic, Night of the Living Dead.

“Handling the Undead” is a talent-packed movie that takes the zombie and horror genre to a more intellectual, almost reflective state, stylized visually, and hitting the horror cinema stuck in clichés of all kinds, various scares, and bloody scenes.

“Handling the Undead” is a film that seeks to go beyond zombies and go beyond horror cinema with a movie without scares,...

Quite unlike what the title might suggest, Thea Hvistendahl’s Norwegian zombie film isn’t as interested in the undead as it is in the living. Grief doesn’t burden the dead. And since Handling the Undead, an adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel of the same name, is essentially a stoic observer of what people do when they lose someone close to them, grief is all there is to see. Hvistendahl’s film demands introspection as it puts you at the center of a three-way junction, with each direction leading to a singular experience—the dead coming back to those who love them dearly.

Spoiler Alert

What Is The Film About?

Considering the scarcity of spoken words in Handling the Undead, intruding into the headspaces of the people the film follows is your only shot at understanding it. The three families dealing with a wretched loss are connected by nothing else.

Just when you thought you already had enough horror movies to catch up on, six more brand new ones have arrived this week, featuring Russell Crowe, a vampire, and the living dead.

Here’s all the new horror released June 17 – June 23, 2024!

For daily reminders about new horror releases, be sure to follow @HorrorCalendar.

Based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist (Let the Right One In), Neon brought the horror-drama Handling the Undead home this past Tuesday. It’s now available on VOD.

In the film, “On a hot summer day in Oslo, the dead mysteriously awaken, and three families are thrown into chaos when their deceased loved ones come back to them. Who are they, and what do they want? A family is faced with the mother’s reawakening before they have even mourned her death after a car accident; an elderly woman gets the love of her life...

Stars: Renate Reinsve, Bjørn Sundquist, Bente Børsum, Anders Danielsen Lie, Bahar Pars | Written by Thea Hvistendahl, John Ajvide Lindqvist | Directed by Thea Hvistendahl

After a strange electrical storm, three separate families in the same Norwegian town find that their relatives — who have all recently died — have come back to live. Trying to navigate how to live with their dearly departed, each family is confronted by its own sense of grief, loss and love.

If that reads like a loaded synopsis to you, you’re right. Far from the comedic throes of Shaun of the Dead or the traditional horror of Night of the Living Dead, Handling the Undead is a zombie movie we’ve never seen before. Instead of running with terror, thrills or humour, director Thea Hvistendahl chooses to focus on a melancholic sense of brooding. Out of all the zombie films that exist, this is the closest to reality,...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Aftersun (Charlotte Wells)

One of the 2022’s most resonant films, Aftersun looks at the scratchy dynamics between a father and daughter while on vacation. It’s about memory, the finite nature of the relationships in our lives, and the difficulties of a parent’s diminishing mental health. Charlotte Wells knows where to put the camera in her debut—undeterred from taking risks, from placing her characters outside of the frame, from looking at shadows instead of the people themselves. Aftersun is a rare, tremendous first film, full of heart and focused melancholy; it breaks you down and fills you up simultaneously. The consistent inclusion of camcorder footage, and the fact that it enhances the story rather than becoming a distraction, further proclaims...

The dramatic horror film Handling The Undead goes into a wider release this coming Friday. We had the opportunity to speak with the director and co-writer, Norwegian filmmaker Thea Hvistendahl about their debut feature film.    We talk about themes in the film such as second chances and sorrow, adpating John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel to screen, and what it meant to premiere at Sundance.   And do not worry horror nerds because at the end we did go into what it took to create the recently deceased son of Renate Reinsve's character, Anna. It's one of the best child puppets I've seen since Demian Rugna's Terrified. Even better because this time a whole crew was involved in making it animated.    Check out the interview...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Quick Links Handling the Undead Has a Slower Pace With Bigger Pay-Off A New Approach to Handling the Undead

Director Thea Hvistendahl wanted to make a movie about how grief-stricken people would cope with getting their loved ones back, even if they've returned as the undead. Or, as weve all come to know them, zombies. Its a fabulous premise for a psychological horror film in a genre wrought with retreads, but in Hvistendahls inventive new outing, Handling the Undead, that horror is superbly understated. The most terrifying thing about this Norwegian horror mystery is knowing what the living dead are capable of, as the filmmaker delicately moves us through 90 minutes thats light on dialogue yet loaded with intrigue.

Written by Hvistendahl and John Ajvide Lindquist (Let the Right One In), the drama stars Renate Reinsve, Anders Danielsen Lie, Bjrn Sundquis, Bente Brsum, Bahar Pars, and Inesa Dauksta. We begin the...

Plot: On a hot summer day in Oslo, the dead mysteriously awaken, and three families are thrown into chaos when their deceased loved ones come back to them. Who are they, and what do they want?

Review: Zombies have had a prominent place in horror for nearly a century. What started with more voodoo origins became the shambling undead of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. And that’s pretty much where zombies have stayed. Sure, the running variant has been added to the picture, but they still operate in much of the same way: aggressive eating of any human in sight. And in the same way he was able to do with Let The Right One In, screenwriter John Ajvide Lindqvist provides a new take on zombies in Handling the Undead.

Following three families after they deal with a tragic loss, a strange power phenomenon results in...

May comes to a close with a quieter weekend full of odds and ends and nothing particularly wide in terms of studio releases. Read on for Gold Derby’s box office preview.

After a fairly disappointing Memorial Day weekend, the month ends with a number of moderately wide releases. Since most of these new films are smaller, few theater counts have been reported, making it tougher to determine how some of them might perform, though it’s likely that only one will be getting a wide enough release to potentially break into the Top 5. Otherwise, we’re looking at a repeat of the Top 4 with the slightest chance that “The Garfield Movie” might pass “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” with few of the new releases targeting family audiences.

The one movie that has the best chance at cracking the Top 5 would probably be Crunchyroll’s latest Anime feature “Haikyu!! The Dumpster Battle,...

Neon has picked up the North American rights to Sentimental Value, the upcoming film from Norwegian director Joachim Trier that reteams him with Renate Reinsve, star of Trier’s 2021 hit The Worst Person in the World.

Trier and Worst Person in the World co-writer Eskil Vogt penned the screenplay to Sentimental Value, a family drama about two sisters forced to deal with their estranged father after the death of their mother. Sentimental Value is set to begin principal photography in August in Norway and France. Neon is planning a 2025 theatrical release.

Maria Ekerhovd, who made The Hollywood Reporter‘s 2024 list of the 40 most powerful women in international film, is producing Sentimental Value for Mer Film in Norway, alongside Andrea Berentsen Ottmar for Eye Eye Pictures, Lizette Jonjic and Sisse Graum for Zentropa, Juliette Schrameck for Agat Films, Nathanaël Karmitz and Elisha Karmitz for Mk Production and Janine Jackowski and Jonas Dornbach for Komplizen Film.

Norwegian director Thea Hvistendahl’s zombie movie “Handling the Undead,” premiering at Sundance and to be released in the U.S. by Neon, sees the reunion of Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie, the stars of Oscar-nominated “The Worst Person in the World,” in a poetic, visually-charged chronicling of a hot summer’s day in Oslo when the dead mysteriously come back to life.

Hvistendahl’s feature debut, an adaptation of the eponymous novel by “Let the Right One In” author John Ajvide Lindqvist, is not your conventional zombie movie. “It’s very important to mention to people who are going to see it that they shouldn’t expect the regular zombie flick. I made the film with the zombie genre in mind, and wanted to subvert some of the classic tropes, but if people are only looking for a thrill, this film might not be it!,” quips the director.

Exclusive: Neon has prebought North American rights to Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, the latest project from the Norwegian director that stars Renate Reinsve.

It marks the second collaboration for Neon, Trier and Reinsve after 2021’s The Worst Person In The World, which was nominated for a Best International Feature Oscar in 2022 as well as Best Original Screenplay. That project also played in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival the year prior, where it earned Reinsve the Best Actress Award.

Eskil Vogt and Trier wrote the screenplay of Sentimental Value, which is described as a family drama about two sisters forced to deal with their estranged father following the death of their mother. Neon is planning a 2025 theatrical release for the title.

The film is produced by Maria Ekerhovd for Mer Film, Andrea Berentsen Ottmar for Eye Eye Pictures, Lizette Jonjic and Sisse Graum for Denmark/Sweden’s Zentropa, Juliette Schrameck for Agat Films,...

Before making Joachim Trier’s 2021 hit The Worst Person in the World, Renate Reinsve was about to jack it all in. Three years later — after A Different Man, with Sebastian Stan, Another Life, with Gael García Bernal, and Handling the Undead, a chiller from Let the Right One In writer John Ajvide Lindqvist — she now finds herself not just back in Cannes but doing double duty at the Sundance, Berlin and Tribeca film festivals (“It’s a running joke that I have two movies everywhere”). Reinsve takes the lead in the Swedish drama Armand, directed by Ingmar Bergman’s grandson Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel.

Deadline: What can you tell us about how you were cast in Armand?

Renate Reinsve: Halfdan, the director, approached me 10 years ago, and we did a short movie together. I think we did it in two days. Afterwards, we both stood there with tears in our eyes,...

It was a totally unexpected day for movie fans on May 8, 2024 - a bunch of new trailers and interesting release information were dropped out of nowhere. There are horror movies like Beezel and Handling the Undead, a major documentary with The Grab, and a final, big trailer for Twisters. Jude Law is totally unrecognizable in the new Alicia Vikander movie, Firebrand, and Lily Gladstone and Chuck Norris return in different films.

MovieWeb frequently posts new movie and TV trailers across Facebook and other social media platforms like X and Instagram, pretty much every day. But it's rare that one day will see the unexpected release of as many movie trailers as have just dropped today, May 8, 2024. We haven't heard any news about several of these films, and so the polished trailers, images, and release information is quite a surprise. Instead of flooding social media with different posts, we figured we'd...

Ooh, we're looking forward to this one, folks. The film adaptation of John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel by the same name, Handling The Undead, is coming soon from Neon and it looks to be ready to seriously tug on our decaying heart strings.   It has been quite some time since I read the novel but all seems in good order in the official trailer. The poster also arrived today, both preparing us for the exclusive release at the IFC Center on May 31st. The theatrical release will expand to other cities starting on June 7th.    Below the official synopsis is a director's statement from Thea Hvistendahl. Handling The Undead stars Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie.   On a hot summer day in Oslo,...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

The zombie genre resides comfortably under the umbrella of horror that it is rarely explored through different means. Then, you have films like Maggie, which stars Arnold Schwarzenegger in a rare dramatic turn, that features the concept in a different light. Prepare for the emotion and despair of seeing your loved ones return in an unnatural manner in the trailer for the Norway horror drama Handling the Undead. The film is based on the novel Hanteringen av odöda from the Let the Right One In author, John Ajvide Lindqvist. The new haunting trailer was just released by Neon.

The official synopsis from Neon reads,

“On a hot summer day in Oslo, the dead mysteriously awaken, and three families are thrown into chaos when their deceased loved ones come back to them. Who are they, and what do they want? A family is faced with the mother’s reawakening before they...

"He needs to go to a hospital." "No. Then we'll lose him again." Neon has debuted the second official trailer for the indie horror thriller from Norway titled Handling the Undead, from Norwegian filmmaker Thea Hvistendahl. This initially premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year to mostly mixed & negative reviews. This dramatic horror-thriller film takes place on a hot summer day in Oslo, Norway. The newly dead mysteriously awaken, and three families are thrown into chaos when their deceased loved ones come back to them. Who are they, and what do they want? What does this resurrection mean and are their loved ones back? I'm guessing no... Adapted from the novel by the same writer who wrote the Let the Right One In book. Starring Renate Reinsve (from The Worst Person in the World), Bjørn Sundquist, Bente Børsum, Anders Danielsen Lie, Bahar Pars, and Inesa Dauksta. "A story about grief and loss,...

Neon is set to release horror drama Handling the Undead, based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist (Let the Right One In), later this month. A brand new trailer unveiled this morning introduces a haunting examination of grief when the dead mysteriously resurrect.

Handling the Undead releases exclusively at the IFC Center in New York City on May 31 before expanding in select cities on June 7, 2024.

In the film, “On a hot summer day in Oslo, the dead mysteriously awaken, and three families are thrown into chaos when their deceased loved ones come back to them. Who are they, and what do they want? A family is faced with the mother’s reawakening before they have even mourned her death after a car accident; an elderly woman gets the love of her life back the same day she has buried her; a grandfather rescues his grandchild from the gravesite in...

The idea of a zombie is pretty terrifying. Sure, no one wants to have a world overrun with dead people trying to bite you. But rarely do people think about who the zombie actually is. Would you be ok with killing a zombie who used to be your mother? Or your child? That’s the question at the center of the upcoming horror drama, “Handling the Undead.”

Read More: ‘Handling The Undead’ Review: Slowburning Existential Zombie Horror Grieves The Dead [Sundance]

As seen in the trailer, “Handling the Undead” offers a zombie film focused more on the existential dread of living in a world where dead people you knew come back to life as… something else.

Continue reading ‘Handling The Undead’ Trailer: Renate Reinsve Stars In Dark, Harrowing Zombie Drama at The Playlist.

“The Worst Person in the World,” Horror Version, this one is not. For their first post-“Worst Person” team-up, stars Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie have taken on a human story of a different cast: a zombie tale. What’s more about life than a story about life after death?

Directed by first-time feature filmmaker Thea Hvistendahl, Reinsve and Danielsen Lie both star in “Handling the Undead,” the filmmaker’s adaptation of author John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel of the same name. For fans of the writer’s work, like both “Let the Right One In,” the film and the show, “Handling the Undead” should feel both familiar and welcome. (The author also assisted Hvistendahl with her script.)

The film follows a trio of Norwegian families as they grapple with their beloved (and very recently dead) members suddenly coming back to life.

The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January,...

Chicago – The 2024 Chicago Critics Film Festival on Day Six – Wednesday, May 8th – screens a feature film director debut about a hiking trip and the scattered remnants of disconnected people. “Good One” is by India Donaldson, and she will appear on behalf of the film For the full schedule, info and tickets, click Ccff May 8th. For individual films, click titles below.

Good One

Good One

Photo credit: ChicagoCriticsFilmFestival.com

17-year-old Sam (Lily Collias) embarks on a three-day backpacking trip in the Catskills with her dad, Chris (James Le Gros) and his oldest friend, Matt (Danny McCarthy). As the two men quickly settle into a gently quarrelsome brotherly dynamic, airing long-held grievances, Sam, wise beyond her years, attempts to mediate. But when lines are crossed and Sam’s trust is betrayed, she is confronted with her dad’s emotional limitations and experiences the universal moment when the parental bond is tested.

Good One Image: Metrograph Pictures I’ll be the first to admit my bias towards the Chicago Critics Film Festival. I’m part of the organization that puts it together, it takes place at my favorite movie theater (Chicago’s organ-scored Music Box Theatre), and it enriches my local community of arthouse moviegoers.

Handling The Undead Photo: Courtesy of Sundance Institute The line-up has been announced for Sundance Film Festival: London 2024, which will run from 6 to 9 June at Picturehouse Central in London.

There will be 11 feature films screening along with additional shorts, including Indian coming-of-age tale Girls Will Be Girls, which won the Audience Award at this year's Utah edition. Other highlights in the line-up include the tragicomic Sasquatch Sunset - starring Riley Keogh and Jessie Eisenberg as you've never seen them before (or are likely to see again) - and Norwegian arthose zombie chiller Handling The Undead.

The festival previously announced that the festival will open with the UK premiere of Irish-language Kneecap and close with the UK premiere of Dìdi.

Eugene Hernandez, director, Sundance Film Festival and Public Programming said: “We’re delighted to return to London to celebrate independent cinema with British audiences. Over the course of four incredible days...

The line-up for the Sundance Film Festival: London 2024 edition includes surreal comedy Sasquatch Sunset, Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Rob Peace and A24 horror I Saw The TV Glow.

The festival takes place at London’s Picturehouse Central from June 6-9, and will present 11 feature films that premiered at the US edition of Sundance in January.

Sasquatch Sunset is directed by David and Nathan Zellner and stars Riley Keough and Jesse Eisenberg. It follows a family of sasquatch - hairy, human-like mythical creatures from the northwestern US - over a year. Ejiofor also stars in biographical drama Rob Peace, which is based on Jeff Hobbs’ bestselling book.

At the start of 2022, in the lead-up to the Oscars, Norwegian actress Renate Reinsve was in the spotlight. So was the story of how close she came to quitting acting before Joachim Trier offered her the role of Julie in The Worst Person in the World, a film that catapulted her, then 34, to a certain level of fame with two unlikely Oscar nominations. Have two years of attention brought some airs and graces? Don’t count on it. “I ran away from home to Scotland,” Reinsve recalls to me across a table at Berlin’s Ritz Carlton. “I jumped on a plane because it was just £1 and then I stayed for a year. I had to go back for an acting-school audition but I also had to go home because my intestines hurt so much, because you drink so much. I worked in a bar when I was 17. I was way too young.

Neon announced on Tuesday that it will bring Academy Award nominee Ava DuVernay’s acclaimed drama Origin back to 500 U.S. theaters on February 28, for a one-night-only special screening event, featuring an exclusive pre-recorded introduction and post-screening Q&a with DuVernay.

Released wide on January 19, Origin has recently been awarded Best Drama, Best Director and Best Actress by the African American Film Critics Association, also securing NAACP Image Awards nominations for Outstanding Motion Picture, Directing in a Motion Picture, Actress in a Motion Picture, and Youth Performance in a Motion Picture.

Written and directed by DuVernay, the film explores the mystery of history, the wonders of romance, and a fight for our future. While investigating the global phenomenon of caste and its dark influence on society, a journalist faces unfathomable personal loss and uncovers the beauty of human resilience.

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor leads a cast also including Jon Bernthal, Niecy Nash-Betts,...

Copenhagen-based TrustNordisk has inked multiple deals on the Danish thriller “Boundless,” based on Jussi Adler-Olsen’s “Department Q” novel, which is currently dominating the Danish box office.

Ahead of the pic’s market screening Feb 17 at the Berlin European Film Market, the title, helmed by Ole Christian Madsen has sold to Wild Bunch Distribution for France, Vértigo Films for Spain, Frenetic Films for Switzerland, Film Europe Slovakia for Czech Republic, Vertigo Media for Hungary and Contents Panda for Korea.

“Boundless” is the second of six Department Q thrillers produced by Nordisk Film Production Denmark, after “The Marco Effect,” headlining Ulrich Thomsen as maverick detective Carl Mørck.

“It’s such a pleasure to handle this amazing ‘Department Q’ saga for Vértigo, and “Boundless” confirms again the power and seduction of this perfect thriller,” said Spanish distributor Andres Martín from Vértigo Films, who also acquired “The Marco Effect” from TrustNordisk.

In “Boundless,...

The first word that comes to mind when thinking of how to write about Thea Hvistendahl’s Handling the Undead is: dread. To expand: slow, ponderous dread. Written by John Ajvide Lindqvist (and based on his novel of the same name), this is a zombie movie in the tradition of the author’s own Let the Right One In. There are zombies here but, as with the vampires in the latter work, the focus is elsewhere, mostly. Its genre construct is meant to elevate a deeper kind of pain. In this incarnation, a series of sad people dealing with different variations of grief must contend with an unsettling new reality: those loved ones they’ve buried have come back to life.

But only somewhat. Stand-up comedian David (Anders Danielsen Lie) loses his wife (Bahar Pars) in a car accident, forced to face their two children in the immediate aftermath. Hours later,...

Early in Handling the Undead, an adolescent girl, Flora (Inesa Dauksta), plays a video game where shooting zombies is your ticket to staying alive. Rendered in crude 3D, these shambling, emaciated, flesh-hungry zombies are the familiar sort that have haunted the pop-cultural imagination, and this depiction stands in seeming contrast to the people who came back from the dead after a mysterious event in Thea Hvistendahl’s film. They don’t do much of anything except breath and stare from behind glassy eyes at a world we’re never really sure if they can comprehend. But while they’re shells of who they once were, silent and often immobile, they recall enough of where they came from to reach out to the people who grieve them.

Based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist, who co-wrote the screenplay with Hvistendahl, the film moves between three non-intersecting subplots. In one, we...

Zombies in Oslo defy expectations in Handling the Undead, as the film focuses more on grief and its destructive power rather than on flesh-eating and panic. The undead in the film serve as reminders of the deep loss that the main characters already carry, longing for a sense of normalcy that memories alone cannot provide. While the film features unsettling physical manifestations of decay, its true horror lies in the prolonged sense of dread and the reminder of what has been lost, akin to an infection that settles in and stays.

In Oslo, a high-pitched ringing disrupts the power, turns radio stations to static, and sets off car alarms. Shortly after, the recently deceased return to life, their hearts beating just fast enough to keep them alive despite the fact their oxygen levels are well below normal. Not much more information is given about this event in Handling the Undead...

The Sundance Film Festival announced its 2024 winners on January 26, two days before the festival’s end date. The Awards Ceremony took place at The Ray Theater in Park City, Utah. This year marks its 40th annual festival run taking place from January 18 to January 28.

In the Summer, a film director Alessandra Lacorazza, won the top honor, U.S. Grand Jury Prize, starring Lio Mehiel.

Last year, Mehiel told uInterview exclusively about the importance of trans representation.

“Whenever there is an uptick of queer or trans representation in the media, there is an equal and perhaps greater response from the other side … that are looking to suppress trans rights, trans agency [and] queer liberation,” Mehiel told uInterview founder Erik Meers. “While in Hollywood we are seeing trans representation and this film is able to be part of that movement, this film is more important now than ever because even just in Utah,...

A loud, high-pitched sound echoes through the streets of Oslo. Car alarms start going off everywhere. A citywide blackout begins. An elderly man, draped over his grandson’s grave, begins to hear the sound of muffled knocks coming from under the ground. “Grandpa is coming,” he says repeatedly. He grabs a shovel and begins to dig. So begins Handling the Undead, Thea Hvistendahl‘s somber feature directorial debut that acts as a haunting meditation on grief, daring to ask us what we would do if someone we loved returned from the dead.

Adapted from John Ajvide Lindqvist’s (Let the Right One In) 2005 novel of the same name (he also co-wrote the screenplay with Hvistendahl), Handling the Undead chronicles the lives of three families as they deal with the sudden return of their recently deceased loved ones. Anna is saved from a suicide attempt when her father Mahler (Bjørn Sundquist...

The 2024 Sundance Film Festival has announced its winners, with In the Summers taking the Grand Jury prize for U.S. Dramatic Competition and Porcelain War landing the award for U.S. Documentary Competition.

Sujo won the jury prize for the World Cinema Dramatic Competition section, and A New Kind of Wilderness won for World Cinema Documentary Competition.

Audience awards went to Sean Wang’s Dìdi (弟弟) in the U.S. Dramatic Competition and Daughters in the U.S. Documentary Competition, with the latter also earning the Festival Favorite Award selected by audiences across all new feature films presented at the fest. Girls Will Be Girls landed the audience award for World Cinema Dramatic Competition, and Ibelin won it in the World Cinema Documentary Competition.

Elsewhere, the Next innovator award went to Little Death, with Irish rap biopic Kneecap winning the audience award for the Next section.

Sundance CEO Joana Vicente said,...

The 2024 Sundance Film Festival awards were announced today at The Ray Theatre in Park City, Utah.

See the list of 2024 winners below, and congrats to all the winners.

Festival Favorite Award

Daughters (USA) – Angela Patton and Natalie Rae

U.S. Dramatic Competition

Grand Jury Prize

In the Summers (USA) – Alessandra Lacorazza

Directing Award

In the Summers (USA) – Alessandra Lacorazza

The Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award

A Real Pain – Jesse Eisenberg

Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Performance

Suncoast (USA) – Nico Parker

Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble

Dìdi – Sean Wang

Audience Award

Dìdi – Sean Wang

U.S. Documentary Competition

Grand Jury Prize

Porcelain War – Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev

Directing Award

Sugarcane – Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie

Special Jury Award for Sound

Gaucho Gaucho (USA, Argentina) – Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw

Special Jury Award for The Art of Change

Union (USA) – Stephen Maing and Brett Story

Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award

Frida...

Filmmakers have parsed the zombie genre from seemingly every angle possible. George A. Romero innovated with the idea of using the undead to highlight social issues. “The Walking Dead” showcased how the living are the real villains in the face of a zombie apocalypse. And in between, there are thousands of derivations, with many just ending with the hordes of undead ripping people apart in horrifically gory ways. Zombies are monsters, right?

Continue reading ‘Handling The Undead’ Review: Slowburning Existential Zombie Horror Grieves The Dead [Sundance] at The Playlist.

The Sundance Film Festival welcomed a new class of indie film stars on Friday, handing out its annual awards in Park City, Utah.

Taking the festival’s grand jury prize in the U.S. dramatic competition was “In the Summers” from writer-director Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio. The film tells of two daughters who come of age navigating a turbulent but loving father during yearly visits to his home in New Mexico. “Porcelain War” won the U.S. Documentary competition, for its portrait of artists-turned-soldiers in the Ukraine.

Top prizes in the world cinematic category went to “A New Kind of Wilderness” for documentary, the tale of a wild-living family who must return to the modern world after an untimely death; “Sujo” won for narrative feature, about a 4-year-old orphan who may find it impossible to escape a future working for a drug cartel.

Incoming Sundance Film Festival director Eugene Hernandez began...

At its heart, Sundance is about discovery. Some of our brightest, biggest filmmaking stars — we’re talking Steven Soderbergh, Richard Linklater, Ava DuVernay, Paul Thomas Anderson, Lulu Wang, Ryan Coogler, Aubrey Plaza, Catherine Hardwicke, Todd Haynes, Tessa Thompson, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Eggers, the Duplass brothers, Michael B. Jordan, Amy Adams, Elizabeth Olsen, Brie Larson, Lakeith Stanfield, Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy, and many, many more — first rose to acclaim by bringing their work to Sundance.

Some of the biggest films at this year’s festivals came to us through creators and stars we already know and love — it’s no surprise that Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin are so wonderful in Eisenberg’s “A Real Pain” or that “Worst Person in the World” star Renate Reinsve finds new dimension in both pitch-black comedy “A Different Man” and the off-kilter zombie drama “Handling the Undead” or that Kristen Stewart is riveting in...