It’s October, and that means it’s the time of year when everyone loves horror movies, even now when horror’s modern mainstream popularity is at a high. So, here’s a modest proposal: Stop releasing horror movies after October. This is the month where we should stop and take stock of what the genre has to say in a given year, and on a given slate, and then decide which films rise above the rest and demand attention.

Continue reading The Best Horror Films Of 2020 at The Playlist.

Actor Joe Keery is currently best known for his fan-favorite performance as Steve Harrington on Netflix’s “Stranger Things”—and for good reason. In the hit series, he went from the obnoxious, if not amusing, jock to the much more heroic character that we have come to know and love. In “Spree,” directed by Eugene Kotlyarenko (“Wobble Palace”), Keery gets to flex completely different acting muscles with the role of Kurt, a self-obsessed would-be influencer and rideshare driver who goes to deadly measures to build a following.

Continue reading Joe Keery Talks Shedding His ‘Stranger Things’ Persona For The Sinister ‘Spree’ [Interview] at The Playlist.

Eugene Koltyarenko’s “Spree,” a thriller about rideshare driver Kurt Kunkle (Joe Keery), whose quest for live-stream viewers takes on an increasingly sociopathic bent, hybridizes two strains of movies born of the Internet age. The film is pitched between a “screenlife” movie like “Unfriended” or “Searching” and a small but mighty canon of emerging dark comedies about “extremely online” sociopaths that includes “Ingrid Goes West” and “Assassination Nation.”

In aesthetic terms, Koltyarenko’s film most resembles a screenlife movie where the action unfolds entirely within the frame of a digital device.

Continue reading ‘Spree’ Is a Terrifying, Provocative Addition To “Extremely Online” Cinema [Review] at The Playlist.

We’ve somehow made it to the end of the summer without the release of any blockbusters or tentpole films in theaters and, all things considered, it was the right decision.

Even still, there have been plenty of great films to enjoy or discover regardless of theatrical releases being put on hold, and August offers up the same level of variety through streaming services, virtual theaters, and on-demand offerings. From a new Seth Rogen comedy that is as odd as anything the actor has ever done to a timely documentary about racism in America and the impossibly real release of “The New Mutants,” August is nothing if not eclectic in its release scheduling.

Continue reading 11 Films To See In August: ‘American Pickle,’ ‘New Mutants,’ ‘Project Power’ & More at The Playlist.

Unless you’re someone that is completely paranoid, odds are that you don’t think twice about who is driving your Uber or Lyft when you step inside the vehicle. It’s just understood that no matter who is driving, the agreement is they will take you to your destination without killing you or involving you in something dangerous. But in “Spree,” that’s anything but the case.

READ MORE: ‘Sputnik’ Trailer: IFC Films’ Creepy Sci-Fi Thriller Arrives In August

As seen in the NSFW trailer for “Spree,” the film is a found-footage thriller from the point of view of a young guy that is desperate to gain some sort of celebrity, even if that means doing increasingly crazy things on video to gain notoriety.

Continue reading ‘Spree’ Red Band Trailer: Joe Keery Is A Uber Driver That Will Murder For Fame In This Sundance Thriller at The Playlist.