Horror, horror, and a dash of comedy. That’s what is waiting for you at South African cinemas this Friday, with Halloween two weekends away. Even one of the week’s Diwali releases, Thamma, has a vampire theme.
Fear not if you’re not a fan of scary stuff, though. Also on the Bollywood front, there’s epic romance Ek Deewane ki Deewaniyat, while Ster Kinekor is rescreening James Bond franchise highlight Skyfall, and a recording of Bellini’s opera La Sonnambula, performed by the Met Opera.
You can’t keep a successful horror franchise down, so no surprises that sequel The Black Phone 2 is here. Set four years after the events of chilling hit The Black Phone (based on the short story by Joe Hill), Finn (Mason Thames) is still struggling with life after captivity at the hands of serial child abductor and killer The Grabber (Ethan Hawke). Once more, he’s forced to take a call from the afterlife, though, when his sister (Madeleine McGraw) starts having visions of terrifying events at a winter camp known as Alpine Lake. Genre veteran Scott Derrickson is back in the director’s chair.
Also on the skin-crawling front (quite literally!) is horror thriller Shell, which looks to be in a similar vein to The Substance, complete with mounting camp tone. Once a popular star, down-on-her-luck actress Samantha Lake (Elisabeth Moss) is invited into the glamorous world of Zoe Shannon (Kate Hudson), CEO of wellness company SHELL. Samantha’s SHELL treatments transform her life, but with patient disappearances mounting and Samantha facing terrifying physical changes, our heroine realizes Zoe may be protecting a monstrous secret. Actor turned filmmaker Max Minghella directs.
Popular Parks and Recreation actor Aziz Ansari writes, directs and stars in Good Fortune, a socially conscious comedy set in contemporary Los Angeles. “Budget” guardian angel Gabriel Keanu Reeves has the well-meaning intention of improving the life of struggling gig economy worker Arj (Ansari) by swapping his existence with that of Seth Rogan’s wealthy venture capitalist. However, nothing goes according to plan, least of all the life lessons learned. Also starring are Keke Palmer and Sandra Oh.