It’s officially Halloween weekend! And what better way to celebrate the scariest event of the year than with… thieves, mobsters, NFL stars, basketball kids, and cowboys? Huh. Oh wait! There’s at least one proper bit of creepiness thanks to Chucky, the new TV series sequel to the long-running Child’s Play movie franchise following everybody’s favourite possessed murderous doll.
SERIES
Chucky
Showmax – 28 October 2021
Not related to the recent big screen reboot (and earning way better reviews so far), Chucky is a direct successor to the original films with Child’s Play creator Don Mancini himself being the one behind this production. This time around, it’s the idyllic American town of Hackensack that sees a spate of gruesome murders after a local 14-year-old boy purchases a vintage Chucky doll at a yard sale. The first three episodes are now available to stream on Showmax with subsequent episodes following weekly.
Swagger
Apple TV+ – 29 October 2021
“Talent is given. Greatness is made.” That’s the tagline for Swagger, the brand new basketball drama co-created by NBA star Kevin Durant starring O’Shea Jackson Jr., Quvenzhané Wallis, and Isaiah Hill and tackles the world of youth basketball and the lengths to which some will go to become one of the greats. First three episodes streaming now on Apple TV+, subsequent episodes follow weekly.
Colin in Black and White
Netflix – 29 October 2021
By 2016, Colin Kaepernick was already a famous NFL quarterback. However, his actions of not standing during a pre-game American anthem, in protest of social injustices and police brutality, would catapult him to world-wide acclaim or infamy, depending on who you spoke to. And that included the US President! This new six-part series produced by Kaepernick himself with Oscar-winning director Ava DuVernay dramatizes the events of the athlete’s life that led to him becoming a social activist icon.
MOVIES
Army of Thieves
Netflix – 29 October 2021
I wasn’t the biggest fan of Army of the Dead, filmmaker Zack Snyder’s gonzo zombie-fest movie released earlier this year, but Netflix is all in on this action with the intention to build out an entire cinematic universe with spinoffs and prequels. Army of Thieves is the first of these supplementary offerings. Set six years before the undead totally take over Las Vegas, we follow oddball safe-cracker Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer, who reprises his role and directs this one) as he’s hired by Nathalie Emmanuel’s mysterious Gwendoline to join a crew of misfits to pull off an epic heist. So yes, kind of just like Army of the Dead, but just without zombies. We think.
The Many Saints of Newark
Google Play Movies – 29 October 2021
The Sopranos is widely regarded as the series that ushered in the Golden Age of Television, which is when TV productions started rivalling feature film for quality and star power. And now we’ve come full circle as The Sopranos gets its own feature film. This one is a prequel though, chronicling the rise of a young Tony Soprano (played Michael Gandolfini, the son of original Tony Soprano actor James Gandolfini) from desperate obscurity to powerful mob boss. The movie debuted on HBO Max in the US just last month, but you can now rent it locally on Google Play Movies in 4K for R169.
Flashback
Showmax – 28 October 2021
As a wise man once said, “Drugs is bad, m’kay!”. Especially when said drug is a mysterious narcotic called Mercury that blends together past and present, fantasy and reality, and may have resulted in the death or disappearance of your high-school crush, as Dylan O’Brien finds out in this trippy, twisty thriller.
The Harder They Fall
Netflix – 3 November 2021
Jonathan Majors. Idris Elba. Regina King. Delroy Lindo. LaKeith Stanfield. Zazie Beetz… I feel like just listing those names – belonging to some incredible acting talent – should be enough to make you want to watch The Harder They Fall. But if you somehow still need more convincing, then know that this action-packed western – directed by Jeymes Samuel and produced by none other than Jay-Z – puts a super cool black spin on a traditionally white genre to superb effect by the looks of the trailer, which introduces us to Majors’ “outlaw who hunts outlaws” who is hot on the trail of Elba’s legendary gang leader.
Amina
Netflix – 4 November 2021
We often see big biopics about legendary leaders from American or European history, but rarely anything focusing on the heroes of Africa. Amina, a Nigerian production telling of the rise of the titular 16th-Century queen of Zazzau (now Zaria in Nigeria), hopes to change all of that.