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Geek Tyrant
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
Jason Voorhees Returns For Bloody Vengeance in FRIDAY THE 13TH Short Film SWEET REVENGE — GeekTyrant
The wait is over, and the blood has returned to Crystal Lake. Jason Voorhees is back in a brutal new Friday The 13th short film titled Sweet Revenge , now streaming online, and it's everything fans of the slasher icon might hope for. In this latest chapter from the Jason Universe, the masked killer wastes no time picking up where he left off, unleashing gory mayhem with a vengeance that's both nostalgic and fresh. Actor and stuntman Schuyler White takes on the role of Jason this time around, having previously suited up for director Mike P. Nelson's ( Silent Night, Deadly Night ) earlier vignette. This marks the first official Friday the 13th film project since the 2009 Platinum Dunes reboot, and even though it's a short, Sweet Revenge doesn't hold back. In the story, a group of unfortunate friends wander into Crystal Lake and fall victim to Jason's creatively violent wrath. The short delivers on bloody kills and even tosses in a twisty spin on the classic 'final girl' trope. There's been some pushback from fans about Jason's updated look, particularly the design of his hockey mask and a less-bulky build, but the overall response to the short seems to be pretty positive. Director Nelson has hinted that Sweet Revenge could just be the beginning. In a previous interview, he teased big ideas for where he'd like the story to go: 'I have an idea of where I'd love for the story to go after this. It's not really in my hands, whether or not it's where Horror Inc. and Jason Universe end up going with it. But if I was given the opportunity … Holy crap, dude. I would snatch it up in a heartbeat. 'One of the fun things I often play with is we've seen Jason on this revenge spree for so long now. What does it look like when he runs into somebody like him? Not Freddy Krueger, not a girl with psychic powers, but like somebody like him who's come back. 'What does that look like and what kind of shenanigans and what kind of story unfolds because of that, between the both of them?' That's not the only Friday the 13th project in the works. The upcoming prequel series Crystal Lake is also moving forward with showrunner Brad Caleb Kane ( Welcome to Derry ), and the show is already in production and will star Linda Cardellini ( Freaks and Geeks , Scooby-Doo ) as Pamela Voorhees. This version of Jason's mother is described as 'a mother who had given up a singing career to raise a special needs child and takes a dark turn when she loses her son.' Initial reports had fans worried that the series couldn't feature an adult Jason or his iconic hockey mask, but that info turned out to be incorrect. In a 2023 Fangoria interview, original showrunner Brad Fuller cleared things up: 'A24 and Marc Toberoff, who is Victor Miller's lawyer, have beautifully and excruciatingly assembled all of the Friday the 13th rights. As a streaming series, we have the rights to do everything underneath the Friday the 13th umbrella.' He went on to add: 'The movie rights are a completely different thing. They are tied up at New Line and are super, super messy and probably won't be untangled anytime soon, but as far as us chickens in the television industry, uh, roost, we have access to anything and everything that Friday the 13th has done up until this point.' Between Sweet Revenge and Crystal Lake , it looks like Jason is slowly but surely slashing his way back into the spotlight. If you're craving that old-school campfire terror, Sweet Revenge delivers the goods.
Gizmodo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
‘Friday the 13th' Short ‘Sweet Revenge' Is a Gruesomely Fun Jason Voorhees Return
Last May, a new company called Horror Inc. announced the launch of the 'Jason Universe,' an initiative aimed at injecting fresh life into the Friday the 13th franchise. Though the company has a hand in Crystal Lake, the upcoming Peacock prequel series, its first big launch is Sweet Revenge, a short film bringing everyone's favorite hockey-masked maniac back to slay. After teasing the short at San Diego Comic-Con (and reassuring fans a feature film is most definitely on the 'to-do' list), Horror Inc. has premiered it online. io9 got a chance to talk to Sweet Revenge writer-director Mike P. Nelson (Wrong Turn, Silent Night Deadly Night) and star Ally Ioannides (Into the Badlands) about the short. We do get into spoilers, so watch it before you read on! Cheryl Eddy, io9: Sweet Revenge is celebrating the 45th anniversary of the franchise and is bringing the new Jason Universe initiative to the forefront in a big way. Did you get many instructions, notes, or things to do or not to do? What was the process like? Mike P. Nelson: I think that's what was so exciting about working with Sheri [Conn] and Robert [Barsamian] and Robbie [Barsamian]; they were really open to hearing a new take. And sure, there's always little things, especially with an IP is as big as this, we want to make sure and be true to certain things. But they were open to a new take and to a little bit of a new twist. As long as we can bring back Jason as ferocious as ever, doing Jason things, that was the big thing. And then of course it was cool that it was just as important to them as it was me to actually, like, for 13 minutes, try to tell an interesting story and not just, 'Let's just have Jason kill as many people as possible.' I'm not going to say that people wouldn't like that, but I just have a feeling it would just get a little tiresome after a while. And my motto is always: it's the heart. Heart is what makes horror great. That was an important aspect: telling a story that had some heart and introducing a character that people fall in love with and get to see a transformation. io9: If you pay close attention early on, you'll see some clues that this is not a typical Friday the 13th story. We have Eve being called a 'force of nature' who 'didn't run away.' 'Some people find the one, sometimes the one finds you.' Eve takes a bite of an apple. Knowing that the film would be so short and fans would be watching it more than once, did you pepper in things that people would only pick up on the second time through? Nelson: A thousand percent, which makes me so happy you literally said all the right moments. I'm just like, 'I hope people pick up on all these little things that I think are important to her in the story.' You said them all and that makes me very happy. io9: Eve is underwater for a long time before she pops back up. Are we to assume that she dies in Crystal Lake and then is reborn with Jason-like powers? Nelson: To a certain extent, yes. When I came up with this concept, the idea was that I didn't care to see how Jason [underwent] his transformation. I love that we still keep that shrouded in mystery. There's always conspiracies on what happened to him. Is he alive? Is he dead? Did he really drown? Did he not drown? And I think all that's great. Now, from my perspective, that's how I see Jason: is that he did drown, and he came back because there's nothing more powerful emotionally than a story about coming back for revenge. And to me, it's a very similar story with Eve. And Eve allowed me to explore how it might have gone down for Jason. Every character is different, but being able to see what Eve goes through was this fun sort of body horror—not understanding quite what's going on, why do I feel this way, why do I look this way, and then realizing that there's something that brought her back. I mean, look, she gets impaled with a machete. She's not coming back from that unless there's something else going on. So I think keeping that—yes, there is ambiguity, which again all the Jason movies have, which I think is really important to have. But I also feel like having that wink and a nod to, 'Did she go through the same thing that Jason did is?' is definitely there. Yeah. io9: Ally, what did you think when you heard about this project? Ally Ioannides: I was in shock, honestly, when Chad [Villella], the producer, called me and told me about it. Being asked to be a final girl in a Friday the 13th film is pretty iconic. I'm still like, I honestly can't believe it. I went back and watched the first four and just tried to take it all in and sort of understand what is good about it and what people expect from it, because obviously it is such an iconic franchise and people feel very special about it … I wanted to make sure that I was doing everything that I could to give people that same feeling. Nelson: Ally to me was somebody who we could introduce as Eve as somebody who was almost the complete opposite of Jason. She's in pink plaid, she almost resembles a combination of Annie and Tina from [Friday] part one and part seven. She's soft-spoken … But then crazy shit happens. Jason's big, and he has this mass to him, and he's this force of nature. And Eve doesn't come across that way. We're told that she is, but she doesn't come across that way until finally you realize, 'Oh, she is!' And so seeing that opposite side of the spectrum, you see Eve and then you see Jason; it's a fun matchup, if you will. Also just the fact that you have a final girl who's not just a final girl. It's a final girl who sort of becomes the monster in a way, which I hadn't seen done before. Especially a final girl killing one of our protagonists—I mean, come on! How cool is that? io9: How did you cast your Jason Voorhees? What kind of direction did you give to shape that performance? Nelson: It's Schuyler White, and he's actually a stunt coordinator. I worked with him on a couple movies prior to this, so him and I had a pretty good rapport … he's 6'5, he loves horror, and he excels in stunts in horror films and he understands horror. He's a huge fan. He's the sweetest guy in the world, which doesn't necessarily lend itself maybe to Jason on the surface. But I think to work with somebody who understands and has just a pure love of that character and has loved and watched him all of his life, him bringing his own vibe and also that sort of wink and a nod to what Jason was, especially in those first four movies, was huge. And he brought that. It was immediate. We didn't want to do the running Jason. We wanted to make sure that it was the Jason that's gonna get you no matter how fast he goes. And he's not in any rush. The joke on set was, there's almost an artistry to what Jason does in some of the things in the short, like his tableau on the clothesline and the fact that he grabbed the apple slicer. It's not just grabbing a kitchen knife to poke a bunch of holes in this woman on a table. He grabs the apple-slicer … There's something going on up there that he wants to see certain things happen while people are experiencing pain while he's murdering his victims, which I think was again a fun wink and a nod to how he's handled his victims in the past. Schuyler brought it and he was a joy to work with. He just understood the job and got it done in the best way possible. io9: This is the ultimate horror fan's dream that you got to live, making a Friday the 13th movie and planning out a Jason rampage. First, Eve's discovering all these dead bodies, and I'm like, when are they gonna show him actively killing people? Then of course we get to that. How did you map all that out? Nelson: In the pitch, it wasn't just, 'Let's just see how many people Jason can off for 13 minutes.' It was more, Eve goes through what she goes through, and then [it's almost like] she comes across crime scenes, like all these aftermaths, because that was something that's always been fun in the Friday the 13th movies. You come across the dead bodies, and sometimes you didn't even see the kills happen on screen … that always stuck with me watching those movies, and so to me, that was sort of my 'What if instead of [Eve just] getting to the cabin after she comes out of the lake, she has to go through the horror of witnessing his handiwork?' Building that excitement that, to your point, 'Oh my God, when are we going to see him?' Getting to see what he's done over the course of the film—that, to me, was fun. That was an exciting thing. And then, of course, when you see him for the first time, and then the absolute slaughter fest in the cabin, that's our big climax, you know what I mean? Our big Jason scene, where he just goes to town, doesn't hold back. And we bring him back in full force. io9: The short has a suggestive yet open ending. What do you think happens next? Ioannides: I do like the idea that there's some sort of kinship, some sort of knowing. I think it's more interesting than just a fight. But who knows? I mean… proposal? io9: She already had the ring! Nelson: I would agree with Ally. I think it sets up this idea of, what does Jason do when he realizes there's someone else like him? What is that response? Is the response at first, like, 'I'm going to kill you because I don't understand'? Is it, 'Well, you're like me, maybe I need to hang out'? There was always this sort of idea of, does Eve want nothing to do [with Jason] and Jason just keeps following her around? Or is it the other way around? I think that there's a lot of fun to be had in a story like that because it doesn't ruin the mythology of what the Friday the 13th movies are, because you still have Jason, you still have his past, you know where he comes from. He's mad that his mom was murdered and that he died due to an accident because people weren't paying attention. You still have all that. [This] doesn't rewrite anything. But what happens when somebody else goes through a similar transformation as him and has to deal with that sort of body horror—and then what happens after that? Those are the questions that are fun to play with. And I honestly love the idea that it sits within the fans and the viewers after, so they can start talking about it. I think that's one of the most exciting things. Yes, I have my own ideas and what I'd love to do after the fact and how that could end up going. But where does that take the viewer's mind afterwards? That, to me, I think is where things get really exciting: where can this go? Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
Geek Tyrant
08-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
Teaser Trailer For SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT Reboot - A Killer Santa Returns This Holiday Season — GeekTyrant
The first teaser for the upcoming reboot of Silent Night, Deadly Night has arrived, giving horror fans a glimpse at the return of one of the most controversial concepts in slasher history: Santa Claus as a evil murderous killer. This reimagining of the notorious 1984 cult classic comes from writer-director Mike P. Nelson ( Wrong Turn , V/H/S/85 , The Domestic ). Unlike the loose 2012 remake Silent Night , this version promises a more faithful yet modernized approach to the original nightmare. The cast is led by Rohan Campbell ( The Hardy Boys ) as Billy, a young man forever scarred after witnessing his parents' brutal Christmas Eve murder by a man in a Santa suit. That trauma twists into a murderous tradition, with Billy donning the red suit each holiday season to deliver blood-soaked 'justice.' The film also stars Ruby Modine ( Satanic Panic ), Mark Acheson ( Peter Pan & Wendy ), David Lawrence Brown ( Orphan: First Kill ), and David Tomlinson ( The Hillsdale Adoption Scam ). The project comes from Cineverse and Iconic Events Releasing, who will unleash the film with an unrated wide release on December 12, just in time to ruin your cozy holiday cheer. When Silent Night, Deadly Night first hit theaters in 1984, the idea of a homicidal Santa was too much for many. TriStar Pictures faced boycotts and outrage, cutting its theatrical run short despite the film briefly outperforming A Nightmare on Elm Street at the box office. Made for only $750,000, it earned $2.49 million and sparked four sequels, a loose remake, and decades of cult devotion. This new take aims to reignite that legacy for a modern audience, leaning into the original's dark Christmas horror while updating the brutality. Check out the teaser below. Silent Night, Deadly Night slashes into theaters December 12th.
Screen Geek
27-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Screen Geek
'Sweet Revenge' Trailer Revives Jason Voorhees
Friday the 13th fans have been waiting close to two decades for a new installment in the long-running slasher franchise. Things are finally coming together under the Jason Universe label, however, and we've now received our first look with the trailer for Sweet Revenge . The upcoming 'short-form vignette' revives Jason Voorhees just in time for the franchise's 45th anniversary. As the footage below reveals, writer and director Mike P. Nelson has put together all of the elements that fans have come to expect from a traditional Friday the 13th endeavor. Angry Orchard sponsored the vignette in a collaboration with Jason Universe and Horror, Inc. What's most exciting, of course, is that this trailer gives us our first look at the newly-redesigned Jason Voorhees in action. Responses to the Jason Universe's design for the iconic character have been mixed, but this footage fully reveals how the character functions in proper lighting and setting and, as you can see below, Jason is as brutal and enraged as ever. Here's the official trailer for Sweet Revenge : It's worth noting that there are still other Jason Universe projects in the works, including the upcoming Peacock series Crystal Lake , which is more focused on Jason's mother, Pamela Voorhees. It looks like the label is eager to bring back Jason and the Friday the 13th brand in as many ways as possible, and Sweet Revenge is just the first step in making it happen. Fortunately, fans will be able to see the vignette when it drops as soon as next month. The highly-anticipated Friday the 13th vignette Sweet Revenge from Jason Universe will be released on August 13, 2025. Stay tuned to ScreenGeek for any additional updates regarding the Friday the 13th franchise as we have them – and, beginning with this new short film, there should be plenty of news coming our way soon.
Yahoo
26-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Silent Night, Deadly Night Teaser Trailer: Halloween Star Leads Horror Remake
Cineverse has shared the first Silent Night, Deadly Night teaser trailer for its upcoming reimagining of 1984's cult classic horror movie. The movie will be led by The Hardy Boys star Rohan Campbell as Billy Chapman, who is best known as the original movie's killer, previously portrayed by Robert Wilson. Campbell is no stranger to the horror genre, after starring in 2022's slasher movie Halloween Ends, and this year's dark comedy horror The Monkey. Check out the Silent Night, Deadly Night teaser trailer below (watch more trailers): What is Silent Night, Deadly Night about? 'In the remake, when Billy witnesses his parents' grisly murder on Christmas Eve at the hands of Santa, it ignites a lifelong mission to spread holiday fear,' reads the official synopsis. 'Every Christmas, he dons the jolly red suit and delivers a blood-soaked massacre to feed his twisted sense of justice. This Christmas Eve, Billy wants to know: 'Have you been naughty?'' Silent Night, Deadly Night is written and directed by Mike P. Nelson. The cast also includes Ruby Modine as Pamela Varo, Mark Acheson, David Lawrence Brown, David Tomlinson as Max Benedict, Erik Athavale as Geoff, Rick Skene as Elroy, Sharon Bajer as Delphine, and more. It is executive produced by Steven Schneider, Anthony Masi, Sarah Eilts, Brandon Hill, Brad Miska, Erick Opeka, Yolanda Macias, Matthew Helderman, and Luke Taylor. Producers are Scott Schneid, Dennis Whitehead, Jamie R. Thompson, Erik Bernard, and Jeremy Torrie. The remake is currently slated to arrive in theaters on December 12, 2025. The post Silent Night, Deadly Night Teaser Trailer: Halloween Star Leads Horror Remake appeared first on - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More.
