Forever Halloween N.01. 2021

Your best nightmares.

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FOREVER HALLOWEEN FOREVER TRUTHSEEKERS Ghostbusting with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost

AMERICANGODS S03 Creator Neil Gaiman and star Ricky Whittle explain the show’s triumphant return to form

NIGHT STALKER: THEHUNT FOR ASERIAL KILLER

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W W IT S H T E O R

Netflix’s four-part documentary follows legendary homicide detectives Gil Carrillo and Frank Salerno

EDITOR’S LETTER I’m not one to slow down, I’m not great at sitting still, and I’m especially not built to #stayhome.

I’ve always known this about myself on some level, but I’ve understood it in a new, intensely visceral way in 2020. Large parts of society suddenly reorganizedaroundstayingput infront of a computer screen, andeight months later we’re all still on Zoom. As a freelance writer, arts guy, and community type, I thought I would be fine, that I might find routine in quarantine. After all, hadn’t I already been living that millennial laptop life.

Wrong! Turns out I was only tolerating the heavy screen time because it enabled, you know, real life for the rest of the time. Without hosting events, doing workshops, and zig zagging across town on my bike for meetings or events, my body began to ache, my hands fidgeting for something to do or make. Sitting there at my desk with my head in my hands, ready to throw my laptop out the window, I looked up towards my bookshelves, desk and drawers all bursting with material. Then, in some awesome cosmic cloud, all of my horror collection poured forth and wrapped around me, giving me a hug and a gentle push: make something! Try something new!

So my hands got busy again. Good fortune, obsessive searching, and some leap of faith investments brought me a whack of weird and obsolete supplies to play with: I even got a Risograph in near perfect condition for $50 on Kijiji!

I began printing and distributing the fanzine at rallies and marches, made tons of stickers and stamps, printed and installed in “distancing” style with political language in them. And to behold, busy hands made for better days, unlocking the lockdown now I see more possibilities than ever before.

That’s why, as Forever Halloween begins a year celebrating 10 years of publication, we’ve decided to go all in. For this year’s issues, we’ll be focusing our reporting on entertaining, and so on comforting you more in these critical times —while improving our professional approach in technology.

In sol,

Jonathan

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Your best nightmares.

N.01. 2021

FOREVER HALLOWEEN FIND OUR LATEST RELEASES ONLINE on www.foreverhalloween.com!

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Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

American Gods Season 4:

CRITIC BY ALLIE GEMMIL

BY ABBY ROBINSON

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PlusOne

The Postal Zone

A TV REVIEW BY DANIEL FIENBERG

4 The Parapsychology Zone

Part 4 — “We’ve Hit A Dead End”

Cast, release date, plot and everything you need to know

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Ask, answer, dicuss, search, buy-sell, advertise!

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BY TOM POWER

How American Gods Season 3 Performed its own Miraculous Resurrection

BY NICK JOYCE AND LAUREN ARATANI

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost Are Back With a British ‘X-Files’

8 Most Anticipated Metal + Hard Rock Albums of 2021

BY SPENCER KAUFMAN & HEAVY CONSEQUENCE STAFF

Praise Hecate!

Interview with creator Neil Gaiman and star Ricky Whittle

BY DAVID OPIE

10 Upcoming Horror Video Games We Cannot Wait To Play In 2021

BY MIKE WILSON

Coming In Next: February Issue!

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THE HUNT FOR A SERIAL KILLER ATV Review.

Netflix’s four-part documentary about the investigation into the Night Stalker murders follows legendary homicide detectives Gil Carrillo and Frank Salerno.

To be a fan of true crime TV is to wonder why (or possibly how) anybody is still living in California after the ‘70s and ‘80s.

From the never-ending run of programming built around the Manson murders to HBO’s I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, with its chronicle of the Golden State Killer, to Netflix’s new four-parter Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer, there’s an impression that decades passed during which the entire state was in a sleepless limbo, balancing glamour by day and terror by night, existing on fumes laced with cocaine and smog. And that’s all without a definitive new documentary examination of the Zodiac Killer or the Hillside Strangler, both projects that I can only assume are mere moments away.

The grip that the Night Stalker still has on the collective consciousness of Los Angeles can be seen in howRichard Ramirez has snuck into multiple seasons of Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story, and it’s a relief to be able to quickly dispatch with what I assume will be the first two questions asked by potential viewers: Tiller Russell’s series does not particularly sensationalize Ramirez or his horrifying crimes, and with episodes each running less than 2

| DANIELFIENBERG 50 minutes, Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer is much less padded than many of the recent prestige true crime docs. It has some annoying and inadvertently hilarious aesthetic choices, but in the balance, I admired its storytelling approach.

Russell’s most recent background has been as writer and producer on several of Dick Wolf’s Chicago-set dramas, and thus it follows that Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer plays more as a police procedural than anything more tawdry.

The twin interviews that anchor the series are with Gil Carrillo and Frank Salerno, legendary homicide detectives with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and two of the key figures responsible for bringing the Night Stalker to justice.

Carrillo was an East L.A. kid, a young punk detective with ambitious ideas, while Salerno was already a local investigative legend, the man credited with making the key connections in the Hillside Stranger case. They’re like an odd couple partnership from a TV show or a movie, and that’s definitely how Russell treats them, right down to Carrillo’s domestic subplot with a loving wife who worries about his increased drinking and has to take the children to a secluded location to protect them when the heat rises. The cliché goes that fact is stranger than fiction, but over and over again, Russell leans into some mighty familiar genre tropes.

Given that Carrillo and Salerno are our focal heroes, why are the former partners never in the same roomtalking together? There are shots of them driving together —there’s at least a chance that this, like so much of the new footage in the documentary, was digitally augmented —so why not place themin some proximity so that we can see them bouncing memories off of each other, bickering over credit or whatever it is that happens when you get themboth in a room?

The tendency in stories like this is to get hung up on the gruesomeness of the crime and lose track of the boring guys in ill-fitting suits kneeling on the edge of the blood spatter. Russell isn’t immune to the salaciousness of Ramirez’s crimes, and how could he be? The Night Stalker was the most atypical of serial perps, without a consistent weapon or victim type or reliable geographic preference, which Russell illustrates by tracking the various crimes almost day-by-day through 1985 across a computergenerated map of Los Angeles.

The Night Stalker was five or 10 monsters at once, and Russell resists the allure of psychoanalyzing him. The fourth episode starts with hints of Ramirez’s troubled background and just when you worry things are about to get reductively Freudian, it’s back to the actual case.

Richard Ramirez in Night Stalker: the Hunt for a Serial Killer. The series aims for a tableau of Los Angeles, 1985, rather than a serial killer mystery. Photograph: Netflix

Mugshot of Ramirez taken on December 12, 1984, after an arrest for auto theft that directly led to his apprehension.

Photograph: Netflix

The documentary lives in the construction of the case and the criminal profile — details like an Aviva shoe print or discarded bullet casings or bizarre dental records — and there’s a methodical progression that Russell adheres to that I admired.

Simply by following Carrillo and Salerno and following the clues, there’s a natural momentum, complete with jurisdictional blunders, ill-fated political maneuvering and other obstructions that stymie the detectives in the pursuit of their man.

This too ends up being reductive, prioritizing the hero detective story over effectively capturing the part the Los Angeles community played in the climax of the case. The community isn’t invisible here, mind you, and in lieu of interviews that try to make you understand Ramirez, there are long segments on several of the victims and survivors and families, giving them their voices instead of fixating on Ramirez.

Because the case was a nationwide sensation, a number of Los Angeles reporters and news producers play key roles here; the series looks at the twisted relationship between journalist, law enforcement and criminal in a way that occasionally calls to mind David Fincher’s Zodiac, which is my highest praise for this kind of story. The prevalence of the media also means that Russell has a lot of footage to work with.

The choices when it comes to re-enactments are less consistent. Owing to the time period and

genre, Michael Mann is the clear inspiration for the title font, the soundtrack and a lot of the nighttime and freeway photography, the number of drone or computer-aided shots that take us from a moving car up to the glittering Los Angeles skyline. The reenactments are mostly actor-free — other than a single first-person shooter-style reproduction of a cop’s paranoid search for an intruder in his house — allowing the camera to move fluidly through spaces that otherwise could only be seen in photographs.

I can understand all of that. I’m less able to understand the role that animals and pets play in the recreations of the crime scenes. There’s one slo-mo shot of a cat — mentioned nowhere in the story — leaping for no particular reason that made me giggle and an extreme close-up of a rat licking its lips that made me laugh out loud. These were far from my main reactions while watching Night Stalker, but there’s a limit to how much unintended mirth I can tolerate when the topic at hand is murder.

Bad choices like this aren’t quite rare enough, but mostly Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer flows well. The crimes are disturbing. The police work is intriguing. The interviews cover a lot of ground and bring some emotion into the story. Four episodes and I never looked at my watch, and occasionally I felt like I could have watched more.

Premieres Wednesday, January 13, on Netflix.

Does Netflix’s Night Stalker go too far? Some say yes!

Netflix goes into detail about Ramirez’s crimes, sharing testimonials from survivors and their families, as well as photos from the actual crime scenes.

The images are disturbing, and many are presented in dramatic slow motion.

BuzzFeed calls the series a “gory mess.”

Others on Twitter are using different words:

According to Today, The Night Stalker has a TV-MA rating for “nudity, sexual violence, language, and smoking.” That being said, the episodes don’t start with warnings about graphic content, and perhaps they should. Maybe the criticism wouldn’t be as sharp.

CHRISTOPHERROSA

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The Parapsychology Zone In 1937, a person could go to a newsstand and pick up a pack of cards for 10 cents. But these were no ordinary playing cards: They were Zener cards, developed to test one’s friends for the presence of extrasensory perception, or ESP.

Duke University perceptual psychologist Karl Zener, PhD, (1903-64) designed the cards in the 1930s for experimental ESP research with fellow Duke psychologist J.B. Rhine, PhD(1895-1980).

After hearing Scottish author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle give a lecture attesting to the scientific proof that one could communicate with the dead, Rhine became interested in examining ESP, and he set up a laboratory to test subjects for psychic abilities.

One of his experiments involved the cards, which came 25 to a pack. Inside were five cards each of five different designs —a circle, cross, wave, square and star — chosen because each had one more line than the other. The back side of the card had a blue background with a design and a Duke building.

Although Rhine did much of the research, he had Zener design the cards since Zener was a perceptual psychologist.

In his experiments, Rhine would hold up the card with the back side forward and ask the subject to tell himwhich design was on the front of the card.

He conducted tests in myriad conditions seeking to remove outside forces that would clue subjects into what was on the card. For example, to remove shuffling errors, he used a machine to shuffle cards.

To eliminate the chance of card counting, he did not tell subjects if they were correct or not on a guess.

To remove physical or facial cues, he put subject and experimenter in different rooms. In one test, he put a high performing subject and experimenter 250 yards apart.

All of these tests were done in different conditions to strengthen the scientific validity of the results.

In 1934, Rhine published the book “Extra Sensory

Photo courtesy of Duke University Archives

Perception” summarizing his years of research with the cards. He believed the data were supportive enough of ESP to warrant continued investigation.

task; magicians couldn’t do it because they didn’t understand experimental design, and psychologists couldn’t do it because they didn’t know magic.

The University of Chicago researcher Harold Gulliksen wrote a scathing review of Rhine’s book, suggesting that although the statistical methods Rhine used were seriously flawed, he would not discuss them for fear that he would distract attention from the monumental errors in Rhine’s experimental design. For example, if you looked carefully at the cards he used to test subjects, you could see an outline of their patterns from the reverse side. Such flaws are often overlooked by scientists inexperienced in magic.

Rhine’s decades of research inspired the growth of parapsychology. But today, ESP remains at the fringe of scientific inquiry with 96 percent of scientists in the National Academy of Sciences skeptical of the concept.

Stanford statistician and magician Persi Diaconis spent a fair amount of time debunking claims of ESP made by Uri Geller and others. Diaconis proposed that he was uniquely qualified for such a

Regardless, Rhine infused an area of folk wisdom with a scientific quality that was previously absent — and it’s hard to criticize the man for applying scientific rigor to the field.

NICKJOYCE

Declassified memo details two Russian scientists’ 1980s research, claiming one ‘perfected his method’ of extra-sensory perception ◄ The reports of the Russian ESPexperiments sound like a storyline fromthe cult TVseries The Prisoner.

Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy

In a recently declassified memo, CIA agents in 1991 described two Russian scientists who were conducting experiments on extrasensory perception, known as ESP, which is the ability to gain information, or influence physical objects, using only the 4

mind. The memo said one of the Russian scientists had “perfected” his methods.

A short document was published on Monday on the Black Vault, an online archive of declassified government

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documents typically obtained through public records requests filed by the site’s founder, John Greenewald. It is unclear what purpose the declassified document served, but it details the bizarre research of two Soviet scientists who performed ESP experiments in the 1980s.

A medical specialist would “concentrate on transmitting psychic energy to the patient as well as empathetically experiencing the patient’s discomfort” in an attempt to “transmit bioenergy” to the patient and help them control or cure various diseases ranging from asthma to heart disease.

One, Konstantin Buteyko, was described as having “perfected his method” of ESP by conducting experiments in which he would put a volunteer in the middle of a room that had two concave mirrors on opposite sides. The document noted that researchers believed “the mirrors focused psychic energy”.

The CIA also noted that the research institute where Buteyko worked received presumably 450,000 roubles to research the effect of Agent Orange, a herbicide used in chemical warfare, on the human immune system. In 1987 and 1988, about 3,000 patients underwent “nontraditional medical treatment” at the institute,

including “the use of psychic methods”.

A second scientist, Vlail Kaznacheev, was described as a “well-known authority on ESP” and had helped to conduct experiments in which volunteers “attempted to relay to one another images of geometric shapes such as squares or circles”.

Greenewald on his website said the document was released to him in November 2020 after he filed a records request to the Defense Intelligence Agency for documents related to ESP. LAURENARATANI

T

ICK FROS N SIMON - F IL E S ’!

‘X H IS T I R B A H T I W A R E B AC K Collabs. | TOMPOWER PEGG AND

medy duo’s first TV “Truth Seekers,” the co cades, is rooted in collaboration in two de g exploits. their own ghost huntin Simon Pegg and Nick Frost know it’s been a while.

Despite being best friends and an acclaimed comic double act in films like “Hot Fuzz” and “Shaun of the Dead,” they have seldom crossed paths, creatively speaking, since 2013’s “The World’s End.” It’s been even longer since they worked together in television —they haven’t co-starred in a series since the British sitcom“Spaced” aired over 20 years ago.

Now, seven years on from their last substantial collaboration, Pegg and Frost have reunited for supernatural comedy “Truth Seekers,” debuting Friday on Amazon Prime Video. The series stars Frost as Gus, a broadband installation expert who reluctantly gets paired up with new recruit Elton (Samson Kayo) by his boss Dave (Pegg).

As the technicians go about their day job, seemingly coincidental supernatural occurrences begin to plague them with increasing regularity.

These phenomena fascinate Gus, a part-time paranormal investigator. That is, until he and Elton become embroiled in a conspiracy that could spell danger for the human race.

In separate interviews, Pegg and Frost discussed the show with writers James Serafinowicz and Nat Saunders, their own ghost hunting experiences and what it felt like to work together again. These are edited excerpts fromthe conversations.

Fromleft to right: Emma D’Arcy, Nick Frost and Samson Kayo in “Truth Seekers,” a newsupernatural comedy on Amazon Prime Video.

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What were some of the things that inspired “Truth Seekers”? You two used to go ghost hunting together when you were younger, correct?

NICK FROST: Yeah, but I think that was because we were sad singletons who preferred hanging out with each other than chasing girls.

SIMON PEGG: Really, it was an excuse to go and smoke weed. We turned it into rattling around an old abbey, or knocking on an old church door. I don’t think we were under any illusions that we would have any actual encounters, but what grew out of that was this idea of an amateur paranormal sleuth in a world where that kind of thing exists.

FROST: “The X-Files” definitely inspired us. We loved how complex and ambitious it was, and I always wanted to make a British version of that. There was also the “Book of the Strange” series, and “Arthur C. Clarke’s World of Strange Powers,” which had an awkward Britishness to it.

PEGG: We also went back to an early 1980s UK magazine called “The Unexplained.” It was full of these grainy photographs of the Loch Ness monster, and tales of spontaneous human combustion. It was amazing to get ahold of those again, and we went down as many black holes there as we did with YouTube.

What can you say about your characters?

FROST: Gus is a grumpy, lone-wolf skeptic. He runs his own YouTube channel, which seeks to prove or debunk myths and ghost sightings. Something happened to him 20 years ago that led him into this world, and you find out why he’s so lonely and desperate to find an answer to “what happens to us when we die?”

PEGG: Dave is very much part of what’s happening, in ways that you discover as the series progresses. He’s definitely plugged into events in a more significant way than it might initially seem. There is something odd about him, and it’s not just the wig I wear!

Like “The X-Files,” “Truth Seekers” mixes longer narrative arcs “with the ‘monster of the week,’” Frost said.

Credit: Amazon Prime Video

Why did it take you so long to work together again?

aged as men, fathers and husbands, like we have, and our fans have aged with us as well.

FROST: I love being with Simon and writing comedy.

It’s just what we do. I see and speak to himregularly, so we don’t have to necessarily work together all the time. If we make something, I want to feel like we’re enjoying it, that it’s fun, and you’re enjoying being with us. If we can’t find that thing organically, we’re not going to force it. As long as we aren’t pumping rubbish out every year, I’mhappy.

PEGG: It’s funny if we do look back, though. We had discussed making this show like Nick and I running around like in “Hot Fuzz.” But then we had this idea of a team with an elder statesman and his young helpers. That was something Nick and I always wanted to do with our Stolen Picture production company. As much as producing our own material, we wanted to foster new talent and give people the opportunities that we were looking for when we were their age. Well, before “Spaced” took off, anyway.

“Truth Seekers” has the kind of quintessential British comedy hallmarks that “Shaun of the Dead” and “Spaced” had, like self-deprecating humor and expert deadpan delivery. Did you try to recapture the essence of those earlier works?

FROST: No, we always try to keep it fresh. I’m not someone who dwells on our stuff. I hope our best stuff is to come, and I’m always searching for that.

But it’s unique that our characters have changed and

The series was shot partly in a former hospital and an old boarding school. Credit: Amazon Prime Video 6

Did you shoot in any spooky locations?

FROST: We found an old shutdown hospital, which was terrifying to walk around. There was also an old boarding school for deaf children that shut down in the 1970s. There were tons of underground passageways and little rooms so, as someone who may believe in ghosts, it was creepy to find yourself

MalcolmMcDowell: “I always say it’s a suburban Ghostbusters.” Credit: Amazon Prime Video

alone. The crew would go off to set up another shot, and you’d be left in these tombs on your own shouting “Guys?”

There’s an intriguing juxtaposition in the show between old-world myths like magic and ghosts, and new-world technologies including nanobots and even 6G. PEGG: We were blessed with the conspiracy stuff around 5G, which isn’t even out yet. So we felt like we had our fingers on the pulse.

FROST: The joy of making this showis that you’ve got the character and plot arcs, but you can also have fun with the “monster of the week.” I also wanted it to be a world with drones flying around, so it’s a slightly futuristic version of Earth. You feel a little unanchored watching it as you’re unsure where it is.

PEGG: These days, if you see a U.F.O., you can whip your phone out and film. All supposed supernatural

footage is shaky and slightly dubious, so that culture of on-the-spot, subjective personal journalism, mixed with all of this ancient hocus-pocus, felt like a really fun dynamic.

Despite the comedy and horror-esque elements, “Truth Seekers” is also quite heartfelt. It deals with themes including trauma, loss, friendship and redemption.

FROST: When you look at the best shows from the past 15 years, like “The Sopranos,” they have incredible characters who audiences can relate to. Tony Soprano might be a madman, but he has problems with his daughter and his wife. Normal things that are relatable, even when viewers can’t relate to someone bashing in a person’s head with a baseball bat.

PEGG: We’re a sophisticated viewing audience now, and we’re able to comprehend nuance and knowthat something doesn’t have to be a comedy or a drama.

There’s comedy and drama in real-life, so while we lean into the absurd, we also have those human relationships that remain authentic. We’ve always combined tragedy and comedy in our content. In “Shaun of the Dead,” Shaun has to shoot his mum.

That scene had to be difficult and painful, so I think that makes for a richer style of comedy.

Was it fun to collaborate on your first project in seven years?

PEGG: We had projects that we had been halfdeveloping, but “Truth Seekers” was already there fromNick and fellow writers James Serafinowicz and Nat Saunders. It was a well-formed idea, so we hit that one first.

FROST: It was nice to sit in the office everyday, and we laughed a lot. That extended to the other cast members on set too. Acting isn’t a team sport. It’s very individual, but every so often, you’ll get a job like this one where it felt like a teamyou were happy with.

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30

MOST ANTICIPATED

Metal and Hard Rock ALBUMS OF 2021.

SPENCERKAUFMAN&HEAVYCONSEQUENCESTAFF

#1. Foo Fighters –Medicine at Midnight Release Date: Feb. 5th / Roswell Records After having their 25th anniversary celebrations scrapped by COVID-19 in 2020, Foo Fighters aren’t wasting any more time getting started on their next quarter - century.

Beginning with the Foos’ reemergence on Saturday Night Live last fall, we’ve gotten a steady drip of singles in support of Medicine at Midnight. Judging by those tracks, the band’s 10th studio album should have something for every kind of fan; whether you prefer the smoky tautness of “Shame, Shame”, the straight-ahead rock of “No Son of Mine”, or the acoustic introspection of “Waiting on a War”, the albumshould tide you over until Dave Grohl and company can hit the road again. —Tyler Clark

#2. The Pretty Reckless –Death by Rock and Roll

about the Motor City. From the musicians to the chosen songwriters, each track on Detroit Stories has a link to the city and its rock pedigree. — Jon Hadusek

#4. Melvins 1983 –Working with God Release Date: February 26th / Ipecac Recordings The Melvins have reunited their 1983 lineup for a new record that’s as hilarious as it is crushing.

Culled from the teenage comedy songs of their youth, Working with God includes such gems as the desecrated Beach Boys’ cover “I F**k Around” and “Bouncing Rick”, a tribute to an eccentric juniorhigh biology teacher. —Jon Hadusek

#5. Chevelle –NIRATIAS

Release Date: Feb. 12th / Fearless Records Release Date: Mar. 5th / Epic Records The Pretty Reckless have had a heckuva run in their first decade as a band.

Singer Taylor Momsen and company have had five songs hit No. 1 on Billboard‘s Mainstream Rock chart, offering a nice balance of sing-along choruses and down-and-dirty riffs. This time around, The Pretty Reckless have recruited some of their rock friends to contribute to their new album, Death by Rock and Roll, among them Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello and Soundgarden’s Matt Cameron and Kim Thayil. — Spencer Kaufman

#3. Alice Cooper –Detroit Stories Release Date: February 26th / earMusic Detroit Stories is Alice Cooper’s love letter to his home turf — a breeding ground for gritty rock ‘n roll in the ’60s and ’70s. Cooper lived it, and his upcoming album is a concept record 8

Chevelle have been going strong for a quarter century now, and have been a staple on rock radio for the past 20 years.

Fusing progressive metal with infectious melody, the Illinois outfit has been as consistent as any hard rock act in the 21st century. The band is now a duo of brothers Pete and Sam Loeffler, but if the first single, “Self destructor”, from their new album, NIRATIAS, is any indication, they haven’t lost any of their musical muscle. — Spencer Kaufman

#6. ADay to Remember –You’re Welcome Release Date: March 5th /Fueledby Ramen It’s been more than four years since A Day to Remember’s last album, Bad Vibrations, but the band has been previewing their upcoming effort, You’re Welcome, with a series of singles since mid 2019. ADTR have built up a huge following in nearly

The year 2020 was a devastating one for not only the music industry, but the entire world. While we’re very much still in the thick of a pandemic, 2021 brings with it new hope, thanks to a vaccinerolloutandanewadministration in the White House. The new year also promisesaplethoraof highly anticipated metal and hard rock albums.

The albums expected to be released are a combination of works that would have surfaced in 2020 had it not been for the COVID-19 pandemic and LPs that had been planned for this year, regardless. It’s fair to say that albums

by Mastodon, Megadeth, Evanescence, Gojira, Ministry, The Pretty Reckless, and others would have all arrived in 2020 had those bands been able to tour in support of their latest efforts.

Instead, those bands join such noteworthy artists as Foo Fighters, Ghost, and others who are set to grace us with newalbums this year. In addition, our list of anticipated albums includes a “hopeful” selection of legendary acts who’ve been in the studio but with no guarantee that a 2021 release is in the cards. Those acts include Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Rammstein, Nine Inch Nails, and even the mighty Metallica.

And who knows? We may even see the first original Guns N’ Roses studio album featuring Axl Rose, Slash, and Duff McKagan in 30 years.

Just like last year, there’s no certainty that all of the following albums will see the light of day in 2021, but you can bet most of them will be unleashed to open arms and open ears.

See our list of the 30 Most Anticipated Metal + Hard Rock Albums of 2021, beginning with the albums that have already been announced and followed by those that haven’t yet (in order of likeliness of a 2021 release).

Spencer Kaufman SPENCER KAUFMAN

MANAGINGEDITOR, HEAVY CONSEQUENCE For more Halloween visit: facebook.com/foreverhalloween

20 years of existence, creating their own Self Help festival along the way. If the latest single, “Brick Wall”, is any indication, the Florida rockers’ new LP will continue their wide-ranging sound that ranges from infectious pop-punk to crushing metalcore. — Spencer Kaufman

#7. Rob Zombie –The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy Release Date: Mar. 12th / Nuclear Blast Records After nearly five years since his last release, we’re finally close to hearing the album that Rob Zombie has called his best yet: The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy. If its leading single, “The Triumph of King Freak (A Crypt of Preservation and Superstition)”, is anything to judge by, we’re in store for something that’s totally unafraid to go big, dark, and delectable —in other words, it’s sure to be well worth waiting for. —Lindsay Teske

#8. Eyehategod –AHistory of Nomadic Behavior Release Date: March 12th / Century Media A History of Nomadic Behavior is the first album in seven years from NOLA sludge vets Eyehategod.

Since then — and as the album title insinuates — the band has been touring the world for most of that stretch. Road-tested and tour tight, Eyehategod’s swinging doomsounds as kinetic as ever on singles “High Risk Trigger” and “Fake What’s Yours”. — Jon Hadusek

#9. Evanescence –The Bitter Truth Release Date: Mar. 26th / BMG It’s shocking, but it’s been 10 years since the world was blessed with a proper Evanescence full-lenght studio album, and the anticipation only escalated when the band delayed the release of their new effort, The Bitter Truth, due to the pandemic. However, singer Amy Lee and company gave us a nice sampling of the LP in the form of four singles released during 2020, including empowering anthem“Use My Voice”; and so that we can surely say they’re back to the sturm und drang basics, slugging away, baring life’s battle scars and reaching for their own personal slice of Valhalla. — Spencer Kaufman

#10. Tomahawk –Tonic Immobility Release Date: Mar. 26th /Ipecac Recordings Every single Mike Patton project is worthy of high anticipation, and the case isn’t any different now with his supergroup Tomahawk. Adding to the anticipation is the eightyear gap between their last effort, Oddfellows, and the upcoming Tonic Immobility. While Patton is the marquee name, the lineup also features guitarist Duane Denison (The Jesus Lizard), bassist Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle), and drummer John Stanier (Battles, ex-Helmet). The bass-heavy first single “Business Casual” is noiserock barnburner, setting the table for an intriguing albumto come. —Spencer Kaufman

#11. Greta Van Fleet –The Battle at Garden’s Gate Release Date: Apr. 16th / Lava/Republic Records Greta Van Fleet achieved huge success upon the release of their first single, “Highway Tune” in 2017. The three young Kiszka brothers and drummer Danny Wagner played sold-out shows across the globe, releasing their debut album, Anthem of the Peaceful Army, in 2018. While the band took off like a house on fire, they quickly faced backlash for a sound deemed by many to be too similar to Led Zeppelin. If initial singles “My Way, Soon” and “Age of Machine” are any indication, the Michigan rockers haven’t abandoned their retro sound, but the rest of their new LP, The Battle at Garden’s Gate, will arrive with much anticipation, as the spotlight shines on the evolution of the band.

—Spencer Kaufman

with spit in his beard wearing more than he drank of his drink.” —Spencer Kaufman

#13. Royal Blood –Typhoons Release Date: Apr. 30th / Warner Records UK rock duo Royal Blood hit it big with fans and critics alike with their first two albums, delivering a brand of hard rock that sounded impressively grand for an outfit featuring just two members. Their upcoming effort, Typhoons, will arrive nearly four years since their last album, 2017’s How Did We Get So Dark? Now, as the first two singles — “Trouble’s Coming” and “Typhoons” — indicate, Royal Blood are embracing more of an alternative dance-rock sound on the new album, a bold change of pace three albums into their discography. —Spencer Kaufman

ALBUMSAWAITEDFOR2021, YETDETAILS HAVETOBEANNOUNCED #14. Every Time I Die –TBA Every Time I Die have been going strong for more than 20 years, having formed in 1998 in Buffalo, New York. They’ve been one of hardcore’s mainstays of the 21st century, combining elements of metalcore, punk, and even Southern rock. It’s been more than four years since Every Time I Die’s last studio LP, Low Teens, but they graced fans with two new singles — “A Colossal Wreck” and “Desperate Pleasures” — at the end of 2020, offering a crushing preview of what to expect from their upcoming ninth album. SK

#15. Ministry –TBA

#12. Amigo the Devil –Born Against Release Date: Apr. 16th / Liars Club/ Regime Music Group Amigo the Devil (aka Danny Kiranos) is neither heavy metal nor hard rock, but he’s included on this list due to the spirit of his music, a dark Americana folk sound that has been embraced by headbangers. Amigo set a strong foundation with his 2018 debut, Everything Is Fine, and returns with Born Against, inspired by legends like TomWaits and Leonard Cohen. First single “Another Man’s Grave” offers a taste of what to expect, with sharp lines like, “It’s a quarter to two and the bars are all closing, nobody looks how they think / The guy in the corner

Everybody’s favorite uncle, Al Jourgensen, had begun working on a new Ministry albumin early 2019, with plans to quickly follow-up the band’s politically charged 2018 LP, Amerikkkant. After being sidetracked with the chance to open the final leg on Slayer’s farewell tour in late 2019 and a global pandemic in 2020, it appears that 2021 will be the year for a new album from the industrial pioneers. Ministry gave us a taste of new music with the track “Alert Level”, appropriately released at the beginning of the pandemic, so expect more timely tunes from Jourgensen and company on the new album. SK

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#16. Gojira –TBA Gojira have been slowly working on the followup to 2016’s Magma, and last year they offered the perfect tideover in the form of “Another World”. The excellent single hinted at what’s to come, following Magma‘s progressive metal style while injecting plenty of melody and scifi imagery. Based on previous updates from the Duplantier brothers, a 2021 release for the new album seems very possible. JH

#17. Mastodon –TBA

Mastodon have been one of metal’s most consistent and critically acclaimed bands of the past 20 years. Drummer-singer Brann Dailor told us that the Atlanta-based foursome had more than 30 new songs heading into the studio and that they were “really zeroing in on the stuff that’s definitely gonna make the album.”

As with their previous LPs, expect a central theme, influenced by the tragic 2018 passing of their longtime manager, Nick John, among other events. SK

throat cancer and a pandemic further impeding the recording. With Mustaine beating cancer, the band made great progress on the album in 2020, with bassist David Ellefson saying in April that it’s “written and ready to be recorded.”

Then, in September, Mustaine then joined Heavy Consequence via Zoom from the band’s Nashville studio, where the legendary thrashers were putting the finishing touches on their 16th album.

JH

#20. Judas Priest –TBA

Judas Priest are currently working on the followup to 2018’s critically acclaimed Firepower, and according to vocalist Rob Halford, the songs might be informed by the harsh realities of the pandemic. “I’m sure it will filter through me as the songwriter for Priest,” Halford told the Phoenix New Times. Halford said he’s been holed up in Arizona being “super careful” with public health guidelines and that he’s stayed busy writing. JH

In June of last year, death metal pioneers Cannibal Corpse were, in their own words, ready to “enter the crypts” and begin recording their 15th studio album. When vocalist George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher shared an in-studio photo from the recording sessions, noticeably absent from the hashtags was troubled guitarist Pat O’Brien, who’s future in the band remains uncertain after a bizarre incident involving many guns in 2018. JH

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#24. Iron Maiden –TBA

The pandemic resulted in a premature conclusion for Iron Maiden’s epic “Legacy of the Beast” tour.

On the bright side, the metal legends have begun working on new music perhaps sooner than they would have, given the downtime. After a producer hinted that the new record could come out in 2020, a 2021 release seems more likely, but the question remains: Will Iron Maiden release an albumif they can’t safely tour? JH

#25. Rammstein –TBA

#22. King Diamond –The Institute

#19. Megadeth –TBA

Megadeth’s follow-up to their Grammy-winning 2016 effort Dystopia has seen its stops and starts, with frontman Dave Mustaine battling

AFI have been going strong for roughly 30 years, evolving from a teenage hardcore act in the ’90s to a hit-making hard rock band in the early 21st century. Singer Davey Havok and company have always achieved a nice balance of infectious hooks with heavy riffs, and their two new singles — “Twisted Tongues” and “Escape From Los Angeles” —are no exception. Guitarist Jade Puget said of the upcoming LP, “Anyone who knows our catalog knows that no two records really sit together,” so expect the next step in the longrunning evolution of AFI. SK

#21. Cannibal Corpse –TBA

#18. Ghost –TBA

Perhaps no other band impacted metal in the 2010s as much as Ghost. The band rose from intriguing curiosity to arena headliners, thanks to a combination of mystique and infectious songs. After releasing four strong albums in the past decade, the Swedish act will return in 2021 with their fifth LP, which frontman Tobias Forge likened to Metallica’s “Black Album”, not so much in sound but rather the next step of their career.

As with any new Ghost album, Forge will take on a new guise, this time retiring Cardinal Copia and becoming Papa Emeritus IV. SK

#23. AFI –TBA

After announcing The Institute and sharing the magnificent single “Masquerade of Madness” in late 2019, we heard little from King Diamond throughout 2020. We can only hope that means the legendary metal singer is finishing up his next concept album, which like previous epics Abigail and Them, promises to be an ambitious narrative experience. JH

Rammstein were set to embark on a huge 2020 stadium tour in support of their untitled 2019 album, but the pandemic put a halt to those plans.

While fans will have to wait to see one of rock’s most explosive live acts visit a city near them, it appears the wait for another new LP won’t be as long as the 10-year gap between Rammstein’s two most recent LPs. With their tour on hold, the German industrial-metal veterans hit the studio in 2020. Whether it results in a new album in 2021 remains to be seen, but the band’s social teases have certainly stirred up some excitement. SK

#26. Ozzy Osbourne –TBA Despite a series of health setbacks, including an ongoing battle with Parkinson’s disease, Ozzy Osbourne delivered the solid solo album Ordinary

#27. Black Label Society –TBA

Despite rejoining Ozzy Osbourne’s touring lineup, Zakk Wylde was left off the Prince of Darkness’ 2020 solo album, Ordinary Man. The guitar virtuoso should be heading into the studio with a plethora of mighty riffs as Black Label Society create their 11th studio album. The band earned strong praise for its 2018 effort, Grimmest Hits, while Wylde continued to hone his skills with his Black Sabbath tribute band, Zakk Sabbath, who released a song-for-song recreation of the metal godfathers’ debut album in 2020. SK

#28. Guns N’ Roses –TBA Ever since the band welcomed back Slash and Duff McKagan for a monster tour, we’ve been getting tidbits of info regarding new music from Guns N’ Roses. Most recently, Slash revealed that he’s been working with bassist Duff on songs for the next album, with eyes on a 2021 release. It’s been 30 years since GN’R have released a studio album of original material featuring Slash, Duff, and Axl Rose, and it can’t come soon enough. JH

#29. Nine Inch Nails –TBA

Nine Inch Nails fans may have lost the chance to see them on tour last year, but they’re set to gain a new album instead. Last May, frontmant Trent Reznor shared that he had imminent plans to do a “deep dive” into new material and hopefully resume touring in 2021.

While further information hasn’t surfaced yet, knowing the new batch of songs could be heard live before the year’s end leaves plenty to look forward to. LT

#30. Metallica –TBA

Despite lockdowns and quarantines, Metallica were able to jamtogether and performremote concerts throughout 2020. The band took its time making Death Magnetic and Hardwired to Self-Destruct, but bassist Rob Trujillo previously said that the next album would come sooner. This was before James Hetfield returned to rehab and many other events, so a new LP in 2021 might be wishful thinking.

That said, Lars Ulrich revealed in November that the band was a month into “some pretty serious writing” for the new LP, although he followed that up recently by saying they were working at a “glacial” pace. JH

TBA TBA TBA TBA TBA TBA TBA TBA TBA TBA TBA

Man in early 2020. Inspired by his sessions with Andrew Watt, the metal icon rejoined the producer for another round of recording during the pandemic. Much like Ordinary Man, the upcoming albumwill feature an all-star backing band, with Metallica’s Robert Trujillo on bass and Foo Fighters’ Taylor Hawkins and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith sharing drum duties.

If Ozzy’s farewell tour ever resumes, he’ll have plenty of new material to draw from. SK

The Wave record store in Budapest is the oldest record store in Hungary in the indiealternative genre; it has been functioning since 1989. Famous for its wide supply and quality in LPs and CDs, it has also welcomed many Hungarian musicians and journalists, as well as the legendary DJ of the British BBC Radio One, John Peel — who also shopped here on his Eastern European collecting tour.

Révay köz 1.

H-1065 Budapest +36 1 269 0754 Opening Hours Mo-Fri 11:00–19:00 | Sat 11:00–17:00

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Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Chilling Adventures of Sabrina through the Season 4 finale, “Chapter Thirty-Six: At the Mountains of Madness.”

“W E’VE HI T A DEAD END”

Have Sabrina Spellman and Co. deserved

Critic.

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| ALLIEGEMMILL

better than what they got?

For more Halloween visit: facebook.com/foreverhalloween

More than two years after its premiere, the Netflix original series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina has finally wrapped up. The series, created by Riverdale’s Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, was a macabre twist on the Sabrina the Teenage Witch story that transported us to Greendale, the town neighboring Riverdale where more supernatural hijinks occurred than anything on The CW series Supernatural. The series starred Kiernan Shipka as the titular Sabrina Spellman, a young witch whose encounters with other witches, warlocks, angels, demons, pagans, spooky creatures, and a familiar named Salem kept fans fascinated for four seasons.

Sadly, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (a.k.a. CAOS) was canceled in July, months ahead of its December 31 premiere.

This meant fans would have to ready themselves for Season 4, as it would be the last-ever installment of CAOS, and the final episode of Season 4 —which nowdoubles as the series finale —endedona variety of messy, unfulfilling notes that will likely leave fans of the showwith more questions than answers. In an effort to make sense of it all, let’s review the major events of the series finale, “Chapter Thirty-Six: At the Mountains of Madness,” and examine where CAOS leaves our beloved characters.

What Happens in the CAOS Series Finale?

The primary conflict in CAOS Season 4 revolved around Sabrina’s two identities —Sabrina Spellman and Sabrina Morningstar (they’ll be referred to as “Spellman” and “Morningstar” from here on out) — and their loved ones defeating the eight Eldritch Terrors invited into their realms by Faustus Blackwood (Richard Coyle) and subsequently threatening to wreak havoc on those realms. By the time we reach “At the Mountains of Madness,” seven of the eight Eldritch Terrors have been destroyed.

The final Terror, The Void, appears in Episode 7, “The Endless,” when Morningstar is in the secondary cosmos, which is revealed to be a meta version of Greendale where everything exists as a TVshow.

Gavin Leatherwood and Kiernan Shipka on part of “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” © Netflix

The episode begins with a bang. A framing device for the episode sees Miss Wardwell (Michelle Gomez) reading the events of the episode we’re about to see as a story to members of The Pilgrims of the Night, the church begun by Blackwood. From here, it’s revealed that Morningstar makes it out of the other cosmos but is near death. Before she dies in Spellman’s arms, Morningstar warns of the coming of The Void. Morningstar’s death leaves Spellman resolute in the belief that

entire Void when Hilda (Lucy Davis), Zelda (Miranda Otto), Ambrose (Chance Perdomo), and Nick (Gavin Leatherwood) pull Spellman’s soul out of the void and transfer it into Morningstar’s body to save her.

Despite this royally pissing Spellman off, the group believes The Void is destroyed when, after being called to the observatory at the Academy of Unseen Arts by Prudence (Tati Gabrielle), it is revealed The Void is no longer observable, thus lulling the group into a false sense of security.

only she can destroy The Void.

This is where it gets weird and bad.

The happy occasion of Spellman’s 17th birthday reveals that a piece of The Void has attached onto her soul.

She does this by acquiring Pandora’s box from the purveyor of occult objects (James Urbaniak) who also gave Blackwood the Imp of the Perverse. The purveyor tells Spellman she must open Pandora’s box once inside The Void in order to trap it there — but it means risking death by entrapment, too.

Spellman is okay with this risk, writing a goodbye letter to her loved ones and venturing forth into The Void. She nearly accomplishes trapping the

Ross Lynch, Jaz Sinclair, Lachlan Watson, Jonathan Whitesell, and Gavin Leatherwood in “Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Eldritch Dark” © Netflix

This causes things like her alarm clock, a stack of pancakes, and, horrifyingly, actual people to disappear into The Void when Spellman gets too emotional. Ambrose does an X-ray of Spellman’s body and, when the scan shows literally nothing inside her, he deduces that “when we sucked your soul into Sabrina Morningstar’s body, we must have sucked some of The Void into you as well.” (Props to Perdomo for delivering this line as believably as possible.)

It is here that we should briefly go over what happens in Hell. So, Lillith (Gomez) goes to Earth to hear Spellman and Nick discussing recent events including Morningstar’s death — a fact she reports to Lucifer Morningstar (Luke Cook) in hopes that the information will put her back in his good graces. Lucifer is enraged and attempts to wage a war against the Spellmans, getting Morningstar’s husband, Caliban (Sam Corlett), to recruit the miners of Greendale as a mini-army. Lucifer’s brief confrontation with the Spellmans results in his eventual retreat and Spellman’s Void causing Caliban and Harvey Kinkle’s (Ross Lynch) dad, one of the miners, to disappear. Back in Hell, Lillith gets her ultimate revenge on Lucifer by stabbing him with the same blade that helped kill Jesus, drinking his blood to gain his power, and banishing himfromHell forever as she took the throne. Good for her.

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official ending for a majority of these characters, instead just giving us our last look at all of them attending Spellman and Morningstar’s funerals.

It is also revealed that Blackwood is murdered by Prudence, with the eldest daughter

scattering her father’s remains to the four corners of the earth so he can never resurrect.

Kiernan Shipka playing her double roles in “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” © Netflix

Back on earth, Spellman has magicked herself away from Greendale to the Mountains of Madness (one of many Lovecraftian references this season) where she agrees to let Blackwood teach her how to control the piece of The Void attached to her. Two weeks later, Ambrose, Prudence, Roz (Jaz Sinclair), and Agatha (Adeline Rudolph) are guided to the Mountains of Madness by Salem and find Blackwood, who leads themto Spellman.

Hilda that their niece is about to die. As Spellman nears death, her life flashes before her eyes and shows us birthdays with Zelda, Hilda, and Ambrose through the years. She says her goodbyes to her loved ones and dies before Nick returns to say goodbye. The Void is also destroyed, meaning everyone is safe in the end. Afterward, Sabrinas Spellman and Morningstar are giving a proper funeral in the Spellman family plot while Sabrina and Nick go on to spend their lives together in the afterlife.

Hilda and Zelda, however, are giving a somewhat definitive ending. In their final scene together, we see the sisters standing in front of a statue of Sabrina that has been erected at the Academy of the Unseen Arts. The sisters are still in mourning over the death of their beloved niece. Hilda informs Zelda that she and her husband, Dr. Cerberus, will move back into the Spellman family home because it seems only right that the family should stick together. Zelda agrees that it’s a good idea.

The final scene reveals Sabrina is now in the afterlife, her Spellman and Morningstar halves now reconnected into one whole soul. Sabrina seems to be at peace as she reads on a bench inside a room with pastoral artwork on the walls. Nick suddenly appears, implying he is also dead. Nick clumsily explains he went swimming in the Sea of Sorrows and got caught in the undertow but doesn’t seem too affected by it since it means he can spend eternity with Sabrina.

Prudence, Roz, andAgatha —the newWeird Sisters —deduce Blackwood intends to Where does the CAOSfinale leave every character?

So while we know everyone we care about is still sacrifice Spellman and bring The Void into Amajority of the characters in Chilling Adventures alive, this cosmos and destroy the world of Sabrina get relatively satisfactory endings, even CAOSeschews any final resolution for a if most of them are implied rather than explicitly rather than help Spellman live. The foursome tries shown. In Greendale, Rosalind, Theo, Harvey, majority of the characters. to convince Spellman to leave but she accidentally sends Roz and Prudence into The Void. Before AmbroseandAgathaescape, Spellmantelepathically tells Ambrose to return to save her when Blackwood plans to kill her on the winter solstice.

Ambrose, the remaining Weird Sisters, the Hecateworshipping coven, Hilda, and Zelda are all alive.

Unfortunately, the show deprives viewers of any

leaving audiences to imagine their own endings for the characters they’ve spent four seasons following.

A plan forms to save Spellman: Nick uses the locket-turned-honing-device he wears that is identical to one he gave Sabrina and one of the eldritch terrors as a breathing apparatus to go into space to retrieve Spellman’s physical body that is holding Pandora’s box. Once the box is in hand, the group (Hilda, Zelda, Ambrose, Harvey, Theo, Robin Goodfellow, and Nick) goes to Blackwood and, through some trickery, ends up incapacitating him before he can hurt Spellman. Spellman reveals she knows how to get those lost to The Void back but it will require cutting her open and letting The Void (and her blood) drain out as the final Eldritch Terror is then trapped in a containment field. One The Void is contained and everyone is saved, Nick is meant to go in and finish trapping The Void in Pandora’s box.

However, this plan horrifies everyone except Sabrina because it means she has to almost die in order for the plan to work.

Despite reservations from Spellman’s family and friends, the plan proceeds. Soon, it becomes clear Spellman is actually going to die when a figure (whether it is the goddess Hecate or a manifestation of Death is unclear) appears, signaling to Zelda and 14

Kiernan Shipka and Ross Lynch in “Chapter Thirty-Five: The Endless ” © Netflix

Why Sabrina’s CAOS season 4 ending is a problem?

At the risk of letting my personal feelings get in the way of an otherwise impersonal explainer, I loathed the ending that CAOS chose to give Sabrina Spellman. To put it another way: It sucks!

In a series full of magic that made occasionally logic-defying decisions, Spellman (in Morningstar’s body) died to save her friends and family. Like, really, fully, completely died. Sure, Nick can somehow survive the depths of space with an eldritch breathing mask slapped on his face and mere mortal Mr. Kinkle can survive being sucked into The Void and getting pulled out of it, but Spellman cannot survive a cut to her chest meant to drain The Void out of her.

Spellman’s death feels cruel and needless, a cheap shot made by CAOS in an effort to pipe in some hollow emotional masquerading as resolution rather than providing a satisfactory ending. CAOS mistakes giving Spellman peace in death as giving her the peace she needs from a frequently literal year (remember: she dies shortly after her 17th birthday and CAOS begins a few days before her 16th birthday) from hell. Rather than allowing Sabrina the chance to grow old with her friends and family, she is simply offed.

To make matters even more problematic, CAOS decides that Nick should join Sabrina in death — a decision with horrifying implications.

Although Nick never specifically names it, CAOS communicates through subtext that he died by

suicide out of grief over Spellman’s death. Nick tries to spin this as a good thing, telling an initially distressed Spellman that they can be together forever in the afterlife. It’s a completely fucked up ending in the style of Romeo and Juliet that carries the very dangerous, toxic message that personal issues (like heartache) can be solved by suicide. To be clear: Suicide is never the answer and the way CAOS casually throws that into the show in the final moments of the series is reckless and irresponsible. That decision, on top of the confounding choice to kill of Sabrina, contribute to a thoroughly unsatisfactory ending for a show that, for the majority of the time, was an exciting, macabre thrill-ride.

Kiernan Shipka in “Chapter Thirty-Six: At the Mountains of Madness” © Netflix 15

Aguirre-Sacasa still plans on telling this bonkers story, albeit through the magic of comic books.

PRAISEHECATE! BYDAVIDOPIE After teasing us for years with plenty of Riverdale Easter eggs, Sabrina’s third chapter finally crossed Sweetwater River and visited Archie’s home town.

Unfortunately, everyone’s favourite teenage witch didn’t meet everyone’s favourite bear-fighter that time round. But since then, a new Riverdale season five poster has hinted that a full-blown crossover could soon be on the cards.

On November 24, Riverdale showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa posted a teaser image on Twitter with the caption: “Nothing stays buriedforever... #Riverdale Season Five coming soon.”

The creepy photo features a zombie-like arm pushing out of the ground in a dark forest. Riverdale fans immediately put their Jughead caps on and started investigating what this could mean. Taken at face value, this image and the line that accompanies it suggest someone could come back fromthe dead in season five.

Jason Blossom is probably the first person that comes to mind here. Riverdale started all those years ago with his death, and since then, Cheryl’s brother has returned in both a zombie vision and also as an actual corpse propped up at the Blossom dinner-table. Other contenders include Hal, Betty’s murderous father, and even Archie himself.

We know what you’re thinking, but hear us out.

A few months back, Aguirre-Sacasa uploaded pics of some season five scripts along with various panels from Archie Comics. The script for “Chapter Eighty: Purgatory” was accompanied by the cover of Archie 1941 #5, which shows Jughead, Betty and Veronica standing over a grave with an image of Archie floating overhead as a ghostly soldier.

Given how this story played out in the comics, Riverdale fans suspect Archie might join the military and go missing during the show’s seven-year time jump. Of course, our topless hero won’t die though, just like Jughead didn’t really die last season, so is this the so-called “resurrection” that Aguirre-Sacasa is hinting at?

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s tweet from Jul 10, 2020

Maaaybe, but it’s also possible that AguirreSacasa could be teasing something far bigger, something which would change Riverdale in ways that not even Hecate herself could predict.

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For more Halloween visit: facebook.com/foreverhalloween

When Sabrina was unceremoniously cancelled earlier this year, Aguirre-Sacasa revealed that there were plans for a Riverdale crossover in the now axed fifth chapter. Yes, really. In yet another teaser-y post, the showrunner said part five “would’ve been AMAZING”, but this story will now run in the Sabrina comics instead of on screen.

But what if Aguirre-Sacasa has had a change of heart? What if ‘The witches of Riverdale’ end up crossing Sweetwater River to meet the witches of Greendale?

Back when Riverdale was just a glint in the showrunner’s eye, there were talks of transforming Archie’s world into a horror show based on Afterlife with Archie. In this alternate comic book universe, Jughead asks Sabrina to resurrect his dead dog, but her magic backfires, creating a zombie apocalypse that ravages Riverdale.

“When we were originally talking about doing a show about the Archie comic characters, one of the takes we debated pitching was Afterlife with Archie and it being not a descendant of Dawson’s Creek as Riverdale is, but a descendant of Buffy. That was an idea that everyone was passionate about,” AguirreSacasa told EW.

by throwing itself head-first into the supernatural, something which has already been teased as a possibility, time and time again.

It wouldn’t be too hard to make this happen either.

As mentioned before, Sabrina has already visited Riverdale in her own show, and across four seasons, the supernatural rules of her world have been firmly established.

Every Riverdale Reference we caught in Part 4: The first reference comes in Episode 1 (“Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Eldritch Dark”), when Roz tells her fellow WICCA members, “At Riverdale, they have condoms in the bathroom.”

The only thing that separates Riverdale and Sabrina’s home is Sweetwater River, a body of water that physically divides the Lovecraftian horrors of Greendale and the regular gargoyle-themed horrors of Archie’s home.

Riverdale‘s second mention comes during Episode 3 (“Chapter Thirty-One: The Weird One”). A character named Lucas briefly attends Baxter High, and when Sabrina inquires about his whereabouts later in the hour, she’s told, “It is my understanding that he has transferred to Riverdale High.”

By sending Sabrina across this bridge again in Riverdale season five, AguirreSacasa can finally do what he’s been planning all this time, and integrate some kind of magic into whatever this resurrection storyline might be.

And while this isn’t a direct Riverdale connection, Episode 6 (“Chapter Thirty-Four: The Returned”) features a familiar trio of guest stars. Sean Depner, Sarah Desjardins and Doralynn Mui —all of whom played students at Stonewall Prep on Riverdale — appear as members of an ill-fated rock band. Did we miss any?

As we all know, that idea didn’t pan out, but Roberto didn’t count this out as a future possibility.

“Ultimately we ended up going for Riverdale and starting with a more grounded, less supernatural version of that because we thought we could always go there, but if we started there, it would be hard to take that away.”

Even after Riverdale started to air, Aguirre-Sacasa still toyed with the idea of switching things up in season two, introducing supernatural horror to the show.

“There was even a time when we talked about the season 1 cliffhanger being the arrival of Sabrina,” Roberto told EW. That’s right. Before Sabrina signed the book of the beast in her own show, she almost starred as the Big Bad in Riverdale. So there’s clearly a lot of precedent for this idea, and when you look at the bigger picture, a spooky switch-up actually makes a lot of sense for future seasons of Riverdale.

Every chapter so far has been more absurd than the last, throwing everything from floating babies to rocket-riding cult leaders into the mix. Five seasons in, the only way Riverdale can go bigger is

Jaz Sinclair and Kiernan Shipka on the set of “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” © Netflix 17

T H E M IRACULOUS RESURRECT I ON OF SE ASON 3

Interview.

| DAVIDOPIE

Editor’s note: American Gods season 3 spoilers won’t be found here.

Gods are nothing without the belief we place in them, and the same is also true of shows like American Gods. Lose the faith of your dedicated fanbase and it won’t be long until you’re cancelled, destined to fade away like a long-forgotten deity of old.

Thankfully, American Gods is now back on our screens with a third season, but for a while there, not even Odin himself could have foreseen the show’s survival.

Following a truly divine debut, American Gods stumbled on its second outing, glitching like Technical Boy on Y2K. It wasn’t all bad by any means –certain moments still shone just as bright as season one – but the magic was missing, and off-screen controversy cast further doubt on the show’s future.

Not only did American Gods flip through showrunners faster than Mad Sweeney flipping through his coin collection, but Orlando Jones’ controversial exit also divided the fanbase even further.

Speaking to series creator Neil Gaiman, it quickly becomes obvious that this shifting attitude towards 18

the show wasn’t lost on people working behind the scenes. When we first start our chat, Neil discusses the rumours that began to circulate around production on season three...

“On the one hand,” Neil recalls to Digital Spy, “I’m hearing people go, ‘Ah, yes, season three – You guys are having terrible problems.’ And it’s like: ‘Nope.

Actually, it’s all going really well. It’s fabulous.’”

Of course, most people involved would naturally defend their work, regardless of whether the rumours are true or not, but as Neil pointed out to us, “The proof is in the pudding.” And he’s right.

Against all odds, American Gods is back and stronger than ever.

Both Neil and his leading man, Ricky Whittle, are naturally proud of the end result. At the very start of our interview, Ricky opens by telling us that season three is “a true return to form, the strongest season yet”.

And from what we’ve seen so far, we’d probably have to agree.

Sure, Media’s absence cuts deep this time round, and yes, we still miss those extended intros, but everything that didn’t work last time has been

jettisoned or reframed to capitalise on the show’s many strengths.

yet somewhat fantastical look which David Slade brought to the pilot. But I felt like season one tended to be like an anthology series. It felt kind of bitty.”

Chief among these is Ian McShane, who’s “On season two,” he continues, “there were things better than ever as “the roguish bastard” that really started working. Bringing Bilquis on to best known as Mr Wednesday the stage, and having her be one of the old gods (Neil’s words, not ours).

“Ian really is phenomenal,” Neil continues. “You just want to spend time in his company. You just want to be with him. You don’t trust him, but, then again, you will always give himanother chance.”

The other gods and mortals alike are fleshed out more this time too while

who understood the advantages of the new gods and technology — It made everything much less black and white. I loved that.”

season yet. We all know where we’re going. We got our episodes early, which is tough sometimes on TV productions, especially something as massive as American Gods. It was just really smooth and really easy this year.”

During these planning sessions, Neil and Chic hashed out what worked in previous seasons and what didn’t, building a new and improved version of the show ready for season three. Crucially,

“In season three, we get to build on all of those.

You’ve still got the fabulous look. You’ve still got the fabulous cast,” Neil promises. “But it no longer feels like each episode is as distinct.

Neil pinpointed the portrayal of Mr World, a key player in American Gods,

It’s a rollercoaster ride, and the rollercoaster starts at episode one.

“One of the things that I felt had not really come into focus for me was Mr World. Not because Crispin Glover isn’t

as one of season two’s biggest pitfalls.

new guest stars such as Denis O’Hare, Blythe Danner and even Marilyn Manson are addedtothe show’s growingpantheon.

They strap you in, and you’re on the ride. That feels right. That feels like what American Gods should be.”

Most importantly of all though, the aimless meandering of season two has been replaced by a steadfast purpose which grounds the wilder fantasy elements with a clear aimand direction.

That’s high praise indeed, particularly as Neil is the one who first wrote the book American Gods is based on way back in 2001. But why has it taken this long for the show to find such divine inspiration?

But because of the way that Mr World was written. It felt like nobody writing Mr World was quite sure who Mr World was,” Neil laughs.

“It’s all come together,” says Neil. “On season one, I felt like there was a lot of stuff we got very right straight out of the gate. We had a fabulous, fabulous cast. And we had this sort of hyper-real

Ricky suggests that a lot of this is down to the amount of time that Neil and new showrunner, Charles H ‘Chic’ Eglee, had to plan everything out beforehand. “For me, it was the most efficient

“There were writing decisions that I didn’t entirely understand, things that made Mr World smaller and less interesting. For example, I still don’t understand why Mr World was in a secret bunker underneath

one of our finest living actors, because Crispin is a national f**king treasure.

19

Ricky Whittle and Ashley Reyes in Ep. 5 “Sister Rising” of American Gods © Starz

a golf course in season two. It was like, ‘Why is he there? Yes, I understand you build this amazing set, but what is this about?’”

Following this discussion, it soon became clear that Mr World would need to be radically reinvented for season three. And thankfully, on a show where batshit-crazy twists are an everyday occurrence,

Neil and Chic were able to easily “open the character up” into multiple roles, sharing Mr World out between Crispin and two newcomers, Danny Trejo and Dominique Jackson.

“Crispin is amazing,” says Neil. “But there are more sides to Mr World than the ones that you’ve seen so far. Mr World is much more of an idea than a person.”

And what a bloody good idea it was to mix things up like this. Literally. Because as anyone who’s watched the season three premiere already knows, Dominique steals the show (much like she does in

Pose) with her extremely charismatic (and violent) take on Mr Ms World.

It’s not just Crispin’s character who’s changed this time round either. Perhaps most crucially of all, season three also fleshes out the show’s protagonist, Shadow, who up to this point has often felt too much like his namesake, slipping into the background amidst all the chaos.

In the book, everything is written from Shadow’s perspective, but that’s not true of the show, which often broadens its focus. Because of this, Ricky feels there was “a lot more pressure on Shadow to frame these beautiful gods all around him, to introduce them all, and allow the audience to feel something through Shadow. We’re looking through his eyes,” Ricky continues.

“So there’s a lot of pressure as an actor.”

In many ways, that’s really the show’s biggest obstacle: How do you make the most (seemingly) normal character the most interesting? In season

one, Shadow’s grief and confusion threaten to consume him entirely, and while Ricky shoulders that burden admirably, the script didn’t always give his character space to breathe (“He was void of charisma and personality,” Ricky admits). And then in season two, this pain was replaced by frustration and anger, which added more depth to the role, but also veered close to unlikeable.

“I’m a bit of a British goofball. So it was nice to throw some fun in there.”

But that’s starting to change now. “In season three, we see Shadow smile,” Ricky promises. “I’m a bit of a British goofball. So it was nice to throw some fun in there – a little bit of Ricky into Shadow’s stoicism.” This shines through most in Ricky’s favourite episode of the whole show, an upcoming caper – “Ocean’s 11-inspired” – which will show viewers “a very different side to Shadow”.

Fleshing Shadow out in this way was particularly important to Neil, who felt Ricky’s charmand warmth didn’t come through as much as it could have in

Danny Trejo in Ep. 7 “Fire and Ice“ (left) Sharon Hope in Ep. 10 “Tears of the Wrath-Bearing Tree” (right) © Starz 20

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previous seasons. “It feels like one of the things that we got in season three that we never had before is our leading man. He’s the same leading man we’ve always had, but

the success of season three, but ironically enough, the thematic focus of AmericanGods movingforward is one of collaboration, not individual heroism.

He wanted as many voices as possible, so they were authentic.” And that’s perhaps the real secret behind season three’s success. More than ever, communication behind the scenes has come together in ways it always should have.

now he’s our leading man, and you care about him. You understand him.”

As the story progresses, the mantra “I is we” begins to take hold, and that reflects “It’s about the ‘we’ having more power than the ‘I’,” what’s going on behind the scenes too. says Ricky. “And that’s what we wanted to put into

Of course, a lot of that is because Shadow initially “comes into the story in a state of shock, repressing everything, just trying to cope... What’s lovely is, by this point in the story, Shadow does understand what’s going on, and he’s becoming somebody else.

He’s hiding under an assumed name that’s also kind of an assumed identity.

When Chic first came on board, he immediately invited Ricky into the writer’s room to help imbue Shadow with his own voice. “So he brought me in, and we talked about how important it was to have representation and to have everyone be inclusive.

The writing room was, I would say, around 10% cisgendered straight white men. The rest was

And he’s letting that charm happen”.

Shadow’s rebirth, so to speak, plays a huge role in

LGBTQ, biracial, black, white, male, female, formerly incarcerated...

that writing room.

It’s not about one person’s voice –it’s about everyone’s voice.”

But as Neil said before, “the proof’s in the pudding”, so check out the new episodes for yourself to see if you also believe that season three really is “the best one yet”. Because without your belief, these gods won’t be arounf forever.

American Gods S04 — Cast, release date, plot and everything you need to know!

Star Ricky Whittle has teased “an epic ending”. | ABBYROBINSON Editor’s note: American Gods spoilers follow!

American Gods season 4 might be all we want to talk about now, but there was a time when the conversation surrounding the show centred on the behind-the-scenes controversy, rather than the show itself.

Jesse Alexander was brought in as showrunner following Bryan Fuller and Michael Green’s joint exit ahead of season two. The pair had reportedly walked away due to a clash with Starz. But Alexander, too, later departed.

Yetide Badaki and Bruce Langley in Ep. 8 “The Rapture of Burning” © Starz

Then Orlando Jones, who played Mr Nancy/Anansi, the Ghanaian trickster god, was dropped after season two, a decision which prompted Jones to publicly criticise showrunner Charles Eglee.

Neil Gaiman, who wrote the novel of the same name on which the show is based and is also an executive producer, told Digital Spy that there was “a lot of confusion” about how the season three cast was going to look, adding: “I think it probably could have been handled much better, and that’s including communicating with the cast over what was happening in this season, and what’s going to be happening in season four.

“I’ll put it this way: there are a lot of actors who seem to think that they’ve been fired because they weren’t in season three, and you’re sort of going, ‘You’re not in this season because stuff is happening in the season that you’re not in. That doesn’t mean you’re not coming back. There’s an awful lot of stuff that doesn’t mean’.

Show star Ricky Whittle in season finale “Tears of the Wrath-Bearing Tree” © Starz

“It’s just like the book. You actually meet a whole bunch of new characters, and there’s a new plot that then winds up at the end, tying into the old plot.”

But the fantasy drama was renewed for a third season and was much improved, we should add, which is no guarantee of renewal, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.

The series had also suffered from declining ratings, so much so that it wouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone if it had been cancelled.

So, what does the future hold? Will Gaiman’s world be brought back to life for another batch of episodes?

21

American Gods season 4 cast: Who’s in it?

“I’m wondering how long they can draw out the book,” Ian McShane (Mr Wednesday) told TVLine. “Will it end with season three, or will there be a season four, before Shadow takes wing on his own?”

Both Gaiman and Ricky Whittle (Shadow Moon) have also suggested that the show has a life beyond the latest chapter, but which characters will play a role?

One name who was missing from season three was Media, played by Gillian Anderson in season one, with Kahyun Kim joining the fold in the second chapter as New Media.

Could we see that character return in future episodes?

“I think we want to bring Media back, but we’re trying to figure out what Media is,” Gaiman told Digital Spy. “When I wrote the book, even when we were making season one, it felt like Media was monolithic; that you could go, ‘Ah, over here

is the media, and look, it is represented by a Lucille Ball/Lucy Ricardo character, who is also somehow a newsreader, who is also every icon of media.’

Yes, that is an incredibly long wait, but it also means they’ve got plenty of time to make sure that the story isn’t too hot or too cold, but just right.

“By season two, everybody was going, ‘We don’t think that’s what Media is right now.’ We had a fabulous idea of, ‘OK, well, then, New Media.’

American Gods season 4 plot: What will happen?

“Right now, I think that Media feels fragmented, which is one reason why we took a lot of that role, and divided it up amongst these sort of social media entities that you got to watch Ms World interacting with,” he added.

“I think by season four, Media may well have settled down and become something else again, both more powerful and less powerful than it was in season one.”

American Gods season 4 release date: When will it air?

Since it first aired back in 2017, all three seasons of American Gods have hit screens every other year, which means it wouldn’t be remotely surprising if season four didn’t arrive until 2023.

Gillian Anderson as “Media” in Ep. 5 Season 1 of American Gods © Starz 22

Chatting to Collider, Whittle revealed that he has seen how season four plays out, adding: “We definitely know how all of the main threads, arcs, and characters are gonna come together for an epic ending.

“There are a lot more Easter eggs in season three alluding to what’s going to happen in season four.”

But it’s too early for us to gaze into our crystal ball and make any predictions just yet as the show is airing weekly; we remind you that here’s currently no official news on season four.

We’ll check back here once season three has wrapped up for all of our questions and theories.

T

H

E

P O STAL ZO NE Dear ForeverHalloween fans, Haven’t written here in a while, so thought I’d share that I rewatched Fire in the Sky when I came home from night shift at 3am last night and decided to have a few beers.

The final scene is so intense and to this day it still holds up as one of the scariest films from the early 90’s.

Anyone seen it? Let’s discuss!

Ash Stevenson

Dear Ash! Here’s my thoughts: after I watched this movie I took into perspective that aliens are freaking scary. This movie probably has the best alien abduction that I have ever seen. The aliens research on the man that got abducted was petrifying and the aliens themselves looked as scary as heck. I think this movie is very underrated and should be seen by every true alien believer or anyone that is in for a

good scare, besides after you see the movie I’m almost positive you will believe in them anyway. I think this movie is just as good as any alien movie I’ve ever seen and is sure the scariest. I definitely recommend this movie and if you like scary movies this is a must see.

Jeremy Kilgore

Dear horror movie fans, Every Friday until these lockdowns end we’ve got fun, free, old school American-style movie nights at the Virtual Grindhouse Cinema! This week, Friday May 7th, we’re showing Carnival of Souls (1962), BEAKS: The Movie (1987), and The Werewolf vs The Vampire Woman (1971).

PLUS: Fun interactive drinking games for all four films! Multiple 35mm grindhouse trailer shows! LIVE movie trivia!

The program will be livestreamed, so you can enjoy it from the comfort of your own home either via YouTube or KOSMI! More information can be found on the Facebook page attached - see you Friday night at 12:00pm Central US Time! facebook.com/VirtualGrindhouseAllNighter

Dear People, Has anybody watched Scare Package? It’s on Shudder, should I even bother?

Geneva Hofeling Kessler

David Moore Hi Geneva!

RE to Anne Carter in issue N.12/2020: Review for Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987)

I’d give this movie a 7/10, and call it rather a Cabin in the Woods-ish B Movie.

This was actually surprisingly good! It’s kind of a sister movie to Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge in a lot of ways Including the queer undertones. It was filmed as It’s own thing and then turned in to a Prom Night sequel by MGM just because it was a known thing already. You don’t need to have seen Prom Night first to see this one.

It also heavily references things like Carrie and the Exorcist and everyone in the cast has horror director surnames like Carpenter and Craven so it’s definitely by horror fans for horror fans. 4/5!

I really appreciated the way this film worked hard to turn its B-movie budget into a strength.

When you’re making a horror comedy and you can’t afford theatrical release-worthy effects (or actors), what do you do? You embrace the cheese! This movie is very self-aware, making no attempt to be anything other than it is: a crazy clever hodge podge of at least a dozen classic and more traditional horror films. If you have an open mind and you’re not an outright film snob, give it a watch. You just might be pleasantly surprised, as I was!

Doug McHardlane

Ryan Boyd

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Hi! Me and my team are making a Friday The 13th fan film titled “My Special Boy”. It takes place 5 years after the original film and acts as a re-imagining of the second film.

Synopsis: Years after the events of Friday the 13th 1958, Sean Orton returns to Camp Crystal Lake with a dark history. Despite warning, he attempts to save his family name by reopening it as Camp Trinity Pointe. He gathers a group of friends to help rebuild the camp, but there’s an evil that haunts and is seeking revenge.

If you’d like to help the project, find the link below to our Indiegogo campaign! Thanks! https://igg.me/at/MySpecialBoy/x#/ James Grim

Hey everyone!

Just wanted to get other horror fans’ perspective. I recently watched “THEM”, the Amazon Prime show, and absolutely loved it and thought it was one of the best horrorthriller series in recent memory. What’s everyone’s opinion? I’d love to discuss!

Charles Forshaw

Dear everyone, I’m searching for these additions to my horror collection: Super Hybrid, Halloween Triple Pack (Halloween: The Curse Of Michael Myers, H20, Resurrection), Malicious.

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WHAT ARE YOUREADING?!

I just recieved an advanced copy of With Teeth by Brian Keene and starting right away.

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I am the publicist for the publisher of this book, Death’s Head Press. I’m also a big Brian Keene fan, so take it or leave it reader-friends; I’m sharing my reading experience regardless!

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New life is given to an ancient trope. Two bonus short stories! Highly recommend!

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10 UPCOMINGHORROR VIDEOGAMES WECANNOT WAIT TOPLAY IN2021: #1. Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood (Cyanide Studios, February 4) Though details are still light, from what we’ve seen, the game looks to be a blast to play as a lycanthrope roaming the American Northwest.

#2. Paranoid (Madmind Studios) The game takes place in the 80s, and puts you in the shoes of Patrick, a recluse suffering from deepening paranoid schizophrenia, who after many years is leaving his apartment to reunite with his sister. Of course, the question is, is this is real?

#3. GhostWire: Tokyo (Tango Gameworks) The story concerns much of Tokyo’s population vanishing, followed by the arrival of the Visitors – hostile spirits based on Japanese folklore.

#4. Scorn (Ebb Software) There’s still nothing yet in terms of a story, but after all you’re in a biomechanical world that looks just like Alien. And where’s the fun in revealing the story for something as cool-looking as that?

#5. Succubus (Madmind Studios, July 22) The prologue demo has had a positive response, and the intro cinematic for the title establishes the gory action you’d expect from a demonic priestess looking to take revenge, and take back her kingdom.

#6. Sons of the Forest (Endnight Games) The sequel will reportedly expand upon the basebuilding mechanic found in the previous game, along with a host of new monsters and cannibals.

#7. Little Nightmares 2 (Tarsier Studios) You guessed it. The pandemic. Originally slated for last year, at least February will bring us some excitement for this follow-up to the 2017 gem.

#8. System Shock (Nightdive Studios) It’s been years since the Kickstarter, and the move to a new engine. But with the alpha demo last year, we finally got glimpses at the nightmarish world we can’t wait to revisit on Citadel Station.

#9. Vampire: The Masquerade –Bloodlines 2 (Hardsuit Labs) Paradox Interactive CEOEbba Ljungerud assured that the game will be coming this year, but with Hardsuit Labs’ narrative team unexpectedly receiving the axe last year...we’ll see.

#10. Mundaun (Hidden Fields) Techland has been fairly quiet on just when we’d see the game, which was said to be in “the final stretch” of development back in May 2020. MW

02

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Going in the second month of 2021, sadly still under lockdown for the most part, we keep on bringing you the finest selection of new releases. There we’ll talk about The Luminaries, Starz’s new show starring Eve Hewson and Eva Green in Eleanor Catton’s adaptation of her Booker Prize-winning novel, where fortune-telling and hunting never looked so exciting, taking place in the middle of the night in 1866, outside a shack on New Zealand’s South Island.

Your best night mare s.

THELUMINARIES ABooker Prize winne astrology and zodiac r novel, and a backdrop of an signs, 1866 New Zealand gold rush

IT’S ASIN ‘If Covid was an STD it would be hidden too’

DAMIENLENONE: TERRIFIER 2 Art the Clown return s to the timid town of Miles Count y

Eve Hewson and Eva

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Eerie, patient, female centric tales that hint at far more than they reveal

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Trish Wood, director of the five-part docu-series reframes Bundy “through the lens of gender”

FX’s mannered Midwestern noir returns after three years with a new setting, a social conscience and Chris Rock.

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Aminiseries that imagines life on unreachable planets, following BBC’s nature docuseries style

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Amazon’s wry, messy, gruesome, sharp superhero drama is back to blow your mind

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g l movie is an inspirin Netflix’s new originathat will connect with women coming-of-age tale to come: of all ages for years

TOPLIST

Mike Flanagan’s newest venture maybe it won’t scare you at first; but when you think about it six weeks later, sitting in the same spot, doing the same thing, thinking the same thoughts, I promise you, you’ll be terrified.

the message is to be true to yourself, trust your gut and to never bow down when a man tells you to

D O O U S B T L E R E S

2020

Fans can expect Vikings to be Vikings with a capital V”, actor Høgh Andersen says

P

“This was the most epic season we made. We shot the biggest battle we’ve ever done on the show; we’ve spent nine days shooting it and that was crazy.

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