It's only been a year since random teenagers last egged your house and no, that's not because you've moved to a nicer part of town. Halloween is upon us again, that one time of the year when wearing slutty clothes isn't frowned upon and a horror movie binge becomes mandatory.
It's that time of year again when people can dress up as sluts, dunk their heads in water for fruit and consciously choose to scare themselves in any way possible. The most hallowed of all Halloween traditions though is of course the horror movie binge. The problem though is that while the genre has some incredible films in its repertoire, horror also has more trash than most. For every Exorcist or Carrie, there are a thousand Leprechauns and a million more Dreamcatchers.
Batman has the Joker, and Superman has Lex Luthor. But what about Wonder Woman? us as we select 7 villains that the Amazonian Princess should fight in her solo movie.
Unlike most shows that peak early on, AMC's The Walking Dead has become more popular than ever in its fifth season, defying the downward trajectory that usually plagues programs in later life. From the explosive first episode to that tragic hospital shootout, the first half of season five kept the momentum going in defiance of previous criticisms about the show's pace.
Comic books are just for kids, right? They're just fun little adventures where the good guys always win, where no one is ever really hurt and the villains live on to fight another day. What adult in their right mind would read something aimed solely at children... right?
Original ideas are dead. In their place, cinemas are now flooded with prequels and sequels, reboots and remakes, re-imaginings and re-whatever the hell else they're going to come up with next. No movie is too sacred. Even Disney, one of the most successful studios of all time, has begun to raid their own back catalogue, remaking childhood favourites into live action blockbusters.
"We need more strong female characters!" Hollywood has been accused of profiting from the objectification of women ever since a flapper girl first showed a bit too much ankle, so it makes sense that this mantra is frequently thrown out during discussions of cinema.
Oh dear. Superhero movies have enjoyed unprecedented success in the past decade, forever changing the way Hollywood approaches blockbuster filmmaking, but the cracks are finally beginning to show. The fact that Avengers: Age of Ultron is now the sixth highest grossing movie of all-time should fly in the face of that, except that analysts and critics alike were shocked when Joss Whedon's sequel failed to match the success of its predecessor. Marvel also had another hit on their hands this year with Ant-Man, an atypical hero who few had heard of outside of comic book fandom, but the film still performed relatively poorly in comparison with the rest of the studio's output.
Spinoffs suck. Thanks to programs like Joey and The Cleveland Show, this is the common misconception many audiences hold, but in reality, some of TV's finest shows started life as spinoffs. Frasier, Angel, Better Call Saul... Each of these programs wouldn't exist if the waters hadn't been tested first by the likes of Cheers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Breaking Bad.
