According to German folklore that dates back to at least the 18th century, Belsnickel is a foil of sorts to Saint Nicholas, or Santa Claus: a disheveled man dressed in tattered furs and dirty clothes, often wearing a mask with a long tongue and carrying a switch, he visits homes a few weeks before Christmas to check up on children’s behavior. Belsnickel’s name is a combination of belzen (German for “pelt,” which could describe furs and/or walloping) and Nickel, a nickname for the German Nikolaus....

And like the first movie, which is based on the real-life investigations of demonologist Ed Warren and the clairvoyant Lorraine, The Conjuring 2 is heavily inspired by a true story, one that captured the attention of British tabloids — and even the BBC — just as Jay Anson’s The Amityville Horror was hitting bookshelves. The film nods to Amityville, the Warrens’ most famous case, in its opening scene, and later ties it to Enfield through the recurring “Nun” demon Valak....

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It will be the first main entry in the horror series not helmed by James Wan, who is producing along with Peter Safran. Michael Chaves (The Curse of La Llorona) directed the film from David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick’s screenplay, with a story by Johnson-McGoldrick and Wan. The story involves the very first murder committed in Brookline, Connecticut, in its 193-year history. It is also the first U....

The Flash’s “Fear Me” is an entertaining enough Season 7 installment that gets to play with a long-standing genre trope, that of an outside entity – think demon, alien, magical dust, or, in this case, a metahuman known as Psych who’s able to project nightmare hallucinations onto others – who somehow allows us to explore the deepest fears of our favorite characters (plus, Cecile in The Thinker’s chair was pretty darn cool)....

There’s really no such thing as understatement on this season of The Handmaid’s Tale, is there? This episode, and the ones preceding it, have played out at a deafeningly high emotional volume. Every speech is emphatic, every exchange is urgent and tear-filled, every decision is literally life or death. It’s a good job that Elisabeth Moss, Samira Wiley and the others are able to pull off this level of sustained intensity, because with a lesser cast or less controlled direction, the high drama could easily turn into melodrama....

Mike Flanagan has slowly become one of the surest hands in horror. Not only has he excelled which original material like Oculus and Hush, he’s also expertly adapted tricky properties like Stephen King’s Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep, the daunting sequel to The Shining. Perhaps Flanagan’s most widely seen work, Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House, was a 10-episode series that updated Shirley Jackson’s famous novel of the same name....

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is beloved by shounen anime fans for its nonstop action, absurd and over-the-top showdowns, and creative Stands (physical manifestations of one’s true self). It’s a bombastic series that defies predictions. We’re still waiting for the fifth part of the manga, Stone Ocean, to be released as an anime adaptation, and the story is still ongoing. Strangely, there’s still no confirmation that a fifth season is even coming yet....

This feature contains broad spoilers for several horror movies featuring cats, including Alien, Cat People, Drag Me To Hell, Fallen, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, Pet Sematary and The Voices. The relationship between humans and cats over time has given way to a number of cultural impressions and outright superstitions. Ancient Egyptians associated them with gods. In the Middle Ages, they were linked with witches and killed en masse, which probably hastened the spread of the Black Plague through the rodent population....

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is the exception. Set in Chicago, it does not revolve around a family in the traditional sense but instead a band led by the title character (Davis), a fictionalized version of the real-life blues singer who was a pioneer in terms of both her professional and personal life. One of the first blues singers to record her own music and cross the divide between white and black audiences, she fought resolutely to control her own business and live her life — she was reportedly bisexual — the way she wanted....

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Episode 3 The Rings of Power episode 3 largely continues in the same vein as episodes 1 and 2. It’s stunningly beautiful (Orcs excepted), well acted, and continues to feel very much like part of the world we saw in Peter Jackson’s movies based on Tolkien’s works. But it is also rather slow-paced and weighed down by the need for substantial amounts of exposition....

UPDATE! The full trailer is now here! You can check out our trailer breakdown here. While the full trailer will hit the internet on Thursday at 9 am ET, the teasers contain snippets of footage from the new movie, including our first looks at Neo and Trinity as well as Jessica Henwick and Jonathan Groff’s characters. But most importantly, the teasers introduce Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s mystery man, a character who looks and sounds a lot like Morpheus… “This is the moment for you to show us what is real....

That job, of course, was serving as executive producer on two syndicated game show giants: Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. Richards held down these roles beginning in May 2020, leaving the same role at The Price is Right and taking over from the beloved Harry Friedman who stewarded Merv Griffin’s two creations into TV icons. It’s as big a producing gig as there is in the game show biz. And yet, like many other American Icaruses with firm handshakes and a surplus of hubris, Richards wanted more....

The Godfather epic is a motion picture saga which tells the story of modern filmmaking. Over the course of three films and a coda, it follows the cinematic wave from its scrappy beginnings, merging an indie director’s vision with a studio maverick’s ideal for a perfect movie, through the consolidation of the industry rebels’ power, to their final absorption into corporate filmmaking. The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone indulges the revisionist history reserved for winners....

Ryan Murphy’s film adaptation for Netflix, by contrast, is less successful. The awkward space between these two stories is more pronounced, with the Broadway portions plagued by puzzling lighting and editing choices. Combine that with some truly head-scratching casting among three of the four adults, and it distracts from the intent of basically half the soundtrack. However, when it comes to all things prom-related, the adaptation is nearly as strong as its Broadway predecessor, and in some places utilizes cinematic elements to surpass the original versions of key musical numbers....

Did you know that a chess game can run so long that it gets adjourned? The player whose turn it is records their next move in a sealed envelope so that when both opponents next sit down, refreshed, they can proceed as if play has been unbroken. That is just one of the intricacies of chess revealed to the layman viewer in Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit, starring Anya Taylor-Joy as fictional chess prodigy Beth Harmon....

The Queen’s Gambit is a “coming-of-age story that explores the true cost of genius,” according to the official synopsis. “Abandoned and entrusted to a Kentucky orphanage in the late 1950s, a young Beth Harmon (Taylor-Joy) discovers an astonishing talent for chess while developing an addiction to tranquilizers provided by the state as a sedative for the children. Haunted by her personal demons and fueled by a cocktail of narcotics and obsession, Beth transforms into an impressively skilled and glamorous outcast while determined to conquer the traditional boundaries established in the male-dominated world of competitive chess....

There’s been a lot of speculation surrounding The Rings of Power’s mysterious Halbrand, who is supposedly an original character created for the series. Several people – including us! – have suggested that he might even be Sauron himself in disguise, since we know Sauron has put on many different disguises over the years. However, after watching episode 3, we’d like to put forward a different theory. The evidence that he might be a Bad Guy is mounting, but rather than Sauron himself, Halbrand might be the leader of the Ringwraiths, the Witch-King of Angmar....

Not the full Haley Joel Osment, you understand, but what we’ll call a seventh sense. I’d catch glimpses of something out of the corner of my eye, and my mind would fill in the blanks with spooky imagery because I was consuming so much of it. It didn’t help that my son had just been born. Lack of sleep combined with horror movie overload is a condition I wouldn’t wish on anyone....

The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 11 The Simpsons goes back to the past to make way for the future on Season 32, episode 11. “The Dad Feelings-Limited” is an origin story, revealing the sad and lonely tale of Comic Book Guy. No, it isn’t done in panel layouts, and his super strength turns out to be his greatest weakness. Comic Book Guy, diversely voiced by Hank Azaria, is a fairly one-dimensional character....

The Simpsons Season 33 Episode 16 After 33 seasons, The Simpsons can still strive to be edumacational. “Pretty Whittle Liar” is a smart episode, Jeopardy! smart, and we’re not talking about its celebrity tournaments. Joke-wise it is still mostly clever, as most of the recent seasons have become. It is nowhere near as funny as the Fargo takeoff episode, “A Serious Flanders,” but it is multilayered, pretty enjoyable, and features an original country song, and one by Conway Twitty, both pluck at the heartstrings....