Netflix’s Locke & Key Gets Its First Spooky Trailer

It’s been a long road for the Locke & Key comic book series to become a TV show, but we’re less than a month away from its release on Netflix. As promised, the first trailer for the upcoming series has arrived, after a teaser dropped for the show.

The tone of the trailer is a bit different from what we saw in the recent teaser, which leaned towards horror. The trailer is a bit more fantasy-heavy, which completely works with the tone of the original comic book series. It has an ’80s-adventure movie vibe to it that’s very fitting for the story. Check it out for yourself below.

Locke & Key follows a widowed mother and her three children as they move into their ancestral home after the father of the family is killed. Known as Keyhouse, the house holds secrets, including keys with mystical powers that have a connection to the deceased father. There is also a powerful force trying to steal the keys from the children. The IDW comic book was written by Joe Hill and features art by Gabriel Rodriguez.

Locke & Key cast:

  • Darby Stanchfield (Scandal) as Nina Locke
  • Jackson Robert Scott (It and It: Chapter 2) as Bode Locke
  • Connor Jessup (American Crime) as Tyler Locke
  • Emilia Jones (Horrible Histories) as Kinsey Locke
  • Bill Heck (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs) as Rendell Locke
  • Laysla De Oliveira as Dodge
  • Thomas Mitchell Barnet as Sam Lesser
  • Griffin Gluck (American Vandal) as Gabe.

The series is executive produced by Carlton Cuse, Meredith Averill, Aron Eli Coleite, Joe Hill, Chris Ryall, and many others between Netflix, IDW, and the production companies Circle of Confusion and Take 5.

Locke & Key arrives on Netflix on February 7, 2020.

Final Fantasy XV Getting Spin-Off Mobile MMO, Launching First In China This Year

Final Fantasy XV is getting another mobile spin-off, this time as an MMORPG. The game, simply called Final Fantasy 15 Mobile, is said to take place parallel to the story of the main game and feature new regions to explore like continents floating in the sky.

Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad said that this will be developed by JSC (from Korea) and GAEA (from China), and then published by Oriental Pearl in China. It’s being made in Unreal Engine 4. It was originally announced in 2017, but the scope of the project has expanded into a full MMO with large-scale multiplayer features. Kotaku reports that it will launch in China in the first half of this year, and follow to other regions after.

This will be Square Enix’s third mobile FFXV game, but it’s taking a very different approach than the others. The first, subtitled A New Empire, was free-to-play strategy game released in 2017. Then the next year, the company released Final Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition, a recreation of the main game with some minor changes–the most noticeable was a new, cuter art style. Pocket Edition was actually well-received enough to get ports on other platforms, including PS4, Xbox One, and Switch.

This goes back to the roots of Final Fantasy XV, which was originally Versus XIII. It was meant to be an expanded universe for XIII as part of a number of spin-offs. Now that XV is the most recent numbered Final Fantasy, Square Enix seems to be taking a similar approach by exploring the universe from multiple angles.

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Underwater Review – Shallow Plot, Deep Scares

There isn’t much about Underwater that can’t be guessed by looking at the name. It’s a horror movie and it’s set–you guessed it–underwater. Extremely underwater, in fact–near the Marianas Trench, to be specific, on a drilling rig that is boring deep into the Earth. What exactly is being mined is never made explicitly clear, but from context clues, it seems like some sort of fuel. Luckily, the simplicity of the concept isn’t necessarily a bad thing in this case. Chances are if you saw the trailer for this one and were excited about it, you’re going to leave the theater a satisfied customer. Underwater isn’t attempting to revolutionize horror movies–arguably it’s not even really attempting to tell a fully fleshed out story–but it will absolutely make you jump and want to cover your eyes.

Underwater opens with a montage of ominous news clippings touting all kinds of dangerous, vague threats about the risks of underwater drilling, from unexplained phenomena plaguing rigs to the potential psychological toll of living underwater. That’s about all the movie deigns to give as far as exposition is concerned, because the second the credits wrap up, we’re immediately off to the races. Kirsten Stewart’s character, Norah, gives a short monologue (again about the psychological effects of living underwater) before things instantly and immediately begin going south. It all feels like being thrown into the deep end of a story already in progress–characters don’t even get names before they’re immediately catapulted into struggling for their lives.

Norah eventually teams up with a crew of survivors, including the rig’s proud captain (Vincent Cassel), obnoxious engineer (TJ Miller), meek research assistant (Jessica Haversham), panicky tech (Mamoudou Athie), and cool-headed mechanic (John Gallagher Jr.) But once they’ve banded together, they quickly realize that the “earthquake” that began tearing their ocean floor home apart was actually anything but a natural disaster, making the fight for their lives–and any means back to the surface–a high-stakes game of cat and mouse against deadly aquatic monsters.

There really isn’t much more to it–and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. What Underwater lacks in world-building and lore, it makes up for in a very effective, cold-sweat inducing sense of claustrophobia and anxiety. The monsters, the looming threat of drowning or imploding thanks to the pressure of the water or being crushed by falling rig debris, the helplessness of being stuck on the seafloor with no way to make it to the surface–it’s all very scary.

What’s more, Underwater wears its blue-collar sci-fi inspiration on its sleeve. Even if you’re not a huge fan of Alien and Aliens, the aesthetic nods will be impossible to miss, from Norah’s “suiting up” montage that plays as a nod to Ellen Ripley to the rig’s Nostromo-style interiors. Even the monsters themselves seem to borrow both from H.R. Gieger and H.P. Lovecraft. Sure, the movie may not do much in the way of building a new world or new story, but it does do a great job of reminding you that these genre conventions have stood the test of time. It still works, even stripped down to its barest essentials.

Strangely, there are threads here and there that give the impression that once upon a time, Underwater was probably a much more fleshed-out narrative. Characters will occasionally bring up their surface-dwelling families only to inevitably reveal that the loved one they’ve been talking about in the present tense is actually long dead. Another character carries around a stuffed rabbit like a toddler carries a security blanket. These revelations never amount to anything, but feel like they could have in some other version of the script.

At one point, the existence of a second seafloor rig is brought up, only to be shot down with an ominous “that place no longer exists” one-liner from the captain. Was there another monster incident that was covered up? Experimentation? Some sort of dark secret? Who knows? Realistically, you’ll be hard-pressed to even remember to ask these questions upon leaving the theater, once your teeth have unclenched and your heart rate has slowed. It’s just not the sort of movie that asks you to spend much time or energy thinking too hard about any part of it.

All told, Underwater isn’t a bad horror movie. It’s a 90-minute monster-slash-disaster movie contained to the bottom of the ocean, it’s packed with enough jump-scares and dread to keep your teeth clenched for the duration, and the creatures are appropriately menacing, if wildly undeveloped. It certainly won’t be achieving classic status like the Alien franchise it owes so much to, but it’ll be a fun late-night watch for horror fans looking for a quick, one-and-done scare.

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker–Carrie Fisher’s Daughter Stood In For Her During One Scene

Warning: this post contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker contains several scenes featuring Leia Organa, Carrie Fisher’s character from the previous entries in the series. However, Fisher tragically passed away before filming began, and many elements of the film had to be rewritten to compensate for her absence.

While most of the footage seen in the final film is made up of deleted scenes from The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, one shot set in the past was done using digital effects and a stand-in–Billie Lourd, Fisher’s own daughter. In an interview with Yahoo Entertainment, Industrial Light & Magic visual effects supervisor Patrick Tubac has opened up about a shot that necessitated a body double.

Late in the film, a flashback scene reveals that Luke and Leia trained together following the events of Return of the Jedi, and that Leia was a proficient Jedi in her own right. In the scene, Luke and Leia fight while wearing masks, but remove them at the end. Mark Hamill played Luke, who was digitally de-aged in the final shot, and Billie Lourd filled in as Leia. Lourd also has her own character in the trilogy, lieutenant Kaydel Ko Connix.

“It was a poignant thing, and something that nobody took lightly,” Tubac says, “that she was willing to stand in for her mom.”

Elsewhere in the piece, visual effects supervisor Roger Guyett confirms that there’s no cut footage of a ghost Ben Solo, as the effect was never created, nor were on-screen cameos of past Jedi like Anakin and Mace Windu planned, even though their voices appear. They also confirm that there are not extensive deleted scenes offering further explanation of Palpatine’s return, at least not any that the effects team was involved with.

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Underwater Review

Kristen Stewart has long ago shed the role that made her: the quiet, awkward Bella Thorne in the Twilight franchise. 2019 saw Stewart take on the very fun (but commercial failure) Charlie’s Angels and this year she continues her journey to fully-fledged action star with the uneven but still impressive deep-sea thriller Underwater.

Directed by William Eubank from a script by Brian Duffield and Adam Cozad, Underwater follows the crew of a subterranean laboratory located seven miles beneath sea level as they fight for survival in the face of a terrifying threat. So far, so Alien, and honestly Underwater is at its best when it’s wearing its influences on its sleeve. But a lack of convictions — and belief in the audience — often makes the film feel weaker than the excellent and ambitious sci-fi that’s come before.

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Netflix’s The Witcher Season 2 Expected in 2021, Will Be ‘Much More Linear’

The creators of Netflix’s The Witcher series are aiming to get Season 2 out in 2021 and confirm that it will be more linear than the first season.

This comes from showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich who responded to questions from The Witcher fans in a Reddit AMA session on January 7, 2020. “We don’t yet have a target launch date for S2, past 2021,” she said in one response. “We don’t want to rush the product. That doesn’t benefit anyone.”

One of the recurring topics brought up in the AMA was about the non-linear structure of the first season and whether that would be replicated in Season 2. “The story will be much more linear, now that the three characters’ stories have started to intersect,” Hissrich confirmed.

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LG’s Rollable TV Is Coming In 2020, But Will Carry A $60,000 Price Tag

LG’s rollable 65-inch OLED TV, which first debuted at CES 2019, is once again on display at CES 2020. The screen, which can be rolled up into its own base when it’s not being used, is pretty incredible–and CNET has learned when it’s coming and how much it will cost. It’s called the OLED TV R.

The rollable television, which was also shown as a drop-down model during CES 2020 (which is a concept design and might not actually release), will apparently cost $60,000 when it ships this year between April and September. LG representatives at CES 2020 said that pricing “isn’t finalized,” but CNET received this figure from JS Lee, head of global marketing for LG home entertainment.

The television, which has been tested for up to 50,000 rolls, can be partially unfurled and display in “line mode” too, as seen below. The TV can also play music with the screen fully covered, and will sync with a phone via Bluetooth.

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The television works by fixing the OLED screen to thin horizontal bars that are risen by a pair of arms at the back, allowing the screen to appear solid when it’s fully unfurled. It is covered by a standard TV warranty, but according to CNET, the display unit did not show any signs of wear or stress.

You’ll be able to pick up the LG Signature OLED TV R later this year, but only if you can afford such an expensive, fancy television.

Elsewhere at CES 2020, Sony unveiled the logo for the PlayStation 5 for the first time. By the end of 2020, you’ll be able to play PlayStation 5 on the OLED TV R.

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