‘The Cycle’: Jordan Downey, Deborah Ann Woll & Jeffrey Donovan Talk Old-School Horror, ‘Daredevil’ & ‘Sicario 3’

Director Jordan Downey and stars Deborah Ann Woll and Jeffrey Donovan join The Discourse Podcast to discuss their new Shudder horror film, “The Cycle,” a dark, twisted mystery that begins as a grim detective thriller before becoming something far stranger, wilder, and more horrifying.Downey discusses his love of old-school horror, the influences of “The Thing,” “Se7en,” and “The Silence Of The Lambs,” and his commitment to gloriously disgusting practical creature effects. He explains why he wanted to rival some of the genre’s most legendary sequences, how audience feedback convinced him to spend more time developing the characters, and the challenges of bringing such an ambitious production to life.Woll and Donovan join us in separate conversations to discuss collaborating with Downey, building their characters, and the leap of faith required when so much of a film depends on elaborate practical effects that haven't yet been created.Plus, Downey reveals his ideas for expanding “The Cycle” into potential prequels, sequels, and even a television series, along with his dream of reviving the “Critters” franchise. Woll discusses giving Karen Page a satisfying sendoff in “Daredevil: Born Again,” while Donovan reveals whether he's gotten the call to return for “Sicario 3.”“The Cycle” premieres October 23 on Shudder.Read more at ThePlaylist.net and subscribe to The Discourse Podcast for more filmmaker and actor interviews.

sdsdsdHow do you turn one of the most beloved fighting games of all time into a movie without losing everything that makes it gloriously ridiculous?On this episode of The Discourse Podcast, director Kitao Sakurai (“The Eric Andre Show,” “Bad Trip”) joins us to discuss his gonzo approach to “Street Fighter,” assembling a cast that includes Jason Momoa, Andrew Koji, Noah Centineo, Callina Liang, David Dastmalchian, 50 Cent, Eric André, Cody Rhodes, Roman Reigns, and Orville Peck.Sakurai explains why he wanted to make something that felt like “exactly what Hollywood isn’t doing,” how professional wrestlers, rappers, and comedians became essential to his vision, and why he refused to make another video game adaptation embarrassed by its source material.He also gets into the surprisingly kinky psychology behind Dastmalchian’s M. Bison, the film’s hand-drawn anime flashbacks, the challenge of staging inventive fight sequences, and why historical accuracy goes out the window when your movie features a green guy who shoots electricity.“We’re really trying to honor it, but also have fun with it,” Sakurai says. And judging by his approach, he means it.“Street Fighter” hits theaters October 16.Listen to The Discourse Podcast on Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts.

Mackenzie Davis joins The Playlist’s Bingeworthy Podcast to talk about Netflix’s new creature-feature series “Below,” working opposite Josh Hartnett in Newfoundland, and why the show’s mix of horror, family drama, and dark comedy appealed to her.She also looks back at “Terminator: Dark Fate,” which she still thinks got a “bad rap,” recalls the near-religious atmosphere of working with Denis Villeneuve and Roger Deakins on “Blade Runner 2049,” and explains why she’s now on a mission to prove she’s funny.“Below” premieres October 8 on Netflix.

Giovanni Ribisi joins The Playlist’s Bingeworthy Podcast to discuss MGM+’s “American Hostage,” the true story of Tony Kiritsis, working opposite Jon Hamm, and his increasingly serious work as a cinematographer.Ribisi explains how he approached playing Kiritsis, the Indianapolis man who held mortgage broker Richard “Dick” Hall hostage for 63 hours with a sawed-off shotgun wired to his neck, and why he resisted reducing him to a madman. He also talks about shooting intense phone conversations with Hamm in real time and learning just days before production that Gus Van Sant was making “Dead Man’s Wire,” another Tony Kiritsis project starring Bill Skarsgård, Al Pacino, and Colman Domingo.The conversation also covers Ribisi’s cinematography work on “Strange Darling,” his collaboration with Panavision engineers on vintage VistaVision cameras, Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” and why he believes audiences can still see and feel the difference between film and digital cinematography.

Andrew Garfield joins The Playlist’s The Discourse Podcast to discuss Paul Greengrass’ “The Uprising,” the historical epic’s contemporary political urgency, and why he sees the film as a “soul cry” for a world where “everything is terribly wrong.” He also breaks down Greengrass’ immersive filmmaking style and reveals the advice Matt Damon gave him before production.Garfield also talks about his still-unformed idea for a “weird” return as Spider-Man, playing OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in Luca Guadagnino’s “Artificial,” and wrapping “Wild Things” opposite Jude Law as Siegfried & Roy. “The Uprising” opens in theaters September 10.

There is a superhero shot that never was in Macon Blair’s “Idiots,” but nobody is saving the day. The camera is planted low, looking up at Dave Franco just before a practical diarrhea rig erupts from his shorts and completely browns out the lens. Somewhere between the Cocoa Krispies used to give the mess extra texture and Franco’s dainty bird tattoo singing “who farted,” the movie finds its beautifully stupid wavelength.Franco and O’Shea Jackson Jr. play two spectacularly unqualified men hired to transport a wealthy, troubled teenage influencer (Mason Thames) to rehab. The job goes bad quickly and keeps finding new depths. Written and directed by Blair, the filmmaker and actor behind “I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore” and “The Toxic Avenger,” the dark road comedy also features Peter Dinklage, Kiernan Shipka, Nicholas Braun, and Killer Mike. It is filthy, violent, oddly sweet, and packed with side characters who seem to have wandered in from their own movies.READ MORE: ‘The Shitheads’ Review: O’Shea Jackson Jr. & Dave Franco Are Riotous Fun In A Chaotic Road Trip Movie [Sundance]The film took the long way to theaters. Blair first approached Franco nearly a decade ago, when both agreed the actor was too young for the part. Eight years later, Franco circled back, joined as a producer, and helped assemble the cast and financing. The movie finally premiered at Sundance as “The Shitheads,” where Independent Film Company acquired it before everyone had to confront the difficulty of marketing a movie with that title.

Tell Dr. Jack Abbot to find a hobby, and the man joins a SWAT team. That is the version of healing “The Pitt” handed Shawn Hatosy in Season 2, and it gets right to what makes Abbot such a compelling presence. He is calm enough to walk into any medical disaster and damaged enough to mistake more danger for self-care.Hatosy has not been around the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center nearly as much as some of his castmates, but Abbot does not need much screen time to make an impression. His haunted introduction near the end of Season 1 earned Hatosy an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor. This year, he is back as an Outstanding Supporting Actor nominee, one of 25 nominations for the HBO Max drama’s second season. “The Pitt” led every program at this year’s Emmys, which is a pretty good diagnosis for a show that can make actual healthcare workers need to leave the room.READ MORE: ‘The Pitt,’ ‘Hacks,’ & ‘Widow’s Bay’ Dominate 2026 Emmy Nominations [Complete List]Season 2 picked up ten months after the first, following another 15-hour shift at PTMC, this time on the Fourth of July. Noah Wyle, Katherine LaNasa, Taylor Dearden, Patrick Ball, Sepideh Moafi, Fiona Dourif, and Gerran Howell were among the sprawling ensemble returning for another day of medical and personal crises, with hardly enough time to eat. Abbot returned with a few changes of his own. He is going to therapy, taking his mental health more seriously and, because he is still Jack Abbot, working as a SWAT medic on the side.

After multiple films and revival seasons, “The X-Files” creator Chris Carter finally got another shot at his often misunderstood film, “The X-Files: I Want to Believe.” The new R-rated cut restores disturbing imagery, reshapes the music, and even strips away some of the Mulder-Scully relationship material. It also commits what a certain corner of the fanbase may consider the ultimate R-rated act: Carter cut the Mulder-Scully kiss. But don’t expect a “Snyder Cut” here. This cut is surprisingly shorter, with mostly very subtle changes for eagle-eyed fans.Now titled “The X-Files: I Want to Believe – Vrach Frankenshteyn,” Carter’s new version pushes the standalone thriller closer to the horror film he and co-writer Frank Spotnitz originally made. The movie reunites David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, years after they left the FBI at the end of Season 9, when a missing-agent case and a disgraced priest’s psychic visions pull them into a grotesque experiment involving stolen bodies and severed parts.On the latest episode of “The Discourse Podcast,” Carter joined host Mike DeAngelo to dig into what changed, why he traded some romantic material for bigger scares, and whether fans might ever see the larger Mulder and Scully story still sitting around in his head. He also discussed the unfinished business of Season 11, his conversation with Ryan Coogler about the “X-Files” reboot, and the horror fable he and his wife have made, “Queens for a Day.”

There was no reason to make another polite, faithful version of “Cape Fear.” Thankfully, Creator/Showrunner Nick Antosca had no interest in one.Apple TV’s “Cape Fear” is sweaty, violent, emotionally ugly, and pitched somewhere between a domestic thriller and a full-blown hyper-violent fever dream. The show takes the basic machinery of the 1962 film and Martin Scorsese’s operatic 1991 remake, pulls it apart, and rebuilds it as a ten-hour nightmare about privilege, resentment, marriage and the strange gravitational pull of a charismatic monster.Or, as Antosca rather happily described it during his recent appearance on The Playlist’s Bingeworthy podcast, “It is the lurid nightmare that we set out to make.”Mission accomplished!

On paper, “Furious” sounds like something we’ve all seen before. An FBI agent. A serial killer. A cat-and-mouse chase stretched across eight episodes. That’s technically what the show is, but it's also not really what the show is. The cat is carrying around a mountain of old trauma. The mouse has a disturbingly decent argument. Neither one is behaving in a way that makes it easy to decide who deserves your sympathy.That is where Liz Meriwether’s (“New Girl,” “Dying for Sex”) new Hulu series gets its hooks in. Loosely inspired by the 1987 thriller “Black Widow,” “Furious” follows FBI agent Alice Black (Emmy Rossum) as she hunts Catherine (Lola Petticrew), a serial killer targeting powerful men. Very quickly, though, the pursuit starts to feel less like a standard case and more like two damaged people slowly realizing they may understand each other better than anyone else does. That is not necessarily a good thing for either of them. The series also stars Scoot McNairy, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Jake Lacy, Rob Delaney, Rob Yang, and Steve Way.