I watched the clip once and felt my jaw tighten. You will notice something in Richard Brake’s face that turns a family fairy tale into a small, private panic. I’ve been writing about monsters and mythmakers long enough to tell you when a performance quietly takes the room.
Pinocchio: Unstrung
At a recent screening room someone laughed, then went quiet when Richard Brake stepped into frame.
I’ve seen Brake play monsters before, but his Geppetto in Pinocchio: Unstrung is a study in patient cruelty. In a new clip, he introduces his grandson with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes—small kindnesses used like tools. The scene leans on details: a slow camera, a practical prop that squeaks, the way Brake lets silence fill the gaps. That silence is as unsettling as a moth in a blackout.
If you care about performance choices, note how the director stages Geppetto’s gestures to feel domestic and off-kilter simultaneously—an old man who’s both delighted and quietly menacing. The clip landed via Vanity Fair’s Instagram post and spreads through feeds fast; it’s a reminder that horror doesn’t always scream. Sometimes it sits at the kitchen table and asks for tea.
Who plays Geppetto in Pinocchio: Unstrung?
Richard Brake plays Geppetto; his turn leans into menace more than warmth, and the clip highlights how the filmmakers use practical effects and Brake’s measured cadence to unsettle the audience.
Where can I watch the new Pinocchio clip?
Vanity Fair posted images and the clip on Instagram; it’s circulating through entertainment outlets and social platforms—check Vanity Fair’s Instagram or embedded posts on outlets like io9 and Deadline.
Bad Day for Bigfoot
On a production call the other day someone said, “This is a movie that smiles while it stomps on the set.”
Deadline reports Chris Elliott will lead a creature-filled adventure comedy titled Bad Day for Bigfoot, joined by Michael Ian Black, Sara Tomko, Oliver Cooper, and James Duval. The premise is deliciously simple: a staged hoax explodes into real supernatural mayhem in a Sasquatch hotspot. That setup turns jokers into players and hikers into witnesses—perfect tinder for comic panic.
The casting signals tonal range: Elliott and Black bring oddball timing, Tomko anchors with grounded genre credits (see Resident Alien), and Duval carries cult charisma from films like The Doom Generation. Expect a mix of physical comedy and creeping dread, like a rusted music box winding down.
Maniac Cop
In an Instagram scroll you can sometimes tell a director’s mood from a single image.
Nicolas Winding-Refn posted a heavily edited take on Salvador Dalí’s 1954 “Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus)” labeled “Maniac Cop by NWR.” It reads as mood art for his planned resurrection of William Lustig’s 1988 cult slasher about an undead police officer. The choice of Dalí—surreal, religious, distorted—telegraphs Refn’s intent: this will be stylized, slow-burning, and drenched in visual metaphor.
If you follow Refn on Instagram, you know signs like this are commitments more than teasers; they set design and tone long before cameras roll, and they give creatives and fans a reference point for production designers and editors.
Isla Monstro
I watched the trailer on a lunch break and rewound the voices twice.
Isla Monstro rebrands a covert island full of mutant soldiers as a flirty resort, and the voice cast reads like genre fan service: Juliana Harkavy, James Marsters, John DiMaggio, Will Friedle, Maurice LaMarche, and more. The trailer trades on nostalgia—those actors carry histories with shows like Buffy, Futurama, and Arrow—and sells the film as an animated mash-up of satire and action.
For fans of voice-driven animation, this is one to track on platforms that aggregate trailers and festival lineups, and to follow the voice actors on social feeds where production stills and recording-room clips often appear first.
It Ends
A festival programmer told me that some films live and die on a single premise—this one lives on the road.
NEON set It Ends for an August 21 theatrical release. Bloody-Disgusting describes it as a claustrophobic drive where four recent grads are trapped on an endless road, attacked by stragglers, and forced into routines that fray. That sort of relentless premise sells tickets by promising a slow-burn unraveling, and NEON has a track record with genre fare that reaches curious audiences and critics alike.
Untitled Daniels Project
At industry mixers the project’s logline is the one that stays in conversation longest.
Deadline says Charles Melton will join Matt Damon and Sandra Oh in a Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert tentpole that frames global warming as the villain. The Daniels’ previous work proves they can fold wild visual ideas into emotional cores—expect spectacle matched with personal stakes. When auteurs take on planetary themes, the marketing becomes part of the message, and casting choices tell you how intimate the scale will feel.
The Long Kiss Goodnight, Part II
At a film festival Q&A Geena Davis smiled and teased the audience the way only a veteran actor can.
Davis told Deadline she and Samuel L. Jackson always left the door open for a sequel to Renny Harlin’s conspiratorial spy-action hit The Long Kiss Goodnight. She revealed they altered the original ending so Jackson’s character would survive—an intentional move to preserve the possibility of more. That kind of behind-the-scenes decision is the kind of inside baseball that fans love because it signals real intent, not wishes on wishful thinking.
If you follow outlets like Deadline, Vanity Fair, Bloody-Disgusting, NEON, Amazon/MGM reporting on World of Reel, or watch Instagram for director mood boards, you’ll notice how a single image or casting update can shift expectations overnight. I’ll keep tracking these threads for you—are you ready to argue which remake or sequel will actually matter this year?