Star-studded films The Bikeriders and Drive-Away Girls both hit VOD this week, alongside the Sam Raimi-produced Don’t Move on Netflix. We also have Dev Patel’s Monkey Man, the return of Hellbound, Billy Crystal leading a new thriller series, and more.
SERIES
Before
25 October 2024 – Apple TV+
It’s been a while since we’ve had the legendary Billy Crystal on our screens, but if you’re looking for the lighthearted comedy the actor built his career on, you may find Before a bit surprising. Billed as a “character-driven psychological thriller”, the ten-episode Before stars Crystal as Eli, a child psychiatrist who, after recently losing his wife (80s sitcom icon Judith Light), encounters a troubled young boy, Noah. Noah seems to have a haunting connection to Eli’s past, leading to a horrible revelation.
Hellbound S2
25 October 2024 – Netflix
I am not going to pretend to have seen the first season of Hellbound, but clearly I’m in the minority. When it launched back in November 2021, the South Korean fantasy horror show (about a world in which supernatural monsters suddenly appear to condemn people to hell) actually managed to overtake the record-breaking Squid Games to become the most watched Netflix series in the world. And it’s been three long years that Hellbound’s rabbid fanbase have had to wait to see the rest of this story play out. Well, the wait is finally over!
MOVIES
Don’t Move
25 October 2024 – Netflix
Movies don’t need to be complicated to be good. Sometimes the most simplistic setup can be the most compelling. And that looks like it could be the case for Don’t Move, a nailbiting new thriller that may be perfect for Halloween month. The simple premise sees Kelsey Asbille as “a grieving woman hoping to find solace deep in an isolated forest” who unfortunately runs into a seasoned killer who injects her with a paralytic agent. As the drug gradually kicks in, systematically shutting down portions of her body, she must run, hide, and fight for her life before she fully succumbs. And it looks terrifying.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
28 October 2024 – Netflix/Showmax
Here’s a shocker: Sometimes the internet is very wrong. I really enjoyed 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife and how it continued the legacy of Ivan Reitman’s original classic films, and was looking forward to its sequel, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. And then a bunch of people online said it stunk, so I decided to not see it in cinema. I was a fool. When I eventually saw Frozen Empire on VOD, I had way more fun with it than I anticipated. Yes, it’s got issues (literally everything to do with Kumail Nanjiani’s character felt like torture), but overall, it’s a very far cry from the dumpster fire some detractors made it out to be. The new Spengler family is still great together on-screen, there’s some very neat monster designs, and the return of the original cast of Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, and Ernie Hudson, is handled way better than I thought it would be. And if you, like me, skipped it in cinemas, and wasn’t even prepared to spend money on renting it on VOD, well, you’re in luck. Double luck, in fact, as Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire will be added to both Netflix and Showmax on Monday, giving you twice the options for watching it.
Time Cut
28 October 2024 – Netflix
If you’ve seen Prime Video’s Totally Killer, you may be getting some serious deja vu vibes while checking out the trailer for Netflix’s Time Cut. After all, both films are about a teenage girl who travels back in time to stop a serial killer from murdering one of their loved ones. But whereas Totally Killer’s protagonist found herself thrown back to the days of neon spandex and big hair in the 1980s, Time Cut sees Madison Bailey’s amateur inventor Lucy finding a time machine to take her back to the deep dark past of 2003 to change the past and prevent her older sister from being murdered. And if you’re somebody from my generation, then the fact that 2003 – I was busy working and studying for a degree by then! – is now considered the distant past will instantly turn you to dust.
Monkey Man
28 October 2024 – Showmax
In the wake of Daniel Craig’s final performance as James Bond in No Time to Die, talk immediately began about how the classic franchise would be reimagined with a new modern actor. And there was a certain portion of the fandom that wanted to see a person of colour step into Bond’s secret agent shoes, with Dev Patel’s name constantly floating to the top. And if you had any doubts that he could handle the level of physical action that Craig brought to the role, then look no further than Monkey Man. Patel doesn’t just star but also makes his feature film directing debut on this one, and immediately marks himself as both an action filmmaker and action star to watch. Blending together influences from The Raid and John Wick, as well as pertinent social issues of Patel’s Indian heritage, Monkey Man is a wild and furious tale that follows Patel’s Kid, a low-level lackey at an underground fight club who enacts a plan of vengeance on the big shot criminal who destroyed his life years earlier.
The Nun II
28 October 2024 – Netflix/Showmax
Looking for something spooky to watch on Halloween next week? Then how about the latest chapter in James Wan’s chilling The Conjuring franchise? The sequel to 2018’s The Nun, which itself was a spinoff from The Conjuring 2 (please keep up), The Nun II sees Taisa Farmiga reprising her role as Sister Irene, the nun who, four years earlier, uncovered and battled against the demon Valak in a Romanian monastery. As Valak would eventually show up in The Conjuring 2, we always knew that Irene hadn’t truly defeated the demonic entity, and sure enough, The Nun II sees Irene having to dig deeper into the origins of this evil and the conspiracy that has covered it up for centuries.
Saw X
28 October 2024 – Netflix/Showmax
If you prefer your Halloween horror to be less supernatural and more mundanely horrific though, then might I interest you in some Saw X? Despite being the tenth installment in the long-running franchise, Saw X is actually both a prequel and sequel as it’s set between the events of the iconic first film and Saw II. And against all odds, given how the franchise devolved from a clever horror movie with a devastating twist into a torture porn parade, Saw X is apparently really good. Boasting the best reviews in the entire series, the film was so successful that it even prompted production on another film despite earlier plans to end off the franchise.
VOD RENTALS/PURCHASES
The following movies have recently become available for digital purchase/rental:
Drive-Away Dolls
Purchase: Apple TV – R170
Rental: Apple TV – R45
After a celebrated decades-spanning career that saw them earn a whopping total of 42 Oscar nominations and 6 wins, 21 Golden Globe nominations and 3 wins, and 38 BAFTA nominations and 6 wins as filmmaking duo, the Coen Bros have decided to respectively do their own thing. Joel Coen gave us 2021’s The Tragedy of Macbeth (which was very much a sharp deviation from their beloved formula), but his brother Ethan Coen has taken a bit longer to deliver his own first solo feature film effort (excluding one documentary), but Drive-Away Dolls finally hit cinemas earlier this year. Well, some cinemas, as we didn’t get a local release. But now you can check out this crime comedy caper at home, as it hit VOD this week. The film – which feels very much like a classic Coen Bros venture – is set in 1999 and stars Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan as two lesbian best friends on a road trip who inadvertently stumble their way into a criminal scheme when they agree to perform a “drive-away car service” by transporting a rental car one-way for a client. Beanie Feldstein, Colman Domingo, Pedro Pascal, Bill Camp and Matt Damon all co-star.
The Bikeriders
Purchase: Apple TV – R170
Rental: Apple TV – R45
It feels like The Bikeriders should have been a much bigger deal when it released in cinemas earlier this year. Written and directed by Oscar and Golden Globe nominee Jeff Nichols (Mud, Midnight Special, Loving) and starring a killer cast led by Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon, Boyd Holbrook, Norman Reedus, and more, this movie looked poised for blockbuster status. And while it earned rave reviews, the commercial side of things was very muted thanks to numerous delays, conflicting release dates, and the SAG-AFTRA strike preventing promotion by its creators. All of which is to say that there’s a very likely chance that if you’re reading this right now, you probably didn’t watch The Bikeriders in theatres. Well, you can fix that now. The period crime drama, inspired by Danny Lyon’s photo-book of the same name, depicts the tumultuous events and relationships in the lives of the Vandals Motorcycle Club, a fictional version of the real-life Outlaws Motorcycle Club.