"It killed 102 people, brutally mauling its human prey. Its victims are all women and children. The worst attack by an unknown beast in history, and the basis for the legend of the werewolf. Two investigators set out to solve the mystery. Applying modern day forensics, they hunt to uncover the real wolfman."

With the Universal remake of one of its classic monsters, you can expect to see a lot of related material come out of the woodwork to capitalize on the buzz. Unfortunately, the remake of The Wolf Man pretty much tanked, plagued more by too many internal problems than the full moon. Still, the legends and stories are out there, and it might be fun to check some of this stuff out. There's likely to be a few interesting tales out there to entertain us and help us to overcome the sting of unmet expectations.

If you have any love for Italian horror films, then you know the names Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci are the ones that cause the most excitement. Both directors have made a name for themselves in horror cinema, each providing their own authorship within their own interests. Much like debate concerning The Beatles or The Stones, cinephiles typically side with one over the other. Yes, Argento has conjured dreamlike, character-driven horror that has haunted our minds over the decades (Suspiria, Phenomena), but the late Lucio Fulci has a seemingly innate ability to create landscapes of terror that consistently push the envelope of realistic gore (Zombi, The Beyond). While I do tend to favor Fulci, I am well aware of both of their contributions and influence to horror cinema as a whole. Even though they have notable differences, The Wax Mask offers a collaboration between the two greats prior to Fulci’s death in 1996.

The story, written by both Argento and Fulci, is an adaptation of Gaston Leroux’s “The Waxwork Museum.” The plot involves a mysterious wax museum in 1922 Italy, whose curator has an interesting fetish for the macabre: he only creates scenes of famous murders. Whether it is the slaying of the gorgon Medusa, the mysterious case of Jack the Ripper, or a more contemporary double murder, he creates the scenes for his museum. However, as the film progresses, a reporter and the museum’s newest employee discover the curator’s unorthodox methods of creating his sculptures, as well as the dark history surrounding the curator’s family.

They stole his car and killed his dog…what more motivation does an impossibly deadly ex-hitman need to come out of retirement?! And now, John Wick is coming for us! Fortunately, it’s a friendly visit as Lionsgate releases John Wick in 4K ahead of this Friday’s release of John Wick: Chapter 2, which we will also be reviewing. On top of that, Lionsgate goes back in time with American Pastoral, gives us nightmare fuel with The Crooked Man, and offers a monster double feature with Frankenstein: The Real Story/The Real Wolfman. HBO misbehaves with Vice Principals: Season 1, while Sony stays up From Dusk Till Dawn: Season 3, and RLJ Entertainment gallops to the Dead West. (Be sure to check out our chat with Dead West star Jeffrey Arrington.) CBS/Paramount boldly goes to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — The Complete Series, Cohen Media Group returns to the dawn of World War II with Come What May, and Warner Bros. saves the day thanks to Justice League Dark.

And speaking of “dark”, we have a pair of Reel World reviews coming this weekend to keep Mr. Wick company. Be sure to check back for our take on Fifty Shades Darker and to read whether everything in The Lego Batman Movie is awesome. Now it's time for your weekly reminder before signing off: if you’re shopping for anything on Amazon and you do it through one of our links, it’ll help keep the lights on here at UpcomingDiscs. See ya next week!

To put things mildly, Warner Bros. still has a bit of a ways to go before its stable of DC Comics superheroes catches up to Disney's dominant Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, Warner and DC have long had the upper hand on both the small screen (Smallville, Arrow, The Flash) and with their animated, direct-to-video offerings. The latest in that latter category is Justice League Dark, which mostly sidelines DC's best-known heroes in favor of a team of mystical outcasts led by a charming, abrasive rogue.

The capes and tights group...useless against dark magic.”

Dead West comes out on DVD from RLJ Entertainment on Tuesday the 7th. The film follows a serial killer who makes his way across the country leaving dead blonde women in his wake. Jeffrey Arrington plays Tony. Tony's sister is the first victim of the Lady Killer. He sets out to inflict some frontier justice of his own. I had the chance to talk with him about the movie last week. He has some interesting insights into the character and the film. Now you can check out what he had to say. Bang it here to listen in on my chat with Jeffrey Arrington.

Who or what is God? Does he perform miracles here on Earth? What happens to us when we die? Is there true evil on this earth? How was the universe created? How will it all end? These are the kinds of questions for which there are no concrete answers to be found in the world around us. These are the subjects that require us to turn to our faith or belief systems. The answers might be found in our culture. You might even have had experiences that have brought you closer to the answers. This is meaning-of-life stuff, and the answer might just be 42.

Morgan Freeman joins an elite few actors who have played God in a movie. In Evan Almighty and Bruce Almighty, Freeman was the personification of God. That makes him a rather natural choice to explore the real questions surrounding faith and belief. Freeman is also one of those people who make you feel at ease. He has a naturally soothing voice and a level of wisdom in his presence that allows him to fit the bill here rather nicely as he travels the globe to get to the heart of these important mysteries.

What do you know about the Stuxnet virus? It’s all right, you can be honest. If I’m being honest, before the documentary Zero Days, I hadn’t even known the name. After watching the film, my knowledge is stemmed more in speculation than fact. I hadn’t realized how many different ways there were to hear, “I can’t talk about that.” To this day, government officials refuse to answer any question regarding the computer virus that was supposedly designed to thwart Iran’s nuclear program. It is incredibly frustrating and has inspired in me a degree of curiosity that I hadn’t known possible beforehand. I can see why it the filmmakers were drawn to this subject matter.

Through a panel of computer experts and government officials, the origin and implementation of the Stuxnet virus is explored, which is believed to have been a joint effort cyber-attack between the United States and the Israeli government with the intention of crashing the Iranian nuclear program during the Bush administration. As expected, this is conjecture, as no one is willing to go on the record about the computer program. Despite this, the facts presented by the computer expert as well as leaked government documents detail a compelling story which makes it hard not to believe it to be true.

Robert De Niro is arguably one of the most talented actors living today. There's little doubt that he'll long be remembered as a legendary force in motion picture history. But there has long been a downside to the iconic actor. He hasn't had a good starring role in over a decade. It looks too often as if he's been more interested in chasing a likely unneeded paycheck than adding to his already established legacy. For every Godfather Part 2 or Deer Hunter, there's a Dirty Grandpa or Fockers sequel. For each Good Fellas or Raging Bull, there's a Stone. And since the turn of the millennium, De Niro has gravitated more and more to comedy. While I actually liked the Analyze films, I have found myself cringing most of the time. De Niro has always had a stare that can look right through you, but he has the worst forced laugh in Hollywood. So I was more than a little cautious when I went to see The Comedian.

De Niro stars as Jackie Burke, a washed-up "insult" comedian. By insult comedian we're not talking Don Rickles variety here. We're talking more like Andrew Dice Clay. By insult we're talking F-bombing one's way through a performance. He's playing dives or wherever he can score a few bucks. He's most known for a vintage television series called Eddie's Home where he played a police officer with a Jackie-Gleason-like trademark line that he's too often asked to perform both on stage and in the street. When one of his gigs is crashed by an internet video blogger, violence ensues and Jackie spends six months in jail and then has to do 100 hours of community service. That's where he meets Harmony, played by Leslie Mann. They have a bit of a flirtatious relationship and she invites him on a "date" to meet her domineering father, played by Harvey Keitel, who happens to be an "Eddie" fan, and meeting Jackie is a birthday present of sorts. All the while Jackie's manager, played by Sopranos star Edie Falco, tries to get his career going again. A few viral videos of Jackie give him the chance to get back on top. As his career climbs, Harmony is bullied into moving back to Florida to work for her father's resort. Of course, dad also doesn't want her involved with Jackie. When she stops answering his calls or texts, Jackie decides to confront her, with surprising results.

When The Ring (2002) first came out, if you looked hard enough you could still find movies on VHS, so the thought of a mysterious tape that kills you seven days after watching it wasn’t so entirely farfetched.  Now that we are in 2017, if someone were to find a mysterious VHS tape, well, they’d be out of luck for the most part, since I’d wager most of the US population no longer has a VCR.  But Hollywood won’t let this stop their successful franchise from moving forward, even though it’s been 12 years since The Ring Two, this weekend is the release of the third film in the series, and quite frankly, I have to wonder if anyone really wanted this. 

Samara is back, and she is hungry to take the lives of anyone foolish enough to watch the video, and as the film opens we’re in a plane along with a passenger who has seen the film and only has minutes to go before his seven days are up.  While this is a fun scene that gave me hope for what would continue, I couldn’t help but feel that the scene was perhaps a throwaway sequence from Final Destination. Then, oddly enough, the film seems to start again, two years later when we see Gabriel (Johnny Galecki), a college professor, purchasing an old VCR.  Once Gabriel gets to his apartment, he gets a surprise when he discovers a tape with the words “Watch Me” written on it.  Just like all foolish characters in horror films, he watches the film and immediately gets the phone call.

In chess, the small one can become the big one.”

It's hard to stand out in the Disney family when your big brothers and sisters are Star Wars, Marvel, and the studio's own blockbuster animated offerings. (Not to mention live-action re-imaginings of its own classic animated offerings.) While those properties have been making a racket at the box office, the Mouse House has also been quietly cranking out family-friendly, multi-cultural sports dramas in recent years, including 2014's Million Dollar Arm, and 2015's McFarland U.S.A. I'm not sure if Queen of Katwe is the best of that bunch (I really enjoyed McFarland) but it certainly has the most unlikely hero.