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When Hotel Transylvania: Transformania Invites Change…

I don’t expect more films to happen because it’d be copying from DreamWorks The Croods. Both share a similar DNA.

Sony Pictures
Available to Stream on Amazon Prime

Three movies and a television series mark how long Hotel Transylvania has been in business. Drac the vampire (now voiced by Brian Hull) is immortal, and he’s been this establishment’s custodian for ages.

In the fourth film, Transformania, this overseer knows it’s time to retire and hand over the family operation. But this patriarch still dislikes the man whom his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) fell in love with and thinks Johnny (Andy Samberg) will destroy everything he’s created. This lad feels down and thinks the only way that his father-in-law will accept him is to become a monster like them. He asks the wonderfully crazed Dr. Van Helsing (Jim Gaffigan) for help. He has a transmogrifying ray gun that’ll do the job, but its not perfect.

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Halloween isn’t Over Yet with Amazon Prime’s Truth Seekers!

This series is less about the paranormal in the classic sense, but more about where spirituality can lead us to trans-humanism.

By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

SPOILER ALERT

Nick Frost is the lead in the team of Truth Seekers on Amazon Prime. Together, with Samson Kayo, Emma D’Arcy and Susie Wokoma, they make up the quad of would-be paranormal investigators, Gus Roberts, Elton John, Astrid and Susie. They don’t realize the places they are exploring are related. The setup is everything I believe Ghost Wars on Netflix wanted to be, but didn’t ultimately take off. The only difference is with how comedy is injected into the characterizations than the situation.

By the end of series one, just what this gang has to deal with goes beyond chasing down ghosts around South England. They don’t even realize they are stumbling into a global sized conspiracy of Dalek-sized proportions! Pop culture references aside, I think Pegg took an idea from a classic Star Trek episode and went further with it. In reality, it all boils down to what the Draecepta Mortnorum, a book of spells, represents as a tome of untold power.

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The Vintage Tempest’s Guide to Spooktober

T&E (or Travel Channel in the States) does not hold the monopoly in their idea of what defines Ghostober. Yes, Halloween’s coming, but we need not depend on one network to get our scares–real or not. Instead, we have a nice menagerie of programming to get our thrill seeking on. It’s easy to make a top ten list, but to half that is challenging.

Truth Seekers — By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

There are far too many staples to gravitate to. If you love your paranormal reality investigation show, there isn’t just one to enjoy. If I was to recommend one series above the rest, it’d be Kindred Spirits. I’ve grown tired of seeing macho dominate this scene, and this program is a welcome change of pace.

But for sheer fun, my number one choice of new shows coming to television begins with…

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My Spy is Hiding on Amazon Prime!

Bautista gets to show off his comedic chops quite well in My Spy.

Available on
Amazon Prime Video (Canada)

Spoiler Alert

My Spy with my little eye is a story comparable to Jackie Chan’s Spy Next Door. Both involve a CIA operative trying to maintain his cover while dealing with kids. In this latest take, there is only one tween and she’s one smart cookie. Sophie (Chloe Coleman) discovers J.J. (Dave Bautista) and Bobbie, his tech support (Kristen Schaal), are monitoring her family. She only has mom and has to be one tough cookie if they are to enjoy some kind of family life. It’s tough when she has made no genuine friends in school. The two moved back to America to begin anew after Dad died some time ago. Neither knew about his secret life, and nor did they know of what he hid in the “family” closet.

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Takes on the Trailers unveiled during NYCC

By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

On the West Coast, the San Diego Comic Convention offers trailers of the must-see movies and television series of the 2018 and 2019 season. Add a few more months into the mix, the New York Comic Convention is the East Coast show to pay attention to. The new Hellboy movie trailer dropped at this event, and the studio has yet to release on YouTube. Reports reveal the fact this work is more of a horror flick than the light-hearted del Toro version. Even the tease to X-Men: Dark Phoenix was shown, and based on what I have read, the set up pays homage to her comic book origins before spinning in a different direction.

In those trailers that are currently online, I am most particularly excited for the following:

If this extended Aquaman trailer indicates anything, this film will put the DC Cinematic Universe back on track. It has the feel of 300 meets Lord of the Rings. When dealing with Atlantis, the joke is not with how star Jason Momoa got his start (he became popular in Stargate’s imagining of this sunken city), but rather in how he can become the next king. The digital set pieces look very impressive, and on a proper IMAX screen, this movie will no doubt deliver.

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