Katie Rife

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/IFC FilmsSometimes movies get a reputation for being “cursed.” Some are followed around by tragedy for decades after their release. Others emanate vibes so rancid, just watching them feels wrong. Then there are the movies whose productions are so fraught with disaster, it’s a miracle they were finished at all. In A Violent Nature, which hit theaters Friday after an arduous multi-year production, is in the last category. Hearing the cast and crew of this Canadian slasher tell stories from the set, the existence of curses suddenly seems reasonable.From the first day of shooting in northeast Ontario in September 2021, everything that could go badly, did. Equipment failures, lost locations, torrential rainfall, multiple emergency-room trips, apocalyptic swarms of black flies, mud, blood, and an animal actor that just wouldn’t perform—all of these and more plagued the small production.“Every inch of nature tried to kill us,” producer Shannon Hanmer says, adding that the woods seemed to have it out for writer-director Chris Nash specifically. He doesn’t disagree. “Nature hates the unprepared, let’s say that,” he says, blaming their bad luck on his hubris for wanting to make a movie in the first place.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Courtesy of PrimeAs far as ideas created under the almighty eye of the streaming algorithm go, “Yellowstone, but make it science fiction” isn’t a terrible one. The challenge here isn’t blending the Western and sci-fi genres: There’s lots of space for things to get weird in the rural West, as many films and TV series—recently, Jordan Peele’s Nope—have proven. The question is how the “god ‘n’ guns” conservative ethos of the Yellowstone franchise will sit alongside all of the woo-woo “time is a river” bullshit. Awkwardly, as it turns out, which is presumably why Outer Range's second season paradoxically downplays the strangeness while upping the time travel.Season 1 took its time debuting “the hole,” a portal through time located in the pasture of a Wyoming ranch belonging to the upright, unsmiling Abbott clan. But it got there. Now Schrödinger’s cat is out of the cosmic bag, and people are diving through the dang thing all willy-nilly.This does further complicate the lives of Royal Abbott (Josh Brolin) and his pious, faithful wife Cecelia (Lili Taylor), who’s as tangled up in all this time-travel hooey as anyone despite never taking a dip in the hole herself. She’s too occupied with repairing her family’s finances and reputation—both compromised back in Season 1—as well as caring for Autumn (Imogen Poots), the backpacker/aspiring cult leader who moves from a campsite on the Abbotts’ land into the family homestead at the beginning of Season 2. The reason for the upgrade? Royal’s convinced that Autumn is actually Abbott granddaughter Amy (Oliver Abercrombie), coexisting as a 9-year-old girl and as a full-grown adult, thanks to the magic of the hole.Read more at The Daily Beast.