menu_open
Nick Schager

Nick Schager

The Daily Beast

We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

‘Abigail’ Somehow Squanders a Murderous Vampire Child in a Tutu

Kids do the darndest things, and in Abigail, that includes sprouting fangs and sucking blood while wearing cute tutus. That plot point would, under...

yesterday 0

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

Guy Ritchie Seems as Bored by ‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’ as We Are

Guy Ritchie loves movies about rough-and-tumble bros—or, rather, blokes—and at its best, his work generates amusing excitement from having tough...

yesterday 9

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

The ‘American Bombing’ That Should Have Warned Us About Jan. 6

As the 29th anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing nears, HBO is revisiting the tragic terrorist attack with An American Bombing: The Road to April...

tuesday 30

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

‘The Jinx,’ TV’s True-Crime Triumph, Returns With More Robert Durst Shockers

The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst , Andrew Jarecki’s 2015 HBO docuseries about real estate heir and accused murderer Robert Durst, is...

15.04.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

‘Omen’ Heads to Congo for the Year’s Most Unique Horror Film

Superstitions and the suffering they breed conspire to plague a Congo native who returns to his homeland in Omen, director Baloji’s hauntingly...

12.04.2024 30

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

The Cam Model Addict Who Murdered His Whole Family

Grant Amato appeared, on the surface, to be living his dream. A 29-year-old college-educated native of Chuluota, Florida, he resided in his beautiful...

12.04.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

Alex Garland’s ‘Civil War’ Is an Explosive Warning Against a Trump Takeover

American democracy seems to be teetering on the brink of collapse, and writer/director Alex Garland exploits that feeling for unbearably despairing...

11.04.2024 20

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

‘All You Need Is Death’ Is an Irish Folk Horror Masterpiece

A song is a vessel that houses dreams and desires that are both dead and everlastingly alive, and in All You Need Is Death it’s also a curse about...

11.04.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

Michael Douglas’ Dreary ‘Franklin’ Series Could Use a Zap of Lightning

Despite the implication of its title, Franklin is not a comprehensive biopic of Benjamin Franklin; rather it’s a narrower drama about his 1776-1785...

10.04.2024 3

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

‘The Sympathizer’: Robert Downey Jr.’s First Post-Oscars Project Is a Mindf*ck

From split allegiances and fractured lineages to tensions between truths and lies, reality and fantasy, capitalism and communism, and war and peace,...

10.04.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

The Era of Great Video Game Adaptations Continues With ‘Fallout’

If HBO’s The Last of Us ushered in a new era of standout video game adaptations, Prime Video’s Fallout (April 10) takes that evolution to the...

10.04.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

‘Civil War’ Director Alex Garland Isn’t Shocked by the Discourse

Between his zombie classic 28 Days Later, his unnerving AI drama Ex Machina, his eco-catastrophe epic Annihilation , and his toxic-masculinity...

09.04.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

The ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Series Finale Gave Us a ‘Seinfeld’ Do-Over

He really did it. And then, funnier still, he corrected it too. After 12 seasons and nearly 25 years, Larry David brought HBO’s Curb Your...

08.04.2024 20

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

‘Quiet on Set’ Bonus Episode Glosses Over Drake Bell Allegations

Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV , ID's four-part docuseries about the abuse suffered by various Nickelodeon employees during the reign of...

08.04.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

The Girl Who Staged a Home Invasion to Kill Her Parents

What Jennifer Did revisits the horrifying tale of Jennifer Pan, who became the subject of Canadian headlines when she survived a home invasion that...

08.04.2024 4

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

How ‘Ripley’ Became TV’s Most Beautiful Masterpiece

Patricia Highsmith’s classic 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley has been made into two sterling films: 1960’s Purple Noon starring Alain Delon,...

07.04.2024 20

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

‘The First Omen’ Is a Pointless Prequel Beyond Redemption

An entertainingly cheesy attempt to piggyback on the success of The Exorcist, 1976’s The Omen concerns a United States ambassador (Gregory Peck) and...

04.04.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

It’s Impossible to Overstate Just How Good Netflix’s ‘Ripley’ Is

There’s no shortage of glowing things to say about Ripley, Netflix’s masterful adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, which...

04.04.2024 20

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

‘Dogman’ Gives a Whole New Meaning to the Word ‘Absurd’

Dogman is Joker by way of Robin Hood, Air Bud, and RuPaul's Drag Race , and arguably the most absurd film of this, or any recent, year. Whether...

29.03.2024 7

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

‘Winnie-the-Pooh 2’ Is a Honey Pot Full of Horrible Ideas

Due to notoriety far more than quality (which it wholly lacked), last year’s Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey proved an indie horror hit. Thus,...

27.03.2024 3

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

Josh O’Connor’s Latest Film Is a Gorgeous, Italian Delight

Like Federico Fellini, whose spirit hovers over her latest, Italian director Alice Rohrwacher has a genuine appreciation for faces, and she seizes...

27.03.2024 9

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

Colin Farrell’s ‘Sugar’ Has a Disastrous Bombshell Twist

Sugar is, initially, an ideal marriage of star and material, casting Colin Farrell as a private investigator wrapped up in a byzantine Los Angeles...

27.03.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

Swayze ‘Road House’ Purists Should Hate Gyllenhaal’s Version

The only thing more unnecessary than remaking a great film is redoing a decidedly unique one. Such is the case with director Doug Liman and star Jake...

25.03.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

Ewan McGregor Almost Rescues ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ Series

Echoing the stylish blandness of its modern-art credit sequence, A Gentleman in Moscow is a handsomely inert adaptation of Amor Towles’ 2016...

25.03.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

‘Sleeping Dogs’: Russell Crowe’s New ‘Memento’ Copycat Is Fittingly Forgettable

Sleeping Dogs, which is in theaters Mar. 22, concerns a detective suffering from Alzheimer’s disease who chooses to reopen a past homicide case, and...

22.03.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

‘The Long Shadow’: A Serial Killer Series Unlike One You’ve Ever Seen

There are so many serial killer stories because so many men want to kill women, and that fact is at the core of the genre’s latest offering, The...

21.03.2024 30

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

‘3 Body Problem’: The ‘Game of Thrones’ Creators Have Your Next Netflix Binge

Based on a blockbuster novel by Liu Cixin, and coming on the heels of a lengthy Chinese adaptation currently available on Prime Video, 3 Body Problem,...

21.03.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

For the Love of Slimer, Please Stop Making ‘Ghostbusters’ Movies

Few legacy sequels are as depressingly unimaginative as 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, what with its dreary blend of hip young Gen-Z kids...

20.03.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

‘X-Men ’97’ Will Make the Franchise’s Fans So Happy

While the X-Men's popularity is unquestionably due to their unique powers, colorful personalities, and persecuted-minority storylines, they've also...

20.03.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

These Are the Most Annoying People to Ever Fall in Love

Alice & Jack boasts the Masterpiece brand, two charismatic and engaging leads, and an initially intriguing story about the intricacies, complications,...

17.03.2024 6

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

Stormy Daniels Admits She Exposed Trump to ‘Save My Own Ass’

Donald Trump is so peerlessly corrupt that he’s become a one-man cottage industry for the non-fiction genre, with myriad documentaries made—and...

09.03.2024 20

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

‘Imaginary’: Shouldn’t a Murderous Teddy Bear Be Much Scarier?

Onto the trash pile of middling killer-children’s-toy horrorshows one must now toss Imaginary, a lifeless hodgepodge of the hoariest cliches the...

08.03.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

Millie Bobby Brown Is No ‘Damsel’ in Distress. But Her New Film Is.

Revisionist feminist fairy tales are nothing new, and Damsel finds scant ways to distinguish itself from the happily-ever-after pack. A tween fantasy...

08.03.2024 20

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

Porn-Heavy ‘Supersex’ Is Netflix’s Most NSFW Show Ever

Never Say Never to Rocco commanded notorious porn legend Rocco Siffredi’s 1996 film, and Netflix is clearly hoping that many will heed that decree...

06.03.2024 5

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

‘Ricky Stanicky’: Is John Cena Actually a Comedy Genius?

Peter Farrelly squashed his wacko comedic instincts—as well as left his brother and long-time partner Bobby behind—to win Oscar gold with 2018’s...

06.03.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

Guy Ritchie’s ‘The Gentlemen’ Fails in Just About Every Way

Guy Ritchie’s been on something of a hot streak of late, courtesy of the thrilling Wrath of Man, frisky Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre , and...

06.03.2024 20

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

An Abusive, Cult-Like School for ‘Troubled Teens’ Gets Exposed

There are many critiques to be leveled at the true-crime genre, but one positive aspect of its works is that they allow those who’ve been thwarted...

05.03.2024 8

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

Adam Sandler’s ‘Spaceman’ Is Shockingly, Confusingly Sad

From Gravity and Interstellar to The Martian , Ad Astra , and High Life , the sad-astronaut sci-fi movie has lately become a subgenre unto...

01.03.2024 8

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

‘The Animal Kingdom’: France’s X-Men Wannabe Is Really Just a Mutant Mess

The Animal Kingdom is what an X-Men movie would look like if it doubled-down on its tolerance-for-outsiders metaphor and did away with any exciting...

29.02.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

‘Hundreds of Beavers’ Is a Gonzo, Adult ‘Looney Tunes’

Few movies in cinema history have delivered as many goofy gags—and in such a wide, virtuosic variety—as Hundreds of Beavers, a marvel of slapstick...

27.02.2024 9

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

Joran van der Sloot’s Lies Went Deeper Than Anyone Knew

If Pathological: The Lies of Joran van der Sloot says anything useful about a story that’s been told, analyzed, and revisited to death, it’s that...

27.02.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

He Uncovered a Rogue CIA Conspiracy. Then He Was Found Dead.

Conspiracy theories are dangerous in more ways than one, and American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders is—among many, many things—an exposé about...

26.02.2024 30

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

‘Shogun’ Is TV’s Most Epic Series Since ‘Game of Thrones’

Forty-four years after it was originally adapted into an acclaimed 1980 miniseries, James Clavell’s inspired-by-real-events 1975 novel Shōgun...

26.02.2024 6

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

‘About Dry Grasses’: Three Epic Hours With One of Cinema’s Greatest Pricks

About Dry Grasses begins with the crackling of falling snow and concludes with the crunch of desiccated grass being crushed underfoot. In both cases,...

23.02.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

‘Constellation’: The Multiverse Meets Space Meets a Giant Headache

Doppelgangers, specters, and mirrored realities all play a central role in Constellation, yet more pedestrian elements like interesting characters and...

22.02.2024 8

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

After ‘Drive-Away Dolls,’ Ethan Coen Should Never Direct a Film Alone Again

“Love is a sleigh ride to Hell,” reads a graffiti message in Drive-Away Dolls , and so too is this comedy, which suggests that Joel and Ethan...

21.02.2024 20

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

The Gigantic, Glorious ‘Dune: Part Two’ Squishes Other Epics Like Ants

Everything about 2021’s Dune was colossal—except its conclusion. Closing on a cliffhanger at the very moment its tale was getting started, Denis...

21.02.2024 9

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

‘Land of Bad’: Russell Crowe Stars in the Bro-iest Bro-fest That Ever Bro’d

With a tough-guy title that capably sells its gung-ho action, Land of Bad is the most macho movie of the new year. The story of a special forces...

14.02.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

‘Madame Web’ Is More Hilariously Bad Than Everyone Predicted

Sony’s animated Spider-Verse films have been amazing, which is more than can be said about the studio’s stabs at creating their own...

13.02.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

Secrets of ‘Tokyo Vice’: From the Yakuza to the Backstreet Boys

Tokyo Vice ’s name may recall Michael Mann’s sizzling Miami-set TV hit, but Max’s crime series boasts plenty of its own unique, sumptuous style....

13.02.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Nick Schager

eb76c2de442967eeedacc46fc785a0e9