August film preview: Can Fede Álvarez carry the Xenomorph torch?

The dog days of summer have arrived, but as we wind down the summer of 2024, movie theaters are already looking to the spookiest month of all: October. This August, studios are doubling down on horror with new movies from M. Night Shyamalan and a biopic about Ronald Reagan starring Dennis Quaid. But as scary as Jon Voight playing Viktor Ivanov sounds, it’s got nothing on space, where no one can hear you scream. The Xenomorph returns to screens with Alien: Romulus, and so does The Crow, with a brand-new resurrection for the comic world’s angstiest superhero.

But major studios aren’t the only ones getting in on the scares. Lutz director Tilman Singer brings his long-awaited follow-up feature, Cuckoo, as Elizabeth Banks uncovers the ugly side of the beauty industry in Skincare. However, we simply can’t think of anything scarier than Zachary Levi in a purple onesie. Here’s what to expect next month.

Trap (August 2)

Cast: Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Shyamalan, Hayley Mills, and Allison Pill

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Shyamalan’s latest looks like his most promising movie in years. Hartnett plays a father bringing his daughter to a pop concert. He’s also a serial killer, aware that the police think they have their man trapped. Shyamalan’s high-concept projects always feel like a dare, and by putting a big reveal in the trailer, he’s set up another paradigm: What happens in the rest of this movie?

Harold And The Purple Crayon (August 2)

Cast: Zachary Levi, Lil Rel Howery, Jemaine Clement, Alfred Molina, Tanya Reynolds, and Zooey Deschanel

Director: Carlos Saldanha

Director Carlos Saldanha (Ice Age) takes a page from 2015’s Goosebumps with this adaptation of the classic 1955 children’s book. Instead of a straight adaptation, the book’s child protagonist, now a grown man in a onesie (Levi), uses his magic crayon to escape the book and enter the real world. As played by Levi, Harold builds the wide-eyed innocence of his Shazam performance, wielding his purple crayon with mischievous delight. With all this purple, it’d make a great companion piece to IF.

It Ends With Us (August 9)

Cast: Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, Jenny Slate, Hasan Minhaj, Amy Morton, and Brandon Sklenar

Director: Justin Baldoni

Blake Lively stars in the first big-screen adaptation of a work by romance novelist Colleen Hoover. Having sold roughly 20 million books, we doubt it’ll be the last. It Ends With Us, based on Hoover’s bestseller, follows Lily Bloom (Lively) as she lives her dream of opening a flower shop. When her first customer becomes her abusive boyfriend, Lily’s first love reenters the picture. There’s nothing like a tear-jerking romance and some air conditioning to beat the August heat.

Borderlands (August 9)

Cast: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Edgar Ramírez, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, Gina Gershon, and Jamie Lee Curtis

Director: Eli Roth

Riding high from his latest slasher, Thanksgiving, director Eli Roth is adding a video game adaptation to his resume. Borderlands, the long-awaited re-telling of the long-running video game series, boasts a wild cast and a marketing campaign that lands someplace between Suicide Squad and Mad Max: Fury Road. We don’t know what to make of that, either. Shot in 2021, the movie underwent reshoots with Deadpool director Tim Miller behind the camera. We assume if anyone has any complaints about the film, they can direct them to Mr. Miller.

Cuckoo (August 9)

Cast: Hunter Schafer, Dan Stevens, and Jessica Henwick

Director: Tilman Singer

Many horror movies are coming out this month, and Cuckoo might have the most promise. Directed by Tilman Singer (Lutz), Cuckoo follows Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) as she joins her father and his new family at his house in a creepy resort in the German Alps. Mysterious figures, bizarre phone calls, and uncanny occurrences make this psychological thriller one we’ll have to see to understand.

Jackpot! (August 15)

Cast: Awkwafina, John Cena, and Simu Liu

Director: Paul Feig

Paul Feig hits differently after Ghostbusters. Nearly a decade since the lady-led reboot graced screens, causing an outbreak of pearl-clutching among the internet’s biggest boys, Feig is stuck in streaming hell. Following his Netflix movie, The School For Good And Evil, which is probably the most-watched movie ever that no one has seen, he’s got an action comedy for Amazon. Feig changed comedy with Freaks And Geeks and Bridesmaids. He directed the best of Arrested Development, The Office, and one of the 2010s’ best comedies, Spy. Maybe an extremely high-concept action comedy in which future LA tries to kill Awkwafina for her lottery winnings will put our boy back on track. We just wish we could watch it in a theater and laugh with other people.

Alien: Romulus (August 16)

Cast: Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, and Aileen Wu

Director: Fede Álvarez

Alien: Romulus wants us all to know this is an Alien movie. Taking a step away from Ridley Scott’s two Prometheus prequels, director Fede Álvarez pulls directly from the two Alien movies everyone likes: Alien and Aliens. A space-based haunted house movie with too many Facehuggers, Romulus might be a little more familiar than the typically experimental series. Still, a back-to-basics approach might be worth a try.

Skincare (August 16)

Cast: Elizabeth Banks, Lewis Pullman, and Nathan Fillion

Director: Austin Peters

Celebrity aesthetican Hope Goldman (Banks) is on the verge of a breakthrough. Unfortunately, with her skincare line on the brink of success, Goldman finds herself besieged by a rival beautician who moved in across the street. Skincare, the new crime thriller from Austin Peters, exposes the beauty industry’s ugly side.

Close To You (August 16)

Cast: Elliot Page, Hillary Baack, Wendy Crewson, and Peter Outerbridge

Director: Dominic Savage

Eliot Page’s first movie role since 2017’s Flatliners, Close To You looks like a much more personal work. Page plays Sam, a trans man returning home for his father’s birthday. It’s his first time back since his transition, something that not everyone in his family quite knows how to deal with. Heavily improvised and full of tears, Close To You looks like a cathartic and therapeutic watch.

The Crow (August 23)

Cast: Bill Skarsgård, FKA Twigs, and Danny Huston

Director: Rupert Sanders

People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. Bill Skarsgård and FKA Twigs still believe that. For those raised on the grunge and goth version of The Crow, Rupert Sanders’ reimagining might have a few too many mullets and stick-and-poke tattoos for their taste. It’s been about 25 years since a man named Eric painted his face and hunted his killers. We’ll see if he can still fly.

Blink Twice (August 23)

Cast: Zoë Kravitz

Director: Naomi Ackie, Channing Tatum, Kyle MacLachlan, Adria Arjona, Christian Slater, Alia Shawkat, Simon Rex, Haley Joel Osment, and Geena Davis

Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut, the film formerly known as Pussy Island, falls into the emerging genre of luxury resort thrillers. The trailer presents a mix of Glass Onion and Old, while the sharp violins on the trailer’s soundtrack sound like ads for The Menu and Triangle Of Sadness. It’s a story of women of average means joining a weekend island getaway with the super-rich engaged in a Most Dangerous Game. That would be a fun premise. Unfortunately, we’ve seen this movie too many times in recent years.

Strange Darling (August 23)

Cast: Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner, Barbara Hershey, and Ed Begley Jr.

Director: JT Mollner

Based on the trailer pull quotes, Strange Darling has a big twist. We just don’t know what it is yet. Playing into the cryptic marketing that made Barbarian such a delight, JT Mollner’s Strange Darling looks like a serial killer thriller that goes from a one-night stand to Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The clip seemingly teases a Hard Candy reversal where the hunter becomes hunted, but we’ll hold the predictions until we learn what Ed Begley Jr. and Barbara Hershey are up to.

Between The Temples (August 23)

Cast: Jason Schwartzman, Carol Kane, Dolly De Leon, Caroline Aaron, and Robert Smigel

Director: Nathan Silver

We’re not sure if there’s ever been a more perfect role for Jason Schwartzman than that of suicidal cantor. Riddled with performance anxiety, Ben Gottlieb (Schwartzman) begins giving Bat Mitzvah lessons to his not-so-kosher former music teacher (Carol Kane). In an age when movies for grown-ups are hard to come by, Between The Temples could be the mitzvah we’ve been waiting for.

Reagan (August 30)

Cast: Dennis Quaid, Mena Suvari, C. Thomas Howell, Penelope Ann Miller, and Jon Voight

Director: Sean McNamara

Get your Reagan impressions ready because Dennis Quaid is about to tear down this wall. Not really. This Reagan biopic doesn’t look great, but the stunt casting is divine. Jon Voight as Victor Ivanov, Lesley-Anne Down as Margret Thatcher, Kevin Dillion as Jack Warner, and, we can’t believe we’re typing this, Scott Stapp of Creed as Frank Sinatra. Bad movie YouTubers and podcasters will have a field day with this one.

AfrAId (August 30)

Cast: John Cho, Katherine Waterson, Havana Rose Liu, Lukita Maxwell, David Dastmalchian, and Keith Carradine

Director: Chris Weitz

Blumhouse’s latest rouge AI movie, AfrAId, imagines a world where Alexa wants to play mommy. John Cho is Curtis, a family man awarded the opportunity to test out a revolutionary digital assistant called AIA. Like M3gan, AIA is a little too good at predicting its humans’ needs, and it takes drastic measures to achieve its goals. The trailer also teases AIA’s supernatural abilities, like it’s a ghost or something. That would be a welcome surprise, but there’s already enough to pique our interest. The cast is strong, the idea relevant, and the name silly. If this plays in theaters as well as M3gan did, this summer’s dog days will be a blast.