The Big Picture · Discussion · Interview · Review · Rankings
July 30, 2025/ 91 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins
Sean and Amanda open on the settling superhero box office, bring in Andy Greenwald to sort out why 'KPop Demon Hunters' took off, pan the new 'I Know What You Did Last Summer,' and close with Sean's 10-film canon of 1990s horror.
17 films across 4 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
The box-office check-inthe superhero life cycle, settling down
$118 million domestic on 4,125 screens plus $100 million overseas, tracking 'Superman' and headed for the $600-700 million range. Sean's read: a big part of the business, no longer the biggest, with China checked out and Europe cooling. Andy loved it; the hosts didn't.
The comparison point, off about 54% in its second weekend and landing in the same $600-700 million band. The new baseline for what a superhero tentpole clears now.
The once-in-a-lifetime peak nobody can reheat, no matter what Marvel puts on the 2026 calendar. You can't reheat a souffle.
Amanda's counterexample, the kind of mid-budget hit stepping into the space the billion-dollar superhero movie used to own.
'KPop Demon Hunters'with Andy Greenwald
Directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans for Sony, released to Netflix, and the first Netflix film to grow week over week. All three came in braced for algorithm slop and got charmed: five genuine K-pop bangers (Sean added 'Golden' and cites 'Soda Pop'), a Minecraft-style collision of tones, chibi and mockumentary flourishes kids read fluently. Amanda watched it with her four-year-old and it saved her summer; Andy the demon-hunting skeptic came around by minute four. The gripe: the half-demon Rumi arc and the Celine character are underdrawn.
'I Know What You Did Last Summer'the legacy sequel, and the 1997 hit it reboots
Written and directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, co-written by Sam Lansky, with Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers, Sarah Pidgeon, and returning originals Jennifer Love Hewitt, Freddie Prinze Jr., and Sarah Michelle Gellar. Both hosts hated it, Amanda calls it disrespectful, Sean one of the worst of the year. The core flaw: a slasher that wants you to love kids too likable to kill, so nobody dies and the stakes evaporate, plus a trauma-on-a-chalkboard streak and a tonal record-scratch ending.
The Kevin Williamson-scripted original, the second most culturally significant teen slasher of the 90s horror rebirth (the Oppenheimer to Scream's Barbie, per Sean). Not a great script, but studio-craft handsome, with Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., and Ryan Phillippe at peak heartthrob. Gellar getting killed off is the kind of real stake the reboot won't touch.
Sean's 1990s horror canon10 films from a strange decade
Still the one that holds up, metabolizing 20 years of slashers and teaching a generation, Sean at 14 included, how to watch movies. Kicked off the whole teen-slasher wave that followed.
Craven's metatextual Freddy send-off, the real people who made the movies pulled into one. Paired with Scream as Sean's tribute to a filmmaker he thinks is getting forgotten.
The found-footage movie that made the format work, 81 minutes and still terrifying. Sticks to its own rules so hard the unexplained why-keep-filming never breaks the spell.
Arguably the best-made horror film of the decade: Coppola's production design, score, costumes, and Gary Oldman's makeup, give or take a wobbly Keanu Reeves. Sean's argument for the monster movie; Amanda's out on monsters entirely.
Hideo Nakata's cursed-videotape movie, the Big Bang of the J-horror wave and the basis for the 2002 American remake. Sean takes it over Audition because it came first.
Probably the last great film John Carpenter made, Sam Neill going insane chasing a Stephen King-esque author whose visions drive readers mad. Just announced for a 4K release, to Sean's group-chat joy.
The rare pre-Scream horror that stuck, Bernard Rose's Cabrini-Green legend with the late Tony Todd and Virginia Madsen. The say-it-five-times mirror dare every 90s teenager knew.
Paul W.S. Anderson's space-horror one-off (Sam Neill losing his mind on a spaceship), the lone sci-fi entry and, Sean says, genuinely scary. Filed under 'for CR.'
A callback to the 70s and 80s classics, home to what Sean calls maybe the great jump scare of the 90s. Tracy and Chris talked him into it in Chicago.
Haneke's original German version, two tennis-clad young men terrorizing a family for no clear reason. Fits the violence-is-the-line rule Sean uses to define horror; the scariest movie Tracy's ever seen.
Also mentioned raised along the way
Around the box office SupergirlClayface
In the 'KPop Demon Hunters' conversation EddingtonA Minecraft MovieThe Mitchells vs. the MachinesWish DragonVivoFixedUntil DawnElioDog ManNe Zha 2SmurfsThe SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePantsZootopia 2One Battle After AnotherTitanicBarry LyndonMaterialistsPast LivesMission: Impossible - The Final ReckoningThunderboltsMadame WebAkiraPorco RossoBarbieBasic InstinctShane
Around 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' Wild ThingsThe Little MermaidGlass Onion: A Knives Out MysteryCruel IntentionsCan't Hardly WaitHeartbreakers
Horror near-misses (great, but off the list) The Silence of the LambsSe7enCureTwin Peaks: Fire Walk with MeLost HighwayThe Sixth SenseAuditionSpeak No Evil
Stephen King in the '90s MiseryThe Lawnmower ManNeedful ThingsThe Dark HalfThinnerThe Shawshank RedemptionDolores ClaiborneThe Green MileThe Long Walk
The teen-slasher wave that followed Scream I Still Know What You Did Last SummerHalloween H20: 20 Years LaterDisturbing BehaviorUrban LegendIdle HandsCherry FallsTeaching Mrs. TingleThe CraftThe Faculty
The 2000s remake boom The FogA Nightmare on Elm StreetFriday the 13thThe Last House on the LeftThe Hills Have EyesThe Texas Chainsaw MassacreHalloweenThe Amityville HorrorMy Bloody ValentineDawn of the DeadFright NightHouse of Wax
Sean's runners-up and the rest ArachnophobiaArmy of DarknessBraindeadCemetery ManCronosDeath Becomes HerGhostwatchDemon KnightBordello of BloodHabitLeprechaunNight of the Living DeadThe People Under the StairsStir of EchoesThe Trigger EffectTremorsGuillermo del Toro's FrankensteinOpusThe RingExorcist II: The HereticSinners
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV Outer BanksDawson's CreekParty of FiveThe Big Bang TheoryBuffy the Vampire SlayerGhost WhispererThe Client ListMediumStranger ThingsThe StudioShe-Ra: Princess of PowerHe-Man and the Masters of the UniverseTwin PeaksToo MuchItThe StandCSI
Web Jubilee
Podcasts The WatchStick the LandingThe Rewatchables
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