Dreamy first teaser for The Sandman helps kick off Netflix’s Geeked Week

[Karlston]

Also: Locke & Key S3, The Midnight Club, Resident Evil, Wednesday, and more

Netflix

 

It's Geeked Week courtesy of Netflix, which means a smorgasbord of new teasers for upcoming series. Most notably, we got some new teaser footage for The Sandman, a teaser for the third and final season of Locke & Key, and a full trailer for the Resident Evil live-action series. There were also teasers for a new series from the creators of the masterful German series Dark, called 1899; Mike Flanagan's The Midnight Club; the anthology series Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities; and Wednesday, Tim Burton's new series focused on a grown-up Wednesday Addams.

 

(Spoilers for prior seasons of Locke & Key below.)

 

First teaser for The Sandman, adapted from Neil Gaiman's iconic graphic novels.

The Sandman

Sandman fans have longed for a screen adaption of Neil Gaiman's iconic graphic novels for decades, and we're finally getting it, thanks to Netflix, executive producer David Goyer (Foundation), and showrunner Allan Heinberg. Gaiman has been heavily involved as an executive producer and has regularly enthused on social media about his delight about how the series turned out. If this teaser is any indication, we're inclined to agree. It certainly gets the look and feel of the graphic novels exactly right.

 

As I've written previously, the titular "Sandman" is Dream, aka Morpheus, among other names. He is one of seven entities known as the Endless, and he is seeking to correct his past mistakes. The other Endless are Destiny, Destruction, Despair, Desire, Delirium, and Death (portrayed as a perky punk/goth young woman). Tom Sturridge snagged the coveted role of Morpheus, Lord of the Dreaming. Kirby Howell-Baptiste plays Death, Donna Preston plays Despair, and Mason Alexander Park plays Desire. Game of Thrones alums Gwendoline Christie and Charles Dance play a gender-swapped Lucifer and the charlatan magician Roderick Burgess, respectively.

 

The cast also includes Boyd Holbrook as The Corinthian, one of the (failed) nightmares created by Dream; Vivienne Acheampong as a gender-swapped Lucienne, chief librarian of the Dreaming; David Thewlis as John Dee/Doctor Destiny; Jenna Coleman as Johanna Constantine, occult detective and ancestor of DC Comics antihero John Constantine; Patton Oswalt as the voice of Dream's raven emissary, Matthew; Razane Jammal as Lyta Hall; Kyo Ra as Rose Walker, who encounters the Corinthian while searching for her lost brother; Stephen Fry as Rose's guardian, Gilbert; Sandra James-Young as Unity Kinkaid; and Sanjeev Bhaskar and Asim Chaudhry as Cain and Abel, respectively.

 

Per the official premise:

 

There is another world that waits for all of us when we close our eyes and sleep—a place called the Dreaming, where The Sandman, Master of Dreams (Tom Sturridge), gives shape to all of our deepest fears and fantasies. But when Dream is unexpectedly captured and held prisoner for a century, his absence sets off a series of events that will change both the dreaming and waking worlds forever. To restore order, Dream must journey across different worlds and timelines to mend the mistakes he’s made during his vast existence, revisiting old friends and foes, and meeting new entities—both cosmic and human—along the way.

 

We got our first peek at the series when Netflix released a brief teaser last September during its Tudum global fan event. That footage focused on Dream's initial capture by Roderick Burgess and his acolytes, who were trying to capture his sibling, Death. This latest footage gives us even more of Sturridge's Dream, as well as brief glimpses of Lucienne, Lucifer, Johanna Constantine, and the creepy bleeding eyes of Holbrook's Corinthian. We also see the crumbling ruins of The Dreaming in the wake of the Sandman's prolonged absence, as Death warns him that much has changed in the interim.

 

The Sandman debuts on Netflix on August 5, 2022. We are counting the days.

 

The third and final season of Locke & Key drops on Netflix this August.

Locke & Key S3

There's a powerful allure to the basic premise of Locke & Key: Three traumatized siblings whose father was recently murdered return to dad's ancestral home, Key House, with their mother and discover that the house is filled with hidden magical keys that "whisper" to the children until they find them. Only kids can hear the keys whispering, and any adults who witness the "magic" of the keys in use quickly forget what they've seen. The TV series has successfully preserved that allure.

 

The first season covered most of the main narrative arc in the comics but left out a lot of the background lore about where the keys came from, who made them, and who (or what) the shapeshifting character Dodge really is. Those questions were at least partially answered throughout S2. Dodge was a demon from beyond the black door who sought to forge a new magical Demon Key out of a remnant of Whispering Iron, then use it to build a demon army out of the townsfolk. The Locke family and their allies defeated Dodge in the season finale, although there's a brief glimpse of Dodge in their original female form in the teaser, suggesting they might be back in some form.

 

The second season also included flashbacks to the American Revolutionary War and the conflict between the Locke family and a British general named Frederick Gideon (Kevin Durand), revealing how the magic keys were made—and why they have such a strong connection to Locke descendants. The flashback material was partially drawn from Clockworks and featured heavily in the first arc of World War Key, a new Locke and Key comics release that serves as both a prequel and sequel to the original run.

 

The third season will complete the planned trilogy as the Locke siblings face their greatest adversary yet: General Gideon, whose demon-possessed "echo" was resurrected from the well just like Dodge. He's now in possession of the Anywhere Key, and he's got a long-standing grudge against the Locke family. He'll also be much harder to defeat, even if the Locke kids manage to get all their keys back. Chances are we'll see at least one new key in play as the series wraps.

 

The final season of Locke & Key drops on Netflix on August 10, 2022.

 

Official trailer for Resident Evil.

Resident Evil

It's the zombie apocalypse yet again in Netflix's new TV series Resident Evil, inspired by the hugely successful gaming and film franchise. (The film series was officially rebooted with the release last year of Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City.)

 

As I've written previously, the first Resident Evil game is set in July 1996, as the fictional Midwestern town of Raccoon City is reeling from a series of brutal murders. The STARS team sends in a Beta unit but soon loses contact with them, then sends its Alpha team to investigate. Attacked by zombie dogs, they take refuge in the abandoned Spencer Mansion—except it's not abandoned. All manner of zombies and mutant monsters—the result of bizarre experiments conducted by the Umbrella Corporation using a biological agent called the T-Virus—roam the mansion and its environs.

 

We don't know much about the Netflix series, but it seems to be a fresh take, set after the games' events, rather than another retread of the films. Thanks to their inability to control its stupid T-Virus, the Umbrella Corporation has once again unleashed a horde of zombies and other creatures from the games—this time on New Raccoon City, described as a kind of corporate utopia. There are two different timelines: one set in 2022, featuring the establishment of New Raccoon City, and the other set in 2036 after that planned utopia has collapsed into violent chaos.

 

Ella Balinska stars as Jade Wesker, daughter of Resident Evil mastermind Albert Wesker, portrayed by Lance Reddick. Reddick has made quite a name for himself as a personality in video games, so having him figure prominently in a new game-to-screen project kind of completes the circle. The teaser gives us lots of famished zombies (including zombie dogs) and popular game creatures like giant mutant spiders and Lickers.

Resident Evil debuts on Netflix on July 14, 2022.

 

Teaser for The Midnight Club.

The Midnight Club

Mike Flanagan wowed us with The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and last year's powerfully evocative Midnight Mass. He's currently working on The Fall of the House of Usher, inspired by the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, but while we're waiting for his latest haunted house installment, we're getting The Midnight Club.

 

It's based on the YA horror novel of the same name by Christopher Pike and features seven terminally ill teen residents in the Rotterdam Home hospice. They meet at midnight every night to tell stories and eventually make a pact that whichever of them dies first will attempt to communicate with the others from the Beyond. Things start to get interesting when the first member of the group does indeed die. We're getting some strong Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark vibes from this one. Per the official premise:

To those before. To those after. To us now. And to those beyond. Seen or unseen. Here but not here. At a manor with a mysterious history, the eight members of the Midnight Club meet each night at midnight to tell sinister stories—and to look for signs of the supernatural from the beyond.

The Midnight Club drops on Netflix on October 7, 2022.

 

From the creators of Dark, an intriguing period mystery/horror German series called 1899.

1899

If you were a fan of the German science fiction series Dark—in all its head-scratching, multiple-timeline complexity—you'll be thrilled to hear that the creators of Dark are back with a new series. Entitled 1899, it's described as an "epic period mystery/horror" and "a visually stunning odyssey where nothing is as it seems." The story follows a group of European migrants as they depart London on a steamship for New York City. But then they come across another migrant ship adrift in the ocean, and "their journey begins to turn into a nightmare."

 

Co-creator Jantje Friese told Deadline Hollywood last year that the new series was inspired by the modern European migrant crisis and Brexit:

The whole European angle was very important for us, not only story wise but also the way we were going to produce it. It really had to be a European collaboration, not just cast but also crew. We felt that with the past years of Europe being on the decline, we wanted to give a counterpoint to Brexit, and to nationalism rising in different countries, to go back to that idea of Europe and Europeans working and creating together. Being true to the cultures and the languages was really important, we never wanted to have characters from different countries but everyone speaks English. We wanted to explore this heart of Europe, where everyone comes from somewhere else and speaks a different language, and language defines so much of your culture and your behaviour.

1899 will debut on Netflix later this year. The teaser looks pretty enticing; perhaps it can fill the void left by the conclusion of Dark.

 

First teaser for Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities.

Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities

There's no director quite like Guillermo del Toro, particularly when merging fantasy, horror, and the supernatural. This eight-episode anthology series was first announced in 2018 and features two new original works by del Toro, as well as six other episodes written and directed by other filmmakers. That includes Jennifer Kent, who directed 2014's phenomenal The Babadook; her segment features the film's star, Essie Davis (aka Miss Fisher). The cast also includes Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter films), F. Murray Abraham, Crispin Glover, Ben Barnes, and Peter Weller.

 

Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities is currently in production, so we don't know much else about it. It should debut on Netflix later this year.

 

Teaser for Wednesday.

Wednesday

Christina Ricci's scene-stealing seminal portrayal of Wednesday Addams was easily one of the highlights of the 1990s films. We watched her approach puberty and get a sort-of boyfriend in Addams Family Values, but thanks to Tim Burton, we'll get to see Wednesday as a high school at Nevermore Academy. The comedic series is described as "a sleuthing, supernaturally infused mystery." Wednesday develops psychic powers, which she must use to stop whomever (or whatever) is killing the townsfolk, as well as solve a supernatural mystery involving her family's history from 25 years ago.

 

Jenna Ortega stars as teenaged Wednesday, and she certainly looks the part. Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzman will portray Morticia and Gomez Addams, Isaac Ordonez plays Pugsley, George Burcea plays Lurch, and Victor Dorobantu (or at least his hand) plays Thing. Ricci will also appear in an as-yet-undisclosed role. There's not much to go in this very brief teaser, but if nothing else, Burton is sure to bring his distinctive visual style to the series.

 

Wednesday is slated for release on Netflix this fall.

 

Listing image by Netflix

 

 

Dreamy first teaser for The Sandman helps kick off Netflix’s Geeked Week