New Trailers! Mortal Kombat II, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and Pretty Lethal

🎥 Karl Urban throws punches as Johnny Cage, filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun twists horror lore into something far stranger, and Uma Thurman presides over ballet-driven mayhem!

🎥 “Mortal Kombat II” New Trailer: Karl Urban Enters the Arena as Washed-Up Action Star Johnny Cage Facing Outworld’s Deadliest Warriors in This Blood-Soaked Action Sequel — Coming to Theaters May 15th

It’s 1973. Bruce Lee storms onto the global stage with the wildly popular martial arts classic Enter the Dragon, playing a skilled fighter recruited to infiltrate a crime lord’s island fortress under the guise of competing in an exclusive fighting tournament. The film becomes one of Lee’s biggest hits and, in many ways, reinvents the action genre itself.

Since then, the concept of underground fight tournaments has become a genre staple; endlessly recycled, reimagined, and amplified across decades of action cinema. The ‘80s are teeming with VHS-era action classics about lone fighters, secret games, illegal arenas, and international showdowns where honor and survival are always on the line.

Then the 1990s roll around, and video games enter the picture. Combat games become the latest obsession among the youths. And guess what the major storyline is for these arcade hits? A global underground fighting tournament where the best warriors from around the world gather to prove who’s truly the champion.

Mortal Kombat, along with Street Fighter, becomes the evolution of that Bruce Lee blueprint. Suddenly it’s not just fists and kicks. It’s elemental powers. Fatalities. World-ending stakes. And so the fight tournament doesn’t just survive the transition from cinema to console... it makes the jump back to cinema again as the rebooted Mortal Kombat franchise returns with its second installment this summer.

But in a strange full-circle twist, the story now revolves around a Hollywood action hero. Only he’s not some globally beloved icon like Bruce Lee. Rather, he’s a washed-up egomaniac with perfectly frosted tips, clinging to past glory while being dragged into a tournament that demands he step up and become the hero he’s been pretending to play all these years.

Which, honestly, feels kind of perfect. Because what better way to comment on pop-culture resurrection than by centering it on a washed-up action star in desperate need of one himself?

Enter Johnny Cage! And enter Karl Urban; an actor who knows a thing or two about chewing scenery and embracing a certain kind of arrogant bravado. He’s been perfecting it for four seasons as anti-supe menace Billy Butcher on The Boys.

Here, however, Urban gets to slip on the designer shades and crank up the cocky swagger, as this version of Johnny Cage is a former box-office titan now grappling with fading fame and aging relevancy. We meet him packing up old ’90s movie memorabilia into the trunk of his car; relics from a glory era that isn’t coming back.

That is, until Lord Raiden (once again played by Shōgun star Tadanobu Asano) and Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) arrive with a brutal reality check: the fate of Earth hangs in the balance. And Cage has been recruited. Recruited to fight in the greatest underground tournament in the universe, where Earthrealm’s champions square off against Outworld’s supernatural warriors.

And no, this isn’t a movie set. The blood is real. The bones break for real. And lunch breaks only happen if Cage survives long enough to see the next morning. For a guy used to stunt doubles and second takes, that’s one hell of a rewrite.

Directed once again by Simon McQuoid, returning after the 2021 reboot’s pandemic-era success, the sequel expands the roster in a big way: Shōgun breakout Hiroyuki Sanada is back as Scorpion, alongside Josh Lawson’s Kano, Mehcad Brooks’ Jax, Ludi Lin’s Liu Kang, Chin Han’s Shang Tsung, Joe Taslim’s Bi-Han/Noob Saibot, Max Huang’s Kung Lao, and Lewis Tan’s Cole Young.

New challengers enter the arena, including Adeline Rudolph as Kitana, Tati Gabrielle as Jade, Martyn Ford as Shao Kahn, Damon Herriman as Quan Chi, and more.

With a script from Jeremy Slater (Moon Knight), this sequel looks bigger, meaner, and more Cage-fueled than ever. So “get over here”… to your local cinemas when Mortal Kombat II crashes onto the big screen May 15th.

🎥 “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” Teaser Trailer: Jane Schoenbrun Sends Hannah Einbinder on a Nostalgic Pilgrimage That Turns Sinister Opposite Gillian Anderson in This Trippy Meta-Horror Fever Dream — Arriving in Theaters August 7th

Visionary horror filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun isn’t the first auteur to channel a deep love of cult cinema and wear those influences proudly on their sleeve, yet still filter them through a distinctly personal lens. With acclaimed entries like 2024’s I Saw the TV Glow and 2021’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, Schoenbrun has proven to be one of the most singular creative voices of their generation.

Schoenbrun is a filmmaker who taps directly into the anxiety, alienation, and cultural pressures of modern life, while also remaining clearly inspired by the horror filmmakers who came before. Never one to simply imitate, they seem far more interested in reshaping and reinventing what has come before. It’s a style entirely their own; part retro-stylized reinvention, part lyrical fever dream drifting between dream and nightmare. Mind you, for many of us, our first true introduction to Schoenbrun came with I Saw the TV Glow. It was the indie horror breakout that crystallized their aesthetic and proved this wasn’t imitation, but an evolution of the genre itself.

Well, Schoenbrun returns this year with their third feature film. And if I Saw the TV Glow was a slow-burning meditation on self-discovery, identity, and the quiet tragedy of never fully becoming who you’re meant to be, then this next chapter feels poised to push those anxieties even further.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (which we’ve gotta say is probably one of the best movie titles you’ll hear all year) claims to be “a new kind of horror remake.” Though we understand that label might have been coined with a wink... maybe even a bit of provocation. It also feels like exactly the kind of meta framing Schoenbrun would lean into.

Starring Hannah Einbinder, of HBO’s Hacks, and Gillian Anderson, of The X-Files fame, the film seems to continue Schoenbrun’s brand of trippy, head-scratching meta-horror that both harkens back to the ’80s and ’90s while also bending those influences through a modern lens; one that feels less interested in explaining everything and more committed to letting the unease linger. It’s a vibe piece, in the best possible sense.

Here, Einbinder plays an overeager young filmmaker attempting to resurrect a dead cult horror franchise by tracking down its reclusive original star, played by Anderson. What starts as a nostalgic pilgrimage quickly spirals into something far stranger... and far more horrific, and we can safely assume plenty of body-horror imagery will be involved.

Think plenty of Videodrome vibes. Long live the new flesh!

Cronenberg’s 1983 cult classic was about how increasing media consumption can mutate the psyche into a desensitized state of mind, and how staring too long at the screen can blur the line between signal and self. So what does Schoenbrun want to add to that? Well, that’s exactly what makes us all the more interested in this project.

Backed by Plan B Entertainment and arriving via MUBI, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is slated to open in theaters on August 7th.

🎥 “Pretty Lethal” Trailer: Uma Thurman Plays a Sinister Hostess Targeting Young Ballerinas in This David Leitch-Produced, Wildly Absurd Action Thriller Starring Maddie Ziegler, Lana Condor, Iris Apatow, Avantika and Millicent Simmonds — Debuting March 25th on Prime Video

Here’s the elevator pitch: a group of young, highly skilled ballerinas must weaponize their physical precision and punishing discipline to escape the clutches of a mob-connected predator after discovering their trip to Budapest was nothing more than an elaborate honey trap. That’s the basic gist behind Pretty Lethal, a wildly absurd, tongue-firmly-in-cheek action thriller that swaps tutus for takedowns and turns pointe shoes into killing instruments.

It’s essentially a John Wick-style actioner that feels like the filmmakers asked themselves, “You know those ballerinas in the Wick universe who are secretly elite assassins? What if we flipped that?” Instead of trained killers posing as dancers, this centers on actual ballerinas who, when pushed to the brink, start dispatching enemies with the ruthless efficiency of seasoned hitwomen. And just to lean fully into the gleeful insanity of it all, we’ve got Kill Bill star Uma Thurman stepping in as the movie’s main villain, sporting a vaguely Eastern European accent and the kind of icy menace that lets you know she absolutely means business.

Look, not every movie needs to take itself so seriously. And this feels like one of those glorious, balls-to-the-walls genre swings where the only real rule is simple: go big, go bold, or don’t go at all.

Produced by action maestro David Leitch (John Wick, Atomic Blonde, Bullet Train), directed by Vicky Jewson (Close, The Witcher: Blood Origin), and written by sketch comedian and comic writer Kate Freund, Pretty Lethal is the kind of high-concept genre mashup that knows exactly how ridiculous it sounds... or at least we hope it does.

Dancer-turned-actress Maddie Ziegler (West Side Story) leads a cast that includes Avantika (2024’s Mean Girls), Lana Condor (of the To All the Boys films), Iris Apatow (This Is 40), and Millicent Simmonds (from the A Quiet Place franchise) as five fiercely competitive ballerinas selected to compete in a prestigious dance competition in Budapest.

But as the troupe travels overseas, things go sideways fast. Their bus breaks down in a remote forest, leaving them stranded with no cell service and no clear way out. With no other option, they take shelter at a roadside inn run by Devora Kasimer, played by Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill icon Uma Thurman. Devora, it turns out, is a reclusive former ballet prodigy with a shadowy past, and some very dark intentions for her unexpected guests.

When the young dancers realize they’ve been deliberately targeted, they do the only thing they know how to do: adapt and take action. Years of brutal discipline, physical endurance, and obsessive perfectionism suddenly become survival tools. Even their pointe shoes aren’t safe from reinvention, with one pair transformed into a lethal “toe blade.”

And if these young ladies thought Swan Lake had them pushing their physical and emotional limits, just wait until they realize this life-or-death ordeal will be the real test. The art of ballet has just become their ticket out of danger, and The Nutcracker suddenly takes on a far more literal meaning.

Pretty Lethal is scheduled to premiere Wednesday, March 25th on Prime Video. Just remember: never underestimate a ballerina... ’cause grace under pressure can be a deadly weapon.