Category Archives: we love tv

How A Classic Simpsons Episode Inspired One Of 2026’s Most Popular New Horrors

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It turns out that filmmaker Curry Barker found inspiration from an unlikely source when he was putting together his hit horror movie Obsession.

A huge critical and commercial success, Obsession centres around two close friends whose lives are forever changed after one makes a wish for the other to love him “more than anyone else in the fucking world”.

When his wish comes true, things take a disastrous, and tragic, turn – with Curry getting the idea for his film from an iconic episode of The Simpsons.

Speaking to Triple J before Obsession’s release, the director explained that he had invited some friends over to watch an episode of the comedy It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, which he made a guest appearance in.

“Before the episode [aired] there was a Simpsons episode where [Bart] has a monkey paw, and he’s making wishes and stuff,” he recalled.

Of course, Simpsons fans will know already that he’s referring to the show’s second ever Halloween special, Treehouse Of Horror II, which includes a segment where the family travels to Morocco and buys a cursed monkey’s paw at a market, which grants their wishes with sinister consequences.

The Simpsons' brush with a monkey's paw was an unexpected inspiration for Obsession
The Simpsons’ brush with a monkey’s paw was an unexpected inspiration for Obsession

He continued: “I was just excited to see my Always Sunny episode, but it hit me right then and there on the couch that Obsession idea that I had would be perfect if it was a wish movie.

“And so I actually remember the moment, I remember being on the couch, and being like, ‘oh my god’ and writing. It down. And after that, I just kept developing and developing that idea.”

In a separate interview with Variety, he said that after watching the Treehouse Of Horror special, he got to “thinking that I’ve never seen a straight crazy horror” based on that concept.

“We’ve seen ‘be careful what you wish for’ tons of times,” he noted. “But we’ve never seen my version of it. I instantly started thinking about what I could do with that…”

For what it’s worth, the Simpsons episode in question is based on WW Jacobs’ short story The Monkey’s Paw.

After coming up with his concept, Curry had to come up with a way of conveying the wish on screen, ruling out using a monkey’s paw because, as he told IndieWire, the image was already “too recognisable”.

He then considered going with a “wishing well”, “shooting stars” and “a wishbone”, before deciding on creating his own device, the One Wish Willow.

Since its release last month, Obsession has become one of the year’s most popular new films, with an enviable critical score of 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and 4.2 stars from fans on Letterboxd.

Obsession is in cinemas now.

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Sydney Sweeney Appears To Take Swipe At Critics Of Graphic Euphoria Scenes

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While Sydney remained tight-lipped on the debate throughout the season, it seemed she had something to say about it all in a post shared on Instagram before the season finale aired.

Alongside a series of behind-the-scenes snaps from season three – including some of the more racy set-ups involving her character – Sydney said simply: “It’s called… acting.”

In the past, Sydney has repeatedly called out the “double standard” she has noticed around the way male and female actors who have appeared nude on screen are treated.

Back in 2022, she told The Independent: “When a guy has a sex scene or shows his body, he still wins awards and gets praise. But the moment a girl does it, it’s completely different.”

Elsewhere in the same interview, she also made a point of saying: “I’ve never felt like Sam [Levinson, Euphoria’s creator] has pushed it on me or was trying to get a nude scene into an HBO show. When I didn’t want to do it, he didn’t make me.”

He claimed: “In terms of the story that we set out to tell, which is a story about addiction and its consequences, this feels like the end to me.”

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Critics Hail Russell T Davies’ New Channel 4 Drama As ‘Terrifying’ And ‘Unforgettable’

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Bafta-winning screenwriter Russell T Davies has another critical hit on his hands thanks to his new show Tip Toe.

The unflinching new drama stars Alan Cumming and David Morrissey as two neighbours who find themselves in a feud that quickly spirals out of control with disastrous results, while diving into thorny issues like online radicalisation, prejudice against the LGBTQ+ community, misinformation in the digital age and generational conflict.

During a recent interview with HuffPost UK, Russell called Tip Toe an “urgent” and “necessary” reflection of a world that is “out of control” and “at war with ourselves”, which critics have certainly agreed with so far.

Ahead of episode one’s premiere on Sunday, reviews have near-unanimously praised the series – the latest TV offering from the creator of shows like Queer As Folk, Years And Years and It’s A Sin – which they’ve hailed as “chilling”, “devastating”, “terrifying” and “unforgettable”.

Here’s a snippet of what the critics are saying about Tip Toe…

“This is urgent, state-of-the-nation stuff from one of our shrewdest screenwriters […] Tip Toe isn’t just sobering; it’s visceral and chilling viewing for all queer people and everyone who loves and supports us.”

“At times it feels as subtle as a brick in the face. But when Davies steps down from his pulpit and lets his characters breathe, his storytelling is visionary, devastating, passionate and humane. And we should listen.”

Alan Cumming as Leo in Tip Toe
Alan Cumming as Leo in Tip Toe

James_Stack/Channel 4

“Alan Cumming is extraordinary in this terrifying, landmark queer drama […] While this series is a fiction, and one that makes its arguments with sledgehammer grace, it is sadly not absurd, or abstract.”

“Tip Toe, the latest gut-punching drama from Russell T. Davies – his first since the life-altering It’s A Sin – is an alarming, though not inaccurate, portrayal of what it’s really like to be unapologetically gay in a Britain that hates us […] Tip Toe is Davies at his most impassioned; a wake-up call that this is not a time to be complacent.”

“Television writers will tell you that they never want to come across as preachy, and that good drama should ask teasing questions and then step away. The sense in Tip Toe is that Davies is done with this kind of pussyfooting around, and is up for a scrap.

“It makes for a drama that takes wrong turns but is never less than bold and, in the round, deeply stirring. TV polemic is back, loud and proud.”

David Morrissey plays Clive in Russell T Davies' Tip Toe
David Morrissey plays Clive in Russell T Davies’ Tip Toe

Ben Blackall/Channel 4

“Tip Toe may be an extreme example of how frenzied that intolerance can become. Its dialogue, with long, culturally-charged monologues, can also be a little tiring. But it should be all of these things […] A word of warning, though, from someone who literally watches TV for a living: by the end, this is the most distressing series I’ve ever seen. It’s not rewatchable, but it’s unforgettable.”

“[Tip Toe] lacks the discipline that made his other state of the historical/future nation pieces, Years and Years or It’s a Sin, so powerful and moving, but the strands begin to interweave, momentum builds and if the extremity of the conclusion still doesn’t quite ring true, everyone has worked hard to get it as close to authentic and emotionally credible as possible.”

The first two episodes of Tip Toe are now streaming on Channel 4, with the final three following on Sunday 7 June.

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Rivals Star Recalls ‘Modesty Equipment’ Malfunction While Shooting Racy Shower Scene

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The current season of Rivals very much started as it meant to go on when it returned to our screens earlier this month, kicking things off with a raunchy shower scene.

In the sequence in question, Victoria Smurfit’s Maud O’Hara was seen sharing a steamy shower with her husband Declan, played by Aidan Turner, in what was later reduced to a comedy of errors resulting in a scene-stealing EastEnders cameo.

Rivals’ robust approach to intimacy co-ordination is already well-documented, with Victoria telling fans at the Hay Festival on Sunday that both she and Aidan were required to wear “modesty equipment” for the shoot.

Or, at least, that was the plan.

“It was long, pink and a fucking plaster,” the actor said, as reported by The Times. “You take the plaster, you jam it on and hope it stays there.”

She continued: “I have to be honest with you – under a storming shower, it doesn’t stay there for long. You give up. You just realise that glue is not what it was in the 80s.”

Victoria Smurfit and Aidan Turner in Rivals' second season
Victoria Smurfit and Aidan Turner in Rivals’ second season

Victoria previously praised the show’s “fantastic” intimacy coordinators, who help facilitate its many, many sex scenes safely for actors and crew members, while promoting season one.

“Pretty much all of the characters have to de-robe at some stage, whether it’s for comedy, love or power, so we had two intimacy coordinators,” she told The Gloss.

“They were fantastic because, what I’d never realised before, was how much they bring to the camera angles and the story-telling. It’s not just to protect the actors; it’s much deeper.”

Similarly, she told Evoke: “The intimacy coordinators were amazing, all 27,000 of them because they were able to [explain], ‘This is what sells the story of the sex’, because each of the sex scenes for everybody is telling a story about the characters and how they function.”

As a result, the hardest part of shooting each of these scenes, she claimed, was worrying “how cold are we going to be in this outfit?”.

Rivals continues on Friday 29 May and 5 June, before taking a mid-season break and returning later in 2026.

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Rivals Star Luca Pasqualino Claims He’s Still ‘Haunted’ By His Ted Lasso Audition

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Rivals actor Luca Pasqualino has revealed he came close to landing a major role in a very different British show that has also gone on to become a huge hit internationally.

During a recent interview with HuffPost UK to promote the new episodes of the Jilly Cooper bonkbuster, Luca was asked if there was an audition he missed out on earlier on in his career that still “haunts” him today, to which he admitted that there was “definitely” one that came immediately to mind for him.

“One that I got really, really close to that sort of sticks out was Ted Lasso,” he explained, before sharing that he’d tried out to play striker Jamie Tartt in the Apple TV+ series.

“I got down to [the last few], went and met Jason Sudeikis, had two tests for it, and I was so close. But my friend Phil Dunster, he got the part in the end. And he was so good.”

Luca continued: “If you watch [something that you’ve auditioned for] and the person who gets it is really awful or whatever, it makes you feel worse.

“But [Phil] was so good, it’s like, ‘OK, fine, I get it. This is going to be an easier pill to swallow’.”

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Critics Praise Netflix’s ‘Intriguing’ New Drama From The Producers Of Stranger Things

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From the producers of Stranger Things comes The Boroughs, a new Netflix sci-fi series that follows supernatural goings on in the unlikeliest of spots.

Led by an all-star cast that includes Alfred Molina, Bill Pullman and Clarke Peters, The Boroughs has already been described as a mix of The Goonies, A Man On The Inside and The Thursday Murder Club.

The show follows a group of pensioners in a luxury retirement village, as they try to hunt down the creature living underneath their homes, after mysterious goings-on threaten them and their loved ones.

Critics have mostly praised The Boroughs, although some have said it doesn’t live up to the earlier series of Stranger Things.

Here’s what critics are saying about The Boroughs so far…

“Like the best hokum, The Boroughs speaks, via monsters and electroplasm, to eternal human fears. Death is one, but The Boroughs parses it further – the fear of dying alone and friendless, after all one’s loved ones have gone, or after years of living in a terrifying, memory-less present – and then gives us comfort, that together most monsters can be defeated.”

“Part Thursday Murder Club, part Stranger Things, The Boroughs is an unexpectedly entertaining mix of adventure and wonder, drama and humour. Age is just a number – and it doesn’t matter what that number is when you’ve got a monster in your front room.”

The Boroughs is executive produced by Stranger Things creators The Duffer Brothers
The Boroughs is executive produced by Stranger Things creators The Duffer Brothers

“Like Stranger Things, The Boroughs is hard to pigeon-hole. There are elements of family drama, shades of comedy and moments of schlocky horror, but it’s just as intriguing as the Netflix hit’s early years.”

“The monster stuff really drags. But I liked the underlying message that you write off older people at your peril.

“It doesn’t take a psychoanalyst to spot that the monsters stalking these retirees represent mortality. Molina plays a man still hit by waves of despair over losing the woman he loved. There are scenes in which he grieves for her, sound-tracked by Bruce Springsteen, which will bring a tear to your eye.”

“Flipping the premise of executive producers the Duffer Brothers’ breakthrough series Stranger Things, where resourceful kids triumphed against monsters from the Upside Down, this series pits characters who could easily be their grandparents against a sinister otherworldly force.

“Setting the mayhem in an otherwise placid retirement community abutting the New Mexico desert (though Roswell oddly is never mentioned) is a stroke of creative genius. The elderly are an especially vulnerable demographic, often robbed of their agency and independence by well-meaning family, patronised as delusional or worse if they confess to seeing things that couldn’t possibly be true. Or could they?”

“Boasting a fantastic cast that brings this ensemble of intricate characters to life, The Boroughs turns a familiar genre on its head, allowing audiences to consider from a different vantage point the constraints of the human experience, what it means to be fearless and the finality of death.

“Fascinating and intense, with The Boroughs, viewers will indeed have the time of their lives.”

The Boroughs features an all-star cast playing a group of retirees investigating some supernatural goings on
The Boroughs features an all-star cast playing a group of retirees investigating some supernatural goings on

“Between its examination of dementia and its tale of a reclusive retiree finding community, The Boroughs feels like a sci-fi version of another stellar Netflix offering: A Man On The Inside.

“The Boroughs may have 100 percent more monster attacks, but it also has A Man On The Inside’s same compassion when it comes to telling stories of retirees living fulfilling, adventurous lives.”

“In between the missteps and monsters, The Boroughs is ultimately a heartfelt and charming series that poses a fair few questions about life, ageing and death – and asks just how far you’ll go for the ones you love.”

“In the final third of the story […] what first seems like simple horror starts to connect to The Boroughs’ bigger questions about the cost of extending life beyond its natural limits, and this sometimes diverts attention away from the main quest.

“The story moves away from a clear good-versus-evil setup, and a simpler version with a hero and villain might have felt more satisfying, even if it meant losing some of the deeper ideas and ambiguity the series deliberately leans into.”

“Davis, Molina, O’Hare, Peters, and Woodard make the show a blast, particularly the terrific middle stretch of the eight-episode first season.

“Too bad about the rest of the ensemble, whose one-note performances are a drag on The Boroughs’ momentum and scares. With leads this strong, you’d expect supporting players who can make lines like ‘The Boroughs is a fortress, a citadel blazing in the dark’ sound spooky, not goofy and uninspiring.

“Fortunately, a few weak links and a slow start don’t diminish The Boroughs’ delightful punch.”

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“When conflict arises, the threat of being mistreated by people far younger and stronger than they are is a sobering reminder of the potential for cruelty that comes from organisations that are, in fact, positioned to help.

“It’s a dark mirror to how the kids of Stranger Things bemoan they won’t be believed by the adults in their lives, but unlike the kids, the retirees’ very lives are put under threat that, at times, feels far more frightening than even the menacing presence hiding within the retirement village.”

“Netflix’s The Boroughs gets off to a promising start, with Alfred Molina leading one hell of a great cast of veteran actors as the residents of a retirement community dealing with a monstrous, otherworldly threat.

“The set-up is intriguing and fun, with the first episode establishing an appealingly quirky tone that’s hopefully backed up by a worthy story across the eight episodes that will fully make proper use of these actors.”

“While the sci-fi thriller proves a fine enough way to while away a few hours, with a plot that boils down to ‘Stranger Things but old people’ and an A-list cast that’d turn the grey hairs of A Man On The Inside green with envy, I left thinking too much of its eight 45-minute episodes had been spent on the former, at the expense of the latter.”

“I doubt The Boroughs is about to set Netflix alight on the epic scale that Stranger Things did. It might have an old-timey vintage feel, but it is nowhere near the nostalgia bomb that first got so many in on Hawkins.”

The Boroughs is available to stream on Netflix now.

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