Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Andrew Sanford | News | February 5, 2025
Tales From The Crypt Presents: Demon Knight is a movie that feels like it was made for me. I had spent plenty of time watching Tales from the Crypt at (objectively) too young of an age. Silly, scary, and gross practical effects always put me in a good mood (and Demon Knight has those in spades). I have no particular soft spot for Billy Zane, but I think he rules in it (as does everyone in the stacked cast). The film tells a story of a battle of good versus evil that stretches over thousands of years and is dripping with macabre humor. I love it.
Do The Right Thing hit me at just the right time as well. I saw it when I was older (thankfully) and attending a (said very dramatically) theater conservatory in NYC. The themes and messages in that film are depressingly relevant, and it knocks me on my ass every time I see it. It’s so good and looks so beautiful that it makes me nostalgic for Brooklyn, even though that was my least favorite borough to live in my 16 years in the city that never sleeps. That movie is exquisite, and while plenty of that falls on Spike Lee, we have to give credit to cinematographer, writer, and director of film and television Ernest Dickerson.
Dickerson’s visual style and flare is engrossing and exciting. His movies feel like they’re popping out of the screen with vibrant visuals and unique art direction. He spent years shooting films for Spike Lee, with Malcolm X being their last collaboration. Demon Knight is one of many films that he has directed in his storied career. For most of the last two decades, he’s been directing TV. Now, he’s making a return to the big screen, and Samuel L. Jackson, who starred in Dickerson’s first feature film Juice, is coming with him.
Daveed Diggs will star alongside Jackson with a script written by Matthew Stone. Jackson will play a retired hitman named Morris Stokes, and the synopsis from Deadline sounds pretty great. “When his nephew Leslie (Diggs), is implicated in the theft of the mob’s earnings, Morris gets a call from his old boss that forces him off the golf course and back into action to negotiate one last job: he’s got the weekend to help the kid recover the stolen money or put a bullet in him. Complicating things is the fact that Leslie has a baby on the way.” Sure! Give it to me!
Not only am I excited by the prospect of seeing an Ernest Dickerson film in theaters again, but this sounds right up Jackson’s alley. He even says in the article that each time he reads the script, he finds something new he likes. Could he be hyping it up? Yes! But I also wouldn’t put it past Jackson to say nothing about the script if he didn’t have any faith in the project. It has the makings to be something that brings me even a modicum of joy in these next hellish years (decades?) we might end up living through.
I mainly covered this story because I love Ernest Dickerson and wanted to write about how happy this made me. Even that is tinged with a feeling of impending doom. But goddammit, I’m not going to ignore the things that bring positive f***ing energy to my life even if I feel anxious every second of every day like I should be doing something else. I will! But right now I needed to take this great news and share it with people.
