Youth, a Sega Cartoon, and Oak Street at Home

Last week’s pile on this site was Supergirl and a French agency movie. This week is not that. Mashable dated the new shelf to September 18. Luna Gray at iHorror dated the horror half to September 14–20. I am not recapping Practical Magic 2. We already did the $30 million opening.

What follows is a short list of things you can actually start tonight. I skipped the faith-based theatrical one-offs Edward Douglas logged without a theater count. If you cannot find a showtime in two searches, it is not on this list.

Youth (HBO)

Sharon Horgan is the reason I opened Mashable’s page and did not bounce. Belen Edwards put Youth at the top of the week. Horgan plays Alex, a divorcée stacking sex, parenting, aging parents, and a literary-agent job in the same week. Aran Murphy, Sharlene Whyte, Robbie Gee, and Rupert Friend are in the cast. It is her second HBO series after Divorce in 2016. That one was about the paperwork of splitting up. This one is the after.

I have a bias. Catastrophe and Bad Sisters already proved she can write people who are funny because they are cornered, not because a punch-up pass added quips. If Youth is even close to that, it is the adult show in a week of game adaptations and true-crime brands. Watch episode one before you queue the Sega cartoon for the same night. You will not have the same face for both.

Golden Axe (Paramount+)

Matthew Rhys, two Emmys later, is voicing Gilius Thunderhead. Liam McIntyre is Ax Battler. Lisa Gilroy is Tyris Flare. Danny Pudi is Hampton Squib, the extra adventurer who makes a simple hack-and-slash plot slightly more annoying, which is the point. Carl Tart is in there. Paramount+ has it now.

This is a Sega arcade cabinet with a writers’ room. I am not expecting The Legend of Vox Machina. I am expecting color, bad jokes, and a Death Adder. If you have a kid who can handle cartoon blood, or an adult who still flinches at the memory of inserting quarters, it is the easy play. If you wanted prestige animation, wait for the repertory rereleases Douglas mentioned and leave this in the kids profile.

Outlander: Blood of My Blood, season 2 (Starz, Sept. 18)

The prequel is back. Mashable’s how-to-watch line is Starz on September 18. I do not have a recap of season 1 in this paragraph because if you need one, you are not the audience. If you are mid-stack on the mother show, this is the fork that either pays off the 18th-century soap or confirms you should have stayed with Claire. I am putting it on the list because it is dated this week, not because I think it converts skeptics.

Skip it if you bounced off season 1. There is no prize for loyalty to a prequel.

Route 187 (Paramount+)

Tyler Perry’s name is on a four-part miniseries about a fictional city called South Winslow. A violent crime on a city bus. A journalist, Mason James, played by Christopher Livingston in Mashable’s copy (Chris Livingston in the same page’s starring line). Disappearances. Edwards wrote it up as a Paramount+ premiere this week.

Four parts is the right length for this kind of town-secret show. Eight parts is how these things get flabby. I have no screening notes. I have a producer brand that usually means you know the temperature in the first 20 minutes. Watch episode one. If the bus scene is the whole invention, stop. If the disappearances actually connect, you have a weekend.

Goody Goody (Shudder, Friday Sept. 18)

Gray’s horror list makes this the only subscription title in her five. Raymond Creamer writes and directs. Samantha Robinson, Zoe Renee, Colby Hollman, Colleen Foy. Expecting parents, a midwife, a home birth, a blizzard, then the plot stops being obstetrics. Early coverage reached for Rosemary’s Baby and The Shining, which Gray correctly tells you to park. First features cannot carry those comparisons. The setup can. One house. One night. A process nobody can pause.

Douglas had already seen it out of Scary Movies XIV at Film at Lincoln Center and did not have a lot more to say, which I will take as a shrug rather than a rave. If you pay for Shudder, Friday is the date. If you do not, this is not the week to start a new login for one blizzard.

The End of Oak Street, at home

We already did the “why this might matter” piece in August. This week is the couch date. iHorror calls it the biggest title arriving at home in the horror-adjacent batch: David Robert Mitchell, Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella, Christian Convery. A cosmic event yanks Oak Street out of suburbia. Physical release November 3.

Mitchell made It Follows. That is the only reason horror people will click. The movie is a studio sci-fi thriller with dread in the engine, not a pure screamers’ night. If you wanted It Follows 2, adjust. If you wanted Hathaway and McGregor in a neighborhood that stops making sense, this is the one title on the list with a theatrical-scale budget behind the rental button.

The rest of the horror shelf

Gray says at least eight genre titles hit home viewing Monday through Sunday and that picking five was the hard part. The ones that survived her cut besides Oak Street and Goody Goody: Who’s Watching, digital plus select New York and Los Angeles theaters, Friday September 18. The Last Kiss, digital rental and purchase on Prime Video, Apple TV, Fandango, YouTube, Tuesday September 15. She also flags a Blumhouse slasher that runs on premonitions and a graduates-on-a-road movie. I do not have clean titles for those last two in the extract, so I am not going to invent them. If Blumhouse is in your muscle memory, search the digital store for this week’s slasher key art. If it looks like a premonition poster, you found it.

Who’s Watching is the “worst guy at your job has a camera” premise Gray opened with. That is either a 90-minute grimace or a sharp little mean movie. Digital means you can bounce at minute 25 without a leftover physical disc.

Mashable’s other names

Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story is on the Mashable list. I do not have a platform line I trust from the chunks, so treat it as “confirm the tile before you sit down.” True-crime brands multiply in September. If you already watched a Borden movie, you know whether you have another one in you.

Trespasses is a Troubles-era Northern Ireland love story. That is a real setting with a real body count in the history books. I need more than one sentence of plot before I tell you to spend an evening on it. Put it in the “read two reviews” pile, not the autoplay pile.

Tony is a digital rental, per Mashable’s how-to-watch fragment. The Traitors: New Blood is a reality franchise extension. If you watch The Traitors, you do not need me. If you do not, this is not the gateway.

What I would actually play

Friday night: Youth if you want people talking. Goody Goody if you want a locked house and you already pay Shudder.

Saturday: The End of Oak Street if you have two hours and a tolerance for studio dread. Golden Axe if the room includes someone who does not want dread.

Sunday leftover: Route 187 episode one, with permission to stop.

I would not start Blood of My Blood season 2 cold. I would not hunt Daniel and the Fiery Furnace. Douglas could not find a theater count, and Pinnacle Peak’s last notable self-distribute was the Dennis Quaid Reagan movie. That is a different weekend.

Theaters, if you still go

Douglas’s print edition is the theatrical half I am not pretending is a stream. Metrograph’s ACE Presents is back with Pumping Iron (1977), Arnold before the governor jokes. Sunday they have the 1989 Little Mermaid on 35mm in a hand-drawn Disney series. That is a print. It is not Disney+.

Two rereleases: Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell (1995) in 4K for the 30th, and The Transformers: The Movie at 40. Douglas did not have theater counts for either, which is his honest shrug. I would still look. Oshii on a screen is the one title this weekend that will still be the same movie in ten years. The Hasbro cartoon is a singalong for people who were eight in 1986. Both beat a digital slasher whose title I cannot confirm.

He also logged Daniel and the Fiery Furnace, Mena Massoud, Elijah Alexander as Nebuchadnezzar, EKKL Entertainment, produced by Pinnacle Peak of the Dennis Quaid Reagan movie. No theater count. I am not driving toward a maybe.

Aardman’s Beast got a G from GKIDS. Douglas declined to review it. He notes Wallace and Gromit gave up on theatrical after The Curse of the Were-Rabbit still did $56 million domestic and much more overseas, which is why Aardman lives on Netflix. If Beast is at your multiplex, take the kid. Do not wait for my recap. There will not be one.

How to spend the three nights without opening five apps

Pick a service you already pay for. HBO for Youth. Shudder for Goody Goody. Paramount+ if you want Golden Axe or Route 187. Starz only if you are already in the Outlander hole. Digital store for Oak Street and The Last Kiss. That is five logins if you chase everything, which is how a week of “what’s new” becomes a night of menus.

I would rather finish two things. Horgan, then Mitchell. The Sega cartoon is the buffer if a third person is on the couch. Perry’s miniseries is the leftover if Sunday is empty and you can tolerate a town-secret plot.

Gray’s rule for the horror list is the right one for the whole page: new to home this week, not a title that has been sitting since August with a fresh push, not theatrical-only. I copied it. That is why Practical Magic 2 is not here. It is in theaters, and we already wrote the opening.

The September list we ran earlier in the month (Toy Story 5, Backrooms) was a month-ahead sketch. This is the week-of correction. Titles move. Platforms lie in trailers. If the button is not on the service Mashable named, believe the button.

Watch Youth first if you only have one slot. Horgan has earned the hour. Everything else on this page is a maybe with a date.

Who’s Watching on Friday is the leftover horror if Shudder is not in the budget and Oak Street feels too large. Digital means the sunk cost is a rental, not a month. The Last Kiss on Tuesday already came and went for people who only look at Friday. If you care, it is still a buy-or-rent tile. I have no plot I trust beyond the iHorror header, so I am not selling it.

Mashable’s Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story still needs a platform check. I will not send you to the wrong app. Search the name, confirm the date is this week, then decide if you have another Borden in you. I do not.