Entertainment
‘Death Has No Master’ Review: Asia Argento in Slow-Burn Thriller
It’s highly reductive to say, but there’s a genre in festival and arthouse cinema, and it’s simply called “Asia Argento.” The component parts include herself, a fashionable, high-ish brow, and maybe trashy auteur (Abel Ferrara, Olivier Assayas, Catherine Breillat, her own dad), a strong genre element, and dabs of very deliberate provocation. The Italian actress is, of course, associated more recently with the early years of MeToo, which saw her as one of the most virulent direct accusers of Harvey Weinstein, after which she was embroiled in misconduct allegations of her own from former actor collaborator Jimmy Bennett.
Like many from that era, best not named, Argento has been attempting a gradual comeback, with walk-ons as a literal cisman in Ferrara’s “Padre Pio,” and a nicely self-referential role in Rainer Frimmel and Tizza Covi’s great “Vera” (whose star Vera Gemma, incidentally, is mooted for a role in Sean Baker’s upcoming “Ti Amo!”). But, swerving back, Jorge Thielen Armand’s “Death Has No Master” is a 100-percent authentic “Asia Argento” film, alongside being an impressive and politically adroit genre work. And given the U.S.’ return to foreign imperialism this year, that it derives from Venezuela makes it doubly urgent, although any references it has to contemporary politics, or Maduro et al., are buried and indirect.
Armand’s previous features had prime berths as part of the Venice Biennale College cinema program and Rotterdam’s Tiger Competition, and he lands in the even more prestigious climes of Cannes Directors’ Fortnight this time. It makes sense too, as while excellent, his prior work “La Soledad” and “Fortitude” are still what regulars of the circuit sometimes ding as festival films; “Death Has No Master,” by comparison, has a far more overt genre hook, even if its pivot towards that from humid, sunburnt realism is a bit unsteady.
Argento, who diligently learned Spanish for the role, plays Caro, the daughter of a Cacao plantation owner, who lives in an unstated foreign country and now returns “home” to reclaim her inheritance. Even from her sheer pink, slogan-emblazoned t-shirt, and fashionable sunglasses, we gauge both the poised, well-presented aspects of her personality, and her utter outsider-dom, as she nurses the weight of her troubled family heritage; she both wants to settle her affairs, and exorcize any remaining trauma, especially if there’s the option to sell the property, and pocket the cash.

Arriving at the decaying mansion, which seems not too geographically distant from urban life, she finds its current caretaker Sonia (Dogreika Tovar), the daughter of her father’s former housekeeper, who is occupying it with her young son Maiko (Yermain Sequera); also present is Roque (Jorge Thielen Hedderich), who’s set up a workshop in one of its cavernous rooms, and appears to be in a relationship with Sonia, although he’s not the kid’s father. Caro and Sonia both cautiously bond over their connection to the property and the surrounding land, and commiserate on the historical forces that have placed them in opposition. Yet, for all her former liberal posturing, she wants them out, or — with most details of her past life ambiguous — seems to want the space to herself as her own mausoleum, but only to live in.
Consulting with her pragmatic lawyer and other advisors, she learns that “squatters” — an unfair and demeaning term, no question — are able to live permanently at otherwise owned properties if they’ve already been there five years. So, her strategy shifts to polite requests, and then more foreboding scenarios where her lawyer calls his security contacts — the kind who carry assault rifles over their back.
Although the film pleasingly goes full Latin-American Peckinpah — yet with a far more convincing and righteous anti-colonial streak — threaded throughout are dreamlike interludes and flashbacks that provide generational historical context to the events and intensify the atmosphere. For one, the movie’s very opening sequence shows the initial Spanish colonization of the land, but with rifle butts placed in sexually suggestive poses; Lynchian, face-covering scarves; and an observing character intoning “no land, no home, no God”. We learn that Caro’s father suffered from an unspecified mental illness, which she appears to have inherited, with distorted, queasy sound design and visual anomalies (such as on-screen figures suddenly changing place) stalking her wherever she goes, but especially “the big house”.
Assessing its distribution prospects after what should be a well-received premiere, “Death Has No Master” has something of a “tweener” feel, meaning it fits between poles of classification. It’s too bloodthirsty in its denouement to simply be a drama of postcolonial lives, as Armand’s “La Soledad” was to a tee, and it’s perhaps too slow-burning, whilst camouflaging its true nature, to be naturally appealing at genre festivals, although it could still impress in that realm. Beyond these questions of wider exposure, this emanates from the film itself, whose characterization and depth just don’t convince as much as its atmospherics. Or to sound more Gen Z, if we wish, its impeccably bad vibes.
Grade: B
“Death Has No Master” premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
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movies
Obama Relives Tan Suit Debacle In ‘Life, Larry & Pursuit of Unhappiness’
As Larry David‘s comedic trip through U.S. history comes to an end, he took credit for one of the nation’s more recent presidential scandals.
On Friday’s season finale of the HBO sketch comedy miniseries Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness, President Barack Obama made a surprise appearance as himself in a sketch set in 2014, as David advised him to wear the now-infamous, outrage-inducing tan suit during his live press conference on military response to ISIS.
Following some banter on how the POTUS avoids stains, David accidentally spills juice on Obama’s suit jacket when he leaves the room. When the 44th president returns, the comedian recommends he wear the tan suit that Obama planned on taking it to Turin for NATO Summit, for “a daytime event, it’s outdoors, a little more casual.”
“First of all, it’s a gorgeous suit,” David declared. “And this is casual Friday!”
“It is a great suit,” admitted Obama, as David told him, “Oh boy, oh boy. I think this is the move. … Old lips won’t let you down. You’ll thank me!”
As Obama models the look, David gives him his signature, “Pretty good! Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.”
“You sure about this?” asks Obama, as David assures him, “Never been more sure about anything in my life. People are going to be talking about this for a long, long time.”
Obama’s cameo in the finale comes as David marks the United States Semiquencentennial with the seven-part sketch comedy limited series, which recounts major events in U.S. history through the comedian’s signature observational humor.
David’s longtime Curb Your Enthusiasm partner Jeff Schaffer, who serves as an executive producer on Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness, previously told Deadline that Obama, who produced under his Higher Ground banner, reached out to his buddy David to ask if he’d be interested in making the show to celebrate the country’s 250th birthday.
“When you’re doing a show about American history, you want to do it warts and right now we have this orange saggy wart that we wish would go away,” said Schaffer. “But the nice thing about having President Obama produce this and be a part of it is that this country’s had a lot of fuck ups, we’ve seemed to have learned very little, but we’re still moving forward sometimes, and then we move back a little bit, but we always move forward again. While Larry’s pointing out a lot of the steps back, the President is telling us we can still step forward.”
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movies
Matthew McConaughey Performs “Quill” From ‘Rivals of Amziah King’ — Watch
Matthew McConaughey shows off his vocal skills (and some hidden banjo talents) with his latest role in The Rivals of Amziah King.
On Friday, Lakeshore Records released the single and music video for “Quill” from the original motion picture soundtrack, performed by the Oscar-winning and co-star Ben Hardesty, also featuring Miranda Zickler, Angelina LookingGlass and Andrea Pister.
Set in the backwoods of Oklahoma, The Rivals of Amziah King follows the musically gifted Amaziah King (McConaughey) and his bluegrass-playing band of misfits while overseeing the premier honey-making operation in town. When Amaziah’s estranged foster daughter unexpectedly returns, he leaps at the chance to reconnect and create a family business. But the honey game is ruthless, and Amaziah’s rivals threaten to destroy everything he has built.
Premiering Aug. 14 in theaters, the Andrew Patterson-written-and-directed drama also stars Angelina LookingGlass, Cole Sprouse, Jake Horowitz, Tony Revolori and Kurt Russell.
Producers are David Heyman, Teddy Schwarzman, Jeffrey Clifford, Michael Heimler, James Montague and Will Greenfield.
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movies
Jane Schoenbrun On Tackling “Toxic Soup” Of Slasher Genre In ‘Camp Miasma’
With their latest directorial outing, Jane Schoenbrun used subtle pieces of nostalgia to deconstruct the slasher genre.
The Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma writer/director explained to Deadline that they wanted to create “a mindset where you can really enjoy something scary,” noting the frequent symbolism of candy and junk food as providing an atmosphere “that’s actually safe” while diving into a horror movie or exploring sexuality after trauma.
“There is this idea that if it gets too real, you can turn it off, that you’re exploring something dangerous, doing it in a way that’s actually safe,” said Schoenbrun, who is non-binary. “Which in my experience of coming into my sexual identity post-transition, kind of required some gummy candy on hand. What I mean by that is, even if we’re going to be exploring scary and vulnerable and potentially embarrassing, triggering parts of ourselves, we trust each other well enough to know that at any moment, we can be like, ‘Let’s stop, we gotta just eat some fucking gummies.’”
In Schoenbrun’s latest film, Hannah Einbinder stars as queer director Kris, who is tapped to helm a new installment of the long-running Camp Miasma horror franchise. While courting Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson), the actress who played the “final girl” in the original film, to reprise her role, the pair spirals into a psychosexual frenzy as the slasher’s killer, Little Death (Jack Haven), comes to life.
Acknowledging the problematic trans representation of horror films like Psycho (1960), Sleepaway Camp (1983), The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1995), Schoenbrun admitted the genre has been “catnip to me since I was 10 years old,” and they jumped at the chance to direct their own.

“So many slashers do have this sense of humor, and even if they’re not overtly meta like the Scream movies are, they’re so aware of their own tropes and the sort of rituals … And I just loved that from a young age and loved all of the little rituals within it, and so, getting to make my own is just like play and joy,” they explained.
“But it also felt like the perfect way to talk about sex and to talk about my experience as a trans person post-transition, learning how to come into a sexual identity that I could feel comfortable within, because so many of these movies are obviously deeply engaged in gender and sexual roles, and these movies have so much to say for better or for worse about deviants,” said Schoenbrun. “It is there in the DNA of the slasher genre that these movies are talking about fear and desire, gender and sexuality, normativity and deviance. And that’s all swimming in the toxic soup of the genre, so I wanted to remake it in my own language.”
Read on about Jane Schoenbrun’s love letter to the slasher genre with Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, now playing in theaters.
DEADLINE: It was really fun to see the slasher genre through your eyes. Tell me about finding inspiration in that genre and “final girls.”
JANE SCHOENBRUN: I mean, it was the easiest thing in the world because it’s just one of those genres that has been catnip to me since I was 10 years old. I just raided the horror section of the video store as a kid from an age when I really shouldn’t have been doing that, like in 5th grade, I watched in the span of about one week, every Nightmare on Elm Street movie. I think that I was always drawn to movies and really anything entertainment where it felt forbidden in some way, like the thing on the tape, how is that even allowed? And that’s the thing that I love about a lot of my favorite slashers. Don’t get me wrong, I love like brutal ones, like I love Texas Chainsaw, that’s a nasty movie at its core, and that’s what’s so special about it. But so many slashers do have this sense of humor, and even if they’re not overtly meta like the Scream movies are, they’re so aware of their own tropes and the sort of rituals of, OK, what’s the most outrageous way that like these like dumb kids can get killed? But watching it, it’s not about fear a lot of the time, it’s about joy and celebration. And I just loved that from a young age and loved all of the little rituals within it, and so, getting to make my own is just like play and joy. But it also felt like the perfect way to talk about sex and to talk about my experience as a trans person post-transition, learning how to come into a sexual identity that I could feel comfortable within, because so many of these movies are obviously deeply engaged in gender and sexual roles, and these movies have so much to say for better or for worse about deviants, whether that be Norman Bates or Buffalo Bill or Sleepway Camp or Jason, Michael Myers, Leatherface in drag. It is there in the DNA of the slasher genre that these movies are talking about fear and desire, gender and sexuality, normativity and deviance. And that’s all swimming in the toxic soup of the genre, so I wanted to remake it in my own language.

DEADLINE: I’m curious about the symbolism of all the processed junk food and the chandelier of wrappers.
SCHOENBRUN: The junk food in the movie, I forget when it found its way in there. It’s like so much of the movie is about, like I said, ritual, about being in a mindset where you can really enjoy something scary, whether that be Kris [Hannah Einbinder] in bed, with, you know, with Raisinets and the popcorn, watching a schlocky horror movie, or the two characters learning how to be present and enjoy sex after a lot of trauma. There is this idea that if it gets too real, you can turn it off, that you’re exploring something dangerous, doing it in a way that’s actually safe. Which in my experience of coming into my sexual identity post-transition, kind of required some gummy candy on hand. What I mean by that is, even if we’re going to be exploring scary and vulnerable and potentially embarrassing, triggering parts of ourselves, we trust each other well enough to know that at any moment, we can be like, “Let’s stop, we gotta just eat some fucking gummies.”
DEADLINE: And one thing I really love—I just feel like it’s a theme in your work—is how it depicts the way media and entertainment influence us. Why does that inspire you?
SCHOENBRUN: I think it comes from a fascination and sensitivity to the complex relationship between what we think of as fiction and what we think of as reality, which we tend to, as a society, think of as pointing in one direction. Like, reality dictates fiction, not vice-versa, but when you actually look at the way the world works, it’s like one echoes off the other. And I think a complicated, sometimes terrifying and sometimes beautiful way, where the fiction, the cultural norms, the things we grow up looking at on our screens, the roles that we’re told people play, they kind of inspire us to create reality. There’s something liberating when you start thinking in that way. I think it’s a way of thinking that we as a culture, could do a lot more of. To think about the idea of fiction inspiring reality just as much as reality is inspiring fiction, is a potential path to liberating us from this hellscape that they’re telling us is the only way the world can be.

DEADLINE: And I know you have the Secretary reading. Tell me what it’s been like prepping for that and why you all chose that movie.
SCHOENBRUN: I mean, that was such a huge influence on on Miasma. There just aren’t that many fun and funny movies about deviant sex. And just the way that movie is like feather light while talking about really raw and taboo things, it is just really inspiring to me. And the dynamic between those two main characters is definitely one that had a lot of influence on on Kris and Billy’s [Gillian Anderson] relationship in Miasma. And it’s already to me a very queer movie in its way, but having Gillian reading the James Spader part and Hannah reading the Maggie Gyllenhaal part, I think it’s just gonna be like a very unique joy. Honestly, we’ve been prepping a little bit, but I think it’s just gonna be about getting up there and feeling the chemistry of it all, and just letting these folks who we have all gotten to know each other really, really well, but we haven’t actually done anything wacky and creative like that in a while, like as a reunion, it’s gonna be a real blast, I think.
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