At the Movies for 22 November 2023

Simon Morris looks at three films that all revisit familiar ideas - a prequel to a popular franchise, a horror film inspired by a joke trailer and a modern day take on the English upper classes of Downton Abbey and Brideshead Revisited. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the prequel to the popular series, sees the young Coriolanus Snow fall in love with a Tribute - one of the contestants in the lethal Games. Stars Rachel Zegler (West Side Story), Tom Blyth (TV's The Gilded Age) and Viola Davis (The Woman King). Saltburn finds a penniless student invited to the country house of the aristocratic Catton family. Starring Barry Keoghan (The Banshees of Inisherin), Rosamund Pike (Gone girl) and Archie Madekwe (Gran Turismo), it's written and directed by Emerald Fennell (Promising young woman). And Thanksgiving is a horror film that started out as a parody Grindhouse trailer before turning in to the real thing. Starring Patrick Dempsey (Grey's Anatomy), it's directed by Eli Roth (Hostel).