Through it all, Monsters leaves few storytelling stones unturned. Viewers are entreated to all the compelling minutiae of the Menendez case. This includes the boys’ receiving murderous inspiration from the 1987 miniseries Billionaire Boys Club, their penning of the hilariously-titled screenplay “Friends,” and the revelation of Lyle Menendez’ hair loss.

Still, there’s one interesting bit that Monsters does leave out and it just so happens to be one of the strangest true crime coincidences in history. Lyle and Erik Mendendez have their own basketball card…sort of.

As the series reveals, Lyle and Erik engaged in an opulent spending spree in the months following their parents’ murders that included the purchasing of a Buffalo wing restaurant in Princeton, New Jersey, a Rolex, a Porsche, and tennis lessons to compete in a tennis tournament in Israel. Whether this was an unexpected reaction to grief or outright gloating over successfully killing their parents is up for debate. But the Menendez’s $700,000 months of spending did contribute to one bizarre pop culture artifact.

In 2018 a true crime fan decided to look for evidence of all the expenses the brothers made in the time between their parents murder and their own arrest. Eventually that fan-turned-investigator, Stephen Zerance, uncovered something truly unexpected. You see, at some point during Lyle and Erik’s post-murder binge, they decided to check out a New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. And since no expense needed spared, they likely sat courtside. Zerance ordered a bunch of bulk 1989 season basketball cards off of eBay, starting flipping through them, and made a startling discovery.

Zerance’s tweet would eventually go viral when it was posted to Reddit and boosted by ESPN reporter Darren Rovell. Here’s a clearer version of the card, Lyle and Erik are seated courtside to the left of Jackson.

And that is how evidence of two killers’ opulent post-murder spending spree forever came to be immortalized on New York Knick Mark Jackson’s basketball card. For what it’s worth, Jackson’s career wasn’t cursed by it as he went on to become an NBA coach and a live commentator of NBA games for ESPN.

For some time after the discovery of the Menendez brothers on Jackson’s card, eBay disallowed sales of the card due to its policy forbidding anything “affiliated with murders or serial killers.” Copies of the card can still be found over the internet for exorbitant price points, contingent on grading. As far as true crime memorabilia goes, a Mark Jackson basketball card is a relatively benign collectible. Still, there’s gotta be a better way to spend $4,000.

All nine episodes of Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story are available to stream on Netflix now.

The post The Menendez Brothers Are Behind True Crime’s Strangest Coincidence appeared first on Den of Geek.

MGM+’s From is finally back on our screens, and with fans still reeling from season 2’s cliffhanger ending, season 3 wastes no time in throwing viewers back into this topsy-turvy town and its trapped inhabitants. Although things were looking pretty gloomy for the Fromville residents, season 2 ended with Tabitha Matthews (Catalina Sandino Moreno) seemingly escaping back to the real world. 

Tabitha’s prophetic visions and run-in with some creepy kids took her to the lighthouse we saw earlier in season 2, but before she could figure out what it all meant or where the town really was, the mysterious Boy in White shoved her out of a window. Aside from Tabitha’s miraculous survival, fans were left reeling after it appeared she woke up in the “real” world. 

The season 3 premiere “Shatter” finds Tabitha alive and well in Camden, Maine, however, viewers think there’s something amiss. While it’s clear Tabitha isn’t in the Fromville we’ve come to know and fear, there are theories abound that she’s not really out. Over on Reddit, someone spotted that the view from Tabitha’s hospital window looks exactly like the 500pc jigsaw puzzle Ethan (Simon Webster) is doing back in town. This leads on from those who previously noted that the logo for St. Anthony’s hospital looks suspiciously like the symbol Jade (David Alpay) has become obsessed with. 

Things only get weirder during Tabitha’s interaction with a priest who also seems to know too much. When Tabitha mentions that her child (Thomas) died when falling off a changing table, the priest asks, “What was his name?” – despite her never saying it was a boy. The priest encouraged Tabitha to open Victor’s lunchbox, which confirmed his full name as Victor Kavanaugh and sent her to his original home. As no one else interacts with the priest, it’s possible that he’s a figment of Tabitha’s imagination, like Father Khatri (Shaun Majumder) appears to be with Boyd (Harold Perrineau), or he could also be connected to the Fromville mystery. 

The final piece of the puzzle comes in the form of Victor’s father, who Tabby tracks down at what we assume is Victor’s childhood home. It’s implied that Victor spent years on his own after the night the “bad things” happened and his mother and sister were seemingly killed, although there’s never been a mention of his father before. Some think that Victor’s sister might still be alive, so did she also escape via the lighthouse and is living in Camden? As the Matthews family was on a road trip to Yellowstone Park before they first became trapped in the town, we know that potentially escaping through the lighthouse method doesn’t put you back where you were. Victor’s mythos is one of the show’s most interesting aspects, so we expect his past to play an important part. 

But what does this all mean for Tabitha? A behind-the-scenes photo from season 2 showed that she was on Level 2 of the hospital, which fed theories that she has ‘leveled up’ to a new part of the Fromville world. When it comes to the season 3 premiere, she’s on Level 12 of the hospital, suggesting that it might’ve been changed to keep some big reveal a secret. There’s been plenty of talk from Ethan about going on quests, so there’s the idea that this is the next part of Tabitha’s. The Boy in White told her, “This is the only way” before shoving her from the lighthouse, but if she escaped, there would be no reason for him to keep appearing to her. Also, remember that when Jim (Eion Bailey) came across the chained man known as Marvin in season 2, he said that there were places worse than the town. 

The theories keep flowing, with others maintaining that Tabby’s call with her mother confirms that she’s escaped. The person on the other end of the phone seemed like the real deal, who also said the police were actively looking for the family (suggesting not much time had passed). As we’ve seen with the manifestation of Boyd’s deceased wife, Abby, this could be another trick from the evil entities. Even though creating a whole new world of characters would be an upgrade from the few monsters we’ve seen in the town, we’ll be looking out for more clues that Camden isn’t the safe haven Tabby thinks it is. Even if Tabitha has escaped Fromville, we imagine something will soon lure her back, akin to Lost’s iconic “We have to go back.” 

New episodes of From season 3 premiere Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on MGM+ in the U.S.

The post From Season 3 Teases a Dark Twist for Tabitha appeared first on Den of Geek.

Tales of the Shire follows a player-created hobbit as they relocate from the town of Bree to Bywater, an unincorporated hobbit village within the Shire, a region of Middle-earth predominantly populated by hobbits and relatively untouched by the malevolence seen beyond its borders. Moving into a dilapidated home on the outskirts of town, the player character begins renovating their new digs while befriending their neighbors and learning about the local lore and gossip. As players get to know their new surroundings better, they discover a bevy of secrets around the Shire expanding the world and their place in Middle-earth.

Creating A Farming Sim for Middle-earth

Den of Geek got the opportunity to play an early preview build of Tales of the Shire, exploring the Shire and rebuilding a homestead overlooking the pastoral community. While there is certainly an emphasis on agriculture and crafting – like much of Tolkien’s text and themes – so much of Tales of the Shire involves achieving harmony with nature, with winding paths often running through the winds or along vast fields and bubbling creeks. To build these immersive environments, Wētā Workshop developers looked at the official maps of Middle-earth as well as Tolkien’s rich text elaborating on the world he created.

“Tolkien’s descriptions are so vivid, you could read them, close your eyes, and imagine hitting up the South Plains cotton farm and going up the steps to the farm,” reflects Wētā Workshop senior 3D game artist Kurt Adams. “Tolkien had thought this through and everything starts to fit together.”

More than gorgeously rendered landscapes, this harmony with nature carries over to the presence of flora and fauna organically built into the game mechanics themselves. Birds subtly help guide players to important points on the world map, fishing is a crucial part of the activities around the Shire, and a mix of cultivated and wild plant life enriches the overall experience as players prepare the farm around their homes and forage for more goods to trade with or consume themselves.

Joining The Hobbit Community

Right from the outset of the preview, the player character is tasked with meeting their neighbors and getting to know the many eclectic hobbits throughout the Shire. Many hobbits welcome the Shire’s newest resident with open arms while some are more ornery and foreclosed of suddenly getting a neighbor from Bree potentially disrupting their idyllic rustic community. More than just building harmony with the various hobbits in the Shire, befriending and earning the trust of your neighbors in Tales of the Shire also leads to access to secret locations across the region (from secluded fishing holes to spots with rare objects and collectibles for the player to recover). This all provides tangible rewards for the community-building and friendship aspect of Tales of the Shire along with the importance of interacting with NPCs for a fuller experience.

“You need to communicate and be in conversations with certain characters so that they will trust you and let you into these secret areas,” explains Adams. “That was something really fun that I worked with the designers and we had a lot of fun making secret fishing locations and secret cranberry bogs to find and forage from.”

The quickest and most effective way to earn any hobbit’s favor and trust is through their stomach. Preparing anything from a second breakfast to a hearty supper to share with the neighbors. Players do this by mixing ingredients they gather, unlocking more rewarding recipes as they progress through the game and continue to make friends. Players can also socialize with their neighbors at Shire mainstays like the Green Dragon tavern, which will lead to conversations providing more context about this world and where in the Middle-earth timeline Tales of the Shire takes place, with Adams hinting at “many” hints at Bilbo Baggins’ exploits and “throughout the whole story” that establish the game’s place in the wider universe.

Cozy Game, Cozy Stakes

Like virtually any video game, Tales of the Shire has quests or missions for players to accomplish around the Shire (aptly dubbed “tales” within the game’s parlance). These can range from learning more about the history and politics within the community by learning about an ancient text or learning how to fish to complete a neighbor’s favorite recipe. While there is an in-game clock, progressing steadily through a day and night cycle, there is no ticking time limit to complete these tales, with the developers encouraging players to enjoy the game at their own pace.

“There’s no rush in the Shire,” Adams observes. “You’ve got a lot of time to do things. We want to reduce the feeling of anxiety of having to get anything done.”

Much like how the Shire provides Gandalf – who does appear in the game – with a tranquil respite from the darker side of Middle-earth, there is a warm and inviting quality to the Shire’s design and the game’s overall animation style. Slightly cartoony but within the visual aesthetics of the Shire and hobbits as seen in Jackson’s films, Wētā Workshop consciously leaned for a welcoming presentation that shied away from the more mature elements of the movies and let players relax and enjoy the world they created, with a color palette reminiscent of impressionist painters like Renoir and Cézanne.

“We wanted to land on an art style that was appropriate for this cozy narrative life simulator,” Adams explains. “We’ve worked on the movies and props in the films and there was a lot of darkness in the films and that suits a certain look but, in this cozy world, we wanted a cozy, warm, and vibrant appearance for things. We approached it with having a sort of painterly, dream-like quality.”

Tales of the Shire and the State of The Farming Sim

Tales of the Shire comes out at a time when the genre is ruled by the perennially popular indie game Stardew Valley and with Disney bringing their own properties to the genre with Disney Dreamlight Valley. And while there are certainly similarities between Tales of the Shire and its contemporaries, including dividing the calendar into seasons rather than months and the game’s tool wheel, Tales of the Shire does feel like its own distinct take on the farming simulation genre couched within the familiarity of Tolkien’s Middle-earth. Even as an early build, the preview shows a lot of promise of what the final game will ultimately be and it’ll be interesting to see how Wētā Workshop expands and refines this digital vision of the Shire.

Even without the Tolkien license, Tales of the Shire feels like a solidly built farming simulator that embraces nature and its jovial NPCs with a warm animation aesthetic. By officially setting the game within Middle-earth, though, the overall game is elevated significantly. Any Tolkien fan who appreciates a more relaxed and casual gaming experience will definitely want to check out the game when it launches on multiple platforms this March. Tales of the Shire doesn’t seek to reinvent the farming sim wheel but lovingly create a world that literary and cinema fans will immediately recognize and invite them to join in with this serene community.

Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game launches March 25 for PC via Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Netflix Games.

The post Tales of the Shire Lets You Finally Live the Lord of the Rings Dream of Being a Hobbit appeared first on Den of Geek.

“It’s always the big cases that melt down: McMartin, Twilight Zone, Menendez – why is it always the famous ones?” District Attorney Gil Garcetti (Bruce Greenwood) opines in the series’ second episode.

The trials of Lyle and Erik Menendez and O.J. Simpson are inextricably linked in the annals of true crime history. That’s because, by the time former football star, actor, and American icon O.J. Simpson took the stand in his murder trial in 1995, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office already had ample experience in prosecuting cases amid intense public scrutiny thanks to the preceding trial of the Menendez brothers.

Lyle and Erik Menendez killed their father, José, and their mother, Kitty, in 1989. After a lengthy indictment process, CA v. Menendez began in earnest in 1993 and was broadcast to the world via Court TV and dogged print reporting led by Dominick Dunne at Vanity Fair. That coverage served as a grim prologue for the media circus that The People v. O.J. Simpson trial would become, replete with “breakout” stars and witness stand moments gone viral long before the widespread adoption of the internet. Lyle and Erik’s first trial ended in a hung jury and mistrial. Their second, in which the judge pointedly did not allow cameras in the court room, ended with the brothers convicted for first-degree murder and conspiracy to murder.

In a sense, the “media-fication” of both the Menendez and Simpson trials continues with Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story on Netflix. Also created by Murphy and Brennan, this nine-episode series services as a sort of prequel to their People v. O.J. Simpson opus. Viewers of the show will find many “characters” and “plotlines” they recognize from the O.J. case that help establish both the Monsters and American Crime Story franchises as part of the same fictional universe. But, of course, none of this is fictional. It all really happened. Here are the ways in which the two respective miniseries (and real life) intersect.

Robert Shapiro Was a Menendez Confidante and an O.J. Attorney

Hollywood attorney Robert Shapiro has a strange way of finding himself in the middle of high profile murder trials. Normally that wouldn’t be too unusual for a defense attorney, but Shapiro’s background was mostly in settling civil matters for the rich and famous, not defending them from murder charges. That all change when he got involved with the Lyle and Erik Menendez saga in 1989.

When a warrant was issued for Lyle and Erik Menendez’ arrest, Shapiro reached Erik by phone in Israel, where he was participating in a tennis tournament. Shapiro convinced Erik to return home and turn himself in, assuring him that he would not want to experience prison in a foreign country. We see these events play out in Monsters episode 3, with Shapiro being played by Salvator Xuereb.

Funnily enough, this event is also referenced in The People v. O.J. Simpson when Shapiro (played in the series by John Travolta) points to the time that he got Erik Menendez to come back to the U.S. as evidence that he can convince O.J. to turn himself in as well.

Shapiro represented the Menendez brothers only briefly before turning over their defense to the more accomplished Leslie Abramson. A similar dynamic played out in the O.J. trial where Shapiro gave deference to Johnnie Cochran, Alan Dershowitz, F. Lee Bailey, and others. Though he did remain on the defense team in that instance.

Dominick Dunne Covered Both Trials For Vanity Fair

Dominick Dunne plays a major role in Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. Played by Nathan Lane (who, intriguingly, played F. Lee Bailey in The People v. O.J. Simpson), Dunne covered the Menendez trial extensively for Vanity Fair and helped set the tone and approach for all mainstream true crime coverage going forward.

The real-life Dunne would go on to cover the O.J. trial for Vanity Fair as well. For that reason, he appears as a character in The People v. O.J. Simpson, played by Robert Morse (Mad Men). Both miniseries depict Dunne as a gossipy busybody who revels in sharing the details of the respective cases with his well-to-do friends at fancy parties. Monsters, however, delves deeper into his pathology.

Dominick Dunne experienced an immense personal tragedy when his daughter, actress Dominique Dunne (of Poltergeist fame), was strangled and killed by her abusive ex-boyfriend, John Thomas Sweeney. Dominick Dunne’s frustrating and traumatic experience with Sweeney’s subsequent murder trial led to his second career as a true crime journalist. Before that he was a successful movie producer.

The Menendez Brothers and O.J. Simpson Crossed Paths Multiple Times

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story episode 8 features what could be described as a dark comic book-style crossover of famous killers.

“We’ve got a VIP coming in,” a prison guard tells Erik after ordering the inmates to tidy up the premises. Indeed they do have a VIP coming in as none other than O.J. Simpson arrives, played via voice and silhouette by Trae Ireland (taking over from Cuba Gooding Jr. in The People v. O.J. Simpson).

Erik and the Juice then share a moment after, inexplicably, the jailers give O.J. the cell right next to the Menendez boy. Erik warns O.J. about the bad advice that Robert Shapiro gave him before adding that he should consider taking a plea deal. This is highly ironic, of course, since the Menendez brothers will eventually be found guilty of murder while O.J. will escape conviction.

Believe it or not, this stranger-than-fiction meet up actually occurred in the Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail. In the 2018 book The Menendez Murders, Erik tells writer Robert Rand that he and O.J. did have neighboring cells and he did share legal advice with him. The 2018 A&E docuseries The Menendez Murders: Erik Tells All even goes further, with Erik claiming that he helped O.J. get in touch with his eventual lawyer Johnnie Cochran.

Prison wasn’t even the first time the Menendez brothers’ path crossed with Simpson. Before he was a radio industry executive at RCA, Jose Menendez worked at the Hertz rental car company and helped negotiate Simpson’s infamous Hertz endorsement deal. As such, Lyle recalls meeting Simpson at the Menendez family home in the 1970s. It really is a small world for the rich and famous of Los Angeles County.

All nine episodes of Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story are available to stream on Netflix now.

The post Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story’s Many O.J. Simpson Connections appeared first on Den of Geek.

Joaquin Phoenix’s Emperor Commodus from the original Gladiator movie remains one of the most memorable depictions of onscreen villainy this century. A portrait of what happens when immense insecurity meets unchecked power—plus a twisted riff on an Oedipal complex by way of his older sister and the father who never loved him—it was a thrill when this fiend finally entered the arena and faced Maximus. We wanted to see Russell Crowe bloody his toga.

Now 24 years later, Gladiator II promises to have its own epic showdown between Paul Mescal as Lucius, our heroic and insubordinate gladiator champion, and Pedro Pascal as his chief rival, the Roman General Marcus Acacius. All the marketing until now is building to the anticipation of watching these men face each other in the arena… but if you study the newest trailer for Gladiator II a little more closely (and as available above), a plot begins to come into focus which promises to make Acacius a wholly different kind of adversary from Emperor Commodus. And at this point, we wonder if Pedro Pascal will even play a true villain.

Ridley Scott‘s new Gladiator II trailer certainly clarifies the basic plot points after the more chaotic earlier teaser. In this one, we discover why Lucius would hate the Roman military so much: the trailer opens with him living a peaceful life with a wife and child—this sounds familiar, no?—before a Roman legion wipes out his homeland. For the record, that land is Numidia, a territory in North Africa (modern day Algeria) that became a Roman province after its conquest. Based on what we see in the trailer, Gladiator II will begin with Acacius commanding a force that decimates Lucius’ community and ends with the hero being sold into bondage. Slavery.

What’s not in the trailer, however, is the fact that Mescal’s character is also supposed to be the young Lucius from the original Gladiator, the son of Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) and the one-time heir to the throne of Rome. When that first movie ended, Lucilla and a few noble senators waxed poetic about restoring Rome to its republic roots, but anyone who knows history should have expected that plan to be short-lived. Following the death of the real-life Commodus, Rome enjoyed the “Year of the Five Emperors” where various military generals and war heroes were elevated to the lofty rank of first citizen (or seized that elevation in the vacuum of power).

In other words, the Roman military’s previous actions must have led Lucius to living in exile in a remote North African outpost. Then decades later, the Roman military rolls up again and kills his family while enslaving him. So yes, he has plenty of reason to despise the Roman legions, and perhaps Acacius more than any other member of them. The Gladiator II trailer shows Mescal fantasizing about killing Pascal in particular.

… And yet, if you keep watching, it becomes clear Acacius is not the pure model of corruption and cunning that Commodus represented in the original movie. The way Pascal intones, “I claim this city for the glory of Rome” as his men descend on Lucius’ hometown has an air of resignation to it. Later it appears he says, “I don’t fight for power, I fight to free Rome from men like him.” If that is indeed Pascal talking, he seems to be organizing or instigating an insurrection against the film’s actual Roman emperors in the film, brothers Caracalla and Geta (Fred Hechinger and Joseph Quinn). And it is definitely Pascal’s general threatening one of his emperors later in the trailer when he says, “Everything is forgotten in time. Empires fall and so do emperors.”

At a glance, it would seem that while the film and Rome itself seem eager to put Lucius and Acacius on a collision course, the pair actually share the same goals: ending the current decadence and excesses of Rome. For Lucius it might be out of revenge, but for Acacius it could prove something more complex and interesting. Consider that even in ancient Rome, citizens grappled with the ugly legacy and downsides of imperialism. Roman historian Tacitus famously said, “They create desolation and call it peace” about the empire’s conquests more than a hundred years before Gladiator II is set.

Read more

Movies

Why Gladiator Continues to Echo Through Eternity

TV

Rome: The Long Road of the Original HBO Epic

It would seem Pedro Pascal plays an antagonist who is only too aware of the sins found in the glory of Rome. If so, when Acacius is inevitably forced to cross swords with Lucius, it will be less a moment of anticipation than one of dread.

Gladiator II opens on Nov. 22.

The post New Gladiator 2 Trailer Hints at Pedro Pascal Playing a Different Type of Villain appeared first on Den of Geek.

Yet, the most compelling part of the trailer comes at the end. After revealing the title and the Marvel Studios logo, an asterisk appears next to the word “Thunderbolts,” suggesting that we might not know the full story. Or, more accurately, the full title.

However, the trailer does give us a few hints on the team’s true identity. After all, the central beat of the trailer finds four characters—White Widow, USAgent (Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko)—revealing that they’ve been sent on a mission by some other agent, which is where they find “Bob” (Lewis Pullman). Later, Bucky (Sebastian Stan) comes riding after them, presumably sent as well.

And then there’s a shot of five heroes walking into the office of CIA director La Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), which has more than a few than a few connections to a similar moment in The Avengers. In fact, it appears to happen in Stark Tower, which was renamed Avengers Tower after the events of that film.

In short, it seems that the asterisk in Thunderbolts means that the team are, in fact, Phase 5’s replacements for the Avengers. That tracks with the team’s comic book legacy. Created by writer Kurt Busiek, the first version of the Thunderbolts came to be in the wake of Marvel’s 1996 Onslaught storyline, in which a powerful villain seemingly killed the Fantastic Four and the Avengers. The Thunderbolts presented themselves as a new group of heroes to fill in the gap, but they were in fact longtime Avengers villains the Masters of Evil, looking to take advantage of their enemies’ absence.

A later version of the Thunderbolts were a team of villains brought together by Norman Osborn aka the Green Goblin, who had become a world hero and the Director of SHIELD after stopping the Skrulls in Secret Invasion (which was actually a big deal in the comics, unlike the nothing it was in the MCU). Led by Osborn in his Iron Patriot armor, these Thunderbolts were the new Avengers, albeit filled with bad guys standing in for heroes. Venom became Spider-Man, Bullseye was Hawkeye, Daken was Wolverine, and so on.

In short, the Thunderbolts have always existed in a space without the Avengers, often to nefarious ends. And the MCU as of now has no Avengers. The team that came together in Avengers: Endgame has scattered, as Iron Man and Black Widow both died and Captain America retired. New heroes are out there to take their place, including the new Captain America Sam Wilson and Shang-Chi, but outside of a few teases, no official team has been put together yet.

At the same time, we’ve seen Allegra working in the background to gather her own team. And if her actions in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever are any indication, Allegra has nothing good in mind. She could very much be channeling her inner Norman Osborn and creating her own Avengers, using that team’s goodwill for her own devious ends.

Who knows when the asterisk will be removed and the full title revealed. But until then, Avengers (or Dark Avengers, to use a title from the comics) is a pretty good guess.

Thunderbolts* hits theaters on May 2, 2025.

The post Thunderbolts Trailer Teases What the Title Asterisk (Most Likely) Means appeared first on Den of Geek.

We may be dropping out of the Golden Age of Prestige Television (1999 – 2023, RIP), but while we may mourn the slow decline of mega-budget peak TV, take comfort – there is beauty in lower-budget productions. You might think science fiction would be particularly hard hit by a reduction in the amount of money available for VFX, sets, models, and so on, but over the years there have been plenty of examples of extraordinary science fiction films and television series that have been produced on low (or lower than usual) budgets.

Lightning in a Bottle

One of the best known types of low budget TV episode is the “bottle episode.” Although the origin of the term is often credited to the producers of Star Trek, Original Series co-producer Robert H. Justman said they used the terms “planet shows” and “ship shows” to distinguish between the more expensive ‘Planet of Hats’ stories and the less expensive stories set on the Enterprise itself. Justman credited the term “bottle show” to Leslie Stevens, producer of The Outer Limits (1963-1965), suggesting it originated in the idea of “pulling an episode right out of a bottle like a genie.”

Whatever the origins of the term, the first five live action Star Trek series (TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT), which were all produced in eras when American television shows were required to pump out 20 or more episodes a year, featured numerous bottle shows. Like any type of Star Trek episode, some were better than others, but there are some truly great episodes among them, including “The Tholian Web” (TOS), “Clues (TNG), “Duet” (DS9), “Meld” (VOY), and “Shuttlepod One” (ENT). In each case, the low budget encouraged the writers to produce dialogue-heavy, character-driven stories that explored fascinating (and often dark) sides of our regular heroes; “Duet” and “Meld” deserve special mention there.

Bottle episodes are, of course, not confined to Star Trek. Just about every long-running show, in any genre, that was made in the US between the 1960s and the 2010s has done a bottle episode at some point. The need to keep the cast small, the sets minimal or restricted to standing sets, and the story character-driven is what makes some bottle episodes so successful. Aaron Sorkin summed it up when he described The West Wing’s (very well-received) budget-saving bottle episode “17 People” as “I wrote a play”.

There isn’t time or space here to list all the brilliant science fiction bottle episodes made over that period of sixty years, but we will just quickly call attention to two notable examples. Dan Harmon’s postmodern sitcom Community is well known for drawing attention to the idea of a bottle episode and outright talking about it in its own well-loved bottle episode “Cooperative Calligraphy” – though that episode is not, of course, science fiction (unless you count the actions of the monkey).

However, Community did very occasionally make episodes that strayed into outright science fiction territory, the two main examples being “Epidemiology” and a bottle episode that is even better than “Cooperative Calligraphy” – “Remedial Chaos Theory”. It’s true that this could be interpreted as all taking place in Abed’s mind, but this episode plays like a genuine science fiction story about how an evening goes drastically differently in different parallel universes, depending on who goes to the door to get the pizza. It is one of the funniest episodes in a very funny show, it is a great exploration of the six main characters, and it gifted the internet with one of the most popular GIF reactions of all time. It is genius.

The other science fiction bottle episode that had a far greater impact than originally intended was Farscape’s “Crackers Don’t Matter”. Farscape was, overall, a very expensive show, which led to its eventual cancellation in favour of the very slightly cheaper Stargate SG-1. But it was also a show set on a (living) spaceship, so it could occasionally save the producers a little bit of money by doing a “ship show.” In this case, a visiting engineer persuades the crew to fly too close to some pulsars, whose intense light causes them to experience mental breakdowns. The title refers to the increasingly violent arguments some of the crew have over a large number of crackers they have on board.

Over the course of the episode, lead character John Crichton (Ben Browder) is in some ways less affected than the others, but seems to be severely affected in different ways. As well as being extremely aggressive to the point of nearly assaulting Chiana (Gigi Edgley), he starts hallucinating the series’ main villain, Scorpius (Wayne Pygram) in a Hawaiian shirt. At the time, this was intended to be a one-off for this episode, to allow Pygram’s Scorpius to appear in more episodes, and because it was funny. But a little bit later in the season, it was retconned into the first appearance of Harvey, a neural clone of Scorpius implanted in Crichton’s brain without his knowledge. Harvey’s existence and Crichton’s ongoing attempts to get rid of him would become key to the series’ overall arc and result in some major plot developments right up until the mini-series that was the show’s post-cancellation grand finale. And all because the team needed to save some money on this particular episode.

Movies That Make a Deeper Impact

Low-budget feature films can also be brilliant studies in tension and character drama, and often they are the feature film equivalent of bottle episodes – very small casts in a single location, with scripts that are dialogue-heavy and character driven. Two of the best examples of this paying off really well are Duncan Jones’ directorial debut Moon and Alex Garland’s directorial debut Ex Machina. (Notice a theme there? Most Hollywood directors have to make something impressive on a small budget before anyone will trust them with a bigger one).

Both films feature a very small number of characters trapped together in an isolated space. Bonus points to Moon for both onscreen characters being the same person (Sam Rockwell’s Sam Bell), accompanied only by some brief conversations on video calls and the voice of a computer (Kevin Spacey), as well as being trapped out in space on the literal moon, which makes Ex Machina’s four characters in a big house on a mountain look positively crowded. Both films put hard science fiction questions front and centre, with Ex Machina taking a deep dive into the workings of the Turing Test and Moon based around the idea of capitalist exploitations of cloning technology. Both are also pretty downbeat (be afraid of both AI and big corporations!) but that is not necessarily an indicator of their quality, though it is fair to say both with stay with you long after watching. And both benefit from their budgetary limitations. They are focused to the point of uncomfortable intensity, feature stellar performances from all the actors involved, and use their minimal special effects sparingly but oh so effectively.

Even a comparatively lower budget on a bigger film can result in increased quality. 1998 famously saw two movies about people trying to stop asteroids from hitting the Earth come out within months of each other – Armageddon, directed by Michael Bay with a budget of $140 million, and Deep Impact, directed by Mimi Leder with a big but lowER budget of $80 million. Armageddon topped the box office and made more money, but Deep Impact was itself the sixth highest grossing movie of the year and made plenty of money back from its budget, and arguably it was also the better film.

Armageddon is a typical Michael Bay movie, focused on spectacle at the expense of – well, really anything else. Deep Impact, on the other hand, is one of the most scientifically accurate science fiction movies ever made. Because of the budgetary constraints, Deep Impact could not spend as much time on big visuals. As a result, even though the characters in the film are not all that memorable in themselves, the impact of the title, as a large piece of the asteroid hits Earth, is felt by the audience because they experience it mostly on ground level with the characters. This gives us memorable images like a woman and her father embracing on the beach as a huge tidal wave sweeps over them, a teenager and his new teen bride racing for safety with her baby brother in her arms, and astronauts video-calling their loved ones to say goodbye before sacrificing themselves to stop a bigger impact from following. These human moments, even in somewhat under-developed characters, are more meaningful than big explosions and expensive special effects.

Character > VFX

A similar effect can be seen in one of the most acclaimed and impactful pieces of low budget television ever made, which is technically science fiction, though it doesn’t feel like it when you’re watching it. Threads was a 112-minute made-for-television BBC film that aired in September 1984. It is a bleak and graphic imagining of Britain following the outbreak of nuclear war and a nuclear bomb landing on Sheffield. A film on a similar theme, The Day After, directed by Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan’s Nicholas Meyer, had aired in America the year before and had famously caused then-President Ronald Reagan to rethink his policy on nuclear war. Both are rightly acclaimed and very similar in many ways, but Threads is lower budget, and somehow even bleaker than the already bleak The Day After.

Written by Kes author Barry Hines, Threads covers a period of about 13 years from the outbreak of World War Three and the detonation of the nuclear bombs, and the low budget is part of what helps it to feel so real and so grounded. There is no need for a huge special effects budget showing dramatic shots of bombs going off and if we had seen that, it would detract from the intense experience of following everything from the point of view of the characters on the ground. We see what they see; the bombs go off at a distance, or above them as they cower in a basement, or they envelop them in flames then and there. Experiencing the attack that way, as you would in real life, is so much more horrifying than a big aerial special effects shot of a bomb going off. The story then follows the world as it descends into a sub-medieval state poisoned by radiation, and there is no need for a big budget as it follows increasingly desperate characters in terrifyingly ordinary situations.

Red Dwarf and Doctor Who: Highs and Lows

Particularly when it comes to BBC series, entire science fiction shows have been produced on low budgets. The first two series of Red Dwarf may be generally considered a bit weaker than series III-VI (though stronger than anything from series VII-XII), largely because of the later re-introduction and development of Kryten’s character, but there is a certain charm to the ultra-low-budget nature of series I and II. In these opening episodes, the radiation has yet to be cleared from the mining ship Red Dwarf’s officers’ quarters, so technicians Lister (Craig Charles) and Rimmer (Chris Barrie) continue to live in their own basic, lowest level bunks, and most of the stories focus intensely on the hilariously awkward pairing of these two characters, plus varying levels of attention paid to Holly (Norman Lovett) and the Cat (Danny John-Jules). These characters are trapped in a bleak environment with no one to talk to but each other, and the minimal sets and even more minimal visual effects reinforce that.

King of the low budget TV shows for most of its run, though, is of course Doctor Who. Sometimes, this was definitely a bad thing. Some of the classic serials aimed high but did not take the low budget into account in the writing, or the costume department got over-enthusiastic considering the means available to them. But for many years the revived show took the low budget into account when writing. There were still moments where the lack of finances definitely had an unfortunate effect, like the attack of the wheelie bin in series one’s “Rose”, or the iffy CGI on Mark Gatiss’ Professor Richard Lazarus in his monster form in series three’s “The Lazarus Experiment”. But when the writing took into account the limitations of the budget, some episodes of absolute genius were produced.

“Midnight“, for example, is superb bottle episode that uses the skills of the writer (Russell T Davies) and actors (especially David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor and Lesley Sharp as Sky Silvestri) to create one of the most tense episodes of the 60-year-old show with barely any special effects at all. This is not restricted to the revived series either. The show’s third ever serial, aired in February 1964, was a bottle episode before the concept or term was coined, and equally brilliant. “The Edge of Destruction” is a short serial set entirely on the TARDIS and featuring only the main cast. Like “Midnight”, the serial was surprising for the dark places to which it took the characters; the BBC Programme Board complained about a scene in which teenager Susan (Carol Ann Ford) threatens her teacher Ian (William Russell) with scissors, which violated the television codes of the time. And like “Midnight”, it is an excellent story.

The new Season 1 of Doctor Who, while still considered “low budget” by new collaborator Disney’s standards, has a much bigger budget, but it is hard to say to what extent that has improved the show. On the one hand, it has made the shocking and affecting “Dot and Bubble” possible, which requires an enormous number of VFX scenes plus a convincingly scary monster, and the increased budget resulted in some wonderful monster transformation scenes in “Rogue“. But on the other hand, some of the most tense and engaging episodes were “Boom”, which although it requires some VFX for the “ambulances” is almost a bottle episode as it takes place largely in one location with a small guest cast, and “73 Yards“, which features very little in the way of special effects at all, the main expenses being location shooting and guest actors.

Of course, we’re not saying there is anything inherently wrong with big budget science fiction. As long as the story is the first focus, throwing a decent budget at a project can create beautiful, captivating films like WALL-E, Avatar, or Avengers: Endgame, which could never be made to a high quality on a lower budget.

But when the writers and filmmakers, from costumes and props to VFX, take the budget into account in the production of the film or TV show, low budgets can produce something really rather special. There’s room for everything on our screens, and it would be a boring world if every film or show was the same. So let’s celebrate some of the really exciting, fascinating stories that can be told on a low budget, and never make the mistake of assuming that a big budget is always automatically better.

The post The Beauty of Low(er) Budget Sci-Fi appeared first on Den of Geek.

So when he told Christopher Reeve, “Mr. Reeve, it’s very important you become a serious classical actor,” the young man listened. He also heard the addendum: “Unless of course they offer you a load of money to do something else.” That something else, in Reeve’s telling, became Superman: The Movie. This anecdote appears in archival footage of Reeve on The Tonight Show in Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, a superb new documentary from filmmakers Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, and it offers a fascinating insight into the different world from which Reeve’s Clark Kent hailed.

The son of a serious-minded author, poet, and professor, Franklin D’Olier Reeve, Chris came from an intellectual background. His frame might have been built like a superhero, but when he first began pursuing acting he, foresaw himself practicing the craft on the stage, perhaps in plays written by his Juilliard lecturer, Houseman. Hence why it’s so interesting to see how how Reeve is perceived by his contemporaries and his industry when he became the first actor to star in a major Hollywood superhero movie.

One of Reeve’s friends and co-stars when they were both starting out, Jeff Daniels, recalls in Super/Man a revealing anecdote about when Reeve first auditioned for the Dick Donner movie. Before that moment, the producers had been approached by bodybuilders like Arnold Schwarzenegger and even considered Olympic athlete Bruce Jenner for the cape. Quickly, though, they realized they needed an actual actor. Soon enough, an unknown young man in New York named Chris became a major point of interest for director Richard Donner.

According to Daniels, though, when Reeve told his co-stars on an Off-off Broadway play that he was being flown out to Los Angeles to audition for Superman, one of his colleagues, a young guy named William Hurt, was appalled. Daniels said Hurt berated Reeve. “You can’t do that. You would be selling out!”

Meanwhile Chris’ own severely expectant father, Franklin, revealed similar disapproval. In the documentary, archival footage of Chris revealed the son accidentally confused his father when he told him he had been cast in Superman. Franklin congratulated and toasted his son at dinner because he thought Chris was referring to Man and Superman, a four-act play written by George Bernard Shaw in 1903. Documentary footage then confirmed the father’s actual disappointment over the truth when we see Franklin tell a reporter that his son didn’t tell him about Superman: The Movie “until the contract was already signed.”

Both anecdotes offer a fascinating insight into the world of acting and performance circa 1977. While it would prove to be a consequential year in pop culture, with Star Wars changing the idea of what a popular movie could be, both Hollywood and Broadway were still deep in the throes of a 1970s revitalization. Naturalism, grounding, and “reality” were favored in a decade that saw the likes of Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson, and a pre-Scarface Al Pacino become stars. Reality-based procedurals like All the President’s Men, and downers like Network and Taxi Driver, were three of the biggest movies of the previous year… and superheroes were viewed purely as kids stuff by artists who dreamed of being the next Brando.

It didn’t matter that Marlon Brando was himself in Superman, as Reeve learned when using that as a justification for taking an audition to other twentysomething actors. “It doesn’t matter!” Hurt apparently told him. It was still selling out. And to be fair, as Reeve would soon discover himself, Brando really did consider Superman little more than a paycheck role. The acting legend couldn’t even be bothered to learn how to pronounce the name of his character’s son, Kal-El, until an acutely serious Reeve demanded his idol put in more effort.

But therein is the fault line in the culture that Reeve unintentionally stepped on. One generation still considered superheroes, if they considered them at all, to be junk made for the same audience who enjoyed 1960s camp television schlock (as they might have seen it), and the next generation viewed it as at least an opportunity to do something credible with universal appeal.

Reeve achieved that with flying colors. He imbued the character of Superman with so much grace and nobility that almost 50 years later no one else has been able to take on the mantle and not been found wanting in some way. He cultivated a tangible dignity in this “cartoon character” which so many contemporaries feared was inescapable.

In fact, many of them would find their way into the superhero genre that Reeve helped pioneer, with Hurt ending up in multiple Marvel Studios movies many years later as Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross. Michael Caine was another Reeve co-star, whose multiple projects opposite the Superman actor included Sidney Lumet’s Deathtrap. Caine, too, ended up doing several superhero movies via Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy. And that revered cycle of superhero flicks began in no small part due to Nolan’s interest in replicating for Batman what Reeve and Donner achieved with Superman nearly 30 years prior.

That in itself shows how the assumptions and opinions of the industry changed, especially on the commercial side. And yet, the unfortunate fact remains that Reeve never really got to break free of those predisposed opinions about superhero movies. While the actor became rich and famous, and got to experiment outside of the cape, including by working with the aforementioned Lumet or in a small but pivotal role opposite Anthony Hopkins in Merchant Ivory’s The Remains of the Day, he never fully beat the typecasting that came with the cape. By the time Superman IV: The Quest for Peace rolled around in 1987, Reeve realized he was wasting his talents a bit in sequels of diminishing quality while being unable to produce a hit elsewhere.

Many contemporaries, both behind the camera and in the audience, refused to see him as more than the Big S. Instead it would many years and multiple younger generations for fan favorite superhero castings to prove not as much a curse as a gift. Nowadays, actors like Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, and Scarlett Johansson have enjoyed diverse, eclectic, and popular careers with audiences who accepted them as more than just their biggest comic book role.

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In the 21st century, the perception of doing superhero movies can still be contentious in some circles, but the fact it is credible and can even lead to greater opportunities for some actors is in many ways another legacy of Reeve’s. He not only proved a man could fly, but an actor could make you care about him too.

The post Superman Backlash Faced by Christopher Reeve Reminds How Much the Genre’s Image Changed appeared first on Den of Geek.

The best online pokies in Australia offer the perfect mix of exciting gameplay, bonus features, and favourable RTPs. 

Based on these benchmarks, Book of Egypt at Neospin is our favourite of them all – but it’s hardly the only one. 

Let’s find out more.

Best Online Pokies in Australia

• Book of Egypt: Neospin
• Cash Bandits: A Big Candy
• Elvis Frog in Vegas: CrownSlots
• Cash of Gods: MyEmpire 
• Dragon Feast: Heaps ‘O Wins
• Wolf Treasure: Skycrown
• Coin Volcano: Ricky Casino
• 777 Deluxe: Ignition
• Forge of Olympus: Crownplay
• Sugar Paradise: Casinonic

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1. Book of Egypt at Neospin – Best Online Pokie Game in Australia Overall

• RTP: 94.98%
• Theme: Egyptian mythology
• Maximum Win: 900x
• Where to Play: Neospin
• Bonus: Score three or more scatter symbols and win free spins

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2. Cash Bandits 3 at A Big Candy – Top Pokie Game in Australia with Highest Multiplier

• RTP: 96.5%
• Theme: Cops and Robbers
• Maximum win: 115,000x
• Where to Play: A Big Candy
• Bonus: Free spins with multipliers 

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3. Elvis Frog in Vegas at CrownSlots – Best Pokie Game for Bonus

Features

• RTP: 96.0%
• Theme: Las Vegas
• Maximum win: 2,500x
• Where to Play: CrownSlots
• Bonus: Free spins + retrigger feature

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4. Cash Of Gods at MyEmpire – Best High-Volatility Pokie Online

• RTP: 96%
• Theme: Ancient Greece
• Maximum win: 5,000x
• Where to Play: MyEmpire
• Bonus: Hold & Win bonus game

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5. Dragon Feast at Heaps O’ Wins – Best Australian Pokie for Mobile

• RTP: 96.5%
• Theme: Candy
• Maximum win: 50,000x
• Where to Play: Heap O’ Wins
• Bonus: Collect 1+ Pink Candies and receive free spins and/or jackpot prizes

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Best Online Pokies Australia Real Money Sites

Below, we dive into individual reviews of each of the best Australian online pokies sites that offer top games.

1. Neospin – Best Online Pokies Australia Overall

Pros:

• Daily cashback of up to 20%
• Up to AU$ 10,000 welcome bonus
• Free spins welcome bonus
• Neospin mobile app
• Diverse online pokies

Cons:

• Customer service may be slow at times
• Regional restrictions

With its rise in popularity in Australia, Neospin has become a go-to casino for Australian players who are looking for quality online pokies.

Slot Selection

The online pokies selection at Neospin is impressive and diverse. Being one of the top online pokies sites in Australia, Neospin caters to all slot game enthusiasts with different preferences in genres and themes.

Some popular online pokies include Buffalo Trail, Book of Egypt, Wild Cash, Pompeii Gold, Wolf Power, and Aztec’s Legend. 

This Australian online casino also offers new and unique titles that are difficult to find elsewhere, including MergeUp, Coin Win, and Money Pipe. So, if you enjoy exploring brand-new online pokies titles, Neospin might be the right place.

Bonuses and Promotions 

The bonuses and promotions at the best pokies site in Australia immediately draw you in with their exciting offerings and generous prizes.

Some of the bonuses we enjoyed were the daily 20% cashback bonus and Friday reload bonuses of up to AU$ 1,000, all of which you can use to play online pokies. 

However, as a new player, you might also want to check out the welcome bonus of 100% of up to AU$ 10,000. The promo code NEO100 must be entered at the checkout to claim the bonus. The minimum deposit for Australian players is AU$45. 

The welcome bonus can also come with free spins on selected Australian pokies, giving you more opportunities to explore freely. 

Payment Options

The deposit and withdrawal options at Neospin are quite convenient, and some are even instant, which is a huge plus if you’re looking to get your winnings quickly.

For deposits, Australian players can enjoy Visa, Mastercard, Neosurf, and Mifinity, with a minimum deposit of AU$ 30. 

Fun Fact: Neospin also ranks as one of the best instant withdrawal casinos in Australia, processing your payouts in just a few minutes.

You can also deposit your money in cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, Litecoin, Ripple, and more.

2. A Big Candy – Best Online Pokies Real Money Site for Jackpots

Pros:

• 320% up to AU$3,200 welcome bonus
• 55 free spins
• 5-tiered VIP program
• Fee-free transactions
• Daily free spins for VIPs

Cons:

• Fewer payment methods
• Lengthy withdrawals 

At A Big Candy, Australian players get to choose their welcome bonus. You’ve got a choice between 3 different pokies to use your 55 free spins on, as well as a 320% matched deposit offer.

From there, the fun keeps flowing, with A Big Candy home to mega jackpots, a lucrative VIP program, and lots of pokies.

Slots Selection

A Big Candy’s homepage is splashed with more pokies than you can shake a stick at. As well as our top pick Cash Bandits 3, you can play fan favourites like Aztec’s Millions, Spirit of the Inca and Mermaid Royale here.

There are jackpot slots aplenty, as well as classic slots, exclusive slots and brand-new titles.

If you’re unsure which game to play, A Big Candy lists all the latest winners to show you where the biggest payouts are, and you can also participate in slots tournaments, giving you even more chances to win bumper cam prizes.

Bonuses and Promotions

A Big Candy gives you 3 different welcome bonuses to choose from. They’re essentially the same in that each one is a 320% matched deposit bonus worth AU$3,200 that comes with 55 free spins.

The difference is that you can choose to use your spins on Masks of Atlantis, Bonus Wheel Jungle or Great Temple.

There are no reload bonuses here, but free spins are available regularly. There’s also a 5-tiered VIP program that, among other things, gives you access to monthly insurance on your bets, daily free spins no matter your level and faster withdrawals.

Payment Options

This online Australian casino accepts credit and debit cards like VISA and MasterCard, as well as NeoSurf. A Big Candy is also one of the best crypto casinos in Australia, making it a top choice for those looking for fast withdrawals.

For the other banking options, withdrawal times can be quite lengthy unless you’re a VIP member. On the other hand, they’re reliable and you will always get your winnings. 

The minimum deposit is AU$30 for most methods, which is extremely reasonable.

3. CrownSlots – Best Online Pokies AUS Site for Bonuses

Pros: 

• 400% bonus up to AU$6,000
• 250 free spins
• Regular reload bonuses + VIP program
• About 5 dozen pokie providers
• Hosts the Royal Monthly Tournament

Cons:

• Lacks phone support
• A bit stricter payout limits

In case you seek a good bonus to spend playing pokies online, it doesn’t get much better than the 400% welcome bonus package at CrownSlots. We’re looking at AU$6,000 in bonus cash with 250 free spins on the side!

Slot Selection

CrownSlots is packed with online pokie games from about five dozen software developers. Our favourite – Elvis Frog In Vegas is among the top games, alongside classics like Buffalo Trail and the Book of Egypt.

The game library is regularly updated, and we recommend being on the lookout for the latest high-RTP pokies. 7 Fortune Frenzy is a recent addition that packs a punch – 96.18% RTP!

Bonuses and Promotions

When you join this Aussie pokies site, you can get a 400% match on your first four deposits, up to AU$6,000 in bonus cash, plus 250 spins.

Your first deposit is doubled up to AU$1,200 with 100 spins. The next three deposits are doubled up to AU$1,500 twice and AU$1,800 on the fourth, with the third deposit granting 150 spins.

After the welcome bonus, enjoy up to 110 free spins on Thursdays and 50% reload bonuses on Tuesdays. High-rollers can claim a 100% match first deposit bonus up to AU$7,500!

Payment Options

CrownSlots offers 15 payment options, including traditional cards, e-wallets, and crypto. You can use Visa/MasterCard, Neosurf, Paysafecard, or cryptos like BTC, ETH, XRP, and more.

Lots of withdrawal methods are also available, and requests are processed instantly. However, payout limits are higher than at some other casinos.

4. MyEmpire – Best AU Online Pokies Real Money Site for High Payouts

Pros: 

• Plenty of pokies with RTP above 96%
• AU$1,200 sign-up offer
• 300 free spins
• Offers exclusive casino games + Megaways
• Hundreds of jackpot pokies

Cons:

• No card withdrawals
• Unconventional design may take time to adapt

For high-RTP games, we highly recommend MyEmpire. The casino does an excellent job of offering above-average RTP rates alongside some of the most exciting jackpot games.

Slot Selection

In addition to Cash of Gods, MyEmpire offers a range of online casino games with either high RTP rates, massive jackpot potential, or a mix of both in some cases.

The Madshow Circus has a 5,500x maximum win and 96.07% RTP or 777 Strike for all you jackpot hunters.

We appreciate the dedicated Jackpot section in the main menu, where you can filter your jackpot pokies even further to find your perfect match. Live casino games are also available.

Bonuses and Promotions

All new Australian players at MyEmpire can grab up to AU$1,200 sign up package with 300 free spins.

Other notable promos include a 25% match cashback for live casino games and a 50 free spins reload bonus every week. It’s also great that the site offers dedicated promos for roulette and blackjack games – not something you see every day.

Payment Options

MyEmpire accepts AUD and crypto, offering 14 deposit methods and 10 withdrawal options. You can use MasterCard (deposits only), e-wallets, Jeton, Neosurf, and crypto like Bitcoin and Litecoin.

No fees apply, but crypto is best for near-instant payouts, with a limit of AU$7,800 per transaction.

5. Heaps O’ Wins – Best Pokies Online Australia Site for Cashback

Pros:

• 330% welcome bonus
• 50 free spins for new players 
• 50% weekly cashback 
• Daily jackpots 
• Exciting VIP perks

Cons:

• Fewer payment options
• No reload bonus

Heaps O’ Wins lets you claim a 330% welcome bonus before getting stuck into more than 300 high-quality pokies. Daily jackpots are up for grabs, as are fast payouts, and a 50% cashback each week.

Slots Selection

Heaps O’ Wins has won multiple awards over the years, including biggest jackpots and mobile games. All pokies are indeed available on mobile and desktop devices, with some of the hottest titles here including Mighty Drums, the festive Big Santa and the brand-new Mega Monster. 

All games are provided by some of the world’s biggest iGaming developers, which guarantees smooth gameplay.

Both video and table slots are available, as are daily slot races for further cash prizes.

Bonuses and Promotions

Sign up to Heaps O’ Wins today to unlock a stunning 330% welcome bonus. The code for this is “330JACKPOT”, and you need to make a minimum deposit of AU$30. You’ll also get 50 free spins.

Heaps O’ Wins doesn’t currently offer a reload bonus but you’ll be eligible for as much as 50% weekly cashback depending on how much you’ve deposited and played with.

There’s also a 5-tier loyalty program here, which has exclusive bonuses and free online pokies spins.

Payment Methods

Heaps O’ Wins supports major bank cards, NeoSurf, eZeeWallet and Bitcoin. All transactions are free and the minimum deposit is a fair AU$30.

The most you can deposit per transaction is AU$30, but the daily limit is as high as AU$100,000, and some options like BTC don’t even have a daily transaction limit.

The payout process can take 3-5 business days for all methods except crypto, which is delivered much faster.

How We Ranked the Best Online Pokies Sites in Australia

Safety

Our top criterion when ranking the best online pokies sites in Australia is safety. Not only do we make sure that each online casino we list is licensed – but we also investigate its background and the game providers behind all the real money online pokies available on the site.

Once all things regarding safety and fairness check out, only then we consider adding it to our page. The best Australian online casinos make things easier in the sense that you won’t ever have to worry about your personal and financial information.

Online Pokies Selection

Online casinos worldwide are filled with online pokies from different genres of gambling, such as three-reel slots, five-reel slots, 3D slots, video slots, progressive jackpot pokies, jackpot slots, and so much more. 

The selection of online pokies an Australian online casino offers speaks volumes about the online gambling site itself. It tells you how frequently their game library is being updated, if they have all the classic titles available, and last but not least, do they provide what you’re looking for?

We also review other online casino games. Find the best online bingo sites here if you want to take a break from playing pokies and switch it up a bit.

Bonuses and Promotions

Casino bonuses vary depending on which Australian online casino you end up signing up for. Welcome bonus, deposit bonus, online pokies bonuses, free spins bonuses, and so many more options can be discovered at online casinos. You can use these offers to play free online pokies.

Make sure you carefully explore and research deposit bonuses and other promotions on the website in order to determine which online casino bonuses fit you the best.

Payments

Banking is the most crucial part of online gambling if you play real money pokies. Having convenient and fast deposit and cashout methods, such as PayID withdrawals available, gives you comfort and security.

Before playing online pokies, check out the banking options available at online casinos you would like to sign up at.

We used similar criteria to rank the best betting sites in Australia.

Bonuses to Use for Playing Online Pokies in Australia

• Neospin: Promo code NEO100 for 100% deposit bonus
• A Big Candy: Choose between 3x 320% welcome bonuses + 55 free spins
• CrownSlots: Up to AU$6,000 and 250 free spins
• MyEmpire: Up to $1,200 in welcome bonus money and 300 free spins
• Heap O’ Wins: Use promo code 330JACKPOT for 330% welcome bonus

How to Start Playing Australia’s Best Online Pokies 

Using our top pick, Neospin, as an example, we will demonstrate how to sign up and start playing online pokies in Australia:

Step 1: Pick the Best Australian Online Casinos

• Read our online Australian casino reviews
• Choose your favourite online pokies casinos
• Our top recommendation is Neospin

Step 2: Sign up at Australian Online Casinos

• Go to Neospin
• Click on Sign Up
• Fill in your email address and choose a password
• Press on Next
• Fill in your personal details
• Click on Sign Up

Step 3: Verify Your Online Pokies Account

• Go to your email inbox
• Find an email from Neospin
• Follow the instructions
• Verify your email

Step 4: Play Online Pokies 

• Go to Neospin
• Go to the Cashier’s page
• Make a deposit
• Use the code NEO100 for a 100% deposit bonus
• Claim the bonus and start playing pokies online!

Types of Real Money Online Pokies for Australian Players

Three-Reel Online Pokies

Three-reel online pokies in Australia, sometimes called classic slots, are straightforward, retro slot machines with three columns and a finite number of paylines. They are well-known for their simple gameplay, which makes them ideal for new players and those who want a throwback casino experience. 

When you play pokies with just three reels, you’ll notice how much simpler they are compared to others. They often have higher RTP percentages, ranging from 95% and up, and are more straightforward than other pokie games. 

Five-Reel Real Money Pokies

Five-reel online pokie games are contemporary, multi-feature games with several paylines, five columns, and a variety of themes. They also include fascinating gameplay and unique themes varying from historical stories to mythology.

One of the biggest advantages of five-reel online slots is beneficial features, such as bonus rounds, scatter symbols, progressive jackpots, and more. And, with more paylines presented, they generally give you more chances to win compared to classic online pokies. 

Multi-Payline & Multi-Reel Pokies

Top online pokies with numerous rows, reels, and paylines are considered multi-payline and multi-reel pokies that have been quite popular recently. They offer a wide range of gameplay options and substantial winning chances.

Players have noted that they love multi-pay line slots due to the fact that they generally come with over 25 paylines. Not only that, but these types of online pokies also come with so many exciting features, such as multipliers, free spins, rewards, bonus rounds, and much more.

Video Pokies

With their stunning graphics, a wide variety of themes, and a plethora of features, video slots are the pinnacle of contemporary slot machine gaming. Their visual depth is exceptional, showcasing subjects ranging from popular culture to mythical realms.

Along with multiple pay line and more outstanding options to win, video slots also offer special features, like mini-games within online pokies and this truly excites all slot machine enthusiasts.

3D Pokies

3D pokies draw you in by utilizing unique designs, captivating sounds, and impressive imagery. A visually appealing and intriguing setting is provided by its deep concepts, compelling tales, and engaging features like mini-games and bonus rounds. 

Fans of 3D online real money pokies appreciate the bonus features, engaging visuals, and themes that are diverse and fun to explore.

One thing you might want to note, though, is the fact that 3D slots call for modern and updated hard drive and up-to-date graphic cards for you to enjoy the gaming experience fully. 

Progressive Jackpots Pokies

These are online pokies where the jackpot amount can rise gradually as players place more and more bets. This means that every bet adds to the jackpot, and it keeps getting bigger and bigger until the player (hopefully) wins. 

Branded Real Money Pokies

Branded pokies are popular among players who love a particular franchise. When you play online pokies with branded themes, you’ll recognise familiar themes, characters, and music from well-known franchises or celebrities.

Interested in betting on Dota 2, Valorant, or LoL? Check out the best esports betting sites now. 

Tips for Playing New Online Pokies for Real Money in Australia

Research Wagering Requirements: Understanding the wagering requirements of any online casino you decide to sign up for is crucial. Wagering requirements cover the times a player must wager the bonus amount to be able to claim the promotion fully.

Welcome bonus wagering requirements usually range from 30x to 50x, and hence, their amounts also vary depending on the amount the online casino is offering you to win. 

Opt for High RTPs: RTP stands for Return to Player, a percentage of money paid out by the slot machine to the players. For example, if online pokies have an RTP of 95%, every $100 wagered gets players 95% in return. If you play online pokies with three reels, you’ll notice higher RTPs, starting at 95% and going up. 

Practice Responsible Gambling: Responsible gambling can mean various things to different people. Online casinos are filled with challenges and obstacles, so pick ones that offer enough support to keep things from getting out of hand.

Read Slot Game Rules: Make sure you carefully review the rules for online pokies in order to determine if it is a right fit for you, and to know how to play, what the symbols mean, how you can get bonus rounds and free spins, and so much more!

Best Online Pokies in Australia – FAQs

What is the most trusted online pokies site in Australia?

The most trusted site to play online pokies in Australia is Neospin. It is a relatively new online casino that has managed to become one of the most popular and trustworthy online gambling sites among Australian players. 

Offering excellent banking options, SSL encryption, fast payouts, and secure withdrawals, Neospin truly deserves its place among the best.

Which online pokie sites actually pay out in Australia?

Neospin, A Big Candy, CrownSlots, MyEmpire, and Heaps O’ Wins are some of the online casinos that actually pay out. 

These online gambling platforms are for the best online real money casinos where you deposit a certain amount, claim bonuses, wager, and withdraw your winnings in a preferred banking method.

How do I choose reliable Australian online pokies?

Research your preferred online casino on your own by checking out their website and reading the terms and conditions, privacy policies, and other documents that are necessary for understanding how the online casino works.

You may also read online casino reviews written by trusted sources like ours and deeply dive into each section to make sure that the online casino you have chosen is trustworthy.

Comparing the Top 5 Best Australian Online Pokies Sites

Neospin: If you’re interested to know what the best online pokies Australia has to offer, this site has it. Enjoy generous bonuses, daily cashback, and a welcome bonus of 100% up to AU$ 10,000. 

A Big Candy: A 5-tiered VIP program boosts your experience at A Big Candy, giving you access to a wealth of perks, prizes and exclusive bonuses. The site also features high-quality pokies games and a choice between 3 different welcome bonuses.

CrownSlots: One of the best welcome bonus offers in Australia right now is at CrownSlots. It’s a massive package worth up to AU$6,000 at a generous 400% match rate, and you’ll even get 250 free spins thrown in for good measure.

MyEmpire: You’ll find thousands of pokies to play at MyEmpire, and a lot of them have RTP rates above 96%. On top of that, they’re offering a brilliant welcome bonus worth up to $1,200 plus 300 free spins.

Heaps ‘O Wins: 50% cashback is available every week at Heap O’ Wins, which gives you every chance to stay in the game. A 330% new player bonus is on the table, while the 300+ pokies games library stands out for its huge variety of exciting themes.

So, What Is the Best Online Pokies Australia Site?

In this extensive online pokies review, we have covered all aspects of slot gaming in Australia, from some of the best titles to the online casino where you can play them as much as you like.

Neospin truly stood out with its extensive online pokies library, a generous welcome bonus, and quick payout options we all love!

But, no matter which online casino you choose or which online pokies sparked your interest, we hope you have fun and play responsibly.

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The information on this site is for entertainment purposes only. Please remember that our guides and all listed gambling sites are for people who are 18+. Also, check your local laws to find out if online gambling is legal in your area.

If you have a gambling addiction problem or anyone you know does, call the National Gambling Helpline at 1800 858 858. In addition, the following free gambling addiction resources can be of help:

• https://www.gamblersanonymous.org/
• www.gamblinghelponline.org.au
• https://www.gamblingtherapy.org/

Content oversight and quality assurance provided by Den of Geek, whose advertising leadership oversees sponsored, native, and paid content on the site, ensuring its quality, relevance, and helpfulness for general audiences.

Articles attributed to this byline are authored by paying advertisers. The editorial team did not contribute to these pieces, and the opinions expressed do not necessarily represent those of the Den of Geek staff. The sponsor retains responsibility for the content and holds the copyright to the material. 

The post Best Online Pokies in Australia – 2024’s Top AU Pokie Sites with High Payouts [Update] appeared first on Den of Geek.

Stranger Things’ ending is finally on the horizon. With season 5 over halfway done filming and Netflix attaching a tentative 2025 release window to the series, the legendary sci-fi horror show is getting frighteningly close to concluding its story nearly a decade after introducing the world to Hawkins, Indiana and the Upside Down. The massive amount of time between season 4 and season 5 has given fans more than enough of a gap to speculate about the ending, but the people making the show shouldn’t be listening to fan opinions. 

Instead, the Duffer brothers and their team of writers can look for inspiration from fellow programs that ended recently for hints, clues, and examples of how to construct the conclusion to their saga. Artistry comes from the oddest places, even when it’s a finale that people don’t have a fond recollection of. Five years after Game of Thrones crashed the plane in season 8 and let down fantasy fans by not closing George R. R. Martin’s story in a satisfying way, Stranger Things can learn from its massive pop culture peer.

Give the Story Time to Develop

While a lot of fans had major issues with the plotting decisions in Game of Thrones’ final campaign, the events that occurred may have been more easily digestible if there had been more time for the story to develop. A truncated six-episode arc made everything feel like a whirlwind. One second we were watching the last of the living conspire against the land of the dead. The next week it felt like the Battle of Winterfell didn’t even matter as allegiances were erased and the war between Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) and Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clark) took on the burden of a climactic endgame. 

Part of this failure was HBO’s fault. While the runtimes were extended over an hour for nearly every episode of Game of Thrones, there still wasn’t enough for the writing team to work with. The series always liked to use big lead-ups to build tension and make the last episodes of each season shine. Without that middle area, the conclusion didn’t receive the respect it deserved and the plot choices were made irrelevant. No storyline would have worked within the timeframe it was given.

Netflix has seemingly given Stranger Things a lot more creative liberty than HBO gave Game of Thrones. There will be the usual eight episodes in the final season, which is the same number as in the previous ones (though season 2 and season 4 each had one extra episode). Maya Hawke (who plays Robin) said in an interview that each episode will be equal to a movie, both in runtime and scope. While we could argue all day about the merits of TV becoming more like cinema and whether it is a good or a bad thing for the medium, one thing is for certain: Stranger Things is being given plenty of time here. If the creative team can’t find the right pacing of the final season, it won’t be because they had a lack of resources. 

Stay True to The Characters

The shortened final season of Game of Thrones made it hard for character motivations to make sense. The most controversial ending was obviously Daenerys’. Fans of the Breaker of Chains were shell-shocked when the self-proclaimed heir to the Iron Throne turned into Westeros’ version of John Leonard Orr. Dany the arsonist was not on the Game of Thrones bingo card after seven seasons of her being a merciful queen. This wasn’t the only knee-jerk juxtaposition the writers enacted. Jon Snow (Kit Harington) went from an Aragorn-ish ass-kicker to a whimpering warrior who wandered the wastelands of battlefields throughout the show’s biggest scenes. It made fans sad that the people writing the scripts seemed to have lost track of their characters’ motivations and moral codes. 

Stranger Things’ biggest strength is its heroic cast of characters, featuring an impressive mix of adults and teenagers working in unison to save a sleepy Midwestern town from the supernatural. The series’ core has always been the moral high ground of its protagonists. With that comes one of the strongest connections between a set of characters and fans in TV history. The people writing for Stranger Things must closely analyze what makes each of these people tick before closing their stories. Understanding this consistency and aligning the finish with what has been hinted at in the first four seasons should allow the Hawkins crew to close their book on a satisfactory note. 

Don’t Turn Stranger Things Into World War III

We all love a good Game of Thrones battle scene, but the length and quantity of war sequences in season 8 went a little too far. The series was a people-led drama for seven seasons that crafted intricate interpersonal and familial conflicts, and the violence worked well in conjunction with verbal sparring and backstabbing. The final affair dedicated so much time to armies marching against each other that many fans felt they were watching a Michael Bay summer popcorn flick instead of the more intimate human spectacle they were accustomed to. 

Stranger Things must make sure it learns from Game of Thrones’ overuse of CGI and ground the final season in the individual characters, just as it has always done during the first four seasons. Even though there was a jaw-dropping battle between Vecna and Eleven last season, the final 30 minutes of the finale solemnly brought people back together for tear-jerking reunions (I’m still not over Eleven and Hopper’s conversation in the cabin). There is a much-needed place for bloodshed as the kids rid Hawkins of the Upside Down’s demons, but the fallout of those battles must take final precedence over everything else. Putting people first over monsters will allow Stranger Things to prevail and right the wrongs of Game of Thrones’ past.

The post What Stranger Things Can Learn From Game of Thrones’ Ending appeared first on Den of Geek.