Rob London

Published Sep 30, 2026, 12:00 PM EDT

A cinematic obsessive with the filmic palate of a starving raccoon, Rob London will watch pretty much anything once. With a mind like a steel trap, he’s an endless fount of movie and TV trivia, borne from a misspent youth of watching monster movies on TV, perusing the sun-faded goods at the local video rental shop, and staining his fingers with ink from the Video Movie Guide. Areas of interest include science fiction, film noir, horror flicks, ’70s disaster pictures, Bond movies, ’90s action, giant robots, dinosaurs, super heroes, and the exuberantly schlocky output of Cannon Films. He also enjoys both Star Trek and Star Wars when they’re good, and maybe even more when they’re bad. As a Canadian, he also has a vested interest in Canadian movies and TV shows, especially the cheesier ones dubbed “Canuxploitation.”

An expert on Marvel Comics, he has also written for the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, and is a member of the Marvel Research Team. He can frequently be found pontificating on comic-book continuity or bemoaning the misfortunes of the Toronto Maple Leafs on his Twitter account.

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A frontier town is stricken with the plague in the new Western movie A Prayer for the Dying. Johnny Flynn and John C. Reilly star in the movie, which is set to premiere in theaters next month. Before it does, Collider is proud to exclusively present one of the film’s more surreal moments as a sneak preview. The film takes place in the Wisconsin town of Friendship in the 1870s. Largely populated by Scandinavian immigrants, the town is a peaceful place until residents start dying from diphtheria.

The town’s doctor (Reilly, Chicago) has bad news: the town will need to be completely quarantined, with nobody entering or leaving. The responsibility of enforcing this falls to Jacob Hansen (Flynn, MobLand), the town’s priest, undertaker, and sheriff. However, as a wildfire begins to ravage the countryside, the stricken residents of Friendship may have no choice but to flee.

In our exclusive sneak peek, a new group has come to town: a travelling circus and medicine show. However, there’s something off about this band of nomads: the circus animals seem to be entirely fake. The “zebra” is a painted horse, the “elephant” is a Trojan Horse-like contraption, and the rest of the animals are just performers in costume. Professor Sylvester McCoffer (Tadhg Murphy, The Running Man), the man at the head of the caravan, wants passage for his motley crew, but Hansen won’t even let them through the territory after being offered a hefty bribe, taking the Professor by the throat. Will the town of Friendship endure these dual disasters? You’ll have to hit your local theater on October 9, when A Prayer for the Dying makes its debut.

Four icons and four completely different ways of walking into trouble. This is the one you would have been out there, why it fits, and what it would have cost you.

You have never explained yourself and you have never needed to, because people work out fairly quickly that you are the most capable person in the room without you ever having to mention it.

You are the funniest person in most rooms and the most loyal person in all of them, and you would be genuinely insulted if somebody suggested those two things were in any tension.

You never wanted this job, and you took it anyway because the alternative was standing there watching somebody less careful do it badly, which is the most Western reason there has ever been.

Nobody has ever successfully talked you out of something you had already decided was right, and a long line of grown adults has found that out the hard way.

The film is based on the 1999 novel of the same name by Stewart O’Nan (Snow Angels). It is directed by Dara Van Dusen, making her feature directorial debut; she also penned the script with O’Nan. In addition to Flynn and Reilly, the movie also stars Kristine Kujath Thorp (Sick of Myself), Gustav Lindh (The Northman), Hilton Pelser (Devil’s Peak), and Andrew Whipp (Outlander). Despite its Wisconsin setting, it was filmed on location in Slovakia.

A Prayer for the Dying premieres in theaters on October 9. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.

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Dyveke Bjørkly Graver

John C. Reilly