Table of contents for May 2017 in SFX

SCI - FACT! Olivia Colman has already appeared in Doctor Who: 2010’s “The Eleventh Hour”. “We’re all just passing time, and occupy our chair very briefly,” John Hurt said in 2015, and it’s fair to say the actor – who sadly died on 25 January aged 77 – occupied a number of memorable spaces on screens both big and small. From intense roles in genre fare like 1984 to V For Vendetta, the Derbyshire native was always craggily magnetic, his quick eyes sparkling as if in on a fantastic joke. Of course, in the case of Alien, his slyest joke was also the scene that saw him burst – quite literally – into the mainstream. Hurt’s chest-rupturing horror show introduced the world to the terrifying Xenomorph, and terrified his unprepared…

SCI-FACT ! Robinson’s always been a lover of witches – she’s also a fan of Charmed. ANY WITCH WAY “It’s about a lady called Elaine, who’s a witch. She’s been objectified by men her entire life and it’s really ruined her – she thinks she needs to act like a Stepford Wife in order to get a man. The Love Witch puts a twist on traditional horror films where women get killed off. The tables are turned, so Elaine’s killing off these men and reducing them to blubbering messes...” TAYLOR MADE “[Director Anna Biller] was inspired by the Technicolors of the ’50s and ’60s. We watched a lot of films to prepare, like The Razor’s Edge, and Catherine Deneuve in Belle De Jour and Repulsion. Elizabeth Taylor was a huge…

SFX HAILING FREQUENCIES OPEN! #20 YEARS OF BUFFY Daniel Langrish-Beard, email My new neighbour lent me the Buffy season one VHS box set. Months later it was gathering dust. Then my boyfriend of seven years ran off with another guy. I was heartbroken, and signed off work. That box set called out to me… 12 hours later I was banging on the neighbour’s door, asking for seasons two and three! It got me through one of the most difficult times of my life. Rob Horrock, email The metaphorical aspect, with most of the monsters symbolising things people go through in real life, still works really well – people will always face these issues, no matter how much time passes. Allan Moverley, email Just finished rewatching the entire series with my…

WHERE WRITERS AND OPINIONS COLLIDE “UNCERTAINTY HAS TO BE PART OF A TRULY CREATIVE PROCESS. AND NOT FEARED” know writers are not alone in finding it hard to concentrate on the day job in what are – at the moment of writing and for the foreseeable future – uncertain times. Too much news, too much media, too much craziness. Plus why’s anyone going to read fiction when clearly reality needs to be focused on and fixed? Isn’t it just irresponsible escapism to bury yourself in a book in the face of all this uncertainty? Uncertainty itself is a central pleasure of reading. We are gripped by hopes and misgivings about the ultimate fate of characters we have come to care about. (Will Mark Watney ever get off Mars in The…

I’m finally saying exactly what I want to say, the way I want to say it, and this tiny little series on the Warner Brothers station has made me happier than any gigantic movie I have ever worked on.” Joss Whedon, SFX 35, February 1998 “She’s mostly normal. That’s the key to her, the way she tries to fit in, to do all the things that girls her age do. It’s her destiny that keeps getting in the way.” Sarah Michelle Gellar, SFX 35, February 1998 “The whole series is grounded in the idea that high school is the most horrifying experience a human being can go through. So we just tried to extend our metaphors of popularity, puberty, humiliation and isolation and turn them into monster movies.” Joss Whedon,…

Few TV shows can claim to have had as much impact on how its fans – and others – speak than Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Other series may invent their own frakking words along with their worlds, but Joss Whedon and his team blended California Valley-speak with their own pop culture-infused linguistic soup that nevertheless felt grounded and real for teenagers dealing with hormones and Hellmouths. It even spurred one lexicographer, Professor Michael Adams, to write a book on the subject, 2003’s Slayer Slang: A Buffy The Vampire Slayer Lexicon. SFX asked himto explain the roots of “Buffy Speak”. “A lot of it is borrowed from the popular culture of the time or formed on it,” he says. “One example I use is the use of ‘…much?’ That form, that…

FACE TO FACE WITH THE BIGGEST STARS Rachel Keller is Syd Barrett. No, not Pink Floyd’s tragic, acid-drenched visionary but a whole other Syd Barrett – named in his honour. This one’s spiky and street-smart and has the power to trade bodies. You’ll find her in Legion, Fargo creator Noah Hawley’s stylised TV take on the X-Men universe. It’s a creative reunion for Keller, who came to prominence as free-spirited mobster’s daughter Simone in Fargo’s second season. For all that Hawley’s shaking up the franchise – a full-blown Bollywood dance routine is just one reality-bending treat in store – Keller says its essential mutant gene is intact. “At Comic-Con I saw people who felt like outsiders, decked out in their favourite costume, expertly and unapologetically asking about ‘the omega level’…

Did you dig into the comics when you got the part? They gave me a couple of issues and then they said, “Look, everything that you need is in the scripts, and if you have any questions come to us, don’t necessarily believe that because it’s in the comic it’s going to be in our show.” It was good to see her various incarnations over the years, the fashion, the styles, even just the way that she’s drawn has changed so much. I think there was a period of time when she was a white redhead! This is your third big geek franchise after Star Wars and Game Of Thrones. Who’s the most secretive? Every time I take one of these jobs I think I’ve experienced it all in terms…

uberty is tough. Your hormones are all over the place, your skin is a pus-filled battleground and your parents just don’t understand you, man. No wonder coming of age stories are so popular, from The Catcher In The Rye to Star Wars and Harry Potter. And now, according to director Dean Israelite, Saban’s new Power Rangers movie. “This is a movie about five disenfranchised teenagers who are all going through their own problems and issues,” says Israelite when SFX meets him on set in Vancouver. “The journey of these kids becoming the Power Rangers is the journey of them growing up, shedding their emotional armour and finding that they can fit into the skins that they belong in – and those skins happen to be the Power Rangers suits. To…

RELEASED OUT NOW! U | 104 minutes Director Chris McKay Cast Will Arnett, Zach Galifianakis, Michael Cera, Ralph Fiennes, Rosario Dawson, Mariah Carey Like an elaborate construction of tiny plastic bricks, The Lego Batman Movie fulfils a ton of interlocking expectations. It’s very funny. It has some great lines, many aimed squarely at the geek audience. It’s charming in a way that no live-action Batman has been allowed to be since the days of Adam West. And it has a good story, which plays to simple emotions and allows for mad mashups, including the Lego Batman and Robin biffing and bashing a group of grating metallic guest stars (we’ll even forgive the script for calling them “British robots”…). It’s all so well done, but it’s hard not to take it…

RELEASED 3 MARCH 15 | 105 minutes Director Olivier Assayas Cast Kristen Stewart, Lars Eidinger, Nora von Waldstätten First came Nicolas Winding Refn’s cannibal-supermodels horror The Neon Demon; now French master Olivier Assayas (Irma Vep) has blindsided audiences by conjuring up a spooky tale of his own. Also set in the world of high fashion, the always intense, mostly compelling Personal Shopper is grounded and fantastical, terrifying and silly. Kristen Stewart plays Maureen, stuck in the unfulfilling job of purchasing couture and designer jewellery for German supermodel Kyra (Nora Von Waldstätten). It sounds glamorous, but the schedule is punishing and Kyra barely acknowledges her existence. But Maureen is also a medium, who’s trying to connect with her dead twin brother. Protracted scenes see her tiptoeing around a large, shadowshrouded house…

RELEASED 6 MARCH (Blu-ray/ DVD)/OUT NOW! (download) 2016 | 12 | Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray, DVD, download Director Scott Derrickson Cast Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mads Mikkelsen, Rachel McAdams Early on in Doctor Strange, the egomaniacal title character – played by a sleekly tuxedoed Benedict Cumberbatch with the towering ego of his TV Sherlock – has a car crash. His car flies off a cliff, crunching and rolling; for poor Strange inside, it’s a terrible whupping. The crash ends Strange’s life as he’d lived it till now, as a worldbeating neurosurgeon. With his powers and stature gone, Strange becomes a raging, self-destructive loser. It’s a Thor-sized sledgehammer of an origin story, executed with brio. But soon you’ll forget the accident, because Strange’s next torment is far greater. Desperate to…

RELEASED 20 MARCH 2017 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD Director GJ Echternkamp Cast Manu Bennett, Malcolm McDowell, Marci Miller, Burt Grinstead This bracingly trashy sequel to 1975’s Death Race 2000 might be the maddest movie Malcolm McDowell – here sporting a coiffure that trumps Trump as the President – has ever been in, and that’s saying something. As the actor himself puts it: “There are no subtleties in this film whatsoever!” The high concept of Roger Corman’s cult favourite about a murderous cross-country road race is retained: drivers score points for killing pedestrians – 10 for adults, 20 for kids, 50 for OAPs. But that’s just the bass line over which GJ Echternkamp improvises a madcap, John Waters-esque assault on good taste featuring suicide bombers, gimpwear, and actors who’ve clearly been…

RELEASED 6 MARCH 2017 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD Director Jay Oliva Cast Matt Ryan, Jason O’Mara, Camilla Luddington, Alfred Molina The cape and tights crew,” scoffs Scouse occultist John Constantine, wrapped in his familiar deadbeat raincoat. “Useless against dark magic.” With that line as its call to arms, this animated feature assembles the DC Universe’s frontline defence against the kooky, spooky and altogether ooky: Constantine (voiced by the short-lived TV show’s Matt Ryan), Zatanna, Swamp Thing, Deadman and the Demon. Batman, meanwhile, makes for a killingly funny straight man, refusing to be fazed by all the reality-melting weirdness while clearly craving the reassuring certainties of street crime. The plot’s a rambly quest for a magical talisman but it’s all about the banter and interplay. The dialogue’s sharp and some surprisingly…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2016 | 15 | DVD What do we become? Zombies mostly, in this Danish drama. That or cowardly and selfish, turning away neighbours in need. Centred on a street in suburban Copenhagen – and largely one family’s home – this claustrophobic piece is well made, but the fact that practically every frame of the trailer comes from the last 10 minutes rather speaks volumes. The more expansive, actionbased final act is impressively bleak, but it takes what seems like an age to get there. Extras Trailer. Ian Berriman…

Cold Fuzz RELEASED OUT NOW! 1988 | 18 | Blu-ray/DVD Director Mark Goldblatt Cast Treat Williams, Joe Piscopo, Lindsay Frost, Vincent Price BLU-RAY DEBUT Poor old Roger Mortis. With a name like that it was surely only a matter of time before someone did him in in a nasty way. What his killers don’t anticipate, however, is that Mortis – a cop – will be revived as a zombie and then, with his partner, come looking for them. Dead Heat is ridiculous. It’s cheesy and silly and a lot of the jokes don’t land... and yet, it’s also hugely enjoyable. Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo make for a likeable double-act at the heart of a shamelessly OTT buddy cop B-movie. In a surprise twist, it delivers several moments of effective…

RELEASED 20 MARCH 1977 | TBC | DVD Creator Wilfred Greatorex Cast Edward Woodward, Barbara Kellerman, Robert Lang, Clifton Jones, Tony Doyle, George Murcell Hailing from the period between star Edward Woodward’s two biggest small-screen hits – Callan and The Equaliser – this mostly-forgotten series has taken an age to come back to our living rooms: in 40 years, this is its first release in any format. But arguably the timing couldn’t be better. With mounting concern about a perceived growth in authoritarianism, this is a series that returns feeling rather in tune with the zeitgeist. Though its title riffs on Orwell’s 1984, its near-future regime is a shade less brutally totalitarian. Dumped in at the deep end, we’re slowly drip-fed the background details. After the UK went bankrupt, the…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 494 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Nicholas Eames Publisher Orbit It’s a bold author who forays into comic fantasy. Being funny isn’t simple, and neither is writing an original swordsand- sorcery plot. Heavyweights like Terry Pratchett and Tom Holt cast shadows everywhere. So spare a thought for Nicholas Eames, venturing into occupied territory with his debut novel. The conceit is that parties of adventurers behave like rock groups. They have bookers, fans and tour wagons, and if they’re successful their names can live forever. In Kings Of The Wyld, our ageing heroes must “get the band back together” for one last skirmish. They need to save swordsman Gabriel’s daughter, who’s vamoosed with a crew of her own to join a siege. Told from the perspective of Clay “Slowhand”…

Slay Paree RELEASED 23 MARCH 368 pages | Paperback/ebook Author SL Grey Publisher Macmillan Home invasions occur with alarming regularity in South Africa. Both Louis Greenberg and Sarah Lotz have endured them, so it’s unsurprising that such a trauma is at the heart of the two authors’ fifth novel as SL Grey. Mark and Steph are trying to put their lives back together after an armed break-in. A friend suggests that the couple try a foreign house swap, and they’re soon on their way to Paris for what should be a romantic break. Instead, it’s a nightmare. Their temporary home is a disgusting hole, the neighbour is mad, and there are bags of hair in the cupboards. And when they try to go home things really start to go wrong...…

Alt Knight RELEASED 9 MARCH Publisher Rebellion Writer Kek-W Artist John M Burns GRAPHIC NOVEL Having made his 2000 AD debut in 1995, it’s taken a while for Kek-W to really establish himself at the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic. But with The Order the writer (aka Nigel Long) has finally made himself at home there. Bringing to mind a more fantastical Taboo, it mixes historical fantasy with Lovecraftian horror and some Grant Morrison-style weirdness. The third series was recently serialised in the weekly Prog; this edition collects the first two arcs, which take place in both medieval Prague and Elizabethan London. Setting out to discover what happened to her missing father, Anna Kohl teams up with mechanical knight Ritterstahl. With his rusty façade brought to life with real affection by veteran artist…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Dark Horse Comics Writer Neil Gaiman Artist Shane Oakley GRAPHIC NOVEL This graphic novel’s full title, Forbidden Brides Of The Faceless Slaves In The Secret House Of The Night Of Dread Desire, gives a fair clue as to the content. Based on a Neil Gaiman short story, it’s a tricksy tale of a writer living in a gothic world, who’s trying to write realist fiction about hauntings and curses and dark, rambling houses, but secretly wishes he could write fantasy instead… At first it just seems to be energetic, witty pastiche, but it reveals itself to be a smart, satisfying story – and clearly a personal statement from Gaiman. Shane Oakley adapts it perfectly, pacing out the revelations very well and using stylistic shifts to help…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 120 minutes | CD/download Publisher Big Finish © BIG FINISH PRODUCTIONS 2016 2016 AUDIO DRAMA Amazingly, for a book of The Invisible Man’s skyscraping reputation, it’s inspired surprisingly few adaptations. Though it’s influenced untold shows and films, only the Universal film from 1933 and a 1984 BBC serial really stand as bona fide takes on HG Wells’s trailblazing novella. But given how camped-up the Universal movie was and how bloated the BBC’s effort was (three hours!), then it’s arguable that Wells’s book has never really had a proper adaptation. It’s a blessing for Big Finish, then, that Wells’s story hasn’t been overdone and overtold. This atmospheric audio version, by Jonathan Barnes, is commendably faithful to the source, telling a lean and mean story about a megalomaniacal doctor…

RICHARD EDWARDS EDITOR RAVES I’m going to miss Peter Capaldi’s Doctor – I hope the upcoming series has plenty of stories worthy of one of the Time Lord’s most intriguing incarnations. RANTS Not loving the Episode VIII name – The Last Jedi sounds like it’s been cranked out of a random Star Wars movie title generator. IAN BERRIMAN REVIEWS EDITOR RAVES Intrigued by new DVD imprint Black House, who have lots of gothic ’70s Euro-horror in the pipeline. New book Scarred For Life Volume One looks promising: see @ScarredForLife2 for info. Delighted to finally have the Psychomania score on vinyl, thanks to Trunk Records. RUSSELL LEWIN PRODUCTION EDITOR RAVES Delighted to see the UK film industry continues to thrive: bit.ly/ sfxukfilm. Went to a screening of Prevenge with a live…

Conventions, shows and beyond DATE 8-10 April (Film challenge) 27 April-6 May 2017 (Festival) LOCATION Stratford East Picturehouse Always fancied making the next great sci-fi film but never quite got around to it? Well, look no further than Sci-Fi-London, which returns next month with its one-and-only 48-hour filmmaking challenge – it should light a fire under the backsides of sci-fi creatives everywhere. “The festival started primarily because there wasn’t anywhere for low-budget, interesting or foreign science fiction films,” says festival director, Louis Savy. “Its purpose was to show films that you’re not likely to see in the UK at all, or that are going to be difficult to get hold of.” Before the main event kicks off on 27 April, the weekend of 8-10 April sees the latest instalment of…

SCI - FACT! One of the episodes set for next year’s season four is written entirely in iambic pentameter. If the Inside No 9 Christmas special left you desperate for more twisted tales, you’re in luck – the five remaining episodes of season three are primed and ready to air on BBC Two this month. Created by Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton – the League Of Gentlemen veterans behind the similarly sinister Psychoville – Inside No 9 has proved to be an enduring hit for the BBC. “It’s just thrilling to be doing an anthology, because you don’t really get them any more,” Shearsmith tells Red Alert. “We can do anything we want.” Indeed, the new season is typically diverse. Where “The Devil Of Christmas” was filmed in an old-fashioned…

CELEBRATING CLASSIC SF & FANTASY NOVELS “All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and when they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you.” – The Blessing of El-Ahrairah One of the funnier bait-and-switches you can do to someone unfamiliar with Watership Down is to make them think it’s a children’s book. You tell them that it’s about a group of talking rabbits who go on a journey and have adventures (which is all strictly true) then wait for them to read it. They’ll be surprised, to put it mildly... though possibly unpleasantly so if they’re the nervous type. In my case I didn’t come to the book with any expectations at all because I had it read to me when I…

Word gradually reached me of just how good Buffy was. For many years I was a box set viewer. I only got Sky when it came to season seven because I thought “I cannot be spoilt on this! I have to watch this on transmission!” The writing was just brilliant. It very much reminded me of [Steven Moffat’s] Press Gang. To have those cleverer-than-average teenage characters talking at a fast rate and throwing jokes at you – it’s actually a very Steven Moffat pattern. Joss Whedon didn’t invent that – writing’s progressed in that direction over a couple of decades – but it had the same velocity, the same intelligence, the same wit. And to see that in a fantasy setting was absolutely brilliant. It was the kind of rat-a-tat…

Buffy The Vampire Slayer successfully spun off Angel and several comic book follow-up seasons. But there were plans for so much more, including a show built around Eliza Dushku’s hard-charging, occasionally villainous fellow slayer Faith, Slayer School – a series about some of the Potentials who became slayers after Buffy’s finale – and even a movie about Spike, for which James Marsters wrote a script that eventually became Dark Horse comic Spike: Into The Light. By far the closest to actual reality were the animated series and Ripper. The cartoon version of Buffy, which was supposed to take place during the first season, got as far as development deals more than once, with most of the cast agreeing to return to voice the characters. But despite the clear appeal, and…

Like Kevin Feige bringing together superhumans, sorcerers and gods on the big screen, Marvel’s head of television is one of the masterminds responsible for integrating Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist as they build towards this year’s team-up in The Defenders… Iron Fist isn’t one of Marvel’s most well known characters. Does that give you more creative freedom? These are characters who’ve been around for close to 40 years, so as with every Marvel character, Iron Fist is someone’s favourite, and we have a responsibility to make sure that that fan feels like we got it right. The good news is that the original material that came from the comic books is so strong that we’ve got an excellent foundation. The fact that some people haven’t heard of who…

It’s a sequence that anyone who was a ’90s child will remember: a young woman wanders the halls of a dark, deserted castle, looking for her father. She is beautiful, but more importantly, she is brave. She eventually finds her father locked away, and he warns her against a terrible beast. When a strange figure speaks to her from the shadows, she asks him to come into the light. Thrusting her torch into his face, she sees what he really is: a hulking monstrosity riddled with fur and fangs. As fear spikes through her, she gasps and recoils… Loosely based on the French fairytale from 1740, Walt Disney Pictures’ Beauty And The Beast told the story of a cruel prince cursed to look as ugly as he is inside, and…

DACRE MONTGOMERY IS THE RED RANGER “Jason is a fallen high school football hero who’s dealing with a whole bunch of issues at home. He’s really lost at the beginning of the film, but he ends up meeting this group of teenagers and they form a bond. I think it’s interesting because he’s a jock, but he has such empathy for the rest of the group.” BECKY G IS THE YELLOW RANGER “She’s a bad-ass girl. I grew up wanting to be a Power Ranger and now I get to be that for another generation. Kids are going to be like, ‘Mom, that’s the Yellow Power Ranger! That’s Trini!’ Yellow is my favourite colour and when I found out I was the Yellow Ranger I thought ‘this is meant to…

SESAME STREET Back in 1970, an animated Batman and Robin made a few early appearances in Jim Henson’s educational Muppet show. One skit saw the Dynamic Duo interrupting their pursuit of the Joker to look for a sensible place to cross the road – a plotline the Nolan movies sorely lacked. SCOOBY-DOO MEETS BATMAN They could have been fighting over who had the catchiest theme tune of the ’60s. Instead this 1972 toon team-up saw the Caped Crusader joining forces with Scooby, Shaggy and co to thwart the Joker and the Penguin. BATMAN VS THE INCREDIBLE HULK An age-old pub debate was answered in 1981 as Bats went mano-amano with Marvel’s notso- jolly green giant. Bruce Banner was working for Wayne Research when the Joker persuaded the Hulk that Batman…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 15 | 106 minutes Director Paul WS Anderson Cast Milla Jovovich, Iain Glen, Ali Larter, Ever Anderson Can’t remember the last Resident Evil movie? Not sure you’ve seen any of them since the first one? Doesn’t matter. In fact, that’s probably the best way to go into the sixth film, because not only does The Final Chapter include a quick prologue to sum up the story so far, it also completely retcons the earlier movies – so the less you remember, the better. That’s not to say this doesn’t feel like a Resi movie, though. All the necessary elements are present and correct: you get hordes of slavering undead, bizarre CG monsters, and many, many scenes of Milla Jovovich smashing stuff up. Director Paul WS Anderson seems to…

RELEASED OUT NOW! PG | 120 minutes Director Peter Chelsom Cast Asa Butterfield, Britt Robertson, Gary Oldman Thomas Mann novel The Magic Mountain Boy meets girl. Oldest story in the book, right? Well, what if the boy had been born on Mars and could barely tolerate the gravity of Earth, the planet where the girl lives? That’s the twist explored by The Space Between Us, in which Asa Butterfield’s astronautbirthed Gardner Elliot heads to his late mother’s homeworld to meet Britt Robertson’s spunky, cynical Tulsa. Despite Butterfield’s gawkward charm and Robertson doing what she can with an underwritten, familiar foster teen with issues, the film suffers from a lack of invention. The idea of Gardner suffering heart problems while on Earth is milked for every emotional metaphor – enough that…

What do you think makes Doctor Strange different? The period that he’s from, the ’60s. All of the other characters grew out of the ’50s, where you looked at the world in a different way. All of a sudden in the ’60s people were asking different questions about the universe, about why we’re here, and about religion as well. People were experimenting with the higher self, with something that was above us – and the comic books were doing it as well. What appealed to you about the script? In general the story appealed to me. We’re dealing with a man who’s a fantastic surgeon and has a touch of arrogance to him. When something terrible happens, he has to confront his fears and his beliefs. I thought that was a very…

RELEASED 13 MARCH 1959 | 12 | Blu-ray & DVD (dual format) Double-billed with Return Of The Fly, this predictable SF horror shares some of its DNA, as a newly-wed discovers how hubby somehow came through a plane crash mark-free. You’ll join the dots faster than you can say “alligator serum”. “Nerve-shattering terror!” says the poster, but it just looks like he has a skin condition. Still, the swampy Bayou country settings are distinctive, and Lon Chaney Jr adds colour as a hook-handed gator-hater.…

RELEASED 6 MARCH 1988 | 18 | Blu-ray Director Graham Baker Cast James Caan, Mandy Patinkin, Terence Stamp, Leslie Bevis BLU-RAY DEBUT This ’80s classic arrives on Blu-ray with a topical shudder. “Why do we have to take them?” someone argues in the opening moments. Welcome to the future, ’80s classic. It may look familiar. Los Angeles, 1991. Humans are sharing the city with an influx of immigrants: the Newcomers, a geneticallymodified alien slave race. These cosmic refugees have tried to assimilate. Some are store keepers, others turn tricks on street corners. One’s even a police detective – played by Mandy Patinkin as a lugubrious innocent – paired with James Caan’s crumpled LAPD officer. It’s a high-concept buddybuddy cop flick, giving a sci-fi spin to standard-issue car chases and shoot-outs.…

Good news for euro horror fans! Screenbound Entertainment has launched two new imprints: the sleazy Maison Rouge and the gothic-focused Black House. The former kicks off with BARE-BREASTED COUNTESS (6 March, DVD). One of director Jess Franco’s better efforts, it follows a scantily-clad vamp (Franco’s sultry muse, Lina Romay), who sucks the life out of her victims in, ahem, unconventional fashion – when she’s not humping a bathful of blood. With many more titles by the likes of Franco and Jean Rollin scheduled, it’s worth giving www.facebook.com/ScreenboundPic a follow. Switching tone ever so slightly, there’s also a UK hi-def debut for 1998’s WHAT DREAMS MAY COME (out now, Blu-ray). After Robin Williams’s character dies in a car wreck, he ends up in a heaven composed of his wife’s paintings… then,…

RELEASED 2 MARCH 384 pages | Hardback/ebook Author Elan Mastai Publisher Penguin There’s probably nothing new to say about time travel, just new ways to say it. Elan Mastai certainly does that. The conceit with All Our Wrong Todays is that it’s a memoir, not a novel. Nothing particularly new in that either, except that this memoir’s written in a style somewhere between Lemony Snicket and Holden Caulfield. Tom Barren is a slacker in a near-perfect world. That world is 2016, but not our 2016. It’s the way we thought 2016 would be back in the ’50s – jet packs, flying cars and world peace. A future that Tom blunderingly wipes out when he unexpectedly becomes the world’s first time traveller. There are as many plot twists and paradoxes as…

RELEASED 9 MARCH 380 pages | Paperback Author Pete Begler Publisher Curious Fox From Alice to Labyrinth, fiction is full of strange lands that young girls must traverse and conquer in order to survive and find their way home. This debut children’s novel manages some intricate world-building but never quite hits the spot storytelling-wise. Mothers are disappearing from the town of Mist Falls, and Nell Parker is laughed at when she insists they’ve been stolen by a malevolent purple cloud. But when her own mother is kidnapped by the “Dark Daughters” of nightmare, Nell and her brothers must journey into the Dreamlands to save her, helped by two Fearless Travellers who explain the dream world and its rules. The book certainly has a dreamlike feel, with people and places constantly…

RELEASED 7 MARCH 400 pages | Paperback/ebook Author James Brogden Publisher Titan Books Ten years ago, Nathan Brookes’s teaching career ended in disgrace when four teenagers in his charge vanished on a hiking trip. Now Brookes is haunted by visions of the missing kids, pulling him back to the site of their disappearance, where a body has been found preserved in the peat. Meanwhile, in a blighted wood in the land called Un waits a creature called the afaugh. Crazed with hunger, teeth sharpened to points, the afaugh longs to sate its appetite on human prey… James Brogden’s tale begins with a mystery – what happened to the kids Brookes should have been watching – that suggests a ghost story, before growing in scope to something far grander, pulling in…

Jenny Colgan brings the TARDIS team of the Tenth Doctor and Donna back to prose in DOCTOR WHO: IN THE BLOOD ( , out now, BBC Books), where they fight internet trolls on modernday Earth – or rather, alien parasites that feed on the rage of online commenters. We said: “The way Colgan captures all the characters is pitch-perfect… but the book takes the line of right-on cliché rather than genuine examination, and the various factions and interests never feel well explained.” Paul Crilley’s POISON CITY ( , 16 March, Hodder & Stoughton) introduces a new urban fantasy hero: Gideon Tau, a cop in Durban, South Africa, who comes up against African gods, vampires and Abrahamic angels. We said: “will suit readers of The Dresden Files or the Rivers Of…

Loads more books we couldn’t quite squeeze in! First published in the US in 2015, Alastair Reynolds’s Hugo-nominated novella SLOW BULLETS (out now, Gollancz) is now getting a proper UK release. If historical fiction with a fantasy twist is more your thing, you might like Theodore Brun’s A MIGHTY DAWN (2 March, Corvus); set in eighth century Denmark, it features a dehumanised, underground-dwelling doomsday cult. There are also new books by Neal Asher, Samantha Shannon and Andrzej Sapkowski. INFINITY ENGINE (23 March, Pan) brings Asher’s Transformation series to an action-packed conclusion; Shannon’s THE SONG RISING (7 March, Bloomsbury) continues the series about clairvoyant humans in a dystopian society that began with The Bone Season; and Sapkowski’s LADY OF THE LAKE (16 March, Gollancz) is the fifth entry in the Witcher…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher DC/Young Animal Writers Gerard Way, Jon Rivera Artist Michael Avon Oeming ISSUES 1-4 A good title goes a long way, and the latest comic from DC’s Young Animal has one that’s dripping with lurid pulp-style energy. It also continues the imprint’s mission to revive lesser-known areas of the DC Universe, taking a seriously obscure character from the early ’60s and giving him a new lease of life. It’s the tale of Cave Carson, an ageing explorer who used to battle evil in subterranean kingdoms, but now is left with a troubled relationship with his daughter and a malfunctioning cybernetic eye. His new corporate employers are up to something sinister, and Cave ends up on an action-packed journey to uncover the secrets lurking in his past. These…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Reviewed on PS4 Also on XO, PC Publisher Capcom VIDEOGAME The original Resident Evil perched its camera far from your character, nestling it, fly-like, on distant windowsills and in cobwebbed corners. That was 1996. Then 2005’s Resident Evil 4 mounted its more energised lens to protagonist Leon Kennedy’s shoulder, casting you as participant rather than observer. Now we’re in phase three, where the closer your perspective, the more intense the scares – and you can’t get closer than the view directly from your character’s corneas. Those corneas belong to Ethan, a newlywed who receives a distressing video message from his wife, Mia, who has been missing for three years. She tells Ethan not to come looking for her, whatever happens. So naturally he does. It’s a refreshingly simple…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Reviewed on PS4 Publisher Sony VIDEOGAME Ninja Gaiden was ruddy great. It’s been a long time since that series’ dominance of the twitch action genre, and since then, studio Team Ninja’s parped out a lacklustre third entry to the nails-hard dice-’em-up series. It then up-chucked the criminally bad Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z. So now we come to Nioh, the studio’s latest stab at samurai swords and shurikens. And you couldn’t ask for a more confident, slick, or consistently playable game to drag the studio back to the old best-in-the-business pedestal. Team Ninja is back, baby. We take on the role of William Adams, an Irish seafarer who, after a spell rotting in the Tower of London, whisks himself to the shores of fighty times-era Japan, where he…

AGENT “Who are you?” SAM “We’re the guys who saved the world.” Supernatural, Episode 12.09 KARA “I’m going to get Botox for that. If you can figure out a way to get the needle in my skin...” Supergirl, Episode 2.09 BARBARA [TO PENGUIN] “Get up, have a shower and do that ‘disco vampire’ thing with your hair.” Gotham, Episode 3.13 IRIS WEST “How dangerous could it be? I don’t die until May.” The Flash, Episode 3.11 THE KNIGHT OF CROWNS “I am the Knight of Crowns, and my apologies – I seem to have died waiting for you aspirants to come.” The Magicians, Episode…

Subscribe at myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/sfx SCI-FACT ! Released in Image Comics’ early days, Bloodstone and Brigade’s first issues both sold over a million copies. WHERE DEADPOOL RAMPAGED, EXTREME WILL FOLLOW 1 Deadpool proving to be a hit paved the way for Rob Liefeld to strike a deal with producers Akiva Goldsman (Transformers), Graham King (Tomb Raider) and Fundamental Films to build a new film franchise around his Extreme stable of superhero titles. “Deadpool put us on the map, and reinforced what people were believing in when they were exploring the Extreme Universe,” he says. “My catalogue of other properties is pretty vast, and interest in them continues to build as Deadpool keeps achieving these new heights.” DEADPOOL AND EXTREME ARE KINDRED SPIRITS 2 After departing Marvel, Liefeld co-founded Image Comics in 1992, launching…

OUT 31 OCT 2017 Top trailers dissected SCI - FACT! The first episode of season two is titled “Madmax”. We’ll get nine episodes in total. So here’s some soft-focus scene-setting as we get a clip from an Eggo commercial that debuted in 1979 in the US. We’re baaaaaack... “Eleven!” yells Mike, and here’s the lady herself. But how will Eleven come back and is she – as this shot hints – stuck in the Upside Down? This wouldn’t be Stranger Things without an Amblin-esque shot of the guys on their BMXs. But what are they pedalling away from?! At first glance, it seems the guys are dressed up as Ghostbusters for Halloween, but why is nobody else at their school in costume…? Um, what’s Sheriff Jim Hopper (David Harbour) up…

DATE From 1 March 2017 LOCATION South Bank, London Hot on the heels of the release of The Lego Batman Movie, here’s a chance to get up close and personal with even more of DC’s superheroes and supervillains – all lovingly rendered in Lego form by artist Nathan Sawaya. Having already run to wild acclaim in Madrid, The Art Of The Brick: DC Super Heroes will land in an exclusively built space on London’s South Bank at the start of March, and will host a Batcave’s worth of art inspired by more than 80 years of Justice League history – expect Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, plus the Joker and Harley Quinn, to make an appearance. The immersive galleries will also showcase vehicles, environments and themes from the DC universe,…

Your monthly glimpse into Hollywood’s hoped-for future Subscribe at myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/sfx ROCK ON! BLACK ADAM Can you smell what the Rock is cooking? If so, you may just catch a faint whiff of lightning. Dwayne Johnson was all set to embody the original Captain Marvel’s arch-nemesis Black Adam in a Shazam movie for Warner Bros. Now he’s jumped from that project to headline the bolt-tossing rogue’s own solo movie – which, as hero-shaming coups go, is a bit like the Joker beating Batman to the screen. Debuting in the comic books in 1945, Black Adam is an ancient Egyptian named Teth- Adam, granted magical powers by the wizard Shazam. He’s a bad ’un, of course, but the film will play up his antihero credentials, echoing recent DCU stories where he’s battling…

SFX's high priestess of horror TFI NOT FRIDAY Friends! Dreadites! It is a time of great victory for us. Our silent clamouring call has been (un)heard and we have changed history with our lack of a voice. As you will all definitely remember, a year or two ago (I have no concept of time) a new Friday The 13th movie was announced. Breck Eisner was to direct. There was some talk of it being found footage. And then it was going to be an origin story. And I was not happy. Friends, you will all for certain have it burnt in your minds that we had an agreement. I promised not to write another word about the film if you promised not to see it or promote it in anyway.…

THE CHOSEN ONES “THE SECRET SAUCE WAS JOSS!” TARA BENNETT REVISITS BUFFY ’S WRITERS’ ROOM WITH TWO of SUNNYDALE’S STORYTELLING TEAM When Buffy The Vampire Slayer debuted on 10 March 1997, no one thought it would last more than a few episodes, much less change the television landscape. But change TV it did, as Joss Whedon’s bold, sassy and sometimes scary metaphor for our teen years placed a strong, witty heroine front and centre and had her save herself… and the world. A lot. Two decades later, Buffy remains a TV icon with 144 bingeable episodes of adventures still captivating a new generation of fans – and making her original generation of viewers nostalgic for the show’s indelible mix of humour, pathos, horror and the occasional helping of heartbreak. Two…

CALENDAR FATE “Passion” (2.17) was the first Buffy episode to really hurt the audience, by killing off Giles’s love interest, Jenny Calendar. He comes home to what looks like a romantic scene… then finds Jenny’s corpse on his bed, a sick calling-card from Angelus. It’s just the second in a sequence of four gut-punch scenes that leave you emotionally winded. SOME CANDY TALKING If you’ve met Anthony Head you’ll know he’s much cooler than Giles. His entire performance as bad-boy alter-ego Ripper in “Band Candy” (3.06) is a delight, but the highlight sees him sneering, “Ooh, cooper’s got a gun!” at a policeman, then making out with Buffy’s mum on the bonnet of said officer’s car. Gloriously, it’s later confirmed that the two did it. HELL BOY In the heartbreaking…

He’s a very confused, aggressive, raw, angst-ridden guy You’re bringing to life a character that’s been in print for 40 years. Daunting? After working on Game Of Thrones for six years I’ve learnt about the advantages and the pitfalls of adapting a character which is already in print. There have been lots of different versions of Iron Fist throughout the 40 years. In a way that’s a good thing, because it takes the pressure off me to play a certain version of Iron Fist. I can take different inspirations from different eras and essentially create my own version. Danny’s been described as a billionaire Buddhist. Is that juxtaposition at the heart of the character? That’s one of the great things about Danny Rand – he’s full of these contradictions. On…

THE SFX AUTHOR INTERVIEW Even in a post-truth world, there are moments in life when everything suddenly changes for the better. Spectacularly so. Just ask Adrian Tchaikovsky. Last year, his science fiction novel, Children Of Time, took the 30th Arthur C Clarke Award. To someone steeped in the genre and who reads the shortlist every year, it meant “everything” to see his name added to a list including the likes of Margaret Atwood, M John Harrison and China Miéville “I’m still over the moon about the whole thing,” says Tchaikovsky. “Every so often it comes back to me that, yes, this was a thing that actually happened.” The win was particularly remarkable because Tchaikovsky was known primarily as a fantasy writer. Indeed, his new novel, The Bear And The Serpent…

Time Machine THE STORY BEHIND THE SF AND FANTASY OF YESTERYEAR 1993-2016 When the BBC ran its week-long, cross-channel knees up marking 60 years of the sitcom in September last year, it looked like a fait accompli that Goodnight Sweetheart, exhumed from its televisual grave after 17 years, would get the a-okay for a fresh series. Three point seven million viewers tuned in to witness Nicholas Lyndhurst’s Gary Sparrow return to the modern world on 2 September 2016 – that’s a 19.5% audience chunk, beating out all its 9pm rivals. Twitter went crazy, as the show shot to the top of the trends. The BBC would be stupid, surely, to ignore those ratings, those reviews, those reactions… But the BBC is a strange, unpredictable beast, and just over a month…

RELEASED 10 MARCH 15 | 120 minutes | Also VOD Director Anna Biller Cast Samantha Robinson, Laura Waddell, Jeffrey Vincent Parise “How are we going to be equals to men if we keep giving them what they need?” This line, uttered during a lengthy scene set in a women-only cake shop (during which the Bechdel test isn’t just passed, but lapped multiple times), could sum up The Love Witch. It follows the misadventures of Elaine, a young sorceress who’s determined to find the man of her dreams. But when she uses potions and spells to seduce potential contenders, mayhem and murder follow. Directed by feminist auteur Anna Biller (who also scripted the film, produced it and designed the costumes), The Love Witch is whip-smart horror. Exploring female fantasy on multiple…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 15 | 102 minutes Director F Javier Gutiérrez Cast Matilda Lutz, Johnny Galecki, Vincent D’Onofrio, Alex Roe There’s a point at the start of Rings, the long-awaited third instalment of the American franchise, where it looks as if the movie is actually going to be good. Johnny Galecki’s nerdy science professor has been researching the curse of Samara, whereby anyone who watches a mysterious video receives a phone call, then dies seven days later. He’s abusing his academic resources to essentially “game” the curse. Students are recruited to watch and given a “tail” – a volunteer to view their copy of the film before the seven days are up, meaning no one actually dies at the pasty hands of the TV-bothering demon at all. Smart. But Samara doesn’t…

RELEASED 31 MARCH (One night only) 18 | 120 minutes Working as a small town coroner sounds like a tough gig at the best of times. But when a father-and-son team agree to pull an all-nighter to chop up a mysterious corpse, things get more hellish than they could ever have imagined. Alternately stomachchurning and spooky, this is a bold, assured, and utterly straight-faced horror from the director of mockumentary Trollhunter. Word of warning: don’t bring snacks. Jarah Dobbs ALSO OUT Five March releases to tell you about which didn’t screen for critics in time to beat our deadline. Hugh Jackman returns as an aged Wolverine on 1 March, in LOGAN. On 10 March KONG: SKULL ISLAND brings the gorilla warfare. Emma Watson toplines Disney’s new live-action BEAUTY AND THE…

RELEASED 20 MARCH (Blu-ray and DVD)/6 MARCH (download) 2016 | 12 | Blu-ray/Blu-ray Steelbook (Zavvi exclusive)/DVD/download Director Denis Villeneuve Cast Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg There’s arguably more sci-fi and fantasy on the big screen these days than ever before. Even so, Arrival is something of a rarity. Whereas Hollywood’s interest in the genre mostly consists of aliens/superheroes/[insert random threat] blowing stuff up with extreme prejudice, Arrival sits in more hard-SF territory, a thoughtful take on first contact that’s as much a feast for your cerebellum as it is for your eyes. It’s the sort of intelligent story that’s frequently seen in novels yet rarely gets a run out on screen. Twelve featureless, disc-shaped alien craft appear all over the world. Amy Adams (cruelly denied an Oscar…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2016 | SVOD SHUDDER Miles is a severe thanatophobe. To overcome his fear of dying, he offers $30,000 to anyone who can show him definitive proof of an afterlife. Inevitably, he gets a lot of crank responses, but after a few disappointing investigations, he gets what he wants – and then his problem becomes trying not to see ghosts... Slightly too talky, and definitely thinkier than average, this low-budget indie horror is more philosophical than frightening – though actually, the more you think about it, the scarier it gets.…

RELEASED 13 MARCH 1987 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD BLU-RAY DEBUT Lucio Fulci was never one to spend too much time on his scripts, but it looks like the director didn’t spend much time on any of Aenigma. Probably inspired by Carrie and Patrick, it sees a bullied high school girl, in a coma, tormenting her persecutors. But when the setpiece highlight is a girl lying on a bed being suffocated by snails, you know you’re looking at one cheesy horror film. And wait till you hear the songs that bookend it! Extras A new 77-minute doc on Fulci’s ’80s output; Italian titles/credits; trailer.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 1969 | PG | Blu-ray Director Robert Parrish Cast Roy Thinnes, Ian Hendry, Patrick Wymark, Lynn Loring BLU-RAY DEBUT After toiling with TV puppets for many years, Gerry Anderson finally broke into live-action sci-fi cinema producing this intriguing but ultimately frustrating picture. We’ll have to give away plot details from beyond the hour mark, because only towards the end does the plot properly start! Roy Thinnes and Ian Hendry are astronauts sent on a mission to land on a newly-discovered planet. When they get there they discover it’s just like Earth – or at least, a mirror image of it. Agonisingly, this great – if somewhat absurd – concept simply isn’t explored in satisfying detail: pretty much the full extent of it is writing that’s reversed. And…

RELEASED 6 MARCH 2014 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD Directors Dallas Richard Hallam, Patrick Horvath Cast Camilla Luddington, Patrick Fischler, Caity Lotz A horror begins to creep along your spine during the early scenes of this serial killer sequel. Unfortunately, it’s mostly the feeling that this follow-up to the impressive 2012 effort isn’t going to bottle the same mix of effective scares and sane plotting. The focus is on June Abbott (Camilla Luddington), a crime scene cleaner haunted by lucid nightmares, who discovers that she’s linked to the first film’s Judas Killer in a way that frays her already stretched family ties. When an FBI profiler starts poking his nose into the case, it emerges that Judas might not be dead, or may have become something even more terrifying... The idea…

RELEASED 21 MARCH 384 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Tim Lebbon Publisher Titan Books What would you do if you discovered that fairytale creatures – nymphs, satyrs, and all the rest of them – were real? According to Tim Lebbon, not everyone would be awestruck. Some people would see an opportunity to make money by hunting and selling the bones, teeth and meat of some extremely exotic creatures. There are dozens of stories about fantasy worlds hidden beneath the human one we know, but Relics distinguishes itself both by introducing a brutal kind of black market capitalism, and also by making smart use of its London setting. Protagonists Angela and Vince get shoved unceremoniously into a world not just filled with angels and monsters, but also with Soho gangsters and their…

Girl On A Motorcycle RELEASED 7 MARCH 400 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Alex Wells Publisher Angry Robot Sci-fi and the Western are two genres that fit together surprisingly well at times, serving up eventful and resonant tales of life on the frontiers of civilisation. This is especially the case in the world of pulpy SF adventure. The latest novel to explore this rugged territory is a tale of strange powers, corporate intrigue and motorcycle gangs. Set on Tanegawa’s World, a distant colony planet run by the company TransRift Inc, it’s the story of Hob, a rebellious young woman with unnatural powers who rides with a group of biker mercenaries. However, when a friend of hers is abducted, Hob is set on a collision course with both TransRift and the sinister…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 310 pages | Paperback/ebook Authors Pat Mills, Kevin O’Neill Publisher Millsverse Books When the team responsible for 2000 AD classic Nemesis The Warlock announce a new project, comics fans are guaranteed to sit up and pay attention. However, the latest collaboration between writer Pat Mills and artist Kevin O’Neill is something rather different: a self-published satirical novel pitched as a fictional alternate history of British comics of the ’70s. This first of four volumes in the Read ’Em And Weep series follows Greg and Dave, two shambolic writers working on terrible comics like The Spanker and Laarf!, who plan a punk-style upset with violent boys’ comic Aaargh! (a flipside version of controversial ’70s title Action!). Despite a vague ghost story subplot, this is largely a rambling portrait…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Marvel Writer Kieron Gillen Artist Kev Walker ISSUES 1-3 The conclusion of Kieron Gillen’s highly acclaimed Darth Vader series at issue 25 was a classic good news/bad news situation. On the one hand, an outstanding spin-off comic finished on its own terms and wasn’t dragged out too long; but on the other, it also seemed to spell the end for the series’ memorable supporting characters. Thankfully, the latest Star Wars comic solves this problem by picking up the ongoing adventures of Darth Vader co-star Doctor Aphra, an entertainingly dangerous archaeologist with a liking for ancient weapons. Having faked her death to escape Vader’s employment, Aphra is now trying to keep a low profile, but these first three issues show how hard that’s going to be… The…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 5x15 minutes | Now available via iPlayer Broadcaster Radio 4 Director Andrew Mark Sewell AUDIO DRAMA Self-aware automatons are having a moment. With researchers Forrester predicting automation will eliminate 6% of US jobs by as early as 2021, they’re starting to look like the future. What will this mean for humanity? Famously, Isaac Asimov thought about the issues this would raise back when few people even really knew what a robot was, coming up with his Three Laws of Robotics as early as 1942 and publishing the robot-themed fix-up novel I, Robot in 1950. Fast forward more than six decades and those same stories form the basis of this loose radio dramatisation adapted by Richard Kurti. At its heart lies Stevie Byerley (Hermione Norris), an enigmatic and…

The characters who make TV great UK Broadcast Netflix, TBC US Broadcast Syfy, Wednesdays The Expanse offers both an exciting and a slightly worrying vision of the future. You’ve got the Martians, who are a military force to be reckoned with; the poverty gap on Earth seems to have only gotten bigger over 200 years; and the Belters are basically the solar system’s dogsbodies. But the most fascinating character has to be Detective Joe Miller (Thomas Jane). Born and raised in the asteroid belt, he manages to straddle both sides of an interplanetary squabble without being accepted by either. He’s a “well wala” – a Belter who’s “obsessed” with the inner planets, a traitor to his people. At first glance he’s no different to a lot of TV detectives. A…