Table of contents for Holiday Issue in SFX

COR BLIMEY, IF IT AIN’T A GHOST! Keith Tudor, email The Haunting Of Bly Manor has been a seasonal treat. The plot was engaging, it was atmospheric, and the characters were good. Unfortunately the attention to detail and English stereotyping wasn’t that great. Everyone isn’t obsessed with drinking tea in England, and we don’t usually say “math” as a shortened version of mathematics, opting for “maths” instead. Niggles aside, it was still a fun nine-episode series; just not as good as the previous Hill House series. SFX It could have been worse: a spectral Dick Van Dyke doing the Lambeth Walk while dressed as a Pearly King. Fancy another cup of ectoplasm, me ol’ china? A VOYAGE(R) OF DISCOVERY Rob Graham, email I can’t help feeling that Star Trek: Discovery should have…

Gremlins: Secret Of The Mogwai The animated HBO prequel series, set in 1920s Shanghai, tells the story of how 10-year-old Sam Wing meets Gizmo. Yes, if you peer closely enough you can see the Mogwai, along with his iconic box. Joe Dante, director of the original movies, is a consultant on the 10-episode project, likely to arrive in 2021. Expect gremlins and hidden treasure! Uncharted Filming has been completed on the long-delayed Tom Holland movie, based on the long-running series of videogames, giving us this first look at Nathan Drake. No rest for young Mr Holland though, as he’s already busy at work on his third Spider-Man movie. Batwoman The “first black, bisexual Batwoman” – or, as we call her, Batwoman – will hit screens in early 2021 as Javicia…

WHEN IT COMES TO CURRENT THEATRICAL animation releases, finding any in the traditional 2D style is a rarity. However, there are some studios, such as Ireland’s Cartoon Saloon, that are bravely keeping the format alive with releases like Wolfwalkers. A tale of tolerance set in 1650 Ireland, it follows young English transplant Robyn Goodfellowe (Honor Kneafsey), whose entire world view is challenged when she meets Mebh Óg MacTíre, a feral girl who runs with wolves – and can transform into one. A gentle exploration of the erasure of Irish Celtic life due to Puritan beliefs, it sees the girls using the magic of the land to free their futures. Co-directors Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart call Wolfwalkers the third and final panel of their “Irish folklore triptych”, after The Secret…

“I’ve not cried like that for such a long time… Brad couldn’t cope with it at all” Arrested by the Judoon at the end of the last series, where does this episode find the Doctor? • The Doctor is in prison, with time passed. And obviously time plays out for the Doctor in a certain way. What’s interesting about the start of this is that the discoveries and the journeys that we all go on aren’t necessarily Doctor-led. That makes it really exciting as well, because it’s definitely a team effort throughout. What was it like having John Barrowman on set? • He’s incredibly energetic and passionate as a person, and as Captain Jack. Those are the things that have really bonded us as a fam and a family, going…

“GET ME SOMEONE WHO CAN WRITE ABOUT A guy tramping through the snow!” a cigar-chomping producer bellows into his phone. You could be forgiven for wondering if that’s how Mark L Smith got the gig on Netflix movie The Midnight Sky, given that it’s similarly snow-shrouded to his Oscarwinning frontiersman tale The Revenant. But there’s much more to the story than that. For starters, half of it unfolds in the even chillier environs of space. Based on Lily Brooks-Dalton’s 2017 novel Good Morning, Midnight, it’s set in 2049, and centres on Augustine Lofthouse (George Clooney, who also directs), an astronomer based at a remote Arctic station. When a humanity-ending global catastrophe (something to do with the atmosphere) strikes, his colleagues fly off to be with their families at the end.…

What was the experience of working in Iceland like? We first went there in August [2019] and scouted. We went up to one of the largest glaciers in Europe, and the first thing that takes your breath away is how much of the glacier has gone. It’s shocking to see how global warming is a reality in places like that. In Iceland, you can measure it. There’s no one debating science with the people of Iceland. They go, “No, this is real. There’s six miles gone of what’s been here for thousands and thousands of years.” It’s stunning. To go by the great icebergs that are floating in the lakes is incredible. We saw the Northern Lights up there, which was just amazing. I was looking out of my window…

Who do you play in Soul? Joe Gardner is a music teacher with a burning desire to play in a big jazz band. Finally, he gets an audition and he kills it – but then he falls down a manhole and he is no longer with us. He floats into this spiritual world where souls are created, and he’s mystically picked to teach people about the value of living life on Earth. What does jazz mean to you? I absolutely love jazz. Who doesn’t like John Coltrane and Miles Davis? Or even someone like Herbie Hancock, who revolutionised jazz. Right now, there’s a huge jazz resurgence in LA. People of all ages love it. Music, man. When it’s played right, no matter what genre, it will always touch you. Is…

Where do we find Amos? At the beginning of this season, Amos finds out something has happened to his moral centre, Lydia. He had an understanding and a deal built on the fact that if he didn’t come back, Lydia would be taken care of. Amos has been staying away purposefully to protect her. Something has happened to Lydia, and he needs to go find out exactly what’s happened and who was involved with it. And if anything bad has happened to her, Amos needs to handle that situation, as well. Baltimore is a seedy underworld on Earth. How comfortable is Amos with returning to that setting and confronting his past? With a lot of the trauma that Amos experienced growing up, as he’s left and started a new life,…

EXTRAS RELEASED 7 DECEMBER 2020 | 15 | DVD/download Kodi Smit-McPhee’s Ethan must save a world ravaged by climate change and disease in this profoundly average time travel flick. Blasted forward in time to 2474, Ethan searches for a cure for the sickness that will eventually wipe out humanity, wandering around a wood wrestling with his daddy issues. There’s some effective visual effects, and Smit-McPhee does well at holding together the long stretches of the film where he’s on his own, but cheap-looking costumes and lousy dialogue let it down. + Extras None.…

EXTRAS RELEASED OUT NOW! 2019 | PG | Blu-ray/DVD/download This Chinese CG animation is frantically action-packed, and that’s ultimately its undoing. Inspired by myth, it’s about a snake spirit who loses her memories, gains human form and enchants an innocent youth, even as the spirit and human worlds wage war. Portions of the adventure are splendid and fun, and there’s a terrific supporting character – a sexy magical seductress. But the relentless pile-up of flashy fights ends up burying the characters, along with our investment in them. + Extras Trailer.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2020 | SVOD Director Alexandre O Philippe SHUDDER If you caught documentarian Alexandre Philippe’s last anatomy of a horror classic, Memory: The Origins Of Alien, and found some of its professorial punditry a bit of a stretch, breathe easy: no one in this The Exorcist doc is flogging their academic theses. Ridley Scott was glaringly absent from Memory; here the director is front and centre, with locked-off cameras recording a fireside-adjacent William Friedkin as, over six days of conversation, he recounts the making of the film in meticulous detail. It’s a winningly simple format, for two reasons. Firstly, few films can boast quite so many fascinating behind-the-scenes stories, from the director firing off a rifle to elicit authentic shock, to Mercedes McCambridge downing raw eggs to achieve…

EXTRAS RELEASED OUT NOW! 1987/1988 | 18 | Blu-ray/DVD Director Yoshiaki Kawajiri Cast Yusaku Yara, Toshiko Fujita, Hideyuki Hori, Hiromi Tsuru BLU-RAY DEBUT Yoshiaki Kawajiri was the enfant terrible of ’80s anime, taking the genre into ever more extreme territory. Wicked City concerns the conflict between the human world and the demonic Black World, as special agent Taki and partner Makie try to protect peace negotiator Giuseppe from assassination. Kawajiri fills the screen with sex, violence and sexual violence. He’s good at body horror, exemplified by the teeth-filled vagina of a female spider-demon, but tends towards misogyny and puerility while the Taki/Makie romance is woefully underweight. Demon City Shinjuku mercifully dumps the rape scenes in a tale of a young martial artist, Kyoya, fighting to prevent the opening of a…

EXTRAS RELEASED OUT NOW! 2019 | PG | DVD/download Matteo Garrone may be the Italian Guillermo del Toro. His largely faithful adaptation of the classic tale dials up the horror: attempted drownings; a terrifying talking tuna; children screaming in pain as they transform into donkeys… all brought to life with extraordinary prosthetics, including the puppet itself. The cinematography makes your eyeballs sing. Parents may need to consider potential toddler nightmares, but older kids should gleefully lap it up. + Extras Subtitled/dubbed versions.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2000/2003 | 12/15 | Blu-ray Directors John Harrison, Greg Yaitanes Cast Alec Newman, Ian McNeice, Susan Sarandon, James McAvoy BLU-RAY DEBUT Despite these two mini-series being made three years apart, major roles being recast, and different UK distributors releasing them on Blu-ray, watching Syfy’s Dune and Children Of Dune together proves to be a perfectly coherent bingewatching experience. Produced in a pre-streaming era when such offerings were called “event TV”, these adaptations of Frank Herbert’s ’60s novels feel like an important evolutionary step towards the long-form TV dramas that proliferate today. Not that they’re perfect – far from it. Yet their shortcomings add to the charm. Herbert’s ambitious but rambling epic about rival Houses in a interplanetary empire competing for control of a strategically vital desert planet…

RELEASED 4 DECEMBER (also VOD/download) 15 | 56 minutes Director Rob Savage Cast Haley Bishop, Jemma Moore, Emma Louise It’s pretty much unprecedented for a movie to debut on a streaming service and move into cinemas months later. It’s also rare that a film clocking in at under an hour represents decent value for money. But this British-made found-footage horror, put together during the first lockdown, has and is. Creatively speaking, it may be the best thing to come out of Covid-19. The set-up is simple: six friends – five of them female – conduct an online seance via Zoom. Naturally, it all goes horribly wrong, as a demonic entity passes over. There are some familiar devices here – footprints appearing on the floor; a chair sliding across the room –…

RELEASED OUT NOW! (also DVD/download) 18 | 98 minutes LIMITED Is anything more tiresome than a movie that lectures you for watching it? This Danish nonsense could’ve been an unremarkable torture porn copycat in 2007, but as it’s 2020, it’s been given a spit and polish: chapter cards, a back-and-forth structure, and fourth-wall-breaking chat. Upshot is: women have to be tortured for entertainment, and you are to blame. Performances are fine and there are a couple of creepy moments, but it feels horribly dated, and utterly humourless.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 256 pages | Hardback Author Phil Szostak Publisher Abrams Ever since George Lucas hired Boeing industrial designer Ralph McQuarrie to visualise the original Star Wars, the franchise has been making stars of its concept artists. The Mandalorian even showcases their work in its end credits. So it’s no surprise that this beautiful art book is a love letter to the craft. While these season one illustrations predominantly appear in story order, narrative really isn’t the priority. There are pages devoted to the show’s origins and the making of each episode, but they’re too brief to take up much of your time – in fact, you find yourself wishing there was some chunkier prose to sink your teeth into, particularly on the subject of the show’s innovative digital…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 299 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Susi Holliday Publisher Thomas & Mercer There’s a great concept at the core of crime novelist Susi Holliday’s latest – a contemporary take on Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, filtered through the Fyre Festival disaster and Black Mirror. Seven strangers have accepted an invitation to try out a new piece of tech on a private island: a neural-interface implant that they’re told will respond to their needs. However, the guests become aware that the implants can also dig into their memories – and all of them have deeply buried secrets… Aside from humanitarian aid worker Amelia, the guests are all dubious characters in some way: venture capitalist Brenda, gossip columnist Lucy, alternative-medicine supplier Scott, paparazzo James and shallow Instagram golden…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 320 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author Thomas McMullan Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing Hot on the heels of Jonathan Lethem’s The Arrest comes another low-key post-apocalypse novel about suspicion in an isolated community – only this time it’s not about a functioning community being disrupted by an outsider, but an outsider arriving to discover that the community is absolutely screwed up. Thomas McMullan keeps it vague when it comes to the collapse of civilisation: flashbacks hint at spiralling poverty, there’s no government or media any more, and the cities are on fire. Duncan Peck arrives in a Dartmoor village to find his cousin James Hale has become the arbiter of law and order. The villagers write their grievances on a wall, and when an accusation gains momentum, action is taken:…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Z2 Comics Writer Duncan Jones, Alex de Campi Artist Various GRAPHIC NOVEL Moon, Mute, Madi: that’s how Duncan Jones’s movie trilogy was meant to play out. A screenplay for the third entry was ready to go in 2018, but after Jones’s Netflix movie met a tepid reaction he decided to turn it into a graphic novel instead. It’s a shame, because Madi (subtitled Once Upon A Time In The Future, the script’s original title) is an easier sell than Mute, and could have been a hit. Connections to the other “Mooniverse” films are subtle. “Free the 156” posters (a nod to Moon’s clone, Sam) can be glimpsed; Mute’s underground surgeon Cactus Jack is namechecked; Chesney Hawkes plays in a lift. The main link is the role of…

“You need to get yourself prepared, because it is going to be shocking” What’s it like being back in the world of Doctor Who? • It’s amazing. If I’m asked, I will always go back at the drop of a hat. When I did the first episode [in season 12], I knew I was going to be in the festive episode. I knew the storyline of part of that before I knew what I was doing in the series. The thing that’s brilliant for me as the person who plays him, because I know him so well, is how he reacts to these new people on the TARDIS – because the one thing he does know is they’re there for the Doctor, they’re there because they love the Doctor and…

THE WORLD IS ABOUT TO BE destroyed… and nobody even has an inkling of its imminent doom. The Expanse’s fourth season ended with Holden (Steven Strait) and company completing their mission beyond the Rings, on the planet Ilus. After all the mayhem and social unease, the crew of The Rocinante deserve a breather, but the show’s latest antagonist, Marco Inaros (Keon Alexander), has other plans. Employing stolen Martian technology, he’s launched several cloaked asteroids towards Earth. And anybody familiar with movies like Armageddon or Deep Impact knows that such a collision will wreak major havoc, on a global scale. “It takes rocks a while to cover that distance,” showrunner Naren Shankar tells SFX. “The events early on in season five occur under a shadow of mounting dread. The dread is…

GOLDEN CANDELABRAS, satin tablecloths, a tattered Encyclopaedia Britannia dating back to 1910… SFX is surrounded by beautiful things right now. Our favourite: a kleptomania-inducing, Antiques Roadshow-esque lamp with stained glass dragonflies and sculpted fairies at the base. At a glance, the Spellman residence – home to the titular teen on Netflix’s Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina – is a hipster millennial’s dream house come to life. Which, for some, is nightmare-inducing enough. But on closer inspection ghastly touches abound: from flayed faux-lizard fans in the lounge to a jar of “adder skin” in the kitchen. (SFX recoils on discovering that they’re actually bits of pickled cauliflower). In the embalming room – Casa Spellman doubles up as a family-run mortuary, naturally – Miranda Otto points out “coyote eyeballs” with a chuckle. Otto,…

EXTRAS RELEASED 7 DECEMBER 2000 | 18 | Blu-ray Director Ryuhei Kitamura Cast Tak Sakaguchi, Hideo Sakaki, Chieko Misaka, Kenji Matsuda BLU-RAY DEBUT In 2000, The Matrix had redefined action movie cool, while Western interest in extreme Asian cinema was booming. Ryuhei Kitamura’s film, with its leather coats, stylised mix of martial arts and gunplay and explosions of gore, landed at exactly the right moment. It hasn’t aged well. With barely any story (two prisoners try to escape the yakuza in a forest, and are beset by the undead), zero characterisation and dubious acting, all you’re left with is two hours of fighting, shooting and the occasional beheading. It’s well edited and some of the fights stand out, but you feel every one of its 120 minutes. + Extras You get…

EXTRAS RELEASED 7 DECEMBER 1996 | 15 | Blu-ray BLU-RAY DEBUT Playing three equally terrorised characters, Krull’s Lysette Anthony is put through the wringer in this anthology: killer rats, a demonic child and (in a sequel to the 1975 TV movie) a stab-happy Zuni doll. Dark Shadows creator Dan Curtis piles on the lightning flashes, and while there’s a fun, campy energy, it all feels pretty dated for 1996. It’s like a horror cheeseboard, with the emphasis on cheese. + Extras Expert commentary; interviews.…

EXTRAS RELEASED OUT NOW! 2014 | 18 | Blu-ray Director Adrián García Bogliano Cast Nick Damici, Tom Noonan, Lance Guest, Tina Louise BLU-RAY DEBUT “People don’t come to places like this to live,” says blind combat veteran Ambrose McKinley, recently turfed into retirement community Crescent Bay. “They come here to die.” Death in this case arrives in a flesh-shredding frenzy. Crescent Bay is being stalked by a werewolf which leaves blood-spattered Zimmer frames in its wake. Before long Ambrose is loading up with silver bullets before the next bad moon rises… Boasting a spiky script and a strong, authentic performance by Nick Damici, Late Phases is an indie horror with heart – and one with a refreshingly different protagonist. Ambrose is a vivid character from the off, a taciturn bad-ass looking…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2020 | 15 | Download Two hapless Brooklyn hipsters “go offline” for a rural break, then belatedly discover that an alien invasion’s taken place in this initially very promising but ultimately infuriating sci-fi comedy. The central couple are cute (especially the saucer-eyed Sunita Mani), and the invading “Pouffes” (think giant Tribbles which shoot out a deadly tentacle) creatively oddball. What’s missing is a satisfactory final act: the story just fizzles out, in bewildering fashion. So maybe save your money.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2020 | PG | VOD Director Robert Zemeckis Cast Anne Hathaway, Octavia Spencer, Jahzir Bruno, Stanley Tucci “Witches are real!” shrieks Chris Rock at the start of this glossy, CGI-loaded adaptation of Roald Dahl’s 1983 book. He’s not wrong, as our nameless orphan hero (Jahzir Bruno) discovers when he goes to stay at a coastal hotel with his kindly grandmother (Octavia Spencer). She knows all about witches, but Grandma is unaware that the hotel is about to host an arcane convention overseen by none other than the Grand High Witch herself (Anne Hathaway). So far, so familiar to anybody who’s read the book or seen Nicolas Roeg’s creepy 1990 adaptation, but director Robert Zemeckis has a few aces up his sleeve. For one, he relocates the story…

We covered PENINSULA (out now, Blu-ray/DVD/download), sequel to Korean zombie horror Train To Busan, last issue. It follows four survivors on a job to recover $20 million from an abandoned truck. We said: “The premise is pure John Carpenter, and that’s not all that feels familiar… Propulsive action is the focus, and often it feels like you’re watching a videogame.” The physical release comes with four featurettes and behindthe-scenes footage. HMV’s First Edition adds a poster and six art cards. HMV is also the place to find Warner’s Premium Collection release of THE PHANTOM (out now, Blu-ray). Billy Zane dons the purple bodysuit as the masked avenger from the ’30s comics, out to foil an evil industrialist after three magical skulls. Written by The Last Crusade’s Jeffrey Boam with tongue…

RELEASED 18 DECEMBER (also VOD, 4 DECEMBER) 18 | 109 minutes Director Alejandro Fadel Cast Victor Lopez, Esteban Bigliardi, Tania Casciani, Romina Iniesta LIMITED Visually, this Argentinean horror is a feast, with rugged landscapes and a cast full of characterful faces. Sequences like one where cops carrying flares search amidst a downpour are beautifully lit. The film’s earthy sense of the grotesque brings to mind Goya. Its monster is also a memorable creation: truly revolting, with a long phallic tail and jowls like an OAP’s saggy scrotum. We haven’t seen anything so unpleasantly sexual since, well, that Spitting Image puppet of Michael Gove. Sadly, the plotting’s likely to leave you mystified. Rural cop Cruz (Victor Lopez) – so impassive he’d barely register on an ECG – looks into a string…

RELEASED 18 DECEMBER (also VOD) 18 | 109 minutes LIMITED Despite a handy recap, this woeful threequel is only likely to appeal to Skyline completists – if such a thing exists. This time a small band of humans takes the fight back to the homeworld of the alien invaders, bringing double-crossing and back-stabbing with them. The muddled script is built around gung-ho one-liners cut-and-pasted from better movies, while a succession of creatures, alien hardware and CG lightshows struggle to fill the void where a plot should be.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 495 pages | Paperback/ebook/audiobook Author James Brogden Publisher Titan Books An ancient religion that worships a terrifying pig god, a World War One deserter and a sleepy village allotment which hides a dark secret form the backdrop to this rather sprawling folk horror from James Brogden. Building the mythology of the Farrow, the strange community who pray to Moccus, the novel starts strong, eerie and visceral, with our protagonists being the amoral ex-soldier Everett, who’s stolen another man’s name, and the free-spirited Ardwyn, beautiful natural heir to the Church. However, when we cut to the modern day and the allotment where Ardwyn and Everett relocate to start a new branch of the Farrow, Bone Harvest becomes more convoluted. At almost 500 pages and over-stuffed with characters, it…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 464 pages | Hardback/ebook Author Chloe Gong Publisher Hodder & Stoughton Nowadays an awful lot of stories are billed as something familiar with a twist: a genderswapped this, a that in space, an alternate the other. These Violent Delights’ title gives its “something familiar” away: Romeo And Juliet. And that’s actually a pity, because this isn’t very close to the play, certainly not in the way Tessa Gratton’s The Queens Of Innis Lear played with King Lear without straying too far from the original’s plot. It doesn’t explore or deepen or comment on the play it’s associated with, nor stick closely to its plot. What it is is a perfectly serviceable urban fantasy set in 1920s Shanghai, where the heirs to rival gangs – one Chinese, one…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 392 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author Jonathan Sims Publisher Gollancz An ultra-modern haunted house novel set in the mysterious Banyan Court complex, where residents of the main building live in unimaginable luxury while the affordable housing behind is dangerous and dilapidated, Thirteen Storeys is both social satire and a ghostly anthology. As the title punningly suggests, there are 13 stories here: Black Mirror-esque tales of residents and workers around Banyan Court, each of whom receives a mysterious invitation to a dinner party hosted by the reclusive billionaire who lives in the penthouse suite. This is an astonishing debut from Jonathan Sims. There are shades of House Of Leaves in the shifting architecture of the million-pound complex, which houses any number of dark spirits. Though each chapter is its…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 368 pages | Hardcover/ebook/audiobook Author Dean Koontz Publisher Harper Collins Author Dean Koontz Publisher Harper Collins Much of that is down to his slender characterisations. Jeffy and his 11-year-old child Amity have such an idyllic relationship that it defies credibility: she’s impossibly wise beyond her years, he has infinite patience, and they exclaim “Bullsugar” when they’re really upset. Just one family squabble would be more believable. All their conflict is external, embodied in the form of Falkirk, a sociopathic NSA operative on the hunt for The Key To Everything, a device that allows the user to jump between parallel worlds. A friendly mad scientist entrusts this to Jeffy, setting the adventure in motion. It’s not a very believable opening, but once the set-up is complete, Koontz throws…

RELEASED 10 DECEMBER Publisher Abrams Comicarts Writers Frank Herbert, Brian Herbert, Kevin J Anderson Artists Raúl Allén, Patricia Martín With the new Hollywood blockbuster of Dune delayed, this is the only interpretation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic we’re getting this year, and it’s an interesting if flawed take on the story. The first of three volumes, it tells the far-future tale of Paul Atreides and how his destiny is shaped by his arrival on the desert planet Arrakis. Adapted by Herbert’s son Brian and Kevin J Anderson (who have also written countless Dune prequel novels), this ultra-faithful version is far more comprehensible than David Lynch’s 1984 movie, but that faithfulness comes at a price. Not only do we get Herbert’s huge imagination and sweeping drama, we also get his occasionally…

RELEASED OUT NOW! (Paperback 12 January) Publisher IDW Comics Writer Scott and David Tipton Artist Greg Scott ISSUES 1-4 This four-part IDW mini-series feels like discovering that an extra episode of Deep Space Nine was filmed and left in the back of a cupboard somewhere. Too Long A Sacrifice is set in the series’ heyday, the Dominion War. An explosion at a restaurant where Bashir and Garak are dining sets off a chain of terrorist attacks that are initially blamed on Quark. Dismissing the crimes as being too brutal for the Ferengi bartender, Odo sets out to uncover the truth – but that means contending with angry Nausicaans, a pushy Worf and a troubled Betazoid investigator. Scott and David Tipton’s script perfectly captures the tone of late-period Deep Space Nine,…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 218 minutes | Podcast Publisher BBC Sounds AUDIO DRAMA The myth of the Pied Piper of Hamelin gets a contemporary update in this creepy dramatic podcast the latest commissioned by Radio 4. Children are going missing in Kent, lured into a network of subterranean tunnels by mysterious music that only they can hear. Ali (Tamzin Outhwaite) is trying to solve the mystery, but distraction comes in the form of her strained family relationships. The detective catches a break when a young boy wearing anachronistic clothes and carrying a Walkman is found. But the Piper never lets anyone go… Vickie Donoghue and Natalie Mitchell’s script walks a fine line between grounded realism and supernatural scares – this is far more a character-driven thriller than it is horror –…

YOU HAVE TO GIVE IT TO FORMER GOTHAM and now Pennyworth series creator Bruno Heller – he knows how to squeeze unexpected gold from the Batman mythology. Both series were created as alternate paths into the legendary lore of Bruce Wayne, and with Pennyworth, he even crafts an alternate history for London to posit a unique origin story for Batman’s future valet. Season two of Pennyworth fast-forwards one year after the explosive events of the first season finale, in which Alfie’s (Jack Bannon) father (Ian Puleston-Davies) died in a suicide bombing, attempting to murder the Queen (Jessica Ellerby) on behalf of the fascist Raven Society. It leaves the former SAS soldier wrestling with the treasonous legacy of his parents, their semi-sullied family name and a resurgent Raven Society. Having learned…

One of this season’s big themes is “You reap what you sow”. How does that apply to Holden? Now that Miller and all of his forms are truly gone, Holden is the only one left truly concerned about not just the protomolecule, but also the entities that killed off the builders of the protomolecule. That’s still at the forefront of his mind. Off the top of the season, you get a glimpse into what Holden’s life is like when the world isn’t falling to pieces around him. You get to see him in a much healthier place than you’ve seen him in years previous. He’s settled into his position as a leader. When Naomi goes off and the rest of the crew split apart, his priority is still on the…

THE UPCOMING NINE-EPISODE miniseries The Stand arrives feeling eerily relevant. Based on Stephen King’s sprawling 1978 novel of the same name, this epic tale takes place in a landscape ravaged by a mysterious virus that has wiped out 99% of the planet’s population. Production commenced on 19 September 2019 in Vancouver and wrapped early in March 2020, just before the Covid-19 outbreak caused everything and everyone to lock down. As the number of infected people continues to skyrocket, showrunner Benjamin Cavell admits that the pandemic could affect the audience’s viewing experience. “Obviously, we’ve wondered about that,” Cavell tells SFX. “The answer is it’s impossible to predict. But for me, The Stand is not really about a pandemic. The pandemic is the mechanism by which the world gets emptied out and…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2020 | PG | VOD Director David E Talbert Cast Forest Whitaker, Keegan-Michael Key, Phylicia Rashad, Madalen Mills NETFLIX A riot of colourful costumes, boisterous choreography and really rather lovely effects, this Netflix musical is perfect for bunging on the telly on Christmas Day to keep the young ’uns entertained while you’re wrestling with the turkey. Or at least it would be if it wasn’t half an hour too long to keep them in their seats. Forest Whitaker heads an impressive, mostly black cast; director David Talbert made this after noticing his son wasn’t invested in films with white actors. He’s a Victorian-era toymaker who’s fallen on hard times after his best invention, a living tin doll (voiced by Ricky Martin, of all people) was stolen by…

EXTRAS RELEASED OUT NOW! 2020 | 15 | DVD/download Ever had a nightmare about being late to the airport? Then this supernatural horror’s travel admin-related stressors might strike a chord. But that’s all anyone’s getting out of this silly, vaguely racist tale of island magic and ritual sacrifice. Luke Hemsworth’s mumbly performance shows why he’s not the brother who landed the superhero franchise; Maggie Q fares better as his wife, but can’t elevate a tin-eared script. A thudding soundtrack and uninspired visuals mean there’s nothing to recommend this. + Extras None.…

EXTRAS RELEASED OUT NOW! 2014 | 15 | Blu-ray Directors Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead Cast Lou Taylor Pucci, Nadia Hilker, Francesco Carnelutti, Nick Nevern BLU-RAY DEBUT It makes sense that Guillermo del Toro admires this effort by cult indie filmmakers Benson and Moorhead, given that he’s an aficionado of human/other love stories. After hot mess Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci) relocates from the US to Italy on a whim, he meets Louise (Nadia Hilker), whose similarity to a woman on an ancient fresco is more than coincidental. Initially, Spring presents as a romance for cynics – the sort where the lovers trade acerbic barbs. Then it takes a turn for the monstrous: think Before Sunset spliced with Species. Bologna is an architecturally stunning backdrop, and Evan’s relationship with the elderly farmer…

EXTRAS RELEASED OUT NOW! 1993 | 18 | Blu-ray Director Ronny Yu Cast Brigitte Lin, Leslie Cheung, Francis Ng, Elaine Lui BLU-RAY DEBUT The Bride With White Hair is basically Romeo And Juliet with punches, as a brilliant swordsman from a po-faced martial arts sect falls in forbidden love with the adopted daughter of a bizarre cult. A flashback structure making you feel like you’re sitting beside history’s greatest storyteller, who’s delivering fairytale wuxia magic. It’s lit like a pocketful of candy, combining dark scenes with bright blues and reds, oranges and pinks. The synth score is occasionally cheesy, but that’s not a criticism: it ferments a satisfying sense of nostalgia. The performances are similarly sweet and strong. It’s shot with so many Dutch angles that it brings new meaning to…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2020 | 18 | Download An object lesson in getting maximum value from your costliest cast member, this 1990-set psycho-thriller threads maybe an afternoon’s worth of Wil “Wesley Crusher” Wheaton throughout. He’s the titular “pal” on a novelty VHS, obsessively replayed by a lonely carer as he spirals into insanity Brian Landis Folkins expertly walks the line between sympathetic and simply pathetic; VHS nostalgists will coo over the VCR interior shots and dropout lines, and it all works cleverly as a metaphor for 4chan.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2020 | 15 | VOD The problem with watching films about arseholes? It can feel like hanging out with one. This jet-black satire on influencers centres on Kurt (Stranger Things’ Joe Keery), a rideshare driver who plots to boost his follower count by offing customers, streaming it live via multiple cameras. Things pick up as the kills get more extreme, and credit is due for engaging with the zeitgeist, but the more commenters spew emojis and Pepes onto the screen, the more you feel inclined to switch off and crack open a book.…

EXTRAS RELEASED OUT NOW! 1990 | 18 | Blu-ray Director Paul Verhoeven Cast Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Michael Ironside Calling Total Recall “the thinking man’s action movie”, as co-writer Ronald Shusett does, is a bit much – you’re still likely to lose brain cells by watching it. But while expanding hugely on Philip K Dick’s original short story, it does retain its reality-questioning philosophical core. Casting Schwarzenegger as the ordinary Joe who discovers a buried identity, takes a trip to Mars, and joins a mutant uprising undermines all attempts to question whether he’s really a secret agent. And Paul Verhoeven’s direction is typically crass: a hooker can’t just unveil three breasts, they must be groped in close-up. But Arnie’s likeability, the handsome production design and the strength of…

RELEASED 25 DECEMBER 15 | 102 minutes Director Christopher Landon Cast Vince Vaughn, Kathryn Newton, Katie Finneran, Celeste O’Connor, Alan Ruck, Misha Osherovich If the people in charge of ’80s horror properties like Friday The 13th or Nightmare On Elm Street have good sense, they’ll be offering suitcases full of cash to Christopher Landon to try and tempt him into breathing new life into their moribund franchises. Hot on the heels of the success of Happy Death Day (and sequel Happy Death Day 2U), Landon smashes it out of the park once again with Freaky, another ingenious, witty horror-comedy with a very contemporary heroine. The pitch: Freaky Friday meets Friday The 13th. Attacked by the Blissfield Butcher (Vince Vaughn), a ’90s serial killer who’s come out of “retirement”, bullied teen…

RELEASED OUT NOW! (also download) 15 | 90 minutes Director Zoe Lister-Jones Cast Cailee Spaeny, Lovie Simone, Gideon Adlon, Zoey Luna You can put the black candles down now. It turns out The Craft: Legacy is a worthy successor to the cult ’90s teen witch movie – a respectful sequel that updates the mythology and builds on the first film’s themes. Initially, Zoe Lister-Jones’s film feels like more of a remake than a sequel. New girl Lily (Cailee Spaeny) hates her new school until she meets Tabby (Lovie Simone), Frankie (Gideon Adlon), and Lourdes (Zoey Luna), a trio of gothy outsiders who invite her to join their coven. So far, so samey. But then the differences become stark. This time, the witches aren’t out for revenge; they just want everyone…

RELEASED 4 DECEMBER PG | 96 minutes Directors David Morris, Jacqui Morris Cast Simon Russell Beale, Carey Mulligan, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya Given the groaning weight of adaptations of A Christmas Carol over the decades, it’s become harder and harder to find a fresh and radical way of putting Charles Dickens’s much-loved story on the screen – though that doesn’t stop people trying. Steven Knight’s version last year offered up an adult-skewed social-realist take. This latest adaptation, from siblings Jacqui and David Morris, goes the other way, taking the story back to its family viewing roots and making a selling point of its theatrical, minimalist staging. Though the cast list pops with A-list names, they’re not actually visible in the film. Instead, dancers voicelessly perform the roles, as actors speak…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 464 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Essa Hansen Publisher Orbit Books Part Iain M Banks, part ’60s cosmic Marvel, this first entry in new series The Graven is an ambitious, but not entirely successful, debut. Set in a multiverse awash with bubble universes that characters pop in and out of like they’re taking trips to the supermarket, the action begins with young Caiden’s home planet being destroyed by the evil overlords who have been keeping his people enslaved. He escapes in a curious ship of ancient origin that just happens to be lying on the planet’s surface, and is joined by a crew of misfits who just happen to have crash-landed there. Yep, there are a lot of coincidences here, as Caiden embarks on a universe-hopping journey of…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 314 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Tom Fletcher Publisher Jo Fletcher Books Milkmen used to play a vital role in communities, which went beyond just delivering a couple of pints of gold top. Ignoring the bawdy ’70s clichés, they were often a source of news, gossip and other useful items, particularly for isolated people. And so it goes with Daniel. He left his wife and young daughter behind to start a new life in Cumbria, but now he’s beset by nightmares and visions. He’s not the only one. There’s a rash of hauntings in the area and the locals are scared. Daniel’s new girlfriend, Kathryn, seems to have the answer. A practising witch, she creates magical wards to keep the phantoms away and he’s soon delivering them on…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Marvel Writer Christopher Cantwell Artist Cafu ISSUES 1-3 In an era when comics are trying to be more diverse and socially conscious, how do you go about making a protagonist like the archetypal arrogant, super-rich white guy Tony Stark more relatable? Marvel’s latest relaunch of their ongoing Iron Man title proposes that the answer to this question is “give him a bit of a mid-life crisis”, as a recently resurrected Tony abandons his post as a corporate tech whizz and moves to New York to try and get back to basics. Unfortunately, this coincides with the return of cosmic-level Marvel villain Korvac, who’s got godhood in mind and is manipulating Tony into helping his plans. TV writer Christopher Cantwell (creator of Halt And Catch Fire) throws…

RELEASED DECEMBER 60 minutes each | CD/download Publisher Big Finish AUDIO DRAMA Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor finally enters the Time Lord Victorious arc in Genetics Of The Daleks. Something is very wrong aboard Starship Future. While 10,000 souls rest in cryo-sleep, a small group are awake and experimenting with the salvaged remains of a Dalek. But is it really as dead as it seems? (Spoiler: no). The plot is traditional Who fare, but Jonathan Morris’s script builds the tension well, keeping the Doctor off-stage for a long time and exploring the motivations of the different factions on board the ship. When he does arrive, he’s straight to work saving the day, but that brings some nice subversions of expectation. For once, a Dalek doesn’t want to exterminate the Doctor, which…

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