Table of contents for Holiday 2021 Special in SFX

JUSTIFIED AND ANCIENT Llama God, email Eternals as a whole is definitely an interesting beast. Like the ultimate actions of the main characters in the film, it’s hard to tell whether this film is a success or a disaster that will have negative consequences. It’s certainly doing something new (for the MCU, that is) in terms of its storytelling and look, which is refreshing and good to see; but on the flipside, a focus on moody realism is not what you want at all when you’re showing off Celestials for the first time. But still, at least it’s not yet another retread of the same story that they’ve been telling since the first Iron Man, so that’s definitely something to applaud, and that I hope to see a lot more of.…

SCI-FACT! Buffy creator Joss Whedon explored the Buffyverse’s far future in 2001 Dark Horse Comics miniseries Fray. WITH WRITER CASEY GILLY describing it as “apocalypse lite,” Buffy The Last Vampire Slayer is set in a dystopian future that’s very familiar except for one crucial difference, as it chronicles a decidedly older Buffy’s battles against the now-dominant bloodsucking hordes. “There’s been a global disaster that has rendered the sun basically dormant,” Gilly tells Red Alert. “The world has figured out a way to survive and people are carrying on with life. But society has expanded, as vampires are now out in the open and we explore what that means in terms of laws, rights and protections that would go into place if such a thing were to happen. What would it…

SCI-FACT! Season four will reveal what the Mosasaurus was doing before it was out there with the surfers in Fallen Kingdom. IF YOU THOUGHT THE KIDS were finally home free in the third season finale of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, think again. Darius (Paul-Mikél Williams) and his teen crew of five survivors from the Jurassic World park camp hit the high seas trying for Costa Rica, but executive producer/showrunner Scott Kreamer tells Red Alert that they find another island instead. “These kids obviously can’t catch a break,” Kreamer laughs. “We wanted to mix things up and since we still have some time in the timeline of the franchise, we wanted to do something new. This is a new island to the franchise and with that comes new questions and new…

ZACK ESTRIN IS blaming his children. The producer and writer was looking forward to a year off when the opportunity to revisit a beloved sci-fi franchise presented itself via Legendary and Netflix. “I was like, ‘I don’t know, that cheesy 1965 series, I’m just not sure,’” he laughs. A conversation around the dinner table got Estrin thinking. “My kids said, ‘Dad, what would happen if the four of us were lost in space?’ and I saw them get excited talking about what it would be like and would we survive.” He grins. “I definitely wouldn’t, apparently, but they said ‘We’ve never really been able to watch anything that you’ve written and this would be that chance.’ So that became what drew me to it. It’s actually my kids’ fault I…

OVER HER 40-YEAR CAREER, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark has certainly had her knockers. Never one to let things get in the way, her outstanding contributions to horror and pop culture are celebrated in the new autobiography, Yours Cruelly, Elvira by mysterious alter-ego Cassandra Peterson. Detailing her rise from go-go dancer to Vegas showgirl, actor and then the birth of the Elvira character in 1981 – with a jaw-dropping yet hilarious chapter involving a pigeon thrown in for good measure – it’s a memoir that leaves you wanting more. Fortunately, Peterson shows no signs of stopping. She could never have guessed that an audition she originally declined would lead to her becoming an iconic brand known all over the world. While TV producers had originally intended to work with Vampira…

SHOWRUNNER NAREN Shankar describes The Expanse’s sixth – and final – outing as a “powder keg”. And for good reason: the stakes have never been higher in the show. The fifth season of the series (based on the books by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) culminated with the crew of the Rocinante – Holden (Steven Strait), Amos (Wes Chatham) and Naomi (Dominique Tipper) – back together, but that reunion could be bittersweet. That’s because Earth and Mars are at each other’s throats; this year’s premiere will open with text on the screen à la Star Wars, detailing the plight of the solar system. In addition, political extremist Marco Inaros (Keon Alexander) remains on the loose. Along with the Outer Planets Alliance’s Free Navy, he’s continued to shower the Earth with…

Sadly, Alice-free reboot RESIDENT EVIL: WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY (3 December) wasn’t screened before our print deadline. Also heading our way soonish: SPIDERMAN: NO WAY HOME (17 December), a sequel so exciting that we’re not allowed to cover it. Red pill or blue pill? We’ll stick with Asda own-brand ibuprofen thanks, but Neo may choose differently in THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS (22 December). Matthew Vaughan’s much-delayed period prequel THE KING’S MAN debuts the same day. Got a pile of back issues? Pull out SFX 331 to find our feature!…

UK Starzplay, streaming now US HBO Max, streaming now ▶ Showrunner Jeremy Carver ▶ Cast Diane Guerrero, April Bowlby, Michelle Gomez, Joivan Wade After belatedly finishing off season two’s Candlemaker arc with an episode that’d have been a dull season finale and doesn’t fare much better as a opener (it’s like the writers have lost interest in the meantime), Doom Patrol offers up its oddest season yet. Odd because it isn’t quite so odd. There are still moments of bonkers excess (like a gross zombie episode) but rarely has the show been so reflective. It’s genuinely charming at times – though happy to chuck in a few f-bombs when things threaten to get too touchy-feely. The theme of the season is our bickering band of misfits facing up to their…

EXTRAS ▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1960 | 15 | Blu-ray ▶ Director Giorgio Ferroni ▶ Cast Pierre Brice, Scilla Gabel, Wolfgang Preiss, Dany Carrel BLU-RAY DEBUT Outside of the Emu-verse the strangest work of fiction set in a windmill, this unjustly overlooked horror is up with there with the very best work by Italian director Giorgio Ferroni’s compatriots. The titular mill contains a century-old carousel featuring statues of historical women: Joan of Arc, Cleopatra, Salome and so on. When student Hans (Pierre Brice) stays for study purposes, he falls for the owner’s mysteriously cloistered daughter Elfi(Scilla Gabel), and uncovers a dark secret. If you’ve seen A Bucket Of Blood you can probably guess it. All cobwebs, giant cogs and statuary clutter, it’s a film whose off-kilter compositions echo German Expressionism,…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2021 | NR | SVOD ▶ Directors Various ▶ Cast Rachel True, Tony Todd, Peter Stormare, Lenora Crichlow SHUDDER While it’s a big change in form, its logical that the follow-up to the fascinating 2019 Black horror documentary Horror Noire would involve actually making some Black horror. This anthology film of the same name comprises six shorts with Black writers, directors and stars. Most of the budget seems to have been spent on a number of familiar faces, including Lenora Crichlow, Rachel True and Tony Todd. But aside from the good-looking “The Lake”, the budget constraints are obvious and occasionally hilarious. This is at its worst when it comes to the lack of locations in “Fugue State”; even with the slim runtime, it is maddeningly inert.…

▶ RELEASED 6 DECEMBER 2021 | 15 | Download/VOD Despite the schlocky B-movie title, this bleak Canadian drama keeps its sci-fi minimal, serious and plausible. It’s 2043 and North America is ruled by a totalitarian regime that forcibly removes kids from their parents for statutory brainwashing. From the dystopian grime and decay, to its against-the-odds rescue mission, Night Raiders plays out like a low-key, TV movie version of Children Of Men – wrapped up in powerful themes about First Nations people fighting back against oppressors.…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2020 | PG | Download/VOD Here’s an Italian toon hampered by an English dub so lifeless you can almost hear the voice artists snoring. The tale of some rubbish – a cardboard box and a plastic bottle – on an adventure, it’s hampered by ugly, illogical character designs (why is a chest of drawers the same size as a box of batteries?) and a lack of female characters (one nothing more than a sexy perfume bottle). As the litter squabbles on your screen, you may join the voice artists in the land of Nod.…

EXTRAS ▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1989 | 18 | Blu-ray ▶ Director Richard Friedman ▶ Cast Derek Rydall, Kari Whitman, Morgan Fairchild, Rob Estes BLU-RAY DEBUT This dopey late–’80s slasher has one idea, and only one idea: it’s set in a mall. That setting provides a non-stop supply of potential victims, and plenty of nooks for its killer to hide in, plus a little frisson of incongruity as brutal murders take place in a brightly lit and squeaky-clean shopping centre. It’s a good idea, but the actual storytelling is so slapdash it’s a chore to sit through. Director Richard Friedman wasn’t a horror fan, and it shows. He seems to assume his audience will accept any old nonsense as long as some teenagers get hacked up. Despite the title, the…

EXTRAS ▶ RELEASED 6 DECEMBER 2020 | 18 | Blu-ray ▶ Director Maxi Contenti ▶ Cast Ricardo Islas, Luciana Grasso, Franco Duran This Uruguayan slasher/giallo wears its influences on its sleeve. Director Maxi Contenti is clearly a fan of Demons, Lamberto Bava’s 1985 movie about a demonic outbreak in a cinema. And if he hasn’t seen Bigas Lunas’s similarly-themed Anguish, well, he’d dig that too. A hooded psycho locks in the tiny audience for a horror film, then offs them one by one, popping their eyeballs in a pickle jar. The killings are impressively nasty. And while it’s not exactly Cinema Paradiso, cinephiles will get warm fuzzies from the sight of a ’90s-era projection room. But there’s nothing original here. Interestingly, the killer is played by Ricardo Islas, a pioneer…

Fans of Nic Cage’s anything-goes late-career phase should enjoy screw-loose postapocalyptic Western PRISONERS OF THE GHOSTLAND (Blu-ray/DVD, out now), in which he’s kitted out in a leather suit with bollock-adjacent explosives and sent after a runaway. A convict bus full of radiation-saturated ghost-zombies also features. We said: “Constantly visually busy, and crammed with quirky details… Sadly, the story is thin and barely comprehensible.” The film is also now available on streaming service Shudder. GI Joe prequel SNAKE EYES (4K/Blu-ray/DVD, out now) attempts to fill in the backstory of the iconic ninja. This involves dead dad issues and clan loyalty. We said: “Warrior’s Andrew Koji and The Raid’s Iko Uwais waste their talents on action scenes that appear to be shot from a Mini Metro with no suspension on a bumpy…

▶ RELEASED 9 DECEMBER 384 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author Freya Marske ▶ Publisher Tor Historical romances are eternally popular, and you only have to look at a certain Scottish series to see how combining them with fantasy can make them more successful still. This debut takes a slightly different tack though, creating an urban fantasy in Edwardian England that’s packed with grand manor houses and stoical servants, but also powerful magic and a sweet – yet very sensual – gay romance. Sir Robin Blyth, a hardworking civil servant, has been mistakenly moved into a liaison job that reveals to him a layer of magical society within the country, with their own rules and governance. Yes, it’s very Ministry of Magic, but that’s not really an issue – the worldbuilding…

▶ RELEASED DECEMBER 336 pages | Hardback ▶ Author David J Howe ▶ Publisher Telos Books This welcome volume covers one of Doctor Who’s most intriguing eras. The New Adventures novels picked up where the classic TV series left off, and provided early credits for a host of writing talent, including the likes of Paul Cornell, Ben Aaronovitch and Mark Gatiss. David Howe’s book tells the story of the range in a brisk, no frills manner. Series editor Peter Darvill-Evans’s decision to champion new writers paid off, but that means the story of how the NAs came together (an early skirmish with the tabloid press and one case of writer’s block aside) isn’t an especially dramatic one. There also tends to be an overabundance of biographical boxouts. Where The Who…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! (collection 3 December) ▶ Publisher Image Comics ▶ Writers Emilia Clarke, Marguerite Bennett ▶ Artist Leila Leiz ISSUES 1-3 The debut comic from Game Of Thrones actor Emilia Clarke takes cues from complicated women like Jessica Jones, but isn’t half as abrasive or compelling. The first issue introduces us to Maya, a quirky single mum with superpowers and a painfully obvious backstory (her scientist father created an experimental medication that altered her DNA). The interesting snag is that Maya cycles through various special abilities whenever she’s on her period. This leads to funny shenanigans, but robs Maya of any signature superpower. After an exposition-heavy first act, the second issue is stronger, with a major storyline about Maya going after a secret sect of human traffickers. But…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! (vinyl 3 December) ▶ Running time 75 minutes ▶ Format Vinyl/CD/download ▶ Label Silva Screen SOUNDTRACK Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons was a transitional series for Gerry Anderson: all the toy box joy of Thunderbirds and Stingray (was there ever a more beautiful craft than the Angel Interceptor?) but with a paranoid, Cold War edge that foreshadowed UFO. Barry Gray’s music reflects this progression. The familiar Tracy Island martial drumbeat accompanies the colour-coded heroics of Spectrum, Earth’s first line of defence, but elsewhere the shifting, uneasy notes of the Mysterons theme capture a sense of infiltration, electronic squirls hinting at unknowable alien tech. This new soundtrack supercedes the 2003 release, with a revised and expanded track list. Though some of the cuts verge on repetitive – that crisp…

EVER BEEN INVITED round to see a friend’s new-born and, confronted by a scowling potato, struggled to coo, “Why, they’re beautiful!” Such social anxiety is nothing compared to the chap in Icelandic film Lamb who visits his brother and sister-in-law, and finds them mooning over a daughter with a human body, but the head of a sheep. Awkward. Ada is the name of this surreal biological cut-and-shut, inexplicably birthed by a ewe and then lovingly reared as if it were their own offspring by farming couple Maria (Noomi Rapace) and Ingvar (Hilmir Snær Guðnason). Philosophically speaking, however, her parents are first-time director Valdimar Jóhannsson and his co-writer: poet, novelist and erstwhile Björk collaborator Sjón. “I started making a reference book with paintings, drawings and photos, trying to come up with…

THE EARTH IS UNDER attack. Alien parasites – transmitted by insects – are possessing an unwitting populace at an alarming rate. Decorated US marine Malik Khan (Riz Ahmed) is one of the chosen few who know about the invasion, and he may just be humanity’s last hope. His immediate priority, however, is rescuing his two young sons from his ex-wife and new partner, who he believes is probably infected. That’s the premise behind Encounter, a movie that mixes enemy-within paranoia with family bonding on a road trip across the vast landscapes of the western United States. “The story already had a nod to Invasion Of The Body Snatchers [by the time I was attached],” explains Michael Pearce, who made his name with his 2017 debut Beast. “That’s both in terms…

Season three feels like there’s more at stake for Will… Something that me and the writers and producers, specifically Zack Estrin and the two creators Burk [Sharpless] and Matt [Sazama], talked about and made sure from the beginning of season one was ageing Will Robinson as I grew up in real life. In season three, Will makes some mistakes. He catches himself lying, thinking that he’s doing the right thing. When we were going into it, we really wanted to make sure that it was as authentic as possible and that Will Robinson wasn’t still trying to be a little kid, that he was as much of a teenager as any normal teenager out there. It’s just that the stakes are much higher. What new sci-fi has Lost In Space…

DENIS VILLENEUVE’S DUNE HAS ALREADY TOPPED $300 million at the box office, with a sequel and prequel TV series now green-lit. But the journey to Villeneuve’s vision is just as fascinating as Paul Atreides’s path to self-discovery. In the lavish, 248-page, hardback coffee table book The Art And Soul Of Dune – written by Tanya Lapointe, an executive producer on the film – almost no grain of sand is left unturned in documenting how Frank Herbert’s iconic story was brought to life. It’s a book so epic that it even has its own soundtrack by Hans Zimmer! (Visit bit.ly/dunemusic to listen to that for free.) SFX is proud to present, in association with Titan Books, a small fraction of the visual treats that adorn the pages within… The Art And…

ALL OF MARK GATISS’S Christmases have come at once. “It’s a three-pronged attack from me this year,” he beams, as he prepares to unleash a spooky trinity of new projects. “I feel like Santa must do when he’s making his toys in the middle of July. It’s been Christmas for me all year round!” And a deeply Gatiss brand of Christmas too. The Christmas of pale midwinter light and dark, fast-encroaching evenings. An ideal season for fireside tales of hauntings. Pull up a chair, ignore the bony, grave-cold hand rummaging in the Quality Street… It’s a bright, apparition-free morning as SFX catches up with Gatiss over Zoom – so bright that he needs to shift position, adjusting the angle on his iPhone. “I can’t sleep in this flat,” he frets.…

▶ RELEASED 3 DECEMBER 15 | 92 minutes ▶ Director Camille Griffin ▶ Cast Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Sopé Dìrísù, Annabelle Wallis Keira Knightley is already a Christmas icon, appearing on millions of people’s screens every holiday season to receive a wordless declaration of love from Andrew Lincoln. This Christmas she’s offering up much bleaker fare with this pitch-black Christmas dramedy. Nell (Keira Knightley), Simon (Matthew Goode) and their son Art (Roman Griffin Davis) have invited their nearest and dearest around for one last Christmas dinner in their picturesque country pile before a poisonous cloud is due to descend on the UK and wipe out every living person. Suicide pills are prepared and, to make matters worse, Michael Bublé’s Christmas album is playing. Camille Griffin’s directorial debut has plenty of…

UK/US Apple TV+, streaming now ▶ Showrunner David S Goyer ▶ Cast Lou Llobell, Leah Harvey, Jared Harris, Lee Pace, Laura Birn, Terrence Mann EPISODES 1.01-1.10 Many said Isaac Asimov’s Foundation stories are unfilmable. Some, no doubt, will point at this series as proof of that. While not entirely successful, this is a valiant attempt to refashion the tales not just for the screen but also modern sensibilities. For a start, Asimov’s Foundation had not one speaking female character, so some gender reassignment at the very least was always going to be necessary. Another problem is that Foundation was originally written as a series of short stories, with concepts taking precedence over a merry-go-round of characters, taking place over vast swathes of time. They tell how the fall of a…

UK/US Netflix, streaming now ▶ Showrunner Sang-ho Yeon ▶ Cast Yoo Ah-in, Ik-joon Yang, Kim Hyun-joo, Shin-rok Kim EPISODES 1.01-1.06 You’ve never seen angels like these before. In this mini-series by Train To Busan director Sang-ho Yeon, you can forget visions with wings and halos: these angels are beefy Hulk-alikes trailing fire and brimstone, prone to beating the living daylights out of their victims before dragging them to hell. When footage of one such dragging on a busy Seoul street is posted online, people freak out; as the angelic attacks ramp up, so does the panic level. From a post-Covid perspective, the initial response to the horror seems almost a little muted. But then a messiah figure emerges: Jeong Jin-soo (Yoo Ah-in), a quiet young man with a pop star’s…

EXTRAS ▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1989 | 15 | Blu-ray ▶ Director Anthony Hickox ▶ Cast David Carradine, Jim Metzler Bruce Campbell, Morgan Brittany BLU-RAY DEBUT You’d think the last place vampires would move is the Utah desert, but that’s the premise of this horror-comedy, set in a town full of reformed vamps, all caked in factor 100. Called in to boost blood substitute production, family man David (Jim Metzler) arrives as a conflict is brewing between the followers of patriarch Count Mardulak (David Carradine) and those eager to return to the old ways. Wackadoodle comedy is the focus, and despite a strong cast (including Bruce Campbell, charmingly klutzy as Van Helsing’s grandson), the results are hit and miss. The Western dimension is a triumph, though: there are some stunning…

EXTRAS ▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1986 | 15 | Blu-ray ▶ Director Mike Marvin ▶ Cast Charlie Sheen, Sherilyn Fenn, Nick Cassavetes, Randy Quaid BLU-RAY DEBUT This goofy effort is dedicated to camera operator Bruce Ingram, killed when a camera car flipped on a mountain road. Sadly, this tragic loss didn’t come in the service of a cinematic classic. So ’80s you should probably wear deely-boppers while you watch, it sees new kid in town Jake (Charlie Sheen) courting Keri (Sherilyn Fenn), squeeze of hoodlum Packard. At the same time, an otherworldly car driven by a mystery helmeted figure materialises, and starts taking out Packard’s gang… The car’s the star – a futuristically sleek Turbo Interceptor – though the supporting cast hold their own, especially David Sherrill as Skank, a…

EXTRAS ▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2021 | 12 | Blu-ray (4K/standard)/DVD/download ▶ Director Lisa Joy ▶ Cast Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Ferguson, Thandiwe Newton, Cliff Curtis The fact that this nearfuture noir – the work of Westworld co-showrunner Lisa Joy – was a box office bomb says more about the quality of audiences. Hugh Jackman is Nick Bannister, a man who clearly doesn’t own an iron. His business is PI-adjacent: if you, say, lose your house keys, he can attach you to a device to sift through your memories. Ghosted by a client turned lover, glamorous nightclub singer Mae (Rebecca Ferguson), he later stumbles upon her in a criminal’s past… Despite impressive world-building – the setting is a flooded future Miami – it’s a story which, in its essentials, could have…

Getting this month’s Ultra HD highlights off to a roaring start: MAD MAX ANTHOLOGY (out now), which includes all four films, plus Fury Road: Black And Chrome (a black and white version) and a bonus DVD of feature-length 2015 doc The Madness Of Max. We said, variously: “A punky, lo-fi explosion of cinematic energy”; “A master-class in action filmmaking”; “Top gear, in the sense of an amphetamine rush liable to make you chew half your face off.” To celebrate its 20th anniversary, there’s a Collector’s Edition of David Lynch’s surrealist mystery MULHOLLAND DRIVE (6 December). Physical goodies: two posters (original poster/new art), five art cards and a booklet. Our chums at Total Film said: “The director at his purest and most fearless, trawling through one woman’s delusion towards a shocking…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2021 | TBC | Download Grieving for his lost daughter, a professor of cognitive science (Tom England) finds a way to contact the dead: a machine that summons their voices in a technological séance. It’s a familiar subject – no surprise, given it’s an eternal human yearning – but this Brit indie defies a clearly tiny budget with some ingenious twists on the standard tropes. Sincerely played, it has an effective, low-key creepiness and a knife-twist of an ending that reframes everything that’s gone before.…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2021 | PG | VOD ▶ Director Gil Kenan ▶ Cast Henry Lawfull, Michiel Huisman, Jim Broadbent, Maggie Smith SKY CINEMA Children questing into snowbound landscapes have been a tradition since Hans Christian Andersen’s story “The Snow Queen”. This live-action film is a spirited but disappointing return to the frozen template, with a soulful-eyed boy called Nikolas (Henry Lawfull) in a fairy-tale Finland on a quest to find his dad (Michiel Huisman). A mostly cosy family fantasy, it hides sadness at its heart. One central tragic event is purposefully not sugarcoated or taken back, though it doesn’t feel nearly as sad as many of the heartbreaks in Pixar or Disney flicks. The underlying seriousness is reflected in a framing story about three modern-day kids who’ve lost…

EXTRAS ▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1963 | 15 | Blu-ray ▶ Director Francis Ford Coppola ▶ Cast William Campbell, Luana Anders, Bart Patton, Mary Mitchell BLU-RAY DEBUT The shadow of Norman Bates hovers over Dementia 13, Francis Ford Coppola’s first mainstream credit as director, now restored to his original cut. Commissioned by schlock king Roger Corman as a cheap Psycho rip-off, it’s a tale of family secrets, doomed blondes and axe murder, set in a haunted Irish castle whose forbidding stone walls provide the illusion of production value. The plot’s a muddle but Coppola acquits himself well, capturing both the visceral ferocity of the murders and the queasy dread of the supernatural elements. Shot in stark black and white, favouring the immediacy of close-ups, it’s a glimpse of a young,…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 368 pages | Paperback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author Ken MacLeod ▶ Publisher Orbit Is it an adequate description to call Ken MacLeod a science fiction writer? Sure, Beyond The Hallowed Sky has been trailed as the first volume in “a new space opera trilogy” and he’s not averse (to quote Margaret Atwood’s rather sniffy assessment of SF) to “rockets, chemicals and talking squids in outer space”. Yet the description seems inadequate. Which isn’t to say he’s anything as straightforward as a slipstream novelist. Rather, MacLeod’s fiction, as it has developed over recent years, has become distinctive enough to be almost worthy of its own genre, which we might call mordant, technologically-enhanced magical realism firmly rooted in Scotland. Even when his fiction doesn’t specifically feature a dreich day in…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 528 | Paperback/ebook ▶ Author Charlie Jane Anders ▶ Publisher Titan Books Charlie Jane Anders burns through ideas at a rate that almost makes you panic. You want to warn her to slow down in case she runs out. In truth this seems unlikely ever to become a problem, since the 19 stories collected in Even Greater Mistakes span a period of about 15 years, and her extraordinary inventiveness is still going strong. Take the dystopian novella “Rock Manning Goes For Broke”, for example, which is mostly a tale of Son Of Rambow-style amateur filmmakers that weirdly anticipates the rise of American far-right group the Proud Boys. At one point Rock Manning is held up at gunpoint while working at a convenience store where the safe…

MOONBASE ALPHA TECHNICAL OPERATIONS MANUAL ▶ RELEASED DECEMBER 272 pages | Hardback ▶ Authors Chris Thompson, Andrew Clements ▶ Publisher Anderson Entertainment (shop.gerryanderson.com) • An in-universe guide to life on Space: 1999’s Moonbase Alpha (updated after the Moon spins off into space). • Takes inspiration from 1977’s Technical Notebook, and Star Trek Fact Files. • Broken down into sections like layout, the Eagle Transporter, other craft and uniforms/tech. • Handsomely illustrated with newly created 3D renders, black and white blueprints and grabs. • European Space Agency boffin Dr David Parker helped with the science. • Our fave bits: Moonbase interiors (especially the toilet) and crew patches. • A real thing of beauty with enough heft to make the asking price (£34.99) seem reasonable.…

▶ RELEASED 9 DECEMBER 416 pages | Hardback/ebook ▶ Author Brendan P Bellecourt ▶ Publisher Head Of Zeus Are you familiar with Decopunk? It’s like steampunk but set in the 1920s. Think The Great Gatsby meets Metropolis. Or the original BioShock, depending on brow height. This is the setting for Absynthe, an alternate roaring ’20s of flappers and exoskeleton battle suits, speakeasies and “mechanikal” men. It is not, however, a mere Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow or The Rocketeerstyle homage to sci-fi of the era. Instead, Absynthe injects a mind-warping Matrix vibe, though with a pre-digital plot device that fits more happily into the aesthetic. There’s a clue in the title, though that’s only half the story. Brendan P Bellecourt (a pseudonym of epic fantasy author Bradley P…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 400 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Authors Amanda Foody, Christine Lynn Herman ▶ Publisher Gollancz Everyone loves a bad boy, so how about a whole bunch of bad boys and girls? Whatever sort of delinquent you prefer, All Of Us Villains has an antihero for you, as the story’s set in a world where powerful high magick (sic) has faded, except for in one town, where every generation seven families each nominate a young champion to scrap it out over several months in the wild. The survivor (and their family) takes control of the high magick for the next couple of decades. The story’s told from the perspective of several of the current champions: a pretty redhead whose skeevy family collect common magick from funerals, rendering them outcasts to…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! ▶ Publisher AWA Studios/Upshot ▶ Writer Rob Williams ▶ Artist Will Conrad ISSUES 1-3 With its title’s multiple references to either the release of an ancient vampire-esque creature, the imprisoned Second World War soldiers’ attempts to escape from their mountaintop prison camp, or even main character Narcona’s repressed sexuality, this enthralling horror thriller works on many levels. A Comanche code-talker, Narcona makes for a refreshingly different central protagonist, as his ability with languages not only allows him to communicate with the nefarious creature – which Nazi Kommandant Ludin has imprisoned in a supernaturally charged pit – but also alienates him from his fellow POWs, who suspect him of being in league with the Germans. Set in Czechoslovakia during the final months of the war, it gradually…

▶ RELEASED 9 DECEMBER ▶ Publisher Anderson Entertainment ▶ Writers Dennis Hooper, Alan Fennell ▶ Artists Various COLLECTION As Gerry Anderson’s first live action show and the sole original Anderson strip in TV Century 21’s 1971 successor Countdown, UFO is an intriguing choice to launch this new reprint line. Probably written by editor Dennis Hooper and Alan Fennell, the pulpy stories neatly reflect the creepy, Cold War atmosphere of the TV series, although it’s the excellent art by the likes of Brian Lewis and Martin Asbury – with John M Burns to come in volume two – which is the real star. After Jon Davis’s black and white opener – faithfully reproduced right down to the puzzles that are annoyingly incorporated into some pages – UFO was mostly granted either…

SCI-FACT! Studio Ghibli’s My Neighbor Totoro was originally distributed in the USA by infamous schlock-horror company Troma. EVEN THOUGH growly Welsh-born actor Christian Bale voiced the central wizard in the English dub of Studio Ghibli’s Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), few in the audience would have picked up on the fact that Howl is, in fact, Welsh. At least, he was in the original Diana Wynne Jones book, which was partially set in Wales. It’s a wonderfully oddball aspect of the story that scriptwriter Robert Valentine was more than happy to reinstate for a new hour-long Radio 4 adaptation of Howl’s Moving Castle coming this Christmas, with Game Of Thrones’ (also very Welsh) Iwan Rheon starring as Howl. “Once I was given the job,” says Valentine, “the first thing I did…

THERE’S NO ESCAPING YOUR destiny. No one knows that better than Geralt of Rivia, as portrayed by Henry Cavill. The titular warrior from the Netflix show The Witcher spent most of season one on the road and monster-hunting, despite being told that his calling involved Princess Ciri (Freya Allan). Multiple adventures and extraordinary circumstances kept the two apart until the season finale, “Much More”. That episode also saw Geralt’s love interest Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) make a last stand against the invading Nilfgaardian army, led by fellow sorceress Fringilla (Mimi Ndiweni). Unbeknown to Geralt, Yennefer lived to fight another day. Now, he must embrace his paternal instincts to keep Ciri safe from the external forces pursuing her. “For me, the chess pieces are on the board,” showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich tells…

SOME NEW TV shows land in the schedules without fanfare, while others announce their existence via a news story in the trade press. Some get the song and dance of a swanky, Apple-style keynote presentation, but there’s arguably never been a series that’s been unveiled in such an eye-catching, zeitgeistgrabbing manner as The Book Of Boba Fett. If you thought Marvel were the masters at giving you reasons to hang around for the closing credits, their Disney bedfellows at Lucasfilm raised the stakes with The Mandalorian’s season two finale. Fresh from helping Din Djarin rescue Grogu (the artist formerly known as Baby Yoda) from the clutches of Moff Gideon’s Imperial remnant, the infamous Boba Fett and his bounty hunting sidekick Fennec Shand made an unexpected return to Tatooine during the…

THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE on Foundation was the number of sets that had to be designed in a very short time. I think I had about 170 sets to design in roughly three months. Because this show is not like any other TV show I’ve ever done. Basically the entire show had to be designed before we went to camera. Everything has to be figured out beforehand, from how the directors are going to block their actors through the sets to how they’re going to be lit; every little detail would have to be figured out. It was a new adventure for me, for sure. It was daunting. It was a bit frightening. When I first pitched for the show, I only had a week. I dove online and started searching…

THE STALLS OF BARCHESTER (1971) I’m always quoting “I must be firm!” – it’s a middle-aged man’s dilemma! And also Robert Hardy says, “I increasingly shrink from the dark evenings,” and I know that feeling so well. Not because I’m being haunted but just because I can’t bear it these days, the dark nights. It’s a really beautiful and clever adaptation. THE TREASURE OF ABBOT THOMAS (1974) This is the one I vividly remember watching at the time. Michael Bryant is an arch rationalist, and then he encounters something which just intrigues him. When he confronts the guardian he desperately tries to cling on to his sanity. He says, “It is a thing of darkness, I think… and slime.” He’s like a naturalist trying to identify something but his reason…

▶ RELEASED 17 DECEMBER TBC | 124 minutes ▶ Director Edson Oda ▶ Cast Winston Duke, Benedict Wong, Zazie Beetz, Bill Skarsgård Films that tackle spirituality often tend to look at the end of life. But with Pixar’s Soul and now Nine Days, we have two within the space of 12 months partly about the unknown time before it starts. Edson Oda’s drama is not one to plunk the kids down in front of, though… unless they’re ready to confront big ideas about death and connectivity without the addition of a wisecracking Tina Fey. Instead, we have Winston Duke’s Will, a man at a mysterious remote outpost who auditions souls looking to be born. They show up, he sets them tasks, picks one and consigns the rest to oblivion. Oda’s…

▶ RELEASED 10 DECEMBER U | 96 minutes At no point during this update of Norman Bridwell’s beloved book series does anybody explain just why Clifford is a) big or b) red. But kids won’t care, and they’ll love this silly romp in which the giant puppy bounces around Manhattan making friends, eluding cops and peeing mightily on trees. Sure, it’s twee and there are too many fart/slobber gags, but the human cast (including John Cleese) are just perky enough to flog this dog.…

UK BBC Two, TBC ▶ Writer/director Mark Gatiss ▶ Cast Rory Kinnear, Robert Bathurst, Frances Barber, John Hopkins The latest Ghost Story For Christmas might be the best entry since the ’70s chiller strand was first revived in 2005. It’s certainly a textbook example of how an adaptation can be modernising yet faithful to the spirit of the original. Mark Gatiss returns to the work of Cambridge don MR James for this entry, bringing to the screen an 11-page story published in 1904, whose premise makes it a perfect fit for the visual medium. As museum curator Williams (Rory Kinnear) considers purchasing the titular engraving of a manor house, he discovers that it changes each time it’s observed, with a grotesque figure gradually creeping in… While keeping it a period piece…

UK/US Shudder, streaming now ▶ Showrunners Gabrielle Binkley, Anthony Uro ▶ Interviewees Dorina Arellano, Haleigh Foutch, April Wolfe, Henry Zebrowski EPISODES 1.01-1.06 Horror cinema has been inspired by books, plays, even videogames. Shudder’s documentary series exploring franchise villains feels like something new: an adaptation of tweeters. Simple soundbites from critics, presenters and podcasters form the spine of the show. Occasionally interesting, mostly surface level, it presents opinion not just as fact, but as profound revelation – even stuff you’d scroll past for being inane (apparently Freddy vs Jason was “The Avengers before The Avengers”). The tone’s established early on, with social media personalities exploring each Halloween movie, making statements like “Michael Myers has an expressionless face – that’s scary.” You don’t say Candyman fares better, but the episode is tarnished…

EXTRAS ▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2020 | 12 | Blu-ray/DVD ▶ Director Junta Yamaguchi ▶ Cast Aki Asakura, Gota Ishida, Kazunori Tosa Fans of Japanese zombie horror One Cut Of The Dead are the prime market for this time loop flick, which shares its nationality, (faux) one-cut format and minuscule budget. A cafe owner discovers he can communicate with himself two minutes in the future, using the Mac in his flat and a screen downstairs. Placing the two opposite one another results in a Droste effect that allows him to see further into the future. An intriguing premise, but the uses it’s put to are baffling. Why ask your future self where to find money dropped in the street – how would they know? There’s also much running up and…

▶ RELEASED 10 DECEMBER (also selected cinemas from 3 December) 2021 | TBC | SVOD ▶ Director Michael Pearce ▶ Cast Riz Ahmed, Octavia Spencer, Lucian-River Chauhan, Aditya Geddada PRIME The alien invasion genre gives you two options: the death-ray of subjugation or the insidious flesh-crawl of infiltration, found in such paranoid fare as The Invaders and Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. Encounter burrows firmly beneath the skin. Riz Ahmed is Malik Khan, a disgraced marine convinced that the world is crawling with alien parasites, micro-organisms that commandeer humans as their hosts. Breaking parole, he abducts his own sons, heading for a secret destination that may be as imaginary as his own convictions. There’s a clammy, febrile atmosphere throughout. We glimpse bugs trapped in the nauseous glare of a strip…

EXTRAS ▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2001 | 15 | Blu-ray ▶ Director James Wong ▶ Cast Jet Li, Carla Gugino, Delroy Lindo, Jason Statham BLU-RAY DEBUT The success of The Matrix spawned several kung fu-infused sci-fi actioners, but when not even the Wachowskis’ own sequels could recapture the magic, what chance did everyone else have? While this Jet Li vehicle – written by X-Files and Final Destination vets Glen Morgan and James Wong – has a decent stab at replicating the slo-mo stunts, balletic wirework and intricately choreographed fights, in every other regard it’s a poor imitation. The story is essentially Highlander across the multiverse, as Li’s fugitive seeks ultimate power by killing every other version of himself. But with an excess of plot contrivances, clunky ’90s production values, and a…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2021 | 12 | SVOD ▶ Director Miguel Sapochnik ▶ Cast Tom Hanks, Caleb Landry Jones, Samira Wiley, Skeet Ulrich APPLE TV+ It’s no surprise that Tom Hanks would be the last embodiment of decency in a post-apocalyptic world. Some things you can just rely on, right? Hollywood’s go-to Everyman plays Finch Weinberg, a grizzled scavenger in a dust-blown America ravaged by solar flares. In spite of the calamity he remains more Mr Rogers than Mad Max – not even a planet-wide electromagnetic pulse can dim this blue-eyed beacon of kindness. With fellow humans relegated to brief flashbacks, it’s Hanks’s big-hearted brand that anchors proceedings. His co-stars are a beloved dog, Goodyear, and Jeff, a spindly lash-up of a robot voiced by Caleb Landry Jones. Cybernetic…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2020 | TBC | SVOD ARROW A woman’s recurring nightmares lead her to a hotel she recognises, and a paralysing shock. Investigating, her daughter finds herself able to view suicides from the past. This German mystery has a strong hook, decent dreamtrickery jolts, and some interesting characters – Martina Schöne-Radunski’s hotel employee pulls focus – but surely plays better in its homeland, where its theme of the sins of the past resonating into the present has more resonance. Not Folk Horror, but Volk Horror.…

EXTRAS ▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2021 | 15 | Blu-ray (4K/standard)/DVD/download ▶ Director Nia DaCosta ▶ Cast Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris, Colman Domingo, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett The enduring urban legend of the Candyman – a vengeful spirit summoned by chanting his name into a mirror – becomes solid flesh in Nia DaCosta’s sequel to the 1992 film of the same name. (And yes – it’s definitely a sequel, not a reboot.) The boogeyman has many faces, but all of them are real people, who really lived, really suffered, and really died at the hands of a racist society. It’s a bold take, and DaCosta has an eye for unsettling visuals, but the lack of a defined protagonist lets it down. The script, co-written by DaCosta, Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld,…

EXTRAS ▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2021 | 18 | Blu-ray (4K/standard)/DVD/download/VOD ▶ Director Rodo Sayagues ▶ Cast Stephen Lang, Madelyn Grace, Brendan Sexton III, Fiona O’Shaughnessy The first Don’t Breathe was an exhilarating thriller that played with its audience’s sympathies, presenting us with a cast of petty criminals preying on a disabled old man and then turning him into a monster. This sequel tries a similar trick, but with none of the skill. It’s set eight years later. Stephen Lang returns as the Blind Man (now called Norman), here apparently an overprotective father trying to teach his young daughter (Madelyn Grace) the survival skills she’ll need to make her way in a cruel world. But then some creeps show up and abduct her… and with a better script, that’s where…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 304 pages | Paperback/ebook ▶ Author Sean Egan ▶ Publisher BearManor Media “Warriors, come out to play-ay-ayyy…” If you’re a fan of apocalyptic near-future gang movie The Warriors, you’ve probably shouted that iconic line into abandoned alleyways, dilapidated parks and in the general direction of scuzzy cinema screens. Now, you have a new location to bellow it: fancy book stores. Because author Sean Egan isn’t here to play. Can You Dig It: The Phenomenon Of The Warriors is as intense as a baseball bat to the gut, with Egan’s focused approach the book’s main draw. Covering the creation of this hugely influential cult movie from its earliest inspiration (the original novel), through production, to raucous retrospective screenings, cool conventions and a detailed explanation of why we’ve…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 496 pages | Paperback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author Patricia A Jackson ▶ Publisher Angry Robot Ticking all the standard urban fantasy boxes – murder, detection, supernatural beings (in this case, angels and nephilim – half-angels), a bit of glamour and a smattering of romance – two things really set Forging A Nightmare apart. One is the majority-black cast of characters, welcome and overdue. The other: horses. As lead character (and jousting enthusiast) FBI agent Michael Childs starts trying to track down a serial killer murdering people who have extra fingers, he encounters Anaba Raines, a Marine everyone thought was dead. She’s back from Hell, her soul having been forged into a Nightmare, a horse for angels. It’s fitting that the title refers to her, because while the bulk…

▶ RELEASED 14 DECEMBER 288 pages | Paperback/ebook ▶ Author Alex Thomson ▶ Publisher Angry Robot Alex Thomson skilfully juggles compelling characters and impressively detailed mythology in his second novel. For over a century, Val Kedic has been ruled by the Keda, a race of mute creatures who communicate through touch. Razvan is an interpreter between the city’s human residents and its overlords, who keep the population in line by forcing them to surrender their children as slave labourers. When a hostile army from Dagmari lays siege to the city, Razvan realises the crisis presents an opportunity to overthrow his oppressors – provided the invaders don’t slaughter everyone first. The worldbuilding is impeccably handled, from explaining the grammar of the Kedas’ tactile language to the workings of the city itself,…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 432 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author Garth Nix ▶ Publisher Hot Key Books In the introduction to Terciel & Elinor, Garth Nix points out that it’s been nearly 30 years since he came up with the opening lines of Sabriel, the first of his series of novels set in the magical Old Kingdom. Three decades clearly haven’t dampened Nix’s enthusiasm for that world, though, because he’s now unveiled this tale fleshing out Sabriel’s young parents – the mother she never knew (Elinor, who died in childbirth) and Terciel, her mysterious and powerful father. Naturally there’s a a jarring dissonance that comes from knowing the characters’ futures – especially poor Elinor, who’s so well-rounded that her scheduled demise will make you angry. Her arc is also more interesting…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 160 pages | Hardback ▶ Author John Walsh ▶ Publisher Titan Books You probably shouldn’t bother writing a factual book if you have nothing new to add, so initially this Making Of on John Carpenter’s cult 1981 movie feels entirely redundant. In its early stages, practically all the quotes are taken from a Blu-ray commentary or featurettes. To be fair, why would Carpenter or Kurt Russell want to discuss Snake Plissken’s mission again? And later on, quotes from new interviews do emerge – though many are brief snatches from the poster artists, or rather dry verbiage on the effects. Director of photography Dean Cundey is the most significant contributor here. It’s not a substantial read, taking about two hours, and the prose is workmanlike at best, clunky…

Bryce Quinlan is hunting a demon that killed her best friend in the unmissable new fantasy series from multimillion and number one New York Times bestselling author Sarah J Maas. WHATEVER HAD KILLED them must have heard her coming and hidden inside the trash chute, waiting for the chance to leap out at her or slink away unnoticed – Bryce hit the stairs, a glowing white haze creeping over her vision. It blazed through every inhibition, disregarded every warning bell. The glass door at the bottom of the stairs was already shattered. People screamed outside. Bryce leapt from the top of the landing. Her knees popped and buckled as she cleared the stairs, her bare feet shredding on the glass littering the lobby floor. Then they ripped open more as…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! ▶ Publisher DC Comics ▶ Writer Sam Hamm ▶ Artist Joe Quinones ISSUES 1-3 There are plenty of “What if” questions in the history of superhero blockbusters, and one of the biggest centres on what could have happened if Tim Burton had continued helming Batman movies (as was the original plan with 1995’s Batman Forever). New six-issue miniseries Batman ’89 doesn’t exactly answer that question, but it does pick up the story of the Michael Keaton version of the character for more darkly gothic, action-packed heroics. It also finally pays off the Burton movies’ set-up relating to ambitious DA Harvey Dent (played by Billy Dee Williams), who here becomes the focus as his quest to reform Gotham turns him into the villainous Two-Face. “It’s fast-paced and…