Inhaltsverzeichnis für November 2016 in SFX

RICHARD EDWARDS EDITOR RAVES Really excited by the Arrival trailer. I hope the movie doesn’t just dissolve into planetary destruction. RANTS Civil War and Ghostbusters aside, it’s been a pretty ordinary year for blockbusters. Doctor Strange, Fantastic Beasts and Rogue One, we’re pinning our hopes on you! IAN BERRIMAN REVIEWS EDITOR RAVES Quite enjoying Brain Dead, the political satire in which alien bugs infect Congress. Hoping for reprints of ’70s comic Action now that Rebellion’s bought their archive. I watched every Elm Street movie for issue one of our new horror quarterly, Horrorville. Hammer Draculas next! RUSSELL LEWIN PRODUCTION EDITOR RANTS The Secret Life Of Pets perhaps wasn’t quite us and nor was it as wondrous as Toy Story. Pets, though – aren’t they great? …which is why I’m saddened…

Designed not just as a trip back in time but also a taster of what’s to come, this month’s landmark Prog 2000 of the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic features special one-off adventures from old favourites Judges Dredd and Anderson, and Rogue Trooper. “I decided to have Tharg move through the periods of 2000 AD history across the six stories within the issue, ending with the start of a brand new series in Peter Milligan and Rufus’s Dayglo’s Counterfeit Girl, so that it wasn’t all about the nostalgia,” says current Mighty One Matt Smith, revealing that there will also be special interlude pages illustrated by the likes of Mike McMahon, Dave Gibbons and Brian Bolland. “I came up with the idea of having Tharg opening doors into the bubble universes that each…

Named after “a stopping place on a long journey”, IDW’s new anthology Star Trek: Waypoint will focus on numerous incarnations of the Starfleet crew who aren’t a regular part of their Trek comic-book line. “Fans are constantly asking for an ongoing Next Generation, Enterprise, or even Animated Series comic, and how I wish I could make all of them happy, so this book is a start,” IDW Group Editor Sarah Gaydos tells Red Alert. “It’s a way for Trek stories other than the current Kelvin timeline to get out into the marketplace, and each issue will feature stories from various Trek iterations, and each iteration will definitely be covered.” Taking a leaf out of Larry Nemecek’s Star Trek Cartography book, Waypoint was inspired by the eclectic variety of the Star…

What’s the world of Savant like? It’s isn’t very different from our own. I wanted a future Earth, but with a feel of some of the wonderful SF of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. Tell us a little about your protagonist. Tobe is an innocent in many ways, part of a system that he doesn’t understand, and in which he’s being exploited for his extraordinary talents. He essentially lives the life of a child. I did some research into savantism and autism to build the character. Did anything specific inspire the book? I began by wanting to write about unconditional love. My children were fast growing into adulthood, and I wanted to explore the love of a parent for a child. This theme grew and expanded to encompass society as…

Close Encounters FACE TO FACE WITH THE BIGGEST STARS You might imagine that given the chance of playing the young Bruce Wayne – years before he becomes Batman, in a television series focused on the cool bad guys – most actors would see it as a booby prize. Who wants to play out the Dark Knight’s skinny, brooding teen phase? Well, in the hands of David Mazouz, that incarnation of Bruce Wayne has more than held his own as an evolving, driven, genuine player in the town that his future caped self will wrestle into submission. The definition of an old soul in a young body, Mazouz brings gravitas to his interpretation of Bruce and proves time and again that he can more than hold his own in scenes with…

Brought To Book From a geek perspective, surfers are scum. Cool, athletic and comfortable in their own skins, they hang out on beaches, which everyone knows are just an invitation to get sand in your iPad. And yet, as Laure Eve reflects as she looks back on her teenage years growing up in Cornwall, there’s something curiously alluring about them too. “Everyone feels like an outsider, but I was a rock and metal gothy kid who dressed weird and was very abrasive,” she says. “I always secretly wanted to be as chilled and cool as the surfers but I just couldn’t be that way, I was far too emotional and weird. I went out with a couple of surfers. I tried to be that girl who hangs out on the…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 15 | 92 minutes Director Luke Scott Cast Kate Mara, Anya Taylor-Joy, Rose Leslie, Toby Jones In filmmaking terms, the apple may not fall far from the tree (for both good and ill). Luke Scott – son of Ridley, who produced this – kicks off his feature directing career with something his father might have made, a close-quarters tale of technology gone awry and a creature that could either be a boon or a threat to humanity. In this case, the claustrophobic, controlled conditions are a high-tech lab where an artificial being, Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy), has just brutally attacked one of her carers (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Corporate trouble-shooter Lee Weathers (Kate Mara) is brought in to determine the next step: continue the research or terminate Morgan’s existence.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! PG | 87 minutes If there’s one thing we know in the modern age, everybody likes a kooky cat video. And if there’s one thing we knew in the ’80s, everybody liked a good body-swap comedy. Nine Lives bridges that gap with a story about a billionaire real estate mogul (Kevin Spacey) who ends up in a coma and somehow trades his consciousness with a cat named Mister Fuzzypants. Since he hates cats, it’s a real insult-toinjury situation. So’s this movie. By the end you will hate cats, Spacey and the ’80s. ALSO OUT Barely any need for this round-up, cos we reviewed so much last issue! SET THE THAMES ON FIRE, a dystopian fairytale featuring Noel Fielding, is getting a limited theatrical release on 16 September;…

RELEASED 19 SEPTEMBER 1973 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD (dual format) Director Don Sharp Cast Nicky Henson, Mary Larkin, Beryl Reid, George Sanders To paraphrase the nuns of Nonnberg: how do you score a film like Psychomania? This zombie biker flick is so deliriously daft, it may be the silliest British horror movie ever made. Timotei-haired biker Tom (Nicky Henson) discovers the secret of eternal life: kill yourself believing, with absolute certainty, that you’ll come back. It works! Soon his gang are following suit, diving off tower blocks and motorway bridges, then embarking on a reign of terror that involves trashing a supermarket cereal aisle. Take that, Sugar Puffs! Add baffling guff about a frog pendant, a butler who may be Satan (George Sanders, in his last role), and some hilariously…

RELEASED 26 SEPTEMBER 1988 | 18 | Blu-ray/DVD BLU-RAY DEBUT After birds, sharks, bees and rats comes the terrifying prospect of the gardener’s worst enemy “attacking” a town, which at least leads to some tasty gore amidst the bad dubbing and amusingly OTT score. Based on Shaun Hutson’s 1982 novel, it’s delightfully terrible – the risible acting, dialogue and editing will have all but trash movie fans reaching for the slug pellets. Extras Two commentaries (one by Hutson); four interviews; promo reel; trailer; booklet.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2016 | 12 | Blu-ray/DVD Intended to set the scene for this year’s Final Fantasy game, Kingsglaive is torn between its role as jigsaw piece and self-contained yarn. When it focuses on Sean Bean’s king and his teleporting bodyguards, the action barrels along. But stodgy exposition is enough to slow even the nimblest warriors, with the script often resembling a FF XV Wikipedia entry. Extras Featurettes on the CGI, voice cast, music and art design.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2016 | 18 | DVD Director Keith Claxton Cast Fenella Fielding, Victor Spinetti, Rebecca Santos, Anna Wing There’s an acknowledged debt to classic Amicus movies in this cheerfully bloody portmanteau of horror shorts. Produced by screenwriter and journalist David McGillivray, who links the seven tales in the guise of a music hall master of ceremonies, it mixes outright black comedy – middle-class witches dispatch a seaside town’s inhabitants in gruesome fashion – with Dahl-style murder fables. It’s low-rent stuff but ambitious: In The Place Of The Dead, the most assured entry, is shot on location in Marrakesh, the camcorder aesthetics giving a real immediacy to the location. A final, satanic shocker is filmed in the south of France, its tone recalling McGillivray’s work as Sleazemaster General on…

RELEASED 19 SEPTEMBER 1987 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD Director Brian Trenchard-Smith Cast Ned Manning, Natalie McCurry, Peter Whitford, Ollie Hall Dead End Drive-In may look like a parade of garish ’80s B-movie tropes, but it’s smarter – and weirder – than that. Global recession has left the world in poverty. Crime is surging and gangs of Quincy Punks roam the streets. Jimmy (Ned Manning) borrows his brother’s Chevvy to take Carmen (Natalie McCurry) to the old Star Drive-In – but the pair soon find themselves trapped inside the parking lot, which is in fact a concentration camp. While Carmen settles into an easy life of partying, Jimmy determines to break out. Think The Prisoner with Mad Max fashion and drag racers instead of blazers and Mini Mokes and you’re close…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 420 pages | Paperback/ebook Author James Bennett Publisher Orbit It’s quite unusual for a novel to have a dragon as a hero. Luckily for “Red Ben” Garston, he’s able to shift into the shape of a human, making it rather easier to romance “damsels”, which is helpful as he’s the last of his kind – the last awake, that is. James Bennett has created a world in which under a medieval agreement, almost all the supernatural creatures on Earth have been put into a long sleep, leaving only one of each awake. These “remnants” are to be left in peace. So when someone does wake another dragon, Ben needs to work out who, and why, before his enemies decide to be done with him once and for…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 416 pages | Paperback/ebook Author James Lovegrove Publisher Solaris As with the other novels in James Lovegrove’s Pantheon series (this is the seventh), Age Of Heroes is designed to be readable as a standalone. Like the author’s Age Of Zeus, it’s a modern-day take on Greco-Roman myth. But in its variant reality, Zeus and the other gods vanished millennia ago, leaving their demigod offspring – the legendary part-human heroes like Heracles and Odysseus – to live on immortally into the 21st century. Now they lead more or less normal lives under false names, their divinity unsuspected by ordinary humans... until someone finds the means to start bumping them off one by one. Two former heroes set out to find the culprits. Despite an extremely basic plot and…

RELEASED 22 SEPTEMBER 221 pages | Hardback Authors Steve O’Brien, Simon Guerrier, Ben Morris Publisher BBC Books BULLE T TIME A BOOK IN BULLET POINTS • A Doctor Who infographics book! (Though not the first: we should give a mention to 2013 indie title Time & Space Visualiser.) • Hugely colourful, using a wide range of devices – Venn diagrams, maps, word clouds, cutesy avatars – it looks absolutely gorgeous. • Best bits: the “vital statistics” on each Doctor: ratings, catchphrase use, costumes and so on. • Frequently witty, which helps prevent things getting too dry. • Rewarding when crunching data in a way that’s revealing, like showing production credits for women, or graphing ratings against timeslot. • Stumbles occasionally with the likes of “when each letter first appeared in…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 336 pages | Hardback Author Peadar O’Guilin Publisher David Fickling Books You have to wonder if Peadar O’Guilin did a little victory dance when he came up with the idea for The Call; if he did, it was justified. Set in an Ireland that’s been cut off from the outside world for 25 years, it posits that the Sídhe (fairies) – who, long ago, were trapped in another realm by humans – are now looking for revenge. Determined to wipe out the Irish, the Sídhe are stealing teenagers for three minutes and returning them dead or horribly mutilated. Nobody knows when they’ll get Called; they just vanish. So desperate teenagers enrol in training camps to get ready – cos three minutes here is a whole day of…

RELEASED 16 SEPTEMBER 240 pages | Hardback/paperback Author Alan Jones Publisher FAB Press The first in a series, this latest extension of the horror festival brand feels like a throwback to the days when review-compilations like the Psychotronic Encyclopedia Of Film – and the zines they sprang from – were a popular way to gen up on trash cinema. After a brief, terms-defining A-Z, the lion’s share of this slim volume consists of reviews of 200 films, dating from 1930 to 1985. SF and horror rub shoulders with biker movies, blaxploitation and nudist films. The odd selection stands out – did Hammer’s The Curse Of The Werewolf really play the 42nd Street fleapits? Gosh. But many are pleasingly obscure. FrightFest co-founder Alan Jones has a cruel wit, and does a…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher DC Comics Writer Greg Rucka Artists Liam Sharp, Nicola Scott, Matthew Clark ISSUES 1-4 “Double shipping” – it’s what happens when a monthly comic transforms into a fortnightly one, and it’s a phrase that superhero comic fans love and dread in equal measure. In theory, double shipping means twice the amount of action per month, but it also means twice the cost, and can often lead to inconsistent fill-in artists and a general downturn in quality. DC’s decision to shift the majority of their main superhero titles into fortnightly mode for their new Rebirth relaunch has raised some eyebrows (especially since previous DC weeklies and fortnightlies have been patchy at best), but while it’s a risky choice, there are interesting results in the latest Wonder Woman…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Dark Horse Comics Writer Margaret Atwood Artist Johnnie Christmas GRAPHIC NOVEL Margaret Atwood was raised on ’40s titles like Plastic Man and Steve Canyon, and her debut graphic novel harks back to that golden age. Mirroring the origin of the Flash, biochemist Strig Feleedus is transformed into a bizarre feline/owl hybrid after spilling some gene-altering super-splicer serum upon himself. Aimed at all ages, Angel Catbird sees Atwood eschewing the surreal weirdness of her recent MaddAddam dystopian trilogy. As Strig comes to terms with his newfound animalistic nature, he discovers that he’s grown fangs and can understand the birdsong around him. He also wants to rub his face up against his co-worker, Cate Leone – who turns out to be half-moggy herself. The pair then pit their…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Reviewed on PC Also on PS4, XO, PS3, 360, Mobile Publisher Telltale Games VIDEOGAME Sing songs of joy from the rooftops – the Telltale Games engine may finally be fit for purpose again. The stuttering scene transitions and frustrating freezes that plagued past efforts have been all but eliminated from the Dark Knight’s debut, while character models and environments have undergone a tasteful but very noticeable upgrade. An opening scene in which the Caped Crusader interrupts a brazen break-in at City Hall provides an atmospheric introduction. Back at Wayne Manor, however, you’ll have to run an altogether different sort of gauntlet, gladhanding with the city’s elite as you oversee the launch of Harvey Dent’s mayoral campaign. And while this shift from fisticuffs to canapés emphasises the bizarre…

RELEASED 6 OCTOBER 114 minutes | CD Publisher BBC Audio AUDIO DRAMA After ten years interred in the Broadcasting House vault, the BBC World Service’s adaptation of Liz Lochhead’s play of Bram Stoker’s Dracula has been exhumed. Why? Because it’s got that Tom Hiddleston giving voice to article clerk Jonathan Harker, sent to Transylvania to put Count Dracula’s more mundane affairs in order, that’s why. Hiddleston’s Harker sounds exactly like you’d expect. David Suchet’s Dracula is partly in the Bela Lugosi tradition, welishing evewy opportunity to enunciate a heavily-accented double entendre: “I have supped earlier,” he tells Harker, “but I will serve you… weeeth pleasure.” It’s when the Count’s put-on performance lapses, though, that Suchet’s own sprouts wings: “Ach, ‘dem-ocrass-ee’!” he complains. “The warlike days are over. Blood is too…

You know about Rimmer, Lister, Cat, Kryten, Holly and Kochanski. But over 10 series, 61 episodes and 28 years, Red Dwarf has built a vast universe – so huge, in fact, that we couldn’t fit all of the supporting players here. Here’s a quick-ish guide to the key people, aliens and robots who’ve crossed paths with the boys from the Dwarf. A Able First appearance “Beyond A Joke” (Series VII) A DivaDroid International Series 4000 Mechanoid; Kryten’s production brother who became a slave to a Simulant Trader, who got him addicted to a mechanoid narcotic called Outrozone. He was never going to iron a straight crease after that. Ackerman, Mr First appearance “Back in the Red, Part III” (Series VIII) Sadistic, one-eyed prison governor of Red Dwarf’s the Tank. Also…

STUFF TO BUY! >Back in the early ’90s, we all knew someone who owned a Red Dwarf t-shirt, whether it featured Ace Rimmer and that famous fishy catchphrase, or Dave Lister imploring us to “get out there and twat it”. So merchandise has always been a big part of the Dwarf experience – and now, for the first time in 10 years (and just in time for series XI), new official merch is heading our way from 15 September. The range (produced by Matrix) will include a Red Dwarf baseball cap, t-shirts, badges, a mug, a tote bag, a hoodie, a keyring and more. “I’m really looking forward to working with Matrix developing some official merchandise for the fans,” says Red Dwarf co-creator (and writer/director of series XI) Doug Naylor.…

Important disclaimer: we’re not saying best here – doing that would be enough to incite conflicts on the scale of the holy wars fought by the cat people over the colour of the hats in Fuchal. (Our money’s on red.) Instead, this is a set of episodes we’d give to a visitor from an alternative dimension as a top quality cross-section of Red Dwarf’s 61 episodes. So in chronological order... THANKS FOR THE MEMORY Series II The plot When Lister secretly gives Rimmer his memories of an old relationship, the entire crew suffers the fall-out. Why it’s great Long before Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind got Jim Carrey’s mind in a twist, Red Dwarf came up with a very similar idea. The revelation about Rimmer’s false memories is actually…

SECRETS AND LIES “I find it exciting that I literally cannot say anything about the new season. Some years we can sort of allude to what may or may not happen, but at this point we really have to say absolutely nothing, which is liberating for us in a way.” BEGIN THE NEGAN “We knew about the season six cliffhanger I guess a few episodes before, though we already knew that with Negan on the scene there was going to be a really bitter result – even if we didn’t know exactly what point in the timeline the bat would fall.” BLUE-SKY THINKING “I like playing Maggie because she always seems to have this feeling that everything’s going to be okay, and sometimes they are pretty not okay, but there’s…

This is Jedha, a Jedi holy land – yet another desert planet in Star Wars. Given the Empire’s feelings about the Jedi, expect it to be a target. “They destroyed our home!” We’re assuming that home is on Jedha, though whether the Death Star is involved remains to be seen... This wonderful eclipse shot suggests Jedha could have been targeted by the Empire as the location for a certain weapons test... There’s a smile from Saw Gerrera here. Does he see Jyn as a disciple? It’s also been revealed that the suit is keeping him alive, Vader-style. This trailer suggests that Diego Luna’s Captain Cassian Andor assembles the group of Rebel fighters, a fact that’s been hinted previously. This is the first time we’ve heard Alan Tudyk’s K-2SO talk. His…

With films like The Conjuring, Insidious and the original Saw to his credit, James Wan has become synonymous with 21st-century horror. And he’s gone on record as saying he’ll bring his affinity for monsters and scares to his superhero debut, 2018’s Aquaman. But when we catch up with the director at this year’s Television Critics Association summer press tour in LA (where he promoted his MacGyver reboot), he assures us that any such frights won’t overwhelm the film’s sense of fun. “Here’s the thing that people are getting confused,” he tells Red Alert. “Just because you have scary stories or monsters, that doesn’t mean it’s tonally dark. Look at Guillermo del Toro – he makes monsters all the time, but his stuff is fun and cool. Tim Burton does it…

It’s been almost a century and a half since HG Wells came into the world. Though he was born in Kent, our very own “father of science fiction” relocated to Woking in May 1895, a place that inspired many of his defining literary works, including The War Of The Worlds (he unleashed a Martian invasion in Horsell Common), The Invisible Man, The Island Of Dr Moreau and The Wheels Of Chance. DATE Running until 1 October LOCATION Woking Though he lived in the town for just 18 months (health problems returned him to Kent, and he eventually passed away in London in August 1946 aged 76), Woking provides the perfect setting for this celebration of the author’s 150th anniversary. A month-long event, Wells In Woking features live performances, art installations,…

TAIL OF THE UNEXPECTED! SPLASH Definitive feelgood fish-out-ofwater tale Splash is the latest slice of ’80s pop culture locked in a fast car on the freeway to Remakeville. And, just like this summer’s Ghostbusters redo, it’s set for a gender-flip. While the 1984 original gave us Tom Hanks as the guy in love with Daryl Hannah’s mermaid, the new version shakes up the chromosomes – now Channing Tatum is the amphibious object of desire, a merman attempting to pass for human whose secret is discovered by Tatum’s 22 Jump Street co-star Jillian Bell. It was Bell who came up with the concept – possibly in a late night bar, after a fourth Sambuca – and she’s hired Marja-Lewis Ryan, screenwriter of Liked and Unsupervised, to flesh it out into a…

It sits beside my reading chair: an enormous slab of ring-bound A4. It is like a paper version of the Monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. As with that alien artefact, it promises knowledge, advancement, revelation. Yet it is forbidding too. Daunting. It is a photocopied proof of Alan Moore’s forthcoming second novel Jerusalem. The finished book runs to just shy of 1,200 pages, roughly 600,000 words, so the publicity material says. And I have volunteered to write a 750-word review of it for the Financial Times. As that newspaper’s tame science fictioneer, and someone who has read and loved practically everything Moore has ever written, I am unquestionably the man for the job. All the same, looking at the book in front of me, with its single-spaced, thickly-paragraphed text,…

RELEASED 30 SEPTEMBER TBC | 84 minutes Director Babak Anvari Cast Narges Rashidi, Avin Manshadi, Bobby Naderi, Ray Haratian Mothers protecting their young is a familiar trope in horror films (see also Poltergeist, Dark Water), but first-time director Babak Anvari pumps fresh urgency into the concept with Under The Shadow, a film that masterfully blends its period setting, haunted house aesthetic and sociopolitical undercurrents into a coherent, slow-burn scare machine with something to say. In 1988 Tehran, the high-rise home of Shideh (Narges Rashidi) is constantly quaking under the threat of bombs. When an undetonated projectile crashes into the apartment upstairs – mere days after Shideh’s husband has been shipped off to the frontline of the Iran-Iraq War – it coincides with her daughter, Dorsa (Avin Manshadi), spotting a mysterious…

RELEASED 17 OCTOBER 2016 | 18 | Blu-ray/DVD Creators Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Sam Catlin Cast Dominic Cooper, Ruth Negga, Joseph Gilgun, Ian Colletti, Lucy Griffiths, Tom Brooke There are some people who will insist that the Preacher TV series is terrible. Most of these people are fans of the comic who hate the fact that the TV show is pretty much nothing like it. Which is fair comment. But if you watched the show totally ignorant of what it was based on, you wouldn’t care. You’d just know you were watching something extraordinary and stupidly entertaining. Sure, the show bears so little resemblance to Garth Ennis’s source material – a kind of supernatural road movie in comic book form – that it’s easy to understand fans’ frustration. Why bother…

RELEASED 3 OCTOBER 1973 | PG | Blu-ray Director Woody Allen Cast Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, John Beck, Mary Gregory BLU-RAY DEBUT Woody Allen may well be cinema’s greatest living writer-director but he’s only made one full-blown science fiction film. Thankfully, Sleeper is a corker. Allen is perfect as Miles Monroe, the owner of a health food store who goes into hospital for a minor operation in 1973 and comes out 200 years later after being cryogenically frozen. In 2173 he’s pitched into the fight against a police state, and soon teams up with socialite Luna (a wonderful Diane Keaton) to infiltrate the mysterious Aries Project. Despite its futuristic setting, the film says so much about the 1970s, that decade of quality cinema in which it was made – there…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2015 | 18 | DVD A remake of José Larraz’s 1974 cult British horror film, this is, if anything, even more parsimonious than the original. And not as good either. Two voluptuous female vampires still butcher anyone who comes near their remote dwelling, but missing the strange, heady charge of its parent this new version comes across as vacuous and pointless. A descent into torture porn flags up its redundancy. Extras A Making Of (13 minutes); interview with cast member Caroline Munro (four mins); teaser; trailer.…

RELEASED 26 SEPTEMBER 1964 | 12 | DVD Director Don Sharp Cast Lon Chaney Jr, Jack Hedley, Jill Dixon, Viola Keats For fans of vintage horror, this unimaginatively-titled effort has numerous points of interest. The cast includes original Wolfman Lon Chaney Jr. The plot recalls Mario Bava classic Mask Of Satan. And director Don Sharp also helmed films like Psychomania. Sadly, it’s a pretty tepid affair. The Lanier and Whitlock families have been enemies for 300 years, since the Laniers dobbed in Vanessa Whitlock as a witch. Now the feud comes to the boil as redevelopment sees her grave bulldozed, releasing her to wreak revenge. The cinematography’s attractive, and the mute, unblinking Vanessa is a menacing presence. Her MO doesn’t exactly scream 17th century, though; twice she tries to dispatch…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 1993 | PG | Blu-ray & DVD (dual-format) Director Joe Dante Cast John Goodman, Cathy Moriarty, Simon Fenton, Omri Katz BLU-RAY DEBUT Ever happily wasted time browsing ’50s sci-fi trailers on YouTube? Then Joe Dante’s nostalgia-fest should give you a warm glow. Set in Florida in 1962, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, it follows monster-mad kid Gene as cigar-chomping showman Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman) arrives in town to promote his latest atom-age shocker Mant!. With Woolsey a stand-in for self-publicising Hollywood hucksters like William Castle, it’s a film that celebrates a long-lost world of lurid front-of-house standees and shameless gimmickry. The period is lovingly evoked, with all the right clothes, cars and pop hits. And the glimpses of Mant! are hilariously well-observed spoofery. All…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 320 pages | Paperback Author Steve MacManus Publisher 2000 AD Debuting a full 10 months before Star Wars arrived in the UK, 2000 AD was the brainchild of a forwardthinking staffer in Fleetway Publications’ competitions department who had seen the Empire looming over the horizon. Landing, according to The Guardian, “like a thermonuclear bomb” in the British comics landscape, the sci-fi anthology mag promised “tomorrow’s thrills today” to an expectant generation. Unexpectedly inheriting the title when the previous editor walked out, Steve MacManus guided the adventures of Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog and co through most of the ’80s, when his direct reports included the likes of Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison. This entertaining memoir (subtitled My Life Inside The Nerve Centre) is cheerily evocative of…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 421 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Laure Eve Publisher Faber & Faber The first quarter of The Graces is an angsty, school-set YA-by-numbers. It’s narrated by an outsider teenage girl who has no friends and feels “different”; her mum doesn’t understand her; she’s fascinated by three cool siblings who, so the school rumour-mill has it, might be witches; and she has a monumental crush on one of them. The Grace family even have pretentious names (Summer, Fenrin, Thalia). Our narrator is named River. You could play bingo with the clichés here. However, once River befriends the Graces, you’ll be happy to discover that the clichés become less important. You get caught up in the mystery: are they really witches? What are they up to? Then, after you’ve been…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 380 pages | Paperback/ebook Author KC Alexander Publisher Angry Robot It’s 32 years since William Gibson’s Neuromancer was published, and cyberpunk still hasn’t gone out of style. It’s a flexible subgenre with room for everything from provocative politics to trashy action, but Necrotech veers so hard in the direction of lurid shocks that it wears out its welcome fast. It’s the tale of Riko, a tech-enhanced fighter in a dark future where cybernetic nanotechnology can spiral into “necrotech”, transforming people into killers. When Riko loses a chunk of her memory and her girlfriend becomes a necrotech victim, she sets off to find who’s responsible, and is soon neck-deep in trouble, intrigue and corpses. KC Alexander throws in some interesting thoughts about technology and transhumanism, and there’s no…

RELEASED 6 OCTOBER 288 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Kieran Larwood Publisher Faber & Faber In the immortal words of Buffy’s rabbit-hating demon Anya: “Bunnies aren’t just cute like everybody supposes/They’ve got those hoppy legs and twitchy little noses.” We suspect she’d be seriously creeped out by the hoppingmad bad guys in this children’s book, who are metal-infused, mind-controlled bastards assimilating everything in their path. All of which comes as a bit of a shock to little Podkin, who must leave his warren with siblings Paz and Pook when the nasty Gorm attack, killing any bunny in their path. With the Gorm after Podkin’s magical dagger, our furry heroes must fight not only for their lives but to save their world. The good news is that despite the bloodthirsty villains, this is…

King inherits the crown RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher DC Comics Writer Tom King Artists David Finch, Mikel Janin ISSUES 1-5 How do you follow up two of the most highly acclaimed Batman sagas of all time? Thanks to the work of Grant Morrison and Scott Snyder, DC’s main ongoing Batman comic has been an inventive thrill ride for a number of years. Now it’s up to new Batman writer Tom King (Grayson, The Vision) to try and match their standards with fresh adventures for the Caped Crusader. As with many new DC Rebirth titles, Batman is now twice-monthly, and King’s first story arc is very much a mission statement, exploring what happens when two new superpowered vigilantes arrive in Gotham and start aiding Bruce Wayne in his fight against crime.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher DC Comics Writers Keith Giffen, JM DeMatteis Artists Howard Porter, Dale Eaglesham ISSUES 1-3 “Modern” and “edgy” aren’t words you would normally use to describe Hanna-Barbera cartoons like The Flintstones, Wacky Races and Scooby-Doo, but that hasn’t stopped DC Comics with its new wave of relaunches, the most attention-grabbing of which is Scooby Apocalypse. Featuring character redesigns from Jim Lee, this new ongoing title recasts the Scooby gang as adventurers in the near future, where a nanotech virus is transforming people into monsters. Each character also has a new backstory, with the most interesting being Shaggy’s transformation into a moustachioed hipster. Scooby himself is now an experimental cyber-enhanced canine. These first three issues are at their best when playing into the silliness of the concept, and…

RELEASED 16/23 SEPTEMBER (CD) OUT NOW! (download) CD/download Label Lakeshore Records SOUNDTRACK The music for Netflix’s wallow in ’80s nostalgia is the work of Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein, half of Austin synth quartet S U R V I V E. Recruited after the Duffer Brothers used a S U R V I V E track to help pitch the show, they were involved surprisingly early – even sitting in on casting. It ranges from the sleepy smeared synths of a cue like “This Isn’t You” and the lullaby-like delicacy of Eleven’s theme, to the UFO foghorns of “Danger Danger” and aural panic attack “Something In The House”. Don’t expect tunes your postman could whistle – Dixon and Stein lack Giorgio Moroder’s knack for a melody. It’s also rare that…

UK Broadcast Netflix US Broadcast Netflix Yeah, we know – what about Eleven? Stranger Things’ resident psychic is, undeniably, the coolest character in our new favourite show. But if there’s one face that sums up Stranger Things’ ’80s appeal, then it’s surely Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin – the loveable, baseball-capped X-Men fanboy. Stranger Things as a whole does a great job of appearing to be a transmission from some parallel universe where the ’90s never happened, but there’s something quite uncanny about just how perfectly Matarazzo nails the look. The curly hair, the hat, the smile, the teeth (or lack thereof ) – it’s all completely on point. You can easily imagine Matarazzo being cast in some of the show’s touchstone movie influences – running around on an adventure with…

We all know that Red Dwarf is funny. In fact, if you were to pull Rimmer, Lister, Kryten and the Cat out of outer space and dump them on planet Earth, you’d still have a pretty good sitcom – albeit one where only one of the lead characters is actually human. It even follows quite a common sitcom set-up. You know the one: take four or five people/cats/mechanoids/computers (delete as appropriate) who really shouldn’t ever be in a room together – and then force them to live in close proximity, with no chance of escape. It’s a successful recipe that also applies to Father Ted, Porridge, Fawlty Towers and plenty more. But there’s something else going on with Red Dwarf – it’s totally unconventional in the way it manages to…

1 What are the names of Lister’s twin sons? 2 What “E” is the sub-title of Series VI’s “Polymorph II”? 3 Why is Jenna Russell important in the history of Red Dwarf? 4 What’s the name of the device created by Holly that transports Red Dwarf to a parallel universe in “Parallel Universe”? 5 How does Camille, the pleasure GELF, appear to Cat? 6 What is Arnold Rimmer’s middle name? 7 Name the blue shuttlecraft used by the Dwarfers in Series II. 8 Who connects Red Dwarf with Cold Feet? 9 Which actress played Nirvanah Crane, Rimmer’s love interest in “Holoship”? 10 Which Dwarfer is put on trial in the Justice Zone (above)? 11 Which Frasier star played Holly in one of the US Red Dwarf pilots? 12 Who (or…

#STAR TREK BEYOND Mickeyleon 48, Twitter It truly felt like a long version of an original Star Trek episode in the modern era. Job done for fans of the show. Andy Hall, Facebook Loved it, and it felt closer to Star Trek than the previous two. Tone was good, loved the diplomatic stuff, the Enterprise looked glorious, great action, loved seeing more of the Federation and a bit of Trek history. Andrew Halliday, Facebook A great (but not perfect – there were some silly bits) ensemble piece, with something for everybody to do. Pegg clearly understands the team dynamic. Leland Reibling, Facebook A rip-off of Avatar. Everything looked like recycled old film from previous Trek movies but more blurry. Except this time Spock is crying all the time and Scotty…

The Culture is a galaxywide, utopian metacivilisation. Between 1987 and 2012, it formed the backdrop for nine extraordinary novels, one desperately poignant novella, and a brace of short stories. Of these, Consider Phlebas was the first novel to be published. The book is set against a war between the Culture and an alien race known as the Idirans. But rather than focus on the people and machines fighting the war, the novel instead follows the fortunes of Bora Horza Gobuchul, a humanoid working for the Idirans, as he makes his way across the galaxy in an effort to recover a Mind (one of the sentient, hyper-intelligent machines that control the Culture’s warships) from Schar’s World – a planet set aside as a monument to an extinct civilisation. Along the way,…

On its restless search for stories to feed the big and small screen’s hungry maw, Hollywood has plundered everything from folk tales to videogames, taking in comics, novels and old TV or movie ideas ripe for a reboot. Curiously, however, there’s one set of ideas that seem almost untouchable – the rich seam of pre-Star Wars dystopian 1970s sci-fi movies like Logan’s Run, Death Race 2000, Soylent Green and Westworld. Offering a confused and terrifying version of imminent doom, where population growth, violent sports and Artificial Intelligence threaten struggling everyday citizens, these future shocks lacked George Lucas’s moral clarity and heroic quests. Curiously, just as JJ Abrams picked up the Star Wars stories he’s also ventured into these murkier waters, producing HBO’s TV reversioning of 1973 sci-fi disaster move Westworld.…

RELEASED 16 SEPTEMBER 15 | 89 minutes Director Adam Wingard Cast Corbin Reid, Wes Robinson, Valorie Curry, James Allen McCune If you were lucky enough to see The Blair Witch Project in a cinema back in 1999, you may well have found the audience starkly divided, with some willing to submit to and submerge themselves in the film’s world, while others, scornful in the face of a tidal wave of hype, stage-whispered, “This isn’t that scary” to their mates. Seventeen long years later, Adam Wingard’s revival of the long-dormant franchise is likely to face similar resistance – but this time it’ll probably be fans of the original who are crossing their arms and challenging the film, “Go on then, impress me.” Reviving Blair Witch is obviously a project fraught with…

RELEASED 23 SEPTEMBER 15 | 111 minutes Director Colm McCarthy Cast Sennia Nanua, Gemma Arterton, Paddy Considine, Glenn Close Just when you thought you’d seen every possible spin on the zombie movie, along comes someone with a startling new idea. The Girl With All The Gifts might be a zombie movie, but it’s also a road movie, an eco-horror, and a bold political statement. And it’s great at being all of those things. Roughly a decade after the outbreak of a mysterious virus that turns people into mindless slavering cannibals, the UK’s few survivors are holed up in heavily guarded military camps. In one of them, Base Hotel Echo, teacher Helen Justineau (Gemma Arterton) has formed an unusual bond with one of her most gifted students, Melanie (Sennia Nanua). Unfortunately,…

RELEASED 19 SEPTEMBER 2016 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD Director Simon Verhoeven Cast Alycia Debnam-Carey, William Moseley, Connor Paolo, Brit Morgan The best thing about this identikit horror is that it reminds you it’d be a good idea to delete your Facebook page. After Laura (Fear The Walking Dead’s Alycia Debnam-Carey) makes the mistake of clicking “accept” on Marina, the spooky goth girl in her class, obsession, rejection and accusations follow. What initially looks like a Single White Female retread takes a supernatural turn after Marina hangs herself, then exacts revenge from beyond the grave… There are five or six decent jump scares – all accompanied by thunderous chords, natch – and one decent idea: that a laptop screen can act as a “black mirror” used in witches’ rituals. Hmm, do…

RELEASED 19 SEPTEMBER 1978 | 18 | Blu-ray/DVD This cheap ’n’ sleazy Spanish horror starts intriguingly, when one couple are enticed to a remote house by another they’ve only just met. When the pair turn out to be satanists, this means lots of nakedness (naturally) and creepy stuff as well – like a sinister doll that keeps reappearing. But the plot, having nowhere much to go, soon stops making sense. Still, those with a penchant for the similar films of José “Vampyres” Larraz should be entertained. The filthbuckets. Extras None.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 570 pages | Paperback/ebook Author D Nolan Clark Publisher Orbit Fermi’s paradox asks why, when alien life must surely be an inevitability, and the universe is billions of years old, Earth hasn’t already been visited by some form of extra-terrestrial. In Forsaken Skies, humanity has been exploring the stars for hundreds of years, with no sign of aliens. The conclusion is that they don’t exist, and the whole concept is now considered absurd. But then something comes along that’s entirely outside the Navy’s range of experience… The planet Niraya is under attack, and the corporation responsible for its welfare has written it off, determining it cheaper to simply let it – and its inhabitants – die. Fortunately for them, Aleister Lanoe, a retired and renowned Navy commander,…

RELEASED 15 SEPTEMBER 495 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Connie Willis Publisher Del Rey Books How many ways could you contact a partner from your phone, right now? Between email, text, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and, you know, actually ringing them, you’ve probably got at least six different options. But what if you didn’t need any of them? What if you could connect to them through your emotions? That’s the terrifying technology that’s changing the world in Hugo winner Connie Willis’s latest novel: after minor brain surgery, couples can transmit their feelings to one another via electronic implants. In theory, it’s sweet. In practice? Well, it has some worrying side effects, especially for Crosstalk’s heroine, Briddey. Because when she comes round from surgery, Briddey finds herself connected not to her boyfriend but…

RELEASED 6 OCTOBER 294 pages | Hardback/ebook Author Daniel Polansky Publisher Hodder & Stoughton As cities go, there are few as iconic as New York, but while London has so many urban fantasies that there’s a whole Strange London subgenre, the Big Apple hasn’t been quite so enthusiastically explored. Daniel Polansky’s latest aims to balance the scales in NYC’s favour, and conjures up a richly detailed – if occasionally bewildering – experience. A City Dreaming is the story of a magician known only as M, who returns to the streets of New York and soon finds himself drifting in and out of scrapes with his friends and acquaintances in the occult world. Canal pirates, zombie waiters and reality-altering coffee shops are among the bizarre threats that M encounters along the…

Merry Barrett’s family is torn apart when her older sister Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia. One night, she tells Merry a story… The Author Marjorie sat on her bed with an open book in her lap. She was still dressed in her sweats, and her chin was still stained red with spaghetti sauce. Her hair was dark, greasy, and heavy, weighing down her head. She said, “Come on, I’m just teasing. Come sit next to me, Merry. I have your new story.” I dutifully sat next to my sister and said, “I didn’t like your letter, you know.” I imagined Marjorie sneaking into my room and pinching my nose shut while I slept, and it scared me. Then I imagined doing the same right back to her,…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Marvel Comics Writer Christopher Hastings Artists Langdon Foss, Paul McCaffrey ISSUES 1-3 Aptly timed for the run-up to the US election, this miniseries sees Marvel’s resident God of Mischief running for President, putting his name forward after conveniently saving his main rivals from a Hydra ambush. His candidacy provides plenty of opportunities for scathing political satire. Unfortunately Gwenpool scribe Christopher Hastings’s sluggishly paced script rarely rises above the pedestrian, and is not helped by Langdon Foss and Paul McCaffrey’s inconsistent art. With Loki adopting the slogan, “I’m going to lie right to your face and you’re going to love it”, Hastings emphasises his Arch-Trickster status, and cleverly gets around the natural-born-citizen clause by having his current incarnation hail from Maryland. In a wry nod to Hillary…

Quizmaster Nick Setchfield, Features Editor QUESTION 1 Burton’s childhood in which Californian suburb inspired the story of Edward Scissorhands? QUESTION 2 What was the name of Burton’s 1997 book of art and poetry? QUESTION 3 Burton worked as a concept artist on which 1982 SF classic, though his work never made it to screen? QUESTION 4 1982 stop-motion short Vincent was a tribute to which horror icon? QUESTION 5 Burton’s breakthrough came with 1985’s Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. Star Paul Reubens cameoed as which character in the Batman universe? QUESTION 6 Which is the only Burton movie to be turned into a touring ballet? QUESTION 7 Which iconic DCU character was Chris Rock set to play in Burton’s never made Superman Lives? QUESTION 8 PICTURE QUESTION Beetlejuice is a freelance bio-exorcist…