SFX -julkaisun August 2018 -irtonumeron sisällysluettelo

Of all the torture Game Of Thrones has put us through over the years – the thwarted reunions, the multiple character deaths, the actual torture – nothing has been crueller than making us hold on an extra year for its denouement. But fear not, because this issue, SFX has put together a magazine-shaped first aid kit to help nurse you through the difficult wait for season eight (p38). Over 14 pages, we look back at how the show transformed TV, speak to some of the cast, look ahead to the final year and the in-development prequel shows, remember a few of Westeros’s most iconic deaths, and speak to an actual real-life scientist about the biology of dragons – or should that be wyverns? Away from the Seven Kingdoms, we’ve been…

What was it about The Darkest Minds that attracted you in the first place? → I really liked the idea of these kids going up against the government in this revolution-style story. It was very inspiring to me. I think the idea of these kids being contained due to something very powerful developed in them is a very interesting concept. You play the telekinetic Liam. Who was this character to you? → When I first read the script I felt like he was someone with a lot of pain. He’s a guy who wants to fight for justice and do the right thing. Ultimately, he’s a guy trying to make a better future. I really tried to capture that element of family that he wanted to regain. Did reading the…

Those 70 planned new episodes of Rick And Morty are still a way off, but no matter, because the portal-hopping duo are embarking on a comic crossover in August. Rick And Morty Vs Dungeons & Dragons sees Morty introduce his grandpa to the classic RPG – with disastrous results… The four-issue miniseries is written by Patrick Rothfuss and Jim Zub, both veteran adventurers. “Dungeons & Dragons gave me the confidence to create stories of my own,” reveals Zub. Rothfuss agrees. “Roleplaying is just an advanced version of the greatest human pastime: storytelling. As soon as you create a character, you’ve taken a step towards a story. If you create an adventure for other players, you’ve taken about seven or eight really big steps…” Will the book feature the iconic D&D…

The latest original series from audio producers Big Finish is the brainchild of former Young One Nigel Planer – and appropriately for the onetime Neil, its premise is pretty far-out… A time travel tale with a difference, Jeremiah Bourne In Time doesn’t feature a time machine. Sebastian Armesto plays its titular hero, described by Planer as “moaning all the time” but “an action hero on the quiet” with “a very good sense of wrong and right”. Always ready with a quick quip. he has a special ability – one that he doesn’t initially understand… “It takes him a few episodes to work out what it is he’s doing to time travel,” Planer explains. “It’s a mental process, to do with his memory.” The actor compares how Jeremiah moves between eras…

Fresh off his 10-year run on The Amazing Spider-Man, Dan Slott will be taking on another Marvel title next month when he helms the Fantastic Four’s long-awaited return. Illustrated by Sara Pichelli, opening storyline “Fourever” will see the first appearance of Reed and Sue Richards since they both vanished at the end of 2015 comic Secret Wars. “It’s tough comparing the two books as they are both the gold standard of comics,” Slott tells Red Alert. “Spidey is the greatest superhero ever, and the FF is the greatest superhero team. No two franchises are more quintessentially Marvel than those two. Spidey was Marvel’s first big breakout star, but Fantastic Four is the bedrock and foundations of the entire Marvel Universe. When Stan Lee and Jack Kirby brought the FF to life…

“DON’T QUOTE ME” “I THINK TOM HARDY COULD BE A GOOD BOND. YOU NEED AN ACTOR WHO CAN PUT A BIT OF WIGGLE INTO IT, THAT’S WHAT MAKES BOND.”HANDS UP IF YOU NOTICED PIERCE BROSNAN’S “WIGGLE”. Rebellion is delving once more into their vault of vintage British comics characters with a new one-shot based on classic ’70s characters from defunct titles Lion And Thunder, Smash and Valiant. The Vigilant, written by Simon Furman and drawn by Simon Coleby, sees a new superteam assembled from the likes of the Leopard from Lime Street, Steel Comando, Thunderbolt the Avenger and more. It’s the first step in establishing the Rebellion-verse – an ambitious new superhero line from the 2000 AD publishers. “The comics I’m now immersing myself in are those I read as…

“Is it really worth it?” After slaying his father and rising to the throne, Marith Altresyr asks himself just that in The Tower Of Living And Dying, the second instalment in Anna Smith Spark’s Empires Of Dust trilogy. “One of the key themes in Empires Of Dust is the emotional consequences of the pursuit of power,” says Smith Spark. “What it might be like to be in a position of great power and how this might affect someone. ‘I am destined to be king’ is such common trope in fantasy and historical fiction, and I wanted to explore that in more detail.” Described by her agent as “a military historical fiction writer, who just happens to have dragons,” Smith Spark studied classics and history at university, which she channels into…

THIS MONTH’S COMMUNICATIONS MONITOR NICK SETCHFIELD, FEATURES EDITOR Strap yourselves into the Gyrosphere and don’t pat the wildlife – we’re heading to Isla Nublar for this issue’s Hot Topic. Yes, you came stumbling out of the clouds of volcanic ash to tell us what you made of the latest Jurassic World caper, Fallen Kingdom. Plus, some more thoughts on Solo, and a surge of correspondence about comic book adaptations. This month’s star letter goes to Delvin Nelson, whose thoughts on Star Wars fandom earn him a copy of Slaves To Darkness by John French, courtesy of Black Library. #JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM → Gary Mancini, Facebook Loved it. Great performances, exciting action and it was even heartbreaking in one scene. It’s a definite film of two halves: the first traditional…

I can’t claim disinterested objectivity where Christopher Priest’s Inverted World (1974) is concerned. Reading Priest is a main reason why I became a science fiction writer myself. His debut, the dislocated and atmospheric Indoctrinaire (1970), a Kafka-writes-New-Wave-SF marvel, blew my mind not despite but because I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on in it. Both Fugue For A Darkening Island (1972) and A Dream Of Wessex (1977), two intensely English novels, connected in powerful but hard to articulate ways with my own conflicted sense of Englishness. Priest’s plain but poetic and oddly estranging style, his expert way with the hauntingly expressive image, his imaginative rigour and emotional elusion, barrelled through my young brain like a freight train. Or like, we might say – turning to Inverted World – a…

Davos is a popular character on the show. Is there any of your personality in there? I wish I was as brave as Davos. Stannis sent him off to be killed and then when he went down to talk to him, Stannis said, “You don’t care much for your own life, do you?” And he said, “Not really.” And it’s not because he’s depressed. I think we should all try to be like Davos because even when it’s difficult, he doesn’t hide behind things just to make his life a little easier. I really like that he’s from incredibly humble beginnings, a small-time crook who came from the worst slum in King’s Landing, yet he has more nobility than the Lannisters and Martells and people who’ve had money all their…

How did you find the levels of secrecy surrounding the show during filming? The level of secrecy involved approaches paranoia, I would say. I never say anything to anybody because they are so paranoid, you have to sign NDAs all over the place. But I subscribe to the Magic Circle ethos: don’t tell anybody anything, because storytelling is magic. They never issued a call sheet to an actor, because they could be leaked. The thing is, I use a call sheet as an aide memoir; I like to know with whom I’m working, I like to know who’s on the crew, I like to know who’s got the camera, I like to know who’s photographing me, I like to know who my make-up person is, I like to know all…

🔍 Captain America was the first Marvel hero to encounter a sub-atomic world. Golden Age SF writer Ray Cummings recycled his 1919 tale “The Girl In The Golden Atom” as “The Princess In The Atom”, a two-parter in 1943’s Captain America Comics #25 and #26. This micro-kingdom was Mita, located in a single atom of a rock on Bird’s Nest Island, Maine… 🔍 Blasted by a shrinking ray, the ever resourceful Doctor Doom ended up conquering a miniature realm in 1963’s Fantastic Four #16. “We’re in some sort of micro-world,” says Sue Storm. “A world which might fit on the head of a pin!” Ant-Man was the “special surprise guest star”… as the cover blurted to the world. 🔍 1967’s Fantastic Four #5 introduced the sinister Psycho-Man. “I come from…

“FEMALE SUPERHEROES AREN’T JUST BEAUTIFUL BREASTS AND BUTTS” For the generation that grew up on Lost, Evangeline Lilly will always be Kate Austen, the intrepid plane crash survivor with a dark secret in the mysterious JJ Abrams-produced show. But after the series ended in 2010, Lilly more than made her mark in movies – from the arrow-firing elf Tauriel in The Hobbit trilogy to Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker and the ultra-accomplished Hope van Dyne in Marvel’s Ant-Man, starring alongside Paul Rudd. She returns to the character of Hope – and her newly-bestowed winged alter-ego – in Peyton Reed’s sequel, Ant-Man And The Wasp. Aside from looking like an absolute hero in the eyes of her little boy Kahekili, as she tells SFX, she’s come to appreciate the comic…

WHAT DOES TOMORROW LOOK like? It’s a question that has long obsessed SF filmmakers as they looked to the world around them to try to predict what shape the future would take. Will we have flying cars, space travel and adventure? Or will it be war-torn wastelands, rain-soaked cities and technological disaster? If some sci-fi films are to be believed we won’t be here for much longer, so while we wait for the doomsday clock to strike midnight, let’s take a look at some of the big screen’s most famous futures… PLANET OF THE APES WHEN IS IT? 3978 WHAT IS THE FUTURE? How do you distil the fears of Cold War America into one image? You show the Statue of Liberty half-buried in dust following an apparent nuclear war.…

Were you familiar with the book before you signed up for the movie? When I heard there was potentially a female role in there that could be good for me, I read the book, had a meeting with the director, got a copy of the script, and I just fell in love. I’ve read the book now and I love the author. He sent me some books and one of them said, “Dear Ruby, thank you for being in this film. My daughter has finally read my book!” She got excited, apparently, that I was doing the film, and decided that maybe dad’s books are okay! What can you tell us about Jaxx? Jaxx is an engineer and she’s the best at her job. She works in a team of…

“There’s a real sense of a town with old hurts and wrongs, secrets and betrayals” CASTLE ROCK, Maine is arguably one of the scariest places on Earth. The picturesque town has frequently served as ground zero for disturbing phenomena in a number of prolific author Stephen King’s novels, including The Dead Zone, Cujo, Needful Things and The Dark Half. Given the immense crossover potential, who could resist combining characters from all across the King oeuvre? Well, that’s happening in Hulu’s new show, Castle Rock, and its showrunners Dustin Thomason and Sam Shaw are unlocking the community’s dirty little secrets along the way. “Part of what we set out to do in creating this show was to look at what small town life was really like in 2018 and to think…

Time Machine THE STORY BEHIND THE SF AND FANTASY OF YESTERYEAR 1997 STARSHIP TROOPERS is the title of one of sci-fi legend Robert A Heinlein’s most controversial novels: a far-future story about young people joining a war to fight killer alien insects on a far-off planet. This takes place in a militaristic world in which only those who take on the personal responsibility to fight are rewarded with the rights of citizenship. In the hands of RoboCop and Total Recall director Paul Verhoeven, its movie adaptation becomes something else: a 1997 action sci-fi blockbuster which viciously (but humorously) satirises the way that war makes fascists of us all. Sounds like the kind of thing Hollywood would spend millions of dollars on? Nor does it to us! But we’re sure glad…

→ A kid trying to pay off a humongous debt by taking part in an elaborate game of rock-paper-scissors doesn’t, on the face of it, look like an obvious starting point for a Hunger Games-style franchise. But with its “To Be Continued” ending, it’s clear Animal World director Han Yan has high hopes for this Chinese-made, manga-derived, fantasy-flavoured gambling drama. Li Yifeng plays Zheng Kaisi, a teen in a dead-end job who, after being scammed by his oldest friend, ends up owing an astronomical debt to a sinister organisation headed by the mysterious Anderson (an effortlessly scene-stealing Michael Douglas). To pay off the bill, Zheng is forced to take part in a high-stakes card game, one with terrible consequences for the losers. Yan adds plenty of fizz to make the…

→ If you thought the “epidemic of violence” subgenre was all played out, think again. Mom And Dad finds a rewarding new angle, due to the specificity of its pitch. Quite why suburban Americans start flipping out is unclear – though it seems to be technology-related, and it may be a deliberate attack. Suddenly parents like Brent and Kendall Ryan (Nicolas Cage, Selma Blair) are dashing to kill their kids, as if a switch has been flipped on the parental urge to protect. It’s a brilliantly simple high-concept with some horrific ramifications – like what happens when a woman gives birth… The ensuing carnage is pacy and rich with black comedy – particularly since those affected remain perfectly lucid, able to calmly discuss their plans. Early on, the ironic scoring…

→ You may find yourself half-expecting red white and blue Mini Coopers to crash into shot during this kitsch Hong Kong fantasy, due to its pilfering of cues from The Italian Job. If they did, you wouldn’t bat an eyelid, inured to any manner of insanity. When a goddess descends from the Heavenly Palace to visit our mortal realm, she meets a dead ringer for an old love, then uses her magical powers to help him save his orphanage from eviction. Naturally, they end up putting on a show. There’s plenty of breaking into song before that though, with our heroine delivering morally improving messages about a strong work ethic, and satirically skewering selfish socialites. Seemingly brainstormed by an eight-year-old after one too many Tizers, the plot takes in frugging…

→ There’s not much original about this post-apocalyptic thriller, right down to its crushingly generic title. Certainly the mid-film twist feels over-familiar, echoing as it does a similar reveal (only done way, way better) in HBO’s Westworld. A slim budget keeps Genesis mostly confined to the underground bunker that mankind has made its home since chemical warfare ravaged the planet, while the characters are as gloomy and forgettable as the glum, airless visuals. + Extras Motion graphics; deleted scenes.…

An Indiana Jones-wannabe bricklayer travels to Peru in search of a golden necklace in Spanish animated sequel TAD THE LOST EXPLORER AND THE SECRET OF KING MIDAS (out now, DVD/VOD/download). You don’t need to have seen the first film to enjoy its rambunctious action, which involves chases, magic and daft animal companions. We said: “A bog-standard adventure romp… Everyman Tad is a bit uninteresting. But a mummy who spends most of the movie channelling RuPaul is good for a few belly laughs.” Making its HD debut is HANSEL AND GRETEL (out now, Blu-ray), a winningly bizarre Korean chiller. After a car-crash victim is taken back to a cottage in the woods by a young girl, he finds that the girl and her siblings have terrible powers, and really don’t want…

→ This pulpy shocker locates its bloody carnage somewhere truly hellish: a run-down cruise ship en route from Sweden to Finland, many of whose 1200 passengers are set on getting hammered. With its cramped cabins and karaoke bar, it’s a sticky-carpeted nightmare. When a vampiric child on-board decides he’s had enough of lurking in the shadows in the approved manner, he kickstarts a wave of infection which sees passengers sprouting fangs, transformed into ravenous “newborns”. It’s an odd setting for an outbreak horror, but a vivid one, painted with such pungency that you can practically smell the stale vomit. Littered with prosaic details, Mats Strandberg’s prose is often starkly coarse – he’s not shy of dropping the C-bomb or frankly describing sexual arousal, making this feel like the sort of…

• The debut novel from Nick Setchfield – who just happens to be SFX’s features editor! • We’re not giving it a full review complete with star rating because, while we always strive to be even-handed, we realise it’s impossible to be entirely impartial on this one – and frankly we don’t want to be mocked in the pages of Private Eye. • A ’60s-set spy thriller, with elements of James Bond and Indiana Jones, a memorable femme fatale, Soviet villains and plenty of black magic. • Our editor enjoyed it a lot. His verdict: “The influences are obvious, but they’re remixed in a fun, fresh way – the book frequently does the unexpected, and is wonderfully evocative of time and place.” • Also has moments of darkness and violence…

→ As recent news stories have shown, embarking on foolish stunts in the hope of achieving fame will often end in tears… Nolan Moore is a moderately successful internet personality. The host of The Anomaly Files, he explores unexplained phenomena. Now with some solid financial backing, a book deal and the possibility of mainstream success within his grasp, he leads a team on an adventure into an off-limits cavern in the Grand Canyon. A lead in an explorer’s records has hinted at the presence of an incredible archaeological discovery that could change all our notions of humanity’s origins. What they find is something far more dangerous. “Michael Rutger” (not-sosecretly SF author Michael Marshall Smith) builds the tension well over the first two thirds, leading a small group of characters deeper…

Our pick of the paperbacks this month is Nick Harkaway’s GNOMON ( , out now, Windmill Books). Both a state-of-the-nation address about surveillance creep and a fiendishly plotted, cyberpunktinged whodunit, it centres on an investigator charged with finding out how a cult writer came to die in custody. We said: “A novel of energy and huge ambition, which confirms the emergence of a major talent.” There’s another mystery to be solved in Adam Roberts’s THE REAL-TOWN MURDERS ( , out now, Gollancz). In a robotmanned factory no human is ever allowed to enter, a body is discovered in the boot of a car. When a gumshoe investigates how it got there, she gets in trouble with shadowy elements of the authorities. We said: “Riffing on the way Alfred Hitchcock might…

RICHARD EDWARDS EDITOR RAVES → I really enjoyed Nick’s occult spy novel The War Of The Dark (out now) – and not just because he’s sitting opposite me as I type this! RANTS → Jean-Luc Picard is one of my all-time heroes but I’m not convinced we need him to return in a Trek spin-off. What happened to exploring strange new worlds? IAN BERRIMAN REVIEWS EDITOR RAVES → After visiting the set, I’m really looking forward to Sky’s near-future road-race show Curfew. It looks bonkers! → Hereditary was stunning. Like two great films in one: harrowing realism, then an occult shocker. → Thought the Halloween trailer absolutely nailed it. A marathon viewing of the franchise may be called for… JONATHAN COATES ART EDITOR RAVES → Still not bored of the…

→ Legendary SF writer Harlan Ellison has died at the age of 84. (There’ll be a full obituary in our next issue.) → Avengers: Infinity War becomes the fourth movie to cross the two-billion-dollar barrier at the box office. → BBC’s His Dark Materials adaptation casts Ruth Wilson as Mrs Coulter and James McAvoy as Lord Asriel. → The Clangers and Bagpuss creator Peter Firmin passes away at 89. → Jon Bernthal to return for season nine of The Walking Dead – despite his character, Shane, being dead. → Dark Horse to launch Stranger Things comics in September. → Inside Out director Pete Docter and Frozen director Jennifer Lee to head Pixar and Disney Animation, respectively, after John Lasseter steps down. → Former Young Ones Nigel Planer and Ade Edmondson to…

SHINE ON! DOCTOR SLEEP → Some bad hotel experiences just can’t be exorcised by leaving a scathing review on Expedia. Just ask Danny, the son of Jack and Wendy Torrance in Stephen King’s The Shining. King gave us an adult Danny in 2013 sequel Doctor Sleep, one still dealing with his experiences in the Overlook Hotel (★ ★ – “Blood poured out of the elevator… will NOT be coming back!”). Dealing with lingering rage and alcoholism, Danny encounters a young girl in a hospice who shares his psychic abilities, and soon discovers she’s the target of a group with the same terrifying powers. Ewan McGregor has signed to play the grown-up Torrance kid in the movie version being prepped by Warner Bros. It’s set to be helmed by Oculus’s Mike…

BACKLASH WHIPLASH → Horror has never more exciting and more varied, so naturally there’s a bloody backlash. While op eds are trying to fob us off with phrases like “elevated horror” or calling horror movies “psychological thrillers” when anything deemed worthy by the mainstream lands, I’m now starting to see a backlash to the backlash. Hereditary – one of the most talked about movies of the year and one of the most divisive (personally I love it) – now seems to be encouraging a different kind of reaction from genre fans. I’m seeing people suggesting that those who found Hereditary effective only did so because they haven’t seen many horror movies. What scares people is personal and taste is subjective so I don’t care if people like it or don’t,…

GAME OF THRONES SEAN BEAN KIT HARINGTON LENA HEADEY MAISIE WILLIAMS* SOPHIE TURNER IAIN GLEN* ALFIE ALLEN JOHN BRADLEY AIDAN GILLEN LIAM CUNNINGHAM* ISAAC HEMPSTEAD WRIGHT CONLETH HILL DANIEL PORTMAN JEROME FLYNN NATHALIE EMMANUEL GWENDOLINE CHRISTIE * KATE DICKIE EMILIA CLARKE THOMAS BRODIE-SANGSTER * JESSICA HENWICK MARK LEWIS JONES* EMUN ELLIOTT MILTOS YEROLEMOU HARRY POTTER DAVID BRADLEY* NATALIA TENA JIM BROADBENT MICHELLE FAIRLEY CIARÁN HINDS ED TUDOR POLE RALPH INESON+ JULIAN GLOVER* IAN WHYTE SPENCER WILDING* DOMHNALL GLEESON WARWICK DAVIS* DANIEL RADCLIFFE EMMA WATSON RUPERT GRINT RICHARD HARRIS MICHAEL GAMBON* ROBBIE COLTRANE ALAN RICKMAN TOM FELTON MAGGIE SMITH KENNETH BRANAGH RALPH FIENNES MATTHEW LEWIS JULIE WALTERS MARK WILLIAMS* HELENA BONHAM CARTER GARY OLDMAN BRENDAN GLEESON DAVID THEWLIS TIMOTHY SPALL STAR WARS DAISY RIDLEY PETER CUSHING ANTHONY DANIELS JOHN BOYEGA FELICITY…

SPOILERS, OBVS! VISERYS TARGARYEN “A Golden Crown” (1.06) Daenerys’s mean, arrogant and abusive older brother hadn’t done much to endear himself when Khal Drogo gave him the crown he desired – the fact that it was made of molten metal and melted off half his face made this the show’s first true shocker. NED STARK “Baelor” (1.09) Okay, Sean Bean’s chances of survival on screen are generally low, but Ned was supposed to be the hero of the show! Then King Joffrey made a bid for the hotly contested title of Westeros’s biggest scumbag by ordering for Lord Stark to be beheaded. CATELYN STARK “The Rains Of Castamere” (3.09) The Lannisters sent their regards as Walder Frey and Roose Bolton turned traitor and murdered Robb Stark, his pregnant wife Talisa…

What can you say about Ghost? Does she have designs on world domination? I can’t say too much at all! There’s something that everybody wants… Every villain has their own agenda, let’s say. She has the ability to travel through walls and doors, right? Absolutely. Yes, I mean – it would be boring if we all had the same powers! I can definitely phase through things. How did you find the physical training? Absolutely loved every second of it. That’s the best part. Creating even the style of how your character fights. Everyone has their own different style. Were you amazed by the size of the Marvel machine? Oh my goodness, the sets are insane. I was completely gobsmacked. In between takes, I’m actually just walking around, soaking it all…

WITH ITS GOTHIC HERITAGE and spooky vibe, there can be few better places in the world to discuss the adventures of the Dream King than New Orleans. But after Simon Spurrier, Nalo Hopkinson, Dan Watters and Kat Howard were assigned to write The Dreaming, House Of Whispers, Lucifer and Books Of Magic – the quartet of titles that make up Vertigo’s new Sandman Universe line – they were invited out to the Big Easy to meet with the Prince of Stories himself, Neil Gaiman. “Once the four of us were chosen, we were told that if we could get our asses straight out to New Orleans, we could spend three days with Neil just sitting and talking it over with him,” says Simon Spurrier, who is penning The Dreaming for…

What first sparked the idea for Meg? From the time I first saw Jaws, I was fascinated by great white sharks. After reading Benchley’s classic, I read about every true-life encounter with these creatures. There was always a blurb about megalodon, their prehistoric cousin, usually accompanied by a photo of six scientists in a meg jaw but I could find nothing else about these real monsters. In the summer of 1995, I read a TIME magazine article about the Mariana Trench, the deepest gorge in the world. The article also covered hydrothermal vent communities, and the idea struck me… What if that giant shark was still alive? I went to the library and spent a few weeks doing research to see if my premise was scientifically feasible. When I discovered…

So who is Jackie and what is her history with Castle Rock? Jackie is a townie. She’s grown up here. She is the self-proclaimed historian of Castle Rock. She’s extremely proud of her town. She’s also the town taxi driver. She really likes to know about town business. I wouldn’t call her a gossip. Jackie is more of a snoop. It comes from this curiosity and excitement about her town, and the legends she’s grown up hearing about. There’s the writer with the parasitic twin and the killer dog, but she’s actually never witnessed any of it. Jackie knows everything about it and thinks it’s so cool that she is from Castle Rock. When Henry Deaver shows up in town, she thinks, “Oh crap. This is my moment. This is…

“The world around the Parrs is full of imagination and wit” → While not the lengthiest wait for a sequel in the record books, 14 years is, by any measure, A Long Time. With a film as well-crafted, respected and loved as The Incredibles, the anticipation has built expectations to a height you’d need an oxygen mask to survive. So, can Incredibles 2 actually live up to them, or does it come crashing down to earth under the weight of all the pressure? Fortunately, when Brad Bird said that he’d only make a follow-up when he had a story worth bringing to the screen, he wasn’t just cranking up the hype machine: the second outing for the Parrs delivers. Picking up right where the original adventure left off, the new…

→ Grim reality and Grimm fairy tales entwine audaciously in this story of two kids in love, separated by the adult world at its cruellest. In a Sicilian village in the ’90s, Luna and Giuseppe have a joyful after-school date. Then Giuseppe, son of a supergrass testifying against the Mafia, suddenly disappears. As it becomes obvious he’s been kidnapped, Luna searches for him, railing at the tight-lipped grown-ups and battling her mum, who tells her to forget Giuseppe. Wood and water motifs lend this dark story lyricism; the roaming camera and howling, chittering soundscapes suggest a supernatural presence constantly peering at the characters. Comparisons to Guillermo del Toro are apt – Luna’s rough-hewn family cellar could be straight from his world. But don’t expect animatronic creatures or special effects, barring…

→ The charming design of this Danish toon has echoes of Wes Anderson, while the story is Roald Dahl mixed with Jules Verne. A young elephant and a cat embark on a sea-borne rescue mission in a giant pear to find their town’s mayor, meeting mechanical dragons, pirates and ghosts. It’s great fun if you’re under 10, but there’s not much here to entertain adults – particularly as the English dub makes young jumbo Sebastian so grumpy and whiny that you want to tie a knot in his trunk.…

Did adapting the novel feel like playing around in a pop culture toy box? → There’s this kind of unlimited imagination quality to the book that allows you to run wild, though with everything needing to be licensed, all of your wonderful ideas turn out to require a bunch of lawyers. But it’s definitely helpful having Spielberg when you’re in that situation, because he could just make a phone call and you knew you were going to get it. The Shining plays a big role in the movie. How did that come about? → I’d always wanted to do something closer to the original idea of Last Action Hero, my first script, which was getting to go into a movie and affecting it. The first movie I wrote into my…

BLU-RAY DEBUT Producer Wes Craven’s name is splashed across this risible horror, co-written by his son. A super-soldier gets loose in an underground lab. Cue Alien déjà vu as he’s hunted down with a motion detector. Then Lance Henriksen’s scientist inexplicably brings his kids along. Their inane bants annoy, and the threat – a muscly bloke in a vest – fails to impress, even when it sprouts a clawed tongue (all the better to suck brains with). + Extras Interview; trailer; booklet.…

→ Bela Lugosi earns star billing in this Universal chiller, but it’s a bait-and-switch – demoted from Transylvanian aristocracy, the Dracula icon brings what haughty charisma he can to the brief, thankless role of a butler. It’s a fitting metaphor for a studio at the tail-end of its horror glory years. Night Monster is very much a late period entry from the once mighty Universal, a routine take on the Old Dark House tradition that spices its murder mystery tropes with an intriguing dollop of metaphysical weirdness. Ingston Towers is the Old Dark House in question, a stately pile where “the air is charged with death and hatred and something that’s unclean”. A maid frantically scrubs blood from the stairs while a murderer prowls the fogbound swampland around the estate.…

→ This scuzzy black-and-white horror follows the descent of philosophy student Kathleen (Lili Taylor), who’s attacked on her way home one night and begins turning into a vampire. This isn’t the grand vampirism of Interview With The Vampire or Coppola’s Dracula, but a grubby kind where Kathleen grows heroin-chic gaunt and feeds on the homeless. Unfortunately, in its pursuit of worthiness, the film is weighed down by endless discussions on redemption and sin, which somewhat spoils the fun. The film’s at its best when feeding us the simple, sick thrill of watching Kathleen fill a syringe with a stranger’s blood and pump it into her veins, or writhe on the floor of her apartment as black blood spurts from her neck. It’s also interesting when viewed as a metaphor for…

→ Salvation for Lucifer as Netflix rescues the show from cancellation. → Fan campaign to save Timeless fails as NBC axes it – though talks are ongoing about a two-hour movie to conclude the story. → Fox cancels spooky comedy Ghosted. → Alex Kurtzman takes over showrunning duties on Star Trek: Discovery. He’s also developing other Trek TV shows. → Damon Lindelof’s HBO Watchmen spinoff adds Tom Mison, Jeremy Irons, Regina King, Don Johnson, Tim Blake Nelson and Louis Gossett Jr to the cast. → Halo’s Master Chief coming to TV in a 10-episode series for US cable network Showtime. → MTV lines up Teen Wolf showrunner Jeff Davis for Aeon Flux TV reboot. → Amazon Studios developing series based on Robert Jordan’s epic Wheel Of Time book series. →…

The 30th anniversary celebrations for Back To The Future (1985) proved that the film is as much loved now as it ever was. Still regarded as a gold standard for blockbuster filmmaking, it also coined some of Generation X’s most recognisable movie quotes, and managed to make DeLorean cars iconic. So it’s a good thing that Christopher Lloyd, who created one of cinema’s most iconic scientists in Dr Emmett Lathrop Brown, is as much a fan of the franchise as anyone. Where we’re going, we don’t need roads… Would you like to play the role again? → Yes, I would! It doesn’t look like there’s going to be a Back To The Future 4 but certainly if it happened I would love to do it again. You got to reprise…

Who are your protagonists? → Barbara’s a scientist who helped invent time travel in 1967, but lost her job when she had a breakdown. Her granddaughter Ruby is a psychologist who tries, years later, to piece together what happened. And Odette’s an aspiring detective, investigating the murder of an unknown woman – possibly Barbara – in 2018. How does time travel work here? → The story assumes there’s only one timeline rather than many worlds. Attempts to change the past are unsuccessful. Most of my rules draw from Igor Dmitriyevich Novikov’s work on closed timeline curves. Did your experience as a psychologist help? → I was keen to explore the psychological adjustments time travellers would make. For instance, how would they experience bereavement when they could visit the dead when…

Described as “Downton Abbey meets Game Of Thrones in a world where Voldemort won,” Vic James’s The Dark Arts Trilogy takes place in a Britain where commoners serve as slaves to the magically-skilled aristocracy for a decade. As a documentary maker who has worked for the BBC and Channel 4, the novels were inspired by James’s day job. “I’d been producing a series called The Super-Rich And Us, about how the wealth of the 1% affects the rest of us,” she tells Red Alert. “I’d been speaking to some billionaires, and what they all had in common was never questioning that their money gave them the ability to do anything they wanted, which was almost like a form of magic.” With James promising “magic, and more magic!” there are plenty…

→ Jim Carrey in the frame for Robotnik in Sonic The Hedgehog… James Wan producing remake of Arachnophobia… Kumail Nanjiani joining Men In Black… Cate Shortland on the shortlist to direct Marvel’s Black Widow… Geoff Johns writing and producing Green Lantern Corps… Matthew Vaughn planning Kingsman spin-off The Great Game, set in the early years of the 20th Century, along with a Kick-Ass reboot… Donald Glover, Ryan Gosling and Ezra Miller frontrunners for Willy Wonka… Yoson An joining Disney’s live-action Mulan… Helena Bonham Carter and Angelina Jolie are tabloid rumours for the villain in Danny Boyle’s Bond 25… Julian Dennison joining Godzilla Vs Kong… JK Rowling beginning work on the screenplay for Fantastic Beasts 3… Kaya Scodelario joining creature-fest Crawl, directed by Alexandre Aja… Paramount and Bad Robot bringing Jared…

“ONE CAN’T SHAKE THE FEELING OF BEING WATCHED OR FOLLOWED” In times of national – and international – uncertainty we often turn to genre fiction for escapism and entertainment. This was borne out throughout the 20th century. Vicious new methods of killing devised during the First World War meant that what soldiers were left returned home disfigured, mutilated, damaged both internally and externally. How was this reflected in popular culture? A new wave of horror films, exemplified by Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein, of monsters who terrified and elicited sympathy in equal measure. In the 1950s the combination of Red Scares and fears of nuclear annihilation led to movies and literature based around massive, rampaging child of the atom mutations and body snatchers taking over our identities. And so it continued. Yes,…

How long did it take you to figure the character of Hodor out? There were grand plans, but nobody knew apart from George RR Martin… I tried to ask him… But even for me, for the first season or two, Hodor was kind of an enigma… who he was and where he came from. But after about season two, I really started to enjoy playing him, and I kind of projected my own backstory onto him. I asked George, numerous times. I bought him whiskies, vodkas, everything… never worked. He had a really good poker face. But a theory I had, being a big guy, maybe he was another of the Clegane brothers, and something happened to him as a child, like it did with the Hound, having his face…

3 Number of religions in Westeros 25 Days it took to shoot the Battle of the Bastards $15 Million Estimated budget per episode for Season 8 7 Kingdoms of Westeros 1 YEAR The length of the tyrannical King Joffrey’s reign 153 AC Year the last of the (old) dragons died* * AC: after the Targaryen conquest. 4 Number of beheadings in first episode 700 Height of the Wall feet 300 Distance the Wall covers miles 9 Number of episodes Sean Bean was in before Ned’s death 38 Number of Emmys Game Of Thrones has won 6000 The number of men Ramsay says the Boltons have in their army 120 million The number of times the season 7 finale was pirated 3 Number of times “Winter is coming” is said in…

Have you been surprised at Sam’s character arc? I’ve been constantly surprised. What you first see about him is what he tells Jon about what he believes about himself, so he believes he’s a coward. He believes he’s no good. He believes he’s weak and can’t achieve anything. And over the course of the show you actually see how untrue that is – about how much he can achieve if he sets his mind to it. He’s not a coward. He’s got a healthy contempt for rules, and he will stand up to the rules if he believes they’re getting in the way of somebody’s happiness or bravery. And he’s fallen in love, he’s taken the responsibility of parenthood and through a series of clever political manipulations, he’s managed to…

Is Bran the most powerful character in Game Of Thrones? I think there are so many different characters in the Game Of Thrones world. You’ve got Cersei, who is arguably one of the most powerful political figures, and then you’ve got your Varyses and Littlefingers. But Bran, I think… I’ll be bold and say that overall he probably is the most poweful character, because he’s all-knowing. That’s the point of being the Three-Eyed Raven. He can dip into all of time and the history of the universe, in a moment, so I think that in itself presents a huge power for Bran. But at the same time, what’s neat about it is the way this power has been given to one of the least physically powerful characters. If Cersei had…

How did you feel about returning to the character of Scott? I was happy to do the role… I don’t think I questioned it as much [on] this movie. How do we find Scott at the beginning of Ant-Man And The Wasp? I have certainly reconnected my daughter and family. The thing that makes it a little trickier is we start the movie and I’m under house arrest… I am not living a very heroic life, I’ve been the last couple years in my house and Cassie will come over and we have play dates. What about your relationship with Hope as the Wasp? I think that we are discovering our strengths as a team working together. When we start off we’re not on the best of terms because of…

What inspired you to join Ant-Man? There was a conscious thought, when I got involved with this, this could possibly be my meal ticket into retirement! But I’m happy to be part of the Marvel family. It’s really been a hell of a lot of fun. Were you a Marvel expert before you signed on? Not really. They send you a very nice coffee table book of Marvel characters for your reading pleasure! A lot of the Ant-Man stuff with Hank Pym… he’s in his prime. Now we’ve moved him to a senior position and he’s passing everything on to Scott. The sequel concentrates on the search for Janet. But what’s Hank’s relationship like with Hope now? We had our struggles, and it’s been smoothed out… we work well together…

Often compared to JK Rowling’s famous boy wizard, teenage mage Tim Hunter actually made his debut in 1990 prestige format mini-series The Books Of Magic, seven years before the publication of the first Harry Potter novel. Going on to rack up 75 issues of his own Vertigo monthly, the 13-year-old Tim Hunter that appears in Books Of Magic has been described by Neil Gaiman as “a Tim Hunter for a new time.” Gaiman also cryptically hints that “the old Tim Hunter may well have existed, and that may actually have ramifications down the line.” “It’s not an absolutely clean slate, as there are specific references to Neil’s Books Of Magic run,” says Kat Howard, who has been paired with artist Tom Fowler. “But I do feel like I’ve been given…

HOOK JAW Star strip in ultra-violent ’70s comic Action, Hook Jaw took a shameless, great white-sized bite out of the Jaws phenomenon. Its ocean-menacing hero earned its name from a gaff hook embedded in its jaw. GUMS Another Jaws cash-in but this one was played for laffs in the pages of Monster Fun. Not-so-apex predator Gums was “a shark worse than its bite” – toothless, the finny goon had to rely on a pair of false chompers. SKY SHARKS These whimsical beasts appeared in 2010 Doctor Who special “A Christmas Carol”. Gliding through the atmosphere of a pseudo-Dickensian planet, they were inspired by Steven Moffat’s childhood fear of sharks. KING SHARK Son of the Hawaiian Shark God no less, this humanoid hammerhead is one of the freakiest DC Comics villains.…

Many years into the future, humanity has made contact with aliens and become part of the intergalactic community. Despite this, a flotilla of generation ships, the Exodus Fleet that carried the last humans to leave Earth, is still travelling through space, and still provides a home to the descendants of those who left. But why stay aboard? It’s a question that intrigues even Becky Chambers, from whose head the Exodus Fleet originally blasted off. As she herself puts it, “If the point of a generation ship is to carry you away to a more hospitable planet why would you stay? Why have they continued to do so when they could move to alien cities or colonise other worlds? Why are people still living there? What makes this way of life…

THE IMPOSSIBLES (1966) When called by boss Big D, Hanna-Barbera’s rock’n’ roll trio would spring into crime-fighting action – quite literally, in the case of Coil-Man! Completing the line-up: Multi-Man (who could duplicate himself) and Fluid-Man (have a guess). THE MIGHTY HEROES (1966) Brainchild of Ralph Bakshi (Fritz The Cat/Wizards), this Terrytoons show was somewhat ironically titled… its heroes included Rope Man (who kept getting tangled up) and Diaper Man – a baby packing a bottle that shot a powerful jet of formula milk! THE GALAXY TRIO (1967) Sandwiched between segments of Birdman (nowadays an Attorney at Law…) came the adventures of three more Hanna-Barbera heroes: Vapor Man, Meteor Man and Gravity Girl. These extra-terrestrial law-enforcers patrolled space in their ship, the Condor One. THE SPACE SENTINELS (1977) Based in…

Sadly, horror prequel THE FIRST PURGE (out now) wasn’t shown to critics until the day before release – just too late for our deadline. Adam Sandler’s Dracula holidays on a cruise ship in HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 3: A MONSTER VACATION (27 July), while TEEN TITANS GO! TO THE MOVIES (3 August) sees the Cartoon Network heroes hit the big screen. And 10 August brings two releases. When a disease kills off 98% of America’s kids, survivors develop superpowers in THE DARKEST MINDS; meanwhile, Jason Statham takes on a prehistoric shark in THE MEG. Nut’im, Jase!…

→ This irritating, highly stylised infection horror sees a corrupt law firm on lockdown when staff (including The Walking Dead’s Steven Yeun) are infected by a virus that makes them violent and impulsive. A convoluted corporate misconduct plot mixes with ultraviolence and sub-Tarantino bantz in a way that’s probably supposed to be funny, but instead is just a bunch of suited up a-holes killing each other with office equipment and swearing for an hour and a half. + Extras None.…

→ As afflictions go, being irresistibly attractive is one most of us could live with. But it’s a bit more problematic when you’re a Buddhist monk sworn to a life of celibacy. Mixing mild eroticism, gentle humour and folkloric fantasy, this low-budget effort is a slight tale (the credits roll 67 minutes in), and one which largely plays its hero’s peculiar curse for laughs. As Ninko is mobbed by the local womenfolk, it all starts to resemble an Edo-era Lynx advert, or possibly – as a mob of topless suitors pursues him, breasts jiggling in slow motion – a pornier Benny Hill sketch. Thankfully, Suffering Of Ninko has things going for it beyond merely mild titillation. An encounter with a mysterious female figure uncannily absent of either a face or…

→ A much-loved children’s novel, an Oscar-nominated director and a nine-figure budget… these three things had the potential to create something special. Unfortunately, the finished result just feels a little underwhelming. Meg Murry (Storm Reid) is an unhappy girl, bullied at school and missing her scientist father (Chris Pine), who went missing four years ago. She and genius younger brother Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe) are approached by three women – Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who and Mrs Which – who explain that he “tessered” across the universe using the power of his mind, and offer to help the children find him. Thus begins a journey across brightly-coloured planets and sandy beaches, searching for Meg’s dad while fighting a malevolent entity The It. This is a trippy, vibrantly-hued film that’s fundamentally about…

→ It’s not often that you think, “If ever I bumped into that author in a pub, I’d buy him drinks for the rest of the night.” Why does Rhys Thomas deserve so many beverages? To thank him for The Unlikely Heroics Of Sam Holloway, possibly the best book about a geek written for geeks that’s ever been written. Sam spends his days working in a warehouse and his nights fighting crime as the Phantasm, inspired by a) the superhero comics he loved as a kid and b) a family tragedy… but when he meets the woman of his dreams, his comfortable status quo is rocked. Sounds straightforward, right? But there’s so much more to this story: layer upon layer of believable character building; the unfussy, pragmatic way it tackles…

→ Sometimes, a book has a central idea so nifty that it’s fun to read even if the execution’s off. Gregory Katsoulis’s debut imagines a near-future US in which patent law is king. Everything – every device, every song, every word – is subject to copyright. From the age of 15, everyone wears a bracelet that monitors communications and charges by the word. Trying to speak while out of credit produces electric shocks to the eyeballs, from corneal implants. The whole thing is hilariously OTT, as only YA dystopia can manage. Naturally, people are shipped off to do hard labour forever for tiny infractions, naturally the authorities are omnipotent, and naturally there’s a lone teenage girl who defies the system – by choosing not to speak at all – and…

→ Ah, mutant kids. Can’t live with ’em, can’t just lock them away in special schools as though they’re nothing more than animals and generally treat ’em like crap. Except the US government does just that in this dark and disturbingly visceral story (set in the ’80s), which drips with Deep South racism and fear of the “other”. As usual in tales about “different” humans, these children – affected by a virus that’s given them everything from wings to psychic powers – come to realise that the treatment they’re getting is unfair, and soon a full-scale mutant revolt is on the way. Picture the X-Men, but with utterly shocking (and, yes, final) deaths amid all the human-vsmutant destruction. It’s not pretty, but it’s not meant to be; expect blood, gore,…

→ This comedy murder mystery isn’t actually SF or fantasy at all, but we’re reviewing it for the very good reason that it’s set at San Diego Comic-Con. Ever since his marriage broke up, comics artist Mike Miller has been on a never-ending tour of conventions, moving from one hotel to the next. But on the Thursday night at San Diego, the editor who Mike’s wife left him for is found murdered – and Mike has no alibi. What’s great about The Con Artist is how it doesn’t simply use Comic-Con as a colourful backdrop: yes, it’s full of nerd culture in-jokes, but there’s a lot more to it than that. Fred Van Lente (who’s written numerous comics himself) builds the whole murder mystery out of the shady side of…

→ Hellcorp takes a leaf from a well-regarded 1934 fantasy film, Death Takes A Holiday, and its less-liked remake, Meet Joe Black. In both, Death takes on our form and slowly becomes humanised by a mortal woman. In Hellcorp, the Devil undergoes the same treatment, in what the book presents as less-than-gorgeous Glasgow. (The author’s Scottish, so he can get away with dissing the city – he’s even ruder about its prettified suburbs.) The humour is broadly Tom Holt-ish, but with one unfortunate difference: it’s not much good. The jokes don’t land, and the central pairing between Him Downstairs and a human nurse called Jill is woefully charmless. This Devil is never really evil, he’s just detached from humanity until he gets a bit of a scolding – some Prince…

→ Sci-fi murder mysteries have been around for decades, and there’s something about the idea of a spacebound whodunnit that’s immediately attention-grabbing. Debut author Alex Thomson tries to channel this pulpy charm with the clunkily-titled Death Of A Clone, but the end result is never quite as thrilling or satisfying as it should be. Set deep in the Asteroid Belt, the story follows Leila, one of several groups of clones bred to work in a mining facility on a resource-rich asteroid known as Hell. When Leila’s identical clone-sister Lily is found dead, the facility’s human bosses are keen to dismiss the death as just an accident – but Leila is convinced that Lily has been murdered, and uses her knowledge of Agatha Christie mysteries to set out and start her…

→ Now this is unusual: a YA novel by an American author, spun off from a Japanese animation franchise. For the uninitiated, Attack On Titan envisions humanity living behind huge walls, besieged by the titular man-eating giants and defended by soldiers who use cables to swoop and swing into battle like Spider-Man. Both the manga and anime are still ongoing. Rachel Aaron’s enjoyable spin-off boldly opts to create a new cast of characters, relegating the series’ established heroes to just a few glimpses. The book’s set early in the Titan story (around the time of the third and fourth episodes of the anime), and its heroine is 16-year-old Rosalie. She’s an aristocrat whose wedding has already been arranged by her cash-strapped family, but is determined to have a few months…