Table of contents for Holiday Special 2019 in SFX

Victor Pemberton, one of the original writers of Timeslip, secured the rights in the ‘90s but a relaunch never took off. FIFTY YEARS SINCE ITS DEBUT on ITV, children’s sci-fi series Timeslip is making a comeback, with original stars Cheryl Burfield (Liz Skinner) and Spencer Banks (Simon Randall). Big Finish is, of course, behind the return, with the duo reunited for full-cast audio dramas. Now adults, Liz and Simon meet two youths from the ’80s and realise the barrier has reopened. Two volumes, The Age Of The Death Lottery by Andrew Smith and The War That Never Was by Marc Platt, will be out in 2020. “The initial idea was very exciting, but I was very well aware that it’s been donkey’s years since I’ve done anything,” Burfield says. “I’ve never…

Jérémy Clapin’s earlier shorts include 2008’s Skhizein, about a boy struck by a meteorite. WHEN I LOST MY BODY DEBUTED IN CANNES earlier this year in Critics’ Week, the festival was soon buzzing about the most original animation seen in years. Based on Happy Hand, a novel by Guillaume Laurant – the writer previously nominated for an Oscar for scripting Amélie – it tells a surreal and sublime tale of a severed hand that escapes a dissection lab, desperate to reunite with the body it once belonged to. It was producer Marc du Pontavice who first considered turning Laurant’s book into an animated film, after he befriended the author and was – ahem – handed a copy of the book. “I was fascinated by the angle of the story,” he explains,…

A Shyamalan reboot of Tales From The Crypt failed to get off the ground in 2017. IT’S DIFFICULT to go into detail about M Night Shyamalan’s new psychological thriller Servant without dipping into spoiler territory. In a nutshell, the disconcerting Apple TV+ series follows the tale of a Philadelphia couple who hire a nanny to look after a therapy doll they’re using to cope with the loss of their child – but there’s so much more to the story than that. “It’s a contained series where you never leave the main location, which is a house in Philadelphia,” Shyamalan explains to SFX. “And there are minimal characters, so we can concentrate on the things that interest me; the performances, the writing and the cinematography. We’re telling the story of this specific couple…

I LOVE THE CHARACTER,” SAYS Daisy Ridley, simply, of her Force-powered alter ego. “All the things that scare her and make her feel vulnerable and tested are all things that she has to face. It’s not like anything is holding her back. She’s terrified, but she’s still going on that journey.” Ridley’s own journey feels like a leap to lightspeed. Trained at Tring Park School for the Performing Arts, she scored the role of Jakku scavenger-turned-Jedi-apprentice Rey, hurtling into the reality-warping realm of global recognition (she was meant to make her big screen debut in 2014’s The Inbetweeners 2 – her scenes were chopped from the final cut). Yes, she was terrified – she talks of a panic attack during promotion for The Force Awakens – but, just like Rey,…

It is a period of civil war. The New Republic has fallen to the might of the sinister First Order. The last hope for freedom now resides in the beleaguered forces of the Resistance. Luckily, they have some of the best and most dedicated pilots in the galaxy on their side… The new Star Wars™ Rebel Starfighters Owners’ Workshop Manual from Haynes goes in-depth on the ships that make up the fighting arms of the Alliance and Resistance fleets. Fully authorised and approved by Lucasfilm, it’s packed with diagrams, cutaways and essential information on the history and capabilities of these craft. Look inside the cockpit of the T-65B X-Wing, as flown by Luke Skywalker - AKA ‘the fighter that killed the Death Star’; discover the history of the Koensayr Y-Wing…

ON OCCASION, SFX GETS TO walk in the footsteps of legends. This time, it’s one that casts no shadow. A sign we spied turning off the road gave us our first shiver down the spine: shaped like a clapperboard, it bore the legend “Bray Studios”. The site has seen better days. Decaying outbuildings and corrugated sheds around the perimeter – which we imagine formerly housing costume designers and make-up artists beavering away on cloaks and fangs – are in such shabby condition that they’ve been fenced off. Down Place, the grand house next door (once home to offices and screening rooms), now stands derelict – paint flaking, masonry crumbling, a window boarded up with some old doors. But this place still retains an aura of greatness, because for 14 years…

OF ALL THE STRANGE places SFX has been in pursuit of a story, summer at the Dancing On Ice studios probably takes the biscuit. Thankfully it’s another frosty production that brings us out to Bovingdon Airfields – also a location for Rogue One and Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows – but one we’re no stranger to. Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol has had many lives since first being published on 19 December 1843. There have been musicals, animations, theatrical stagings, operas and graphic novels. Doctor Who, the Muppets and Vanessa Williams as Ebony Scrooge have all taken a turn at the traditional festive tale. But we’re willing to bet you’ve never seen an adaptation quite like the new three-part BBC/FX version, hitting screens this Christmas. Jaw-dropping from the opening…

With an impressive list of sci-fantasy credits on his CV (Invasion: Earth, Doctor Who, Jekyll & Hyde, Zapped, Red Dwarf), Howard Burden is more than qualified to bring this new Worzel to life. “Mackenzie wanted Worzel to have found this coat in an old trunk,” recalls Burden. “We tried several military-style jackets, and we just kept coming back to the style that he’d drawn in his original sketches, which was very 18th century. It had that kind of swagger. We developed the trousers so they go into the earth. The hat was a find that just seemed to work with the turnip head.” But Worzel is only one of many scarecrows that Burden designed. “I think we designed 14 in total. We have one with a marrow head, another one…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 12A | 103 minutes Director Paul Feig Cast Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding, Emma Thompson, Michelle Yeoh Paul Feig aims to bring some Christmas cheer here with a film that’s one-part romantic trifle, one-part social awareness screed and one-part… something else. Which is why Last Christmas veers into our wheelhouse. We won’t spoil it, but many people guessed the idea just from the trailer – and it’s not giant flying reptiles. Still, former Mother Of Dragons Emilia Clarke charms as the messy Kate, dealing with personal and health issues by drinking, sleeping on friends’ couches and (accidentally) electrocuting fish. She can’t handle her overbearing mother (co-writer Emma Thompson), and her boss at a year-round Christmas shop – the entertaining Michelle Yeoh – is getting tired of her attitude.…

RELEASED 6 DECEMBER U | 90 minutes Director Ben Smith Cast Nick Frost, Luke Evans, Gemma Arterton, Bill Nighy There’s a wonderful moment at the start of this kiddie superhero tale which simply reeks of The Twilight Zone. After being fired into space during a rocket test in the ’60s, Stardog (Nick Frost) arrives in an American town with no memory of how he got there – and discovers that the citizens are all terrified of animals and he must fight for his life. It’s a creepy, mind-bending idea, but unfortunately the rest of the script doesn’t capitalise on that glorious sense of “What the hell?” and falls comfortably into, “Oh, it’s this again.” That’s because Stardog then teams up with Luke Evans’s smarmy, Batman-esque Turbocat to find his owner,…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2019 | 15 | SVOD Director Mati Diop Cast Mame Sane, Amadou Mbow, Ibrahima Traoré, Nicole Sougou NETFLIX Mati Diop broke barriers in May as the first black female director to have a film In Competition at Cannes. But ultimately this streaming release may prove more significant. Set on the dusty streets of Dakar, it initially seems like a realist slice of life, one that opens a window onto a nation many Western viewers will be ignorant of. Engaged to a wealthy man she doesn’t love, Ada (Mame Sane, self-contained yet luminous) is sweet on Souleiman, one of many construction workers on a futuristic tower who’ve gone unpaid for months. After some set sail for a better life in Spain, they’re soon presumed drowned. But their spirits…

RELEASED 30/16 DECEMBER 2019 | 12 | DVD/download You can’t fault this crowdfunded alien visitation movie for ambition, but you do have to get past a script that brings to mind Garth Marenghi. Writer/director Simon Cox throws in superheroes, zombies and soap opera melodrama, and has a stab at CG sequences that’d challenge a blockbuster. But as the cast struggles with leaden dialogue, the film bites off more than it can chew. Extras Commentary; Making Of; deleted scenes; music video.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2019 | 12 | Blu-ray (4K/standard)/DVD/download Director David Leitch Cast Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Idris Elba, Vanessa Kirby The Fast & Furious movies have been stretching the laws of physics for nearly 20 years. Now, with this Hobbs & Shaw spin-off, the franchise belatedly makes the leap into actual sci-fi territory by introducing a cybernetically-enhanced villain in the form of Idris Elba’s Brixton Lore. Aside from that – and the absence of Vin Diesel – it’s more or less business as usual, as Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham return as best frenemies Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw. It’s the action movie of a teenage boy’s dreams, with endlessly inventive stunt sequences, a complete aversion to subtlety, and its tongue buried deep in its cheek. The alpha-male posturing…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2019 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD/download Director Jim Jarmusch Cast Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, Chloe Sevigny When it comes to cinema, certain phrases just don’t sound right. “Ken Loach’s new Fast & Furious film” for example, or “an Oscar-worthy Vinnie Jones performance”. “Jim Jarmusch zombie apocalypse” is another. But here it is: a preposterously starry affair from the indie auteur, which follows events in a small town after the Earth being pulled off its axis causes the dead to rise. Adam Driver, Bill Murray and Chloe Sevigny play three cops. The likes of Tom Waits, Wu Tang’s RZA and Iggy Pop have small roles. Jarmusch uses three main methods to try and jog your funny bone. Firstly, repetition – the theme song crops up four or…

Making its UK HD debut: 1980’s PROM NIGHT (out now, Blu-ray). This middling slasher sees four high-schoolers who, as kids, bullied a girl into a fatal fall picked off by an axeman. Despite red herrings like an escaped maniac, the killer’s identity is easy to guess, and the incessant disco score undercuts the tension. Highlight: three minutes of star Jamie Lee Curtis cutting a rug! Some decent extras include a new documentary on the “Final Girl” trope. Also new to HD: 1973’s THE HOUSE IN NIGHTMARE PARK (out now, Blu-ray). Frankie Howerd stars in this horror-comedy co-written by Dalek creator Terry Nation, as a ham actor invited to a country estate for nefarious reasons. We said: “Howerd’s customary sauce is neutered, and while the Old Dark House trappings are present…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 320 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author Rebecca Roanhorse Publisher Century There’s an important question every prequel needs to ask: does the story function in its own right, outside the context of what’s to come? This prelude to The Rise Of Skywalker doesn’t quite have the answer. Rebecca Roanhorse’s novel is an easy, entertaining read, yet never feels like an essential addition to Star Wars lore; it’s a tale that would have been a casual aside in the original trilogy. With the Resistance decimated after The Last Jedi, Resistance Rising focuses on Leia and Poe Dameron’s efforts to rebuild a force capable of taking on the First Order. There are plenty of familiar faces from the new movies in action – alongside veterans of the original trilogy, including Wedge…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 179 pages | Hardback/ebook Author Eric Saward Publisher BBC Books Finally, all the gaps are plugged; 30 years after Doctor Who disappeared from our screens, the novelisations of the classic series are complete. Former script editor Eric Saward’s final contribution to the range isn’t a classic, though the original 1985 TV story (perhaps the series’s most grotesque and darkly humorous) is – if you can accept the Sixth Doctor’s relegation to the sidelines. It takes half the duration before he even arrives at the main location: Tranquil Repose, a funerary facility run by “the Great Healer": Davros, who’s turning the deceased great and good into a new strain of Daleks. Saward seems far more interested in his own creations – justifiably enough in the case of the…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher DC Comics Writers/artists Keith Giffen, Jeff Lemire ISSUES 1-3 Recently DC has been using the mini-series format to take some unexpected departures, and it’s hard to get more unexpected than an out-of-nowhere follow-up to a three-decades-old event comic. 1988’s Invasion! pitched DC’s heroes against evil aliens called the Dominators, and here the immediate aftermath of this epic battle is explored on a much weirder, more Stranger Thingsesque scale. The deeply offbeat story focuses on the quiet town of Dangerfield, Arizona, where monsters dwell in the shadows and a bizarre experiment is unfolding. Somehow, five teens whose lives were upended by the Invasion have been drawn together by circumstance, and now they may be the only chance for humanity to stand against a reality-altering evil. “A slow-burning…

RELEASED 6 DECEMBER Running Time 58 minutes Format CD/download Publisher Bafflegab Productions AUDIO DRAMA What would Christmas be without an MR James ghost story adaptation? While Mark Gatiss is bringing “Martin’s Close” to TV, his League Of Gentleman compatriot Reese Shearsmith stars in this audio adaptation of “The Ash-tree”. When Rachel Fell (Amanda Abbington) comes into an inheritance, she uses it to buy a derelict country hall. She moves in with her husband Simon (Shearsmith), but the pair find rural living hard. The house has a troubled history, Rachel doesn’t like the local historian Mr Crome (John Sessions) and when she unearths an unmarked grave, things start to get really nasty… The talent on display here is impressive. Matthew Holness (director of Possum) has turned in a taut script that…

WE’VE ALL GOT A CHRISTMAS RITUAL, RIGHT? Whether it’s waking up on the day to a glass of Buck’s Fizz (when you’d never normally drink it), or forcing yourself to endure one of the worst films of all time, Love Actually. Mine requires some planning. December is for The Box Of Delights. Not once, but twice. There’s the classic 1984 BBC adaptation of John Masefield’s book, which ran over six weeks and was, for the time, both extremely innovative and expensive. Christmassy yet creepy, it’s my favourite festive show – it evokes such positive nostalgia, despite for many years having only ever watched the original transmission and omnibus repeats in 1986. To watch the six episodes in their original one-a-week-until-Christmas-Eve run you’d need to start in late November, but my…

SPACE: 2019 Les Prince, email I am greatly enjoying the reruns of Space: 1999 [on the Horror Channel] after so many years’ absence. Since it was made more or less on the cusp of the IT explosion, it is fascinating to see how the producers imagined future tech. It’s amusing to see the computers communicating by little slips of paper and, in one episode, seeing a character actually using a typewriter. I wonder if they hadn’t been watching their Star Trek, where the computers saved information on little square pieces of plastic or even data crystals. That aside, I enjoy the episodes and seeing it through the lens of the early 21st century, it’s quite revealing just how far reality has started to outstrip science fiction now. SFX We still love…

Imagine a world where all you’ve ever really known is Walkers. No, not the Mariah Carey-endorsed crisps. A decade after the apocalypse, a new generation leave a life of safety in a protected community to go on a quest for something new. That’s the premise for the third series in the Walking Dead universe, coming to screens in spring 2020. The as-yet-unnamed 10-episode series features a younger cast, led by Nico Tortorella as Felix. Created by The Walking Dead producer Scott M Gimple and series showrunner Matthew Negrete, with Robert Kirkman serving as Executive Producer, the team promises a new take on the franchise, with elements of a quest for the young survivors.…

Gaiman’s book drew on an incident in his father’s life: a lodger stole his car, and then was found dead inside. DESCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR as an exploration of “the disconnect between childhood and adulthood”, Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean At The End Of The Lane – the story of 11-year-old Alex’s youthful friendship with the enigmatic Letty Hempstock, who claims a duck pond is actually an ocean – has now been turned into a play. Its scriptwriter Joel Horwood suggests that it is the 2013 novel’s central theme of “faith, in the purest sense of the word” that makes it eminently suitable for the stage. “Theatre is an act of faith,” he tells Red Alert. “It requires the complicity of an audience to believe the given circumstances, to complete the…

WHEN STAR WARS HIT IN 1977 IT was a world-changer, commanding headlines, conquering box offices and invading imaginations like a looming Imperial battleship. George Lucas’s cosmic swashbuckler redefined everything from merchandise to the movies themselves. But what was it like to be at the heart of that phenomenon, the very epicentre of all the madness going on? “It happened all around us, while we were out promoting it,” remembers Mark Hamill, who reprises the role of Luke in Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker. “We started the tour a few days before it opened, and then it opened, and when we got to Chicago, we were taxiing towards the terminal, and I could see there were crowds. “And I turned to Harrison and Carrie and said, ‘Hey, you guys, there…

THE LAST TIME WE SAW THE space family Robinson, they were adrift once more, lost in a brand new galaxy. Separated from their friends on the Resolute and without even Will’s mysterious robot BFF to help, the situation looked bleak. Danger, danger indeed… But all is not lost, as showrunner Zack Estrin tells SFX on set in Vancouver. Season two of Netflix’s ambitious reboot will see bigger threats to the castaways – not to mention some ambitious location shooting – but it will also see the troubled family united in their struggle to survive, as well as adventure on a grander scale. “The first few episodes, in particular, come in with a really great amount of spectacle and fun. It is a truly big thing this season.” GROWING UP “It’s…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 12A | 111 minutes Director Hiroyuki Imaishi Cast Billy Kametz, Johnny Yong Bosch, Crispin Freeman, Alyson Leigh Rosenfield A romping action-comedy, this anime is full of shouting, overblown action and silliness for the fun of it. Be prepared for gaudy brashness, excess decibels and a cacophony of duelling males in thrusting comic-book poses. It’s best watched in a crowd of cheering fans. Promare is a standalone film, but has an in-built fanbase, as its creators previously made equally brash TV anime, including Gurren Lagann and Kill La Kill – though Promare has none of the latter’s very rude humour. This pulpy yarn is set in a future city where some people use pyrotechnic powers to cause havoc. However, they’re opposed by a square-jawed, lunkhead hero and his…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2019 | U | Blu-ray/DVD/download Welcome to a parallel world where The Lego Movie was just a cynical cash-in, devoid of imagination or a subversive sense of humour. If it wasn’t for those familiar plastic people, this would be just AN Other CG-animated fantasy about a pair of bereaved siblings who find themselves pulled into a world of pirates, Vikings and dinosaurs. It’s predictable, unfunny and devoid of memorable characters. Extras Two brief featurettes.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2019 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD/download Director Gary Dauberman Cast Mckenna Grace, Madison Iseman, Katie Sarife, Patrick Wilson After a couple of duds, the Conjuring franchise gets more-or-less back on track with this Annabelle threequel. Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren have taken, uh, possession of the demonic doll, intending to keep her locked safely away in their room of occult artefacts. But when the couple head out for the evening, things go awry. Their babysitter’s friend Daniela (Katie Sarife) promptly decides to mess around with Annabelle and unleashes a horrifying haunting… Perhaps sensing that the doll itself is a little played out, Annabelle is a rare presence on screen. Instead, the film’s big “innovation” is using the Warrens’ collection to briefly showcase a menagerie of monsters from…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2019 | 12A | SVOD Director Jérémy Clapin Cast Hakim Faris/Dev Patel, Victoire Du Bois/Alia Shawkat NETFLIX This French animation is an amazingly compelling, poetic and often moving experience. The story alternates between flashbacks in the life of a lonely Parisian youth and the adventures of the same youth’s severed, crawling hand, battling its way through drains, ducts and dustbins to a mysterious destination. The “hand” scenes are the most (ahem) gripping. Some sequences are straight-up nightmare fuel, especially when we reach the rats… But the human story is strong too, showing the boy’s hopeless trajectory following his parents’ death. Then he encounters a female voice from an apartment-door speaker and makes desperate, indeed stalkerish, efforts to find its owner. The “hand’s viewpoint” scenes are breathtaking, though…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 1987 | 18 | Blu-ray Director Paul Verhoeven Cast Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Ronny Cox, Kurtwood Smith RoboCop’s satirical take on capitalism run amok may feel more prescient than ever, yet it’s first and foremost an ode to ’80s cinematic excess. Paul Verhoeven’s Hollywood breakthrough encapsulates his subsequent filmography, with subtlety seemingly a dirtier word than the copious swears – where most directors would cut away from bullety carnage, Verhoeven lingers to the point where it becomes cartoonish. Peter Weller is suitably mechanical as the cyborg law enforcer, leaving the acting fireworks to a memorable rogues’ gallery of villains with a penchant for classic dialogue. We’d buy that for a dollar… Extras Including the theatrical version, the director’s cut and one of the most unlikely TV edits…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 229 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author Jane Rogers Publisher Sceptre Jane Rogers flits between the worlds of contemporary and speculative fiction, and she’s done the latter to great acclaim – her 2011 novel The Testament Of Jessie Lamb won the Arthur C Clarke Award. Now she returns to the field with Body Tourists, which takes us into a near-future Britain where the brains of the wealthy dead have been preserved in the hopes of bringing them back to life at some point. An experimental programme can put their minds into the body of a living host – but who’d let some dead, rich person take over their body for two weeks? Well, as luck would have it, machines are stealing everyone’s jobs, which means the North is full…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 372 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author Daniel H Wilson Publisher HarperCollins Michael Crichton’s classic The Andromeda Strain (1969) is often cited as the granddaddy of techno-thrillers. Crichton himself refuted this, but there’s no denying the novel made a splash. This perhaps had less to do with its subject matter – scientists investigating the outbreak of a deadly extraterrestrial disease – than its procedural format. Crichton wrote the book in the style of a journalistic exposé, leading some readers to assume it was, in fact, all based on reality. It’s a conceit maintained by Robopocalypse author Daniel H Wilson in this belated sequel – not that anyone’s going to be suckered into believing it’s real this time. Let’s be clear: The Andromeda Evolution is a fun read, but culturally significant…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 464 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author Amélie Wen Zhao Publisher HarperVoyager There’s a pleasing mix of cultures in this debut novel from Amélie Wen Zhao, with everything from Russian-style royalty to Asian mysticism. Perhaps there’s a little too much at times – would people in this fantasy realm really use the phrase “yin yang” without the history of Chinese philosophy behind it? It jars, but then perhaps they would… and you can’t deny the societies being brought to life here are well fleshed-out. Yet there are problems. Luckily, the pacing isn’t one of them: the story speeds along like a freight train, following young Princess Ana as she searches for the man who killed her father, teaming up with a Han Solo-a-like rogue along the way. She can…

RELEASED 5 DECEMBER 244 pages | Hardback/ebook Editor Steve Cole Publisher BBC Books The Doctor’s been an inveterate name-dropper for over five decades; this collection of six short stories explores what happens when she’s finally called upon to make good on those boasts. It opens with the Thirteenth Doctor telling Yaz a story (along with providing chocolate, a hot water bottle and unspecified hygiene supplies; it’s the Doc’s period remedy of choice) about her tragic meeting with Amelia Earhart, in Jenny T Colgan’s “Chasing The Dawn”. “That’s All Right, Mama” by Paul Magrs is an anodyne story of Elvis’s love for his mother, and the damage done to the timeline when the Doctor inadvertently left him a way to speak to her even after death. It’s sadly lacking the passion…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Soaring Penguin Press Writer David Hine Artist Mark Stafford COLLECTION First published in the Meanwhile… indie comics anthology, this collected edition of David Hine and Mark Stafford’s grotesque haunted house story is deliciously weird and frequently very funny. Faraway Hills is not quite what it seems. The new town (built on the site of something far older, natch) was meant to be clean and crime-free – a place where its residents could make a fresh start. But when young Jenny arrives, searching for her missing boyfriend, she finds it almost completely deserted. Only local town crier Ned Trench remains. He tells her that everything changed when the old Castavette House materialised on the edge of town. Music was heard from within, and soon people began to…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Heritage Comics/DC Thomson Writers Grant Morrison, Dave Broadbent Artists Enrique Alcatena, Mike McMahon COLLECTION Reviving the sci-fi digest that was launched in 1979 as DC Thomson’s answer to 2000 AD, this inaugural collection combines two tales that should interest fans of the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic, not least because it boasts early work by two of its most famous alumni. Dating back to 1981, “Operation Overkill” is one of Grant Morrison’s first professional assignments, and even at the tender age of 21, he imbues the fast-paced story with some of his now trademark esoteric wit. There’s a Jack Kirby-esque cosmic quality to Dan Dare/Han Solo-esque space troubleshooter Mikal R Kayn that brings to mind Morrison’s current stint on DC’s own space cop, Green Lantern. It’s lavishly illustrated…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Format reviewed PlayStation 4 Also on Xbox One, PC Publisher Reef Entertainment RELEASED OUT NOW! Format reviewed PlayStation 4 Also on Xbox One, PC Publisher Reef Entertainment VIDEOGAME If you’re expecting a Dark Fate tie-in you’re out of luck. Developer Teyon only has the rights to make a game based on The Terminator and T2, the happy consequence of which is that everything after Arnold raised his thumb and made a generation of grown men cry doesn’t exist. Set in post-apocalyptic 2028 Los Angeles, it sees you playing as resistance soldier Jacob Rivers, who’s guided on his journey by a mysterious stranger. Who could it be? Missions vary from stealth incursions into small sandbox maps to linear Call Of Duty style shootouts. Levelling your character’s skills and…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Format reviewed PlayStation 4 (PSVR only) Also on Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest, HTC Vive, HTC Vive Cosmos Publisher PlayStack VIDEOGAME As is the case with far too many videogames, there is, sadly, no sign of Bradley Walsh here; but Jodie Whittaker is in this VR adventure, replicating her role as the Doctor with wonderful enthusiasm. Admittedly, the closest you get to meeting her is standing in front of an unnervingly large hologram of her disembodied head, but hey, you can’t have everything. You are the nameless stranger that, for reasons nobody feels the need to explain, the Doctor chooses to help her save existence from a “reality virus”. The developers know what fans want, so you get to travel in the TARDIS, and even wield the sonic…

Other cast includes old friends and co-stars Sara Crowe, James Holmes, Wilf Scolding and Fisayo Akinade. A GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS, THE BBC tradition which ran throughout the ’70s and has been intermittently revived since 2004, is back for another bump in the night. The master of the macabre, Mark Gatiss, is once more at the helm with his third Christmas ghost story – four, if you include 2008’s Crooked House, which we certainly do. “I’m hoping – this is two years in a row – this might be a tradition again,” he says with a smile. When we speak on location for Martin’s Close, his other show (see page 66) has overrun slightly, meaning he’s got to jump between ghosts and vampires. It’s the end of July – one…

THE PROPHECY IS AN ANCIENT ONE. It was told a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, among the barren, sun-beaten dunes of Tatooine. Or at least the southern desert wastes of Tunisia which were doubling for that distant world, as far from the moneyed glitz of Hollywood as Luke Skywalker’s home planet is from the bright centre of the universe. As the filmmakers grappled with malfunctioning droids and sand-choked electrical equipment, Mark Hamill spent time between camera set-ups chatting to director George Lucas, whose shy, achingly awkward exterior concealed a sense of ambition that was either breathtaking or laughable. “He said ‘Um, how’d you like to be in Episode IX?’” Hamill later recalled. “This is 1976.” Forty three years on – the same span, bogglingly, between that…

TRADITIONAL BEACH HOLIDAYS ARE so passé. We don’t want sand in between our toes anymore – we want dust under our battered leather rebel boots. And for that you’ll have to travel a little bit further than a budget airline will take you. In fact, you might even have to trade for passage on a cruiser to get this far. We’re talking end of the universe – the edge, in fact, to the Black Spire Outpost on Batuu. Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is the latest, and largest, in-world attraction for Disney theme parks, with identical locations at Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California and Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. SFX visited the former, shortly after the location opened in summer 2019. CLOSE TO THE EDGE One of the great things…

One of the biggest talking points of Netflix’s Lost In Space reboot was the alien robot that Will found and made an unusual bond with. Although boasting a radically different design to the ’60s original – and a far more mysterious backstory – the show kept the ‘one boy and his dog’ dynamic, something that Maxwell Jenkins deliberately tapped into while performing his scenes. “I describe the robot as being like one of my pitbulls. I have two and they get a bad reputation [as a breed], but it’s truly the trainers that can make them bad. Acting with the robot, to me, feels like talking to my dog.” Alas, the last time we saw the robot, he was adrift in space. “I think that Will and the robot have…

“NO. IT’S CATEGORICALLY UNTRUE. It’s 100% grade A… should I say ‘nonsense’, or should I say ‘bullshit’?” SFX is at Roath Lock studios in Cardiff, home of Doctor Who, and the “elephant in the room” question has been posed: is there anything to the persistent rumours that Chris Chibnall’s second series will be his last? The showrunner – whose chipper demeanour suggests he’s either sincere or a pretty talented actor – is adamant. “Is that really the rumour?” he laughs. “I’ll look you in the eyes. Please write this verbatim: somebody made that up. It is a lie! I swear on my life.” That’s one of the few direct, definitive statements we’ll get today, because the secrecy protocols engaged for Jodie Whittaker’s debut season are continuing for her second. Good…

DRACULA (1958) SM: The Hammer movie is actually quite faithful, in a very compressed way. It goes at 100 miles an hour and bangs through it, but it’s a very, very good film. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, in particular, are wonderful. MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION: “DRACULA” (1968) MG: There’s a very good ITV one with Denholm Elliott. It’s very clever – it’s all set in the asylum, and they do the whole book in about an hour. It’s really quite bold. There are lots of lovely surprises there. COUNT DRACULA (1977) SM: The BBC version with Louis Jourdan [and Frank Finlay as Van Helsing], which is tremendous, is the most faithful version there is. It’s a brilliant adaptation of the book, which is a pretty hard book to adapt because…

WILLOWY FIGURE IN A military long coat and a massively wide-brimmed hat wanders from a sun-dappled country lane into a golden field of gently rippling wheat. The figure bends to peer at a poppy, staring at it wistfully. It’s a moment of bucolic serenity entirely at odds with the modern madness just a few feet away. Next to a gate, a huge bustling team of filmmakers armed with cameras and audio gear are beavering away among a nest of cables. Beyond the acres of beautiful fields, out of sight over a ridge on this blustery early summer day, is the M25. Surprisingly, the shot being prepped won’t feature the willowy figure: the cameras are pointing the other way, at a muddy jeep containing two children and a farmer. When everyone’s…

RELEASED TBC DECEMBER 15 | 96 minutes Director Anthony Bueno Cast Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Sigourney Weaver, Ivan Reitman Having celebrated its 35th anniversary this year and with a second sequel just wrapped, the time is right, it seems, for a feature-length documentary looking back at the original 1984 Ghostbusters. Director Anthony Bueno has assembled an impressive array of talking heads for this affectionate, fan-angled retrospective, sans one vital player (no prizes for guessing who decided to sit this one out). Yet while Bill Murray is conspicuous by his absence, the late Harold Ramis – who died in 2014 – is included, which suggests that although this documentary is only getting a release now, it’s been in production for a long time. If you’re a Ghostbusters nut, there’s much to…

UK/US Apple TV+, new episodes every Friday Showrunner Ronald D Moore Cast Wrenn Schmidt, Joel Kinnaman, Sarah Jones, Michael Dorman EPISODE 1.01-1.04 Houston, we have a problem. (Not that we’ve been misquoting that Apollo 13 radio communication for decades). Instead, the issue facing NASA in Battlestar Galactica/Outlander showrunner Ronald D Moore’s new series is that the Russians beat them to getting a man on the Moon back in 1969. This causes history to splinter off to an alternate timeline in which the Space Race never ended. The USA may be playing catch-up, but the competition looks set to accelerate the push to Mars and beyond, as well as establishing extraterrestrial bases. Not that the show seems to be particularly worried about hurrying. While there are plenty of stirring, thrilling, uplifting…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 1920 | PG | Blu-ray Directors Paul Wegener, Carl Boese Cast Paul Wegener, Albert Steinruck, Lyda Salmonova BLU-RAY DEBUT Just as a sorcerous word breathes life into the clay-bodied guardian of the Jews, this release reanimates a century-old classic of screen horror. Stitched together from various sources, it’s a patchwork beast, closer to the Golem’s spiritual heir, Frankenstein. But as an act of restoration it’s remarkable, possibly the best this pioneering German chiller has ever looked. Pin-sharp now, the imagery remains dream-like, haunting. The Prague ghetto’s crowded, lopsided towers place this kabbalistic fable in an off-kilter reality, while one interior set – the rabbi’s home – hints at the inside of a skull, the walls like whorls of bone. The in-camera effects retain their theatrical, magic show…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2019 | PG | Blu-ray/DVD Eighties Doctor Who villain Sil encores in a spin-off drama that could be called The Trial Of A Slime Lord. Charged with pushing Devil Seeds – the most addictive substance in the cosmos – the greed-crazed slug faces his accusers in a talky, overlong courtroom yarn by his creator Philip Martin. It’s clearly constrained by a limited budget, but Nabil Shaban recaptures his signature role with gurgling verve. Extras Deleted scene; six featurettes.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2019 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD Showrunner Alex Kurtzman Cast Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Anson Mount, Michelle Yeoh On one level, season two of Discovery feels like an elaborate plot to extricate the series from the continuity minefield of its prequel setting, using a deluxe update of Doctor Who’s timey-wimey Bad Wolf scenario. On the other hand it has so much fun dancing through that minefield (ooh, look – Talosians!) that you can’t help being swept along. Some engaging new supporting characters help distract from the technobabble and clunkily formal dialogue. Anson Mount’s take on Captain Pike oozes charm and authority, while Ethan Peck’s Spock is a clever and unexpected exploration of the Vulcan’s formative years. Sure, there are missteps and ponderous indulgences (why are Klingons so dull on…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 1944 | PG | Blu-ray/DVD/download Director Basil Dearden Cast Mervyn Johns, Glynis Johns, Tom Walls, Françoise Rosay BLU-RAY DEBUT Thought DeadOf Night was Ealing’s only crack at the supernatural? Wrong. This curio sees the British studio using a ghostly premise to do their bit for the war effort. A disparate group of characters come to an inn in the Welsh countryside: among them a divorcing husband and wife, an Irish diplomat, an ex-con, and a profiteer. Discovering year-old newspapers and noticing their hosts cast no shadow, it slowly dawns on them that the inn was destroyed by bombing… Now it’s back, to provide “a pause in time” for reflection. The couple are reconciled, the ex-con resolves to enlist, and so on. Once you’ve quit chuckling at the…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 400 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Christopher Hinz Publisher Angry Robot In his author’s note here, US writer Christopher Hinz reveals how his novel Anachronisms (1988), while it found a publisher, “probably should have been consigned to a drawer along with other fledgling efforts”. A sense of regret lingered. Being “vexed”, he wanted to rewrite it. Starship Alchemon is the result, a book that Hinz says is essentially Anachronisms rebuilt from the ground up. But while this tale of a super-advanced being threatening humanity is a cracking yarn in many respects, there’s still a lingering sense that it has resisted Hinz’s best efforts at rewriting. The crew and key characters, notably LeaMarsa de Host, whose “psionic” (essentially psychic) abilities are off the scale, are well drawn and sympathetic.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 558 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Justin Lee Anderson Publisher King Lot Publishing Moving on from the comedic style of his debut Carpet Diem, Justin Lee Anderson throws himself headlong into high fantasy with book one of the Eidyn series. It’s set in the uneasy aftermath of a devastating war which ended with would-be conqueror Mynygogg trapped inside the city of Dun Eidyn. The protagonist of the tale is Aranok, a magic user, who’s dispatched by the King to restore a deposed ally to power. His mission becomes complicated by a lethal plague, demons roaming the countryside, and a growing sense that something is very rotten at the heart of this particular kingdom. The plotting is formidable. Anderson scatters hints and clues throughout the adventure, the meaning of…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Marvel Writer Ethan Sachs Artist Luke Ross ISSUES 1-4 Designed to act as a prologue to the events of The Rise Of Skywalker, this four-issue miniseries features all the sequel trilogy’s major players – and does very little with any of them. Shaken by the events of The Last Jedi, Leia embarks on a mission to the home world of the late, lamented Admiral Ackbar, hoping to forge a bond between the Resistance and the Mon Calamari. Meanwhile, Finn and Poe are seeking out a much-needed weapons cache, but fall foul of a vicious squad of bounty hunters. And that’s basically it. The “plot” is about as by-the-numbers Star Wars as you can get. Kylo Ren appears intermittently to shout at General Hux. There’s some mild…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Format reviewed PlayStation 4 Publisher Sony VIDEOGAME Most apocalypses are predictable: zombies, asteroid strikes, capitalism. This game at least goes out there and comes up with something new. In this end-of-the-world scenario, the Death Stranding is a past event where ghosts began to materialise in the real world, with disastrous consequences: mainly nuclearlevel explosions known as voidouts, when spirits touch the living. So basically Poltergeist, but with weapons-grade plutonium instead of chairs not being where you left them. Years later, America is a crater-ridden wasteland with survivors living in walled cities and underground bunkers – which is where you come in. You play as Sam Porter (The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus), hired by the United Cities of America to reconnect and save the world. By delivering things.…