Table of contents for Summer 2015 in SFX

RICHARD EDWARDS EDITOR RAVES “Chewie, we’re home.” Possibly the most moved I’ve ever been by a film trailer. Don’t mind admitting I shed a tear. Daredevil was great, a believable crime drama that nonetheless felt part of the MCU. A bold experiment that paid off spectacularly. Thanks for all the lovely birthday messages for our 20th anniversary. We were really chuffed. IAN BERRIMAN HOME ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR RAVES Got a bit behind on The Walking Dead, but I finally caught up. Thought season five was great. Very pleased the Adventures With The Wife In Space blog is now tackling new Who: http://wifeinspace.com Shatner TV movie Sole Survivor is getting a DVD release – hurrah! ALEX COX OPERATIONS EDITOR RAVES A ctually almost nearly caught up with Game Of Thrones. My favourite…

FAVOURITE SF/FANTASY FILM Probably Alien. That was the movie that made me want to be a filmmaker. Actually, I was well on my way to becoming a psychiatrist. I was taking an experimental psychology class, and my [proposed] experiment was “Do you get more out of a movie if you understand the psychological subtext to it or do you get more out of being a popcorn viewer?” I had a focus group seeing Alien, just as a popcorn experience. Then another group seeing it with detailed pictures of how the monster has a penis head and Mother betrays her children and there’s fallopian tubes as spaceships and vagina walls as doors. My instructor was like, “What are you doing here? You need to go to film school.” FAVOURITE SF/FANTASY TV…

Usually confined to rampaging across Earth, the King of Monsters will soon be descending to the fiery depths of Hades itself. Devised by editor Bobby Curnow, Godzilla In Hell sees a revolving team of creators guiding Toho’s famous daikaiju, starting with writer/artist James Stokoe, who makes his first return to the character since 2011’s Half-Century War. “I’d done a straight Godzilla story with that book, so getting a chance to work on something different and on a stranger slant was really exciting,” says Stokoe. Described as “new territory” for him, the Big Grey Gecko initially finds himself out of his natural element. “Godzilla’s always going to be Godzilla no matter where he is,” says Stokoe. “Things might get a little more bizarre… but I think his reactions will be recognisable…

NICK Zack Snyder has a gift for a wow-worthy visual but there’s something weirdly lumpen about this trailer. There are flickers of coolness but as a whole the dour tone is crushing. JORDAN The first half of this trailer is everything I feared BvS would be after the joyless Man Of Steel, but the second half looks promising – Frank Miller’s grizzled arse-kicker brought vividly to life. RUSSELL Two minutes 13 seconds that sum up all that’s wrong with modern superhero movies (especially DC ones). Will the final film really be as glum, portentous and colourless as this? JAYNE Affleck could make a decent Batman; he’s suitably grumpy here. Love the Alex Rossesque shots of Supes dangling in the sky. But I don’t trust Snyder after Man Of Steel, and…

There is nothing more quintessentially 2015 than the way in which Emily St John Mandel found out she’d won the premier prize for genre fiction, the Arthur C Clarke Award. “I was obsessively hitting refresh on Twitter,” says Mandel. “My experience has been that I find out about everything on Twitter first! It was very strange – I’m used to obsessively hitting refresh and not winning the awards, but it was a really lovely surprise.” It’s a fittingly modern method to receive the news considering the subject matter of Station Eleven, a novel that tracks a theatre troupe as it brings Shakespeare to a post-apocalyptic landscape. “I wanted to write about the modern world, about this extraordinary apparatus of cell phones and aeroplanes, electricity and running water that I think…

With Netflix swiftly renewing Daredevil after the runaway success of the first series, Charlie Cox will soon don the red leather again. Doug Petrie (Buffy The Vampire Slayer) and Marco Ramirez (Sons Of Anarchy) are taking over from the departing Steven DeKnight as showrunners, and Cox is hoping that next year’s second season will delve even deeper into Matt Murdock’s colourful mythos, starting with Hornhead’s most famous old flame. “Matt makes a reference in the first season to ‘that Greek girl that I dated in college,’ so it’ll be fun if Elektra makes it in,” he teases. “Obviously, Bullseye is one of the great Daredevil villains, so at some point I hope to see him as well. Frank Castle – aka The Punisher – would also be great, and maybe…

THE MAN FROM UNCLE Sharp-suited spy-fiaction on the big screen! ANT-MAN Marvel’s microscopic crusader is here! PIXELS Earth vs invasion of the arcade games! PLUS: Fantastic Four! Inside Out! Kim Stanley Robinson! Mission: Impossible! SPECTRE! Self/less! Maggie! Under The Dome! Doctor Who! And more! All contents subject to change. Because this world is an illusion and certainty is a cruel mirage. Go to gamesradar.com/sfx for details NEVER MISS AN ISSUE Subscribe today – see page 36…

Contact us: • Email sfx@futurenet.com • Write to Post Apocalypse, SFX, Quay • House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA • Facebook Facebook.com/SFXmagazine • Twitter @SFXmagazine THIS MONTH’S LETTERS COMPILED BY Ian Berriman Reviews Editor An eclectic postbag this month. Issue 260’s Leonard Nimoy tribute cover met with widespread approval, as did Netflix’s Daredevil. Plus, after the plot of Rogue One was revealed, many of you shared what else you’d like to see from the Star Wars Anthology movies. Mostly because we asked you to! WRITE IN AND WIN! We’re never less than generous here at SFX, so don’t think we won’t reward Star Letter writers with something for their efforts. Oh no. Mark Dabbs over there will soon be receiving Deathfire, the latest instalment in the Horus Heresy series. It’s…

• Chase Masterson (“SFX stood up for geekdom way before it was cool. Love and respect!”); • Mary Bicknell (“Happy 20th birthday – the years may have zoomed by but here you are still looking great”); • Tobias Sturt (“I remember sitting in the pub amazed at this mag that catered to my every nerd need with such panache”); • Steven Ellis (“Thanks for all the friends your forum helped me find – I wouldn’t have a son if it wasn’t for you”); • Danny (“SFX has been a constant reminder that I am not alone and other geeks existed in the world”); • Verity Hayter (“Because of SFX, I’ve made some of the best friends I’ve ever had”); • Daft_Aider (“Still remember me and my schoolmate combining our lunch…

Andercon 13-14 June Celebrate 50 years of Thunderbirds and all things Anderson with the second annual convention dedicated to the puppet maestro. www.andercon.co.uk Geek Central Bath 4 July Geek Central returns to SFX’s back yard with even more stalls, traders and gaming events. Plus, cosplay and retro gaming on a cinema screen! geekcentralhq.com. geekcentralhq.com London Film and Comic Con 17-19 July If it’s star wattage you’re after then look no further. This year’s event welcomes Noah Wyle, Charles Dance and Michael J Fox to the big smoke. http://www.londonfilm andcomiccon.com Lavecon 11-12 July Celebrate top space sim Elite: Dangerous, and sci-fiin general, at the Northhamptonshire gaming, cosplay and literary con. http://laveradio.com/lavecon-2015 Nine Worlds 7-9 August The London geekfest returns for another year of inclusive film, literature and science fandom. https://nineworldsnineworlds. co.uk…

WHEN WILL PEOPLE ACTUALLY, MOSTLY JUST COOL.” ever learn? The original Jurassic Park may have been doomed to failure, a living parable of the dangers of mankind messing around with nature, yet something – hubris, greed, the need for a blockbuster sequel – made reopening the prehistoric theme park inevitable. And besides, what are the chances of fossilised lightning striking twice? Now, 22 years after the original movie and 14 years since the franchise’s last outing in Jurassic Park III, something really has survived. Jurassic World sees the series returning to Isla Nublar, the tropical island that was the setting of Steven Spielberg’s first bout of carnivore carnage, and finds a fully functioning mega-theme park, complete with all the usual fast food concessions and some very special attractions – think…

It’s not just the computer geniuses at ILM who get to create scenes from Jurassic World, you know. Lego’s new Jurassic World range features characters and dinosaurs from the movie, and we have a full set* to give away. To stand a chance of winning, head to www.futurecompetitions.com/jurassiclego and answer this question: Which character caused the computer systems to shut down in the original Jurassic Park? a. Dennis Nedry b. John Hammond c. Donald Gennaro Competition is open from Wednesday 27 May until midnight on Tuesday 23 June 2015. For terms and conditions, see www.futurecompetitions.com/jurassiclego.…

You’d be forgiven for thinking of dino films as escapist fantasy. But that’s not always the case. “What’s interesting to me is the way that some dinosaur films actually anticipated the changes in scientific thinking,” says Mark Berry. “Theories about warmblooded dinosaurs with tails in the air were far away in 1925 when Willis O’Brien gave us athletic dinosaurs in The Lost World. He even had his meat-eater leap to snatch a flying pterosaur!” In the years since, dinosaur movies have given us sharp portrayals of dinosaurs as they could have been. Even if the ones in Jurassic World don’t have feathers.…

The Killing Machine The Terminator (1984) Faction: Skynet Sent back by Skynet to kill Sarah Connor before she can give birth to resistance leader John, the original T-800 is a machine of few words, taking out her namesakes with zero mercy before being squished in an industrial press. The Surrogate Dad Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) Faction: Humans Sent back by John Connor to save his 10-year-old self from the liquid-metal T-1000. Reprogrammed to take on more human characteristics and only shoot people below the knees. The Ticking Bomb Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines (2003) Faction: Humans Sent back by the resistance to protect key future soldiers, including John, from the powerful T-X. Fitted with nuclear battery fuel cells, which it uses to finally blow up the “Terminatrix”. The…

WEB-SHOOTING SUPERHEROES. Time-warped teens. Loveable tin-can robots. The past 20 years have served up their fair share of spectacular genre films. In fact, the past two decades have seen a huge surge in the popularity of sci-fiand fantasy: Avatar remains the highest-grossing film ever made ($2.7bn), with Avengers Assemble not too far behind ($1.5bn). “This [is] our time of streaming into the main,” Joss Whedon enthused in 2012, and he was right. All those amazing movies haven’t made it easy for us to select our favourite 20 films of SFX’s lifetime. In fact this was the most brutal thunderdome of our four-part anniversary celebrations. There were casualties along the way – Avengers, Harry Potter, District 9 – but here’s our choice of the movies that defined the first 20 years…

Released in the same summer that The Blair Witch Project provided horror-hounds with what might well be the true heir to The Haunting’s subtle “things that go bump in the night” approach, Jan de Bont’s rehash was everything the original wasn’t. Despite a whopping $80 million budget and an A-list cast, including Liam Neeson and Owen Wilson, the biggest problem with the modern rehash is that it shows everything. Moreover, made in the era where CGI generally looked like, well, digital animation, the movie’s various ghostly happenings are more akin to an episode of Scooby-Doo than an effective update of a beloved macabre-masterpiece. It’s now largely forgotten. We’d wager that any future attempt to revitalise the fearful atmosphere of Robert Wise’s original will have learned that less is most certainly…

Release Date: OUT NOW! 12A | 130 minutes Director: Brad Bird Cast: George Clooney, Thomas Robinson, Britt Robertson, Hugh Laurie, Raffey Cassidy, Kathryn Hahn SO IS IT ALL ABOUT Disneyland? Does it have anything to do with that weird box of clues on Twitter? Do we find out why George Clooney has an exploding bathtub? Err... Yes and no. The fact that you leave Tomorrowland with more questions than answers is sort of the whole point. Brad Bird might have already ditched live action to rejoin Pixar, but there’s more ideas buzzing around his latest sci-fiopus than his old animation alumni have mustered in a decade. We pick up the first story strand at the 1964 World’s Fair. Budding inventor Frank Walker (Thomas Robinson) meets a creepy girl (Raffey Cassidy)…

This month, three movies bit holes in the SFX reviews net and wriggled through. Hey, don’t blame us, blame those slacker movie makers and their late-arriving prints! The remake of POLTERGEIST will be in cinemas by the time you read this: if it hasn’t already sucked you inside the screen, head to http://bit.ly/sfxreviews to find a review. Out on 5 June: Blumhouse horror INSIDIOUS CHAPTER 3. Directed by the writer of the first two films, it’s a prequel set before the haunting of the Lambert family. Finally, JURASSIC WORLD’s theme park opens for business on 11 June, with its central attraction a specially-bred hybrid dinosaur. What could possibly go wrong?…

EXTRAS Release Date: 8 June 2015 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD/download Director: Matthew Vaughn Cast: Colin Firth, Samuel L Jackson, Taron Egerton, Michael Caine, Mark Strong, Sophie Cookson “IT’S KICK-ASS FOR spies!” That was the not inaccurate message going into Kingsman: The Secret Service. That film’s creative team of Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman and Mark Millar are all in place, as is the gleefully anarchic spirit. But Kingsman also shares its predecessor’s secret strength: beneath all the snark, it has heart. Gary “Eggsy” Unwin (Taron Egerton) is a bored kid with nothing to do except nick cars. When he finds himself behind bars he calls in a favour from his dead dad’s old comrade, Harry Hart (Colin Firth). Soon, Eggsy is free and set on a new course in life: training…

Thunderbirds Are Go EXTRAS Release Date: 15 June 1966 | U | Blu-ray Director: David Lane Cast: Sylvia Anderson, Peter Dyneley, David Graham, Shane Rimmer, Jeremy Wilkin, Matt Zimmerman Thunderbird 6 EXTRAS Release Date: 15 June 1968 | U | Blu-ray Director: David Lane Cast: Sylvia Anderson, Peter Dyneley, David Graham, Shane Rimmer, Jeremy Wilkin, Matt Zimmerman THIS PAIR OF BIG-SCREEN Thunderbirds spin-offs both struggle to recapture the magic of the TV show. Despite making the most of the move to widescreen with some beautiful visuals, Thunderbirds Are Go feels like what it is: the plot of an ordinary TV episode stretched out over 93 minutes. Not only does the plight of the Zero X – a spaceship making the first manned mission to Mars – feel disappointingly run of the…

THE DARKMAN TRILOGY Release Date: OUT NOW! 1990-1999 | 18 | Blu-ray After Sam Raimi was unable to acquire the rights to the Shadow, he created his own superhero instead: a crimefighter who’s a master of disguise (thanks to artificial skin technology) and feels no pain (thanks to surgery). Liam Neeson is enjoyably over-the-top as the scientist out for revenge on the mobster who blew up his lab, disfiguring him and killing his girlfriend. In some ways a dry-run for Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, Darkman is blessed with frenetic action and the sort of dark slapstick humour which will appeal to fans of the Evil Dead movies. The two DTV sequels (which recast the hero) are throwaway schlock. DINO TIME Release Date: 1 June 2012 | PG | DVD In this…

EXTRAS Release Date: 8 June 2013-2014 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD Showrunner: Jeremy Carver Cast: Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Misha Collins, Mark Sheppard, Erica Carroll, Tahmoh Penikett THIS SEASON OF Supernatural took so long to reach British TV screens that it must surely have shed viewers like a demon shedding vessels along the way. So was it worth the wait? As usual, yes. Highs this year include just about any scene containing Crowley, with the King of Hell finding himself knocked down a peg or two by those pesky Winchesters, as well as an intriguing arc-plot focusing on Dean making a dodgy deal with a fallen angel. Oh, and Felicia Day’s delightful Charlie also gets to hang out with The Wizard Of Oz’s Dorothy in the barmy “Slumber Party”. Lows include Castiel…

EXTRAS Release Date: OUT NOW! 1994 | 12 | Dual format Blu-ray/DVD Director: Russell Mulcahy Cast: Alan Baldwin, John Lone, Penelope Ann Miller, Ian McKellen, Peter Boyle, Tim Curry PULP MAGAZINE avenger the Shadow was one of the key inspirations for Batman, but it’s the Dark Knight who casts the true shadow here. From its gargoyle-adorned skyscrapers to faux-Danny Elfman score, it’s a film shamelessly chasing the box office of Tim Burton’s 1989 blockbuster. But don’t file it next to Dick Tracy as a misfiring early ’90s Batwannabe. Highlander’s Russell Mulcahy brings idiosyncratic style and energy, revelling in the romanticised ’30s trappings but also the sheer giddy joy of cinema itself. One bravura sequence hurtles us through Manhattan’s canyons, the camera pursuing the Shadow’s secret network of communication pipes. Elsewhere…

EXTRAS Release Date: OUT NOW! 2015 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD/download DON’T BE fooled by the Mad Max-invoking title – this postapocalyptic Western (called Young Ones in other territories) is a world away from the highway battles of George Miller’s franchise. Ernest (Michael Shannon) lives with his family in a post-drought USA. After his mule is killed, he buys a labour robot, but it brings him into conflict with devious Flem (Nicholas Hoult). It’s a low-key, but visually striking film. The cinematography and location work are lovely. The SF elements are well integrated too, all clunky workhorse robots and hovering drones. But the main plot never fully engages, despite the best efforts of the cast: the result is a polished but ponderous riff on ’70s novel No Blade Of Grass. EXTRAS:…

EXTRAS Release Date: OUT NOW! 2014 | 15 | DVD/download THE HAUNTING Of Radcliffe House fancies itself a classic ghost story. You can tell, because after professional fixer-upper Meg (Olivia Williams) moves her family into a creaky old mansion, the clichés and references stack up alarmingly fast, with both Wuthering Heights and Dracula getting shout-outs. But one sad-eyed ghost does not a classic make, and this tends towards moronic, not iconic. The main irritant is Meg herself: she’s one of those characters who’s so determined not to acknowledge the supernatural that she ignores everything around her. And the final sting is so dopey it undermines its own sinister intentions – what self-respecting ghoul uses “petal” as a term of endearment and still expects people to be scared? EXTRAS: A gallery.…

EXTRAS Release Date: OUT NOW! 2015 | 18 | Blu-ray/DVD THE BEST Shaw Brothers kung-fu movies – which rapper RZA continues to homage here – have compelling narratives enhanced by well-choreographed fights. Sadly, this plot – RZA’s iron-fisted man arrives in a mining village ruled by a cruel tyrant – is as boring as the badly-shot and choppy fights that occasionally break it up. At least the first film had Russell Crowe gulping down scenery, as well as a pre-Guardians Dave Bautista. Here, even RZA’s barely a supporting player, with the most famous face belonging to the bloke who played the baddie in Mortal Kombat. Kombat is actually referenced, but that’s not enough to distract from the sheer dullness of this DTV snorefest. EXTRAS: Commentary; Making Of; deleted scenes.…

Release Date: 28 May 384 pages | Hardback/ebook Author: Paolo Bacigalupi Publisher: Orbit TO DESCRIBE PAOLO Bacigalupi’s second novel for adults as much-anticipated is an understatement. It’s been more than five years since the publication of his Hugo and Nebula-winning debut, The Windup Girl – although he has written YA books in the meantime. Has it been worth the wait? With some reservations, yes. Set in a near-future USA, The Water Knife is a tale of how different interest groups ruthlessly compete for dwindling water resources. Maintaining the unstable system provides employment for men such as Angel Velasquez, the “water knife” of the title. The environmental theme of the novel will be familiar to anyone who’s read Bacigalupi, but the tone is different. Largely eschewing the neo-cyberpunk vibe that made…

DOCTOR WHO: THE BIG BOOK OF LISTS Release Date: OUT NOW! 251 pages | Paperback Author: Cameron K McEwan Publisher: Race Point Publishing A toilet book for Who fans. But is it, er, toilet? The author’s behind website Blogtor Who. Target novelisation cover artist Andrew Skilleter provides illustrations. When done right (as with 1997’s The Book Of Lists and 2013’s Who-Ology) books like this are hard work, requiring a ton of research. This one works when the lists are concise and focused, like one of references to Agatha Christie tales in “The Unicorn And The Wasp”. But rather a lot – like lists of “10 other scientists” or “11 lovely things about the Eleventh Doctor” (number one: “It’s Matt Smith!”) – feel pretty minimum-effort. The writing style might also grate,…

Release Date: OUT NOW! 315 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author: James Goss Publisher: BBC Books BASHED OUT BY DOUGLAS Adams over a weekend, Fourth Doctor adventure “City Of Death” is regarded by many as the classic series’ best; fans have waited since 1979 for a book version; and TV writer Gareth Roberts was initially lined up to pen it. No pressure, then… Set principally in Paris, its storyline involves an alien, “fractured in time” when his spaceship exploded, stealing the Mona Lisa to finance time-travel experiments which will undo his destruction. Goss faithfully retains the sparkling wit for which the story is renowned but adds plenty of his own. He also provides patches for some of the story’s basic absurdities – like how the one-eyed, spaghettifaced Scaroth produced convincing human face…

Release Date: OUT NOW! 672 pages | Paperback Author: KM McKinley Publisher: Solaris FANTASY COMES IN MANY flavours, from the swords and sorcery of epic fantasy to the clockwork and corsets of steampunk. The Gates Of The World is a fantasy series that fuses these two different spices into a brand new dish. The outcome is as unusual as it is interesting, and will have fantasy fans coming back for seconds. KM McKinley opens the series in audacious style with The Iron Ship. History is present in McKinley’s fantasy in a way rare in the genre, at the beating heart of a world being transformed from magic to industry. The Kressind family are rich in both, an ancient clan striving to maintain their power. Their story turns on the titular…

It’s become a cliché that 2015 is going to be the biggest year in the history of cinema. Ever! Now it’s starting to live up to the hype. We’ve already piled in to see Avengers: Age Of Ultron and Mad Max: Fury Road, of course, but now we enter a period of wall-to-wall blockbusters as representatives of some of the biggest franchises ever to grace a movie screen – and some pretty big stars – come out to play. Back in March I flew out to Los Angeles to meet our (human) cover star, Chris Pratt. Since Guardians Of The Galaxy, the former Parks And Recreation regular has become the hottest action hero on the planet. And while we still don’t know if the rumours of him donning Indiana Jones’…

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE “This year, we meet a new alien race in Defiance. They are called the Omec and they are far more powerful than any other Votan species. They pre-date all of the other Votan races in the show. In fact, they were once the masters of every Votan race. When they get to Earth, they are extremely unpopular with everybody – except for the humans who have no idea who they are.” A FAMILY AFFAIR “I hated the relationship between [Grant’s character] Nolan and Irisa [played by Stephanie Leonidas] in season two. I didn’t like the conflict. In season one, Nolan was the parent and Irisa was the child. In season two, Irisa was a pissed-off adolescent. In season three, their relationship is much more two-sided. It’s…

SHOWRUNNING AGENT CARTER, AGENTS OF SHIELD, PERSO N OF INTEREST , ORPHA N BLAC K, GALAVA NT, IZOMBI E, POWERS, THE LAST MA N ON EA RTH and DAREDEVIL all receive new season orders. Phew! RED DWARF commissioned for two more series by Dave. The channel that is, not former SFX editor Dave Bradley. CONSTA NTINE cancelled by NBC, but hope remains it could be revived by The CW. Peter Harness writing a two-part Zygon story for DOCTOR WHO series nine. ABC cancels RESURRECTION and FOREVER. With names like that how could they resist the irony? THE MESS ENGERS also given the chop by The CW after just one season. HELIX cancelled by Syfy after two seasons. Cancelled Eric Kripke/JJ Abrams series REVOL UTION getting a final season in comic…

PLAYING THE ENTERPRISE’S chief communications officer Nyota Uhura on TV between 1966–1969, and then again on the big screen from 1979–1991, Nichelle Nichols helped transform racial stereotypes. From that first on-screen interracial kiss with Captain Kirk to, er, attempting to seduce Scotty and dancing the Seven Veils in Shatner’s ill-judged directorial stint Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Nichols has always boldly gone where no woman has gone before… A talented singer and dancer as well as an actress, Nichelle also worked with NASA in the ’70s and ’80s to help encourage women and minority applicants to its astronaut programme. We spoke to the legendary 82-year-old actress at Gold Coast Supanova. She was more than happy to be probed for Afterlife… WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY THE ROLE AGAIN? Yes I…

The 2015 Hugo nominations caused widespread gloom and outrage. There’d been dark forebodings about a shortlist hijacked by politics – gloating hints on Facebook – and a news embargo broken by the unexpected tweet “Guess Who’s A Hugo Nominee?” Last year’s Hugos suffered a bloc-vote campaign from conservative US authors claiming discrimination against their favourite military action-adventures. This made them sad; their “Sad Puppies” (SP) slate promoted their own and their buddies’ work, boosting some titles onto the Hugo shortlist though not to victory. Worldcon voters chose otherwise. The next SP campaign realised the best strategy was to allow those pesky final-ballot voters no choice. There’s a huge spread of nominations for each category, with thousands of Worldcon members’ preferences scattered across hundreds of possibles competing for just five slots…

Jason McLaughlin sent us a pic of an original Star Wars poster from 1978. “My father was friends with the manager of the local Classic Cinema, and he gave him loads of unwanted cinema posters for me to hang up on my wall,” says Jason. “Most of them got permanently stuck to one of my bedroom walls with wallpaper paste as a cool alternative to normal wallpaper. For some reason (thankfully) I decided to stick this on the adjacent wall with just your normal Blu-Tack and drawing pins!” Adam Carter of Vectis says: What a poster to have on your bedroom wall, Jason. And thanks for saving it by not pasting it to the wall! We can only imagine (in despair) what other greats you had acting as wallpaper! The…

Ghost In The Shell YOUR TOP 5 REQUESTS SMART SCI-FI 1 Ghost In The Shell is one of the most thoughtprovoking anime movies ever made, and you don’t want to see it go down the explodey route when it heads West. “Just don’t dumb it down for the US teen audience,” says Peter Regan. “Remember that Ghost is a classic that deserves respect.” SECTION 9 2 Despite the controversy surrounding Scarlett Johansson’s casting as Kusanagi, she’s earned some serious genre cred playing Black Widow, so we’ve no doubt she’ll do a superb job. Claire Lim, meanwhile, has a brilliant idea for who should play her partner: “Ron Perlman could work as Batou.” DON’T BE THE MATRIX 3 Ghost In The Shell was a crucial influence on The Matrix, but the anime has…

This time last year, Chris Pratt was still best known as the dweeby but loveable Andy Dwyer in TV’s Parks And Recreation. A strict exercise regime, a six-pack and a Guardians Of The Galaxy later, he’s the most sought after action star in Hollywood, soon to be seen in The Magnificent Seven and (rumour klaxon!) maybe even as a rebooted Indiana Jones. “I feel like I went from being a guy that big people at movie studios didn’t know, to a guy who, if you put me in your movie and it doesn’t do well, you probably won’t get fired because you’ll be like, ‘Well, I hired Chris Pratt. What else was I supposed to do?’ So that’s changed a little bit.” How big a deal for you was Jurassic Park when it first…

According to movement expert Dan O’Neill, the Synths of Humans are not actually designed to be robotic. Instead, they are intended to represent the human body at its maximum efficiency. “We indicate non-verbally all the time how we feel,” he says. “We all sit in a chair and slant, cross our legs and project our level of interest. If you’re a machine you’ve got no attitude to project, and you’ve only got so many hours of battery a day, so we tried to find the plainest way of moving.” To achieve such movement, Dan put the actors through workshops called Synth School, where stars such as Gemma Chan learnt how to use their bodies without all the eccentricities that naturally kick in when we walk, stand or turn. “I took…

BIODATA OCCUPATION: Novelist BORN: 1959 FROM: Maryland GREATEST HITS: Among many other career highlights, the awardwinning Baroque Cycle, set in the enlightenment era and dealing with the birth of modern science (literally science fiction…), redefined what SF might be. RANDOM FACT: The codename for the Kindle was “Fiona”, a reference to Stephenson’s Diamond Age (1995), which features an interactive book. IBack when he worked for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin spaceflight start-up in the noughties, cyberpunk luminary Neal Stephenson got interested in the fact that human-made junk orbits our Earth. So what? Better up there than here, right? Not necessarily. As bits of this junk bump into each other, there might be “a kind of exponential blow-up” in debris. If things got too bad it might become “too risky…

Release Date: OUT NOW! 12A | 141 minutes Director: Joss Whedon Cast: Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, James Spader, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Aaron Taylor-Johnson IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE, The Avengers was a landmark film. The culmination of Marvel’s multi-movie, universe-building experiment, it’s not overstating matters to say the future of superhero cinema rested on its spandex-clad shoulders. The weight of expectation on Age Of Ultron may not be quite the same – at this stage if Marvel builds it the world will come, and they know it – but that hasn’t resulted in Whedon and co putting their feet up for the return of Earth’s mightiest. Quite the contrary. Age Of Ultron is Marvel’s most complex, ambitious and generally bloomin’ massive…

Release Date: OUT NOW! 12A | 112 minutes Director: Lee Toland Krieger Cast: Blake Lively, Michiel Huisman, Kathy Baker, Amanda Crew, Harrison Ford, Ellen Burstyn BLAKE LIVELY’S ADALINE gets struck by magic lightning in the ’40s and suddenly stops ageing. What might seem like a blessing turns into a curse about 70 years later when she finds herself a lonely old woman trapped in a 29-year-old body. Friends, family and decades come and go, but Adaline remains the same – forced into a life on the run to try and avoid all the inevitable awkward questions. Somewhere between The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button on pause and a Hallmark movie with a budget, the glow of magic-realism brightens up an otherwise dull romancer – with Adaline quickly getting into a…

EXTRAS Release Date: 1 June (download OUT NOW!) 2015 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD/download Director: Alex Garland Cast: Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac, Sonoya Mizuno DON’T WATCH Ex_Machina alone. Not because it’s scary and you’ll need a hand to hold. Not because it’s funny and live laughter enhances the experience. Not because it’ll make you feel horny and… well, actually that’s a whole other can of worms… No, you need to watch it in company because you’ll need to talk to somebody about it afterwards. You could go online (though you might not want to, considering what the film has to say about search engines) but what you’ll really want is a proper, full-on, talking-over-each-other “…but hang on?” discussion. Not just about the issues raised in the film, either, but about…

EXTRAS Release Date: 1 June 2015 | 15 | DVD Director: Ryan Gosling Cast: Christina Hendricks, Iain De Caestecker, Matt Smith, Saoirse Ronan, Eva Mendes, Ben Mendelsohn RYAN GOSLING is renowned for his pretty boy looks, but it’s another kind of beauty that dominates his directorial debut: the edgy glamour of decay. Lost River is a film full of lovingly framed shots of derelict buildings, forever dwelling on detritus and the patinas of poverty. Plonk some pouting models into the midst of any of its scenic ruins, and you’d have a Vice fashion shoot. What little plot there is concerns Billy (Christina Hendricks), a single mother living in a desolate area of Detroit. Behind on her loan payments, she risks having the home she shares with her two sons demolished.…

EXTRAS Release Date: OUT NOW! 2015 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD Creators: Terry Matalas, Travis Fickett Cast: Aaron Stanford, Amanda Schull, Kirk Acevedo, Barbara Sukowa, Emily Hampshire REMAKING 12 Monkeys for TV seemed like a pointless exercise. The 20-year-old time travel film is fondly remembered, sure, but it was also so rigidly self-contained – with a beginning, middle and end (not necessarily in that order) – that no one has ever seriously mooted a sequel. Plus, there was little in the way of background mythology to expand upon. So why bother? Any television version was doomed to failure, clearly. Well, no, as it turns out. Any worries that, robbed of director Terry Gilliam’s esoteric visual flair, Syfy’s take on 12 Monkeys would be just The Sarah Connor Chronicles without the Terminators or…

EXTRAS Release Date: 1 June 2015 | 15 | DVD Director: Toa Fraser Cast: Lawrence Makoare, James Rolleston, Te Kohe Tuhaka, Xavier Horan, Ruakura Turei, Rena Owen AFTER THE Hobbit, you could be forgiven for presuming that Kiwis live in an idyllic paradise populated by furry-footed folk. Director Toa Fraser dispels such images with this exhilaratingly brutal historical actioner; set in New Zealand at an unspecified time before European colonisation, it singlehandedly pioneers the subgenre of Maori martial arts movies. With their striking mohawks and tattoos, these fearsome Maori fighters would be more at home in Mad Max’s post-apocalyptic environs than the Shire’s genteel surrounds. Fraser is best known internationally for offbeat Edwardian comedy Dean Spanley, but The Dead Lands couldn’t be more different. The film takes its name from the…

EXTRAS Release Date: 8 June 1991 | 18 | Dual-format Blu-ray/DVD Director: Ngai Choi Lam Cast: Fan Siu Wong, Fan Mei Sheng, Ho Ka Kui, Oshima Yukari IF YOU’RE weak-stomached, stop reading right now. Despite the fact that Riki-Oh is a martial arts movie, it’s so violent the action often feels less like Street Fighter and more like Hellraiser. There’s frequently more blood in one punch than the entire gore-geyser in Army Of Darkness. The squeamish will spend so much time hiding behind their hands they’ll develop palm-reading skills. The plot – in a dystopian future, our super-strong hero goes to prison for vigilante-related antics and finds he has to fight most of the inmates – is really just an excuse to link some of the most gruesomely over-the-top punch-scenes…

EXCLUSIVE ON SET ACCESS YOU WAKE UP FROM suspended animation. No memory of who you are. No details about how or why you are on a derelict ship. That’s the compelling concept driving Syfy’s new space show, Dark Matter. Based on the four-issue comic miniseries of the same name by Stargate SG-1 writers/executive producers Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie, the interstellar saga finds the memories of six crew members completely erased. The numerically-monikered amnesiac cast includes One/Jace Corso (Marc Bendavid), Two/Portia Lin (Melissa O’Neil), Three/Marcus Boone (Anthony Lemke), Four/Ryo Tetsuda (Alex Mallari Jr), Five/Das (Jodelle Ferland) and Six/Griffin Jones (Roger Cross). Attempting to fill in the blanks, the group ride the ship to its preset destination. However, upon arriving at a mining colony, the crew make a startling discovery about…

NEWBIES It’s pilot season and that can mean only one thing – loads of new shows to look forward to this autumn! The list of newly confirmed series include: Arrow/Flash spin-off DC’S LEGENDS OF TOMORROW; SUPERGIRL, starring Melissa Benoist; film adaptation MINORITY REPORT; LUCIFER, a police procedural based on the character from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and starring Miranda’s Tom Ellis; LIMITL ESS, a TV sequel to the Bradley Cooper film; comedy ANGELF ROM HELL ; FRANKENSTEIN CODE, starring Rob Kazinsky as a modern-day Frank; an adaptation of classic videogame MYST on Hulu; a ROBOCOP webseries on Machinima which will be filmed from RoboCop’s perspective; a new series featuring THE MUPPETS; fairytale show EMERAL D CITY, which almost made it to series last year; CORDON from The Vampire Diaries’ Julie Plec…

SCI-FACT! The IMAX-only BvS trailer reveal featured Bats and Supes running towards each other at the end.…

NEWBIES Steven Spielberg developing Aldous Huxley’s SF classic BRAVE NEW WORLD as a miniseries for Syfy. Rumoured AGENTS OF SHIELD spin-off starring Lance Hunter and Mockingjay won’t happen. John Ridley working on a new mystery series for Marvel and ABC. Greg Berlanti developing INFINITE HORIZON based on the Gerry Duggan comic, a futuristic retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey. By Grabthar’s hammer! Paramount to bring back GALAXY QUEST as a TV show. Director David Robert Mitchell creating MR POSTMAN, about a mailman who investigates dark mysteries. Katee Sackhoff returning to sci-fiTV with futuristic series RAIN . THE X-FILES reboot enlists original series writers James Wong and Glen Morgan, but Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan is out. In other X-FILES news the miniseries will air from 24 January 2016 on Fox US.…

FROM STAR WARS TO BATMAN, TT’S Lego games have tackled almost every major sci-fiand fantasy property going with a wink and a smile. In fact, the only surprise in their next game covering all four Jurassic Park films is that it took them this long. “I think it’s something everyone’s been speaking about for quite a while now,” says Tim Wileman, Assistant Producer. “It was a no-brainer for us, and with the fourth film coming out it’s given us the opportunity to reignite the whole thing and relive all the original action as well. We couldn’t make a Jurassic World game without covering the other films. So it’s very exciting.” The game will feature 20 levels of gentle platforming, puzzle-solving and trinket collecting set on two huge hub islands –…

CASTING CALL Mitch Pileggi (above) is onboard as Mulder and Scully’s old boss Walter Skinner in January’s THE X-FILES revival. Rosario Dawson will be back as Claire Temple for DAR EDEVIL season two. The character could also pop up in other Marvel/Netflix TV shows. Expect to see a lot less flippin’ on ARROW, Colton Haynes is no longer a regular on the show. Happyland’s Katherine McNamara to play lead character Clary Fray in SHAD OWHUNTERS. Alberto Rosende and Emeraude Toubia have also joined the cast. Meanwhile McG has signed on to direct the pilot episode. SPOILER ALERT: Osgood will be back for series nine of DOCTOR WHO. PREACHER adds Jamie Anne Allman and Derek Wilson as Betsy and Donny Scenck. Toru Uchikado joins NBC’s resurrection of HEROES REBORN . Evan…

RIP STAR TREK’s Yeoman Janice Rand, Grace Lee Whitney (above), who died at 85 and EXCALIBUR’s King Arthur, Nigel Terry. Alan Dean Foster writing STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS novelisation. AVATAR exhibition going on tour across unconfirmed cities in 2016, and an AVATAR themed Cirque du Soleil show will tour America later this year. Nintendo partnering with Universal Studios to create rides based on their characters. Lego Dimensions game to feature a LEGO DOCTOR WHO expansion set, complete with Peter Capaldi and TARDIS mini-figs. Frank Miller wrapping up his Dark Knight comic trilogy with THE DARK KNIGHT III : THE MASTER RACE. Xenomorphs crossing over with Vampirella in new comic book. Telltale Games teaming up with Marvel for a narrative-driven adventure game. It’s not yet known who will star. Ben…

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’s NOOMI RAPACE joining SF thriller Rupture… NICOLE PERLMAN AND MEG LEFAUVE writing Captain Marvel for Marvel… Sony reviving movie adaptation of STEPHEN KING’S The Dark Tower saga… Warner Bros bagging the screen rights to JOE HALDEMAN’S Hugo and Nebula-winning novel The Forever War, with CHANNING TATUM attached… SELA WARD playing the US President in Independence Day 2, alongside returning stars BILL PULLMAN and JUDD HIRSCH… The Wolverine’s Brian Tee cast as Shredder in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sequel… JEFF DANIELS joining The Divergent Series: Allegiant… StudioCanal and The Picture Company remaking 1973’s Don’t Look Now… ADAM WINGARD directing adaptation of horror manga Death Note for Warner Bros… Lionsgate teaming with Vertigo Entertainment on a remake of 1997’s Cube…Sony planning new version of The…

Careful what you swat at when an insect buzzes by your ear, you could end up injuring a superhero. Not all superheroes are Hulk-sized, or even humansized for that matter. But the creepy crawly crimefighters rarely get the same accolades as the usual line-up of superheroes. Why should Superman get all the glory when Ant-Man wants to rid the streets of villains too? When was the last time you heard of the exciting exploits of the Blue Beetle? Spider-Man and his other spider-related superhero pals don’t count in this insect lineup. Neither does the Tick. Spiders, mites, scorpions, and ticks are also part of the arachnid family, which means they have eight legs, two body segments, no antennae or wings. Insects have six legs and three main body parts. What…

In 2016 there will be seven major superhero movies released: Captain America: Civil War, Doctor Strange, Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, Suicide Squad, Deadpool, X-Men: Apocalypse and Gambit. Add to that all the weekly liveaction superhero shows – Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Gotham, Daredevil, The Flash/Arrow spin-off Legends Of Tomorrow, Agents Of SHIELD, Luke Cage and AKA Jessica Jones, plus fellow MCU resident Agent Carter – and simply put we’ve reached superhero saturation levels. Some perspective: that’s more than one comic book blockbuster every two months, and enough TV to watch one episode every night for almost half a year. Quality levels are unsustainable at that rate. Sooner rather than later the superpowered bubble is going to burst. There are very good reasons why superheroes are dominating screens –…

A Japanese actress playing the main role Kirsty Leanne I don’t want to see a live-action version, thanks. Stephen Floyd So long as it’s not as bad as Dragonball Evolution I’ll be happy. Pete Elwes A cybertank battle that goes on for more than two minutes, like the original. Douglas Lanson I’d love a soundtrack that was inspired by, if not identical, to Kenji Kawai’s original. John Burrell Make the plot more comprehensible. I never understood a thing that was going on in the original. Cass Selby Tone down the nudity. It works in animation but could feel gratuitous in live action. Tracey Bullock Please Hollywood, leave well alone, you don’t know what you’re doing. Jason Phillips Cover the Laughing Man case from Stand Alone Complex rather than The Puppet…

The cosplay, anime and gaming con is expanding COSPLAY HAS NEVER BEEN bigger. Need proof? Later this year the London Anime and Gaming Con, which also has cosplay at its core, is launching new events outside of Leicester and London for the first time, starting with Ireland Cosplay Con in Dublin on 6-7 June. The Japanese culture event will host its annual summer con in London on 4-5 July, moving to Cardiff in August, Leicester in September and Bristol in October. Expanding to include the rest of the country was only natural for a con that is inclusive by nature. “LAGC’s motto has always been ‘for the fans by the fans’, a con that isn’t run by the corporate machines but by the fans themselves, therefore knowing exactly what the…

How does your character, Claire Dearing, fit into Jurassic World? She basically runs the park. Where we start with this film, it’s John Hammond’s dream come to life. It’s a fully functional operational park that is working. Her responsibility is to make sure that basically the first film doesn’t happen and to keep up with the times and to have it be profitable and all of that. She’s sort of Holly Hunter-esque from Broadcast News. She’s Type A and not entirely self aware, but has moments of clarity, for sure, and is kind of funny, though it’s at her expense. She has a lot of gravitas and power and drive and her humanity emerges in unexpected moments. She’s a really multidimensional, layered, complex lady that gets to be part of…

First appearing in the 1954 film of the same name, Godzilla is the King of the Monsters. But is he a dinosaur? “Godzilla’s ability to breathe radioactive death breath takes him into the realm of pure fantasy, not to mention the fact that the emphasis on Godzilla’s prehistoric origins for the most part faded quickly after the first couple of films,” says The Dinosaur Filmography’s Mark Berry. There are, of course, a few more realistic dinosaurs in Godzilla movies, such as “Titanosaurus” in Terror Of Mechagodzilla and the “Gojirasaurus” in Godzilla Vs King Ghidorah. But those are a separate story.…

Tell us about your character, Leo. • There’s a lot of question marks for Leo. He’s a dark character, a man on a mission, a haunted man. He’s got a very complicated past and it’s making sense of that for himself in the world, which is in a constant battle between what it is to be a human any more, and what is this new technology that is now part of our lives and is making us question ourselves, question the world and the meaning of everything. What drew you into Humans in the first place? • It’s cleverly written to the point where you’re never quite sure where it’s going to go and how it’s going to turn out. All the connections and links come at a very unexpected,…

THERE ARE SOME FRIGHT-FILM fans who argue that the old adage “It’s what you don’t see that’s most terrifying” only applies if you grew up in the era before the splatter movie boom. Was the stylish Count Dracula of Christopher Lee’s time honestly more effective than the icky arterial geysers of Eli Roth or the Saw franchise? Yet, there is still the occasional old-fashioned shocker that – even to this day – manages to raise more goosebumps than the graphic gore of your average blood-opera. Case in point: Robert Wise’s 1963 “old dark house” epic, The Haunting. Shot in black and white, with a minimal cast of four, and featuring not even a drop of spilled blood, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the end result may not have dated…

Release Date: OUT NOW! U | 77 minutes Director: Xavier Picard THIS FIRST big-screen adaptation of Tove Jansson’s comic strip makes the incongruous move of taking the Moomins out of their natural element of Moominvalley and placing them into a whole new environment: the French seaside resort. While its look evocatively captures the feel of Jansson’s original artwork, this Finnish/French co-production’s animation might appear unsophisticated compared to the likes of Home. However, it’s the over-simplistic storyline that really lets it down. Much of the humour has either been lost in translation or become extremely dated, with the Moomins’ naive hippo-out-ofwater antics quickly wearing thin. Best suited to the very young.…

Was it difficult to find a location suitable for Nathan’s idyllic home? It was, and we only found it late in the day. We didn’t have a lot of money to play with so we began looking around the Alps, but the Alps is quite chocolate-boxy. That led us to Norway and eventually we found this amazing valley. We were really lucky. Some of the other locations we were looking at... I think the film would have suffered. What drew you to the lead trio of actors? I knew Domhnall very well from Never Let Me Go and Dredd. I didn’t know Oscar and Alicia, but it didn’t feel like a big leap of faith. They have something in common because they’re both actors that really vanish. The Alicia that…

EXTRAS Release Date: 8 June 1989 | 18 | Dual-format Blu-ray/DVD Director: Brian Yuzna Cast: Billy Warlock, Devin DeVasquez, Evan Richards, Ben Meyerson, Charles Lucia IF YOU’VE EVER THOUGHT the well-to-do act like a different species, Society will confirm all your worst paranoid fantasies. Re-Animator producer Brian Yuzna’s directorial debut concerns young Bill Whitney (Billy Warlock), a Beverly Hills teenager who, like Rosemary (of Baby fame), begins to suspect that his wealthy family and friends are hiding some terrible secret. They are. There’s a reason why girls sometimes have their limbs on the wrong way round and lumps leap up under their skin... Easily Yuzna’s best film, Society is a bizarre, beguiling nightmare, a high-camp melding of The Stepford Wives, David Cronenberg and an ’80s teen movie – and yet…

EXTRAS Release Date: 1 June 1960 | PG | Blu-ray/DVD Director: Irwin Allen Cast: Michael Rennie, Claude Rains, Jill St John, David Hedison, Richard Haydn SIR ARTHUR Conan Doyle’s 1912 novel The Lost World had previously been filmed in 1925 in what was a pretty swish production for the time. This 1960 version marked the beginning of a decade of schlocky sci-fioutput, mainly on the small screen, for former magazine editor Irwin Allen; his Lost World is exactly the sort that’d turn up in series such as The Time Tunnel and Land Of The Giants. We’re a while getting there, though. We start in London, where grumpy Professor Challenger (Claude Rains) is telling a sceptical bunch of journos that he’s found prehistoric life in the Amazon. A band of volunteers…

EXTRAS Release Date: 22 June 1990 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD Directors: Hideaki Anno, Shinji Higuchi Cast: Yoshino Takamori, Noriko Hidaka, Akio Ohtsuka, Kumiko Takizawa, Motomu Kiyokawa, Kikuko Inoue THIS ANIME steampunk epic from 1990, getting its first British release, veers between brilliance and awfulness. It starts as a cosy-feeling comedyadventure. A bespectacled boy inventor, Jean, encounters a beautiful black girl, Nadia, on top of the Eiffel Tower in 1889. They’re hassled by comedy crooks, then by a far deadlier masked villain with world conquest in mind. Meanwhile, an operatically tragic Captain Nemo crashes into the story… A ripping steampunk yarn from before the genre became fashionable, much of Nadia is supremely enjoyable. The technology ranges from the anachronistically believable (Nemo’s super-modern Nautilus submarine) to the frankly loony (a giant robot…

EXTRAS Release Date: OUT NOW! 1982 | 18 | Dual-format Blu-ray/DVD Director: Paul Schrader Cast: Nastassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell, Annette O’Toole, John Heard, Ruby Dee, Ed Begley Jr PAUL Schrader’s remake of 1942’s Cat People is a deeply ’80s cover version, trading the ambiguous shadows and whispering menace of the original for something decidedly louder, altogether less subtle. It’s not only the pulsing Giorgio Moroder synth score and sepulchral croon of the Bowie title song that puts you in mind of vintage MTV: Schrader shoots this gory tale of shapeshifting killers with all the surface sheen of the early music video era – mist, crimson filters, icy fashion shoot eroticism. And visually there’s much to savour. There are some fine make-up effects and a memorably hallucinogenic “Catvision” sequence where a…

EXTRAS Release Date: OUT NOW! 1981 | 18 | Dual-format Blu-ray/DVD Director: Walerian Borowczyk Cast: Udo Kier, Marina Pierro, Patrick Magee, Howard Vernon, Clement Harari OF ALL THE adaptations of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, Walerian Borowczyk’s little-seen take is the most outré, with the Polish director adding the attributes he brought to films like bestiality fantasy The Beast – such as a terrifyingly proportioned erect penis. In the book, about the worst that happens is a little girl being trampled underfoot. Here, we’re treated to close-ups of a raped woman’s bloodied crotch and queasy chat about damaged labia. It’s a film with an improvisatory feel, which despite its provocative content has some dull stretches. As Jekyll celebrates engagement to the titular Miss Osbourne, his alter ego viciously murders representatives of…

EXTRAS Release Date: OUT NOW! 2015 | 15 | DVD 28 DAYS LATER... looms large in the DNA of this zombie thriller. Amnesiac Dan wanders confused through deserted Brighton. He meets a gang of friends living in the ruins, and together they dodge the infected (fast-running, fond of violence and drooling), and trigger-happy squaddies. Nothing you haven’t seen before, then. The acting and dialogue is variable and the pacing is all over the place. It’s also smeared in Horror Green – the sludgy colour grading that’s all over genre flicks at the moment. That said, it’s an impressive achievement. Darkest Day was made for just £1,000, but you wouldn’t know it. There are subtle but convincing effects, a couple of mass zombie stampedes and its locations are visually interesting. EXTRAS:…

EXTRAS Release Date: 22 June 2014 | 15 | DVD A GHOSTLY FACE appears in a window. Children’s toys move of their own accord. And whispering voices suggest something sinister happened a long time ago in a young family’s new home. Sound familiar? Yup, this is a cliché-ridden mess of a haunted house movie. What’s really disappointing, though, is that it pretends to be something better. Really great horror movies often have a point to make in amongst the scares, and with its story of shady American businessmen exploiting (and endangering) impoverished villagers in deepest Colombia, Out Of The Dark looks like it could develop into a del Toro-style socially conscious fairytale. But then it bottles it in favour of cheap CGI and a soppy ending, which is somehow even…

Release Date: OUT NOW! 880 pages | Hardback/ebook Author: Neal Stephenson Publisher: Borough Press HIS REPUTATION MAY REST on subverting and challenging genre conventions, but Neal Stephenson, it would appear, has gone native. Or to put that another way, Seveneves is arguably the most conventional SF novel Stephenson has ever written. This may strike certain readers as bad news. After all, if a man who somehow imbued historical fiction with a science fiction vibe when he wrote his Baroque Cycle is doing the same as everyone else, well, what’s the point of him? To which one reply might be to begin by asking what’s the point of science fiction novels that utilise familiar tropes? By now, don’t we all know what to expect of books about the end of the…

Release Date: OUT NOW! 360 pages | Hardback/ebook Author: Clive Barker Publisher: St Martin’s Press HELLRAISER ICON Pinhead, like many monsters before him, had a tortured upbringing. Birthed by a creator who underestimated his power, he was sold as a slave to a series of new guardians, each more irresponsible than the last, who weakened his potency every time they paraded him before diminishing crowds. Now the master has his hand back on the leash of his most recognisable creation, but is it too late? Split into four distinct “Books” sandwiched by a prologue and an epilogue, The Scarlet Gospels reads like a twisted hybrid of The Hellbound Heart (the novella version of Hellraiser) and the Books Of Blood. Harry D’Amour, the mystical detective who first appeared in Books Of…

Release Date: 28 May 341 pages | Hardback/ebook Author: Jenny T Colgan Publisher: Orbit IT’S A TITLE THAT conjures images of the Borg and heavy, serious hard SF, but this latest novel from Jenny T Colgan is actually very much a love story. With a heavy dose of maths, aliens and general geekery. But no cyborgs. Connie has always stood out: an extraordinarily talented mathematician; a woman in a male-dominated industry; bright red hair… Recruited to a dream job in Cambridge with the other top academics in her field, she sets to work on a top-secret code-breaking project. Team members include her career heroine, an ex-lover and Luke, a strangely compelling maths genius who always wears the same clothes and likes to push pianos around fields. But cracking the code…

Release Date: 1 June 167 pages | Hardback Author: Alan Tomkins Publisher: The History Press IN A CAREER SPANNING 50 years, Alan Tomkins served as art director on more than 100 films, including Lawrence Of Arabia, Cleopatra, six Bonds, two Batmans and one Star Wars (the best one). Of the 20 or so movies highlighted in this memoir – complete with Tomkins’s own on-set photographs – around half a dozen pass the SFX test, including a memorable chapter on 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which Stanley Kubrick proves to be as exacting a taskmaster as you’d expect. Indeed, it’s thanks to Kubrick there are no production drawings to accompany the text, as the director ordered them all to be destroyed on the film’s completion. Of his work on The Empire…