Table of contents for October 2019 in SFX

Naughty Joker. That’s how Batman’s arch-nemesis was known to everyone in my family. There was an audio cassette of me, aged around six, excitedly shouting this name while regaling my Nana with stories of the Clown Prince of Crime. I have absolutely no idea how I came to be into Batman. Perhaps there were repeats of the ‘60s TV show. I certainly recall a cartoon series, which was possibly reruns of The New Adventures Of Batman. No, you can’t cut me in half and count the rings. Wherever my love of Batman came from – the comics would certainly stay with me for the rest of my life – there was one constant. I was completely captivated by the Joker. Was it Cesar Romero’s faintly-moustached live-action interpretation? Or Filmation’s Lennie…

SCI-FACT! The Kings’ prior genre series, Brain Dead, saw Washington DC politicians and staffers taken over by parasitic alien bugs. THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL 1 In 2019, what is truly evil? Is it the imagined demon in your closet, or the internet troll that raids your bank account? For married writers/showrunners Robert and Michelle King, the nature of evil has been an ongoing 30-year conversation. “There were all these issues that you could see both sides of that you usually don’t see on TV, and one was religion,” Robert King tells Red Alert. Robert, a devout Catholic, and Michelle, an agnostic Jew, decided to transplant those debates into new series Evil. CHALK AND CHEESE 2 Evil stars Mike Colter (Luke Cage) as David Dacosta, a Catholic seminarian investigator, and Katja…

SCI-FACT! Impulse takes place in the world of 2008’s Jumper. However, the two share no direct connection outside of the teleporting element. HENRIETTA “HENRY” COLES (Maddie Hasson) isn’t your typical teenager. In the first season of the YouTube series Impulse, a sexual assault by classmate Clay Boone (Tanner Stine) triggered her extraordinary ability to “jump,” or teleport. As Henry grappled with the aftermath of her ordeal, she also struggled to come to grips with her new power. Further complicating matters, outside forces wanted to control her. When the show returns this autumn, Henry will still need to contend with the emotional scars of that incident, a mysterious organisation closing in on her and those increasing powers. “The thing I’m always resistant about is to have someone suddenly be great at…

THE FATE OF THE PLANET now lies with the Titans, a youthful superhero team whose current roster includes Dick Grayson/Robin, Rachel Roth/Raven, Gar Logan/Beast Boy, Koriand’r/Starfire, Donna Troy/Wonder Girl, Hank Hall/Hawk and Dawn Granger/Dove. Only they can thwart Trigon the Terrible, an immensely powerful demon that has enslaved countless worlds and destroyed many others. He’s also the father of Rachel. The season one finale of the DC TV series culminated with Trigon walking the Earth and Dick under his total control. No pressure, eh? Whatever the eventual outcome, Titans is about more than just saving the day. Showrunner Greg Walker notes that if year one focused on violence and grappling with your dark side, season two delves into “family, and how hard it is to be a family”. “What I…

What did it feel like the first time you slipped into the Dove costume? • My first impression was, “I’m going to have to fight in this?!” It’s not comfortable! The wings are really heavy. Learning to move with those wings on is its own challenge. If you move fast, the wings move too, and pull you. It’s finding the balance and ways to move. They ended up building a stunt set of wings, so they weren’t as heavy, so that was very helpful. But you feel powerful and you feel like, “Who knew? I’m a superhero.” It’s fun! What is Dawn’s sense of justice? • Dawn always wants to do right by everyone. She really wants to push against using someone for our benefit. She’s also resistant to being…

THE CLOWN PRINCE OF CRIME. THE ACE OF KNAVES. The Jester of Genocide. Mistah J. Whatever-you-call-him, Batman’s most infamous nemesis notably doesn’t have a solid origin story, because he exists in the comic book world (and movie adaptations), where characters’ backgrounds habitually warp and evolve as different writers get hold of them. The Joker also likes to wrap himself and his past in mystery, with various explanations for his criminal machinations and clown-style makeup (vats of chemicals often feature). Now, here comes The Hangover and Due Date director Todd Phillips, who has crafted a whole new background for the man and, along with co-writer Scott Silver, cooked up a film that’s unmoored from the wider DC cinematic universe, exploring its own grubby corner. It’s a fascinating, ambitious and very different…

There’s nothing a geek delights in more than searching for Easter eggs in nostalgic properties. Luckily, the new Creepshow is filled with them. So many, in fact, that Greg Nicotero has forgotten half of them! One of the main Easter eggs comes from the original Creepshow’s first segment “Father’s Day”, in which a long-suffering single woman kills her elderly father with an ashtray. Nick Mastandrea, George Romero’s key grip on Creepshow, would slide the ashtray into every segment, turning it into an infamous joke. A good friend of Nicotero’s owns the actual prop, and the producer had him send him the ashtray so they could continue the joke. It appears in every episode. In “House Of The Head,” a little girl owns a haunted dollhouse, and she gets a Native…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 15 | 107 minutes Director André Øvredal Cast Zoe Margaret Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, Austin Zajur It’s a little surprising to see this horror handed a 15 rating in the UK, since its driving mission is to get kids into terror without overloading their senses; to act as a gateway for those not quite ready for Freddy and co. Producer Guillermo del Toro and director André Øvredal combine several scary tales from the books written by Alvin Schwartz (and given extra nightmare fuel by Stephen Gemmell’s ink-scratch imagery) and succeed in finding a way for them to work on screen. The framing device, which sees a group of small-town American teens explore a legendarily haunted house, discovering a book of tales written by the much-maligned Sarah…

UK/US Netflix, streaming now Showrunners Jeff Addiss, Will Matthews Cast Anya Taylor-Joy, Nathalie Emmanuel, Taron Egerton, Donna Kimball, Jason Isaacs, Simon Pegg episodes 1.01-1.10 The original Dark Crystal was a flop, but far from a failure. Even its most vociferous detractors, left cold by its plot and puppet stars, acknowledged the ambition behind puppet laureate Jim Henson and British artist Brian Froud’s unique vision; this was world-building at its most breathtakingly imaginative. Now Dark Crystal returns after 37 years to expand that world further. Age Of Resistance is a prequel, set countless years before the events of the film. The evil Skeksis have taken over the planet Thra, enslaving all the indigenous races, including the seven tribes of the Gelfling and the Podlings, but posing as benevolent leaders. They’ve been using…

UK/US Amazon, streaming now Showrunners René Echevarria, Travis Beacham Cast Cara Delevingne, Orlando Bloom, Jared Harris, Indira Varma, Karla Crome, David Gyasi EPISODES 1.01-1.08 After years in development hell (and with such names as Guillermo del Toro attached), it comes as no surprise to find that now Amazon’s flagship fantasy series, Carnival Row, is finally here, there are elements that feel alarmingly dated. Its racism-fuelled tale of magical creatures trying to fit into a human world riffs on everything from District 9 to Alien Nation to Netflix flop Bright. Its gothic, Victoriannoir feel is pure Penny Dreadful. The endless swearing and copious copulating? Game Of Thrones. And that’s just the screen comparisons: don’t get us started on its many similarities to thousands of works of fantasy literature. That said, Carnival…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2017 | 18 | Blu-ray/DVD/download This horror-comedy is an unpleasant throwback. Jim (Danny Morgan) is a 29-year-old virgin. His friend Alex (Michael Socha) tries to rectify that by arranging a night out with two women – unaware they’re murderous occultists. The cast is much better than the retrograde script, which features Alex attempting date rape alongside tired fat and ginger jokes. There’s a lot of talent involved, including Dexter Fletcher and psych rockers Goat, but the film’s balls. Extras Making Of; deleted scenes; trailers.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 1986 | U | Blu-ray Director Randal Kleiser Cast Joey Cramer, Paul Reubens, Veronica Cartwright, Sarah Jessica Parker BLU-RAY DEBUT This Amblinesque boy-meets-spacecraft tale conceals some surprisingly dark currents beneath its Disney sheen. Thrown eight years into his own future, David Freeman discovers he hasn’t aged a day – unlike his family. His unaccountable reappearance is linked to a mysterious alien ship, one that believes David to be its navigator. Grounded by a sincere, vulnerable performance by 12-year-old Joey Cramer, this opening act cannily plays on the stuff of childhood nightmare – the horror of your home filled with strangers – and has a genuine emotional charge. The rest is breezier, and less compelling. There’s some gorgeous design work (the iridescent, shell-like craft is a chrome wonder)…

RELEASED Out Now! 2019 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD Director Peter Strickland Cast Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hayley Squires, Leo Bill The latest film from Peter Strickland (Berberian Sound Studio, The Duke Of Burgundy) is his most idiosyncratic yet – and most tonally bewildering. Inspired by his childhood memories of Reading department store Jacksons, it inflates an aspect of such retail spaces – their otherworldly glamour – to create a surreal, sinister world where sales assistants dressed like Transylvanian nannies spout grandiloquent verbiage. It centres on a cursed dress that brings misfortune to a lonely bank teller (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), then a gormless washing machine repairman (Leo Bill). Jean-Baptiste is hugely sympathetic as a fifty-something woman entering the dating arena. Scenes where Sheila’s “called in for a chat” by her managers (Julian Barratt, Steve…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 382 pages | Paperback/ebook/audiobook Authors Wendy Trimboli, Alicia Zaloga Publisher Angry Robot Books This excellent debut weaves together magic, grave-robbing and royal scandals. Set in a world that recalls Victorian Britain, with a rigid class system, fledgling medical science and rampant inequality, its two protagonists hail from opposite ends of society. Princess Sibylla is summoned to Caligo, the capital city, to prepare for the visit of the Emperor of Khalishka. Her estranged childhood friend, Roger Weathersby, is an aspiring medical student funding his education by stealing and selling corpses for research – he’s the titular resurrectionist. But when he realises someone’s murdering young women, he stumbles into a conspiracy that threatens the very foundations of Caligo. Wendy Trimboli and Alicia Zaloga build their world with meticulous care,…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 283 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Jac Jemc Publisher Titan Books A haunted house with a strange history, a couple with a troubled past… is their new home really haunting them, or are the ghosts of their own making? These questions are posed but never clearly answered in Jac Jemc’s creepy psychological horror. Told in alternating chapters which flip between narrators, it’s a character study of Julie and James, seemingly the perfect couple, who purchase a home surrounded by forest. But strange sounds and the shifting architecture of the house, coupled with the ever-presence of their ominous neighbour, lead to paranoia and mistrust. Why is Julie’s body covered in bruises? Who are those children in the trees? And where are those drawings on the walls coming from? Not…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 398 pages | Paperback/ebook/audiobook Author Keren Landsman Publisher Angry Robot Books Social justice and angst collide in Keren Landsman’s overheated contemporary fantasy. It’s set in Israel, where sorcerers – people with supernatural abilities – are oppressed by a fearful majority while a group of religious extremists, the Sons of Simeon, call for their eradication. The protagonist is Reed Katz, an empath targeted by the terrorists even as he’s falling in love with Lee, another empath who keeps his emotions sealed away. Their arc is predictable, from the frosty first encounter to Lee’s brittle exterior cracking in the face of Reed’s passion. Landsman’s prose is strongest when describing the sweltering heat of Tel Aviv and capturing Reed’s claustrophobia as the pressure weighs down on him, but the plotting…

RELEASED 12 SEPTEMBER 384 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author Alix E Harrow Publisher Orbit Books Sometimes, all it takes is one sentence. In the case of Alix Harrow’s debut, it’s this: “In the fall of 1903 I was nine, and the world was tasting the word modern on its tongue.” With one image, Harrow conjures time, place and – most importantly – mood. Here’s a story in which words have flavour, and change isn’t just an abstract concept, but something that can be felt, as well as imagined. At first glance, January Scaller lives a charmed (if restricted) life. Sheltered from the worst excesses of racist US society by the wealthy white patron for whom her father works, she’s learned to mind her manners and be grateful. Just before her 17th…

RELEASED 3 OCTOBER Publisher Rebellion Writer Donne Avenell Artist Carlos Cruz COLLECTION As motivations for villainy go, burglary is underused – Lex Luthor didn’t turn to crime because someone pinched his VCR. But it’s the driving force behind this obscure strip, first published in weekly comic Lion from 1971-1972. After having relics stolen from his Midlands home – a giant pyramid, incidentally (lord knows how he got that past planning) – the titular Egyptologist sets out for revenge, using an ancient mummy and a flying chariot. As you would expect, there’s some Hammer in the mix – something riffed on at one point as the late Pharoah Angor invades the soundstage of an “Anvil Studios” production. But Christopher Lee’s mummy couldn’t fire power bolts, walk through walls, or toss a…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher DC Ink Writer Mariko Tamaki Artist Steve Pugh GRAPHIC NOVEL In this latest release from DC’s YA range, clownish antiheroine Harley Quinn gets a new origin story. Leaning heavily on the Suicide Squad version of the character, its Harleen is a kookie punkrock blonde who lands in Gotham City after the death of her mother, and finds refuge with a drag queen. But while this aspires to be a grungy fairytale in the vein of Alice In Wonderland, it’s too bland. The DC Ink line strips too much from the original characters. Mariko Tamaki’s Harley isn’t deranged, she’s just misunderstood; she isn’t an anarchist, she just hates authority. To make her more likeable, all of her manic energy and prickly personality dissolves – as does her…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 282 minutes | CD/download Publisher Big Finish AUDIO DRAMA If there’s one thing former Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies was good at, it was coming up with evocative phrases that fired the imagination. Take the title of this set, which nods to a throwaway line from his season four finale, “Journey’s End”. There, a “dimension cannon” was the means by which Rose returned to our universe. These four stories reveal that her mission to find the Doctor wasn’t as brief as we thought. Taking place before Rose is reunited with the Tenth Doctor, The Dimension Cannon follows her trips to parallel universes as she tries to track down the Time Lord. These visits see her befriend an alternative version of hapless conspiracy theorist Clive Finch; get…

SCI-FACT! Other fantasy franchises to be immortalised in the Barbie range include Star Trek Doctor Who, The X Files and The Addams Family. MAY THE FURS BE WITH YOU You’ve never seen Darth Vader look quite this fierce before… The Star Wars/Barbie collaboration pays a unique homage to Episode IV: A New Hope by putting a high-fashion filter on it and getting the iconic doll to serve some looks. So the Sith Lord is now in a panelled pencil skirt, while C-3PO has become a clutch bag for R2’s bomber jacket ensemble. Oh my goodness! From £149.99, amazon.co.uk THE WINTER (BODY) SOLDIER The latest Build A Figure set from Hasbro’s Marvel Avengers Legends range – that’s Wave Three, incidentally – comes with six different elements to make the Thor figure…

What does being part of the Titans mean to Rachel? • They’ve given her a family. Even when Rachel was little and had her surrogate mother, she didn’t have any siblings. She didn’t have any friends. She was lonely. Titans has given her a way to not feel as lonely. She still feels a bit of an outsider because of her powers. But this whole group of freaks, they’re all working together, and she feels like she’s a part of them. But, going into the season, she feels further removed as her powers develop. Rachel feels like she’s letting them down because she loves them so much. Because she can’t control her powers, she feels like she doesn’t deserve to be a Titan. Even after the Titans banish Trigon, Raven…

SHUT THE PARTITIONS! We’re sitting on a time bomb!” SFX is perched behind Nick Briggs in a west London recording studio as he directs a crucial scene from “Breakaway”, the inaugural offering from Big Finish’s new Space: 1999 audio adventures. Based on 1975’s first episode of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s much-loved live-action show, the doublelength drama shines a new light on how Moonbase Alpha came to be blasted away from Earth into the far-off depths of space. “It’s not quite the case that I just wrote and wrote and suddenly it was, ‘Blimey, I’ve got two hours!’ but it was very nearly the case,” laughs Briggs, who also supplies the script. “You just find yourself with lots of interesting character interactions, and that just made the story longer.” Having fervently watched the original series…

IT’S BEEN 20 YEARS SINCE WRITER ROCKNE S O’Bannon and the Jim Henson Company commingled to create the sci-fi TV series Farscape, and there’s no doubt the genre is still feeling its influence today. Live-action and space-based, Farscape’s creatives took a bit of everything – from comedy to romance, prosthetics and cutting-edge puppetry – mixed it into a narrative blender, and out came this weird series that captivated audiences around the globe. While Farscape only lasted four seasons and a miniseries, you can still see its DNA in shows like Joss Whedon’s Firefly and SY FY’s Killjoys; and in performances by A-list actors like Chris Pratt in Guardians Of The Galaxy or Chris Pine in Star Trek that follow in the footsteps of Ben Browder’s brash and mouthy John Crichton. Two…

RELEASED 27 SEPTEMBER 18 | 95 minutes Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett Cast Samara Weaving, Adam Brody, Relax, kid, Mark O’Brien, Andie MacDowell If you thought game nights with friends or family were awkward, then spare a thought for poor Grace (Samara Weaving). Marrying into the vastly wealthy Le Domas dynasty might sound appealing, but they’re also supremely weird, and she discovers on her wedding night that their tradition is to play a game. And if hide and seek is chosen, then the new relative will be hunted down by the rest… It’s a concept that sparks gallons of gore, but also lots of laughs as writers Guy Busick and Ryan “Not the American Horror Story one” Murphy, and directing duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, gather a bunch of…

The opening scene of Hawkeye’s family being dusted was originally shot for the end of Infinity War. The Russos felt it was “too disorientating” there though, so it was repurposed. Why didn’t Nebula warn Black Widow and Hawkeye about the sacrifice required to obtain the Soul Stone, given that Thanos sacrificed Gamora? According to co-writer Stephen McFeely, she doesn’t know: “She just knows her sister didn’t come back, and he left with the stone.” The Vormir sequence was reshot. Originally it featured “Thanos sending a small army to pretend to try to stop them”, but it was felt that, “While it lit a fire under them to do the act, it also took a little bit of the agency away.” The reason the pregnant Maria Stark had cravings for sauerkraut…

RELEASED 23 SEPTEMBER (download 16 September) 2019| PG | Blu-ray (3D/4K/standard)/DVD/download Director Guy Ritchie Cast Will Smith, Mena Massoud, Naomi Scott, Marwan Kenzari However awesome Robin Williams was as the motor-mouthed genie, Disney’s 1992 Aladdin was never quite in the same league as The Lion King or Dumbo. So, in a sense, director Guy Ritchie had it easier than Jon Favreau or Tim Burton here. The question remains, however, what exactly the point is of these live-action remakes if they’re not going to go somewhere different. Ritchie’s stylish, if lightweight movie makes only minor tweaks to the original (the most notable a love interest for Will Smith’s genie) and has such a silky CG sheen it might as well be fully animated. Mena Massoud and Naomi Scott are fine, if…

RELEASED 23 SEPTEMBER 2017 | U | DVD A smash in its native Czech Republic, this animated tale is a fairly basic romp in which an evil puppeteer brings his creations to life, then decides to turn humans into puppets too, because… well, why not? There are a few sweet moments, charming design and a fun dragon, but the male lead is stunningly unlikeable, and a female “sidekick” does nothing but giggle or look scared. Kids might watch for a while; adults may prefer root canal work. Extras None.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2019 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD/download Director Michael Chaves Cast Linda Cardellini, Raymond Cruz, Patricia Velásquez, Marisol Ramirez A secondary benefit of better on-screen representation is that it can add new flavours to wellworn formats. This stealth addition to the Conjuring-verse (an appearance by the priest from Annabelle ties it in) blends exorcism horror with Latin-American traditions. Linda Cardellini plays Anna, a social worker in 1973 LA who “rescues” two boys, who are then mysteriously drowned. Turns out mum was trying to protect them from La Llorona, a folkloric “weeping woman” who, having drowned her own kids, walks the Earth seeking replacements to dunk. She latches onto Anna’s family… Cue all the creaky doors, flickering lights and hurling of bodies against walls you’d expect. It’s an attractive-looking film.…

Wes Craven basically disowned THE HILLS HAVE EYES PART TWO (Blu-ray, 16 September), his 1984 sequel to the gruelling horror about a family of cannibals. Featuring three returning cast, it follows a motocross team who break down in the desert. Full of bloodless kills and characters acting stupidly, it’s padded out with flashbacks to the original (even a dog gets one). Arrow Video’s restoration (RRP £29.99!) has a new commentary and Making Of, postcards and poster. A saying about turds and polish springs to mind. Also released in ’84, backwoods slasher THE PREY (16 September, Blu-ray) sees three young couples terrorised by an axe-wielding wild man who was horribly burned as a child. Featuring so much wildlife footage you may wonder if David Attenborough had a hand in it, it’s…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 459 pages | Paperback/ebook/audiobook Author Deborah Hewitt Publisher Pan Books Birds have long been linked in mythology with life and death, from the deliveries of the stork to the soul guides which help us to the afterlife. In this novel, every person carries with them a nightjar, tethered to them by a glowing cord and only visible to “aviarists” – members of a magical species with a very rare skill. Alice Wyndham is struggling through life, thankful only that she’s managed to banish the visions of birds she saw constantly as a child. But an unexpected parcel, containing only a feather, opens up a new world, one filled with magic. Alice quickly learns that she’s being hunted, and when tragedy strikes close to home she’s forced into…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 320 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Adrienne Young Publisher Titan Books This is comfort reading: you’ll have certain expectations from the outset, and it delivers them – but not much more. Set in a Norse-inspired world of fjord, forest and mountain, it sees the stories of two people, foundling mystic Tova and young chieftain-to-be Halvard, intertwine as her adoptive tribe and his people come into conflict. Despite the title, it’s as much Halvard’s tale as Tova’s; her story is personal, of someone struggling to uncover their roots and rediscover their own place in the world, while his gives greater insight into the geography and history of their chilly region. The backgrounds of the tribes are neatly conveyed, so although the action is very simple, it still has some…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 400 pages | Paperback Author Tyler Hayes Publisher Angry Robot Books Imagine this: Jasper Fforde writes a sequel to Upside Down, set inside the mind of Eddie Valiant from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Or just read this book. Tippy is an imaginary friend, a yellow, plush triceratops private investigator who’s no longer needed by the girl who dreamt him up. So Tippy now operates in the StillReal, a melting pot of fictional ideas that never made it to publication or filmed form, but which were fully formed enough not to just blink out of existence. We’re talking superhero comic strips, sci-fi aliens, penguin armies, that sort of thing. There are rules to this world, one of them being that nobody ever dies for real. But then Tippy…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 336 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Dave Hutchinson Publisher Solaris Despite its pulpy title, The Return Of The Incredible Exploding Man is a low-key, meandering, character-led sci-fi thriller from Fractured Europe author Dave Hutchinson. Alex Dolan is a struggling freelance tech journalist who’s given the offer of a lifetime. Elon Musk-like businessman Stanislaw Clayton has bought a small town in Iowa to home his dream project: the Sioux Crossing Supercollider (SCS). But the project is treated as a joke in the mainstream press, so Clayton wants Dolan to write a book to swing public opinion back in his favour. For its first two-thirds, the book is barely SF at all, instead concentrating on Dolan’s prevarication when it comes to actually writing the book as he integrates with the SCS…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Rebellion Writer Rob Williams Artist Henry Flint COLLECTION Years pass, times change, but 2000 AD just keeps on going, and Judge Dredd remains the hardest, most unrelenting anti-hero around. This latest Dredd collection once again leans heavily on the character’s epic history (42 years, with no continuity reboots), as well as showcasing why Dredd’s malleable sci-fi world has lasted so long. The Small House follows him as his secret investigations into a gang of stealth assassins uncover dark secrets from the Justice Department’s past. Soon he’s on a collision course with the manipulative puppetmaster Judge Smiley, with writer Rob Williams hitting a mature, character-driven tone that matches the sober style Dredd creator John Wagner has introduced to the strip since the epic “Day Of Chaos” storyline.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Format PlayStation 4 Also on Xbox One Publisher Namco Bandai VIDEOGAME Whether it’s two “bros” bantering over a beer while death stalks them from the shadows, or the sense of eerie dread that comes from exploring the dimly-lit halls of a resurrected ocean liner, this choice-led horror adventure certainly has its moments. The dialogue and Final Destinationesque foreshadowing tug hard at the same teen horror thread that made Supermassive Games’ brilliantly schlocky Until Dawn such a big success with gamers. With this latest offering we’re again treated to a cast of beautiful young people with targets on their backs as the game asks us to love, laugh at and dislike the kind of stereotypes that make teen horrors so much fun. But it’s all a little under-cooked.…

RELEASED 13 SEPTEMBER 120 minutes | CD/download Publisher Big Finish AUDIO DRAMA For all of the 2001-aping seriousness of Gerry Anderson’s ’70s sci-fi saga Space: 1999, it could never escape the silliness of its basic premise: that the Moon was ripped away from Earth’s orbit thanks to a massive thermonuclear explosion. The shonky science of its pilot episode (surely the explosion would have shattered the Moon, not sent it scuttling across the galaxy…) has, thankfully, been ironed out in Nicholas Briggs’s reworking of George Bellak’s 1975 teleplay, with the original 50-minute episode also pumped up to a more narratively satisfying two hours. Thankfully, Briggs isn’t too reverent towards the material and fixes some other long-standing fan niggles. Whereas a signal coming from the rogue planet of Meta is, in the original,…

SCI-FACT! X-Men’s James Marsden was originally in talks to star as Ross but bowed out due to scheduling conflicts. HOLLYWOOD CAN’T SEEM TO ESCAPE Stephen King’s reign of terror. Ever since the 1976 film adaptation of his novel Carrie, studios and networks have mined the prolific writer’s body of work. This year alone, the Pet Semetary remake and It: Chapter Two haunted cinemas. Now, Splice director Vincenzo Natali is taking a crack at In The Tall Grass, a horror novella written by King and his son, Joe Hill. “This one in particular fits very comfortably in my wheelhouse,” says Natali on the Toronto set. “In fact, so comfortably I was a little bit uncertain as to whether I should do it. I thought I’d walked this twisted path before because…

Can you believe that it’s been 30 years since Friday The 13th slashed its way onto Nintendo? In true Jason Voorhees style, he refuses to stay down and Friday The 13th: The Game Ultimate Slasher Edition is released for the Nintendo Switch this month. This version comes with every play mode previously available, including three Jason Kill Packs. How festive! You even get to switch out the camp counselors clothing – after all, you have to look your best when you meet your maker… £39.99, amazon.co.uk…

SCI-FACT! Munro says that she’d love to write for Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor: “It would be a dream. I’d be knocking down the door!” → IT’S BEEN 201 YEARS SINCE THE ORIGINAL publication of Frankenstein, the book that is often cited as the first science fiction novel. A new stage adaptation, penned by award-winning playwright and two-time Doctor Who scribe Rona Munro, aims to bring the story to life once more, while also highlighting its author, Mary Shelley. “When I went back to look at Frankenstein, the thing that really struck me was that it was written by an 18-year-old woman,” says Munro. “She’s been pushed to the edges by the political choices she’s made and the people she’s hanging out with. But in the middle of everything, she does this…

We can’t get enough of the Alien movie universe, and the 40th anniversary is as good a reason as any to immerse ourselves in xenomorphs all over again. Artist Graham Langridge has gone one step further, digging up set designs, concept art and photography from all of the films – including Prometheus and Alien: Covenant – to make accurate blueprints of some of the most iconic ships and vehicles in sci-fi history. Can someone start building this Powerloader for us? £29.99, titanbooks.com…

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What do you consider is the essence of this character? • For me, his thing is family. He protects it. He has to keep his professional and personal life apart. He’s on a mission to protect his family. Another essence of the character is perfection. He’s genetically modified. He’s so far ahead of his opponents, usually. The seeking of perfection in his art, in his craft – he loses himself in that. At a certain level, you could get bored by what you do, but if you’re looking for perfection in the art of killing… that was one of the driving motivators. I also do believe there’s a moral floor that he will not go below. How much will viewers learn about Deathstroke’s origin story, including how he obtained his…

NAMED AND SHAMED 10 titles bestowed on the Joker by the golden age of comics THE ACE OF KNAVES THE ARCH BUFFOON OF BANDITRY THE LEONARDO OF THE LARCENOUS LAUGH THE CLOWN-PRINCE OF CRIME THE FIENDISH FUNSTER THE FUNNY MAN OF FELONY THE HARLEQUIN OF HATE THE MAD MAESTRO OF MIRTH THE MALEVOLENT MIME THE PRINCE OF PRANKSTERS CALL HIM JOKER, JACK or Mr J, he’s the trickster god of Gotham, the twisted, maniacal yin to Batman’s grimly determined yang. Over nearly 80 years he’s been reimagined as everything from a computer virus to a Victorian serial killer, and he may be the only homicidal lunatic in history to be immortalised with his own Pez dispenser. Is he the goofy cartoon prankster thwarted by Scooby-Doo? Or is he the murderous…

What made the Joker the perfect choice of villain for 1989’s Batman? Inarguably, the Joker is the greatest super villain in the history of comic books! He represents the yin and yang handed down from ancient mythology and folklore. The Joker and Batman do an eternal dance. And how interesting and ironic that such a force of evil is presented in the mask of a happy-go-lucky clown, while the great force of good that is Batman is cast in the mask of something dark and monstrous. The movie was in development for years. Is it true that everyone from Peter O’Toole to David Bowie were in the frame for the role? Over a period of more than 10 years, many, many names were bandied about. That doesn’t mean any of…

THE NEW CREEPSHOW came about in the best way possible: by a combination of luck, coincidence, and being in the “right place at the right time”. Series executive producer Greg Nicotero, the special effects guru-cum-producer of The Walking Dead, was returning to the States after a press sojourn to Australia to promote the zombie show. Looking for something to read on the plane, he downloaded Nights Of The Living Dead, a collection of stories set during the 48 hours of the zombie outbreak in Night Of The Living Dead, and fell in love with a story written by Craig Engler. “I thought, ‘I want to shoot that,’” he tells SFX in a late-night interview on one of the final shoot days of Creepshow. “Just as a short, just for fun.…

Gerry Anderson’s second original live–action series after UFO, Space: 1999, was – at the time – the most expensive TV show made for British television. Running for two seasons between September 1975 and November 1977, it saw Anderson embracing more mature themes. “There are several things that make Space: 1999 more adult compared to the puppet shows,” says Jamie Anderson. “The Supermarionation series like Thunderbirds were always trying to play to a familiar audience. But they were written on two levels, as Dad was never keen on talking down to the audience, so there were always more grown-up elements and jokes that adults could enjoy.” According to Jamie, Gerry was always aspiring to make live-action shows. “It was just a part of that natural progression from the large-head marionettes to…

RELEASED 23 september 1986 | PG | Blu-ray Directors Nicholas Mallett, Ron Jones, Chris Clough Cast Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Bonnie Langford, Michael Jayston It’s a metaphor as subtle as the Sixth Doctor’s Technicolor glad rags: “sensationally axed” by the BBC in 1985, Doctor Who returned a year later and placed its hero in the dock, facing trial by the Time Lords and the higher lifeforms of TV Centre alike. To an extent, the prosecution has a case. Interrupted by increasingly tedious courtroom barracking, the stories range from a half-hearted post-apocalyptic runaround to pseudo-psychedelic Victoriana and a creaky attempt at a starship-bound Agatha Christie mystery. Arch and stilted without ever quite committing to outright camp, it all feels rather defanged after the brash energy of Colin Baker’s controversial debut season.…

RELEASED 16 SEPTEMBER 2019 | PG | Blu-ray (3D/4K/standard)/DVD/download There’s a lot to love about this blend of ridiculous game characters and serious mystery: Justice Smith’s performance as a guy whose cop dad was killed; gorgeous neon-filled CGI cityscapes; the way Pokémon interact with humans. But while Pikachu looks fantastic, he’s lacking snappy one-liners, and the plot’s a tad predictable. Otherwise? Jolly good fun. Extras Pop up info; alternate opening; featurettes; music video; more.…

RELEASED 23 SEPTEMBER 1993 | 18 | Blu-ray & DVD (dual format) It’d be a wild exaggeration to call Skinner a lost classic serial killer thriller, but it is at least interesting. Kerry (Ricki Lake) lets a room in her house to Dennis (Ted Raimi), unaware that he’s a murderer who preys on sex workers. Traci Lords is in hot pursuit. Grimy stuff, but fans of ’80s neon lighting and droning synth scores might get a kick from its aesthetics and nihilism. Extras Four interviews; out-takes and extended takes from a sequence; trailer; booklet.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 1977 | 18 | Blu-ray Director David Cronenberg Cast Marilyn Chambers, Frank Moore, Joe Silver, Howard Ryshpan “This woman grows a cock thing in her armpit and sucks people’s blood through it! It’s ridiculous!” So declared David Cronenberg while struggling to nail Rabid’s script. He had a point. This tale of bodily mutation sees Rose (porn star Marilyn Chambers) become a vampiric Typhoid Mary after experimental plastic surgery, leaving chaos in her wake as she unwittingly spreads an infection that turns victims violent. Think George Romero’s The Crazies with added predatory female sexuality. The film is memorable principally for moments of shocking violence: a pneumatic drill killing; Santa machinegunned. Its grim realism is effectively downbeat, and Chambers has the skill-set for a role which largely involves seducing…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2019 | 18 | Blu-ray/DVD Director Danishka Esterhazy Cast Finlay Wotjak-Hissong, Dani Kind, Romeo Carere, Steve Lund What if kids’ TV favourites The Banana Splits went psycho? As pitches go, there’s a certain logic to it: shadowy lighting is all it takes to make toothy ape Bingo look deeply sinister. But it also smacks of a rather tiresome juvenile tendency – like those persistent rumours about Captain Pugwash featuring Master Bates and Seaman Stains, or Keith Harris reinventing Orville as a “blue” routine for the student crowd. In this alternate universe, Fleagle, Drooper, Bingo and Snorky didn’t vanish from our screens in 1970, but are still a regular fixture, now played by robots. When a software update sends them haywire, a small group of fans struggle to…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 496 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Editor Stephen King Publisher Hodder & Stoughton For an author frequently viewed as the Master of Horror, it isn’t always easy to predict what sort of book Stephen King’s next novel will be. He’s spent most of the last decade bouncing between different subgenres, regularly opting for straight thrillers (including the hard-boiled trilogy that started with 2014’s Mr Mercedes); even 2018’s The Outsider played as a crime thriller/horror hybrid. So it’s a pleasant surprise that his latest release turns out to the most purely Stephen King book he’s written in years. It’s also a throwback to territory he previously explored in 1980’s Firestarter, dealing with paranormally-empowered children and a secret organisation out to manipulate them, but filtered through a typically harsh look at…

RELEASED 19 SEPTEMBER 320 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author David Koepp Publisher HQ Depending on your taste in humour and gore threshold, you may well be grinning and gagging in equal measure reading this debut novel from top Hollywood scriptwriter David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Spider-Man, Mission: Impossible). This is about as near to Zombieland or Tremors in book form as you’re likely to find. It’s full-on gross in places but has a vividly drawn cast of believably down-to-earth characters, with a plot that accelerates at breakneck pace to the breathless finale. Not that Cold Storage plays its hand straightaway. The first section, set in the ’80s, feels more like the set-up for a traditional viral outbreak horror like The Strain. When the Pentagon sends two bioterror troubleshooters to investigate a possible…

RELEASED 17 SEPTEMBER 480 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author Joe Abercrombie Publisher Gollancz In our world, countries at very different stages in their development coexist. Sometimes uneasily, it might be added, but we don’t find this idea strange. However, in too many fantasy universes a kind of medieval monoculture holds sway. Not in Joe Abercrombie’s new Age Of Madness trilogy, set in his First Law universe. As the author outlines elsewhere this issue (see page 80), this is a novel that in part explores what happens when industrialisation hits the world of the Union. As traditional ways of life break down, unrest starts to grow. Meantime, up in the rather more agrarian border country of Angland, war with northern neighbours is the order of the day, offering the opportunity for dashing…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 320 pages | Hardback/ebook Author Jaime Lee Moyer Publisher Jo Fletcher Books Robin and Marion: outlaw lovers on a quest to bring justice to the poor, destined to be together forever. Except maybe not. This novel picks up 12 years after their stealing-from-the-rich days, long after Robin and Marion have had the mother of all fallings-out. Robin’s found God in a monastery, while Marion’s married Will Scarlet. Then, out of nowhere, former Merry Men start dying – and the only one who can find out what’s going on is Marion… because she’s a witch. Brightfall is, in many ways, a very effective and evocative book. Marion is a fascinating narrator, seeing the Fae world unnoticed by those around her and able to perform powerful magic, in stark…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 192 pages | Hardback Author John Walsh Publisher Titan Books If you make it too real, it destroys the fantasy,” said Ray Harryhausen. “Fantasy is supposed to have a dream quality.” He was championing his trademark effects technique over the rise of CGI, but these words apply as much to the unmade movies celebrated here as the hallucinatory power of stopmotion animation. There’s something distinctly dreamlike about these unrealised projects – War Eagles, where giant birds of prey defend New York; Elementals, where man-sized bat-beasts blitz Paris from their lair in the Eiffel Tower – and Harryhausen’s magic is so potent, so easily conjured in your mind’s eye that you can absolutely see them, playing through the projector light of some lucky parallel universe. There is something…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 275 pages | Hardback/ebook Editor Desirina Boskovich Publisher Abrams Image As is often the case with such things, the subtitle to this eccentric collection – The Secret History Of Science Fiction And Fantasy – is arguably a little misleading. “History” suggests something more structured and comprehensive. As for “Secret”, well, Philip K Dick, David Bowie and Jack Kirby (all discussed) aren’t exactly unknown quantities. Its 76 essays (mostly two to four pages long) see a host of writers discussing the undervalued, esoteric and unfinished, as well as offering unusual perspectives on more well-known subjects. Boiling that down into a marketable tagline is rather tricky, of course. At times, as the essayists evangelise about beloved books, films or TV shows, it can feel a little like SFX’s own…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher DC Comics Writer Brian Michael Bendis Artists Alex Maleev ISSUES 1-3 It was never going to take long for Brian Michael Bendis’s arrival at DC to spawn a big splashy superhero event, and his current run on Action Comics has led directly into this six-issue miniseries. Event Leviathan also picks up threads from the recent Leviathan Rising special, twisting together an espionage-heavy mystery that involves a broad collection of DC heroes. The basic set-up of the story is that the enigmatic crime organisation Leviathan has experienced a sudden takeover, and has defeated all other super-powered intelligence operations in record time. Now, a gang of investigators including Batman, Lois Lane and Green Arrow have banded together to discover the truth about who’s really running Leviathan. It barely…