Innehållsförteckning för June 2016 från SFX

INSIDE THE SFX HIVE MIND RICHARD EDWARDS EDITOR RAVES I have mixed feelings about The X-Files’ return, but “Mulder And Scully Meet The Were-Monster” was absolutely joyous – my favourite bit of telly so far this year. Brash, smug, annoying... I thought Deadpool was ace. Read Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One – loved it. Can’t wait to see what Spielberg does with it. IAN BERRIMAN REVIEWS EDITOR RAVES Really excited that The Wrath Of Khan’s Nicholas Meyer will be writing for the new Trek TV series. New movie soundtracks label Stylotone sounds very promising. www.stylotone.com Crafty people, these felt doll patterns are ace, especially Diana from V: http://bit.ly/vfeltdoll. RUSSELL LEWIN PRODUCTION EDITOR RAVES Deadpool was amusing. Has to hold a record for quips-a-minute. Best Marvel-themed movie in several years, maybe?…

SCI - FACT ! Brandon Routh’s co-star in 400 Days is Caity Lotz – Canary in Legends Of Tomorrow, in which Routh plays the Atom. IT’S ABOUT FOUR ASTRONAUTS 1 But the movie is totally Earth-bound. Brandon Routh, Caity Lotz, Ben Feldman and Dane Cook play a quartet of trainee space-folk who are locked in an underground simulator for 400 days to emulate the effects of being on a spaceship. Routh says, “It’s an intriguing premise to understand what would happen to four wannabe astronauts in those conditions who are allowed absolutely no contact with the outside world.” THINGS GET A LITTLE CLAUSTROPHOBIC 2 Two of the astronauts start to hallucinate and things get strained between Routh’s character, Theo, and Emily (Lotz), who had broken off their engagement just prior…

In its 16 years, Sci-Fi-London has run 19 events, screened hundreds of films both new and old, and its famed 48 Hour Film Challenge spawned Factory Farmed, Gareth Edwards’ short, which would go on to be the starting point for Monsters. We spoke to founder Louis Savy to find out what we can expect in 2016. Tell us about some of the films being screened this year... We have the world premiere of Kill Command, which is great – robots and marines shooting each other, from the producers of Monsters. Alongside it is Embers, a fantastic, quite gentle film dealing with short term memory loss. We’ve also got a fabulous film called Polder, which is about Virtual Reality gaming – it’s bizarre and I loved it. The closing night film…

SCI - FACT ! Civil War II is said to kick off with the death of a major superhero – mirroring the end of the original Civil War in 2007. SPACE IS THE PLACE Journey to the stars with some stunning retro travel posters released by NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. There are 14 in total, each one promoting a different galactic destination. Beautifully illustrated, they’re available to download for free in high resolution at www.jpl.nasa.gov/visions-of-the-future/and look gorgeous printed and framed. CHOOSE YOUR SIDE Marvel has begun teasing its forthcoming epic Civil War II in earnest with the release of several character posters drawn by Phil Noto. Written by Brian Michael Bendis, the story sees Marvel’s superheroes pitched against each other once more when a new character arrives with…

Subscribe at myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/sfx CHIM-CHIM-CHER-EE ETC! MARY POPPINS 2 Winds in the east, mist coming in, like somethin’ is brewin’ and ’bout to begin… The belated sequel to Mary Poppins moves ever nearer to the screen with the news that Edge Of Tomorrow’s Emily Blunt is in talks to play PL Travers’ magical nanny, originally brought to life by Julie Andrews in Disney’s 1964 classic. She’s a practically perfect choice in every way. Well, aside from the fact that Julie Andrews is still around… Set to be helmed by Into The Woods’ Rob Marshall, the movie shifts the action to the 1930s and raids plot elements from Travers’ other books, particularly the second one, Mary Poppins Comes Back. Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda is tipped for the role of Jack, a London lamplighter,…

Roger Zelazny’s place in the history of science fiction and fantasy is assured – in the case of sci-fi by Lord Of Light and as far as fantasy is concerned by the Amber novels, beginning with Nine Princes In Amber in 1970 and concluding more than two decades later with Prince Of Chaos. But in critical explorations of the Zelazny opus, Jack Of Shadows sometimes fails to get a mention, or else it’s dismissed as a flawed or lesser work. On its initial release Lester Del Rey called it “minor Zelazny” and drew attention to its serial origins, suggesting that the author had failed to fuse the separate parts of his story into a coherent whole. I hate to pick a fight with an editor of Del Rey’s stature, but…

Monsters come in many forms and things are not what they seem... VIOLENCE IS THE ANSWER In 2008 Pascal Laugier’s transcendent torture-porn Martyrs hit the pinnacle of the New French Extremism movement and became a cult classic. Those who haven’t seen it – avert your eyes! It’s a film of two halves, the first being the escape and slow rehabilitation of a girl held captive and traumatised as a child, the second her demise and her friend’s subsequent incarceration and drawn-out torture by a cult. It’s an ordeal, but it has something to say. April finally sees the US remake hit screens and it seems to have missed the point, smoothing the rough, polishing the surfaces, streamlining the torture and empowering the girls in a way that disempowers the film.…

NIKOLAJ COSTER-WALDAU is JAIME LANNISTER How does Jaime react when he gets back to King’s Landing and finds out that Cersei has been made to do the Walk of Shame? He’s not happy at all! If he could he would just go in and deal with it in a very swift way in his usual manner. But there are quite a lot of Sparrows in King’s Landing now. Everything has changed since he went to Dorne. He’ll never go back there again. Now I’m just trying to help my sister, but having come back from Dorne with her dead daughter it takes a bit of time for them to get back on track. What’s next for the Lannisters? We’re trying to come up with a plan and trying to build…

1 KARA’S DESK A smashed phone – plus the lyrics to Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” scrawled on a notepad – indicate that Cat Grant may have pushed her assistant just a little too far. (And after Kara got her coffee at Noonan’s bar!) Is the “superflare” in the Tribune’s headline mere coincidence? 2 CAT’S OFFICE With an entire wall of monitors behind her desk, Cat Grant’s office is where the CatCo CEO monitors news throughout National City and the world, while commanding her own media empire. She can also oversee her assistant Kara and IT employee Winn, whose desks are located just outside the office’s front wall of transparent glass. 3 JAMES OLSEN’S OFFICE The former Daily Planet photographer, CatCo’s current art director, and Supergirl’s righthand man, has an office…

RICHARD III (1592) A sleepless Dick has plotted his way onto the throne, but finds himself haunted by his many victims on the night before his death on Bosworth field. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM (1595) The wedding of Greek hero Theseus is magically bombed by a dispute between the King and Queen of the Fairies, in a troublesome tiff involving superhuman goblins and ass mutation. JULIUS CAESAR (1600) In an echo of Richard III’s ghostly paranoia, poor old Brutus has only just come to terms with helping to turn Caesar into Swiss cheese, when his old boss returns to predict his death. HAMLET (1601) The hero may have been content to just mope around Elsinore if Shakespeare’s most famous play didn’t begin with an earthcracking appearance from his dead father,…

Flash Gordon was a huge break for you. Was there pressure on two unknowns to shoulder a blockbuster? Melody We had no idea it was going to be a blockbuster. When you’re an actor and you’re starting you’re just happy to get a job. There was just something very unique and special about the movie that caught people. It was the magic, the comic book colours, the characters… and of course we had such an amazing design team. Sam I was just focused on my task at hand. Shoot this scene, now go rehearse. Go to a different location, go to a different set, go learn to use the bullwhip, go rehearse that fight scene… It just didn’t stop, the machine. Melody I had more time, and one of the…

vampire willow Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s bestie took a trip to the goth side in two memorable episodes that foreshadowed her Big Bad turn in the show’s sixth season, and resulted in her signature catchphrase “Bored now.” mirror spock Forever cementing an evil twin’s trademarks as dark goatee and ’tache, the Mirror Universe’s Spock was ultimately convinced by our own universe’s Captain Kirk that wickedness was illogical. bizarro The Man of Steel’s imperfect duplicate has threatened Metropolis countless times since his first appearance in 1958. But he’s often defeated through the one feeling he shares with Superman — an attraction to Lois Lane. katherine pierce The Vampire Diaries’ greatest villain through its early seasons was Elena’s much less inhibited undead ringer, responsible for turning her boyfriends, Stefan and Damon Salvatore,…

Valleys of death Ghost stories don’t get much more slow-burning than this Welsh-language chiller. When Sara (Annes Elwy) and Iwan (Dyfan Dwyfor) crash their car into a river in a remote part of Wales, they’re saved by the reclusive Stanley (Mark Lewis Jones), who brings them back to his farmhouse. You’d expect the haunting to start there, but it doesn’t. Or at least, not the supernatural kind. Sara, Iwan and Stanley all have their own personal ghosts to contend with, and it’s the way they interact, their secrets brushing up against one another, that creates an atmosphere of creeping dread. The actual ghost, when it finally turns up, is almost a relief – it breaks up the intensity of the relationship between the three leads. Even then, though, the deliberate…

Victor in Victor Frankenstein Did you go back to Mary Shelley’s novel? I reread the book. I read it when I was in my early teens. I didn’t love it, to be honest with you. And I didn’t love it again when I was older! What’s your take on Victor? The character in the film is fuelled by bereavement and grief and the trauma of seeing a loved one die at a very early age. I did a lot of thinking about how that would affect me – could I get to a place where I was still vibrant and energised, being fuelled by that very sad and morbid thing? It’s not just giving him grief, it’s giving him actual fear. He’s terrified of death. How does Victor compare to…

Dismemberment. Ritual murder. Premature burial. The good things in life. And all celebrated in this portmanteau chiller from Amicus, masters of the selection box principle when it comes to horror movies – if you don’t care for the Coffee Scream then don’t fret, for the Strawberry Heart is leaking real blood. Five men find themselves riding a lift to a strange basement room. They share their disturbing dreams, cueing five tales adapted from the lurid pages of EC Comics, whose dimestore chills sparked a moral panic in ’50s America. Full of grisly pay-offs and mordant humour, the movie takes EC’s winking sense of grotesquerie and marries it with that cheap’n’cosy Twickenham Studios vibe of the early ’70s. Arch cad Terry-Thomas, future Bond villain Curt Jurgens and an intense, bearded, pre-Who…

It feels mean being harsh on this kids’ CG cartoon, which looks attractive in places and is inoffensive. Unfortunately, its story, characters, dialogue and exposition are so poor that it’s massively boring. A young boy (voiced by Milla Jovovich) must save his village from wicked hyenas and monkeys, aided by a talking white wolf and others. But neither the guest vocals by the likes of Whoopi Goldberg, Sharon Stone and Joe Pesci nor a triple-headed monkey villainess can lift the film. Extras None.…

You know the drill – classic children’s books, beloved BBC adaptation, DVD release finally allowing us to return to childhood favourites – but how often do these nostalgia-fests really turn out to be as good as remembered? Not often, alas. This latest release is based on the first novel in Lucy M Boston’s Green Knowe series, centred on a ghost-filled manor house based on the author’s own family home. Young Toseland (Tolly) is spending Christmas with his great-grandmother, at the family manor of Green Knowe. While there, she tells him stories of ancestors who lived in the house, and he sees echoes of the children around the place. Director Cant gives this four-part serial a good sense of atmosphere, and it has a cosy, old-fashioned reserve that still appeals, but…

So there’s these child acrobats, right, and they jump on people, bite them; then they turn into flying skulls, and the skulls fill up with blood… Yep, The Nine Demons is one bonkers movie. One of scores of kung fu pics by director Chang Cheh (best known for Five Deadly Venoms), it’s a rough version of Faust, with a young fella (Cheng Tien-Chi) granted demonic powers so he can seek revenge for the death of his father. He goes too far, though, and abuses his gifts. The result is endless scrapping, somersaults, wire work, jump cuts, crash zooms and ear-slapping sound effects. The costumes are flamboyant, the action frantic, and it might just be the most colourful film ever made. But the novelty fades after a while. Despite being infused…

In Scottish gothic horror THE OWLMAN (DVD, out now) a man’s plagued by nightmares about an owl-headed figure after inheriting a family estate in the Highlands. A slow-burning, atmospheric film which blends Lovecraft, ancient folklore and Bibilical references, it may appeal to fans of The Innocents and The Wicker Man. Blumhouse Productions are behind SOUTH OF HELL SEASON ONE (DVD, out now). This eight-part supernatural thriller series stars Mena Suvari as a freelance exorcist who herself harbours a demon. South Carolina is an interesting setting, so it’s a shame about the over-written dialogue, wooden performances, lack of scares, and general generic feel. Stick with Supernatural. The latest DC Universe animated movie, BATMAN: BAD BLOOD (Blu-ray, out now), is a sequel to 2015’s Batman Vs Robin. For much of the duration…

SF&F is often at its best when it uses allegory to examine our lives: Buffy’s analogies between teenage demons and the horrors of high school; District 9’s examination of apartheid. But what’s great about those examples is that they take an issue, make it entertaining and trust the audience to figure out the message themselves. If you’d prefer someone to sit down and pull out the lessons – especially the ones tangentially related to parenting – then this book, a collection of mini-essays examining just what parents can learn from various properties, is for you. The topics covered range from obvious, feel-good “lessons” – read to your children, give them space when they need it, understand that siblings will argue (The Princess Bride, Angel and Thor, respectively) – to more…

The Big Issues Maladapted opens in incendiary fashion, with a vivid terror attack on a packed metro train. It’s an event that has dramatic repercussions for the book’s protagonists: Cillian, a gifted young student who walks away from the carnage with barely a scratch, and Tess, the radicalised teenager who planted the bomb. As this premise implies, Richard Kurti’s YA novel (for readers 12 and above) doesn’t shrink from tackling some pretty big, inflammatory issues. As well as religious fanaticism, there are meditations on eugenics, big pharma, consumerism, the welfare state, tech-fetishism, the dark web and more. Except “meditations” does Kurti a disservice, because what’s striking is how lightly Maladapted wears all these weighty concerns, using them to power a taut, pacy thriller that takes us from the sky walkways…

The pick of this month’s paperbacks is Kim Stanley Robinson’s AURORA ( , 7 April, Orbit). Following people living on a sub-light speed ship as they travel towards a distant star system – and their travails when they finally arrive – it’s told from the perspective of the ship’s AI. We said: “An accessible yet subtly experimental novel packed with big ideas, wonders, jeopardy and, at the end, a real emotional punch.” Meanwhile, Adrian Tchaikovsky’s CHILDREN sees the survivors of a dying Earth leaving for a terraformed planet, only to discover it has new masters: a race of uplifted spiders. Quick! Deploy the giant rolled-up newspaper! We said: “Tchaikovsky favours a rather didactic style, which robs the narrative of a certain mystery, and the set-up requires some stretching of credibility.…

ISSUES 1-5 Resembling a cross between Phonogram and Neuromancer, there’s much that feels very familiar about this noir-esque series, from amnesiac private detective Clay to the “music is magic” mantra of voodoo expert Sandy. Main location Dedande City turns out to be an adjunct of the Televerse, a virtual domain that owes as much to Tron and ’80s computer games as it does to The Matrix. A scene of our hero being swallowed up by his television is straight out of David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, and there’s a wry reference to Toy Story in the form of Clay’s trusty action figure Mado, which turns out to have not just sentimental value. But Dan Watters and Caspar Wijngaard bring those well-worn elements together with a good deal of verve and wit. With…

The characters who make TV great UK Broadcast TBC US Broadcast Syfy, finished The Expanse is one of the best shows to come out of the US for a long, long time, and, while it doesn’t have a UK airdate as we write this, we’re already waving the pom-poms and cheerleading its arrival. There are many reasons for our excitement: from its Battlestar Galactica-meets-Blade Runner vibe (aka spaceships and weary gumshoes) to its tensionfilled action and fabulous cinematography, The Expanse is superb. While there are plenty of brilliant characters to highlight here, we’ve gone for Shohreh Aghdashloo’s enigmatic UN deputy undersecretary, Chrisjen Avasarala. She’s without a doubt the most colourful character in an otherwise rather bleak-looking show, laden with bright silks, necklaces and earrings so heavy poor Aghdashloo’s lobes are…

OUT 15 JULY 2016 SCI - FACT ! Sigourney Weaver was offered a cameo in the film, but allegedly quipped that she’d only do it if she could play Slimer. “30 years ago, four scientists saved New York.” Despite that caption, director Paul Feig has confirmed that this is a reboot. That’s a Class 4 apparition.” Hooray! This looks like a direct nod to the library ghost scene from the original movie. ...and Leslie Jones plays Patty Tolan, a New York City Subway worker who joins the team after a spooky encounter.. Slimer! The spook was a breakout star after the first Ghostbusters, becoming the gang’s pet in the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. Looks like New York’s famous 8th Hook & Ladder fire station will once again be the Ghostbusters’ base…

The zombie movie gets a smart tech twist in Jeruzalem SCI - FACT ! Joe Abercrombie’s Half A King picked up the Locus Award for Best Young Adult Novel in 2015. Google Glass might not have quite captured the imagination… but it’s risen from the almost-dead thanks to a new Israeli apocalyptic zombie movie. Jeruzalem, directed by Tel Aviv-based brothers Yoav and Doron Paz, uses the tech to tell an end-of-the-world story Cloverfield-style. American tourists Sarah and Rachel head for a party-fuelled holiday in Jerusalem, falling in with slightly nerdy Kevin who persuades them to leave the well-trod paths for a look at the real Holy City after dark… just as the undead return. “We wanted to make a horror movie set in Jerusalem for years,” says Doron Paz. “But…

THIS MONTH’S COMMUNICATIONS MONITOR This month it’s been a case of “Let’s talk about X, baby”, thanks to the return of Mulder and Scully. But you’ve also been preoccupied with all things superhero, be it the Merc with a Mouth’s movie or the latest Marvel TV news. A fair few of you are still writing in about The Force Awakens too – clearly there are some very slow typists out there… Guys! Time to move on! Got anything else you’d like to get off your chest (or just want to tell us how amazing we are)? Then be sure to get in touch! Contact points are listed opposite. Hot Topic Your views on the month’s big issue #THE X-FILES Adam Harvey, GamesRadar+ The first two episodes of the X-Files revival…

“FORTUNATELY SOME BALD CHAPS ARE ON THE SIDE OF ANGELS, LIKE PROFESSOR X” Not a lot of people know that Hugo Gernsback, the SF magazine pioneer after whom the Nebula Award isn’t named, liked to publish spoofs of glossy US journals as substitute Xmas cards. His 1945 effort, copying the design of Time magazine but called Tame, was dated Christmas 2045 and reviewed the first century of the Atomic Age. In this 2045, maybe thanks to a long history of radioactive fallout, normal Earthlings are bald and an actress with hair is promoted as a weird throwback. Tame’s cover shows a bald secretary thinking correspondence into her “mindwriter” machine... Did this inspire Arthur C Clarke’s 3001: The Final Odyssey, in which baldness is among the bare necessities for working with…

Author Lucy Hounsom loves the diversity in RPGs I’ve clocked up over 1,000 hours on the Dragon Age games, around 650 on Skyrim and countless more on Morrowind and Oblivion. Why? Because I love stealing stuff. Okay, there are also fantastic quests, fascinating characters, beautiful landscapes and, most importantly, diversity. We talk about the need for diversity in books, especially genre fiction, but these RPGs have been ahead of the game (excuse the pun) for years. Diversity is a vast term, covering all manner of social, religious and political behaviours. It’s about racial representation, sexual freedom and being given the chance to choose our own paths. RPGs like Skyrim and Dragon Age allow you to customise your character, everything from race and gender to skin colour and skill sets. No…

Only recently revealed to the world in a trailer (with fancy, shape-changing eyes!), he’s the character in Civil War everyone wants to see – a brand new cinematic incarnation of Spider-Man, scuttling into the current MCU for the first time. The Russo brothers shared responsibility for casting a Wall-crawler who could hold his own on-screen against Iron Man, Hulk, Thor and all the other icons in the Marvel roster. “The daunting aspect is that he was my favourite character when I was a child,” says Joe Russo. “And that puts a lot of pressure on you to execute at a level where you’ll feel satisfied with what you had in your imagination as an 11-year-old. Remembering what you loved about the character is a great tool to have as a…

First seen in the pages of Fantastic Four #52 in 1966, the Black Panther has the distinction of being the first black superhero in mainstream comics. Captain America: Civil War brings T’Challa, champion of the secretive, uber-technological African kingdom of Wakanda, to the screen for the first time, as played by Chadwick Boseman. “He’s a character with an incredibly passionate following,” Joe Russo tells SFX. “Frankly, for that reason we felt more pressure with Black Panther than we did with Spider-Man! We put a lot of thought and energy into his fighting style, his movement style, who was going to be playing him, what was the right tone for the character, performance-wise. There’s a way that Chadwick plays him that’s unlike any other character in the Marvel Universe. There’s not…

LENA HEADEY is CERSEI At the end of last season Cersei hit rock bottom with her Walk of Shame. What next? She begins her climb up again of course! Because she’s such a survivor and now she is rid of the men that were holding her back she is as usual creating ways, making plans to rise quite far. She’s at her scheming best this season. How does she take the news that her daughter is dead – and that Jaime’s trip to Dorne may have played a part? Obviously their relationship’s complicated anyway. He doesn’t do what he says he’s going to do which is to bring her home. So they’re in an odd place but also the strongest place they’ve been together for a long time. But as…

You never know where an acting gig is going to take you. Just ask Britain’s own Elizabeth Henstridge. Cast as brainy scientist Jemma Simmons on Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD she assumed a staid existence awaited her, filled with lab coats and tinkering with data. Well, she’s certainly experienced some of that in the series but, of late, Simmons has also been violently absorbed by black goo, left to survive on a stark alien planet, and tortured within an inch of her life. Luckily, Henstridge has had three years to become far more Zen about expecting the unexpected. “I came from theatre where you know exactly where your character is going to end up and how to get there,” she tells SFX during a break in shooting. “It’s very structured in…

William Shakespeare was rarely an artist for “first”s. If anything, the seamless blending of fantasy and reality in theatre and literature was the norm for all his forebears, from the unknown author of Beowulf to Chaucer, and particularly Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, imaginably the Force Awakens of its day – a huge effects-driven fantasy from the Admiral’s Men company, so impressive it was said to feature actual demons. “Genre” as we know it hadn’t been invented, and dramatists were happy to use the supernatural and outlandish techniques to get a point across, even if it’s in the middle of a historical epic. As the principal writer for the rival Lord Chamberlain’s Men, Shakespeare would receive commissions and collaborate with the company, but the level of control he seems to have had…

You didn’t think zombies just had a thing for the humid Deep South, did you? Spin-off series Fear The Walking Dead confirmed what we’d suspected all along – that the zombie epidemic wasn’t just confined to the Atlanta area, and that the dead coming back from, well, death was very much a nationwide concern. Focusing on entirely new characters, the six episodes of Fear The Walking Dead’s Los Angeles-set first season ventured into territory that the parent show skipped entirely. The Walking Dead conveniently missed out the first weeks of the zombie outbreak, with leading man sheriff Rick Grimes in a coma, awakening to find a bleak, 28 Days Later-ish world where civilisation had all-but-collapsed. This companion piece, meanwhile, gave us front row seats for the fall of society. What…

When Ken MacLeod was last suggesting ideas to his longtime publishers, Orbit, he outlined a number of scenarios for novels. All of these were for books he’d “thought out very carefully”. Well, aside from one mad notion. “At the last minute this idea of a robots’-eye view of a robot revolt, in space, came to me and I hacked it on at the end,” he says, “and this was the one my publisher was excited about.” Ain’t that always the way. More seriously, as he goes on to describe his ideas for The Corporation Wars: Dissidence, the first part of his Second Law trilogy, you can see why Orbit’s editors might have been enthused. After several years of mixing SF with other genres, MacLeod has gone back to imagining distant…

Is “Just turn off your computer!” about to replace “Get out of the house!” as the horror fan’s most common howl of disbelief? In Friend Request, as in last year’s Unfriended, a group of friends is haunted by a vengeful ghost who uses the internet to wreak her revenge. But while Unfriended had a point to make about the way we interact online, the main thing Friend Request seems to know about the internet is that screamer videos exist. The plot’s really just a delivery mechanism for jump scares: pretty and popular Laura (Alycia Debnam-Carey) accepts a friend request from geeky loner Marina (Liesl Ahlers), but recoils when she sees the disturbing content Marina posts to her not-really-Facebook account. When Laura unfriends her, Marina commits suicide – and then the…

Belgian fabulist Jaco Van Dormael’s warm, cheeky and inventive satire proves Monty Python don’t hold a patent on God-coms. With Benoît Poelvoorde’s God presented as a mean-spirited grouch, his daughter visits Earth and gathers fresh apostles for a brighter Testament. Madcap wit, invention and all-embracing compassion compensate for sketchy plotting; even the devout, surely, will warm to Dormael’s winning gospel. ALSO OUT Three more releases to tell you about which sneaked through our mighty reviews net. Sadly, BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE wasn’t screened for critics until after this issue went to press. On 8 April, Chris Hemsworth gets his chopper out again as he toplines Snow White And The Huntsman follow-up THE HUNTSMAN: WINTER’S WAR. Finally, on 15 April Kevin Costner plays an ex-con implanted with a dead…

It’s not often you can criticise a film for not being found footage, but Man Vs is that rare case. Doug (Chris Diamantopoulos) is filming his own low-budget survivalist TV show. Alone with his cameras, he finds himself being stalked by an unseen predator... but is the creature not of this Earth? It’s the ideal set-up for some shakycam shenanigans, but instead Man Vs plays it straight – and boring. Sometimes, less is more, and here the competent camerawork actually undermines the scares. Shame. Extras None.…

Not bothered if a film has no plot? Don’t care for characterisation, logic, sane dialogue, decent acting, proper pacing or variety of action? Then Burial Ground is for you! This gory Italian horror, also known as The Nights Of Terror, makes Night Of The Living Dead look like Memento. A group of socialites are attacked by the undead in and around a mansion. And that’s all the story – honest! That may sound flippant but there is a genuine argument in favour of this film – that it plays out as a bad dream would, and that the unrelenting tide of terror is effective on a visceral level. That its ignoring of filmic conventions is deliberate and contributes to its raw power. Maybe… What’s undeniable is that the zombie masks…

Found-footage horrors often struggle to justify why anyone would keep filming when all hell is breaking loose around them. Jeruzalem has a great solution to that problem: it’s shot from the (literal) POV of a tourist who’s wearing Google Glass-style smartglasses. After getting her specs stolen on the first day of her Holy City holiday, Sarah (Danielle Jadelyn) is left with no option but to wear her high-tech lenses – and to keep filming, no matter what. It’s a clever conceit that lets the filmmakers tell bits of the story through the text messages and photos that pop up in front of Sarah’s eyes. The setting is intriguing, too; the first half of the film makes the most of the religious and political tensions that already exist in Jerusalem, creating…

The Destructives takes the reader on a journey that’s epic and audaciously unpredictable, switching from one chewy plotline to the next. Then the author ties them all together with bows which he makes look maddeningly easy. Humanity’s been superseded by sun-orbiting AIs which have stolen our dreams of a future. Young Theodore, a man with deadened emotions, and an AI companion investigate a recreated house from the past. Here, a minor-seeming incident involving a mum and daughter on the net somehow changed history... but could it do so again? This is a marvellously written book, whose invention and surprises gain momentum until its boggler of an ending. Seasoned SF readers may complain that the “virtual house” investigation in the first act reads like trad cyberpunk; similarly, the book’s vision of…

When you’ve got a name like Denizen Hardwick, your parents died under mysterious circumstances and home is an orphanage on a stormy outcrop on the Irish coast, chances are you’re the lead character in a children’s book. Lo and behold, this particular Denizen is – and when an aunt he had no idea existed suddenly sends someone to pick him up, he’s about to find out that he’s got special powers to help him fight evil shadows. Okay, we’ll stop mincing words: this is a story you’ve read before. It’s an archetype. That doesn’t make it bad, however, and author Dave Rudden has a bit of fun mocking the concept of a “chosen one” along the way, too, letting us know that he’s in on the joke. Knights Of The…

In Disney’s Lilo & Stitch, an awkward, lonely girl finds friendship with a lost alien creature who manages to cause havoc. In the similarly-titled Perijee & Me, an awkward, lonely girl finds friendship with… well, that’d be telling. But there’s definitely havoc. Caitlin is an energetic but lonely child, ostracised at school and ignored by her parents. After a meteor shower leaves the nearby beaches covered in sealife, she finds a tiny creature which quickly evolves, grows and learns from Caitlin. Convinced she’s finally found the companionship she’s been pining for (as well as a way to reconnect with her scientist father), Caitlin takes Perijee under her wing, before unwittingly unleashing his inner monster on the world… Perijee & Me is often silly in a way young children are likely…

VIDEOGAME Time is cruel to us all, but especially so to videogames. This is why HD remakes tend to be reserved for fan favourites; the rose-tinted glasses do most of the work. But Twilight Princess, while critically loved and a sales success, is the black sheep of the Zelda family. Without Wind Waker’s charm, can this revisit serve up anything more than a wasteland? HD ports are often reserved for set-in-stone classics, serving simply to reinforce what we already knew. Our lasting memory of Twilight Princess was of its weaker elements, the dourness and the unsteady first steps; but replaying it reminds us that the game is much more than this. What strikes us now is the magic of the place: a world where a horse-riding hero can become a…

SCI - FACT ! Affleck had a panic room in his old house, hidden behind a sliding bookcase. How very Bruce Wayne! WAYNE’S NEW MANNER “Zack [Snyder, director] wanted to explore that the Bruce Wayne side of Batman was also a mask. The ‘playboy philanthropist’ was a character used to throw people off the scent of his secret identity, but also a way to fill this void inside him. He does have these bimbo girls over and doesn’t shy away from that which I thought was interesting and darker.” OPPOSING WORLD VIEWS “[Batman and Superman] become enemies at the end of Man Of Steel when that building comes down; they just don’t know it. Superman is very suspicious and sees Batman as a vigilante. Bruce Wayne is going out as…

SCI - FACT! Hannah John-Kamen – aka Dutch in Killjoys – also played a First Order trooper in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. NEW AUTHOR GAVIN CHAIT THE DEVELOPMENT ECONOMIST ON HIS DEBUT SF THRILLER, LAMENT FOR THE FALLEN What’s Lament For The Fallen about? Samara escapes from the spacebased prison Tartarus, smashing into the jungle near an isolated Nigerian village. He’s injured and losing his sanity to the synthetic intelligence with which he shares his mind. Did you spend time in Nigeria? Yes and knowing that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I took a road-trip to Calabar to experience the city where much of the novel would be set. The narrative is definitely improved by my time there. How did your work as an economist impact the book? The…

“DON’T YOU DARE LET ANYONE TELL YOU THAT YOUR DREAMS ARE UNATTAINABLE” Over the years in my column for SFX magazine, I’ve written on everything from Klingon romance techniques to surviving alien viruses. I’ve revealed my love for robot dogs and cyborg men. I’ve even defended the Star Wars Holiday Special when many fans of a galaxy far, far away would rather pretend it never existed. I’ve asked fanboys – multiple times – to stop giving girls like me a hard time for liking all things geeky. And I’ve demanded that filmmakers give us more female-led sci-fi, fantasy and superhero films. Heck, I even stood up for Lucifer. It’s been good fun thinking of bizarre topics to write about month to month to entertain you all. But sadly, this is…

Five things to look out for on our massive entertainment portal at gamesradar.com/sfx 1 The new season of Game Of Thrones is just around the corner, but if you’re desperately trying to remember what everyone was up to last time you saw them, here’s seasons one to five in under nine minutes. http://bit.ly/SFXThronesVideo 2 The Merc with a Mouth wowed fans and newbies alike with his origins movie, but did you catch all the Easter Eggs? Here’s every silly secret joke hidden in Deadpool. http://bit.ly/SFXDeadpoolEggs 3 It’s not long till Duncan Jones’s Warcraft movie is out, but if you know shamefully little about the videogame adaptation, we’re here to help. http://bit.ly/SFXWarcraft 4 We might have a long time to wait for Star Wars VIII, but there’s one thing we do…

CAP DISSES INDY 1982’s Captain America #268 saw Steve Rogers turn film critic after a date watching Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Ever the ’40s throwback, he’s niggled that Indiana Jones is “essentially amoral”. LET HIM EAT CAKE! Cap’s impeccable principles were sorely tested in the ’70s when he found himself forced to shill for Hostess Twinkies in the back pages of Marvel comics. Who knew the American Dream had “luscious cream filling”? KEEP ON TREKKIN’ Who’s this throwing a patriotic shape? None other than Jonathan Frakes, alias Riker in Star Trek: The Next Generation. In the ’70s the future Number One worked for Marvel as a living action figure. IT’S ALL GONE WEIRD! As the popularity of superhero comics plummeted in the late 1940s, Captain America’s long-serving title was…

ISAAC HEMPSTEAD WRIGHT is BRAN Set the scene for Bran as we begin season six… We’ve been away from him for somewhere between the space of six months and a year, I think, an amount of time in which he’s been honing his skills as a Greenseer and as a Warg. Well, now he’s moving away from the Warging and into other things, more into how he can channel the power of the Weirwood tree to be able to see into the past and the future. The Three-Eyed Raven is sort of the king of that and he’s trying to teach Bran what he can use it for and where it’ll go. Give us a hint of what he can do with the visions… Pretty much all he can do…

The Doctor’s travels originally had only the slightest on-screen brush with Shakespeare, who was briefly seen chatting with the Doctor’s future squeeze Elizabeth I on the Time-Space Visualiser in Hartnell adventure “The Chase” in 1965. But once Russell T Davies had revived the show, it was just a case of which writer would get to team their hero up with Bill first. Step forward Gareth Roberts, whose Elizabethan yarn “The Shakespeare Code” debuted in in 2007. The Tenth Doctor takes new recruit Martha Jones for an eye-opening jaunt to Tudor England which quickly escalates into a rush to save the planet from the Weird-Sister-like Carrionites (“Sycorax” having unfortunately just been used up as the name of an alien race in “The Christmas Invasion”), who have helped design the Globe Theatre…

I saw Flash Gordon as a kid, with Buster Crabbe, who was a magnificent Flash. He was an Olympic swimmer, a gold medal diver and a gold medal crawler for the American team. He was a marvellous actor – he looked a bit like Laurence Olivier. Every time he got injured or hurt he expressed pain very well. A tremendous feeling of pain. And you thought god, he’s in real trouble! I always think it’s the hardest part to cast. You can take some of the most famous film stars of today – like Tom Cruise, a wonderful actor. You can put a camera on him and he’s got the most perfect smile but he can look sinister. You could put the camera on [Flash Gordon star] Sam Jones and…

Set generations after a global disaster that’s wiped out most of humanity, this low-budget horror (nothing to do with Doctor Who) follows three members of a tribe as they embark on a test to see which of them will lead their village. Unfortunately, 90% of the plot (what little there is) takes place in a forest at night and the darkness gets boring pretty damn fast. The action consists mainly of people bickering, running around, fighting bad guys who bump into them, then running around some more. It’s really hard to care.…

BLU-RAY DEBUT You’ve got to wonder how some stuff gets a high-def release, such as this cheapo horror from schlock producer Charles Band. A young chap moves into a mansion, where he dabbles in the occult. The result? Gremlins-like creatures run amok, although there’s more of sorcerers and, er, midgets. Ghoulies is pretty dopey stuff, mostly minus the flesh and blood that many would be after in an ’80s teen horror. Cute puppets, though. Extras Director’s intro and commentary.…

BLU-RAY DEBUT The creation of Delicatessen duo Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, The City Of Lost Children is a film about dream stealers. And it genuinely feels like something snatched from your unconscious, just before waking. Mixing cinematic surrealism, brass-edged Gallic steampunk and the make-it-up-as-you-go energy of the best bedtime stories, this is a self-contained, studio-bound world, a bubble of fable sealed from reality and logic. The story’s slim – Ron Perlman’s man-child strongman fights a scientist kidnapping urchins – but the narrative’s only there to haunt the edges of the glorious visuals. And these images utterly pop on Blu-ray. From grimy wharves lapped by water the colour of pea soup to a brain encased in a wood-panelled cabinet, to some extraordinary faces, it’s a constant banquet for the eyes, part…

Medieval werewolves This cheery – if gory – anime adventure may remind some of the 2001 French film Brotherhood Of The Wolf; like that, it’s a period adventure with intrepid hunters chasing monstrous wolves. The setting is 19th century Edo (later Tokyo) and the lead is a teenage girl (Hamaji), refreshingly not a cute stereotype in the usual anime style. Lively fights, colourful backdrops and merry bitcharacters make for an enjoyable watch. However, the story can lose focus, leaving important strands underdeveloped – especially the relationship between Hamaji and a pale male stranger. Fusé (subtitled Memoirs Of The Hunter Girl) is actually an elaborate tribute to a 19th century Japanese prose epic called The Hakkenden, about warriors descended from a princess and a wolf. The later scenes get increasingly meta,…

At the height of their fame, Kailen’s Twenty were the most feared mercenaries in the world – the finest tacticians, drudhas (brewers of poisons and potions) and fighters ever assembled. But 15 years after the Twenty disbanded, someone is hunting them down and killing them one by one… In his debut fantasy adventure, Adrian Selby shows that his strengths lie in world-building and fast-paced fight scenes. However, when the characters aren’t crossing swords Snakewood becomes bogged down by unwieldy prose and exposition dumps – particularly in the second half. On the former score, witness Kailen’s description of his spouse: “My wife has the habit those born from the very wealthiest families all have, a grace gently forged from the lack of want, a guileless expectation of decency and a curiosity…

Guns! Gore! Galaxies! Science fiction can be smart, provocative and thoughtprovoking – but there’s also plenty of room for high-octane adventure featuring explosions, escapes and slavering aliens to kill. The latest book aiming to satisfy those with a desire for pulpy action is this opening volume of a new saga from debut author Jamie Sawyer. The story is set in a future where mankind battles a vicious alien race using simulants – cloned, remotely-operated soldiers who can die in battle countless times. Simulant operator Captain Conrad Harris has experienced death so many times he’s nicknamed “Lazarus”, but a rescue mission to a distant world brings him face to face with an alien artefact and a potential “true” death… Fast-paced and full of action, The Lazarus War: Artefact makes no pretence…

RELEASED 15 APRIL 160 pages | Hardback Author Monica Valentinelli Publisher Titan Books Full title: The Gorram Shiniest Dictionary And Phrasebook In The ’Verse. Yes, nearly 14 years later after it was axed, Joss Whedon’s short-lived SF series is still inspiring companion books! Browncoats will love a comprehensive guide to all the Mandarin phrases used throughout the series (many of them outrageous insults). There’s an interesting interview with the show’s Chinese translator too, (who also voiced Serenity’s computer). That stuff only amounts to 19 pages, though. The rest is a glossary featuring ’Verse idioms like “Earth-that-was”, plus the names of characters, vessels and places. Many other terms covered – like “airlock”, “gunplay” or, er, “beans” – don’t really require definition, frankly.…

There’s no denying this book probably has the catchiest title of the year, not to mention a truly stunning cover. Your first instinct will be to assume that it can’t live up to either – and in a way, you’d be right. Yes, it’s aimed at the Young Adult market and is a comingof-age tale featuring a teenage girl falling for an unusual new boy at her school. Yes, said newbie is irresistible, despite being “different”. And yes, it’s got all the usual teen tropes. But... Something here is as “off” as a pterodactyl named Pyke going to classes. Our narrator, school busybody Shiels, isn’t the average everygirl you usually find in these kind of stories; if anything, she’s bloody annoying. She doesn’t spend the entire book staring into Pyke’s…

O Brother, Where Art Thou? Sometimes you don’t need to reinvent the wheel, just make a really, really good wheel. Debut novelist Eugene Lambert merrily delivers a whole bunch of YA tropes in a classic three-act structure with The Sign Of One, but he does it with style, wit, pace and a strong central premise. Kyle is an unexceptional kid growing up on a harsh, totalitarian, dumping-ground planet for back-of-the-queue human colonists, where twins are reviled. One out of every pair will become an evil monster during adolescence, so young twins are forced into labour camps until the signs start showing; then the evil twin is killed and the other becomes an outcast. When Kyle is shot in the face, but recovers, his mum has something she needs to tell…

ISSUES 1-4 Some ideas are so perfect it’s hard to imagine why they weren’t done sooner. Saga fans may quibble over how original Spider-Woman’s pregnancy-tracking narrative is, but it’s one thing to create an indie comic centred on incoming parenthood and quite another to knock up one of your longest-running icons, as Marvel have done with ex-Avenger Jessica Drew. Thankfully, Spider-Woman isn’t just a brilliant concept, it’s also an excellent comic. Full of warmth, humour and action, it’s a beautiful book, packed with visual imagination. It begins with Jessica on the sidelines of battle, itching to get involved, but knowing she has to protect her baby. We’re fed key information via seamless flashbacks, before the main arc kicks in, with Jessica visiting an intergalactic maternity ward as it’s invaded by…

GRAPHIC NOVEL The bulk of Sooner Or Later was originally published as a series of single-page strips in 2000 AD. That’s an unusual format for the venerable anthology. Then again, this is an unusual strip... In Thatcher’s Britain, Swifty is jobless and broke. A chance encounter leads to him being whisked off to the 30th century, where he finds himself stumbling into all manner of surreal scrapes. Together, Peter Milligan and Brendan McCarthy created some of the most intriguing British comics of the late ’80s/early ’90s. Sooner Or Later feels slighter than, say, Rogan Josh; it’s largely a string of jokes and pop references. And yet it proved quietly revolutionary for the often battle-driven 2000 AD. McCarthy’s art is stellar throughout, with a manic energy that threatens to erupt from every…