Table of contents for October 2017 in SFX

RICHARD EDWARDS EDITOR RAVES I can’t wait to see what Jodie Whittaker does with Doctor Who. It’s the sort of exciting, radical change that deserves to propel the show back to the centre of the national consciousness. RANTS Please remember there is no reason the Doctor cannot be a woman – 14 consecutive male incarnations is, in fact, statistically improbable. IAN BERRIMAN REVIEWS EDITOR RAVES Had a thrilling day on the set of Star Trek: Discovery. I sat in the captain’s chair! Buffy’s Anthony Head popped into our office to get tips on how to play a magazine editor! How mad is that? RIP Saddened by the death of George Romero – I met him twice. Wryly funny, and a truly independent filmmaker. JONATHAN COATES ART EDITOR RAVES Thoroughly enjoyed…

Jodie Whittaker is the Thirteenth Doctor – and the first woman to play the title role after 54 years. “Her audition for the Doctor simply blew us all away,” says incoming showrunner Chris Chibnall, who worked with Whittaker on Broadchurch. “Jodie is an in-demand, funny, inspiring, super-smart force of nature and will bring wit, strength and warmth to the role.” Whittaker made her screen debut in 2006’s Venus. She’s also starred in Black Mirror and Marchlands, and played opposite Star Wars star John Boyega in Attack The Block (2011). Her casting was revealed in a teaser clip shown after the Men’s Wimbledon Final on 16 July. “To be asked to play the ultimate character, to get to play pretend in the truest form – this is why I wanted to…

DATE 24-28 August LOCATION Cineworld Leicester Square “Hi, I’m Chucky, wanna play?” Those five words will ring out across a slavering crowd of scare-fans this August when Horror Channel FrightFest returns to Leicester Square with opening night film Cult Of Chucky. Premiering exclusively at FrightFest, Chucky’s sixth outing again stars Fiona Dourif as wheelchair-bound heroine Nica, who’s taken to hospital to recuperate after the events of Curse Of Chucky, only to find the Good Guy Doll isn’t done with his reign of terror. “It’s a true pleasure to be hosting the world premiere of Cult Of Chucky at FrightFest,” says writer/director Don Mancini, who’ll be attending alongside Fiona Dourif and Jennifer Tilly. “I have fond memories of unveiling Curse Of Chucky there in 2013 so it’s great to be returning…

Who wouldn’t want to whiz around in a rocket-powered jetpack evading the likes of Howard Hughes, Nazis and a dastardly 007-fresh Timothy Dalton? With a reboot/sequel of the 1991 comic superhero adventure recently announced, it’s time we chatted with original Rocketeer, Billy Campbell. Would you like to play the role of the Rocketeer again? Sure! Rumour is I might cameo in the reboot, but I hear it’s set in 1944 so they’d need to erase a couple of decades off my mug. I suppose if they can turn Chris Evans into a 90lb weakling, my nose hair and wrinkles shouldn’t pose problems! What’s the strangest request you’ve had from a fan? To sign someone’s kid, with a Sharpie, no less. Would any of the Rocketeer’s skills or attributes be useful…

The Last Jedi was a no-show at Comic-Con, as Disney gave first dibs on everyone’s favourite galaxy far, far away to its own D23 event a week earlier. And as with The Force Awakens two years ago, Lucasfilm decided that July was too early for a full trailer, so instead rolled out another behind-thescenes video for fans to dissect. Genuine clues about what Episode VII is about are disappointingly thin on the ground. There’s plenty of memorable visuals: Chewbacca getting his hair done, that flying red dust from the first trailer, A-Wings, X-Wings, lightsabers, a spaceship hangar blowing up, a hint of Kylo Ren’s new look (and facial scar), the Millennium Falcon next to a campfire, Admiral Ackbar saying, “It’s a wrap!”… There’s a sighting of what we suspect is…

“It’s like doing Bond with social satire, swearing and dirty jokes.” Neatly summing up the sardonic espionage series’ appeal, Rob Williams admits that following on from creators Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons on Kingsman: The Red Diamond was no easy task. “I really enjoyed the first Secret Service series and the Kingsman movie was a load of fun, so carrying on Eggsy’s adventures carried a certain weight,” says Williams, who has been paired with his Eleventh Doctor artist Simon Fraser. “Coming from the 2000 AD stable, as we all do, Simon knows his way around a subversive, blackly humorous script, and there’s a lot of that in Kingsman.” But while the six-parter’s publication (which sees the title move from Marvel to Image) coincides with the release of big-screen sequel The…

Michelle Pfeiffer playing Janet Van Dyne in Ant-Man And The Wasp… Wonder Woman 2 set for 13 December 2019… Jared Leto orbiting Sony’s adap of Valiant comic Bloodshot… Warner titling the Flash movie Flashpoint… Anne Hathaway frontrunner to play Barbie after Amy Schumer’s departure… CCH Pounder returning for the four Avatar sequels… Sarah Paulson joining M Night Shyamalan’s Glass… Mr Robot creator Sam Esmail writing Bermuda Triangle movie for Universal… Gerard McMurray directing The Purge: The Island… Mads Mikkelsen up for the villain in Doug Liman’s Chaos Walking, adapting the YA novel by Patrick Ness… Catfish helmers Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman to adapt the Mega Man video game… Game Of Thrones writer Vanessa Taylor rewriting Disney’s live action Aladdin… The Walking Dead’s Elizabeth Ludlow joining Godzilla: King Of The Monsters… Channing Tatum in the frame for Van Helsing, part of Universal’s Dark Universe… The Bourne Identity’s John Powell scoring Han Solo……

“AS ARTISTS, WE ARE IN THE BUSINESS OF DREAMING THE WORLD ANEW” Myths are a mirror. In the hero’s quest, the slaying of dragons and the rescue of damsels, we see our hopes and fears reflected, our dreams writ large upon the page. Myths, at best, represent a model for living. The humble knave who wins the magic sword. The cannibal trees that teach us not to stray from the path. The warlock who craves godhood, falling foul of his ambition. From the proverb to the cautionary tale, the myth, and indeed the fairytale, is a way to unchain our imaginations from reality to use as an objective example. We close our eyes and dream, becoming the knight, the Princess of Mars, the champion of a thousand epics in a…

WAR WITH THE KLINGONS While there was conflict between the Federation and Klingons in Star Trek: Enterprise, Discovery promises full-on conflict between the two. What chance an appearance by General Chang, beginning his journey to the grizzled veteran warrior of The Undiscovered Country? SPOCK’S FAMILY The Original Series introduced Spock’s parents, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier gave him a half-brother, and now Discovery reveals an adopted sister in Burnham. With Spock’s father Sarek a regular on the show, what other family secrets might be shared? NEW LIFE AND NEW CIVILISATIONS Since Burnham is an expert in first contact, Discovery’s Saru might be just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to heretofore unseen species. So expect a renewal of Trek’s original mission statement, and some strange new creatures…

NEW SHOW! SEASON 1 US BROADCAST: Fox from 1 October UK BROADCAST: TBC Buddying up to explore the supernatural GHOSTBUSTERS TAUGHT US ’BUSTING MAKES US FEEL GOOD – so why not have comic actors Adam Scott and Craig Robinson play two opposites conscripted by a secret government agency to investigate scientific and supernatural strangeness? Co-showrunner Kevin Etten explains, “As Ghosted goes on, you’ll find out exactly why they were recruited. Initially you find out Leroy [Robinson] is this disgraced LAPD detective. Max [Scott] is a former astrophysicist who believes his wife was abducted by aliens. At first, Captain LaFray [Ally Walker], who runs the bureau, gets a message from an agent who has disappeared and asks for Leroy and Max as they can help find him. It’s left as a…

1 CRAZY DIAMOND Writer Tony Grisoni Director Marc Munden Cast Steve Buscemi, Julia Davis Based on “Sales Pitch” (1954) Approached by a gorgeous synthetic woman with an illegal plan that could change his life completely, a smitten Ed decides to help... then his world really begins to crumble. 2 THE COMMUTER Writer Jack Thorne Director Tom Harper Cast Timothy Spall, Rebecca Manley, Tuppence Middleton, Rudi Dharmalingam Based on “The Commuter” (1953) Ed Jacobson, an unassuming employee at a train station, is alarmed to discover that a number of daily commuters are taking the train to a town that shouldn’t exist. 3 IMPOSSIBLE PLANET Writer/director David Farr Cast Jack Reynor, Benedict Wong, Geraldine Chaplin Based on “The Impossible Planet” (1953) Two disillusioned space tourism employees take up an elderly woman’s request for a trip…

In the comics Medusa’s been a hero, villain and matriarch. What’s your sense of her? Part of the reason I was drawn to her was because she wasn’t born into the royal family. It was a choice. She’s very adamant with her strength and not just being Black Bolt’s interpreter. She’s not just his sidekick or just his wife. They truly are equals. I love that they built this relationship together, through time and commitment. Black Bolt is able to be who he is because of her. She walked into that room as a young girl and decided, “Yes, this boy can kill me. But, I’m going to sit here and try to communicate with him.” What’s cool about Medusa’s living hair? I like that the duality of her beauty,…

YOUR SFX CORRESPONDENT IS FROZEN like a rabbit in the headlights of an oncoming juggernaut. One of the universe’s most deadly killing machines – a mimetic polyalloy T-1000 Terminator – is just a couple of feet away, and has locked onto its target. Now, as its laser-like gaze burns into your quivering hack’s eyeballs, its clawed hand is describing an arc through the air, coming to a halt scarcely an inch from his chest. Yikes. Rewind. The time zone: the year 2017. The place: The May Fair Hotel, London. The T-1000’s new programming: promote a reissue of 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day, now upgraded to 3D. The form the shapeshifting assassin is wearing – the same cop it imitated during its pursuit of the young John Connor – is noticeably…

Does the very idea of Pennywise fill you with dread? Make you want to turn every light on in the house and probably still never sleep again? Well, it turns out that your fear of red noses and white face paint makes complete sense. You don’t have to have had a McDonalds birthday party go awry to not be a fan of Ronald and co. Coulrophobia, aka the fear of clowns, is prevalent and understandable. Prepare for the science bit. “Clowns wear masks of disguise and terrify by their very anonymity,” explains psychotherapist Phillip Hodson. “We cannot personalise or identify with them – it may seem like facing the Ku Klux Klan – and no one can say who is really toting the grotesque grin. And anonymity is a ripe…

THE KILLER KLOWNS Sadistic aliens land in a spaceship shaped like a Big Top in cult 1988 horror Killer Klowns From Outer Space. Their gruesome arsenal includes guns that cocoon people in candy floss, acid-filled custard pies, and balloonanimal dogs that hunt down their victims. THE CHIEF CLOWN A mysterious “Psychic Circus” was the setting of 1988 Doctor Who “The Greatest Show In The Galaxy”. With his sinister smiles and array of flamboyant hand gestures, Ian Reddington stole the show as the baddie who commands a squad of robot clowns and glides around in a hearse. MR JELLY Looking to liven up a children’s party? Then book Psychoville’s amputee entertainer! His “box of a hundred hands”, featuring attachments like a comb and a bunch of flowers, is sure to delight…

RELEASED OUT NOW! PG | 111 minutes Director Kenji Kamiyama Cast Mitsuki Takahata, Arata Furuta, Hideki Takahashi, Shinnosuke Mitsushima Like a YA version of Inception, Napping Princess blurs reality, between a Japanese schoolgirl in 2020 trying to find out why her mechanic dad was arrested, and her recurring dreams of a magic princess, talking animals and battles between oversized robots and monsters. Shame the film hasn’t enough substance for one reality, let alone two. The SF-flavoured “real” story involves driverless car technology and family tragedies. Characters from that world then show up in the girl’s dreams, and scenes start to flow from one reality to another. Structurally at least, the film’s interesting, even if its tricks are ones we’ve seen before. Napping Princess should have worked: Inside Out showed how well…

How was it having Kurt Russell play your dad? Anybody would be lucky to have him as a father figure. He’s a former professional baseball player. He was a commercial pilot. He had planes. He was a race car driver. He’s tough, and rides horses and motorcycles. He’s just really good at everything. Did you learn anything from him? He just reminds you that this is not work. We’re supposed to have this 12-hour turnaround between when we wrap and when we start the next day. I remember, at one point, I was lying in the make-up trailer with my feet up. They brought me tequila. I had cucumbers on my eyes, and they’re rubbing lotion into my face. They said, “Hey Chris, we need to bring you in in…

RELEASED 4 SEPTEMBER 2015 | 12 | Blu-ray/DVD Director Mamoru Hosoda Cast Koji Yakusho, Shota Sometani, Aoi Miyazaki, Suzu Hirose For a decade, Japanese director Mamoru Hosoda has shown there’s more to mainstream anime than Studio Ghibli, with splendid movies like Summer Wars and The Wolf Children. In his latest, a runaway boy in Tokyo falls into a world of talking beasts who fight in huge tournaments. Here, the lad is apprenticed to a roughhousing, bear-sized slob. The film has more physical comedy than Hosoda’s past pictures, with a central sequence where the boy strives to mimic the burly beast’s every move. It’s a symbolic expression of parentchild relationships, much as Disney’s songs expressed love. But this isn’t a lightweight film; it’s full of furious child abandonment issues. A heavily…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2017 | 15 | DVD/download A grieving mother undergoes months of gruelling rituals to invoke her guardian angel in this low-budget British chiller. The slow-burn build tests the patience, and it never really gets frightening, but it’s a promising debut, thanks in part to painterly cinematography. But its greatest strength is the interplay between the Charlotte Rampling-esque Catherine Walker and Steve Oram’s occultist – with his roll-ups and Brummie bathos, he’s a world away from Dennis Wheatley. Extras Four interviews; trailer.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 1974 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD The Carry On series never attempted a vampire parody, but if they had it no doubt would have been a whole heap better than this thinly plotted – and racially dodgy – horrorcomedy from half of the Are You Being Served? writing team. David Niven stars as the ageing Dracula whose bride turns black after a blood transfusion mix-up. In the US it apparently ran in double bills with Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein, which is rather like screening Jaws next to Mega Shark Vs Crocosaurus. Extras None.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2015 | 15 | Blu-ray & DVD (dual format) Director Masaomi Ando Cast Inori Minase, Ari Ozawa, Rie Takahashi, MAO School-Live! mixes one genre that SFX readers will know very well, and a very different genre that’s infamous among anime fans. It starts as what the latter tribe would call a “cute schoolgirls doing cute things” show. Yes, that’s a genre in Japan, often aimed at males older than school age, and... ah, half the readers have bailed to the next review. Still with us? The reason why School-Live! is interesting is because of its twist at the end of part one (spoilers follow). The series starts plotlessly, showing a cheery big-eyed girl buzzing round her bustling Japanese school, where she belongs to a tiny club (called…

RELEASED 28 AUGUST (out now on download) 2017 | 12 | Blu-ray/DVD/download Director Sam Liu Cast Melissa Rauch, Kevin Conroy, Loren Lester, Paget Brewster Harley Quinn, says Batman, is “the walking definition of loose cannon”. That volatile mojo’s the rocket fuel for this latest DCU animated adventure. It’s a good premise: team the Dark Knight with everyone’s favourite psychologist-cumpsychopath, light the blue touch paper and stand well back. Out of the Joker’s shadow for once, Harley’s a predictably entertaining foil, pushing Batman into disapproving dad mode. Just watch those white eye-slits narrow… The story’s steeped in DC lore, mixing the Dysfunctional Duo (plus Nightwing) with Poison Ivy, the Floronic Man and Swamp Thing, while the intriguingly eco-minded plot moves us out of Gotham, raising the threat level to global. But that’s…

How has it been 12 years since Star Trek was a regular fixture on TV? Back in the ’90s, Starfleet seemed completely unstoppable – until over-familiarity and slightly disappointing spin-off shows proved as deadly as the Borg. Although the three reboot movies have carried the torch since, telly’s always felt like the franchise’s natural home. So we couldn’t be more excited about Star Trek: Discovery – even in a world where there’s too much TV for any one person to watch, a new Star Trek show is a massive deal. We’ve had an exclusive chat with the lead cast, who tell us why we should be excited about a series that promises to boldly go where no Trek has gone before (p40). And there’ll be more from the final frontier…

A sad month for sci-fi/fantasy: Space: 1999 and Ed Wood star Martin Landau has passed away aged 89. True Blood’s Nelsan Ellis has died at 39. 1960s Doctor Who companion Deborah Watling has died at 69. Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad wins this year’s Arthur C Clarke Award. George RR Martin to produce adaptation of Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death for HBO. Simpsons/ Futurama creator Matt Groening heading up fantasy drama for Netflix, Disenchantment Netflix says “yes please!” to show based on My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way’s Umbrella Academy comics. Star Trek: Discovery’s Rainn Wilson to front alien drama for AMC. The Walking Dead zombie make-up guru Greg Nicotero heading up anthology series Shock Theater. Starz greenlights The Rook, a supernatural spy drama from Twilight creator Stephenie Meyer. Game Of Thrones: The Touring Exhibition to travel the world from this…

Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter may not be among Hammer’s more iconic movies, but it’s one of the most beloved. The cult tale of a sword-wielding soldier who battles the forces of evil, he returns in September for a comic book sequel. “I saw a lot of Hammer when I was younger,” says writer Dan Abnett, who pens all four issues of the new mini-series. “Kronos really stands out. Its a classic Hammer flick: bold hero, ghoulish monsters, buxom wenches… but it has a lot of appealing quirks. There’s a Sergio Leone flavour in the quiet, focused Kronos dual-wielding his rapier and katana.” Abnett promises that the sequel will find Kronos facing a lot of vampire foes, but don’t expect them to all be the same. “‘Vampire’ is a broad term…

Tell us about your protagonist Asha. What’s her story? As a child, Asha told a forbidden story that summoned a dragon who brought death and destruction to her city. Now she’s a dragon hunter trying to make amends for her crime. She’s not exactly a nice person. But what she lacks in kindness, she makes up for in bravery and ambition. What’s the role of dragons in this world? In Asha’s world, dragons are betrayers. Once allies of Asha’s people, they’re now bitter enemies who have one weakness: they can’t help but be lured by stories. Unfortunately, these stories are also a strength, since they enable dragons to breathe fire. How long did The Last Namsara take to write? I’ve been working on it for over a decade (though I wrote other…

DATE 29 September- 1 October LOCATION The Bull Hotel, Peterborough Got a new favourite novel you’re gagging to talk about? Or looking to meet your fantasy author idol? This year’s Fantasycon is here to help with another three days of everything fantasy, horror and sci-fi. A space to unite, discover and discuss fantasy fiction in all its forms, the Peterborough event has workshops, panels, talks and opportunities to socialise with like-minded people. Nancy Kilpatrick and Ben Aaronovitch (above) are this year’s guests of honour, and while the remainder of the line-up is yet to be announced, expect a lucky dip of writers and artists in attendance, plus fellow readers who can’t help devouring all the same stuff you do. No tickets are required, just sign up for Fantasycon membership, with…

While Spider-Man: Homecoming is doing its victory lap of the Manhattan skyscrapers it’s easy to forget that, when it comes to videogames, Spidey hasn’t always had the pixelated offerings he deserves. The Wall-Crawler hasn’t had a truly good game since 2004’s Spider-Man 2 on PS2, where an open-world New York and physics-based swinging mechanics combined to make true webby heroes of us all. Insomniac Games is remedying this 13-year-old problem with a new Marvel-approved adventure that has nothing to do with Homecoming but everything to do with creating a true Spider-Man experience. It’s immediately clear from watching it in action that Spider-Man has taken a few tips from Rocksteady’s Arkham series. The suited-up Peter Parker’s slick, crunchy combat is more than a little similar to the Dark Knight’s moves, with…

In his latest novel, Adam Roberts taps into his childhood love of golden-age crime fiction. Inspired by an idea Alfred Hitchcock had for a film where a corpse is discovered in the boot of a vehicle in a completely automated car factory, The Real-Town Murders is an update of the locked room mystery. “Hitchcock said that if he could have figured out how that dead body got there he would have made that movie, but he never did,” Roberts tells Red Alert. “I loved that premise: not only is it a hook for an intriguing whodunnit, it gave me the chance to write a series of Hitchcockian scenes into my narrative.” Set in a near-future England, protagonist Alma is not based on any famous detectives, though she does have something…

THIS MONTH’S COMMUNICATIONS MONITOR What with a companion farewell (well, sort of...), the death of two Masters, the start of a regeneration and the casting of a female lead, no wonder Doctor Who had you all talking. Here at SFX we’re fully onboard with a female Doctor (I had everything crossed for Phoebe Waller-Bridge) but reader reaction was much more mixed (cue cries of “I’m never watching again!” on Facebook…) and it’s right that we reflect that. Here’s hoping people do watch, and do so with an open mind. You know, you just might come round to the idea. #DOCTOR WHO Medium Atomic Weight, email A show back to its near-best, with the sparkiest dialogue between Doctor and companion since the Seventh Doctor/Ace, Mondasian Cybermen more terrifying than Cybermen have…

CELEBRATING CLASSIC SF & FANTASY NOVELS Mary Gentle is, without doubt, one of the great genre authors. Her Golden Witchbreed is an SF classic of alien worldbuilding and her White Crow books are a glorious exploration of medieval magic, humanoid rats and alternate histories. But her masterpiece (in my humble opinion) is Ash. Ash is a novel written on multiple levels. On the one hand there is the life of the titular Ash, a woman in charge of a mercenary company in war-torn 1400s Europe. On the other we have the modern-day historian researching her remarkable life and times. Through him, we discover her career of cannon shot and bloodshed in the wars between France, Burgundy, the Holy Roman Empire and Visigothic Carthage, in the shadow of the empty Papal…

STAR TREK “THE CAGE” (1965) Trek’s first pilot, infamously dismissed as “too cerebral” by risk-averse network NBC. Jeffrey Hunter is stoic Captain Christopher Pike while a disconcertingly emotional, ragged-fringed Spock bags the not-so-immortal first line of the entire franchise: “Check the circuit!” Later repurposed as two-part tale “The Menagerie”. STAR TREK “WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE” (1966) Enter the Shat as the show earns a reprieve with a second pilot. It’s just as intellectually ambitious as “The Cage” – the Enterprise encounters godlike forces at the very limits of the galaxy – but smart enough to include a network-pleasing bareknuckle scrap. Iconic crew members McCoy and Uhura are MIA. STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION “ENCOUNTER AT FARPOINT” (1987) Sidelined from the movies, Gene Roddenberry brings his undiluted vision to…

SEASON 2 US BROADCAST: Fox from 29 September UK BROADCAST: Syfy TBC New horrors await the demon-battling priests… WITH ITS FIRST SEASON concluded, TV’s The Exorcist has finished its adaptation of the classic William Peter Blatty novel on which it’s based. The show’s executive producers tell SFX that the show will now adopt an anthology format, tackling a new threat each season. “That was our intention for the show from the very beginning,” says executive producer Sean Crouch. “You can’t tell a seven-year story about one family that just keeps getting possessed over and over again without the audience just kind of starting to hate you for putting one family through so much shit. So the idea is every year we’ll have a different case. A different possessed individual, a…

NEW SHOW! SEASON 1 US BROADCAST: Hulu from 14 November UK BROADCAST: TBC Can a gamer save the world? IF YOU FEEL LIKE MOST TIME TRAVEL STORIES ARE MISSING dick jokes, then Future Man is for you. Executively produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, this new SF comedy stars Josh Hutcherson as Josh Futterman (get it?), a janitor obsessed with a first-person shooter that ends up opening a portal to the future. To avert humanity’s imminent annihilation, he’s got to jump through time, a la a mash-up of Terminator and The Last Starfighter, to set things right. Showrunner Ben Karlin says the relatable Hutcherson sells the concept. “We wanted to do a version of a hero’s journey for Josh. We felt like to be true to the character he…

SEASON 8 US BROADCAST: AMC from 22 October UK BROADCAST: Fox from 23 October The apocalyptic epic celebrates a new milestone… THE CAST OF TV’S MOST popular horror show are as tight-lipped as ever about their next season. But they are understandably proud that season eight’s premiere episode will be The Walking Dead’s one hundredth. Asked what they want for the series’ future, the zombie-dodging ensemble show the good humour that’s buoyed them through seven years of undead mayhem. “I’ve wished for a musical episode for years,” says Chandler Riggs [Carl]. Jeffrey Dean Morgan [Negan] is happy enough with karaoke. “Every night is karaoke night for Negan,” he laughs. “He’s having fun.” Morgan turns serious, however, when describing his character’s twisted respect for Rick and his group of survivors —…

TRAVELERS Enrico Colantoni (Veronica Mars) has joined the fiendishly complex time travel show to try to help sort out the mess its heroes made of the past. VAN HELSING Vanessa Helsing continues fighting vampires in a post-apocalyptic world in season two. Missy Peregrym (Rookie Blue) joins the cast, while former ally Axel is now a bloodsucker. THE GOOD PLACE Should season two of this sleeper hit afterlife sitcom really be called The Bad Place after that phenomenal season one finale twist? ONCE UPON A TIME Season seven is a soft reboot of the show, with old characters out, fresh characters in and a new twist on Cinderella. THE LIBRARIANS Season four sees Rachel Nichols (Continuum) join the cast as head Librarian Flynn’s former Guardian, presumed dead and mysteriously resurrected. AGENTS…

HEROES & INSPIRATIONS Since her breakout role in Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, Alice Lowe has been redefining what it means to be a woman in horror cinema. She spent the noughties working as an actress, in 2012 she co-wrote Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers, and in 2016 made her directorial debut with Prevenge, where she starred as a woman driven to kill by her unborn baby. Lowe’s shift behind the camera is part of a new wave of women taking creative control in horror, while she continues to act in the likes of psychological chiller The Ghoul. “I thought it was one of the best scripts I’d ever read,” she tells SFX. “It’s hard to pin down what it actually is in terms of genre. It’s sort of mindbending and psychological but it…

From Jim Burns to Les Edwards and Chris Achilleos, Fighting Fantasy was known as much for its excellent illustrations as it was for its enthralling storylines. “We wanted to use artists that have very realistic, punchy styles,” says Livingstone. “But because Puffin was a children’s imprint, they wanted covers with gnomes sitting on toadstools with butterflies in the background. We wanted covers that threatened to rip the face off the reader, so I’m delighted that we won that little battle.” According to Livingstone, Fighting Fantasy’s standout artist was Iain McCaig, who would go on to work as a concept artist on numerous Star Wars instalments. “If you look at his old cover for Forest Of Doom, you can see Zanbar Bone,” he continues, referring to the skull-faced villain. “Then you…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 12A | 137 minutes Director Luc Besson Cast Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Clive Owen, Rihanna Before we’ve seen a frame of Valerian, we’ve heard from Earth’s greatest alien. The opening chords of “Space Oddity” play out over the studio logos, the song carrying us through a charming montage, as a ch-ch-changing government welcomes different races, then different aliens, to a space station that grows with each new visitor. Next, we’re into a compelling vignette that out-Avatars Avatar, with blue aliens seeing their planet threatened by intergalactic invaders. Eventually, we meet our leads, space agents Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne), who embark on a wild inter-dimensional heist, the surroundings and inhabitants shifting more frequently than David Bowie’s wardrobe. It’s all so distracting that you could miss that…

RELEASED 8 SEPTEMBER 15 | 91 minutes | Also VOD and download Director Dan Bush Cast Francesca Eastwood, Taryn Manning, Scott Haze, James Franco What’s worse than getting caught up a bank robbery? Getting caught up in the middle of a haunted bank robbery, that’s what. The titular vault is in the spooky basement beneath a crumbling bank, and there’s a reason none of the staff ever want to go down there. Years ago, a hold-up went wrong, and now something in the shadows wants revenge. So when Leah (Francesca Eastwood), Vee (Taryn Manning) and Michael Dillon (Scott Haze) attempt to break in, things don’t go well. Mashing up a bank heist movie with a supernatural horror should be a great idea, and for maybe the first 30 minutes it…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 2017 | 12 | Blu-ray (3D, 4K, standard)/ DVD/download/VOD Director Rupert Sanders Cast Scarlett Johansson, Michael Wincott, Michael Carmen Pitt, Takeshi Kitano Dear Paramount, repeat after us: Ghost In The Shell is not RoboCop with boobies; Ghost In The Shell is not RoboCop with boobies; Ghost… Too late. They’ve made RoboCop with boobies. The 1995 anime was a film ahead of its time, an unsettling look at a near-future in which the boundaries between man and machine have blurred to the point where humans are forced to ask serious existential questions about mind and body. This new film, on the other hand, feels woefully behind the times. From its desperate-to-be-Blade Runner cityscapes to its big-business-isevil subplot and its “I can’t trust my memories” angst it feels like…

RELEASED 28 AUGUST 2016-2017 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD Showrunner Bruno Heller Cast Ben McKenzie, Donal Logue, Robin Lord Taylor, David Mazouz Right in the middle of season three we get to see exactly the show Gotham should always be. The season is split into three mini-arcs, the second of which is a brief, three-episode return-ofthe- Joker storyline. And it’s magnificent. Tense, edgy, shocking, psychedelic and blackly comic, it’s Gotham at its best. But Gotham seems perversely determined not to spoil its viewers by actually giving them what they want. After three series of Joker teases – which have always been the highlights of this Batman origin show – you’d think they’d finally let us enjoy the Clown Prince of Crime for an extended period. But no, once again he’s used…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 1976 | 18 | Blu-ray Director Ho-Meng Hua Cast Li Hsiu-Hsien, Chen Ping, Lily Hi, Hua Lun There’s something oddly endearing about the titular terror of this cheesy superhero/ horror hybrid from Hong Kong’s Shaw Brothers Studios. With his yellow eyes, wonky teeth and visible heart, he looks like an eight-year-old’s crayon drawing come to life. Thanks to a spell, a lawyer who gets about on crutches due to childhood polio acquires the ability to turn into an oily monster, then uses it to seep under doorways for acts of vigilantism. Pretty much everything about this raises a smile: the way he must douse himself in oil before transforming; the “superhuman leaps” that reverse a stuntman jumping off a roof; the way his arrival’s accompanied by a…

RELEASED 21 AUGUST 2017 | 15 | DVD/download A standard backroads teens-in-peril tale plays out against a global alien invasion in this indie SF entry. It’s mostly sub-Emmerich cheese – at one point we cut to a TV station declaring, wonderfully, “Breaking News: Massive spacecraft emerge” – but the effects impress for the budget, the story delivers a decent twist and there’s an interesting aesthetic to the Gigerinfluenced interiors. ’90s star Wesley Snipes is charismatic as an astronaut turned trapper. Extras Three featurettes.…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 1984 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD/VOD/ download Director Joseph Ruben Cast Dennis Quaid, Kate Capshaw, Max Von Sydow, Christopher Plummer BLU-RAY DEBUT A choppy blend of political thriller, horror ride and Atari-age tech-fantasy, Dreamscape casts Dennis Quaid as Gardner, a rootless hustler with telekinetic gifts. Recruited by shadowy government forces™, he ends up injected into the REM phase of the President himself. Conjured with visuals that range from timelapse skies to old-school practical monstermaking, the dream sequences flit between tones and genres: broad comedy about sexual dysfunction; a haunted house escapade with endless spindly staircases; a sultry encounter on a train with the gauzy look of VHS soft porn. Some of the iconography still impresses – a shattered Capitol Dome in a crimson-tinted apocalyptic landscape – but the…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 1978 | PG | Blu-ray Director Luigi Cozzi Cast Caroline Munro, Marjoe Gortner, Christopher Plummer BLU-RAY DEBUT Heard the phrase “car-crash TV”? Well, Starcrash is kinda the sci-fi movie equivalent. Featuring a battle between good and evil, an expository opening crawl, a nervous robot and a bloke with a laser-sword, this camp Italian-made space opera may just remind you of something... A PVC-bikini clad (and dubbed) Caroline Munro plays Stella Star, a smuggler tasked with searching for the secret planet housing the evil Count Zarth Arn’s superweapon. Others slumming it include Christopher Plummer, somehow managing not to smirk through his deathless dialogue as the emperor of the universe, and an eyelinered David Hasselhoff as his missing-presumed-dead son. John Barry’s heroic themes add a little class, and the…

SFX LOVES RELEASED OUT NOW! 420 pages | Hardback/ebook Author Marina J Lostetter Publisher Harper Voyager In the year 2125, a nine-ship convoy launches from Earth on a mission to investigate the anomalous behaviour of the distant star LQ Pyxidis, a mission that will take centuries to complete. But Marina Lostetter’s novel is not really about what awaits the crew at the end of their long journey through sub-dimensional space to their destination. At its heart, it’s about the relationship between individuals and society, taking in themes of utopianism, authoritarianism, nature vs nurture and eugenics. Fortunately, Lostetter comes to these weighty themes with a deft, light touch, exploring them through a diverse cast of memorable, engaging characters, from the idealist who first conceives of the mission to the volatile people…

RELEASED OUT NOW! 397 pages | Paperback/ebook Author RJ Barker Publisher Orbit Skim the prologue and Age Of Assassins presents as another grimdark epic. It’s a pleasant surprise, then, to discover it’s actually a Harry Potter-style coming-of-age fantasy. It’s more of a whodunnit in a castle than a slaughter-andsorcery saga. And it succeeds as a YA adventure – if it brings to mind Joe Abercrombie, it resembles his Half A King series rather than his First Law works. The book speaks with a Welsh accent: the citadel of Maniyadoc welcomes people with names like Girton ap Gwynr, our hero. He’s a teenager, orphan and apprentice assassin. And he’s undercover as a squire while his tutor Merela deduces which of the shifty courtiers plots to murder the prince. Joining a clique, being…

Because famous people are fans too FAVOURITE SF/FANTASY MOVIE 2001: A Space Odyssey. I hated it when I was in high school but there was, obviously, something in it that kept making me watch it again. And again. Somewhere along the line, something in me clicked and the sheer, unbridled, Ring Cycle-esque fever dream that is 2001 just made sense to me, even if I’ll spend my life trying to understand it. There is absolutely nothing else like that movie. FAVOURITE SF/FANTASY TV SHOW Game Of Thrones. Yes, yes, it’s always lame to dig something that millions of other people do, at the very apex of them liking it, but fuck it. The show is amazing. Just amazing. It has more scope, balls, and heart than 90% of movies playing…

Ranging from disappearing bee populations to extreme weather conditions, the apocalyptic near future that James Bradley posits in his latest novel Clade feels a bit too close for comfort. “The whole subject is weirdly difficult to think about, because it’s just so big and complex,” Bradley tells Red Alert. “The reality is so overwhelming we tend to retreat into fantasies about the end of the world.” The author’s solution was to approach it on an intimate level. “Looking at it through the prism of one family’s experience let me do that, while tackling larger questions about the philosophical implications of climate change,” he explains. “I’ve always loved stories that explore the deep past and the deep future,” he says. “It’s wonderfully liberating to be reminded that against the larger story…

WHOOVERVILLE 9 2 September William Russell, Carole Ann Ford and Nicola Bryant (that’s who!) are just a few of the guests to be appearing at this year’s Doctor Who event in Derby. whooverville.org WRITERCONUK 15-17 September Hunker down at the Ramada Hotel in Coventry for a weekend exclusively for wordsmiths – whether you’re a reader, writer, beta or otherwise, you’ll find something you’ll enjoy. writerconuk.yolasite.com DRAGONDAZE 30 September Love games? Love dragons? Then head down to the Newport Centre (yep, in Newport) to mingle with likeminded lovers of all things board-like. dragondaze.com ELSTREE FILM & TV CON 30 September The event hall at the famous Borehamwood film studio is being taken over for a charity fundraiser with Red Dwarf ’s Norman Lovett among the guests. elstree-con.co.uk GRIMM UP NORTH 6-9…

STAND BY FOR AUCTION Fancy having some bona fide science fiction history in your house? Prop Store’s latest live auction at London’s Odeon BFI IMAX on 26 September features some true icons of genre TV and movies. If SFX found a very large wodge of spare cash down the sofa, our eyes would undoubtedly be drawn to this Y-Wing from Return Of The Jedi (expected to fetch £80,000- £120,000), this Starbug model (£4,000-£6,000), or maybe even Peter Weller’s costume from RoboCop 2 (£25,000-£35,000) – nobody would mess with us if he was standing outside SFX Towers. If you want to take a closer look, 300 lots will be on display at the IMAX for three weeks leading up to the event. propstore.com/ liveauction X-FILES BABIES Let’s not get too hung…

THE FAST AND THE FURY-OUS! CAPTAIN MARVEL Samuel L Jackson is returning to the motherfunstering MCU – and he’s getting his ’90s on. Still so cool that random strangers refrigerate milk in his armpits, he’ll play Nick Fury – for the first time since 2015’s Avengers: Age Of Ultron – opposite Brie Larson’s titular cosmic warrior in Captain Marvel. Together they’ll face the shapeshifting menace of the Skrulls, an alien race first seen in the pages of Fantastic Four 2 way back in 1962. Intriguingly, the backdrop to the action will be the 1990s. “There’s an unexplored period of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that we wanted to showcase,” says studio president Kevin Feige while wearing Kris Kross style back-to-front jeans. “[To reveal] almost anything else is a spoiler, other than…

Bored of domestic horror? A new Saw movie could be just what we need IT REALLY WAS THIS BIG Film of the month goes to ridiculous shark movie 47 Meters Down . Seriously. From Brit director Johannes Roberts, who made the wonderful hoodie horror F and has now wrapped on The Strangers 2, comes a proper underwater romp that is everything you could possibly want from a fishy frightener. Tense? As flip! Gory? Gotcha! And when it comes to underwater peril it throws the whole damn tank at you (yes sharks, but also the bends, conspiracies, hallucinations, bad legs, the lot). An uncynical and highly enjoyable locked-cage horror, it follows the perils of two girls stuck at the bottom of the ocean in a divers’ cage surrounded by sharks. This…

NEW SHOW! SEASON 1 US BROADCAST: Syfy from 20 October UK BROADCAST: TBC Small town, big ghost problem DON’T BE MISLED BY THE TITLE – SYFY’S GHOST WARS WILL be about more than just boss battles between opposing forces from the spirit realm. “It’s a war of ghosts but it’s also a war of ideas: our ideas about what the afterlife is and what that other side is,” explains the show’s young lead, Avan Jogia. Jogia plays Roman Mercer, a medium who lives in the rural Alaskan backwater of Port Moore. Mercer is an outsider among outsiders who suddenly becomes the most popular man in town when the residents are attacked by spectral phenomena. Among the accursed is the local priest, played by Vincent D’Onofrio, and the town bully, aka…

You were the first casting announced. What appealed to you about Inhumans and your character, Maximus? I think what drew me to the project were the conversations I had with Jeph Loeb and Scott Buck about the character. They wanted the character to be multidimensional and layered, creating an intelligent, passionate, charming and political being who wants what’s best for the citizens of Attilan. It’s possibly not what everyone was expecting. He is a revolutionary. I felt that was something I really wanted to explore, and their passion infected me. In the past, Maximus has been labelled the bad seed of the royal family. What’s your take on him? He is different from the rest. Maximus has had a tough time. He went from potentially becoming king to being viewed…

NEW SHOW! SEASON 1 UK BROADCAST: ITV2 from October US BROADCAST: TBC A jazz comedy with an unusual time signature THE ORIGINAL TITLE WAS going to be Black To The Future,” says Daniel Lawrence Taylor, writer and star of new ITV2 comedy Timewasters, which gives you a good idea of what to expect from it. It’s about a jazz band from present-day South London – Nick (played by Taylor), Jason, Lauren and Horace – who are catapulted back in time, with no way home. Taylor says Timewasters wasn’t originally going to be SF, but it drifted that way. “The original idea was I just wanted to write about a group of mates, and then wouldn’t it be funny if they were a jazz band, and then wouldn’t it be funny…

FACE TO FACE WITH THE BIGGEST STARS “I’M VERY DRAWN TO THINGS THAT ARE SCARY!” She’s the original girl with the dragon tattoo. She’s hung out with Sherlock Holmes. She’s even performed DIY surgery to remove an alien from her abdomen. But little on Noomi Rapace’s eclectic CV can have prepared her for playing seven different characters in new Netflix movie What Happened To Monday. Set in a future where families are strictly limited to one child, it focuses on seven identical septuplets who’ve slipped through the net. Named for the days of the week, they now live in hiding, taking it in turns to go into the outside world using the made-up identity they share. “When I read the script it was just mind-blowing and terrifying,” Rapace tells SFX…

Although Tim Curry makes for a chilling Pennywise, 1990’s three-hour IT miniseries (directed by Halloween III helmer Tommy Lee Wallace) hasn’t aged as well as the best screen adaptations of Stephen King’s work. Andrés Muschietti tells SFX he chose to forget it existed when directing his new film version of the novel. “To be honest,” he admits, “I wasn’t a big fan of the miniseries. I was not a child anymore when it came out in 1990. So my attachment was very much to the book and to the world of Stephen King more than the miniseries. I totally acknowledge how iconic that miniseries was for a generation. But also you have to say that it impacted that generation because they saw it with very young eyes as a TV…

“FICTION WITHOUT EXISTENTIAL QUESTIONS IS WITHOUT INTEREST” Anyone who ever had a traumatic caravan break when they were younger should probably avoid the decidedly spooky new novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist. I Am Behind You, the first volume in a new trilogy, begins with campers waking up to find themselves… well, who knows where? “I have a great number of ideas and images jangling about in my head, waiting either to become connected or to be set off by a trigger,” says Lindqvist. “Here, the idea was a number of people in camping caravans that inexplicably get moved someplace else, but where? I toyed with a lot of different places, but it was when the image of the vast lawn with neatly cut grass came up that I knew I…

RELEASED 8 SEPTEMBER 15 | 135 minutes Director Andrés Muschietti Cast Bill Skarsgård, Finn Wolfhard, Jaeden Lieberher, Sophia Lillis, Nicholas Hamilton, Wyatt Oleff Stephen King is one of those authors whose work is always at some stage of being adapted for screens big and small. So any new project based on his writing is judged not only against its peers but, as with this new IT, any previous versions that have emerged. Which is hardly fair in this case, since the Tim Currystarring ’90s miniseries is a very different beast. Still, the movie – the first of two planned parts handling the story – is an effective monster on its own merits. Mama director Andres Muschietti maintains the basics of the original novel – a group of kids known as…

RELEASED 18 AUGUST 18 | 98 minutes Director Amat Escalante Cast Ruth Ramos, Simone Bucio, Jesus Meza, Eden Villavicencio Ever seen a Jehovah’s Witness leaflet depicting all the animals lying side by side in harmony? Now imagine a hardcore version, with pairs of dogs, ducks and armadillos enthusiastically rutting in a crater. That’s just one of the more memorable sequences in this Mexican film reminiscent of Andrzej Zu?awski’s Possession, in which a man discovers his wife has been having an affair with a tentacled monster. Simone Bucio is Veronica, repeatedly drawn to a cabin in the country to writhe with a mysterious Lovecraftian creature. Soon she’s introducing others to its addictively atavistic delights: nurse Fabian, his sister Alejandra and her husband Angel. The subtext – desire can be a dark,…

RELEASED 4 SEPTEMBER (out 21 August on download) 2017 | 12 | Blu-ray (4K, 3D, standard)/ DVD/download Director James Gunn Cast Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Michael Rooker, Kurt Russell, Bradley Cooper The first Guardians Of The Galaxy movie had stealth on its side. Aside from the fact it was set in the unexplored reaches of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, all most people knew was that it featured a talking raccoon, an Ent with attitude, and some guy from Parks And Recreation who’d grown a six-pack. Expectation was non-existent – until it became a hit of cosmic proportions... Returning writer/director James Gunn’s solution to dealing with the hype is to give us what we think we want by wheeling out more of the same. It’s the movie’s trump card and…

RELEASED 1 SEPTEMBER 2017 | 15 | VOD (iTunes and Sky Store) with DVD to follow Director Jason Flemyng Cast Charlie Cox, Freema Agyeman, Eve Myles, Mackenzie Crook The base under siege is a tried and true horror movie formula. A group of characters, trapped in an isolated environment, facing off against impossible odds? It’s an irresistible premise – and also, crucially, cheap to pull off. This UK horror-comedy, directed by Lock Stock actor Jason Flemyng, puts a fun twist on the proceedings. But this time it’s the monsters who are in trouble... Sebastian (Billy Cook) is lured by Vanessa (Eve Myles) to a house in the country. He thinks he’s going to get lucky – instead, he gets confronted by a gang of vampires who are looking to forcibly…

RELEASED 21 AUGUST 1982 | 18 | Blu-ray & DVD (dual format) Director JS Cardone Cast Sarah Kendall, Frederick Flynn, Carol Kottenbrook BLU-RAY DEBUT Thanks to a pitchfork killing that was still being snipped by the censors in the ’90s (but seems pretty tame now), The Slayer was lent minor notoriety by inclusion on the “video nasty” list of the early ’80s. It’s the sort of film which quickly fills up your horror movie bingo card. Small cast of characters in isolated location (here a remote island)? Dab. Thunder, lightning and creaky doors? Dab. Characters too dim to arm themselves after the first murder or stay inside rather than walk around? Big ol’ dab. Not that The Slayer has nothing to recommend it. As Kay, the painter haunted by recurring…

RELEASED 25 AUGUST 2017 | SVOD Director Adam Wingard Cast Nat Wolff, Margaret Qualley, Keith Stanfield, Willem Defoe NETFLIX Like law-enforcers who go up against Death Note’s killer with a notepad, this Netflix remake is brave but futile. Transposing the franchise from Japan to Seattle, the film tries new twists and takes on the story, but loses too much of the original’s appeal. It even seems scared of Death Note’s wicked wishfulfilment: “You too can be a godlike mass murderer!” High-schooler Light (Nat Wolff ) discovers a magic notebook that lets him kill anyone by writing their name in its pages. This version of Light is vulnerable, vengeful (his mum was killed by criminal) and needy (he’s barely got the Death Note before he starts blabbing about it to the…

RELEASED 28 AUGUST 2017 | 15 | DVD/download/VOD Game Of Thrones’s Emilia Clarke plays Verena, a nurse hired to help a traumatised child overcome the death of his mother. He refuses to speak and hears voices in the walls, and inevitably, so too does Verena. Lashings of candlelight and fog make this ’50s tale stylish enough, but the story’s too familiar to be engaging – it’s a bit Rebecca, a bit The Innocents, a bit The Haunting – and the ending’s too messy to be scary. Extras Cast interviews; music video.…

Despite moving from CBS to smaller network The CW, SUPERGIRL SEASON TWO (21 August, DVD) thrives, belying its budget cuts. Losing acid-tongued Cat (Calista Flockhart) for most of the season is a shame, sure, but the feelgood small-screen superheroics are even more slick and pacy, while Lena (sister of Lex) Luther (Merlin’s Katie McGrath) and new romantic interest Mon-El (Chris Wood) are great additions to the recurring cast. Philip Larkin once wrote “They f**k you up, your mum and dad,” and LUCIFER SEASON TWO (21 August, DVD) takes this to a cosmic level. While Lucifer’s main contributions to the show’s increasingly banal crime plots are some outrageous innuendoes and a winning grin, an arc plot concerning God’s ex (played by Battlestar Galactica’s Tricia Helfer) getting her revenge on hubbie is…