Home//SFX/July 2021/In This Issue
SFX|July 2021First ContactBONE OF CONTENTION Ilona Kosmowsky, email Re: the Shadow And Bone feature in SFX 339. In the beginning of the article you stated that the Grishaverse books from Leigh Bardugo comprise Shadow And Bone, Siege And Storm, Ruin And Rising and the Six Of Crows duology. This is not quite right. You forgot to mention the novels King Of Scars and Rule Of Wolves. They are essentially a sequel to the other books and take place after the civil war, when Nikolai (who was a small protagonist in the other books) is king. I am reading Rule Of Wolves at the moment and Alina and the Darkling have a small part in the book. SFX Thanks for the info, Ilona. In our defence it’s kinda hard to make out the…2 min
SFX|July 2021Odd SquadIF YOU DON’T HAVE A KID, OR A young relative of tween age, you may not be aware of Trenton Lee Stewart’s The Mysterious Benedict Society books, illustrated by Carson Ellis. Appealing to readers with a penchant for quirky characters and mystery-filled adventures as investigated by four gifted children, they’ve won a slew of prestigious Young Adult book awards. Because of their narrative vibe, which rests somewhere between Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and A Series Of Unfortunate Events, the books were ripe for colourful adaptation – which is exactly what screenwriters Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi (Clash Of The Titans) have done for their Disney+ series The Mysterious Benedict Society. Having received the blessing of Stewart and Ellis, the writers embarked on their first television series with the intention…4 min
SFX|July 2021Family AffairFOR FANS OF BATMAN comics, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s The Long Halloween (1996-1997) remains one of the all-time great story runs. It inspired Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy and countless other depictions. Now it’s getting an animated adaptation, released in two parts. Batman: The Long Halloween, Part One drops in June, with Jensen Ackles (Supernatural) voicing Bruce Wayne/Batman, Billy Burke as James Gordon and Josh Duhamel (Jupiter’s Legacy) as Harvey Dent, in a story exploring the crime families of Gotham City and the origin story of Two-Face. Despite his long-time career as an animation scribe, screenwriter Tim Sheridan admits to Red Alert that tackling The Long Halloween caused him “tons of fear and trepidation” because of how revered it is among Batman fans. “We went in knowing that…2 min
SFX|July 2021Rain On MeIT’S AMAZING TO think that in 2017, things were looking fairly bleak for actor Temuera Morrison, career-wise. “No one was ringing, if you know what I mean,” the actor behind Boba Fett tells Red Alert from his base in New Zealand. “Things were pretty humbling.” Thankfully, the 60-year-old’s fortunes have changed considerably since then. First there was Aquaman, where Morrison starred as Arthur Curry’s father, and then came a somewhat unexpected call from Lucasfilm. But more on that later. Also during that time was Occupation. In 2018, newbie director Luke Sparke cast Morrison in his low-budget Australian-set SF actioner, a movie that, while hardly setting the box office alight, did well enough on streaming to spawn a follow-up. Occupation: Rainfall is more of the same, as the human race fights…4 min
SFX|July 2021All Around The WorldINSPIRED BY 2000 AD EDITOR MATT Smith embarking upon a Marvel movie marathon, this year’s Sci-Fi Special from the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic is composed of several interconnected stories, which come together to form a larger narrative. “It came about from me finally getting around to seeing Avengers: Infinity War,” laughs Smith. “I particularly enjoyed the interaction between the various characters in the shared universe and I thought that was something we could do more of in the Dredd-world, with an investigative case that takes in not only Dredd and Anderson but also Cursed Earth Koburn, Armitage, Devlin Waugh, Hondo-City Judge Inaba and Chopper.” Masterminded by Michael Carroll and Maura McHugh and also featuring the talents of Ben Willsher, Robin Smith and more, it’ll see Dredd and co pitted against the…1 min
SFX|July 2021WHO’S THE DADDY?How did The Tomorrow War first come to be on your radar? I have to give credit to my manager, she’s really great. She’s tough and doesn’t let me do just anything. But this was one that came through that she really loved. And so, it made it to my desk, and I read it and loved it from the beginning to the end. It’s a story about family, about second chances, about fighting the enemy on the outside as well as the enemy on the inside, which I think people will hopefully relate to. What was it about the project that made you want to be involved? It’s original IP, which is really great. It’s a big summer blockbuster movie, but it’s also grounded in real relationships about a…4 min
SFX|July 2021TOM AFTER TIMEWill we see a different Loki now he’s no longer in Thor’s shadow? Loki needs to evolve. The cycle was: Loki is trusted, he betrays, he becomes a villain, he learns to trust again, he’s betrayed, he becomes trusting again, he can be trusted again, then he betrays or feels betrayed. It’s just this endless cycle of trust and betrayal and resistance. And the character is essentially singing the same song over and over and over again. He’s trapped on a wheel of repetition, a compulsion to repeat the same damage, the same story. We are breaking that record. We’re releasing him from that trap. In this story, we’re showing that he can change, that he can grow. What does the Time Variance Authority want with Loki? If you have…2 min
SFX|July 2021PURE SHORESA LOVE LETTER TO the summers of youth, set in a seaside town on the Italian Riviera, Luca takes the viewer to a beautiful holiday location infused with childhood nostalgia. There’s pasta, gelato, scooter rides and lots of jumping off cliffs into the murky green ocean below. Oh, and Luca and Alberto happen to be teenage sea monsters, so you know it’s going to get complicated… Did you always want a fantastical element to this story? When I develop things I always think about two elements: the fantastical and a lot of imagination, and then the heart of the story and more of a personal relationship or something that I experienced in my life. La Luna (2011), the short, it was very similar – I thought about my family. What…8 min
SFX|July 2021MASK 4 MASKALTHOUGH THE NEWEST instalment in the Purge franchise arrives amid a global pandemic and ongoing political unrest, filming was completed in February 2020, prior to Covid-19 being declared a pandemic, and long before the siege of the United States Capitol. Despite that, series creator James DeMonaco says that the latest movie about the murderous yearly ritual of Purge night is very relevant, finally arriving in 2021. “People who have seen an early cut are amazed that the film was completed over a year ago,” says DeMonaco, who serves as producer and also wrote the script of The Forever Purge, the fifth and supposedly final entry in the series. “I think that the film’s prescience will really frighten and grip audiences and make them ask and answer some difficult questions, even…8 min
SFX|July 2021MILLA JOVOVICHNo stranger to monsters, Milla Jovovich spent months in far-flung lands, staring into the sky in order to recreate Capcom’s sprawling videogame franchise Monster Hunter. And she was sure to immerse herself in the character before shooting began. “I did play the game to prepare for the movie, which was great,” she laughs. “My daughter would be like, ‘Mom, you’ve been playing that videogame for hours’. I’m like, ‘It’s my work. It’s not for my pleasure at all!’” Monster Hunter looks quite demanding – or is that the magic of cinema? Oh no, it was really gruelling. It was a very challenging production. My husband Paul [WS Anderson, director] wanted to shoot as much in real life as possible, and put the monsters in the computer at the very end,…4 min
SFX|July 2021THE OWL SERVICEBefore Clash you worked on Sinbad And The Eye Of The Tiger. Was that the first time you crossed paths with Harryhausen? Yes – and his notorious producer, Charlie Schneer! He was a character. Ray was a beautiful man, quiet, unassuming and just a very nice person. He was a genius. How did you find him as a collaborator? He had a reputation as a one-man band… He was, for sure. He knew exactly what he wanted and what he needed, and of course with the kind of work that he did he had to be in charge and feel like he was directing it, because he had to use it afterwards to put his critters in. Ray always took the credit for everything. If you look I didn’t have…3 min
SFX|July 2021BLIND FURYGRABOIDS These giant worms are strong enough to demolish buildings by attacking the foundations, as the residents of Perfection discovered in Tremors. They hunt by sensing vibrations – but you can always make use of that to lure them to a cliff… LICKERS Being licked: often pleasant, but not when it’s by a T-virusmutated zombie. These exposedbrain horrors (first seen in Resident Evil 2) hunt using their hearing, and can kill by lashing out with their long tongues. BIORAPTORS Natives of the planet M6-117, these critters swarm every 22 years when there’s a month-long eclipse, using ultrasonics to detect any prey – such as a passing Vin Diesel in Pitch Black. Tip: shine a torch at’em. CRAWLERS Female cavers come a cropper to these underground dwellers in Neil Marshall’s The…1 min
SFX|July 2021SPIRAL⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! 18 | 93 minutes ⏵ Director Darren Lynn Bousman ⏵ Cast Chris Rock, Samuel L Jackson, Max Minghella, Marisol Nichols John Kramer, the Jigsaw Killer, is dead. He’s been dead for a long time. But if the Saw franchise taught us anything, it’s that there’s always someone else willing to grab a pig mask and a soldering iron to continue his trap-based reign of terror. This time around, a masked killer is targeting dirty cops – and sending Detective Zeke Banks (Chris Rock) cute little gift-wrapped clues while they’re at it. Director Darren Lynn Bousman directed Saw II to IV, so he nails the grimy, industrial aesthetic, and even resurrects the fast-moving quick-cut visuals that made the original movies look so, well, like Saw movies. But…1 min
SFX|July 2021TOVE⏵ RELEASED 9 JULY 12A | 103 minutes ⏵ Director Zaida Bergroth ⏵ Cast Alma Pöysti, Krista Kosonon, Shanti Roney, Robert Enckell It’s tough to watch this biopic of Finnish artist Tove Jansson – creator of the Moomins – without cringing at what the woman herself, who was deeply private, might have thought of it. Instead of focusing upon the growing popularity of her hippo-like forest creatures over the 20th century, it details her bohemian lifestyle instead; Jansson had affairs with, among others, a married man and a female theatre director. She would have been mortified to see her sex life on film, and it’s hard to look past that. The good news, however, is that at least this love triangle is handled with sensitivity: there’s no sense of exploitation…1 min
SFX|July 2021BOYS FROM COUNTY HELL⏵ RELEASED 18 JUNE 18 | 89 minutes ⏵ Director Chris Baugh ⏵ Cast Jack Rowan, Nigel O’Neill, Louisa Harland, Michael Hough Ever heard of Abhartach? There are those who suggest that this Irish legend about a magical dwarf (or, in some versions, a blood-drinking chieftain) who keeps returning from beyond the grave inspired Bram Stoker. It certainly inspired this film, set and shot in Northern Ireland and taking its name from a Pogues song. Noughts + Crosses star Jack Rowan plays the hapless Eugene, who, as part of a road crew working on a bypass, knocks down a pile of stones which – so folklore has it – keeps Abhartach imprisoned. Bad news for the residents of his rural small town. To its credit, County Hell has an original…1 min
SFX|July 2021SWEET TOOTHSeason OneUK/US Netflix, streaming now ⏵ Showrunners Jim Mickle, Beth Schwartz ⏵ Cast Christian Convery, Nonso Anozie, Adeel Akhtar, Dania Ramirez, Stefania LaVie Owen, Aliza Vellani EPISODES 1.01-1.08 It’s very strange to see a big, lavish fantasy TV series respond to the pandemic while we’re still living through it. Shows like this take years of development, and indeed Sweet Tooth has been in the works since 2018 – and it goes back yet further, as it’s based on the acclaimed Vertigo comic by Jeff Lemire, which started in 2009. But it wasn’t until April 2020 that Netflix acquired it from Hulu, and it was shot in New Zealand when restrictions there eased – so it’s inevitably coloured by knowledge of the real world. It opens with a deadly flu-like illness raging…3 min
SFX|July 2021THE NEVERS Season OneUK Sky Atlantic, streaming now ⏵ Director Joss Whedon ⏵ Cast Laura Donnelly, Ann Skelly, Ben Chaplin, Olivia Williams EPISODES 1.01-1.06 The Nevers was created by Joss Whedon, who also wrote and/or directed several episodes. Before a single one aired, he handed the second half of the Covid-interrupted season over to new showrunner Philippa Goslett, citing exhaustion. His timing was… interesting. Whedon has been accused of bullying (on Justice League) and misogyny (a pregnant Charisma Carpenter’s treatment on Angel). Consequently, it’s hard to watch these first six episodes without thinking of their controversial creator, despite HBO doing its best to erase him from publicity. But this is Whedon’s world – and by god, can you tell. The Nevers follows a group of Victorian women (and a few men) who develop…2 min
SFX|July 2021SOLOSUK/US Prime, streaming now ⏵ Creator David Weil ⏵ Cast Uzo Aduba, Nicole Beharie, Morgan Freeman, Anne Hathaway, Anthony Mackie, Helen Mirren, Dan Stevens, Constance Wu EPISODES 1.01-1.07 Tailored both to dramatise the feelings of isolation and loss engendered by the pandemic, and facilitate Covid-safe production, this near-future anthology’s bite-sized instalments (varying from 21-32 minutes) mostly focus on single characters – though they’re rarely truly “alone”, with most interacting with computer voices, robotic doubles, or their future selves. As the settings are enclosed, in compensation the production design is often heavily stylised – there’s no particularly good reason for Anne Hathaway’s scientist, for example, to have scores of lightbulbs hanging down in her room. But hey, it does leak neat You can imagine Solos playing better in the States than…2 min
SFX|July 2021ENCOUNTER OFTHE SPOOKY KINDEXTRAS ⏵ RELEASED 21 JUNE 1980 | 15 | Blu-ray ⏵ Director Sammo Hung ⏵ Cast Sammo Hung, Leung Suet-mei, Chung Fat, Huang Ha BLU-RAY DEBUT Horror comedy addicts, get ready to add to your collection. Encounter Of The Spooky Kind deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as movies like Ghostbusters and Evil Dead II, not least because it probably inspired both of them. Sammo Hung’s pioneering mash-up of gore and gags was a huge success, transforming the burly martial artist into a household name in Hong Kong. The film almost certainly found its way into Sam Raimi’s screening room, with direct homages popping up in Evil Dead II and Army Of Darkness. Like those movies, Encounters shoves a charismatic lead into a slim plot, allowing dark forces…1 min
SFX|July 2021HAMMER: NIGHT SHADOWSEXTRAS ⏵ RELEASED 28 JUNE 1961-1964 | 12 | Blu-ray ⏵ Directors John Gilling, Peter Graham Scott, Freddie Francis, Terence Fisher ⏵ Cast Peter Cushing, Barbara Shelley, Herbert Lom, Jennie Linden BLU-RAY DEBUT Hammer built its legend on Technicolor blood and thunder; X-rated viscera that baited the censors and thrilled the cheap seats. This latest box set showcases an altogether less gutsy side of the studio. The Phantom Of The Opera proves a tepid take on the much-told tale, more concerned with generating sympathy for Herbert Lom’s rag-masked sewer-dweller than leaning into fiendishness. Captain Clegg – with which it originally shared a double-bill – is a breezier historical romp, with Peter Cushing on fine, mischievous form as a swashbuckling parson. Inspired by the Doctor Syn novels, it’s clotted with rural…2 min
SFX|July 2021ZOMBIE 5EXTRAS ⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1988 | 18 | Blu-ray BLU-RAY DEBUT Ignore that title: Killing Birds (as it’s also known) has no link to Zombie Flesh Eaters (aka Zombie 2). Students in search of a rare woodpecker (!) stay in a Louisiana house where a Vietnam vet killed his wife, and are menaced by zombies (usually one) that can smash through walls in this Italian horror. Kills so random that they surprise (one guy catches fire), and a decent score, don’t make up for the incoherence. Extras Commentary; four interviews; alternate titles; trailer.…1 min
SFX|July 2021UNEARTHEXTRAS ⏵ RELEASED 28 JUNE 2020 | 15 | DVD/download Climate change and late-stage capitalism are pretty scary. But do they make good horror movie villains? No. For its first three-quarters, Unearth is a depressing drama about poverty-stricken farmers. After an oil company sets up a fracking machine, everything gets even worse, but in non-supernatural ways. Then, finally, there’s a glimpse of body horror – but not really. It’s well-intentioned, a warning that fracking’s bad for the environment, but didn’t we already know that? Extras None.…1 min
SFX|July 2021LAKE MUNGOEXTRAS ⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2008 | 15 | Blu-ray ⏵ Director Joel Anderson ⏵ Cast Rosie Traynor, David Pledger, Martin Sharpe, Talia Zucker BLU-RAY DEBUT This slow-burn, faintly Lynchian Aussie chiller’s cult following laud it as one of the scariest films ever made. An overly bold claim, but it tickles your neck hairs alright. The ingenuity of its construction impresses. It tells the story of a small-town family whose daughter drowned in the local lake; her spirit then appears to haunt their home, captured in grainy video whose indistinctness makes it all the more chilling. It not only uses a documentary’s visual grammar but was shot like one, with no scripted dialogue and the actors improvising their responses to interview questions. An array of recording media was used, from…1 min
SFX|July 2021THE JASMINE THRONE⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! 592 pages | Paperback/ebook/audiobook ⏵ Author Tasha Suri ⏵ Publisher Orbit Books You don’t get much romance in epic fantasy. What with all the trekking and questing and world-saving, there just isn’t time for meet-cutes or pining or cataloguing every not-so-accidental arm brush. Right? Wrong, says the opening volume of Tasha Suri’s follow-up to her award-winning Books Of Ambha duology; in fact, why can we not have both? In this lush fantasy version of medieval India, an imprisoned princess can take on an evil emperor and also make space in her schedule to ogle her maidservant’s excitingly muscly arms. Said maidservant can be both a secret acolyte of powerful, forbidden magic and still sometimes forget how to breathe when she makes eye contact with the infuriatingly…3 min
SFX|July 2021HONEYCOMB⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! 432 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ⏵ Author Joanne M Harris ⏵ ublisher Gollancz Once, there was an author who started to write stories on social media. She tweeted her tales out, piece by piece, until she had enough for a book, and engaged the services of an illustrator of some fame to bring her characters to beautiful visual life. Finally, the book was ready and the writer called it Honeycomb. Okay, we’ll stop trying to be cute now. Joanne M Harris’s latest novel is constructed from 100 short (sometimes very short) stories in the fairy tale tradition. Roughly speaking, this is the saga of the Lacewing King – a cold, capricious being, prone to playing tricks, who may have found his match in the wicked Spider Queen.…2 min
SFX|July 2021HEARTBREAK INCORPORATED⏵ RELEASED 22 JUNE 300 pages | Paperback/ebook/audiobook ⏵ Author Alex De Campi ⏵ Publisher Solaris Books As workplace romances go, Evie and Misha’s torrid love affair in Heartbreak Incorporated might be the most ill-advised ever. After taking a mystery office job due to New-York-rent-paying desperation, Evie finds herself working for a professional break-up artist. Misha’s clients are super-wealthy types planning on getting divorced, who hire him (and his team of sexy freelancers) to seduce their partners. A few compromising photos quickly destroy the unwanted spouse’s hopes of a decent settlement. It’s a fun premise with potential for drama, especially when clients start dropping dead, and things get even more interesting when the occult angle kicks in. Then there’s the romance. Without intending the derision this comparison might imply, Alex…1 min
SFX|July 2021FOR THE WOLF⏵ RELEASED 17 JUNE 480 pages | Paperback/ebook/audiobook ⏵ Author Hannah Whitten ⏵ Publisher Orbit Books Wolves run through fairy tales, flashing a tooth here, a tail there. But if you pick this up expecting to see familiar motifs popping up, you’ll be disappointed – or possibly pleasantly surprised. There are glimmers of fairy tales: second-born princess Red is to be sacrificed to the Wolf in a magical forest in the hope that he’ll return the world’s captured gods. Your mind can’t help turning to Little Red Riding Hood and Beauty And The Beast. But Hannah Whitten isn’t telling either of those tales. She’s not telling the tale of Snow White and Rose Red, either, although with Neve (the older princess) dressed all in white, and Red in scarlet, it’s…1 min
SFX|July 2021THE GOD IS NOT WILLING⏵ RELEASED 1 JULY 496 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ⏵ Author Steven Erikson ⏵ Publisher Bantam Press Steven Erikson’s Malazan books stink. This is not a criticism. They also appear to bleed, shout and, as his characters move through windswept and desolate northern landscapes, induce a sense of being chilled to the marrow. When it comes to crafting visceral grimdark fantasy, Erikson is up there with the best. Accordingly, any new series set in the Malazan universe is to be welcomed. This first volume in the Witness trilogy is set a few years after the final volume in the Book Of The Fallen sequence, The Crippled God. By Erikson’s fantasy standards, it’s a slim volume, but there’s a lot packed in. In part, that’s about the book being trailed as picking…2 min
SFX|July 2021ALIEN⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! ⏵ Publisher Marvel Comics ⏵ Writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson ⏵ Artist Salvador Larocca ISSUES 1-3 One of the weirder consequences of Disney’s continuing quest to gobble up every intellectual property it can get its hands on is that the House of Mouse is now the official owner of the Alien franchise. Bought up thanks to Disney’s takeover of 20th Century Fox, the long-running sci-fi horror series has also made the leap to Marvel with a new ongoing monthly comic. The story begins two decades after the events of Aliens, with ageing security officer Gabriel Cruz pulled from retirement by his previous employers, the infamously corrupt corporation Weyland-Yutani. Cruz’s son Danny has joined a group of anti-corporate terrorists and helped them to gain access to a top-secret…2 min
SFX|July 2021Captain Zep: Space DetectiveYou’d think the last thing a 10-year-old would want to do on getting home from school was whip out a pad and pen to take notes. But that’s what many of us did in 1983, pretending we were students of the SOLVE Academy. The high-concept of this children’s sci-fi show was ingenious. Captain Zep (“super space detective”, as the foot-tapping theme tune calls him) presents a recording of one of his cases to the students (50 kids in orange robes, with slicked-back hair). They must spot the clues in this week’s outer-space whodunnit, then are given 10 seconds to scribble the solution. Get it right, and they receive an “I SOLVEd it!” badge. At the end, Zep – who sometimes seemed more preoccupied with tea and snacks than crime-solving –…2 min
SFX|July 2021NEWS WARP➝ Sequel, bruv! John Boyega and Joe Cornish reuniting on Attack The Block 2. ➝ Henry Cavill in the frame for the Highlander reboot. ➝ Boyd Holbrook and Shaunette Renee Wilson joining Indiana Jones 5. ➝ Dwayne Johnson voicing Krypto in animated movie DC League Of Super-Pets. ➝ The Phantom Of The Opera in line for a modern-day remake set in the UK music scene. ➝ Promising Young Woman’s Emerald Fennell adapting Mark Millar’s Nemesis for Warner Bros. ➝ Hannah John-Kamen slicing up barbarians as the new Red Sonja. ➝ Angela Robinson helming remake of David Bowie ’80s vampire flick The Hunger. ➝ Garett Hedlund and Nathalie Emmanuel starring in Dracula-inspired thriller The Bride. ➝ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever targeting 8 July 2022 release. ➝ Tenet’s John David Washington boarding…1 min
SFX|July 2021NEWS WARP➝ Hocus Pocus sequel heading to Disney+ autumn 2022. ➝ Jenna Ortega is Wednesday Addams in Tim Burton’s Addams Family reimagining Wednesday. ➝ Netflix developing CG-animated feature based on Ultraman. ➝ JJ Abrams, Matt Reeves and Bruce Timm teaming on new animated show Batman: Caped Crusader. ➝ The Wheel Of Time and Noughts + Crosses to get second seasons. ➝ The Vampire Diaries cocreator Julie Plec adapting YA book series Vampire Academy. ➝ Netflix axing The Irregulars after just one season. ➝ JK Simmons and Sissy Spacek starring in Amazon’s Lightyears. ➝ HBO Max’s Batgirl movie to be scripted by Christina Hodson (Bumblebee). ➝ The Boys’ Jack Quaid voicing the Man of Steel in new toon My Adventures With Superman. ➝ Travis Knight helming vampire virus thriller Uprising for Netflix.…1 min
SFX|July 2021Oh DeerPERUSING WRITER/artist Jeff Lemire’s creator-owned comic books, Sweet Tooth isn’t the first one that comes to mind as an easy adaptation for live-action. It’s a post-apocalyptic story about a virus that overtakes humanity (spooky, yes), and creates human/animal hybrids. Gus is one of those hybrids: a little boy with deer ears and antlers. Protected from what’s left of humanity by his father, Gus eventually emerges into the outside world to find more of his kind. Complex for sure, but the concept attracted the eyes of Susan and Robert Downey Jr.’s production company, Team Downey. “When one of our executives put this comic book on my desk, and there’s this deer boy on the cover in a little plaid shirt, I was like, ‘What the heck is this?’” Susan Downey admits…3 min
SFX|July 2021SUBSCRIBE TO SFX!SFX-CLUSIVE SAVING! JUST £2.60 AN ISSUE SUBSCRIBING TO SFX IS SIMPLE VISIT MAGAZINESDIRECT.COM/SFXSAVE OR CALL 0330 333 1113 QUOTE CODE BU24 SFX SUBSCRIBER BENEFITS HURRY! OFFER ENDS 15 JULY 2021 Get 50% off the cover price* SFX delivered direct to your door Exclusive subscriber-only covers TERMS AND CONDITIONS Offer closes on 15 July 2021. Offer open to new UK subscribers only. *When paying £16.90 by six-monthly Direct Debit. This price is guaranteed for the first 12 months and we will notify you in advance of any price changes. Please allow up to six weeks for delivery of your first subscription issue (up to eight weeks overseas). The full subscription rate is for 12 months (13 issues) and includes postage and packaging. If the magazine ordered changes frequency per annum, we…1 min
SFX|July 2021MONSTER MASHWhat creatures and films were inspirations growing up? There are many famous creature designs that inspired me, from Giger’s Alien to Godzilla and everything in-between. When I saw Predator for the first time, the design blew me away and fired my imagination. I had never seen something like that before. What elements do you look for when creating a hostile creature? There are many different ways of how you can make a creature look hostile and scary, but I found there are three main elements; the teeth, cheekbones and the eyes. The teeth are probably the most important. Actually, “scary-looking teeth” is the most common note I get when I work on a design. I like well-designed teeth, therefore I try to spend a bit more time working on the…3 min
SFX|July 2021NAT’S LANDINGFOR NATASHA ROMANOFF (AKA BLACK Widow), finally getting her solo cinematic day in the sun has been a long time coming. The character, as played by Scarlett Johansson, was first introduced 11 years ago in Iron Man 2 and went on to become a primary player in six more Marvel Cinematic Universe films (including all four Avengers instalments). For pretty much that entire time, audiences were asking for Romanoff’s own showcase movie that might shed some light on the enigmatic, Russian-trained spy/assassin who gets the job done without the benefit of superpowers. A Black Widow movie became a reality by 2018, with a first-pass script in hand and a very broad search for the studio’s first solo female director to helm it. At San Diego Comic Con in July 2019,…7 min
SFX|July 2021WALK ON THE SHADYSIDEIF YOU WERE A HORROR KID IN THE ’90S, your shelves were probably dominated by one name: RL Stine. Often described as “Stephen King for kids”, the prolific author has spent the past four decades churning out chillers at a terrifying rate, penning over 60 Goosebumps titles, nearly two dozen Point Horrors and, in the US, over 50 instalments of teen horror series Fear Street. The latter, set in the fictional Ohio town of Shadyside, featured a cast of beautiful teenagers getting killed in humorous and imaginative ways. Unlike Point Horror, the series only belatedly made it to UK shores, but it’s arriving in film form this month courtesy of a nostalgia-soaked Netflix movie trilogy overseen by director Leigh Janiak. A super-fan whose own horror credentials include the Scream TV…7 min
SFX|July 2021NASTY PIECE OF WORKBAN VIDEO SADISM NOW!” screamed the cover of the Daily Mail in July 1983, at the height of the furore over so-called “video nasties”. With home video in its early days, not subject to any official control, enterprising independent labels coined it in distributing low-budget horror films using the twin draws of gruesome gore and lurid cover art. The ensuing moral panic saw a total of 72 films at one time or another deemed liable to contravene the Obscene Publications Act, and placed on a list by the Director of Public Prosecutions, putting them at risk of seizure by the police. In 1984, legislation was passed requiring all videos to be officially certified. Censor takes place the following year, when the British Board of Film Classification became responsible for awarding…7 min
SFX|July 2021THE MEDUSA TOUCHON 12 JUNE 1981, TWO HEROES went whip-to-sword at the American box office. Their respective movies represented not just competing styles of heroism – one noble and toga-clad, the other morally ambiguous in a junglebattered leather jacket – but rival eras of filmmaking, the old guard of cinematic magic flexing against the new. Raiders Of The Lost Ark may have been rooted in the breathless serial storytelling of the 1930s but it teamed George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, the geeks with the golden touch who had redefined the blockbuster with Star Wars and Jaws. Clash Of The Titans, meanwhile, offered the timeless appeal of Greek myth and the stop-motion sorcery of Ray Harryhausen, who had spent a 40-year career chasing the wow he’d felt on first glimpsing King Kong in…12 min
SFX|July 2021NATASHA PULLEYIT WAS ON BOXING DAY IN 1900 THAT THE lighthouse tender Hesperus reached Eilean Mòr in the Outer Hebrides, a remote island that should have been home to a trio of lighthouse men. Relief keeper Joseph Moore was put ashore. What he discovered has spooked people ever since. The island was deserted, and to this day it’s unclear what happened to the men. Among those fascinated by the story is novelist Natasha Pulley. “What really caught my interest about it was not necessarily what happens from the point of view of those lighthouse keepers,” she says, “but what was it like for the first person to reach the lighthouse after them?” It was a question that got her working on her fourth novel The Kingdoms, a book that mixes timeslip…4 min
SFX|July 2021MONSTER HUNTER⏵ RELEASED 18 JUNE 12A | 103 minutes ⏵ Director Paul WS Anderson ⏵ Cast Milla Jovovich, Tony Jaa, Ron Perlman, Meagan Good After years of pumping outResident Evil movies together, writer/director Paul WS Anderson and star/wife Milla Jovovich strike out in a bold new way by, er, making another adaptation of a videogame franchise – in this case, Capcom’s sprawling Monster Hunter. Swapping zombies for giant critters, the aim here is to stay true to the source material while opening things up for those who’ve never touched a controller. The result? A noisy slog, for the most part. Jovovich can certainly still hold the screen, and remains a solid action performer, but the movie is largely content to have her run, jump, shoot and struggle in much the same…1 min
SFX|July 2021THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! 15 | 112 minutes ⏵ Director Michael Chaves ⏵ Cast Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Ruairi O’Connor, Sarah Catherine Hook With James Wan these days immersed in the Aquaman movies, he here settles for producer and “Story by” credits while handing the directorial reins to Michael Chaves, whose The Curse Of La Llorona was one of the weaker efforts in the Conjuring universe. Thankfully, this is a step up after that misfire, though the tension dissipates after a strong opening. Unlike its superior predecessors, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is not an every-trick-in-the-book haunted house movie. It’s instead inspired by the true-life case of Arne Cheyenne Johnson (Ruairi O’Connor), who killed his landlord in 1981 and pleaded demonic possession as his defence in court.…1 min
SFX|July 2021VOYAGERS⏵ RELEASED 2 JULY TBC | 108 minutes ⏵ Director Neil Burger ⏵ Cast Tye Sheridan, Lily-Rose Depp, Fionn Whitehead, Colin Farrell It is 2063. Earth, wracked by climate change, is becoming uninhabitable. Humanity must look to the stars, to find a new planet to colonise. Thirty kids are specially bred for the crew, raised in isolation to prepare them for a voyage that’ll see their grandkids becoming the eventual colonists. If this all sounds familiar then buckle up, because Voyagers hits plenty of much-visited plot points on its journey. “Nothing here stands out as particularly stimulating” It’s not long before the button-downed crew discovers the truth behind the impulse-suppressing liquid they drink every day and (mostly) decide to ditch it, setting the stage for the latest attempt to give…2 min
SFX|July 2021VIOLET EVERGARDEN: THE MOVIE⏵ RELEASED 17 JUNE 12A | 140 minutes ⏵ Director Taichi Ishidate ⏵ Cast Yui Ishikawa, Daisuke Namikawa, Takehito Koyasu, Kouki Uchiyama Anime is famed for its excesses, and this film is certainly excessive. It’s a sequel to the Violet Evergarden series, and also a definite conclusion. It’s not recommended to newbies – not because it’s hard to follow, but because it presumes a level of investment in the characters stoked by the TV show. It returns to that series’ gorgeous alt-Europe, where Violet is now famed for her achievements as a professional letter-writer for clients throughout society. The focus is on Violet’s enduring feelings for her former army commander, Major Gilbert, long presumed dead. Then she receives some news relating to him; to say more would be spoilerish. Even…1 min
SFX|July 2021M.O.D.O.K. Season OneUK Disney+, streaming now US Hulu, streaming now ⏵ Showrunner Jonathan Blum ⏵ Cast Patton Oswalt, Aimee Garcia, Ben Schwartz, Melissa Fumero EPISODES 1.01-1.10 Marvel’s Z-listers assemble in this amiably hit and miss stop-motion/CG animation hybrid, which – with a few more naughty words – could sit comfortably on Adult Swim. Sure, Iron Man makes a few appearances, and M.O.D.O.K. is mid-league in Marvel supervillainy, but much of the fun comes in some cameos from the House of Ideas’s sillier bad guys – Angar the Screamer, the Melter and Armadillo among them. M.O.D.O.K. (Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing – one of sci-fi’s greatest acronyms) is, if you didn’t know, the one Marvel character Funko has a problem caricaturing – he’s basically 90% head anyway (with teeny, tiny, dangly arms…2 min
SFX|July 2021LUCIFERSeason 5BUK/US Netflix, streaming now ⏵ Showrunners Joe Henderson, Ildy Modrovich ⏵ Cast Tom Ellis, Lauren German, Kevin Alejandro, DB Woodside EPISODES 5.09-5.16 What if the Devil was a detective? That was the simple, goofy premise which powered Lucifer in its early years. Although that’s still very much in place, its penultimate season – and particularly this second half – stress-tests the format to breaking point. God (Dennis Haysbert) has descended to Earth to put a stop to the squabbling between his sons Lucifer (Tom Ellis) and twin Michael (also Ellis, obviously, but with an evil turtleneck). It soon becomes clear, however, that he is every bit the disappointing absentee father that Lucifer made him out to be. When God announces his plans to retire, a power vacuum opens up that…1 min
SFX|July 2021DOCTOR WHO Season 24EXTRAS ⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1987 | 12 | Blu-ray ⏵ Producer John Nathan-Turner ⏵ Cast Sylvester McCoy, Bonnie Langford, Sophie Aldred, Kate O’Mara BLU-RAY DEBUT Sylvester McCoy’s first year in the TARDIS finds ’80s Doctor Who at its most pantomime. For many, these four stories mark the nadir of the classic series, a cheap and campy selection, complete with a Ken Dodd cameo, Bonnie Langford’s Mel screaming at the drop of a hat and McCoy playing the spoons on Kate O’Mara’s breasts. And yet… it’s also a season of transition. “Time And The Rani” is the worst regeneration story ever, but the other three at least have their moments. “Paradise Towers” is entertaining fluff – JG Ballard’s High-Rise as reimagined by Children’s BBC. “Delta And The Bannerman” is cheesier…3 min
SFX|July 2021EYE OF THE CATEXTRAS ⏵ RELEASED 21 JUNE 1969 | 15 | Blu-ray ⏵ Director David Lowell Rich ⏵ Cast Michael Sarrazin, Gayle Hunnicutt, Eleanor Parker, Tim Henry BLU-RAY DEBUT Regularly striking a note of febrile hysteria, this when-felinesattack thriller should by rights have starred Joan Crawford or Bette Davis. The work of expert hands – Psycho screenwriter Joseph Stefano wrote it; the music’s by Lalo Schifrin – it centres on a San Francisco hairdresser (Gayle Hunnicutt) who pairs up with a client’s estranged nephew (Gayle Hunnicutt) for a scheme to knock off his sickly, mog-loving aunt (Eleanor Parker) and split the inheritance. Sarrazin’s amoral hipster, a smirking pretty boy who spends half the film with his shirt off, feels like a Joe Orton character. The aunt/nephew relationship simmers with barely concealed incestuous…1 min
SFX|July 2021FRIENDSHIP’S DEATHEXTRAS ⏵ RELEASED 21 JUNE 1987 | 15 | Blu-ray ⏵ Director Peter Wollen ⏵ Cast Tilda Swinton, Bill Patterson, Patrick Bauchau, Ruby Baker BLU-RAY DEBUT This late-’80s oddity, written and directed by activist and film theorist Peter Wollen, finds a young Tilda Swinton in the role of android envoy Friendship, dispatched to Earth from a distant planet. Although her target destination is MIT, she instead lands in battle-scarred Palestine during 1970’s Black September and sparks up a curious friendship with war correspondent Sullivan (Bill Patterson). While every scene echoes ominously with the sound of gunfire, for the most part this is simply a series of conversations as Patterson and Swinton get to know one another. It’s skilfully done, with Wollen’s script working as both a melancholy treatise on mankind’s…1 min
SFX|July 2021DON’T LOOK BACKEXTRAS ⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2020 | 15 | DVD/download Imagine how bleak theFinal Destination films would be if, instead of all those Rube Goldberg-y traps, the victims just quietly keeled over instead. Now you don’t need to watch Don’t Look Back. Writer/director Jeffrey Reddick – who wrote Final Destination, and doesn’t seem to have had any new ideas since – swaps “the concept of death” for “the concept of karma” as the villain here, but otherwise remakes his own film with all the fun sucked out. Dreary moralising nonsense. Extras None.…1 min
SFX|July 2021GODZILLA VS KONGEXTRAS ⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2021 | 12 | Blu-ray (4K/standard)/DVD/download ⏵ Director Adam Wingard ⏵ Cast Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry Is Godzilla vs Kong a bold experiment in avant-garde storytelling, where human characterisation is sacrificed at the altar of a pair of skyscraper-sized beasts? Or is it a tenuous excuse to make sure a pair of Titans get into some heavyweight bouts? We’re plumping for the latter, but who cares about coherent plotting when the pay-off is a big lizard wrestling a gorilla? A step up from its MonsterVerse predecessor King Of The Monsters, Godzilla vs Kong has fun mixing corporate skulduggery, bonkers adventures inside the Hollow Earth, and nods to the back catalogue of Godzilla studio Toho. The hom*o sapiens are undeniably…1 min
SFX|July 2021SEVEN DEATHS OF AN EMPIRE⏵ RELEASED 24 JUNE 550 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ⏵ Author GR Matthews ⏵ Publisher Solaris Books After years of self publishing, GR Matthews impresses with his first novel for Solaris. It’s the story of an empire in turmoil following the Emperor’s sudden death, and Matthews weaves his tapestry from disparate strands that eventually bind together. General Bordan commands the imperial military; a battle-worn veteran, his hopes for a quiet retirement are dashed by the emerging conflict over the succession. Meanwhile, Kyron is an apprentice magician with the troops transporting the Emperor’s body to the capital before his heir can be crowned. Matthews sets a strong pace that he maintains throughout, while the impressive worldbuilding adds layers to the drama. Kyron faces harassment from the priests of the Holy Flame, who…1 min
SFX|July 2021BLACK WATER SISTER⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! 384 pages | Hardback/ebook ⏵ Author Zen Cho ⏵ Publisher Pan Macmillan Everyone has experienced nagging older relatives, but most of the time the sharp words stop when the relative in question is dead. Not so with Jessmyn’s grandmother. Jess never knew her Ah Ma in life, but shortly after her death her voice appears in Jess’s head, and refuses to leave. Jess’s life is in turmoil already, as she and her parents move from America to Malaysia, a country she barely remembers. With no job, no money and no firm plans, Jess is drawn into a world of gods and gangsters – with the violent and vengeful Black Water Sister a particular problem. When she was alive, Ah Ma was the Sister’s medium, channelling the…1 min
SFX|July 2021REISSUESJasper Fforde tackles racism in THE CONSTANT RABBIT ( , 1 July, Hodder). Its Alt-England’s downtrodden minority are talking six-foot rabbits, the result of a Spontaneous Anthropomorphising Event. It centres on a part-time librarian in a sleepy rural town, who also secretly works at the Rabbit Compliance Taskforce, a government department that uses suspect measures to keep rabbits in check. We said: “A lot of fun, with all the wickedly inventive wordplay, impeccable world-building and fiendish plotting that Fforde’s readers have come to expect.” Set three years after a pandemic that wiped out 99% of the male population, Lauren Beukes’s thriller AFTERLAND ( , 24 June, Penguin) centres on Cole and her now-valuable 12-year-old son, as they travel across the US in the company of a troupe of nuns (with…1 min
SFX|July 2021ULTRAMEGA⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! ⏵ Publisher Image Comics ⏵ Writer/artist James Harren ISSUES 1-3 It’d be easy to look at the “augmented humans battle giant monsters” concept of this new ongoing series and assume we’re in familiar territory. However, the story – by writer/artist James Harren, with colour work by Dave Stewart – doesn’t wait long before pulling the rug out from under the reader, and the potentially standard set-up turns weird, wild and shockingly violent. We start in a world where a virus is changing ordinary people into monstrous kaiju, and the only people that can defeat them are three fighters who can transform themselves into the titanic Ultramega. When a secret from the past comes back to haunt one of the Ultramega, there’s a horrifying showdown. Then the…1 min
SFX|July 2021THE SWAMP THING⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! ⏵ Publisher DC Comics ⏵ Writer Ram V ⏵ Artist Mike Perkins ISSUES 1-3 DC’s Guardian of the Green has struggled to put down roots since the halcyon days of Alan Moore four decades ago, spawning several short-lived series. Cleverly combining old with new as it introduces a new avatar of the forest in Levi Kamei, while also boasting many callbacks to the classic incarnation, this new 10-issue series will hopefully have a more sustained impact. With the first issue opening with a disturbed Levi haunted by some verdantly vivid dreams as he flies back from India to New York, the Swamp Thing himself is initially a remote, confused presence. He’s then taken out of his usual element of the Louisiana bayou; something is amiss in…1 min
SFX|July 2021V FOR VENDETTA: BEHIND THE MASK⏵ DURATION Open until 31 October ⏵ Venue The Cartoon Museum, London EXHIBITION In this time of face coverings, perhaps it’s apt that the Cartoon Museum should reopen with an exhibition devoted to one of British comics’ most infamous masked avengers. Beginning by presenting a couple of pages of its Marvel UK forerunner Night Raven, Behind The Mask charts the evolution of V For Vendetta, from its initial serialisation in Warrior magazine in the early ’80s to its more recent cultural impact, with V’s trademark Guy Fawkes mask having been adopted by protest organisations like Anonymous. “The balance is tipped firmly back in David Lloyd’s favour” Like Watchmen, V For Vendetta is often erroneously credited as solely Alan Moore’s masterwork, but the balance here is tipped firmly back in David…1 min
SFX|July 2021Captain’s LogWould you jump into the future to fight a war to save a world you might not live to see? Many might argue that we’re living in a society that wouldn’t even help this timeline, let alone another. But The Tomorrow War did give me a lot to think about – not least because it was a rare occasion where I was seeing something new (albeit with some familiar sci-fi and horror nods) that I genuinely felt could open up to future adventures and other strange new worlds. It was an unexpected moment of freshness after a lot of repetition. Don’t get me wrong, I love being spoilt for choice – even if it means we struggle to get a lot of that into a magazine every month – but,…1 min
SFX|July 2021Break Of SpawnDEBUTING IN MAY 1992, Spawn has become the longest running creator-owned comic book, amassing 319 issues over the past three decades. But while fellow Image founders like Rob Liefeld expanded their lines to include several interlinked series, Todd McFarlane’s demonic offspring has mostly stood alone. That’s now set to change with the launch of Spawn’s Universe, which begins later this month with a one-shot special scripted by McFarlane and featuring the art of Jimmy Cheung, Brett Booth, Stephen Segovia and Marcio Takara, on Spawn, Gunslinger Spawn, Medieval Spawn and She-Spawn respectively. “I should have done it years ago!” laughs McFarlane. “When we began Image in 1992, there was chatter about doing it anyway, but we never formalised anything and I ended up staying on my own book, as I didn’t…4 min
SFX|July 2021House WinsTHEY SAY “WRITE WHAT YOU know.” For George Olson, former advertising guy-turned-screenwriter, that meant when he was looking for inspiration for what is now his upcoming supernatural drama SurrealEstate, all he had to do was think back to a former estate agent client. “He told me once about this listing that he had: this big, older house, built in the ’20s. It was a great house, and they were sure that it was really going to sell fast. But the homeowner told him that there was a hitch. Whoever buys the house, they’re also buying ‘Sad Sally,’” Olson dramatically relays to Red Alert. “I asked, ‘Who is Sad Sally?’ And he said that’s the name his daughter came up with for the woman in the old-fashioned nightgown, who sits at…4 min
SFX|July 2021NEIL SHARPSONTell us about your protagonist Nikolai South is an agent of the State Security Agency of a one-party state where AI has been outlawed. Assigned to escort a visiting AI dignitary, he’s shocked to discover her cloned body is identical to his wife, who died 30 years ago. As “Lily” overthrows his prejudices about AI, South’s given one last chance to do right by the woman he let down. What was the initial spark? The 2011 film of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I wanted to write something with that atmosphere. Did you have to do much research? A bit. One technology used in the book is “contran”: digitising human minds and uploading them. I went on a few AI forums to get a feel for how plausible that would be.…1 min
SFX|July 2021BILLIE HAYES 1924–2021For Billie Hayes, the cackling scene-stealer of HR Pufnstuf, there was no higher praise: Margaret Hamilton, The Wizard Of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West, considered her “one of the best witches ever”. Born Billie Armstrong Brosch in Du Quoin, Illinois, Hayes began her career at the age of nine, tap-dancing in local clubs. She went on to make her Broadway debut in the revue New Faces Of 1956. It was kids’ TV that delivered her signature role of Wilhelmina W Witchiepoo, the sky-riding hag forever scheming to seize the magical Freddy the Flute. Created by Sid and Marty Krofft in 1969, HR Pufnstuf was the perfect showcase for Hayes, a delirious mix of vaudeville and psychedelia that let her play as broadly as she liked. Of her first meeting…2 min
SFX|July 2021TOMORROW NEVER DIESWHAT DO THEY WANT?” ZACH Dean, writer of The Tomorrow War, considers of the film’s alien threat. “They want to live, just like we want to live. But we’re the means to that end. It’s that simple.” Yes, the world is under attack again – but this time our best hope for the future lies in the past. Time travellers from 2051 arrive to warn the present day that, 30 years from now, the planet is all but lost to an alien species they’ve called the White Spikes. An original sci-fi action movie, something director Chris McKay calls “increasingly rare”, it began life as Ghost Draft, with the film originally scheduled for a Christmas Day release in 2020. There was talk of a summer release, but Amazon – seeing a…8 min
SFX|July 2021LOKI HEROONCE UPON A TIME, long before Thanos started fingersnapping people out of existence, there was a widely held belief that the Marvel Cinematic Universe wasn’t as good at creating memorable villains as the Distinguished Competition at DC. There was, however, an exception – a born trickster with a habit of stealing every scene he was in… From his first appearance in Thor in 2011, the god of thunder’s adoptive brother, Loki, quickly became one of the stand-out characters of the MCU. He was even brought back to play chief antagonist in Avengers Assemble. “Like so many people, I’ve just loved Loki across the whole MCU,” says Kate Herron, the director of Disney+’s hotly anticipated Loki TV show. “I mean, I love villains – when they’re done right, they’re the most…10 min
SFX|July 2021OH, THOSE RUSSIANS!FLORENCE PUGH AS YELENA BELOVA “I’d wanted to work with Florence since I saw [2016 film] Lady Macbeth. When I did my interview at Disney, Kevin [Feige] asked me who I was inspired by, and she was the first person: I said she’d be great to have in this movie, and we hadn’t read the script yet. I just thought, ‘What an interesting person she is’. There’s a sense of reality to her in any part.” DAVID HARBOUR AS ALEXEI SHOSTAKOV/RED GUARDIAN “David Harbour is just fantastic! He’s really hardworking, and he does a lot of research, so he was fantastic to work with. He’s just a great, great actor. I loved working with him.” RACHEL WEISZ AS MELINA VOSTOKOFF “Rachel Weisz and I had been talking and emailing each…1 min
SFX|July 2021JOSHING AROUNDHad you heard of Fear Street before making the films? I hadn’t, but I knew about RL Stine because I knew about the Goosebumps books. When I was younger I remember seeing them in school. When we had book day, I would always try to get Goosebumps because they looked the coolest. What can you tell us about your character? Josh is a lovable guy; he’s kind of a loner but he’s always trying to fight for something bigger than him. Living in Shadyside, there’s stories of this witch who cursed the town. Everybody believes it’s a scare tactic, but Josh really believes that there might be a curse on Shadyside. He and a bunch of other people on chat blogs try to find out if it’s real or not.…1 min
SFX|July 2021DOWN WITH DPP“The Witch Who Came From The Sea is one that I adore – I think that’s actually an incredibly sophisticated piece of filmmaking. It was [on the DPP list] because of the sex scenes, I presume. There might be quite a few references to balls being chopped off, that’s probably what upset them. I love Basket Case, It’s just so much fun. That wasn’t ever really on the list, but it was kind of flirted with [some police forces seized copies]. It’s such a typical answer, but I think The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is one of the best horror films ever, because it’s just pure dread. I love The Beyond as well. When I first watched that and saw the ending I was like, “Wow, it’s taken me to…1 min
SFX|July 2021CLASH OF THE CENSORSThe Harryhausen brand hardly reeks of sex and violence, but Clash Of The Titans proved he was willing to test some big-screen boundaries. In September 1978 Andor Films Limited submitted the screenplay for approval by the British Board of Film Classification. “We make our pictures for world audiences and have always been able to secure a general audience certificate,” they wrote in an accompanying letter. James Ferman of the BBFC replied on 2 October, saying, “As the script stands, I cannot see that the film will receive a U certificate, and in fact certain scenes would appear to be unacceptable for the A category [the equivalent of today’s PG], although of course treatment is all important in this type of film.” Ferman’s objections included shots of a burning man, the…1 min
SFX|July 2021A QUIET PLACE PART II⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! 15 | 97 minutes ⏵ Director John Krasinski ⏵ Cast Emily Blunt, Millicent SimmonsNoah Jupe, Cillian Murphy, John Krasinski, Djimon Hounsou It’s impossible to talk aboutA Quiet Place Part II without acknowledging the fact that its release plans have essentially been bookends for the pandemic. Receiving its New York premiere in March 2020, the movie finally hit US cinemas on 28 May 2021, just as the world began to open up again. It’s entirely fitting for a post-apocalyptic movie peppered with the hope that perhaps life could be good again. There’s also a good reason why Paramount held it back for a year rather than opting to push the movie out on streaming channels. It’s built for the cinema – and takes a louder, more action-packed…4 min
SFX|July 2021IN THE EARTH⏵ RELEASED 18 JUNE 15 | 107 minutes ⏵ Director Ben Wheatley ⏵ Cast Joel Fry, Ellora Torchia, Hayley Squires, Reece Shearsmith Show of hands: who’s up for another horror set in the woods? We understand the lack of enthusiasm. Thanks to their ready availability they’ve become a go-to location for low-budget filmmakers (read: mostly bad movies). But when Ben Wheatley goes down to the woods, you’re sure of a good surprise. Joel Fry is Martin, who treks 15 miles into the forest with ranger Alma (Ellora Torchia) to find an old colleague, Dr Wendle (Hayley Squires). Once he finally does, he learns that her researches into crop growth have veered onto a peculiar new path: communicating with nature via lights and sounds. By tapping into the real-life science of…2 min
SFX|July 2021FREAKY⏵ RELEASED 25 JUNE 15 | 102 minutes ⏵ Director Christopher Landon ⏵ Cast Vince Vaughn, Kathryn Newton, Katie Finneran, Celeste O’Connor If the people in charge of ’80s horror franchises have any sense, they’ll offer suitcases full of cash to Christopher Landon. After Happy Death Day (and its sequel) he smashes it out of the park again here, with another ingenious horror-comedy with a very contemporary heroine. The pitch: Freaky Friday meets Friday The 13th. Attacked by the Blissfield Butcher (Vince Vaughn), a ’90s serial killer come out of retirement, bullied teen Millie (Kathryn Newton) is stabbed with an ancient knife, causing her to swap bodies with the Butcher. She has until midnight to stab him and switch back. It’s a brilliantly simple premise, one all concerned attack with…1 min
SFX|July 2021JUMBO⏵ RELEASED 9 JULY TBC | 93 minutes ⏵ Director Zoé Wittock ⏵ Cast Noémie Merlant, Emmanuelle Bercot, Bastien Bouillon, Sam Louwyck How far does your ability not to kink-shame a friend stretch? Probably not enough for you to wish them all the best in their new relationship with an amusem*nt park ride… In this offbeat Franco-Belgian co-production, young park worker Jeanne (Noémie Merlan) becomes convinced she has a special connection with a “Move-It” ride she nicknames Jumbo. From what we’re shown, it seems she’s right: Jumbo flashes coloured lights in response to her questions, and emits faintly whale-like groans. But is it all real or delusion? Writer/director Zoé Wittock does a first-rate job of imbuing this inanimate object with life; all lit up during their night-time encounters, whirling about…1 min
SFX|July 2021COMING SOON9 JULY BLACK WIDOW The much-delayed MCU movie will be simultaneously available to stream on Disney+ via Premier Access. OCCUPATION: RAINFALL This Aussie tale of a human fightback against alien invaders is playing in selected cinemas and available for download the same day. 16 JULY THE CROODS 2: A NEW AGE The caveman family must contend with Punch Monkeys and Wolf-Spiders in this animated sequel. ESCAPE ROOM: TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS Escape your room to watch the sequel to the 2019 horror! THE FOREVER PURGE A Mexican couple fleeing a drug cartel find Texas isn’t exactly safe either in the franchise’s fifth entry. SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY Basketball star LeBron James teams up with Bugs Bunny in this (very) belated sequel. 23 JULY HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA: TRANSFORMANIA Van Helsing’s Monsterfication Ray…1 min
SFX|July 2021THE UNDERGROUND RAILROADUK/US Prime, streaming now ⏵ Showrunner Barry Jenkins ⏵ Cast Thuso Mbedu, Aaron Pierre, Joel Edgerton, Chase Dillon EPISODES 1.01-1.10 A 2016 novel by Colston Whitehead is the subject of this adaptation by Moonlight director Barry Jenkins. The SF elements are minimal – more a glossing of magical realism, really – but don’t let that put you off one of the TV events of the year. Cora (Thuso Mbedu) and Caesar (Aaron Pierre) are slaves on the brutal Randall plantation in Georgia. They make a desperate break for freedom, but when Cora kills one of their captors, the EPISODES 1.01-1.10 Marvel’s Z-listers assemble in this amiably hit and miss stop-motion/CG animation hybrid, which – with a few more naughty words – could sit comfortably on Adult Swim. Sure, Iron Man…2 min
SFX|July 2021EDEN Season OneUK/US Netflix, streaming now ⏵ Creator Justin Leach ⏵ Cast Ruby Rose Turner, David Tennant, Rosario Dawson, Neil Patrick Harris EPISODES 1.01-1.04 This anime (the first to be produced directly by Netflix) is presented as a miniseries, but given that it’s just 100 minutes long, it’s just as easy to watch it as a movie. A CGI series that tries its best to look like a hand-drawn cartoon (only 5% of shots take advantage of the 3D camera; the rest are either fixed or panning shots), it’s set on a future Earth inhabited by robots, where humans vanished long ago. Then two droids find a baby in a capsule. They raise it as protective parents, but the girl must eventually uncover the mysteries of the world. The series strives for…1 min
SFX|July 2021THE HANDS OF ORLACEXTRAS ⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1924 | PG | Blu-ray ⏵ Director Robert Wiene ⏵ Cast Conrad Veidt, Alexandra Sorina, Fritz Kortner, Carmen Cartellieri BLU-RAY DEBUT This first of four features based on Maurice Renard’s 1920 novel was directed by The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari’s Robert Wiene. It steers far closer to realism than that expressionist masterpiece, but is still pretty out there, unfolding within cavernous yet strangely sparse sets, and bristling with neurotic anxiety. Conrad Veidt is Orlac, a pianist whose hands are injured in a train collision, then receives a note saying he’s had a murderer’s hands transplanted. Soon he’s compulsively practising stabbing motions… The acting style takes some getting used to: expect much thyroid-eyed glaring and somnambulist staggering. And you may want to mute the discordant cat-on-a-piano…1 min
SFX|July 2021THE AMUsem*nT PARK⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1973 | TBC | SVOD ⏵ Director George Romero ⏵ Cast Lincoln Maazel SHUDDER A never-before-seen George Romero film from the ’70s, released for the first time? Don’t get too excited. Firstly, this is not a full feature, running for just 52 minutes. Secondly, it was a commercial commission for Romero – who, as fans will know, began his career making industrial films. The patrons: the Lutheran Service Society. The brief: to make an educational piece about the pitfalls of ageing, and thereby encourage volunteering with the elderly. Romero took a metaphorical, fantasy-tinged approach. His short sees a white-suited elderly gent visiting an amusem*nt park, becoming increasingly dishevelled and distressed as he’s variously patronised, ignored and menaced. It’s largely populated by volunteers – there’s fun to…1 min
SFX|July 2021CAVEAT⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2021 | TBC | SVOD ⏵ Director Damian McCarthy ⏵ Cast Jonathan French, Leila Sykes, Ben Caplan SHUDDER “Always ask to see the small print before accepting a job offer” is the main takeaway from this Irish horror, which at times plays like a seriously messed-up reality show task. Jonathan French plays Isaac, who accepts £200 a day to babysit a man’s niece, in a run-down house on an island. Psychologically disturbed, she spends much of her time sitting, near-catatonic, in a “see no evil” pose. The catch: as she fears being attacked at night, he must be padlocked into a harness on a long chain… The film operates very much on dream logic. There are various unexplained occurrences: a sinister painting which keeps turning itself…1 min
SFX|July 2021PARALLELEXTRAS ⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2020 | 15 | DVD/download Here’s a hook that feels as much fairy tale as SF: a secret attic conceals a gateway to parallel worlds. This quantum portal – or magic mirror – empowers a bunch of co*cky young tech-heads to try and game reality, with the inevitable moral reckoning. There’s admirable energy and ingenuity, but the story pinballs between too many ideas, from the Mandela Effect to pan-dimensional kidnapping. Ironic that a movie about the multiverse should be undone by an overload of possibilities. Extras None.…1 min
SFX|July 2021(ROUND UP)In troubled YA adap CHAOS WALKING (4K/Blu-ray/DVD/download, out now) Tom Holland’s lad lives on a world without women, where the blokes have a condition that makes thoughts visible – not a safe place for Daisy Ridley’s lass to crash-land. We said: “Blandly efficient… Holland and Ridley are watchable leads, and it has things to say about the links between misogyny, religion and brutality.” Doug Liman’s commentary is candid about the problems created by going into production without a locked script. You also get 45 minutes of deleted/alternative scenes and five featurettes (49 minutes – the 4K adds a sixth). You don’t need us to tell you if the Indy movies are good, do you? Okay: definitely, mostly, yes, nope. INDIANA JONES 4-MOVIE COLLECTION (4K/download, out now) has no new bonuses…1 min
SFX|July 2021THE WOLF AND THE WOODSMAN⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! 432 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ⏵ Author Ava Reid ⏵ Publisher Del Rey The idea that fairy tales aren’t all sweetness and light won’t be a revelation to anyone reading this. Still, when we say this debut is red in tooth and claw, rest assured: we mean it. As the only woman in her village without magic, and the daughter of a dead mother and a long-vanished Yehuli stranger, Évike is an outsider. When the dreaded Woodsmen turn up to seize a girl for the king’s service, Évike isn’t surprised to be handed over, a sacrifice to save someone more worthwhile. But on the journey to the capital, things get violent, complicated and romantic. The unstable kingdom of Régország – all taiga forest, ethnic tension and monsters…1 min
SFX|July 2021ARMY OF THE DEAD THE MAKING OF THE FILM⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! 192 pages | Hardback ⏵ Author Peter Aperlo ⏵ Publisher Titan Books This coffee table-friendly glimpse behind the scenes on Zack Snyder’s Las Vegas-based zombie flick is a game of two halves. For the opening 99 pages, it’s something of a slog. Interviews with actors where they explain their characters are all well and good before you’ve seen a film, but feel redundant afterwards, and the first half is crammed with them. At page 100 it finally starts to get interesting, as the book explores the zombies, before moving on to detail particular sequences and sets. There’s some glorious concept art here, especially when it comes to “Alpha zombie” leader Zeus, his Queen and his undead horse. There’s also a smattering of interesting insights. For example:…1 min
SFX|July 2021THE COWARD⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! 412 pages | Paperback/audiobook ⏵ Author Stephen Aryan ⏵ Publisher Angry Robot Books The most popular stories in the fantasy oeuvre are quests. The Coward follows this trope, from sleepy Honaje homesteads to the Ice Lich’s fortress. World-weary champion Kell Kressia, however, is unlike your Bilbo or Frodo: he’s a celebrity, having endured this journey before, 10 years ago, and he knows what happens to fellowships up north. There’s little to subvert the genre here. There’s a dark threat, intrigue between Church and Crown to keep Game Of Thrones fans grinning, assassins lurking in taverns, campfires, giant wolves… you get the idea. The prose feels functional rather than lyrical; it has a wonderful pace but rarely edifies. Yet as expedition narratives go, it’s magnificent. The familiarity…1 min
SFX|July 2021THIS FRAGILE EARTH⏵ RELEASED 24 JUNE 368 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ⏵ Author Susannah Wise ⏵ Publisher Gollancz Part John Wyndham-esque cosy post-apocalypse, part Greta Thunberg sermon, part WALL-E, This Fragile Earth could easily be dismissed as some overly idealised, new age hippy nonsense – a Silent Running for the AI age. That is, if you concentrate purely on the plot – because this is one of those rare SF novels where style wins out over substance. So, at the risk of doing the book an injustice, here’s the plot. A family is forced to evacuate a near-future London when technology fails. Utility robots and swarms of AI bees start behaving with their own agenda. Soon, the family begin to suspect that a recent upgrade to the unifying software that controls their world…1 min
SFX|July 2021Joanne HarrisWhat is your daily writing routine like? It varies: the past year has brought different habits, but usually I get up early, have a run, have breakfast and work in my shed until mid-afternoon, after which I’m usually done for the day, and I can enjoy doing something else. Describe the room in which you typically write. It’s a stone-built shed in my garden. It started off as quite a monastic interior, but since then it has become a home for all my favourite things: the figures Wendy Froud made of my GospelOf Loki characters; my signed Ray Bradbury posters; various interesting things I’ve collected on my travels. “Many authors are paid less than the minimum wage” Do you find it helpful to listen to music while writing? I don’t…2 min
SFX|July 2021PROCTOR VALLEY ROAD⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! ⏵ Publisher BOOM! Studios ⏵ Writers Alex Child, Grant Morrison ⏵ Artist Naomi Franquiz ISSUES 1-3 Based on a real-life road near San Diego that’s known for its “ghostly” happenings, this ongoing series explores familiar spooky territory that’s been welltrodden by the likes of Stranger Things and Stephen King. It’s neatly described by co-writer Grant Morrison as “Nancy Drew on shrooms”. He and Alex Child infuse a tale of four teenage girls who become embroiled in the mysterious disappearance of a group of schoolboys with plenty of energy and intrigue, chucking in feral canines, a Minotauresque monster and a sinister spectre called the Landlady. It’s set in the early ’70s, and the period is atmospherically evoked; there are references to Janis Joplin songs, while the divisive…1 min
SFX|July 2021FIREFLY: BRAND NEW ’VERSE⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! ⏵ Publisher BOOM! Studios ⏵ Writer Josh Lee Gordon ⏵ Artist Fabiana Mascolo ISSUES 1-3 The more things change, the more they stay the same… This ongoing series is set some 20 years after the events of the Serenity movie, but the plot is very much business as usual. Zoe is now captain of the Serenity, running with a new crew that includes her daughter Emma. When a job puts them in possession of a strange cargo – a young woman with ties to ancient Earth-That-Was – they’re forced on the run once more, with the Blue Sun Corporation in hot pursuit. While it’s a bold choice to leap forward so far into the future, the results are mixed. The series is consciously riffing on past…1 min
SFX|July 2021WARHAMMER AGE OF SIGMAR: STORM GROUND⏵ RELEASED OUT NOW! ⏵ Reviewed on PlayStation 4 ⏵ Also on PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One ⏵ Publisher Focus Home Interactive VIDEOGAME While StormGround is certainly a turn-based strategy game, it has more in common with XCOM than the likes of Civilization VI: the focus is on combat rather than empire-building. You’ve got a limited number of units, but all of them come with customisable equipment, which gives them new abilities, along with a host of passive abilities. The campaigns are endlessly repeatable, lasting about an hour, and are filled with wonderfully cheesy B-movie voice acting. There are three different factions to choose from, too, and also multiplayer. You’re going to die a lot, because the game is as hard as a Stormcast’s oversized shoulder plates. Thankfully, you’ll earn…1 min
SFX|July 2021RAY HARRYHAUSENQUESTION 1 Name the menacing bronze giant of Greek legend which appears in Jason And The Argonauts. QUESTION 2 The unmade fourth Sinbad movie was Sinbad… a) And The Forty Thieves b) And The Arabian Knights c) Goes To Mars. QUESTION 3 Which special effects legend, best known for King Kong, was Harryhausen’s mentor? QUESTION 4 Picture Question Name this monstrous alien visitor, pictured running amok in Italy. QUESTION 5 What connects Sinbad And The Eye Of The Tiger with the films Stagecoach and The Searchers? QUESTION 6 Who were the “children of the Hydra’s teeth” in Jason And The Argonauts? QUESTION 7 The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms was based on a short story by which SF author? QUESTION 8 Picture Question Name this simian star, who Harryhausen worked on…2 min
SFX|July 2021IN THE NEXT SFXWE HAVE THE POWER!PLUS! THE SUICIDE SQUAD James Gunn takes on the DC Universe – will anyone be left standing at the end? JUNGLE CRUISE The boat may have stalled for a while, but it just adds to the theme park movie experience WAR OF THE WORLDS The reimagined FX version of HG Wells’s sci-fi classic returns for take two SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY The toons are back in town as LeBron James gets in on the Looney Tunes action SFX 342 ON SALE 14 JULY Sign up to our monthly newsletter to receive a sneak preview! bit.ly/SFXnewsletter ALL CONTENTS ARE LIABLE TO CHANGE, LIKE THE TONES ON A COSMIC KEY…1 min
