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Home , 3 From Hell, Alan Ritchson, Angel Interceptor, Anna Diop, Ash Williams, Brenton Thwaites

JODIE WHITTAKER EXCLUSIVE

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DAREDEVIL SEASON 3 On set with Over 30 pages the Man of pure terror! Without Fear featuring EXCLUSIVE! and SUSPIRIA CHILLING on the ADVENTURES OF SABRINA return of Michael Myers THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE OVERLORD SLAUGHTERHOUSE RULEZ AND LOADS MORE SCARES!

ISSUE 306 NOVEMBER Contents2018 34 56 61 68 HALLOWEEN CHILLING DRACUL DOCTOR WHO Jamie Lee Curtis and John ADVENTURES ’s great-grandson We speak to the new Time Lord Carpenter tell us about new OF SABRINA unearths the iconic vamp for Jodie Whittaker about series 11 Michael Myers sightings in Remember Melissa Joan Hart another toothsome tale. and her Heroes & Inspirations. Haddonfield. That place really playing the teenage witch on CITV needs a Neighbourhood Watch. in the ’90s? Well this version is And a can of pepper spray. nothing like that. 62 74 OVERLORD TADE THOMPSON A WW2 horror from the The award-winning Rosewater 48 56 JJ Abrams stable and ’s not a author tells us all about his THE HAUNTING OF Cloverfield movie? Nigeria-set novel. HILL HOUSE Shirley Jackson’s horror classic gets a new Netflix treatment. 66 76 Who knows, it might just be better PENNY DREADFUL DAREDEVIL than the 1999 Liam Neeson/ SFX’s horror columnist peers into If you’re new to the Netflix Catherine Zeta-Jones movie. her crystal ball to pick out the superhero shows, this third season Fingers crossed! hottest upcoming scares. is probably a bad place to start.

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Save money, get the SUBSCRIBE mag delivered to Check out your door – and get page 26 for yourself a free t-shirt TO SFX! more details from zavvi.com! RED ALERT 9 THE FIRST A trip to Mars a day helps you work, rest and play. We think that’s the gist of Sean Penn’s new space-bound show. 12 Imagine a Robin who swears and shoots perps in the head – that’s 12 this DC TV series. 9 22 EARTHSEA We’ve never been to Ursula K Le Guin’s land – but these new illustrations make us wish we had. REGULARS 24 DEVELOPMENT 28 FIRST CONTACT HELL The bit of the mag that’s written Loads more wannabe movies by you! So don’t come crying to us dreaming of a good home on if you don’t like it. your cinema screen. 30 FREESPEAK It’s aliiiiive! Author JD Fennell celebrates the enduring appeal of REVIEWS the mad scientist. 32 BOOK CLUB 86 THE PREDATOR Have you read Roger Zelazny’s The galaxy’s greatest killer is back, The Chronicles Of Amber? Claire 68 now with added definite article. North has – and she’s written all about it. 90 As our TV verdicts move into 113 BLASTERMIND Reviews, we check out the new Test your knowledge of trees in Netflix series from ’s sci-fi and fantasy. Yes, trees. next director. 114 TOTAL RECALL 94 HEREDITARY Our Ian pays tribute to the late A brilliant family film – in that it’s Jacqueline Pearce and her brilliant and about a family. We legendary Servalan. don’t recommend showing it to the kids – that would be bad. 102 THIN AIR 102 Altered Carbon writer Richard Morgan is back with another slice of hard-boiled sci-fi. 76 108 CATWOMAN Is her latest comic book purr-fect, claw-ful or just plain mew-diocre?

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 5

Issue 306 | November 2018 Future PLC Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA

Editorial Editor Richard Edwards (RE) [email protected] The Ed Zone Art Editor Jonathan Coates (JC) [email protected] Production Editor Kimberley Ballard (KB) [email protected] Features Editor zick ³etchˡeld (NS) nick.setchˡ[email protected] Reviews Editor Ian Berriman (IB) [email protected] US Editor Tara Bennett (TB)

Contributors Sam Ashurst (SA), Louise Blain (LB), Simon Bland (SBl), Saxon Bullock (SBu), Bryan Cairns (BC), Paul Cemmick (PC), Nick Chen (NC), Ian Dean (ID), Penny Dreadful (PD), Rhian Drinkwater (RD), Rosie Fletcher (RF), Dave Golder (DG), Stephen Jewell (SJ), Stephen Kelly (SK), Paul Kirkley (PK), Catherine Kirkpatrick (CK), Jess Kinghorn (JK), James Mottram (JM), Jayne Nelson (JN), Steve O’Brien (SO), Andrew Osmond (AO), Eddie Robson (ER), Bridie Roman (BR), Will Salmon (WS), Matthew Turner (MT), Calum Waddell (CW), David West (DW), Josh Winning (JWi), James White (JWh), Jonathan Wright (JWr), Steve Wright (SW)

Thanks to Matthias Fuchez, Emily Shimizu, Tim Struthers

Film Group, Group Editor-in-Chief Jane Crowther (JCr), Deputy Editor Matt Maytum (MM), Art Editor Mike Brennan (MB), Reviews Editor Matthew Leyland (ML), News Editor Jordan Farley (JF), Operations Editor Andrew Westbrook (AW), Entertainment Editor (GamesRadar+) Lauren O’Callaghan (LO)

Cover images Main image: Halloween © 2018 Doctor Who © 2018 BBC/BBC Studios; Slaughterhouse Rulez © 2018 CTMG; Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina © 2018 Diyah Pera/; Ash Vs © 2015 Matt Klitscher/ Entertainment, LLC

Photography Olly Curtis

All copyrights and trademarks are recognised and respected

Advertising Media packs are available on request Commercial Director Clare Dove [email protected] Advertising Manager Simon Rawle [email protected], 01225 687694 Account Manager Alex Choma [email protected], 01225 687463 International SFX is available for licensing. Contact the International department to discuss partnership opportunities: oo! That’s just the first scare in an issue of SFX International Licensing Director Matt Ellis [email protected] Subscriptions that’s packed with them. Email enquiries [email protected] UK orderline & enquiries 0344 848 2852 We’ve devoted more than 30 pages to horror Overseas order line and enquiries +44 (0)344 848 2852 Online orders & enquiries www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk this month, and it’s not just because Halloween Head of subscriptions Sharon Todd Circulation is just around the corner. The has never Head of Newstrade Tim Mathers Production Bfelt healthier, with IT and The Conjuring conquering Head of Production Mark Constance Production Project Manager Clare Scott the box office; A Quiet Place, Get Out and Hereditary Advertising Production Manager Jo Crosby Digital Editions Controller Jason Hudson keeping critics happy; and lots of talented filmmakers Production Manager Frances Twentyman The Senior Partners finding all-new cruel and unusual ways to frighten us. Chief Operations Ofˡcer Aaron Asadi Group Content Director Paul Newman We’ve got some genuine horror icons headlining Head of Art & Design Rodney Dive Commercial Finance Director Dan Jotcham the issue too, as we sent our very own Nick Setchfield Printed in the UK by William Gibbons & Sons on behalf of Future Distributed by Marketforce, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5HU to Haddonfield LA to chat with Jamie Lee Curtis and www.marketforce.co.uk Tel: 0203 787 9060 John Carpenter about their return to Halloween (p34). ISSN 1358-5959 “It’s like Abraham Lincoln doing theatre criticism.” We also speak to the showrunners behind new spooky We are committed to only using magazine paper which is derived from responsibly managed, certiˡed forestry and chlorine-free manufacture. The paper in this magazine was sourced and produced from Netflix shows The Haunting Of Hill House (p48) and sustainable managed forests, conforming to strict environmental and socioeconomic standards. The manufacturing paper mill holds full FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certiˡcation and accreditation. Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina (p56), brave World War All contents © 2018 Future Publishing Limited or published under licence. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used, stored, transmitted or reproduced in any way without the prior written permission of the publisher. Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885) is registered in II in the JJ Abrams-produced Overlord (p62), England and Wales. Registered ofˡce: Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All information contained in this publication is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. Future cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information. You are advised to and look ahead to the movies, shows and books that’ll contact manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to the price of products/services referred to in this publication. Apps and websites mentioned in this publication are not under our control. We are not responsible for their contents or any other changes or updates to them. This magazine is fully independent be giving you nightmares as the nights draw in. and not afˡliated in any way with the companies mentioned herein. If you submit material to us, you warrant that you own the material and/or have the necessary rights/ Doctor Who isn’t technically horror, but the show is permissions to supply the material and you automatically grant Future and its licensees a licence to publish your submission in whole or in part in any/all issues and/or editions of publications, in any format published worldwide and on associated websites, social media channels and associated products. Any material you more than capable of delivering scares – so as series 11 submit is sent at your own risk and, although every care is taken, neither Future nor its employees, agents, subcontractors or licensees shall be liable for loss or damage. We assume all unsolicited material is for publication unless otherwise stated, and reserve the right to edit, amend, adapt all submissions. kicks off this month, we speak exclusively with Jodie Whittaker about her Heroes & Inspirations (p68). Print: 15,090 Digital: 3,626 You may be relieved to hear that next month’s issue The ABC combined print, and digital circulation for Jan-Dec 2017 will be less scary, but it’ll still be crammed with the is 18,716 A member of the Audited Bureau Of Circulations most exciting sci-fi and fantasy. Why not subscribe to make sure you never miss an issue? Details on p26.

See me on page 47 Richard Edwards, Editor @RichDEdwards

Future plc is a public Chief executive Zillah Byng-Thorne company quoted on the Non-executive chairman Richard Huntingford London Stock Exchange Chief ˡnancial ofˡcer Penny Ladkin-Brand NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 7 (symbol: FUTR) www.futureplc.com Tel +44 (0)1225 442 244

NOVEMBER 2018 NEWS / / / / INTERVIEWS / / / / INSIGHT / / / / EARTHSEA edited by Richard Edwards

CREATOR EXCLUSIVE

MISSION TO MARS The creator of House Of Cards takes Sean Penn to the Red Planet in The First...

12 16 22 GRAYSON PUPPET BEGIN THE FAVOUR MASTERS LE GUIN Robin leads a We go on set for We take a look young gang of Firestorm, a new round Earthsea in a heroes in DC’s show from the new illustrated new supershow. Anderson stable. collection.

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 9 Nov 2018

Get sci-fi news and features at gamesradar.com/sfx SCIFACT! At one point Beau Willimon wanted to be a physicist. “I came to the realisation that my maths wasn’t strong enough,” he admits.

We’re so used to sci-fi shows set hundreds of years in the future, where faster-than-light travel, laser weapons and transporter beams are as everyday as going to the shops, that a space travel series based on contemporary tech feels like an anomaly. The First, however, is set just over a decade from now, and details humanity’s first mission to our nearest planetary neighbour, Mars, promising to make even the resolutely Solar System-based The Expanse look like a flight of wildest fantasy. “If you’re writing a story that’s taking place a hundred or a thousand years from now, you can make some pretty big leaps,” The First’s creator Beau Willimon tells Red Alert. “You can have phasers, you can have people moving at light speed, you can have people teleporting… The assumption is just, ‘Well, all of that was figured out before we get to that time in the future,’ and people will buy that. But if you’re looking at a story that’s 13 years from now, well, that world is going to look very similar to the world we currently live in, just as 2005 didn’t look all that different from the world we live in now.” In The First, a crew of five led by seasoned astronaut Tom Hagerty (Oscar-winner Sean Why do we have an insatiable, irrational desire to push ourselves to these limits?

Penn in his first TV mission) are the pioneers boldly going where no one has gone before. “I’ve always been fond of stories about people pushing themselves to their limits,” Sean Penn’s Tom Hagerty explains Willimon, who made his name with daughter denise exploring other varieties of extreme human (Anna Jacoby-Heron). ambition as the creator of Netflix’s political smash House Of Cards. “I love stories about someone climbing a mountain or rounding Cape Horn, or Shackleton trying to cross the Antarctic continent – not only are they gripping in and of themselves, they also beg questions of what it means to be human. Why do we have this insatiable, almost irrational desire to push ourselves to these limits and to venture into the unknown, rather than stay with what is known and safe?” While going to Mars would clearly be a feat of Apollo 11 proportions, Willimon believes the show is less about the technological accomplishment involved than the effect it has on the people involved – whether they’re astronauts or the CEO of Vista, the SpaceX-like organisation partnering with NASA to run the mission.

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Natascha McElhone “At the core of our story is the human story, plays Laz Ingram, the CEO the cost and sacrifice of trying to achieve of Vista. SOME WARE, something great,” Willimon explains. “We really do investigate how hard it is for flawed humans who must, like any human, deal with OUT THERE the demons of their past, and the particulars of Hannah Ware plays their personal relationships to achieve astronaut Sadie Hewitt something that’s extraordinary.” Willimon is keen to emphasise that beneath the cliché of the “right stuff”, real astronauts (the production team spoke to several, including Chris Hadfield – the man who became a star singing Bowie in space) are just people who happen to have the sort of job everyone else wants to talk about at parties. “I think what’s incredible about telling a story of astronauts is that they have aspects of their lives that are universal and recognisable that we would all be able to connect with,” says Willimon. “Whether they’re having trouble with their spouse, or dealing with conflicts with other crew members, these are all things that will be recognisable to the average person. When you take the ordinary and extraordinary and you constantly collide them against one another, it allows us to see ourselves as we are WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT YOUR – that’s a great recipe for drama.” , SADIE? But if all that sounds a bit too, well, human I haven’t become an astronaut in the most for anyone more interested in taking a good orthodox way. Most astronauts have a background in engineering or the military, look at some cool interplanetary hardware, but I’m strictly from a scientific background. have no fear – the production team were My main purpose on the crew would be to incredibly meticulous when it came to creating find life on Mars. I live with my husband, and their own vessels, to the point where NASA we’ve uprooted our lives so that I can pursue might come calling if a real-life manned Mars this dream. I’ve given up a lot to do this. mission ever gets off the ground. HOW DO YOU GO ABOUT PREPARING TO “When we’re talking to some of the NASA PLAY AN ASTRONAUT? engineers about designing our space vessel, I found the idea of playing an astronaut the we’re really getting into [the detail] of how most intimidating part. I didn’t know much about space travel, I’m embarrassed to say. many cubic metres of this type of fuel we’d I had massive preconceptions about what it need to cover 40 million miles meant to be an astronaut and what kind of during a transit window,” personality you must have. I couldn’t quite Willimon explains. “These are the humanise it, because I think I put them on exact sort of questions people will such a pedestal. So I really had to break that down. I watched footage, read biographies have to ask when we build the first and spoke to about three astronauts. Mars transit vehicle. Tech consultants said to us, ‘Look, in DIDN’T BEAU WILLIMON GIVE YOU A RESEARCH DOSSIER AS WELL? your own way, by being this He gave us a great, comprehensive reading specific on the design of your list and a massive YouTube channel. And vehicles, you’ll contribute to the once or twice he gave us science lessons as conversation when we actually well, which was quite funny. make this happen. We’ll be DID YOU LEARN ANYTHING INTERESTING? looking at some of the choices you I think what was really highlighted is the way have made and it’ll be a point of astronauts keep their cool in really sticky discussion.’ Obviously we don’t situations. And how you relate to people is have thousands of engineers far more important than I gave it credit for. working around the clock and If you’re going to be on a small spaceship with four people, you better get on with billions of dollars to spend. But in them and have the sort of personality that conceptualising this stuff, we’re doesn’t rub people up the wrong way. having the same conversations The ol’ Venus that people will be having in the DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU COULD BE AN ASTRONAUT FOR REAL? or Mars gag very near future when we tackle this No, I absolutely wouldn’t have what it takes. didn’t go pioneering milestone.” RE down well. I don’t have the right personality to be on a ship with four people. I’d irritate the fuck out

The First starts on in October. GETTY (1) of everyone, and they’d irritate me! RE

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 11 Nov 2018 Red Alert Subscribe at myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/sfx SCIFACT! A self-professed fan of the ’80s New , reimagined the team in the 2003 Teen Titans comic book.

WRITER INTERVIEW REMEMBER THE TITANS The ’s youth wing gets its own TV show in DC’s Titans

“Fuck Batman.” If you saw the trailer for the upcoming Titans TV series, you’ll know Robin drops the F-bomb while dispatching a squad of goons. Set to launch this month on the newly launched DC Universe, DC’s very own streaming service, this grittier, live-action incarnation of the team clearly decimates the whimsical nature of the animated Teen Titans Go! series. Titans sees Robin/Dick Grayson (Brenton Thwaites), Raven/Rachel Roth (Teagan Croft), Starfire/Koriand’r (Anna Diop) and Beast Boy/ Gar Logan (Ryan Potter) assembling to defeat a growing evil that threatens not only one of their own, but the entire world. “With the first season being all about Rachel, the series already leans into the horror element, and darkness and inner darkness; Rachel dealing with a literal darkness and Dick dealing with a literal darkness that’s been cultivated during his time with Batman,” says DC Entertainment chief creative officer Geoff Johns, who also acts as writer and executive producer on the show. “People, in time, come to understand the context of that line and the reason behind that line. There’s a story there definitely worth telling. Right away, you go, ‘Why would he ever have this attitude?’ “This is a period of darkness for all of these characters,” he continues. “Every one of them is lost. Every one of these characters is struggling to find out who they are. They will only be able to do that with one another’s help. Picking up Robin when he’s in a real dark place, when he’s left Batman, gave us a story we really wanted to tell in conjunction with Rachel’s story.” Alan Ritchson and Titans’ debut taps into Marv Wolfman and Minka Kelly as George Perez’s classic ’80s comic book run. .

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Each episode introduces another hero as the group comes together. Hawk (Alan Ritchson) CREATOR EXCLUSIVE and Dove (Minka Kelly) enter the picture fairly quickly. Donna Troy (Conor Leslie) joins later on. These flawed individuals are anything but a well-oiled machine in the beginning. “They aren’t a team at all when we meet AERIAL NEW SHADES them,” says Johns. “We are meeting Dick Grayson after he’s ASSAULT VE Schwab on left and SCI-FI TV tried to leave Robin ROUND UP her Shades Of Magic behind, for reasons we’ll find out in the Marvel prequel comic series. We meet reportedly looking to bring MCU Rachel when she’s characters like VE Schwab is showing us a new starting to discover Loki and side to the parallel of her her abilities more Witch to TV in Shades Of Magic novels. Not only To become a limited series on and more. Disney’s new does The Steel come in comic book Titan, you must Eventually, we’ll streaming service. form, it’s a prequel story detailing the early have cool hair. meet Kory AMC’s plans to years of future king Maxim Maresh. get the most out (Starfire) and Gar of The Walking “Maxim’s definitely an antagonist for a in their situations. Dead include spin- large part of the series but I knew he had a But they are very off series and backstory,” Schwab tells Red Alert. “I separate when we maybe movies. didn’t entirely know what it was – I knew Get Out director first meet them. Jordan Peele to he had a life before he was king and that it Their relationships host his Twilight would change our evolve and change Zone reboot. relationship to him – but New Jean-Luc over the course of Picard-led Star it was something that Brenton Thwaites’s the season. Trek spin-off to could not be conveyed be set in 2399 Conjuring Of Light Dick Grayson has an “Expect both the in expected and the – two decades when we learned about attitude problem. after . unexpected,” ’s it, because there were Johns adds. “One to join too many other things of the things that Westworld’s third that needed to happen.” season in as-yet Batman line did so unconfirmed role. While Schwab admits well was make you Henry Cavill to book readers don’t sit up and go, ‘Wait. take lead in need to catch up Netflix’s The What is this?’ in a Witcher series. with the comics positive and Avatar: The – “though I think negative way. It Last Airbender it only adds to the wasn’t what people getting live-action experience of the Teagan Croft reboot on Netflix expected. They’re – with the original books,” she says plays the young going to be writers on board. – they do offer empath Raven. surprised how that Gotham’s the chance to Crystal Reed to plays out. I love the play Dr Abby take a deeper Titans. We really wanted to create a series that Arcane in Swamp look at her captured the spirit of it, but do it in our way, Thing show. richly imagined Lost’s Jeremy too, like Marv and George did. And also Davis to play world and its celebrate the characters for who they are. It’s Arkham doctor characters. true to the lore in many, many ways, but we do in this year’s “The way I see have some twists and turns that we’ve taken so crossover. it, one of the coolest parts of my job is that that it’s going to surprise people. Hopefully, in Second series I get fan art, this beautiful experience a way that really engages them.” BC of His Dark where somebody has taken something Materials ordered, you’ve written and interpreted it through a even though the Titans debuts on DC Universe in the US on 12 first is still in different medium,” she says. “Comics are

October. UK broadcast is TBC. GETTY (1) production. like commissioned fan art. Every time I get to see a new page that Andrea [Olimpieri, artist] and Enrica [Angiolini, colourist] have done, it’s like I fangirl all over again. DON’T QUOTE ME It’s really cool and collaborative and honestly, I couldn’t ask for a more “A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE TO SIGN wonderful process.” RE OFF ON THAT, OBVIOUSLY. NOT JUST THE INTERNET.” The Steel Prince is out now from Titan. Jon Hamm isn’t counting on playing Batman...

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 13 Nov 2018 Red Alert Get sci-fi news and features at gamesradar.com/sfx SCIFACT! Mirai was the first Japanese to receive its world premiere at the Cannes film festival.

5 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT... MIRAI Japanese animators Studio Chizu take us back to our childhood …

PARENTHOOD WAS THE DIRECTOR’S KIDS THE INSPIRATION WERE RELUCTANT After crafting the ambitious animated MODELS 1 fantasies Wolf Children and The Boy And When it came to The Beast, director Mamoru Hosada looked 4 animating Mirai and Kun, closer to home for his latest film, Mirai. The Hosada brought his own kids in “impetus”, he says, was when his wife gave for the animators to use as live birth to their second child, a girl. “I have an models. footage was shot and older boy who was jealous of the newborn, and studied, but there’s nothing like the real what happens in the film exactly is what thing. “The animators, they’d want the happened to us.” Well, almost. Unsettled by his children to run or go up and down the stairs, new sister Mirai, the four-year-old Kun starts but children are children… they won’t listen to to get crazy hallucinations – like a toddler’s requests. All of my animators would have a version of A Christmas Carol as past, present sketch book and would be waiting for the and future family members come to visit. moment for them to move and, of course, the children don’t move.” No amount of coaxing would encourage them. “They’re like, ‘No, we think there’s something wrong. We’re not IMAGINATION going to move!’” CAN BE CRAZY When Kun 2 starts getting these visitations, Hosada doesn’t hold back. GHIBLI WAS AN INSPIRATION ’s pet dachshund Yukko gets In the world of Japanese reimagined as a human prince – complete with 5 animation, it remains fluffy tail and a penchant for playing fetch. “I impossible to escape the think the vitality that children have is very influence of Studio Ghibli and similar to that of animals’ vitality,” says Hosada, the work of directors Hayao who adds that he was inspired by the limitless Miyazaki (Spirited Away, nature of kids’ imaginations. “Kids themselves Princess Mononoke) always have a sense of wonder, and that’s their not only Japanese terminals but those in and Isao Takahata perspective on the world. They’re always London and Paris. “I went to King’s Cross (Grave Of The Fireflies). fascinated. Our eyes as grown-ups are clouded. station, but it was very modern, “They’ve been a huge inspiration since I was We all want to experience that wonderment as contemporary architecture… a child,” says Hosada. Takahata passed away a child when we gaze upon the world.” almost like an airport!” says this April and Hosada admits it’s left Hosada, lamenting the a huge hole in the Japanese recent refurbishment. world. “We were saddened by his “Come on,” he cries. “The passing, that we can’t watch a new THE RESEARCH WENT GLOBAL railway began in the film from him. It’s heartbreaking. I feel For all the film’s wild fantasies, Hosada UK so I would’ve we need to carry on the torch, push 3 and his team also grounded Mirai in the loved to have boundaries and make things that will everyday. This included research trips to seen older contribute to the work of animation.” JM Europe. A scene where Kun gets lost at a designs!” No word yet on railway station meant the animators studied whether he found Platform 9¾. Mirai is in cinemas from 2 November.

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Nov 2018 Red Alert Subscribe at myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/sfx SCIFACT! Nick Tate, who played Alan Carter in Anderson’s Space: 1999, voices a NASA chief in the minisode. Jamie Anderson is stepping into his ON-SET EXCLUSIVE father’s shoes. ROD JOB MAN Gerry Anderson’s son on retooling his Firestorm concept for a new

Dateline: March 2016. Co-ordinates: an anonymous unit on a Slough industrial estate. No one driving by would suspect that inside, a Gerry Anderson puppet show is in production. Well, a Kickstarter-funded proof-of-concept “minisode”, anyway. Overseen by Gerry’s son, Jamie, the project shares DNA with a 2003 anime based on an Anderson concept: Firestorm. Another key difference with what’s been “In the early 2000s, Dad was experimenting dubbed Ultramarionation is that the puppets with CG,” Anderson explains to Red Alert. are controlled chiefly via rods, not strings. “It ended up being bought by a Japanese “They can run,” Anderson says. “They can production company, and got further and jump. I’ve got them flying through the air, all further away from the original concept. I’m sorts of crazy stuff!” going back to the original documents, taking Red Alert observes a scene where Sam and the bones and some of the flesh, then re- Nagisa flee a base belonging to terrorists Black fleshing it out.” Behind the Orchid as it explodes. The set’s a small section The setting is the early 22nd century. scenes of of wall with what looks like Airfix kit parts “Suddenly, a ton of natural disasters start to Firestorm. glued to it. WD40 is dabbed on the puppets’ occur,” Anderson says. “An international team’s eyes with a cotton bud, so they shine. Then formed to deal with that, and a potential pre-recorded dialogue is played in: “When I say underlying, nefarious force. It’s Captain Scarlet jump, jump… Woooaahh!” Puppeteers in meets Thunderbirds in style and tone.” neon-green bodysuits manoeuvre the Storm Naturally, it boasts some cool vehicles: Force 9 agents as they take a running leap submarine base Ocean Storm; Tornado, a through a doorway. The fluidity of movement is personnel transporter launched from that; and remarkable – Torchy The Battery Boy this ain’t! “multi-terrain combat cruiser” Blizzard. Some Two and a half years later, the minisode’s set of their crew may sound familiar: Game Of to make its public debut. “We’re making Thrones’ Gethin Anthony voices Blizzard pilot “There are no excellent progress advancing our finance plan,” Sam Scott, while Torchwood’s Naoko Mori is strings on me!” Anderson explains. “We’ve also been Tornado pilot Nagisa Kisaragi. developing the series arc, and a few full scripts, Anderson Jr is hovering close to the way his Servos in the Firestorm puppets’ heads now with more storylines plotted out. We encourage father did things. “We’re trying to imbue every allow more expressivity. “On Thunderbirds fans of all ages to watch the minisode and shot, every bit of dialogue, with that spirit,” he they’d say, ‘He needs to look frustrated now comment on it – it’ll be a vital part of shaping explains. “Like the explosions had to be – get the frustrated head!’,” Anderson says. final development of series one.” IB massive – as much petrol as we could get His puppeteers, however, can perform an without burning the building down! It’s what eye-roll. “There’s moments when they’ll do The Firestorm minisode will be on YouTube that team would’ve done if they’d had modern something unexpected, and the whole crew from 27 October, when it premieres at MCM

PHOTOGRAPHY BY OLLY CURTIS OLLY BY PHOTOGRAPHY post-production techniques and animatronics.” goes, ‘What?! Amazing!’” Comic Con London.

16 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 SCIFACT! Valente I’d keel over withjoy! learned somegruesome epics Iwas raised on. the Hindubeliefsand are definitely inspired by creation anddestruction dreams, anddance as vows, aworld builton happ What authorswould you be most did y What kindofresearch y Are themagicelements movies. Ofcourse. court politicswould have. Also, the skillsawoman honedby patriarchal behind thescenes. Iwanted to explore often wieldedhugepoliticalpower w What sparked theidea? use cunningandartifice to survive. terrifying mystical order, and hasto she draws theattention oftheEmpire’s inherited magicalgifts, hermother’s magical culture. WhenMehrreveals she fromher mother’s apersecuted head putto aweird use… up ahistorical record like asevered from anenemy’s skull. Nothinglivens about agoldendrinkinggobletmade of pillarssevered heads,andone Mughals, includingtales stories abouttheearly Tell usaboutyour protagonist. 2 on10November –detailsonp21! T Empire OfSandisreleased 15November. asha Suri is appearing at SFX Book Con asha Suriisappearingat SFXBookCon our own invention? Ifitwas JulietMarillierorCatherynne Iread tons ofbooks.I Concepts like binding I’ve always beeninterested inthe father Mehr’s isanobleman,but omen oftheMughalEmpire, who ou do?

y to becompared to inareview? NEW AUTHOR MEDIEVAL INDIA FANTASY INSPIREDBY SAND BEHIND MEET THELIBRARIAN TASHA SURI , AN EPIC , ANEPIC EMPIRE OF EMPIRE OF Erikson previously tappedinto hislove of IB

SHEKHAR BHATIA ENCOUNTERS DISTANT “I justasked myself whowould character isnotautobiographical. though Eriksoninsiststhat her sci-fi writerSamantha August, represents thealiensliaiseswith ignore them.” and thenhave thealiencontact wanted toputtheminplace not real people, asIsimply the characters are allanalogues, going togetin’,” headmits. “But run-up andfigured ‘thisguy’s certainly payingattentioninthe the lastUS election.“Iwas embarked uponthenovel before although Eriksonactuallyfirst compared toDonaldTrump, President Kent hasbeen structures really appealstome.” hierarchies andpolitical simply ignore ourbasic first make contact,theywould recalls. “The idea thatwhenaliens Black are ignored attheend,” he was implicitwhentheMen in the optimismandsubversion that came outandwas blown away by Encounters OfThe Third Kind Earth was alsoinfluencedby been writtenaboutaliensfallingto on thenumerous novels thathave Erikson, whoapartfrom drawing scientific ortechnologicalone,” explains anthropological pointof viewrather thana an interest inUFOsthemselves. with theideassurrounding firstcontactthan Of The Fallen Heart Steven Erikson Steven You don’t get to meet actually the aliens in Instead the omniscient AI that Instead theomniscientAIthat Rejoice “I saw thatfilmwhenitfirst “I wanted tocomeatitalmostfrom an AUTHOR EXCLUSIVE AUTHOR ), ismore inspired by the Rejoice territory, Steven Erikson’s newnovel, His firstforay intosciencefiction ’s temperamental author’s long-time fascination (subtitled StarTrek A Knife To The in2014’s Close . Malazan Book ’s first contact novel Willful Child

Red Alert Red when itcomestofirstcontact.” exercised inimagination,whichwillbecrucial alsowellideas issci-fi writers. They’re of thepopulationthatactuallyexplores these the list,itoccurred tomethattheonesection politicians, scientistsandeven diplomatsoff explains. “After scratching various peoplelike be themostusefulpointofcontact,” he Rejoice ispublishedon18October. andits2016sequel NOVEMBER 2018| SFXMAGAZINE| Wrath OfBetty Re joice SJ Nov 2018 . 17

CHRIS HOLT Nov 2018 Red Alert Get sci-fi news and features at gamesradar.com/sfx SCIFACT! Guy Hendrix Dyas says he veered away from the look of classic fairytale castles and instead looked to Russian architecture.

PRODUCER EXCLUSIVE CHRISTMAS CRACKER Producer Mark Gordon gives SFX a tour of Disney’s Christmas tale The Nutcracker And The Four Realms A pink-haired Keira Knightley plays the Sugar Plum Fairy.

Ballet is still a huge part of the story.

“The first question people ask is: is ruled by ’s evil Mother Ginger. had a part of the movie which was pure dance,” it a dance movie? And the answer is “Clara is grieving the death of her mother and says Gordon on hiring prima ballerina Misty no, not really,” says producer Mark doesn’t know her place in the world,” reveals Copeland for one of the key sequences. “It’s Gordon, discussing Disney’s new fantasy film Gordon. “Like in The Wizard Of Oz, she goes this jewel in the middle of the movie where we The Nutcracker And The Four Realms. Taking over the rainbow to another world. I think the tell the story of the Four Realms in ballet. It fills inspiration from the beloved ballet and ETA message of the film is very powerful which is: in a backstory of how this world came to be.” Hoffman’s classic story The Nutcracker And you can overcome your difficulties with the With production design from Inception’s The Mouse King, directors Lasse Hallström power you have inside. It’s very aspirational.” Guy Hendrix Dyas and costumes by Mad Max: and Joe Johnston have enlisted the help of Fury Road’s Oscar-winning Jenny Beavan, Mackenzie Foy and a host of talent SUGAR HIGH Disney’s latest is set to be a treat that even a to transport us to a world of gingerbread Helping Clara is Godfather Drosselmeyer director shuffle can’t knock. “Lasse did the first soldiers and mouse armies – just in time for (Morgan Freeman) and the larger-than-life part of the movie but was unavailable to do the Christmas. “We’ve honoured the ballet,” adds Sugar Plum Fairy (Keira Knightley). second,” says Gordon. “Joe wanted to honour Gordon, “but enhanced the story, characters “Morgan’s character is comforting. He and enhance Lasse’s work while bringing his and visual splendour in a remarkable way.” brings a level of gravitas to the role,” own talent to it. They truly co-directed the Foy plays Clara, a young woman tasked explains Gordon. “And I think you’re movie. We’re going to see both existing with securing a magic key that unlocks a box going to see a wonderfully different together seamlessly and bringing what they containing a priceless gift. To find the key, side of Keira Knightley. She’s so do best. It’s exciting.” SBl Clara must venture into a parallel world split wonderfully big – you’re going to be into three realms – the Land of Snowflakes, the delighted by her performance.” The Nutcracker And The Four Land of Sweets and the Land of Flowers – and But what about the film’s ballet Realms is in cinemas from survive a trip into a mysterious fourth realm backbone? “We wanted to make sure we 2 November.

18 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018

Nov 2018 Red Alert Subscribe at myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/sfx SCIFACT! Season one showrunner Monica Owusu-Breen left the show to develop the Buffy The Slayer reboot.

SHOWRUNNER EXCLUSIVE MIDNIGHT RUN Psychic Manny and his found family are back in Midnight, Texas

When Midnight, Texas returns for its second season, the newest local, psychic Manny Bernardo (François Arnaud), and the supernatural misfits who inhabit the tiny town will have some new company. Kai and Patience Lucero (Nestor Manny takes a Carbonell and Jaime Ray Newman), the new trip to Midday, proprietors of the Crystal Desert Texas. lodge, are certainly going to shake Gives a whole up the status quo. new meaning “We came from Supernatural, New showrunners Nicole to road rage. where there has literally been a Snyder and Eric Charmelo tell Red of the week for 14 years. Alert that the Luceros and their We have a vast array to pick from, lodge will be the centre of the so there will be some new action this season. “The hotel is creatures that we introduce , as we know based on the this season.” finale. But that is just the tip of the But romance will still be front iceberg,” Charmelo teases. and centre. Like newlyweds Olivia “There’s a lot going on behind (Arielle Kebbel) and Lem the closed doors at Crystal Desert, and vampire (Peter Mensah). “At first at the epicentre is Kai and it’s incredibly blissful, but we’ll Patience. He is an energy healer, realise that when Lem fed Olivia and proposes a very provocative his blood to heal her last season, question to the Midnighters for that also came at a price,” season two.” Charmelo teases. “They are going The question he poses to the to inherit this psychic connection. residents is whether they’re happy as they are cliffhanger. After he took on the six demons to Initially, it’s magical and wonderful, and then it now, or if they’d prefer much easier, “normal” defeat Colconnar, there was residual effects. becomes overbearing.” lives. Which one would they really choose to We saw it literally seeping out of his ear at the And watch out Manny, because the news that be? Charmelo says that dilemma “creates a end of the season. That certainly is going to Ramos won’t be a full cast member this season fissure among the townsfolk, because half of inform his trajectory for season two.” means romantic turmoil is brewing. “We don’t the Midnighters view their , or their But Snyder says Manny will deal with it as want to give too much away about Manfred monster-ness, as a scourge. And the other half an affirmed Midnighter. “He is quite rooted in and Creek, but they will be involved in a love look at it as a blessing.” the town,” she explains. “He really feels like triangle,” says Snyder. “It will challenge their A case in point, Manny spent season one Midnight is his home, and Creek (Sarah relationship and put their love to the test. It running from his lineage as a powerful psychic, Ramos) is part of that home. But the question will result in another provocative, surprising, but he finally embraced it to save his chosen of whether or not he should leave again; he’s fun ending.” TB family in Midnight for the finale. Charmelo faced with that. It becomes a challenge.” says we’ll get to see the repercussions of that Especially because new supernatural foes Midnight, Texas returns to NBC in the US from choice now. “We kind of left Manfred on a will be arriving to test them. Charmelo says, 26 October and airs on in the UK (date TBC).

20 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 Red AlertNov 2018 SCIFACT! Vincent Ward’s wooden space station scenario is Gibson’s favourite unmade version of Alien 3.

AUTHOR EXCLUSIVE EVENT NEWS! LOST IN SPACE SFX BOOK How William Gibson turned his unmade CON 2 Alien 3 into a comic Why you need to be at our event Three decades late, William Gibson’s Originally pitched as “space commies hijack rejected 1987 screenplay for Alien 3 is alien eggs – big problem in Mallworld!” the in November finally seeing the light of day – though comic begins just after the events of Aliens, not on the big screen. Instead it hatches in the with Ripley, Newt, Hicks and Bishop venturing form of a new five-issue Dark Horse mini- into a mysterious sector of space controlled by series that’s adapted and drawn by Johnnie the Soviet-style Union of Progressive Peoples. Christmas. Noting that he “took the first two “The space communists and their ideas are films as canon,” Gibson based his script on a from the Hill/ Giler/ Carroll treatment, but I detailed treatment by , David Giler found them to be an enjoyable balance to the and Gordon Carroll. Unfortunately, the usual Big Evil Mega-Corp meme,” says Gibson, producers weren’t happy with Gibson’s two admitting that any Cold War analogy “might drafts, prompting his departure from the now seem dated” to modern audiences. project. It would be another five years until With the UPP developing its own genetically the divisive -directed Alien 3 engineered Xenomorphs, the series will boast a eventually found its way into cinemas. range of very different and equally deadly Tickets are still available for “I’ve actually never seen Alien 3, so I don’t aliens. “It seemed a no-brainer that the SFX Book Con 2, our second know how what I did might compare to it,” Xenomorph’s very humanoid body was the celebration of sci-fi and fantasy says Gibson, who is pleased with Christmas’s result of having incubated in a human body,” novels. Taking place at Foyles’ flagship efforts so far. “I had the pleasure of meeting reasons Gibson. “So incubation in non-human Charing Cross Road branch in London on Johnnie when he was just getting started. I bodies would produce Xenomorphs to match. Saturday 10 November, the event brings can’t imagine the script receiving any better Variety is, after all, the spice of life!” SJ together loads (sorry, we’re not sure of the adaptation to comics. He was scrupulously true collective noun for authors) of the best to it, except where he really needed not to be.” William Gibson’s Alien 3 is out 7 November. writing talent in the UK for a day of panels, signings and mingling. This second instalment is even bigger than our first Book Con back in February, with more authors and more panels – and the timing is perfect if you want to buy some literary Christmas presents for friends, family or (let’s be honest) yourself. At time of writing, our eclectic guest list (ranging from newcomers to genre legends) features: Pat Cadigan, MR Carey, Anne Charnock, the just-announced Alexandra Christo, John Gwynne, Peter F Hamilton, Rebecca Kuang, Rebecca Levene, Sarah Lotz, Kate Mascarenhas, Richard Morgan, James Smythe, Tasha Suri, Tade Thompson, Lavie Tidhar, Jen Williams and Chris Wooding. Those guys have sold a lot of books and won loads of awards between them, so it promises to be an amazing day straddling , time travel, alternative futures, fantasy worlds and loads of dimensions in We would have between. We’re looking forward to preferred flowers. seeing you there! RE

To buy tickets for this upcoming event, visit www.foyles.co.uk /SFX-Book-Con-2

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 21 Nov 2018 Red Alert Get sci-fi news and features at gamesradar.com/sfx SCIFACT! Vess and Le Guin spent the first year of their collaboration working out how the dragons should look.

ARTIST EXCLUSIVE IMAGINING EARTHSEA Charles Vess talks us through some of his art for the new illustrated The Books Of Earthsea...

Ursula K Le Guin’s The Wizard Of Earthsea saga is “Most of the covers down the years have about to be issued in one given a light-skinned, sometimes blonde volume – all 1,008 pages of it! The Ged – and he is certainly not described that book marks a four-year way! Ursula was very determined that he collaboration between Le Guin and should be brown-skinned. Her father was artist Charles Vess. “I was very an anthropologist, mostly working with happy that before she passed away, Pacific Northwest Indians, and she sent me she had approved everything in the a photograph of him standing with a group book except for the very last of native Americans. The person standing drawing,” Vess tells Red Alert. “Of to the left of him in the photo, she said: course, I wish she could have held ‘That’s Ged’.” the finished book in her hands.” WS

The Books Of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition is “Imagining the everyday was one of Ursula’s biggest concerns. She said that most epic fantasy has to do published by Gollancz on 25 October. with marbled halls and brightly clad king and queens, and her books are about the people that live on the land. This image is from the beginning of a story about a wizard escaping a tragedy. He’s lost in the marsh, and the cow’s walking steadily in one direction, and he just puts his hand on his side and goes with him.”

“This is from a short story that marks a transition in her thinking; that humans can be dragons. This is set on a hill that allows no lies. The girl transforms into a dragon, which is her true self. There’s also a thing about priests being all male and celibate. They’re missing a huge part of the meaning of the world. The sixth book is about righting that wrong. It’s amazing it was written so many years ago, and it’s so relevant to everything going on today.”

“This is from the fifth book, which is mostly about Tenar. Ged has come back from the other lands, and is depleted “One of the things I tried not to do was of magic. I usually just start painting and let the colours portraits. Millions of people have read these come. I knew was a sort of reddish colour books, and they know what the characters and I knew it had to be on a rock face, so I just started look like. I didn’t want to get in the way playing with the oranges and browns. I also completely of that, so I tried to keep everything at the redrew Tenar’s figure; she was more active before, and middle distance – or even further away.” Ursula said she needed to be more circumspect.”

22 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 GETTY (1) HIGH-SPEED away aged 90. aged away Fielding Of Thrones and attractions. become tourist to locations Ireland Hill adap to Joe lead AMC’s Writing. Outstanding TV Movie and wins Outstanding “USS Callister” Emmy Awards Gary Kurtz Screaming p114. on – read tribute our has died aged 74 Pearce Jacqueline Universe’s Universe’s to play lead in DC Patrol Ha in Actress Supporting Outstanding Wiley is Dinklage; Samira Peter for prize Supporting Drama and a w Netflix’s Netflix’s Langford to star in Why join DCjoin Universe’s and Alan Tudyk inspired Wars love at this year’s some get fantasy d ied aged 78.

Zachary Quinto

Some of Dalton Timothy Original Original Sci-fi and and Sci-fi Bre ins Outstanding Blake’s 7 Carry On Carry 13 ndmaid’s Tale NEWS WARP Reasons Black FACTS ’s Katherine Katherine ’s producer producer c Bassinger c Bassinger passes Cursed John Choreveals somelong-running confusion Camelot NOS4A2 A DAY SHOOTING ’s “I DON’T “I IS KNOW THERE IF The Game ’s ’s Stargirl Star ’ Fenella Fenella has . WHERE CHRIS PINE DID CHRIS WHERE ! . ; - NOT CALL ME SOLO.” ME NOT CALL ’s ’s

. . on theEnterprisebridge. DON’T QUOTE ME QUOTE DON’T SCIFACT! Kneale storyKneale to the airwaves Hadoke /writer ROAD AGAIN ROAD THEON Toby Hadoke’s adapteditforBBCRadio4. arrogant, butintelligent andentertaining,” Hadoke says. and SirTimothy Hassall (Adrian Scarborough). time andmanifestasterriblenoisesthatafrightthelocals.” times, andevery Michaelmasthosespiritsechothrough postulation isthatitwas thesiteofamassacre inRoman ghost storysetinahauntedwood,” Hadoke explains. “The can bliss!” Hadoke warns. That’s trueoftheending–thoughwe “If you don’t know anything about “Cobb isaphilosopherfrom London –boorishand The playcentres ontwo men:GideonCobb(Mark Gatiss) WRITER EXCLUSIVE safely discusshow the play, setin1768, opens. “It’s a A TVplayby was wipeddecadesago. Now comedianandwriter has beenrevived forradio. Aired in1963, TREK STAR brings alost Nigel Toby Hadoke iswritingatwo-volume bookabout Quatermass

Toby Toby creator Nigel Kneale The Road , ignorance is , ignorance is The Road

event atM The Road airsonRadio 4on27October. There’ll beatie-in to discover whetherahauntingcanbeexplained by science.” to bemadegetuswhere we are today. Theygettogether investigator, andwe seethescientificprogress thatneeded “He comestothisinnandmeetsthelocalsquire: he’s an husband’s namealive.” famous shegetsallthisattention,andwants tokeep her fame, actuallycametotherecording. Becauseshe’s so about remaking Kneale’s widow, Judith Kerr of available, Isaw no needtomesswithitunnecessarily. of surgery,” heexplains. “Butbecausethere isn’t aversion hour ontellyandwe have 42minutes, sothere’s beenabit 2006, Hadoke’s scripthadtobeapproved by hisestatefirst. was very apt!” how thingsechobackandforththrough time, Ithoughtthat version,” Hadoke continues. “For something that’s about weird feedback. Workshop, I’mgonnadrop Mark Ayres aline…’” recorded, thenmessedaboutwithby theBBCRadiophonic reveals. “Thatmademethink,‘Hang on,ifthesoundwas one oftheactorswhorecorded thespookyvoices,” Hadoke production usesitsown “voices from thepast”. Morahan’s fatherChristopherdirected theoriginal.Plus Gatiss’s presence isfitting:15years ago She wasn’t theonly linktothepast:actress Hattie “There were afewtoomany characters, anditwas an “We’ve actually putsomeofthoseoriginalsoundsinour Said archivist thendugoutatapeofvoice recordings and “I gotsentscriptpagesfrom thearchive ofIan Fairbairn, Red Alert Red Quatermass anchester arts centreanchester arts HOME. IB The Road . Part oneshouldbeoutinthespring. forTV. AsKnealepassedaway in The TigerWhoCame To Tea NOVEMBER 2018| SFXMAGAZINE| widow, JudithKerr. and NigelKneale’s The castof Road withHadoke

he spoke toKneale The The Nov 2018 23

Nov 2018

Get sci-fi news and features at gamesradar.com/sfx

Nick Setchfield’s DEVELOPMENT HELL Your monthly glimpse into Hollywood’s hoped-for future

UP, UP AND AWAY! Does Henry Cavill still stand for truth, justice and the American way? claims that the Superman star has parted company with Warner Bros – and the DCEU – after negotiations for a cameo in Shazam! broke down due to scheduling conflicts. The studio will only say, “While no decisions have been made regarding any upcoming Superman films, we’ve always had a great respect for and a great relationship with Henry Cavill, and that remains unchanged.” The Fortress of Rumourtude claims Warner is fast-tracking a movie while eyeing Michael B Jordan as a potential new Man of Steel. Cavill’s response? An inscrutable vid of himself in a Krypton Lifting Team t-shirt, moving his own action figure out of frame while a chorus of hounds barks the Blue Danube. Speculation mounts that Cavill is being held hostage by the military industrial entertainment complex and sending us desperate clues to his location.

UNDEAD AGAIN? BLADE Hark, is that the sound of wooden knives being sharpened? Wesley Snipes reveals that there could be a comeback on the cards in something coming from that child’s play compared to what we for Beasts Of No Nation and his for the vampire slayer who ignited world,” he tells VICE. “We’ve can do now.” Emmy-winning work on the first the whole modern superhero created two projects that fit season of , he’s the boom with 1998’s Blade. He’s met perfectly into this world and, first American helmer in the with Marvel Studios, who won when people see them, I think CARY ON SPYING! franchise’s 56-year history (no, back the rights to the Daywalker a they’re only going to have a BOND 25 we’re not counting few years ago. “There are a lot of problem with deciding which one is set to and 1983’s own-brand 007 caper conversations going around right they love the most.” As for where a plug the conspicuously Danny …). “I’ve now and we’re very blessed to big-screen Blade could go, Snipes Boyle-shaped hole at the heart of wanted to do one of these for a

have the enthusiasm and interest only teases, “What we did before is the next Bond movie. Best known long time, so that’s not new,” he Cemmick by Paul Illustration

24 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 IN THE NEXT

tells IndieWire. “So right now it’s just kind of dealing with the shock There’s a that it’s real, and the honour, obviously, and now the makeover in responsibility.” Barbara Broccoli, SUBSCRIBE Michael G Wilson and Daniel store for the Craig issued this statement from ALSO their submerged undersea lair: Hellspawned NOW! “We are delighted to be working BURNING Turn over for details! with Cary. His versatility and anti-hero innovation make him an excellent choice for our next James Bond Rebecca Ferguson adventure.” Bond 25 will now frontrunner open, though: “I would love to be arrive in cinemas on 14 February to play involved and we will see what 2020. A Valentine’s Day release for Lady happens,” he tells Variety. “I’ll Jessica in the spy who loved me… Denis await the phone call.” Your move, Villeneuve’s Paramount… Karl Urban, Dune… Michelle meanwhile, hints at what awaits BACK FROM HELL! Yeoh in talks for interdimensional us in ’s take, SPAWN action film currently planned as Trek 5: “It’s The Walking Dead’s ace Everything bananas,” he offers. “You shouldn’t zombie-wrangler Greg Nicotero Everywhere All At worry that it’s going to be full of Once… Chloe Zhao will handle design duties on the directing The obscenity and stuff. He wants an new Spawn movie. And there’s a Eternals for R-rating to really make those beats makeover in store for the Marvel… Ken of consequence land. If someone Jeong joining Hellspawned anti-hero. Nicotero Occupation: gets sucked out into space, which and his KNB EFX company will Rainfall, sequel to we have all seen before, we might “reinvent the Spawn look so it will Australian alien see them get disemboweled first. invasion tale match the supernatural theme in Occupation… It allows some breadth, gives him the movie,” says Todd McFarlane, Anthony Mackie some leeway to do that.” Spawn’s creator and director of and Jamie Dornan the new film. “It’s not like I’m in talks to SLOWLO! headline going to give him wings instead of Synchronic… Brett a cape and I’m not going to give Cullen cast as Is the franchise from a galaxy him no mask instead of a mask… Thomas Wayne in far, far away about to drop out of Todd Phillips’ It just won’t be exactly what a Joker, replacing lightspeed? Bob Iger – Disney’s hardcore fan is used to. But I’m Alec Baldwin… very own Supreme Leader – hoping that people who are Get Out’s Jordan confirms that the underwhelming Peele rumoured to Solo Star familiar with Spawn will say, be producing the response to (the fourth ‘Yeah, it’s in the box.’ And people Candyman Wars movie in three years) will who know nothing about Spawn remake… Robin lead to a new release strategy. “[It] will go, ‘Wow, that’s cool.’ And I Wright returning was a little too much, too fast,” he as Antiope in have to design for filmgoers, not tells the Hollywood Reporter. “You AQUAMAN for comic book fans because the 1984… Kyliegh can expect some slowdown but DC’S CINEMATIC UNIVERSE filmgoers are going to be bigger Curran playing that doesn’t mean we’re not going Abra Stone in GOES ROLLING IN THE DEEP than the pool of the comic book Doctor Sleep… A to make films. JJ [Abrams] is busy fans.” Starring and Quiet Place 2 making [Episode] IX. We have Jeremy Renner, this R-rated arriving 15 May creative entities, including [Game take on the necroplasmic 2020… Patrick Of Thrones’ David] Benioff and Stewart playing BUMBLEBEE avenger arrives in 2019 from Bosley in Charlie’s [DB] Weiss, who are developing . Angels… HP sagas of their own, which we Lovecraft’s The haven’t been specific about. And FANTASTIC BEASTS: Colour Out Of Space heading to we are just at the point where THE FYFFES FRONTIER! the screen, we’re going to start making THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD STAR TREK directed by decisions about what comes next Richard Stanley… No word on the great Chris Jon and Josh after JJ’s. But I think we’re going MORE DOCTOR WHO! Crisis bedevilling the next Trek Silberman writing to be a little more careful about movie (Messrs Pine and Looney Tunes volume and timing.” Get set for a Hemsworth movie Coyote Vs Lost IX want Paramount to Acme… Bryan reunion on : Abrams just honour an earlier contract before Singer in talks to cast Drive Shaft bass god Dominic they commit to a screenplay that helm Red Sonja Monaghan in an unspecified role. unites Kirk Sr with the fruit of his for Millennium… The Smoke Monster, meanwhile, Ryan Coogler SFX 307 heroically self-sacrificing loins). producing Space patiently waits for that career- All contents liable to change. They really are all at sea this month. are really They change. liable to All contents Pine’s hailing frequencies are Jam 2… GETTY (1) reviving call. ON SALE WEDNESDAY 7 NOVEMBER

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NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 27 SFX HAILING FREQUENCIES OPEN!

#RETURN OF THE PREDATOR

Rob Perry, Facebook But what did we get instead? A vague It’s dumb, choppy and mishmash of ideas, that work only Your views on rushed. But it has a rough because they’re riffing on vastly the month’s charm that made it enjoyable source material, and a hideous handling of big issue in the same way as the similarly characters that aren’t macho male. Worst flawed Predator 2. It also gets served is Olivia Munn (please, someone get her points for its surprisingly light and sympathetic a decent role in a decent SF/F flick – she touch regarding characters with ASD and deserves it), who, being the token woman is Tourette’s. Not perfect, but much less crass made to cower naked and scared just to show than Hollywood usually is. how big, powerful and vastly superior I, the The franchise is suffering in the same way as male viewer … er, I mean the Predator is. Those Alien and The Terminator. All three had first gender politics belong back in the ’80s, along instalments that were essentially horror and with this franchise. Will I be watching this sequels that have gone increasingly off the rails Predaturd again? Not any time soon. as subsequent filmmakers have tried to fill the Mark Howe, Facebook void with bigger action and more outlandish Of the sequels I’ve watched this year, this plots/mythology building. was much more fun than the unfathomably Admittedly both Aliens and Terminator 2 overrated Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and are superior to Predator 2, but even they move much funnier than Deadpool 2. The film’s away from the purity and simplicity of the completely bats arse mental. Falls to bits at the originals to something a bit more unwieldy and end and Yvonne Strahovski is criminally slightly less satisfying as a result. underused, but I was entertained and didn’t SFX In an era of complex, shared universes and feel I’d wasted my money. Possibly the blockbusters loaded with emotional depth, second-best Predator movie? SFX Is the title of “second-best Predator have we lost sight of the need for unashamedly movie” a reason to crack open the champagne? THIS MONTH’S COMMUNICATIONS MONITOR big, dumb popcorn movies? The jury’s out on that one... RICHARD EDWARDS, Neil Howard, Facebook Tom Gilbert, email EDITOR I enjoyed The Predator a lot. It’s undemanding I really think they went in the wrong direction and had the feel of an ’80s action movie with a with The Predator. After Alien Vs Predator, all touch of The A-Team with the assembled the fans seemed to be desperate to go back to We asked what you thought veterans group. Was hoping the Alien was in basics by separating the Predators from their about ’s return to the capsule at the end, which isn’t a spoiler as Xenomorph chums. Bad move. What we the Predator universe and only I’ve not said what was! actually need is to get bigger, to expand the SFX But what the hell was that thing that came franchise and cram in loads more properties one thing is certain – nobody out of the box? It made me think of cyborg – in fact, I think there’s potential to attract can come to any consensus Vera in Superman III – with dreadlocks. loads of new viewers. over whether it’s any good or Paul Johnson, email For horror fans you could make Alien Vs One day, somebody will make a monster sequel Predator Vs Freddy Vs Jason. Those who like a not. At least everyone’s in total where we’re not introduced to a bigger, weepie relationship drama would love Alien Vs agreement about Jodie stronger, more dangerous version of the Predator Vs Kramer Vs Kramer. If courtroom Whittaker taking over in the original creature. Today was not that day – and dramas are more your thing, Alien Vs Predator TARDIS… Actually, no, that that’s why The Predator left me cold. Vs Larry Flint is sure to float your boat. For the SFX Ah, the of Aliens, the film that made quirky comic book types, there’s Alien Vs debate’s still rumbling on, so the blueprint that few have managed to follow Predator Vs Scott Pilgrim Vs The World. And let’s be thankful for Alan – not even Tremors 2: Aftershocks. Hope if you’re into hip-hop remixes, why not try Miller’s Star Letter, as all of us you’re not implying Hollywood might be Alien Vs Predator Vs Run DMC. running out of ideas... So while The Predator was okay, to me it can celebrate wonderful pun The Llama God, email reeks of missed opportunity – bring on the work. His wordsmithery wins Ah, we were promised so much. A uber-crossover! him a copy of Gotrek: reinvigorated reinvention of everyone’s SFX And then we could crossover the favourite small-game hunter; to be directed by crossovers: Freddy Vs Larry Flint, Kramer Vs Realmslayer, an audio drama the guy who did Iron Man 3, which is the best Jason, Scott Pilgrim Vs Run DMC… Sign us up from our pals at Black Library. one (no, you shut up). It had to be great! now – a franchise of MCU proportions awaits!

28 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 First ContactNov 2018 Get in touch! Email [email protected] • Facebook Facebook.com/SFXmagazine @SFXmagazine, #SFXcontact • Post SFX, Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA

was to Life On Mars, a show that shares a Rants & Raves A vague mishmash canon but which is still a show in its own right. INSIDE THE SFX HIVE MIND SFX Thank you for showing that you can RICHARD EDWARDS of ideas and jokes that disagree with someone in a perfectly EDITOR reasonable manner – internet and politicians, RAVES take note! But I don’t think a Doctor Who Never thought I’d say only work by riffing this, but I’m glad Disney spin-off could ever – by definition – be held in are slowing things down on superior material equal regard to the parent show. Besides, on the Star Wars front – Lucasfilm needs a rethink having a female lead on Doctor Who is a that doesn’t just involve filling massive, wonderful statement, and it means in tiny gaps in the mythology. #WHO GOES WHERE so much to fans it has to be worthwhile. Especially when Marvel are showing they’re becoming just James Kinsley, email as adept at space opera – loving Something is troubling me about Doctor Who. #FIST AMONG EQUALS that Captain Marvel trailer! It is to do with the fact that the Doctor is being Robert Graham, email NICK SETCHFIELD played by a woman, but not in the way that Marvel’s season two is a definite FEATURES EDITOR seems to bother a lot of people. improvement on season one but still feeling RAVES The shift in terminology from “companions” like one of Marvel’s weakest shows. Alice Eve is Officially intrigued by Cary Fukunaga taking to “friends” might seem a warmer, more good as Typhoid Mary and probably the on the Bond assignment. inclusive move, and the Doctor having three highlight of the series, but the show’s problem A stylist but someone who’s brilliant with the big action companions (sorry, friends) isn’t new for lies with the Meachum family, the dullest beats, too. Just hoping he’s Who. But “friends” seems to put the characters in the MCU. Hopefully by the made a call to David Arnold… character on a more equal status with time the show catches up with Infinity RIP STAR Sad news about Gary Kurtz. the rest of the cast, which could be War, Thanos will have wiped them out Such a crucial creative voice interpreted as not having the same PRIZE with the Infinity Gauntlet. in Star Wars. confidence that the Doctor is as This month’s best letter will SFX An Iron Fist that everybody loves IAN BERRIMAN capable of carrying the show. recieve a copy of Gotrek: just wouldn’t be Iron Fist. Realmslayer, an audio REVIEWS EDITOR The timing of the three suggests that drama by David Guymer. RAVES someone in charge was thinking, “Yes, #A HEAD IN THE POLES Enjoying Netflix’s The Haunting Of Hill House. we’ll try a female Doctor, but let’s get Alan Miller, email I was scratching my head more fellas in to compensate, and perhaps Mild spoiler a-head... at how the book could be turned into a 10-part series, play down the idea that she’s in charge?” So I was watching Hereditary but the solution is ingenious. I hope I’m wrong, because I’m rooting for and after about half an hour I worked out the RANTS Whittaker to be a success. significance of the title. Her Head Hit Tree… The Suspiria remake is far too long. Filmmakers: if the credits Richard Layton, by actual physical post! Hats off to master pun-smith, writer/director haven’t rolled after two hours, Thank you for printing my letter in SFX #304. Ari Aster. Or do you think that could possibly you better have a good reason! If I may respond to some of the points you have been a coincidence? KIMBERLEY BALLARD raised in reply, I can assure you that it isn’t just Good work folks. Keep it up, PRODUCTION female viewers/readers who can emphasise PS Okay, it was a telegraph pole. Never let EDITOR with a character who doesn’t look like them. the truth get in the way of a good pun. RAVES I loved chatting to I speak as someone who enjoyed all of The SFX We salute you for a pun so ingenious it Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa Hunger Games series and Rogue One, had the team in awe. about his dark reimagining of Sabrina this issue! neither of which was male led. RANTS As to how I’d feel if most fictional #DARK MATTER Shocked and sad to hear that characters were female, that would be Owen Hollifield, email developer Telltale has closed. The Wolf Among Us and The an argument for creating original male Does it bother me that Dark City doesn’t get Walking Dead will always be leads in the same way as one can the recognition it deserves? Heck yes! Dark two of my favourite games. currently call for more original female City was not only the cinematic event of my JON COATES leads. Redefining or replacing existing teenage years but has easily become my ART EDITOR characters as an act of virtue signalling favourite film of all time – I watch it again and RAVES in the way that Ghostbusters and now again and still find new things. I look back at Found Infinity War thoroughly entertaining, Doctor Who have done unwittingly sends the my teenage self watching with awe and particularly Josh Brolin message that your new target audience is wonder, all alone in a fleapit cinema and as Thanos. Thought they could have raised some only worthy of a hand-me-down. From I can do nothing but smile. genuine shocks by actually that point of view I think Jodie SFX Unless this is one hell of a killing off a few characters Whittaker might have been better coincidence, we think your letter though rather than employing that non-committal dust effect. served as, say, a regenerated Romana in might have something to do with Maybe they should bring in a spin-off series that could have been our Dark City feature in SFX #304 Jed Mercurio for part 2? to Doctor Who what Ashes To Ashes – and if so, we hope you enjoyed it!

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 29 Freespeak WHERE WRITERS AND OPINIONS COLLIDE

“NOTHING CAN STOP ME NOW!” JD Fennell on the enduring appeal of mad scientists

he “mad scientist” has long played a pivotal part in stories, delighting and horrifying generations with dastardly and sometimes not-so-dastardly deeds. One man’s desire for power using scientific wizardry is no stranger to fables. Mad scientists lurk in the pages of our favourite books, and shine brightly on celluloid and digital film. We can’t get enough of them. Arguably, the earliest incarnation is Christopher Marlowe’s Dr Faustus, a tortured scholar who fails to take his own life and calls upon the Devil Tfor greater knowledge and magic powers. The Devil offers him powers in return for Faust’s soul. It’s a classic tale, which doesn’t end well, for obvious reasons. Skipping forward 300 years, travel-writer, wife and mother, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley writes gothic classic, Frankenstein, the story of a young scientist who creates a grotesque monster constructed from the body parts of corpses. Charming chap, and often unfairly depicted in Hollywood as an immoral genius. Remember Colin Clive’s hammy yet terrifying portrayal? “It’s alive! It’s alive!” he screams, as his monster comes to life. Chilling and unforgettable. As a youngster, Sherlock Holmes was my detective hero. I was never more excited to see him pitted against his equal and archenemy, Professor Moriarty. Holmes describing Moriarty to Watson: “He is an extremely powerful mastermind who is purely adept at committing any atrocity to perfection without losing any sleep over it.” There is a burning resentment between these two, yet Moriarty is fascinating because of his admiration for Holmes. A similar relationship exists between two other very famous scientists. Doctor Who has had moments of madness over many regenerations, none more so than the War Doctor, played briefly and wonderfully by John Hurt. However, the Master goes above and beyond by forging relationships with disparate alien races, using them to commit genocide before wiping them out and attempting to destroy the universe. Still the Doctor retains a soft spot for him [or her], and vice versa. On creating the Master, producer Barry Letts said, “One felt that the Master wouldn’t really have liked to eliminate the Doctor. The Doctor was the only person like him as in the whole universe, and in a funny sort of way they were partners in crime.” mad scientist Victor The mantle of superior genius isn’t restricted to straight men. Nor should it be. Frankenstein in 1957. Diversity in the mad scientist business is limited, but boy, does it crackle. Case in point: Rocky Horror’s sweet transvestite from Transexual, Transylvania, Dr Frank N Furter. His nine-inch heels crushed the mould of dusty academics in shabby white lab coats, in favour of the filthy-gorgeous glamour of ruby red lippy, fishnets and bodices. At last the world of the evil genius was given a makeover. “WHO DOESN’T From one glamour to another, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy has one of the most diabolical scientists, the irresistible Marisa Coulter. She is an LOVE A LAB- elegant and cool-minded sophisticate, described by fellow antagonist and suitor, Metatron, as being cold, cruel with a vicious probing curiosity, a lust for power and COATED GENIUS- a cesspit of moral filth. Marisa is a compelling and brilliant character. So there we have some examples of why the mad scientist remains close to our COME-CRIMINAL hearts. Who doesn’t love a lab-coated narcissistic, scientific genius-come-criminal mastermind with a sideline in psychopathy and a desire for god-like power? They MASTERMIND?” threaten the world and keep heroes on their toes. Long may they wreak havoc!

GETTY (1) Sleeper: The Red Storm by JD Fennell is out 25 October from Dome Press.

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BOOK CLUB CELEBRATING CLASSIC SF & FANTASY NOVELS THE CHRONICLES OF AMBER by Roger Zelazny, 1970-1991

Claire North celebrates a saga of limitless possibility

If fantasy thrives on big more youthful narrator with a penchant for imagination, then Roger computing, but like his father falls quickly prey Zelazny dealt himself one of to the machinations of his family in the Courts the sweetest hands a writer of Chaos, and the larger forces behind them. could with The Chronicles Of With a lighter tone, the Merlin books explored Amber. At either end of the more of shadow, offering some of Zelazny’s universe exist two opposing powers – the cheerfully surreal chapters, while delving into Pattern and the Logrus, the beating hearts of the powers behind the balance of the universe. order and chaos. From here, endless worlds While the stakes in both halves of the series emanate out – shadows cast across reality. were vast, at no point did Zelazny’s writing fall Those in the know can walk through these into self-importance. His work was riddled realms of shadow, visiting limitless worlds of with literary references, lifting from William possibility. You may find the Castle of the Four Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, Arthurian legend Winds, where sorcerers fight for love and and Celtic myth with glee, lacing everything vengeance; the Mad Hatter’s bar, where fire with a love of ancient story and a willingness to angels lie in wait behind the Cheshire Cat’s kick it while it’s down. Nor did it fall into lingering smile; or pop in for a chat and a tropes of dark and light; enemies become cheeseburger with your lawyer on our Earth. friends, feuds are settled over whiskey and a This is the setting for The Chronicles Of cigar, and duels to the death are reasonably Amber, a 10-book series written over 20 years, deferred until after existential threats to reality telling the story of Corwin, Prince of Amber, have been tackled. Although there is love, and his son, Merlin of the Courts of Chaos. In cruelty and revenge, it never comes from a the hands of another writer, the sheer scale of primal evil or mystic good, but from simple the premise could run wild. But Zelazny human fallacy, and even at the height of battle grounds it in family drama, high politics and almost no one is actively dumb, a trait which human betrayal. For Corwin and Merlin, the cannot always be claimed in epic fiction. It vast expanse of possibility is little more than a may be huge in its scope and intricate in its tool in their battles, allowing them to introduce over with easy speed, Corwin sets about trying characters, but The Chronicles Of Amber aren’t gunpowder to a twisted Camelot, barbiturates to seize the crown of Amber from his brother opera; they are smart, beautifully written and to a royal feast, hacking to mystic rites or the and take revenge on his family. When this above all, incredibly fun. vorpal sword to a drinking contest. doesn’t go to plan, he’s forced to change tactic The first five books, narrated by Corwin, and learns about a bigger threat, which could 84K by Claire North is out now from Orbit. were written across the 1970s, where Corwin’s destroy shadow itself if he cannot make peace hardboiled, embittered narration fit well with a with his siblings and fight a far harder war. decade that gave us A Scanner Darkly and The Written nearly a decade later, the next five NEXT ISSUE Forever War. An exile, suffering from an initial books followed Merlin, Corwin’s son. With less In our next Book Club bout of narratively helpful amnesia that he gets of the hardboiled tone of the 1970s, Merlin is a (SFX 307, on sale 7 November), Snakewood author Adrian Selby will be Like this? Try these! writing about Sofia LORD OF LIGHT TALES OF THE Samatar’s A Stranger by ROGER ZELAZNY (1967) DYING EARTH In Olondria. If you’ve never read the novel This Zelazny novel has many of his by JACK VANCE (1950-84) or even if you fancy classic qualities writ large, playfully Collating 30 years of stories, this giving it another exploring topics of mythology, is a rich delve into a far-future Earth read, now’s a good religion, rebellion and philosophy where magic and science have come time to start – before on an alien world. together as the sun goes out. a top writer shares their thoughts on the book.

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r! f terro ra n o A eb tio n SFX c el

34 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 HALLOWEEN

D BURN AN HALLOWEEN MICHAEL MYERS IS COMING HOME AS PUTS THE KNIFE TO 40 YEARS OF MYTHOLOGY. NICK SETCHFIELD FEARS THE REAPER

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 35 Just accept that you’ve missed the last bus home.

“Excuse me, do you own a party dress in my size?”

S AN ACT OF SLAUGHTER it’s ambitious, even by the grisly standards of Michael Myers. After skewering the populace of Haddonfield, Illinois, the Halloween franchise is about to take the blade to itself, carving away four decades of sequels, reboots, reimaginings and frankly terrible ideas. That’s no less than nine films, on the ground, outlined in police chalk. Out goes an entire intestinal tangle of mythology, hacked away in a merciless, black-eyed killing spree. What’s left? “Purely and simply, evil”, as Shape-chasing psychiatrist Dr Loomis declared in John Carpenter’s classic ’78 original. 2018’s Halloween – no suffix, no rebrand – restores us to blood-drenched basics: a man with a knife, a woman to fight him and a long night of reckoning. Think of it as the real Halloween II. The filmmakers do. “The simplest things are always the scariest,” says , prime mover behind big-screen horror factory Blumhouse and producer of this continuity-slashing sequel. “They’re also the hardest to do. It’s easier to overthink a bunch of stuff and lay a bunch of garbage onto storytelling. If you can just do clean, very simple storytelling – that’s not boring – that’s the scariest thing. And that’s what was so elegant about the first film. “The reason Michael Myers is so scary is Jamie Lee because he doesn’t really have that much Curtis is back backstory,” Blum continues. “We really tried to as limit that as much as possible because with . every little bit of explaining you do he becomes that much less scary. I really feel it’s one mythology where, as much as people would love to know, the less you say the scarier he remains.” Luckily for us, Blum has plenty to say when SFX catches up with him on the Universal lot in . Outside this bland interview room tourist buses trundle through the celluloid-haunted streets of the studio backlot, only a bloodbath away from the remains of the Bates residence in . Inside Blum props himself on a sofa, brimming with about an energy and twinkle that have made him a cinematic powerhouse. 2007’s addiction to Paranormal Activity established the Blumhouse business model: low raspberry jam.

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risk, high chill, fat profit. More cost-effective shockers followed – another five Paranormal Activity movies, four instalments of the “JUST AN Insidious saga, four chapters of The Purge. Factor in Jordan Peele’s Oscar-worthy Get Out UNSTOPPABLE FORCE…” and you begin to understand why people say John Carpenter heads back to Haddonfield he’s changed the face of modern screen horror. Now that face wears a white latex mask, with just the faintest trace of in its ghoulish, impenetrable blankness… “There’s an enormous amount of frenzy around Halloween,” says Blum, explaining why the kill-crazed franchise was the perfect acquisition for his empire of fear. “I love the challenge of trying to reinvent it and make it satisfying to the audience, because everyone expects it to be terrible. We had a little of that on the second Paranormal Activity. They said, oh my god, they’re going to turn it into Blair Witch or whatever. It’s always fun as a filmmaker to face that challenge and see if we can beat it!” The boldly unadorned title is the same as Carpenter’s original. We know this film isn’t a remake. Is it a restatement? What persuaded you back to abstracted. We didn’t care about Halloween? his backstory a whole lot. We Malek Akkad and Jason Blum showed it in the opening CLEAN, SIMPLE talked to me about shepherding sequence but who cares? the new film through, as the original director, and the guy What’s your approach to the STORYTELLING who created the franchise. Just score? Are you bringing back to be there, and to offer my the old themes? ISN’T BORING – opinion when asked. I said sure, Yeah, but new themes also. I got I’ll do that, and I’ll do the music. my son and godson to help – we THAT’S THE So that’s what my role was – to went on tour recently for our stay out of the way and not new albums. I make them do interfere with anybody. It’s David the majority of the work and I SCARIEST Gordon Green’s movie. If I can take the majority of the credit. help him, I will. It’s great. “Ideally you want it to serve two masters,” Is it hard not to feel What’s driving the current Blum says. “You want it to be reminiscent proprietorial? horror resurgence? enough of the first Halloween, which in my God no. Not at all. Not at all. I’ve heard that year after year. I opinion was the best Halloween, so that it feels keep hearing people say there’s a connected to it, but new enough so it doesn’t What do you make of the new resurgence in horror. feel like it’s a rip-off or a copy of it. Hopefully decision to wipe out all the Remember when the Japanese mythology? movies were being remade over we succeeded in doing both of those things.” Why not? It’s great. Be bold! here? “There’s a resurgence in Never a temptation to title it Halloween: The horror!” And now there’s another Final, Final, Final Conflict, then? Did you have more backstory in one. Horror movies are always “No, I was not tempted,” deadpans Blum. your head that never made it to with us. They have been with us the screen? since the beginning of cinema, The new film picks up 40 years after that No. Don’t write anything that because audiences love to be night of slaughter in suburban Haddonfield. never makes it to the screen! scared. Directors and writers Michael Myers is held in a secure psychiatric That’s work! I don’t want to reinvent horror every generation. institution, an obsession for Doctor Sartain work that hard! (laughs) They spruce it up, make it new, (Haluk Bilginer), inheriting the Loomis role in give it new thematic material. But Does Michael Myers reflect the it’s always the same. Most horror the narrative. When Michael escapes en route time he was created in? Or is he movies are bad. Very few of them to a new high-security home, former target purely a primal fear? are fair. And a couple are really Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is prepared It’s primal. In the first movie he great. That’s the story of horror. It – in fact she’s spent the best part of 40 was not quite a human being. He will never go away. We love too was part supernatural, maybe. much to be scared. We really do, traumatised years preparing, transforming A force of nature. Just an we humans. herself from survivor to survivalist. The unstoppable force. So he was Nick Setchfield teenage babysitter is now an armed and dangerous grandmother, locked and loaded for an ultimate reckoning with her stabby nemesis.

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 37 John Carpenter was key to persuading Curtis to return to the role that made her a star. And it was Blum who enticed Carpenter to join the project as executive producer, creative consultant, composer and all-round keeper of the Myers mojo. “He was crucial because I wanted to go back to the first movie,” he tells SFX. “I’m a big believer that you shouldn’t really make sequels Stop punching without the involvement of the person who holes in our best was involved in the original white sheets! film. We’ve never made an Insidious without James Wan, we’ve never made a Purge movie without James DeMonaco and his partner Sebastian Lemercier, we’ve never made a Paranormal Activity without Oren Peli. “Hollywood makes that mistake a lot, especially with The original horror movies. They try to save Michael Myers money by kicking out the actor originators of something and also returns. they hire new people to carry it on. And I think it’s a mistake. It’s different if you’re reinventing something from forever ago, but John Carpenter is still very active, especially on the music side. It just feels if you tried to do it without him it wouldn’t be as good as if you tried to do it with him.” (Pineapple Express, Our Brand Is Crisis) inherits Carpenter’s gig as director. “I went to David and said, ‘Do you want to reinvent Halloween?’” Blum shares. “He decided to just start with the first movie and pretend – mostly pretend – that the Maybe he’s just other movies didn’t happen, not completely. taken a nap. Oh wait, that’s blood.

BOOGE M N RATING 40 years of stabbiness:Y A HALLOWEEN’sNIG highsH TandS lows

1978 1981 1982 2007 2009 HALLOWEEN HALLOWEEN II 1988 1989 1995 1998 2002 HALLOWEEN II HALLOWEEN III: HALLOWEEN 4: HALLOWEEN 5: HALLOWEEN: HALLOWEEN HALLOWEEN: HALLOWEEN SEASON OF THE RETURN OF THE REVENGE OF THE CURSE OF H20: 20 YEARS RESURRECTION THE WITCH MICHAEL MYERS MICHAEL MYERS MICHAEL MYERS LATER

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We didn’t totally ignore those stories. I think before – he was known as a comedian before in the ’70s than they were in the ’60s. They’ve people who invested in those stories are still Get Out. We’ve had luck with !” always been more savvy. The filmmakers are going to be very satisfied. But they can tell me Blum draws a parallel between the skill-sets too. You have all of the history of cinema to on Twitter if they’re not! required to make a crowd crack up or shudder. inform you. What’s on people’s minds changes “I was very onboard with David’s vision. I “Horror shares more with than too, and that informs storytelling. We’re always felt that was an interesting idea. We’ll see what anything else, than drama, than action,” he reinventing ways to scare people. But there are fans think but I think he really succeeded in maintains. “You’re trying to elicit a physical endless ways to scare people. I think it’s silly to creating a very elegant, frightening new response in the audience. You haven’t say it’s getting harder and harder. I don’t really incarnation of Halloween.” succeeded unless you’ve done that. Either buy that. One of the most successful horror they’re laughing or they’re jumping. And in movies ever was released just a few months order to do that there’s a timing and a rhythm, ago, right? There are still ways to do it.” A KNIFE’S EDGE especially of a scare. The timing of a scare and There’s a political bite to the best of the Green – and writing partner Danny McBride – the timing of a are very similar. It’s very Blumhouse brand, keeping its scares feeling have a rep for comedy but no previous form precise. If it’s not cut right people won’t laugh, vital. Get Out found terror in America’s racial when it comes to screen horror. Blum doesn’t or people won’t jump. faultlines; the Purge movies mine equally view that as a con. “I really learned that from James Wan. You deep cultural anxieties about the rise of “We do something at Blumhouse that is only get people to respond if they’re really totalitarianism. Halloween, too, aims for a kinda unique by Hollywood standards,” he invested in the storytelling. People who come contemporary chill, pitting three generations of states. “I have a belief that to make a scary out of the comedy world really understand Strode women – Laurie, her daughter Karen movie a good filmmaker is more important that. Often people come out of drama, they’ll () and granddaughter Allyson (Andi than a good scary movie maker. I really try to make a horror movie and they’ll just make it Matichak) – against Myers, male predation identify people I admire, regardless of their gross. That’s not a horror movie. It doesn’t incarnate in mask and mechanic’s overalls. body of work, and try to talk them into work. It’s not scary. It’s just gross.” “There’s a lot of zeitgeist stuff in Halloween, making scary movies. Twenty years ago because it relates to women and female “We’ve flirted with David a few times deconstructed the slasher genre, empowerment,” says Blum. “That’s definitely about other ideas, but we disassembling its tricks and tropes finally worked out the and laying them bare as freshly diced arrangements to body parts. Is it a challenge to keep PEOPLE CAN go forward Michael Myers a potent, and do the primal force when TELL ME ON movie. I audiences are in on reached out to a small the game? TWITTER IF handful of people and “Audiences are David was top of the definitely more savvy THEY’RE NOT list, because I really now,” says Blum. admire his directing and “They were more SATISFIED! his filmmaking ability, period. savvy in the ’80s And I thought it was even cooler that than they were in in there. I don’t think you do those things he’d never done a scary movie. Jordan the ’70s. They consciously. I think they happen as a result of Peele had never made a scary movie were more savvy the things that are happening in the world, that seep into the creator’s mind and comes out in what they’re writing, even if their writing is not directly about that. I would say that the stuff going on with women, with the #MeToo movement, is definitely seeping into our Halloween movie.” Get Out was a cultural touchstone, rewarded by the legendarily sniffy Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Does Blum – who proudly self-identifies as “an outsider and a weirdo” – ever fret that horror might soon become just a little too respectable? “It’s certainly out of my control,” he says. “It might get less interesting if it moves into the mainstream. But I don’t think it’s going to move enough into the mainstream for that to happen. It’s always pretty odd and unique. They’re part and parcel. Horror, to be good, has to be weird. As you can see here, “I have other concerns about our business,” Michael Myers isn’t he laughs. “That’s not one of them!” the most subtle chap. Halloween is in cinemas from 19 October.

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 39 “I AM LAURIE STRODE”

JAMIE LEE CURTIS IS BACK TO BATTLE THE SHAPE. “THIS WAS A VERY EMOTIONAL GIG,” SHE TELLS NICK SETCHFIELD [Inspects goosebumps] This is double! Double! stripped the wallpaper. The room is bare. It is Both arms! SFX IS RARELY CALLED UPON TO as bare as it was 40 years ago. So forget all of inspect the forearms of film stars. But Jamie that. That doesn’t exist. All that exists is LAURIE WAS A REVOLUTIONARY CHARACTER Lee Curtis is insistent. something that happened to your character on IN THE ORIGINAL HALLOWEEN. SHE WAS “I have goosebumps,” she announces, October 31st 1978.” STRONG AND SHE WAS SMART AND SHE inching up her sleeves to reveal pimpling flesh. WASN’T OVERTLY SEXUALISED… “On both arms. I want evidence in your story! I HOW DID THAT EXPERIENCE IMPACT ON She was under-sexualised! have goosebumps on both arms. Because that is LAURIE EMOTIONALLY? the integrity of this Halloween movie.” There was no trauma therapy for Laurie in DID SHE FEEL LIKE A REVOLUTION WHEN Curtis, you quickly realise, is barely a layer of 1978. Nothing. This girl had a cut on her arm. YOU WERE PLAYING HER? skin away from Laurie Strode, the role that first They stitched up her arm. Period. No one sent No. Because remember this. She only became made her name – and the one she’s playing in a team to take care of Laurie Strode. So what strong out of necessity. See, the Laurie we meet again, 40 years on. happens to someone like that? That’s what this 40 years later is prepared. Laurie then wasn’t She’s an intense presence, alternately playful movie’s about. That person becomes the only prepared for anything except doing homework. – SFX is greeted with a burst of Dick Van Dyke person who ever looked Michael Myers in the She was a complete innocent. And her strength mockney – and so direct she all but harpoons eye and lived. And no one’s talking to her. No came out of ingenuity and her reaction to you to the wall. At one point she’s in actual one’s trying to help her through it. And that’s something. There’s a great quote that I love, tears remembering a particularly emotional what’s profound. from a book by Marisha Pessl – life hinges on a day’s filming. A crying film star is quite a thing couple of seconds you never see coming, and to share a room with. YOU SAY YOU’RE EMOTIONALLY CONNECTED what you do in those seconds determines “She’s mine,” she says of the ultimate Final TO LAURIE. WHAT WAS THE EXPERIENCE OF everything from then on. And you won’t know Girl. “She’s me. She embodied everything that PLAYING HER AGAIN? what you’re going to do until you’re there. And was good about me. I am emotionally This took a toll. This was a very emotional gig. that’s really why Laurie Strode is so powerful connected to her, without question. Deeply.” Big surprise to me how emotional I was during to me. Life hinged for her in those two seconds, the making of this. Physically it was a violent in that closet. And now 40 years later we are movie – I have a cracked rib. I’m wearing a rib seeing the result of it. belt right now from it. ARE YOU SURPRISED TO BE BACK PLAYING YOU’RE A COSPLAYER, RIGHT? LAURIE STRODE? DID YOU FEEL YOU’D PUT HOW DID YOU CRACK YOUR RIB? I can throw down. I need costumes with masks A FULL STOP TO THAT CHARACTER AND Double M. Mister Myers. I wrassled a bit. It because it’s a little hard for me to cosplay as THAT FRANCHISE? was a gruelling physical experience and a very myself because then people just want to take You know what, I didn’t put a full stop to emotional experience. The last scene I shot my picture. anything. Look, I’m going to die someday. was Laurie watching Michael leaving the There’s the full stop. Prior to that? I’m open for hospital to go to a maximum security prison. SO YOU CAN NEVER COSPLAY AS LAURIE business. I’m a creative human being. So for me Forty years of waiting for that moment. She’s STRODE? there was no “I’ve done that, I’m not going to sitting alone in a pick-up truck outside and she That’s why I don’t have to go out on do that anymore,” because what they came up loses her mind. And we shot it. It was the last Halloween ever, for the rest of my life. I get to with was just brilliant. Every time you tell a thing we shot. And the entire crew had a just be at home and give candy to kids who new version you add another layer of plaster, so nametag on that said “I am Laurie Strode” don’t come to my house, because I live in a you ended up with a very ugly franchise. It [tears in eyes]. When I showed up on set that place where people don’t come. I get the became so convoluted because of so many night to do the scene alone in a truck, with just bucket of candy ready, every year. That’s my layers of storytelling. And what David [Gordon me, nobody else, reacting and feeling, the relief, Halloween. Now I have to get some tissues Green, director] did was basically say, “I’ve the horror, the trauma, all cascading on her. because you made me cry…

40 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2016 HALLOWEEN

THERE WAS NO TRAUMA THERAPY FOR LAURIE IN 1978. NO ONE CAME IN TO Jamie Lee Curtis is ready to kick ass TAKE CARE OF HER with director David Gordon Green.

NOVEMBER 2016 | SFX MAGAZINE | 41 42 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 HALLOWEEN HALLOWEEN REIMAGINED JOHN CARPENTER’S CLASSIC AS A GRUNGY MOVIE – TO HUGE BOX OFFICE SUCCESS AND TERRIBLE CRITICAL RESPONSE. AS HE TELLS CALUM WADDELL, “IF YOU START WORRYING ABOUT WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK YOU ARE SCREWED…”

T’S HARD TO BELIEVE THAT on the whole series and that is why my invincible and impervious to pain (taking Michael Myers (or “The Shape” as he Halloween was more of a serial killer movie – several bullets to the face, neck and back and a is also known) has been embedded in we got to look at this troubled kid’s childhood fall from the top of an old dark mansion)… pop culture for 40 years – and yet no in more detail and what made him Michael “Okay, yeah, it was still the story of this guy single filmmaker seems to know Myers. I wanted my version of Halloween to searching for his sister,” admits Zombie. “But exactly what to do with the mysterious feel a lot more real because the previous films the guy was definitely more real… I didn’t have masked marauder. By Halloween II had done everything except for maybe sending him appear and reappear in the movie like in (1981) it was revealed Myers was in him to outer space.” the Carpenter film. I wanted to avoid people fact trying to kill his younger sister – giving the Nevertheless, Zombie’s film still chose to thinking he was supernatural. But it was not an character motivation for his initial small-town follow the legacy introduced by Halloween II in easy movie to make. I kept being asked, ‘Hey, murder spree. For tenth-anniversary sequel 1981: his Michael Myers is revealed to be should we show this to Carpenter or so and so Halloween IV in 1988 he was awoken from a chasing his sister and hell-bent on killing her. from the original and see what they think?’ And decade-long coma to chase after his telepathic Moreover, despite his claim to realism, the my response was just, ‘What the fuck do I niece. However, when audiences got to the Halloween remake (which settles into John care?’ When I get asked what my advice is in sixth film, The Curse Of Michael Myers, in 1995 Carpenter territory in its second half, but with this business I tell people to just focus on what a decision had made been made to link Myers added lewd dialogue, nudity and gore) veers they want to do because if you start worrying to an ancient cult of druids that practised crop into the supernatural realm during its ending. about what other people think you are screwed harvesting, incest and blood sacrifice – and not Myers is – once again – revealed to be [laughs]. I am oblivious to all that. I love necessarily in that order. Halloween and I wanted to do my own thing When Jamie Lee Curtis returned to the Michael really with it. Whether people like my Halloween or series for H20 in 1998 we were back to a sister didn’t like don’t like it is irrelevant to me. At least it has vs brother showdown – but even that is being that dress. my own personal stamp on there.” retconned for this year’s reimagining, which picks up 40 years after the original and scraps the family link altogether. BEHIND THE MASK You can imagine Rob Zombie’s frustration With more backstory (we learn that Myers was when he was offered the chance to revamp the abused by a redneck stepfather and took to franchise with a remake… torturing animals), Zombie’s Halloween “Yeah, I mean there was so much stuff in the certainly changes pace from Carpenter’s movie. old films I wanted to avoid,” remembers the However, what many fans disliked was when director. “They had already made eight Halloween settled into familiar slice-and-dice Halloween movies – all of different quality – by territory – with a group of teens terrorised by the time I came along and I took a completely the familiar knife-wielding weirdo – few of the

REX (2) different approach. I wanted to do a new take characters were especially likeable…

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 43 You can’t escape ALL IN THE from getting a FAMILY speeding ticket. Like mother, like daughter… “I think Laurie Strode from my Halloween was a bit boring,” reveals the director. “I mean, she is supposed to be the all-American nice girl While John Carpenter, who had and, to me, that is just dull [laughs]. That is scripting and producing duties on Halloween II, admits that why when we did the sequel I made her this introducing the family link between really damaged person – because that is Michael and Laurie was something infinitely more interesting and cool to explore. he always regretted (hence the But in Halloween, I made a movie about reason for retconning it in the new Michael Myers, that came from the of, 2018 sequel), it does lead to some interesting diversions – including a ‘Okay, what if this was a real man? An actual direct link to Zombie’s own serial killer? What set him off?’ And then I Halloween. For Halloween IV in wanted to think about what Doctor Loomis An innovative 1988, a child actress called Danielle would be like if he were a real person too – and way to hang Harris was introduced to the series Malcolm McDowell loved that character. He Halloween as the daughter of the (now decorations. written-off) Jamie Lee Curtis. After really understood what I was trying to do and her mother’s storyline death, Harris he played it very differently from Donald would be the sole family member Pleasence in the original movies…” sequel to 2005’s more acclaimed The Devil’s for Myers to stalk – with the Rejects. “But I am still proud of both Halloween storyline continuing through Halloween V (1989) and The Curse movies. I prefer the second one, which might Of Michael Myers (1996). However, A TIME TO KILL surprise people, but the problem is that when when Curtis returned for H20 in Certainly, few fans were able to deny that you do a remake you can never get a true 1998, the previous three sequels Zombie’s Halloween was unlike anything else judgement on what it is you have done. I think were ignored. But for his Halloween in the series. With a heightened level of it’s the same deal when someone remakes A and Halloween 2, Zombie cast the now grown-up Harris as a teenager nastiness, lengthy scenes of stabbing and Nightmare On Elm Street or anything else – it’s in both films, a welcome nod to the mass-slaughter and a towering Michael Myers just too hard to completely break the formula. mythology’s past! (played by former professional wrestler Tyler Everyone knows Michael Myers and a lot of Mane), this felt like a motion picture beamed the fans want the same thing again, but maybe direct from a grungy grindhouse cinema on with a small twist – like when they did the New York’s 42nd Street in the mid-1970s. eighth one and he’s part of a virtual television More than Carpenter classic, it programme or something [laughs]. One thing was difficult for many Halloween loyalists to that I got a lot of was, ‘This is what it should recognise the popcorn thrills of old underneath have been,’ or, ‘He should have done it like this,’ the oddball child psychology and buckets of but if that is the barrier we set then you cannot spilled blood… ever do anything. I really wanted to rework “To be honest, I would rather be doing my what Halloween was.” own thing anyway,” affirms Zombie, whose Released on 31 August 2007, Rob Zombie’s

most recent work includes 3 From Hell – a Halloween had enough curiosity around it to be REX (4)

44 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 HALLOWEEN

The Michael “Don’t you dare Myers mask has call me Pumpkin become iconic. Head again.”

her up. The original Halloween II never did THROWING LAURIE’S THE that. And now that I had established this universe I felt like I could do anything I wanted SHAPES ALL-AMERICAN with it.” Making sense of multiple Unleashed to less than half the box office of Myersverses NICE GIRL AND I its predecessor, Halloween II put an end to one of the strangest interventions in a successful THOUGHT THAT film franchise. Played as gritty, gross-out Any newcomer to the Halloween retro-shockers, Zombie’s attempt to turn franchise may be spooked at how WAS JUST DULL Michael Myers from a supernatural figure of little coherency there is between to a hulking giant of torture and films. For 2018’s Halloween, the the highest-grossing opening of all time during torment was so leftfield that it is a surprise it sequel takes up 40 years after the the American Labor Day weekend – a title it ever got greenlit. By the time of Halloween II, ending of the original 1978 film. This factor now gives the horror still holds. Cutting its way to the number-one the Zombie version of Myers is even controlled mainstay no less than four different spot in the United States, its enemy was not the by a vision of his dead mother on a white horse timelines (ignoring the unrelated usual franchise loyalists crowing against it, but – veering so far into the supernatural that any Halloween III: Season Of The Witch rather the critics – negative feedback meant claims of reality are decidedly dubious. from 1982): Halloween II/4/5/6 represent a conclusive narrative of that, even with an eventual $80 million gross, Unsurprisingly, Zombie feels his time increasingly supernatural events Halloween came and went from the theatres contributing to teen-kill mythology is over. that lead to Myers’ identity being remarkably fast. “I feel like I said everything I wanted to,” he linked to bizarre Celtic folklore. Nonetheless, Zombie returned to his hit shrugs. “When I finished Halloween II I Alternatively, the original Jamie Lee property for the 2009 follow-up. thought, ‘There is no way I can take this into a Curtis storyline runs through II/H20 and finishes with the disastrous “Yeah, I mean that was a tough decision,” Halloween III’ – and then I heard they were Halloween: Resurrection (2002). reasons the director. “For a start, going to do something different with the next Zombie’s twosome, of course, I was really burned out after one anyway. And that is always the challenge introduced and concluded a new doing Halloween. It was a tough, – to keep reinventing this character that universe of their very own. tough movie to make. And I tried we all love.” to make it look like we killed him As we await the return of Jamie in the end. But, yeah, eventually I Lee Curtis and another promised had to admit, ‘Nah, he just got hurt. fresh start for Michael Myers, at He was never really dead’ [laughs]. I least for a short time we got a was excited to do a sequel, though glimpse of Halloween as a more – mainly because if the first film was radical and revolting about Michael and how he became proposition than any this famous murderer, the second previous horror redux had one could be about Laurie and dared. Trick or treat, how this event had really messed anyone?

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 45 DANCERS IN THE DARK LUCA GUADAGNINO’S “COVER VERSION” OF SUSPIRIA WANTS TO PUT YOU UNDER ITS SPELL...

EMAKES ARE HARD identities, both as a filmmaker and about ,” she says. She bustling Berlin, still feeling the to pull off – especially a man.” It would be another three found the incredible choreography after-effects of the second World when they’re based on years before he got to see the film. punishing, however, with one War. For that reason, Argento’s films as iconic as The plot remains largely the particular scene ending with the psychedelic colour palette has Suspiria. Oscar- same as the original. Susie (Dakota actress in hospital. “I threw my been swapped for more muted nominated director Luca Johnson) joins a prestigious dance back out really badly... I felt like I visuals that owes a debt to German Guadagnino (Call Me By Your company in 1970s Germany, had tossed my torso from my legs. cinema of the period. Likewise, Name) was undeterred however. quickly growing close to the It’s not delicate work … you’re the spine-tingling score by Goblin He’s been planning to remake mysterious Madame Blanc (Tilda being really rough with yourself, is gone, replaced by a soundtrack Dario Argento’s horror classic for Swinton). Her rise, however, and behaving like a professional from Radiohead’s Thom Yorke. a very long time it turns out. seems to precipitate sinister events dancer when you’re not.” says the effect Guadagnino first crossed paths and another dancer accuses the While the story remains the of all these changes is akin to a with the film when he was just 10 group’s “Mothers” of being witches. same, the look and feel have “cover version” of the original. “As years old and saw its striking Although she hadn’t seen the evolved into something very we know in music, covers often poster. “I didn’t know what it was original when she was cast, different. Where the original was sound very different from the about, but the image was so Johnson was immediately set in Freiburg, the new film original song,” she says. The new powerful,” Guadagnino says. attracted to the project. “I love moves the action to Suspiria isn’t intended to replace “That’s how I discovered Suspiria, dance movies, I love movies about the original, however – it never and it forged one of my primary women and the push and pull could. Instead, Swinton insists, between them, and I love films Guadagnino’s desire to make the film “comes out of a deep affection for Argento’s classic.” Will Salmon

Suspiria is out on 16 November.

Riverdance is a lot edgier than it used to be.

46 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 SLAUGHTERHOUSE RULEZ

People kept asking them if they were part of the Harry Potter convention.

CRISPIAN MILLS TAKES US BACK TO CLASS FOR HIS COMEDY-HORROR SLAUGHTERHOUSE RULEZ

’M NOT A MASSIVE FAN OF REALLY FRIGHTENING “I think the film has a vibe, but we also have to movies,” laughs Crispian Mills. “I’m too sensitive!” Still, that be careful that it’s not that,” says Frost, citing ’s 2004 hasn’t stopped the former frontman-turned-director that broke Frost and Pegg into the big-time. “Inevitably from confronting the “horrible stuff of nightmares” as he puts it, there will be comparisons. But if you make something that’s honest and for his new movie, Slaughterhouse Rulez. Set around an elite fun and frightening and a bit gory and sick, then I think it will stand up public school, it begins when a fracking company’s nearby drilling on its own.” creates a sink hole that unleashes some vicious monsters. While Frost plays an anti-fracking protestor, Pegg – who previously The script, co-written with former film critic Henry Fitzherbert, was worked with Mills on 2012’s A Fantastic Fear Of Everything – co-stars as originally set in America when Mills first joined the project. “I really a new teacher at the school, run by Michael Sheen’s head. Frost and liked the idea for lots of reasons,” he says. “It had a slightly zeitgeist-y Pegg also get to reunite on screen – the first time since 2014’s Cuban feel to it. In the same way Godzilla was the result of Cold War and Fury. “It’s just a little scene, smoking a bit of weed,” he grins. “Not nuclear paranoia, we had these fracking monsters coming out.” real, obviously. That time has passed now.” The film’s setting was eventually relocated to an English Mills may not be so keen on gory horror but he is looking to boarding school. ramp up the scares – not least in scenes shot in Chislehurst Featuring Asa Butterfield, Hermione Corfield and Finn Caves. The monsters are played for real, rather than realised Cole as the school pupils facing off with these carnivorous with CG. “I really was very keen to get that balance between creatures, the cast also includes an impressive array of adult practical creatures and imperceptible magical CGI,” says stars “who are there to get in the way of the kids,” says Mills, Mills. Even so, he doesn’t want it to look too slick. “Sometimes including and , who are on board as I like seeing there’s a bit of rubber!” James Mottram executive producers. Slaughterhouse Rulez marks the first film for their new company Stolen Picture. Slaughterhouse Rulez is in cinemas from 31 October.

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 47 THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE , SHIRLEY JACKSON’S TALE OF A “VILE, DISEASED” MANSION, IS COMING TO THE SMALL SCREEN. SHOWRUNNER MIKE FLANAGAN TALKS TO IAN BERRIMAN

48 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE

RCHITECTURE WHOSE every angle is askew. A labyrinthine layout, with rooms arranged in concentric circles. A vertiginous spiral staircase, leading to a balcony from which a woman once launched herself into space, her neck in a noose. Who lives in a house like this? No one with any good sense… Shirley Jackson’s 1959 novel The Haunting Of Hill House – and The Haunting, the classic 1963 film which adapted it – unfolds in one of horror’s least desirable residences. Now it’s welcomed new tenants for a 10-part Netflix TV series. It’s a dream gig for showrunner/director Mike Flanagan (Oculus, Ouija: Origin Of Evil), who read the book at a tender age. “It had a real impact on me,” Flanagan tells SFX. “The characters are so beautifully drawn. I also saw the Robert Wise film when I was very young – it absolutely terrified me! As I got older and grew to appreciate the film’s artistry, what struck me was how it managed to frighten people by showing them absolutely nothing. Wise did more with sound effects and a close-up of a door than most horror movies accomplish with millions of dollars of computer-generated effects!”

SHIRLEY VALENTINE In both Jackson’s book and Wise’s film, a paranormal researcher rents Hill House and invites three guests to this “place of contained ill will”: the highly-strung Eleanor Vance (Nell for short), who experienced poltergeist activity as a child; Theodora, a vivacious lesbian with ESP ability; Luke Sanderson, the property’s disreputable future heir. Soon they’re encountering a mysterious “cold spot”, being woken by furious banging, and finding sinister messages scrawled on the walls. “I’ve always considered that film to be perfect, and have revisited it many times,” Flanagan says. “So when Amblin Partners said they were interested in expanding it into a season-long TV property, my first reaction was, ‘Well, how?’ The material fits so comfortably into a feature film format, and Bob Wise had already done it perfectly.” His solution: keeping key elements but “running it through a different prism” by throwing out the key cast and assigning their names to different characters. So Nell, Theo and Luke are now three of five siblings in the fractured Crain family; Shirley (after Jackson) and Steven (a nod to The Haunting fan Spielberg?) are the other two. The series jumps back and forth between events they

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 49 The haunted family at the centre of the story.

LUKE WHO’S TALKING Oliver Jackson-Cohen plays the youngest Crain sibling

experienced two decades ago at Hill House and spirits in Hill House – like the creepy “Bent their present-day lives in occupations like child Neck Lady”. psychologist, mortician and novelist. “It was clear early on that we could never go “I’m very drawn to family horror,” Flanagan the full Wise,” Flanagan admits. “When it came explains, “So we came up with a new structure to having to show ghosts, I knew we couldn’t that was about a family that’d moved into the get away with not doing it. The thing I wanted house. Then the idea was that we’d spend the to take from Wise, though – and from the novel first half of the season focusing on one sibling – is the idea that you may not understand what each episode, and the second half would be you’re seeing, and playing with the audience’s about bringing the family back together and assumptions. So there are twists coming that How’d you tackle playing a junkie? getting back to Hill House.” will recontextualise a lot of the ghosts. We I quickly decided that everyone else Typically horror ends with a traumatic event, wanted to be true to the ambiguity Jackson defines Luke by his addiction and he doesn’t. I don’t think it’s the most and we only see how it affects the characters’ played with so beautifully about whether or important thing about his character. lives if it’s explored in a sequel. Here the way not the house was even haunted as well. So It’s more about this horrific event trauma echoes down through the years is while we’re more explicit, that doesn’t always he’s constantly trying to run away threaded throughout. mean you can trust what you see.” from. I didn’t want to play an addict; “It’s a theme that’s really fascinating to me,” I wanted to play someone struggling deeply with just functioning. Flanagan says. “How the trauma of our youth can shape our adulthood. This was always a SICK BUILDING What appealed about the script? show about family, grief and trauma. It just Flanagan also drew heavily from the novel If you take away the mystery, Mike’s happened to be wrapped in the skin of a horror. when it came to the crucial matter of depicting basically writing about a family Six Feet Under that’s been through a traumatic We talked about things like Hill House – which we see as both a family event, and what that does. I loved – authentic family dramas. To me, it’s more home and in a dilapidated state. that it’s taking a formulaic idea – a interesting to be in that world and let the “We needed it to feel schizophrenic,” family move into a house, it’s horror elements creep into that space than it is Flanagan says. “That so many people had lived haunted, awful stuff happens – then to just go for the jolt.” and died in it, and so many different people had asking, “What’d happen if we caught up with them 20 years later?” Robert Wise would surely have agreed, as his hands in building it over the years.” film is renowned for its subtle scares. There are They stumbled upon the house used for What was the Hill House set like? no spectral visitations or geysers of blood – just exteriors out in the woods in Georgia. It makes you nauseous to be put in eerie noises and a door warping out of shape. “It’s one of the strangest buildings I’ve ever there: the colours of the walls, and Flanagan was keen to pay homage. seen,” Flanagan laughs. “You look at it from one everything about the way they’ve designed the show. It’s all done with “We have our riff on a famous sequence he angle and it looks Victorian, very angular and so much thought. We did episode did with Eleanor and Theo huddled in a bed, clean. From another angle it looks medieval – it six as basically one take, and it was while you’re hearing these phantom banging has these stone turrets that don’t make any incredible. It’s deeply unsettling! noises. We went down to the basic shot sense! Once we found it, it really inspired the sequence and mirrored him almost exactly.” production designer for our interior build.”

GETTY (1) But he also knows that a modern audience Some of the ways his set works its effects on expects to see more. So expect to encounter the viewer are practically subliminal.

50 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE

Michiel Huisman and Timothy Hutton star as father and son.

THE HOUSE THAT JACKSON This is why you don’t carry fountain pens BUILT in your pocket. The foundations of them through the series. I wanted the film to the classic novel IT’S BETTER TO be an irreverent tribute to the book, and to Shirley Jackson was open about The Robert Wise.” Haunting Of Hill House’s influences. In LET THE HORROR Other nods are more discreet. Take the stone lecture “Experience And Fiction”, she lions. In Jackson’s book, Eleanor is fascinated recalled a journey to New York in ELEMENTS CREEP by a house which has a pair sitting outside, and January 1958. As her train pulled into Harlem’s 125th Street Station, she talks of having some on her mantelpiece. spied “a building so disagreeable that IN THAN JUST GO “We had our own stone lions placed I couldn’t stop looking at it”, so carefully around the house,” Flanagan says. unnerving it led to nightmares. FOR THE JOLT “But also there’s a hotel the characters stay in: Jackson claimed she later learned it was a building where nine had died in the Stone Lion Inn. Little Easter eggs like that a fire. The tale may be embroidered “We wanted the house to be full of implied were delightful for us. I hope the fans can grab – her biographer could only find a fire or explicit faces that were always staring at the onto them.” site where three died, not visible by characters – or the audience,” Flanagan reveals. It’s been Flanagan’s first experience of rail. Whatever, Jackson’s interest was “Almost all our wallpaper has different facial working in this medium, but it sounds like it piqued. She wrote to her parents requesting pictures of old patterns inside it. They’re in the doorknobs too won’t be his last. houses. They sent clippings and a – some are animals, some human. Then there’s “I’ve wanted to get into television for a long brochure for the infamous Winchester the placement of windows in relation to time,” Flanagan says, “because of how much House. Jackson also claimed she fireplaces: we laid out eyes and an open mouth larger the canvas is – how much time you can came across a photo in a magazine of a house with an “air of disease and in all the rooms. It’s a subconscious thing, but it spend with the characters, and how thorough decay”, later discovering that it was creates this sense of unease.” you can be with their arc.” built by her own great-grandfather. That’s not the only thing to look out for. But next time Flanagan may think twice Jackson’s research also fed into the There are references aplenty – some more before choosing to direct every episode of a book. Naming her protagonist, she obvious than others. series himself... may well have had in mind Eleanor Jourdain, “When you get to episode five “I approached it like a 10-hour movie, co-author of The you’ll see Russ Tamblyn, who and it really felt that way. By day 50 of Adventure (1910), two played Luke in the Robert Wise our shoot, knowing that we’d not yet Edwardian women’s film,” Flanagan reveals. “He plays reached the halfway mark, that was account of a timeslip at the Palace of a character called Dr Montague. somewhat overwhelming. I’m Versailles. And One of my favourite parts of working on a movie now and it Haunted People (1951), production was giving him a seems incredibly relaxing. It’s a book about tour of Hill House – that was like, ‘We only have to do two poltergeists, probably absolutely surreal! We went hours – that’s nothing!’ It feels inspired the detail of the young Eleanor through the novel finding like a long vacation!” being plagued by story points, character showers of stones… moments, and sometimes The Haunting Of Hill House specific language, and begins streaming on Netflix finding ways to pepper on 12 October.

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 51 GARTH MARENGHI CREATOR MATTHEW HOLNESS ON DUMMIES, DOUBLES AND DARK PLACES IN HIS DEBUT HORROR FEATURE POSSUM

AN YOU SPY HIM DEEP WITHIN? LITTLE POSSUM. Black as sin.” That’s a line from the creepy poem that runs through Possum, the deeply disturbing horror debut from Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace creator Matthew Holness. The film began life as a short story, when Holness was asked to contribute to an anthology called The New Uncanny. As the writer/ director explains, “They were asking various writers to look at Freud’s Theory of the Uncanny and reinterpret some of these basic human fears for a modern audience. So I picked the fear of dummies and the fear of doubles. I liked the idea of combining two of them.” The film stars Sean Harris as Philip, a disgraced children’s puppeteer haunted by the presence of his terrifying puppet, a monstrous creation with giant spider legs and a version of his own face. “The idea of a puppeteer making a puppet that was a complete double of themselves was frightening in a different kind of way,” says Holness, “because so many of the ventriloquist dummy stories, they’re often a creepy-looking Veteran British puppet, but they don’t really resemble the puppeteer. Other ventriloquist actor Alun puppet films, they have a psychological breakdown at the very end of the Armstrong story and I thought it would be interesting to start my story where also stars. they’re already broken down.” Holness is justifiably proud of his puppet monstrosity. He elaborates It’s fair to say that audiences who are more familiar with Holness’s on its creation: “I’d read about the Halloween thing, where you put a comedy background really won’t be expecting Possum. And that’s just blank face there and the audience will bring their own subconscious fine with Holness: “I’d like to just make horror films now, really. In all fears to it. And I think that really works in this case, because [designer honesty, I’ve got absolutely no interest in doing comedy anymore. There Dominic Hailstone] sculpted a version of Sean’s head which wasn’t are no rays of light in this film, there’s not a single joke, there’s no light in really doing anything and suddenly we were like, yeah, this is very, very this very dark tunnel.” In other words, Holness’s Possum is the ultimate creepy. Because you can’t tell why it’s being creepy, it’s not doing dark place. Be afraid. Matthew Turner anything, so you’re forcing yourself to wonder why, what’s its expression, and that’s when it became a very frightening puppet for me.” Possum is in cinemas from 26 October. GETTY

52 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 BRUCE CAMPBELL

HORROR ICON BRUCE

CAMPBELL what this character was trying to do beyond trying to survive and ON WHAT save his girlfriend.” With Evil Dead II, Ash went from worrier to MAKES ASH warrior. “Ash is a little more of a veteran,” says Campbell of Ash’s WILLIAMS evolution. “It was the first time we brought a little in too.” A HERO By the time Raimi’s trilogy closer arrived, Ash had changed yet again. “In , HAT MAKES Ash becomes more over-confident Ash special is and almost -ian in that he’s not his pronouncements. By the by – special,” says in the horror world, Ash is the only Bruce Campbell hero,” Campbell rightly points out. of the longevity of his Deadite- “He’s the only good guy. It’s rare slaying alter-ego Ash Williams. He but we didn’t know any of this as should know. Having spent nearly we were plodding along. What did 40 years living with Ash following it was DVDs. They brought the ’s splatterfest Evil Dead, movies back, remastered them amped-up sequel Evil Dead II, and interviewed people.” threequel Army Of Darkness and With axed, three seasons of Starz’s Campbell put Ash into retirement small-screen continuation Ash but not before adding some final Vs Evil Dead, he’s got to know character flair. “If we did Evil this boomstick-wielding hero Dead 4, Ash would’ve gone just well. “Ash has no special another incremental step but with skills,” he tells SFX. “No super 30 episodes you can introduce powers, no special suit, he can’t new sides to him. Ash was like a fly. I think that helps the teacher where at the end of the average person relate to him. day, he’d disappear into the “He’s a guy trying to save parking lot. This was more the world out of his garage intensive.” As for Ash Williams’s with just the stuff he can retirement? “He’d not be doing a build,” Campbell adds on lot,” Campbell suggests. “Partying Ash’s endurance power. in his crappy trailer with beer and “On the first Evil Dead, we chicks he picked up at the bar. He didn’t know who we were wouldn’t be contributing to his trying to create. We were community.” Simon Bland just standing in front of a camera saying lines of dialogue. Ash vs Evil Dead Season 3 is It really was about halfway available on Blu-ray and DVD through that we figured out on 22 October. GETTY (1)

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 53 DIRECTOR JOE DANTE TALKS ATOMIC AGE CHILLERS AND CONSTRUCTING THE PERFECT SCARE

ORROR MAESTRO JOE DANTE IS television, a whole generation of kids, who now As for what scares Dante today, the director by no means unique in having his call themselves Monster Kids, were exposed to has a practised answer, delivered in a way that childhood movie experiences shape these movies for the first time.” suggests he’s only half joking: “You mean his career path, but few directors A self-confessed Monster Kid, Dante besides Trump? Well, nothing scares me as have managed to parlay their love of connected to other creature feature fanatics much, I’ll tell you that.” Dark humour is, of monster movies into such a comprehensive through Famous Monsters Of Filmland course, a familiar presence in Dante’s films, to compendium of creature features. With a magazine, which, he says, “united a whole the point where he cites it as a key ingredient filmography that encompasses Gremlins, group of geeky kids who didn’t know that there when constructing the perfect scare: “I find , flesh-eating piranha and a were as many of them as there were. And so it that humour is a very helpful adjunct to scaring half-man, half-ant, the 71-year-old director is built into kind of a force and it actually people. These are lessons I learned on The only too happy to wax nostalgic about the scary influenced a whole wave of horror movies and Howling, that if you get people relaxed, then movies of his childhood. “I’m a child of the science fiction movies that were made in the you can scare them. If you’re into jump scares, atomic age, so theatrically, the movies that I late ’50s to satisfy this particular crowd. Now that’s not hard to do, but if you want to startle saw were all science fiction pictures like Them! we all look back nostalgically on those movies, them, it’s always easier to do after they’ve and War Of The Worlds, pictures like that,” says even the bad ones. And it definitely influences laughed at something, because then they feel Dante. “They were the big scary movies when you when you try to make artistic statements. that they’re safe and that’s when they’re I was a kid. But then when the Universal You’re definitely harking back to the things vulnerable. It’s kind of a predatory way of Pictures from the ’30s started to appear on that influenced you when you were a kid.” looking at horror films.” Matthew Turner GETTY

54 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018

56 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA

THERE’S A SPOOKY ON NETFLIX AND WE WITH HEAR SHE CANCHILLING DO MAGIC... ADVENTURES CREATOR ROBERTO OF SABRINA AGUIRRE- SACASA TALKS KIMBERLEY BALLARD UNDER A BLOOD MOON EING A TEENAGE GIRL can feel like hell on earth. Unless you’re pretty and popular, it’s a nightmare of insecurities, trying to make new friends, getting good grades and surviving mortifying crushes. But imagine how much worse it would be if you had to live between two worlds as a half mortal and half witch. If you were split between being an ordinary high school girl and a young princess of the Church of the Night… When Sabrina Spellman debuted in Archie’s Mad House in 1962 her appeal was simple: she was a sweet, bubbly blonde whose magical hijinks got her into cauldrons of trouble. But 50 years on, audiences have darker, more complex appetites. It’s the perfect time for Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina, a Netflix series based on the Archie Horror comic book that weaves a darker story for the budding sorceress. This isn’t a world of charms and sparkles, but one where Sabrina eats human flesh for dinner, engages in necromancy and dances with her coven in the pitch-black woods. Luckily, series creator Roberto Aguirre- Sacasa has experience with spiky reimaginings. He gave the dweeby teens of Archie Comics an edgy makeover in hit show Riverdale and brought their comic counterparts into the in Afterlife With Archie. “After working on Afterlife, I began thinking about a companion series featuring Sabrina, who has a cameo in the comic,” he says. “And I thought, well I really love those old Satanic horror movies from the ’60s and ’70s. Classic ones like Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen. I thought, that would be fun to give Sabrina a different style and a different identity.” Chilling Adventures takes Sabrina back to her childhood, where she’s orphaned as a baby and adopted by her witchy aunts, Hilda and Zelda. Sabrina grows up broken in two, learning the dark Sabrina had been arts at home while outwardly practising this dance living as a normal girl who attends routine for hours. Baxter High. As she nears her 16th

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 57 A HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT Tracing Sabrina’s evolution from Archie toon to feminist icon

In 1962, Sabrina Spellman is created by comic book writer George Gladir and cartoonist Dan DeCarlo. She’s formally introduced in Archie’s Mad House #22 in October and appears in the comic Lace and mean Sabrina just until issue 74 in August 1970. looks were so in wants to be an this season. ordinary girl. Sabrina appears in every issue of Archie’s TV Laugh-Out for 109 issues from 1969 to 1985. birthday, she has a terrible decision to make: And who could be a better role model for does she choose a simple mortal life with her young women than a witch who refuses to be boyfriend Harvey or embrace her powers and told what to do, whether by her family or the From 1970 to 1974, Sabrina gets her own animated series. write her name in the Dark Lord’s book? patriarchal institution of her coven, led by the Sabrina The Teenage Witch domineering High Priest Father Blackwood. airs every Sunday morning on “Sabrina’s about to celebrate her 16th CBS for four seasons. SIXTEEN CANDLES birthday when we meet her,” Aguirre-Sacasa It’s obvious what a lot of Sabrina fans have says. “She’s got insecurities like other girls, but Sabrina gets a solo comic in Sabrina been thinking. How can Chilling Adventures at her heart she is an activist, and she questions The Teen-Age Witch, which runs for ever compare with the beloved ABC traditions and she questions dogma. She 77 issues from 1971 to 1983. starring Melissa Joan Hart as the teen witch? questions the patriarchy and the High Priest, (“I watched Sabrina growing up and I thought and she’s always asking, ‘Why do I have to do In 1977, The New Archie And Sabrina I knew it,” says Agurirre-Sacasa, “but working this? It doesn’t feel right. It shouldn’t be this Hour begins. Sabrina gets her own on this show, I’ve met people who really know way.’ She is very political in that way. And I segment, “Super Witch”, but the show’s it. They’re like hardcore fans.”) Despite these cancelled after just 13 episodes in 1978. think that comes from the fact that she’s half concerns, Aguirre-Sacasa believes that bringing witch and half mortal, so she has two sets of in horror elements only elevate the coming-of- concerns on her mind at all times.” Melissa Joan Hart stars as Sabrina in age story at Sabrina’s core. Aguirre is also adamant that his story isn’t the popular ABC sitcom, which runs for seven seasons from 1996 to 2003. “Sabrina as a teenage witch just felt like such simply a parallel to shows like Buffy The a great metaphor,” he explains. “Horror and Vampire Slayer, which has also been optioned teenagers are a very potent combination. It’s for a modern retelling. “Unlike Buffy, high Sabrina’s third comic book series runs Carrie for 104 issues from 2000 to 2009. something we’ve seen in movies from , school is the opposition to the demonic side of who’s a teenager when she gets her powers, to Sabrina. High school is Sabrina’s safe haven The Exorcist. The young girl from The Exorcist from Blackwood and those forces of darkness. In 2013, Sabrina appears in is just becoming a teenager when she becomes So it’s a completely different metaphor to Afterlife With Archie, where she kickstarts the zombie possessed. There’s something about something like Buffy.” apocalypse by reviving those teenage years and that age The most important factor in Jughead’s dog Hot Dog. that just works. So we thought, we adapting Chilling Adventures was could make Sabrina hardcore finding the perfect Sabrina – a Archie Horror CEO horror and really tap into some challenge in an industry full of Roberto Aguirre- primal emotions.” talented young . But Sacasa starts writing There are other reasons Aguirre-Sacasa was quickly Chilling Adventures why Sabrina feels like such enchanted by Kiernan Shipka, Of Sabrina in 2014. In September 2017, an important character. As who grew up on Mad Men playing it’s announced he’ll more women come forward the rebellious daughter of Don and be adapting it for with stories of harassment Betty Draper. Although it was Netflix... and inequality, the need for actually Shipka’s performance in Oz empowered female Perkins’ 2015 horror film The characters has never Blackcoat’s Daughter that caught felt keener. Aguirre-Sacasa’s eye, where

58 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA

THE WHISKERING Richard Coyle plays High WORLD Priest Father Blackwood. In honour of sabrina’s FAMOUS MOGGY, SALEM, here are five this fascination with witchcraft is a deeply more feisty felines HORROR AND personal one. As he grew up in a strict, Pyewacket – Bell, Book & Candle religious household, watching films about The name Pyewacket has TEENAGERS ARE witches became a source of freedom. been linked with witches “It’s true, some of my favourite horror since the 1600s. Here it A VERY POTENT movies are witch movies,” he says. “I saw takes the form of a brown Siamese cat who slinks Rosemary’s Baby at a young age and became around and casts spells. MIX. THAT AGE obsessed with it. I didn’t understand it at the time because it didn’t feel like many scary Isis – Star Trek: The Original JUST WORKS things happened in it. It wasn’t until I was Series, “Assignment: Earth” older that I understood how terrifying it was, Isis is a very clever kitty indeed. She’s able to she plays a teenage girl whose loneliness makes and how much of a betrayal had happened in it. communicate with her her vulnerable to demonic possession. I grew up Catholic in Georgetown, close to owner telepathically, and “One of the wonderful things about Kiernan where The Exorcist took place, which made me can even shapeshift into is that she’s a teenager,” Aguirre-Sacasa says. very scared of the Devil. And devils and a beautiful, seductive lady. “She’s 18 years old. So she feels very much witches have always been associated, so I think Tabitha – Shadow Of The Cat Sabrina’s age. I thought she was Sabrina even that’s where the fascination came from. I also In this Hammer horror, a tabby before she auditioned. She was really my first love narratives that have strong female cat witnesses the murder of choice. I was so happy when she read the script protagonists and I love the way witchcraft her beloved mistress and and responded to it. And then she really fought combines horror and feminism. It’s a very goes after the men responsible. She even for the role and knocked everyone’s socks off. strong mix; that’s always attracted me.” lures one into a swamp It was one of these rare cases where it was the It looks like Aguirre-Sacasa has fully and watches him drown! perfect part at the perfect time in her career. embraced the imagery of his favourite films, “Kiernan is youthful and girlish, but she with pictures of Shipka walking with her General – Cat’s Eye This 1985 horror anthology also has a certain wisdom, and carries herself a broomstick and undergoing her initiation into film penned by Stephen certain way,” he continues. “She’s an intelligent, the coven. Then there’s the eerie teaser, which King sees a handsome confident actor. When she came in and read shows Sabrina about to blow out the candles on striped tabby cat called the scenes, all I thought was, she’s Sabrina! I her birthday cake as she sits opposite a horned General protect his said there’s no other Sabrina, this is Sabrina. It figure steeped in shadow. Its mix of sweet and young owner (played by a post-ET ) was just a quality she had. And, of course, she sinister is seriously creepy, and that’s exactly against an evil troll. played an iconic blonde character in the ’60s, what Aguirre-Sacasa wants. and that resonated with the role.” “It doesn’t start as dark as the comic,” he Jiji – Kiki’s Delivery Service says. “But as the series progresses and the Like Salem, Jiji is a black episodes unfold, it gets darker and darker. cat who becomes a young witch’s closest SPELL IT OUT Sabrina is put through the ringer. It does get friend. He has a tendency Stories of witches have been used as tools for gory and there’s quite a bit of . It to be sarcastic, but loves empowerment for years. There’s an entire wave goes to some pretty disturbing places!” cuddles and pancakes. of horror cinema devoted to the persecuted woman, whose powers become synonymous Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina starts with sexuality and power. For Aguirre-Sacasa, streaming on Netflix on 26 October.

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 59 “You’ve got red on you.”

other day and I said, ‘It’s the show that likes what you like.’ So, I SEASON THREE OF managed to get the monster twins, and a shout-out to [the song] ‘The STAN AGAINST EVIL Words Get Stuck In My Throat’ from War Of The Gargantuas into an : episode, and it thematically makes sense. It’s not part of a fever dream!” He continues, “And if you think we couldn’t do a Godzilla episode, MORE OF “THE SHOW THAT you’re wrong. Then there’s a standalone episode that’s basically our salute to Meet the Feebles. Just in terms of how crazy it is, it gets really LIKES WHAT YOU LIKE”… insane. When we were doing ADR, John McGinley looked at me and said, ‘Did we jump the shark with this one?’” Gould is excited to see how fans react. “I think that the mythology is HEN WE LEFT THE BESIEGED TOWN OF hammered home, the actors know their characters, and we really pushed Willard’s Mill in the second season finale of Stan ourselves and our storytelling with just how funny it is. I think two of Against Evil, Stan Miller (John C McGinley) and Sheriff our four best episodes [ever] are in season three.” Tara Bennett Evie (Janet Varney) failed to stop the doom blossoms from blooming, so a portal to Hell was opened up. Stan returns to IFC (US) on 31 October, and airs on Fox in the UK. Creator and showrunner Dana Gould tells SFX that’s a messy problem the pair will need to figure out in season three, especially if they want to The party had save their hamlet and the world. Gould says the new season will take a been a sizzling page from the new , “telling a story where you go on one it seemed. a quest for a certain thing, and even though you might get that thing, it’s never exactly what you think it’s going to be. I intentionally paint myself into a corner and that forces me to be creative in getting out of it. “It doesn’t go where you think it’s gonna go,” Gould stresses. “Stan and Evie find themselves in their own private Hells, and they have to challenge themselves to escape. That allowed me to take the story to a non-obvious place. Plus, we have a very teeny tiny, baby budget, so we are always challenging ourselves to tell a big story in a small way.” As an avid lover of monster flicks, Gould is thrilled to homage some of his favourites this season. “I was describing the show to somebody the

60 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 DRACUL

DACRE STOKER AND JD BARKER SINK THEIR TEETH INTO ’S EARLY DAYS IN DRACUL

RAM STOKER’S GREAT-GRANDNEPHEW, DACRE Stoker, drew on his distant relative’s literary notes for 2009’s Dracula sequel, Dracula: The Un-Dead. Now he and co-writer JD Barker have produced an official prequel in Dracul, this time referring to an old journal that had been left in the care of one of Bram Stoker’s great-grandsons. “While transcribing and researching the journal, I learned an awful lot about Bram himself,” says Stoker of his great-granduncle. “I then continued to dig into the lives of Bram and his family, and found them all to be fascinating. Bram’s childhood illness, his mysterious recovery, and his possible inspiration for writing Dracula continued to intrigue me.” Along with The Lost Journal Of Bram Stoker, Stoker and Barker referred to the original Dracula manuscript and the preface that Stoker’s great-granduncle penned for an Icelandic edition, which detailed some of the scenes that had been cut from the original 1897 novel before it was published. “JD and I worked together like forensic literary detectives before using our imagination and creative writing skills to fill in the gaps,” explains Stoker, who along with Bram Stoker himself, has incorporated several of his family members and friends into the story. “In Dracul – which is Vlad Dracula’s family name, as in the Romanian language, the letter ‘a’ is added to mean ‘son of’ – we focus on Bram’s formative years, and the fictionalised events that led to his writing of Dracula,” he reveals. “There’s Bram’s sister, Matilda, and his eldest brother, Dr William Thornley Stoker, and his wife Emily also plays a large role as does Arminius Vambery, who I believe was one of the models for Van Helsing. But probably the most unlikely person brought to life in Dracul is the Stokers’ devoted nanny, Ellen Crone.” Taking place in Dublin, Whitby, Munich and, of course, Transylvania, Dracul will also feature some familiar locations. “We’ve placed the action in real places and followed a timeline that’s quite similar to Bram’s own life,” explains Stoker. “The narrative moves along quickly with ample plot twists along the way. We wrote the story in the epistolary style, similar to how Bram wrote Dracula, using letters, newspaper articles and journal entries. With the novel concluding in 1890, there’s plenty of room for another follow-up and to explore more of Dracul. “That was the year Bram started to write Dracula,” says Stoker. “Dracula was published in 1897, which leaves another seven years for us to delve into – if we so choose.” Stephen Jewell

Dracul is published on 18 October by Bantam.

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 61 IRST, LET’S ADDRESS don’t know what else to say.” Case very the Cloverfield in the much closed. What Overlord actually is, room. “Yeah, this is not a as it turns out, is far more intriguing than Cloverfield movie,” says the next entry in an arguably flagging Overlord director Julius franchise. Set in the midst of World War Avery when SFX asks him II in 1944, it sees a band of soldiers to clarify speculation that crash-landing in the French countryside, his film will tie in to the where they’re on a mission to destroy a monster franchise. Back in January, radio tower that will prove instrumental bloggers linked Overlord to Cloverfield, in the D-Day victory of the Allies. mostly because it’s produced by JJ Although the film takes its name from Abrams and financed by the Cloverfield the real-life codename (“Operation production house Bad Robot. “Insiders” Overlord”) for the Battle of Normandy, claimed that Overlord would be the once its soldiers plunge into the deep, fourth instalment in the Cloververse, dark woods, it breaks from reality for after this year’s The Cloverfield Paradox what Avery gleefully calls “completely debuted on Netflix, something seemingly bonkers, like on acid”. The confirmed by a trailer full of military soldiers end up in a French village, where mayhem and body-horror creatures. they meet a young woman (Mathilde That speculation left Avery confused, if Ollivier) and her brother, who are not a little miffed. “It’s always great to attempting to evade the clutches of a Nazi have interest in your film,” says the general (Pilou Asbæk). Meanwhile, the Australian director, somewhat hesitantly. nearby church appears to be host to some “I mean it’s not a Cloverfield movie so I strange Nazi experimentation.

62 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 0VERLORD WAR OF

OVERLORD DELVES IT’S WAR, BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT. AS INTO THE WEIRD SIDE OF WORLD WAR II, JOSH WINNING FINDS OUT WHY THIS IS A WITH A TWIST...

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 63 It’s not difficult to understand why Avery, whose feature debut was 2014 Ewan McGregor crime thriller Son Of A Gun, jumped at the script after a meeting with JJ Abrams. “It subverts the genre tropes in a really fun, insane way,” he says. “I’ve always been a big fan of JJ and Bad Robot, and one of the things about their films is that you expect the unexpected, and they like to take risks. They take the It’s so tiring familiar and elevate it to something new, which running from is cool. Where else do you get to make an zombie Nazis R-rated, genre-bending movie like Overlord? all the time. It’s like nothing else out there.” Well, quite. But while Avery was attracted to the madder elements of the script, it was a childhood connection to the war that convinced him to take on the project. “My grandfather was a North African campaigner in World War II, and he used to tell me about I WANTED TO GET A BALANCE BETWEEN THE ACTION AND EMOTION

his adventures and show me his medals and bayonets, and I was completely fixated,” he French actress says. “All I wanted to do was look at his photo Mathilde album; even as a kid I could tell he was part of Ollivier teams something big, and I guess that’s why I always up with the wanted to make a war film. But I’ve always soldiers. been a fan of movies that start off as one thing and then turn into another.” his worth in the world. The thing that excited to reload another M1 Garand?’ Freddie was That’s certainly true of Overlord, which, for me most about playing him was that he didn’t like, ‘Do it! Again!’ We were reloading, its first half, is comfortably the grittiest, most immediately jump off the page as anyone with unloading, firing hundreds of times.” violent war movie in some time. What sets it any special gifts to bring to the group. But right apart from a lot of genre flicks, though, is its when you need him, Boyce has a role to fill.” dedication to character and emotion. “I wanted Rounding out the platoon are Wyatt Russell A SHOT IN THE DARK to get a balance between the emotion and the (son of Kurt Russell and ) as the The boot camp was a requirement Avery action,” says Avery, which partly explains why, headstrong Nomad, and Agents Of SHIELD insisted on in his pursuit of one thing: for his soldiers, he cast actors who could hit big star Iain De Caestecker as likeable Chase, John authenticity. “It was so important that when beats but weren’t necessarily your usual Magaro as wisecracker Gomez and Game Of you saw us firing the weapons, we knew what protein-chomping action heroes. “Jovan was Thrones’ Jacob Anderson as Duncan. To prep we were doing,” says Russell. That dedication somebody that came in and nailed the for the shoot, they all attended a four-week to authenticity extended to just about every audition,” Avery says of his lead, Fences star boot camp run by former troop handler and part of production, including a bravura opening Jovan Adepo, who plays quiet but intelligent combat instructor Freddie Joe Farnsworth. sequence in which the soldiers are crammed recruit Boyce. “I mean, the guy made me cry in “It was a very high-pressure environment,” into the holding bay of a C-47 as it flies towards the audition, that’s how good he was. He’s got recalls Russell, “and it really helped us come France. Starting out as an introduction to the that vulnerability but he’s also tough.” together as a little team and help each other key characters, it erupts into chaos as the Adds Adepo, who’s talking to SFX while through when things were difficult. We were plane’s hit and the soldiers battle to escape. shooting the second season of Jack Ryan: doing weapons training for a month, right until “We follow the character of Boyce as he tries “Boyce is waiting for an opportunity to prove the point where we were like, ‘Do I really have to scramble out of the plane in total chaos, with

64 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 0VERLORD

We don’t think that’s really tomato sauce. BOYCE OWN ADVENTURE Jovan Adepo talks JJ Abrams, boot camp and creature effects

You’ve got a little something What do you make of the online on your face speculation that this ties in to the there. Cloverfield universe? I tend to be in my own bubble the majority of the time but I had heard people clambering over each other,” says Avery, production team also built the underground through social media it was who shot much of the sequence on-set at lair where Nazis are performing human supposed to fall under the Leavesden Studios over a busy seven days. experiments. “We had all the underground Cloverfield series. I never really gave “The plane’s falling out of the sky, the front is elements connected so we could do long shots,” it too much thought because we didn’t discuss it during production. blown off, there’s shrapnel, and Boyce has to says Avery. “Then we had quite a large French At all. As far as I was concerned, it pull himself up to the front of the plane. There village built on the backlot, and we had another was a film about a reimagined time are soldiers falling past him and he tries to save stage where we had a house built.” Scenes were in WWII with supernatural themes. I one, but he can’t hang on. And it’s like, he also shot around London, including in an old was onboard for that! hasn’t even hit the ground yet!” Remembers Victorian train tunnel that was turned into a What was it like meeting Adepo: “We were all strapped into the plane Nazi bunker. “That was really cool,” says Avery, JJ Abrams? properly. When we performed the sequence, “and we shot on a couple of estates where they I was incredibly intimidated when JJ we’d been onboard for hours. It really made shot some of Saving Private Ryan.” came to set the first time. It’s hard everything feel genuine and intense.” And then there were the prosthetics, which not to be, knowing the great work he’s done and his reputation for It was a tough sequence for all involved, not include some grisly physical transformations. expecting the best work from all of least the actors who had 60lb parachutes “I wanted the feel of the film to be quite his actors. He told me he was proud strapped to their backs. “After 10 hours a day analogue in a sense,” Avery reveals. “I wanted of the work we were doing and it for seven days in a parachute you’re going, to do it in-camera, so we did a lot of practical doesn’t get any better than that. ‘Holy fuck this is hard!’” laughs Russell. “It was work. There’s this guy in the movie who snaps Did you enjoy the boot camp you all shot in pieces and when we got to the actual his neck back so violently that it breaks his did before shooting? blowing up, when shit hits the fan, that was all neck, and we could’ve done that with VFX, but It was incredible and absolutely done practically. Squibs are going off, and you we opted to do it with a puppet, and we just necessary. We used the time to can’t look at the squib because it could blind used the effects to paint out the holes and what learn about navigation, you. There was an element of real danger. have you. For me, it was great to be able to play communication within the group, as well as weapon training. Everything When the gimbal dips 30 degrees, I had to with all those old-school techniques.” we learned in camp we were able to actually go down the plane and pull somebody It’s fair to say that even if Overlord isn’t, in apply to our work in the film. back up it. After five times of doing fact, the fourth Cloverfield movie, it will deliver that, you’re exhausted.” similarly bloody, bone-rattling, monster- How was it working with the prosthetic creature effects? On top of building fuelled entertainment. “The biggest thing I was easily grossed out by them! I the full interior and JJ did was let me take risks and push the tried to keep my distance as much part exterior of the envelope,” Avery reveals of his A-list as I could before filming so the C-47, the producer. “I wanted to put some feeling of disgust and fear could pretty insane stuff in this movie and he play naturally, but then the FX guys would make a creature wiggle or backed me all the way.” Buckle up, platoon. something and we’d have a nice This is going to get messy. laugh from it.

Overlord is in cinemas on 7 November. GETTY (1)

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 65 PENNY DREADFUL’S PREVIEW OF TERROR SFX’S RESIDENT HORROR EXPERT PENNY DREADFUL DELIVERS THE LOWDOWN ON THE BEST SCARES COMING YOUR WAY

First is state-of-the-nation shocker CLASSIC REIMAGINING Assassination Nation, a violent, furious, BLUM BLUM BLUM… A new take on Henry James’s Turn Of The gut-punch of a movie which begins with a In his ongoing bid to take over the entire Screw with a cracking cast, The Turning is bunch of teenage girls taking selfies and horror genre, producer extraordinaire Jason heading to cinemas slated for February 2019. being awful, and culminates in full on liberal Blum is now branching out into TV. Into The Mackenzie Davis from Blade Runner 2049 and vs conservative, young vs old, male vs Dark is a 12-part horror anthology series – Black Mirror plays the governess hired to look female rioting after someone leaks the it’s coming to Hulu in the US in October but we after newly orphaned kids, played by Finn communications of half of a small American have to wait until later over here in the UK. Wolfhard from Stranger Things and Brooklynn town. It’s exhausting and terrifying, not least But we’re sure it’ll be worth the wait. Paul Prince from The Florida Project. But something because it’s so damn plausible. Davis, director of American In strange is going on in the house – are the kids Then in 2019 look out for Us. The new London documentary Beware The Moon heads being haunted by former inhabitants Peter “social horror” from Jordan Peele is shrouded up the first episode “The Body”. It sees a Quill and Miss Jessel? Or are they… not? Floria in secrecy so we don’t actually know what it’s hitman transporting a body on Halloween, Sigismondi, who made The Runaways and a about yet, but it’s packed with intrigue. It’ll star which everyone thinks is part of his costume. bunch of iconic music , will direct what Elisabeth Moss and Lupita Nyong’o, it’s got a Episode two “Flesh & Blood” comes from looks like a fresh take on a ghostly classic. cool poster and apparently it will feel like a who did the My Bloody companion piece to Peele’s Get Out. According Valentine remake (hmm) and to Moss, “It’s just gonna be really good.” Sold. (yay!) – each is feature length and even if it’s POLITICAL FEAR a mixed bag, I’m sure it’ll come with the Post-Get Out and studios seem to have only just requisite Blumhouse gloss and chills. noticed that horror is a good place for political BOOK IT! subtext (eye roll)… No bad thing though, as A Head Full Of Ghosts is one of the best horror there are interesting things on the horizon. novels I’ve read in recent years, so I’m stoked RETURN OF THE KING to tell you that the book’s star, Merry Barrett, is IT: Chapter 1 did crazy big numbers at the box getting a new story. Author Paul Tremblay is office, and was pretty darn good to boot. releasing Growing Things and Nostalgia has never been bigger and therefore Other Stories out in summer 2019. This is King has never been hotter, despite the big old how Paul describes it (exclusively, for SFX): mess that was The Dark Tower. Look out for a “The final story in the collection, ‘The whole range of new King adaptations then, Thirteenth Temple’, features Merry Barrett including, but not limited to… IT: Chapter 2, from A Head Full of Ghosts. The tell-book on which has a full adult cast including Jessica Merry’s life has been published and she’s a Chastain, James McAvoy and , and popular guest at San Diego Comic-Con. An sees the Losers Club reuniting decades later obsessed fan breaks into Merry’s hotel room when Pennywise rears his ugly bonce once wanting to know more about Merry, her family, again. Pet Sematary is getting a remake, The and what happened all those years ago. Instead Shining sequel Doctor Sleep is coming, and of answering questions, Merry tells the fan a In The Tall Grass is an adaptation of the dark and mysterious story featuring Merry and novella King wrote with his son Joe Hill. her sister Marjorie as children.” Can’t wait.

66 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 PENNY DREADFUL

Shivers is a new Don’t mess with horror play set to the of chilling violin. Assassination Nation.

Anna And The Apocalypse is a Christmas zombie musical. No, really.

Pennywise the STAGE FRIGHT will return NEW FAVOURITE MOVIE A new horror play is on its way, touring the in IT: Chapter 2. A Christmas zom-rom-com musical set in country starting in October and running Scotland, that’s positive about women and through to November next year. It’s called diversity, with a banging score, Anna And Shivers and it features a trio of terrifying tales The Apocalypse is an absolute delight. Really – ghost stories set to a violin score – and the good-natured, very funny, brilliantly gory (look trailer is dripping in MR James-esque out for the snowman bit – it won the award for spookiness. It’s written and performed by Best Gore from our sister mag Total at this Adam Z Robinson and it’s playing at 33 theatres year’s FrightFest), this is sweet, funny, original with more than 40 performances. Head to and the sort of odd curio that hops up once in www.thebookofdarknessandlight.com/dates a blue moon. It’s out 30 November. You need

GETTY (1) for dates, tickets and more information. this film in your life.

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 67 HEROES & INSPIRATIONS JODIE WHITTAKER

JODIE WHITTAKER WHAT MAKES A TIME LORD TICK? THE NEW DOCTOR SHARES HER FAVES WITH NICK SETCHFIELD Portraits by Andrew H Walker

ODIE WHITTAKER HAS A COSPLAY in the first place. I didn’t study film. I wanted right her mistakes, through this extraordinary confession. “I wanted to go to to slide down the waterfall. Essentially I and absolutely terrifying adventure. My role Comic-Con as Dustin from Stranger wanted to be Indiana Jones. I didn’t want models were very often played by boys or men. Things,” she reveals, clearly unafraid to be tied up going, ‘Indy!’” In ET I wanted to be Elliott. Maybe it was just to cross the streams of geek culture down to being brought up in a house where we and potentially trigger the total MARTHA PLIMPTON didn’t have this gender-specific upbringing but collapse of reality. “I would have loved to My first female hero was probably Martha I never thought I wouldn’t be able to do it have given myself a really tight curl and a Plimpton in The Goonies, because in that crowd because I was a girl. I was used to watching baseball cap. But I couldn’t, because I was that’s who I could see myself as. Really I Atreyu in NeverEnding Story and wanting to be Jodie! I was my own person! I went as the wanted to be Mikey, or Chunk, because he gets that part. I didn’t want to be the princess while Thirteenth Doctor instead…” to swing on a rope, but I looked at her and she everything collapses around you! Now I’m As the latest incarnation of the Gallifreyan had that awkward look and the short hair… I about to be embraced as a female version of icon Whittaker is on the brink of becoming a had short hair. And in Doctor Who. I love the fact I can look up to hero and an inspiration herself. So what Labyrinth, because she had flaws and I loved anyone and they don’t have to look like me, better moment to sit down with her in a seeing that as a young girl, seeing her trying to which is hopefully what will happen with this, London hotel suite and discover the stuff like the young boys won’t suddenly go, “I don’t that rocks her universe. She gives vibrant, Watching Martha want to look up to a girl!” heartfelt conversation, her brain pinballing Plimpton starring between passions at authentic Time Lord in The Goonies speed: everything from Annihilation to Al was formative. PETER O’TOOLE Pacino to Arcade Fire (“‘Wake Up’ is the song All my scenes in Venus were with him. It wasn’t I’d have played at my funeral!”) earn about hitting marks, it wasn’t about anything honorary mentions. except exploring a scene and the characters She’s one of us. Someone who relishes the and to do that with one of the greatest actors of opportunity to geek out. “I am in love with our time… It came at a perfect time because I film and television,” she tells SFX, “and even was so young and so naïve. If it was now I’d be now I can be knocked sideways by not intimidated but much more nervous of the something, and be so excited.” Hello, moment. I was just a bit of a stroppy teenager. I Stranger Things. “That kind of adventure is was like, “Hiya, you alright?” I asked him loads absolutely what made me fall in love with of questions and he always gave me wonderful

cinema, and also why I wanted to be an actor answers. I also had a hundred Peter O’Toole GETTY (1), REX (1)

68 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 HEROES & INSPIRATIONS JODIE WHITTAKER

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 69 HEROES & INSPIRATIONS JODIE WHITTAKER

Whittaker acted alongside the The Doctor and legendary Peter her new friends O’Toole in Venus. look to the stars. I was a bit of a stroppy teenager when I first met Peter O’Toole

stories that people would tell me. I’d say, “Is this true, because my mum’s friend said that you did this back in whenever…” And he’d be like, “Oh, I don’t remember…” He was incredibly generous with me, because I was just this little kid who was nattering away. We’re digging What impressed me about him was that he’d that new coat. done loads of work. I thought oh, surely you get to that age and you don’t need to do your homework, because you know what you’re doing, but his script was covered in notes. I felt really inspired by the fact that no matter how long you do this job, you can always be learning, because then it’s never boring. And you’re not boring. THE XX ET: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL “WOMEN ARE NOT A GENRE…” It’s an exploration of adult themes through the eyes of a boy and a beautiful alien. That story TALKING WHO AND EQUALITY covers so much. It’s about divorce, it’s about isolation, it’s about fear, it’s about love and it’s WITH JODIE WHITTAKER about loving without understanding. It’s about home. It’s about hope. I play the soundtrack a lot, particularly the bike scene. Drew Barrymore in that? BETWEEN AUDITIONS FOR THE ROLE YOU WERE SENDING Unbelievable. [Breaks into SHOWRUNNER CHRIS CHIBNALL INSPIRING PHOTOS YOU’D FOUND. six-year-old Drew HOW DID THAT HELP SHAPE YOUR TAKE ON THE DOCTOR? Barrymore voice] “We’re At that point it was more trying to woo Chris into giving me the part, but going to the spaceship!”. what I was finding were images that I really responded to, and a lot of Gertie! That performance! the time it was someone, not necessarily an alien, but a thing or a person Just the snot and the tears. or an object that was otherworldly to the environment of the picture. I I absolutely adore that really loved the contrast between, say, someone in a suit stood on Mars. film. I just think it has There were a lot of pieces of art that I found – not art, more graphic

GETTY (2) everything. design stuff. Often when you use the point of view of a child you get a

70 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 Whittaker says every element of the costume was chosen for a reason.

itself to a man’s outfit or a woman’s outfit. It was a feeling, and that’s what I wanted to help create, more of a feeling than a costume. I’m not going to tell you, so there’s no point asking, but there is a reason for FACTOR every single little thing. The colour of every single part of the outfit, every stripe, every bit of lining. Everything is a choice. At some point you kind of very raw and honest and hopeful view of something. If you saw it may know… it’s not a lazy costume. through the point of view of an adult… I suppose we get older and we get jaded and we get judgement and we get self-consciousness fed into our opinions. The point of view of youth was helpful to me to enter into the YOU’RE THE FIRST WOMAN TO PLAY THIS PART. WHAT DOES YOUR Doctor, because my very first episode is me regenerating and finding DOCTOR REPRESENT? myself. I think that plays into the Doctor that I wanted to play. That kind Obviously it can only be described from my personal experience of this of open-heartedness and chaos within an ability to find a stillness in the moment. I appreciate it as a moment in television and in film and for tiniest detail. British culture. To be in the moment of change for that is incredibly exciting. Women are not a genre. We are just the other half of the HOW MUCH INPUT DID YOU HAVE INTO THE DOCTOR’S LOOK? population, so to see us doing things shouldn’t be such a surprise, but I I had loads. And that came from an image, from one of the very early know it is, because I watch TV and film, and we are often less active in pictures that I sent. I don’t know where it came from, I don’t know what things or we are the emotional point of view of a storyline rather than I googled, and I don’t know what decade the picture is from but it’s a necessarily the active one. It is a moment and I’m part of it and I’m photograph, and it was timeless to me and couldn’t be pinpointed to an proud of it but I can’t wait for it to not be a moment as well, so someone era or necessarily a culture, either. It was a woman, walking with going to drama school at the age of 18 doesn’t need to think, “There purpose, thinking, and she had boots, short trousers, braces and a t-shirt, aren’t any jobs for me.” I were told, “Just so you know, it’s going to be and she had kind of unkempt hair. She was walking, not fearfully, not harder because there’s less jobs.” Right, okay, cool. Hopefully now that anything, but just with purpose. And I loved the image. It didn’t lend doesn’t have to be the message.

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 71 HEROES & INSPIRATIONS JODIE WHITTAKER

Whittaker admires how Intestellar tackles topics of time and love.

Let The Right One In is one of Whittaker’s favourite films.

JOHN STEINBECK Steinbeck is my favourite writer, and my favourite books are East Of Eden and The Grapes Of Wrath. Someone said to me, “I’ve seen the film of East Of Eden,” and I was like, “Oh man, it’s one section. The book is so much more.” One of the reasons I love Steinbeck is that it’s about the land. It’s about the elements. Not just humanity. His prose is absolutely beautiful. I’m not a writer. I don’t have that lyricism in my brain. I have a response, which is why I’m an actor. I have a very honest and unashamed response to something but I cannot generate that. I don’t write.

INTERSTELLAR it’s about time, and my favourite things are You might have got a completely different thing about time. The Doctor has this incredible from this film than I did, which is why it’s such brain and all this knowledge that’s been a genius piece of cinema. For me it was about collected over years and years, but the thing love, and just the fact that it doesn’t matter that moves the character forward and keeps what dimension you are in, love crosses all the search going is hope. You don’t have hope if barriers of time and space and mass. I was you don’t have a heart. inconsolable walking out of that film. Just the fact that they make that mistake and they don’t get back and all those years have gone by. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN Hearing Michael Caine say that Dylan Thomas The original film is in my top five. I can poem is just heartbreaking and amazing. And remember telling my mum, “I really want you Hans Zimmer’s music! Those organs! I love it to watch Let The Right One In.” She was like, when you walk out of a film and one person’s “It’s about .” I told her, “It isn’t. Please got one thing and you’ve got something else. I watch it, mum.” She watched it and she was love it when it’s not handed to you on a plate. like, “That were amazing…” There is such a

That’s why this job is amazing for me, because thing as feeling like, “I’m not into sci-fi, I’m GETTY (1), REX (1)

72 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 HEROES & INSPIRATIONS JODIE WHITTAKER

Whittaker loved Pulp growing up because they sounded like her. not into this, I’m not into that…” I’m basically could relate to. I loved all sorts of angsty, become a member. It’s not about that – it’s into anything. There’ll be a horror film that I Nirvana-y sorts of stuff but I also loved dance about including rather than excluding. So if absolutely adore and then a comedy that I music. I can’t dance but I have no self- anyone gives me shit for not knowing who Ray can’t not hurt when I watch because I laugh conscious bone in my body – unfortunately for Bradbury was… [laughs]. so much. We sometimes decide, don’t we, everyone around me because I will absolutely particularly with genre… We go, “Oh, I’m not rave like the best of ’em. going to watch that because it’s not this”, and LONDON you’re like, “Oh, man, you’re missing out on I’ve lived here 15, 16 years and I love it. There’s so much…” FAHRENHEIT 451 something about the energy of this city and the I’d never read any until this fact that people from all over the world live book. Christian, my husband, was mortified. I here. I love its energy and I love its pace. I love ’90S MUSIC was like, “Babe, I’ve got this really cool book its space – it has masses of greenery. It has loud I love music from the ’90s, me. You know you that Obama has said is really important…” He noise and then beautiful hills that you can sit get like your ’90s playlists on Spotify or was like, “Yeah, it’s a really famous book, and on and look out over the whole place. And I whatever? I think I’m probably the only person that is embarrassing you don’t know.” I got to ache for it when I’m away. It’s home, which for listening – everyone’s got a much cooler the end yesterday and I was like [pretends to someone with a broad Yorkshire accent is decade! I thought it were ace. There’s just some sob eyes out]. I folded down about 70 pages and probably blasphemy! I really love being in absolutely classic tracks. “Dreams” by the circled so many lines… the campfire bit, that town. When I went into town, when I were Cranberries is just beautiful and timeless. I conversation about what it meant to the growing up, it were a bus that took about 50 loved the Cranberries when I was growing up. grandfather. Just that moment around the minutes to go about two miles – and then you Four Non-Blondes. Pulp. Oh my god. I loved campfire will stay with me forever. It’s not that got to the town centre, you went to a coffee Pulp because they sounded like me. I knew I hadn’t heard of him, it’s just that I didn’t shop and then you came home. Coming into what they were talking about and I knew realise how much of an impact the book had town here, one minute you’re in Covent where they were from and it was music that I had. I’m not a fan of snobbery. I’m not a fan of Garden, the next minute you’re in Soho. My people saying, “Oh, you don’t know about favourite part is the South Bank. Creatively the that?” Because that excludes everyone from South Bank has played such a huge role in my You don’t need everything. If someone was to say, “I don’t life. My first job was at the Globe. Antigone at know anything about the world of Doctor the National. That place is amazing. And I love to know about Who...” Well, I didn’t! And actually you don’t water. It’s a close call between that and being need to. Just come and watch it. It’s for by the sea but if I had to be somewhere and Doctor Who. Just everyone. When things have got a cult only one place forever, it would be here. following you do sometimes feel that you can’t watch it! kind of enter into it. It’s like you have to Doctor Who airs on BBC One on Sundays.

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 73 THE SFX AUTHOR BroughtINTERVIEW To Book

TADE THOMPSON Meet the hotly tipped author with a new spin on alien invasions Words by Jonathan Wright /// Photography by Olly Curtis

opular culture has already told us how the alien “To go a little anthropological, in a lot of African societies, invasion will pan out. Following reconnaissance children are not actually people until they reach a certain Biodata missions, unwelcome visitors will bring an armada age and you have to acquire your personhood,” Thompson through the void of space and, using ray guns and explains. “So you exist but you’re not a person just yet and Occupation other advanced technologies, try to take over the you’re just meant to do whatever you’re told and be quiet Novelist Born Earth. Only later will a small flaw in planning or when anyone else is about. You’re supposed to learn by “Early 1970s is as execution undermine the aliens’ efforts. Except osmosis, learn by listening to people talk and not saying specific as I’m Pwill things really work out like that? anything yourself. The idea of asking your child, or telling willing to get.” Tade Thompson for one doesn’t think so. “I’ve never your child, ‘Hey we’re going to be going to Nigeria in a few From Lambeth, really bought the idea of some spinning disc crash-landing weeks,’ nobody would do that, it’s just not done.” London in Kansas and doing anal probes to some farmboy,” he says. Greatest Hits “Why would aliens travel light years, expend all that energy, AGE OF EXPERIENCE Rosewater took just to come here?” he asks, offering a rhetorical question In a Nigeria then in turmoil, bleak sights awaited. When he the inaugural Ilube also advanced by the late Iain M Banks. “What is special was 12, Thompson saw his first dead body. It wouldn’t be Nommo Award for Best Speculative about human beings? Why would they need to come here?” the last in a country where you could be burnt to death if Fiction Novel by an But a resource-efficient effort to reach another planet, you were suspected of being a thief, or because of politics. African author for that might be worth the effort, which is precisely the The details still linger. “If a person has been burnt to Rosewater in 2017. scenario Thompson explores in Rosewater, a debut novel death, the usual way they do it is by putting a rubber tyre He was also a finalist for the JW that rests on the idea of aliens sending organisms “up into around their necks and then dousing them in petrol or some Campbell Award. space at random” in the hope they might land on a planet other kind of accelerant,” says Thompson. “Anyway, what Random Fact where there’s life. One of these organisms, described as “a happens is when the fire has gone and it’s all been depleted, When Thompson gigantic amoebic blob”, lands in Nigeria, and sets up shop there will be metal rings around the person’s neck because met author Kim as, inevitably, a settlement grows around it. “The book is there are rings in the tyres.” The heat twists bodies, he adds, Stanley Robinson, the duo spent time about the reasons for it being here and how it affects the and when SFX suggests there must be a distinctive scent, he discussing Nigerian human race,” says Thompson, “and how it affects one replies simply: “Yes, the scent does stay with you and as you writer Chinua person in particular.” say that even now I’m having a Proustian response, I can Achebe’s takedown actually smell it right now.” of Joseph Conrad’s UPROOTED Still, Thompson seems remarkably sanguine about being Heart Of Darkness as a racist text. If that sounds like a dry set-up, the reality of the book is made to emigrate, although he’s still miffed that he had to quite different, as Thompson weaves a multilayered leave London without returning a borrowed Superman future-thriller encompassing telepathy, high politics and comic to a friend. “I didn’t enjoy it when it happened, but it the low cunning of a government agent, Kaaro, who has a does give me several points of view when I’m considering shady past. The first volume in a trilogy, Rosewater marks anything, so for that I’m grateful,” he says. the emergence of a singular new talent, and the book has As a young man, Thompson returned to London (“I’m attracted plaudits from the likes of MR Carey, Ann Leckie not asking your permission [he said to his parents], I’m just and Adrian Tchaikovsky. telling you so you know where I am”) and these days he “It’s kind of validation, so it is exciting, but I try not to works on the south coast as a psychiatrist, but Africa is still let it get to me too much because there’s always more work central to his fiction. Nonetheless, Thompson is wary of to do,” says Thompson of the fuss surrounding the book. being defined as an Arfofuturist writer, a term he suspects “If you think, ‘Oh, hey, everything is great now,’ it can could quickly “become a limiting label for writers of African sometimes inhibit you from the work you have to do now.” descent” for all that he wants people to be able to find Rosewater is a novel that vividly evokes Nigeria, which is future-African stories beyond those featuring Black Panther. partly due to Thompson’s own life experience living there. “I don’t want to be considered a prefix writer,” he says, “I While he was born in the UK and now lives in Portsmouth, want to be considered a writer, period, so the rest of my he spent part of his childhood in the country. As Thompson background happens to be my background.” tells it, he arrived home from school one day to find his Yoruba-Nigerian parents had packed, telling him that it Rosewater is published by Orbit. Thompson is among the was time to go to the airport. guests at SFX Book Con 2 on 10 November. Details on p21!

74 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 BROUGHT TO BOOK TADE THOMPSON

“WHY WOULD ALIENS TRAVEL HERE? WHAT IS SPECIAL ABOUT HUMAN BEINGS?”

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 75 DAREDEVIL

, THE DEFENDERS MATT DEAD AT THE END OF LEFT FOR BRINK FOR THE THIRD MURDOCK RETURNSDAREDEVIL FROM THE. JAMES MOTTRAM IS SEASON OF SERIES YET ON SET FOR THE GRITTIEST

76 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 DAREDEVIL GETTY (2)

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 77 DAREDEVIL

“When this opportunity came up, I leapt at the the ashes of those events he rises. “He’s chance to come run season three,” says new definitely stepping out of Matt’s shadow and showrunner Erik Oleson, taking over from becoming his own person,” says Henson. “[We season two’s Douglas Petrie and Marco play with] the idea of him realising he doesn’t Ramirez, who helmed The Defenders. A former need Matt… Well, they’re connected to each colleague of Marvel TV chief , other in some way, but Foggy is finding his own Oleson came close to boarding Daredevil’s first voice, which is pretty exciting.” season, but instead wound up as head writer/ producer on ’s Philip K Dick sci-fi FEAR FACTOR series The Man In The High Castle. The son of Peter Oleson, who worked in the “When I came to Netflix and Marvel, I said intelligence services and even co-wrote AFIO’s I wanted to do something that felt tonally Guide To The Study Of Intelligence with former between season one of Daredevil and The US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Oleson’s Sopranos,” he explains. “So we go a lot deeper grounding in espionage is liable to factor into N GREENPOINT, BROOKLYN, into characters.” It means expanding on those the show. As will the theme of fear. “It’s my something’s going down. In a around Murdock like the mysterious Karen belief that we are all trapped by our fears and darkened room, a door cracks Page (Deborah Ann Woll) and his former law only when we face our fears are we able to be open, a flashlight shines and in firm partner and best friend, Franklin “Foggy” our best selves,” he says. Across the course of walks Matt Murdock. Marvel’s Nelson (Eldon Henson). “It has brought a the season, “every single one of the characters” blind lawyer turned urban vigilante – the man darker, more grounded tone to the show,” will do just that.” you know as Daredevil – is back and all in Oleson adds. “That’s pretty much going to be “I think Foggy’s greatest fear is anyone black. He spies a safe in the room and gets to the feel of the season.” around him being hurt,” volunteers Henson. work. “What, can you do that?” asks his Each of the supporting characters brings a “He’d do anything for anybody, his friends or accomplice, as Murdock listens intently to the “different thread to the tapestry of the season”, his family, and he has this incredible thing clicks of the dial. “Not if you keep talking I the showrunner notes. “We’re going to tell a where he really wants to stand up for the little can’t,” he quips back. story about Karen Page that gets all the way guy and I think that’s his greatest fear, [that] At this point, a loud “cut!” is called. back to the origins and why she is who she is. someone or a group of people will be taken Murdock’s and fellow Brit Jay Ali, And how she is different to who we always advantage of or hurt in some way.” While a who plays FBI agent Rahul “Ray” Nadeem, thought she was. We’re going to do similar quick tour of the sets reveals that Foggy’s break into smiles as the scene is re-set. things for Foggy Nelson. We’re going to meet family deli, Nelson’s Meats, features, no word Somebody starts to croon Phil Collins’ his family. We’re going to see his .” yet on whether his folks will soon become, “Another Day In Paradise” and the actors begin Unsurprisingly, Henson is psyched for the ahem, mincemeat. to discuss the merits of that Cadbury’s ad with season and what will happen to Foggy, who he If anyone will be doing the mincing, it’s the gorilla playing drums to Collins’ “In The estimates was left distraught by Murdock’s Wilson Fisk. Played by Vincent D’Onofrio, the Air Tonight”. Any light relief is welcome when “death” at the end of The Defenders. Yet from Kingpin spent season two in jail (and was shooting a show as intense as Daredevil. Daredevil has no SNEAKING IN patience for people It’s 1 March, 2018, and episode eight of the who can’t park. third season of the Netflix-produced Marvel show is well underway. Typically, with the production two-thirds in, the spoiler-riddled action means it’s rather tricky to explain just whose apartment is being searched. “Some things that have come to my attention which possibly aren’t as legit as I thought they were,” explains Ali, cagily, during a break between Jay Ali joins takes. “And we’re looking to find some evidence the cast as FBI that could maybe clarify our suspicions about agent Rahul. certain individuals.” Okay, not exactly helpful. At least we know Murdock is back on his feet after the events of The Defenders, Marvel’s 2017 miniseries that saw Daredevil join forces with Iron Fist, and Jessica Jones. Presumed dead after the collapse of the Midland Circle building, the very final scene of the series showed him battered and bruised on a bed with a nun watching over him. “No one knows where he is,” says Cox. “A lot of people don’t know what happened to him and there’s a period of time where he allows that to happen.” Fisk’s getting out The man in charge of guiding Murdock of prison and he across these 13 episodes stops by for a chat. wants revenge.

78 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 DAREDEVIL

“IN SOME WAYS, MATT MURDOCK IS THE LIE” Charlie Cox is MATT MURDOCK

Matt is being nursed back to health by Sister Maggie in season three. What’s his state of mind when we meet him? There’s bitterness to Matt. He’s deeply troubled by what happened to Elektra. Not just that she was killed, but that she was effectively resurrected and killed again! I think he’s feeling a little bit like, “I believe in God, but what I understand about God now is, that God is capable of great cruelty. There’s a punishing God as well as a loving God.”

How does he feel about being Daredevil now? I like the idea of him finding some acceptance around that and also coming to an understanding that he doesn’t have a choice over being Daredevil and actually the more authentic version of himself is Daredevil, rather than Matt Murdock. In some ways, Matt Murdock is the lie and he’s not going to live that lie anymore. He’s not going to fight to try to not engage in who he is. And who he is is Daredevil.

Who is a better lawyer – Foggy or Matt? Traditionally, we played that Matt was better, qualified from law school with greater honours than Foggy. I think Matt is capable of being a brilliant lawyer. But he’s become so emotionally involved, it affects him so much, I think it clouds his ability to be a great lawyer because he takes so much of it personally and he ends up behaving in rash ways. So right now, if there was to be a lawsuit, Foggy would probably win! James Mottram

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 79 DAREDEVIL

We’re going to see another side to Karen. glimpsed pounding on ’s Frank Castle/). “Fisk is going to cut a deal with the FBI in the beginning and start becoming a state’s witness in order to get out of prison,” explains Oleson; it’s Ali’s character, the down-on-his-luck FBI agent who gets the “golden ticket” chance of leaning on Fisk to rat out his fellow criminals. “Of course, fly meets spider web!” winks the showrunner. With Fisk back on the streets, rumours have flooded the internet that actor Wilson Bethel, who was cast last November in what’s been T dubbed “a pivotal role”, is playing Bullseye. In “ HERE the comics, the Kingpin’s hired and deadly assassin became one of Daredevil’s most A notorious foes (and famously kills Elektra and RE SOME Karen Page); Bethel’s role was seemingly confirmed over the summer when a personal trainer working with him accidentally posted STRANGE an Instagram picture with #Bullseye. Matt always has the best SAVING GRACE shades. THINGS Alongside Bethel and Ali, Joanne Whalley is the third major newcomer, playing Sister “To directly translate a story everybody knows T Maggie, the nun who nurses Murdock back to is not as interesting to anyone,” argues Oleson. HAT KAREN health. Cox describes her as “someone who “Even fans of the comic books. They might knew him as a child, who was part of his think they want it, but then they’re always upbringing has now come back into his life”. going to be disappointed. It’s more fun to use DOES...” Indeed, Sister Maggie was one of the nuns them as a jumping-off point and give the Deborah Ann Woll working at the orphanage where Murdock audience something that they want but not is KAREN PAGE grew up after the death of his father. While the in the way they expected.” good Sister helps him recuperate under the Given “Born Again” also features Captain radar, she’s also “someone who is guiding him America, it’s a tempting – if unlikely – thought Will we learn more about Karen in season three? emotionally and spiritually” with Murdock to imagine might be swinging by Karen has been a mysterious figure in facing a crisis of faith. Brooklyn to cameo as Cap. Is there any a lot of ways. We don’t know a lot When it came to casting Sister Maggie, crossover with Marvel’s Cinematic Universe? about her and where she comes Oleson was sold the moment Joanne Whalley “How do I say this without getting shot?” from. We’re going to slowly unwrap was mentioned. “First of all, I was a huge laughs Oleson. “Let me put it this way. If you’re that candy a bit. I like the way Erik’s set it up. There are some strange Willow fan!” he says, referencing the 1988 a fan of the comics, if you’re a fan of the things that Karen does. You go, fantasy film she starred in. “I’m a 6ft 8 man. Marvel-Netflix shows, you’re going to be very “Hmm, I wonder why,” and it’ll let you When I see her in a nun outfit, I’ll do whatever pleased. But in terms of the movie characters wonder for a bit. Maybe reveal it, she says! She’s got this gravitas. You just don’t crossing over, that’s not going to happen.” maybe not, we’ll see… but you will want to mess with her.” Whalley – sadly not The intensity of creating the show has been get some clues. dressed in her habit today – is excited to play enormous for Oleson, though he’s been able to What is Karen’s greatest fear? the good Sister. “I love that she has so many call on some top-notch directors including 6 I feel like at heart we all fear the facets,” she says. “She is strong, vulnerable, Days’ Toa Fraser to helm episodes. “Jeph Loeb same thing. We don’t want to be witty, brave, funny. I just love her.” joked with me… because we’ve been friends for unloved, we don’t want to be alone, and I think Karen is very much alone. The burning question remains: is Daredevil many years… he said, ‘I will break your spirit Especially, as far as I’m concerned, season three following “Born Again”, the Frank this season! You’ll see.’ Every time I see him, I Matt’s dead. So we don’t know Miller-penned story arc that first appeared in say, ‘Jeph, you haven’t broken my spirit yet, anything about her family. There’s no 1986, when the Kingpin sets out to destroy man. What’s up? We’re more than halfway friends, no girlfriends. Even with the Murdock after discovering his vigilante through the season, I’m still having fun!’” job, she has a boss and she has Foggy. It’s a very isolating experience. Karen identity? After all, Maggie nurses Murdock It’s a feeling that translates right through the hasn’t been on a date since Matt, and back to health in the Miller storyline, which cast and crew. Back on set, Cox and Ali are still [got] laid in god knows how long! also reveals [spoiler alert!] that this kind- trying to nail that take as Murdock and his hearted nun was, in a previous life, Margaret cohort are investigating the gloomy apartment. How much of you is in Karen? All of me! It is me! My belief about Murdock, mother to you know who. So far There’s discussion about raising the camera, acting, it isn’t so much about going Marvel and Netflix have played down the though it will bring more of Cox’s face into the outside yourself, it’s the opposite. It’s connection to the fans. “I hope that they don’t frame. “And no one wants to see that,” the actor finding dormant aspects of yourself. mind me tinkering with her!” teases Whalley. chuckles. The take is finally right. The devil, So there are parts of Karen I don’t Whatever the truth, the third season of you might say, is in the details. play with very much in my real life because maybe I don’t need them, Daredevil won’t be going quite as dark as but they’re still part of me. So, Miller’s story, which turns Karen Page into Daredevil season three starts streaming on yeah… it’s all me. a heroin addict and pornographic actress. Netflix on 19 October. James Mottram

80 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018

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84 THIS ISSUE HALLOWEEN 55 The Strode Warrior REVIEWS

86 94 102 THE HEREDITARY THIN AIR PREDATOR If you missed the Altered Carbon Look, never mind most harrowing author Richard what other critics horror of 2018 so far, Morgan’s thought. Our editor it’s time to catch up thriller follows an enjoyed it. So there! with it on disc. assassin on Mars.

RATINGS EXPLAINED SUPERB GOOD AVERAGE POOR TERRIBLE

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 83 CINEMA HALLOWEEN The Killing Joke

inevitable return – tricking her RELEASED 19 OCTOBER house out with traps, and arming 18 | 109 minutes herself to the teeth. But this Director David Gordon Green doomsday prophesying has come Cast Jamie Lee Curtis, Nick Castle, at the expense of Laurie’s Judy Greer, , Will Patton relationships with her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and Outside of Star Trek and Star granddaughter Allyson (Andi Wars you’d be hard pressed to find Matichak), who roll their eyes at a series with a more convoluted any mention of the boogeyman. canon than Halloween. The good When Michael escapes on news for viewers only casually Halloween night, 40 years to the acquainted with the slasher king’s day since he last stabbed his way unwieldy cinematic legacy is that through Haddonfield, Laurie is the this new Halloween, produced by only one ready for his return. horror hero du jour Jason Blum, is For fans of the series, there’s a a direct continuation of John lot the latest Halloween gets right. Carpenter’s classic 1978 chiller, It comes remarkably close to with everything from Halloween II replicating the feel of Carpenter’s to Rob Zombie’s risible reboots trailblazing babysitter slasher, unceremoniously consigned to the down to the period grain and bin. And while there’s no question bouts of abrupt silence – clearly this David Gordon Green-directed it’s a film that’s been made with a Halloween is one of the better great deal of affection for the sequels to emerge from a series source material. Carpenter’s that could generously be described involvement as composer is as “patchy”, there’s not enough worthy of special mention. here to warrant such a flagrant act Incorporating themes old and of franchise-obliterating hubris. new, his score is an immense Releasing on the 40th evolution, and the one aspect of anniversary of The Shape’s debut, this Halloween which feels like a it sees Jamie Lee Curtis returning true step forward. as Laurie Strode for the first time Carpenter’s propulsive since her “death” (now retconned) soundtrack also contributes to the He realised he’d in 2002’s Resurrection. Retooled as film’s relentless pace. After a flat forgotten to a Sarah Connor-style survivor, opening sequence set in the bring flowers. Laurie’s spent the intervening asylum Michael’s called home decades preparing for Michael’s for four decades, the first killing swiftly opens the bloodgates. Easily reaching a double-digit Slaughter death count, Myers’s massacre has a pleasingly nasty streak. Heads comes at the are crushed underfoot like ripe watermelons, teenagers are expense of skewered by absurdly large kitchen knives, and Michael’s progress indiscriminate butchery throws up some shocking victims. If all you only so much mileage you can get want from a Halloween film is to out of a lovingly crafted pastiche. witness The Shape (played in part Curtis consistently delivers the by original actor Nick Castle) goods as the battle-hardened butchering folk, you’ll have a hoot. Strode, but the idea that Laurie is It’s so annoying But this Myers-like single- still traumatised by her first when the remote minded focus on slaughter comes encounter with The Shape is dealt falls under the sofa. at the expense of progress; there’s with in such a cursory manner it’s

84 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 DAYS OF THE DEAD The original Halloween inspired a calendar of carnage

FRIDAY THE 13TH The 1980 film which kickstarted the franchise takes place on 13 June 1979 – which, confusingly, wasn’t actually a Friday (it was a Wednesday). However, 13 June 1958, the date of the first murder at Camp Crystal Lake, was. NEW YEAR’S EVIL In this 1980 slasher, the host of a new-wave show is phoned up by a switchblade- wielding psycho who plans to commit a murder each time midnight strikes in a different US time zone. And you thought having to watch Hootenanny was bad. MY BLOODY VALENTINE The band took their name from this Canadian film (1981). Twenty years ago, mine supervisors sloped off to the Valentine’s Day dance, causing a arguable that H20 presented humour isn’t deployed in develop character also extends to disaster. When a a more nuanced take on the particularly smart ways either. the rest of the cast, particularly group of local teens psychology of the Final Girl. It’s Rather than a Scream-style Allyson, who has no discernible revive the event, a gas also a film that panders to its deconstruction of slashers, personality beyond occasionally mask-wearing miner audience in fun but flimsy ways, Halloween is content to poke fun getting a bit embarrassed by her poops the party with a pickaxe. with fan-pleasing twists on famous at horror tropes (“I know a short grandma. Frustratingly, the film’s shots that only die-hard Halloween cut!”) while simultaneously singular good idea – that Laurie’s APRIL FOOL’S DAY fans will get a kick out of. deploying them. It’s telling that fateful encounter with The Shape College kids spending Co-written by funnyman Danny the film is at its best in the midst has created a monstrous parallel the weekend at an island mansion McBride, it also aims to tickle the of the final stretch, when the between the two – is never drop one by funny bone while going for the jokes are jettisoned for a nail- developed in a meaningful way. one in this jugular. But too often the knowing biting showdown. That’s indicative of a film that, for 1986 horror. gags come at the expense of scares Wisely, Green and McBride all the fresh blood involved, is Prepare to howl with – with one brutal babysitter killing resist the urge to fill in Myers’s bereft of fresh ideas. Jordan Farley outrage at a accompanied by a comic relief backstory (even making light of twist ending Jamie Lee Curtis has now appeared in kid’s running commentary, the idea that Michael and Laurie more Halloween films than any other actor where the joke is undercutting any tension. The are siblings) but this reluctance to (six, including Halloween III’s voice cameo). firmly on the audience…

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 85 CINEMA

He’s also a real hit at children’s birthday parties.

buy that everyone in it is seeing a end of a Predator weapon. And game- alien for the first they’re not just cookie-cutter time. The US government actually action stars, either, as Black’s knows all about them and wants script makes heroes of those THE PREDATOR their tech, while the Predators traditionally marginalised by Lethal With Weapons have a similar obsession with Hollywood (a unit of soldiers from humans that justifies their a psychiatric hospital; a kid with numerous trips to Earth. But, Asperger’s) – an admirable trip across space worthwhile. clearly realising that Predators mission statement for the movie. RELEASED OUT NOW! Returning to the franchise for the work better as Michael Myers- Though the action sequences 15 | 107 minutes first time since he became a style bogeymen than fully-rounded generally hit the target, the real Director Shane Black Predator’s first on-screen kill in protagonists, Black wisely keeps fireworks come in a script that Cast Boyd Holbrook, Olivia Munn, the 1987 original, writer/director the alien mythology to the bare sizzles with snark. Revelling in Jacob Tremblay, Sterling K Brown, Shane Black harks back to the era minimum – any more information its inherent ridiculousness, The Trevante Rhodes, Keegan Michael-Key when he scripted Lethal Weapon would erode their mystique as Predator is genuinely funny, with to craft an unashamedly big, dumb much as the AvP films did. even the callbacks to earlier Much like their occasional action movie. It may bring little Besides, Black seems much less movies coming off – most notably quarry the Xenomorphs, the new to the party, but it does pack interested in the ETs than his a hilarious riff on “get to da Predators haven’t headlined a bags of popcorn fun into its tight, human characters – and what choppa!” and an ongoing debate classic in over three decades. Even sub-two-hour runtime. being on an extraterrestrial kill list about the idiocy of calling what is, so, there’s something so iconic Crucially, The Predator isn’t just does to them. As in the original essentially, a hunter, a Predator. about their “galaxy’s ultimate a naive retread that expects us to movie, there’s a cartoonish quality So while The Predator doesn’t hunter” MO that it’s easy to see to the ensemble, all of whom can linger long in the memory, it is a why 20th Century Fox persists in be instantly pigeonholed as the hell of a ride – though it’s probably bringing them back to Earth to put Packs bags leader, the scientist, the clown, the worth crossing your fingers that another bunch of unfortunate sensitive one… you know the drill. the very silly coda doesn’t inspire humans in their crosshairs. of popcorn But in this context it’s an efficient the plot of any subsequent Unlike the much-derided Alien shorthand that does the legwork instalments. Richard Edwards V Predator films and the easily fun into its necessary to make sure you do The movie’s Lawrence A Gordon Middle forgotten Predators, however, new give a damn when they have their School is named after one of the sequel The Predator makes the runtime inevitable meetings with the sharp producers on the original Predator.

86 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018

CINEMA THE NUN Shakes, fears, sister the apparent suicide of a nun and RELEASED OUT NOW! discover the dark secret. 15 | 96 minutes Corin Hardy, who brought us Director Corin Hardy The Hallows, throws every horror Cast Demián Bichir, Taissa Farmiga, trick in the book at the wall to see Bonnie Aarons, Jonas Bloquet what sticks and demonstrates a few effective scare tactics. The Expanding like some castle setting is like Hogwarts Lovecraftian nightmare growing re-imagined by Hammer, and fresh tentacles, the Conjuring there are all the slowly-upending movie universe delivers its latest crosses and fake-out/jump scares origin tale for one of the creepy you could ask for. Yet despite the fiends found in the parent films. candlelit and the Here, we’re treated to the Enigma-meets-Lord Of The Rings backstory of the glowing-eyed nun score there’s an inescapable demon (Bonnie Aarons) who first feeling that it’s all somehow lurked in The Conjuring 2. The inessential and lightweight. clock spins back to ’50s Romania A perfectly functional entry (at this rate, there will be a film designed to expand the franchise, about cavemen fleeing prehistoric The Nun does what it needs to do, paranormal beasties), where a but little more than that. Bonnie convent is keeping the fiendish James White Aarons: scarier evil entrapped. A priest (Demián than Bonnie Easter egg alert! A licence plate on a truck Bichir) and an initiate (Taissa early on includes the letters VALAK, the Langford. Farmiga) are sent to investigate name of the movie’s demon. MANDY Seeing Red later, Mandy’s dead and Red is left RELEASED 12 OCTOBER to stumble home and sit on the 18 | 121 minutes toilet in his Y-fronts to unleash a Director Panos Cosmatos volley of howls, bellows and Cast , Andrea guttural roars. Riseborough, Linus Roache, Bill Duke The first two thirds of the film are slow, trippy and avant garde, Even by the standards of with much of the (in)action shot in cinema’s bastion of batshit, Mandy foul, infernal colours, and is Nicolas Cage uncaged: snorting Benjamin Loeb’s narcotic coke, caked in gore, and screaming widescreen images made all the He’d like to see lines like, “You ripped my more bewitching by off-beam the bees come favourite shirt!” while tussling transitions, discombobulating after him now. with a leather-clad Cenobite- superimpositions, and Johan thingy that’s been summoned by Johansson’s haunting, apocalyptic For the final stretch, Mandy and brighter with each fresh a Satanic cult. score. Think Larry Cohen’s switches gears, accelerating into a gallon of blood that sprays his face. Set in 1983, it sees Cage play half-arthouse, half-grindhouse revenge thriller as Cage bottles the Nightmarish, ludicrous and a Red, a lumberjack who lives in oddity God Told Me To, rinsed in essence of every whack-job he’s ton of fun, Mandy seals the deal by a log cabin with his wife (Andrea the netherworld atmosphere ever played and takes his bug-eyed concluding on a dazzling final shot Riseborough). Their cosy life is of Blue Velvet and designed to nutjob act to a whole new level. that’ll send viewers spilling into rudely interrupted by the resemble the artwork of ’80s Hunting down both the Satanic the night with a sense of cosmic aforementioned cult, led by metal albums. It won’t be to cult and the S&M demons they wonderment. Jamie Graham Jeremiah (Linus Roache). One everyone’s tastes, but those who summoned, he breaks out a Cage was originally offered the role of mind-meltingly psychedelic, plug into its hallucinogenic vibe crossbow, a chainsaw and a Jeremiah. He pushed for Red instead, as gut-churningly horrific sequence will be transfixed. gigantic axe, his grin getting bigger he “didn’t want to light a woman on fire”.

88 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 POSSUM MIRAI THE HOUSE MFKZ

RELEASED 26 OCTOBER RELEASED 2 NOVEMBER WITH A CLOCK RELEASED 11 OCTOBER 15 | 85 minutes PG | 98 minutes 15 | 93 minutes Director Matthew Holness Director Mamoru Hosoda IN ITS WALLS Directors Guillaume Renard, Cast Sean Harris, Alun Armstrong Cast Haru Kuroki, Moka Shojiro Nishimi Kamishiraishi, Gen Hoshino, RELEASED OUT NOW! Cast Michael Chiklis, If you have the Scarfolk Koji Yakusho 12A | 103 minutes Giancarlo Esposito, Jorge Gutierrez, website bookmarked and a Director Eli Roth Dascha Polanco stack of Ghost Box Records This anime is for viewers Cast , , vinyl you may swoon over who like their fantasies to be Owen Vaccaro, Kyle MacLachlan This is a fundamentally Matthew “Garth Marenghi” “curious” in an Alice’s slight but enjoyable action- Holness’s feature debut – but Adventures In Wonderland way, You can’t deny that that’s movie comedy in animation, viewers less hooked on without needing the clear one hell of a title. What makes it whose blood-splattered hauntological creepiness might structure and consistency of even more intriguing is that the shoot-outs go hand in hand be left frustrated. Pixar films. A lot of anime is clock in question is a literal one, with a good sense of humour. It follows Philip (Sean like that, but Mirai goes even merrily ticking and tocking The film’s set in a scuzzy, Harris), who returns to his further than Spirited Away. away behind the walls of an old graffiti-daubed city in an childhood home lugging a The story is set in modern- house belonging to warlock alternate America. Some spider-legged puppet whose day Japan. An energetic Jonathan Barnavelt (Jack Black, characters look human, but the screaming skull of a face echoes four-year-old boy, Kun, gains in full-on Jack Black mode). main duo – a pair of likeable his own thousand-yard stare. a baby sister, the titular Mirai. Hidden by a curse, the clock is youngsters – have heads that Philip makes several attempts The film shows Kun’s “normal” part of an evil plan left behind look respectively like a bowling to dump it, but it keeps life with his family – which by dead warlock Isaac Izard ball and a Ghost Rider flaming returning like a bad penny – or starts to get fractious as he (Kyle MacLachlan) – and it skull. No one in the film really a repressed childhood trauma... realises that Mirai is taking starts causing all sorts of cares about their appearance, so As a mood piece, it’s a attention away from him – and problems when Jonathan’s presumably we’re not meant to triumph. Holness has conjured his magic encounters that young nephew, Lewis (Owen care that much either. a memorably grotty universe feature family too: a teenage Vaccaro), comes to live with The kid with the bowling- here, all decayed ’70s decor, Mirai from the future, his him and wonders what all the ball bonce starts seeing people brown teeth and vistas of mother and grandpa when they ticks, tocks and chimes are cast monstrous shadows. ominous moorland. The film is were young, and so on. about. If nothing else, having a Soon, he’s being chased by Men studded with shiver-inducing The issue viewers may rogue clock donging behind the in Black. The story has touches imagery: a skinny leg poking have is that these scenes don’t wallpaper makes it very hard to of John Carpenter’s They Live!, round a corner; party balloons really build on each other, get a good night’s sleep. but the opportunities for class consumed in smoke; black rain. so the film lacks clear Cate Blanchett appears to be war are disappointingly Harris is exhaustingly intense momentum – a fair reflection enjoying herself immensely as passed up. The film’s only major as the haunted protagonist, of a toddler’s vague sense of the pair’s witchy friend, and female character resembles an projecting a constant air of time. Even the child’s-eye- there are enough one-liners and anime schoolgirl; the biggest imminent nervous collapse. view anime classic My magical moments to keep the clue that this is a Japanese/ And the ominous thrums and Neighbour Totoro had more action ticking along (pun French co-production (from drones of the Radiophonic of a trajectory to it. If you can intended) quite enjoyably. The a French comic). Workshop score are go along with this, though, downsides are that there’s too The same anime studio made nostalgically eerie. you’ll find Mirai rich in its much emphasis on pee and poo another urban fantasy, But there isn’t enough details. It depicts children’s gags, and – unsurprisingly, Tekkonkinkeet. Both fling their narrative to justify the run time. anarchic play very fondly, given that the director is Eli flat-looking characters through Holness’s original 18-page short though it highlights how even Roth and the script’s by three-dimensional streets and story is barely opened out at all, happy families get stressed out. Supernatural creator Eric alleyways, though the chases and filler sequences of Philip Mirai also has an amazing, Kripke – things often get quite and shoot-outs get monotonous. trudging about dismal Norfolk though very scary, climax in a scary for younger kids. Or even Still, MFKZ benefits from its landscapes become thumb- giant nightmare railway station, some adults; there are some sweetly unassuming leads, who twirlingly repetitive. There’s a which ruthlessly plays on a cracking jump-scares here. You you end up caring about far great film in here – but it’s a child’s terror of getting lost. may never look at a pumpkin more than you do most action short, not a feature. Ian Berriman Andrew Osmond the same way again. Jayne Nelson heroes. Andrew Osmond

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 89 TV DRINKING GAME Knock back a beverage of your choice every time...

You see a rainbow. (Some are quite subtle – keep your eye on power leads.)

Someone lights a cigarette.

Super-computer GRTA creates a face or a pretty pattern of lights on her console.

You see the numbers one or nine (or both) in the vicinity of Owen and/or Annie.

There’s a mention of Atlantis (or something-else-lantis).

A character tells a sad story from their past (whether real or made-up).

Owen sports a new hairstyle.

“What do you mean you’d make a better White Witch?!”

dream sequences. And some lemur kidnapping. Meanwhile, the clinic’s bizarre staff, headed by the skeezy Dr Mantleray (Justin MANIAC Season One Theroux, almost unrecognisable The Milgrim’s Progress from The Leftovers), look like they’ve walked off the set of a Jean-Pierre Jeunet remake of 12 Detective season one, but anybody mode), a drug addict who’s lied Monkeys. Then turns UK/US Netflix, streaming now expecting him to ship over his her way into the trial to feed her up as Mantleray’s pop psychologist Showrunner Cary Joji Fukunaga edgy, postmodern noir vibe from habit. You know they’re star- mum to chew up all the scenery. Cast , Jonah Hill, that show will be in for a shock. crossed lovers, but they don’t, and It’s quirky, pacy and often Justin Theroux, Sally Field, Considering that his CV includes it takes a heartbroken computer’s poignant, but not half as clever or , Julia Garner such eclectic fare as Jane Eyre nervous breakdown to accidentally original as it thinks it is. The acting (2011), Beasts Of No Nation (2015) bring them together via the dream ranges from subtle and nuanced to EPISODES 1-10 Although it’s based and IT (2017 – as ) worlds created by the trial. “I am in Rocky Horror, right?”. The on a darkly satirical Norwegian Fukunaga clearly likes genre- It’s an oddly structured show. satire is blunt, the genre pastiches comedy series about a mental hopping, and he’s gone genre- After two Gondryesque opening half-baked and the emotional patient living in a vivid imaginary hopping mad with Maniac. episodes set in a sideways universe beats fairly predictable. And world, the US version of Maniac Possibly misdiagnosed New York of dog poo-eating robots surprisingly, considering the high feels more like an adaptation of a schizophrenic and least-loved son and AdBuddies (adverts in human concept, it never leaves you reeling Post-it note someone found on of a wealthy New York family form that follow you around if you from reality-vertigo in the way Michel Gondry’s fridge. Owen Milgrim (Jonah Hill in can’t pay for goods) the action that, say, Legion does; it’s mostly It’s been directed and co- mumbling, brow-beaten mode) takes place almost exclusively in obvious what’s real and what’s adapted (in conjunction with is pressured to lie under oath to the clinic for the next seven fantasy. Unless the planned second novelist Patrick Somerville) by the prevent his brother being episodes as the patients are put season has other ideas... mercurial Cary Joji Fukunaga. convicted of rape. Out of the blue through various tests. Dave Golder This made many cult TV fans he’s invited to take part in a drug Inside the clinic things go Should you fancy checking out the original excited, as he was one of the main trial, where he meets Annie bonkers, with sci-fi, spy-fi, full-on Norwegian series, all 10 episodes of season creative forces behind True (Emma Stone, in mouthy waster gory gangster and epic fantasy one are also available on Netflix.

90 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 The Doctor now has the power to bend FIRST wire fences. LOOK DOCTOR WHO Season 11 First lass heartedness of early Russell T UK Sundays, BBC One Davies adventures and features US Sundays, BBC America some emotional highlights, even Showrunner Chris Chibnall if it also suffers from murky Cast Jodie Whittaker, Tosin Cole, storytelling and occasionally Mandip Gill, Bradley Walsh struggles to give the Doctor’s new trio of friends more to do than ask EPISODE 1.01 New time-slot. New “What’s going on?” companions. New gender. Doctor As for Jodie Whittaker, she Who has always thrived on change, tackles the role with tremendous but it’s rarely seen as much as in energy and enthusiasm, though this latest top-down refit, which like Christopher Eccleston she not only delivers the first female seems more comfortable with the Doctor, but also moves the darker, characterful scenes than classically London-centric show the fast-paced comedy. This to the strange, unexplored land opening episode is definitely an of Sheffield. accessible jumping-on point for “The Woman Who Fell To viewers who may have drifted Earth” makes a lot of this fresh away from the show – it’s just also location, as the newly regenerated more of a lively curtain-raiser than Doctor crash-lands into the lives a “The Eleventh Hour”-style of three locals while battling a slam-dunk. Saxon Bullock sinister alien force. Incoming This will be the first run of Doctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall’s to not feature any returning monsters or script harks back to the big- villains since season 16, back in 1978.

“Stop hitting yourself! Stop IRON FIST Season Two hitting yourself!” Danny no longer dire season one. Danny Rand is now UK/US Netflix, streaming now down on the streets, using his Iron Showrunner Raven Metzner Fist to fight crime at ground level. Cast Finn Jones, Jessica Henwick, An initial rival triad plotline is Simone Missick, Alice Eve worryingly generic and uninteresting, but no worries, as EPISODES 2.01-2.10 There’s one main it’s soon swept aside by the real question everyone has about Iron arc plot: Danny’s spiritual brother, Fist season two: is it better than Davos, planning to take back what season one? The snarky answer is, he feels is rightfully his – the of course, “It could hardly be any power of the Iron Fist. worse, could it?” The surprising By the final couple of episodes, sincere answer is: “Yes – very we’re getting the most comic- much so.” booky action yet seen in the Season two, under new Netflix Marvelverse… and it showrunner Raven Metzner, is a works. Iron Fist may not have the vast improvement. Even the fact weighty social issues of Jessica series does it no harm; the pithy that it’s three episodes shorter Jones and Luke Cage, but it is and awesomely ass-kicking Coleen helps. No snarkmongers, not The most entertaining, with hugely Wing (Jessica Henwick) and Misty because that’s three hours less improved action scenes. Knight (Simone Missick) are by far to endure, but because it feels comic-booky It’s still a little stodgy in places, the best thing about the show. much pacier. and hampered by Danny Bland, Dave Golder It also benefits from a near-total action we’ve but the fact that season two seems All the episode titles are taken from Iron absence of the Rand Enterprises to be doubling as a backdoor pilot Fist stories from Marvel Premiere, Iron Fist legal wrangling that suffocated seen yet for a Daughters Of The Dragon and Power Man And Iron Fist comics.

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 91 TV CASTLE ROCK Season One The Maine event

Kingophiles (look, a woman former Shawshank warden Dale UK TBC named Torrance who knows an Lacy (Terry O’Quinn), who FIRST US Hulu, finished awful lot about axes! Look, yet recently killed himself. The ELI ROTH’S LOOK Creators Sam Shaw, Dustin Thomason another actor famous from a King hollow-eyed young man will say Cast André Holland, Melanie Lynskey, adaptation!) the series successfully nothing except Deaver’s name. HISTORY OF Bill Skarsgård, stands on its own two feet. It can Deaver also finds his dementia- be stodgy and melodramatic, with afflicted mother Ruth (Sissy HORROR EPISODES 1.01-1.10 As well as being an arc plot that’s simpler than its Spacek, Carrie in the 1976 King the King of Horror, self-consciously complex methods adaptation) is being “looked after” UK AMC, from 14 November is also the King of Easter eggs. make you believe it is, but it can by former sheriff Alan Pangborn (a US AMC, from 14 October Long before the term became also be surprisingly innovative character from Needful Things, popular, King was inserting lots of and thought-provoking. played with gnarly cynicism by EPISODES 1.01-1.02 Following up low-key crossovers into his books, It also mutates rapidly, with Scott Glenn) and is convinced he’s AMC’s ’s Story effectively creating a shared episodes that shift its premise in a a gold-digger. But Pangborn knows Of with the universe. And since a lot of his way rarely seen since Fringe. The more about the death of Deaver’s director of Hostel’s take on the books are set in or around the series begins with success-averse father than he’s letting on... horror genre doesn’t sound like fictional town of Castle Rock, death row attorney Henry Deaver It starts as a intriguing mystery: the most nuanced of ideas. Yet, Maine, it was only a matter of time (André Holland) returning to his unsettling and creepy rather than even if Roth isn’t your cup of before a TV series was based there. home town of Castle Rock when a body-horror gross. Packed with bloodied tea, his passion for the Any worries that the show young man (Bill Skarsgård, colourful characters, it also unfurls genre means he’s called every might be one long egg hunt, recently seen as Pennywise in IT) in a worrying leisurely fashion, single one of his famous friends however, are quickly dispelled. is found in a cell hidden beneath almost Lost-esque, with flashbacks for a genuinely fascinating While Castle Rock has an added Shawshank prison. He was that confuse rather than reveal, delve into scare cinema. level of spot-the-reference fun for secretly incarcerated there by characters who rarely ask the Focusing on a different genre questions you want them to, and each episode – the first two pretentious voiceovers about the cover and slasher hidden horrors of Castle Rock. movies, with a second instalment on slashers, demons, creatures, vampires and ghosts This is not to come – Roth largely leaves the discussion to others as he easy to watch, skips from movie to movie, jumping between modern and but is oddly classic horror with ease. The talking heads are scream hypnotic royalty. Whether it’s spilling make-up secrets of Then in an audacious episode Friday The 13th, Edgar Wright shown from the point of view of breaking down his inspirations Ruth – a woman with dementia, for Shaun Of The Dead, or Jamie remember – the show reveals its Lee Curtis waxing lyrical about true central themes. Packed with screaming on camera for unmotivated leaps in time, this is Halloween, there’s constant not easy to watch but is oddly passion and insight here. hypnotic, creepingly horrifying, Sprinkle in film critics and and sets the show on a new path. scholars who punctuate with Annoyingly, the finale feels discussion of the socio-political like pure Lost, with little sense of undertones at work, a conclusion, characters making odd concentrated helping of horror decisions and more questions for history is fitted into each tight season two. But, crucially, you’re 40-minute runtime. left wanting to know what’s going Referential without ever to happen next. Dave Golder being fratboy smug, so far this is “Please stop shaping up as a delightfully talking about Henry’s “disappearance” happened 27 years before the present-day scenes; gory journey through the pigs’ blood.” Pennywise reappears every 27 years in IT... annals of the genre. Louise Blain

92 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018

HOME ENTERTAINMENT HEREDITARY Paimon plans

emotions which her passing brings RELEASED OUT NOW! bursting to the surface in Annie’s 2018 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD/download support group are only the tip of Director Ari Aster the iceberg when it comes to the Cast , Gabriel Byrne, suffering she has in store… Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd, Because Hereditary is Mallory Bechtel emotionally exhausting viewing, to the point where you feel for the You can have your cake and likes of Collette and Wolff, forced eat it. Writer/director Ari Aster’s to put themselves in a headspace remarkable feature debut proves that must have been draining to as much, delivering both an utterly operate in for months on end. The authentic portrait of a family two take differing approaches, crushed by grief and an with Wolff near-catatonic with outrageous supernatural shocker. shock or simmering away like a Hingeing on a gut-punch twist covered pan ready to blow off its that’s up there with Alfred lid, but both performances are Hitchcock killing off the apparent simply stunning, building a sense heroine in the first act of Psycho of total verisimilitude as the family (one which we won’t spoil for you fractures. An awkward meal which here), it’s both one of the most ends in an explosion of repressed gruellingly harrowing horror resentments is particularly films of the last decade and one powerful; Collette deserves an whose snowballing insanity may, Oscar nomination at the very least. ultimately, send a grin spreading After that jaw-dropping pivot, across your face, like a widening the film starts to move in a crack in the ice. different direction – almost It centres on the Graham family: imperceptibly at first, but with mother Annie (Toni Collette), gathering speed, entering the father Steve (Gabriel Byrne), arena of horror classics such as 16-year-old slacker Peter (Alex The Exorcist, The Devil Rides Out Wolff ) and old-beyond-her-years and (particularly) Rosemary’s 13-year-old Charlie (the Baby, and eventually achieving ’s remarkable Milly Shapiro). The such outrageous darkness that it Dreamhouse film opens with the funeral of becomes bleakly, blackly comedic had nothing Annie’s mother – by all accounts a (to the point where even the on this. rather cold fish, from whom she characters are forced to was estranged. But the repressed acknowledge the absurdity). There are some – generally the sort of people who are a bit snobby Hinges on When you realise about horror anyway – who will you just missed this see this final reel drift as some a gut-punch week’s Bake-Off. kind of betrayal of the classicism of the film’s opening hour. They’re twist up there misguided. Horror is a genre with an astonishing breadth of with Psycho possibilities, and a film which explores its axes to their full winningly quirky detail, cleverly extent should be applauded. helping to create a creeping sense It’s a beautifully crafted piece of that the Grahams are merely the filmmaking, too, with some lovely pawns of some higher power. touches. The fact that Annie is an Without ever getting overly flashy, artist who creates miniature Aster and his cinematographer tableaux, including ones of the Pawel Pogorzelski pull some family home, is more than a delightful moves, with the camera

94 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 MIND PROBE ARI ASTER Writer/director of Hereditary

What were your cinematic inspirations? Nicolas Roeg’s affected me from an early age, especially Don’t Look Now – I see Hereditary as having a spiritual link to that. There’s something in his editing where his images feel psychically linked in a way that really troubled me as a kid. The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover – that isn’t really considered a , which is strange because it’s as as anything I’ve ever seen. Peter Greenaway strikes me as one of our most authentic misanthropes; you can really feel his hatred for humanity! I was also looking at Roman Polanski as far as the blocking in relation to the camera – there’s nobody better than him at that.

The film has some remarkable proceeding on a stately descent supernatural scheme slot together, Wolff lost out the most in the edit performances. into the earth in a funeral scene, even on a second viewing. But room, with the relationship Alex Wolff really threw or disorientatingly performing a then, that just leaves you more to between father and son a little himself into the part and loop as Annie travels down a enjoy puzzling over on visits further fleshed out; we also get to basically became Peter for corridor. And with its inexorably three and four. see a distraught Annie smashing up two months! Which for a director is honestly a joy, rising whines and throbbing Extras Disappointingly sparse her art at length, rather than because you get to just undercurrents that subtly bubble – where’s the commentary by cutting to the aftermath. There’s talk to the character for away like a distant engine, avant Aster? Remarks from the writer/ some good work by the actors here two months, which makes garde saxophonist Colin Stetson’s director are restricted to “Cursed: – especially from Wolff, as Peter things rather easy. Toni Collette works in a very score plays a key role in ratcheting The True Nature Of Hereditary” breaks down in tears and howls, different way to that up the tension to the point where (20 minutes), a pretty bog-standard “I’m nothing!” – but even with where she’s extremely you may feel a dizzying tightness Making Of; featuring all the main such moments of angst excised disciplined and able to building in your chest. cast, plus production designer there’s still plenty to go around… jump in with both feet, then right when you say If there’s one lingering Grace Yun, it’s pretty low on Ian Berriman “Cut!” she’s already out of frustration, it’s that the film insights. You also get nine chapters Look for the words “liftoach pandemonium”. the scene. Which is an doesn’t provide crystal clarity on of extended/deleted scenes (17 Liftoach is Hebrew for open. Pandemonium amazing thing to watch. exactly how all the elements of its minutes). Gabriel Byrne and Alex is Hell’s capital in Milton’s Paradise Lost. Stephen Kelly GETTY (1)

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 95 HOME ENTERTAINMENT THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY Picture Prefect Dickinson is oddly counter- of chuckle-inducing detail, they RELEASED OUT NOW! intuitive casting as Trillian, and still look stunning 37 years later. RELEASED OUT NOW! 1981 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD the conception of “paranoid At the very least, it’s a TV 1986 | 18 | Blu-ray & DVD Director Alan JW Bell android” Marvin as a clunky version as good as it could have (dual format) Cast Simon Jones, David Dixon, Mark ’50s-style robot is questionable – been at the time, given the gulf Director Fred Dekker Wing-Davey, Sandra Dickinson though arguably, it’s fittingly between Adams’s soaring ambition Cast , Jason Lively, frustrating for his genius to be and the possibilities of a BBC Jill Whitlow, Steve Marshall BLU-RAY DEBUT There is a trapped in such a lumbering shell. budget. And it remains light years consensus that Douglas Adams’s But Simon Jones, reviving his ahead of the 2005 movie. BLU-RAY DEBUT Before Fred blend of absurdism, parody and radio role as Arthur Dent, the Extras The old DVD was pretty Dekker made The Monster philosophical remains peerless hapless everyman hitchhiking well-served, with the likes of an Squad, he wrote and directed in the sphere of SF comedy, but across the universe after the hour-long Making Of. Those have this horror-comedy. the BBC TV adaptation gets little demolition of Earth, remains been carried over for this HD Two teenagers steal a dead love from certain quarters. This endearingly bewildered. Incoming debut, bolstered by rare clips from body as part of a fraternity seems a tad unfair. Ford Prefect David Dixon is on a the archives. With 18 additions in initiation, not realising that Sure, the animatronic solution par with predecessor Geoffrey all, there’s too much to list. it contains slug-like alien to the problem of Zaphod McGivern. And the hand-drawn At times, the nerdery level parasites that will take over the Beeblebrox’s second head is visualising the Guide required is pretty hardcore: you dead and unleash a zombie off-puttingly crude, Sandra are a triumph; adding extra layers may struggle to stay awake through plague. Wisecracking Detective a BBC training film about the Cameron (Tom Atkins) is called This is how their dubbing suite used on the radio in to investigate the strange first date ended. series (14 minutes). But there are events, and discovers a link to a some real treats: Marvin appearing series of brutal murders from on Blue Peter to gloomily promote early in his policing career. his pop single; Adams interviewed Part homage, part attempt to on Nationwide; a book discussion make a ’50s B-movie for the show where the author soldiers on ’80s, Night Of The Creeps is a gamely despite the host slating his throwback horror from before latest book! “Writing Hitchhiker’s” that was a thing. What makes it (15 minutes) draws on old more than just nostalgia, interviews with Adams’s brother however, are the hilarious James and Pan editor Nick Webb script, some excellent creature to look at his struggles with the effects, and Atkins’s Chandler- creative process. The chief delight, esque performance. Cameron is however, is 25 minutes of studio an instantly appealing footage, full of fascinating character; a constant source of fly-on-the-wall insights: the Vogon hard-nosed quips, with a dash captain being supplied with a of melancholy beneath the cushion; Adams reading in lines for surface. The very definition of a ship’s computer Eddie; Jones genre-blending cult classic. complaining about a Kirby wire’s Extras Dekker gets his own deleterious effects on his “goolies”. commentary, a 30-minute Priceless stuff. A similar piece on interview, and pops up in an the location footage turns up hour-long Making Of. Atkins, clapper-boards aplenty and a cut Jason Lively, Steve Marshall and model sequence. A Collector’s Jill Whitlow get commentary, Edition Blu-ray adds an art card and Atkins a half-hour career and 24-page booklet. Ian Berriman retrospective. There’s also deleted scenes and an The bridge set for the Heart Of Gold spaceship used a revolving stage alternative ending, plus trailers borrowed from quiz show Blankety Blank. and trivia subtitles. Will Salmon

96 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH Angel interceptor and the afterlife due to a celestial RELEASED OUT NOW! accounting error. Carter’s romance 1946 | U | Blu-ray with Kim Hunter’s peppy June is Directors Michael Powell, Emeric endearing, but it’s the visuals that Pressburger wow: a stark monochrome Heaven, Cast David Niven, Kim Hunter, Marius indebted to German Expressionist Goring, Roger Livesey cinema; an English garden whose blooms are so vivid a character BLU-RAY DEBUT Powell and openly talks about Technicolor; an Pressburger never delivered the astonishing dissolve that takes us obvious. A Matter Of Life And from the universe to the fires of Death was originally meant to be aerial combat over the Channel. a propaganda piece, a salve for It’s a propaganda piece, alright, Anglo-American relations strained for the dreaming power of cinema. by WW2. It ended up as something Extras Just a short 1998 doc, far stranger, richer and more “The Colour Merchant”, about enduring, a sumptuous fantasia cinematographer Jack Cardiff, and just on the edge of unclassifiable. text biographies. Nick Setchfield David Niven is pluck and charm It took 27 times to For the scene of Carter on the misty incarnate as airman Peter Carter, beach, cinematographer Jack Cardiff get the selfie right. caught in the crack between Earth fogged the camera lens with his breath.

THE MONSTER DOWN A BLOOD FEST FRIGHTMARE

RELEASED OUT NOW! DARK HALL RELEASED 15 OCTOBER RELEASED OUT NOW! 2016 | 15 | DVD 2018 | 18 | Blu-ray/DVD 1983 | 18 | Blu-ray RELEASED OUT NOW! There are actually two 2018 | 18 | DVD/download Blood Fest is the latest in a What if ’s monsters in this movie: a long line of self-referential corpse was stolen by fans, then forest-dwelling growly thing There’s more style than horror where he came back to life? Oh, and he that eats people, and a mother chills in this elegant, if hammy, characters must follow genre was a murderer? Also titled The whose behaviour’s so bad that adaptation of Lois Duncan’s rules to survive. Dax (Robbie Horror Star, this slasher-era her kid, Lizzy (Ella Ballentine, 1974 YA novel. Kay) and his friends go to a product’s nostalgic for an older excellent), keeps wishing her is the icy headmistress of a horror festival, only to discover era. It has some neat ideas, like dead. This double-villain gloomy, gothic boarding school that the organiser intends to an automated, booby-trapped schema could’ve come to life where five teen tearaways find create the ultimate scary movie mausoleum. DoP Joel King with a pacier script – Zoe themselves. Her unfathomable by killing the punters. Part (cameraman on Carrie) makes Kazan really commits to being European accent suggests a Scream, part Cabin In The it look attractive. And star unlikeable as the mum – but the sinister plan, which involves Woods, it doesn’t have a single Ferdy Mayne serves up film mostly consists of the two channelling the spirits of original idea, but a strong cast delicious ham. But a lack of trapped in a car, Cujo-style, in long-dead artists through her and some good jokes make it internal logic means none of it the pissing rain. And when the delinquent pupils. Inexplicably gruesome fun. really hangs together. monster attacks, you’ve seen it rated 18 by the BBFC, this is a Extras Commentary; deleted Extras Three commentaries all before. Disappointing. horror that’s classier than most. scenes; VFX breakdown; by journos; three interviews; Extras None. Jayne Nelson Extras None. Steve O’Brien slideshow; trailers. Will Salmon gallery; trailer. Ian Berriman

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 97 HOME ENTERTAINMENT

MONKEY SHINES THE MIND OF

RELEASED OUT NOW! MR SOAMES 1988 | 18 | Blu-ray & DVD (dual format) RELEASED OUT NOW! Director George Romero 1970 | PG | Blu-ray Cast Jason Beghe, John Pankow, Director Alan Cooke Kate McNeil, Joyce Van Patten Cast Terence Stamp, Robert Vaughn, Nigel Davenport, BLU-RAY DEBUT They took “eat It’s an odd thing Donal Donnelly to say of a movie about a your greens” razor-wielding killer monkey, too literally. Having missed out on the but this George Romero film is rights to Daniel Keyes’s Flowers disappointingly restrained. For Algernon, Milton Subtosky, Adapted from a 1983 novel, it co-founder of Amicus, snapped sees athlete Allan (Jason Beghe) up a similarly themed pulp paralysed from the neck down TROLL The Complete Collection novel as second best. when he’s hit by a truck, then Harry Potter & the Goblins of Dire Terence Stamp plays Soames, given a trained “service who wakes up after 30 years in monkey”. Unfortunately, Ella a coma with the mind of a baby. has been injected with a brain Lockhart and a menagerie of Cloistered in a research serum that causes a telepathic RELEASED OUT NOW! faintly queasy puppets that make it institute, he must be taught to bond, resulting in her taking 1986/1990/2009 | 18 | Blu-ray surprisingly memorable. walk, speak, and become a out her master’s frustrations in Directors , Claudio Troll 2 follows a family who take useful member of society. Cue a bloody fashion. Fragasso, Michael Paul Stephenson a break in the town of Nilbog. debate over parenting styles: It’s a solid effort, with decent Cast Noah Hathaway, Michael Joshua (Michael Stephenson) stern authoritarianism vs performances all round, but for Moriarty, Michael Paul Stephenson, discovers that the town is full of touchy-feely liberalism. fans of Romero it’s something George Hardy evil vegetarian goblins, but not It’s an attractive-looking film, of a let down – certainly until even peeing on his family’s food (!) and Stamp is first-rate, bringing the final act dials up the BLU-RAY DEBUT The two features will convince them to leave. poignancy and humour. What’s madness. George rarely adapted in this set share nothing but the There’s not a cynical bone in disappointing is what it leaves the work of others, and the word “Troll” in the title. One is a Troll 2’s body. It’s not trying to be out. Oddly, there’s no mention results lack his usual rich sense cheap and cheerful fantasy; the bad – director Claudio Fragasso of Soames’s family. And the of . With its lightning other is often cited as the worst sincerely wants to scare you. subject of his sexuality – surely flashes, low gore quotient and film ever made. Because of that, the film’s brimming with dramatic gentle romance subplot (bonus In the first, a family move into a ineptitude is rather endearing. possibilities – is scarcely points awarded for creative use new apartment block beset by It’s also blessed with 2009’s Best broached. It’s also sorely of a bed hoist...), Monkey Shines trolls. It’s up to young Harry Potter Worst Movie, a terrific feature- lacking a single, defining feels a bit conventional, sincere – no, really – to team up with length documentary directed by dramatic event, playing out like and – ugh – tasteful. elderly witch Eunice (June Stephenson. It features some a Frankenstein movie where the Extras Head for the original, Lockhart) to prevent the trolls solid gold soundbites from the creature never hurts a fly. pre-studio interference ending: conquering our reality. production team, such as Extras The very EC Comics, and far If not especially good, Troll is at Fragasso insisting that “Troll 2 disappoint: “Memories Of Mr superior. There’s also two least fun. There’s a genuine wit, a is a film that examines many Soames” quizzes four cast and commentaries (by Romero and charming performance from serious and important issues”. crew, but only mines five critic Travis Crawford); a Like goblins turning your loved minutes of material, while the Making Of (50 minutes) with ones into plants and then eating 19-minute interview with Stamp some choice monkey turd There’s them, presumably. is a one-answer ramble that anecdotes; four deleted scenes, Extras “Troll Empire”, an never touches on the film! A and 13 minutes of behind-the- not a cynical informative, if dry, documentary on well-researched commentary scenes footage. Plus: vintage the first film; trailers. Will Salmon led by English Gothic author Making Of; extended versions of bone in Troll Jonathan Rigby compensates, Sonny Bono (of Sonny and ) makes a its interviews; trailers; TV spots; brief appearance as a skeezy – and quickly though. Plus: trailer, gallery, booklet. Ian Berriman 2’s body offed – tenant in Troll. booklet. Ian Berriman

98 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018

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Schlock watched The Lion King too many times. SCHLOCK Monkeying around set-piece to unfunny set-piece. RELEASED 15 OCTOBER It’s difficult to work out 1973 | 12 | Blu-ray whether the stiff line readings Director John Landis and flatly shot stunts are Cast John Landis, Saul Kahan, satirising the movie’s Z-movie Joseph Piantadosi, Richard Gillis inspirations or simply the result of a rookie director John Landis grew up on the making do with a pocket-money schlocky monster movies of the budget. Whatever, as first efforts ’50s, and paid loving tribute to go, this is about as amateur hour them in this, his first ever as they come. directorial effort. A scrappy, Extras An often hilariously sweetly artless horror-comedy, it honest commentary from Landis was made for $60,000 when he and make-up man Rick Baker (it was just 21. (Though the film was was his first movie too); an released in 1973, it was filmed – interview with Kim Newman that in just 12 days – in 1971.) puts the film into context; a Landis Landis also stars as the titular interview from 2017 (where even Schlock, a prehistoric, banana- he calls Schlock “a terrible film”); loving apeman who wakes up an archive interview with after 20 million years to roam cinematographer Robert E Collins; the streets of Southern California. various promos. Steve O’Brien Beyond that setup, however, There’s only one professional actor in the there’s barely a shred of plot, entire film – La Dolce Vita actress Harriet as Schlock drifts from unfunny Medin (credited as Enrica Blankey). THE ORVILLE Season One Trek, Jim, but not as we know it complex as its source material; it RELEASED OUT NOW! just happens to have a lot of funny 2017 | 15 | DVD lines too. It looks and sounds just Creator Seth MacFarlane like you’d expect Star Trek: The Cast Seth McFarlane, Next Generation would if it were Adrianne Palicki, Sage, made today (and indeed, employs Penny Johnson Jerald many ’90s Trek directors and producers, including Brannon During pre-publicity for Seth Braga, Jonathan Frakes and MacFarlane’s Star Trek-inspired Robert Duncan McNeill). In a show, the producers claimed it TV landscape of “grim and gritty”, The crew of the Orville was creating a new genre. They it’s downright refreshing to were undecided on never actually gave that genre a have effects sequences that Star Trek: Discovery. name, though. We’d suggest “not pop with vivid colour and quite”. As in: not quite a comedy, imaginative designs. But as the series progresses, the into something not quite a drama, not quite a Sadly, the scripts take a while to motley crew of bizarre aliens and much more promising. pastiche and not quite a spoof. find the right balance, with early far-from-perfect humans becomes Extras Nine brief Making Of And by the end of season one, it’s episodes lurching inelegantly more engaging. The storytelling videos that mostly tell anyone still not quite working, but at least between comedy and peril. Some introduces some genuinely who’d buy this stuff they know it’s getting a lot better at whatever jokes (especially a running gag thought-provoking moral already – all of which were already it is that it is. about a sex-pest blob) are simply problems, and the humour feels available on YouTube – plus a Q&A One thing’s for sure: The Orville lame, while the crew have a more organic. Not all of the session from PaleyFest. Dave Golder is not a parody of Trek. This is a tendency to act like idiots purely clunkiness is ironed out by the Penny Johnson Jerald (Dr Finn) appeared loving homage, with plots and to get laughs and/or the plot season finale, but the series in 15 episodes of Deep Space Nine as ethical dilemmas every bit as in motion. develops from a second-rate Sisko’s love interest Kasidy Yates.

100 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 ROUND UP

BORN OF FIRE CITY OF THE LIVING RELEASED OUT NOW! DEAD (out now, Blu-ray) sees Video 1987 | 15 | Blu-ray upgrading their old HD Director Jamil Dehlavi release of Lucio Fulci’s Cast Peter Firth, Suzan Crowley portal-to-Hell zombie Nabil Shaban horror with a new restoration and more Opening with a shot of a bonuses. They include telescope, Born Of Fire Twist: it turned eight fresh interviews with out they were members of the cast and frequently feels like it’s been crew, a piece with Ghost beamed from another world. made out of wax. Stories director Andy When Paul (Peter Firth) hears Nyman, and 8mm a strange melody during a flute behind-the-scenes footage. We said: “With recital, he’s drawn into a surreal its fog-shrouded settings world of silent bald men and and doomy score, it’s giant skulls blocking the sun, as tremendously he searches for the mythical THE UNINVITED atmospheric, and the gore “master musician”. set-pieces are jaw- Undesirable residence dropping.” If you bought Labelled Turkey’s first horror the remastered DVD box movie, it has a couple of scary room where flowers instantly wilt. set recently, you’ll set-pieces, but it’s more RELEASED 15 OCTOBER The house has an unquiet legacy, probably be cheesed off to hear of JOE 90 Alejandro Jodorowsky than 1944 | PG | Blu-ray tied to the death of a local woman. The Uninvited VOLUME ONE (out now, Dario Argento, looking closer to Director Lewis Allen gives its ghosts Blu-ray). Including HD a Shaw Brothers quest movie Cast Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, dramatic gravity but it’s an odd transfers of episodes 1-8 than your average stalk-and- Gail Russell, Alan Napier collision of tones: for every of the Gerry Anderson slash flick. Far from making you moment of gentle dread there’s show about a boy agent fearful, it’s more compelling BLU-RAY DEBUT This haunted a flash of screwball banter or who has adult skills loaded into his noggin, it’ll be than any tourist video, with house tale occupies a special place outright . There’s a followed by three more several scenes taking place in in horror history. It’s regarded as healthy serving of gothic romance, volumes before February. the most beautiful locations one of the first Hollywood films to too, and clear echoes of Rebecca in Volume one’s bonus-free, you’ve ever gawped at. Imagine treat its restless spirits seriously, as the “haunted shores” of Cornwall. but there’ll be extras David Lynch on a package authentic phenomena rather than But it works, held together by (TBC) on future releases. A family visiting a cabin in holiday; that’s this film. simple pranks or unearthly cues crisp, handsome cinematography the woods discover So, not essential, but the for broad screen comedy. and appealing performances. Re-Animator star Barbara 3000 people who pick up this We’re among the “mist and sea It was a starmaking vehicle for Crampton passed out in limited release will have a fog and eerie stories” of the Gail Russell. Crippled by nerves, the forest in DEAD NIGHT (out now, DVD) – and soon memorable experience. Cornish coast, where a house she turned to alcohol during the regret taking her in… Extras Transfer-wise, waits on a cliff. Ray Milland and shoot, dying of liver damage in Featuring multiple WTF Indicator haven’t gone Ruth Hussey are the Fitzgerald 1961. She’s luminously alive in this, twists, and jumping back overboard with their restoration siblings, relocating from London. the true ghost on screen. and forth between the – there’s grain, especially during Buying the abandoned pile, they Extras A smart, enjoyably present and a true crime documentary, it’s a bit of a dark scenes, but with so much soon discover its less appealing tangential “visual essay” (27 mess. Plus points: some taking place in bright sunshine, features: mysterious sobbing in the minutes) by Michael Almereyda impressively gory practical it’s not a major issue. Bonus- night, an oppressive, soul-crushing (who recently directed Marjorie effects, and stunning wise, it’s a packed set, with Qâf Prime); two radio adaptations snow-shrouded Oregon – The Sacred Mountain locations. Finally, let’s , an from 1944 and 1949, both also itemise the latest TV box art-documentary on a volcanic Gives starring Ray Milland; trailer; a sets. Out now: Once Upon eruption by the same director booklet featuring a critical essay A Time season seven, The (26 minutes), and interesting its ghosts and a 1997 interview with director 100 season five, Supernatural season 13, interviews with Dehlavi, two Lewis Allen. Nick Setchfield and Wynonna Earp cast, and the composer (83 dramatic The studio added extra spectral effects to season one and season minutes). Plus: trailer; galleries; the film at the last moment, only for the two. The Originals season 36-page booklet. Sam Ashurst gravity British censor to remove them. five lands on 15 October.

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 101 BOOKS

be like to live on a world without constraints, where might is right. It’d be bloody awful. It would also be exceedingly dangerous. As shown through the eyes of Veil, a man who sees everything in hyperreal terms on account of the sheer amount of tech he carries – not to mention the fact that he’s Very Awake on account of just having come out of I ALWAYS FIND YOU bioengineered hibernation – Mars is a place where both residents RELEASED OUT NOW! and visitors spend large amounts 274 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook of time trying to kill each other. Author John Ajvide Lindqvist The danger here – for the Publisher riverrun reader, as opposed to a minor baddie in the line of fire, and John Ajvide Lindqvist’s last therefore a goner – is that Thin Air UK release, I Am Behind You, could easily come across as less saw a group of caravanners than the sum of its set-piece parts, waking on a lawn impossibly akin to the fiction of a writer such stretching out in all directions. as, say, Matthew Reilly, someone The follow-up also makes brief whose novels are so full of action trips to this mysterious “other that they become exhausting to place”, but approaches it from a read and leave you longing for very different angle. This, plus THIN AIR some dull exposition. the fact that people who read Veiled threats Yet Morgan never falls into this the 2017 book may struggle to trap. In great part, that’s because recall some of the connecting he’s adept at handling switchback elements, means newcomers to doesn’t spend the entire book in plotting so that you’re never too the series are probably no RELEASED 25 OCTOBER jail is because his ability as a sure who’s going to betray who worse off. 544 pages | Hardback/ebook hardman is such that he’s sent to next. Just as importantly, he takes Set in 1985/86, it’s heavily Author Richard Morgan watch over one Madison the time to show us Martian autobiographical, with Ajvide Publisher Gollancz Madekwe, seemingly a paper- society in all its multilayered making himself the protagonist shuffling auditor sent from Earth tawdriness, whether that means and drawing on his youthful Violent and visceral, how to Mars, and a woman therefore hanging out with the mayor or experiences as a struggling should we read the hardboiled all too likely to attract resentment with lowlifes who don’t have the magician. This grounds the fiction of Altered Carbon author on a deeply corrupt Red Planet legitimacy afforded by being book with some grubby Richard Morgan in an era when where law and order is at best (nominally, since money talks verisimilitude that’s much- the subject of toxic masculinity is patchily enforced. louder than any politician’s needed, since the high-concept suddenly close to the centre of If it’s a set-up that comes speechifying on Morgan’s Mars) in is pretty out there. Lindqvist popular culture? When SFX across as much like a frontier charge. In short: people talk to and his neighbours discover a indirectly asked Morgan about this as a future noir, that’s not each other in Morgan’s novels, and slimy entity in the shower block very subject recently, he noted that coincidental. While it functions the things they do seem rooted in of their flats, which allows it’s important to have your perfectly well as a kind of their experiences, something rarer them to live out their fantasies; protagonist “do something utterly cyberpunk airport novel, Thin Air in action novels than it should be. this turns out to be both unacceptable early on in the is also intended as a critique of Nonetheless, that nagging initial addictive and destructive. narrative” if you want to create an free market fundamentalism. You question lingers. The alpha male It’s a very strange blend, as if alpha male character without think there are too many rules in hardman has been a staple in a coming-of-age memoir and glamourising thuggery. our society, and the government Morgan’s fiction for a long time pulpy horror have been jammed This is precisely what he does in gets in the way? Well, Morgan is now. Debates around masculinity together. The darkness of the Thin Air (set in the same universe saying, here’s what it might really have moved on in the four years fantasies make it Lindqvist’s as 2007’s Black Man, but fine to since Morgan’s last book. Has the most gruesome work – David read as a standalone), as we’re author? Although does he even Cronenberg and Society spring invited along to watch Hak Veil in A set-up need to when Thin Air is such a to mind. And the use of action on Mars as an assassin. If hugely entertaining and smartly Swedish PM Olof Palme’s we’re going to identify with Veil, that comes written book? Maybe not, but a assassination as a plot element Morgan is saying prior to trying to Very Awake and Woke Hak Veil feels arbitrarily crowbarred in, make us do just that, we’d better across like would be something to see. and fails to pay off. It’s a be clear that he isn’t a nice man, Jonathan Wright disturbing and intermittently but a killer – and one kitted out a frontier fascinating book, but one that Richard Morgan will be one of the guests with military-grade tech too. at SFX Book Con 2, taking place at Foyles, doesn’t really feel coherent. Indeed, the only reason Veil Western Charing Cross Road on 10 November. Ian Berriman

102 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 A BLADE SO BLACK AN ABSOLUTELY

RELEASED OUT NOW! REMARKABLE 396 pages | Paperback/ebook Author LL McKinney THING Publisher Titan Books RELEASED OUT NOW! Alice’s Adventures In 352 pages | Hardback/ebook Wonderland is one of the most Author Hank Green heavily-mined texts in fantasy Publisher Trapeze fiction, its imagery and set-pieces endlessly borrowed April May is walking – yet very rarely are any of the RED MOON through Manhattan one night homages half as weird as the when she stumbles upon a giant original. LL McKinney’s A Lunar revolutionaries robot. It’s just standing there, Blade So Black is no exception, like an Easter Island statue, but it’s still a good novel. It’s with no explanation. Weird. about Alice, a black teenager in the “princeling” daughter of Because she’s a 21st century modern-day Atlanta, who RELEASED 25 OCTOBER China’s minister of finance. woman, she promptly calls a stumbles upon the dream realm 464 pages | Hardback/ebook What follows is in key respects pal, who films her talking about of Wonderland – and, in a Author Kim Stanley Robinson an odd-couple chase thriller that the robot, and they post the Buffy-style twist, is invited to Publisher Orbit charts the efforts of Fredericks footage on YouTube. And then help fight the monsters that and (a complication) the pregnant things go ballistic – as not only come from there. While it’s explored much of Chan Qi to stay alive, yet the does the video go viral, but the McKinney’s style is vivid and the rest of the Solar System, simplicity of the main plot is robots are found all over the her plotting is deft: she starts including our own blue planet, deceptive. This is also a book that world. What do they want? As with Alice’s first meeting with Kim Stanley Robinson’s work has grapples with how the wielding of the first person to meet one, her mentor from Wonderland, never spent any significant time on power impacts on ordinary lives, April becomes a global Addison Hatta, but skips over the Moon. Which makes sense most obviously in sections that superstar... but factions of the all the business of coming to when you consider that so much chart a battle over succession in internet start causing trouble. terms with the existence of this of his career was built on his Mars China’s one-party state. It’s no surprise that so much world, taking us straight to a trilogy. With his space-based This is familiar Robinson of this book focuses on social point where Alice is all trained fiction, Robinson blasted straight territory, and one criticism is that media, given that its author, up and splitting her time past Earth’s rocky satellite. he’s revisiting ideas he’s already Hank Green, is CEO of a between hunting monsters and Until now, because Red Moon, explored in previous novels. That’s company with videos that have trying to live a normal teenage set 30 years hence, deals with also to miss the point entirely. been viewed two billion times life. But then the nightmare what might follow once the Robinson’s books, wherever they on YouTube. That’s why creatures that cross over from Moon’s been colonised, most have been set, have always everything feels so authentic: Wonderland to the human notably by the “G2”, China and the grappled with the way we live, every tweet, every livestream, world start to become USA. Travelling to the Moon has with the tension between every troll. It’s a perfectly mysteriously stronger... become, if not quite a workaday collectivism and our rights as executed study of what would The only lingering doubt trip, a journey undertaken individuals. The conversation with happen online if giant robots is that the Lewis Carroll regularly by the likes of American his readership is an ongoing did rock up and watch us, while connection doesn’t add very technician Fred Fredericks, whose project. In an era where many April May is a perfectly realised, much to a well-realised fantasy job is to transport a “mobile politicians seem to have given up fame-hungry YouTuber. world with an interesting quantum key device” beyond on the idea they can effect change, The central mystery is, mythology of its own; it could Earth’s orbit for China’s Lunar we need his gently dissenting yet admittedly, a bit silly at times, easily have been a successful Science Foundation; and Chinese insistent voice more than ever. A and you could argue that the standalone novel. Still, the celebrity travel journalist and poet wise and big-hearted novel to read last act stretches credulity. Wonderland imagery gives Ta Shu. But Fredericks’s next trip and then, straight away, read again. Nevertheless, this is still a the book an extra – plus is about to go awry, when he’s Jonathan Wright fascinating look at someone more material to mine for any unwittingly caught up in a murder viewing one of the greatest The Chinese are planning a mission to future sequels. plot, and finds himself on the run the Moon; a rocket’s in development. It’ll events in human history Eddie Robson with Chan Qi, both a dissident and probably happen in the 2030s. through Twitter. Jayne Nelson

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 103 BOOKS BULLET TIME A BOOK IN BULLET POINTS

TIME’S CHILDREN

RELEASED OUT NOW! 528 pages | Paperback/ebook Author DB Jackson Publisher Angry Robot

Tobias is a Walker, a rare magic user capable of moving through time. As in The Terminator, he can only go back DOCTOR WHO: naked without any equipment. However, the catch is a price THE WOMEN for time travel is taken in years. REJOICE For every year travelled, Tobias WHO LIVED An August event ages; 14 years means that Tobias RELEASED OUT NOW! has doubled his age. Now a boy 224 pages | Hardback/ebook protect the environment, it in a man’s body, he must Authors Christel Dee, RELEASED 18 OCTOBER gradually becomes clear that struggle against a plot to Simon Guerrier 432 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook it isn’t so sure that one species overthrow a kingdom, and Publisher BBC Books Author Steven Erikson on Earth is worth saving: protect the orphaned heir to Publisher Gollancz humanity. It’s August’s job to the throne. A collection of bios and mediate what’s occurring, and The time-travel system could illustrations that “celebrate When the aliens arrive, they’ll the brilliant women make a crucial decision. be thought of as gimmicky, but who’ve appeared in want to talk to the world’s leaders, In many respects this is a the rules of the book’s Doctor Who over won’t they? Not in Steven familiar – even over-familiar – first “magick”, combined with the the years”. Erikson’s latest foray into SF, contact scenario, but Erikson is far scarcity of Walkers, mean it’s Entries range from the Rejoice (subtitle: A Knife To The too good a writer not to find new not all popping back and forth obvious – Barbara Wright, Rose Tyler – to the more Heart), a first contact novel that angles. Some of the barbs at a to foil plots. Instead it’s wielded obscure, like Hur from “An rests in part on the idea of an alien bellicose American president almost too sparingly. That’s the Unearthly Child”. AI fetching up in the Solar System certainly hit the target, while problem with Time’s Children; Pictures are provided by and deciding to abduct an SF there’s an understated humour there just doesn’t seem to be over 20 illustrators, most sticking to a whimsical, novelist, Samantha August. evident throughout, which often enough of it. often childlike style. We The god-like AI has come to our makes it seem as if Erikson is That’s partly because it’s a particularly love the neck of the woods on a mission to self-consciously tackling – and moreish page-turner, but it’s fed-up expression of The save Earth’s biome. Seeing how sometimes employing – first also because of a problem with Inquisitor from “The Trial humanity is greatly responsible for contact clichés as a way to get pacing. It would have benefited Of A Time Lord”. The entries provide the depleted state of the natural beyond them. from a slower speed, taking straightforward, world, this isn’t good news for Nonetheless, this is also a more time to build the suspense kid-friendly those who work in, say, the novel where there’s far too much and develop the characters. explanations of the logging, fracking or industrial- talking – especially the That’s not to say the characters characters, their level agriculture sectors. More philosophical discussions between totally fall flat, but you don’t encounters with the Doctor and their generally, this is an AI that’s August and Adam on subjects such really get much sense of their achievements. seriously hardcore when it comes as James Lovelock’s ideas around motivations before they’re off After the main to stopping all activities we might Gaia – that doesn’t especially galavanting through time. It’s a section of the book, associate with late-stage advance the plot. More seriously, book that knows there’s a there are entries for the Doctor herself, capitalism, to the extent of in a novel where an AI can do just sequel out next year, so you hop a few excluding humanity from areas of about anything, there’s a lack of from disaster to disaster, but honourable its own home planet. narrative tension here – although never have a sense of mentions, Good news, you might think, perhaps that’s partly Erikson’s resolution. That said, if your and then, touchingly, except that as the AI uses its peacenik point. Jonathan Wright only complaint is “I wish there Verity awesome power to stop conflict – had been more” then perhaps Lambert, Steven Erikson will be signing copies of whether that means wars Rejoice at Forbidden Planet’s London you’re onto a winner. Who’s very or domestic violence – and megastore on 25 October (6pm). Bridie Roman first producer.

104 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 REISSUES

Leading this month’s paperback pack: Tricia Sullivan’s SWEET DREAMS ( , out now, Gollancz). It centres on, dreamhacker Charlie Aaron, who after XX STRANGE THE QUANTUM taking part in a clinical trial, RELEASED OUT NOW! RELEASED OUT NOW! MAGICIAN now falls 372 pages | Hardback/ebook 387 pages | Paperback/ebook asleep when stressed – a Author Angela Chadwick Author Gary Kemble RELEASED OUT NOW! bit of a problem given that Publisher Dialogue Books Publisher Titan Books 480 pages | Paperback/ebook her story involves running Author Derek Kunsken from a dream invader and The creation of a foetus has Disgraced journalists and Publisher Solaris being interrogated by the always required two basic backstreet tattoo artists, biker dream police after one of ingredients: a sperm and an egg. gangs, soldiers and dirty At its heart, The Quantum her clients sleepwalks to death. We said: “Its XX explores a world in which politicians populate this debut Magician is a caper about a con narcoleptic heroine is a scientists have developed a novel from Gary Kemble. artist trying to pull off a great device for moving method to create life from two Though pitched as supernatural deliriously ambitious scam, but the action forward in egg cells. It’s a breakthrough for horror, this Aussie mystery Derek Kunsken layers up his disorientating jumps, and the city she visits in lesbian couples, who can have reads more like action-noir. impressive tale with quantum dreams is gleefully odd.” their own genetic children Our hero is the washed-up mechanics, genetic engineering The Brontë sisters loom – but two eggs mean only X hack Harry Hendrix, confined and religious fanaticism. The large over Katherine chromosomes, so every “o-o” to a low-rent Brisbane local protagonist Belisarius is a Clements’s THE COFFIN baby is a girl. If men are no paper after his make-or-break “homo quantus”, a human PATH ( , 18 October, Headline longer needed for reproduction, front-pager was suspiciously designed to think on a quantum Review), a gothic chiller is there a future for them? And discredited. When Hendrix scale, hired to find a way to set on the Yorkshire Moors how will society react? wakes up with a weird tat on transport a battle fleet across in the aftermath of the Juliet is half of one of the the back of his neck that he the galaxy undetected. To pull Civil War. It very first couples to create a doesn’t remember getting, off the impossible, he gathers a follows 17th century new XX child, with her partner disturbing visions lead to a team of specialists that includes farmer Mercy Rosie carrying the baby. But not scoop that leaves him way out a sentient AI, a subaquatic pilot, Booth, whose everyone is happy about the of his depth. a geneticist, and his lost love. supposedly prospect. A local politician rails Although Kemble was born The first half of the book cursed estate is the site of against fatherless families, the in England, the author now requires some fortitude, as odd goings-on, like the newspapers delight in running lives in Brisbane, and Strange there’s a lot of world-building sacrificial slaughter of anti-XX pieces, their families Ink’s frequent use of Aussie to establish and some dense lambs. We said: “A worry, and Jules feels less slang, detailed descriptions of prose to absorb before the con carefully built world certain about parenthood with Brisbane landmarks and local gets underway. Fortunately, packed with period detail is the perfect backdrop for every passing day. But with the politics prove alienating and when the job begins Kunsken exploring the suspicions baby growing inside Rosie, it’s tiresome. Its characters feel like proves he can handle action, and superstitions that run too late for second thoughts. antipodean versions of US pulp tension and spectacle with a rife in a small community.” XX is primarily a novel of clichés and it doesn’t help that skill and style to match the Finally, THE WOLF ( , out now, relationships and parenthood, the book’s female players are rigour of the science. And Wildfire) is a confident of trust and communication almost exclusively victims or Belisarius becomes a more debut from Leo Carew. Set within families, told against love interests; Strange Ink is a compelling protagonist the in a parallel version of the the background of social and very blokey novel. more the reader comes to Saxon era, it scientific change. There’s a Hendrix himself is too hard understand him. The religious follows young prince Roper. harsh truth to the ugliness of to like as a protagonist to element adds a potent streak of Thrust onto many people’s reactions to this generate any real emotional darkness as one of the team has the throne new way of creating life, but attachment, so you’re left with a to infiltrate the Puppets, a race when his this is Jules’s story, of love and mildly diverting twister with bred to worship their human father dies in battle, he family in all their complexities. too few surprises to maintain masters, but whose devotion must dodge assassination It’s a sensitive book with a momentum. Shame – the has turned into a terrifying attempts, win over his beautiful feel for human premise is promising and the fetishisation of their idols. The people, and strike back at potential, filled with real, concept of tattoos manifesting results are genuinely unsettling. the southerners. We said: breathing characters muddling from beyond the grave feels It’s a boldly ambitious debut, “Navigates familiar literary territory, but boasts a their way through new, yet still original. But as a whole Strange and Kunsken proves more than distinctive setting, and universal, situations. Ink isn’t strange enough by half. able to realise his vision. maintains a brisk pace Rhian Drinkwater Rosie Fletcher David West from cover to cover.”

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 105 BOOKS DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: ALSO OUT As ever, we couldn’t squeeze in everything. Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles saga rumbles ART & ARCANA on with BLOOD COMMUNION (out now, Designs To Die For Chatto & Windus). This And Miniature Figures”) through familiar modern appearances. 13th book sees Lestat settling into his role as RELEASED 23 OCTOBER to the current fifth edition, it tells D&D made a huge impact in the Prince of the vampires, 444 pages | Hardback/Hardback the story of Dungeons & Dragons’ ’80s, ironically helped by the and dealing with threats Special Edition meteoric rise, dramatic fall, and religious right’s attempts to to the stability of his subsequent rehabilitation as a destroy it, and there are print court. Expect a rather Authors Michael Witwer, Kyle Newman, talky affair, with lashings Jon Peterson, Sam Witwer geek culture icon. advertisements, merch photos and of gruesome violence Publisher Ten Speed Press For fans of the game – and brochures that attest to its huge Celebrations of indeed of fantasy fiction and success. The accompanying notes, Frankenstein’s 200th This hefty volume (subtitle: imagery in general – this is a however, are pleasingly honest anniversary continue A Visual History) traces the fascinating book. As you’d expect, about the missteps made along the with CREATURES: THE LEGACY OF near-45-year history of Gary it’s crammed full of art from the way. Now that the game is back in FRANKENSTEIN (18 Gygax and Dave Arneston’s game and its many expansions. the public consciousness, this October, Abaddon). This roleplaying game through its art Particularly interesting are the makes for a timely tribute. new anthology includes and ephemera. From the original sporadic “evilution” spreads that Will Salmon five “bold reimaginings” pamphlets (“Rules For Fantastic show the development of famous of ’s Co-writer Sam Witwer is better known for creation, penned by Rose Medieval Wargames Campaigns monsters, from scrappy first his work on various Star Wars cartoons – Biggin, Paul Meloy, Playable With Paper And Pencil drawings through to their more he’s the voice of Darth Maul! Emma Newman, Tade Thompson and Kaaron Warren. Looking for an overview of the horror genre? You could do worse than English literature professor Darryl Jones’s SLEEPING WITH THE LIGHTS ON (out now, Oxford University Press). Intelligent but still accessible, it’s a slim volume (180 pages). We dig the lightbulb-shaped diecut on the cover. Autobot aficionados will gobble up TRANSFORM AND ROLL OUT (out now, Telos Books). Ryan Frost’s mammoth unofficial guide to classic era Transformers (1984-1992) covers the early days of the toys, the comics, the TV series and the movies. Finally, artist John Howe presents a tour of Tolkien’s fantasy realm in A MIDDLE EARTH TRAVELLER (out now, HarperCollins). It includes new paintings and sketches exclusive to this book, as well as Howe’s memories of working alongside director Peter

Images copyright © by LLC of the Coast Wizards © by Images copyright Jackson.

106 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 TICKETS AVAILABLE NOW!

Meet some of the UK’s most exciting science fiction and fantasy writers at a day of author panels and signings! 10 NOVEMBER 2018 FOYLES BOOKSHOP, CHARING CROSS ROAD, LONDON

STARRING PAT CADIGAN • M.R. CAREY • ANNE CHARNOCK ALEXANDRA CHRISTO • JOHN GWYNNE • PETER F HAMILTON REBECCA KUANG • REBECCA LEVENE • SARAH LOTZ KATE MASCARENHAS • RICHARD MORGAN • JAMES SMYTHE TASHA SURI • TADE THOMPSON • LAVIE TIDHAR JEN WILLIAMS • CHRIS WOODING

BOOK YOUR TICKETS NOW AT www.foyles.co.uk/SFX-Book-Con-2 #SFXBookCon COMICS CATWOMAN Selina goes solo

that there’s some villainous Perhaps that’s the intent – RELEASED OUT NOW! manipulation going on behind the to show just how much of a BUFFY THE Publisher DC Comics scenes). Now she’s alone again, far survivor Kyle is. Still, it’s a little Writer/artist Joëlle Jones from Gotham, and facing new disappointing. Likewise, the main VAMPIRE SLAYER problems, namely an army of story here is also a little thin. Creel ISSUES 1-3 “Read Batman #50 imposters who are committing is an intriguing new villain (and Season Twelve first or I’ll spoil the whole thing,” crimes with the intent of making her big reveal – peeling off a wig warns Selina Kyle on the striking Catwoman take the fall, and the and pulling out dentures to reveal RELEASED OUT NOW! cover of Catwoman #1. Indeed, the mysterious Raina Creel – a a face ravaged by years of drug Publisher Dark Horse Comics end of that landmark issue is key dangerous politician with some abuse – is genuinely unnerving) Writers Joss Whedon, Christos Gage to the set-up of this new ongoing dark secrets. but the slow pacing means that, Artist Georges Jeanty series, written and drawn by Joëlle Perhaps surprisingly given these even three issues in, we’re still Jones. Well, here’s our own events, Jones’s comic doesn’t delve only just starting to understand ISSUES 1-4 And so it ends... warning – we’ll also be discussing too much into where Kyle’s head is where any of this is going. Dark Horse resurrected Buffy the aftermath of the wedding of at in these first three issues. The That said, there is one very good The Vampire Slayer in 2007 for the century... break-up has been pitched as a reason to start buying this book, a comic continuation and five After many years of on- and crushing development for both the and that’s Jones’s outstanding art. canonical “seasons”. For the off-romance, Selina and Bruce are Cat and the Bat, but the odd Simultaneously gritty and most part it’s been a strong run seemingly over, finished, kaput, reference aside, this is – so far – glamorous, it perfectly evokes the that developed the characters with Selina having left Bruce at a straightforward Catwoman noir stylings of the character while well, with only minor the altar, for the greater good adventure that says surprisingly adding her own flavour. Her diversions into goofiness (Spike (though it’s not quite as simple as little about how its lead is dealing command of poses is exceptional has an airship piloted by that – the main Bat-comic hints with her new circumstances. and she draws Selina as both insects...). With Fox taking the super-stylish and completely licence back ahead of the TV Never try to steal believable, while Catwoman’s revival, however, season 12 has Catwoman’s look. redesigned costume owes a clear been reduced to just four issues. debt to ’s latex The result is a convoluted look in . Likewise, time travel plot that pits the Scoobies and future Slayer Fray against her insane brother and Jones’s an army of demons led by the resurrected (in giant snake outstanding form) Mayor. Among the many threads that need tying up are: art is both what happens to the Slayer army; Dawn and Xander gritty and becoming parents; and the co-existence of Fred and Illyria. glamorous Surprisingly, it more or less works. There’s an absurd colourist Laura Allred does great number of characters vying for work with the art, using a muted attention here, but Joss palette to evoke the horrors Whedon and Christos Gage lurking in the shadows. keep things under control, Reinventing a character takes allowing everyone at least one time and Jones is clearly taking big moment. Georges Jeanty’s a methodical approach. So far, art is solid – though definitely a Catwoman isn’t quite the knockout little cramped in the final issue, solo book it could be – not yet where the huge scale of some of – but this is still a solid starting the demons is lost. There’s no point that has the potential to doubt that the comic suffers grow into something special. because of its truncated length, Will Salmon but this is a reasonably satisfying conclusion to this Jones takes research seriously: she learned aerial dancing to better understand the strange phase of Whedon’s poses she may have to draw. classic. Will Salmon

108 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 REX ROYD THE THIRTEENTH

RELEASED OUT NOW! FLOOR Volume One Publisher Titan Comics Writers Frankie Boyle, Jim Muir RELEASED 18 OCTOBER Artists Mike Dowling, Budi Setiawan Publisher Rebellion Writers John Wagner, Alan Grant COLLECTION Six years after Artist José Ortiz ’s comic magazine CLiNT closed, comedian COLLECTION What do the Frankie Boyle’s contribution – words “Maxwell Tower” mean bizarro super-serial Rex Royd to you? No, not coffee. If you – finally gets a proper send-off. This is what happens read short-lived ’80s horror This collection brings together when you don’t turn comic Scream!, you’ll be the seven original episodes, your microwave off. thinking of Max, AI plus 33 new pages from Boyle superintendent of an and Jim Muir, with artist Budi experimental tower block. Setiawan taking over from INFINITY WARS Every week, Max would Mike Dowling. Requiem miss teach a different miscreant a Rex Royd is the CEO of lesson. Burglars, skinhead Rexcorp, a scientist and keeps the cast down to a bare bullies, debt collectors… all businessman who also happens RELEASED OUT NOW! minimum, allowing him to ended up in Max’s lift, where to be a genius and Publisher concentrate on the personal drama via some kind of holographic megalomaniac. Each episode Writer Gerry Duggan between Gamora and her former projection (the strip was hazy sees Rex continue his reality- Artist Jr teammates – though Guardians on the details), they were bending quest for control, as he film fans might be perplexed by transported to a non-existent takes on superheroes, God and ISSUES 1-3 What with Marvel Groot’s newfound full vocabulary. 13th floor for nightmarish anyone else who gets in his way. having published so many lead-ins, Combining Marvel’s leading torment generally concluding This is a frustrating comic. their latest event book feels heroes into new hybrid characters in either a heart attack or a Dowling is a wonderful artist frustratingly like it’s starting like Captain America/Doctor promise to reform. This volume now (see his great work on halfway through. Nevertheless, Strange combo Soldier Supreme brings together strips from all Unfollow), but the first episodes Gerry Duggan presents a neat seems like a masterstroke. But 15 issues of Scream!, plus 12 from of Royd mark his earliest pro reversal of the big-screen Infinity then seguing them off into their after it was folded into Eagle. work, and they’re scrappy. Budi War as it kicks off, with Gamora own Infinity Warp one-shots While José Ortiz’s art is Setiawan’s work is better, a slaying her father Thanos in a bid not only creates even more effectively gritty, the format is cleaner take on the established to gain control of the Infinity unnecessary extra titles, but is pretty restrictive, and in style, but it’s still not an Stones (though it would have been reminiscent of 2015’s Secret Wars, collected form soon becomes especially attractive book, with good to have an explanation for which gave rise to its own spin-off repetitive. 2000 AD stalwarts flat colouring throughout. her shift to the dark side within series, Generations. John Wagner and Alan Grant Likewise, Boyle and Muir’s the narrative itself ). Aided by Frank Martin’s moody do eventually address its script feels like a garbled With Daredevil villain Turk colours, Mike Deodato Jr’s art shortcomings, with the focus amalgam of clear influences taking charge of the Mind Stone, ranges from meticulously detailed switching to the efforts of Max – notably Millar and Grant Duggan avoids filling the ranks of figurework and cinematic action – increasingly unsympathetic, Morrison (especially The Filth the new Infinity Watch with too sequences to more expressive as innocents start to suffer – to and Flex Mentallo). It’s packed many obvious candidates. He also emotional moments. As long as cover his tracks. And the with freewheeling ideas about the comic doesn’t finish on an punishments become the nature of comics and is anti-climactic note like so many of entertainingly surreal, with sporadically very funny, the Could be its predecessors, this six-parter spiders and zombies giving way dialogue ringing with Boyle’s could be a rare example of a to, for example, giant scabrous wit, but while the a crossover Marvel crossover that’s worth cockroaches acting out a series works in short exploring. Stephen Jewell “human spray” ad. All the same, instalments, its incoherency is that’s worth this one’s purely for ’80s kids Infinity Watch includes Iron Hammer (Iron far more apparent when taken Man/), Arachknight (Spider-Man/ after a hit of nostalgia. as a whole. Will Salmon exploring Moon Knight) and Ghost Panther (guess). Ian Berriman

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 109 GAMES & STUFF

Arkham series’ counter system, with button prods seeing Spidey flip and dance from danger, filling a specials meter to unleash suit SPIDERMAN powers and finishers. But unlike in A swinging time Rocksteady’s games, Spider-Man can zip out of danger, web-swing assisting Otto Octavius, Parker is up and over enemies and use the RELEASED OUT NOW! thinking the unthinkable: giving character’s agility to get the edge. Format Playstation 4 up the mask. The story offers It’s how you’ve always wanted a Publisher Sony nuance. Its hero is (early on at Spider-Man game to play. THE ROAD least) unheroic; its villains, Once the main story is wrapped, VIDEOGAME “That’s strange,” including Mister Negative, are loose threads tied off and sequel RELEASED 27 OCTOBER quips Spider-Man as we swing damaged and relatable; and it all teased, it’s the city itself that keeps 45 minutes past the Sanctum Sanctorum, barrels towards its climactic you swinging. The game drops Broadcaster BBC Radio 4 taking a snap on our phone as we confrontation with the Sinister familiar cameos (Black Cat) and go. If nothing else, Spider-Man is Six at a pace worthy of any cult favourites (Screwball), then RADIO PLAY Adapted for a fan’s dream writ large; a teasing MCU blockbuster. encourages you to hunt down and Radio 4 from Nigel Kneale’s orchestration of nods and winks to But this is a game, a perfectly revel in aspects of Spider-Man’s long-lost 1963 teleplay, The the wider Marvel universe. And poised blend of open-world world: the Avengers Tower is Road makes for a thought- it’s brilliant. design, side-quests and Spider- obvious, but how about Fogwell’s provoking Halloween chiller. While the game mixes its Man’s own mix of gymnastic Gym or discovering a vial of Local squire and amateur influences, using Ultimate’s MJ combat matched by Parker’s Sandman’s granular self? ghost hunter Sir Timothy – she’s a fierce reporter out for the guerilla science. Fights riff on the For all its current-gen spectacle, Hassall (Adrian Scarborough) is scoop – and dropping in Miles modern game design and on the trail of a manifestation in Morales (both playable), it also ludicrously fun web-swinging, the woods of Georgian England, takes time to present a Parker/ It works Spider-Man works because it’s a when Gideon Cobb (Mark Spider-Man that’s unique to love letter to the comic book. It’s Gatiss) arrives from London, developer Insomniac. because it’s a so good that even Stan Lee makes intent on debunking such Eight years of saving New York a cameo. Ian Dean provincial nonsense through have taken their toll. Separated love letter to rigorous Enlightenment The Amazing Spider-Man #546 team of from MJ and kicked out of his flat, Dan Slott, Stephen Wacker and Nick Lowe “insight and reason – not and on of losing his job the comic brainstormed the story with the developer. sniffing at sorcerer’s jars”. It’s a gift of a role for Gatiss. A lifelong Kneale superfan who’s also perfectly at home in a periwig, he eats up the rich, cod-Sheridan dialogue of Toby Hadoke’s skilful radio interpretation, gleefully mocking “folly and knavery” and railing against “the crutches of petty, trammelling morality!” What really distinguishes The Road from other fireside ghost stories, though, is its sucker punch of an ending – an audacious and horrifying twist that we won’t spoil. Suffice to say, it taps into several of Kneale’s preoccupations, exploring the nexus between folklore and science and the capacity for traumatic events to resonate across the centuries. That Charlotte Riches’ production has been able to make use of BBC Radiophonic Workshop sound effects from the original broadcast only adds Turns out that to the sense of a lost classic Spider-Man returned to us from the mists hated confetti. of time. Paul Kirkley

110 | SFX MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2018 THE LORD OF THE RINGS: BATTLE OF PELENNOR FIELDS Return to Middle-earth Will you play as In that regard, the set King Théoden or the Witch King? RELEASED OUT NOW! is undeniably good Number of players Two or more value. The forces of light Publisher Games Workshop get King Théoden (on foot and mount), lots of soldiers, some miniatures are, it’s hard not to Every statline in the game has TABLETOP GAME For the last few ace cavalry and the ghostly Dead look at these without comparing been reassessed too, and while years, Games Workshop’s Men of Dunharrow. The baddies them unfavourably. many remain the same, others – Middle-earth battle game has get the Witch King of Angmar on The basic structure is largely Théoden for instance – have been been a bit of an under-the-radar a massive Fell Beast, a troll and as before, with the rule changes tweaked to powerful effect. concern. Once a core part of the many orcs. That said, the majority mostly there to fix imbalances. They’re smart, subtle choices that company, since 2015 it’s been of these figures are old sculpts Heroes have been given an polish an already well-balanced under the control of the specialist (some around 15 years old) and overhaul, with certain Heroic game and bring it more in line wing, Forge World. This new set they look a bit dated. The Actions now restricted to with Tolkien’s lore. revives it for the gaming Middle-earth aesthetic is more appropriate characters (previously Will Salmon mainstream with a refreshed grounded than that of any hero could perform any Just how big would a Warlord Titan be ruleset and the requisite piles of Warhammer: Age Of Sigmar, but Heroic Action, leading to bizarre in real life? Their specs have them as 33 plastic miniatures. given how beautiful that game’s situations) and a new tier system. metres/108 feet tall. SHADOW OF THE TOMB RAIDER Croft Unoriginal exploration, which remains RELEASED OUT NOW! rewarding in part thanks to the Reviewed on PS4 many well-researched artefacts Also on Xbox One and PC you can find, but it now affords Publisher Square Enix even more stealthy cover. Daubing yourself in mud and disappearing This definitely VIDEOGAME No great city was into the foliage is the long game wasn’t in the built in a day and, by the same but also the more satisfying brochure... logic, no pilferer of said city can be combat strategy. made over the course of one game. Featuring the series’ largest hub point of threatening to upstage untapped, depths of Croft’s Lara Croft returns for the final areas on land and underwater, the Lara. Camilla Luddington makes psychological landscape. expedition in her reboot origin world is beautifully realised, to the the most of the material she’s If you’re up to date on the trilogy, venturing out from the given, reliably battling through franchise, this will largely feel like snow of Siberia for the plentiful the wooden lines of an overly a retread. But if you’ve been out of vegetation of Peru. The locales self-serious script that leaves its the loop on all things Croft, it’s As in the last two games, there characterisation treading water. well worth feasting your eyes on are plenty of crypts to corrupt as are far more Unfortunately, the virtual locales this action-packed adventure. well as combat that can be you shoot and loot through are Jess Kinghorn stealthed and stabbed or loudly compelling far more compelling than the You’ll be imbibing well-researched nuggets shot through. The greenery you apocalyptic stakes of the story or on Mayan history, through over 300 find yourself immersed in is key to than Lara the promised, though ultimately collectables hidden around huge hubs.

NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 111

Blastermind The SFX quiz TREES We’re really branching out with this issue’s quiz. How many correct answers can you log?

Quizmaster Ian Berriman, Reviews Editor

QUESTION 4 QUESTION 8 QUESTION 1 In which 1982 horror film does a tree branch crash through the window of a young boy’s bedroom and pull him out? QUESTION 2 Which blue-skinned alien race live in 150-metre-high “Hometrees”? QUESTION 3 In the Gerry Anderson puppet show Terrahawks, what’s the name of the spacecraft whose launchpad is camouflaged as a giant tree? QUESTION 4 PICTURE QUESTION Provide the title which is missing from this poster for a 1957 horror film about a killer tree stump. QUESTION 5 Which Ursula Le Guin novel centres on a military-controlled logging operation on a planet QUESTION 12 QUESTION 16

called Athshe?

“The Mark Of The Rani” The Of Mark “The 20

QUESTION 11 QUESTION 16 PICTURE QUESTION Willow Man Wicker The Whomping Whomping The 19

Monsters Night The The The 18 Groot

QUESTION 6 What do humans call the ancient Supply the title which is missing 17

The Navy Vs Vs Navy The 16 Dead Evil The

In The Wizard Of Oz, Dorothy and race of tree-like creatures who live from the poster for this 1966 film, 15 Demon The Tree Faraway The 14

Night Of Of Night 13 Calls Monster A 12

the Scarecrow encounter some in Middle-Earth (also known as in which American sailors battle Ents

Doom Of The The 11 Germany East

talking trees who really hate the Onodrim)? carnivorous prehistoric trees on a 10 The Forest Forest The 9 Jabe 8 Yew 7 Apples 6

Forest Is World For Word The people picking their fruit. But Pacific island. 5

Came It Hell From 4 Treehawk

what type of fruit is it? QUESTION 12 PICTURE QUESTION 3

1 ) ) Avatar (in Na’vi The 2 Poltergeist

QUESTION 17 Name this film, which features a Answers QUESTION 7 tree-like creature, based on a novel Which Marvel character is one of Voldemort’s wand is made out of by Patrick Ness. the Flora Colossus, who hail from wood from which kind of tree? Planet X? QUESTION 13 QUESTION 8 PICTURE QUESTION The Kate Bush song “Hounds Of QUESTION 18 What’s the name of this Doctor Love” starts with a sample of a Which British horror film features Who character, a representative of man saying, “It’s in the trees! It’s characters called Willow, Alder How did you do? the Forest Of Cheem? coming!” What horror film does and Rowan? What type of tree are you? this dialogue come from? QUESTION 9 QUESTION 19 0-5 QUESTION 14 A mere sprout What was the title of the third In Harry Potter And The Chamber 6-10 book in the Fighting Fantasy Enid Blyton wrote three novels Of Secrets, what tree do Harry Small seedling series of gamebooks? about a tree in an enchanted forest and Ron crash the flying Ford 11-15 that’s so huge it reaches into the Anglia into? Healthy sapling QUESTION 10 clouds. What’s it called? 16-19 The 1957 children’s television QUESTION 20 Sturdy oak QUESTION 15 series The Singing Ringing Tree Which ’80s Doctor Who story 20 was a product of which Eastern In which 1981 horror film is a features landmines that turn Mighty redwood Bloc country? young woman raped by a tree? people into trees?

/ Subscribe at myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/SFX NOVEMBER 2018 | SFX MAGAZINE | 113 Total Recall Personal recollections of cherished sci-fi SERVALAN Ian Berriman, Reviews Editor

AT ONE POINT IN THE BLAKE’S 7 episode “Sand”, Servalan declares, with a playful smile, “I’m just the girl next door!” Nothing could be further from the truth – and that goes for actor Jacqueline Pearce too, who sadly passed away on 3 September. Pearce wasn’t the first choice for the role, but it’s hard to imagine anyone else making such a success of it. Initially hired for one episode, she captivated viewers for 28 more. Her Supreme Commander was an icily calculating operator, blithely unconcerned about human life. If a torture drug threatened to kill a subject, so be it; if a transport ship was overloaded, leave some labourers behind to die. For Servalan, “humanity” – or the outward display of it – was just a tool for getting what you want. Like all the best psychopaths, she knew how to fake things like vulnerability or attraction, and she was utterly ruthless in using her sexuality as a weapon. She was also a character who seemed to personify control: every word crisply enunciated; every movement performed with immaculate grace. As originally conceived, the character would have worn a safari suit and jackboots, but Pearce had other ideas, so Servalan glided about in floor-length white gowns, diamond earrings, and hats more suited to a day at Royal Ascot. She may have regretted that, when tottering around a quarry in four-inch heels... But the wardrobe helped make the character so memorable, as did the androgyne black crop. The actress herself was no less extraordinary. Every Blake’s 7 fan should read her autobiography, From Byfleet To The Bush – or listen to Big Finish interview Call Me Jacks. In both, she discusses her past with extraordinary candour. Pearce had a difficult life. She was abandoned by her mother at 16 months; her RADA studies were interrupted by a breakdown and time in a psychiatric hospital; she had lifelong issues with depression. A career which began promisingly, with lead roles in two Hammer horrors, was punctuated by lengthy periods of unemployment. Servalan did her few favours, career-wise – partly due to typecasting, partly a lack of diplomacy with directors. But she later came to embrace her identification with the character. That’s heartening, because the creation of one of TV’s most iconic villains should be a source of immense pride. Thinking of her now, another line of dialogue from “Sand” – Pearce’s favourite episode – springs to mind: “There is something you should realise. There are no women like me. I am unique.”

If Jacqueline Pearce’s Servalan was the girl next door, Ian would move – next door.

Fact Attack! SEE YOU Jacqueline Pearce was Mary Millar, the director’s Jacqueline Pearce spent Arrested at Stansted for NEXT MONTH! married twice. Her first preference for Servalan, some of the noughties in cannabis possession, Pearce husband, actor Drewe Henley, played Hyacinth Bucket’s South Africa, where she was asked by a policeman if he later played X-Wing pilot Red man-mad sister Rose in worked at a sanctuary for could get her anything. Her 07 NOV Leader in Star Wars. Keeping Up Appearances. orphaned monkeys. reply: “A joint?” DETAILS ON PAGE 25 BBC (1)

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